Classic Video Game Remake Odds

All gamers have a longing for their youth (which, best case scenario, ended about ten minutes ago).

Invariably, there’s a little voice inside each one that’s clamoring for the titles they cut their teeth on (or, rather, calloused their fingers on) and the simpler graphics that drew them to the screen in the first place.

Like movie studios, gaming companies know this and are prone to capitalizing (monetarily) on remakes of classics, with gameplay and graphics reminiscent of eras past.

It’s been done before – Lara Croft returned to her (dyed?) roots in 2007’s Tomb Raider: Anniversary; Ken and Ryu battled Vladimir Putin-wannabe M. Bison in two dimensions in 2008’s Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix; and Cloud went full block-body when Sony brought the original Final Fantasy VII to the PS4 last year – and it will be done again.

The only lingering question is which of our old friends will be the next to get the remake treatment. We take our best guess!

Classic Video Game Remake Odds:

Frogger: 2/1
Frogger is too ubiquitous and popular not to be remade. Only this time, we need a cheat where you can play as George Costanza trying to cross 37th Street.

Punch-Out!!: 3/1
Uppercut. Uppercut. Uppercut. See, already you’re interested. Nintendo remade Punch-Out!! for the Wii, but the gameplay is starkly different when you’re flailing around, looking like you’re shadow boxing an elusive mosquito. We need a new stationary Punch-out!! remake (so I can be good at it again).

Asteroids: 4/1
This free-flowing game boggled minds in the ‘80s and spawned clones like Gravitar  and Defender. Maybe the remake could coincide with a 20th anniversary edition of Armageddon in a couple years? If it does, I don’t want to miss a thing!

Zero Wing: 5/1
“All your money are belong to us,” will say developers as consumers lap up a remake of this meme-spawning Sega classic.

Goldeneye: 9/2 
Probably the most popular N64 game of all time, Goldeneye would be a smash as a remake, especially if the release coincided with the next Bond movie. With modern graphics, we could probably see Boris’ cuticles in “Slappers Only,” so let’s just stick to 64 bit.

Pacman: 6/1
A remake of Pac-Man would be sure to pique the interest of current thirty and forty-somethings. After all, their metabolisms are starting to slow down as they age; they need a way to live out their binge-eating fantasies. (Mmmm, tiny yellow dots!)

Crash Bandicoot:  8/1
Naughty Dog’s PSI classic would be a hit among a certain generation. But I’d wager several boxes of wumpa fruit that most Crash lovers never realized that a bandicoot is a real friggin’ animal!

PaRappa the Rapper: 17/2
I gotta believe a remake of this rhythmic PS1 classic is on the way. As the original, and also 8 Mile, proved, true championship mettle can only be proven in a rap battle.

Gorf: 12/1
The name sounded like an ogre but the game played like a prince. With today’s joysticks, this space adventure would rule.

Banjo Kazooie:  14/1
Fans of the original have gone so far as to request a remake from Nintendo. Game developer Rare didn’t rule it out, but said it wasn’t likely. Harrumph.

Track & Field: 15/1
While Punch-Out!! on the Wii lost some of its mojo, this Olympic competition would be perfect for the WiiU for one reason and one reason alone: the javelin! (And people thought Wii Bowling was a hazard.)

Half Life: 25/1
Everyone’s waiting for a Half Life 3 announcement from Valve. It would be pretty funny – though maybe not the best marketing strategy – if they just remade the original instead. That said, releasing HL3 plus an HL1 remake isn’t out of the question.

Space Invaders: 50/1
For all intents and purposes, once you discovered Asteroids, Space Invaders became pretty boring.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: 100/1
Arguably one of the worst games ever made (because it was rushed to shelves in order to coincide with the release of the movie), the only people who want a remake of E.T. are landfill owners in New Mexico.

Pong: 500/1
For a while, being bored was cool. That was the time for a Pong remake. Now, being active is cool and being bored is only cool to ironic hipsters who measure coolness by how uncool something is. There aren’t enough of them to chance a Pong remake right now.

What say you, gamers? Are any of these titles bringing a tear to your eye – because they remind you of sitting in the family room with your old dog, Franklin, playing N64 for hours on end while mom and dad argue over money troubles and you consider what life would be like on the rails, and you would totally take off, too, except you want to get to the next level because your neighbor Ricky said there was a naked lady in one of the tower windows if you looked hard enough.

No me neither.

(Photo credit: Bumm13 (Originally upload at en.wikipedia.org [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.)