By Adam Smith on September 14th, 2011 at 3:13 pm.
Some of you may remember a dinky demake of Left 4 Dead that Alec posted about at the tail-end of the previous decade. The chap behind it, Eric Ruth, clearly loves nothing more than making retro-pixel-tributes because he’s done a few more as well. There’s one about electronic rackets (not to be confused with Pong, which was electronic racquets) and another starring some gaudy green space marine. You know of what I speak. His upcoming project is another Valve-inspired title though, and it looks like a lot of fun. It’s Team Fortress 2 Arcade: a sidescrolling beat/shoot ‘em up. Here’s an interview and some gameplay footage captured on film by piki geek.
The jollity of it all may well disguise rubbish gameplay but I found Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead entertaining enough for the short while it lasted. This seems more like a TF2 style Streets of Rage than an actual attempt to remake TF2 in a retro format, but that’s no problem because that already exists.
One of the reasons Valve’s games suit these sort of japes is the fact they’re already stuffed full of character. I like the idea of demakes but they are often unfinished or uninteresting. Besides which, plenty of games would be indistinguishable from one another if you gave them this sort of treatment. One game that would work though? Silent Hill 2. Good job someone did that a while ago then.<
14/09/2011 at 15:18 abigbat says:
that looks brill!
14/09/2011 at 15:19 Arca says:
This is amazing.
14/09/2011 at 15:24 Anthile says:
I can’t find the ‘jump key’ anywhere on my keyboard. o_q (<-that's the monocle that comes with every new PC)
14/09/2011 at 15:26 abigbat says:
or for about £788 in Eve.
hohoho.
14/09/2011 at 15:35 pakoito says:
EDIT OUT
14/09/2011 at 15:41 Mr_Initials says:
Game of the year.
14/09/2011 at 15:44 trigger_rant says:
Looks great fun but needs more hats obviously.
14/09/2011 at 15:46 Unaco says:
What? Team Fortress is a class based, team based, first person multiplayer collectible hat game! It’s not a retro looking, generic, side scrolling, ‘beat-em up’, it never has been and it never should be.
This is just a cynical, exploitative, abusive cash-in that is raping my childhood!
14/09/2011 at 16:06 Wulf says:
Hm. Satire doesn’t work because this doesn’t cost money, that makes it fall apart. Good try, though! 6/10
14/09/2011 at 16:22 Unaco says:
You feeling all right Wulf? That post is less than 3,000 words and doesn’t contain an anecdote about yourself and how superior you are to others.
14/09/2011 at 17:48 Koozer says:
Don’t worry UnaTco, some of us have less shrivelled hearts and can gain joy from humorous paragraphs.
14/09/2011 at 17:51 Berzee says:
He accepts donations.
14/09/2011 at 15:48 iGark says:
Now all we need is this to be reimagined as a first person shooter!
14/09/2011 at 16:08 LionsPhil says:
I think you win on succinctness.
14/09/2011 at 16:12 fedorafreak says:
*clap clap*
14/09/2011 at 16:13 deadly.by.design says:
Heavy: “You are so small! It’s funny to me!
Entire team is babies!”
14/09/2011 at 16:38 trigger_rant says:
Engineer is tearing you a structurally superfluous new behind!
14/09/2011 at 16:52 Watered-Down says:
Elevator level!
FFuck elevator levels.
Now who is going to make me a TF2 tactics game, FFT style?
14/09/2011 at 17:42 hypercrisis says:
Ugh, this video. I am sick to death of these crappy game journos (talking about the video here), this guy isn’t even vaguely trying to lead an interview, he doesn’t even sound like he likes games.
14/09/2011 at 18:45 DigitalSignalX says:
They should reboot this as an FPS.
15/09/2011 at 04:43 Gabe McGrath says:
I love the *idea* of this demake.
And some things (the start screen, the elevator level) look genuinely “Capcom/Konami early 90s brawer”.
BUT
The level design, size of characters, and the enemy movement/attacks are all wrong.
1. Level design. The game opens with a huge (empty) rectangular area.
That’s a really dull.
Contrast this to arcade games like TMNT (Level 1 is a narrow space, a hotel that’s on fire. Enemies come through doors, huge balls roll down stairs, etc)
2. The characters are really small. Brawlers need characters of a decent size to give the gameplay some ‘ooph’.
3. Most enemies shoot projectiles, rather than actually ‘beat you up’.
Many of them just scroll left to right, across the screen.. instead of homing in on you and attacking.
It’s a great shame; I love the concept, but not what I’m seeing here.
Some design elements are good, but core ‘genre’ things are so incredibly wrong.
15/09/2011 at 13:58 Enso says:
I agree, if not too firmly, apart from 2. Captain America and the Avengers had small sprites and was still good.