Early PC games that need modern remakes

[JBerel]

Since there was a discussion about whether PC games sucked in the 90s-2000, it might be worth identifying/harping on some of the best ones of that era, that really, finally, need a remake. For whatever reason, this is not likely to happen, but it may be worthwhile to hear what others think. So to start:

 

Outlaws- The single player puzzle and FPS was a great combo. Add the great multiplayer with the spaghetti western theme and a great soundtrack for an A+. Nobody has recaptured that with modern gaming by my estimation. Unfortunately the original doesn't hold up well based on it's flat graphics. If somebody just replaced the graphics engine on the same game, it's an instant buy.

 

Star Trek Voyager Elite Force- Similar reasons as above despite it being themed against one of the worst Star Trek series they did. The multiplayer mechanics created some great strategic possibilities like chess, but with phasers, mines, and explosions.

 

X-wing series of flight sims- This is a no brainer. A modern attack on the Death Star 2 could be awesome on a good sim with control of flight dynamics, power levels etc. Unfortunately the industry dumbing everything down to arcade type shooters with no love for real flight controls, and EA having all rights to new Star Wars games, almost certainly means this will never happen. The originals hold up ok, but modern 3D graphics would make it awesome.

Edited October 7, 2018 by JBerel

[digdugnate]

i'd like to see a remake of Total Annihilation (I liked the first game better than Kingdoms)- the 'Core' gameplay should be left alone, though.

[CatPix]

I was starting to put games on a list, they I realised that by "early" you meant 90-2000 games... which I wasn't exactly covering, as I was more thinking about a few CGA/EGA games and early VGA games.

But maybe you wanna include earlier games as well?

[xenomorpher]

The 90s to early 00s were the golden years to me. A remake of Blood, Quake, Terminal Velocity, Aliens vs Predator 1 and 2, Tie Fighter, and pretty much any of the Star Wars games would be great. There's a good graphical mod for the second Descent: Freespace game, but I wouldn't mind if they redid the series. Trespasser could benefit from a reimagining of sorts since we don't get many dinosaur games, let alone a FPS-like one. It could be a fun survival game if done right. Blade Runner might have been a cool one to redo by Telltale Games. There needs to be more cyberpunk games.

Edited October 8, 2018 by xenomorpher

[mr_me]

I'm not sure about modernizing old games unless there was something broken that had to be fixed. I was thinking how Leisure Suit Larry was updated with a point and click interface; I like the original interface. Games like Sim City (1989), Populous (1989), Railroad Tycoon (1990) and Civilization (1991) got windows remakes. The original Populous had a unique interface but the others probably benefitted with some modernization.

 

Deathtrack (Dynamix 1989) was a game that couldn't be played on faster computers. It was programmed without timing control so it ran too fast. That's something that could be fixed, although today, Dosbox fixes that problem. It also suffers from poor sound effects. It does have an Adlib soundtrack but I think the sound effects are pc speaker. Those sound effects could be fixed.

 

Grand Prix Circuit was a nice 2D driving game for 1988 by Accolade, similar to pole position. It has a terrible pc speaker soundtrack and pc speaker sound effects that could be fixed. I don't think it supported the analog controls that ibm pc had. There's already lots of newer driving games.

 

Double Dragon II was a nicely done action game for 1989. It's problem is it was programmed with single button control eventhough ibm pc controllers supported four action buttons.

 

There's lots of PC sports games from the late 1980s and the 1990s that did not take advantage of the analog controls the ibm pc had. Although many were very well done, it was a little frustrating being limited to eight directions. I guess sports games have been redone many times over.

Edited October 8, 2018 by mr_me

[Lost Dragon]

The original PC version of Terminator.

 

Realms Of The Haunting.

 

Xcom III.

 

Clive Barker's Undying.

 

Terminator:Future Shock.

 

 

The Terminator games served up on PS2 and Xbox were awful....

[xenomorpher]

The original PC version of Terminator.

 

Realms Of The Haunting.

 

Xcom III.

 

Clive Barker's Undying.

 

Terminator:Future Shock.

 

 

The Terminator games served up on PS2 and Xbox were awful....

I totally agree with everything, especially Realms of the Haunting. I have it on Steam, and while still very playable, it could use an update. It's such an underrated game that needs more love.

[digdugnate]

The original PC version of Terminator.

 

Realms Of The Haunting.

 

Xcom III.

 

Clive Barker's Undying.

 

Terminator:Future Shock.

 

 

The Terminator games served up on PS2 and Xbox were awful....

when my wife and i were dating she was playing 'Undying'- that'd be an interesting one!

[Lost Dragon]

I still rate Realms Of The Haunting up there with Captive, as Tony Crowther's finest work.

 

Bit biased as game set in Helston, Cornwall, i was delighted at the time to see a game using a 'local' setting.

 

Always been a Clive Barker fan and Undying just oozed atmosphere.

 

Last Clive Barker game i played was the awful,awful Jerico on PS3 :'(

 

 

Xcom 3 was the last true Xcom game,as much as i love the rebooted series of games, they don't have the depth of the originals.

[82-T/A]

Xcom 3 was the last true Xcom game,as much as i love the rebooted series of games, they don't have the depth of the originals.

 

 

What was XCOM 3? I have all the XCOM games, but don't really know which one you're talking about.

 

The newer XCOM games I thought were excellent. The "depth" of the story-line was far deeper than the originals, but there was less overall fighting it seems. In X-COM 1 and X-COM 2 TFTD... there were endless missions... which I wasn't opposed to... but the new ones were more engaged in the story.

[youxia]

I'm a fan of old gfx so don't really care about remakes. What I'd really like to see are proper sequels to some classics which are not dumbed down and streamlined but instead try to expand the gameplay in regards to overall complexity, AI and emergence. Hopefully Phoenix Point (from Mr Gollop, the XCOM creator), Stygian Abyss and System Shock 3 will deliver on this front, though these are done on a budget.

 

From pure remakes, maybe Daggerfall...if only somebody could only fix that silly map and make it readable, it'd be great. There was actually taht Daggerfal XL project going on...wait, what's that? Daggerfall Unity?

[Lost Dragon]

Sorry Xcom Apocalypse :

 

I bought the rebooted original twice on PS3, vanilla and later commander edition.

 

Wasn't that impressed with vanilla Xcom 2,but the various DLC turned it into something very special.

 

Sadly bit bugged on PS4.

[JBerel]

Is it a forgone conclusion that the 2, maybe 3, consoles are the primary platform for game development these days and that most anything brought to the PC will be a questionable port? That's excluding the MMORPGs. Computers are where all the best tweaks and control schemes are, but it was painfully obvious the developers hated supporting all the multitude of configs people had back in the day. That's probably the reason development moved back to fixed platforms which may as well be a walled off PC. I've never found using a dual shock or similar controller on a FPS agreeable. I guess most others have, but I can't and won't which is why I don't bother with XBox or PS.

[82-T/A]

Sorry Xcom Apocalypse :

 

I bought the rebooted original twice on PS3, vanilla and later commander edition.

 

Wasn't that impressed with vanilla Xcom 2,but the various DLC turned it into something very special.

 

Sadly bit bugged on PS4.

 

Ah ok... I have this one on CD-ROM. Yeah... don't mean to offend, but I spent... maybe 30 minutes playing it, and was totally turned off.

 

It felt more like I was playing Sim City, and the color pallet was so "washed out" that it lost all the aura and mystique that the original two had.

[digdugnate]

Is it a forgone conclusion that the 2, maybe 3, consoles are the primary platform for game development these days and that most anything brought to the PC will be a questionable port? That's excluding the MMORPGs. Computers are where all the best tweaks and control schemes are, but it was painfully obvious the developers hated supporting all the multitude of configs people had back in the day. That's probably the reason development moved back to fixed platforms which may as well be a walled off PC. I've never found using a dual shock or similar controller on a FPS agreeable. I guess most others have, but I can't and won't which is why I don't bother with XBox or PS.

i was reading about the eventual inclusion of keyboard/mouse support on the XBox platform for 'specific' game titles but I'm wondering if later down the road this gets opened up more- at that point really the console isn't much more than a PC with specific hardware.

 

pure speculation on my part, but this would open the doors for games like WoW on the console since there would be kb/mouse support. I think the software companies would see $$$ all the way down.

[Lost Dragon]

Ah ok... I have this one on CD-ROM. Yeah... don't mean to offend, but I spent... maybe 30 minutes playing it, and was totally turned off.

 

It felt more like I was playing Sim City, and the color pallet was so "washed out" that it lost all the aura and mystique that the original two had.

 

No offence.

 

All opinions most welcomed.

 

Because Terror From The Deep felt so much like a reskin. .Apocalypse stood out for myself.

[Lost Dragon]

This one has to go in as well.

 

Loved for the music, the setting.

 

Probably a bit of an unknown for many:

 

[+thanatos]

X-wing series of flight sims- This is a no brainer. A modern attack on the Death Star 2 could be awesome on a good sim with control of flight dynamics, power levels etc. Unfortunately the industry dumbing everything down to arcade type shooters with no love for real flight controls, and EA having all rights to new Star Wars games, almost certainly means this will never happen. The originals hold up ok, but modern 3D graphics would make it awesome.

 

Somebody made a Battle of Endor demo for Oculus Rift. It was pretty amazing. Obviously not a full game though.

 

[CatPix]

Even if older games might not need graphic updates, they are hard to get working properly. DOS games are mostly alrigh, thanks to DOSBox, but Windows games, even as recent as Windows XP games might not work properly, or even not at all, on modern computers.

And, alright, here, we probably know hos to make those work, but if we want to make other people know about them, providing them with a simple solution (like GOG games) is a form of upgrade.

 

As for games that I would like to see easily playable today :

 

Alley cat got an amateur remake. a light one, but for people that wanna play it, it's a nice one :

http://www.joflof.com/alley.html

 

 

A game that I would like to see a remake of is Stunts 4D Sport Driving. I know there has been a free remake made but as far as I remember it was rough and not so great, with bland graphics. But heh maybe it got better?

I remember around 2005, people were all hyped for a PS3 games on which "you can make your own tracks" I was "Welcome to 1990 guys"

 

 

Without naming the super classics (Commander Keen, etc...) I think Bio Menace could use a remake as well. Gotta like some cheesy late 80's moustachied guy trowing grenades at green blobs!

 

Two other I'd like to see remake, maybe, for the first one, with one of those "rewind action" feature.

Clyde's Adventure and Clyde's Revenge

 

 

Both are platform-puzzles games. The first one is notoriously vicious with many deadly traps, dead ends that drain your enegry and make you die from energy exhaustion.

And epic VGA graphics with flashy bits and stuff.

Edited October 8, 2018 by CatPix

[youxia]

Probably a bit of an unknown for many:

 

 

Julian Gollop is probably my favourite designer of all time (next to Sid Meier) so I do of course know about thsi gem. Though, for some reason I could never get this to work, even back in the day. So working remake would be welcome, but I wouldn't like to see any changes, this is the kind of SVGA gfx I really love.

[82-T/A]

 

A game that I would like to see a remake of is Stunts 4D Sport Driving. I know there has been a free remake made but as far as I remember it was rough and not so great, with bland graphics. But heh maybe it got better?

 

 

YES!!! I LOVED this game... I played it for hours and hours. Used to play it with my cousin all the time too... oh man, LOVED that game. I used to make my own tracks and everything too....

 

 

 

No offence.

 

All opinions most welcomed.

 

Because Terror From The Deep felt so much like a reskin. .Apocalypse stood out for myself.

 

 

Yes, Terror from the Deep was MOST DEFINITELY a re-skin. But I kind of like that about it. I also wondered why they didn't make #2 have both underwater and above water... since it would make sense, but yeah, loved TFTD. Mostly because it was exactly like the previous game. It was so similar that they even had a conversion program that you could download that would let you transfer your characters from one to the next.

[Lost Dragon]

My memory of Terror From The Deep is soured by investing so many hours on it on the PS1 version.

 

Game saves took up a huge amount of save spaces and would often corrupt..so i used to juggle memory cards.

 

Plus the Terror missions..finding and killing the last creature on a mission could be an utter Ball Ache an awful lot of the time.

 

I still awake in a cold sweat thinking back to the threat Lobster Men posed as well

Edited October 8, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[82-T/A]

My memory of Terror From The Deep is soured by investing so many hours on it on the PS1 version.

 

Game saves took up a huge amount of save spaces and would often corrupt..so i used to juggle memory cards.

 

Plus the Terror missions..finding and killing the last creature on a mission could be an utter Ball Ache an awful lot of the time.

 

I still awake in a cold sweat thinking back to the threat Lobster Men posed as well

 

 

Oh dude... I can't even IMAGINE playing that game without a mouse. It's like trying to play Syndicate on the Jaguar. You really have to be invested in it... just not worth it.

 

Yeah... oh... forgot one cool little fact.

 

If you had the original "1st release" floppy disc" version of the game, there were some features that it came with that subsequent releases of the game didn't come with. It wasn't much, but if on some missions... where it was a much more "open" landscape, you'd occasionally find a large crashed / submerged airplane. Apparently around the time the game was released, there had been a major airliner crash, and it was deemed "unsympathetic" to release a game that had that in it. In the more formal release of the game (which came on a CD-ROM), the vast majority (if not all) of the submerged airliner landscapes had been eliminated.

[Lost Dragon]

Had a PS Mouse from Xcom onwards.

 

Wouldn't of touched either Xcom, Alien Res, Syndicate Wars etc without it.

 

But then i had to buy N64 Command And Conquer..it'd be alright. .analogue stick would do fine..right?

 

Ohhh the horrors.

[Tanooki]

Mmmm Stunts, the hours I put into that. They also did a 4D Sports Boxing which was fairly addicting as the stunt game.

 

Is this the ghetto looking Stunts remake you speak of? http://www.ultimatestunts.nl/index.php?page=0&lang=en It looks not very good, and kind of maybe dead.