Thanks to Psychoholic420, I downloaded and played the crap out of the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker demo yesterday. It's been one of the biggest games I've been looking forward to, and one of the only reasons I bought a PSP-1000 from a friend of mine. So what was it like?

You're given three missions to test out -- A tutorial, an actual sneaking stage, and a boss fight with a tank. Each stage plays pretty differently, so it's good that they made the demo to show you all the different styles of play you can choose from. Visually, this game is stunning. It easily looks better than most parts of the PS2 Metal Gear Solids, and the attention paid to detail is excellent. The controls really got to me, though -- You use the thumbstick to move Snake, and the face buttons (X, Square, O, and Triangle) to aim, as if it were the second joystick. It works, but it's not nearly as accurate as using an actual stick -- I suppose that's where the auto-aiming help comes in. There's another control scheme, too, which I call the RE5 scheme since it's a lot like Resident Evil 5. You move with the thumbstick, all of your actions are mapped to the face buttons (like the previous MGS games), and you hold R to ready your weapon. So how do you aim? If you hold L, the thumbstick goes from moving Snake to aiming your gun. Much more accurate than the face buttons for aiming, but now you can't move while firing. That wasn't a problem in RE5, but it sucks to have to stand still when a tank is coming right for you in this game. The controls are all up to your preference.

Interesting absences were the crawling and cover movement features. You can't crawl in this game -- At all. You can play dead, but you can't move while you're doing it. And if you press up against a wall to peek around the corner, you'd better be at the corner, because you can't strafe along the walls like you could in every other MGS game, including Portable Ops. I don't know if this is a big deal yet, as this was just a demo, but it didn't seem like a Metal Gear game without being able to do so.

Overall, it was a really good demo. I quite enjoyed it, and I'm still playing through it as we speak. What do you guys think? Which control scheme do you prefer?

Back when the guys at Sega were making consoles and had to compete with Nintendo, Sonic the Hedgehog was their ace-in-the-hole. Nintendo had Mario, so Sega needed a kick-butt mascot also, and Sonic was the most kick-butt you could get -- He was well-designed, he had an attitude, and above all, he was fast. Sonic was the coolest mascot of the time, and had a few games that were quite arguably better than some of Mario's offerings. When the Sega Saturn came around, however, the Sonic franchise hit a dry spot. The console never got a true, new entry in the series, as Sonic X-Treme never saw the light of day. Sonic 3D Blast was simultaneously released on both the Saturn and the Genesis, so that didn't really count in the eyes of the fans, either (although the Saturn version was far superior, if only for the different Special Stages). But there was one Sonic game on the Saturn that, while most people would love to forget it, I have very fond memories of, and that game is Sonic R.

I want to say that Sonic R was probably an attempt at countering Nintendo's hugely popular Mario Kart 64, since they both came out around the same time. Sonic R, however, did not live up to the competition -- It had fewer stages to race in and a complete lack of a battle mode of any kind, so the points for variety instantly went to Mario. But Sonic R had a lot of charm, especially if you were a die-hard Sonic fan like I was. While none of the stages were taken directly from any previous Sonic games, they were all very similar, even including the famous loop-the-loops. There were speed pads you could spend rings on to get an extra boost, springs, shortcut doors, the works. The stages had multiple paths to take to get to the finish line as well -- They were very well designed, in my opinion. Although there were only five of them, you could race differently every time you started the game up. I remember playing the game so much that I could almost literally play through the stages with my eyes closed. I still know where every single nook and cranny will take you.

There was definitely one thing that Sonic R had over the Mario Kart games, and that was the required skill level. If you wanted to collect everything in the game, it wasn't just a matter of completing the stages in single player mode -- You had to find items throughout the stages as you raced, and then finish in first place on top of that. The first type of item you could find was the Sonic Token, of which there were five hidden throughout each stage. After collecting all five and finishing the race within the top three spots, you got to race one of four secret characters -- Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles, the dreaded Tails Doll, or EggRobo. If you beat them one-on-one, you unlocked them as playable racers. They weren't terribly different from their living counterparts, but they did add a bit of variety to the roster.



The second special item you could collect as you races was, of course, the Chaos Emerald. All seven Emeralds returned in Sonic R, and by collecting each one, you could race as Super Sonic, and without any Ring limitations, either. There were two Emeralds in each stage (except for one in the first stage), and you had to finish the race in first place in order to keep them. All of the Emeralds required you to pay a "toll" of sorts to get to them as well, meaning you had to collect a bunch of rings on the way. To find all of these hidden items in just three laps was daunting at times, to say the least -- My favorite self-made challenge was finding all the Sonic Tokens and Chaos Emeralds in the stage, finishing in first place, beating the secret racer, and getting to keep the Emeralds I had collected on top of all that. Victory was sweet.

Like I said before, there wasn't any kind of battle mode in Sonic R, but there were two interesting multiplayer modes other than just racing -- Balloon Race and Tag. In Balloon Race, there were balloons scattered all over the racing stages, and the first person to collect five of them would be the winner. Not overly deep or anything, but still pretty fun nonetheless. The only problem was that once you knew where the balloons always popped up, it wasn't much of a challenge anymore -- Their positions were never randomized. If you played the game often, you could just run to the locations of the balloons while new players would be left in the dust without even getting the chance to find a single one. Tag was just what it sounds like -- A game of tag. Players and CPUs ran all around while one person tried to run into all of them, at which point they'd freeze in their tracks. This turned into a time trial sort of game, as the main goal was to beat the times of everyone else who had played. Since the rival characters never went to the same places, this mode had a much longer life than the Balloon Race mode did. The coolest thing about these modes, though, was the fact that it basically turned the game into somewhat of a free-roaming adventure, and you could even explore and find all the shortcuts so you'd be ready for your next race. There was no time limit, so you could goof off for as long as you wanted to.

Although the Balloon Race was quite limited on the Saturn, the PC port of the game (which showed up a year later, and is available on the Sonic Gems Collection,) randomized the balloon locations, and it was surprisingly fun. I remember playing Balloon Race with my brother for hours at a time, and it never got old, since we were on equal ground playing it on the PC. This version of the game had a few more things going for it over the Saturn version -- Enhanced graphics, greater draw distance, and randomized weather patterns. If randomized weather was enabled, you'd never be able to tell what playing a stage would be like. Clear day and night just changed the backdrops, fog made it hard to see, rain made all the racers slide all over, and snow not only made the ground slippery in certain spots, but it also froze all the water in the stage, so all the lakes became huge shortcuts. It's a shame that the Saturn version never had these features -- After playing the PC version, I could never go back.



There's one final aspect of Sonic R that always gets brought up, and that's the soundtrack. People love to make fun of the soundtrack in this game. Each stage had a vocal musical number (two for the last stage, depending on whether or not you played as Super Sonic), as did the title screen and ending credits. Written by Richard Jacques and sung by TJ Davis, I personally found them to be quite catchy. No, they weren't the greatest songs written for a video game of all time, but they stuck in my head. And you know what really rocked? You could just throw the Saturn disc into a music CD player and play the songs like any old music CD. A game and a soundtrack in one? Sonic R is undoubtedly the greatest video game ever created by humans.

Sonic's recent games have been quite a bit under par, and his outings on the Sega Saturn weren't that great, either. But Sonic R, as much as people seem to hate it, has a special spot in the gaming part of my heart that can't be replaced. I don't know if I'd take it over something like Mario Kart Wii, but I still prefer it over most of the racing games I've played. It's nice to have the Gems Collection (and, in turn, this game) just to be able to occasionally relive one of my favorite games for the short-lived Sega Saturn.

The completely English demo of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 showed up on the Japanese PlayStation Network sometime this week, and I think I'd prefer to call it a trial version instead of a "demo" -- Like the trial of the first game, you can save, replay, and unlock stuff in the demo enough that it almost makes it its own little game, and as far as I'm aware you'll unlock some stuff in the beginning of the full version if you have a demo save on your console. Now, I've never played Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox 360, so my apologies if I sound excited about stuff in the demo that everyone already knew about from playing the first release of it.

I've been playing through the first Sigma on the PS3 in anticipation for this game, and one of the first things I noticed about the latter is how much more detailed it is. Sigma 2 definitely has better graphics, and there's a lot more going on all around the screen. I took a few seconds to just look around and admire the scenery, which is something I didn't really find myself doing during the first game. It's quite a site to behold. Another nice thing is that now not only are your items assigned to the d-pad, but so are your weapons and Ninpo, so you don't even need to go into any menus to completely change your layout. And speaking of the weapons, they're awesome -- huge sword, scythes on chains, and Wolverine claws make for quite the armament. Just like the first game's demo, all of your weapons start out at level 3, so you can get a really good idea of how they'll act later in the game and which ones you'll want to level-up first.

Difficulty-wise, I initially though Sigma 2 wouldn't be as tough as its predecessor, but then I unlocked the final difficulty level, which promptly proceeded to kick my ass without even letting me kill a single enemy. They pulled out machine guns faster than I could even react, and that was that. The first two difficulty levels were tough but fair, though, and gave you the chance to practice some of the new mechanics -- One of my favorite features was the bow and arrow system. Instead of just pressing a button and having an arrow fly in whatever direction you're facing, you can manually aim the weapon in a third-person viewpoint (a la Resident Evil 4) and move while you fire, which felt absolutely awesome to me. The original method of using the bow is still there, but this addition definitely doesn't hurt the combat system.

The movements and animations of the enemies are pretty much unchanged, except for the fact that you can now dismember a bunch of their body parts and they'll still come after you. In fact, one of the basic enemies (after losing an arm and taking a lot of damage) will jump on you and blow himself up to hurt you more than just a sword slash would. If you damage them, you'd better go all the way since they won't have any reason to live anymore. The blood has indeed been toned down, since it has about as much as the first game -- The pictures of the Xbox 360 version of the game had more blood in them than the demo of the PS3 version. Regardless, I don't think the lack of pools of blood everywhere made the experience any less enjoyable, especially since the last boss of the demo was a giant statue which wouldn't have had blood in the first place. It was cool, however, when Ryu was left alone and he shook the blood off his weapons. It's the little details that I love in games. (Speaking of which, the boob jiggle mechanic is there, but it's minimal. I am sorely disappointed.)



After you play as Ryu and finish the trial on at least the second difficulty level, Ayane is unlocked as a secret character. She plays similarly to Ryu, but I think I had an easier time handling her (*ahem*). She moved really smoothly, and her Ninpo blasts everything around her to pieces, instead of just firing forward. She's more of a defensive character, but that's definitely one of her advantages. Block and counter is the name of Ayane's game. The third playable character was not playable in the demo.

The Team Missions option is also available in the Demo, but again, you have to play enough to unlock it. This is the mode that will eventually become the online co-op mode in the full game, but there's no online support in the demo. If you play this mode offline, it becomes a single-player experience, and the computer takes control of the second character. It's pretty fun -- From what I could tell, it was an endless barrage of ninjas coming out of the woodwork, and you just rip them to pieces. It wasn't that great by myself, but I think getting online with a friend would make it like an extremely fast-paced Mercenaries mode from Resident Evil 5, which I still like playing from time to time. Two ninjas are better than one.

As with all games, there were a few things that kind of bothered me -- mainly the camera. The camera was horrific in the first game, and it doesn't seem like much has changed this time around. I suppose it's slightly more bearable, but it'll still drive you crazy. Another problem that I experienced on a regular basis was the loading times -- Every time you change your weapon using the d-pad shortcuts was a little much, because your game apparently saves every single time you change your weapon. Nice feature, sure, but it can get annoying really quickly.

All in all, I was quite impressed with the demo. I plan on picking up the full game, but not right away more than likely -- Too much other stuff to do for the time being. Also, I'm not a fan of the Collector's Edition of this one -- A mini-guide and an in-game comic? Not really worth the extra ten bucks in my opinion. But if you have a Japanese PSN account, you should definitely check it out (there's a King of Fighters XII demo right next to it in the store, too).

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Okay, now for the update of mine. A while back (a long while back), I posted a blog about how I was trying to raise money for my friend Travis, who was paralyzed in an accident a few years ago. He's a gamer just like the rest of us, and he introduced me to Destructoid in the first place, for which I am extremely grateful. Some of you guys on here were unbelievably generous and donated quite a bit of money to the cause, and that literally brought a tear to my eye. But recently, I came to a realization that I had not foreseen when I started this project:

I've discovered that I suck at fund raising.

Not a lot has come in -- Don't get me wrong, it's more than pocket change, but nowhere near my initial goal of twenty grand. There's a bright side to the whole thing, though -- One of the first things Obama did when he was sworn into office was he completely overturned all the laws saying stem-cell research isn't allowed in this country. That means if we can find something here, it'll probably be a hell of a lot cheaper than finding a way to get to China and have the surgery done there. (Probably a lot safer, too, now that I think of it...) So until then, the donated money remains safe in the bank, gaining interest. Travis and I are actually thinking that we may be able to get a club to ourselves for a night, thanks to a contact of his at work. That way, we could actually have an honest-to-God fundraiser. Plus, drunk people are always fun.

I just wanted to do a small update for those here who remember that I was doing this, and to assure those who donated that your money hasn't gone to waste, and never will -- I felt like at least the people from here who have donated deserved t o hear something about it, as I don't want you guys thinking I just took your money for personal reasons. I also want to thank all of you again for letting me talk about this here -- I'm sorry if it sounded like I was going all LiveJournal on you for a minute. :P Thanks again, everyone. It means a lot to me.

There you have it. Pretty easy to see Sonic in there now, no?

As far as this game goes, I'm a die-hard Sonic fan (I even want to force myself to play through the God-awful Sonic The Hedgehog), and I have high hopes. I'm actually kind of hoping they actually call it Sonic The Hedgehog 4, which might actually make me wet myself a little bit. I'm also really happy that Sega decided to let the news of this game loose on the Dreamcast's 10th anniversary, which I refuse to believe was a coincidence.

I went to a friend's house on last night, and we booted the Dreamcast up for the first time in a long time, and we played through a bit of both Sonic Adventures, and it was pure bliss. It's been far too long since we've had a console Sonic game that didn't play like total crap. (Although I did like Secret Rings, but it still had way too many glitches and problems to be considered anywhere near as good as the Dreamcast games.) What do you guys think? Should we be excited about this game, or should we heed that one circle graph that outlines how Sonic games always seem to end up nowadays?

Editor's Note: I was originally going to post this on the 9th, the day of the Dreamcast's 10th anniversary. But after I thought about it for a while, I'm sure the cblogs will be full of Dreamcast stories, not to mention the front page as well. So here it is, a day early.



September 9th, 1999.

On that day, gamers in the United States were treated to a device that Japan had been playing with for nearly a year prior. We were given Sega's final console offering, and what I believe is the most important video game-related anything that has ever been released -- The Dreamcast. While Nintendo is usually credited with revolutionizing the gaming industry, Sega's little gray (and sometimes black) box had more innovations built into it than anything Nintendo had ever come up with before. The features that were a part of the Dreamcast are the very same features our current-gen consoles have, and the same features that people actually complain about if they're absent from the games that we play nowadays.

Come with me, my fellow gamers, on a trip down memory lane as we celebrate the Dreamcast's 10th anniversary by taking a look at all the things we've gained from the console's release, and how gaming as we know it today wouldn't have been the same without them.





Internet Connectivity
Now, I know PC gamers are going to come in here and start to make fun of how I consider an Internet connection to be "revolutionary," but it really was when it came to consoles. Sure, we had the Sega Channel back in the day, and the Famicom got a horrendous-looking modem (in Japan only, of course), but the Dreamcast was the first console to mainstream online activity. All you had to do was plug one end of the included telephone cable into the back of your Dreamcast, plug the other end into your phone line, put in your service provider info and boom, you were online. You could even pick up a broadband adapter if you had a high-speed connection -- In fact, you can still find them around eBay once in a while, but they're pretty expensive. The included web browser disc let you browse the web in the same way you could on a computer, and a mouse and keyboard were both released later on, perfectly emulating the feel of browsing the way everyone was already used to. This Internet connection led to many of the Dreamcast's positive points all on its own.





Online Gaming
Again, there were consoles before that had some way of getting online to do stuff, but the Dreamcast actually encouraged online gameplay right from the start. While many games had nothing but leaderboards, some, like Vampire Chronicles and Unreal Tournament actually let you play against other people, just as we do today with almost every Xbox 360 and PS3 release.

There was one online game in particular that paved the way for the MMO, one of the most talked about genres in gaming today -- That game was Phantasy Star Online. Many versions of this game have been created over the years, including two for the GameCube, but it started on Sega's own console first, and what a game it was. I'm sure there were MMOs before PSO, but this game left it's mark when it was released -- It was one of the most talked about games of its time, and it was played for years. Hell, people are still playing the Dreamcast versions on unofficial servers. The first version of the game was completely free to play online, so almost everyone who had a Dreamcast bought a copy. Not only that, but the inclusion of the Japanese Sonic Adventure 2 demo just sweetened the deal. In my mind, for better or worse, we have PSO to thank for the development of games like World of Warcraft. I'm not saying WoW wouldn't have been created anyway, but PSO had to have been a huge inspiration, and the start of a craze that's still going on nowadays.

Think about it -- When a game comes out on our current consoles that doesn't have online multiplayer, people go out of their minds with rage. It's become so normal at this point that we don't feel right when it's missing. The Dreamcast is to thank for mainstreaming this concept.





Downloadable Content
This is something else that's become unbelievably common with games and consoles today. Not many people think of downloadable content when they think of the Dreamcast, but there was actually a ton of it if you looked hard enough. Sonic Adventure had a Christmas theme and a racetrack; Sonic Adventure 2 had Halloween costumes and character themes for the menu screens; both of them had Chao downloads; PSO had online and offline missions with rare weapons available upon completion; Shenmue had classic Sega games and VMU minigames; the list goes on and on. How many of our games today are expanded through downloadable content? Around 90%? This is the console that started it all. The content was stored on the very same memory card that held your game saves, just as we store all the extra data on internal memory now. The Dreamcast standardized what we would eventually consider to be second nature in the gaming industry.

And speaking of the memory card, that was an innovation in and of itself...





The VMU
Short for Visual Memory Unit, the VMU was the Dreamcast's memory card. When you looked at it, you immediately noticed it's main unique feature -- It had a screen, hence the "visual" part of the name. While this handheld was more like a Giga Pet than a Game Boy in terms of power, it was just as significant as any other gaming handheld ever released, because it was the first one to offer excellent connectivity with its mother console. The VMU plugged into the Dreamcast's controller and interacted with whatever game was being played on the Dreamcast itself, if VMU support was a part of the game. It could be used in NFL Blitz 2000 as a personal screen when choosing plays, for example, so your opponent wouldn't know what was coming. It could be loaded up with one minigame at a time for you to take on the go, as well. The most common game was Chao Adventure, in which you could raise Chao creatures and then transfer them back to either Sonic Adventure or Sonic Adventure 2, but many other games in the Dreamcast's library came with VMU extras. Another awesome feature was the fact that you didn't need the console to mess with the data -- It could be copied, moved, and deleted using the buttons on the unit itself. Plus, it made for one hell of an alarm clock. ;) The original PlayStation had the PocketStation in Japan, which was similar to the VMU, but it wasn't used nearly as much as Sega's offering later on -- It was much more of a novelty, albeit a pretty cool one. Sega was the first company to make console-to-handheld connectivity a regular thing.

As consoles advanced, we started to see this connectivity with handhelds evolve as well. The GameCube connected to the Game Boy Advance, the PS2 and PS3 can both connect to the PSP, and at least one game on the Wii (Pokémon Battle Revolution) can interact with the DS. Had the Dreamcast not done this first, would other companies have been okay with the idea of making themselves the guinea pigs?





Voice Communication
Here we have yet another feature that doesn't usually bring the Dreamcast to peoples' minds, because not many people know exactly how far voice communication went on the console. Sure, everyone knows about Seaman, but there was much more than that. Alien Front Online, and obscure tank shooter, provided some pretty fun team deathmatch-style games, and voice chat was completely supported. In fact, the microphone actually came with that game in a bundle. Do I really need to talk about voice chat in today's consoles and games? It's a must-have when you play online, especially for anything that's team-based.

But the mic was used for something other than that, and you could only do this if you subscribed to the Official Dreamcast Magazine -- Voice over IP was supported using a program that ended up being included on each of the demo discs later on in the magazine's life cycle. Dreamcast owners with mics could call any landline they wanted to using VoIP, which was obviously cheaper when calling long distance. This is something we've been seeing specifically with the PSP lately, thanks to the inclusion of Skype. There has been talk of a Nintendo DS phone as well, which means current gaming companies are still looking into expanding upon the prospect of what the Dreamcast started, but going with the handheld market instead so you don't have to be tethered to your consoles to talk to people. (Wires and cords? Pssh.)

Look at all that up there. Every bit of it, everything that we take for granted today, was started by Sega and the Dreamcast. That machine had so much tech built into it that console gamers had never experienced before, and it was overwhelming at times -- Which is precisely why I believe the Dreamcast failed. Sure, the fact that Sony came out with the PlayStation 2 a year later definitely impacted the Dreamcast's sales, and the ability to just copy a game and throw it in the console didn't help either. But I think one of the main reasons the console didn't last was because not a whole lot of companies used all of these features to their fullest potentials. There was so much stuff that Sega packed into their machine that I think it was actually too far ahead of its time. Look at how long it took for everything the Dreamcast had to finally become normal -- The PS2, GameCube and Xbox, graphical power aside, couldn't do nearly everything the Dreamcast could. We're only now making use of all those features, two full generations later. There was just too much to take in at the time, and I think that was a huge contributor to the console's unfortunate downfall.

The Dreamcast was, is, and as far as I'm concerned will remain the most important gaming console we have ever gotten as consumers, and the most influential system created by developers. Without the innovations it brought to the table, gaming as we know it today would be a vastly different experience -- Whether that's good or bad we'll never be able to tell. The console is still going strong in Japan, with the occasional game being released every year or two. This shows how dedicated its fans really are, and it brings a smile to my face every time I hear that a new game is being released. I'll never forget opening my Dreamcast for the first time, and experiencing a console like no other, which is easily one of my fondest memories of the gaming part of my life. So here's to you, Sega, and here's to you, Dreamcast.

Happy anniversary.

If this were any sexier, I don't think I'd be able to handle it.

Metroid Prime could probably be considered my favorite gaming series. I've been playing games in the Metroid series since I was young, and when everything went all fancy and 3D with Prime, it worked so well that I absolutely fell in love with it -- Retro Studios did a fantastic job. When the third game came out, I was (and still am) convinced that I had been experiencing the best first-person control scheme of any game I had ever played. I owned all three Prime games prior to buying this collection, but knowing what it was I was getting, I couldn't resist.

I'm not going to review each and every game, just some of the differences and the entire package as a whole. I hope everyone has played the games by now -- If you haven't, here's your review of the series: DROP EVERYTHING AND PLAY ALL OF THEM. Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's get to reviewing the Trilogy package.

Let's start with the package itself. It comes in a SteelBook case with some of the coolest artwork I've ever seen, and included inside is a fold-out artwork sheet which displays previously unseen concept art. Also on this sheet is a recap of the entire series' storyline, so you'll never be lost. If you reserved the game at GameStop, you get a poster (that's the header image above) and a t-shirt (probably XL) for free on top of the excellent standard package.



FIRST THE GOOD

When you start the game up, you'll be greeted with an amazingly detailed menu screen. Contrary to popular belief, you are not limited to just three saves altogether -- You have three main save files with a Mii assigned to each one, and then each of those main saves can hold one save per game. That gives you a total of three save slots for each game, not overall, so no worries about having too little space to play around with. The award system from the original release of Prime 3 is back, and it spans all three games collectively, meaning you're going to have to earn a lot of awards to start unlocking stuff. Overall, the games are pretty much identical to their original versions but with (in my opinion) superior aiming controls added in. If you've played Prime 3, then you know how to play the first two games in this compilation already. It's also interesting to note that this is only the second dual-layer DVD game on the Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl being the first. Good to know we're at least starting to move in that direction on this console.

NOW THE GRIPE

There's something about this collection that really gets to me. If you'll notice above, I said that the games are "pretty much" identical to their original versions. In fact, from what I can tell, Prime 2 and Prime 3 are identical. The first game, however, seemed to take a hit graphically. Nothing game-breaking or anything, but it's easy to tell that some of the detail has been sacrificed for some reason. Remember how in the original game, if you rapidly fired the Power Beam for around twenty seconds your gun would give off a heat effect because there was so much energy coming from it? Well, that heat effect isn't in the Wii version. I thought this would be the only difference, until I got the Ice Beam. Check out the screenshot below:



That's of the original GameCube version. Now look at this Wii screenshot:



Notice anything? That's right -- Ice doesn't surround your gun when you charge the Ice Beam in the Wii version of the game. Another thing missing is the cold fog that comes off of your gun when the Ice Beam is equipped. I'm a lover of detail, and it kind of bugs me that this stuff would be taken out. It detracts from the experience a bit in my eyes. It's not a huge deal, but you can definitely see it when something like that comes up.

So that's the gist of what you have to look forward to with this. If you have a Wii, you shouldn't even have to think about whether or not to buy the Trilogy -- Definitely spring for it. $50 is an absolute steal for what you're getting, and it is certainly on the level of The Orange Box in terms of how good of a deal it is. Even if you have the original copies, being able to play them again with the new control scheme and the universal award system is well worth the money.

On a scale of one-to-ten, I proudly give this game a 9. The games are absolutely amazing, and for the price you're paying, it's easily one of the best deals this year. But they really did take some of the magic away from the first one by removing some of the small, yet noticeable, details.