travel centre: Maximum PC | Facebook, Android, or Windows? 16 Gaming Classics ...

Maybe it?s the whiff of summer in the air, but we've been a little, well, distracted. For the last few weeks, we?ve been spending a lot of time reminiscing and talking and opining over our favorite games from yesteryear. For some kids, summer meant lakes and rivers and baseball and camp. Not us. For us, summer meant long, uninterrupted hours playing lots and lots of games on our Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 800, or IBM PC.?

All these memories got us thinking: We've seen a lot of literal and spiritual remakes on phones, tablets, and even Facebook. It's a great way for gamers to revive their favorites. But there are a bunch of classic games from the golden era that have yet to receive a tender loving retro port.?We decided it was high time someone identified a queue of sorts for future remakes. And while every game would work well on Windows, some of the classics would probably work even better on an alternative OS. So, as an added wrinkle, we?re going to pick one of three platforms - Windows, Facebook, or Android - as the best fit.

Enjoy the read, and we encourage you to make your own suggestions in the comments section. We'll give out a set of ThermalTake Tt eSports headphones to the best entry. (If we see lots of good entries, we'll just randomize the winner.)

One final note: We give big props to MobyGames.com ? they are a treasure trove of credits, screenshots, statistics, and information about pretty much every game created.

16 Classic Games That Need to Be Remade Today

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The Seven Cities of Gold(1984)
?A second chance to get the New World right,? Electronic Arts? ad proclaimed. Anyone who played this classic would agree?the moment you discover the New World (randomized each game) was a magical moment, and exploring it was great fun. For an 8-bit game, it was remarkably mature and nuanced.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: The core game was great; just polish it up, and add some new graphics and multiplayer.
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AutoDuel (1985)
A dystopic future, RPG elements, and car battles made this one of the more interesting games of the golden era. Courier missions, roadside ambushes, an arena battle mode, and the ability to upgrade your ride were all fun. It was also really, really difficult.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? WINDOWS: In an era of amazing graphics and Grand Theft Auto rip-offs, we can?t believe this hasn?t happened yet. Come on game designer people. COME ON.
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Balance of Power (1985)
Published by Mindscape and developed by Chris Crawford, this was a sophisticated and notoriously difficult geopolitical simulator. Seriously--making it through even half the game without destroying the world felt impossible.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? FACEBOOK: It's high time all these happy friendly people thought about the delicate political balance we all take for granted.
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Bruce Lee (1984)
Ultimately, Datasoft's homage was a single-screen platform shooter, but it looked like Bruce Lee, and it felt like Bruce Lee. You fought, jumped, and avoided obstacles. And died a lot.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: This is the perfect action game to play while standing in line.
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Elite (1984)
If you were lucky enough to play this game back in the day, you probably sunk hours into it. Elite was a space combat and economic trading simulator. You could play it safe by trading on thin margins in protected territory, or you could risk it all and trade in pirate-infested realms. One of the best things was the multitude of ship upgrades
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: You could literally just port this game as it stands.
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Hollywood Mogul (1997)
Even today, this Visual Basic-looking Windows game remains highly entertaining. The ability to set up your own movie studio, hire your own directors and stars, and then stage your own marketing campaigns is genius.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? FACEBOOK: Turn-based, multiplayer movie studio management. Zynga, we have a winner. (Just don?t call it Movieville.)
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Karateka (1984)
When you died in this martial arts side scroller, there was no continue screen, making the surprise ending all the more painful.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: Perfect for the smartphone or tablet.
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Legionnaire (1982)
We're betting there are very few gamers out there who remember this classic from Avalon Hill, which forced gamers to use terrain and tactics to tame the Barbarian Horde. It's one of the very first real-time strategy games we remember.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: This is a perfect tablet game.
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M.U.L.E. (1983)
One of the greatest turn-based multi-player of all time, M.U.L.E. was also a fantastic macroeconomic lesson. The game's designer Dani Bunten is a legend.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? FACEBOOK: This is a perfect game to go back and forth in against your friends.
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Ogre (1986)
This translation of Steve Jackson?s board game remains one of the nerdiest computer strategy games of all time. You equipped your OGRE tank, set up an attack vector, and then pitted it against a variety of enemies. Ogre also came with the most practical bundled tchotcke of all time ? a functioning radiation badge.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: Honeycomb tablet variant, of course.
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Panzer General (1994)
The first in a series of very approachable, but tactically deep turn-based wargames released by SSI turned the war game category on its head. Beer and pretzel gaming, son!
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: Honestly though, we'd play it on any platform, any time. (FWIW, AC Command for iOS is a good facsimile.)
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Populous (1989)
This real-time god simulator was one of Peter Molyneaux's first games, and not surprisingly it was really weird and interesting and entertaining. The goal was to out-god your opponent by destroying his or her followers.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? WINDOWS: This was such an interesting game, we can't help but imagine it remade as an MMO.
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Roadwar 2000 (1986)
We have five words for you: Post apocalyptic turn-based strategy game. What about loading up a convoy of buses and sports cars with a bunch of armed mutants and fighting gang wars is not appealing?
Facebook, Android, or Windows? ANDROID: Particularly tablet variants.
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Ultima (1981)
We are aware that Lord of Ultima exists on Facebook, but we're not looking to play a bastardization of Lord British's epic RPG. We're talking real Ultima, damn it. We'll take a remake of any of the first 7 games. Seriously. Any. One.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? WINDOWS: Playing Ultima III in high resolution sounds great.
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Wing Commander (1990)
Chris Roberts and Origin really nailed the Space Opera with this series, which blended fast action and a fairly engaging (if hokey) story. Way ahead of its time.
Facebook, Android, or Windows? WINDOWS: The right engine would make this game great again. (Although you could easily argue it would work well on tablets and phones as well.)