Taking On Remastered Games And The Effects of Nostalgia

[Infernai]

An aspect I think was left out was the resurgence that a multiplayer aspect might get from a remastered rerelease.

Example: AVP 2, from 2001.

I love this game to death, and now that the master server's down, and my disc is cracked on one edge, I can never play it again. And even if I could, I'd have nothing but the empty maps, taunting me with the good times I had way back when.

But what if all of a sudden, this game popped up on Steam? Suddenly not only can I play it again, but everyone can play it again, and ba-bam, there's new blood in the ranks and it's time to relive the past.

Attention publishers.

See that game? That's how you balance single player and Multiplayer and make both fun as all hell.

Please re-release it on steam for me, I'd be ever so grateful and give you all my money!

 

[zelda2fanboy]

I'm really surprised we never got a PS2 Classic rerelease of Silent Hills 2 and 3 after that HD debacle. I really want to play those, but I never had a PS2 and I don't want to buy one. It cannot require that much effort to get those running on an emulator on PS3 or, god forbid, a PS4 (which currently has no PS2 classics as far as I know). I do like that the Oddworld game are getting HD updates. While they weren't great games, they were really ahead of their time Getting to play Stranger's Wrath after all these years was a blast and New N Tasty fixed a lot of the PS1 version's problems.

 

[Sledgimus]

I question all these people saying "the creators have no right to 'improve' these old classic games"... and yet may have heavily-modded Oblivion or Skyrim installs, and when asked why will respond "the mods fix the game to the way it should have been in the first place." What's the difference between people using popular mods for a game and a company releasing a remastered edition?

Heck, we already have a prime case study for this: the Baldur's Gate games. They're right up there with the Elder Scrolls games in terms of modding community, and they received remastered editions a few years ago. True, the "remastered editions" are mostly just the GOG versions with a pre-selected mod set (and the manner in which these mods were implemented is subject to some debate), but the point remains: what makes modding the original superior to buying the remaster? Choice, in that the individual user can pick and choose what "improvements" he or she desires?

You've answered your own question. I'm replaying Fallout: New Vegas with a ton of mods on it. Thing is, some mods sounded good but ultimately didn't work for me. One mod made the day/night cycle more realistic, with night being almost pitch black at its darkest and bright sunlight requiring sunglasses. Now, maybe it's because I'm a filthy casual, but after a while these features became more of a pain in the arse than actually fun. I had to take sunglasses off everytime I went inside. I had trouble doing anything at night. I'd forget I had sunglasses on and be nearly blind in caves. So I uninstalled it. I'm glad I've got that option, I don't want companies deciding to change a game to what it "should" be and changing the experience that much.

Ultimately, the Star Wars Special Edition example was a good one. I think if the Special Editions had each been released with their original versions, no one would have minded. Hell, I LIKE some of the additions to the films. It's just when someone says "No, that experience you loved is gone forever, here's what we think it should be," people are inclined to react badly. Part of the fun of playing an old game is reliving the experience you had before. Tarting up the graphics probably won't impact that too much, but serious gameplay changes should be approached very carefully and with the option to disable them.

 

[Timeless Lavender]

I feel like you are disregarding people who didn't play the game the first time around. Perhaps because they didn't have a PC, or maybe they just weren't born yet, but for whatever reason a game past them by. The remaster may come about by nostalgia but it introduces new people to the game. And I personally would like a crack at games I was too young for the first time around, but consider far too difficult to get running.

I think this is the problem right there. Who is the audience for remaster games in general because I, just like you, who born too late to experience many games that people regards as "classic" , would find remaster games a great deal. Moreover, some games and consoles are near impossible find or are very expensive, especially where I live so I can understand why some people will find remasters as the only choice to buy old games.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Somebody really really needs to teach Yahtzee how to perform the correct work around, and what tools are needed to run old games. Like there's one that runs a roll back on Direct X to make old games work. For Master of Orion 2 for example all you need to make it work on vista/7/8, is a to make a batch file that: Performs a task kill on explorer, launches the game, when the game is closed; relaunches explorer. Then you have no issues with that game. Or like Fallout and Fallout 2 where the restoration projects do wonders.

VMs are absolute tripe for running any game because VMs are running with such a handicap it's amazing. You are not going to get optimum performance when you're running one OS inside another.

 

[Arean]

I'm very much with Yahtzee on this one, in that Remasters as a whole is a hard thing to judge one way or the other. The only thing one can really hope for is that the Remaster is an improvement, and made "right".

The cynical side of me really wants to partially blame Remasters for the lack of console backwards-compatibility. Why make the PS4 backwards-compatible when you can get a bunch of people to buy The Last of Us again, a year later.

The FFX/X-2 Remastering is one of those that is cool on one hand, and utterly fucking egregious on the other. On the positive side, it's a (mostly) beloved game, and the re-mastering was done quite well, it was a 2-for-1 with some extra content, and it was done to a game that could actually benefit from it.

On the other hand, parts of it was absolutely horrible. Why do I have to buy separate games for the PS3 and the PS-Vita, when loads of other titles can transition, save files and all, between the two? Why did they release it for the PS3, where I put in a ton of hours, only to then, a year later, announce that they're releasing it again for the PS4, with (afaik) no way of moving save files?

End of the day, I think I much prefer the GOG route. I'm currently playing KOTOR again for the N'th time, after they released it on GOG. This is a game that would've been close to impossible for me to play not that long ago, and it was simply updated to where it could be run on modern systems, and released at a decent price point. To me, that's preferable, because, like Yahtzee notes, it's not shiny new pixels that sell a Remastering, it's nostalgia.

 

[Leviathan902]

Not exactly on topic, and kind of nitpicky, but people don't listen to LPs because of the pops, hisses and scratches (not most of them anyway). They mostly do it because LPs often have a different mix than CD and digital versions with a higher dynamic range (the quieter sounds are quieter, the louder sounds are louder).

Most CDs have abysmal Dynamic Range Compression due to the (inaccurate) perception by most labels that louder albums sell better, especially in the rock world. Therefore they usually do a high DRC mix (volume on everything is cranked to 11) and sell that to the mass market (CDs and MP3s) and then make a low DRC mix for LPs because that's where the "audiophiles" are. Google "the loudness war " for more info if you're curious.

Less interestingly (and harder to verify): a lot of LP listeners claim that the tones are "warmer" (softer, less harsh) and more authentic due to the analog nature vs. digital.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Spoiler: Holier-than-thou whining about the good old days

I find playing my older games through DOSBox, with no mods or patches or graphical updates, actually increases the amount of please I get from the experience. I played the remastered Monkey Island about a year ago and was so glad they'd included a mode that let me use the old graphics - the 'remastered' stuff just looked horrible. Instead of getting that lovely warm feeling of revisiting a long-lost friend I had that uneasy, uncomfortable feeling of visiting a long-lost friend who had undergone botched plastic surgery.

Part of the charm of playing games from my youth is being able to think to myself "Crikey, I remember when these graphics were cutting edge!" or "Bloody hell, I had to save up my pocket money for 8 months to buy a card that could run this game in glorious 256 colours!". I find, because of how they've aged, it gives me a renewed appreciation for how impressive modern graphics are. Without frequently revisiting VGA and even CGA games I feel it would become all too easy to become jaded with modern graphics.

TL;DR: Devs can keep their remastered editions. Me and my DOSBox'll be just fine.

 

[Winkyjuice]

The reason the next gen consoles don't have emulation isn't because the companies are lazy and want to make money off of remasters, it's because it literally isn't possible for the xbone and ps4 to emulate the 360 and ps3. People also say how it's bullshit that the ps4 doesn't have ps2 emulation but even that is incredibly difficult. I know that pc gamers love to talk about how they can emulate ps2 games but ps2 emulation really isn't at the level where they could release it on a console. Playstation 2 emulation is very far from being perfect and it isn't a solved problem.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

I'd just settle for remasters actually having some proper effort put into them. Grim Fandango was a massive disappointment in that regard; they didn't even re-render the static backgrounds in HD, or indeed at all. Like, look, if you're gonna just re-release it with a thing that makes it run on current systems, do that. But don't try passing it off as a "remaster" just because you were too lazy to make it work without the very latest version of OpenGL.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

Well, I used to think remastered versions were not a bad ideea ... but I've changed my mind. Why? Homeworld. I had high hopes for this, an updated interface, new graphics, smoother performance and can run on modern systems. It was, on paper, a perfect remaster. And then I played it ... I will skip the fact that I could make the old Homeworld run easier than the remastered version, that might just be me (and the shity way the game handles vram). But the gameplay of the game I loved was gone forever. Gone were the days of evasive mode, gone were the days when formations mattered, whenskillfull positioning and aproach vectors meant the difference between life and death. The game I loved is gone forever because they fucked with the game engine in the name of "improving" it. If you are a new guy who never played homeworld, fine, go ahead, get the remaster. But any veteran of the old days will despair as his carefully aranged fighter screen devolves into a random chaotic and disorganized swarm the moment contact is made, and all his carefull fleeet positioning goes to hell. Gone are the days of band-boxing orders for repairs and salvage, enjoy having to click and select individual targets. It's a tedious chaotic clickfest where you win by virtue of numbers, not smart tactics. All the fighter and corvete class ships are a waste of cash that will just scatter randomly and get picked off, yet the game still demands the safe level of control and finesse with them it did in the original. Quite frankly ... they fucked up the entire game. It looks preety, but the core is rotten.

I gues I fell into rant there ... sorry about that. The point is: improve graphics all you want, just leave the game as it was. Don't try to "fix" it, you will most likely fuck it up.

 

[thanatos388]

I wonder if Yahtzee knows that making PS3 games available for PS4 would be extremely costly and unprofitable. The reason is mostly Sonys fault but it's still worth considering. The fact that PS1/2 games can't be played on it is a bunch of bullshit though.

Also there is a big difference between a remaster and a remake. I hope he knows that since he mentioned Majoras Mask. It's not the same game. For the most part it is but that counts as a remake and any changes in it should be fine and seen as a separate product.

On the other hand, parts of it was absolutely horrible. Why do I have to buy separate games for the PS3 and the PS-Vita, when loads of other titles can transition, save files and all, between the two? Why did they release it for the PS3, where I put in a ton of hours, only to then, a year later, announce that they're releasing it again for the PS4, with (afaik) no way of moving save files?

I don't get what you're complaining about. You basically want to own two or more copies of the same game for the price of one. What if I complained that I bought Red Dead Redemption for the PS3 and didn't get the 360 version for free? Doesn't' make any sense. Some games are cross compatible and thats cool but a lot aren't and that's not even a problem caused by the game being a remaster.

 

[Arean]

*snip*

I don't get what you're complaining about. You basically want to own two or more copies of the same game for the price of one. What if I complained that I bought Red Dead Redemption for the PS3 and didn't get the 360 version for free? Doesn't' make any sense. Some games are cross compatible and thats cool but a lot aren't and that's not even a problem caused by the game being a remaster.

Fair enough, that's more of a personal grievance than a problem with remaster, I admit.

I guess it stems from mostly playing on PC these days. Especially now that digital distribution is a thing, you get used to buying a game once, and then you can use it on whatever platform it's compatible with. I didn't have to pay full price again to install Divinity on my laptop when I went away for the weekend.

To me, things like this just drives home the idea of HD-Remasters as cynically grabbing for nostalgia-driven cash, but again, you're right, this is just a personal grievance of mine. (And good point about the PS3/PS4 thing, I didn't consider that.)

 

[Uhuru N'Uru]

@ XDSkyFreak
Though I never played the original, others who did and consider Homeworld 2 a better game/UI/Engine, like TotalBiscuit, consider it a vast improvement.I'm aware a minority, like you prefer the first game, however from what I've heard the source material of Homeworld 1 made using the original engine unviable.

All that is irrelevant though, when you consider you are in the minority and most wanted the 1st game in the 2nd's engine and that was the only viable option.

Considering the above and what's actually included in the package:

Homeworld Original
Homeworld 2 Original
Homeworld Remastered
Homeworld 2 Remastered
Homeworld Multiplayer

The Multiplayer is a completely new system where all assets from both games are available, because they are using the same engine.

Though you can be disappointed that the Homeworld 1 Engine wasn't used, I don't see how you can possibly argue that it's a badly Remastered game.

The Original versions are available digitally for the first time and were only available as used discs.

The Remastered versions are in the better engine and UI (the majority opinion) which also enables the combined multiplayer.

No Remastered game will please everyone, of course. Homeworld Cataclysm isn't included because the source code is lost.

Everything considered, Homeworld Remastered Collection is the best it could be, not perfect, but nothing is perfect. They have done the best they can with the available source material. Provided the originals, Remastered and added multiplayer.

It's a shining example of when and how a remastered game should be made. If they were all like this they'ed be great.p

 

[KilloZapit]

I don't think it really matters very much. There are good remasters and bad ones, just like there are good and bad games. And just like other games, if a game offerers you a kind of experience you have in a game you own already you are going to be less enthusiastic about playing it unless you really really like that experience. The fact that the game may have literally the exact some content as a already existing game doesn't change that. It may be a cynical cash-grab at times, but so is the long standing practice of making clone games that play like other games, and I for one wouldn't mind seeing more good remastered games over shitty clone games. Of course, good clone games are much then bad or lazy remastered games too.

It should be said also that remastering is not the same thing as preservation or emulation. It isn't the same game, no matter hows hard they try to match the original, it's a different version with a different engine. It's actually kinda nice that so many older games are being released as emulated copies of the original for new people who may want to play them, but if you actually have the original and can get it to work, there is little reason to get them. Don't get me wrong, I kinda wish older games were released as freeware or that the copyright expired sooner and that everyone had easy ways to find free emulators or free engine ports, but that's not the world we live in right now.

If re-releases and remasters as cynical cash grabs are what is going to preserve interest in older games for the masses, then so be it. Those who grew up in those times and have those games still have them, and those who are able to find a way to play them still can. It's not going to hurt anyone if good playable copies of those games are available for people who never played them before, and thats who they really should be for, not us.