You may have heard that those who purchase the Modern Warfare 2 Hardened or Prestige editions will get a token to download Call of Duty Classic (which, obviously, is the original Call of Duty) on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. However, if you don’t want to pay the, quite frankly, ridiculous prices for these editions (the standard edition is bad enough, retailing at a staggering £55!) you will have to wait a little while longer to get your Call of Duty Classic fix.

The game will eventually be made available to everyone via Xbox Live and PSN, complete with working multiplayer, but Infinity Ward is not saying when. I understand that they want to offer people incentives for paying more, but why not release it at the same time anyway and just charge for it? I don’t see the point in limiting it to certain people. I suppose there’s the exclusivity aspect, but you’re also limiting the amount of people available to play against online.

“Prestige and Hardened Edition buyers will be getting access to Call of Duty: Classic first. It’ll eventually be coming out for both Xbox Live Arcade and PSN as a stand-alone arcade game.

However, price and release date are unknown at this point. It’s the true original Call of Duty including full multiplayer.” - IGN

In any case, at least we will be getting it eventually. I’ll probably be downloading it as soon as it becomes available, simply because Call of Duty remains one of the best FPS experiences I’ve ever had. I cannot begin to count the amount of hours I sunk into playing the game online on my PC, and I also made some pretty good friends through it too. It’s a shame that user created levels probably won’t be available in Call of Duty Classic, as that was one of the main draws for me in the original release, but people should be aware that Call of Duty still enjoys a somewhat active fan community on the PC and you will still be able to find an online game if you’re interested.

The major problem with this move is that, well, will people actually bother to play Call of Duty Classic when they’re busy playing Modern Warfare 2?

LucasArts, creators of classic games such as the Monkey Island series and Full Throttle (which gave me an excuse to post the glorious gif above), believes that the increase in developers using digital distribution to release games has also increased consumer interest in retro games.

Craig Derrick, producer on the upcoming download only Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, told Destructoid that LucasArts decided to update the title due to fan demand, and also because making new IP is “very difficult”.

“We’re experiencing a remarkable increase in retro gaming and nostalgia thanks in part to the digital distribution of games on Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, Wiiware, Steam and iTunes, he said. “We’re seeing that gamers are looking for new experiences, even if they’re found in classic games.

“The age range of the average gamer has significantly broadened and people are open now more than ever to different types of game genres.” - Destructoid

The beauty of releasing old games on any digital distribution platform means that not only those that grew up playing them can relive the good old days, but it also means that quality games are exposed to a new generation. Some gamers may like hunting down dusty copies of old games, but I just prefer easy access on modern platforms. That doesn’t mean I think they should be updated though, and to be honest I prefer the original visuals in Secret of Monkey Island rather than the new HD update on PC and Xbox Live Arcade (thankfully you can switch between the two). However, there are other options available such as the excellent Good Old Games website. Not only does GoG provide a large stable of classic games, but it’s also extremely cheap to boot!

Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition lands 7 July on PC and Xbox Live.

It’s not a bad week for games, which is fortunate as we’re coming up to the Summer - a notoriously dry season for games. Personally I’m tempted by Klonoa, but take a look at the list yourself to see what takes your fancy (if anything).

Damnation (PS3, PC, X360) 22/5

Originally an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod (which I played, and thought it was quite good) Damnation has now evolved into a full retail release. The game is set in an alternate 20th century where the American Civil War is still raging and everything is rendered in steampunk; and you’ll make use of acrobatic talents and a unique ‘spirit vision’ to get through the game. Unfortunately if Eurogamer’s review is anything to go by an interesting premise doesn’t always make a good game.

Punch-Out!! (Wii) 22/5

Readers who owned a NES may remember the original Punch-Out!!, a colourful cartoony boxing game that, at least according to Wikipedia, has ‘consistently been ranked amongst the best games released for the NES platform’. If you’re feeling nostalgic then Nintendo has you covered as 11 boxers from the NES release make their return. Let’s just hope that you don’t let Glass Joe take you down.

Bionic Commando (PS3, X360) 22/5

Yet another re-visit to a franchise that was around on the NES (although it originally came out in arcades) Bionic Commando is a direct sequel to the second game (the first NES release). You swing around the environment, while using your bionic arm to carry out attacks - such as launching boulders and cars at enemies. Check out the demo on Xbox Live if you want to see it for yourself.

Klonoa (Wii) 22/5

It’s all about the old games this week, isn’t it? Klonoa was one of my favourite platformer games for the PSOne, and it’s a shame that it wasn’t that popular when it first came out. Thankfully this Wii update will hopefully make people aware of how great a game this is, and with updated visuals they’re in for a treat!

Other releases:

• UFC 2009 Undisputed (PS3, X360) 22/5
• Pokémon Platinum (DS) 22/5
• EA Sports Active (Wii) 22/5
• Demigod (PC) 22/5
• Aqua Panic (Wii) 22/5
• Big Family Games (Wii) 21/5
• Dawn of Discovery (DS, Wii) 22/5
• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Wii) 22/5
• Rock Revolution (X360) 22/5
• Neopets Puzzle Adventure (DS) 22/5
• Mind Body & Soul: Nutrition Matters (DS) 22/5
• Diva Girls: Making the Music (DS) 22/5
• Octomania (Wii) 22/5
• Restaurant Empire 2 (PC) 22/5

For fans of zombie killing who only own a Wii there’s not currently many recent games available that allow you to flex your zombie killing skills. Sure, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - a sub-par port of the Xbox 360’s Dead Rising - recently came out but there’s nothing new for fans of the most successful zombie videogame franchise ever created; Resident Evil.

The last time we saw Resident Evil on the Wii was the light gun game, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, released way back in 2007. Before that came a port of Resident Evil 4, which, although good, means it’s time for a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately Capcom won’t be bringing the latest game in the franchise, Resident Evil 5, to the Wii. Instead Capcom have something else up their sleeve for disappointed Wii owners.

“It was made for the Xbox 360 and PS3″ says Capcom’s Associate Producter Marketing Manager Matt Dahlgren of Resident Evil 5, when questioned by Joystiq at a recent Capcom event in Toronto. “That being said, Nintendo Wii fans will be very happy very soon.”(Source)

So what would make Wii owners so happy? Matt also responded to a comment from Game Focus about a possible Code Veronica remake.

Game Focus: One of the staff here loves Code Veronica (Fale) and was wondering if we would see a XBLA or PSN release of this game.

Matt Dahlgren: Nothing is planned for the game regarding a remake on PSN/XBLA, but what I can say is if you are a fan of Code Veronica you should pay attention in the next couple of weeks there is some news you should be very pleased with. Tell him to pay attention on the 12th (March).(Source)

It’s worth noting that 12th March is the day before Resident Evil 5 is released, so whatever is announced may shift Wii owner’s attention away from not getting Resident Evil 5, although I’m sure Capcom wouldn’t mind Wii owner’s buying a PS3 or Xbox 360 in order to play their game.

Whether it’s Code Veronica, another remake or Umbrella Chronicles 2 we’ll find out for sure next week.

Wii’s Resident Evil fans will be ‘very happy very soon,’ Capcom says - Joystiq
Resident Evil 5 Exclusive Interview - Game Focus

I’ve documented my poor skills at fighting games here in the past, but I have to admit that I do like a bit of good old Street Fighter. So, it’s good to know that the HD paint job on Super Street Fighter II has been completed and will be out pretty soon.

Christian Svensson, Capcom’s VP of strategic planning and business development, has posted on the official Capcom forums that the game is finished and has been submitted to Microsoft and Sony for approval. Furthermore, he had this to say:

“November is indeed the target month,” he said, while cautioning that, “It is possible for us to bounce the submission on one and not the other which would cause the release to potentially not be simultaneous and still be released in November on one of the two.” - Joystiq

The game will include both local and online multiplayer, but beta players have been complaining about lag whilst playing online. Obviously a beta is supposed to help fix issues like these so hopefully Capcom will have sorted it upon release.

Super Street Fighter II HDR will be coming to Xbox Live and PSN.

The House of the Dead… Ahh, what (almost criminal) memories this title brings back. A marvel of technology it was, and one you had to constantly feed coins into, only to be deemed too primitive for today’s Wii gaming kids. Oh well, can’t have it all I guess and time will always fly, but, heck, I’d have loved blasting those ancient blocky zombies of the original HotD in the comfort of my home. Not that I’m complaining about Sega’s House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return, mind you, but it could have been better. More polished. With more content and at least two more House of the Dead games.

Still, what you get for the price asked is more than fair really, as both House of the Dead 2 and 3 have been excellently ported, and the Wii remote is as great a lightgun as you can find outside the arcades. Oh, and fun as the single player game is, the two-player option is where HotD 2 & 3 really shines. Now, in case you were wondering how the thing plays or don’t remember the games, well, I guess this offering is not for you. Unless you’d rather be a video gaming historian or already are a completist.

Awww… it’s so lovely finding out that classic games are still available to the casual shopper -let alone in a most suitable Win XP compatible format- and we (mainly) PC gamers don’t have to stick to them boring FPSs. Take Theme Hospital for example. Thanks to Sold Out, the only quality budget label I can think of, this almost retro treasure by the legendary Bullfrog can now be bought for under a fiver and remind everyone just how brilliant gaming back in 1997 was. Brilliant, beautiful, taxing, funny and original actually…

Anyway. If you were around back then and were even vaguely interested in gaming, I’m pretty sure you’re already off buying the thing or reaching for your sadly misplaced copy. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, well, learn that Theme Hospital was -and is- a fantastic and quite hilarious business management sim that had you running a whole hospital. Not very exciting, eh? Well then, guess I’d let you know that your hospital was financially competing against the fine institutions of Deep Thought, Akira, HAL and Zen, and trying to prove it was the best when it came around to curing the horrible afflictions of sheer invisibility, the uncommon cold and the horrible bloaty head disease. Now, hopefully, you know you have to at least give it a try.

It might be almost a decade old and should probably qualify as retro, but I just can’t help feel that Star Wars X-Wing Alliance still does a pretty impressive impression of a modern game (especially if you patch it up and probably more so when its new homebrew textures hit the Internet). Besides, 10 years isn’t such a long time, is it? And good games never age.

Especially so, when said good games are more or less the last offerings of their sub-genre, as was X-Wing Alliance, for it sadly was the very last Star Wars space-combat sim that let players sit inside a cockpit. Following the excellent X-Wing, nigh on perfect TIE Fighter and multiplayer-only X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Alliance not only brought the series to an explosive climax and allowed anti-social kids and accountants worldwide to fantasize about being starry-eyed space heroes, but also let us proper gamers relive key events from the Star Wars saga and even the end of the Empire itself. And, yes, this does actually mean we got to fly the Millennium Falcon inside the second Death Star as never before and never since. See the screenshot?

Sheer computer gaming joy. What’s more, the game also let (arguably still does, as it’s got no problems on my XP PC) you pilot a variety of classic Rebel Alliance starships ranging from the aptly named X-Wing classic, to the vaguely A-shaped A-Wing, to the Y-Wing, through a brilliant campaign that spanned 50 missions. Oh, and graphics and audio are still impressive, the gameplay hasn’t aged a day and multiplayer dogfights are unsurpassed.

Meet Roger Wilco, janitor extraordinaire and star of the truly funny Space Quest series by Sierra, back from the era when adventure games were actually considered killer-apps and went on to spawn sequel after sequel. Meet him through almost seven Space Quest games (well, six actually), out of which only five (almost six) used roman numerals in their titles. Meet him here and have a drink with the lad.

Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter

The first game by designers Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, a.k.a. The Two Guys from Andromeda, SQ I was released back in 1986 at the beginning of the adventure gaming mainstream era. The game used the early Sierra AGI engine, complete with 16 glorious colours and beautifully stylized graphics, a nice soundtrack and a pretty impressive -definitely hilarious too- parser interface. The plot introduced series star Roger Wilco, a janitor, who started off his heroics by napping in a broom closet while aliens hijacked the spaceship he was supposed to be cleaning and grabbed the devastatingly deadly Star Generator, only to finally wake up and save the universe. The game also introduced the series’ trademark humor, frequent -impressively varied too- deaths, difficult puzzles, arcade-y sequences and bad-guy Vohaul.

Space Quest II: Vohaul’s Revenge

The first sequel in the series is another text-driven graphics adventure that apparently took less than a year to develop, and, well, quite frankly it shows. Arch-villain Sludge Vohaul returns to hunt a now-famous Roger Wilco in a frustrating game with below average puzzles and mostly flat jokes. Not really worth your time without a walkthrough…

Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon

Space Quest 3 was simply stunning and one of the better looking games of 1989, especially when seen on the Amiga. It also sported a truly post-modern and particularly funny plot involving the Space Pirates, a shovelware/software pirating group, who had kidnapped the Two Guys, thus endangering the future of the whole Space Quest franchise. Unless, that is, Roger stopped them, which apparently he did. The game, besides being excellent and taxing as ever, also featured tactical space combat and a playable arcade game.

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers

The first 256-colour VGA Space Quest with full SoundBlaster support and the first point-and-click game in the series too, Space Quest IV remains among my top 10 adventures even to this day. It’s got everything you could ask for really: time traveling to previous and future SQ games complete with appropriate graphic changes, Roger’s son, a fantastic goodies-filled box, some of the best puzzles ever, Lucasarts game parodies, a burger making mini-game, Ms. Astro Chicken, droids, top-quality voice acting, latex babes, elaborate easter eggs, a smell icon and the aptly named Monochrome Boys. An absolute masterpiece.

Space Quest V: Roger Wilco - The Next Mutation

This one I haven’t played, mostly because it was the first SQ game that wasn’t designed by both the Guys from Andromeda, but most adventurers seem to agree it’s a fine game. Reviewers liked it quite a bit too. Released back in 1993, Space Quest V had Roger take on the Star Trek universe by graduating from the illustrious StarCon Academy, piloting his very own garbage-collecting spaceship and boldly going where no man had gone before.

Space Quest 6: Roger Wilco in The Spinal Frontier

The final installment in the series and the only one to do away with the silly places in outer space in order to focus on the silly ones inside the human body, as experienced by a highly miniaturized Roger of course. Actually, scrap that, as it’s just what the title implies. The game -an SVGA CD exclusive released in 1995- has Mr. Wilco exploring the vaguely nasty planet of Polysorbate LX while running into an incredible number of farcical video game, computer, pop-culture and movie references. Oh, and you’ll definitely love the cartoon-quality graphics and vastly updated point-and-click interface.

Now, as Space Quest 7 -or would it be VII?- never managed to survive the demise of Sierra and no more Space Quest games are to be released in the foreseeable future, seasoned veterans could go around and google for some mostly brilliant fanmade sequels and remakes. Alternatively, both them and gamers looking to dive into the taxing and surreal universe of Space Quest can go for Vivendi’s Space Quest Collection. It might not be the best collection possible (lacking a few game versions and coming with PDF manuals only) but it’s got the basics covered, runs brilliantly on the latest PCs and is dead cheap.

Just a short post to let you know that the Commodore 64 ueber-classic Impossible Mission has been made available on the Virtual Console for a mere 500 Wii Points. Oh, and to point out that it hasn’t aged a day and still retains its hybrid puzzle/action charms. Joy, oh joy! So, if you care for a blast of nostalgia or want to find out just why this game has been considered a classic, better download it now. Alternatively, google around for the thing…