• Format: PS3
  
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Sega
• Developer: Headstrong Games
• Players: 1-2 (1-4 minigames)
• Site: http://www.sega.com/games/the-house-of-the-dead-overkill-extended-cut/

The House of the Dead: Overkill began life as a fairly well received Wii game, with the system being perfect for the precise aiming an on-rails arcade style shooter requires. Now the game has been remixed into an ‘extended cut’ and repackaged for the PS3 with full Move support.

House of the Dead games can never really be judged based on plot since it’s far more about the gameplay akin to what you would be looking for in a busy arcade; that said, Overkill does feature one of the worst. Playing as either Agent G on his first mission to track down Papa Caesar and put an end to his mutant experiments or Detective Issac Washington who wants to kill Caesar for revenge, you play through levels with a linked plot but with each pitched as an individual ‘movie’.

As we said: the plot in the game is beyond bad. The thing is though – it’s on purpose. The game is presented in a terrible old B-movie-come-horror-flick style complete with an over the top narrator, stupendously bad acting, writing, plot and music. It will no doubt be a polarising choice as while others might find it amusing, we were in the camp that found the lack of polish and ludicrously bad plot irritating, along with Issac’s constant swearing being a pointless distraction. The game does also border on bad taste at times with jokes about cripples, rednecks, carnival folk and more, all being fair game.

Still, plot is never the main thing here. It’s about the gun gameplay, which does translate as well to Move as it did to the Wii. In this extended cut you can resort to using a normal pad; however even with the sensitivity bumped right up, it will still feel slow in comparison and becomes obvious when at times you have literally only a second or two to fire at one of the many collectables littered around each level.

Besides two levels exclusive to this extended cut bringing the total to nine (Naked Terror and Creeping Flesh which let players take control of Varla Gunns and a new character imaginatively called Candi Stryper), the game is also 3DTV compatible. This adds another little gimmick to help warrant a purchase even for those that had the Wii version, and that applies to those without the necessary 3D compatible television too. Included with the game are two classic red and blue tint 3D glasses. This can then be switched on in-game to give you the 3D effect we put up with as kids, though to be honest it will just hurt your eyes far more than conventional, modern 3D.

Rounding off the new additions are the Director’s Cut mode which opens slightly new routes through levels as well as tougher enemies and limited continues, new weapons, and the four player minigames (which you’d play once or twice at most and like the main campaign is local only).

Graphically the game is far below the standards expected of a PS3 game, though naturally this is because of where it began life. The 3D makes up for this slightly but it is worth remembering going in that this will not be a visual feast for the eyes. There are about four or five basic enemy types excluding the bosses, stages are bland, and enemies don’t react well enough to being shot except randomly losing a limb sometimes.

Getting through all the levels won’t take long either regardless of whether you play alone or with a friend, but the game does try to include ways to encourage replays. Among the various modes you can earn and activate are: a hardcore mode (headshots only), more mutants mode (increased enemy amounts), and a mode where you duel wield two independent weapons. The most unique additional mode is definitely ‘Shoot the sh-t’ in which every cutscene is given subtitles and if a player hits the bad word before it is said then it gets bleeped.

It’s hard to say much more about House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut. The bad taste B-movie style will appeal to certain people but irritate others. There isn’t exactly a huge array of Movecentric titles to choose from as of yet so perhaps now is the best time for something like this to be released. That said, you would need to be really desperate for an on the rails shooter to get any kind of extreme enjoyment out of a game as crass as this, in which characters have sex with their mothers and more often than not the weak point of the boss is the breast.

• Format: 3DS
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Developer: Nintendo/Grezzo
• Players: 1
• Site: http://zelda.com/ocarina3d/#/home

Lots and lots of games were released between 1998 and now. Likeable gems, piles of fuming rubbish, lauded classics, and all manner of titles saw the light of day — but then there’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Even the most soulless gamers agreed that it was something special. This 3DS remake of the game holds up alarmingly well and possesses every grain of magic it was remembered for back on the old Nintendo 64. Toss aside both your 3D and rose-tinted glasses, for you’ll need neither pair to enjoy this classic among classics.

Most of us know the fabled quest by now: a boy from a mystical forest of peace is pulled into a grand adventure of heroism with the ultimate goal of saving the fair Princess Zelda and defeating Ganondorf the black-hearted villain. The plot hasn’t changed a bit and that’s nothing to complain about; it’s a strong story that offers more than a few memorable characters and poignant moments as it leads you from dungeon to dungeon.

That, after all, is the meat of the game: solving the puzzling dungeons and overthrowing the bosses that lurk within. Aside from the Water Temple (which now has colour-coded doors to keep your addled brains from falling out), the structure hasn’t been fiddled with much. You’ll still target skeletons and duel them to the death (or undeath as the case may be), hit switches to activate moving platforms, and find keys that open locked doors. Some conventions are starting to feel aged (notably the inflexible camera), but the complex yet perfectly ordered rooms and hallways are brilliantly designed, ensuring a satisfying flow of cognitive stimulation and killing things.

You think a measly rock will take down the Hero of Time? Boulder-dash! (Heh heh.)

Of course, life outside these perilous caves is just as rewarding. Hyrule is a huge place, positively stuffed to the brim with secrets. You might discover a hidden route to the Lost Woods while bombing rocks in the Goron city, which in turn could lead you to a fairy fountain– but you don’t have anything with which to catch one of the healing sprites! This won’t do, and so a crusade to find an empty bottle begins. It’s this sense of joyful exploration that makes Ocarina of Time so enthralling, even if you’ve already explored every nook and cranny before.

The world becomes even bigger when Link is transported seven years in the future and finds himself to be a strapping young man. Hyrule changes along with him and reacts to events caused in the past, allowing you to swap between the two forms at will. All of this legwork and fabric-of-the-universe-tearing can wear you out now and then, but a swift horse, a teleporting ocarina, and a new hint system do wonders to keep things moving.

It’s a beautiful place, this Hyrule, and it’s been completely redone with the utmost care. Link’s newly-constructed character model looks fantastic in a world of sharpened textures and brightened colours. Some areas have been so drastically upgraded that you’ll hardly recognise them, even if the blocky roots and minor glitches still remain. The visuals are taken to the next level with the addition of a brand new dimension: the third one. Now Death Mountain appears to truly loom high above and the Forest Temple’s twisting hallways have depth to them. In fact, the 3D is so effective that it’s jarring to switch back to the ordinary, flat world. Anti-aliasing and frame rate do take a hit with it turned on, but the result is well worth the trouble, whether you crank the slider all the way up or nudge it to a subtler setting.

It's hard to believe this place used to look like a Kokiri prison cell.

But we’re not simply talking about a new coat of paint: love it or hate it (we tend to do both), the wacky controller of the Nintendo 64 days is gone, replaced with the elegant 3DS. Not only are the face buttons and circle pad up to the task of providing a smooth ride, but most menus and HUD elements have been moved to the bottom screen. That means the ocarina, map, gear, and item screens can all be accessed with the tap of a button– even the iron boots, which again eases the Water Temple’s potential pain and nausea. Anything with a first-person perspective, such as the slingshot, can optionally be controlled by physically moving the 3DS, which is more accurate and immersive than you might imagine. Doing so can interfere with the 3D, but keeping it aligned with your face isn’t tough. Despite this quirk, the new setup makes for a faster, far more convenient interface, nixing one of Ocarina of Time’s few problems.

It’s worth pointing out that the soundtrack is largely unaltered in all its MIDI charm. Although expertly composed, the music does seem aged next to the spiffy graphics, so a remastered version would hardly go amiss. The ability to choose between old and new graphics would have been nice as well, but it’s hard to complain about a presentation this good.

Dense with polished content, you can dump hours into the game without even realising it, and the captivating setting will keep you from leaving. But don’t worry: when the journey finally comes to a close, you can replay any boss encounter at will or start a new Master Quest file. You’ll find radically altered dungeons rife with difficult riddles and monstrous monsters to overcome in this beefier version of the game, complete with a mirrored world to confuse you further. There’s almost no end to the adventure, and that’s something to be grateful for.

How one game can have so many unforgettable music themes is quite beyond us.

Ocarina of Time stands tall as one of the greatest videogames ever produced, going so far as to best most of today’s finest, and this quality remake only makes it better. Whether you have an encyclopedic knowledge concerning Lake Hylia’s population of fish or you’ve never touched a Zelda game in your life, this is something worthy of owning. There’s no better way to jump into the series and, nostalgia or not, you’ll be hard pressed to find a game more memorable, wondrous, and downright fun than Ocarina of Time 3D.

Gran Turismo 5 was present in three flavours at Eurogamer; regular console TV setup, 3D console TV setup and steering wheel game pod setup. Deciding that most of us will only ever sample the living room variants, where we have a coffee table where we would ideally like our game pod, we tried both editions that put a standard controller in our hands.

As one of the first 3D titles we have had the opportunity of sampling, hooking the special glasses round our ears was quite an exciting moment, not quite knowing what to expect from it all. It actually worked quite well, with the car or steering wheel (depending on the view) standing out from the screen convincingly. The technology is clearly still in its infancy, with a slight change of angle from your eyes making the effect not so swish, but still an impressive display none the less.

The graphics themselves were slightly disappointing, but you could possibly put this down to the positioning of the little mushroomoid stools provided being far too close to the screen. Lines didn’t appear quite as smooth as they could’ve been on the car models which was a bit discouraging. It didn’t look bad by any means, it’s just that the hype machine possibly did its job a bit too well and this isn’t the crystal mirror of real life that some people hoped for. Having said this, watching the game over the shoulder of others made it look a lot better than the screen sniffing distance that the 3D glasses’ leash allowed for.

Nice 'n' artistic, but not the ideal racing camera angle

It is very easy to look at the beautiful screenshots of this game and mistake them for photos, but at the same time you cannot say that they are taken from a gameplay perspective. Whilst actually racing, the visuals are not quite as super pretty. They are still pretty damn fine though.

The modes available on the version we tried were single arcade race and time trial modes. We jumped into the arcade mode and tried to set off as soon as the lights turned green. Alarm bells started ringing when all of the competition overtook in the first instant, right before the realisation that there was no acceleration. It took a second to work out, but the perplexing thing that overwhelmed this first GT5 experience was the acceleration button being mapped to X, and not the pressure sensitive trigger we had depressed in anticipation.

Racing games have spoilt us since the introduction of trigger buttons allowing for degrees of acceleration on virtual vehicles, and so going back to the face buttons is like having a cassette player in your new car. It just doesn’t feel right and on the build we tried there was no option to reassign control schemes.

There were five tracks available and a nice range of licensed cars tailored to each. The brief time that we were allowed on each track gave a taste of the handling, which unsurprisingly seems to be leaning more towards realism rather than arcade. We spun out a fair few times trying to get used to it, but once the sensible shoes were on it felt nice and smooth. The main frustration came when the game cut out around the two minute mark on each track, really limiting what you could experience. It made it hard to draw real conclusions considering that it wasn’t really possible to complete a full lap.

With more vehicles on the road, even virtual traffic is facing congestion

It was not clear whether or not the optional GT5 10 GB install was on the machines at the expo, but we really hope it wasn’t as the load times seemed lengthy. They were certainly long enough to be noticeably more than your average loading screen. This criticism is just really down to patience (or more a lack of it), but it all impacts on the experience.

We’ve come away with mixed thoughts on GT5. There are some aspects that worked well, and others that were a surprising disappointment. A couple of graphical and texture glitches go to show that we were definitely playing with an unfinished build of the game, but there is certainly time to iron out these minor bugs before its release on November 3.

With Killzone 3 I popped both my 3D and PlayStation Move cherry. As with most firsts, there was a lot of fumbling and nervous laughter and ultimately, it was a mixed bag. I have never been a big fan of motion controls as I feel they are rarely used to great effect, and Killzone 3 did little to convince me otherwise. It felt tacked-on to what otherwise seemed like a solid continuation of what was achieved by the first two KZ games. With my crosshairs flying all over the screen I had difficulty in maintaining a steady aim, and turning corners was far more difficult and time consuming than it should have been.

However, the 3D was rather impressive, and at the same time relatively unobtrusive. In fact, after the first two minutes, if it weren’t for the fact that the glasses were digging into the back of my ears, I could have almost forgotten all about it. This impressive level of integration is exactly what was lacking with the motion controls. On occasion, flecks of dust or empty shells came flying towards me, with bullets constantly hurtling across screen. These small touches did wonders for the atmosphere, making the demo that much more memorable.

As for the game itself it replicates the dull, industrial palettes of Killzone 2 and the combat will be instantly familiar to anyone who played the previous instalments. Trudging your way through a number of interconnected, rusting structures you move from one small skirmish to the next, culminating in a showdown with a couple of jet-pack Helghast. The handgun and machine gun, the only two weapons on offer, were more than up to the task, and gave a real sense of weight behind each burst of fire.

Killzone 3 certainly looks the part, but then so did KZ 2. The 3D elements were well utilized and served to heighten the experience, but for this title at least, I can’t say the same about Move.

Sony Conference: June 15^th 8:00pm GMT

Predictions going in: a little hard to judge this time. The new subscription level of PSN played up like it’s a good thing is probably a given. Other than that? I’m curious how down played the failure of the PSP Go will be or if they’ll take their lumps and just admit it. Please don’t be as Move focused as the Microsoft was Kinect.

• The show opens with a flashy trailer montage followed by Jack Tretton taking the stage. Sadly, due to some technical hitches I missed the first minute or two but that turned out for the best as I missed an insane speech about a future proof entertainment product.
• I join the party just in time for Kaz Hirai to take the stage. His mic is way too big. “What Playstation did for Blu-ray, we’re doing for 3D.” And now he moves on and introduces Killzone 3, a live demo in 3D.
• “Tougher and scarier enemies than ever before” the demonstrator states. The audience is told to put on 3D glasses and are reminded that it is a live demo and not a recording.
• So for me, no glasses naturally, it looks a bit fuzzy as a result. ‘Pre Alpha Code’ stays printed on the demo throughout. Other than that it just looked like Killzone 2 with different enemies, but I’m sure the 3D will add to the immersion. How much will branded Sony 3D glasses cost I wonder? Place bets now for $599.
• Lots of new jet pack bouncing around action and exploring through a decaying ship of some kind. Controlling the character seems a lot less cumbersome than in Killzone 2 and less difficult to twist and aim.
• Scene switches to manning a gun on a flying ship to being tasked to take out AA guns. On the rails stuff you’ve seen a million times before (granted, not in 3D). Much shorter than the first section. The release date is February 2011 and it will be fully compatible with Move.
• Hirai is back and his mic is still way too large. That button on his shirt and the wire of the mic makes it look like he’s wearing a fashionable question mark. He lists a few games coming out with 3D integration including Gran Turismo 5, Mortal Kombat and Tron Evolution.
• 3D + Move = Win. Paraphrasing an overly long sentence there.
• Audience is told to stick their glasses back on again for another 3D video. A football match, golf match and some misc animal footage all flash on screen quickly followed by a floating PS3 and accessories. Why? Because they can. Would you look at that; official Sony 3D glasses. Gameplay of other 3D games including Crysis 2 and others take turns appearing on screen, some mixed with Move.
• Tretton is back now and he has not one but two oversized mics stuck to his person. Talking about the past, PS2 and so on. Distracted by his very gold watch – is he the Origami Killer? Moving on and the PS3, Netflix and so on being spoken about. Ah, now we are onto Move.
• Peter Dille is on stage now (oversized mic as per) with the Move sex toy. I mean wand. I mean…whatever. “How does it work and what makes it special?” he asks as he points out that it uses the Playstation Eye for “ultimate precision and interaction”. Get on with showing it working, Peter.
• Nope, still talking about sensors and things. They should just say: “Take the camera stuff from Kinect and take the controller stuff from the Wii and you’ve got Move.”
• An awful and incredibly patronising (granted in an effort to be ‘funny’) advert for Move. So far not going a good job selling me on this at all. Wii and Kinect are safe, so far.
• Now he’s talking about the usefulness of buttons, I mean seriously. You don’t say! Buttons are useful! I’m stunned. I need to sit down, give me a minute.
• Something big now…hopefully. A new game or two revealed. Sorcery is the first up, a third person action game for Move. I suppose they had to go with Sorcery because Harry Potter was copyrighted. The person doing the demonstration limbers up before doing so, as if he’s about to participate in some strenuous event. His stance and posture are near enough identical to using a Wii. Better graphics, though.
• The purple glowy bit of the Move sex toy matches the colour of the blast that the ‘apprentice’ is unleashing in the game. He freezes enemies, shatters some, harasses a bookshelf for some reason and gets a morphing potion. Changes to a wind spell (Whirlwind) and the tip of the remote changes to green to match on screen.
• Mixing of spells, Whirlwind plus Firewall. An AOE blast to end on, making a rune shape on the floor. Next a puzzle is shown by using a mending spell on a broken stone bridge to fix it. It’s out in 2011.
• Tretton is back yet again. For some reason higher up than before and for a few seconds his stupidly large chest mic stops working. Next up is Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 for Move.
• Andrew Wilson demonstrates how to play golf using Move. If you’ve played a golf game on Wii then you already know everything you need to since it’s identical.
• He hits into the bunker twice. On purpose? He’s going to show the wrist action of hitting the club correctly to get it out of there. Does a good swing, not bad. Thanks to these camera angles, when he bends into his swing position and holds the Move remote down like that it looks very, very wrong – like he’s coated something in neon paint that he really shouldn’t have. Manages to make Par and everyone claps.
• One final title for Move is about to be introduced. Heroes on the Move (working title), a trailer plays. Takes characters from numerous exclusive titles (Ratchet, Sly, Jack, Clank, Daxter) and joins them together for what looks like an adventure game.
• Something about Coca-Cola now supporting active living. Do people know how many calories a can of coke has in it? This is new; using an E3 conference to plug a brand partnership.
• Ugh, Kevin Butler takes to the stage with a coke in hand. No jacket and rolled up sleeves. looks like he was shaken awake five minutes ago and that coke is the only thing keeping him standing.
• We learn that he can’t pronounce ‘Lara’.
• “I love gaming,” he declares. Then pauses. Someone in the audience says they love him. “I love head shots, I love staying up till 3am earning a trophy that isn’t real…but is,” he adds. I love getting to the point while the audience is still interested, Kevin.
• “…And girls who know that the way to a man’s heart is with a melee attack.” Alright, that made me laugh. Good job. He’s working the audience far better than the so called comedian at Ubisoft.
• Terribly heroic music plays as Kevin begins an epic and deliberately over the top speech about fanboys and in the background is a great picture of him using two Move remotes as a bow. He ends with saying that we all support gaming. I feel like I’m ready to go to war. With who? Don’t really know.
• Move launches at a price point of $49.99 with the controller being $29.99. The Eye, Sport’s Champion game and the Remote for $99.99. A console bundle is available for $399.99. Released September 15^th in Europe, 19^th in American and October 21^st in Japan.
• Another trailer for Move and the various actions that can be preformed with it. All things that a Wii remote can do as well, but don’t tell them that. “This Changes Everything” – no, it changes nothing. Well, except I now hate ‘I like to move it, move it’, even more.
• Oh! The PSP and PSP Go is shown, how brave of them. Talk about how badly it’s done. Do it. “We’re kicking off a new campaign to support the PSP” – about damn time! A fairly amusing advert plays followed by another one, both staring young Marcus plugging various aspects of the PSP.
• Really annoys me when non-Japanese refer to Japanese as -san when not addressing them directly. That is all.
• God of War: Ghosts of Sparta trailer plays, all cinematic and nothing substantial.
• Another trailer to plug…basically everything ever including the camera attachment for PSP. The stream got a bit choppy here, I was secretly thankful. Amusing that 90% of the PSP game footage is shown being played with a Go.
• First gameplay footage of Parasite Eve 3 – The 3^rd Birthday, looks good. As does Valkyria Chronicles 2. Some in-game footage of Ghosts of Sparta is shown for approximately three eights of a second.
• Now we’re back to the stage and the plugging of PSN. This will be the new membership option, just you wait and see. Build it up to justify charging for very little. Go on, I dare you. Or not.
• Time for Little Big Planet 2. Alex Evans takes the stage to demo. Talks about expanding features, the grappling hook and Sackbots. Demos made within LBP2 are shown starting with a quick moving button bashing game they have dubbed ‘Super Block Race’.
• Next a level they have called ‘Crashy-crash’ which is a top down sumo type game, a tiny bit like Hungry Hippos in terms of visual angle and design.
• Last is…what looks like a Smash Brothers parody of sorts, but with helmets on the Sackboys that shoot rockets. This is followed by a trailer with some other types of things you can do with the new construction tools. They invited developers to come meet them and gave them a day to see what they could come up with, some impressive stuff here.
• Next we’re back to…ha! Playstation Plus. A year’s subscription for $49.99. Things thrown in include some free mini games, something to do with Infamous, others things I missed due to choppy feed, and then some utter BS about “elevating your gaming experience” in some undefined, illogical manner.
• We’re back to more Medal of Honor and Greg Goodrich (amazing facial hair) is on stage to talk about it. A trailer is then shown with nothing amazing within it, other than the silhouette of the soldier next to the title having the same facial hair as Greg. The multiplayer is being built by Dice.
• Unlockable beards. You heard me.
• A multiplayer map is demonstrated from various perspectives, once again you’d need to do a double take to make sure it wasn’t Modern Warfare 2 or really any modern day shooter from the last year or so. The beta, as stated in a previous conference I think, is June 21^st.
• A remastered HD version of Medal of Honor: Frontline will be coming exclusively to PS3.
• Dead Space 2 next, hopefully the live demo they are about to show is not the exact same as at the EA conference. Ah, it isn’t. It actually picks up just about where the previous one left off with a monster screaming in Issac’s face. The battle against it is then shown with lots of visceral flinging about and explosions. Issac ends up outside and on the side of a ship still fighting with the boss, which is where it cuts off.
• A limited edition Dead Space 2 with Dead Space Extraction (now with Move support – that isn’t surprising, really) is exclusive to the PS3.
• Tretton is back and welcomes to the stage for the first time…GLADOS. Oh, and Gabe Newell. Talking about his previous negative comments (specifically regarding the PS3) and in the background Portal 2.
• He bigs up the PS3 something rotten. Portal 2 is coming to the PS3. The sign behind you throughout that speech kind of gave it away, Gabe. Steam on PS3 and the first look at Portal 2.
• “I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster.”
• Tretton is back yet again and Newell is gone. Time for a new preview video of Final Fantasy XIV. Lots of in game stuff for a change including some big monsters. Make that very big. Just noticed how annoying “Playstation” being said in a high-pitched voice at the end of every trailer is.
• Next is Mafia 2, but just like that he then skips over to Ubisoft and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (mentioning that the PS3 version will have an exclusive set of features and PS3 is the only platform to get the beta).
• A multiplayer trailer for Brotherhood plays. What looks like a Templar running from an Assassin across rooftops and streets. Various different classes (?) are shown and some unrealistic techniques like teleportation and instant disguises.
• “Exclusive is my new favourite word” – took a few years though didn’t it, Tretton?
• A quick video now to show the ‘biggest’ titles coming to PS3. Ignore the fact that more than half are also on 360 and/or PC. The music for this montage is awful. I know you can’t hear it – jab a pencil in your ear to recreate the same sensation.
• And now we have…Gran Turismo 5. Hurray for cars. This is going on way too long. Novemeber 2^nd release date.
• InFamous 2 now with a gameplay trailer. If you ever really wanted to see Cole’s backside or shoes then this trailer is for you. The new voice actor is less impressive than the other, more annoying though. Ends with ice powers and a big black monster.
• “One last surprise” and a jump into another video. Is this…talking about what I think it is? An ice cream van’s chime is heard. Twisted Metal? Yup. An ice cream van takes to the stage with a couple of developers to talk about Twisted Metal, exclusively on PS3. Gameplay follows of online team deathmatch and begins with the player in control of a helicopter and then a motorbike rider wielding a chainsaw. Sixteen player online matches. Very destructible scenery as usual, but not exactly realistic destruction.
• One new weapon is a granny riding a rocket. That deserved its own point.
• Another mode is shown and introduces class based play. It’s called ‘Nuke’. Camera pans around various areas. The objective of Nuke is to destroy the huge statue of the opposing team before yours is destroyed. You must catch the opposing team’s leader in order to drag them to a yellow ring around a missile launcher and if they are kept there long enough a missile will fire on that team’s statue. It’s playable at the Sony booth.
• Tretton is back and talking about Playstation history again. Sounds like he is wrapping up here. Wonder if there’s one last surprise? Doesn’t seem like it. That’s all she wrote. The Sweet Tooth cosplayer in the ice cream van is left to wave at people on stage.

Not as Move focused as I was worried it would be, so that’s a good thing. It seems like Sony are sick of losing out on exclusives and have tried to fix that which is a good thing. The fact they are finally bothering to market the PSP is also a good thing.

Seriously. Some dude went to this place once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away...

Do you remember your ancestry?

Chances are, if you are a modern day videogamer, you are 18-34 years old and a male. Judging by that demographic, many of us are 25 years or older. We might not have experienced games from the very beginning but we have a rich, storied heritage with both Nintendo and Sega at the very least.

In a recent discussion with friends around a couple of beers, the topic of games from yesteryear arose. I began to ask my group what classic games they might go back to the cabinet and revisit, but startlingly, the response was negative. All of them said “Nothing,” or something else in that same vein.

Flash Fact: In 2008, Swedish developer GRIN took the 1988 original NES game, Bionic Commando, and Rearmed it. In 2009, they also released a modern edition, simply titled Bionic Commando. It didn't sell. Shortly after, GRIN closed their doors and went bankrupt.

It seems like the gamers of today are more savvy. We understand that nearly every other week a top of the line title will be released on any one platform. We are stuck in a cycle where we have money, and if we want to stay up to date with what all the industry pros are talking about, we have to play the latest releases on day one, lest we be ridiculed by our peers as being “n00bs.”

There will always be a handful of us who travel back in time a decade or so, or whenever the advent of 3D gaming was beginning to take shape, but it feels like we’re less willing to return to our two-dimensional past. The irony of this being, of course, that classic games are seeing all sorts of sequels in the shape of downloadable content on all platforms including Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam. Capcom appears to support this niche more than anyone else, with the company’s recent Mega Man and Bionic Commando 2D action games.

Are these games meant to attract newer users perhaps void of a past, or is this an attempt to satiate the older gamers who remember their championed history?

Halo: Contra Evolved.

Another question brought to mind, is whether or not 3D re-imaginations are meant to appear like entirely new franchises, or are they banking on tradition? How many kids knew Wolfenstein or Bionic Commando, both recent game releases, were cherished franchises from nigh-on two decades ago? Certainly, these titles were marketed towards the informed as re-imagined classics, but it is almost guaranteed that much of that was lost on a demographic who just wasn’t informed as of yet, or simply did not care to learn.

Ask yourself this: Do you, no doubt a gamer of legendary proportions, reflect on how you got to where you are today? Do you remember the industry before it was a household name, or do you often times find yourself reminiscing about classic memories from games you will never get a chance to truly re-experience?

Interactive media is no doubt a constantly evolving medium, and day after day our experiences and expectations are altered. For instance, Prototype is a decent game, but I have no wanton need to revisit it. I know it wouldn’t be as thrilling for me the second time as it was the first. Tribes 2? Well, I’m going to assume that it’s always going to be just as good now as it was then. Dare I revisit it? I really shouldn’t. What if its jetpacks feel clunky and incomparable to Halo: Reach’s fancy-pants jetpacks? Why, I might be devastated!

Okay, okay. Maybe some of us take gaming way too seriously.

Remember the Clint Eastwood film, Gran Torino? I wonder if the cliche of old men sitting on their porch also hold true for gamers? Do those of us with a healthy respect for retro-gaming turn our noses up at the generation who grew up with Halo as their first experience, or do we learn what they like now, and present to them their chosen genre’s true gaming roots?

Is it even our job to care?

We'll use this photo a lot. We're going to milk it.

There are strong rumours that the most successful home console on the planet, the Wii, is soon to embrace the brave new world of HD graphics. It surely won’t be long before the majority of gamers are playing their games in High Definition; but what’s the next step in Bigger Better More graphics?

According to Ubisoft, the inevitable next step is 3D. Their James Cameron’s Avatar tie in, while it doesn’t require a 3DTV to play, will be the first mainstream Ps3 and Xbox 360 game to fully support the technology’s 3D imaging. Brand manager for the game in the UK, Phil Brannelly, told us in our interview that 3D is definitely the future for games. He even went so far as to say “In the future, we’ll be saying to our grand-kids ‘I remember playing games in 2D’ and they’ll just tell us to shut up!”

Brannelly also told us he believes TV’s future lies in 3D technology as well. We shudder to think how much pornographic TV subscriptions will skyrocket, and the thought of elderly Jedward in our living rooms quite frankly scares the hell out of us.

Rumours abound online around everything, videogames no more so than anything else; but if the current rumour surrounding Sonic The Hedgehog is true – that the next instalment of the Sega mascot’s adventures will be in a glorious HD, 2D, scrolling format – does it mean we are approaching a return to old school platforming heaven?

Back in the days of the Megadrive and the SNES, the platformer was king. Sonic and Mario, the most famous of all videogame characters, wore the crowns and sat on the thrones. Each heads of state in a world where East was Mario and West was Sonic. And, for a while, the only argument worth having about videogames was: what’s best, the Megadrive or the SNES? With any answer invariably involving both mascots and a lot of pointless verbal tit-for-tat, they completely ignored the fact that both systems were excellent and both mascot’s games were the pinnacle of early 90’s gaming.

But by the end of the decade the entire gaming landscape had changed. The technically superior PS1 and N64 had become the dominant consoles of choice for gamers the world over. By 2000, the 2D platformer was dead in the water, eating 3D dirt as Mario’s N64 incarnation was a fleshed out, tubby, free-roaming, lapsed-plumber, Sonic was struggling to save the Dreamcast with his shiny new 3D Adventure, and a glut of 3D, free-roaming platform understudies like Ratchet & Clank, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot and Banjo Kazooie, were itching to get in there and usurp the aging monarchs.

So here we are, approaching the end of another decade. A decade in which the 2D platformer is little more than a fond memory for 30 and 40something gamers, where the platformer itself has become just another videogame genre, when once it was the top boy. Yet, has the transition from 2D to 3D really made platforming any better? We gamers are like magpies – show us something shiny and new and we’ll dive on it, shove it in our beaks and take it back to the nest to coo over it like a favourite fledgling taking its fist tentative flaps. Never mind that it could just be a grey, snail trail coated, pebble that just happened to glint in the right manner under the dawn light. It’s shiny – it must be good. Right?

Consider this. You have a Wii (56 million sold worldwide means at last two of you do, even if you’re ashamed to admit it in front of any ‘hardcore’ gamers), Nintendo have finally added Super Mario All-Stars to its list of playable content on the virtual console (and at the time of writing the rumour mills are grinding away), and you’re faced with the choice of playing this classic of classics or the already available Super Mario 64. Which one would you rather play? It’s quite likely that the pedantic, argumentative soul in you will plumb for Super Mario 64. Well, for once, avoid that I-will-argue-with-anything-anyone-ever-says-online part of your personality and give the SNES Mario a go. Then try out the N64 version. When you come back, you are more than welcome to shoot down everything you read here if, and only if, you truly believe that the N64 Mario is the better game and that 3D platforming is better than its 2D ancestor. But you’d be wrong, because it isn’t. Neither is Super Mario Galaxy the top dog. That doesn’t mean either of these games are rubbish – far from it, they’re both fantastic titles that are both satisfying and joyous to play. It’s just that they’re by no means as satisfying or joyous to play as the 2D Mario originals.

The new Sonic, tentatively titled Project Needlemouse (see Gamespot’s interview with Sega’s associate brand manager, Ken Ballough, for very little information on it other than the confirmation that it will be both in 2D and HD) might just be another desperate attempt by Sega to revive a wheezing-through-its-last-breaths brand. Or it could be that, after years of Sonic fans filling cyberspace with 2D shaped white noise, someone at Sega has finally logged on and taken on board the back catalogue of bitching. Or perhaps that same someone has realised that platform games were always more fun when they were in 2D, and that just because the technology is there to make 3D platformers, doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do.

Think back over the murky, pixel-blurred years of videogames to the quintessential classics. Remember Pitfall? Would you really like to see a free-roaming, 3D version? Chuckie Egg stir any childhood memories? Would that benefit from a 3D overhaul? Would Donkey Kong 3D be worth making? If some bright young thing at a multinational publishing company stumbled upon his dad’s Spectrum, cranked it up, loaded Manic Miner and decided that it would be a brilliant idea to make an all-singing, all-dancing, 3D version of the iconic platformer, would you be calling him a genius or crying into your Kempston joystick interface? And now that these legends of platforming history have been brought back to your attention, are you right now searching for emulators to play them on or shutting down your computer and reaching for the wiimote?

However, if you’re lamenting the death of the 2D platformer right now, then fear not. There are plenty of games out there that will rekindle your old school flames. Because although major developers have turned their backs on 2D platforming, indie developers still carry a torch for the dearly departed. Jump into Xbox Live’s Indie Games market and you’ll find a huge selection of 2D platforming treats, and they’re not just reworked versions of old favourites. The gloomy and atmospheric Dark is unlike anything you ever played on the SNES and Megadrive, as is the hilarious, cartoon doodled Run!, while the retro gaming contingent are more than amply catered for with fantastic titles like Jump! and Johnny Platform’s Biscuit Romp. Even more old school, and we’re talking 8-bit old school here, is the simple but thoroughly engaging Pixel Man – which wouldn’t look out of place crammed into an Atari ST cartridge. What is most noticeable in the majority of these indie games is the abundance of humour, the likes of which we haven’t seen since indie game developers the length and breadth of the country were busily coding games for the Spectrum 48K. What they lack in graphical ability is more than made up with boundless charm.

Ultimately, whether Project Needlemouse sees the light of day in 2010, and whether the feelings it stirs even vaguely approach the feelings experienced playing those early Sonic masterpieces, remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain, platformers were always more enjoyable in a 2D format no matter how graphically superior their offspring have grown to be, and those of us who look back fondly on the 8, 16, and 32-bit eras will be itching to try it out for ourselves. As long as it doesn’t turn out to be a full-priced, pay through the nose, oh god, why did I spend fifty quid on this release. Download only, please, Mr Hedgehog.