Why I don't want a PS3 quite yet. (Steve)

She'd kill me. The wife that is.

£425. For a games console. It's insanity isn't it?

Sony. Call me when it's £299. I might have a chance.

Excitetruck. Wins (Steve)

Excitetruck is one of those games that had completely fallen off my radar. "OMG THE GFX ARE CRAP". "OMG IT'S SO SHORT". "OMG OMG OMG" or some thing else like that. That's what it was like after the US launch. Oh well, I thought, shame. Next.

Still, it came out here a couple of weeks back. I'd had a bad day and wanted to buy something. This seemed to fit the bill.

Annnyyway... it's bloody brilliant. Surprisingly brilliant given the hatred. The graphics are actually very good - a bit plain, but very solid and with an enormous draw distance. The steering controls with the remote are initially jarring, but kick in after a couple of races. Then you realise it's not really a racing game but in fact an exercise in making huge jumps, taking risky shortcuts and doing tricks to score points, where you incidentally get some extra points at the end if you finish first. It's a proper arcade game and enormously good fun. Still, it's definitely a game that needs a sequel. Online racing would be great, some more depth to the tricks system, a bit of a tart up on the graphics wouldn't hurt, and the music. Oh the music has to go.

I love it. It's the best Wii game I've played aside from Wii Sports

8/10

Wii. The bad stuff (Steve)

OK. Everyone know the Wii is AN AMAZING SUCCESS, and rightly so. It gets a lot right. Small, quiet, great controller, some nice games and some interesting features.

BUT. All is not well in the world of Wii. Nagging doubts hinder my initial joy.

1. The Wii Remote is superb. But it doesn't work properly all the time. The sensor in the remote that detects its position in relation to the "sensor bar" cannot cope with a third source of infra-red... the F**KING SUN! Alas my living room back wall is a huge great sheet of glass. Afternoon gaming on a sunny day (if you require the pointing features of the remote) is out.

2. The Virtual Console is flawed. The shop itself is slow and clunky - it needs to be a proper client application rather than web-based. And it is overpriced. Heinously.

3. The games aren't fulfilling the potential of the controller, yet. Wii Sports is genius, and possibly the most important launch game since Halo, but that aside we're not really seeing much that feels really new. This is probably a short term problem, but disappointing nontheless

4. The online stuff is crap. Friend codes, no online games (again, yet), poor support for online gaming. It feels tacked on. An afterthought. I still don't think Nintendo care.

5. Zelda needs a refresh. Seriously, I've had enough now.


However, to countenance the misery, these are reasons why I think the Wii rocks. It's beautifully designed, Wii Sports is amazing, the Remote is a joy to use, Zelda is still a great great game despite it's... reluctance to move on. I'm glad Nintendo did their own thing (not that they really had a choice). I certainly can't see me buying the broken one or the gimped one just yet.

Backwards Thinking: You've been GIMPED. (k3nshi)

Ho hum. I cancelled my PS3 preorder, due to the Backwards Comaptibility farce being played out by Sony with the European models of the PS3.

Do I really care that much about backwards compatibility? No.

Do I care about paying a lot more money for less capable hardware? Yes.

And many other gamers, feel the same way judging by the reaction to on the "semi-official blog" of the PS3: Three Speech. Making things so, so much worse is the insane PR policy Sony is adopting to deal with the fans. Because lets face it, if you are considering paying £425 to get a PS3 at launch, you are a BELIEVER in what the PS3 is meant to represent (state of the art gaming hardware).

This whole thing could have been handled so, so much better.

This Is Living (k3nshi)

OMG MEGATON

PS3 Pre-order placed with Amazon.

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