IN TERMS OF game for your buck, Rare Replay is an almost unprecedented bargain. Released on Xbox One today, it?s a collection of 30 classic games from the developer Rare, for $30.
You?ll notice we don?t often talk about prices when we discuss games here, and for good reason. $30 might be an impulse purchase for one person and an entire month?s game budget for another, first of all. But more importantly, a game?s price changes rapidly over time. Today?s premium-priced AAA release might literally be in bargain bins in a matter of months. (Or have a 99 percent off Steam sale.)
It?s best, I?ve found, to just discuss the quality of the game regardless of its price point, and let each individual make their own determination of what the game we?re describing is worth.
So it takes a value proposition quite out of the ordinary for me to want to break that rule, and lead off a discussion by saying, hey, the price on this thing is crazy!
For decades, Rare was one of the most prominent game developers in the fast-growing game industry. Its earliest work was rather confined geographically to its native England and elsewhere in Europe, as its platform of choice, the ZX Spectrum, was hugely popular there but not so much anywhere else. For those of us who grew up in the Atari-to-Nintendo transition, looking at the Spectrum?s history is like an alternate reality.
Even for big fans of Rare, it?s likely that their first experience with some of these games is going to come from this collection. Atic Atac. Underwurlde. Gunfright. What even are these?
Rare?s games are highly well-regarded by those who played them back in the day, although?and I realize I am risking the ire of every British person by saying this?they haven?t exactly aged well. Rare revolutionized games not so much through polished gameplay but through sheer technical wizardry, choking seemingly impossible graphical effects and giant worlds out of the cheap-as-chips, low-powered Spectrum.
Read more at?WIRED
