Some Classic Games Kickstarter Need Not Revive

As studios continue to plunder the archives of our fond gaming memories for franchises to restore, but only if you'll stump up the nostalgia-cash via Kickstarter, I've put my mind to thinking of a few games I remember loving in the past. That should never be revived. Because they were probably awful.

Fury Of The Furries

I remember the advertising for this game more than I remember playing it. Gosh, it was everywhere. If by "everywhere" you understand "in the magazines John read in 1993". Possibly the best thing about this puzzle platformer is that your character was from a race called the Tinies, and not the Furries. In American it was called Pac-In-Time, and the Furries/Tinies were replaced with Pac-Man! What?!

I guess I always thought it was more a game about M&Ms. Why didn't those crazy Americanists change it to M&Ms?

If you said to me, "Hey, there's a Kickstarter to revive Fury Of The Furries!" I'd be like, "Wow, that sounds..." and then catch myself. But I'd still look at it. I'd look at how it was trying to encapsulate the changing nature of the Tiny to perform different tasks by instead having him be a hideously mutated freak with multiple personalities, struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic landscape where the only remaining currency is the colour brown.

Fire & Ice

I never had a Megadrive. Nor a SNES. They were far too expensive a present to ask for. We had an Atari ST, shared by the family. My cousin had a Megadrive, and I would play Sonic on it at his house on the very occasional times we would go over. Paul Pybus had a Megadrive too, and I'd sometimes play it at his house too. But there was no Sonic for the Atari ST. There were, in fact, very few fast-paced platformers for the grey wheezing beast at all. And then Fire & Ice came along. It was on my Christmas list, so hotly anticipated, and I imagine, played in complete denial of what a banal and painfully slow game it was. I think it was perhaps weeks before I was able to admit to myself that it just wasn't that good really.

Fire & Ice starred a blue coyote, see. Totally different to a blue hedgehog. And he threw ice and fire or something. I think its ultimate undoing was incessantly frustrating slippy-slidey-ice-world sections, which was fairly inevitable with the title I suppose. Oh, and that the art looks like the stuff this kid called Gareth used to draw in his exercise books at middle school, which I thought was the coolest until I'd realised he'd copied it out of the Usbourne Guide To Cartoons.

The Sentinel

I have similar memories of The Sentinel (The Sentry in the States) as I do of ITV's adaptation of Chocky - pure terror. Both occupy a space in my mind usually reserved for storing half-remembered nightmares. Neither ever made clear sense to me (I was six for Chocky, eight for The Sentinel). I think of both with a strange sense of dread.

It was created by Geoff "Grand Prix" Crammond, and I'm somewhat relieved to read as an adult that it was as incomprehensible as I remember. I'd try to explain what you're meant to do, but I fear I'd be absorbed into some sort of terrifying vortex.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised we haven't already seen a Kickstarter to see this come back. Most people who were around and gaming in the mid-80s seem to remember it, which would seemingly assure the nostalgia-bucks would come flying. And Geoff Crammond's low profile of the last decade or show makes him a shoe-in for lots of attention with a comeback (although, in fairness, this would far more likely be for a racing game). Still, I'd not back it. THE SENTINEL WOULD BLOODY STARE AT ME.

Impossible Mission II

Oh I would find this one so hard to resist. Really, I only ever played Impossible Mission 2, and I absolutely never ever figured out what on Earth I was supposed to be doing with the tapes. I just loved that incredible forward somersault jump and the thrill of dodging the patterns of those so wonderfully designed enemies. The green grabby hands on caterpillar tracks, the blue robots with the twinkling light, those red dog/dragon things that would open their eyes as you walked past. Gosh, few games are as evocative to look at for me now. I played it so, so much, and yet never had any idea what I was supposed to be doing. I'd gather the numbers from the vaults, I'd pick up the cassettes, and then eventually I'd die.

I know it didn't get great reviews at the time, and that clearly it wasn't very effective at communicating its goals, but still, I adored it. I'm struggling really hard to convince myself I wouldn't back a revival, because if it was faithful I'd likely see it with its flaws as an adult, and if it weren't, it'd probably be an FPS set on a space station with zombies. But you know, I think with this one, I'd crumble.

Limbo Of The Lost

I would totally back that Kickstarter.

Big thanks to MobyGames from whom I nicked the screenshots.

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