Grazza

On Thursdays I watch the politics/current affairs programme This Week for the humour and the insight provided by Michael Portillo and Andrew Neil. Other than that, I look out for documentaries, particularly ones about science (BBC4 is just awesome). The weekends are great for me at the moment. I've got a DTR, so I set that for Harry Hill's TV Burp, The X-Factor and the brilliant Merlin. I would also watch Strictly Come Dancing if I was in. Not that I particularly like it, I just love live TV, the humour of it and to see a master like Bruce Forsyth at work. There's something about watching studio entertainment as it happens which I find irresistible. By this token, I also love the Strictly and X-Factor results shows on Sunday! Oh, Dancing On Ice is also brilliant when it's on!

No, I actually gave up during World 4, as the puzzles became such a drag. It is indeed funny to read back one's comments. I can't believe I thought this would be my No.2 Wii game. Not that it wasn't fun but, it's strange... there came a point where I just couldn't play it any more. Agree. I actually played Shantae without realising the connection. Meant to buy Thor and Aliens on DS, but one way or the other, I didn't. Saw Batman: the Brave and the Bold the other day, but was unsure of whether or not to buy it. I really want something else like Shantae!

Ah, every time I see screenshots of Wind Waker I'm reminded of how utterly brilliant it was.

I saw a very regrettable spoiler in one of the headlines on Siliconera, so be careful about that site. Explained what one of the bosses is like. I've decided I'm going to read all the reviews though. I remember IGN was a little more in-depth about Twilight Princess than I'd have liked, but I'm just going to chance it.

I'd say so, yes, as vague as it is: http://mynintendonews.com/2011/09/12/nintendo-3ds-the-3d-will-mean-something-in-the-next-zelda-game-for-nintendo-3ds/ GDC is the place they unveil new handheld Zeldas (and that's before E3), so here's hoping.

Really? I was at school long before the world wide web, and our Head of Year gave us an assembly about it. "YOU WILL BEGIN TO (that word)" he boomed out. "Put your hand up if you don't know what that means." ...Never have I seen such a big group desperately trying to keep their hands down. Shame really, as I'd love to have seen him explain it! Same here, but in the woods. I remember my friend showing me where he'd found some. I remember thinking "It looks like that?" Is that Drayton, Flamingo Land and... where else? Thorpe? I'd love to believe it, but I've been here before so many times. Thanks though, Rez, and I hope you're right. Thanks also to @nightwolf and @darksnowman. Yes, we have some good ones scattered around - my favourites being in Wales and at Great Yarmouth - but I couldn't resist a gratuitous woodie mention!

Well, we at least know it will work very well, like Wii Sports Resort. At the end of the day, I'm not a fan of motion control, but this is the Wii. They had to put out a Zelda with motion control as good as the hardware could manage. I was much more against there being a motion control version of Twilight Princess. I still don't think there should have been. I've seen videos in GAME. If you want spoilers, I believe the previews on various sites detail the first couple of dungeons. Personally, I won't read them.

It looks very like Twilight Princess to me. I know that may sound absurd, but the visuals only look different in a very superficial way. On the other hand, at least the enemy designs look much better. One of my biggest disappointments with Twilight Princess was that the enemy designs were very generic - spiders looked just like normal spiders and Dodongos looked like gecko lizards rather than the unusual, dinosaur-like designs in Ocarina of Time. Most of them were very detailed, rather than being constructed with broad, confident strokes. The NPCs also looked like they could have come from any other game, like Final Fantasy for example. That said, Skyward Sword seems to be a halfway step between TP and Wind Waker. Will that work? I don't know. It might be worse than both! Let's not forget that Twilight Princess had a fantastic atmosphere at times, especially running through the fields at sunset. To end on a positive note, Skyward Sword's enemies do look very stylised, much better than TP's from what I've seen, so I'm hopeful that helps enhance the Zelda feel.

I think the significant divide of the past was (and still is somewhat) digital vs. analogue. There was something appealing about analogue. Even if digital is superior in enough ways to be better overall, it is not better than analogue in every way. Thus, whilst film is still valued (even if only as a method of preservation), the earliest digital is not missed. In the same way, I don't miss VHS (which I don't think was "digital", but it was still video). There's nothing about it that I particularly want to go back to. It's the same with printed images. We used to be able to go into an "Athena" shop and get a really high quality poster. Nowadays you can find any image you want on the internet, but the quality is not there unless an industry model is in place for people to aspire to. And yeah, I know you can get posters in HMV and such, but there was more choice in the '90s. It's like eBooks - a cool idea, but they've got a long way to go before they can match the thrill of a large, full-colour printed page (digital wallpaper, perhaps?) As for the future, a lot has been said about download vs. physical, but the thing that's getting on my nerves more at the moment is owned vs. streaming. I don't mind downloading, but I'm not at all keen on streaming, as you can't watch a video any time you like. You always have to be connected to the service, which I don't approve of at all. Oh, one more thing - wooden roller coasters. I can't stand how this form of building a roller coaster is being forgotten, mainly in the UK, it must be said. Most of my friends haven't ridden one, which I think is a shame because they're different to steel coasters, not inferior. They're an art form, and we need more in the UK!

I do agree. It's in my Top 3 along with Ocarina and Wind Waker, but if I had to "forget" about one, it'd be MM, purely for the reasons you mentioned. The actual gameplay is brilliant though, easily standing on its own, especially aspects such as the Moon descending in real-time (and being visible anywhere in the overworld), the time travel and the 3-day schedule the characters all kept to. Basically, Nintendo were quite right to make another Zelda game on the same engine (with the benefits of extra RAM too) and I hope they do that again. If Zelda Wii U is a great one, let's have Zelda Wii U 2 in the same style! That too. I know a lot of people just wanted a "fresh" Zelda, and that's what Phantom Hourglass delivered. Now personally I don't think Twilight Princess was too familiar or formulaic at all. I've never understood that criticism. That is exactly what I loved about it. I'd turn on my Game Boy and enter a different world. I also can't help but think this sort of subtlety is being lost with so many cut scenes explaining everything. Not necessarily in Zelda, but in most games.

I think you have to put all the scores into context. Phantom Hourglass, for instance came right after Twilight Princess, which was almost universally considered to be somewhat dull and generic. I'm sure reviewers were desperate to hail PH as a return to form, desperate to welcome the return of some of Zelda's charm, or the "Zelda magic" if you like, which I think it delivered quite well. The actual game? Pretty terrible by Zelda standards!! Then take the Wii itself. Almost universally criticised for not being HD, being a generation behind etc. But, crucially, Nintendo still knows how to make a highly polished game, and so when we get something like Mario Galaxy, Mario Galaxy 2 and (it seems) Skyward Sword, reviewers are keen (perhaps extra keen) to reward Nintendo for such quality.

As the late, great Frankie Howerd used to say, "Don't mock the afflicted". Ricky Gervais could learn a great deal from Frankie Howerd, as he was 100x the comedian he'll ever be.

To be fair, how many games have there been where you move with the Nunchuk and use Motion Plus for the action? I can only think of Red Steel 2. As accurate as it is, it's certainly not a proven success for a game formula yet. The best motion control on the Wii is probably in the Mario Galaxy games, as you just use the normal Wii remote to flick, shake or tilt (and point, obviously). Metroid Prime 3 was trying to do this sort of motion control, but without Motion Plus. That games suffered because of the (lack of) accuracy. Now that problem's been fixed, will it make a good game? We'll see... Regardless, some won't like the motion controls, and I hope that's reflected in the reviews.

It's important, I think, that reviewers can give the "big" games honest scores, whether that means Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy, the big "Xbox" games like Call of Duty or even Dragon Quest! Yeah, sometimes they may be trying to attract attention, but it's more likely that's just what they think of the game. Whether a review is negative, positive or somewhere inbetween, honesty is the most important factor.

Maybe Tony Hawk is good? I don't know, I'm not interested in skateboarding. Besides, I was just saying he's an honest reviewer, I didn't say I agreed with everything he said. As for Edge, I really don't see what that's got to do with anything. I was commending their reviews, not saying they gave a low score to TP or should have said it was a bad game. Sounds like he's still got his talents of perception then!

Jeff from Gamespot - one of the few reviewers who would dare to give a "big" game a score of under 9.0 and an honest review. Unfortunately, he left the site in 2007... We need more like him, not less.

Or Super Mario World, yes. I suppose I just don't see Mario as this AAA game that needs to be polished and polished, although I could understand how many feel otherwise.

Quite. They were one of the few to notice the graphics had been downgraded - "No longer the beauty it once seemed", or words to that effect. IGN's UK review was also perceptive, with a more reasonable score.

What I'd like to see is quite a lot different to what I think the Wii U needs, so I'll try and be objective. This console needs to appeal to the hardcore and casual audience (I'm going to assume Nintendo fans will buy it anyway). As for the mainstream gamer, I don't think it's possible to attract them as, by definition, they follow the crowd. What would tear someone away from their Xbox 360 to play it on the Wii U instead? It's just not realistic. The most they could hope for would be to have as many multi-format games as possible (which they certainly should), because that might at least be able to keep Nintendo fans from getting the Xbox 360 or PS3. However, it's late in the day and there's nothing the Wii U could do to take excitement away from the PS4 and Xbox 3. They might as well forget it and just make sure their own games are as good as possible. So, the games it needs: Wii Sports Equivalent (Big Casual Game) What Nintendo needs to do (if this is even possible) is convince the masses that they really want a controller with a screen on it. Presumably the game to achieve this would be some sort of augmented reality or "magnification" game, where you scan your TV with the controller and get a different view. As I say though, it's going to be tough inventing something that people will find compelling. Mario Kart If there's one important "bridge" title it's Mario Kart. I remember even in the SNES days the girls at school liked that, but wouldn't play much else. The GameCube and GBA versions proved even this franchise can't work miracles on an unpopular machine, but it's the best chance they've got. Combined with a successful machine, like the Wii or DS, it's dynamite. Mario Mario is important both as a bridge title and as a hardcore. New Super Mario Bros is an important and much-needed franchise for many, whereas the 3D Marios are still some of the most genuinely-respected hardcore games around. Metroid Prime If there's one series that springs to mind when I think "hardcore" + "Nintendo" it's Metroid Prime. Metroid has an appeal that is hard to match, especially Metroid Prime on the GameCube. Yes, the Wii controls worked, but I think a back-to-basics approach would be more popular, using traditional controls to explore the game world (plus scanning with the screen), whilst the Wii U produces the best graphics it's capable of... Zelda The 3rd of Nintendo's Big Three has probably suffered in image more than the others - but it's still potentially the most exciting! I won't say too much about it until I've played Skyward Sword, but suffice to say I agree with much of what @darkjak says, apart from the voice acting. We don't say books are old-fashioned because they don't speak at us. Who says video games should have audible voices in them?

I was going to say the last game I played was Xenoblade, but actually, it was Gradius Rebirth. Sometimes I honestly think the most fun I've had with the Wii is with those games where you can hold the Wii Remote horizontally and just play with the d-pad and two or three buttons. My best of all? Golden Axe coin-op via Virtual Console Arcade. (By the way, it's not that I massively recommend Gradius, it's just that it's the last game I played.) As for Twilight Princess? No, I've been playing Spirit Tracks instead. But yes, I'm just waiting for Skyward Sword now and when I finish it, I'm going to get rid of my Wii. If Skyward Sword turns out to be great, I will keep it for playing on the Wii U.

My local HMV has removed the blue 3DS and replaced it with the box for the red one. I suppose the red 3DS will actually be there next time I go, which is good in a way, but the blue 3DS had the Level 7+ HMV Mii I use for StreetPass Quest! I agree. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only thing about the 3DS that is genuinely out of order. Ah, thanks Ike. It's never appeared for me either (but I haven't tried what you suggested yet).

I've spent ages typing replies to this, but kept getting the 10 character error message. The main point I was trying to make was that I recommended it to nando. I knew you were the one who recommended it to me, darksnowman, and very grateful I am too.

I've spent 25 hours on it (2nd only to Ocarina of Time), which included completing Free Flight 100%, but not Mission Mode. I still need two stars, and that's without perfecting the later missions.

Image that @Retro_Link posted: That is brilliant. Not that I'd buy another 3DS yet (not until there's an XL), but the Japanese have such a good sense of aesthetics.

I can't believe it! I completed it on PS2 without knowing about (or using) either of these things. Oh well, just shows it can be done without them, as useful as they sound. It's not a particularly difficult or frustrating game, in my opinion, and better than ICO (although that's still worth playing). I agree, although they do attack you when they see you. I do hate attacking innocent things though, and I wonder if that would put me off games like Monster Hunter!