Have you ever felt left behind for a certain reason? If you are someone like me, you might have felt that way at some point in your life. After graduating high school and college, finding time to play games was difficult. The daily grind of work and school physically took up all my time. The video game industry can cause people to feel left behind as new consoles and exclusive games are released.
There is an influx of video game remasters over the recent years. Remasters essentially turn an outdated game into an upgraded version with better technical improvements. It can be easy to mistake the word remaster, remake, and reboot. This article will solely discuss remasters. Remasters are just not AAA titles, they also include independent and smaller downloadable titles.
Remasters are not a new phenomenon, they can be dated to the 1980’s. The older generation will remember Ultima and Pitfall 2 as examples of early remasters. Debates are ongoing concerning remasters and their legacy. Those that oppose remasters think that this is just a way for publishers to make consumers pay for the same game again. There is also a perception that developers lack originality in making new games and use remasters in filling the gaps of a release schedule. Original games do exist, consumers may not want to take that risk. Gamers should understand why video games are remastered. Remasters will continue to be released; we should embrace that these games are open to wide audiences where they can have a positive impact on games in the future.
Some believe that any video game console today should be manufactured with backwards compatibility. They believe some consoles will leave out backwards compatibility intentionally to allow these remasters showing minimum effort and maximum profit. Sony released the Playstation 3 at $600 with backwards compatibility and midway through its lifecycle, they dropped this feature. Phil Spencer was met with a standing ovation at E3 2015 when he announced backwards compatibility for the Xbox One. What does this mean for remastered versions of games? Remasters are eliminating the need for backwards compatibility altogether.
Those who are against remasters believe that these games were a product of their time and should not be open to the criticism of today. The older styles of gameplay may not adapt well to the updated graphics of current consoles. Metacritic is a way to look at the average score of critics and users of older games at the time they were played along with their remasters. The reviews of the remasters show that there is little change between the critic and user scores of the original and remastered game.
The largest difference between reviews was only three points from an 88 to an 85 for Ratchet And Clank for critic reviews on the Playstation 4. Looking at this from a score perspective, yeah there was a slight drop in score. However, the number of critic and user reviews both more than doubled with the remaster. This proves the point and additionally shows that remasters of video games allow more people to play and enjoy them without a drop in overall review score.
Remastered games are welcome to gamers of all ages. You shouldn’t be punished for never experiencing The Last Of Us because it was towards the end of the PS3 lifespan. You shouldn’t be forced to purchase an old console just to play an older game. Remasters are positive for that very reason. If you are new to gaming, constricted by the PS3 or Xbox 360, or just didn’t have the money to upgrade, remasters are something to consider. If you don’t like the idea of remastered video games, don’t buy them.
The selling point here is newer audiences will be introduced to older games. Statistics show that fans and newer gamers will purchase these remasters even with different opinions on them, meaning publishers will continue to look to remaster older classics. Doing this will also revive older franchises and its fans to see if they still have relevancy. The selling point here is to introduce newer gamers to these games. Remastered games give developers a chance to again look at older engines and fine tune mechanics and gameplay to even better develop games in the future. Always remember, cops don’t pull you over to tell you how good of a driver you are.
With any issue, there are always two different sides to consider and the negatives seem to stand out more. The evidence here supports that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to video game remasters. The video game industry is always evolving, and these remasters are one way to get more people to play.
