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Mythos website and open beta

IndieCade 2010 - list of finalists

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Review (MyGaming)

Mythos : Frogster Launches Site (eu beta reg open)

After passing the bouncer at the entrance you meander casually into the disco. Spotting an attractive young woman sitting alone at a nearby table, you sidle up and boldly SIT down. She doesn’t respond. You LOOK AT HER. Still nothing. You LOOK AT HER again.

Silence.

Mustering up the courage to TALK TO HER, you introduce yourself. She does the same: Her name is Fawn. Awkward silence looms again, so you quickly STAND and proceed to DANCE for a few moments. Fawn seems to enjoy it. You’re totally in there.

Not wanting to lose the momentum that such bold actions are clearly perpetuating, you SIT again and LOOK AT FAWN. Before she has a chance to speak you put yourself out there and GIVE HER CANDY. And, being the confident gent that you are, you forego any further hesitation and GIVE HER a RING, a ROSE, and for some unknown reason, a handful of MONEY.

Remarkably, this sequence of gifts is all Fawn needs to know that you’re the man she’s meant to be with. Moments later you find yourself in the Quiki Wed Chapel, where you and darling Fawn GET MARRIED in a short but meaningful ceremony.

Wow. In hindsight, it’s a good thing you bought those CONDOMS.

Apart from bearing a remarkable resemblance to what happened to me at a questionable establishment this last weekend, this story should be instantly recognizable to the seasoned gamers here as part of the inaugural saga of Leisure Suit Larry. This old type-‘em-up adventure classic is one of several such chunks of nostalgia that are up for being remade for today’s generation of players. What I can’t decide though, is whether or not bringing our dirty old friend Larry back into the 21st century is really a very good idea.

But let’s look at this whole resurrection mentality from each of the three sides of the equation. (Yes, I think I just invented the three-sided equation. Creative licence.)

My own point of view as an old skool gamer is somewhat ambivalent. I often yearn for the simpler days when Gummi Bears were still on the box, petrol was 14c a litre, and games actually had decent stories and characters that, ironically, were remarkably more dimensional in their blocky 2D states than any of today’s 12,000-polygon drones. And the mere thought of seeing my favourites like Prince of Persia and DOTT breaking free from their previous hardware limitations and becoming even more spectacular than I recall from my murky recollections just makes my joystick tingle.

However, like the children at a birthday party with a creepy clown who makes suggestively shaped balloon animals and forces kids to sit on his lap more often than is appropriate, these memories are probably better left untouched. Sure, you can dig them up again in either a desperate attempt to recapture your squandered youth or just use them as a window to a happy past, but there’s no way you’ll appreciate them the same way you did when times were simpler and, let’s face it, a lot more fun.

When it comes to new-age gamers though, there’s something to be said for some good old fashioned education. These days, engrossing storytelling and expertly weaved plots are brushed aside by razor-sharp graphics and cinema-quality special effects, so perhaps a dose of retro is needed to remind the youth that there’s more to games than a Blu-Ray stuffed full of texture detail and extras that alone are a thousand times the size of the entire Police Quest series.

Conversely, this plan could fail miserably if bringing back these relics from the dead is seen as somewhat of a downgrade. Take Scott Campbell for instance, a British teen who agreed to swap his iPod for a Walkman for an entire week. His first comment after his ordeal was over was, “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”

Further eliminating any doubt that he is clearly a child of the 21st-century, Scott remarked, “That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.”

I weep for the youth of today. I really do.

But let’s also consider the perspective of the greedy, lazy, opportunistic game developers. Oops, did I say that out loud? Come one, guys, no one buys the whole “let’s bring the oldies back so our kids can enjoy them like we did” malarkey. It’s obvious that it’s way cheaper to revamp an old game than to pump millions into development from scratch; never mind that they can tug at the heartstrings of seasoned gamers and milk the nostalgia factor for all it’s worth.

Meh.

So which is the best way to go here? Well, since this is an opinion piece, here’s mine: I’m a video game purist, and I think it’s a bad idea to drag our precious memories back from their peaceful resting places.

Sure, hindsight is 20/20, and they could no doubt improve on the titles of yesteryear to make them even more spectacular than before, but I think there’s something inherently wrong with messing with pristine remnants of our childhoods and no doubt doing something potentially catastrophic to the space-time continuum. (Just look at Back to The Future. I rest my case.)

Tarryn van der Buyl, another resident MyGaming writer , will no doubt chide me for more “unwarranted animosity”, but I make no apologies for cash-hungry game giants wanting to tarnish the greats like Full Throttle and Space Quest just to turn a quick buck. Re-release the original on PSN if you must, oh insatiable corporate vampires, but don’t fix what, in my opinion, ain’t broken.

So, once more, developers, for the love of all that I hold near and dear: leave our memories in all their chunky, clunky, glory, and put some money into making something fresh for a change. Your forefathers did.

Oh, and please, if for nothing more than the memory of Duke himself, leave Duke Nukem Forever alone. You charlatans have already toyed with our emotions enough.

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