There are a lot of beloved, nearly forgotten classics from the annals of gaming that are ripe for revival on today's hardware. It's one thing to pump out a generic action game and slap that familiar old name on it for a quick cash-in. But it's quite another to pour your heart into truly recapturing the spirit of the original game while making it playable and fun by modern conventions.

It's obvious Bionic Commando Rearmed got the latter treatment from Capcom and the developers at GRIN. The game has "labor of love" written all over it, from the pixel-perfect color schemes of the characters and levels to the brilliant soundtrack based on the music of the original. Little touches like the nearly identical intro text and the hand-drawn talking heads stoke the fires of nostalgia all the more.

Oh yeah, its swing-based 2D action plays just as awesome as the original. Perhaps awesomer.

There were plenty of great classic retreads this year, but none of them made you go "Hey, this is way Bionic Commando!" like Rearmed does. (Nevermind that the rest all lack a bionic arm.) It's all about being faithful to the source material with a contemporary twist.

This updated version of Super Streeth Fighter II Turbo features redrawn art in High Definition and rebalanced gameplay, in addition to high quality online play.

Get totally hella wicked extreme in this updated take on Space Invaders, which adds a combo system, boss battles, and a lot of bass-heavy electronic music.

Final Fantasy IV continued in the traditional Final Fantasy series style of offering new gameplay mechanics and a strong character driven story.

In this new spin on the platforming genre, Banjo and Kazooie return to battle Gruntilda using unique, player customized vehicles.