Remakes!

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Up until now, this week has been pretty quiet at work, but it’s amazing how quickly weekday nights fly by when you have something on every evening and don’t just sit lethargically watching TV – Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Monday and Wednesday, a boozy dinner at Waxy’s on Tuesday and tonight’s the first of a planned weekly Dungeons & Dragons tabletop gaming evening.

Anyway, time for some gaming news, which is probably appropriate seeing as today is the birthday of Lord Spaceman, Durban’s own Nintendo/Xbox fanboy. Happy birthday!

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Remaking gaming classics seems to be the in-thing right now. Some of you may argue that it’s merely a sign of laziness on the part of developers and publishers, who are content to financially leech off established success with minimal work on their part. Some of you may argue that revamps are a good thing, as they’ll introduce gamers to classics they’re otherwise resistant to because of horribly dated graphics and controls.

Anyway, Xbox gamers will soon be treated to Jordan Mechner’s original 1989 Prince of Persia on the Xbox Live Arcade. This time, however, all the jumping, clinging, puzzle-solving, sword-swinging action will feature the gorgeous 3D look and character designs first seen in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

From this:

To this:


Wow!

We’re also soon going to be treated to Tomb Raider: Anniversary, to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the first ever Tomb Raider game.

Forget iconic gaming girl pin-up Lara Croft and all the hype surrounding her debut. The first Tomb Raider game was a fantastic, revolutionary action-adventure in its own right. And now you can enjoy it again with a remodelled environments and models (including the new Lara seen in Tomb Raider: Legend last year), new animations, more realistic interactions and even some new puzzles. More details here.

I’m particularly curious to see how the “living” Great Temple in the final stages of the original has be realised, because that gave me the creeps even back in 1997. I just can’t decide though whether I’m prepared to pay for a much prettier, smoother-running remake of a game I’ve actually already played at least 4 times from start to finish.

From this:

To this:

Comments

Lord Spaceman said…
Shucks, you're too sweet :)

I must admit, I was pretty excited when I read the news about both the PoP and TR remakes!

Both the old PoPs and the new PoPs is some of the best gaming I've ever experienced, especially the new PoP trilogy. The movie is gonna be awesome!

I'm happy about the TR remake, but sad it ain't coming to next-gen consoles. I wanted to see Lara in all her next-gen glory. Gonna have to play that one on me PC now :(
4:12 PM
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