Hi! I opened this topic to discuss the "Same game, different presentation" that some games have adopted simply to get new players or "revive" the game. Some examples are: Dino Beatdown (I think it is its name) transformed into Orion: DIno Horde, but as far as I know the new one costs more money than the first. Another recent example is Ravaged which is now known as Ravaged Zombie Apocalypse, but those are good examples since they gave copies to existend players and since they offer something new. But there is also War Z which is now known as Infestation: Survivor Stories and some people got fooled by the new name and bought it thinking it was a new game but it is the same bad copy...
Now I want to see your opinion about this practice, do you have any other example? Do you think other games will do this? Or do you know any game that should? Please tell your opinion. Thanks.

WOW! I never knew how many SSF 2 Exists...just wow...
Well sometimes I like when a game is re-designed and has new content but not when it is the same thing over and over again...*cough* COD *cough*

It makes sense from a business perspective, it's cheaper to build a copy and change some non-key aspects (see Call of Duty series) but in the end it makes for repeating gameplay and revolves around the skinner box theory, that frankly, dulls the mind of the players. I'm not against it per se but I make a habit of playing different kinds of games as much as I can but then again that's my thing and I wouldn't fault anyone who likes the repeating game concepts but with changed presentations.

One important aspect of this practice is games that copy the basics but not only changes the presentations but also makes advances on the basic mechanics to achieve a better game and that's all for. Unfortunately I'm out of names as example for now, I might return and name a few.

I just tried the "new" Ravaged and...it is pretty nice, the zombie mode is well done but hard sometimes and now the multiplayer is more populated. So Ravaged is an example of a game that knows how to keep the base idea and work around it.

Capcom is champion in re-releasing the same games from time to time, year after year... (:P)

Atleast now Street Fighter IV updates(other than SSFIV and of course 3D but that's a port) can be bought for cheaper ($15 for Arcade, $20 for Ultra I think) unlike SFII.

I don't really hold SFII against Capcom. They were console games. You can't offer patches or DLC with new fighters or game settings. Still, of course, the only reason to release any title is to make money. They weren't putting out new versions of SFII because technology prevented them from updating the original cartridges, ie it wasn't fan service. Still, the very same technological limitations makes me feel like I shouldn't think worse of them for it.

A rather sneaky more recent game is Flat Out 2 which was remade and released as Flat Out: Ultimate Carnage on the Xbox 360. The games are almost completely identical save for some nicer graphics and different soundtrack in Ultimate Carnage (Flat Out 2 had almost only popular or well known bands while Ultimate Carnage reverted to the Flat Out roots using mostly European indie bands). Maybe I just missed out on some public relations stuff, but I don't think it was clear enough that they weren't putting out a new Flat Out game, just re-releasing a polished Flat Out 2 for the 360 under a new name.

All need for speed games after 5 (porsche)

I think they are tied with EA and the Madden NFL Football releases (which are up to 25).

It seems that the Eador. Masters of the Broken World is just a graphical overlay for Eador: Genesis, though I've only played Genesis so can't comment authoritatively on that.

And there are the classic examples of Angry Birds, which is a cartoonification of Crush the Castle, and Zuma, which is a virtual copy Puzz Loop with just the substitution of Mesoamerican motifs for science fiction ones.

Really? Even if we exclude Turbo HD Remix since it came out almost two decades later, you don't think five remakes of one game in a very short period of time isn't baiting for money with basically the same game? You're right when you said there weren't patches and DLC then: well why couldn't they come up with lots more characters and settings and modes and whatever, then make one remake with all that stuff, instead of making only subtle changes before another release? To me it feels like the whole SFII board meetings probably went like this:
Member 1: "Duuuude, I totally remembered now that I had this awesome design for this one character, but we forgot to include him in the game."
Member 2: "Worry not! Let's just relaunch the game with a different title. People will definitely get it because of that sweet new character. Let's call the new title...Super Street Fighter II! People will know it's the same awesome quality they're used to, but now it's even better because it's SUPER!"
Member 1: "Ummm...actually we already re-released the game with that title. Last week Mark remembered he had forgotten this cool extra move for Chun-Li and we just had to get it in. A bit before that Keith had noticed a little graphical error in Dhalsim's Yoga Fire attack and we just had to fix that and re-release the game."
Member 2: Really? This is even better! Now we can call the game Super Street Fighter II TURBO! That's sounds even better than plain "super"; super is so yesterday. Turbo is gonna make them think it's like Super Street Fighter II on speed!"

And SFIV has no excuse whatsoever. We have DLC today. The games...I mean re-releases aren't that different from the original, so why not just release the new stuff as DLC. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but SFIV owners and Super SFIV owners can't even play matches against each other: that's baiting for more money with a minimum effort. Yeah, I guess it could've been a DLC, but at least with UC there could be more drivers on the road at the same time and it had more mini-games. Sure, when you compare it to FlatOut 2 it looks and feels the same: there's just a bit more of everything. But at least they didn't include just one extra minigame five separate times.

There was also a Street Fighter 2 Turbo before Super Street Fighter.

Would you count the Ghouls 'n' Ghosts titles along the same lines? I don't recall much from Ghosts 'n' Goblins, but Ghouls 'n' Ghosts & its SNES counterpart, Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts seemed pretty similar with SGnG being more advanced.

There's probably a few other titles that came out on sequential consoles and were essentially the same game but maybe with a "Super" or "64" or something attached to make it seem different when the only differences may have been a musical and/or graphical update.

Hydrophobia. It got released to poor reviews and sales and the devs were pretty affected by this so they went back and retouched the game and it is currently sold as Hydrophobia: Prophecy after also changing to Hydrophobia Pure. The retouching made the devs Dark Energy Digital) bankrupt because they became so focused on making Hydrophobia perfect. It is a shame because while the game was pretty poor in places they had laid the groundwork for a possible original and good game. It was also supposed to be a trilogy but all they made was one game with 3 names.

Edit: to remove some of my errors and add a wikipedia link: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobia_(video_game]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobia_(video_game[/url])

Yup, Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting.

He just forgot the Turbo in the name, but it's there. ^_^