As gaming technology becomes more advanced, fans begin to wonder what older games would look and play like through modern graphics and engines. Sometimes, though, the community is not willing to wait for official remasters to become available, and would rather take matters into their own hands. Take the Half Life 2 fans who are hard at work remastering Valve's classic, as an example. Now, another beloved title is being given a bit of polish, The Simpsons: Hit and Run.
Recently, a video was uploaded to YouTube by a user called reubs. The twelve-minute video gives a running commentary on the work that has gone into creating a remaster of the 2003 GTA-inspired The Simpsons: Hit and Run using the Unreal Engine. The process involved reubs, and a bunch of hired help, extracting the models from the original game and importing them into Unreal. It was then a case of using AI software to upscale the graphics to give them a more high-definition look.
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The next step involved using up-to-date animation software to render a modern version of the Homer Simpson character model, making him much more sleek, then adding additional aspects of the game into the newer version, including the user interface, mouth animations and lip-syncing, sound effects, interactive elements such as crates and vending machines, as well as adding ray-tracing. All-in-all, it's a very impressive remaster, and the commentary provides some interesting background into how the user was able to bring this classic into the modern era. What's even more impressive about it is that all this was achieved in just a week.
What reubs and others have done is to bring to the fore exactly what fans have been asking for all these years. The original PS2 game is so well-loved that even the showrunners have expressed interest in seeing a Hit and Run remaster. The work that's been showed off in the YouTube video is proof that not only are there people out there with the skills and time to put in the effort, but that it's also possible to do as well. This version may not be a complete package, but it's impressive how much can be achieved in just one week.
Given that Hit and Run is considered one of the best Simpsons games out there, it's surprising that it's taken this long for a fan remaster to see the light of day. Depending on how much it grows, and given the showrunners themselves being enthused by taking on such a project, it would be interesting to see whether official sources will finally give the green light for a full HD remake.
The Simpsons: Hit and Run is out on PS2, original Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and PC.