Link’s Awakening on the Nintendo Game Boy was one of the fruits of the success of Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo. A portable episode of Nintendo’s adventure had been a long time coming, and after wading through the SNES game, I lined up the handheld Legend of Zelda for a purchase.

Beforehand, I heard of a way to get an expensive item from a shop without having to pay for it. I believe I watched an episode of Gamesmaster, and it showed the familiar green/yellow tint of the Game Boy screen. Link ran in circles around the shopkeeper to the point that he was looking the other way, leaving Link to run out of the shop with the item. When I had the game myself, I found that if you tried to nip out the shop without paying for something, you’d be stopped from leaving by the alert owner.

That revealed, I decided to have a go at the shoplifting. Around I went several times, and I rushed out the door, prize in hand. However, I was then reminded of the fact that I was not to return to the shop. This warning would lead to the downfall of Link and my positive gaming experience.

I had left the shop, but the reminder not to return was, in theory, only tempting me to go back and check out what would happen. Whether I played a bit of the game afterwards or foolishly had a peek straight away, it didn’t matter; my curiosity was aroused. Like a child that had seen something that looked nice and edible, I took the opportunity regardless of the approaching cost.

[It's time for another Monthly Musing -- the monthly community blog theme that provides readers with a chance to get their articles and discussions printed on the frontpage. -- CTZ]   

Bullet hell games are meant to sort out the men from the boys. Their spray of projectiles are avoidable, but many. So much so, at times, we don’t know what to do other than move the spaceship into the nearest batch of newly-released firepower in the hope we can wing it and make it out the other side.

And then there are moments like level four of Ikaruga. A screen so busy with firepower and enemy drones, you don’t ask yourself "how can I avoid them?", it’s much more "how many lives must I lose?" There are other moments of pure "WTF am I meant to do?" A boss on Sol-Feace, a Mega-CD shoot-em-up, became so notorious for its tentacled-death-inducement, that I had to cheat just to see the next level. For some reason, the rest of the game wasn’t that hard. These games are meant to place emphasis on survival and extra life management, and the developers draw an extremely fine line between life and death as possible.

So why aren’t we all like Topher Cantler, who takes these games with a glint in his eye? Why can only a few people manage to do what many others simply find (or feel is) impossible? However, rather than glorify what makes these uber-gamers appear so God-like, I prefer to take a different approach; by looking at what we are all stuck with.

[It's time for another Monthly Musing -- the monthly community blog theme that provides readers with a chance to get their articles and discussions printed on the frontpage. -- CTZ]

It is the beginning o 1999. PC gaming, growing alongside the console market, is leading users into the realms of online play and modding. Games like Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena were having screenshots leaked, whilst the masses were enjoying the recently released third Tomb Raider and Half-Life. Myself? I was pining after Shogo: Mobile Armour Division.

However, in spite of the presence of Valve’s revolutionary FPS, a game had been announced on the radar that could have revolutionized how PC games could look. ‘Gameplay over graphics,’ you’ll say, but back then, PC gamers were fretting over what graphics card to purchase. And this did matter; if the graphics card could handle polygons faster, the game could run smoother, and thus be willing to keep the newer games running with less frustrating lag and stutter. Matrox, ATi, 3dfx and Nvidia wanted your cash badly, and if they managed to get the best evolution from their technology, then they would have money-printers.

The game was Outcast, developed by Appeal from Belgium. Their voxel engine was set to stun. However, as we’ll find out, they were prevented from scoring a direct hit. 

[Editor's note: Batthink runs down the myriad media forms .hack has taken for March's Expanded Universe Monthly Musings topic. -- Anthony]

Most of the material involved for an expanded universe ends up being released in the same way. Usually a shed-load of media in the aftermath of the success of its core film or game, and sometimes a little something to go alongside a new release, like the animation that went with EA’s Dead Space.

There is an exception to the rule, however. If there is a company behind the product believes the idea is truly special, one that has a lot of money to throw around, and can get enough promotion on the idea to get the public to notice, then it can do multiple ‘media takes’ on the core product and release them at the same time. The multiple assault on printed paper, code and animation cannot fail to be noticed by the masses, and the profits will snowball.

CyberConnect2 had an idea called .Hack and Bandai tried to push the resulting ‘core game’ as special. But in this case, the ‘core videogame’ proved to be outshone by its own universe for a few particular reasons.

Listing the whole universe is going to take crap-tons of time, so I’ll only list the parts I’ve come into contact with, and form the initial releases alongside the ‘core game’.