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

I had a go on Sega's latest console in Hollywood Video today. And the verdict? Not anything to write home about (leaving messages lying around on the 'Net that nobody'll read is about all it deserves).

Well, I read it. I won't buy the thing--I stopped being good at any kind of videogame about 5 years ago. Maybe I just ran out of quarters, who knows?

Damn you and your reading of things unexpectedly, Spartus. Crazy Taxi is the only video game for me at the moment, I'm sure Ant would appreciate it too.

I'm no good at video games really either, but I'd consider having a Sony Playstation in order to play Gran Turismo. It's the most fun I've had with a driving game since the origina Pole Position.

I should've bought myself a PlayStation over here (I've got one back in England) but plumped for the N64 - which seems to be mainly targetted for younger users who, presumably, like the irritating music and graphics that the majority of games employ. I've only played Gran Turismo with the non-analogue controller, it was pretty near to being impossible.

What do you mean "non-analogue"? Of course, you have to play with the cheat module so you can get all the cool cars and all the tracks and stuff. And you don't want to manual shift. And the most fun is when you do a 2-player duel. It splits the screen into top and bottom and you race each other at the same time (just watch the right part of the screen!) And the best feature is watching the replay, complete with camera angles that look a lot like tv coverage of racing.

The standard controller that comes with the PlayStation is just a joy-pad thing, they also have a controller with two joy-sticks that's supposed to be much better for racing / flying games. Test Drive 4 on the PS is good too, you get to race through the streets of San Francisco - if only you could choose to drive a Mustang...

Really Spartus, you were never very good at videogames. Countless games of Archon are the proof of this sad fact.

Capture the power points and you will be victorius!

Archon? What that?

Anyway, who is this mysterious poster who knows of Spatus' past life?

Methinks I know. And it bothers me a bit. I'll have a talk with him.

N64: Get, and play for ever, Goldeneye. Accept no substitutes.

Dreamcast: Don't bother - get PlayStation 2 when it comes out next year. It'll be about 20 times as powerful. And backwards compatible.

Silicon Graphics Reality Monster: Now that's a serious games machine. What? You didn't ask? They're a snip at $785,000.

Goldeneye?!! I was very sorry to have believed the hype over that. As far as 3D shoot 'em ups go nothings beaten the playbility of Doom except, perhaps, for Duke Nukem 3D. Still, it's all very subjective so it's probably just that I'm an old stick-in-the-mud.

Yeah, by all accounts (hype) the PS2 should be awsome (although obviously I will have grown out of that sort of thing by then).

Yeah, obviously, just like the rest of us!

I'm not very happy - I just found out a couple of days ago ( yeah so I'm a bit slow with these things, Hey, I'm a girl, I'm allowed to be) that the sequel to Soulblade (is on Playstation) has come out on Dreamcast, and not PS and won't be on PS2 either. Boo hiss.

Are you allowed to say that your slow because you're a girl because you're a girl too? I'm not sure that that made any sense.

What was Soulblade all about?

Soulblade is like Tekken but MUCH better. And I can say what I want about myself!!

Good point.

Is Soulblade the one where you lose your ability to fight as the damage inflicted by your opponent mounts up? (You know, like you lose an arm and then you can't punch any more). Tekken's the only fighting game I've been able to play since "The Way Of The Exploding Fist" (great title, eh?) and even that was with a certain amount of randomness.

Soulblade? er no.
Is more 3D than Tekken. And bigger (I think) array of weapons.

Since there were no weapons in Tekken it wouldn't be hard to have more...

Perhaps I made up that thing about a game where you could chop your opponent's arms off to stop them from punching, if so someone ought to write one.

There's a good game (forget what its called) where you can shove your opponent into walls/ into spikes/ etc.

Maybe lack of weapons was why I never liked Tekken...