Grazza

Rummy, I recommend Landstalker on the Mega Drive. As long as you don't mind the isometric graphics and controls (never bothered me at the time), you'll be in for one of the most atmospheric 16-bit adventures they made. The whole game's set on one island with numerous villages and caves. Other than that, have you tried Super Metroid, Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion? The last two aren't older than N64, but they feel 16-bit (in all the good ways).

No, the Wii game is a spin-off. Dragon Quest IV, V and VI are on DS, VIII is on PS2.

Maybe, yeah. My favourites are (in the order I played them) Panzer Dragoon Saga, Skies of Arcadia and Dragon Quest VIII. I do like some choice - it's a fine balance. I like the number of characters and their general skills to be pre-set, but it's still good fun to upgrade weapons and armour, choose tactics in battle etc. One thing I like, which were in Panzer Dragoon Saga and Skies or Arcadia were ship or dragon battles. I like pre-planning what to do when the enemy is in front, behind, at the side etc. It's such a brilliant quote. Without a word of a lie, I keep thinking of it as I play the game! I'm at the Crystal Tower now and have obtained the five weapons that you fight for (Excalibur etc). I don't know how far I am from the end, but I assume not too far. In FFIII, you do hit sudden difficulty spikes, but I haven't found it too bad. I've really enjoyed the job system all the way throughout the game. There has been some grinding, but just general grinding. The job class itself seems to rise almost every battle, which I'm quite happy with. I like the way the items you find give you hints as to which job classes you should change to. At the moment, my party consists of: Knight, Devout, Summoner and Dark Knight. The reason I like using knights is because I like characters who can use the sword "Defender" as an item. I've found FFIII very "pleasing" in general and I'm definitely going to get FFIV and Dragon Quest IV, thanks.

I'm very optimistic about MotionPlus and I don't think there's a bad side to it. In fact, I'm amazed Nintendo are improving the Wii halfway through. To answer your question, tapedeck, it has taken my perception back to when Iwata announced the controller for the Revolution. I was totally behind it then. Closer to release, though, I somehow realised it wouldn't be as good as I once thought. This may sound like prejudice, but when I played it, it was exactly as I expected. From what I've played so far, I don't actually like motion controls, and it's only fair to say Nintendo's 1st-party games represent the peak of what the machine can do. However, motion controls have been a success, so it's only a good thing to improve them. It seems to me that the actual motion controls, apart from being fairly unresponsive, can only understand simple, sharp, jerky movements like "forward", whereas I hope MotionPlus can understand "forward 1cm", "forward 2cm"... etc. Apart from party games, I don't feel these "jerky" movements actually improve gameplay. What I want from MotionPlus is for it to put my hand in a 3D space and understand subtle movements. Now that really could improve games. I'm not going to sulk if it doesn't deliver this, and my expectations aren't quite as high as TGS 2005, but I would say MotionPlus makes me perceive the machine much more like I did then.

I agree, Rummy. Maybe I'm weird, but a huge part of Zelda is seeing the Hylian Shield on Link's back all the time. He's like a Ninja Turtle! This is why I wouldn't mind an over-the-shoulder viewpoint, as long as the camera still fitted in the shield. I do think the camera needs to closer to the action, but I also think that, in an action game, it's better to be able to see your character in the context of their environment, so you can dodge etc (and yes, I want the next Metroid to be 3rd-person/over-the-shoulder too!)

Thanks for the info. The reason I thought of RAM was mainly Majora's Mask. The technical difference between that and Ocarina of Time was 4MB of extra RAM, and it was brilliant how it allowed the machine to juggle everyone's movements over three days. Okami, on the other hand, seemed to be able to "juggle" less information. Wouldn't it be great to have a huge amount of RAM on the Wii 2, combined with a maximum speed DVD drive (as long as it was quiet) and maybe a big hard drive/flash memory to work with as well?

Yes, unfortunately, Okami is not one of the smoothest-flowing games. I particularly found it jarring when the camera would look up to the sky every nightfall/daybreak, presumably to load the different "events" of night and day. This sort of stuff matters to me much more than graphics. I take it this is more to do with the CPU and RAM rather than the GPU? By the way, Tech Radar has an interesting interpretation of the rumour in this thread: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/nintendo-secretly-shopping-wii-2-to-devs-473051 They should call it the Aitch Wii.

I have to admit, the bad accents in Fable really spoiled my immersion. I prefer a neutral accent, rather than anything obviously British or American. Balthier in Final Fantasy XII was brilliant. I'm still going to buy this though, it sounds excellent!

Whether the masses will appreciate it or not, I don't know (I think Fable was quite a mainstream game - some of my colleagues loved it), but I do know that Lionhead were trying to make Fable 2 playable to everyone: simple combat, gingerbread trail etc. A lot of self-proclaimed "hardcore" gamers on forums were concerned about those very things ruining it. I'm not agreeing with them (I haven't played it yet), but it certainly wasn't made to appease hardcore or casual gamers. I think Peter Molyneux's being genuine in that he thinks he's created a bridge that can appeal to anyone. An awful lot of it is advertising, though. Fable was far better known than Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (both for the Xbox), when arguably the latter was a much more accessible and better designed game.

This is not really related to hardware, but would people like slightly more barren overworlds if it made the game more immersive? A good game to play for anyone who doesn't like loading times is Shadow of the Colossus. There is a short, real-time cut-scene to introduce each colossus, and a cutscene loads up after you've defeated each one, but you'll be too exausted to notice! Other than that, there are no noticeable loading times. It really is a brilliant game. I suppose Wind Waker uses this idea too. They're probably my two favourite games of last gen.

I didn't mean to cause any trouble mentioning the camera etc, I'm just genuinely interested in game design. I also think Peter Molyneux was offering food for thought, not just bashing Nintendo. At the moment, he is releasing/promoting Fable 2, which does try to appeal to everyone. How successfully it works, we'll have to see, but at least he's offering up something to judge. For example, I read that when you are defeated in battle, you are merely "knocked out". Also, there is a "gingerbread trail" so you don't get lost if you don't want to. Again, how well any of this works, I don't know. For me, one of the biggest questions is "How can you take the frustration out of games whilst keeping the challenge?" I like darkjak's ideas and I think Star Fox, Mario, Zelda (anything really) could have secret challenges that only present themselves if you are good at the game. There's also the idea of automatic saves. This was used in the sublime Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. The key is to autosave, but not at moments when you are in a tight spot. I think this would make games flow so much more smoothly if you didn't have to think about saving (but could if you wanted to). Personally, I'm not keen on set save points (eg. Final Fantasy XII). I think they're a tad old-fashioned, because if you fail, you have to do so much again. I know there's the possibilty it could save where you don't want to, but there could be good teleportation options, combined with the next idea... ...Rechargeable health, which both Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath and Shadow of the Colossus had. It was used better in the latter, because if you had trouble fighting a colossus, you could just hide and recharge. Some battles took 10 minutes, some 60 minutes! I felt exausted after each one, but not frustrated. That said, neither game sold very well, so perhaps they're not good examples! Perhaps people are right in that there's not really a medium. However, I look forward to seeing how they can improve games generally, whether that means making parts of them more "casual" or parts more "core". The key is to have enough challenge, control and depth for those who want it, but be easy enough for those who don't.

Personally, I think a Zelda fixed in 1st-person would take too much away from the series. Over-the-shoulder is a good idea, going into normal 3rd-person for rolls, beast riding and such, and 1st-person as usual for the bow & arrow and looking around.

I've done some research and it seems there's no real evidence that the latest ones are Jaspers. Sorry about that.

For my first thread, I thought I'd continue our conversation about scrolling beat 'em ups! As darksnowman suggested, I don't want to derail King V's thread. How I loved walking along bashing the baddies! I think the first one I played was Double Dragon, and it was huge influence on me. The first time I saw it was in a local leisure centre. I put my money in, got as far as when the Abobo punches through the wall, and it was Game Over! The whole thing was so exciting, it really used to get my adrenaline pumping! Then came Golden Axe on the Mega Drive. I hadn't actually played the coin-op, but trusted my friends that it was an essential buy. Much 2-player bliss followed. I received it and the Mega Drive on Christmas Day, and took it round my friend's (who also got one, but not Golden Axe), because I couldn't get it to work (it was my first console and I wasn't pushing the cartridges in hard enough!) We're now 30 and we still laugh about it! In the late '80s, we had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was at another leisure centre. I was such a fan of the cartoon, it was impossibly exciting to be able to control Donatello, Leonardo & co, and fight Bebop and Rocksteady. Every single week in my school diary, I used to write "On Saturday I am going to go swimming and play Turtles!" Every week (I was boring!) Then, of course, came Final Fight. I very much enjoyed the SNES version, and also bought it on GBA and Capcom Classics Collection on Xbox. Probably the most timely version was the Mega CD edition, which, although I didn't play, was the complete game. (By the way, I didn't play Rival Turf.) I never owned Streets of Rage, but played it a lot (great music), and I did buy Streets of Rage II. Later on in the '90s we found a brand new Golden Axe in the arcades, where you could ride scorpions and such! The funny thing is, I already had Golden Axe II on the Mega Drive, so we called this (which was much better) Golden Axe II-III! (I never actually played Golden Axe III.) My favourite was probably Sega's 4-player Spider-Man. The sprite-scaling seemed brilliant at the time, as well as the ability to play as Spidey and fight all the classic villains. Konami's X-Men was not bad either. What are your favourites?

Yes, allegedly, Twilight Princess has been shown behind closed doors running in 1st-person perspective. I'd prefer the ability to switch between 1st-person and 3rd-person/over-the-shoulder, personally. Either way, it would be good to be closer to the action.

I don't disagree with any of that, but what Prime 3 and Twilight Princess don't have is immediacy. I found the tutorial for Prime 3 much harder than the original Prime, not only because the motion controls don't work very well, but Retro were never the best at accessibilty anyway. How many casual gamers are going to sit through that, or the three hours Twilight Princess takes to get going? (I point out, again, that a couple of hours were added to both versions so people could get used to the primitive Wii controls.) The next Zelda should start with a rudimentary sword and shield and, BAM, you're into the game. Then casual gamers would have far more idea what the game is really about, and it might be more popular. Why do you dislike me saying it? It's strongly related to the balance between making games and systems more accessible/casual.

The ideal is to have something accessible enough for casual* gamers, but have enough challenge, control and freedom for core gamers. Nintendo used to be excellent at this - look at Super Mario World or Link to the Past. Whilst Zelda is not an RPG, it takes the best elements from them and makes it accessible, creating a new genre. Nintendo really ought to bring back camera control for their next console. I can understand not everyone likes to control the camera, but other people do. The ideal is to have a good camera that you don't need to adjust, but you can if you want to. If the game chooses every angle for you, it's less interactive and more like a film. * "core" and "casual" used for ease.

I thought you only needed the disc for anti-piracy reasons? They were very bad compared to Wind Waker (which, of course, is the only other disc-based Zelda) and all previous Zeldas. It does seem to me that the Wii is a lot worse than the GameCube with loading times. In Metroid Prime 3, for example, you have to wait in front of every door before it opens (ie. the room loads), whereas you didn't in Metroid Prime. What I'm saying about Twilight Princess, is that I think the code was written to suit the Wii's loading times, and could have been faster if it was a pure GameCube game.

I couldn't agree more. Perhaps the Xbox 360 has the perfect solution, in how (after the dashboard update) you will be able to fully install any game onto the hard drive. Maybe this is why Zelda: Twilight Princess has such bad loading times? I own both versions now and the Wii version is just as slow. I'm inclined to think the Wii version was just ported back in every way.

Censorship is OK as long as it reflects the masses in the territory that carries it out. For example, the alteration of Mario Party 8 for Europe was essential, as the use of "spastic" as an insult would genuinely offend most decent British people. I dare say most British people would also find Manhunt 2 unacceptable. The censorship of Little Big Planet, though, bothers me as it does mean we no longer have freedom of artistic expression (or at least, we can't enjoy commercial products that would use it). The designers obviously wanted to set a certain tone, now they are not allowed to. What if a small minority of Muslims wanted us to take pigs out of games? It would genuinely limit our artistic freedom. The reason I mention this is that the Moblins (which are pig-like and one of the most classic Zelda enemies) were actually taken out of Twilight Princess (Ganon wasn't as pig-like as usual either) and weren't in Phantom Hourglass either. You never know...

I did read (on CVG) that the latest models are Jaspers (ie. the 3rd version of the 360). If the rumours are true, then the 4th and final version will be the Valhalla. I get confused about the hard drives though. Does anyone know if ones bigger than 60GB are officially on their way soon?

I finally completed it when I bought Ninja Turtles 2 for the GameCube (terrible game, but it was an unlockable)! It did feel a bit unsatisfying using infinite continues, but I don't think those Konami games (Turtles, Simpsons, X-Men) can be completed purely on skill. They seem to be designed so that you have to put loads of money in! Of course that's coin-ops for you, but the Konami ones do stand out to me in that regard. Ah, yes, I played that in the arcade! I was trying to think what it was called a while ago, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Dreamcast port too. Brilliant! I don't know how I forgot that one. Of course, another difference with this was that, for the depth, you jumped between three pre-set planes. Is that Turtles in Time? Yeah, I had that on the SNES. Forgot about that one too. Streets of Rage 3 did come quite late, and I remember I wasn't really interested in the Mega Drive any more. This is one of the problems with extremely long console lifespans, in my opinion. That's probably wise, although I still want to try Golden Axe III. I remember when I first found Golden Axe II in the shops. I couldn't believe my luck, as it hadn't even been reviewed in the magazines! I snapped it up, but it wasn't great. It was worth it at the time though, for some 2-player variety. When I got home a few days later (I was staying away), a pal called round for a bike ride. I'm ashamed to say I told him I'd got Golden Axe II (which he didn't know about either), so we played that for ages instead! Speaking of ones fixed on a 2D plane (like Viewtiful Joe), I also loved Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja. Once, I was playing the coin-op at the seaside and was so excited I was shaking with adrenaline! I always wanted home ports of the later, 4-player ones like Spider-Man and X-Men, but they came at an awkward time. The SNES, Mega Drive and Mega CD weren't really powerful enough to do them and by the time consoles became 4-player as standard, things had moved on... I still never tried Rival Turf though. A pal did mention it, but I don't think he ever bought it (it didn't get great reviews). There was one SNES beat 'em up I was really interested in, but I'm not sure it was ever released in Europe. It looked really good, and was previewed around the same time as Sonic Blastman (home version), but I can't remember much about it at all.

I would never flame you, Emasher! I think it's like this: Ocarina - flawless Majora - even better, but less flawless Wind Waker - best so far, but not flawless (slightly incomplete) Twilight - good, but lack of technical and artistic flair

I really like Wii Fit and would even say it's the best thing I've played on the Wii (and I own Zelda and Metroid!) You're right, Hero of Time, that it's extremely competitive in groups. I love the press-ups and the Balance Board is an incredibly impressive piece of hardware, much more so than the motion control or even the pointer.

Streets of Rage 2 is actually one of the longer beat 'em ups, I found, and I didn't actually complete it personally.