I am experiencing a most profound sense of déjà vu.
Crouched behind a rock, desperately willing my health to recharge, trying to decide which of my few available weapons to deploy against the horde of fuzzy logic driven enemies closing in around me.
The sense of déjà vu comes not from the fact that the makers of this game have stolen wholesale value from one of the most influential FPS’(First Person Shooter) of the early 21st century. It’s because I am playing one of the most influential FPS’ of the early 21st century.
Sort of.
That game is Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.
A remake of the original X-Box classic to celebrate its tenth anniversary with gaming’s general populace.
Remakes have a longer history than you might at first think; Nintendo’s graphical rebranding of Doki Doki Panic into Super Mario Bros. 2 for western gamers way back in 1988, wasn’t even the start of this trend.
Furthermore that particular game went on to be remade again, along with its closest relatives, with a starring role in Super Mario Allstars five years later.
In fact, it seems Nintendo may have a lot to answer for in this respect, after the success of SMA (Super Mario Allstars), a slew of remakes appeared: like Capcoms visual upgrade of early NES Mega Man’s to the Mega Drive.
Not to be outdone Nintendo released Master Quest for Gamecube, a visually identical but slightly reworked version of Ocarina of Time.
Gamecube then enjoyed Resident Evil, completely rebuilt from the PS1 original. This trend has continued today with examples such as Bionic Commando Rearmed, Beyond Good and Evil and Perfect Dark HD available via PSN or XBLA.
Remakes, in some cases, are not the cynical cash cows they may appear to be. In cases like Resident Evil, a series which has been going for 16 years and spanning three console generations, remakes an be the only way to get the full impact of the story, especially relevant in the labyrinth of twists and revelations that is at the heart of the franchises mythology.
Other instances are just chances for new players to experience an older game with up to date graphics. For something like Bionic Commando, where the graphical downgrade in travelling back quarter of a century is to much to stomach, it illuminates gaming’s history in an immediately palatable way.
Does a trip back only a decade present the same chasm?
343 Industries have gone to great pains ensuring that the game plays exactly as it did, this is a graphical overhaul only, as this is the best single player campaign the series has to offer this was a wise decision as even the slightest of tweaks would go on to have wide reaching repercussions in such a delicately balanced game.
Nor, then, does it address the almost Metroid like fall from power that the prequel ‘Reach’ introduced; all those abilities and weapons you spent the game becoming proficient in are stripped away as you spend the remaining trilogy slowly becoming reacquainted with them.
Thankfully this leaves Master Chief playing exactly as he did before but this throws up an unexpected problem. At its time of release Halo:CE was a revolutionary experience, but the more original an idea is at the time of its inception the quicker it grows dated as everyone plunders unashamedly from the source material, making incremental improvements until it becomes staple. Bullet time anyone?
As Microsoft ensured that the original 360 shipped with backward compatibility with both Halo 1 & 2 out of the box, adding an HD suffix in the process, the question is why does Anniversary exist?
Is it to ease us into playing Halo not designed by Bungie by ensuring 343’s first foray is a guaranteed winner?
Or for a market that has now fully accepted online multiplayer in all its guises, the original Halo’s offline vs. multiplayer was built from scratch just 6 months before the games release.
Undoubtedly yes, in part, to both the above.
My thinking is a little more existential; with a film remake there are two ways to go: shot for shot as in ‘Psycho’, with Vince Vaughn of all people, failing to catch the taut suspense, amongst other things, the original excelled in, or something like King Kong which keeps the spirit and story of the original but reinvigorates it with new techniques and technology.
With games it is the opposite, a shot for shot style is required as in Halo: CE A, because a reimagining transforms it into a very different beast as with say the GoldenEye remake.
In the end games, like films, have a central core, a truly great film stays timeless because of the story at its heart and a truly great game stays timeless because of the game play mechanics at its heart.
This is self evident in the reception of classic titles like Bionic Commando Rearmed and the unstoppable force that is the App Store showcasing simple but involving play.
With the vintage revival taking place right now, this seems like an opportune time to capitalise on the visual design of retro games from pixels to polygons, bump-mapping and beyond. Why have developers remaking them, when they could be crafting new experiences?
After all does reading a book on a Kindle make it any better than reading off paper?
In a world of remakes, reboots and reimagining’s perhaps it’s time to consider the reissue.
