Crytek’s recent work with the Crysis remastered has given us back the desire for great graphics, but what other games would we want ultra-pumped?
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Crytek has recently anticipated the expected release date of its next Crysis Remastered. After a good Nintendo Switch version, players are waiting to see the muscles of Xbox One, PS4 and PC: new textures in 8K, ray tracing, new lighting and lights, motion blur and many latest generation effects will embellish that technical jewel that (already) it was Crysis.
There are some games that, in the history of this kind of entertainment, have marked a gap between the before and after. A clear boundary between what was possible to do on a given hardware and what seemed impossible but was finally done. The potential of a console or PC has always been uncharted territory for many. Only a few software houses have managed, over the course of the various videogame eras, to give a certain quid that pushed the technical bar further, showing things hitherto impossible and making all players dream. We think of eternal titles that have entered the collective imagination such as Crysis, but also Shen Mue, Gears of War, Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong Country, Soul Calibur, Panzer Dragoon and why not, obviously also the very recent The Last of Us 2. With this special we want to try to imagine which titles of the past we would like to see in an “ultra pumped” version by the new generation hardware. Old video games of the past that have particularly struck us and that, for one reason or another, would still be relevant today. Better if with a nice version remastered The remake.
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Dino Crisis
The first title that comes to mind is the beautiful one Dino Crisis by Capcom. First of all because it is a saga unfortunately (and inexplicably) set aside by the manufacturer, but which has been in the hearts of all fans for many years now without ever having been forgotten. Dino Crisis was already enough jaw-breaker at the time, when it came out in 1999. Today, 21 years later and 3 generations of consoles passed, it could finally be the right time to propose it to new gamers, accompanied by new high definition graphics, special effects and a polygonal size exponentially increased. The recent return of the dino-mania (but had it ever gone out of style?) with the new Jurassic Park films, it reopened the market to a new generation of cinema enthusiasts, gamers and simple nostalgics of the genre. Dino Crisis, unlike games like Resident Evil that used pre-rendered images as the background of the environments, made use of a 3D graphics in real time that allowed an even more dynamic and compelling cinematic rendering. Behind Dino Crisis, we remember, there was obviously Shinji Mikami himself.
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Far Cry
We cannot quote Crysis without thinking, for obvious reasons, even at the very first Far Cry. The Ubisoft game saw light after the developer Crytek created a demo called X-Isle Dinosaur Island, created specifically to show the potential of the new Nvidia GeForce 3 video card. shelves something crazy by the standards of the time. Far Cry has had many sequels and spin-offs for all existing consoles, but never a real remastered with a graphics renewed to the present day. The game, pushed to the maximum on a high-end PC, still makes a good impression despite more than 15 years have passed since the first development, let’s imagine what a hardware like that of Xbox Series X on PlayStation 5. Could this be the right time to return to the remote islands of Micronesia?
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Silent Hill
Apart from the fact that you don’t see a Silent Hill now since 2012, the year in which Konami published the sixth episode Downpour on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, the public of fans really want to replay the first chapter, an unforgettable masterpiece for Playstation. The mouth water had been put there by the creator himself Hideo Kojima who, in the now distant 2014, announced a sort of reboot of the series in collaboration with Guillermo del Toro, brilliant director of many cinematographic masterpieces. A demo was even released that used the Fox Engine of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes as its graphics engine, which made many fans dream and increased the desire to finally see Silent Hill with jaw-breaking graphics. Desire that unfortunately remained so because the project was canceled shortly after by the parent company. For our part, we always hope that Konami will decide to propose to the general public what represents a milestone in the history of survival horror, obviously with a “scary” technical sector.
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Metal Gear Solid
We have already talked about Konami and its ability to create modern and “timeless” games, just like Metal Gear Solid. The tactical espionage saga represented a real breakthrough for video games, its gameplay and superb technical achievement made it a title that transcends generations. Even today, the title of Hideo Kojima would be absolutely current and enjoyable even by the new generations. Metal Gear Solid thanks to its technical findings has been able to bring new special effects and one direction which finds its climax with the second chapter, also ahead of its time for the time in which it was made and the hardware that housed it, the excellent Playstation 2. A remastered today would finally be a welcome thing for the whole group of historical fans who for those who have only heard of it. Something has been tried in the past. We remember the emulator for Dreamcast that increased the resolution and general cleanliness on the screen, but also a stunning trailer of the first chapter made entirely with the Unreal Engine 4. Just to give us a little appetizer of what it could be …
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Fallout 3
Let’s go back to more recent times because there are also great games of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 era that deserve to have a second chance for their incredible specific weight within the videogame landscape, but above all because when the hardware came out of the time due to their limitations imposed more or less evident sacrifices. Let’s talk about Fallout 3, a new beginning for the saga that restarted with an extremely refined and multifaceted title, but also a technical sector that, although extraordinary for the time, had some limits that can now be overcome. The frame rate above all, which in some cases was lowered in a problematic way. The compatible version on Xbox One partially mitigated certain uncertainties with a permanently activated v-sync that did not affect the dropped frames. However, it was an improved version of the new hardware and not a remastered as we would have dreamed. New polygonal models, 60 fps instead of the uncertain 30 and many more effects would make Fallout 3 a game that is still extremely enjoyable and modern. While Bethesda in 2019 was quick to specify that no plans to revive Fallout 3 are in the works, some modders have meanwhile “pumped” the game to 4K on PC, so as to give us an idea of what it could be like to play it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNqKo4llcOM
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