The Wiikend is here

[Chancellor Valium]

I think the thing with the PS3 can be traced right back to the days of the original PS, of which even I, a technosceptic (once I have any piece of tech/software I usually love it, but initially I almost invariably look askance at it, and umm and ahh and try to poke as many holes as possible, and complain about how it's all too complicated, or they changed things too much, and how it wasn't like this in the old days. And then 6 months later I'll dig it out and love it. The one exception was the KotOR series, which from the word "go" I thought was great. Whew, what a long bracket...), had.

Back then, quite simply, the PSX won hands down. What competition was there? The Dreamcast? Don't make me laugh. The N64? What did it have beyond Goldeneye? Sure, it had Mario; the PSX had Crash Bandicoot, which was new, shiny, and above all, self-mocking. Mario racing? PSX had enough racing to slake anyone's thirst. And it looked better, and used CDs, which was somehow cooler than those naff-looking cartridges. It was the one, and we were fiercely loyal to it. Sony had done right by us, not like the second-rate N64, or the frankly laughable Dreamcast (what happened to that thing?!).

And then there was PS2. And I thought "sod that, I'm not paying £250 bloody quid for that. And the consoles passed me by. It didn't for others though, and sure, Sony had cut a few corners, so what? It was still a decent console, even if most of the really great games were just continuations of PSX games.

And now there's PS£, and it's a double-dealing, dirty-fighting fraud. But it's theirs, and theirs that loyalty, all the way back from then, and the memories.

That's what I think, anyway.

And also, Nintendo games are frankly, bloody annoying. Always have been. Always just too difficult, just beyond the point of being challenging. And repetitive, and tended, at least in the old days (by which I mean, Game Boy/GBC/NES/SNES/N64), to have the most annoying soundtracks possible.

If you want to know what I mean, play Super Mario Land 2. It would drive anyone mad, it really, really would.

[Nate the Great]

Well, I always thought N64 had Mario 64, Goldeneye, Smash Brothers, and Ocarina of Time. At least four killer apps.

People keep bashing game cartridges, and I don't know why.

1. You can save game data right on the thing.
2. More durable than discs. Casual use won't hurt them, an accidental drop won't ruin them.
3. No loading times! Once again, the Gamer's Manifesto.
4. Hacking into them with Game Sharks or whatever is A LOT easier.

As for old school soundtracks: they're awesome. I direct you to Overclocked Remix (ocremix.org).

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Well, I always thought N64 had Mario 64, Goldeneye, Smash Brothers, and Ocarina of Time. At least four killer apps.

People keep bashing game cartridges, and I don't know why.

1. You can save game data right on the thing.
2. More durable than discs. Casual use won't hurt them, an accidental drop won't ruin them.
3. No loading times! Once again, the Gamer's Manifesto.
4. Hacking into them with Game Sharks or whatever is A LOT easier.

Yes, but discs are shinier.

Originally Posted by Nate

As for old school soundtracks: they're awesome. I direct you to Overclocked Remix (ocremix.org).

Not SML2, to take an example.

[Burt]

Originally Posted by Chancellor Valium

Yes, but discs are shinier.

And round.

[Chancellor Valium]

And round, yes. Shiny and round. Round and shiny. Not grey and square.

[Nate the Great]

Could we stop impersonating The Tick please?

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

As for old school soundtracks: they're awesome.

No kidding! And thanks for the link to that "Manifesto".

[Nate the Great]

No prob.

[PointyHairedJedi]

It's somewhat sad to say, but I seem to have mostly lost my appetite for console gaming of any sort these days. I still give Gran Turismo 4 a whirl now and then, and even more occasionally I shoot stuff up in one of the GTA titles, but that's about it. What I have been playing is Civ 3 with occasional bouts of SimCity 3000 and OpenTTD in between, and hankering mightily for Theme Hospital, which hopefully I will be reunited with before the year is out.

I'd whole-heartedly agree that there's too much emphasis on shinyness these days - I recently bought Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War, which looks superb, and was fun for a little while, but has become just a tad repetitive. Sticking good graphics on top of a fun game is grand (witness Startopia), but almost nobody does, which is... depressing.

[Nate the Great]

Oh, I know how you feel. These days I have the following games on sort of perpetual backburners:

Majora's Mask
Mario Advance 4
Goldeneye
SimTower
King's Quest 8

[Chancellor Valium]

For me at present it's just Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome, and DEFCON (thermonuclear war, yay!).