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Good and bad videogame comebacks.he return of beloved characters is hardly a new concept in popular culture, especially in these financially uncertain times -- it's safer to dust off and refurbish existing franchises than it is to throw some untested ideas out to the often unpredictable public. Last year, two of our long-lost childhood friends from the 1980s, the Transformers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both resurfaced on pop culture's landscape in shiny, newfangled CGI bodies, bringing with them brand-new products and expensive movie tickets to lighten up our oversized adult wallets. Were they as happy to see us (and our money) as we were to see them?
The sad truth is that most of these revivals are engineered to work their magic on the nostalgia centers of our brains, which, in turn, control our disposable income. However, even if these rehashes happen to be shameless cash-ins on forgotten legacies, at times it's just comforting to see an old friend back, in POG form.
But with most of the world astounded by the upcoming return of Street Fighter, once known as Capcom's bread and butter, it's clear that some of these revivals are appropriate, especially in the world of videogames. Sure, we've seen our share of tragic videogame characters inappropriately transplanted into a new decade, awkwardly donning an extra dimension and a grafted-on 'tude. But a good 50 percent of the time, attempts at this videogame redux have been successful. They might not have the most original content, but all is usually forgiven when these revivals build off of the elements of the originals while attempting feats that never could have been done with ancient technology. As long as the spirit of the predecessor is successfully transplanted into the appropriate form, reanimation is possible without creeping out gamers with a dead-eyed, soulless husk of a game.
In any discussion of videogame revivals, you have to take the good with the bad, if only for educational reasons. While it's important to celebrate the games that successfully capture the magic of their ancestors, it's equally important to witness the failed comebacks that should have honestly spent a few more years in rehab. The following games fall into one of those categories; and if you can't tell which, you haven't had your childhood ruined yet.
Ice Climber
If Super Smash Bros. Melee is a wonderfully overloaded collection of Nintendo history, Super Smash Bros. Brawl promises to be a veritable Caligulan orgy of Nintendo nostalgia. Like any retrospective, Brawl includes moments of history we'd rather not relive-is anyone in this day and age really clamoring to play Diddy Kong? And its predecessor's no different; Melee reintroduces us to Popo and Nana, a pair of Eskimos known as the Ice Climbers who had disappeared in the Arctic 15 years previous without much attention or even so much as a postcard. Sometimes, the past should stay buried.
OK, so maybe Ice Climber isn't nearly as bad as some of Nintendo's early questionable content, like Urban Champion (the Bad Street Brawler of its day), but it's about as remarkable as Clu Clu Land-and you don't see that game's nightmarish, toothy mascot haunting any fighting games, do you? The only way Nana and Popo's presence in Melee makes sense is if you consider the possibility that some old-timer at Nintendo called in a favor -- how else can you explain the gimmicky, conjoined nature of these two children who look like twin Kirbys thrown into infant-sized parkas?
Even though they appealed to no one and began their careers clubbing seals just to save anthropomorphized eggplants, the reaction to the Ice Climbers' appearance in Melee did not reach sufficient levels of outrage, so they're returning in Brawl. But instead of mourning their position in the game's roster over a character that could be far more interesting-like a Virtual Boy with a broken tripod-you can take revenge on these little hammer-wielding tykes by whaling on them with someone far larger-may we suggest Bowser?
Cold as ice: While Pit from Kid Icarus is a far more interesting character than the Climbers, the fact that Nintendo dredged him up from the Lake of the Past for Brawl can only mean that the misguided souls who haven't played his original game in 20 years will be clamoring for a new one. The silver lining is that Brawl's inclusion of Lucas from Mother 3 may just be the catalyst Nintendo needs to finally bring the long-awaited Earthbound sequel to its constantly betrayed fans.
Metroid
Upon reflection, it's almost criminal that more than eight years passed between the release of Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. Perhaps Nintendo was just asleep at the wheel during the N64 era. Or maybe they have a habit of not giving Samus Aran the respect she deserves; after all, it's been four years since the last traditional 2D Metroid. -- and we know Nintendo isn't shy about putting games on the DS. Nevertheless, Metroid Prime's first-person perspective, along with new-blood Retro Studios as developer, caused a lot of consumer anxiety during Nintendo's GameCube-era "make our fans unjustifiably angry" business plan. Surprisingly, after the release of Metroid Prime, the world didn't end, and it continues to spin to this day.
How did Retro turn the strictly 2D Metroid into a full-fledged 3D world? Contrary to how difficult it must have been, the transformation of the backtracking-intensive, ant-farmy Metroid landscape into a world explored purely in the first person seems completely effortless. While Samus' constant need to pause while shooting irked those expecting a run-and-gun dual-stick FPS, Retro was able to expand on the central tenets of Metroid as well as do the unthinkable in a first-person game -- provide accurate jumping. Spitting in the face of all the Turoks that came before it, Metroid Prime is a jumping-intensive game that's considerate enough to make vertical movement not grounds for justifiable homicide. Really, Metroid Prime does just about everything right, including the helpful move to the third-person perspective when Samus turns into a ball and does ball-like things that would be impossible to pull off if performed from any other angle.
The 3D Metroids may have lost a bit of steam in their second and third installments, but with Prime, Retro did the impossible and perfectly transplanted the addictive, exploratory gameplay of the original Metroid into a more complex world. Who would've guessed that a bunch of guys from Texas could do that?
Blue-eyed girl: Metroid Prime has an astounding amount of little touches, including the flash of Samus' eyes in her (your) visor if she wanders too close to an explosion or any other blinding source of light. This little gimmick caused an unhealthy amount of eye contact between Samus and gamers; and, if you keep in mind Samus' sexy, body-hugging Zero Suit in Metroid: Zero Mission, it's not hard to jump to the conclusion that Nintendo recognizes the original appeal of a game that rewards you for playing better by having the heroine appear in progressively scandalous states of undress.
Prince of Persia
If a nongamer watched someone play, oh, about 90 percent of the currently existing Tomb Raider games, they would assume that these games were made for sadists who enjoy watching beautiful women die from severe bone trauma caused by mistimed jumps -- and they'd be about half-right. Still, tomb raiding lost a lot of its charm the 10th time a leap that should have been mathematically perfect landed Lara in a pit of spikes and cougars. Cheating was always an option, but to do so would sully the good name of gaming-until a genius game designer named Jordan Mechner decided to make cheating an integrated part of the experience.
Technically, it wasn't cheating, but the titular Sands of Time in 2003's Prince of Persia of the same name greatly improve those escapist adventures in which you still need to keep gravity in mind. The Sands of Time make Prince of Persia forgiving but still challenging. While the ability to rewind to a safe, prejump precipice is a godsend, there are limits to the sand's power, and you still have to figure out how to get from point A to point B without dying horribly.
Admittedly, enemy encounters are not the game's strong suit, and they can be just as tedious as the original games' semirealistic swordfighting. But the forgiveness that Sands of Time offers makes exploring a rewarding experience rather than a counting game in which you add up the different ways the game has killed you -- and if you're interested in that kind of masochistic glee, the original is always available for download on Xbox Live.
Sands of Time eventually became a trilogy with yearly installments that didn't involve Mechner, but still, the quality of Sands of Time is remembered -- keep in mind that we live in a world where the abysmal 1999 Prince of Persia 3D exists. And Hollywood, always with its finger on the pulse of what's hot, plans on turning Sands of Time into a movie, albeit nearly five years too late. More good news: Uwe Boll won't direct it.
Let us never speak of it again: Some would say that the central mechanic in Sands of Time is partly inspired by Blinx: The Time Sweeper, but memories of such wretched characters are best left in that dark, nightmarish place of the brain where the mind hides images of that creepy female Ninja Turtle.
Maximo
Ah, Ghouls 'N Ghosts: mind-bendingly difficult Capcom platformer and cause of many juvenile aneurisms. This famous platforming series -- occasionally including the word "Goblins" in its title -- is best known for the broken controllers and shattered lives it left behind. Many tried to play it, but most walked away with a deep-seated feeling of shame and a new definition of the word "preposterous." As attractive as Capcom made their lance-chucking adventure appear, Ghouls 'N Ghosts never failed to leave behind a bitter aftertaste and the realization of a wasted life. That's probably why Capcom waited a whole decade to bring the series back.
In 2002, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory promised to deliver all of the action of its infamous predecessor; this is why most of us justifiably went into hiding around this time. Our fears weren't completely justified, though; while Maximo is hard, it certainly isn't Ghouls 'N Ghosts hard. Strangely, this seems to work against Maximo. Because its granddaddy is a well-oiled machine created with the express intent of hurting you, death was accepted with a kind of knowing fatalism and the occasional nervous breakdown. Maximo, which suffers from the same problems as any third-rate last-gen platformer, falls short of this kind of deviousness.
The intent is there as well as the homage and a whole lot of winking at the audience. But in the end, Maximo is just an aimless and at-times lifeless attempt to recapture the spirit (no pun intended) of the original games with a very last-last-gen Crash Bandicoot-esque design philosophy. To be fair, a 2003 sequel did fix a lot of the original's problems, but Maximo is still offensively nondescript in a world of great PS2 platformers that include Sly Cooper and Ratchet and Clank-characters that were unattached to any sense of nostalgia.
Go back from whence ye came: In what can only be an attempt at capturing the impish spirit of the original series, Maximo forces you to pay with in-game currency before you're allowed to save your game. Maximo just doesn't hate you; it also hates your free time.
Frogger
Frogger, a game that is literally as fun as crossing the street, is fondly remembered for some inexplicable reason. It could be because of that one Seinfeld episode, or perhaps Frogger's cartoon had something to do with it -- there's something very surreal about a traffic-negotiating game that's adapted into an episodic series about journalism. Whatever the case, Frogger's PlayStation revival was not nearly as obscene as the changes the amphibian would face later, because these original remakes actually improved on Frogger's original simplistic concept without going too far. Soon after these remakes, however, Frogger was put into clothes, and we all remembered why animals are more appealing when they aren't anthropomorphic.
Truly, Frogger went from being a regular frog and became a hellbeast -- and if you don't believe me, bear witness to the cover of Frogger: The Great Quest for the PS2. You see that T-shirt with the universal "No Trucks" symbol? That's the new Frogger's way of showing off his sass -- it's possible that his new handlers had no idea how to add a cocked eyebrow to a frog. Yes, as was the trend, Frogger moved from ubiquitous frog to full-on mascot character with a wardrobe straight out of the late Jim Varney's closet. Before anyone could say "Hey, Vern!" more Frogger games started appearing, each one more bewildering and vestier than the last. After all, Frogger never had character, and trying to give him such a generic personality so late in life is like remaking a 3D version of Circus Charlie that constantly loops Rob Zombie's "Dragula" in the background. And if you don't know who Circus Charlie is, let's just say that some bad stuff happened in the '80s and leave it at that.
Look before you leap: The original Frogger is available in more formats than the first Final Fantasy, so don't be surprised if it shows up on your microwave's console the next time you thaw some hot dogs.
Donkey Kong
If this article seems a little Nintendo-heavy, it's because the company is best known for its beloved stable of characters and the amount of times these characters carry their games. Donkey Kong, the figure that built the foundation of Nintendo's current Scrooge McDuck-sized money bin, is known to make the rounds in any game featuring a collection of Nintendo characters. But there was a time when the famous ape was chucked aside-and after the bizarre Donkey Kong 3, who can blame Nintendo for putting Donkey Kong in mothballs until he was appealing again?
Donkey Kong had not one but two revivals in 1994, each varying in fame and quality. The first, a Game Boy remake simply called Donkey Kong-perhaps to make cataloging games significantly more confusing-may in fact be the most perfect reimagining ever created. The game opens with the traditional Donkey Kong quartet of levels, but it soon expands into a puzzle-platformer that builds off the limited scope of the original Donkey Kong by giving Mario a set of skills nearly as complex as what we would see in Super Mario 64 two years later. You can fault Donkey Kong for being the game to launch the mostly inappropriate Super Game Boy, but that's the only real negative with this package of increasingly devious and impressively solid logic-based platforming levels (and over 100 at that). A decade later, Mario vs. Donkey Kong for the Game Boy Advance tried to capture some of the Game Boy Donkey Kong magic, but --while it certainly isn't bad -- it lacks the magic of its inspiration. And those off-putting prerendered graphics don't help, either.
Now that we're on the subject of off-putting prerendered graphics, there's never been a better time to introduce Donkey Kong Country, the other Donkey Kong game from 1994, and the one that's far more famous than its Game Boy brother. In retrospect, it's easy to say that Donkey Kong Country is mediocre now that we've all grown up and no longer live in the mid-'90s, when every videogame technology was compared to Jurassic Park and people actually got excited over full-motion video that looked like someone put a screen door smeared with Vaseline in front of a hand-held television set. There's a reason Rare has a poor public reputation these days, and their output was really no different back in the age when we were all naive enough to respect them. Sure, they managed to release a game that was legitimately good once in a while, but these titles were mostly impressive at the time of their release.Compare Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island to Donkey Kong Country: Sure, the latter is far more popular, but it now looks more and more like a tacky, mall-bought Thomas Kinkade painting in comparison to Yoshi's Island's Sistene Chapel. Perhaps that's a little too much hyperbole, but without famous characters and technical zing, emperor Rare is completely naked at this point-and we're not peeking.
Don't make me over: Rare's redesign of DK is perhaps the most tragic part of Donkey Kong Country's legacy since it became the permanent look of this once-lovable character. There's nothing appealing about beady little eyes surrounded by perpetual blackness.
Sonic the Hedgehog
Is there really anything left to say about Sonic the Hedgehog at this point? Once a legitimate contender to Nintendo's Mario, the blue rodent is a walking (well, running) joke and a symbol of Sega's folly. His adventures started with the roller-coaster thrills of rocketing through well-designed hills and valleys but soon turned into disquieting outings that featured a cast of thousands, sloppiness in mass quantities, and cross-species love. How did this happen-and more importantly-why should we care?
Strangely enough, a Sonic revival on the Saturn could have been one of the key titles that could have saved that system's bacon; the lack of any real Sonic game on Sega's 32-bit contender spelled doom for the system in a generation when Sonic was still relevant. Sure, we got Sonic 3-D Blast, a game that was neither in 3D nor a blast, and Sonic R, a conceptually moronic game that started the trend of incredibly embarrassing song lyrics in Sonic games. Outside of a few brief moments in the Sonic Jam collection, we had no traditional Sonic action during the mid- to late-'90s. It's no wonder that we were so taken by Sonic Adventure and its myriad of gameplay styles, from running really fast to controlling a morbidly obese and developmentally challenged fisherman -- any Sonic at that point was welcome.
Sonic's Dreamcast launch was a true rebirth of a character who hadn't had an outing in nearly five years. Yet despite a few flashes of brilliance, Sonic Adventure was the tipping point at which Sonic Team's priorities became bizarre and this once-talented group of developers really seemed to be phoning it in. How else can you explain the strange focus on Sonic's current cast of thousands and the general shoddy workmanship that's plagued the franchise since 1999? And when the recent Xbox 360 game claimed to be a true revival of the series, dropping any subtitles and merely going by "Sonic the Hedgehog," we all knew Sonic would find no salvation, even though it would have been so easy -- and intelligent -- for Sega to begin their face-saving campaign on our current generation of consoles. Those rosy memories of your games are fading faster than our VMU's batteries, Sega.
Hope springs portable: This decade, Sonic games have been best on portables and out of the hands of Sega, and this trend will certainly continue with BioWare's Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the DS. Can a developer famous for its rich, rewarding stories actually get you to care about the plot of a Sonic the Hedgehog game? We're actually a little scared to find out.
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