It’s fairly obvious that pop culture is presently overrun with retro-nostalgia. From vintage clothes, to vintage lunch boxes, there is seemingly no end to the amount of time many of us will spend traveling though time into the very recent past. But what about those alternate dimensions of retro-cool? What about the blending of different mediums that didn’t coexist in our universe? We’re talking about fictional video games here and luckily, the internet has given us a plethora of great imaginings of beloved films and TV shows incorporated into video games that never were.
Zardoz: The only way to make this historically ridiculous flop-of-a-movie even more absurd would be to turn it into an 8-bit videogame. What would happen in this game? How would you win? Would the same company produce a game based on the original Highlander film?
Futurama: Appropriately, this hilarious show probably wishes it had thought of creating an 8-bit version of itself before the internet did! Oh well, it’s still great. And we think it might be creating some retroactive memories.
Transformers: No Bayformers here! This is a recreation of the original duel between Megatron and Optimus Prime from the real 1986 Transformers movie, titled Transformers: The Movie. Only this time it’s presented as a Capcom-style Street Fighter game. We like it when Optimus randomly transforms. Though we’re not sure what it does for him.
Doctor Horrible: The best thing to come out of the writer’s strike was easily Doctor Horrible. And the 8-bit version is hilarious.
Twilight: Think the stakes aren’t high enough for Twilight to be made into an old-school choose-your-own adventure game? You may be wrong about that. Not to mention, if we could choose the “go play baseball to clear our heads” option right now, we would.
Finally, in honor of all the fake video games, we’ve included this timeless clip from Homestar Runner. Back when the internet was newer, Homestar Runner featured a character named Strong Bad who occasionally answered e-mails on a variety of subjects. (He also eventually got a video game of his own, like Futurama above, and we fondly remember the Trogdor adventure quest from the Homestar Runner site.)
Here, he lectures on the merits of different video games. Watch and learn.
Stubby the Rocket is the voice and mascot of Tor.com. Stubby is waiting on an 8-bit version of itself.
