We were pleased as punch to hear that Nintendo are bringing their calcium kid, Little Mac, out of retirement for one more round of considered cartoon fistwiicuffs. And we were even more excited when we discovered that the game, which is scheduled for a release early next year, appears to be reverting back to the NES era for its fighter roster and gameplay.

See for yourself by checking out the trailer for the game here: http://www,gametrailers.com/player/4075.html

Following on from yesterday’s post. Here are the final pages from Will’s hefty love letter to RG. Enjoy.

Dont be so hard on yourself man, we’ve all been there; pawning our precious videogames for the love of a woman…and a bottle of Panther Pee.

We didn’t add that Mario censorship sticker; it was already there. However; we did get Steve to add that picture of the Sistene Chapel.

This is actually a pretty faithful artist’s impression of our offices; even down to the ‘My Bathtub of Beans’ sculpture by Tracey Emin.

Irritating Stick’s box art badness is legendary. Its artwork basically comprises of three things 1) the word ‘irritating’ 2) the word ‘stick’, and 3) a first person picture of a Gundam Robot waving a baton around. The game is based on Japanese game show that asks contestants to pull a stick through a metal maze without letting that stick become irritated – very similar to those carnival games thingies you see at…um…carnivals.  The box art clearly states that this game is for ‘everyone’, but don’t be fooled by these words. That label should really read ‘this game is for human beings who waste time originating pointless groups like ‘bring back Big Break’ on social networking sites.     

Zelda’s Adventure is an atrociously bad game. In fact, it’s so bad that if anybody asks us what that peculiar top-down Zelda game thing was on the Philips CDi we’ll simply answer with ’a cancelled Russian pilot for the ITV television show Knightmare’. 

Here is the voyeuristic advert for the show; a remarkable picture of an open window with some sinister incandescent light thrown in for good measure. Uninspired stuff!     

Exhibit A) A great television show 

Exhibit B) A naff videogame

A flashy looking portable Megadrive is being released by Blaze and comes pre-loaded with 20 classic Megadrive games. Inside the machine you’re getting Sonic and Knuckles, Shinobi, Decap Attack, Flicky, Sonic Spinball and Jewel Master (which we really should get around to playing).

    The styling of the machine is retro-chic with a Megadrive-style three button pad and a nifty looking thumb friendly d-pad. The machine is said to retail for $60 in the States. Here are the specs…

• Plug & play portable video game system
• 20 built-in SEGA licensed games
• Built-in speakers
• Colour LCD screen
• TV out connection
• TV format: PAL
• Eats: 3 x AAA batteries (Batteries not included)

Most, if not all, of the early SMS game boxes were blessed with the type of half-arsed imagery that made you want to pull out a felt tip pen and finish the job yourself, but Sega would take laziness to all sorts of new levels with the box designs for their Sega Card series.   Take this box art for Ghost House for instance; basically just an image of somebody with clean hands holding up a copy of the game. The bemusing thing is that someone actually went to the trouble of designing a half decent (in SMS terms) sticker for the cartridge (which admittedly has zero to do with ghosts or houses). Now how many games do you know boast a more imaginative looking cartridge than box art? All of the Sega Card games that’s how many.   

Now imagine how drab the world of packaging would be if everything was packaged in this way. Tins of beans with images of hands holding tins of beans, teabags plastered with pictures of hands holding teabags, yoghurt boxes with….well, you get the idea.

Slouching on my sofa a few evenings back, flicking through the channels on my digibox, I discovered a little TV gem. “Secret Life Of The Motorway: A three-part documentary which celebrates the birth of motorways and hails the achievements of those behind the ‘road revolution’.”    Apparently the show included interviews with Will Self and a bunch of ‘Caravaneers’. Here’s a brief run-down of all three episodes according to BBC’s website:   The Honeymoon Period “How motorways transformed where people live, play and work over the years.”  Falling In Love“This edition charts the beginning of Britain’s love affair with motorways.” (no, seriously).   The End Of The Affair“A look at the public response to the impact of motorways on town and country.” I didn’t watch the thing; I had a dirty plate that needed washing-up, but nonetheless I do have a few burning questions for the makers of this show…  Why have you called it ‘The Secret Life Of The Motorway’, I can only imaging that you are trying to capture the same crowd as that ridiculously turdish Secret Diary Of A Call Girl show, hoping that some poor misguided souls will switch on after somehow getting call girls and long smoggy stretches of tarmac somehow confused with one another.  

Can you please tell me when it was that the evolution of roadways has ever been a mystery? You know that thing you drive to and from work on everyday, hardly the worlds best kept secret. Oh, and why have you bothered to speak to Will Self? Caravaneers (whatever that means), clearly fine, but I don’t need a show to tell me they like motorways; do they really get a choice in the matter?  Personally, being someone who drives 50 miles on the damn things each and everyday I can’t think of a more disgusting and dangerous place on Earth I could spend a Sunday evening.

Also, why have you split the thing over three episodes? Surely the history of the motorway isn’t that rich, unless of course you’re kicking things off with the Romans, in which case you can ignore that previous question. And what’s with that synopsis on episode two. “Britain’s ‘love affair’ with the motorway”, are you kidding? Britain’s love affair with football; Britain’s love affair with curry; Britain’s love affair with love affairs – all things I could buy into. But are you seriously expecting us to swallow that at some point this nation showed an affinity towards motorways? If so, then that is both a secret and a mystery all rolled into one – it rivals why James Blunt is always smiling and sounds like a ventriloquist’s puppet – and you can ignore everything I’ve said.  

We’ve looked at some truly bad pieces of artwork so far, but even Pac-Man dressed like a prefect and crying athletes pointing at the Playstaton logo show some spark of creativity. For Sega’s US and PAL release of the arcade blaster Dynamite Duke the same really cannot be said.

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