Flashback

Because that's the section you played the most. Games may have been shorter back then, but so were our attention spans. For that opening level or section, we could breeze through. We were gods. Sure-footed and confident. The colours, layout - everything - was memorised through months of repetition.

It's a thought that must have struck the creators of Flashback as the perfect way to reintroduce the series, even if they know those who'll get the nod will only be a small percentage of the audience. It's a decision that's appreciated, as Flashback's new opening plays out much like the old.

But what is Flashback? Aside from one poorly received third-person sequel on PSOne, Flashback was a single 2D puzzle platformer that was as futuristically stunning as Blade Runner on its original release in 1992. The art style echoed another game, Another World, but the game it had most in common with was the original Prince of Persia.

Precision leaps to grab ledges. Drops more than half a screen high would kill. Progression was more trial and error as you discovered hidden traps and worked out what was fatal to the touch. A sprawling map, a multitude of connected single-screen areas and paths through them entirely up to the player to figure out. Single enemies that could kill with a shot.

All this, painted over with a noir-tinged darkness and ambient soundtrack that recalled Blade Runner for style, and Total Recall for story, as a man named Conrad awakes after a chase sequence with no memory of who he is.

It was a critical hit on its original release, and yet oddly to now had been left untouched. Neither reinvented, ported, remade or upgraded in the years since. How would the team combat not only the two decades of gameplay innovations since, but stay true to what's a cherished memory to all that played the original's amnesic sci-fi noir?

This new title is the original re-imagined; somewhere between remake and refit. Some elements remain, others have been altered, new additions added. The fifteen-strong team VectorCell include five members who worked on the original game.

The shift to a digital title means they've easy reason to stick with the 2D. So the intro and opening screen is, graphical differences aside, exactly the same. a leather-coated man escapes pursuers for reasons unknown, roaring away from a station on the back of a grab-bike. The pursuers give chase, the bio is downed. The man wakes up with no clue were he is or who he is, in the middle of a jungle. Start game.

Much of the gameplay seen in the original is replicated here as we play through the opening jungle section. The echo of the original lessens within a few screens of walking, as the map alters to its own design and introduces its own tricks. Lifts and energy platforms are still in, and in some areas their energy generators need to be located and switched on. Floating bots still attack. We pick up a gun. A memory cube keys into Total Recall as we see an earlier version of Conrad give little explanation but a destination to his disoriented present self.

But there's elements that cater somewhat to the changes in the gaming space in the years between. A gun upgrade can charge shots to explode boulders and open new passages. We discover another lost soul in the jungle and have to fetch his transporter to get him on his way. A set of goggles allows us to see interactive objects in the area. Somewhat criminally, a map offers path-finding routes to where you need to go, though the studio has smartly included a toggle option in the menus to switch this off.

There's adjustment too with the switch from digital to analog. The D-Pads of old fitted perfectly to lining up Conrad directly under ledges so he could make the leap up, or sidle beside electrified floors to line up the leap over - jumping animation and floor length measured exactly so perfect alinement had to be made.

There's generous soft-spot for climbing upwards, as holding Up anywhere near a ledge will see Conrad automatically move to the right area, and analog allows running to feel more fluid and less like a accident waiting to happen. Whereas before you counted the animation frames between slowing down and reaching a danger point, now it's a twitch of the stick, or a tap of the jump at any time, with a more generous leaping distance thrown in.

Gunplay is more fun this time round, right stick aiming, trigger firing. We're soon bullseyeing floating robots out of the air with ease. Whether this makes later engagements more fun or too easy is a worry. Flashback was more centred on flight rather than fight - the latter a desperate last resort rather than the bullet-sprays we see today.

But we quickly get engrossed in what we're playing. The genre's still without too many champions even in this era so there's more enjoyment than burnout in routine exploration and interactions, though we grit our teeth over Conrad's new voice and dialogue (for once, we wish another Nathan Drake lookalike was voiced by Nolan North - though even he couldn't make the line "awesome sauce" sound any less leaden). The silent protagonist is long gone. We're not sure if we're going to warm to this new guy. We really should have checked if we could toggle the voiceovers off as well.

Our day in the jungle is cutely cut short by a checkpoint-saving bug - the game capturing us mid-fall in an accidental plunge to our death. Two replays and we see no salvation other than a tap of Restart...which drops us right back at the area's start.

We glance to the left and right, as other players who dodged the fall continue through mechanised sewer tunnels kitted out with traps, and know that, dodgy voices aside, we're looking forward to a whole new set of memories with Conrad.