So it was just about a year ago that I made the jump to a fancy HDTV.

A 40" Samsung.  Admittingly, I purchased it more to get my credit rating going, but hey, seeing the sundrenched shores of Hawaii during Lost in glorious HD wasn’t going to hurt, was it?

This was the beginning of an epidemic.

Since that fateful day in January, I upgraded to HD Cable, started buying Blu-Rays (so pretty!), got HDMI cables for my 360 and PS3 and honestly, I almost feel punished when I need to watch something in standard def.

It seems video game creators got the hint, though.

Starting with Super Street Fighter II TURBO: HD Remix, we gamers learned just HOW pretty a fighting game can be with sprites large enough to take advantage of high def resolution.

SNK, the “other” fighting company is striking back, though, with a High-Def version of their King of Fighers franchise, which if the above trailer is any indication, will leave your jaw agape at the animation (and probably cause you some losses at the same time).

But this isn’t enough for us, the frothing mad men of HD gaming, oh no!

We want all the classics of our childhood recreated in GLORIOUS 1080p!  Unforutnately, SFII and KoF are the only titles so far to be announced with prettyfied re-releases.  However, if someone WERE to remake classic games from the 16-bit generation…what would they look like?

That’s where the fantastic CGI artist Orioto comes in.

Over at his Deviant Art page, he’s been recreating screenshots of classic 8 and 16 bit games at high resolution, to show us what could be.  And I hope the related companies are listening.