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Hey, thank's for the advice. It can be kind of daunting to know exactly where to begin with a series as long running as Final Fantasy. I think your right about starting with the Super Nintendo game's, they both look really good. Thank's again for your help.

I've never played any Final Fantasy game's. There I've said it. It actually feel's kind of good to finally admit it. It's weird that I never got around to playing any of them because I do like RPG's. I never owned a NES and I wasn't that aware of the series when I had a Super Nintendo, so maybe that's why I never got into them. I almost bought Final Fantasy 7 when it was getting so much coverage in all the game mag's, and I nearly got Final Fantasy 12 for the Ps2 but didn't for some reason. I am definitely going to play one eventually but there have been so many game's in the Final Fantasy series now, that I'm not sure which one's I should consider.

It's great when developer's include easter egg's in their game's, like the trivia game in Jurassic Park. I don't remember the elevator music, but then I was most likely concentrating on what I would be facing when the door's opened. Plus I was probably still traumatised from the T-Rex encounter.

I really liked this game. I thought it looked really good and was a lot of fun. I even liked the first person view when you entered building's. Mind you this was my first experience of this kind of 3d view and so I didn't have anything to compare it to as I hadn't played doom on the pc yet. The only problem with the game was that it didn't have any save feature so you had to finish the game in one sitting. But apart from that it was pretty good.

I've got about 15-20 game's for most of my console's but I own the most game's for my Ps1. I have about 30 or so for it. Man, I wish I had as many Mega Drive game's as Areala. I guess with that amount of game's there's no way to get the time to play many of them, but it would still be really cool to have such a great choice of game's to play.

Bought Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion for the Mega Drive yesterday for 7 euro's. It didn't come with any instruction's or case but it work's fine, look's great and is a lot of fun.

I don't have a lot of boss character's on my list but each one of these guy's is a major video game villian to me. 1. Melvin "Big Smoke" Harris (GTA San Andreas). Even now after so many year's the betrayal by this character still stand's out for me. Man, it felt so good when he finally got what was comming to him. 2. M-Bison (Street Fighter 2). Man it took me forever to actually beat him. 3. Tom Nook (Animal Crossing Wild World). I still haven't paid off my mortgage to this b*****d and I'm not sure I can take anymore orange collecting or fishing in order to be able to finally pay him off. 4. Ganon (Zelda Ocarina of Time). Such a great villian. The first time you see him in the game when he rides out of the Castle, then stop's and slowly turn's to look at you, is so good. He's just so evil. 5. T-Rex (Tomb Raider). This guy scared the hell out of me the first time I saw him running toward's me. It took me forever to kill him too untill I discovered the side area where you could shoot him in safety. 6. Demon's (Doom). I know these guy's are pretty easy to kill, especially if you have a shotgun, but I always hated the way they charged at you. 7. Hammer Bros. (Super Mario World). Oh man I really hate these guy's. Flying around on their platform with wing's, chucking hammer's at you. So annoying evertime they killed me. 8. Lakitu (Super Mario World). See no. 7 except substitute cloud's for winged platform and spiky turtle things for hammer's. 9. Iggy Koopa (Super Mario World). Never liked this guy. 10. Buzz-Bomber (Sonic the Hedgehog). These guy's are so annoying. You're running along and everything's fine and then suddenly they shoot you and all of the ring's you've collected are disappearing off of the screen. Hate that.

You're right about the NFL 2K game's being great, I recently got one seccond hand for my Ps2 and it rock's. If I had known more about the NFL 2K series when the Dreamcast was released it might have persuaded me to get one. But then again I still probably would have been seduced by Sony's marketing campaign. I'ts still kind of hard for me to understand exactly why the Dreamcast didn't succeed. Sega seemed to do so much that was right in term's of the amount of game's and the type of game's that were available for it's launch. I guess a lot of it comes down to people like me who already owned a Playstation and weren't brave enough to give this great console a chance. It's a shame because I really like Sega and wish they were still designing great hardware.

One game that I like to watch but never play much anymore is Tekken. Well not all of them, just the more recent one's. I really liked the first three which I played quite a bit on my Playstation. These game's built on what had come before and made definite improvement's in graphic's, gameplay and feature's with each new release. However from Tekken Tag Tournament on, I kind of lost interest in the series. Each new game looked great but was just too similar for me in terms of gameplay. I was at an arcade a few day's ago and passed a Tekken 6 cabinet. It looked really good so I sat down and put my one euro coin into the slot. Three round's into the game I was getting a little bored as I realised this was still the same old Tekken with no real change's. I'm sure there are million's of Tekken fan's who love the game as it is and don't want any significant change's but for me it's become too stale. The game does look great though and I do like watching it being played.

I remember being blown away the first time I saw a Dreamcast. I had been reading about Sega's new console in EGM for month's and then one day I walked into an electronics shop and there it was, running a demo of Power Stone. This game looked amazing compared with what I was playing on my Playstation at the time. Even though I really wanted one I decided to wait and see how well it would sell before commiting to buying one. Eventually, after some time, two thing's persuaded me not to actually buy a Dreamcast. The first was the fact that no Madden would ever be release for it and the seccond thing was Sony's huge hype machine which kept promising that their new machine would be so amazing. So I never bought a Dreamcast and now I really regret it.

I'm playing Madden 94 on the Mega Drive in anticipation of the upcoming football season, can't wait. Patriot's look good this year with Tom Brady back and the Steeler's still look strong. I'm also playing Star Wars Episode 1 Racer on the N64 which is a game I like a lot, even though I haven't met too many other's who also like the game.

This is such a great game and one of my favourite Zelda's. I rank it up there with 'a link to the past' and 'ocarina of time', it's that good. I remember buying this game when it was released around Christmas and playing it a lot while visiting my family over the holiday's. I liked the side scrolling section's a lot and also remember being really impressed with the amazing music which I didn't think was possible from a Game Boy. I didn't know about the surprise ending with Marin. How great is that? Just another example of Nintendo magic. Thank's for bringing back some great memories, Areala.

That's cool man, everyone has their own taste's. But I got to say she does an awful lot for me.

Just got Hellboy on dvd. I've seen the movie a few time's, but never owned a copy. I don't know if the movie does justice to the comic as I haven't read any of them, but I really like this film. Plus it's got Selma Blair in it, which is reason enough for me to buy it.

My backlog isn't too bad right now. I still haven't started Gran Turismo 4 for the Ps2 which I bought new a while back, when it came out on the budget platinum label. I also have to start Battlestations:Midway and Bioshock for the 360. I can't believe I haven't got around to playing Bioshock yet, it's been out so long that it's sequel is nearly ready. I know it's an amazing game and if all else fail's I will definitely make time to play it at Christmas when I will have a lot more free time. Can't wait.

I remember playing this game for hour's with friend's, so much fun. The music was really good too, as far as I remember. I wish I had held on to the cart instead of swapping it. On the plus side though, I swapped it for a Pearl Jam c.d. so it wasn't a complete loss.

I like both. At the moment I'm playing GTA 4 for the 360 and Desert Strike and Super Street Fighter 2 for the Mega Drive. I don't really prefer either modern or retro game's. If a game is fun I'll play it. Speaking of GTA 4, when I first started playing it I really like it but after a while I got kind of bored with it. Now it's getting kind of interesting again due to the storyline. Every other GTA I've really liked but GTA 4 is kind of up and down.

Wow, this game look's like a lot of fun. I remember reading about it in EGM and Gamepro when it was released but for some reason it didn't really make a huge impression on me, which is weird as I love all thing's Capcom, especially Street Fighter. Judging from the You Tube clip I should have checked it out, it look's really good and I'm sure playing against friend's would be a blast. Yet another game to hopefully get around to playing some day.

I really wanted a Pc Engine back in the day but unfortunately it never got an official release here in Europe. I used to stare at the adverts in C&VG magazine showing the console and games like R-Type, Victory Run, Vigilante and Chan+Chan but I couldn't afford these imported version's I never understood why hudson and Nec never released the console in Europe. I'm sure it would have sold well, especially if they released it before the Mega Drive came on the scene. Another thing I dont get is why the look of the console was changed for the American market? I really liked the small compact design of the Japanese version. The only downside to the console for me is the fact that it only has one controller port so I guess you have to pay extra for a multi-tap. This console is definitely on my wish list.

Hey, you really play with a good range of different character's. I think your right about me sticking with the shota character's. I find it kind of difficult if I don't pick them. It's interesting that you think SF4 is the best game in the series. I'm beginning to hear that more and more from people I know too. My favourite's are still the original SF and SSF2, I guess because there kind of slow. SSF2T was a little too quick for me and I kind of felt I had to button mash too much for my liking when I played it, just to survive. A lot of people I know really like SF3 Third Strike. I like the great animation but the character's don't do a lot for me, I guess I miss the original character's from the previous games. Thank's for the invite to play SF man, but I actually only have the basic package, the silver one. I think I had the gold account for about a month for free when I first got my 360 but that elapsed a while ago. If I ever do pay for the gold account though, I'll definitely look you up. You sound like you love the game as much as me, and I know I'd have a lot of fun even if I got my ass kicked a few time's.

It's weird how a seemingly reasonable and benign course of action on the part of this company to help prevent piracy could ultimately have such a negative effect on the sale's of it's game. Sometime's it's easy to forget how powerful the Internet is in the promotion of opinion, like in this case. But then we only have to look at how effective viral marketing campaign's are to see how quickly an idea can be spread on the Internet. Great blog as always, keep up the great work.

Sorry man, can't do it. Trust me though, I'm doing you a favour. Playing against me would be way too easy and in my embarrassment I'd probably just keep rage quitting on you. The weird thing is though that even though I really suck at the game, Street Fighter is still probably my favourite game of all time. So thank's for the offer but I'm going to have to wuss out. I do play Street Fighter 4 against my friend's and also against an ex girl friend who is really good but we always play in the same room. To be honest I've never played anyone online as there always seems to be someone in the next room or across the hall who is ready for another game. Thank's for the offer though. By the way, what character do you usually fight as, in Street Fighter 4? I play as Ken even though some people slag me off because they think he's kind of cheap.

This is a great site, thank's for the head's up. I know I'll be wasting a lot of time here from now on.

You know, I think it's only a matter of time before I do actually buy a Ps3. It's just making more sense every day. I think the 100 euro's price drop will encourage a lot of people, who like me were on the fence, to finally get one. If I do get one I think it will be as much for the Blue Ray player as for the game's. I love movie's but I've been watching them on dvd so the jump to Blue Ray should be a huge step up in quality. As for the game's, while there are not many console exclusive title's on any system anymore I am curious to see if Metal Gear Solid 4 is as good as I've heard. I'm playing GTA 4 on the 360 at the moment and one thing I really miss from playing past GTA game's on the Ps2 is the way you could look to the side of your vehicle by pressing the trigger button's. So I would probably get the Ps3 version of GTA 4 as well, to be able to do this. So it's cheaper, smaller, lighter, play's Blue Ray movie's, has great games and as you mentioned has some great things on the PSN. Add in the cool matt finish and I'm allmost sold.

Yeah, you're absolutely right about the "gang" thing. I think the main reason why I didn't like the ad. much was because back then I was a big Street Fighter fan and I naturally wanted the game to do well but felt the advert didn't really grab the attention needed. I remember at the time, the growing consensus was that Capcom had released too many version's of the game which were only slightly updated each time, and that they should have been concentrating on delivering Street Fighter 3. Of course I didn't feel this way and was disappointed that the advert didn't do enough to show how good the game was. I'm still a huge Street Fighter fan, and even though I really suck at the game, I know I'll be still playing it when I'm old and grey.