With the Summer of Arcade once again in full swing, we all have a number of titles to use as excuses to stay indoors and avoid that bright, fiery ball in the sky. The line-up looks to live up to the same quality standards of last year’s summer releases, but there is one title in particular that is reaching out to grasp at my childhood memories. That game is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled. The original Turtles in Time stands as one of my favorite games of all time. Perhaps this comes from the fact it always seemed to be around or there was always people willing to play it or that I knew the game like the back of my hand. But maybe it was because the game never got old; given the amount I played it, it should have gotten old.
However, this opens up a wider train of thought. Xbox Live Arcade has created a new outlet for a wide variety of content including re-released, re-imagined, and remade classics. These remakes are unique in that they feed off and can be crippled by the same exact thing: nostalgia. A reminder of good times past can be a wonderful feeling that can result not only in sales, but also positive reviews, warm feelings, hugs & kisses, the list goes on. This is not the fate of all remakes, though. Change the original formula too much and the result is seen as a bastardization of childhood memories. Change too little and it will be called a lazy rehash. All the associated negatives follow closely behind. Poor reviews, low sales, the ire of the video game community – it’s not a place developers want to be. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the games that have successfully navigated the tricky path of re-releasing a classic, along with those that have stumbled along the way.
THE GOOD:
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix - It’s hard to go wrong with Street Fighter II, though Capcom slightly missed the mark with its release of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting. This was not the case with Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Rather than simply emulating the original, Capcom and Backbone upped the ante with redrawn high definition art (courtesy of Udon comics) and a re-balanced fighting system adjusted in collaboration with tournament level players. Combined with a solid network code, HD Remix represents the best way for players to get their Blanka on outside of a bona fide arcade cabinet.
Lode Runner - Lode Runner is an occasionally forgotten classic that first got its start back in 1983 on platforms like the Apple II. Every level had the same goal of collecting all the gold pieces by running, climbing, digging, and shooting your way to them. It was a very simple structure but also a very solid one. Tozai Games and SouthEnd Interactive realized this in creating their update for XBLA. The game was given a modern day facelift and multiplayer while retaining the core gameplay foundation of the original. While some criticisms of the game cited this lack of evolution as a negative, the cliché “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a cliché for a reason. The developers smartly kept this in mind and gave a classic the respect it deserves.
