Here’s one out from left field. British developer System 3, also known as Studio 3, is hard at work bringing Epyx’s classic Commodore 64 platfromer Impossible Mission to the Wii, as well as the Nintendo DS and PSP. The news follows a report from Nintendo Power last September that noted this and other C64 classics were heading to the Wii’s Virtual Console. Now it seems, as least with regards to this particular game, it is getting a full retail boxed release.

In the game, the player takes the role of a secret agent attempting to stop evil genius Professor Elvin Atombender who has been tampering with National Security Computers. Players must penetrate Atombender’s base, attempting to recover parts of the system password whilst avoiding robots in a race against time.

Whilst the game has been re-written from the ground up with new presentation, the developers note that the core gameplay remains “impressively loyal” to the original, with level layout changing for every new game. There are now three main characters to choose from plus a new tutorial mode. The player can now chose from three game modes, new, original and for the purist; a hybrid mode with the original gameplay using the updated graphics.

The PSP versions offer the additional ability to send a full copy of their game to a friend over the air so they can try it for themselves.

“We’ve worked hard to bring Impossible Mission up-to-date whilst keeping the original gameplay that made the game such a hit in the eighties”, commented CEO, Mark Cale, “We’re particularly pleased with the handheld versions which will ensure this historic game can be enjoyed by a completely new generation of gamers”.