Electronic Arts, perhaps eager to make up for shooting beloved RPG studio BioWare in the head last week, have dropped no less than 25 classic video games on Steam, GoG and their own EA App. A bunch of these game have also been remastered, with FMV sequences redone from scratch thanks to the discovery of the original source files.
Once again, Mark Hamill will fight against a bunch of big space cats.
Whilst we already knew about Wing Commander III getting the remaster treatment from a few weeks back, I don't think anyone was expecting a motherlode of this size. The entire space combat Wing Commander and fantasy RPG Ultima franchises are represented here, alongside Road Rash, Theme Hospital and the almost-forgotten Crusader series.
The games hitting the virtual shelves today consist of:
- Wing Commander 35th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi 35th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander: Prophecy 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander: Privateer
- Wing Commander: Privateer 2 - The Darkening 30th Anniversary Edition
- Wing Commander: Academy
- Wing Commander: Armada
- Strike Commander
- Road Rash: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Theme Hospital
- Crusader: No Remorse
- Crusader: No Regret
- Ultima 1: The First Age of Darkness
- Ultima 2: The Revenge of the Enchantress
- Ultima 3: Exodus
- Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar
- Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny
- Ultima 6: The False Prophet
- Ultima 7: The Complete Edition
- Ultima 8: The Gold Edition
- Ultima 9: Ascension
- Ultima Underworld 1
- Ultima Underworld 2
The games listed "Anniversary Edition" have had their full motion video (FMV) elements remastered in a higher definition thanks to the rediscovery of the original film and tapes in the EA archive. These are curiosities featuring actors like Mark Hamill, Jonathan Rhys-Davies and Clive Owen as hard-bitten space jocks getting up to space stuff, whilst extras dressed as giant cats try to look threatening.
In the UK these games are all retailing for £5 each, which is quite impressive, though the Anniversary Editions should be going up to £10 soon.
Wing Commander franchise creator Chris Roberts is preparing to launch his newest spiritual successor to the series, with Squadron 42 due to arrive in early 2027, with the multiplayer equivalent, Star Citizen, to follow at a later date. Meanwhile, some of the team behind Theme Hospital have recently been working on spiritual successors, including Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus and Two Point Museum.
No comments:
Post a Comment