Major Game Anniversaries in October 2018
Super Mario Bros. 2 – 30th Anniversary
The first anyone saw of Super Mario Bros. 2 was as Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic when it released in Japan in July 1987. The now famous title is the western version of the Japanese game and it was modified to be less difficult and similar to the previous game.
Super Mario Bros. 2 came to the US on Oct. 9, 1988, and is now considered to be one of Nintendo’s all-time classic games. The side-scrolling 2D gameplay of the Super Mario Bros. games that we’ve all come to love was perfect and it’s been remade multiple times over the last 30 years to be part of collections and celebrations. With New Super Mario Bros. U due to come to Switch soon, maybe now’s a good time to go back to one of Mario’s earliest appearances.
Major Game Anniversaries in October 2018
Metal Gear Solid – 20th Anniversary
Metal Gear Solid wasn’t the start of Konami’s Metal Gear franchise, but it is one of the most highly regarded releases of the last 20 years and one of the original PlayStation’s best games. By Oct. 20, however, it will have hit that 20-year mark. It came to Sony’s console in Japan just over a month earlier, but the anniversary of the US release is this month.
The game follows a gaming icon, Solid Snake, as he sets out on a mission to infiltrate a nuclear weapons facility and defeat a terrorist organization. The ‘tactical espionage action’ has continued in the series until the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and although the series creator, Hideo Kojima, is no longer at Konami, I doubt Survive is the last we’ll see of the Metal Gear name. Maybe we’ll see Metal Gear Solid’s anniversary celebrated by the game being part of the collection included on the upcoming PlayStation Classic.
Major Game Anniversaries in October 2018
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – 15th Anniversary
The Sands of Time remains the high point in the Prince of Persia series and is regarded by many as one of the best action-adventure games of the last couple of decades. It came to PS2, Xbox, PC, and Gamecube on Oct. 28, 2003, and was remastered as part of a trilogy for the subsequent generation of consoles.
The series, while still great with the likes of The Warrior Within, steadily decreased in popularity and quality over the next few years and we haven’t seen a new Prince of Persia game since The Forgotten Sands in 2010. That might have been due to the rise of other games in the genre, such as Uncharted, the Tomb Raider reboot, and Assassin’s Creed. It’d be exciting to see the series return soon, however, to see how Ubisoft see the franchise now. Ubisoft’s Chief Creative Officer, Serge Hascoet, even said that bringing back the series is more a matter of finding the means, rather than desire.
Major Game Anniversaries in October 2018
Call of Duty – 15th Anniversary
Including the game that’s due to release later this month, Black Ops 4, there has been 15 mainline Call of Duty games released since Oct. 29, 2003. Then, on top of those, there have been countless other spin-offs, handheld games, and remasters alongside them.
The game that started it all, at least when it comes to the name of the series, released 15 years ago this month. It also only came to PC at the time, with Call of Duty Classic coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 six years later. It featured a substantial campaign that followed different armies, and there was no sign of the multiplayer we’ve come to know the series for. The difference between the linear single-player of the original and the all-out warfare of Blackout in Black Ops 4 is pretty startling. I wonder what Call of Duty will look like in another 15 years.
Major Game Anniversaries in October 2018
Dead Space – 10th Anniversary
It’s almost as scary as the game itself that Dead Space is now ten years old. Visceral’s series petered out after the underwhelming third entry, but the first game is widely regarded as one of the best horror games of the past decade. Taking place a few hundred years into the future, Dead Space sees Isaac Clarke and his rescue team head to a space station that’s gone silent. It’s incredibly terrifying and one of the best-designed horror games in recent memory.
Now, with it being ten years since the game released, hopefully, we’ll see either the return of the series or a remaster of the original sometime in the near future. EA has changed their stance on remasters, as shown by the release of Burnout Paradise Remastered, and now would be the perfect time to tie it to the anniversary.
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