Back in 2013, I prepared for college by purchasing my first personal computer for myself. It was a low/mid-range laptop that could barely scratch the surface of gaming, but I immediately installed Team Fortress 2, and sunk dozens of hours into that. I then went to buy Left 4 Dead 2 again on Steam, despite putting a lot of hours onto it on Xbox 360, my platform of choice at the time. This decision was one I found to be a risk at the time, yet it turned out to pave my way to converting into a PC gamer.

See, while I was accustomed to using a controller with games that output at 30fps, things changed when I got a handle of 60fps and the precision of mouse and keyboard. Coupling that with Left 4 Dead 2‘s wacky, simple mod support made for an addiction like no other. Once I smoothly transitioned into gaming on laptops, I grew my Steam library with bundles and daily deals knowing that I was experiencing the games in their best outlet.

Thanks to devoted developers and remasters, older games are getting fresh new interpretations and improvements, like SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated and Destroy All Humans! getting new life. Considering these titles were two console generations old, the visuals getting an overhaul with mouse/keyboard support and uncapped framerates, all the while channeling nostalgia, is a dream come true.

There are entire studios devoted to bringing back games of yore. NightDive Studios has had their hand in these resurrections. One look at their list of games shows that it is a who’s-who of the best titles from past generations. These include Turok, System Shock, the Humongous Games catalog, and dozens more. The fact that a company can make a profit on abandonware and bring new fans to the fold is a testament to how much of a market there is for re-releases.

Unfortunately, not every re-release is a triumph. Warcraft III – Reforged‘s botched release resulted in it being the worst-rated game on Metacritic at a staggering 0.5 at one point, due to, well, Blizzard being Blizzard. Thankfully, most re-releases are passion projects, worked on by gamers that had experience playing the original game and wanting to recapture the positive feelings they received when they were younger. Whenever a game gets a remaster announced, it’s hit-or-miss in the comments section. Some newer games don’t really need to be revisited so soon or tampered with. For example, The Last Of Us Remastered came out a mere year after the original, whereas Halo: The Master Chief Collection uses completely different character models for beloved characters. Others, like Dark Souls Remastered and the aforementioned Battle for Bikini Bottom are completely worthwhile expeditions.

Not everyone will want to play the same game twice, but it’s something I’ve found myself doing more and more in recent years. I have a lot of collections to sift through on PS3, like Jak and Daxter and Sly Cooper. I am also making my way through Destroy All Humans! with glee, so it seems that I may be replaying games for the foreseeable future. Who knows? What new games right now will I be replaying 5-10 years in the future?

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