The 2007 Retro Remakes Awards
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Hello, lords, ladies and gentlemen - every year we sit down at Remakes Towers, pull up a chair and mutter between ourselves. It’s become a bit of a ritual to mull over whether or not we should actually do a “Best Of
However, this year - we figured “heck, why the ecky flump not?” and so, as decided entirely by a panel of one (myself) here’s a month by month guide to the best of 2007 in the world of Remakes. Well, the most notable, anyway. Ok, you got me - the one’s I think you should cast your eyes over if you haven’t already.
Are you strapped in tight and ready to go? Good, then read on…
January
Everybody likes Deathchase. If you don’t, I suggest you either look away now or just end it all for being completely wrong. The rest of your life will only be wasted and empty anyway.
I could write a million words on why Mervyn J Estcourts wonderful Spectrum piece of 16k brilliance should be played by everybody, but I fear that over the years I’ve said it all many, many times. All you really need to know is that Deathchase involves motorbikes, chasing other motorbikes and trees and it’s utterly superb break neck action. Nenads Deathchase UFO was the suprise entry into our calculator comp that made me moist between the legs. It’s black and white, it’s in tiny-o-vision, yet it’s still perfectly Deathchase. Ergo - it makes our list by default.
Honourable Mention: Hunchback (Mick Farrow)
From out of nowhere, Mick Farrow dropped into our forums and bedazzled us all with a wonderfully crafted take on the old Century Electronics arcade game. Heavily inspired by the cover artwork for the Ocean Software home conversions, Hunchback takes us back to the dawn of platforming challenges and invites us to tug on our bells in a manner ill befitting of a gentleman.
Still as playable as ever and definitely worth a few moments of your time.
February
Vectors Revenge (The Caffeine Kid)
What happens when you mix the Atari2600, a Vectrex and some serious drugs? Why, you end up with the worst attempt at a soup ever. But that’s by the by, because obviously I wasn’t really discussing food. No, I was discussing Vectors Revenge - our very own TCK’s take on the overly-conceptual-given-how-simple-it-is Atari2600 classic Yars Revenge. Made with the blessing of the venerable Howard Scott Warshaw himself, Vectors Revenge turns your eyeballs inside out and just like the original can be sickeningly addictive.
Comes in Windies, Mac and Linux flavours for extra special bonus points.
Honourable Mention: Munch Mates (The Codex)
The one man TI-99/A remaking machine that is The Codex chomped his way to remaking glory with a multi featured Pacman variant that not only looks the business, but provides a few alternate takes on the formula for those tired of the bogstandard pill munching.
Given how many Pacman inspired remakes that pass through our hallowed halls, it’s surprising how few do anything remotely different from the norm. Maybe it’s because people use it as a learning exercise or maybe it’s because Namco have it all sewn up - to tell the truth, we don’t really care as long as every now and then something like Munch Mates comes our way.
March
Echoes (Binary Zoo)
Echoes caused a bit of kerfuffle upon its unleashing to the world with opinion strongly divided between those who thought it a bit of a cacky Asteroids clone in fancy pants and those who thought it was genius in a tin. Me? I’m caught somewhere in the middle - it’s alright but I wouldn’t wet myself over it. But… I would recommend that everyone takes a gander at it if you haven’t already because it’s definitely worth a play and those PC owners who look on at 360 achievement whores with jealousy get to play catch up with Binary Zoo’s “Zoots” system. They’re like achievements, but Zoots.
Anything that brings to mind saxophone playing Muppets is worth your time, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Honourable Mention: Brainstorm Redux (Gordon King)
Pete Cookes back catalogue is a strange one, a mixture of innovative, creative and the derivative. The one thing they all had in common was their very distinctive style. From Tau Ceti to Zolyx, you could tell a Pete Cooke game a mile away. Brainstorm is a curious little puzzler that invites you to move 3 lines around to trap your ball over the correct coloured squares to clear a level and garner high scoreage.
Gordon King originally released this remake a while back, but rereleased it with a lick of paint and some fine new music providing a huge improvement over both the original game and his own previous release.
April
Millenipede (Firestorm Productions)
Showing Atari up at their own game, Firestorm productions took the cunningly titled quasi-sequel to Centipede known as Millipede and updated it for the new millenium. And called it Dave. No, sorry - Millenipede. I always get those two confused.
Lovely looking pixels, frantic blasing and lots and lots and lots of mushrooms make this a surefire hit with hippies and all the family alike.
Honourable Mention: Greenie: The Helicopter Hero (Jayenkai)
Activision’s H.E.R.O. has seen many a remake in it’s time, somewhere around sixty seven provided by Smila alone (or so rumour has it) but none quite so unique looking as Jayenkai’s Greenie. The slightly warped, but none the less purdy graphics in the game set this aside from the crowd. It helps that it’s darn playable too.
May
How do you improve on Eugene Jarvis wonderful piece of game design that is Robotron? Well, the simple answer is - that unless you’re deluded, you don’t. Instead - what you do is attempt to make the most authentic PC version that you possibly can, sheeny shiny polish it until it’s as shiny as a shiny thing that’s so shiny it shines, spend every waking hour tweaking the playability to perfection then for bonus points, add in online high scores so that everyone can compete with each other.
You want more? Hah, you don’t need more. This is the daddy of all Robotron remakes right here and well deserved of its place in this years list.
Honourable Mention: Tanks Online (Bankie)
For a short while it looked like Mass Multiplayer Online Remakes were going to be the phase that swept the nation. Very little came of a lot of the other promised online remakes unfortunately, but one that did see fantastic progress over the course of the year was Bankie’s Tanks Online. An essential game for anyone who spent hours huddled over their paddles attempting to shoot over their friends in the Atari 2600 classic Combat.
Talking of which, an online version of Combat would be pretty darn lovely if someone wants to take up the challenge. Don’t just sit there, get to it.
Alright, alright - so it’s not strictly a remake as the game didn’t exist outside of feverish comedy minds in the series Look Around You, but if it did exist then this would be the perfect remake of it. Minion not only managed to get the look down pat and perfect, but managed to make me do a double, triple and quadruple take to ensure that I was playing a new game and not an actual BBC B title with Space Cabbage.
For the sequel I demand to know who would win in a fight, the Space Giraffe or the Space Cabbage. I must know. People, make it so.
Honourable Mention: Android 1 (Devlin)
The runt of the Costa Panayi litter finally received a faithful remake thanks to Devlin of Devlsoft, Devltown, Devlworld, Devluniverse. It may not be TLL or Highway Encounter, it may not even come close to the beauty of Android 2 - but it deserved a decent remake all the same. Crossing Berserk with Breakout may not have been the best idea in the known universe, but if you take it for what it is, a simple piece of fun from a coders early career then there’s plenty of joy to be found in both the original and this remake.
July
It’s a dirty job, but someone had to do it. Salvaging IO from the depths of nigh on unplayability was never going to be an easy task. A game loved by the Commodore hardcore set and those with the pattern memorisation skills of a MENSA skilled ninja and frustrating to the rest of the world - Smila threw himself into the shmup abyss and went mano et mano with Firebirds brutally difficult shooter, punched it in the gullet till it gave in then stood on its fetid remains whilst beating his chest. A bit like Conan with a beard, only more drunk. He may have fallen over only moments later in comedy prat fall style, but at least he left the fruits of his victory behind for us all to enjoy.
Honourable Mention: Cauldron (DevilMarkus)
There really aren’t enough games based around witches. I don’t mean that sort of emo-witch Charmed/Buffy sort of witch, proper hags. Nora Batty on a broomstick casting spells kind of witches. And whilst a Granny’s Garden remake is seriously out of bounds, we’ll have to make do with the next best thing. DevilMarkus take on Cauldron is an authentic (read “just as blimming difficult as the original”) version of a game long, long overdue for the remaking treatment.
And it’s great. So there.
August
Joe Gunn (Endurion)
One of the most wonderful things to come out of our forum this past 12 months comes courtesy of Endurion and a whole fist full of helpers - everyones favourite remakey folks Paul Pridham, Smila and Codex and probably some other people (who I forget now due to being more forgetful than a goldfish with alzhiemers) chucked their oar in to make this possible. Alright, it’s not a remake, it’s fresh, brown and old. But it’s a new C64 game that’s actually really fucking good. Top banana’s all round.
Honourable Mention: Phoenix (Minion)
Retro Remakes very own King Of Arcade Classics adds another notch to his belt and knocks another Work In Progress off the shelf. Phoenix is adrenaline fuelled twitch arcade shooting and quite simply the best version of the game since Pheenix on the humble Speccy. I’d praise it more, but Min’s head would probably inflate - so lets just say that you should go and download it and get some damn fine old school arcade kicks.
September
It was love at first sight. No really, it was. From the second the teaser screenshot appeared on the RR forums I just knew that no matter what, Karate Champ would be something a bit special. If ever I got down in the dumps, miserable and depressed then 20 seconds looking at the teaser screenshot of Karate Champ would cure it. It made me, and still makes me, smile. It’s not often you see something that you think “my lord, Nurse Ratchet would have a field day with this” but lo, that was the case here.
When the game landed, it didn’t disappoint. Featuring the best expressions in a game since Rockfistus genius piece of work, VanDamnation.
Honourable Mention: Polybius
I’d tell you more about Polybius, but I fear the MIB will come and take me away. Download this at your own risk.
October
There’s no competition here, really. In the month when a Starquake remake finally got released after many failed attempts over the years by different parties, there was no way on Earth anything else could possibly walk away with the coveted Best Remake Of October award. Evert Van Oostens take on the game may have been awfully familiar looking due to featuring graphics that bear more than a passing resemblance to the originals, but it matters not a jot. Someone finally broke the curse. Starquake has been remade, and I’ve heard a rumour that The Goring and Richard “Zubbity” Jordan have another in the pipeline. Because it’s not the true world of remakes without at least 42 Starquake remakes on the go.
Honourable Mention: ASS (Sokurah)
A remake, with Dave Perry in. Sold.
November
The hardest month to choose with two big hitters coming to the fore, each with their own supermegamassivehuge remake production. In one corner, The Ovine Boys and Smila playing the Exile blues with their now hilariously nameless The Nameless (was the subtitle a vision of the future?) and in the other, Mr Goring throwing his green balls around for all to see. In this game though, we can only choose one - and Wizball it has to be by virtue of actually being a remake and not a semi sequel/tribute/homage thingy.
Over a month on and I’m still clearing up the mess left by the C64 owners in the Remakes Towers communal toilets. Never again.
Honourable Mention: The Nameless (Ovine)
Honestly, I promise I’ll stop finding the fact that the previously known as Exile II: The Nameless is now known as The Nameless funny one day. I will. Ok, perhaps not - but whilst The Nameless may have caused more than its fair share of controversy in 2007, you can’t take away from the fact that just by existing and being the only true (spiritual) successor to Exile it deserves a place in the remakes of the year list.
A massive sprawling space saga with the best title music of the year bar none. (What?) I imagine there’s few who haven’t tried it out yet, but if you’ve been waiting for the moment to give it a gander - then why not make that moment now.
December
Cybernoid 3: Phoenix (Darkside)
Up from the depths, 30 storeys high, breathing fire, spaceship in the sky. It’s Darksidezuki, tumbling around and whacking his head into buildings to create remakes just for you. After a fair old break from the remaking game - Darkside came back and surprised us all with probably his best work since Jetpac. And we yayed, and we woo’d and we whee whee whee’d all the way home like happy bunnies. Then we got killed because we forgot the gun turret was in the corner. Never mind, we’re off to try again as soon as we’ve been resurrected.
How long is it to Easter again?
Honourable Mention: Rip Off (Sokurah)
Curiously, given it’s been my job to put this list together, we’ve been awfully shy of vector based games. So I guess it’s only fair that we should end on one or I’d fear I’ve not done my duty correctly. Sokurah’s remakes are hit and miss for me at times, very much on the extreme end of the scale either way. Sir Lancelot was fantastic, Spikey Harold not - and of course, it’s down to the choice of source material more than a slight on Mr Soks skills. With Rip Off, I’m happy to say - the source is strong in this one.
Like his previous vector based remake, Omega Race - Rip Off comes from the dawn of time itself, nicely reflected in its bare bones gameplay. Rip Off exists as a testament to not needing one million flashy particles or five million rooms to explore in order to create a good game. It’s beauty is in its purity, retained here in every last drip for the remake.
And so, that brings us to the biggy. The end of 2007 Best Remake Of The Year. And truth be told, we couldn’t pick one. So, people and readers of Retro Remakes - the big winner of the 2007 Best Remake Of The Year award is Nascar 08 whatever you want it to be.
What was your favourite remake of the year? What have I neglected to mention that you *really* adored? We want to know. And if you’re all very nice, we’ll give a special forum award to the remaker or remaking team that won. Approximate cash value: $0. Approximate Peer Value: Priceless.
Tell us up in the comments section and let the love flow.
Speak your brains
11 Responses to “The 2007 Retro Remakes Awards”
Feel free to comment. We support Gravatars.
Nifty, now that’s a top ten^H^H^Htwelve that’s worth to be passed around. ;)
A most entertaining read :o)
cracking read and a bloody good idea.
nice 1 bob.
Excellant read, brilliant screenshots. keep up the good work :)
Smila, I love all your remakes, dude. Starting with the Delta remake, from my favorite C64 title - Delta Patrol. Dude, you ROCK !!!
Ricardo Ramirez - New York City
Great read, well put together - most entertaining :)
And thanks for the April mention for Millenipede, I’ll give you the fiver later! :P
Thanks a lot - I never remember to keep informed on this stuff, and this is a great list.
Nice roundup for the year. Cheers for the Mechatron inclusion as well!
A real FUN to read the article, loved it.
Nice work!
Cheers Bob, the cheque’s in the post, k? ;-)
Enough for a kitkat and pastie as usual? :D