I think you guys are tremendously underestimating the game and not paying attention to the most beautiful parts of it (Which I can understand, since it moves through said parts so quickly).

Look at the character models. Look closely at the toad, or the spider, or really ANY of the other NPCs.

Those things are seriously gorgeous. Neo Geo, SNES, etc, couldn't have pulled those off if they wanted to. Even if you concentrated on solely the characters, with nothing else on-screen.

And that's NOT just artistic style showing its face, either (although that IS a contributing factor).

This 31-year old fossil (read: twenty-eleven) entered gameworld with Pac-Man arcade in 1980 at age 4.

Saw the old woodgrained Atari 2600 with the fragile joysticks, the Intellivision, and the Colecovision.

Saw Nintendo dealmaker with Donkey Kong in 1981 and been hooked on Mario ever since including 1982's Donkey Kong Jr. Donkey Kong 3 and Mario Bros. from 1983 where I've also been hooked on Luigi ever since.

Played the impossible Defender in the arcades along with Dig Dug I & II, Zaxxon, Centipede and Millipede, Ms. Pac-Man (with the special speed-up red button. who remembers that?), Pac-Man Junior, Baby Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Popeye, Robotron 2084, Galaga, Q*Bert, Burgertime, and Frogger & Frogger II.

Also played 1979's Asteroids in a local laundromat when I was 7 & 8 years old and consistently got high scores on it.

Remember Nintendo's original Game & Watches including the tabletop mini-arcade designed versions. A neighbor had Donkey Kong Jr. and I wanted one for Christmas in 1984. Ended up getting Mario's Cement Factory and after grumbling my grandmother taught me an invaluable spoken lesson about gratitude that has stuck by me ever since. I still have that game and it still works. Also have a Coleco tabletop Pac-Man that I got a few months later and it still works (though in regards to batteries it is true to its name!).

Got my first home console the NES Christmas 1988, the Action Set with Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt one cartridge with Zapper included and went through about 3 or 4 months straight of Nintendo trance before snapping out of the spell.

Played many games in this era as I moved from the country to the city with this local rental store with all the NES games you could muster where the owners let all the kids play the games for free for hours at a time. Saw arcades like Double Dragon, Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, Operation Wolf, WWF Wrestlefest (this STAYED in the arcades forever around here even up to the 2000's!), original Street Fighter I, NARC, and many more.

Got SNES a little after Christmas 1992 and played it up there with my friend having Sega Genesis downstairs.

I remember the awetalk from schoolmates about of "46-bit" systems during the 4th and 5th gen crossover and endless arguments about system power. Knew the Atari Jaguar was bound for failure and told my cousin not to get it and he got it anyway. Ha!

Grew to be an adult and began buying all of my own systems and games where I had to be smarter with purchases. I'll never live down that 1991 Wal-Mart fiasco with To The Earth on the NES for $9.99 when I coulda got Bayou Billy if I sprung for the $14.99. Luckily my instinct for purchases isn't too off as shown by my blind purchase of Shadowrun on SNES in 1994 purely based off of the box art.

Yeah, just a small sampling of my history. This is why I'm so confident in my predictions. I've seen much of this many times before.

Fossils know history. Better listen to 'em.

John Lucas