For the old school console fan, 2015 is a paradise of fresh delights. Axiom Verge oozes that classic console feeling when it starts up on PlayStation 4. The grinding wub-wub-wub of the distortion field weapon and its glitchy effects warping the blocky environment seem like they were lifted right out of 1989. The same is true of The Adventures of Pip. Played on a Wii U, the hero’s transformation from single block into increasingly detailed pixel dudes is practically a greatest hits tour through the transitions in tech from Atari 2600 to NES to SNES. Odallus even has those fetching scan lines right on the screen to mimic sitting in front of a CRT television. “Wait a second,” mutters the console purist, gently setting down her Jaguar controller. “Odallus is a PC game!”

JoyMasher’s game only looks like a console game. Axiom Verve and Pip, despite being readily available on those slick little boxes with controllers that never need a keyboard and mouse to operate, also happen to be playable on PC. These games may have been made to ape the ticks and charms that made console games so distinct from their PC cousins in the past, but in 2015 there are almost no tactile differences between games built on any platform. If the specific pleasure of firing up and playing a console game is ubiquitous across all platforms, what defines console gaming now?

Understanding just how incredibly different console games were to one another in their heyday is difficult in an era when XCOM: Enemy Unknown runs as comfortably on a PC and iPad as it does on an Xbox 360. It wasn’t just that each machine had its own style of controller, either; even the noises they made were particular. Consider Sega and Nintendo’s 16-bit beasts. Genesis does indeed do what Nintendon’t but the reverse is equally true. Super Nintendo games used a custom built processor called the S-SMP to generate sound effects and music, resulting in tones with a characteristic warmth. Think about the smooth horn blats of the Super Mario World soundtrack (and the admittedly farty noise made when Mario enters a Koopa castle) for perfect examples of that machine’s audio identity. Sega’s Genesis used a stock sound processor, the Yamaha YM2612. While just as capable of making some bitchin’ tunes, the YM2612 produced a drier, almost acidic tone encapsulated by bruisers like the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack. Compare the main theme of Chrono Trigger remixed using Genesis sounds compared to the SNES original.

The specificity of the hardware, like the SNES’ custom sound chip and the fact that consoles couldn’t be gradually augmented with more memory made game development on those consoles isolated, but also focused. PlayStation developers had an easier time making 3D games because that console’s processing power wasn’t awkwardly spread out across multiple processors like the Sega Saturn. For 2D games, though, Saturn trounced the PlayStation because of the lack of video RAM in Sony’s box. The differences between those two platforms made the same game feel different depending on where it showed up. Resident Evil’s Jill Valentine is jagged on PS1 but more detailed compared to the smooth, simple character model on Saturn.

Every console had its own quirks, its own identity as well as flow in its games that culminated not just in a house style but also a genuine hominess. Recognizing the instrumentation and sound libraries cohere across multiple Super Nintendo games like Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana let the console itself grow deep roots in a regular player. For any ravenous fans of Capcom’s arcade work in the mid-’90s, the Sega Saturn’s 2D capabilities made it the only place to translate those brief experiences into something lasting at home. Even machines like the Nintendo 64 whose technical abilities seemed like drawbacks on paper could become benefits as you became attached to its specific style. Did the muddy textures and hazy resolution of N64 games make them immortal works of graphical achievement? Hell no, but for the people that love that machine in its games, that smudgy look is representative of everything great about the console. Consoles could have a style that was also a soul.

Games the cross between console and PC today are actually very capable of mimicking the particulars of classic machines like Super Nintendo, but those artful flourishes aren’t a result of using locked-in hardware specifications. Axiom Verge, whether played on a PS4 or a PC, feels like a modern successor to Nintendo’s own Super Metroid, from the chunky biological art design to Tom Happ’s eerie sci-fi music. Rather than milking a specific sound out of a custom chip, though, the soundtrack was made using an old version of SoundForge and Sonar X2. The game itself was built using software called MonoGame. The result is classic console style but what’s ultimately a device-agnostic feel; Axiom Verge was built with those tools precisely so it wouldn’t be confined to a single platform like old console games.

What marks a console game today actually has nothing to do with what’s in the games, but the ecosystem that surrounds them. Each console environment gets its shape in multiple ways. One aspect is the online community. While cross-platform play between PC and console games like the kind Capcom’s building for Street Fighter V is becoming more common, the player pools on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live do remain largely closed and specific. Multiplayer communities, achievements, trophies, and just the simple notifications that someone you know has been playing the same things you have creates a sense of shared experience that gives that specific console a new feel and form.

While the technical proficiencies of the consoles don’t necessarily define their games anymore, what the makers of those consoles choose to fund and create also internally further shapes the culture of that machine. Nintendo and its fleet of mascots are the most obvious example. Modestly powered PCs could run games like Super Mario 3D World without much difficulty – Wii U uses a PowerPC processor not dissimilar to the PC-like Xbox 360 – but that game and others published by Nintendo share. Wii U games tend to be colorful and emphasize action over story; even games made by studios outside Nintendo’s offices like Bayonetta 2 share that spirit.

Less specific than Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft nonetheless have their own content cultures. Sony, for example, has been cultivating the same persona since it got in the game back in the ‘90s. Its publishing slate tends to mix blockbuster savvy with a flair for quiet, weird experimentation. That’s how you have Uncharted coming out of the same pool as Tokyo Jungle and The Puppeteer with a heavy emphasis on individual characters and largely single-player experiences. Microsoft on the other hand has always banked first on big, blockbuster style games that emphasize multiplayer. Halo, Gears of War, and the Driveatar-ridden roadways of modern Forza all have ample space to play by yourself, but they’re sold first as things to play with other people. (It’s hard to find an Xbox One tentpole that doesn’t have four-player co-op.)

For the old school fan, longing for those aesthetic quirks that made console gaming so distinct in the 20th and early 21st century, your options are limited. There’s always the hardcore homebrew scene, where people are even still cranking ZX Spectrum games alongside new NES and even SNES games. They can satisfy, but it’s no easy task to find homemade games that feel as polished as the classics. Games like Axiom and Odallus that pay homage to an era of more specific technology scratch part of the itch, but even games as precise as those aren’t wholly the real deal. Which is fine. It simply means that old console feeling is itself an antiquity, the soul of games as they were, not as they are.

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However, some previous XCOM assets were soon noticed in the concept art and all the evidence continued pointing that way. Now, we have the official reveal. Oddly, it’s PC only this time after an all-formats release previously for Enemy Unknown. I’m guessing console sales weren’t up to scratch? Here’s the trailer:

The set up is that whoever played the previous game last clearly didn’t do a good job, and now the aliens control earth. Humans live in ET-run Advent cities, apparently unaware of their evil overlords and XCOM effectively operates as a guerrilla organisation from a new flying skybase. Among fresh features are new soldier classes and aliens, procedurally generated maps and mention of ‘stealth-infused tactics’. Presumably that’s come from the new focus on fighting through fully enemy controlled urban locations.

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Updated with the Community Choice entry!

If you had told us five years ago that we would love an XCOM game, we wouldve called you crazy. The original X-COM: UFO Defense was no doubt a great game, with a grip of devoted fans that still play it to this day–but its deep tactical gameplay is nigh impenetrable for new-school gamers. Then Firaxis Games came along, gave it a fresh coat of modern-day polish, energized the gameplay, and created one of the most exciting games of this holiday season. Hows that for a reboot?

It got us thinking–there are plenty of franchises out there which, much like XCOM, are ripe for remakes thanks to their devout, albeit small, following. These are the seven seemingly forgotten franchises that we think need to come back in style; if youve done a majority of your gaming during the 80s and 90s, we can bet youd be on board with these reboots.

7. Heretic

Skyrim, Shmyrim–we want our first-person spellcasting to be as pixelated as possible. One of Raven Softwares first breakout hits, you may best remember the Heretic franchise from its pseudo-sequel Hexen. Using a modified version of the classic Doom engine, this first-person hack-n-slash series had you smashing maces or slinging spells into the fleshy faces of gruesome monsters (as one of three playable classes, no less). Instead of a grimy space station, the Heretic games had you exploring ancient temples and misty marshes–and it forced you to collect keys, but hey, that was the thing to do at the time.

Sadly, its medieval murdering never took off like Dooms demon killing. A modern-day reboot could distinguish itself from the Elder Scrolls pack by playing up the dark fantasy and occult elements, and its already known to offer something Skyrim cant: co-op.

6. Turrican

With some of the most irrefutably outstanding box art for its games, the Turrican series is beloved by those who played it. A 2D side-scrolling shooter in the same vein as Metroid, Turrican was all about blasting aliens with a varied arsenal of space-age weaponry, and even included a morph-ball form–except this one had spikes! The alien enemy designs were varied, the graphics were pleasingly vibrant, and the running animation was pretty dang impressive for the time. Just knowing that we were playing as the bionic cyborg from the games cover made it all that much better, even if we were constantly getting lost in the maze-like level layouts.

Give the game some Shadow Complex-style bells and whistles and make it an affordable downloadable, and Turrican would be on its way towards being the next big Metroidvania franchise. Or go big-budget and turn it into a stylized third-person shooter–look, we just want to see Turrican on a box again. Thatll make us happy.

5. Z

Command & Conquer: Red Alert gets all the nostalgic RTS credit–but not many know that this obscure strategy game predates it, and was way ahead of its time. With one of the least Google-able names of all time, Z (also known as Zed) delivered robot-on-robot, red-vs-blue aggression as bots warred over a variety of worlds. Its gameplay could be compared to the Dawn of War series: Instead of tasking the player with macro-level management of mineral gathering and base construction, your units were at the forefront of the action. Moving around the map and capturing territories was the name of the game, and you could seize unmanned warmachines to bolster your forces. The varied robot types also had great character, thanks to some spiffy unit portraits.

The games light-hearted humor could be compared to the Worms series, and that franchise has certainly withstood the test of time. It wouldnt take much to make Z a miniature modern-day hit–turn it into a tower-defense game or an asynchronous, turn-based strategy game, and the simple charm of its sprite graphics and straightforward objectives will do the rest.

4. Descent

Okay, so gamers who suffer from motion sickness will definitely hate this space shooter, with its incredibly disorienting z-axis flight. But those that can stomach Descents gut-wrenching twists and turns will find a supremely engaging 3D shoot-em-up. Picture Doom with an additional dimension of movement and a cockpit view, and thats Descent in a nutshell–zooming around spacious space stations and tight underground tunnels collecting nifty new weapons and energy globes. The enemy ships were particularly memorable, turning a few jagged polygons into angular, downright menacing machines, and we were far more compelled by collecting new laser types than we had any right to be.

There just arent enough dogfighting in space games these days, and we reckon a Descent reboot would perfectly fill that void in our hearts. As long as it maintains the six degrees of spatial freedom that made the originals famous, nothing (except the need for a barf bag nearby) can go wrong.

3. Shadowrun

Kids today with their Massive Effects and Final Fantasies–whatever happened to the totally-out-there, Blade Runner-meets-D&D RPGs like Shadowrun? Based on a tabletop RPG by the same name, this isometric sci-fi adventure melded punk culture, classic fantasy, and futuristic cityscapes into one incredibly unique, noir-style story. Hitting 2050 Seattles dilapidated streets as the amnesiac Jake Armitage, you never knew what youd be in for next–ducking into an alleyway might put you face to face with shapeshifting shamans, cyborg assassins, or brutish orcs, which you could converse with or kill using guns and magic.

Dont give us any lip about 2007s mediocre-at-best Shadowrun shooter–like the recent Syndicate reboot, that game captured little to nothing about what made the originals so special. We want a dystopian urban future rendered in full 3D, with the same snappy dialogue, technological intrigue, and frantic combat from the earlier games. And, thanks to that crazy cultural phenomenon Kickstarter, we just might get our wish.

2. Star Wars: X-Wing / TIE Fighter

Flight sims are a lot more palatable when they involve iconic Star Wars ships. Before Factor 5 wowed us with the Rogue Squadron series, would-be ace pilots for the Rebel Alliance or Empire were getting their jollies in the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games (the latter of which is easily one of the most fondly remembered DOS games of all time). The graphics may be borderline abysmal by todays standards, but the mere fact that you could control the instantly recognizable starfighters (with a cockpit view, no less) was enough to make hardcore Star Wars fans jump aboard the flight-sim bandwagon. Hearing the classic TIE Fighter scream as they zoomed through the dark void of space made us feel like we were part of the movies, with the scope of each battle and fully-voiced cutscenes driving the classic Trilogy vibe home.

With developer Totally Games no longer in Lucasarts’ pocket, another studio will have to take it upon themselves to create the next-generation Star Wars flight sim. As long as new iterations stick to authentic representations of the namesake aircraft and adamantly abolish any on-foot nonsense (were looking at you, Rebel Strike), Star Wars fans should be happy to strap back in for another trip through the Death Stars trenches.

1. Another World

Despite a small cast of characters, minimalist gameplay, and some truly grueling difficulty, Another World (Out of This World, to US folks) resonated with gamers in ways they werent expecting. The games vivid vector graphics were utterly stunning at the time, and the pacing of the heavy, nicely animated platforming naturally melded with taking in the sights of the sublime alien landscape. Getting your character–the protagonist Physics professor Lester–killed over and over was all but inevitable, what with a cornucopia of death traps and one-hit kills. But slowly adapting to the hostile surroundings offered a hard-earned satisfaction and a surprisingly moving story.

The games graphical style probably wouldnt hold up for the modern gaming crowd, but the core principle would still work: The sensation of exploring foreign, photo-realistic planets is enough to captivate most anyone, and the methodical platforming would be a nice change of pace from the twitch run-n-jumping of modern fare. Prince of Persia definitely got its modern-day due; it seems like a mere matter of time before people pine for the greatness of Another World.

Community Choice: Road Rash

This classic motorcycle combat racer was less about being first to the finish line, and more about painting the concrete pavement with the fleshy faces of your competitors. Okay, so maybe it wasnt that gloriously gory–but the implications of whacking a cyclist on the back of the head with a metal chain or a baseball bat are pretty severe. Full of the gnarly attitude youd expect from unlawful motorcycle street racing, Road Rash even let you take your chances on walloping a pursuing cop off his bike, though whiffing meant instant incarceration.

Sixo T knows the risks of such confrontational cycling, saying I remember taunting a few of the characters, only to end up eating the glass of an oncoming car. You could even call the game a bad influence; Tyrande recalls that her parents split the disc in two when her brother mentioned the desire to smash a cops windshield. But that kind of anarchic rivalry with the other racers is what made Road Rash so memorable, and a reboot could bring even more over-the-top violence and improved graphics to the games breakneck (literally) racing.

Gone, but not forgotten

Would you be on-board with modern-day reboots of these games, or do you think they should remain in the past? Think we missed your favorite cult-classic game and need the masses to know about it? Leave us a comment below singing the praises of old-but-timeless games, and maybe someone will get the ball rolling on the next XCOM: Enemy Unknown-caliber reboot.

Craving some more seven-strong goodness? Youll want to read the Top 7 Awesome-looking games we REALLY hope arent cancelled and the Top 7 Fantastic sequels to forgettable games.

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