I laughed so hard at the Halo 3 pic. They're all great, though.

talking_chicken

@jmb8504: Yeah, it made me go d'awww.

ArgentAngel

... Just?

That was posted almost a year ago!

Dave Silva

@Cogito: maybe less is more? Maybe because it is more imaginative when seen in 2D than 3D.

Netnavi

No offense slowcoach, but that competition was from September last year.

MetalGearMax

JUST held? Man, these were from last year.

Karoshi

@dmcshinobi: *moving...hmm, sleep is pretty good no?

dmcshinobi

@Cogito: With as many movie parts that modern games consist of, I'm sure its difficult to encompass so much soul into so much content. Its like a painting compared to an animation.

dmcshinobi

Well...where were all these graphics on the original gameboy back then? The best I ever saw was Battletoads and cutscenes in Link's awakening. Though I could see these graphics come out of a GB color. Just makes me think that these mock-ups wouldn't be actually playable without some noticeable slowdown.

Crap. Now I feel like busting out my Gameboy. Or rather my SNESw/Supergameboy.

Netnavi

That is awesome. Gonna start Bioshock again, really dug the art in that game.

Pocket_lint

The best part of this is that those look like decent games.

EtisArap

So can anyone tell me why pixelated, 2-color, 2D games have infintely more character than thier ultra-modern counterparts? Is it merely nostalgia rearing its familiar head? Or is it something deeper...that same something that causes us to buy sequels of titles in the 4's and 5's rather than new IP.

I formally request that Maggie dig up some info on the psychology behind gaming nostalgia and loyalty. I would, but it's 2am where I live and I like sleep. :P

Cogito

@ThisCharmingMan: no, just mockups

Luke Plunkett

This just reminds me how AWESOME the gameboy was.

phinehas

This indeed is very classy.

Witzbold

That's definitely an interesting experiment. Are these actually playable?

ThisCharmingMan

Thats really cool.

Crash Override 777

Bioshock one is priceless.

jello44

Ah, brings back some faint memories. They should actually make the whole game and we can maybe play it on an emulator

ManlyVGnoob

I LOVE IT!
I really wish they'd make those now :<

<3 the wow one. Imagine Gamboy Online ;P

Acore

The Okami one just made my day.

jmb8504

I fully endorse re-imagining modern masterpieces into perfectly pocket sized pixelated portable programs! If only I could get these into a cartridge.

gameware

@Cogito: Nostalgia.

Same comments have been made about movies, music, books, etc. etc.

It's the "in my day" syndrome.

Think about it this way. Thirty years from now the kids that grow up on the current gen consoles will look back and wonder why their youth had so much character.

Rarely does anything stand the test of time. Citizen Kane is still a good movie, but you can't say the whole generation of movies it came with was. You can nitpick, but to say something like "movies in the 50s/60s were better because they had more character" is just silly.

Black-Dog-Howls

Has anyone tried the GBC Daikatana RPG? I played a little bit on an emulator once, and it really felt like a better game than the original.

PixelPeZ

the ICO one made my day.

willz0rz

bioshock one should be made.
but for gameboy color...

kevinl

Resident Evil. Heh heh...

NESTeen

I think my favorites are the Out of this World and RE4 de-makes!

boringjob2

Oh man, 4th row, images 2, 3, and 4. Phantom Dust as a Game Boy game? Fuck yes.

Yukio Futatsugi has actually said that ideally, the sequel to Phantom Dust would be on DS.

Babylonian

@HikariOblivion: Because Okami is hyper-realistic? Ico as well?

boringjob2

just because these look quaint and bring a sense of nostalgia, doesn't mean that their lauded gameplay features would survive. most would probably be reduced to standard 2d platform mechanics and not have any type of realistic physics.

Graphics do not equal gameplay, but good graphics NEVER subtract from a game. The same can be said of virtually any feature in any game.

Whether it be Bioshock's eerie setting & plasmids, or Okami's living painting and paintbrush mechanic.

boringjob2

@Cogito: Possibly because there's an art style beyond "3D realistic"

HikariOblivion

@Black-Dog-Howls: I agree. Nostalgia just makes everything look better, because we can't quite recall what was shit.

Thorax

YESYES UN Squadron!
[www.wayofthepixel.net]

Artdeux

Wow, that UN Squadron pic is nostalgic. Makes me want to start dropping bombs.

Or reset my SNES and select Greg Gates.

davey0110

*spamlike!*
Yeah, but Retro Raider's actually playable!

[www.agameaweek.com]

OK, so it's not Gameboy, but it's definitely retro enough!
*/spamlike!*

Jayenkai

@gameware: You can't?

ZombiePuppy

The Okami one actually looks like it'd make a good game. That's awesome. I love retro video game art. Always have and always will.

dowingba

I'm confused about the Zelda one. Am I missing something or did the artist really not know that Zelda existed on gameboy?

Treesus

Ha ha oh wow.
WOuld love to see how the Okami one works

TheLAG

Yeah, demakes. I've made a couple.

headcrab

@jmb8504:

Same here.

Itri

man this makes me wanna pull out my old gameboy and get into some of the games again.

Jamaces

Haha, definitely got a few chuckles out of the Diablo and Starcraft remakes; while the visual quality may be drastically reduced, they managed to maintain the same layout. If those games actually HAD been made for the old GB, that's what they would've looked like. Bravo. :D

GhostWhoWalks

These may look absolutely awesome, but I question how well the graphics would look on the actual original system (not GBA Color or the SNES adapter). I think there was good reason for the simplicity of the original GB games, and these just wouldn't flow as well (or, sometimes the character models are just a bit too huge; LoZ: LA's main character sprite was but a few pixels long/wide, and the LoZ: TP Link is hooge).

Although, for what purpose they are intended for (art) they very well succeed at that, and they're very cool to look at.

Kuroomu

My EYES!!

When resizing low-res pixel graphics, always use 'nearest neighbour' :)

Also, you can't free-size, but instead use a multiple of the original image. Next step for 320x240 is 640x480, then 960x720 and so on.

Don't mean to be an ass here, just a tip for teh future. The pixel artists like it when their work is correctly portrayed :)

kryo

Did I see Flashback? That just made my day, I totally forgot about that game.

olion597

@Kuroomu: But TP has been reimagined as a side scroller here, not a top down action RPG, thus bigger characters are fine.

Anyway these are cool and all but why can't they actually work on the games instead of concept "screenshots" ha, they're game developer communities after all :P

Agnates

Personally I liked the STALKER ones the best. "Get out of here stalker!" was loltastic.

Kenny

@olion597: Was that Flashback or Out of This World?

I agree that this indeed reek of awesomeness! The Bioshock and Okami ones look like they can be played.

excaliburps

I can't recognize most of the ones that got posted in the source. =(

Crawl to China

that bioshock is so win

kseezy

ICO!

Buttah

@talking_chicken: Indeed. It's absolute brilliance.

And for some reason, I also dig the burnout one a lot.

Grive

@gameware: i'm with you on that one all the way

F22

@excaliburps: Out of This World. I'm surprised we haven't seen a PSN/XBLA port of Flashback or OfTW. Those would rock with an HD upgrade ala Bionic Commando. And I imagine they'd sell well too...

thebetamax

wow, you can do a surprising amount with four colors.

geekgrrl

Where's God Of War!?

Klappstuhl

<3 Diablo GB. Defiantly made my day, remarkably early too :)

Master Saji

My favorite is the Psychonauts one.

flashadams

Epic win.

Barts - www.bartsnews.net

let's see if I can guess these..

First row: Stalker, Stalker, Stalker, Final Fantasy 12, FF12

Second Row: Bioshock, ?, Psychonauts, ?, Ape Escape?

Third Row: Yoshi's Story, ?, Sam & Max, ?, Ico

Fourth Row: ?, Phantom Dust, Phantom Dust, Phantom Dust, ?

Fifth Row: McGee's Alice, Half-Life, Doom, Oblivion?, ?

Sixth Row: ?, Fallout?, Fallout again?, I know the last two but I can't remember the name.

Seventh Row: Okami, Tenchu, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, ?, Prince of Persia

Eighth Row: ?, Need for Speed Paradise, Need For Speed Paradise, Halo 3, Blue Dragon

Ninth Row: WOW, WOW again (top down view?), Fallout, Twilight Princess, Twilight Princess.

Tenth Row: Ace Combat?, and I have no idea on the last one.

I tried my best. anyone fill in the blanks?

DataScream

Haha whoa I wasn't expecting to see these again. That's awesome. I'm actually kinda disappointed with mine in hindsight (Mine is the Psychonauts one) :\

There's a Mockup thing going on right now for Megaman, if anyone's interested. [www.wayofthepixel.net]

DylanGallagher

Incredible. Makes me wish I was 8 years old and the 4-colour gameboy was popular again. In fact, I just wish the 4-colour gameboy was popular again.

lumpi

Pure awesome

Silverbackne

@KristenBal: yeah I just noticed that myself. how many geek points do I lose?

DataScream

OOOOOO, i made hughe mistake, scratch Doom and replace it with Quake. Man, how could I, i just noticed quake's icon on the background

KristenBal

I spy a Flashback screen! Damn I miss that game.

dead_red_eyes

Damn, that is HOT!!!!!!

dead_red_eyes

Would you kindly place someone in charge of making Game Boy Bioshock?

Zombie Bear

This has awesomes rewriten all over the place

My personal favorite
Bioshosck
Out of this world
Yoshi's Island
Alice
Doom (yeah, that mini doom is pretty cute, xDDDD)
Twilight Princess
Resident Evil 4
GOD HAND!!!!! Oh man, that's my all time favorite!!!!! I knew i recognized that stomping action somewhere
Jajajaja, StarCraft, now that a gameboy game i'd really like to try
Diablo one is pretty gooood - first of fourth row, juts look at the health and mana statues, and the belt icons

Ok, 'll complete
DataScream post here as i see he is lacking some

First row: Stalker, Stalker, Stalker, Final Fantasy 12, FF12

Second Row: Bioshock, ?, Psychonauts, Out of this world, Ape Escape?

Third Row: Yoshi's Story, ?, Sam & Max, ?, Ico

Fourth Row: Diablo 2, Phantom Dust, Phantom Dust, Phantom Dust, ?

Fifth Row: McGee's Alice, Half-Life, Doom, Oblivion?, ?

Sixth Row: ?, Star Craft, Fallout again?, I know the last two but I can't remember the name.

Seventh Row: Okami, Tenchu, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Naruto, Prince of Persia

Eighth Row: ?, Need for Speed Paradise, Need For Speed Paradise, Halo 3, Blue Dragon

Ninth Row: WOW, WOW again (top down view?), God Hand, Twilight Princess, Twilight Princess.

Tenth Row: Ace Combat?, Resident Evil 4

Man DataScream, gotta kill you, missed Fallout with God Hand!!!! xDDDDDDDD

KristenBal

@thebetamax: Thought so! =D
Yeah seems like Flashback or Out of This World would be nice either as a PSN/XBL game or the whole shebang. Though I admit the controls from the old ones weren't really that friendly now that I played it again. Awesome animation still though.

I think Flashback or the other one had some recent legal issues concerning the IP. Maybe that's the reason it hasn't been update yet...

@dead_red_eyes: It's Out of This World my friend... =D

They're both awesome so it's ok...

excaliburps

I might be jaded and old, but I could've sworn there was a Prince of Persia on the Game Boy. And the Sands of Time (?) version looks a lot like one of the 16bit Aladdin games.

Seeing the games like this brings back memories and a tear to my eyes.

Yeah, the horrendous pixel bleeding once things hit their stride was ugly as hell.

Kudos for the Cave Story (yes, that's the first game on the sixth row) mockup though.

Gaff

@Weero: I was also thinking that!! But I figured the game was a little too old and might have already been on the gameboy at least once.

DataScream

Actually, the first one in ninth row is Medievil, a game for the PS1. ;)

Weero

I really wish I could get replacement screens for old game boys. It's so much fun playing old games on the systems they were made for.

zensatori

Those are pretty neat!

.em.

@excaliburps:

3rd row, 4th over from the left is "Flashback". There was no gun icon in Out Of This World. I know "Flashback" like I know the size of my shoes.

dead_red_eyes

The Cave Story one is the best.

Narb copied that floppy

Could the Gameboy really have displayed as much detail as is shown in the Zelda shot or Okami shot? The Ico one I fully believe. Was there a Halo one? I couldn't tell. This was an awesome idea. I hope more are created.

Ryodestined

Kinda to the side but I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't done a few Game Boy and Game Gear games on VC.

OtakuboyT

Now they need a new competition: GameBoy music demakes!

theliferobotic

Pocket Bioshock in motion:
[farm4.static.flickr.com]

dystopika