Remake it so

For today I thought I'd share my thoughts on the thorny issue that is remakes.
Everyone has an opinion on this don't they? More often than not it is groans of disgust that old ground is being worked over, memories of childhood pleasure being irrevocably ruined and no one has the balls to come up with something new.

Personally, I can see both sides of the remake debate. On one hand, it presents a good opportunity for gamers to discover something that may have slipped their view the first item around: Older gamers can find something they didn't previously know about and younger gamers can something that made their comrades turn cartwheels over. As long as a formula works (and isn't tampered with too much), it can still keep working. And indeed, as long as there is a graphical upgrade, any old game can give any newer game a run for it's money.
On the other hand, game developers want something that can sell: Like any other project, making games is certainly not a cheap venture (how Jonathan Blow happened to have 250,000 lying around to make Braid is beyond me) so what you need is something that will return the investment. And that is no easy task seeing as gamers themselves tend to have attention spans that last no longer than five minutes.



So what do I think is a successful remake? The remake of Sid Meier's Pirates on the Xbox and Wii. I did try Pirates on the Commodore 64 back in the day but I found it stiff and unimpressive. On the Xbox however, I found it heaps of fun and quite easily to get lost in. As is my understanding the changes have been minor other than a complete graphic upgrade. But what does it matter? I've enjoyed playing Pirates and it is interesting to note the remake getting through to me when the original didn't.

A remake can work if the people understand what made it work the first time and not touch it further. A remake can be ruined by people adding too many changes and/or trying ever so hard to please fans of the original. But what I'd like to see is a remake done by the original developers who feel that they could've done a better job the first time around. Alfred Hitchcock did such a thing with the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much so I would like to see someone in the games industry with that kind of balls.

Ultimately though, I feel time spent on remakes would be better spent on developing new franchises to muck around with. Which is why I'm glad I'm playing Dragon Age Origins on my Xbox 360 and not some Baldur's Gate Redux (or something).