The value of clasics

A couple of days ago I bought Archon: classic through steam. This little known gem is a strategy game created in 1983 (one of the first strategy videogames ever created) for the 8-bit consoles of its time (Apple II, commodore 64, NES, etc...). I had never played it before, but beign a nut for strategy games I couldn't resist not playing it. To my surprise I found that, even though the gameplay is quite deep (with different abilties per side, tactical differences depending on the square and global powers for the palyer to activate) it was plagued by technical issues. The version I bought was a modern reskinning, and yet I found it was plagued by bad AI pathfinding, graphical glitches and other technical errors.

At first I was shocked....they surely didn't put much effort into this homage. But then it hit me.....this game came out in the early 80s...what if all those glitvhes are actually PART of the game. It would make sense for a game in the commodore 64 to have bad AI pathfinding; lots of games had those issues. Then I became very exicted as I thought that I was having the "authentic" 1980's experience. The real deal.

This got me thinking....when porting an older game, should the designers update them completely; including their AI, gameplay, etc... or should they leave them as they were? Actually the game offers a solution. They did both. They have the classic version (8-bit graphics and sound, original gameplay, buggy AI) and the modern version (updated graphics, couple new mechanics, but still buggy AI). This what all developers should do if they find themselves rebooting an ancient game, offer both the original and the updated version. I know this means more assets, but considering the original assets are so old they are basically antique that shouldn't be much of a problem. Using this method you are sure to present a contemporary gaming experience AND pay due respects to the original.