Thrik

Plain wallpaper.

I live in the UK, I have a copy of Wii Twilight Princess, and I want a damn Wii. Somebody help me.

Yeah, that's a bit of a stupid thing to say on pretty much all fronts. Is knowing all about every product being sold even part of their job description? But yeah, salesmen are by definition out to serve their own interests better than yours so doing web research is pretty much vital when seeking a good deal and good value. Avoid dealing with them like the plague unless you want to negotiate a price cut. Also, Marek wins the prize for best use of a Monkey Island emoticon in 2006.

Hee, yes, Twin Snakes is truly awesome. It feels kind of weird recommending it as a newish game as many people really experienced the game way back in 1998 or whatever with MGS1, but the small enhancements in Twin Snakes turn it from an aging but deteriorating classic into an excellent modern game. Not to be missed! Plus of course, playing it means you'll have played MGS1 which means you can go on to experience MGS2 and MGS3 which are both modern, great games. Unless you just don't like the series.

Mario Kart: Double Dash and Super Mario Sunshine will almost certainly please you, and Zelda: The Wind Waker is just not to be missed. Metroid Prime is an FPS you'll either love to bits or find dull. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is also a superb, faithful remake of the PlayStation 1 original, so if you never played the original you would be very, very wise to get this with its vastly superior graphics, introduction of MGS2 moves, redone soundtrack, more stylish cutscenes, and generally more immersive feel. Heck, you'll probably love it if you played/liked the original too; I certainly prefer playing it over the PS1 original.

Base it all on Kirby. I mean, an entire apartment themed like a video game will impress any girl you bring round, but a Kirby video game themed apartment?! You'll be like a wealthy kid in a penny chew shop!

Hot damn!!

Just go through the character map. There's all sorts of crazy stuff. סּ.סּ

ಠ_ಠ Fuckin' budget games.

I think playing Zelda comes a little higher on the list of priorities than money! Heck, I'd pay them to play it. Well, I'll be doing that anyway.

To review Zelda? Why not just to play Zelda?! You big puff. ...

Nope.

WHAT?! I missed it on TV? God damn.

Yeah, the second series is much better in my opinion. It's not based in the prison at all, and it makes the programme feel completely different with them being all over the US. They've done a really good job of handling the different characters having their own storylines too, along with tying them together at certain points. Also I like the nutter FBI agent.

I'm not necessarily buying games based on knowing I like them already. I never played Perfect Dark, but I'll probably get it for the virtual console if it's available as it'd be convenient to do so. I certainly wouldn't ever play it if I had to sort an N64, then get a hold of the game. There're a lot of older games I barely remember at all and would similarly like to revisit. I don't really give a flop if they come with online statistics and a fancy background image (I'd prefer black or an enlarged screen with the top/bottom slightly clipped — I hated those colourful backgrounds on the Super Game Boy). 'Shovelware' or not, I'm happy to pay for a good game based on its own merits. Just like if they re-released Grim Fandango with nothing changed but the ability to run on Windows Vista and support current graphics cards properly, I'd probably buy it in a snap.

I'd be perfectly happy to pay that for the likes of Donkey Kong Country, rather than dick around sorting out a SNES, then deal with all the cartridges and of course having it take up room in the living room. This dicking around is increased with each retro console I want to play. Convenience and ease makes a surprising difference when it comes to things like this, hence the GBA scenario you just described being a reality. The demand is obviously there, no? What can you really add to games like Super Mario World and Banjo-Kazooie anyway? I mean, Nintendo has never marketed the virtual console retro games as being anything more than the bringing of older classics to a new console for convenient play. And that works just fine for most people. I think the difference between us that you don't perceive older games as having any value at all, and need extras such as leader boards to feel your money's been spent on anything. I personally think the price is completely reasonable for an oldie like DKC, and really, what value is a leader board and a higher resolution going to apply to such a game? The games do actually go for a comparable pre-owned price in shops by the way. eBay is of course sporadically cheaper, but it's not exactly quick, the games are liable to be damaged or worn as with any pre-owned software, and of course they're not always available. And I don't have a working SNES or N64 anymore, heh.

What? Are you guys seriously complaining about the virtual console retro games being the same as they were when they first came out? Because, you know, that's kind of the point. The idea is to let you play old games on the new console, not to provide rereleased and remastered copies of them. Whether it's emulated or not shouldn't even be a concern. Why would it? What do you expect them to do, recode the entire game for a new system architecture for the sole purpose of giving you the comfort of knowing it's not an emulated game? Because I'd rather have lots more of the SNES/N64 catalogues in less time. Heck, even the Xbox 360's Xbox backwards compatibility is emulated, and it still takes them a lot of work to get each game to actually work — hence the relatively short list of backwards compatible games. If they weren't emulating they'd seriously never get them done.

net_graph 0, you silly blue tit.

Amazing how much hair can transform a person isn't it? I mean, considering the scene focused on her face plenty for a good few minutes.

Wtf?! Anyone who seriously says they didn't enjoy the C&C cutscenes has to be being contrary for contrary's sake, or is just mental. Cheesy as they were, they were a superb little bonus for completing a mission and actually made me want to get through the whole game just to see them all. I think C&C is one of the few places where FMV still has a place. It's traditional, and it's a more interesting way of introducing the missions than the fairly bland C&C: Generals style that simply showed parts of the map in-game with a voice-over telling you what's what.

One thing I can't really work out yet is how the whole game will fit together. We haven't seen anything of an overworld yet, and having a good overworld is a staple of 3D Mario platformers and 3D platformers in general. If you're hopping from planetoid to planetoid in the first level, what exactly could be the parent of that? Although I suppose 3D Mario platformers tend to make use of the whole warp thing, so something like "Bowser's Giant Space Teleportation Castle" could end up being the overworld. It's all very intriguing anyway. Another thing worth noting is that Super Mario Galaxy is only known as a working title thus far, and as you can see a lot of sites take care to note this. It could be this combined with all media only showing off the planetoid hopping level that's misleading a lot of people into thinking it's all going to take place in space, where in reality it might just mean that you visit a lot of weird (but large) planets.

And yeah miffy495, that pretty much sums up why Sunshine felt so different from the usual Mario formula, 2D iterations and all. Pretty much every single Mario game involves romping over all sorts of weird and wonderful terrains, and that variety set the benchmark for countless other platformers which largely used the same templates (Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie being obvious examples). Sunshine did well in making each level feel a bit different, but the restriction of being on the paradise holiday island wore thin very quickly. I was literally gagging for a snow level by the end of the game (a favourite theme of mine). Galaxy has the potential to throw in all sorts of crazy themes considering the fact that it takes place on different planetoids, and I really hope they capitalise on that. Heck, in the first level alone (E3) we've seen fire/lava, ice, classic lush green, and cave-like areas. I hope they take that further and base whole levels around those specific themes later on.

I agree that there was a large volume of bosses on show LOPcagney, but then it's not unheard of for 3D Mario platformer levels to have multiple bosses, each one accompanying a different star. Mario Sunshine for example put you against Petey Piranha on the very first level, who was of course a boss and I believe it was the first star too. Then on a later star (possibly the last) you fought him again on the same level, but in much different circumstances. I'm sure there's other examples of that type of thing in Mario 64/Sunshine too, but my mind's blank at the moment.

It definitely looks a lot more classic Mario (64) than Sunshine did, which I agree was a good game but also agree that it lacked that certain Mario feel. It had a good feel, but not the same one. I think it's worth pointing out that all Mario Galaxy media that we've seen thus far only depicts the first level/world in the game, which is named "Star World". Like Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine, the 'many levels in one' system is at play where you choose a star to go for at the beginning of the level and the level will be slightly (or sometimes dramatically) different as a result. I think it's very unlikely that the other levels will continue the whole hopping between planetoids and rocks theme; that'd get tiresome very quickly, and I don't think Miyamoto and his cronies would be that thick. They could very easily have levels in a style more like Mario 64 or Sunshine by simply having a really big planetoid with an atmosphere. Check out the beginning of this YouTube video (give it one minute) for a glimpse of how a level based on a larger planetoid could look. It pretty much looks just like Mario 64 or Mario Sunshine as far as camera and Mario movement goes — I'd really like to see levels like that. Except bigger, obviously.

Somebody (I forget who) linked me to this. I was also told it's not actually a trailer for either of the two features themselves, but is a false trailer that's shown either at the end or at the beginning of one of them (presumably the second, so cinema-goers think it's a normal one?). Of course I could have just misinterpreted them.