By By: CHRISTINE GIVER
Columnist
While newer gamers may not be familiar with it, the game “Super Metroid” is widely considered to be one of the best video games of all time; and the Metroid series, one of the best series of all time. My significant other has a ten-inch tall representation of the hero of the series, Samus Aran, on his back. “Metroid” fans are very serious about their love for this game.
One such fan was so serious that he re-made one of the installments in the series and released it for Microsoft Windows. Actually, re-made would be an insult to his craft. Milton Guasti took “Metroid II: Return of Samus” and improved it.
He even expanded it to include elements that were not in the original game. This was a game originally released for Game Boy and Guasti’s version is not only visually stunning, but it is now playable with a proper controller and fit for a large-screen television.
AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) was of course not authorized for production by Nintendo, who owns the “Metroid” brand. As such, Guasti was forced to take the game down, so anyone who had not already downloaded it would not have access to this beautiful and revolutionary tribute to the original game.
While Nintendo certainly has the right to do that, I think they missed out on a golden opportunity for a franchise that has been screaming for something new and exciting to be released.
They could have partnered with Guasti to release this game under their brand and likely made millions of dollars releasing the game for the Wii console. Instead, they just prevented someone who does not appear to have been trying to steal their brand so much as re-invent it with respect for the original from doing something amazing.
Fans of the game know just as well or even better than the creators what works well in the games and what could be improved. I would love to see gaming corporations work more with the fans to give them something they can be excited to play and even feel like they had a hand in the content. I recently learned the word coopetition in one of my classes and I think this is a great example of how that could be applied.
