Nostalgia is powerful but deceiving. Whether of an older generation misty-eyed over memories of Asteroids and Rally-X or a college student with a soft spot for Mario and a blue hedgehog, gamers and their wallets have voiced their attachment to games-gone-by. However, a swarm of high definition remakes are not the way to cater to this market.
Though it’s often a pain to boot up old systems or finagle with a PC to run old favorites, I’d prefer this struggle, taking advantage of avenues such as good old games, or even emulation before shelling out $40-60 for a higher-resolution product. Part of this is on principle, preferring the development of new games and ideas, and it’s also a purity and value proposition.
I don’t mean to say that all, or even most, HD remakes are bad. I own a handful and gleefully played through the whole of “Black Mesa Source” (a fan-made remake of the original “Half-Life”) the night of its release. However, the only purchases I’m willing to make of these higher-resolution games are those I’d previously missed, (or free fan-made creations such as “Black Mesa” or “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords” restored content modification.)
Updated games are generally successful at attracting a new audience to a game or franchise who were too intimidated or disinterested thanks to aging mechanics and graphics. From a business perspective, this potential gain and, excepting complete failure by the developers, an already tested and certain market of buyers makes their re-production of a game a great decision, especially with most creative heavy lifting and asset creation out of the way.
This ploy, however, is wearing out its welcome. Nostalgia and familiarity will move cases off the shelf for a while, but do little to benefit franchise-hungry publishers and over-saturated consumers. As the industry’s aged, a second and possibly far more interesting and successful path taking advantage of nostalgia gamers have been complete remakes.
If you want to put a game or franchise’s hooks into gamers and create a revitalized and beloved product, why devote development time and money into an HD product that may well reveal nostalgia’s heart-wrenching brother: reality. The gaming landscape is developing quickly and antiquating classics before our eyes. Nostalgia is more often than not a fuzzy jumble of emotions and big ideas, and as a result, the tightened controls and sharpened textures meld into the game we remember within the first few minutes when we’re not continually making side-by-side comparisons.
Perhaps as October’s hit “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” brought the acclaimed XCOM franchise back into the limelight through reverence and evolution, not to what might amount to a handful of patches and modifications in modern games, we’ll see the HD trend die down. Honestly, I’d prefer the growth of neat ideas behind “de-makes” for games like Portal and Halo before seeing another retro game revived.
Either way, my holy grail of HD-remakes had existed in Digital Anvil’s Freelancer from nine years ago. I surely would throw down my high-and-mighty posturing for some new high-texture ships. But now, as even Freelancer prepares to be rebooted by its spiritual success Star Citizen, I realize it may be time to close the door on high definition.
