Gamestyle

The last version of Gamestyle (probably number seven? I've lost count!) had a popular retro section which up until now was not included in the latest release. This was a flaw and oversight, at first it was anticipated that we could include a totally seperate and unique visual experience to the clean-cut all white environment that is used for current consoles.

This however never did materialise so instead the retro content is going online in batches over the coming months. While I could spend the next few weeks doing it in bulk, its far too time consuming and would evaporate the main page under a constant stream of retro. Sparking 'where are is your coverage of PS3, 360, Wii etc' comments.

Last night was the ZX Spectrum classic Football Manager which was a taste of things to come with the mighty Championship Manager series. Fond childhood memories anyway!

Today we have Sega AM2's classic Dreamcast title Shenmue a real AAA release back in 2000. I actually had the game much earlier than the European December release. Having imported a Japanese Dreamcast on release (at some cost), I already had a glimpse of what was planned via the Virtua Fighter 2 Project Berkley bonus disk. Even so, nothing prepared you for the world of Shenmue, full of lavish detail and touches that set a standard that many releases today fail to meet.

I may have missed some strands of the game by playing through the Japanese version, but even with a text translation you could feel the quality, tension and storyline slowly taking hold. Today Shenmue reamins a classic, one that I've no doubt plays extremely well and a return is long overdue.