MP3 Format

Clocking in just shy of 40 minutes, this all out lovefest should give the unacquainted a taste of the game, and the already familiar a fun look back on one of the best games on the PlayStation 2.

Though I personally am starting to be annoyed by it, I believe the channels system for the Wii Menu is a good idea when considering those who maybe aren't so technologically advanced enough to navigate through more complex menu systems such as the PlayStation 3 XMB or the (now) old Xbox 360 dashboard. The thing is, though, that as we've just seen with the Xbox 360, the front end interface of a game console can be radically altered with a simple software update. There's no reason why a similar makeover couldn't be possible on the Wii.

For the first part of the game, it was really good. The combat was simple yet awesome. The glowing breadcrumb trail was a great addition; I could freely wander around and get right back to questing whenever I wanted to. The quests were generally all fun and the marriage and real estate building aspects brought about a lot of hilarity. It felt weird having sex with my neighbor's wife, but I could tell by her girlish giggles that she loved it. Hands down, my favorite aspect of the game was the dog. While the dog is somewhere around 40 years old by the end of the main quest, he was a great asset in treasure hunting and fighting.

This isn't the first time game publishers have brought up the fact that they get burned on used game purchases; however, it is the first time something so radical has been proposed. While Capps has all right to be upset by this obvious injustice, withholding the ending of the game is not the proper solution to the problem.

Gaming will likely fade away if something like this was to happen because most people won't be willing to cough up the extra dough necessary to get the full game they already paid for. Not only will players need to pay for the content, but they will also need a reliable, high-speed internet connection in order to get the information. The rampant DRM will likely rub the dedicated gamer wrong as well, further segmenting the market that would be willing to take the plunge on this new system. By the time you pare away these unwilling parts of the market, the remaining devotees will not likely be large enough to subsidize the industry.

When I boot up the Mega Man collections, I can see the title screens, I can see the game select screens, I can see the loading screens. When the game itself (say, Mega Man 4) starts playing, the screen goes dark, and only sound is available.

Neo-Geo games are much the same. Upon starting up one of Neo-Geo VC games (say, King of the Monsters), sound is present, but visuals are not. The Neo-Geo problem can be fixed, however. Note that I use component cables for my Wii--why wouldn't I? As it turns out, switching my component cables out for composite cables solves the problem. Neo-Geo graphics simply can't...I don't know...distribute properly through three cables instead of one. It's an odd problem, considering that this happens to exactly NONE of my other VC games, including NES games, which I imagine were built using more primitive software.

Take Deca Sports for example. Hudson knows that the game has a metacritic rating of 50, but that didn't stop them proudly pronouncing that they had shipped over 1 million units of the game. That's an unprecedented number of units for a company the size of Hudson, and while critics can talk, money probably talks louder. I talked with a Hudson rep who said he understood why the critics responded the way they did, but who still pointed out that Deca Sports was a game his friends played when they were over. I myself rated Deca Sports a 6 out of 10, but this generation has seen so many games that appeal to people despite their place in the traditional rating scale. Hudson's My Aquarium on WiiWare is another example: it has a metacritic rating of 47, but it's apparently sold quite well! I'm not quite sure what to make of these types of exceptions to the ratings rule. I have to admit: I liked Carnival Games myself.

For the longest time, Nintendo has always dubbed itself a “games only” company. Every piece of hardware it made was strictly for playing video games, and that was it. Nintendo never considered media players, cameras, or any of that other stuff to be integral to the enjoyment of playing games (preferably its own games). Yet, starting with the Wii and now the DSi, Nintendo has seemed to realize that that extra functionality is beginning to come essential when it comes to creating a value proposition for hardware.