23rd
Blog Banter: The Art of the Remake
Welcome to the latest installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza created by bs angel and coordinated by Game Couch. Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
Q: Which game would you like to see a modern re-make of and why?
Remakes are very tedious business. It is my belief that fundamentally you are always destined to upset at least one set of people, if not more, by the sheer mention of such an idea. There are those who became fans of the original, and then those purists who, on principle, disagree with the idea of any remake. If, however, you’ve the smarts to discover the correct science behind a worthy remake, then those sub-sets of folk can be weaned to the dark side.
Ideally the first step would be to avoid the classics, be those cult, critical, or otherwise. I have no real desire to sit here and pitch a redux for Ocarnia of Time or Final Fantasy VII, just as the congealed masses of the Hollywood set would never dream of sitting down with a studio and trying to pitch an updated Godfather or Citizen Kane. Those projects are revered by so many that you would merely offend way more than you would enlighten, no matter how accomplished a job you did. No, it is my feeling that a remake must be just as necessary as it is effective. It’s wise to pick a property that perhaps did not quite live up to expectations, one that showed exemplary potential but missed the mark on execution. Surprisingly there are many games of the current generation that fit the title of “underachiever,” but I believe this is as much down to the coverage a game receives as it is a game’s creative or functional lethargy. We survey so much information over the games we anticipate that we expect them to change our lives, but they don’t, because they’re games; they’re not life-threatening situations, they’re not finding our one true love, they’re not witnessing the birth of our children… they’re games. My pick reaches a little further back then contemporary saturated media, back to a time when print was at the forefront of information. The game I think deserves a remake is Blade Runner for the PC.
It’s quite a task to commit one of the most influential sci-fi films of all time to the interactive medium of gaming. There are so many layers open for interpretation that Westwood Studios must have been soiling their collective underpant with potential ideas. The result of this was a game that matched the film’s kinetic, hypnotic visuals. It also nailed the brilliantly artificial, occasionally hollow sounding music and sound effects. There were, however, elements of this game that were lacking. As a gamer looking back you can’t help but feel that with our current crop of systems, we truly have the technology to justify the struggle of the protagonist; where McCoy followed a very linear, point-to-point path in 1997, come 2008, and with the likes of Indigo Prophecy and Mass Effect as a reference, we can now take control of the Blade Runner story. I would love to play a game where my actions as a player, however insignifcant, uncover little artifacts of truth. Do I pursue the notion that McCoy is a replicant, and make some sort of effort to find the truth? Do I try to maintain my own humanity? Do I choose to have a relationship with Rachael, or am I turned away by the truth about her, and how does either option effect me? As an intrinsically beautiful story of an age where we struggle to come to terms with ourselves, let alone the beings walking the streets, Blade Runner is a cinematic classic, and by all means deserves to be an iconic game. The original was a very accomplished effort, for its time. We’re now in an age where we can elaborate, and the story behind Blade Runner is one that needs to be explored.
Participants: Lou Chou Loves You: Blade Runner, Zath!: Sid Meier’s Re-Colonization XboxOZ360: Eternal Darkness, Silvercublogger: Mario Paint, Unfettered Blather: Mech my day, Save in Progress: Earthworm Jim, MasterKitty’s Weblog: Zelda: A Link to the Past, Game Couch: Tass Times in Tone Town, Crazy Kinux: The modern re-make of a game
