Disclaimer: This is a forum dedicated to reader participation and debate. All views expressed within are those of the participants and moderator, and in no way represent Insert Credit at large. What's more, there's bad words, nasty sentiments, and other crassnesses all over the place. If you're not the type, I tactfully recommend you take a hike. Reader responses are not edited.

I'll begin by boring off the pretenders with a wholly uninteresting, scarcely necessary discussion of the nuts and bolts of this column! To wit:

  • For practical reasons, the average rate of updates has been scaled back to one or two per week. You'll note that as with all shadowy despots who secretly hate you and beam waves through your television that make you have no friends, I went ahead and made this decision over your heads and with no regard for what you think about it. I've also gone ahead and put extra chlorine in your drinking water so it tastes all funky.
  • I've tried a new look for the column that takes better advantage of its forum-ness. I encourage feedback in the inanities thread, although it won't stop me from using my mighty sway to keep awesome games from being localized just to spite you.
  • If you haven't bothered to get yourself an avatar, don't be surprised to find I've had some fun. At your expense. Which, really, is the best kind of fun.
  • I've saved the old threads in the Force Feedback forum while I decide on a more elegant solution. At any rate, yes, I will be saving old threads from now on. Ask and ye shall receive.

Next I'll begin further by beginning the column.

[01/30/04]

[01/22/04]

[The forums]

Author

Girls with motor company names beating each other

Exodus

I want another 2D Asuka 120%

I know I won't get one, as ASK Kodansha and fill-in cafe don't make games anymore. But that doesn't stop me from wanting it. It's probably my favorite fighting series, with a great combo system, nifty recovery moves, and great graphical style.

It was the last of the great gal fighters, though I hear that another Advanced Variable Geos is being made. But as we all (?) know Advanced VG was never great.

The greatest Asuka game was made in '95 for the saturn. The last was in '99, for the PC. I believe that there have been a few psone re-releases, but those don't count. Up until '99 though, they came out pretty steadily on various systems: X68000, Towns Marty, PC Engine, and the aforementioned psx and saturn.

The only legacy to the game is in the form of Queen of Heart '99, which takes the basic system, adds 2-on-2 play, and borrows some of the moves. My friends and I have logged hundreds of hours on this game, which is something of a testament to the power of the asuka engine.

Unfortunately, with the companies responsible no longer making games, the only way I'll get another is if I make it myself. And that's...pretty unlikely.

in conclusion: fuckin' a.

Brandon steps in to prove that no matter how much you think you know about video games, he knows more, the implication being up yours.

Okay, so given the pedigree of our readership, it's entirely possible you know of all of these titles and harbor the same fond memories. If I were to assume that, I would've been left with nothing more than some stupid comment about girls fighting each other, making us all 12% more dumb for it.

Side note: a few of you curmudgeons may want to take me to task for being a staff-post posting, nepotistic jerk; frankly if you were as smart as Brandon you would be him. At least, I think that's how the logic works.

Author

Jazz and video games

Prince

Well, I must confess that I don't have a particular game I'd like to see remade, but I suppose I'll post some of my more recent musings on the remaking process, if that's allowed.

About a week ago, I was on the phone with my best friend, a talented and accomplished jazz musician. He was telling about what happens when you put together, say, three jazzers of impeccable technical and creative facility and ask them to play any number of tried-and-true standards such as "'Round Midnight" or "Take the 'A' Train". Sometimes only three notes of the original will be recognizable in the resulting product (an exaggeration, of course, but not at all off the mark). This is not because it's an arbitrary or half-hearted attempt at being avant-garde (as he and I had presumed), but instead because they each have such a profound command of the song and their instrument that they are able to transcend the conventions of chord progressions, rhythm, and even perhaps melody to create something that was truly unique, an original work of art stemming from an unoriginal source.

As my friend described this, I couldn't help but wonder if this same process could be somehow applied to the way classic games are remade. What if an immensely talented group of game developers set out to create a remake of Super Mario Bros. 3 that was a proverbial '3 notes' of Mario and the rest a creative re-envisioning of the experience they had with the most beloved game of their respective childhoods? Would it be recognizable enough to even be marketed as a Mario product? More importantly, would it be a great game that truly captures the spirit of the original, or would it turn out to be just a jumbled mess of ideas that fails to do its source material justice?

Now, I'm not saying that remaking games in this fashion is pratical, as there's a whole canyon of differences between the process of creating a great game and creating great music, nor am I trying to be profound, as even I don't really firmly know what the hell I'm talking about at this point. Still, if something like this were to succeed (keep in mind that this is very sizable if), then I'm sure the results would be interesting and perhaps even more effective than the industry's current practice of merely updating such classic titles to current visual and mechanical standards.

Aderack

That is an interesting observation. It's true; most game remakes these days aren't that far removed from Gus Van Sant's frame-for-frame remake of Psycho (now with color!). It is possible to retell a story in an interesting way -- and yet to do that, you need to have a personal reason. The story needs to have triggered some deep ideas and feelings within you, such that when you retell it you have come to adopt the tale as a mere template, or framework, for your own body of expression; an catalyst or an excuse to say what otherwise you might have left bottled up inside.

To a certain extent, all tales in all cultures are based upon a few basic templates. There has been a mountain of over-academized research on this concept (much of it somehow leading to George Lucas at one point or another), and it is both easy and advisable to dismiss such pomp. At the same time, however, there is only so much variability to human emotion. We all are built more or less the same way. We all have similar experiences, on a basic level (although the details and extremeties have infinite variation from person to person). There are only so many stories to tell, which define the human condition (and really, what other honest frame of reference do we have?) -- in most cases it's just the details that differ.

So on that front, you could say that any story we might tell is already derivative of all of the stories which have ever been told throughout human history. The only factor which makes our story unique and interesting to tell is that it is OUR story; it is what we bring to that template, with our infinite capacity for variation.

The same can be said for a retelling of an established tale. Although the storytelling process of a videogame is a bizarre one, for which we have not yet collectively mastered the grammar, the same should apply here.

I could go on from here -- yet I... have done this already.

I try to force a little whimsy out of all y'all and I still get excellent posts like these. I'll get you next time, Gadget.

I like this notion. It's a great notion. Eric's article covers the bases much more extensively and eloquently than I could presume to in this space and context, so go ahead and read it if you haven't already. Suffice to say, as games morph into an art form rather than a simple diversion, it's logical that they'd become part of society's mythos. When Honda ushers in Armageddon by equipping Asimos with twin lazer pistols and programming them to kill, will our hunting and gathering descendants sit around the camp fire and tell the tale of the great coveralls-clad warrior capable of jumping 5 times his own height? I think yes. I think yes indeed.

Author

It's okay, I don't know what I'm talking about either

Lord Skeletor

Remakes. The problem with remakes is that usually the game people want remade was already pretty good in the first place; when you start adding stuff foreign to a game's experience, you end up wrecking the "feeling" or "mood" of the game (see how well Sonic Adventure translated. Luckily, it's a good game, but it's certainly not the same as Sonic 2.)

[Snip, snip -Ed.]

Great point. While I hadn't given it much thought prior to this update, I'm now of the mind that developers have two options in putting together an enjoyable remake: Stick extremely closely to the original formula, or, as per the above discussion, use it as a launching pad for a fresh interpretation.

The best games are the ones that took the greatest advantage of the current hardware and associated design limitations. They're self-sufficient in their greatness; they don't need the extra trimmings more powerful consoles allow. To swipe your example, Sonic 2 was fantastic in the context of a Genesis title. The system's comparative strengths were all tapped to the best the developers' present handle of the architecture allowed. They took these pieces and constructed a wonderful product of them.

In an effort to be less abstract, I submit the following comparison. The Beatles' "Yesterday" had Paul's voice, an acoustic guitar, and a light string accompaniment - that was it. They certainly could have added percussion, horns, the whole nine yards. In the end, though, it wouldn't have been the same product. Instead, the potential of this comparatively minimal setup was maximized, and anything else would have been unnecessary guild.

It's something a matter of minimalism versus expansiveness. Convenient, as that leads right in to the next discussion.

Author

Minimalism.

Deepblue

Well, these guys seem to have in mind the same things that I do:

Making old again that which once was new.

For those too lazy to click the link (no pun intended), these guys are attempting to remake 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time' in 2D, using the engine from 'A Link to the Past'.

From the looks of things, they're doing a bang-up job of it. I'm very interested to see how this turns out.

My only wish is that actual, legitimate game developers were doing things like this, instead of just (albeit talented!) fans and hobbyists.

Instead of half-assedly, half-heartedly, and half-successfully translating every once-successful 2D game or series into 3D, would it not take more creative ingenuity to do the reverse?

As a maner of revision, one could take any clunky 3D game, and pare it down to the barest of functional gameplay essentials, cut out a lot of useless confusing garbage, and have a simpler, more accessible, better-on-many-levels game.

It troubles me that with this console generation, we have seen too many games that have more merit as combat/jumping/whatever simulations than they will ever have as actual games.

Too many developers anymore are more focused on pushing the latest hardware to its potential with polygon rendering, and not nearly enough are coming up with any imaginative ideas on how to use such technologies to push gamers to reach their potential in an interactive environment.

Ico and Metroid Prime are good examples of 3D 'games' that work well fundamentally as videogames; I can think of few else.

I personally spend more time with my SNES and Genesis than I do with any of my next-gen consoles; I'd like to think that it has more to do with creative utilization of resources than it does with any sort of nostalgia.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm going to bed.

Aderack

Well, see. This project exists to make a point (or, in the event that the actual developer hasn't put this much thought into it, it still serves to illustrate that same point). The original OoT could have been designed just as well as a 2D game -- as could so many other games which were composed in 3D perhaps only because it's the current trend.

This remake is an exercise in minimalism; in deconstructing and questioning current conceptions of design. It asks what is really necessary.

If the designers suceed in recreating the game in 2D, with few noteworthy negative concessions, then the experiment is a success. Sure, they could have just made their own original game -- but that wouldn't show anything important.

If anything, one could consider it a less original feat. We already have more Zelda games on some variant of this engine than I care to count at the moment, and I've played most of them; rearranging the pieces and spitting out another version is hardly going to be interesting. The concept of reforging an existing, well-known game in a different context, however -- well. That carries a whole new weight of meaning, which you don't get from a mere arbitrary recycling of old material.

There are other possible messages as well, that I can't confirm at the moment. If, when translated to 2D, the game turns out to be little but a typical Zelda rehash -- then what might this say about the design of the game? About Nintendo's design practices? About the emotional value of a change in perspective, even if it adds little to the overt design? About the potential for this novel perspective to mask tired design?

I'm just scratching the surface here. I could go on like this, were I to devote the subject any serious thought.

I've not gotten there yet, though.

Russian Attack

i had always assumed that OoT was a different game than LttP because of 3D excesses. ALttP was a minamalist game as far as i am concerned, unless you would counter that you could then take the graphics of ALttP back another notch and make it look 8-bit, making it "truly" minamalist. The story and gameplay of OoT were by no means new and revolutionary. Hell, i had basically played OoT (albeit a much, much worse execution) in Blasto years before for crissakes.

The only thing that OoT gave us, in my opinion, were 2 things: Epic sweeping visuals (and as it was used correctly, it gave the game an epic feel), and more Link. This was enough to sell me on the game twice, and I still get all touchy-feely when i hear any of the ocarina tunes.

It is still possible to maintain that epic feel without sweeping helicopter-esque shots across fields and mountains (look at any of the Phantasy Star genesis games), but OoT decided to get this feel by using 3D. I would consider that an excess, as the game could have gotten an epic feel other ways than using 3D, just as Phantasy Star 4 could have retained an epic feel without the need to fly between planets.

I guess what i am trying to say is that when OoT2D comes out, it will be a goofy 2D zelda rehash and nothing more, just as Majora's Mask was a whole lot of OoT rehash and not a whole lot of anything else.

Of course, this is all based on conjecture, and OoT2D may do something with that sorely-missed 2nd dimension that i have completely overlooked.

ah, well. Viva la Agent Bang!!!

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, I agree with Aderack's stance. I'm hard-pressed to think of any of OoT's elements that simply could not work in 2D. As much as you could readily slim down even the highest-budget Hollywood flick to low-budget, art house fare, only a small number of the latest, greatest titles would have been impossible on older hardware, if in an altered fashion. Would the Matrix have received the same accolades and attention had it been recorded with crappy equipment on a shoestring budget? Of course not. Ultimately, the process of minimalization would have made the plot shortcomings all too evident.

On the other hand, I'm not against a bit of spectacle and eye candy. OoT may work in 2D, but without the "sweeping helicopter-esque shots" and 3D conceits It would lack the same impact. Half the fun of the game was feeling immersed in the landscape. I felt a surrounded by Hyrule, as I'd long envisioned it, rather than staring down at it from a removed perspective. Similarly, the Matrix was tons of fun because it was so visceral and breathtaking.

A middle-of-the-road viewpoint? Maybe. It's my job to be of many minds.

Author

ET, now vertigo-inducing fake 3D!!

Psiga

I've decided that it's time to pull out the big guns. Hold on to your biscuits, because this Pandora's Box is open for business:

Over the past year I have spent many tens of hours conducting market research, in an attempt to discover the perfect traits of best-selling games. Hits such as Superman 64, or The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare have shown that IP is the key. And the constant recurrance of sequels tells me that people like to see more of the same.

I know now that it would be most profitable to select a warmly-embraced intellectual property, find a lesser-known video game made with that property, and then hire a development team to respectfully and gently remaster that game. To breathe new (and marketable) life into it.

Rather than leave you hanging any longer, I'll just come right out and tell you what I've got in mind:

E.T. 2600 Super Edition, in 3D.

No, no, not that 3D. This 3D:

(Red-Blue anaglyph glasses are a must!)

Does that not just FUCKING pop out at you? Holy fucking Jesus, I'm gonna be a millionaire.

Closing comments:

That's it. I've blown my creative wad. You get nothing more out of me tonight. Move along, then.

-Drew

Life is bigger than me so I'll just have to cut it down to size.