Views: HD Collections and You!

There's a growing trend in the game industry. It began around March 2010 and has spread like a virus. A virus that gives not-so-old games slightly better graphics. Yes, I'm obviously talking about the inevitable uprising of the HD collection. A couple of last-gen games bundled on a disc, dolled up to look a little better than you remember, and sold for a little less than a new game. God of War, Prince of Persia, Metal Gear Solid, the list is growing and growing as more publishers realise they can make a pretty easy buck for throwing one of these things together and getting it on shelves.

Witness the terror... again... with slightly better graphics and party chat. 

Personally, as you may have gathered, I am not a fan. I'm not someone who is blind to the positive aspects, I can certainly appreciate the merit to re-releasing some of these games, all of them are, arguably and in their own right, fantastic games, and great examples of the best that last-gen has to offer. Metal Gear Solid 3, Resident Evil 4, Shadow of the Colossus, Beyond Good and Evil, they're all 'classics' in a certain sense of the word, so clearly the choice of games is reasonable so far, and it's definitely fun to revisit some of them, particularly for those of us who misplaced our copies or no longer use the older consoles. Similarly, for new gamers out there who only have current-gen hardware and never had a chance to check these games out, the collections provide them with an opportunity to see what all the fuss is about and witness some of the finest experiences to ever grace consoles.


That's all well and good, but the fact remains that some of these games are barely half a decade old. In gaming, that's really not a long time, or rather what I mean to say is that you can go back and play games from five or six years ago pretty easily. I very recently bought into this trend and downloaded Resident Evil 4 HD on my 360 to see how good it looked. I played through the game within two days and remembered every little bit of it, that's because I only bought the original game in 2006 and played through it about five times back then, not to mention that it had already been remastered and re-released on Wii. Nothing had been added to the package aside from a simple set of achievements. It certainly looked better than before but overall I had just spent money on the same experience I could've had by booting up my PS2. If this is the intention of the product, then the developers have succeeded, but then I have to ask what is the point?

As different as apples and... a slightly different brand of apples

These are not remakes, nothing substantial is ever really added, it's not as if the old versions of the games are unplayable or unattainable, and the graphical upgrades are rarely impressive, so why do companies insist on using their own development time to release these collections? Well, the obvious answer is money so my question is somewhat pointless. 


It's just that, personally, I feel the gaming industry has more potential than any other media form on the planet, look how far we've come in just a few decades. Pong to Starcraft. Galaga to Halo. It's an ever-growing, fast-changing industry with limitless possibilities, and developers should realise that they are part of that, part of something truly special. All of them are pioneers, taking this media format/art form/whatever you want to call it, to brand new heights. I love how quickly the industry progresses, that's one of the things that attracts me most to gaming. Yet it seems that for every step forward, like for example, the release of a God of War or a Metal Gear Solid, the industry always has to take one step back with these tedious moneymaking exercises that do nothing to help, merely serving as reminders that above all else, this is a business.


People have been clamouring for remakes for as long as I can remember. Final Fantasy VII is a good enough example, die-hard fans have been begging Square Enix to re-release that game for years. The PS3 teaser from a few years back showed us all that, should anyone at S-E ever say "Hey let's finally do it!", then the current generation of hardware would allow for some astonishing graphical upgrades and make that game much more playable to a modern audience. I wish they wouldn't do it at all, in my mind the idea of remaking games like that would be the equivalent of Gerard Butler playing the lead in a 2012 release of Casablanca, but if developers insist on resurrecting their famous games, that is how they should do it in my opinion. Not by lazily updating textures that are only five or six years old, but by taking much older games, games that younger fans weren't even born for, classics that deserve to be seen again, titles that some people would call 'unplayable' in their current form due to graphical or technical limitations, if you must dredge up your best-sellers, take games like these and give them a full and real remake that can be enjoyed by new and old fans alike. 

What I'm really saying is they need to remake FFVII. No, wait...

Either do a full remake of an old classic so that it makes a real difference and can be enjoyed by a new audience, or leave it be, and above all else, have respect for your own franchises. Cashing in on games from 05 by bundling them together on a disc and upressing the textures a little is a pretty poor way of treating these great franchises and serves no real purpose other than making some easy money, which obviously means it's not going to stop. Developers should be trying to push the industry forward, these re-releases do nothing towards that. That's my view, and were this article being read by a lot more people I'd love to know yours.