8 Classic Video Games Begging For Tablet Versions
Serious gamers have been left out of the casual-game tablet app market. These well-loved games deserve a reboot for the tablet.
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The tablet gaming market is expected to grow to $13.3 billion by 2019, even though tablet games mostly stink. Sure, there are some very successful casual games like Candy Crush (a blatant knockoff of three-in-a-row games from the last decade), and some progress has been made on action-oriented social games like Clash of Clans. But realistically, tablet games are stuck in the servant model with freemium games. Players are beholden to the games, farming in-game currency and resources or paying real cash in order to see the full game content.
Basically, there's a shortage of "real" games in the tablet market. Serious gamers are used to dropping $50-$60 on a game with a long and involved gameplay they can pick up and play as much as they want. Surely there's room for a $20-$30 tablet game that can engage a player for more than five-minute spurts until the player has enough "gold" to buy the latest widget and wait 24 hours for it to build.
Some ports of modern games like Civilization and The Sims have been tried to mixed success. Some reboots like Sid Meier's Pirates have been tried. But for the most part, we're lacking a good, in-depth, high-end gaming experience on the tablet.
Personally, I think the reboot is the way to fix this. Tablets have the computing power of desktops from a few years ago. They have unique and interesting interfaces that allow us to take a game that otherwise might look a little old and spruce it up with a new experience.
With that in mind, I went back to look at classic games for desktop PC and gaming consoles that I thought would make excellent reboots on tablets. There were some basic criteria I looked for in picking these games.
Of course, it had to be a good game.
A reboot should take advantage of something unique about the tablet or social gaming that was not available when the original was created.
I wanted there to be no chance of it being a freemium game. It needs to stand alone in gameplay as something people would return to like a console game or PC game.
Some of these are old enough that their original developers no longer exist. I'm not sure what that would mean for intellectual property (depends on the title, obviously), but I'd love to see whoever owns them think about reviving them. Check out the list, and add which games you'd like to see made for the tablet -- or at least rebooted.
(Image: Sergey Galyonkin)
How many games released in 1986 still have their own active fan forums? Starflight does. People keep lovingly recreating it for each ensuing operating system. The first computer game that really created a Star Trek-style space exploration vibe, the game was so expansive for its time that it actually held an entire universe to explore by ship and landing vehicle. Starflight was a game so far ahead of its time that adult me still pines to play the game I played as a kid. I honestly remember trade routes from the game more than 25 years later. The best thing going for Starflight as a tablet reboot is that the Star Trek aesthetic that informed the early version has grown through Star Trek: The Next Generation to include the tablet. Those of us growing up through Starflight and ST:TNG feel right at home with the idea of running an entire starship from a touch screen. A tablet reboot with new graphics but the same vibe would feel like a natural evolution of our childhood.
Tablets could use a great flight combat game. The tablet itself makes a great control for something like that, and Wing Commander might be the best flight combat franchise in history. It was so popular at one point that it spawned a movie. And with voice acting featuring Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, not to mention Gimli, John Rhys-Davies, the game is a lost classic. Tying it to social gaming (your friends are your squadron) would put it over the top.
This is one of the few games on the list with a current selling console version. But let's face it: It is time for Nintendo to see the writing on the wall. Nintendo is losing nearly $100 million per quarter. The Nintendo Wii U console is failing. Mario Kart is so popular it spurred 219% increases in U consoles sales. The game sold 2.8 million copies. Yet Nintendo is still losing money. But what if, instead of selling it only to the people willing to buy the worst gaming console on the market, the company sold Mario Kart to everyone with a tablet? Around 7 million Wii U consoles have been sold. More than twice as many iPads were sold in the second quarter of this year alone. Open up to Android tabs, as well, and clearly the market for Mario Kart and other major Nintendo games goes way up. Given that the Wii U controller is a tablet, we know the game would translate. How is a tablet version of the world's favorite driving game not a no-brainer?
Actually, this is the one game on the list that already has a reboot on the tablet. But it uses the freemium model I dislike so much. The Roller Coaster Tycoon series has sold millions of copies over multiple iterations. Why freemium? This is a brand and a concept with real value. Make a good game, and people will pay without some gimmicky model.
The first ever "god game," Populous won major game of the year awards in 1990. You used your god-like powers to shape the Earth to make it easier for your worshippers to thrive while trying to hurt the followers of your rival god. Surely, a tablet should be able to handle the graphics. And the touch interface would create an even more visceral feeling of shaking the Earth and carving the planet. An "homage" to Populous, called Godus, has been released for tablets. But it lacks some of the character of the original.
Castle Wolfenstein is the oldest game on the list, starting in 1981 as a top-down-view game on the old Apple II. The version that would make an excellent tablet version is the Wolfenstein 3D version from the early 1990s. Wolfenstein 3D was the first first-person shooter. There are unofficial Android and iPad ports of the game, but to my knowledge, no official version exists. First-person shooters like Call of Duty are available on the tablet, but controls are clunky. I could overlook that to get back to such familiar and inviting territory, especially with social play.
This game is on the list for one major reason. I'd love to see it revolutionize tablet controls on a game. It is quite simply the best skateboarding game ever, and I want to bring the skateboarding genre to the tablet. And I want the tablet itself to be the skateboard. Imagine your tablet is a skateboard with the wheels underneath. As you move around in the game, you can turn, spin, and flip your tablet like a skateboard doing tricks. Want to do a 360 spin in the air? Turn your tablet 360 degrees in your hand. Want the board to flip? Flip the tablet. I can't think of a sport with a more direct analog to the tablet itself. Sure, you won't want to play the game on concrete. But how cool would it be to learn to master real tricks that your tablet can do in the skate park? Tony Hawk had earlier iOS versions, but nothing to take advantage of the special controls.
It is the 30th anniversary of King's Quest. King's Quest is the granddaddy of the RPG and puzzle game genres, and it is one of the first games to use a 3D graphical view, including the hero on the screen. If that's not enough, it accepted complicated text commands in an era when joysticks were the primary way we interacted with video games. Its many sequels were among the best-selling games of the 1980s and 1990s. Given the processing limits of the tablet, a game using King's Quest's combo of storytelling and puzzle solving, rather than relying on hacking and slashing, would make a lot of sense. Plus, it could restore glory to an old franchise while bringing a true RPG to the tablet.
The one concern I have with tablet gaming is that I do have a tendency to throw the occasional controller. When the whole thing is the controller, that might lead to some broken screens. But that's a small price to pay. What games would you love to see on the tablet? Which of these are your favorites? Do you play games on the tablet? Tell us in the comments.
The one concern I have with tablet gaming is that I do have a tendency to throw the occasional controller. When the whole thing is the controller, that might lead to some broken screens. But that's a small price to pay. What games would you love to see on the tablet? Which of these are your favorites? Do you play games on the tablet? Tell us in the comments.
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