With the news this week that Sleeping Dogs is to be re-released for the PS4 and Xbox One (and PC for that matter), the issue of old games being remastered for the new-gen consoles has again become a hot talking point among many gamers. Are they good value? Or a rip-off to fleece gamers who don’t have many titles to play on their shiny next-gen machines? Is there any point? Well, here are our five essential tips to help clear the waters a little.

Check for additional content

Most new-gen remasters chuck in the paid DLC from the original release. Sleeping Dogs will include 24 pieces of DLC, one of which is a single-player story expansion. Start to add up the price of the DLC and it doesn’t take long for it to exceed the price of buying the old version of the game and the DLC separately. This is also true for The Last of Us: Remastered which includes the Left Behind story DLC. Pay for the old game and the DLC and it’ll be £30+, more than for the new PS4 version. Granted, not all DLC is created equal; take Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition and the additional multiplayer material. Nobody needs more of that. Conversely, as excited as the Dealspwn team are for the Halo: The Master Chief Collection and the polished up campaign, that one’s all about having all the multiplayer maps in one place.

Prices will fall

Yes, £40 is expensive for a re-release, but the price will fall over time. If you’ve waited all this time to play the game in the first place, I’m sure waiting six months (or less!) for the price to half shouldn’t be too hard.

Wait for the reviews

If you’re not sure about how much of a step up the new version will be, hold onto your cash until a few verdicts are out there. It was tricky to judge the differences between the PS3 and PS4 versions of The Last of Us via YouTube comparison videos because YT doesn’t display videos at a silky smooth 60 frames-per-second and the compressed resolution meant that the differences were hard to see. However, people I know that have played both are keen to enthuse about how smooth the new version is. With only a few screenshots available so far for Sleeping Dogs, we’ll be waiting for more to go on before being tempted to put down a pre-order. I’m just annoyed I joined PS+ two days after the original was on there for nothing.

Nobody’s forcing you to buy it

Enjoyed the original game in question and are content enough to revisit it at your leisure on the original console? Well, nobody’s going to stop you. A good thing too because…

There will be more!

I’m looking at you Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Frankly if you buy this on your old console then moan when 2K announce a new-gen version you deserve a punch in the face. Gearbox has already stated they’ll look into upgrading it if there’s a demand for it and the original sells well enough. A trilogy re-release would seem like a better idea if we’re looking at a new-gen version six months to a year later. That said, trying to make the oh-so brown world of Pandora in the first game ‘next-gen attractive’ is probably too much of an ask. Other games to be wary of buying anytime soon if you’d prefer a PS4 or XO version might include Grid: Autosport, Ultra Street Fighter IV, Killzone Trilogy and Bioshock Infinite. Just a hunch, but yeah.