A Top 10 That Includes SkyNET? How Odd
We gots countdown articles comings out of our ears here, but I enjoyed Li Kuo's look at 'Top 10 PC Games We'd Like to See Remastered' over at GameSpy, because he delves into a few forgotten titles. (Actually, most of the countdown articles I've liked recently have been PC ones, for some strange reason - maybe because games get forgotten easier on PC?)
Anyhow, one intriguing title I'd forgotten about - Bethesda's Terminator-licensed SkyNET: "SkyNET's multiplayer mode had vehicles and vast outdoor areas as well as indoor close-quarters combat six years before Battlefield 1942 showed up. What I really liked about it was that in multiplayer mode you could play as a Terminator... how cool is that? I'd love to see what this game would look like with a nice graphics update and some touches to incorporate modern gameplay elements beyond its initial deathmatch and team deathmatch offering."
Also, and this is a great pick that might genuinely do well as a remake, I think - Wasteland: "I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, and Wasteland is considered by many to be the grand-daddy of them all. This role-playing game inspired the likes of Fallout and was developed by Interplay back in the late 1980s. It's not much to look at now, but the storyline had you and your band of buddies exploring the wasteland left after a nuclear third world war. The storyline was fantastic, featuring great characters and an array of crazy mutants and plenty of weaponry with which to deal with them."
Comments
To be fair, the upcoming Fallout 3 could be considered a modern cover of Wasteland.
Posted by: cliff | June 12, 2007 12:25 PM
But wasn't Fallout practically a remake of Wasteland. All you'll have to do is reskin some logos in Fallout 3 and you'll have your modern remake right there.
Posted by: whitebrice | June 12, 2007 5:35 PM
Anyone who has played the original Wasteland would know Fallout series is very different in a large number of aspects, even if they both feature a world in ruins after a nuclear war. Fallout 3 is diverging from that series as well, so it's already a number of degrees of seperation.
Posted by: Aaron | June 12, 2007 11:42 PM
Forget a modern graphics update of SkyNET. I'd be elated to see a straight, wi-fi enabled DS conversion done.
Posted by: Wrestlevania | June 13, 2007 1:20 AM
I think that the #1 on the list, Star Control II, was a little odd pick since a remake already exists by the name of Ur-Quan Masters (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/)
Posted by: Arto | June 13, 2007 1:30 AM
All Bethesda's Terminator games were great, especially Future Shock and SkyNET (which was sort of a stand-alone expansion to Future Shock anyway). So ahead of their time, too bad they're mostly forgotten by now.
Posted by: insane_cobra | June 13, 2007 5:33 AM
SkyNET!!!! I actually worked on that game 10 years ago, and I can attest, it was truly an amazing game. I remember securing the cover story, and working on the wicked cool box art, and enjoying gameplay that was downright fun in multiplayer. What was cool was that you could play as Terminators or as a human. Terminators were more powerful, but humans had tracking systems and a remote control rocket launcher, so the game played xtremely differently on both sides. The maps were massive, and included the ability to run indoors as well as outdoors. You could also hijack planes and jeeps. This game introduced so many things now standard in FPS. A bit of interesting trivia - The Terminator series introduced the now standard "Mouse Look" feature found in all FPS today. People often mistake Quake as being the first. Nice to remember this game. It was picked by CGW back then as one of 10 best action games of all time too! Thanks for the memories.
Posted by: JohnMasterLee | June 15, 2007 2:21 PM