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Clonehunter

Your True Opinion On (#?): Reboots

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Remember those "Your True Opinion" threads I used to make because I wanted people to actually talk about video games? Neither do I.

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Rather than a franchise, how about Reboots of franchises? Especially now that recently, we've seen new installments of Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior, Carnivores, Doom "4", a suggested Quake reboot, and the next entry in the Wolfenstein Reboot franchise. That is, all these are reboots, as opposed to actual sequels that continue the original stories.

We see this all the time in movies, such as the current RoboCop and Evil Dead which came out last year (Though I thought someone said that movie was an actual sequel, but I haven't seen it yet so I wouldn't know), though they're have also been sequel/prequels of our old favorites too, like Prometheus, Predators, a possible upcoming Blade Runner sequel, Star Wars sequels, Jurassic Park IV (Based off a book, and multiple movies have been made from books. There are roughly three Great Gatsby films and about five films based on I Am Legend), and Jingle All the Way 2 (WHY?!). Sometimes there are re-releases too, like The Phantom Menace and Jurassic Park (1). (Abram's Star Trek movies are an odd class, because they're sort of a reboot while sort of a sequel/prequel alternate reality. Having Nimoy as the actual Spock from old Star Trek puts it a little odd, in my opinion)

Reboots are generally called on like the plague when first announced, though with video games, while sure everyone s looking to see a classic shooter become the next Call of Duty clone, there is still plenty of earnest to see where the old game is going, gain in contrast to most people who I've seen simply complain about movie reboots to the end of time (DON'T FUCK WITH CONTINUITY YO).

So, what do you have to say about game reboots? As well as any kind of reboot I suppose?

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Sometimes reboots result in good games, and while I don't care about franchises, if the name brand brings enough money to make those good games a possibility, then that's good for me; and avoiding the bad reboots is easy, so they're no bother.

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Reboots are stupid. Not because OH MY GOD YOU'RE DISRESPECTING THE LEGACY OF X, but because they're really not products that are part of the rebooted franchise, but they stick that label on themselves just to get more exposure. There's absolutely no reason why Shadow Warrior, for example, was called Shadow Warrior other than the minor brand boost that it gained for it. The game could have been an awesome FPS sword fighting game in stereotypical settings with a stereotypical protagonist even without being called Shadow Warrior.

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The Thing (1982), will always keep my hope in decent reboots alive. But For the most part its a slippy slope, when it comes to reboots retaining the integrity of a classic.

The Gamecube reboot of Resident Evil was awesome. But I will always love the original Playstation version more; mostly because of a bias sense of nostalgia.

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For some franchises, a reboot makes more sense than a sequel. Doom is a perfect example. Storywise, what can you do with a sequel? We've had the "now it's not the remote research station, it's the entire world!" plot twist already with Doom II. Any further sequel to the story of the Doom world will either be "hey, guess what, demons are invading again" making all of Doomguy's badassery for naught and seriously stretching the suspension of disbelief wrt. mankind's continued survival; or it'll be about some other events happening in the post-apocalyptic world, not related to demon invasions, and it won't be Doom.*

Making a reboot is therefore the truest way to make a new installment in the Doom franchise, unburdened from a dead-end continuity.


(* It could be a very interesting game, but it wouldn't be a Doom game.)

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I, for one, firmly support the notion of reboots. The way I see it, they're a great tool to rescue botched franchises. For instance, take Judge Dredd - it was a good idea that had been poorly executed, and I think it made much more sense to just start over than to try to build upon the original movie. And the new Dredd movie we got was pretty damn awesome, in my opinion. Or take Spider-man - frankly, I think they did the right thing in starting over rather than trying to build on the sequels.

Of course, some people would say, why even have sequels? I, for one, like following the same character through multiple story-arcs. It's why I enjoy comic books, and I don't see what's wrong with seeing a character grow and develop over multiple movies.

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Reboots are like pretty much any other pieces of work. They can be made competently and turn out to be good, and they may not. Rather than having a general opinion on reboots, I'll judge them individually, depending on how they'll actually turn out to be like.

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Infinite Ammunition said:


I loved the original Robocop; I generally love most films on 80s dystopian Futurismo (Escape from New York, Terminator, Blade Runner, etc.) I have not seen the new one, and I know its very judgmental of me; but from the looks of it, its not done in an equivalent style or spirit of the original.

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Clonehunter said:

I've been hearing that the new one, while a different theme, is still apparently fairly good, despite most people's expectations.


I'll probably check it out, On Demand, than.

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Reboots are pretty much always going to be defined by current trends. Trends come and go, sometimes they are good and sometimes they are bad. The current trend for action movies is PG-13 where they try every trick in the book to hide the actual violence going on. Like shakycam and quick cuts. The entire Hollywood film industry right now is also stuck in an extreme playing-it-safe mode. So things like RoboCop suffer from it.

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I dont want to repeat what people before me have said but to add something new and you can apply this to any reboot if you want: I want to see reboot where developers are saying' fuck the profit, we do it our way, no holding hand moments, everything is as difficult as it was used to be and whiners can go to hell if the game is too boring or hard'

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I generally dislike them. Though for every 5-10 that look like crap, you get one that looks good, like Godzilla. That movie franchise needed, even deserved to be rebooted.

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As others have said, it all depends. I'm personally a big fan of the Lords of Shadow reboot of Castlevania, giving the series a more serious tone again after years of increasingly ridiculous, anime-fueled entries. (And the storyline was getting helplessly bloated, inconsistent and nonsensical, to boot.)

On the movie front, I think generally everyone's appreciative of Batman being rebooted. I'm also extremely happy with Daniel Craig's James Bond movies, adding some much-needed realism, grittiness and emotion to a series that was getting very tired and silly.

And then you have stuff like Bomberman: Act Zero, Total Recall, Rob Zombie's Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and so on. So it all depends. :)

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Well I disliked Daniel Craig's Bond movies and think they're dreadfully boring, they make him more of a common thug than a double agent. However they aren't really reboots.

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Megamur said:

As others have said, it all depends. I'm personally a big fan of the Lords of Shadow reboot of Castlevania, giving the series a more serious tone again after years of increasingly ridiculous, anime-fueled entries. (And the storyline was getting helplessly bloated, inconsistent and nonsensical, to boot.)


I'm just sad at a dearth of SOTN-clones, give me my 2D metroid-likes

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Reboots = insta-fails. In fact things that even feel like something else are just failures in many people's mind. I can't blame so many franchises for rebooting. If it was successful 20 - 30 years ago, why not make money with it today?

I saw the new Robocop in theaters. I loved the first 2 original Robocops. The first two were far better, because they were comedies with a stiff rigid, protagonist in a silly over the top world. This Robocop is too human and misses what made the first two movies fun to watch. HOWEVER, I do feel that this Robocop is good even if I know what's coming. He single handedly takes down all crime, and is incorruptible but I didn't feel the new Detroit was that infested with crime to begin with. There was a giant 80s bodycount and the second half of the movie was far better, because it wasn't going through the steps that we all know.

Plus seeing Peter Weller's cameo was a joy.

There was some unintentional hilarity like when new Robocop meets his wife in the robosuit that is his body. No one thought to give him a fucking suit? Like a raincoat over it? Oh and now that we're not in the 80s, I keep thinking wouldn't aesthetics make robocop more human looking as a robot? Sure the 80s technology I understood to be a robot, you needed to be a big metal suit, but now we have impressive prosthetic.

I also know people love to hate the new black suit, but he's not in it the entire movie. Plus a black suit makes sense from a tactical standpoint. SWAT teams don't wear shinny grey.

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Kontra Kommando said:

I loved the original Robocop; I generally love most films on 80s dystopian Futurismo (Escape from New York, Terminator, Blade Runner, etc.) I have not seen the new one, and I know its very judgmental of me; but from the looks of it, its not done in an equivalent style or spirit of the original.

I like 'em too, especially Blade Runner. I'd love to see it re-mastered in 3D.

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So, what do you have to say about game reboots? As well as any kind of reboot I suppose?

Nay.

For every GameCube Resident Evil and Dredd, there's 100 reboots of things which I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.

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The Resident Evil games and films desperately need a reboot. So does Sonic the Hedgehog. Anything that deviates wildly from its original premise and becomes bloated with recurring characters could use some kind of reboot. It's fine for a show to develop if it's done well, like Stargate SG1 for example, but Resident Evil started as a low-key zombie hunt and turned into the killing of Africans with red eyes.

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Avoozl said:

Well I disliked Daniel Craig's Bond movies and think they're dreadfully boring, they make him more of a common thug than a double agent. However they aren't really reboots.

I was expecting a remark like this because someone always has to say it. I personally find Craig's Bond films to be some of the very best, and I've seen every single one of the Bond films (except for the Peter Sellers spoof of Casino Royale) and read all of Fleming's novels, so I think I know a thing or two about what makes good Bond. Craig's perhaps colder than he needs to be, but good heavens, it's a relief after the constant torrent of smirking, junior-high-caliber sex innuendos that the Brosnan films drowned us in.

And the Craig Bond films are absolutely reboots. What would make you say otherwise?


kmxexii said:

I'm just sad at a dearth of SOTN-clones, give me my 2D metroid-likes

Seriously? Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, Order of Ecclesia--that's five extremely similar games released in the span of six years. How many more of those can you take? After a while, every new game made me feel like I was playing an expansion pack of the previous one. It was nice finally going in a completely different direction.

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ReBoot is an awesome cartoon, but I don't think that's what the topic is about.

I think historically I've enjoyed more reboots than hated, even if I was a fan of the older material.

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All the Bond movies are different stories with different actors, the only Bond movie which was a reboot was Never Say Never Again which was supposed to be a reboot of Thunderball.

Also I feel the movies don't have to be done like the novels, there's certain elements the work better in novels than in movies to my tastes anyway.

I grew up watching the bond movies so I've been used to them having martinis, gadgets and everything else not present anymore, I really just can't stand the Daniel Craig style being used and it just doesn't feel like Bond to me.

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I'm not sure the new Bond trilogy was a reboot. Casino Royal was the first Bond. The other 2 were brand new so they could fit at the start and finale of the original Bond movies. BUT there's also the possibility that James Bond is just a code name given to 8 different guys throughout the years. When this James Bond dies or retired, they'll find a new Bob Smith to be James Bond.

I also defended the new Batman Trilogy until the Bane one as before the original quadogy. There could have been an original Joker that has no real name. Then the Jack Nicholson could have just been a copy cat. Then they threw a new Catwoman in and there went my theory. Although now that I'm thinking about it, Michelle Phiefer never died, and Anne Hathaway is already Catwoman when she's in her movie. But all of that is just too far fetched. Like people that try to fit the Zelda timelines together instead of just saying they're all new mythos with the same characters.

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MajorRawne said:

The Resident Evil games and films desperately need a reboot. So does Sonic the Hedgehog. Anything that deviates wildly from its original premise and becomes bloated with recurring characters could use some kind of reboot. It's fine for a show to develop if it's done well, like Stargate SG1 for example, but Resident Evil started as a low-key zombie hunt and turned into the killing of Africans with red eyes.


The RE movies and games are just getting so sad. Underworld too. They just churn out the shit. While those franchises have name recognition like George Bush, I still wouldn't pay for any of their 'art.'

Why even reboot? Just spin off, which I guess they have and failed at it. They could have Resident Evil presets: Undead Uprising. There have to be more cities outside of Africa that have zombies. You can have the whole premise 'get to ze chopper and survive.' Brilliant. No corporate evil guy that wants to kill the world with zombies instead of a bomb. You can have a more personal villain or set of villains. Like you were with a group of survivors, they turned on the other half of your group. You ran, now they're out to find you. Or turn it around where the player character is the crazy one hunting the survivors, but then you find your heart and end up saving people... or shooting them, but the ones you haven't shot figure out you killed them. Make it a choice thing. Nah who am I kidding, people hate everything new. Throw more tits and ass in.

People loved the Resident Evil game for the PSP or Vita. Since it was a return to slow, clunky survival where it was more fighting against how slow everything is. Kind of like Castlevania. You are slow... you can't dodge anything, you must kill it. The Medusa heads you can dodge, you dodge by standing still. How brilliant.

Sonic doesn't need a reboot so much as this game has Sonic, Robotnik, Knuckles and Tails in it. That is all. Carry on. Playing Sonic Advance 1 2 3 was a joy, since it was actual 2D fun.

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I saw the new Robocop today and it had a lot more substance to it than I expected. I especially liked Gary Oldman's part as the scientist and I'm glad it got a lot of screentime. The low points were most of the action scenes which just lack the weight and impact of the original, and some of the points/themes felt really hamfisted like that scene with the prosphetic arm guy trying to play guitar, and the doctor telling him he can't play with too much emotion. The original Robocop theme felt very shoehorned into the movie as well.

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Personally, I'm disgusted by all reboots, regardless of whether they are of movies, shows, or videogames.
Is it really that hard to acquaint young generations to something which was made before they were born without ruining the childhoods of the older people who grew up with it?
Makes me sick to the stomach. Honestly.

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Reboots?I think they suck when it comes to FPS because there is 75% of chances that it will follow Call of Duty's gameplay which ruins the game and an example is Duke Nukem Forever(sorry about this Duke.) but thankfully there is a remake of it as a mod for Duke3D which restores Duke to its former glory.
Althrough i find some games that were rebooted quite good and i'm talking about 2D games which i like a lot.
And this is my opinion.

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