Alex Hardy

The arrival of Starfox 64 on the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s Wii list is solid evidence that it will release for Virtual Console, if not an indication of when.

For me, this one of the first pieces of exciting news about VC. There are many Nintendo games that I love, but have played to death and won’t be buying. Starfox 64 is one N64 game that I missed out on. If they can get Blast Corps, GoldenEye, Paper Mario and Perfect Dark on there as well I’d happily throw down some points.

It looks like the underwhelming Sunshine will soon be forgotten. Super Mario Galaxy looks phenomenal.

It’s been three months since my little bit of shameless eBay profiteering. Now I have Zelda, Wii Play, a classic pad and a points card. I want a Wii. Despite great sales, this may be the most disappointing console launch ever.

Any manufacturer knows how disastrous it would be for their machine to not fly off the shelves at launch, so shortages are obviously engineered. For it to still be unavailable after such a long time is inexcusable. The situation is compounded by the poor software line-up that has no doubt left thousands of consoles gathering dust under televisions while the shop shelves are bare.

OK, it isn’t the weakest console launch ever. That dubious honour probably goes to the 3DO. It’s almost certainly the weakest Nintendo launch ever. Let’s consider the evidence:

• The NES launched with Super Mario Bros.
• The Gameboy had Tetris, Tennis and Super Mario Land.
• The Super NES came out with guns blazing in the form of Super Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings.
• The Nintendo 64 had Super Mario 64, which some still say is the best game ever made.
• The Gamecube had Luigi’s Mansion (uh oh getting weaker…) and Super Monkey Ball.
• The Nintendo DS had Super Mario 64 (weaker still, a few extras tacked onto an old game).

The Wii launches with Zelda: Twilight Princess which, by most accounts, is brilliant. That doesn’t change that it’s a delayed and tarted-up Gamecube game with a tacked-on Wiimote control system. The rest of the launch crop look like rubbish. Then we have the Virtual Console.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the VC is a wonderful idea. I wish I could erase the part of my brain where I remember the challenge of figuring out the relationship between the Light and Dark Worlds in Zelda: A Link to the Past. Or hearing Mario’s giddy whoops when he either manages to grab Bowser by the tail or gets his pants set on fire in Super Mario 64.

But I can’t. So VC has precious little to offer me.

All this can be turned round. It took time for the DS to find its way and for games like Nintendogs, Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Electroplankton to show its unique potential. I expect Wii will be the same. There will be a lot of drivel, and some moments of genius.

They need to get some Wiis on the shelves. Right now. Before PS3 launches and Sony’s PR machine eclipses it. Before people like me lose interest. They need a proper 100% authentic AAA+ Wii game. Or three. We need Super Mario Galaxy. What we’re going to get is Super Paper Mario. That will have to do.

Hurry up, Nintendo…

Line Rider is a Flash game that I only discovered today for the first time. Shame on me for being so out of touch .

It was originally created by Boštjan Cadež, a Slovenian university student, in September 2006. Since its release it has gained cult status via players sharing videos of their tracks on YouTube and has been viewed over 16 million times!

The game itself is simple, but fiendishly addictive. You don’t control the sledger, you draw the track. Then let him go. That’s all. It might sound simple, but getting the little guy to do one jump without taking a spill is tricky.

Play it, then you’ll understand.

Variations on this theme for the Wii and Nintendo DS are in development.

I love finding these little stories. They remind me that the web is a unique place, where a good idea can reach the world.

If a) you have a PlayStation 2 b) you’re thinking of buying a PS3 or even c) you don’t like games but simply fancy making an easy buck on eBay a year or so from now, buy Okami.

Mere weeks after release to critical acclaim, it is nowhere to be seen on the UK all-formats chart. This proves two things:

1. The British public prefer to play garbage like “Little Britain: The Videogame.”
2. Okami will surely join Panzer Dragoon Saga, Ico etc in the exclusive club called “Ignored at launch, fought for on eBay.”

Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

I bought Okami for the PS2 last week, having eagerly awaited its release. This isn’t a review (I’ll save that until I’ve explored the game further), but I thought I’d post my thoughts on it.

It’s a terrible shame that Clover Studio has been dissolved by parent company Capcom. It seems their unusual games (which include Viewtiful Joe) haven’t managed to turn critical acclaim into commercial success.

Okami itself (via an almost boringly long introduction) tells the tale of a village cursed by the demon Orochi, a many-headed black serpent that lives outside the town in a cave. Every year the villagers were forced to sacrifice a young woman to the demon. This continued until a young man, with the help of a mysterious wolf, fought the demon to save the girl he loved. Together they banished the demon and a shrine was built to mark the site.

But, as the intro says, that is not the end of the tale…

A hundred years later, an unidentified someone removes the hero’s sword from the plynth. This act releases the demon once again. The world is now a blackened, lifeless wasteland. An appeal by the forest nymph Sakuya sees the sun goddess Amaterasu appear in the form of a white wolf.

I’ll put it plainly: Okami is the most beautiful game I have ever played. The artwork, which moves and flows like a combination of impressionist painting and Japanese calligraphy, is breathtaking and seems to get better with every moment you spend playing the game.

Innovative touches are in abundance, the main one being the brush. Through the discovery of techniques you can use it as a weapon, or to restore life. I’ve already used it to paint a bridge over a cliff and a star back into the night sky.

There are also genre formulaic gameplay elements. There’s a bit of pot smashing for money and Amaterasu’s little friend Issun is rather like Link’s companion Navi in Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As long as I don’t end up lighting torches and pushing blocks around I won’t complain too much.

Okami seems tremendously promising and may earn a place in my top 50.

I’d like you to have a look at Orisinal; a collection of some of the most beautifully made Flash games I have seen.

Most of the games have very simple play mechanics, relying on a few key controls and the mouse. The simplest games are usually the most enjoyable though and I’m certain that you’ll find at least one game that threatens your day’s work with the desire to see your name on its high score table.

Charmingly illustrated characters and clever use of blur effects give the graphics texture and depth of field that is uncommon in Flash games.

Some of my favourites: The Bottom of the Sea, Chicken Wings and Friends.

I’m going to throw down the gauntlet (no pun intended) to my blogging friends and list my favourite, most fondly remembered games of all time. Things like this are subject to constant revision, so I’m not going to be too fussy about it. I’ve listed them in alphabetical order (because some things are too hard to compare). I list the platform that I played each game on.

1. Beach Head (C64)
2. Boulderdash (C64)
3. Burning Rangers (Saturn)
4. Bust A Move (Playstation)
5. Command & Conquer (Mac)
6. Dungeon Master (Amiga)
7. Exile (Amiga)
8. Flashback (Amiga)
9. Gargoyle’s Quest (Gameboy)
10. Gauntlet (C64)
11. God of War (PS2)
12. Halo (Mac)
13. Homeworld (Windows PC)
14. Jumping Flash (Playstation)
15. Lemmings (Amiga)
16. Myth (C64)
17. NiGHTS Into Dreams / Christmas NiGHTS (Saturn)
18. Outrun (C64)
19. Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)
20. Quake 3 (Mac)
21. Rainbow Islands (Amiga)
22. Resident Evil (Playstation)
23. Resident Evil 4 (PS2)
24. Rez (Dreamcast)
25. Rick Dangerous (Amiga)
26. R-Type (Amiga)
27. Sega Rally (Saturn)
28. Sensible Soccer (Amiga)
29. Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
30. Shining Force 3 (Saturn)
31. Sonic the Hedgehog (Megadrive)
32. Soul Calibur (Dreamcast)
33. Starwing (SNES)
34. Streetfighter 2 (various versions) (SNES)
35. Super Mario 64 (N64)
36. Super Mario Kart (SNES)
37. Super Mario World (SNES)
38. Super Monkey Ball (Gamecube)
39. Super Probotector (SNES)
40. Super Tennis (SNES)
41. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (Arcade)
42. Tetris (Gameboy)
43. Tomb Raider (Playstation)
44. Ultimate Doom (Playstation)
45. Virtua Tennis (Dreamcast)
46. X-Men Vs Streetfighter (Saturn)
47. Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
48. Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
49. Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Gameboy)
50. Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)

You could infer that I don’t care much for computer gaming (consoles all the way for me…), that I think the SNES was the best console ever, and that the Zelda series are my favourite games. Yep, sounds about right.

Now if I could just get a damn Wii I could play Twilight Princess…

Edge magazine has a fascinating piece this month about the state of the PC games industry. To the casual observer, the market would appear to be in crisis - experiencing a decline in retail sales of approximately 10% per year for the past five years. To draw this conclusion is to miss a bigger picture.

Valve’s Steam service is successfully distributing a wide variety of games and their experiment with episodic gaming in the Half Life 2 expansions. The new Sam and Max mini-games are doing well, even if the buzz says they’re not yet as amusing as the original games.

World of Warcraft isn’t the first to show that subscription models and expansions can infinitely extend the boxed game, and Second Life is proving eerily compelling for many. Meanwhile so-called “casual” games like Popcap’s puzzler Bejeweled sell five million copies.

All of this doesn’t even take into account the markets that many of us are oblivious to. Across Asia millions of consumers have access to internet connections that make ours look pitifully slow. China has over 200,000 internet cafes, 80,000 of which own 200 PCs or more and many gamers cite “socialising” as a main motivation for playing. This is a world apart from the ownership model and gaming culture of the West. They are also way ahead of us in terms of in-game advertising and micropayment mechanisms, which continue to meet resistance in Europe and America.

Asian and Latin American games like Audition, Freestyle, Kart Rider and Sudden Attack draw huge communities, but fly completely under the radar of our mainstream press.

Maybe the days of boxed retail software are numbered, but the diversity of PCs and their users means there is no single gaming market. The evidence points to an industry that’s undergoing an evolution to new audiences and distribution channels.

Maybe I should make a game

Have a look at the latest trailer. Mac users should download the Flip4Mac WMV components for QuickTime.

Wow. That’s a bit impressive, no? When its hardware requirements mean that PC sales don’t deliver an acceptable return on its development costs to Electronic Arts, I look forward to playing the (unconfirmed) Xbox 360 port.