Retro Games Find New Life

A sense of deja vu permeates this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo here, as video and PC game publishers show off titles that pay homage to the past.



That's not the ancient past, but rather more recent history. (Although Activision's sword-and-sandal-themed "Rome: Total War" does seem well timed with the debut of the film epic Troy.) Ubisoft, for example, is announcing "The Dukes of Hazzard: Return of the General Lee," a game based on the hit 1980s TV series. Another new title is based on the Rocky film series.

And Vivendi-Universal's Sierra Entertainment is bringing back the old Leisure Suit Larry franchise for the first time in ten years with "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude," which follows the hapless woman-chaser's nephew, an equally hapless college student, as he tries to score with animated chicks.

One of the stranger titles with a nostalgic feel is "Playboy Mansion," a Sims-like video game in which players get to be Hugh Hefner, living in the West Los Angeles mansion and creating a media empire. The game features a Hef-like character, complete with signature smoking jacket.



Although sequels are nothing new in the video game business, this year's show seems to be dominated by a bumper crop of them, including some long-awaited titles.

Id Software, the creators of such classic first-person shooters as "Castle Wolfenstein" and "Quake," is revisiting its Doom series for the first time in a decade. "Doom 3" takes advantage of improvements in PC graphics with sophisticated lighting and textures; the game will also make its debut onto Microsoft's Xbox. Activision, which distributes Id games, is also preparing "Shrek 2" and "Spiderman 2."

UbiSoft is showing "Myst 4," the latest installment in the popular adventure series. In addition to the signature beautiful surreal landscapes, the game introduces new features. For example, players can now keep journals with photographs of locations they've visited.

Electronic Arts' roster includes "The Sims 2," "Battlefield 2," "Black and White 2," "Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault," and the usual gaggle of film-sequel spinoffs including "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and two new "Lord of the Rings" games (one for PCs and one for consoles). Blizzard is continuing two of its popular lines with the release of "World of Warcraft" and "Starcraft: Ghost." UbiSoft showcased the sequel to "Prince of Persia" at the show.



"Gladius," a Sony PlayStation 2 game scheduled for release in September, is Konami's look back to the future. The 2D side-scrolling space shooting game looks and plays almost exactly like the classic 1980s and '90s "Gladius" arcade games. It offers a few concessions to modern times, such as two-player simultaneous combat and somewhat less pixelated graphics than you'd have seen in the mid-1990s.

In "Athens 2004," Sony has picked up the first Official Game of the 2004 Olympics honors and turned around a well-polished recreation of "Decathlon," the late-80s arcade classic. The nod to the future of both gaming and fitness is clear here: Instead of "running" by rapidly hitting buttons, you literally run in place on a 4-by-4-foot dance pad.

Surely all this nostalgia isn't attributable to Activision celebrating its 25th anniversary.