Dear Future Gamer

First of all, congrats on getting hitched, Andy (FG: he's still honeymooning in Cuba. Or is it Filey?). I'm sure this means we'll be seeing less of you over the next two months!

Anyway, one thing that's been bugging me lately is the influx of stale game ideas into the general console market. An example is a game I played just yesterday on the display Dreamcast in my local HMV. The game was Blue Stinger and I wasn't impressed at the basic walk-around-stop-shoot-man/creature-repeat-ad nauseum nature of the game. Next up was Monaco GP, again on Dreamcast. This wasn't the first time I'd played the game, but I remember thinking, "They could have done so much more than this."

What do other readers feel about this extreme lack of the 'magic' that was so evident in games throughout the early '90s on SNES/NES/MD? Examples are Super Mario World, Mario Kart, Zelda, and the much-loved Sonic series. Lastly, I checked out that Leftfield website. Yes, it was exchellente!

Jinn

FG: Is the console market suffering from stale game ideas? Surely the Dreamcast is going to give it a kick up the backside. Are the PlayStation and N64 ready to be pensioned off? Undoubtedly, Blue Stinger is a bit of a disappointment, but there's Power Stone and Soul Calibur, which are great but hardly 'new' ideas. Over to you lot on this one.