h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ya, it will take some time for developers to start really exploiting the PS2 hardware, but some companies have had a head start, like Square. You can bet that Final Fantasy IX will be something to see.

Banjo Kazooie kind of ticked me off because they put these bloody secret places in the game that you can't access except by playing the sequel. This wouldn't be too bad if they didn't take two years to release the sequel. Grrr...

I was thinking, "bloody hell, not another FF game". They are starting to get boring already (to me, Final Fantasy starts and ends with #7).

I saw the end sequence of BK, and I don't get the whole "you can only go here if you play the sequel". How the hell does that work out?!

I'm not sure how they do it. It would be easy enough to just have the sequel modify a saved game from the original, but Banjo Kazooie saves its games in memory on the actual cartridge, so that idea doesn't work.

Perhaps they just write something to your memory card that the first game looks for to enable access to the secret areas. That's my theory, anyway. I can't see how else they can do it.

Not only are they working on Final Fantasy IX for the PSX, but they're also working on Final Fantasy X and XI for the PS2. X will be your typical Final Fantasy game, but XI will be an online version of Final Fantasy, sort of like Everquest, only way better-looking and infinitely cooler.

Mmmmm, can't wait.

By then I'll be totally out of touch with the gaming world.

Well, I hope you all enjoy it. This is proving too much for me already.

There's a lot goingon in the industry, but the nice thing is you don't have to understand any of it in order to play the games.

Just get a PS2 when it comes out and you'll be fine (I know I will).

Fair deal. I think I'll stick with my N64 though, cos I'm cheap

Have you tried Perfect Dark yet? I just saw it in the store today. Kind of wondering if it's any good as a single-player game.

No, but my little brother keeps going on about it. Looks like I'll be playing it soon whether I want to or not!

I been playiong Soldier Of Fortune recently - now that is a great alternative should you ever get bored of Goldeneye

Well, I picked up Perfect Dark yesterday. It's pretty cool. It's a lot like Goldeneye except that it has a better framerate, more weapons, and it seems to get harder a lot sooner than Goldeneye. Sometimes it's difficult to know exactly what you're supposed to do on some missions.

For example, I'm currently stuck on this one mission (in Chicago, I think), where one of my mission objectives is "Create automotive diversion". I have know idea where or when or how I'm supposed to do that, but there's this flying gun that floats all over the place and shoots the crap out of me whenever it sees me, and it can't be destroyed because it has shields (at least, I've never been able to destroy it).

Still, thus far, I give it a big thumbs up.

Guess I have to play it before I can truly pass judgement . The getting hard quick bit sounds a bit intimadating though...

Actually, it's not that bad at all. I made it past the Chicago mission (turns out the vehicular diversion wasn't that hard to figure out). You just can't beat a SuperDragon gun for clearing a room of bad guys. Too bad it has a small clip (only 30 rounds).

I think that anybody that loved Goldeneye will really enjoy this game. It plays amazingly like Goldeneye (although i had to use a different controller configuration - I use the second config (1.2, I think) which emulates Turok controls which is what I prefer).

I'm still waiting to find the mission that has the same fun factor as the Arctic mission on Goldeneye.

I definitely think you should at least rent it. Way more weapons and gadets, some very cool visual effects, and a slightly better frame rate make it (IMHO) worth owning.

Wearing the X-Ray goggles - talk about an acid trip.

Hey yeah, rent it! I forgot about that *^_^*. Cheerzen

Let me know what you think about it. I really can't believe how similar it is to Goldeneye. I guess Rare knew a good thing when they saw it.

Will do

Space Channel 5 is excellent. Anyone else have this game yet? I've managed to collect 98% of the people - I'm just missing victim #34, whom I can't seem to locate.

I'd love to know how the Japanese designers manage to capture the essence of 1960's retro so amazingly well (the game design is brilliant).