Remakes

PC remakes of classic games

Star Wars

One of the greatest arcade games remade retaining all the elements of the original gameplay but enhanced with great solid graphics replacing the old vector pencil-line style. Complete with an improved musical score and samples from the movies, you can relive those early years of sitting in the arcade cabinet especially if you go the whole ewok and move your PC into the cupboard under the stairs. It makes you want to get your Trilogy DVD collection out and go straight to the trench scenes then snap the Jedi disk in a pre-JarJar Ewok frenzy.

Jet Set Willy
Retaining all the elements of the Speccy original, this remake is indeed still as fun and infuriating today as it was back in the early 80s. Backed-up with more colourful graphics, but still the same designs, and a new jazzier version of the classical soundtrack, it's easy to slip back into memory lane trying to collect the oddments left around the mansion in order to get into the wife's bed chamber.

Echoes

Mind-warping eyesight-bending Asteroids clone mixed with thumping rave beats and explosive SFX. The action comes thick and fast as vector asteroids bound around the screen to be broken into smaller chunks by your blaster. A circle around your ship gradually gets smaller the more you collide with the asteroids until it's game over, which won't be before too long. Larger asteroids come in later levels, needing a lot of fire power to start to break them down, followed by variations such as waves of asteroid storms and asteroid chasers. With 70s kung fu ghost-motion flourescent effects on everything that moves, this game will have your eyes bleeding if played for too long. Too damned addictive!

Cybernoid 2
The excellent 8 BIT game Cybernoid's sequel gets a remake and it's hot. The graphics are gorgeous to watch as fireballs, bullets and aliens sweep around each screen in multi-coloured mayhem. Fantastic weapons from homing missiles to bouncing bombs still don't save the day in this fiendishly difficult game. Easy to set-up and play, it even includes a joystick/joypad option.

Hawkeye

One of the best from the Thalamus stable of showjumping C64 games. The graphics have been enhanced with smarter backgrounds than the original. The musical score has been remixed but keeping the feeling of the 80s classic. Gameplay-wise, much the same with the usual stop-to-shoot limit and occasional enemy trigger point causing a constant influx of flying birds or jumping demons unless you move quick. No joystick/pad control is also a downer but the keys are only left, right, jump and fire anyway.