Masterpiece Theatre?

August 28, 2004 11:33 AM

Sometimes beautiful games just get screwed in the sequels... But thanks to obsessive fans, it doesn't have to be that way anymore!
D1X and D2X are OpenGL/SDL updates of (in my opinion) the best first-person-shooters of all time.
Xenocide, still in progress, and UFO2000 are overhauls of the classic X-COM, UFO Defense.
And finally, Anacreon Reconstructed is a graphical update of Anacreon: Reconstruction, an amazing old ASCII game about inter-galactic empire building.
Know any other good Indie overhauls of classic games?
posted by kaibutsu (19 comments total)

Falcon's Eye is a pretty adaptation of nethack.

(usual disclaimers apply. Don't play if you're easily addicted to games and have anything else to do with the next 6 months of your life.)
posted by weston at 12:57 PM on August 28, 2004

this doesn't count, does it?
posted by bob sarabia at 1:03 PM on August 28, 2004

There's always QuakeForge and Open Quartz to satisfy your Quake needs. There are a few updates of Wolfenstein as well.
posted by darksquirrel at 1:28 PM on August 28, 2004

There's the Marathon: Aleph One project.

Somehow I missed the D1X project, can't wait!
posted by mwhybark at 2:41 PM on August 28, 2004

The Ur-Quan Masters.
posted by linux at 4:28 PM on August 28, 2004

Hm, those D2X deb files are two years old. Anyone have experience with building that from source in sarge?
posted by bingo at 6:25 PM on August 28, 2004

Never downloaded or played it, but I think NPR Quake is pretty damn cool.
posted by undecided at 8:33 PM on August 28, 2004

I feel cheated.
I followed undecided's link expecting to be able to play as Ira Flatow. During my adventures I might get to meet and talk to Sylvia Poggioli or Nina Totenberg. Now that would be a game.
posted by Octaviuz at 8:57 PM on August 28, 2004

(Of course, my secret objective in posting this was to get people interested enough in D2X to fix the bugs I want to get around...)
posted by kaibutsu at 12:21 AM on August 29, 2004

Here's a repository of retro remakes.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:28 AM on August 29, 2004

Exult makes Ultima 7 into something playable, and xu4 makes a damn fine Ultima IV with some of the more popular scaling filters.

Scorched3D is arguably the most badasstacular of the swarm of Scorched Earth remakes.

Everyone loves GLtron, right?

Shoot Things is actually a completely new game, but with bigtime classic gaming roots. The boss is an Asteroids ship. It's a small game but makes up for it by being really fucking hard.

There are more Space Invaders, Pong, and Arkanoid remakes in the world than there are grains of sand.

Strictly speaking, Colossus isn't a remake of a classic video game, but it's a remake (with networked multiplayer) of the classic board game Titan. Similarly, there's a Java version of networked multiplayer Scotland Yard out there somewhere, but you have to build browser applets and stuff to make it go, and even then I found it too buggy to play.
posted by majick at 7:55 AM on August 29, 2004

Wowzers, what a great thread. I've been playing The Ur-Quan Masters all day.
posted by chrid at 11:02 AM on August 29, 2004

The game that's been eating my time for the last couple days is a game called Transcendence by the same guy doing Anacreon Reconsctructed. Imagine Nethack in space...
posted by kaibutsu at 12:11 PM on August 29, 2004

there's a Java version of networked multiplayer Scotland Yard out there somewhere

Happen to have a link? I wouldn't mind having a look to harvest some ideas, as one of my back-burner projects is a cross-platform networked Scotland Yard clone (wxPython).

Really need to finish that up and make a release. I have this issue with losing interest in software once it's 80% done.
posted by Galvatron at 7:55 PM on August 29, 2004

Hard Light Productions
Freespace portal - good site, alive community, mods, maps, campaigns, art, fiction, Freespace Source Code Project, lite version downloads
posted by firestorm at 9:45 PM on August 29, 2004

thanks kaibutsu. XCOM killed my weekend.
posted by Mitheral at 11:16 AM on August 30, 2004

This huge list of SHMUPS includes remakes and original versions of classic 2D vertical/horizontal scrolling shooters.

Among the best: Perfect Cherry Blossom, Tumiki Fighters, Parsec 47, Kamui, Warning Forever, rRootage, Rally Raid, Cho Ren Sha 64K
posted by straight at 10:42 PM on August 30, 2004

ARQuake
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 12:04 PM on August 31, 2004

I quite enjoyed Ur-Quan masters, but for some reason stopped playing. There is some very funny in game script. And that X-COM is coming down right now.
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 8:55 AM on September 1, 2004