Annoyed by Skyrim’s constant re-releases?No, the alternative is worse

All the mainline RPGs of Bethesda Studios since this century can now be played on the latest generation of Xbox consoles, and most of the games can be played in the original 4K60 demo with HDR enabled. There is no doubt that this is a good thing.

Of course, Skyrim enjoys the most frequent and thorough refreshes, appearing in a more powerful form in the 2016 special edition, and recently some light touch remakes (60fps and better God Ray or Other things) and even some “new” content (nonsense fishing games and every semi-official mod in the Creation Club store has been unlocked). With the VR version of Immersive Chaser and the Switch version of Constipation, you can safely say that Skyrim is everywhere. An example that is suitable for typical going anywhere and doing any game.

Morrowind and dozens of other original Xbox games enjoy 2160p resolution and smooth frame rates on the latest machines. PC players will sneer, because the simple remake options they can get through the modding community have turned Morrowind’s beautification itself into a hobby, and miles of forum posts have been dedicated to pursuing it. Still, it will turn 20 next year, and the fact that you can put the original Xbox disc into the latest generation of hardware and expect it to work is a credit to Microsoft’s iterative backward compatibility program. Frankly speaking, it runs better than on the original hardware, which is really amazing.

Similar to Oblivion, it has the same healthy modified scenes and an Xbox version with FPS Boost, 4K rendering and automatic HDR. Now, playing on the console in 2021 is definitely a dream. People can hardly believe that this is on the surface the same as the version launched on Xbox 360 in 2006. They can’t repair the potato face, but there are some evils that can’t be solved by raw horsepower alone. This is almost irrelevant: the people of Cyrodiil always have round faces and are therefore equally eye-catching.

Oblivion’s retro-futuristic stable partners Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 76 and Fallout 4 also benefit from the magic of the BC team. As of last month, these four games have enabled FPS Boost, and Fallout 3 has maintained the dazzling 4K upgrade since Xbox One X days.

With luck, future-oriented architecture, the Xbox BC team’s tenacious determination to please the crowd, and Skyrim’s seemingly unwavering popularity, you can play two decades of antiquity on S/X series consoles with modern enhancements Reels and radiation make full use of today’s superior electronics.

No matter how people view Bethesda’s creative output, there is no denying its historical significance. Preserving these experiences on multiple generations of hardware is both a cultural preservation act and a money-making activity. But for countless games that are destined to be unable to continue enjoying the best market conditions, it is a pipe dream to only exist in digital stores.

Take “The Simpsons: Hit and Run” as an example. It can be said to be the best Simpsons game ever, and it is also one of the most peculiar works in the booming GTA clone pantheon; a crazy science fiction/hammer horror epic that you can rob in downtown Springfield Car, play the polite Lisa Simpson. Through a deadly combination of rights issues and endless technological advancement, it is no longer available for purchase and will not run on modern hardware without some poking.

A second-hand Xbox or PS2 copy can cost up to £300 (although if you are not an idiot, you are more likely to get it for around £25). The Xbox version works well on the 360, although there are a lot of screen tears. With the lightest touch, it can sing on the new machine-its cartoon art style is very suitable for the higher rendering resolution provided for all the original Xbox games in the BC program. It is already running at an unlocked frame rate. Alas, the copyright situation is an impossible knot, so it is still subject to the currently very abusive second-hand market and obsolete software websites.

Also consider the ongoing train crash, the final version of the GTA trilogy. Initially, the storefront swaggered to replace all previous versions of the game. Fortunately, Rockstar has abandoned this position. These troubled remakes represent a poor job. In fact, it is so awkward that you are forgiven for wishing that they didn’t bother you.

The biggest obstacle for modern players to play GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas is not visual or mechanical, but the interface. The control on the console was terrible at the time, not to mention that now, after two decades of best practice and quasi-standardization, some form of dual joystick setting of COD has become the best solution for most people. Run all the game’s assets through some strange smoothing process, which makes Liberty City look like DreamWorks animation, and lacks the nuances that preserve key details such as the age of the character, or, uh, the vulgar language in the poster, looks like A terrible monkey paw trade to gain modern control.

But now we insist on using the annoying final version. To be fair, there are some regular patches that are fixing the most serious problems, but this has created a situation where the three most important and famous video games in the media have all been downgraded to fixers. In progress. There is nothing better than a bad MMO. It was promoted by the cartoon dog avatars on Twitter in the next five years, who insisted that it is good now, otherwise they would spend all their time on niche memes. And the reference to the incomprehensible Discord drama. The fate of such a towering work is frustrating.

In addition to the most dedicated hardware hoarders and simulation connoisseurs, there are many classic and curious examples that have been forgotten by time. Your regular punters don’t want to keep a bunch of vintage hardware on standby when they like Outrun 2’s footage, nor do they have the patience to fiddle with Raspberry Pi images. Or know what it is.

Preserving the rich history of this incredible media should not be left to amateurs and websites with dubious legitimacy. Official backward compatibility efforts are an important part of the equation. Sony’s efforts to port PS2 classics to PS4 and the natural hardware compatibility of the latter’s machines with PS5 have maintained a certain degree of intergenerational continuity despite the limited scope. Even Nintendo’s N64 simulation on the Switch is a welcome effort in principle, although it has received a lot of slander. Phil Spencer hopes that one day there may be an industry-wide “legal simulation” program that sounds impossible, but as generations pass, its necessity becomes more and more clear.

There is a silver lining, just like you can now (in principle) play any DVD from 1998 in a 2018 Ultra HD Blu-ray player, watch 1970s sitcoms on a smart TV, and read Regency books on your iPhone Just as confident and relaxed, individual games may one day be free from the hardware they design. Achieving this in a game is much more difficult than any other form of art (except perhaps the Sistine Chapel, but it can be said that simulating a huge ceiling is easier than simulating a custom chip of the Amiga 1200) but we should try hard, because we There are many things to lose.

Skyrim’s seemingly endless re-releases are irresistible or mocking. For other media, this is the norm. No one hesitated to re-release “Lawrence of Arabia” in 4K, the Beatles finally landed on iTunes, or the full episode of Sherlock Holmes popped up in the Kindle app. These things continue to exist as a reflection of their time and are re-appreciated by generations after decades. This is worth cherishing.

Frankly speaking, the future without “The Simpsons: Hit and Run” is as terrible as the world without Cicero’s works. Both documents reflect a turbulent era, and our understanding of this era is diminishing every second. The ancient world hardly survived, because thousands of years of entropy have taken away our treasures. After only half a century of gaming, the power to rule this industry has almost no excuse.