Best and worst remakes
Not necessarily of Speccy games. :)
For my taste, the best has to be Tomaz Kac's (sp?) remake of Head Over Heels; closely followed by Richard Jordan's Skool Daze: Klass of '99. Is it any coincidence that both of those are RetroSpec games? ;)
The worst I've come across is Peejay's Jumbly remake; despite the prettier pictures, it isn't a patch on the original (it hasn't got the fiendish wrapping puzzles or the "play this level again with higher target" feature), and it has two annoying bugs which aren't in the original; the music for each level can't be switched off until the picture is jumbled, and it doesn't stay switched-off either. :(
For my taste, the best has to be Tomaz Kac's (sp?) remake of Head Over Heels; closely followed by Richard Jordan's Skool Daze: Klass of '99. Is it any coincidence that both of those are RetroSpec games? ;)
The worst I've come across is Peejay's Jumbly remake; despite the prettier pictures, it isn't a patch on the original (it hasn't got the fiendish wrapping puzzles or the "play this level again with higher target" feature), and it has two annoying bugs which aren't in the original; the music for each level can't be switched off until the picture is jumbled, and it doesn't stay switched-off either. :(
Post edited by robert@fm on
I never make misteaks mistrakes misyales errurs — oh, sod it.
Comments
The Italian Job :(
Family Fortunes :)
Blankety Blank :)
The worst remakes tend to be ones from sites other than Retrospec. There are some poor platformers and stuff but I won't go naming them - partly because I don't want to offend the persons responsible for trying to capture the feel of the old games for a newer generation, and partly because they were so bad I've erased them from my hard disk and my mind.
I thought Martin Brownlow's unofficial conversion to the Atari ST was pretty good. It's got almost identical gameplay to the original, but improved graphics and a whole bunch of silly, but strangely appropriate, sound samples.
The problem with most other conversions is that they muck about too much with the game mechanics. People should realize that you can't improve on perfection. :)
There are also some superb remakes of Pyjamarama, Abu Simbel Profanation, Driller, Total Eclipse and Zub.
The best way to create a remake is to not mess with the original gameplay but simply update the graphics and sound only adding extra things if they enhance the game without unbalancing play. The remake of Head over Heels, excellent though it is, was rightly criticised for changing a few things.
Double Dragon eXtreme or DDX is a very good DD remake even though the hurricane kick is localised to a special button and you only have an attack and jump button. Even though this takes away from the DD1 experience a little it works surprisingly well, and it removes the not so favoured left and right attack from DDII. The game itself contains the DD1, DDII, and DD eXtreme, all with original, NES, and Arranged modes, although they all kind of look and play the same so I don't really know what the differences between the modes of play are. You can also choose 3 different ISMs for your character, one has the regular powermoves Headbutt, Elbow, and jumping back kick. The other has more kunio style powermoves like the lunging knee and dashing uppercut, and I can't remember what the otherone has move wise but it has the DDII animations for things like flying kicks and stuff.
You get a lot for your moneys worth, which is 0 magic beans, so you can't complain really :D
As for a worst remake, I don't like the version of Jumping jack that was made by a Maccum scumbag :D
The one where the main characters name is Skank McGeordie, typical underhanded Maccum behaviour that is :lol:
"Jumping Jack has style and wit,
'Tis pity the remake was rubbish." :D
misteaksmistrakesmisyaleserrurs— oh, sod it.Atic Atac (the one that contains the hidden room with the Spectrum, which I have yet to find.) :) Haven't played it much and not in ages though.
Necros.
There are three hidden rooms with Speccies, one for each character. ;)
misteaksmistrakesmisyaleserrurs— oh, sod it.A fan game called StreetFighter:One
Basically it's streetfighter one with all the characters selectable and super moves. It looks so good it can't be bad :D
Of course once I actually play it I may feel differently :D
Necros.
Tried playing as Joe, Mike, and Adon and couldn't even win a round.
Birdie however I beat the cack out of about 6 or 7 people then Lee beat me from one end of the screen to the next.
I may waste some time on this tonight since I'm off work.
However this time may be already taken by painting wood, Finishing my long overdue JSW Remake "The Man Who Sold the World", and playing GTA: San Andreas.
Is that what you kids are calling it nowadays? Hur, hur, hur.
Thing is, I dont have an ST, I know I could use an emulator I guess. But Ive not dabbled in ST emus much.
Got a link for his chaos?
I said this to someone last week when I mentioned painting wood, if I was referring to wanking I would just say it :D
Necros.
Oooh, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? Of course, you are entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to defend myself.
I agree that Jumbly is not one of my better offerings, as it was rushed out to meet a competition deadline. It was also written 5 years ago (a lifetime in coding circles) while I was still pretty new to Blitz and what could and couldn't be achieved. Indeed, I have considered revisiting the Jumbly remake and smartening it up a bit, but just never got round to it.
Isn't it funny how what some people consider a "feature", I consider a flaw? I always thought the idea of being able to replay a level but with a higher target just made the game easier (and this was not needed, as proven by the fact that at least 2 people have finished Jumbly PC - they have sent me the final code to prove it!) Similarly, I never thought the "wraparound" feature was fiendish - again, it made things easier, as this offered a new avenue on how you could jiggle the pieces around. That is why both of these were deliberately omitted.
I take on board your comments about the music, though - like I said, I was still feeling my way around, and was mistakenly under the impression that if someone wanted the music off completely (rather than just one particular tune) that they would just turn their speakers off (or down), and I concede that was a flaw.
It was always going to be an uphill struggle doing that game in a month, and indeed, Don Priestley himself was surprised I wanted to remake the game at all (I was in contact with him from doing Maziacs). Maybe one day I will get round to making Jumbly a bit better, or even get round to doing Jumbly 2 (something Don never did!) as I have had ideas on what I could do for that, but, in the meantime, all I can say is that if you really think Jumbly is the worst remake you've seen, you obviously haven't seen some of the other stuff I have churned out! :D
I've got Java installed but your site complains, saying I need to install it and refresh.
Any clue why that is?
Well, I was comparing your work to the exalted heights of Rich J and Tomaz Kac. Well, that's my excuse anyway. ;)
Well, you've obviously never looked into group theory. :p A horizontal wraparound reverses the parity of the puzzle, making it impossible to complete until another horizontal wrap is done -- that's what increases the difficulty of puzzles using wrap. (A vertical wrap conserves the parity.)
Indeed; my laptop is currently my only music player, and when I'm listening to some good tracks, I don't want interference from another program. Why Windows can't have some kind of mechanism for determining which progs are allowed to access the sound card at a given time, I don't know...
Which reminds me of that remake you did of that Speccy game written by a mate of yours; ISTR that you yourself admitted in the remake that it was crap (and thus faithful to the original!). :D
Anyway, it's good that you've found your way to WoS, and we're (largely) a friendly community here (when we're not flaming one another over religion, spelling pedantry, etc.)...
misteaksmistrakesmisyaleserrurs— oh, sod it.Er, no idea - the menu on my main page uses javascript, so assuming your browser isn't blocking it, it should all work (though I did hear a rumour at one point that Safari threw a wobbly on it, but this wasn't confirmed.) Be aware that there is a difference between having java installed, and having javascript enabled in your browser!
I know this is a bit of a cop out, but have you tried a different browser? (as the intricacies of java checking is not really my forte, then I can readily admit to it being a mystery to me.) At some point I do intend to revamp my site (as the old layout is getting rather jaded now) and stick to good old fashioned html
Ah, yes, Voyager! Oddly enough, I have been working (on and off - more off than on tbh) on Revenge of Blitz50, and have already written Voyager 2 for precisely that collection. I was going to take all my crap games (I've done a few now - and no, I'm not including Jumbly :D) and incorporate them into RoB50 so I could remove them from cluttering up the website (operation: springclean the crap!)
Actually, I doubt that anybody has finished Jumbly PC -- (1) that last level is just too bloody difficult, and (2) one gets given the secret code for completing the level, not for completing it within the target as is supposed to happen. It's always the same code, as well.
misteaksmistrakesmisyaleserrurs— oh, sod it.I tried it in that crappy old browser, which I forget easily what is called. I think it has something to do Micro$oft, and lo and behold it worked.
But not FireFox, oddly enough :-(