[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Retro Re-Releases
July 20th, 2015 by Benj Edwards
“100% Rendered Black Void” — I like the humor in this ad
In the mid-1990s, much to my delight, game publishers began remaking and re-releasing classic games of the 1970s and 1980s in collections on Mac, PC, and consoles. You remember — I’m talking about titles such as Microsoft Arcade (1993), Atari 2600 Action Pack (1995), the Namco Museum series (1995-1998), Arcade Classic No. 1: Asteroids / Missile Command (1995), Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits (1996). Even Super Mario All-Stars (1993) counts to some extent.
That happened to be around the same time I started collecting old video game and computer systems, roughly in 1993, so I was happy that the industry seemed to be rediscovering these “forgotten” classics.
The awkwardly titled Bubble Bubble Also Featuring Rainbow Islands falls into the same category, being a re-release of the arcade version of Bubble Bobble and its sequel Rainbow Islands on PlayStation 1 and MS-DOS.
Discussion Topic of the Week: In your opinion, what are some of the best executed game retro remakes and re-releases?
July 23rd, 2015 at 3:03 pm
My favourite arcade conversion would be included on Sega Ages Volume 1 on the Sega Saturn for the arcade perfect conversion of Space Harrier.
July 23rd, 2015 at 6:12 pm
Yeah, mid-90s was when the classic emulation scene started to come together. Some DOS emulators were able to get surprisingly good performance on my fairly weak 486 system. Williams Arcade Classics was the first commercial emulation software that I bought.
Favorite *remake* would be Jumpman Lives from Apogee, even though it was unauthorized and they were forced to stop distribution. That was probably the first game that made me realize classic games on modern hardware could be a thing.
July 26th, 2015 at 9:07 am
I discovered emulators when I was in college during the mid (19)90s. 😀
July 29th, 2015 at 12:54 am
I’m a sucker for these, most recently have been buying whatever hits the App Store, the activison classics was solid and is always there whenever I need my Pitfall 2 fix!