GMC

The wii is mass market at the minute - the one in the most homes. The PS2 was the same, and both consoles acumulated a lot of dross kid-centric titles. The key thing was that the Ps2 was all things to all gamers - movie tie-in crap for the kids, shootey gangsta "adult" games for the 12 year olds (and 20-somethings), final fantasy for the RPG crowd etc etc. The wii needs more shootey gangsta "adult" bullshit to rope in that 12-to-20s crowd. This is its current weakness. Sort this out and its laughing. PS: i'm not slagging off shootey gangsta "adult" bullshit. I like those games as much as the next person. Its just that they seem to gain an "adult" tag, a "mature" tag when its core market is da kids. Like alcopops back in the day. Be grown up and cool... drink alcoholic lemonade!

The following covers A+B: i have to play(also meaning less experienced wiimote waving friends have to play) wii tennis mighty close to the plastic, expensive scratchable hdtv as well as other various expensive items. The wii strap i had with the packed-in controller was the first-run *thin* one and the grey plastic part always slides down, meaning i have to constantly tighten it in wii sports. My other wiimote had the slightly thicker cord but still had the same sliding problem. Nintendo realised they made the strap too thin/flimsy, then fixed it. Are we not to take up this offer? As regards to extortion - Im not just in it for free stuff as i havent taken them up on their padded wiimote sleeve things. Just the items i will actually use.

I emailed the regular codestorm email address aaages ago and recieved nothing for aaages. I also in that time manage to send my wii back to codestorm for repair/replacement and still got nothing in the way of straps. A fortnight ago i got my new lockable wii straps after a 6 months wait. I'd email them and prepare to wait a long long time

How about a PC version! Cant seem to find one anywhere. Not looked for a few months though. I got a sniff of one once but the person was selling it (a budget PC release) for 30 quid.

COD3. Whenever a big set peice occurred the cursor would freeze (meaning your screen slowly crawled in one direction) and the frame rate took a nose dive. The only thing that would wake it up(occasionally) was to go into the pause menu and back out. I forgave it a few times as i was really enjoying the game (COD2 on the PC was simply amazing, and COD3 on the wii - although obviously a graphical step back - was made more immediate by the wiimote) but it happened too often eventually. I traded it in. What a disaster of a game - it could have been great... but it became unplayable. PS: and let me skip the FMV sequences. Please, god, let me skip the FMV if i want to.

I would say this is a good desciption of my gaming too. If its a good environent (GTA, Zelda, Doom 3 etc) i spend half of my sessions not playing towards any recognisable goal - but rather just exploring and trying things out. Many games do grab me - involving long sessions trying to complete goals, but i find it very difficult to stick to a game all the way through. Usually something else has grabbed my attention before the end.

Super Mario Bros: Once played this game at night in my room when everyone was in bed and I was not supposed to be playing the NES. Was too tired to lift my head from the pillow so lay looking at the screen side-on (Mario moving top-to-bottom down my field of vision) in pitch black room for an hour. When I eventually got up to turn it off my head spun and I collapsed on the floor. Kids: Don’t play Mario in the dark when tired. Even thought its fucking amazing. Mario 2 Hated every minute of this potion-throwing secret-door-searching piece of shit. Mario 3 Remember that TV ad where the camera panned out and loads of people made up mario’s face(did I dream this ad?). When I got it, it was like some man from the future dropped of a game from his future world of awesomness. Mario World Best game I had played. No real, emotional memories of the others. Maybe galaxy will change that!

Did you go today Moria? What did they say? This is very tempting... but would only consider dressing up if a free game is definatley on the cards. : peace:

Duds: Call of Duty. Kept freezing in the white hot heat of combat. It is not with us anymore. Monkey Ball. Great for the first ten minutes. You think you've bought gold. Turns out its gold-wrapped shit. Godfather: It was okay. I was expecting more (never having played the ps2 version) Really thinking about Eledees at the minute. Seen it for bargain basement prices and always thought it looked interesting. No point buying anything near Mario Galaxy time though.

I too have about 9 or ten. My top games are (in no order) ExciteTruck Tiger Woods 08 Then theres a stalemate between Super Paper Mario and Mario Strikers. Strikers is a great laugh on 4 player with mates. but paper mario has a lot more 1 player depth to it - so i'm on the fence on this one. Excite truck is a great pick-up-and-play game. Got half an hour? Don't know what to play? DS battery died because of too much pokemon? Stick in excitetruck. I got it for 25 quid (i think) when it came out. If you find it for this price i would seriously consider buying it even for laughs. Tiger just has so much content. This, combined with the actual standing-up-to-play-a-round aspect makes it a lot more involved and... serious (for want of a better word) I made a point not to buy Zelda as i just found it diffcult to commit to an RPG. I'm quite fickle and will easily let a month go past without playing a game i was all over for the first 3 weeks. Zelda does not fittoo easily into this scenario. After a month away, im screwed trying to remember what i was doing in a game. Same feeling i have towards Metroid. Got prime on the cube and just could not get back into it after a break.

Ive seen a few new panasonics (as well as my mate's) and the fluidity of the image is breathtaking when compared to other LCDs. A person used to a CRT might not notice the difference, but compared to other LCDs its great. My samsung looks great with the wii using component cables. I can't find a reason to complain using the components. The de-interlacer isnt the best on the samsung, but why use the cheaper (non-component) cables if you just shelled out hundreds on a TV? Especially so considering the superior image quality carried by component. I would avoid 576i like the plague. 480p-coded-games-outputted-at-576i suffers by being interlaced and displayed (mostly) at 50hz, also... 576 doesnt carry any more lines of infomation than 480 (its all scaled). Therefore the choice is one between component cables (that carry visual information in dedicated cables with greater fidelity, in progressive scan at 6ohz) or others (which carry the same resolution at a lower quality crammed into less cabling at 50hz interlaced). Not a very difficult choice to make.

Have had the same set for a year and a half. Used Game Mode since i got it. but.... Having just seen my mate's new panasonic 32" lcd without this mode, i was amazed at how vibrant everything looked (quite apart from the sexy Viera engine's effects). I came home and turned off game mode, and i think it looks much better without. Its just a personal opinion, but i think some games really benefit from having it switched off. I dont believe Game mode improves the picture in any way. My impression was that to reduce lag etc, it did less to the image.

Am i dreaming, or do the screens look a LOT sharper than TP? Maybe because its a smaller image?

COMODO firewall is a good peice of software, in my limited experience with it

yep - there must be some 6 quid (ok, maybe 10) made-in-china no-brand wireless keyboards out there? Owen, you can re-download something for nowt if you already have it - games, channels, they can all be re-downloaded for nothing. flameboy, i think that you can now use a keyboard to type in suggested questions in everybody votes. Not exactly earth-shattering though!