A selection of titles from the EA Games back catalogue could be in line for a retro revival, the company’s president says at GamesCon 2011.
Motorbike street-racing classic Road Rash, which was originally released in 1991, was used as a main reference point, as EA President Frank Gibeau spoke of bringing back a few of those beloved games from yesteryear and refreshing playtime on the new-age of gaming gadgetry.
“We do have a couple of old franchises that we’re looking at right now…reimagining them and bringing them back.” He says, adding “But when we look at Road Rash…we can’t just put them on new tech with the same gameplay from ten years ago, we’ve got to have something new. That’s the typical challenge that we have.”
Of course, as followers of tech we know how things must change. But we’ll always have a fondness and a pang of nostalgia for the “rad” graphics of the early 90s, when 16-bit was a mind-blowing breakthrough in gaming. It would be interesting to see how a new version of Road Rash would play out, in a gaming world dominated by road-based crime titles such as Grand Theft Auto.
In keeping up, this reboot would, of course, need to involve an increase in violence and destruction – seemingly the key to a games success on 21st century platforms like Xbox 360 and PS3. Although many of us alumni of the “old school” of gaming can always hope that EA continues its mobile push and delivers some of that much-missed classic play in the form of apps for Android and iPhone.
Other titles raised in the conversation include the addictive 1992 ‘copter flight sim-shooter Desert Strike, as well as 1993 cyber-espionage game Syndicate.
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