Recently, game developers have been remaking many of the games we all knew and loved as a child. Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Kill All Humans; the list is pretty long. But why do they give us the nostalgia trip, rather than focusing on exciting new games to tickle even the stiffest of trigger fingers?
But what constitutes a remake, and what’s the difference with a remaster? Well, it has to do with the likeness to the original. A remaster will be almost identical to the original, in terms of gameplay, features, etc, and even with respect to specs such as graphics, there isn’t a huge difference. A developer that has put out a lot of remasters in the past couple of years is Ubisoft. With the release of Farcry 5, they released a remastered version of Far Cry 3 (which was previously unavailable on current generation consoles). The graphics and gameplay were identical to the original, which was released for PS3/Xbox 360 back in 2012. A similar story, again from Ubisoft is the remaster of Assassins Creed III, which was released for PS4/Xbox One last year as part of the season pass for Assassins Creed Odyssey. In both of these examples, there were no changes to the gameplay, maps etc – no new items or missions were introduced either; they were identical to the originals.
And that’s where the remake differs. Unlike remasters, they have exciting new gameplay options and clear differences from the original, yet keeping many of the aspects that made us love their predecessors so much. Take Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fuelled, the latest addition to the remake roster. It takes the base game that was originally a PS one release from 1999, Crash Team Racing, and merges it with some of the features of Crash Nitro Kart, its sequel for PS2. Crash Team Racing : Nitro Fuelled may seem like the spiritual successor to the Crash Racing franchise, however, it is a beautifully made remake which also, funnily enough, encorporates many features from a standard PS4 game; online multiplayer, achievements, and obviously microtransactions. It is a whole new game that brings the game franchise into 2019.
But why now? Why, in the age of the fourth gen consoles, are these originals being remade? These remakes come 20 years after the originals, and for many, it is a chance to either relive their childhoods or show their own kids the games they were playing as a kid. One thing is for sure, the age of the remake is only just beginning
Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fuelled is available now for Switch, PS4 and Xbox One
Catch the trailer below:
