A Blast From The Past

Turrican is probably the best shameless clone of another game you’re going to see. Turrican rocked The game closest to my heart that I’d like to see remade would have to be the Secret of Monkey Island if only so that it could see full speech done by the same talents the third and fourth game had.

Turrican was a clone? I missed out on this one as I only remember it from the old Commodore 64 and Amiga and throught that it was the gaming equivalent of sex and curry combined (probably best not to dwell on that one too much). The Lightning Gun was, as far as I was aware, a completely new weapon (not really used again until Quake, I think) but the whole platform/exploration/shooter action meant that I spend more hours playing those games that any other before or since. However, I didn’t know that it was a clone. Which game was it a clone of?

To be honest Monkey Island never really gripped me as I used to find the puzzles in the old Lucas Arts games a little too irritating. However, I must admit feeling more than a little disappointed when they canned the new versions of Sam & Max and Full Throttle.

Turrican is a very very brilliant Metroid/Super Metroid clone. Metroid wasn’t on anything but the NES so they made their own version of it, tweaking and polishing it into something worthy of receiving praise.

The one I’d love to see remade is Autoduel. I played that game on my good ole Commodore 64, and it was fantastic. You could build your own car, choose a body type, engine type, tires, armor locations, and put a variety of weapons all over the vehicle, mounted front, left, rear, whatever. You had mines, oil slicks, smokescreens, flamethrowers, rockets, the works. Customizing the car was the best part. And it had RPG elements - you could customize your character as well and go on quests.

If they remade that game today, it would be phenomenal. They could incorporate vehicle turrets, motorcycles and sidecars, three dimensional terrain (watch out for that oil slick right in front of the ravine!) and more new elements than I can even think of right now.

Trouble with remakes is they never make me feel like the way the original made me feel if the original was really good anyway. I’d really like to see someone bring back some of the Turbo Grafx 16 franchises like Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and Bonk’s Adventure/Revenge. I mean i don’t see this happening for a variety of reasons but those two series’ died too early a death thanks to NEC’s failure as a console maker.

if i wanted to put up a poster child for the remake, it’d be resident evil on the gamecube. that’s how you remake a game… change up the puzzles, the scares, the details, and not just the graphics. while playing it didn’t feel like the first time you played resident evil… it felt a lot more like the first time you played it than the second time you played it, or when you played re2 for the first time. the remake actually scared me more by screwing with my expectations as to what was going to happen when, and pretty quickly had me unsure as to how much i really could predict which scares would be the same and which wouldn’t.

That’s one way to go that works very well sometimes, Plagirize. And if you’re going to remake a fairly recent game like RE that’s a good way to go about it. But if you’re really digging back into the past then it’s probably a better bet to reinvent the series but stay true to what the original game was about. The Poster Child in this case is Ninja Gaiden to the Xbox. The game really doesn’t have anything to do with the originals but it somehow managed to capture the same kind of gameplay.

I would like to see Super Dodgeball reinvented on modern consoles. I thought that game was a blast to play and would be a great fit for modern gaming conventions.

For example: Arcade Play - pick your team and play through to the Russians, then, finally your shadow versions. Actually, in this case it would be the Arabs instead of Russians, but you get where I’m going. Build Your Own Team - Create your own team and build their stats through career play. Online - kind of goes without explanation.

Another game I would like to see remade, if only for the possibility of an arcade port included on the game disc would be Stryder. I only remember the first few minutes of the game, as when it came out I wasn’t very good at games, but I always was struck by the intro where you fly into the city on a hang-glider.

Turrican = Metroid. Now that I start thinking about it I notice that you are right, Plagiarize. I missed out on the original games except for a brief attempt at Super Metroid on the SNES but do note that the levels are similarly tight (although, in Turrican, not as cramped as Super Metroid seemed, and, most importantly, that both have an implementation of a Morph Ball. I guess I never thought about it in this way before but kudos for noticing.

Incidentally, is it me or was Turrican the first implementation of the Lightning Gun that id seem to like sticking into their FPSs since Quake?

Anyway, on thinking about things a bit more, another version of Bionic Commandos would be nice.

Some of the classic games from my time are ones which do have more recent versions available, but which I’ve never played. My early PC days were made up of Prince of Persia, Kings Quest, and Stellar7 (sitting on dads knee, he steered and I fired). Prince of Persia I know has some outstanding recent additions to the franchise but I’ve never had the opportunity to play. Of course, I’m sure the experience is so different (not being a platform game), that it’d hardly seem like something similar enough to bear the same name. The other two games aren’t really ones I could see myself being interested in anymore.

Whatever happened to Street Fighter though? I know we’re only going back 10-12 years or so. I loved Street Fighter II Turbo on my Super Nintendo (my first and last console), but since that, and seeing the odd arcade game alongside Marvel characters, I’ve heard nothing about it. I’ve never seen a version of it to compete with all these new 3D Mortal Kombat games and the like.

I’d like to see Joust remade.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is majestic. The PC port was pretty solid if you have a good pad to play it with, and I’d really recommend you giving it the mere 10 hours or so it requires. It captures the sense of fluid movement and death defying leaps that the original game had, but somehow manages to wrap it all up in a brilliantly engaging story (not the most original plot, but one of the best realisations of a plot in an action game since Half Life). The controls are wonderful, and it’s arguably the best 3d platformer since Mario 64. arguably

as a hidden little easter egg, there’s a rebuilt version of the first level from the PC game, that you play with the new controls. it really helps you see that it’s the same game. and don’t think about playing the more recent warrior within. it’s the same gameplay filtered through shit. fingers are crossed that the third will be more like the first.

as for turrican, don’t get me wrong, i love the first two turricans (haven’t played the third), it’s not without it’s own charms by any means, but it is obviously a rip off. sometimes though, rip offs can end up standing on their own, like turrican.

Heh. Vacations and arcades seem to share a common bind. I went to a resort with my aunt and uncle once. There was tons of stuff to do there but they had an arcade with Mortal Kombat 2. That is where my cousin and I spent all our time. Every single time I was able to get a quarter (no free play here) to play I was enchanted. I remember just being tantilized by that machine.

Two from Treasure (both were on the Genesis): Dynamite Headdy and Gunstar Heroes.

I’d also second Bionic Commando.

Mechachrome, you might just want to check out ‘Gunstar Heroes Advance’ when it finally turns up then It’s not a port.