Molyneux Talks Reviving Classic Games

Gamespot has a few words with Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, who looks back on some of the great games of the past in the days before the Leipzig Conference, where he is slated to give a keynote. Along with some commentary on modern gaming, Molyneux discusses a wish to reimagine titles like Populous, Dungeon Keeper, and Syndicate. Great ideas ... if he ever gets the chance to make them come true.

If Molyneux remade these games what would we get?

[kinglink]

Ok Molyneux's two biggest games are Black and White, and Fable. And what happened to each of them? You hear all the hype that goes on for years and years and then you get the game and it's half as cool as it says. "oh you can get scars and stuff and it'll carry through to life. It's not even scripted" Except in the final game it's scripted.

"Oh you're monster will learn from everything" except you have no idea what it learns, you have to wait til Black and White 2 for that. Hell in Black and White if you don't pay attention to the monster 24 hours a day you will never know what is going on or what it might be doing.

I do give Molyneux kudos because he does take big games and attempt amazing things, and doesn't fall flat on his face like Romero, but at the same time he does fall on his ass quite often. He does do the hype to the extent that Will Wright has done, but at the same time Wright delivers on most of his promises or at least admits when he can't do something before a game comes out, not after, or in the final hours.

On the other hand one thing that these games had going for it was lack of graphics and amazingly complex gameplay that made fans cheer, unfortunatly most of the industry seem to focus so much on the gameplay (because the fans crave it and crap on any game that's not perfect) that we see nothing that has the depth or complexity of even games like Deus Ex. I don't know if I want to see Lionhead look into classic games, it might just turn into an abomination.

Re:If Molyneux remade these games what would we ge

[Dasaan]

Um, Molyneux has more than just B&W and Fable to his name. In fact before Lionhead Studios he worked at Bullfrog on the very games mentioned in the article that he would now like to remake. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Molyneux#Games [wikipedia.org] for a more complete list of the games he has worked on.

Re:Remakes in General would do well

[booch]

There's a company called Twilight Games [twilightgames.com] that has written a couple re-makes, as well as some that are similar to old classics. My favorite is Space Taxi 2 [twilightgames.com]. Many of the levels are very close to the original, with better graphics. Other levels are new, but in a similar spirit.