On the eve of the release of Rare Replay, I’m sharing here an article I wrote for United We Game last week about that collection and video game compilations, in general. Am I going to get Rare Replay? Yes. (Not tomorrow, maybe next week. Maybe.) Yet, though I support the collection and Rare as the studio it once was, I’m not shelling out my money unaware. Going into any compilation, I know that a generous handful of games in them aren’t going to receive much attention from me. And considering that lots of older games are available for free to the general public, what’s the sense in paying for what you don’t know you want…yet?

One thing that I recently learned which I feel is a great idea to help remedy this, is that Rare added in what they call “Shapshots” Mode, where they have a handful of challenges for each of the 30 games.

The good thing about this is that these snapshots are intended to highlight some of the best moments so you can quickly experience the game in it’s best form. Should help to quickly determine if it’s a game you’ll want to play normally or not.

It’s quite the row for Microsoft that this compilation is only for the Xbox One. Like I said, for me, just having those four big games in one place makes it a big win, despite the middling rest. We could see it on the PC down the road, but that may not help you much. Of course…there’s always the possibility of an Xbox One price drop in the future… :)

My only main game collection was this Sega Genesis collection. It had 49 games, which was pretty cool, but most were awful. Many were very short, as well, and hardly counted. While collections are cool, usually a very small percentage is any good, so sometimes I question keeping the Sega Genesis collection, even if $30-40 for 49 games sounds like a great deal.