"Throwbacks"

[digitalpress]

Hey gang,
I'm writing an article on recent games (within the last three years) that play a lot like much older games (more than ten years). Some examples from this column include GameCube Space Raiders (plays like Space Invaders), Virtua Tennis (plays like Pong) and Wrath Unleashed (plays like Archon). I have a few others but I really don't want to be missing anything either.

We've had a similar discussion long ago but I can't find that either, so let's start anew!

What else would you put into this category?

[Jibbajaba]

Enter the Matirx. It plays like crap and crap is the first thing people probably played with back in the caveman days. You know like having crap-fights and stuff.

In all seriousness though,

Gran Turismo : Pole Position
Battlefield 1942, Ace Combat : Combat
City Crisis : Choplifter!

That's all I can think of and they probably are sucky examples.

Chris

[bargora]

Also, between Archon and Wrath Unleashed there was The Unholy War (1998 Playstation), which also played similarly to Archon. Not too surprising, since former Free Fall Associates member Paul Reiche III was the Lead Designer for The Unholy War (as advertised on the back of the disc). But that game's either too old or too new, I guess. Was Paul Reiche III involved with Wrath Unleashed?

It's easy to see the resemblence between Rez and Panzer Dragoon, but I think that both play a lot like Atari's 1983 Star Wars (arcade, vector graphics), with the addition of a multiple target lock-on system.

Star Wars: Starfighter really doesn't veer all that far from the gameplay in Star Wars: X-Wing (LucasArts, PC, 1992), I think.

Mobile Light Force (Playstation, 2003, XS Games)? Just more better River Raid.

The first Mechwarrior for PC has got to be 14 years old, and it bears a striking resemblence to Steel Battalion.

I mean, except for Archon, all of those comparisons are simply earlier and later examples of generally recognized genres. Rail shooter, Space Combat Flight Sim, shmup, Mech Shooter. Or at least, I think that they're generally recognized. Archon is more interesting, because I've never seen "chess-style strategy interspersed with third-person combat sequences game" as a genre in a review. Are you looking for those kinds of obscure microgenres that may have only a couple of related games in them? Or are you rather inventorying existing generally recognized genres (i.e., with recently released games) that have been around for a while, using specific examples?

[TheMaestro]

How about Ikaruga? Ikaruga has some parts that are directly out of older shooters like Space Invaders, Galaxian, etc.

[Cmosfm]

Super Monkey Ball (Gamecube) - Marble Madness (NES/Arcade)

Blowout (PS2) - Contra (NES)

GTA: Vice City (PS2) - Custer's Beat Em' And Eat Em' (2600) (I lie)

Really, I thought I could think of more, but that's about it. LOL

[Gamereviewgod]

Red Dead Revolver: Sunset Riders in 3-D, regardless of what RCM says.

Bouncer: Insert BEU here

Blowout is more like Metroid I thought.

[musical]

Fzero GX = Fzero SNES (obvious but true)

Red Alert = Populous

[classic gamer]

Populus = Utopia (Intellivision)

[Daria]

ICO = CastleQuest (Press a button to swipe your weapon, Castle exploration and a puzzle in every room. Other games include Solstice for the NES and it's sequal Equinox for the SNES.)

[SoulBlazer]

I would say Utopia is clearly obivious -- it's called 'Civ 0.5', after all! :D

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Never played it myself but isn't ninja-5-o sort of a mix between strider and shinobi?

I was surprised to find out that river city ransom ex played like river city ransom and that all the cpsII street fighter games played the same. -_-

[Crush Crawfish]

Here's what I came up with:

Ninja Five-O- Shinobi/Bionic Commando

Mega Man Network Transmission- Mega Man 1-8

N2O: Nitrous Oxide- Tempest

That's all I could come up with.

[MarioAllStar2600]

Blades Of steel = NHL hitz

Both games emphasized on the physical part of the game. Both also had fun and new fighting engines.

[Flack]

I was surprised to see how much the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game resembled the old arcade version from 15 years ago.

And really, can't all of those newer beat 'em ups (TMNT, Batman, Shinobi, etc) be traced back to earlier side-scrolling BEU's like Double Dragon?

[Jasoco]

Vexx is EXTREMELY similar to Super Mario 64, except a lot harder at the end. (Still haven't beaten the damn boss. He ain't no Bowser, I'll tell you that.)

And it's a stretch, but the Serious Sam games are closer to DOOM than most other FPS games. Straight-up shooting and that's that.