EVERY GAME is coming to XBLA

[sinha]

Rocket Knight Preview

Finally, two years and four revised pitches later, Sparkster is finally returning in a proper adventure: A 2.5D platformer for XBLA, PSN, and Steam, programmed by Climax, with Hulett at the helm. "It was really a matter of reworking the concept -- making the right pitch at the right time," he says. With the success of modern retro recreations like Bionic Commando Rearmed, the proper format for Sparkster's return became obvious, and the game -- tentatively titled Rocket Knight -- is slated for release in early 2010.

Unlike Rearmed, this isn't simply a tarted-up remake of an old game; Rocket Knight is a sequel, set 15 years after the last game in the series, 1994's Sparkster for Genesis. "The idea is that there haven't been any games these past 15 years simply because Sparkster hasn't had any adventures," says Hulett. In a Nakazato homage, the new game's backstory is fairly dense: Sparkster saved the opossum kingdom of Zephyros (and its princesses) back in the day, but found himself disenchanted when the villainous pigs he battled in the first game were allowed to take up residence in Zephyros. He moved away with his family -- and notably didn't marry the princess -- and lived in quiet and peace until he looked up one day and noticed a war raging in the sky over Zephyros. To his surprise, though, his former enemies (the pigs) were fighting on the side of the opossums against an army of wolves; even stranger, his former nemesis, the nefarious Axel Gears, had become the kingdom's rocket knight in his absence. And so Sparkster puts on his gear and launches into the fray.