Remasters, should we care?

I'm not ashamed to say I've bought a few myself!

HD-Remaster... this title has been basically superglued to the end of previous generations' favourite games for years now. Final Fantasy, Bioshock, Uncharted, Skyrim even going all the way back to Medal of Honor: Frontline! It seems to get a little ridiculous when a major games are rereleased with just a little spit and polish.

It's not a new idea to rerelease games, Tomb Raider Anniversary brought the original game back to our consoles and screens a decade ago. But then again it could have been considered almost a remake, new textures and models, a rebuild practically from the ground up. Fans adore this kind of content, bringing the games of our childhoods up to modern standards, the great games remembered.

But can we really claim that a game released in 2011 is worthy of a remaster already? Bethesda threw Skyrim back into the spotlight late last year, to what seemed like a very positive reaction. But soon fans found that it really didn’t live up to their expectations, they had been promised pure beauty and they had been let down. Still, seeing someone trading a copy in the day after it was released was a bit of a shock...

This was really a mediocre release, but the same could be said for last year’s rerelease of the Bioshock trilogy as well, the games had a little love and were thrown back for full retail price when all three could easily be picked up for less than £10.

But the one that really gets me red in the face was the rerelease of Medal of Honor: Frontline, don't call it a remaster if it's some pretty textures on polygons that still look like a potato! I shouldn’t complain I suppose, it was added onto their release in 2010 for free. The issue was that it was a huge install from the disc, I waited nearly an hour to relive my childhood, when I finally opened it up I nearly spat my tea across the room and had uninstalled it in less than five minutes.

So do we really need remasters? Well my answer is yes and no. The glory that was Tomb Raider Anniversary will be a constant in my steam library, along with the remasters of Final Fantasy. But come on developers, don’t hand me a pretty potato and charge me retail price, thank you very much.