I've played a lot more New Vegas since my last journal entry on the subject and, as I have quite a bit more to say now, not least in terms of revisions to my earlier comments, I thought I'd do an update.

I finished my first playthrough in around 36 hours. This was not a completionist playthrough; in fact, the faction-based nature of New Vegas's storyline makes it impossible to do one of those on a single playthrough. But after about 34 hours, I'd hit the level cap and I'd explored around 2/3rds of the locations on my world map. I felt that it was time for my first character's journey to end, so I went and did the final mission sequence. I'll revisit the game at some point in the not too distant future, with a different character, but I can't imagine that this will lead to any fundamental changes in my views on the game.

I'll start by discussing the bugs, since I've mentioned these elsewhere in slashdot discussions. At the time I wrote my "first thoughts" journal entry on New Vegas, I had not hit any serious bugs, other than a few enemies that sunk half way into the ground. However, at the time I wrote that entry, I'd only just reached the city of New Vegas itself. Sadly, moving around that city is not, at present, a smooth experience. Several areas seem prone to causing a crash to desktop, while others have more extreme versions of the performance issues found elsewhere in the game. I also suffered some quest glitches as I got further into the game, most of which only cost me a few seconds, as I reverting to a quicksave fixed them. Another, however, required me to go back to a "proper" save that was about 45 minutes old. This isn't to say that New Vegas is unplayable, but it is to say that playing it in its current state will require frequent quicksaves, as well as proper use of the "normal" save slots. This is of particular importance in the city of New Vegas itself.

Bugs aside, my first playthrough was extremely impressive. There is a huge amount of exploration possible within the game, and to be honest, that wasn't even starting to get old after 35 hours. There's a better variety of locations to explore than in Fallout 3 as well; almost every building has some kind of story to it. The second half of my playthrough introduced some more substantial quests as well. For the most part, these were great. It's interesting to spend a while working with one faction, then see how that has influenced the reaction of other factions to you. There's also good variety in the quests, ranging from bug-hunts to diplomatic missions to underwater salvage operations. That said, a few of the quest-lines did seem to involve rather too much fast-travelling between two NPCs in different parts of the world, so that they could hold a conversation by proxy. This was particularly frustrating with some of the quest lines in New Vegas itself, as you can only fast-travel to the outer perimeter of the city, often leaving a substantial walk and several loading screens at the other end. The Brotherhood of Steel bunker was similarly frustrating and my heart sank whenever I had to go there.

Combat gets a lot more fun as you get further into the game. As with Fallout 3, battles can feel frustrating and imprecise early on, when you only have low weapon skills. Later in the game, I found that the exact same weapons I'd been using in the first few hours had transformed from virtual feather-dusters into lethal killing machines. The new weapon categorisations make much more sense than Fallout 3's. Not having all of the heavy weapons lumped together under a single skill is a great incentive to actually use them. With the flamethrower now ranked as an energy weapon, I was able to use it far more extensively than I ever did in Fallout 3. Moreover, as your character's skills increase, you'll find yourself less reliant upon VATS in combat. Indeed, there were plenty of times, particularly when sniping, that I found myself being far more effective with manual aiming than with VATS.

This is supported by a few other balance changes since Fallout 3. The older game had an initial level cap of 20, which was later raised to 30 via DLC. New Vegas starts with a level cap of 30, but balances things very differently. The level 21-30 perks in Fallout 3 were unbelievably good and could transform a character into an unstoppable killing machine, albeit one who was utterly dependant upon VATS. New Vegas only lets you take a perk every 2 levels (though skills increase every level) and the high level perks are far more restrained than those in Fallout 3. Perks that boost VATS usage, in particular, have had a strong whack from the nerf-bat.

In my first thoughts post, I criticised the game's implementation of companions. On reflection, this was unfair. If you spend some time setting up your companions' behaviour via the companion wheel, then they become far more useful. Of course, some of the companions are more useful than others and it didn't help that the first one I came across was one of the worst. It's certainly worth keeping two companions with you in New Vegas, not least because of the quests they can initiate. One of my favorite side-quests - and one that related to the final battle - was given by one of my companions. I particularly like the fact that you can now send unwanted companions to your player-housing, where they will wait for your return. Checking their inventory is still a royal pain in the backside, unfortunately.

Various other aspects of New Vegas don't reveal themselves properly until later in the game. The new crafting system, while available right from the start, probably won't be useful to most players until they're 20 or so hours into the game, due to the scarcity of parts in the early sections. Weapons modification, likewise, is a fun addition to the game but one which probably won't come onto its own until you are quite a long way through the game.

Finally, the overall storyline does pick up somewhat. I chose to follow the NCR-ending on my first playthrough and there is some reasonable tension in the concluding sections of that storyline. However, I stand by my original assessment that New Vegas lacks a touch of Fallout 3's storytelling power.

Since the unveiling of Gran Turismo 5's car list at the end of last week, I've been a bit unkind about the overall variety of cars on the list. I've since decided to go look at the evidence, and do a proper comparison of GT5's car list with that of its main competitor, Forza Motorsport 3. For reference, GT5 boasts a car list of over 1,000 cars, while Forza 3's Ultimate Edition (or the original game in its fully DLCed-up incarnation) is in the region of 500. However, the sheer length of the list is largely meaningless, if the list is mostly variants upon a small number of themes.

What I've therefore done is look at this on a manufacturer basis, looking which manufacturers are in one game but not the other. This is complicated a little by the fact that GT games tend to include large numbers of tuning shops, which do not produce their own cars but rather modify other people's. Forza 3 compensates for this through its tuning options, painting facility and marketplace, which allow for extensive performance tuning and visual modification of cars. For this reason, I've marked tuning shops on the lists with a *. I've also acknowledged that we have an out-of-box GT5 here competing with an Ultimate Edition of Forza 3. While I think that GT5's epic development time makes the inclusion of Forza's extra cars fair game, I have, for accuracy's sake, marked Forza's DLC/Ultimate only manufacturers with an &. I've ignored the Polyphony Digital original designs on the basis that, well, they're not real cars.

Manufactuers in Gran Turismo 5, but not in Forza 3:

AC Cars*
AEM*
Alpine
Amuse*
Art Morrison*
Autobacs*
Blitz*
Caterham
Callaway
Cizeta
Daihatsu
DMC
Dome
Eagle
Gillet
Ginetta
HKS*
Hommell
HPA*
Isuzu
Jay Leno
Jensen
Lister
Marcos
Mercury
MG
Mine's*
Mugen*
NISMO*
Opera*
Oullim
Pescarolo*
Plymouth
RE Amemiya*
RUF* (see note)
Spoon*
Suzuki
Tesla
Tommy Kaira
Tom's*
TRD*
Trial*
Triumph

(Note: RUF is a tuning shop, but it modifies Porsches. Hence this is a sort-of back door way of getting Porsche's into GT5.)

Manufacturers in Forza 3, but not in Gran Turismo 5:

Bertone* &
Devon &
Gumpert &
Joss &
Kia &
Koenisegg
Land Rover
Morgan &
Mosler &
Porsche
Radical &
Rossion &
Saab
Saturn
Spada &
Weismann &

So what conclusions can we draw from this? At first glance, it looks like GT5 wins hands down; its list is several times longer. However, that's being seriously padded by a large number of tuning shops. Knock the tuning shops (apart from RUF) out of the list and it becomes 25 exclusives for GT5 vs 15 for Forza 3, which is a rather more even match. So next, we need to look at who is on the remaining list.

GT5's remaining exclusives are an eclectic bunch. There are lots of now-defunct vintage manufacturers with some really interesting cars. The really large, well known manufactuers are Daihatsu, Plymouth and Suzuki. There are also a couple of interesting oddities such as Tesla. Over on Forza 3's side, the most striking exclusives have got to be Koenisegg, Land Rover, Porsche and Saab. Most of the other exclusives are relatively obscure but highly modern supercar manufactuerers.

So where does that leave us overall? Well, both games have some surprising omissions which mean that neither can truly claim to be comprehensive. It's difficult to see how GT5 can claim to be the definitive driving sim when it's missing Koenisegg and Porsche. At the same time, Forza 3's omission of Suzuki looks extremely strange. Beyond that, it's clear that the focus is different. GT5 focusses on Japanese tuning cars and classic European cars, while Forza 3 has the emphasis more firmly upon modern supercars, regardless of their origin.

I've had Fallout: New Vegas for about a week now and thought it worth typing up some early thoughts on the game. I say "early thoughts" as, despite having put about 16 hours into the game so far, I don't really feel like I've explored much of its content. I clocked up over 100 hours with Fallout 3, including time spend with its 5 downloadable content packs, and I can see that New Vegas has the potential to generate similar play-times. So this is not a review; I wouldn't want to try to put a score to the game until I've completed it. Rather, it's a summary of what you can expect to find in the early stages of the game. This is all based on the PC version.

On many levels, not much has changed since Fallout 3. The game is still running on the same (slightly dated) technology and the interface is almost entirely unchanged. If you played Fallout 3, then you'll be instantly familiar with the basic concepts of the game and will be able to move right on to exploring the new features. If Fallout 3 passed you by, then you've probably got a fairly steep learning curve, as not only do you have all of the systems and mechanics that gave the first game its depth to get used to, but you've also got the new reputation and crafting systems to pick up at the same time.

That said, in some respects, New Vegas is a much more newbie-friendly game than Fallout 3. My defining memory of my first 12 or so hours of Fallout 3 is of creeping around with a 9mm pistol with 3 rounds, a broken laser pistol and a single frag grenade. The game could be harsh in its early stages, until you managed to acquire some decent guns and enough caps (the game's currency) to keep yourself provided with ammunition and stimpacks. This situation could be avoided if you had the Operation: Anchorage downloadable content pack, which gave a nice easy method of acquiring a substantial arsenal almost as soon as you left Vault 101, but I suspect that most first-time players won't have had the benefit of that. New Vegas allows you to skip this stage entirely, which may disappoint a few hardcore players, but is probably a welcome relief to the majority. The game's tutorial stages give you a couple of decent starter guns and a fair-sized stock of ammunition. Coupled with an abundance of easy quests in the introductory areas, this should mean that most players will manage to bypass the subsistence phase and get cracking with the rest of the game.

I regard this as a good thing, on balance, because not having to think carefully before you use every single bullet or stimpack removes a huge barrier to exploration. At the same time, the increasing challenge presented by the threats you encounter as you move away from the starter down is a good incentive to hunt through every last ruin for supplies. One of the most enjoyable moments of my time with the game so far came when I carefully picked my way through a plot-unrelated building protected by potentially dangerous sentry robots, picking locks and hacking security systems, in the hope of finding some nice new gear. At the end of my exploration, I came across a unique gun that far exceeded anything I had hoped to find and which instantly became the centrepiece of my arsenal. It felt like the risks I'd taken in going off the beaten track had paid off extremely well. Not every such exploration is as profitable, which is also a positive; you don't go into every little detour with the expectation of epic loot. Inquisitiveness can sometimes backfire, but the risks still feel worth taking.

Going off-plot and exploring is by far the most enjoyable aspect of the game. It's great to stumble across a new town and spend a few hours helping the inhabitants with their problems (or, depending on your faction alignment, just killing them all and looting their homes). The Vegas Strip and the Mojave Desert are far more densely populated than Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland. In places, the world of New Vegas starts to feel almost civilised; this is a world which has started to pick itself up properly following a nuclear war that is fast fading into history. In some ways, it verges on being post-post-apocalypse fiction. That isn't to say that there isn't barbarity; some of the factions in the game have a brutal streak that surpasses anything we saw from the Enclave in Fallout 3.

Sadly, the main plot does not, so far, feel as though it's really doing justice to the game-world. It's lucky that the exploration and side-questing aspects of the game are so good, because I'm finding it very difficult to care about Courier Number 6 or the platinum poker chip he's hunting. I know that Fallout traditionalists objected to Fallout 3's plot, but I personally thought it carried itself off pretty well. It's hard to define where New Vegas falls short in this respect, but I think ultimately, it's missing some of the gravitas of its predecessor. It's not just that New Vegas doesn't go around quoting Revelations 21:6 at you. It's more that the game takes an awfully long time to reveal why your character's mission actually matters. Maybe it will do so eventually, but it hasn't done so yet.

There are other niggles as well. While the dialogue throws up occasional gems, a lot of it comes over extremely flat. With a few honorable exceptions, most of the NPCs you encounter just feel like ciphers for their faction. Don't go into this game expecting the kind of wit and flair you'd find in a Bioware game. Despite some attempts to tidy it up, the companion system still feels uncomfortable. The new "companion wheel" interface helps with orders a bit, but the AI for your companions is still shockingly bad. After a few hours, I dismissed my companion and went back to solo-exploration. Inventory management is still irritating, and is one of the few areas where the game gives away the fact that it was also developed for consoles.

It should be noted that the game has been plagued by bug reports since its launch. I've run into a couple of very minor bugs. A couple of enemies sank up to their knees into the ground at one point, although it didn't stop them from attacking me or me from being able to fight back. The game does occasionally throw up some unexplainable slow-down. My system is far in excess of the recommended specs and never had the slightest problem with Fallout 3, so I'm at a loss to explain this. It's rare, though, and seems to be quite random.

On the plus side, combat feels greatly improved since Fallout 3. The gap between normal combat and VATS combat seems to have been narrowed somewhat, so you don't get the same feeling of being completely ineffective when you don't have the AP to use VATS. Stealth feels better implemented and much more consistent. And the new range of weapons is great, as is the option to modify them.

In conclusion... so far so good. While I do have some minor criticisms, these are pretty thin when set against the sheer awesomeness of the game's exploration elements.

So... after years of rumour and months of hype, Starcraft 2 is finally out. While I'm perfectly happy to play games on the Xbox 360 or PS3, I must admit that on one level, it is actually nice to see a substantial degree of hype surrounding a PC-exclusive game. I can't remember the last time I encountered this for a game whose name didn't include the word "Sims". However, hype always carries a risk of overshadowing the all-important queston of "is it actually any good".

On the basis of my early experiences (around 5-6 hours play), I'm going to cover that question not from the point of view of a hardcore Starcraft fan (largely because I'm not a hardcore Starcraft fan), but rather from the point of view of a generalist gamer looking for entertainment. I'm not particularly interested in the detailed intricacies of the multiplayer balance, but rather in whether the campaign, skirmish and multiplayer modes are likely to prove enjoyable to the average player.

The first thing to note, I suppose, is that the game requires the player to be logged into battle.net to play. This means that you need to have an internet connection present every time you fire up the game, even if you bought a boxed copy and even if you are only interested in the single-player campaign. That said, I did do a quick "yank out the network cable" test after loading up and unlike Assassin's Creed 2 or Command & Conquer 4, the game did not just freeze up. However, a more prolonged test would be needed to determine just what exactly stops working if the network connection is lost. Some minor consolation can perhaps be found in the fact that the login servers seemed to stay functional even on launch day (which is a first) and that purchasers of boxed copies do not need to have the disc in their drives to play.

And the game itself? My first impression is that it's a bit of a mixed bag. The first shock for me on loading up and starting the single-player campaign was how little had changed since 1998. For me, this was a disappointment. The RTS genre has come a long way since then and it was irritating not to see more of a nod towards this progress. In particular, the UI is a clunky and screen-filling mess. In 1998, it wasn't too bad, but in 2010, even running in 1680x1050, it feels a lot like being forced to play the game while peering through a letterbox. The UI layout is essentially identical to the original game's, and again, this seems dated. Unless you're prepared to memorise all of the keyboard shortcuts (which the hardcore will be, but more casual players probably won't), the interface for ordering around units and building structures will feel slow and clunky.

There have been a couple of small (and welcome) tweaks to the UI. Most notably, the unit-pane has been revamped to remove the previously strict limit on the number of units that could be selected at a single time). This is a very positive step, but it would still have been nice to see more work put into creating a more ergonomic and less visually intrusive UI. The gradual evolution of WoW's UI has shown that Blizzard do have some talented people in this field, and I'm not sure why they weren't put to work on this.

The units from Starcraft and Brood Wars all seem to be back, complete with some balance tweaks and changes to the build tree. The line-up is fleshed out by some new additions, which seem to fit in reasonably well, at least to a layman's eyes.

The campaign structure is somewhat changed from the original. Of course, only the Terran campaign is present at the moment, with the Zerg and Protoss campaigns to be added by future expansions. I've not finished it yet, but the Terran campaign does seem to be reasonably large; certainly larger than its equivalent in the original Starcraft. The campaign now feels very similar to that from Dawn of War 2, with the player choosing from missions with different rewards and outcomes. Credits earned during missions can be used to purchase upgrades to the various unit and building types.

Campaign missions are somewhat variable in quality. There's a fair degree of variety in the objectives, with missions including the standard "build a base and destroy the enemy" to escort missions and infiltration assignments. Sometimes the missions work well. However, the pacing of some of the missions, particularly the early ones, often feels a bit off. On the third campaign mission, I had to defend a base from attack for 20 minutes (similar to the third mission in the original Starcraft's campaign). However, on normal difficulty, I had destroyed the bases the enemy was using to produce attackers by around 13 minutes into the mission. Rather than ending the mission, the game forced me to sit twiddling my thumbs until the timer ticked down. Ok, it threw a few underwhelming waves of enemies at me right at the end, but this didn't really alleviate the substantial levels of boredom I'd experienced. There's also a badly paced convoy-escort mission where you can expect to spend a lot of time waiting.

Other missions, however, do work better. The "build a base and destroy everything" missions work pretty well, though they do get samey. The missions that put you in charge of a Ghost are a lot of fun indeed. That saidyou won't really be seeing any mission designs that you haven't seen in any number of other games. The new mercenaries system adds a slight extra twist to the gameplay, but again, nothing stunningly original.

I did have a general issue relating to game-pace. When it was released, the original Starcraft was widely seen as a rusher's paradise. However, expectations in the RTS genre have shifted a lot since then, and faster build and unit production speeds are now the norm. While actual combat in Starcraft 2 feels fluid and well-paced, build and production times feel positively glacial. Research times feel outright sadistic. It's clearly not a case of the game just running too slowly, though, as combat can be outright frantic (usually in a good way).

It's hard to describe the in-game visuals as anything other than disappointing. It could be argued that the blocky, cartoony look is just part of Blizzard's style, and I'd be perfectly happy to accept this if it had been implemented a bit better. However, background and terrain art looks ancient, while the quality of unit visuals is highly variable. Some units, like the Terran SCV, actually look pretty good and have had fairly funky redesigns. Others, however, such as the Terran Firebat, look as though they've been drawn by a 6 year old. They're bad enough when seen in isolation, but when you get a few of them grouped together, their mis-sized graphics blend together leaving an ugly mess in the middle of the screen.

It's a real pity, because it's clear that Starcraft 2 is running on top of some very capable technology. The pre-rendered cutscenes that are a hallmark of Blizzard games are back, though there aren't perhaps quite as many of them as we've come to expect. They're complemented by some reasonably impressive cutscenes using the in-game engine. These are actually on a par with the game-engine cutscenes from many first and third person shooters, which is an impressive feat for an RTS engine. Arguably even more impressive is the vertically-scrolling shooter they've created using the engine, which can be accessed from one of the between-mission screens. This is a fully featured shooter with bullet-hell tendancies which compares favourably to many games from the same genre available via Xbox Live Arcade or the Playstation Network.

The game does an excellent job of building atmosphere between missions; indeed, it's hard to think of any games that do it better. You can explore various locations via a point and click interface, talking to characters, watching news broadcasts and examining various keepsakes and trophies. It's a bit reminiscent of the old Wing Commander games, only better. These sections have a great visual style and even better sound and music. The game's voice-acting is consistently top-notch, while the twangy musical score is reminiscent of some of the stuff we heard during the original Starcraft's cutscenes and perhaps even more reminiscent of Firefly/Serenity. The lyrics to one of the songs on the jukebox had me laughing out loud.

Moving on from the campaign mode, the Skirmish mode is pretty decent, with a good range of difficulty settings to allow even the greenest of RTS players to get some practice in before heading online.

The online play was, much to my surprise, working just fine for me on launch day (perhaps cynically, I tend to expect features like this in major releases to be more or less unusable until at least 48 hours after launch). There are a good range of maps and play-options, and those hardcore players looking to get the Starcraft 2 online scene rolling are unlikely to be disappointing. The matchmaking tool was working a bit erratically in terms of finding players of around my skill-level, but this is probably to be expected so soon after launch, with so many players on brand new accounts with very limited play histories. Hopefully that will iron itself out in time.

The lack of any option to play the campaign in co-op will be disappointing for some players, but on the other hand, it is nice to be able to play a campaign solo without feeling like you're missing out (Red Alert 3, I'm looking at you).

So in conclusion; if you were a huge Starcraft fan, you probably haven't read this anyway, as you've already bought the game and are no doubt playing it right now. If you haven't bought the game and are wondering whether to... well... maybe. There is fun to be had here, with a decent single-player story and bags of atmosphere, I suspect most people who enjoy RTSes will find something to please them. However, this is very much an old-fashioned game, missing many of the innovations and conveniences we've come to take for granted over the last decade. In many ways, games such as Dawn of War and Supreme Commander 2 are far more sophisticated and... yes... better than this. That's not to say that you shouldn't give Starcraft 2 a go. It's just to say that if you only play one RTS every decade or so, this probably isn't the one to pick.

So here we are... end of a decade. 10 years ago, I was a fresh-faced young graduate, rather slimmer than I am now and possessing a rather thicker head of hair. We were on the verge of finding out whether or not the Millennium Bug was going to bring about the downfall of civilisation (it didn't), reality television hadn't really been invented properly yet and you could still find people who would admit to liking the Spice Girls in an unironic way.

In gaming terms, Sony's Playstation had obliterated the competition from the Nintendo 64 and most of the gaming world was looking ahead to the release of the Playstation 2. On the PC, the most notable news of 1999 had been the release of the two great fps competitors; Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. Few suspected at the time that in terms of online play, but would ultimately be comprehensively eclipsed by a funny little Half-Life mod called Counter-Strike, that had been growing steadily in popularity since the summer. Over in the RPG arena, Bioware and Black Isle had revitalised the genre offline, while Everquest ruled the online roost.

So, as another decade ends, I tried to think of the top games of the last decade; the ones that really made an impact, either because they reinvented a genre entirely (or created a new genre), or because they just "did" an existing genre so well that improvement became impossible without significant technological advances. I've tried to rank these in order, but ultimately, all of the games I mention below deserve, in my opinion, to be counted as classics.

10) Deus Ex (PC) - this came in right at the start of the decade and was probably the most "unexpected" of the games listed here. Following the disaster of Daikatana, it would be fair to say that Ion Storm's Deus Ex arrived with what might be termed "anti-hype". There was a widespread expectation that this was just going to turn into another exercise in running around badly drawn swamps firing unmentionable green goop at hordes of identical frogs. Instead, we got a genuinely intelligent first person shooter, which integrated heavy RPG elements. Sure, it wasn't entirely new and unique - the System Shock games had gotten there first - but it brought an unprecedented level of flair and polish to the table. An insipid sequel did its best to diminish Deus Ex's legacy, but now, almost ten years later, it is clear that the original will be remembered long after the sequel is forgotten.

9) Silent Hill 2 (PS2, Xbox, PC) - the survival horror genre has its roots in the 1990s, with Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil, but it is the 2000s which saw the genre rise to its greatest heights, before gradually retreating out of the mainstream under twin assault from a lack of innovation and an influx of action game elements. The early and middle years of the decade saw any number of fine survival horror titles, but it is Silent Hill 2 that must surely be remembered as the best. Considered purely as a game, Silent Hill 2 looks remarkably unimpressive; the controls are awkward, the combat fiddly and the variety of weapons limited. What drives the game, however, are its plot and atmosphere. In this respect, Silent Hill 2 can challenge the best and most intelligent horror/suspense works we've seen from other media. A truly thought provoking game that never feared to go to some difficult places.

8) Kingdom Hearts 2 (PS2) - a game from the later part of the PS2's cycle, which to my mind remains the best entry in the action-RPG genre on any platform. Once you get past the sheer oddness of the concept of mixing Disney characters with the Final Fantasy franchise, this is an amazing game. The battles come the closest we've ever seen in a game to matching the choreography seen in the likes of Advent Children. I'm listing the second game here, rather than the original, because of the control system enhancements and difficulty tweaks that transformed the experience from feeling like a frustrating chore into a genuinely fluid and exciting game.

7) Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) - what looks at first like a Japanese RPG turns out to be an incredibly stylish and original turn based strategy game. A superb combination of intelligent, demanding gameplay with a unique visual and audio style ensures that this is a truly unique game, with no real comparators out there. A sure sign that, contrary to widespread reports, innovation in commercial gaming is alive and well at the end of the decade.

6) Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War (PC) - when I tried to think of the best real-time strategy game of the last decade, this emerged (somewhat to my surprise) as the clear winner for me. In this assessment, I'm including the numerous expansions that fleshed out the game following its release. Technologically speaking, it is some way behind many of the other RTSes released in recent years. Indeed, to look at, it is not much more than a high resolution version of Starcraft. However, it has a balance and pace, as well as (when fully expanded) a variety of factions and units that sets it well ahead of most of the competition.

5) Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox360) - if there's one thing this title proves, it's that slow and steady evolutionary development can often outperform sweeping innovation in the long run. In concept, at least, the Forza games haven't changed much since the first installment. However, the quality has followed a consistent but steep upward path. The first game, on the original Xbox, was basically a poor man's Gran Turismo, and a consolation prize for those Xbox owners who didn't have a PS2 as well. Forza 2 was a very good game in its own right, bettering Gran Turismo 4 by some margin and setting the forthcoming Gran Turismo 5 a hard act to follow. Forza 3 refines the gameplay and mechanics still further, creating a game so good that it is almost impossible to see how any other driving simulator (including the still-forthcoming Gran Turismo 5) could possibly beat it without the benefit of a major technological advance.

4) Crysis (PC) - even now, more than two years since its launch, Crysis remains the poster child for PC gaming - the game that demands more from its hardware than any current console could hope to offer. Crysis set new standards in visuals and used this technology effectively to develop atmosphere. That it was married to a very good and highly intelligent fps almost feels like a little bonus on the side.

3) Final Fantasy X (PS2) - the Final Fantasy series has had a fairly slow decade; after the dizzy heights of the mid-late 90s, when installments VI through VIII blasted Japanese RPGs onto the mainstream Western gaming consciousness, the 2000s have seen a fairly slow trickle of "proper" Final Fantasy releases, with most of the world only likely to have seen X, XI and XII by the end of the decade. Of these, it is X that stands out as the best. XI was wildly successful by pre-WoW standards, but ultimately proved too hardcore a proposition for the mainstream. XII was a decent game in many ways, but suffered from a few odd design decisions and the fact that its plot was basically lifted wholesale from Star Wars. X therefore stands as arguably the best Japanese RPG of the decade, given that nobody else has really managed to match what Square can do when they're on-form. An excellent plot, superb graphics and music and a well-balanced combat system came together to create one of the best installments in the history of the Final Fantasy franchise. And yes, this is despite the fact that the game contails Wakka.

2) World of Warcraft (PC) - it might be a cliche to say that WoW has become as much a cultural phenomenon as it has a game, but it is also true. Since its launch, WoW has advanced two major achievements; the first was to cut out much of the grinding that made earlier MMOs so inaccessible to the average gamer. The second, which admittedly took longer to achieve, was to balance this successfully with the need to provide challenge for the more hardcore gamers. The result of this is that Azeroth has a higher population than many actual countries, and has sustained this over a number of years, while seeing off any number of challengers (anybody remember Lord of the Rings Online or Age of Conan?). As we reach the end of the decade, there is perhaps a growing feeling that WoW might have "jumped the shark". However, even if the story of the game from this point onwards is one of "managed decline", its place in gaming history is well and truly secure.

1) Baldur's Gate 2 (PC) - so yes, my choice for the "best game of the decade" was actually released way back in 2000. That I can't honestly think of another game that has bettered it since then says a lot about the sheer quality of this game. While technically obsolete even at release, the quality of the static artwork has ensured that the game looks passable even today. The sheer scope of the game, along with its high replay factor, means that it offers hundreds of hours of entertainment. And the writing, which combined a decent, solid fantasy plot with a rapier-like with and occasional doses of surreal humour, remains among the best ever seen in a game (only Planescape: Torment stands out as a rival). BG2's influence has been immense; as well as the legions of imitators (most recently Dragon Age), BG2 was responsible for reigniting mainstream gaming interest in Western RPGs. The original Baldur's Gate had come close to this, but was held back by a rather unforgiving difficulty curve and a lacklustre plot. In correcting these flaws, BG2 managed to become the closest thing we've yet seen to computer role-playing perfection.

I've obviously had to cut a lot of extremely good games out of that list. Fallout 3, Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic all missed out by the skin of their teeth.

Now that I've had over 2 weeks with the PS3, I'm perhaps in a position to offer some thoughts on how things stand with the new generation. The opinions below are based on significant hands-on experience with each of the new consoles although obviously, due to the length of time that it has been in the wild, I have had significantly more time with the 360 than with the other two machines.

Rather than going through this machine by machine, I'll try to take a more thematic approach to my breakdown.

Hardware - physical appearance

Yes, yes, I know, this is an awfully superficial criterion to judge consoles by. Nevertheless, as it's likely that all three of these will be sitting in my living room for the next 4-5 years, I feel justified in giving some weight to it.

Both the PS3 and 360 are significantly larger than has previously been the norm for consoles. The 360 is about the size of the original Xbox (which is to say - large). It's a rather striking white box, with generally pleasing curves and a fetching set of blinkenlights. The USB are well placed and the DVD drive tray is easy to reach and feels relatively robust (a perpetual concern for me after I managed to accidentally snap the lid off a Gamecube). Unfortunately, that's about it as far as the good news goes. The white casing means that I actually need to put a bit of effort into keeping the thing clean, particularly as it does seem to be an absolute dust-magnet. Far more serious, however, is the amount of noise that the 360 generates while running. Even while idle or playing a relatively lightweight Live Arcade game, the machine sounds about as loud as my desktop PC. When playing a proper game, it can take on the noise profile of a light aircraft. This gets blotted out during hectic action games, but can grate for anything slower paced. Worse still, playing a DVD also appears to get the fans going at full pace. The 360 also runs quite hot and has a huge brick of a power supply, which can, fortunately, be hidden out of the way.

The PS3 is even larger (and heavier) than the 360, although happily it has an external power supply and needs only a "kettle" power cable. That said, it's also much more aesthetically pleasing than the PS3 and, despite being the size of a small desktop, is a remarkably pretty piece of hardware. Again, controller and USB ports are well-placed and the "buttonless" front-piece also feels quite slick. The Blu-Ray drive does not have a pop-out tray (which I consider a plus) and feels remarkably solid. Sony clearly knew that, given the outrageous price of their new flagship, they needed to make it look and feel like a premium piece of kit and they've definitely succeeded in this. It's quieter than the 360, although it does seem to throw out even more heat (although this doesn't actually seem to impair its functioning).

The Wii is small and unassuming to look at, which is quite welcome in a way, given that space is now at a premium under my TV. Indeed, given it appears to have *very* similar dimensions to an internal DVD drive for a desktop PC, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until combined PC/Wii case-mods start appearing. The DVD drive is, like the PS3's Blu-Ray drive, recessed into the machine, with no cup-holder tray to worry about. Moreover, the Wii is virtually silent and appears to put out very little heat. That said there are also some big downsides. The beige colour looks a little dated and reminds me of an old bargain-basement PC. More importantly, for a console with wireless controllers, the Wii does seem to generate an impressive number of cables, some of which are irritatingly thin and feel as though they'd be disturbingly easy to snap while vacuuming around the TV.

If I had to pick a winner in this category (which is highly subjective), I'd probably go for the PS3. I can appreciate the Wii's approach though. As for the 360 - the noise issue is something that MS really do need to look to address, perhaps with a later revision of the console.

Hardware - performance

One of the more significant categories, I think this is going to be a key factor in determining how well the machines stand up in the long-term. While it was possible for the PS2 to dominate the last generation despite a significant technological disadvantage, due to its huge installed base, none of the three competitors this time appears likely at this point to build up the huge lead that this would require.

The Wii is the clear loser here, frankly. Its launch titles, including the vaunted Zelda, look worse than several PS2 games (Kingdom Hearts 2 and Final Fantasy 12, I'm looking at you). Poor texture detail and low polygon counts look as though they're going to be the norm on a machine that, even by Nintendo's own admissions, doesn't significantly outperform the Gamecube. With HDTVs becoming more popular, I can see the Wii's weakness in this regard becoming more significant over the next 12 months.

When it comes to the 360 and the PS3, the picture gets a little more complicated. Right now, the best looking game on any platform (and I'm including high end PCs here) is Gears of War on the 360. On balance, it does indeed look better than Resistance: Fall of Man, despite some stylistic differences that make direct comparisons between the two games awkward. Of course, GoW was a game for a year old system, whose quirks and capabilities were well known, while R:FoM was a launch title. Thinking back to the 360's launch titles, there's no denying that Resistance looks better than those. In the long term, I suspect the PS3 will open out a bit of a performance advantage, but I can't see it managing to put much in the way of clear blue sky between itself and the 360.

Interface

All three manufacturers have clearly put a lot of effort into the front-end interface for their machines this time around. Long gone are the days of the "two options and a swirling thing" front menu from the PS2.

However, that said, Sony's offering here isn't much better looking. It's heavily modelled on the PSP's front-end, which was never the best looking or intuitive menu at the best of times and this shares its flaws. It's made worse by the fact that the colours are extremely muted. I (in the UK) imported my PS3 from the States. On firing it up, I spent the first 5 minutes twiddling with settings, thinking that the image was only coming through in black and white. Eventually, I noticed that a couple of the icons tucked away deep in the menus were in colour and realised what was happening. That said, you can access everything you'd want to quite quickly through the front-end and features such as the web-browser and the PSP link are easy to get working quite quickly.

The Wii's front end really turns me off for some reason. I think it's partly that I don't like using the wii-mote as a pointer and partly the fact that all of the sounds remind me of something from a malfunctioning 1980s arcade machine. At any rate, most of the "features" here, particularly the whole "mii" business, just strike me as nasty gimmicks.

By far the best of the front-ends is the 360's. Clear, good looking and easy to nagivate, this is the best demonstration of how to "do" an integrated gaming and multimedia front end. More customisable than the other consoles, you can set your 360's front end up to be as muted or as garish as you like. Definitely the winner in this category.

Online services

Simple answer here - 360 wins, hands down. Yes, you have to pay for Live, but frankly, it works out at about £2.50 a month at most, which isn't going to break the bank, so I'm not even going to factor that in. Live is the most reliable, best supported and most user-friendly of any of the online services. Live Marketplace has turned out extremely well, with both decent content for "full-blown" games, and plenty of decent Live Arcade games. These are a blend of ports of classic games and full-fledged new creations. Some of these aren't great and there does seem to be a predominance of top-down shooters, but you can pick up some excellent games at very reasonable prices.

I've had trouble using the Wii's online service so far, due to its insistence on wireless connections. However, it appears to be lacking many of the features of Live and support for online play from the "full-blown" Wii games is nothing short of appalling. The marketplace equivalent looks ok-ish, although the prices seem a little steep for what's on offer.

The PS3's online service has potential, but has yet to really follow through on it. Online play seems to have reasonably good support from the PS3 launch titles and it's easy enough to get set up and play. However, the marketplace is distinctly disappointing so far and I'm not yet sure that Sony have a real over-arching vision for it yet. Time will tell whether it's going to be able to compete with Live seriously.

Controllers

Controllers have turned into one of the key battlegrounds of this round of the console wars, with Nintendo's Wii controller sparking off huge amounts of speculation.

Of course, the 360 was on the shelves already before much of this had really gotten started. The 360's controller is essentially an evolution of the Xbox S-Controller, by far the best controller of the last generation. In fact, as a conventional controller, it is very hard to fault the 360 controller. The weight, size and shape all feel "just right". The layout of the buttons has been improved, with the awkward old black and white buttons being replaced by a new pair of shoulder bumpers. Moreover, the wireless technology works well, with good range and response. As traditional controllers go, it is likely that the 360 controller represents a state as close to perfection as we are likely to get in the short or mid term future.

The Wii, of course, has its "innovative" motion-based controller, with the wii-mote and nunchuck replacing a traditional pad. This was supposed, according to the hype, to introduce a new style of gaming and widen the appeal of the pasttime beyond its core audience.

Frankly, I think this is over-egging things a bit.

The Wii's launch titles have singularly failed to impress me with the controller's potential and have done a lot to highlight its limitations. Everything so far seems to fall into one of three categories. Either the Wiimote is used as a pointer/lightgun (which is nothing new), or else it is used as a direct replacement for a button press (Zelda is particularly bad for this), or finally, it might just be used for a bit of frantic shaking. While the controller is capable of reasonable precision when used at low speeds, this seems to break down badly once rapid motions come into play, making true swordfighting games and some sports games unlikely to succeed.

Moreover, the other aspects of the controller are just plain nasty. The positioning of the buttons on the wii-mote is awkward in the extreme, while the little analogue stick on the nunchuck feels cheap, nasty and imprecise.

That leaves Sony's Sixaxis. This has been derided as a quick and dirty attempt to steal some of Nintendo's thunder and, frankly, on the basis of my experiences so far, it is difficult to disagree. For the most part, the controller looks and feels like a Dualshock 2 without the rumble function. The rear shoulder buttons have been improved and the wireless functionality works well, but that's about as far as the changes go. The same old Dualshock 2 strengths and weaknesses are still there. In particular, the Sixaxis still feels slightly too small to be comfortable. As for the motion sensing functionality - the only thing I've seen this used for is the "shake like mad to throw off an enemy's grip" function in Resistance. I'm not actually sure how sensitive or precise it is, but I suspect the answer is "not very".

Bizarrely, I'm going to say that in a generation that has seen much of the focus shift to controller design, the winner is actually the most conservative of the three contenders - the 360 controller.

Backward Compatibility

The 360 fares badly here. Despite Microsoft's promises, a great many Xbox titles, including some AAA titles, remain unplayable on the 360. Meanwhile, the trickle of compatibility updates appears to have slowed to a drip. This is unacceptable, but I'm now fairly convinced that Microsoft have abandoned this as a priority and are instead hoping that people will eventually forget about the original Xbox, as the 360 continues to expand its games lineup.

It's quite hard to pick between the Wii and the PS3 for a winner here. On the one hand, the Wii has more or less full back-compatibility with Gamecube games, with many games for older Nintendo platforms available for (somewhat overpriced) purchase through the marketplace. On the other hand, there were, to be honest, very few Gamecube games, even fewer of which were actually worth playing. Meanwhile, the PS3 has generally good back-compatibility, but with issues on a few games. The picture here is much better than on the 360 - the issues are less serious and the games affected tend to be obscure titles - but it's not quite perfection. Of course, the PS2 and PS1 had such a vast catalogue of games that back-compatibility counts for a lot more here.

Games - the situation right now

Obviously, the most important aspect of any console is the range of games available for it. A decent range of games can give a huge boost to an otherwise underwhelming console, as happened with the PS2, while a serious games drought can be fatal, as Nintendo have discovered during the last two generations. I've split games into two categories - games out now, and the likely future situation.

It should go without saying that in terms of games you can walk into a shop and buy today, the 360 beats both of its rivals hands down. After all, the 360 has been on the shelves for well over a year, while its rivals have only just clocked up 3 months. While the 360 had a frankly awful range of launch titles, it now has most genres represented reasonably well, with even RPGs (a persistent blank spot on the Xbox) looking like they might catch up.

With games like Gears of War, Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Dead Rising, 360 games have begun to show a degree of polish that truly does set them aside from the last generation's games. As with its predecessor, the 360 does suffer ever so slightly from a lack of true exclusives - many of its key titles, such as Oblivion and Battlestations Midway also appear on the PC - but the last 6 months have been excellent for Microsoft's platform.

The Wii and PS3 both currently only have a fairly typical range of launch titles available. In the case of the PS3, only Resistance: Fall of Man truly comes close to showing off what the machine should be capable of. Admittedly, its graphics can't quite match those of Gears of War, but I'd actually say that the gameplay is slightly better (and certainly much longer). The rest of the launch titles range between the "pretty good but unspectacular" (Full Auto 2) and the "utterly awful" (Gundam Crossfire).

The situation on the Wii is pretty similar. Ironically, the real stand-out launch title here isn't a Nintendo game at all, but rather Rayman Raving Rabbids. Zelda just about qualifies as "ok", but is ultimately visually uninspired and deeply tired in gameplay terms. The rest of the launch titles, including the bundled Wii Sports, are basically dreadful.

Games - looking forwards

Probably the most important category. Right now, the only current-gen console worth buying on the basis of its current games is the 360. A purchase of a Wii or PS3 is an investment on the basis of the future potential of the machine. If a console fails to deliver in this respect, your money will be wasted.

The 360's future looks reasonably bright. MS currently seem to be pursuing the strategy of wooing Japanese developers. Blue Dragon, one of the first real results produced by this strategy, is due out soon. This sits alongside the preferrential treatment that the 360 seems to receive from Western developers with regards to franchises such as the Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon games. Oh, and there might also be a little game called Halo 3. There aren't, if I'm honest, too many other exclusives that really whet my fancy, but there's a good chance that the 360 could turn out to be the best platform to pick up cross-platform games on, much as the Xbox was in the last generation. With a decent installed base, it's likely that developers will continue to show the 360 some love.

The Wii's situation, however, is much more precarious. Already, we're seeing signs that despite all their hype and astroturfing, Nintendo have failed to address the real problem that has seen them lose so much ground. Almost all of the big forthcoming Wii games are Nintendo games - meaning that the same old flaws of insufficient quantity, slipping release date and limited appeal are likely to resurface. Moreover, with several developers already announcing they have no intention to support the Wii (including figures such as John Carmack) and even those who have pledged to release games for it being very short on details, the future for the Wii looks grim. As this generation becomes more established and more games are developed that make fuller use of its technology, the Wii will almost certainly find that it just can't keep up.

And then there's the PS3. Despite its drawbacks - high price, poor launch titles and inconsistent online support - the PS3 remains by far the strongest contender in this area. Simply put, Sony still have the franchise exclusives that really count. With the main-series Final Fantasy games, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo on board, the PS3 gives far more to look forward to than either of the other platforms. This will no doubt go hand in hand with a feeling among developers that, as with the PS2, they more or less *have* to put out PS3 ports of their games.

Summary

In short, right now, the 360 is the best of the 3 consoles. It sits in a sweet spot with regards to both price and availability of games. The PS3 is still too expensive to be a real mass-market propositon given it has yet to conclusively prove its superiority over the 360, while the Wii has a distinctly "cheap and nasty" feel.

However, in the long term, the PS3 will almost certainly redress the balance, as its price comes down and its big franchises start to pump out killer titles. As for the Wii - I suspect it will be forgotten two years from now.

Ok, with my PS3 due to arrive from the States in about 48 hours, I guess I need to finally get out of the habit of calling the PS3/360/Wii "next generation" machines. By the same token, this means that the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube are now firmly "last generation", even though there's still a PS2 game I'm intending to buy (Okami, when it finally hits the UK in a week or two).

Soooo... probably a good time for a quick retrospective on the good, the bad and the indifferent of the last generation. I'll take this by system.

Gamecube

Of the three consoles in the last-gen, I picked this one up the latest (Christmas 2003). I've also used it by far the least. Despite being a reasonably nice piece of hardware, the Cube suffered from a number of serious flaws that, for me, made it by far the least impressive performer of the last-gen.

Let's start with the machine itself. Despite having solid specs, the design of the machine and its peripherals always irritated me. The little flip-lid on the top of the machine seemed so flimsy that I got paranoid every time I touched it. A minor quibble, but this is my journal, so tough.

More serious were the flaws with the controllers. And boy, were these serious. There was a broad consensus in the last gen over what a controller should look like. Two analogue sticks, a D-pad, some shoulder buttons, 4 or so face buttons and a couple of little function buttons in the middle. To some degree, all three manufacturers followed this model. Unfortunately, Nintendo managed to balls it up big time. Rather than giving us a proper right analogue stick, we instead got a shrivelled little yellow nipple. Said nipple was a pain in the arse to use and always felt distinctly lacking in precision. It made many genres, particularly fpses, deeply unpleasant on the Cube. Indeed, for Nintendo's own fps, Metroid Prime, they avoided using the nipple for anything meaningful and instead stuck on a non-standard and deeply unintuitive control system of their own.

I can kind of see the logic behind the unevenly sized front-buttons, but the implementation was frankly crap. The large A-button always seemed to be getting in the way and I lost count of the number of times that I hit it accidentally while trying for one of the little bean-shaped buttons around the edge. To add insult to injury, the cable length for the default Cube controllers was woefully inadequate. This seems particularly daft on a console that was so heavily geared towards multiplayer party-games.

Of course, a console is nothing without a wide variety of decent games and, in the final judgement, the Cube was basically nothing. Nintendo continued their usual habit of force-feeding us their own taste in gaming, which appeals to young children and 40-year-old neckbeards, but not to anybody in between. Zelda: Wind Waker bored me to tears, Mario Sunshine was a dismal reheat of Mario 64, Mario Kart Double Dash was so lacking in concept that it felt like a bad joke and Metroid Prime just didn't stack up to the fpses on the other consoles (or the PC). Super Smash Brothers Melee was a moderately entertaining party game, but soon started to feel pretty shallow. Starfox Assault had a few really decent rail-shooter moments, but chose to sandwich them between huge great slices of mediocre shite. Many first-party Nintendo games suffered from a severe lack of production values, with outdated menus, poor sound and no voice acting generally being the norm.

Third party titles were notoriously thin on the ground on the Cube. Most of them were cross-platform games, which I always picked up for one of the other systems due to the aforementioned controller issues. However, a few decent ones did manage to hit. Two very decent entries in the survival horror genre, Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil 4, particularly stood out. RE4, in particular, was a real genre-redefining game of the type that doesn't come along too often. After playing that, I found it very hard to go back to the Silent Hill series, which I'd previously preferred to Resident Evil by some way. The Star Wars Rogue Squadron games were decent shooters, but as with many games on the Cube, seriously lacking in longer term appeal.

Overall, I felt the Cube deserved its 3rd place final result in the sales and was lucky that the margin between itself and the Xbox wasn't wider. Despite a few gaming highlights scattered in the muck, it stands out as nothing more than a testament to Nintendo's ongoing decline.

Xbox

Ah, the Xbox. Much mocked on its launch (including by myself, if I'm honest) for its clunky design and poor range of games, the Xbox went on to be a surprisingly solid performer. When I picked one up in Autumn 2003, it was just starting to get its second wind, with games like Knights of the Old Republic starting to come out. The Xbox was, of course, also the first console to bow out from its generation, with the 360 appearing in late 2005. There's a good argument to be made that the original Xbox could, in fact, easily have been good for another year.

Despite being heavy, bulky and ugly as sin, the Xbox was a decent piece of hardware. The most powerful machine of its generation, it had some extremely good looking games. The internal hard disk was also a huge bonus and I'm extremely glad that all 3 of the new consoles have chosen to follow in its footsteps there. The decline of compulsory memory cards will not be lamented.

The original Xbox controller inspired much mockery, and rightly so. Despite having all of the right elements present it was, as many commentators noted, way too large for comfortable use by an actual human. Fortunately, the S-controller rectified this nicely and went on to be my favorite controller of the last generation. My only quibble was that the black and white buttons on the front of the controller could have been better positioned - I would have preferred an extra pair of shoulder buttons.

In terms of games, the Xbox eventually went on to develop a very solid lineup, but always suffered slightly from being in the shadow of the PC. The Xbox had very few true exclusives, with many of its big-name games, such as Halo and Knights of the Old Republic, also being available (and often better) on the PC. That said, for cross-platform console games, I would always tend to pick up the Xbox version for preference - it put out the best graphics and on the nicest controller.

Of course, there were a few real stand-out exclusives. Halo 2 remains, to my mind, the best console fps to date and I'll be curious to see how it compares to Resistance: Fall of Man. Jade Empire was a superb (but often sadly overlooked) action RPG, which raised the bar for quality in a number of respects, not least through its superb voice-acting. Forza Motorsport was the only driving game of the last generation to come even close to the quality of Gran Turismo 4 (although even Forza fell slightly short). Panzer Dragoon Orta was arguably the best rail shooter of the generation. The Mechassault games weren't quite as good as the old Mechwarrior titles, but the second installment in particular was excellent. And finally, who can forget the manically bouncing boobies of Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball.

The other killer feature of the Xbox was Xbox-Live. By far the best match-making service around, Live managed to bring online console gaming to a mass audience for the first time. It also introduced downloadable content, which I feel is a very positive development.

Overall, I was surprised by how good the Xbox turned out to be. Microsoft are often called the Borg here on slashdot, but one way in which the analogy really holds up is in the speed with which they react. While Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sony were content to sit on flaws with their console for the entire generation, MS reacted time and time again, most notably by their replacement of the original controller, but also through their choice of developers to pursue. A console that should, by rights, have fallen flat on its face went on to provide me with a great deal of entertainment.

Playstation 2

The first console I ever owned (picked one up in Spring 2002) and definitely the console I've bought most games for.

The PS2 was the lowest-spec machine of its generation, which really shows up when you look at games that were developed for multiple platforms. However, some developers, particularly Square-Enix, managed to work wonders with the PS2's hardware, giving it arguably the best looking games of the entire generation. The puny memory cards were a persistent frustration, though.

The Dualshock 2 controller was certainly a decent little controller, if slightly too small to be really comfortable for me. In many ways, it defined the "right" shape and layout of controllers for the entire generation and I note that the new Sixaxis shares many similarities. Oh well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The PS2's real strong point was always its software library. The sheer range of games that appeared for the PS2 was truly staggering. Obviously, a lot of these were shovelware crap, but even if you include only top-notch games, the PS2 still had stunning variety. Certainly, it had the best entries in the RPG genre (Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, to name just the Square-Enix ones), the best driving game (Gran Turismo 4) and the best stealth games (the Metal Gear Solid series). It also had a huge variety of obscure, but nevertheless excellent games, such as the Naval Ops series.

The PS2 "won" its round of the console wars both in sales numbers and in quality. I dread to think how many hours I've clocked up on my little black box (and its even littler slim-line black cousin that I imported from the States to play Final Fantasy XII). With Microsoft making a much stronger play in the current generation, I suspect we'll never again see the console scene so utterly dominated by a single machine.

Next week, I'll post something similar with my thoughts on the current generation machines, once I've had a chance to use the PS3 a bit.

Not done one of these before and I'm not a great fan of blogs etc anyway. However, I thought it might be useful to explain all of my prejudices, biases, gripes, moans, whinges and hobby-horses somewhere, so that at least I can't be accused of not being upfront about them.

I'm in the UK, which explains why most of my posts tend to be a bit UK-centric. Unlike most of my compatriots, I quite like the USA and George W. Bush. Nothing says "mindless brainwashee" faster to me than a knee-jerk Bush-bashing-bandwaggon-jumper.

I don't work in IT. In fact, my only real connection to the world of slashdot is that I'm a fairly avid gamer. It's rare I'll post outside slashdot games. As I work in middle-management and have an HR background, I sometimes see the IT sector from a slightly different perspective from other slashdotters.

I use Windows XP on both my machines. My attitude towards other operating systems is that they're probably fine for the people who use them and if I could play my games on them, I'd use them. As it is, I can't, so I don't. I don't like evangelists.

In terms of games, I own all three consoles (PS2, XBox, Gamecube) and a gaming PC. I'll play most genres, although I don't seem to pick up many non-driving sports titles. RPGs tend to be a particular favorite. For the past 10 months, I've been hooked by Final Fantasy XI. I do tend to bang on about how great it is a bit, so apologies in advance.

I'm pretty balanced when it comes to the X-Box and PS2. I think they're both good platforms with good games, whose strengths and weaknesses leave room for both in the market. I don't like Nintendo much these days. Nothing deep or ideological behind this, I just don't feel they've made a single good decision since the SNES era. The Gamecube leaves me underwhelmed, I hate its controllers and I think most of its games are tepid and uninspired. The fan-club's also annoying; if I hear one more time how Nintendo are "innovative", I'll scream. There's nothing innovative about shovelling out sequels and remakes to 15 year old franchises.

Favorite game series are probably the Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo series. I think the PC market has picked up a bit lately, after a couple of very grim years. Doom 3 was excellent, if limited in scope. Farcry also rocked my world. Half-Life 2 probably will, if they ever release it.

Ok, if anybody's actually read this crap, then congratulations. Either I'm more intersting than I thought or else you're *really* bored.