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Don't waste your time on Contact. I did, and it was by no means worth it. You should sell it. The same could be said for Feel the Magic, unless you got it cheaply. It's fun while it lasts, but let's be honest here: The games themselves aren't anything special at all, and when you're done with the game, after 3-4 hours maybe, you really are done. Boring to play again. Now, let's get down to business. I'd check out the following: Kuru Kuru Kururin (GBA) It's Mr. Pants (GBA) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All (DS) Advance Wars (GBA) Advance Wars: Black Hole Rising (GBA) Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS) Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA) Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (DS) Metroid Fusion (GBA) Metroid Zero Mission (GBA) Tony Hawk's American Sk8land (DS) Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS) Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS) Kirby: Canvas Curse (DS) Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (DS) Elite Beat Agents (DS) Super Mario 64 DS (DS) The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (GBA) Polarium Advance (GBA) Also worthy of attention, although perhaps not as good as the above are: Ridge Racer DS (DS) Pac'n Roll (DS) Polarium (DS) Yoshi's Island (DS) Wario Ware, Inc. (GBA) WarioWare Touched! (DS) WarioWare Twisted! (GBA) Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble (DS) I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones off the top of my head.

Isn't this the case for almost every game, though?

Lego Star Wars is shit. It isn't "fun" just because the animation is brilliant, you know. People need to open their eyes a bit. I liked Table Tennis and Virtua Tennis 3, and obviously Guitar Hero II is a worthy game. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland is very non-violent, easy fun as well, even though it looks like a PS2 game. Tony Hawk's Project 8 would have been non-violent, excellent fun if it weren't for the godawful framerate. Of course, then there's a healthy line-up of Live Arcade titles such as Geometry Wars, Marble Blast Ultra, Texas Hold'em and Doom, which are all ace. I think so. You can't trust reviewers in general. There's too much stupidity and lousy argumenting going around, and too much attention paid to all the wrong things. Therefore, the relevancy of sites such as GameRankings and Metacritic is questionable at best.

Agreed. Trying to replicate reality in that way would probably be an awful idea. Real life isn't designed by playground makers or game designers.

I voted a nine, simply because I've been in the mood for playing games quite a lot lately, and also because I really haven't got enough time for it. The result is that I'm constantly aching for playing more games than I do. I've got 400 games at home of which I'd like to play at least 200 right now if I could. I have never finished Broken Sword 1, System Shock, Super Mario Sunshine, Project Zero, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Rez, Okami, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess or lots of other very, very nice games that i know I love. Heck, I haven't even finished Thief: The Dark Project. And that's just the classics. Right now, I'm enjoying Phoenix Wright 2, Excite Truck and Kororinpa more or less evenly, and even more Hitman: Blood Money (The goal: All Silent Assassins on Expert and Professional). I also think Ratchet & Clank is tempting so far. I'm an hour into it, and looking forward to see more. To me, the problem is not the games, but the time I never seem to have for playing them.

Well, seeing as it actually plays N64 games it's not that much of a leap. Whether or not Nintendo gets out the Saturn on Wii, they should make it possible to access channels and play games stored on SD. It's a damn shame this wasn't in even at the time of release. My Wii, for one, is filling up. Quickly. And transfer times to and from SD cards are horrific. Nintendo, y'hear?

Yep. Although it has to be said that you almost never have to do a sequence twice, since you're always able to save and reload. Furthermore, I think you're missing the point if you're complaining about replayability in a Phoenix Wright game. Not all games are made to be infinitely enjoyable - PW2 may be disposable fun, but it's still excellent. If one should criticise anything, it should be other aspects than the game's linearity, methinks. It is more of a story than a game at times - but even if that's not suiting you, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the concept.

That depends on what you're expecting. It's the best handheld shooter ever created by far, it has the Metroid ambience in spades and it's more open-ended and "open world" influenced than any previous Metroid game, seeing as you get to choose which directions you want to go in after a while. It isn't, however, a true handheld Metroid Prime - it's not as intricate, nor as varied, as that game. But I still love it.

I do of course agree with you. But whereas the "borrowing" of ideas worked wonderfully wrt. the art style and concepts, the same cannot be said about all the different levels. The goggalor level, for instance, or the Napoleon level, both are severely lacking as platforming playgrounds, and even when it's more or less competent it's hardly in the same league as games such as Super Mario Sunshine or, for that matter, Prince of Persia. That's not to say I didn't enjoy Psychonauts, I just feel it's not quite comfortable as a platformer.

Well, if so I'd like to know: How many and which other platformers have you tried? Maybe you just need to try some really good ones, or maybe platformers just aren't your thing. If the latter is true, then I imagine what you're trying to say is that Pyschonauts is the first platformer you've played which was sufficiently "non-platformey" to be interesting to you. Either way, the fact is that much playtime in Psychonauts goes into the platforming aspects of the experience, and as such, those needed to be excellent in order for the game to be excellent. Since many of them weren't, I feel the game as a whole was less than it could have been.

... but Monkey Island I already had excellent, stylised graphics! I prefer to play the original version of MGS1 myself, by the way. Haven't played Twin Snakes, and I wholeheartedly believe it's superior, but since I didn't play MGS when it first came out, I feel it's important to play the original version, in order to know exactly what it was like back then. Historically interested, me, y'see.

Furthermore, the Keyboard+Mouse combo is, of course, hopelessly complicated as it is. I don't want to drag a 102-key around for playing my games, for obvious reasons. You also lose analog precision wrt. movement, which the Wii gives you. There aren't yet any really good FPS games out on the Wii, but what the games I've tried (Red Steel, Far Cry, Call of Duty 3) all have managed, is to give me a better, simpler and more direct way to interact. When someone with the competency to fulfill the potential of the controls comes along, it will be obvious that the Wii is indeed providing the best interface for FPS games to date. It's still not perfect, and the mouse beats the Wiimote wrt. accuracy still, but all in all, I'd much rather grip those ergonomical white sticks than place my fingers at WSAD ever again. If I only had the choice.

Agree about the general point, yet highly disagree about Psychonauts. In my view, Pyschonauts' one big problem was just that: the blatant copying of old platforming ideas, coupled with the mediocrity (and lacking understanding) of the actual platforming design. Schafer & Co should either have made it more of a pure adventure, or hired someone who knew what makes platformers tick. In my view, the excessive figment collecting was largely lacking in finesse, and several of the levels lacked the needed creative spark and fun factor. Admittedly, the style, the voices and the creative concepts for the levels were all excellent, but that was clearly not enough in itself when the game was striving with getting the platforming bits right.

Katamari will still feel fresh whenever you choose to try it, frankly. It's just that kind of game. The big question here isn't whether or not it is possible to get the game to work in the Wii - that's a given. The big question is how it'll actually fare against Kororinpa. I always felt Katamari was a bit too chaotic and lacked the focused challenge I wanted - it all seemed a bit random. Maybe that's wrong, I haven't played the game all that much, but what I have played is Kororinpa, and that is my favourite ball-rolling game, period. Which is saying quite a lot.

Just a couple of recommendations, in case anyone believes the Wii to be a wasteland of "proper" games. I've played both Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, Excite Truck and Kororinpa extensively. Tony Hawk is a bit less precise than the best arcade racers, but still an absolute blast. Excite Truck, on the other hand, is better than almost all arcade racers I've tried, and a real treat. Kororinpa arrived today, and has so far been one-more-go heaven. None of these are particularly suited for parties, even though they all feature competitive two-player. Of course, then there's Zelda, but you obviously know that one already. Call of Duty 3 is decent, but lacks originality and could be more tactically varied. Red Steel is fun, but cheap in every respect, and Super Monkey Ball looks fabulous, but lacks the gameplay substance to back up the graphics. Madden 07 is extremely hard to get into (I've tried) when you don't know the sport (or more importantly, the names, pros and cons of different tactical combinations) -- while Far Cry Vengeance is fun but also feels a bit cheap (and features awful AI). I think Wii Sports is capable of delivering satisfying single player goodness as well, but I guess that's disputable. Yeah, it's not overly impressive, but with at least four excellent single player, traditional games at my disposal (zelda, tony, excite, kororinpa), of which I've yet to finish a single one, I'm not feeling the fear of software drought anymore.