SimonM7

It's still not particularly faithfully handled in terms of Sonic's speed. Sonic, poor acceleration? Uh. Okay. However, the game is done by Athlete Kings/Winter Heat people, so I'm confident it'll be a BRILL game. In fact, it sounds just like Athlete Kings with the power/speed character stuff.

Two moments stand out. The elevator scene with Azel in Panzer Dragoon Saga when she apologizes to you and you realise "OMG, why would teh evil man teach her how to apolgize if he's really evil!?". That "I'm sorry" turns all your beliefs upside down in such a subtle-yet-epic way. And the top one; ending to Another World. I was.. I think.. 10 years old? And I cried like a baby.. I couldn't even stop crying to explain to my mum WHY I was crying.

Does anyone else get a "too big" picture when upscaling PS2 games? Mine stretches waay too much to the sides.

After reading a bunch of reviews I've sort of given in to the thought that nobody actually played the first game, because they seem absolutely dazzled by stuff that already featured prominently in the GC predecessor. So I'm asking here instead, those of you who've played both, how different is it?

Upscaled PS2 games - Killer app. Seriously! The likes of Okami in 720p? Jesus I need a PS3 right now!

Blah, got me all excited (no pun) for nothing.

Well I think it's exciting for a number of reasons, all of them artistical. I loved the FF9 style of Crystal Chronicles for the Cube, but I'm still excited by the change in style here. Especially since it's moving towards something with more "weight" to it in terms of what they might do with the story. I think everyone felt that FFCC for GC was more of a spinoff and side project than a proper standalone game with a moving storyline, and I think the character design illustrates a desire to step away from that mentality with this one. If Crystal Chronicles (which remains solidly Nintendo-centric as a *franchise*) does embrace an increase in character and story development, who's to say we aren't looking at a new IP as strong as Kingdom Hearts here? Aside from all that, I think it looks rather spiffy tech wise too. Wobblyness and hair especially promise further goodness once backgrounds consist of less... undefined environments.

What's most worrying here is that they're flirting with the 360 audience (westerners). Last Remnant apparently sports "a main character designed for a western audience" and one that's more traditional japanese/final fantasy. If this is an indication of the mentality they'll apply to games aimed at the 360 platform, I'm quite frankly terrified at the thought of the 360's success worldwide. If the fantastical and exotic kind of japanese game dies in order to appeal to "our" monochrome space marine tastes, I'll prolly go kill myself. If that's the case then the Playstation 3 HAS to reclaim the leading position - and man I never thought I'd say this ever - unless we want to be flooded by samey design as Mass Effect and Gears of War become the templates to aspire to.

They're really not significantly closer together than the PS2/3 ones are, effectively resulting in the same thumbrubbing thing if you play like a plonker. As opposed to.. not.. if you don't.

JoWood published or made or whatever a game called.......something.. that was pretty decent. Uhm... Cha... caaa... cooo..... chooo.... CHASER! Chaser's it. FPS, rather generic but pretty good weapons and a badly acted though reasonably good story. And no, I dunno why I'm even bothering with typing this either.

Well, Loco Roco is completely useless after the initial charm factor too, but the initial charm factor definitely single handedly makes it worth it. I think even though "they" have already played it for six months over in the US, there's emotions to be felt in there that even though they may not be as novel after a while, initially will make it worth it. The inherent problem with a late release is a steep RRP to tackle despite the game essentially being "old news". Whether that price is worth paying with the hindsight that its novetly wore off is something people like IGN can answer. What we gotta ask ourselves is whether the initial charm factor - which in itself is very real! - will be worth it despite this knowledge. I'm gonna pick it up on friday because I already almost missed both Red Steel and Excite Truck by listening to people go on about novelty.

All of the AiTD games have been varying degrees of good. Oh and you've always played as Edward Carnby, it's just that he's re-imagined in every game. The first three are arguably the most interesting, because they employed a much more bizarre approach to its horror elements. For instance in 2 you dressed up as Santa Claus to trick some zombie kids into not gobbling you up, only to smash them silly with a frying pan. Sounds silly maybe, and it was definitely done with a great sense of humour, but it was also oddly unsettling. Clown style creepy you know. 1 was heavily influenced by Lovecraft, which made that stand out as the most "seriously" scary of the lot. Many of Lovecraft's most often used descriptions of strange worlds and entities are in some way used in portraying the "enemies" in that game. The setting in 3 was a western style ghost town, and I didn't play much of this because I couldn't get the sound to work. I've heard good things about it though. It should be noted that all three are set in the mid '20s and that the overall style is much more in line with the stories Lovecraft wrote. AiTD4, dubbed "The New Nightmare" (ew!) came out much later and sported a more modernized and mainstream look. That said, it was still rooted in the themes of lovecraft, alternate dimensions and the ocult. Set in modern day, Carnby is still a private eye that goes to "Shadow Island" (ew again!) to investigate the disappearance of.. a friend of his if I remember rightly. The bizarre charm of the other games was completely discarded in order to appeal to a broader audience, but the game was still pretty good. Scary as fuck aswell. AiTD was the first game to use the game mechanics and camera angles that Resident Evil pretty much nicked and got famous for, so it's very much the original survival horror title as we know them today. I'm a huge fan of the series myself, and I really hope that the latest game makes a mark. It may never return to its original vision and therefore never set itself apart in the way that caught my eye initially, but it's still a broader world and game series than RE in that it can keep re-inventing itself, its characters and its dark foes. If there's a Wii version though, I hope to god it's a brand new game. AiTD5 apparently streams Central Park in its entirety, and it's very much a graphics driven game. I'd very much like to see a Wii game that embraces what the series once were and does something with that, otherwise it'll just be an inevitably inferior port.

If you like SSX though (SSX3 in particular from a presentation standpoint) this IS worth it for the controls alone. They come off as quite difficult to begin with, but once you get to grips with them this is so easily the most rewarding SSX to play.

Well first of all NiGHTS is never that zoomed in, in game. I dunno why they insist on these closeups showing ever bit of non-detail on the characters, when you spend the entire game looking at the model a fifth of that size. But yeah, the screens are underwhelming from other standpoints aswell, but I'm confident it'll look better eventually.

Very!