Touch Ruminations: Mixing the old with the new

In Touch Ruminations, former DS and Wii Fanboy Lead David Hinkle talks about whatever he feels like. He's a jerk like that. This week, it's all about boys, blobs, and little Macs, and how mixing the old with the new is a good thing. The opinions expressed here belong to the author and don't necessarily reflect those of Joystiq, Weblogs Inc. or its affiliates.

This week has been an exciting one for Wii owners. First and foremost, A Boy and His Blob is making a comeback! On top of that, Nintendo informed us that old-school controls will be included in Punch-Out!! for Wii. It's a wonderful mixture of old and new, and shows us that there is an incredible well of older titles that can be tapped for today's market in this manner. Nintendo has been doing that with the Virtual Console, presenting older, dated games via a new, easy-to-use interface, bringing them to a new audience. It's a wonderful mixture of classic and new sensibilities, and something I would like to see more of. Of course, A Boy and His Blob and Punch-Out!! could both be horrible, horrible games for all I know, so take that as you will.

First of all, it makes sense fiscally to take advantage of tried-and-true properties, what with the economy in the crappy shape it's in these days. The less resources you need to devote to creating compelling characters and a realistic world for them to live in is more resources you have towards creating unique gameplay elements and adding polish to a game. If the initial framework -- the foundation of a game -- is already established, then that's just one obstacle already tackled, and those who would draw from this well have an almost endless amount of choices at their fingertips.

And the Wii can only improve the original game, if the developer takes care to mind the console's strengths. Is the original game an FPS? Great, Wiimote is awesome for that! How about a platformer? Sure, Wiimote and Nunchuk can handle that. Adventure title? Dude, the Wiimote might as well be a mouse! There's just so much potential there.

One example I want to point out is the Resident Evil remake on GameCube (and I guess Wii now). If you didn't like the original Resident Evil, then you probably didn't like this, but Capcom still did a good job of expanding on the original title. The visuals were jacked up several notches (I still think it's a visual treat today) and Capcom beefed up the campaigns for Jill and Chris, making each a bit more unique, among other things. It's something that drew on the popularity and reach of the original series, yet presented it in a fresh light. When I look at the new A Boy and His Blob, I get the same feelings I did when REmake was first revealed.

I'm not condoning this practice all of the time, mind you, but I think when you have the right property and the right ideas on how to expand it, you can create something truly amazing and special. Kind of like how A Boy and His Blob looks to me right now.

And to wrap things up, here's 5 games/properties I would love to see revisited:

• Flashback

• Blast Corps

• Spy vs Spy

• Rocket Knight Adventures

• Mutant League Football