Recently I discovered folks were posting “9 very important games to me.” I of course jumped at the opportunity to share my love of video games by posting my nine, which you can find on bluesky if you’re interested.
Trying to remember all the old games I’d loved led me down a rabbit hole of internet sites. I came across a GameSpot article from 1999 titled “Ten Games That Should Be Remade.” It was fun to look back in history and wonder what games folks thought were worthy of being revisited, especially so soon after the “golden age” had ended. Can you be nostalgic about an industry barely 20 years old? I suppose so.
Note: The current GameSpot site no longer seems to host this article, but the link above is from Wayback Machine, where old articles go to be archived. One day such resources will be gone and we’ll be the poorer for them.
So, after reviewing a quarter century old article, I can definitively say that many of these games have been remade. In spirit at least, if not with original names. I’m going to run down the list, and talk about the modern version of some old gems. Buckle up, kiddies, because we’re about to get nostalgic. I’ve linked the title of each section to the Wikipedia article on the game if you want to learn more.
A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985)
I haven’t the faintest recollection of this title. But, given it came from the brain of Steve Meretsky, who wrote games like Planetfall and Hitchhikers’ Guide for Infocom back in the day when text-based adventure games were the rage (and I loved them), I’m surprised I missed it. Those early text adventures were a key part of my growing love of video games. With aspects of a future dystopia (the then distant but now rapidly approaching 2031) and artificial intelligence which is used to test changes to society, it connects to our rapidly crashing capitalist hellscape in obvious ways.
The game play here is text based, but the game itself is an experiment in how changes affect a society. Each change leads to further societal collapse and you as the player get to see the results. Interesting, but ultimately not particularly deep. It’s probably no wonder this has never been remade, and I can’t really think of a successor for this setting or gameplay style. We’ve long since blown past text adventures. Chalk this one up as “still needs a remake” (or not).
Archon (1983)
Archon is a title I remember, and played a bit. This is essentially a version of battle chess, where the pieces fight each other instead of assuming the one making the move always wins. The pieces themselves are fantasy creatures. While you move your pieces on a field resembling a chess board, the battles take place in a separate arena space with some obstacles to make it more challenging. I had more trouble with the battles than the concept, which is why I never spent much time with it.
There have been several remakes. Archon II: Adept and Archon Ultra came out after the original, and had better sounds, better combat, and better graphics, although they didn’t do much more in terms of gameplay. But Archon Classic from 2010 is the spiritual successor of the game that expands upon the original and updates it to create a new modern classic. One good enough I may even revisit this title and see what a modern take looks like.
Doom (1993)
You weren’t a gamer in 1993 if you hadn’t heard of and/or played Doom. The second 3d shooter to hit the market (Return to Castle Wolfenstein by the same team preceded Doom by a year or two), it’s spawned a long line of clones and similar types of games, from Quake on down to Halo.
Doom has, by now, had numerous sequels. It’s even been remade more recently in 2016, and the remake absolutely captured the spirit of the original horror shooter while expanding upon it in a variety of ways. I’ve played every version of this franchise, starting with the original (the first – and one of the few – games to ever give me a real jump scare). I’ve even purchased the latest, Doom: Dark Ages. Have yet to play that one, but hopefully this summer.
Doom, out of all games on this old list, is the best represented, right down to having comic books, novel adaptations, and it’s own feature film, staring Karl Urban and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson no less. It’s also one that’s likely to go on getting new versions and sequels for as long as the combination of powerful weapons and scary demons makes for compelling, fast paced action.
Moebius (1985)
Moebius is another game I don’t remember. From the same company that brought us the fabulous Ultima series, as well as Wing Commander, it had a more niche appeal. This was an RPG with one-on-one combat steeped in Asian cultural markers that feel more like cultural appropriation these days.
There are plenty of modern games that might be considered a spiritual – and better cultural – successor to Moebius. Ghost of Tsushima might be the best of the bunch, which includes notably new titles like Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, and Rise of the Ronin, at least as far as reviews can tell one. This is not a gaming genre I spend as much time in these days. Skyrim broke me for the computer rpg gaming industry, and I await the next Elder Scrolls title. But I think Moebius has been well represented in modern games, unless you want Tekken style fight scenes in your RPG.
M.U.L.E. (1983)
A multiplayer turned based strategy game from 1983. Hoard resources and try to defeat your three opponents as you race to control a new world (or something like that; never played this one, but heard of it a lot). There’s elements of rising/falling prices for land, and different ways of allocating your pieces of land as you are granted them.
Honestly, this would be easy to remake, but hard to make exciting today. I’m pretty sure you can play the Civilization games as multiplayer, and that’s far more strategy than M.U.L.E. could ever provide you. So, let’s count this one as “remade way better by Sid Meiers, with a different title” and move on.
Pirates! (1987)
Aka, Sid Meier’s Pirates (not sure why the author of the original post left his name off since it’s part of the title). This Commodore 64 original title is also by Meier (see previous listing for his Civilization series). An action adventure roleplaying strategy game, it was wildly ambitious. Surprisingly, it mostly accomplished what it set out to do, too. Hence Sid Meier getting fame and fortune and becoming one of the great game designers during the golden age of PC gaming.
There have been plenty of attempts to recapture the spirit of Sid’s work (including a revamp of his own game in 2004). From the Secret of Monkey Island series, to Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, you can pick and choose your pirate adventure. Sea of Thieves is a modern multiplayer attempt to capture the same spirit. There’s a long list of them at this PC World article to help you with your selection. But I’m still waiting for the one that truly marries great RPG bones with immersive ship combat with a compelling (and randomized each time you play) singleplayer narrative.
Spy vs. Spy (1984)
I’ve read the Mad magazine comic, but never played the game. In the game, you apparently try to undertake missions and avoid the other spy. You have an arsenal of traps you can deploy to stop your opponent. They, in turn, can do the same. I’m not sure how this was setup to work as multiplayer, but that was apparently the depth of it. Split screen I suppose, if they were using consoles.
The game was actually remade in 2005 with new graphics and better gameplay… and it was a flop. A two person strategy game based on an old Mad Magazine cartoon is apparently not something the public was looking for. Only the author, who likely remembered this title fondly from their days of playing it and, thus, included it. Hey, I get it. I remember Populous, which was an awesome title at the time, but which I’m not sure would be worth remaking either.
Starflight (1987)
This game is what led me to the GameSpot article. One of the first games I fell in love with. Starflight was a surprisingly rich game for 1987 on computer (Commodore 64 at the time). Outfit your space ship with crew, even aliens, each with different stats. Journey to any of 800 different planets. Land, explore, mine minerals, return to station to sell and upgrade your ship. All while discovering the deeper plot line. This was Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off.
Star Trek Online exists, and I suppose that’s the real descendant of a game based on its lore. But I’ll throw No Man’s Sky out there for all of its many game play parts that match the original Starflight. Landing, mining, selling minerals. Discovering the deeper plots. Space battles. All it lacks is turning the freighter you can own into more of a starship with crew you recruit. It also needs more than three alien races. But No Man’s Sky gives me much of the same feeling as the original Starflight, which is perhaps why I loved it even at launch, when so many others felt betrayed by its failure to match its promises (which has long since been rectified).
Syndicate (1993)
Syndicate, an early real-time strategy game with a corporate dystopia feel, is a reminder of what happens to the real world when you ignore the warnings of stories set in the future. We don’t need a remake of a world where corporations control everything; we’re living it. Okay, so we don’t have all the artificial enhancements you can give you agents in the game. But close enough.
Still, if you feel you do need a spiritual successor, I give you Cyberpunk 2077. There. You happy now? Not quite the world wide scope of Syndicate, it at least captures that scary future while giving you a chance to rebel against it this time, not enable it.
UItima 1 (1981)
Ultima spawned an entire franchise of games. There are endless successors to that franchise as well. I submit this game, more than any other on the original list, has the broadest range of choices stemming from its roots. The tree of Ultima grew tall and broad, and shades a great deal of the RPG landscape. Rightfully so.
Honestly, though, it’s probably not worth remaking at this point. There’s nothing it does that modern rpg’s don’t already do, and better. And there are amazing, robust rpgs with extensive worlds and stories-upon-stories layered within them, like Baldur’s Gate 3 and the Elder Scrolls series of games.
Sometimes, it’s good to let the good things go and remember them fondly. They represent a moment in time, and revisit them can lead to worse results, spoiling our memories of the original.
Of course, now I want to do my own “list of games that should be remade today.” Maybe I will. I do need to post more often here, and I’m not writing enough right now to talk about that.