Dear Future Gamer,

Oh my God!!! What is wrong at the moment? What are these games that are coming out? Where are the classic games we deserve? None of the recent releases have been at all exciting.

The last couple of months have been a load of cack, what have we had? Syphon Filter looks like a carbon copy of MGS, GTA London is only a mission pack, all these Nintendo budget games are just old games for a lower price, Rollcage is only marginally better than Wipeout 2 and we're inundated with sequels, copies and crap.

We've had no revolutionising games, no inventive games, merely regurgitated imitations. And the future looks pretty grim. Looking over the Nintendo release schedule, Win Back looks good and Perfect Dark and... what else? Oh dear, run out of ideas.

Let's try PlayStation: Street Fighter Alpha 3 looks intriguing and maybe, uuuuuum Resident Evil 2.5 or Tomb Raider 4. Oh yes but those don't count - they're sequels, not inventive enough.

PC? Well, Tiberian Sun has supposed to have been released for many a month now, so let's not hold our breath. Dungeon Keeper 2 - when was that supposed to be released? What? Last July? Dearie, dearie me, what can the matter be? Almost a year late, Bullfrog had better hurry up.

I don't wish to carry on but soon I'm gonna lose my patience. How about a classic - like Tomb Raider or Red Alert were in their time. The gaming industry is losing one customer (me) through their slack timing and shoddy quality and soon shall lose more.

Is this lack of quality due to the Dreamcast and the PS2 having imminent release dates in the UK? If so, I don't want any of it, if this is how we are treated. Just because a new console may be coming out in a few years you cannot abandon your customers.

I have not bought a game in weeks and I shall not until something worthwhile comes up. Go on, I dare you, name five great games to look forward to - any console, any time. Or name one good title released over the last few months.

Oliver Feldwick

FG: It's not as dire as you make out Oliver. There have been some great games released recently and there are loads more in the pipeline. Just because nothing's lit your candle it doesn't mean the whole games industry has collapsed. As for the lack of innovation in games - well, yes, you do have a point and it's one that concerns us at FG too. As I've said many, many times before it's far safer for today's publishers to produce games in tried-and-tested markets than risk a whole heap of dosh on something that's a little out of the ordinary. But innovation isn't completely dead - as you'll know if you read our news story about Empire's Sheep game last week. Software houses do indeed have one eye on the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast, but they're certainly not diverting all their talent into these new platforms at the expense of the already established machines.