“Hands up if you remember when ‘arcade-perfect’ meant something.

If you remember running home with a copy of Your Sinclair, Zzap64 or Amstrad Action from your newsagents each month, ready to pour over the month’s news about the latest arcade conversions, it’s pretty amazing to think how far we’ve come. After all, not only do we no longer have to patiently wait each month for the latest videogames news, it’s beamed directly into our houses using magic wires. And, in a move that would quite potentially break my brain in 1987, you can now get a literally arcade-perfect conversion of Double Dragon by doing little more than hitting a few buttons on your Xbox 360 (and stumping up 400 points, natch).”

Rather pleased with this review, if I don’t say so myself. Perhaps it’s because I managed to shoehorn in a reference to some of the most essential reading for any aspiring games journalist: old ’80s computer game magazines. As unusual as it was, my poison was Amstrad Action, as I owned a CPC 6128 which I loved dearly. In fact, I can remember reading a review of a port of Double Dragon 3 in one issue, intently trying to work out if I wanted to get it or not (in the end, I think I stumped up cash for Hudson Hawk. Which genuinely wasn’t that bad, but I’d completed it by the afternoon of the day I purchased it.)

Anyway, owning an Amstrad CPC is probably the main reason I have a soft spot for Alan Sugar. I don’t know why no one on the UK version of the Apprentice ever mention the system to him – it’s all I’d ever talk about!

“First things first: some of us still have normal-person televisions. Catan is yet another game that completely ignores the fact that some people will need to play it on SDTV. Much of the text is tiny. Worse, it’s tiny for no particular reason at all. Double-worse, it’s actually pretty tiny on an HDTV, too.

This is criminally idiotic, and means Catan gets 0/10 immediately. Or would do, except that would be to play into its hands, wouldn’t it? Trying to trick me, eh? Fortunately (for me and developer Big Huge Games), it’s nigh-on impossible to ruin a game as tightly designed as The Settlers of Catan, the German hex-based board game on which Catan is based. Even if you try.”

So there’s this Microsoft sanctioned concept, right? It’s called the “10 foot experience.” It claims that, hey, you know? People might be sitting more than inches away from their monitor or TV to use your software, so you’d better make sure it’s usable from that distance.

How on earth this hasn’t filtered down to Microsoft’s quality assurance team on Live Arcade releases I don’t know, but it’s one of the many flaws which turns Catan, based on the best board game ever (that’s not Scrabble) into a staggeringly near miss rather than an instant purchase. Quite a shame indeed.

“I don’t doubt that Suzak tried to make yet another innovative instalment in the Wario franchise, with their stressful demands for constant touch screen use – but the sad fact is that there isn’t a single spark of imagination or joy in this entire game. Despite some obvious effort, Wario: Master of Disguise is just utterly tedious in every respect and an absolute chore to play.”

Wario: Master of Disguise is the worst game I’ve had the misfortune to play through in ages, and that’s really saying something, because I was playing through the Sega Ages 2500 version of Golden Axe at the same time! In fact, the game is so dull it actually depresses me to think about. So instead I’ll say this:

If you have any interest at all in music games and have a Game Boy (or DS) plus a set of headphones , you owe it to yourself to pick up Soundvoyager, one of Nintendo’s Bit Generations titles that made a small stir when they were released a short while ago. It’s only $14.90 on Play-Asia! It absoutely proves the kind of interesting thing good developers can do for Nintendo.

(Thanks to Mister Raroo for reminding me it was Skip that developed the Bit Generations titles… Other than Digidrive, apparently, which was developed by Q-Games.)

It’s that time of year again! When the Eurogamer ‘massiv’ all get together and have a big argument about their favourite games of the year. Over the last week the top 50 has been uploaded on Eurogamer and I took part in the compilation.

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 50 – 41- A few words on Harvest Moon: Magical Melody.

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 40 – 31- My thoughts about Yakuza and Chibi-Robo (the both of which should be way higher in the final list.)

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 20 – 11- I spotlight Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, We Love Katamari and Canis Canem Edit (Bully).

Eurogamer’s Top 50 Games of 2006: 10 – 1- Opinions of Gears of War, Dead Rising, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Guitar Hero.

Unlike last year, the top game on my personal list wasn’t the last game I made comment on in the official list, as thought I do love Guitar Hero it isn’t as high in my estimation as Dead Rising, which is probably my game of the year. Probably. I find it rather hard to pick favourites.

“At E3 this year I got to try out the demo of Elebits. At the end, I turned around to hand the controller to the next person in line (who happened to be GoldenEye designer Martin Hollis, but that’s neither here nor there), who asked me what I thought of it. “It’s alright,” I said, “but the final version better have more to it than just zapping tiny creatures and flinging objects about.”

It turns out I would have preferred it didn’t.”

Fortuitous indeed that today I’d finish archiving all of my Eurogamer work to date on this site, because here’s a new review! Yep, I’ve been away for a while but it’s rather nice to have something new up on what may be the only readable (consumer orientated) games site online. Certainly it’s one of the few that I bother to check every day.

Anyway, I really did struggle with this review. Everything in me wanted to like Elebits, as it has a nice idea and I loved chucking objects around and making a hideous mess, but as the game progressed it just got more restrictive and less interesting (I didn’t even bother to mention the rubbish boss battles in this review.) Perhaps if this game was more charming I might have liked it more. I know asking every game to be as lovely as Katamari Damacy is a little unfair, but can’t they at least try?

“The critical requirements of a Monster Rancher title, that monster-raising be streamlined and rewarding, and the RPG sections be challenging and playable, are miserably out of reach for Monster Rancher EVO, with almost every part of the title a confusing, tedious mess that should make the average player ill with boredom. Much like a circus, a very dull kind of child might enjoy it, but just like that child, Monster Rancher EVO stinks of sawdust and vomit.”

Oh good lord, how much I hated Monster Rancher EVO. The worst thing was this review clearly came too late for poor Persona-Sama, who I discovered had purchased the title when I stayed at his house during E3. Every copy of this game should be burned in a big fire, and, to avoid the toxic gases released by the burning plastic getting into the atmosphere, the development team should be forced to stand around the fire and breathe in. Deeply.

Ah yes, E3 2006. A trip down to sunny LA to do nowt but play video games and hoover up free booze at lavish parties sounds like a fantastic deal, but actually, it’s beyond horrible. I say that, of course, because I was stuck in the claustrophobic, sweaty, overcrowded Wii booth for almost my entire time, but when I wasn’t having to work (which includes being on the show floor as well as writing) I genuinely enjoyed my time with many of the people I had a chance to meet and hang out with. Sadly I didn’t get any time to do interviews (gutting, when you bump into folks like Eugene Jarvis.) I also lost my badge at the end of the second day, but that’s another story.

Am I glad E3 is gone? I’m not sure. 2006 was my first year and it was as ridiculously over the top as I could have imagined, but as far as I could see the only real problem with it was that the organizers had absolutely no idea how to work with the press and industry delegates to ensure that things went smoothly. If they had even the slightest amount of sense they could have easily kept out all of the blaggers without making life more difficult for the people who were there on business. So I guess I’m not sad it’s gone as a huge, unwieldy behemoth, and I never saw it when it was smaller, more intimate, and surely more bearable, so there’s not much for me to miss. But a lot of good writing has come out of E3 over the years, so that’s to be missed, at least. Like all of this writing here!

E3 2006: Activision – My first piece (now wrongly attributed to Rob Purchese, for some reason) discusses Tony Hawk’s Project 8 and Downhill Jam, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions 2007, The Movies: Stunts and Effects Expansion Pack, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

E3 2006: Konami – An article in which I discuss watching Hideo Kojima take a widdle (how much would some people pay for that, eh?) Coded Arms: Assault and Coded Arms: Contagion, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Lunar Knights, Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Super Mario Galaxy: First Impressions – I complain about the loss of my badge and then gush about how lovely Super Mario Galaxy is. Starts a theme of self indulgence that the comments threads soon get really bitchy about. But then, I would always read E3 coverage to hear about the experience as much as the games, so that’s the way I wrote it. I can understand why people might disagree, but you can’t say I don’t discuss the games fully in any of these pieces, no sir.

Wii Sports: First Impressions – This is a review of all of the Wii Sports titles at E3, which includes the airplane game not included in the final pack-in, and I also jammed in a quick review of the terrible orchestra game as well.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: First Impressions – Now, I actually have a finished copy of this, but, um, I haven’t really had any time to play it yet. Whatever happened to that simultaneous launch on Gamecube and Wii you boasted about at E3 then, eh, Nintendo? You naughty boys. Anyway, this was quite a divisive article as I just was not impressed with Twilight Princess at the time. Remains to be seen if I am when I finally get some time to play it properly, I suppose.

Metroid Prime: Corruption: First Impressions – And, um, yeah… I wasn’t that impressed with this either, which again led to the comments getting rather heated. Things I learned at E3 2006: You must slavishly love everything Nintendo do, not think critically, otherwise people WILL COMPLAIN.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves: First Impressions – Interestingly enough I say this would be the ideal pack-in title long before any pack-in title was even hinted at! So I got it wrong but was at least thinking in the right direction.

Now, I’m not going to open old wounds here but this review was one of the first to say “hey, you know what, the Wii Remote isn’t a magic wand. The Wii can’t actually sense the exact point in 3D space where the controller is positioned.” But this was so shocking at the time quite a lot of people went mental. But look at where we are now. The Wii Remote totally can’t tell where it is exactly in 3D space. Sure, there are a lot of tricks possible to fake it quite closely but I do argue that we were all sold a bit of a lie with the Wii initially.

I do honestly think the control system, as it is, is a great idea, but it’s not as impressive as everyone thought it was going to be (to the point of sticking their fingers in their ears and going “LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING”.) The funniest thing is, though, that despite saying all of that, I thought that this game was totally great. You just can’t please people, eh?

Excite Truck: First Impressions – To be honest, even here I was pretty sure that Excite Truck was going to be a load of old bobbins, but I tried to be as positive as possible (and it paid off – the comments are a lot nicer on this one.) Shame that, yeah, in the end, it was a bit rubbish.

Dead Rising: First Impressions – Game of the year. Need I say more?

Okay, I will. Just to prove that they’re all insane, the comments all argued tooth and nail that the game couldn’t possibly be three hours long. Pfft. Yet again I was right! (Oh man, it turns out the comments threads really did have an effect on me, eh? I sure hope I don’t seem too petty.)

Project H.A.M.M.E.R: First Impressions – What happened to this title, I wonder? Has it just been forgotten about? Perhaps I was just completely shagged out after the whole E3 experience but Tom Bramwell did a lot of work to kick this into shape as my editor, and I think it’s a superb piece. That fellow deserves maximum respect.

“Apart from the camera, WinBack 2: Project Poseidon is consistently entertaining, with the combat mechanics and movement smooth and satisfying, but in general it’s also rather lacklustre, full of flaws that are too glaring to ignore when considering a recommendation. Some aspects are incredibly polished and fun, but others are terrifically broken, and while there’s a real sense that it could have earned a lot more than a five, overall it doesn’t.”

I spend rather a lot of time bitching about the horrible camera (unfortunately a feature of most Cave games) but it was just one of many flaws in Winback, which is a fairly interesting game to talk about right now, because it used a quite sophisticated cover system, similar in some ways to the current trend seen in Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas (though to my memory, without blind fire.) However, the game was generally just not exciting enough to be noticed, so wasn’t really all that groundbreaking. And with cover systems and stealth action done so much better elsewhere, there’s little to recommend Winback 2, in the end.

“Who’d want to be a farmer? Foot and Mouth, Mad Cow, Bird Flu – these are only some of the epidemics that threaten them. Crop farmers aren’t exempt from suffering either, as supermarkets demand the best quality produce at the lowest cost, while consumers bitch about pesticides and genetically engineered food.

Then again, it’s probably best not to put too much stock in the lessons of Magical Melody, because if you do then you’ll probably decide that farmers are meant, even encouraged, to go out into the forest and hug all the animals – be they raccoons, squirrels or even monkeys. Meanwhile, moles should definitely be hit with a mallet. It’s just the done thing.”

The best Harvest Moon currently available, as far as I can see. I haven’t had a chance to try Harvest Moon DS, but I’ve heard little good about it. I quite liked A Wonderful Life, even if it started far too easily (and must require about 500 hours to complete. Has anyone done it?) but it pales in comparison to Magical Melody. The Harvest Moon titles aren’t for everyone, but if they’re for you, this is the one to get.

“Pokemon Link is a truly pleasant surprise – a Pokemon puzzle game that’s not only a competent puzzle game, in which the theme doesn’t obscure that fact. Though it does have a distressingly small number of modes, the core adventure mode can be as fun in quick bursts as Zoo Keeper or Meteos, and the multiplayer features are fantastic, even if they’ll sadly rarely be used. I can’t in good conscience truly recommend it over Zoo Keeper’s simplicity, or Meteos’ beauty, but third place ain’t bad.”

Also known as Pokemon Trozei! here in North America (and Pokemon Torouze! in Japan, apparently) I enjoyed this game a great deal more than I thought I would; really just a version of Yoshi’s Cookie with dropping blocks, there’s something strangely addictive about it and astoundingly for a Pokemon game, the style and storyline is part of the fun. It was rather a shame Tetris DS, which is basically pointless thanks to the “easy spin” came out at roughly the same time, meaning this was forgotten almost completely.