The HD age dawned three years ago in the video game world and brought novel gaming concepts, breathtaking graphics and crystal clear sound. Video games had never seemed closer to reality. And then something happened: the technological prowess of the consoles was also harnessed to revive ancient classics of video gaming. That means that today’s Xbox, Playstation and Wii aren’t just showing off the latest in visual fireworks, but now also have been put to work on long-lost, but well-loved classic titles as well.
That includes a new iteration of the Prince of Persia game, designed to return the series to its roots. It’s been almost 20 years since the prince first stumbled his way through dank dungeons to rescue his beloved princess.
“In terms of the core gaming concept, nothing has changed to date. It’s still about rescuing women and getting through levels using acrobatic tricks,” said Jan-Erik Sjovall, an animation artist working Ubisoft’s Montreal offices.
Want to see if differences from the original Prince of Persia game are really just marginal? No need to dust off your old computer and floppy disks. Microsoft’s online Xbox shop offers a glimpse.
“Xbox live provides a graphically spruced-up version of the original game from 1989. It really is still as much fun as it was back then in front of the PC,” video game journalist Christoph Adrian said from Berlin.
The online shop system integrated into the Xbox 360 is a good source for classic games. Adrian cites the August release of Bionic Commando as a “perfect implementation” of a game originally published in 1988. With 130,000 units sold, it has been a tremendous success for its publisher, Capcom. The high sales seem to involve more than just a wave of nostalgia.
“Even 20 years out, Bionic Commando is still a damned good game,” Adrian said.
Old games in new clothes are particularly common on the Nintendo DS. Gaming masterpieces such as the arcade classic Metal Slug or the Final Fantasy series have been finding their way out of the archives and into the hands of the console players. Some titles, including Final Fantasy IV or Sim City, certainly benefit from the specific input options for the Nintendo DS, namely the touchscreen and stylus.
Sarah Giblin does not play modern video games.
She nevertheless is a big fan of the old arcade-style video classics: “Naturally I don’t have space for hundreds of arcade games in my apartment,” the 23-year-old singer says of her unusual hobby.
One alternative is collecting the individual circuit boards that formed the heart of those arcade games and inserting them into an arcade-game shell when they’re wanted.
Another opportunity to play old classics is MAME. It’s free software that lets fans play arcade games play on the PC, the Mac, or on cell phones. The MAME system has just one big disadvantage.
“It’s illegal to play arcade games downloaded from the Internet — unless you own the circuit boards,” said Giblin. Configuring the games on the PC is also no simple matter, even for a specialist like her.
“If you want to play a non-pirated classic, then look through some game collections,” she said. Original versions of Tetris and Pacman are available for the iPhone, for example.
Yet not every reanimated video game from the old days is good: “The ports can sometimes be anything but ideal,” says Christoph Adrian.
Games collections in particular are often of questionable quality.
“The companies often just try to repackage their old games as retro without making any changes,” Adrian said.
These loveless implementations can make for a nostalgic travel through memory lane to the early days of gaming, but the fun is often quite muted.
“We’ve gotten a bit spoiled after 30 years of video game history,” Adriad said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS