A link to the interview and article here.

I know I've posted in the official "beg thread" for Magic Carpet... the original was such a good game, I absolutely love it! So my feelings about a remake are a bit mixed, obviously, I'd like to play Magic Carpet again but with better graphics, improved gameplay etc...

But on the other hand, it would have a lot to live up to and well, EA isn't exactly Blizzard or Valve. Still, I'm hoping for a remake and that they can find a company that could do it well. What are most of the Bullfrog guys doing these days? Maybe EA could recruit them back, their creativity could certainly come to use :D

Given EA's internal structure, this is about the closest thing we're going to get to those games coming here.

The problem is that EA's treatment of the C&C games has been far from encouraging. Even Bullfrog's own Theme Park follow ups weren't so great. It wasn't until we had the Roller Coaster Tycoon games that we had a proper sequel (which EA had nothing to do with).

Ultima has been ransacked since Online. Dungeon Keeper is now a China-only MMO and yeah, generally speaking they don't show a great deal of respect for what made those games great in the first place.

For instance, the only reason I have any hope at all for a Syndicate sequel is that it's in the hands of Starbreeze, the people behind Riddick.

Damn, a Magic Carpet remake done well would be so awesome. That game was so far ahead of its time I think it could still hold up today; the gameplay mechanics were very cleverly designed and AFAIK, not copied by any big title yet, surprising as it is. And multiplayer could be bloody amazing.*

Ah, daydreaming.

[*Yeah, I know MC had multiplayer, but I never played it myself.]

*realizes we are talking about EA here*
*thinks of possible abominations of old games for "making them accessible to masses"*
*shudders*
*vomits*

Magic Carpet had multiplayer? I don't remember this at all! At least I never played it. Also I lol'd at my dad trying to play it and failing so much, could never stop spinning round in circles haha :P

The "best" we can expect, is a browsergame like Lords of Ultima...

Just say no.

Sadly, you are very right. I distinctly remember that in the main menu, which was the magician's workshop or something, there was something that looked like a model of DNA structure, and that stood for multiplayer. I also remember reading someone's writeup of their MP experience somewhere, but that was many years ago.

EDIT: Yeah, found it.

I'd really love a remake of some of the Commodore/Amiga classics, such as Player Manager (still the best football game ever), Sensible World of Soccer, Robin Hood, Super Cars 2, Stunt Car Racer etc.

I've even bought a Wii to play the new Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands (which reminds me that I still haven't downloaded them).

What I don't need is remakes of quite current PC classics. I'm currently playing M&M7 and loving it :)

I'm with you on that in general, but Magic Carpet was pushing the technical boundaries of its time really hard, which in consequence speeds up the aging process a lot. The draw distance in the game is like five metres or so, which is maddening. It's a bit of a chore to play today, unfortunately.

A similar case could be made for System Shock as well.

I'd argue that it depends on what you consider a 'browsergame'. While the general ones we have right now are rather very bad, that isn't exactly the fault of your browser, but rather of the developers. A game that properly utilises WebGL, Web Workers and Web Sockets could easily yield a brilliant, breathtaking experience, right in your browser. Even 'Lord British' himself considers the open sandbox experience that made the Ultima series famous to be a decent unique selling proposition for today's social gaming and is looking into creating something along the lines. You could easily create a fully functional copy of Ultima VII that runs in a browser (the game's fairly small for modern standards with less than like 15 MB). I'd love if GoG would sell Amiga games for WinUAE (with a ROM) ;)

Or worse still, like their Dragon Age browser game. A browser game that could easily wind up costing many times more to play than both the main games and their DLC combined. Absolutely insane.

EA can't even handle a sequel. DA:O was far from perfect, but the gameplay and setting were solid foundations for a new franchise. Instead, we got the *travesty* that is DA2.

Also, EA means DRM: You'll be lucky if those remakes don't have online authentication/activation, a release date check, *and* Securom. I'm surprised EA hasn't embraced the requirement for a permanent Internet connection to play its games (like Ubisoft).

And gods help you if you complain about it on any EA forums: EA's Nazi squad... er, I mean "moderators" are watching you.

Yeah, I don't care for EA. ;)

What I found funny about that interview is he essentially says old games aren't as good as people remember. Well how exactly would he know that since EA haven't released their old games. I'm sure if you asked Activision, Ubisoft or Interplay they would probably say they are more than happy with the performance of the old games released on GOG, given they weren't earning them any money before.

Exactly.

I dont want them to remake the classics. Just re-release them and make sure they run on the modern OS's, XP, Vista and 7. EA in lighter terms can just go to hell.

This made me cringe while reading it.

Yay. Remakes.