Dear Future Gamer

You have asked us to write in with suggestions for ways to make your magazine better, and for stuff to put in it. So here I am.

Firstly, have you noticed that while you say the recommended screen size is 800 by 600, it could just as easily be 640 x 480? If you change your screen resolution you will see that a few pixels reduction would make it perfect for this smaller screen size. Somewhat insignificant I know, but having to move the screen slightly to the right every time a page loads up can be annoying. But it's a minor point.

A suggestion for a feature: Innovations of our time. There are lots of things that are currently being attributed to the most recent high profile game that uses them, when really, a smaller, older game used them first. A recent example of this, is how every game to use a sniper rifle apparently has GoldenEye to thank, when I'm sure MDK used this first.

Also, I read in one magazine that Libero Grande is actually only the second game to take its unique view of football (um... I've forgotten the first). I'm sure Virtua Fighter 3 wasn't the first game to make use of a dodge button of some kind. Even if you discount the features used in most SNK 2D fighters.

Anyway, I'm sure your team of researchers could come up with a whole host of games that seem innovative now, but really hark back to some other game.

Another possible feature: Videogames Vs The World. Are computer games really that much bigger than the music industry, and film industry? We've been told that Zelda took more revenue in America in one month than any other form of media in the same time span. And the PlayStation makes up almost 50 per cent of Sony's revenue at the moment, so are we really entering an age where the game can hold its own against the cinema?

Or really, taking it from a 'street level', are games still the reserve of the obsessive bedroom fan? There may be a PlayStation in Ministry Of Sound, but is it only attracting the same people who would have played Tekken down their local arcade years ago anyway?

Finally: the genre divide, (probably the weakest of these ideas, but still). How have today’s games mutated out of the niches we once put them in? Should we really accept that Sega have created a whole new category of game, and start referring to Shenmue not as an RPG but a FREE (despite the fact it is a stupid name)?

RPGs now have loads of sub-categories (action RPGs, strategy RPGs...), and fighting games could follow a similar route, with 2D being so different to 3D (SF vs VF. Different ball parks, mate). Soon there will be two types of 3D (VF vs Powerstone? Impossible to judge, my friend).

There's the Rhythm Action genre, which is rapidly becoming a legitimate style of game (mainly thanks to Konami, though), and we may soon start seeing more games fall under the title Sneak 'Em Up, and the Horror genre. Should we stop feeling that we have to define these games by what has gone before, and start to credit them as the genre-defining games that they very well might be?

Ridge Racer 4 and Gran Turismo? They're different styles of game, pal.

Well, obviously, you probably won't use all (if any) of these ideas, but hopefully it's given you some food for thought. I hope you consider the page size thing. It wouldn't take much, but it would make my reading experience easier. Keep up the great mag, anyway. I have you to thank for rekindling my videogaming passion (you broke the news of the PS2 to me first).

Cheers. And that, as they say, was all he wrote.

Alexis Nelson

FG: Thanks for those Alexis, expect a couple of features in the not-too-distant future based on your ideas. As for the screen size, it is only a recommendation.