Kelvin

Atlantis1982, the anonymous tipster who gave us all that early C64 knowledge on these very boards appeared to be right on the money, so you never know.

Tony, I'm not sure we'll see the MD version if the NES one is coming to VC, because they won't want to double-up. We've seen "repeats" with the Wonder Boy series, but those are sufficiently different in most cases for it to be worth releasing multiple versions. I don't know how different the NES and MD Double Dragon titles are (I never played the latter), but I'd guess not very.

I don't know, I never had problems with the PS1 d-pad. Now the Mega Drive one was a (literal) pain; the raised, sharp, edges would turn your thumbs into kebabs when playing Street Fighter II. The six-button version was better though.

And I'd pick the first X-Box as having the worst controller ever. Crappy buttons, the worst d-pad in history, and the whole thing was the size of a house, with acres of wasted plastic. The 360 one is a huge improvement over that atrocity, but still not great.

Another member of the forum also asked Turrican if the Commodore 64 Turrican games will be coming to Europe sometime soon - At this point, they're not.

Booooo! That's disappointing news.

I prefer Treasure Island Dizzy and Magic Land Dizzy myself. It's a bit weird to claim that Fantasy World is the best game ever; while it's okay, there are better Dizzy titles, let alone better games outside the series!

RCR is great, but there are much better versions of Double Dragon than the NES port. Boo.

Damo, I'm offended!

Ah well, the key there is to rejig the inputs; I stuck the medium punch and kick on the shoulder buttons, as I used them least frequently.

I really liked the SNES pad. It was my favourite controller up until the PlayStation pad came along, but then it's largely the same design.

I wouldn't mind one of these, for nostalgia's sake. The SNES pad was always one of the best designs, I reckon.

Kirk, I agree in some cases, but in many others, I've found that games have shown more depth and playability now than when I played them as a child.

My favourite gaming era was the 16-Bit period for many of the reasons you mention, but even so, I'm really looking forward to seeing what we get on the VC from the 8-Bits. There are great games on those machines that deserve to be remembered, and played, today.

witchfinder, the DTV is a good tip. I hope that's not all we get though, as the DTV misses out a lot of classics, including most of those on our wishlists!

DJ Kelv, Mayhem has been mentioned a number of times already.

Sensitive is a great puzzle game. If you want to play it again, there's a free PC remake here:
http://www.classic-retro-games.com/Sensitive_40.html

Nice idea, Dion. Here's mine:

Creatures 2 97%
Exile 94%
Katakis 93%
Last Ninja III 93%
Maniac Mansion (not reviewed)
The Sentinel 93%
Turrican 97%
Turrican 2 (not reviewed)
Zak McKracken (not reviewed)
Wasteland 95%

Hmm. Only half got reviewed by Zzap! Is there a Commodore Format index anywhere?

It's interesting to see the difference between the European and US lists.

tnk4god, I think you'll find that a lot of the games you dismiss as "wannabees" were huge hits outside the US, and are just as desirable as the adventures you mention. I'm a huge fan of Wasteland, so I'd love to see it on VC, but I'd happily take Creatures 2 over Pool of Radiance, for example.

I know Last NInja II has a lot of fans, but I really like the third game. I think that's where everything really came together for the series. I'd be a bit concerned if the games came o the VC though, as they don't work brilliantly with a pad.

Interesting list. While there are many there that I agree with (Paradroid and Head Over Heels are brilliant, brilliant games) I think mine would be very different.

In no particular order, I'd pick Wasteland, Turrican and its sequel, Creatures 2, Katakis, Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, Exile, Last Ninja III and The Sentinel. There's ten there; perhaps I'll write my own top list!

Jolted85, Mega Turrican places less emphasis on exploration than the first two C64/Amiga games, but it's less linear than the SNES titles. So consider it a transition between the two "eras" of Turrican.

I'm pleased that the US is getting Master System games too. It'll show them what they missed when the NES ruled the roost over there!

Knuckles-san, don't go expecting it to be identical to Flashback, but you can definitely see the influence Impossible Mission had on the later game.

Yeah, I'm not sure the Master System was ever going to be exclusive in the US, a territory that largely ignored it the first time around.

Yeah, why shouldn't MS games be 500pts? They're technically superior to NES games, after all.

Good, I suppose, but I would have preferred an announcement on Sam 'n' Max on Wii.

No, you use the Internet Channel to go to the BBC iPlayer site, as if it were any normal site. The big news here is that the BBC have made the iPlayer compatible with the Wii, whereas it supposedly wasn't before.

Yes, I'm sure the UK-only restriction is purely to do with issues with the licence fee and such. Since people outside the UK don't pay the fee, they don't get to watch the programming; that's not an issue with broadcast, as the BBC doesn't broadcast its home channels all over the world, but the internet takes those boundaries away, so they have to impose artificial limits.

Has anyone tried Channel Four's service (40D) yet? I don't know how that one works, as I've never used it.

EDIT: I've jus had a bit of a play with the iPlayer, and it works quite well. Picture quality is good, and there's no real glitchiness. No full screen option though (although you can zoom in using the internet channel controls). Not bad at all for a first attempt!

tnk4god, I direct your attention to message #4.

Wow. This is absolutely unexpected, and quite brilliant news! Good for the BBC, and good for Nintendo UK!

Outrunner, the BBC iPlayer lets you watch almost any BBC programme from the past week, for free. That's about six channels of output to choose from.

Demon212, good to hear about the ease of use and picture quality too. I'd been wanting to hook our PC up to the telly to watch iPlayer, but didn't want to splash out for the extra cables. Looks like I don't have to now.

Brilliant.

Damo, I'll join you behind cover, as I tend to think that Super Mario RPG is hugely overrated!

arobo21, your definition of the rpg would also include Metroid and Lords of Thunder ! There are arguments for counting the Zelda series as rpgs, but the problem is that you have to loosen the definition so much that it becomes meaningless.

I'm surprised to see Majora's Mask on the list (because good as it is, it's not an rpg), and just as surprised to see Earthbound neglected.

With the C64's appearance on Virtual Console, we've now got the possibility of some classic CRPGs appearing. I'd happily drop Ys for Wasteland, for example. And it'd be nice to play a proper Ultima rather than the compromised NES and (slightly less so) Master System ports of IV.

Good article!

Demon212, I hope we see at least one of the Parodius games on VC as they're brilliant fun.

Kriss Kross: Make My Video and Night Trap for the win!

Joking.

I'd love to see Sonic CD, Lunar and Snatcher, and I'll chuck my name in for Monkey Island, as I doubt we'll ever see the superior Amiga version on VC (I doubt we'll see any LucasArts games on VC, actually, but that's another matter). As far as Maniac Mansion goes, I'd rather the C64 version over the NES one, but I digress.

StarDust, that article includes Ghosts 'n' Goblins as a "sexual game" purely because Arthur runs around in his boxers; I don't think we need to take it seriously.

Serpent, you don't have to buy it if you don't want to, so it seems a bit unfair to wish for the game to go unreleased. This looks like a great laugh to me; the gaming world takes itself far too seriously, and stuff like this and Parodius are a breath of fresh air, I reckon.

I hope we do see the Parodius series on VC, as I thought they were great games, much better than their parent series.

Nintendo Power is semi-official, isn't it? So perhaps Nintendo US at least will be looking at the results.

Here's my five, in no particular order:
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Yoshi's Island (SNES)
Turrican 2 (C64)
Creatures 2 (C64)
NHLPA Hockey '93 (Mega Drive)

I can't believe so many people fell for it! Nicely played Damo.

I posted this in the thread on the Hardware Focus page, but it's worth repeating here, even if some people don't want to know about inflation...

"Prices varied. On cassette, budget titles were usually £2.99 (with some at £1.99, and some at 99p!) and full price games were about £9.99. Disk games were about £15 as I recall, and cartridges were about £25, but I never bought one, so I don't know for sure. Assuming those are 1990 prices, and taking into account inflation, that's roughly £4.90 in today's money for a budget game, and £16.37 for a full price title. So based on that, the C64 Virtual Console costs are pretty good!"

Wow! This is great news! Hopefully the Binatone Orange isn't far behind.

I'd also argue that Sonic 2 on the MS, like its 16-bit cousin, is better than the original. Certainly a lot harder, especially the horribly annoying hang-glider levels, but a much more polished, and fun, game overall.

Yes, Bass, but that was just on the 25th. We've known about the Master System coming to Europe and Japan for months, so it was still a surprise to see it hit NA before Europe.

2097, the main difference is that IK+ has three fighters, which makes it a bit more frantic and engaging, I think. It's got a bit of visual and aural polish over its predecessor too, but the main difference is the number of players.

Wow that's bizarre. Master System wasn't even announced for North America, was it? And yet they've got it before we did. Good for you, North Americans; you're in for a treat with that system!

(Assuming you get to see the games that never got released over there first time around!)

Yes, it's a weird list. No Sonic 2? No Sin and Punishment? Operationflipping Wolf in the top twenty? Bizarre.

I really hope that the poor showing here for third-party games doesn't mean that those companies will start to pull out of the Virtual Console, as for the most part, I'm more interested in them than the Nintendo franchises.

So if the update isn't a firmware update, what is it?

Yeah, the Amiga has better sound capabilities, but the Mega Drive version still sounds pretty good.

Jogurt and slangman, Mega Turrican is closer in terms of gameplay to the original C64 and Amiga games, and for that reason I prefer it. Super Turrican is quite good, but it doesn't feel like an authentic Turrican title.

I don't mind paying extra for add-ons, but I draw the line at paying for stuff that should have been in the game from the start.

wii-c-kid, I'd agree that we've seen quite a few shoot-em-ups, but rpgs have been a bit thin on the ground. I mean, we've had, what, two rpgs so far? I think there's room for more.

Chester, I don't know, the pingpong game looks quite fun. If the controls are decent, I might pick it up.

Good releases, and it's looking more and more likely that the first Phantasy Star will be one of the first Master System releases.

One thing XBLA does have over WiiWare (so far) is board games. I'd love to see some of these, like Settlers of Catan, get WiiWare releases.