Its the underlying technology. The 'pixels'  on a LCD screen are fixed in size. They are completely square, don't blend and are very crisp.

Plasma basically uses a gas to emit the light. The pixels themselves tend to be not as square, and based on intensity effectively blend into each other.

LCD is better for high resolution text - its very crisp. Great for PCs, web browsing, text editing.

Plasma generates a natural FSAA effect. It reduces jaggies naturally by having the pixels blend into each other. Its better at lower-source resolutions than LCD, and games & movies tend to look great on it. The higher the resolution, the closer it gets to LCD in effect.

(you'll notice that high-res LCD TVs are much more available than Plasmas - at the same resolution. Its much harder to get Plasma tech working at ultra-high resolutions, such as true HD. One of the reasons Sony is more focused on LCD screens than Plasmas)

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Its quite interesting actually. You would think they all look the same, but if you put a Plasma & LCD TV side by side, running the same source at the same res - you'll notice a real difference. 

Hmm. You have intrigued me Shams.

I was looking for another game to add to the "play when family are visiting" games, as currently it is pretty much just Wii Sports, with a bit of Wii play.

It is a bit late now to get this game for the upcoming Christmas Family Wii Time (CFTW = what shall keep the Wii in high demand for 2008), but as i have recently aquired a second nunchuck i think Wii boxing may be ok for this Christmas, though i think i might see if Excite truck might grab attention, shame it is only 2player.

The Wii does not upscale. And lower native resolutions will have to be tolerated, even with the PS3 and 360, as that leaves memory for the frame buffer. 

i know its a different game, but how does the multiplayer "fun" compare to mario strikers?

69.1% on Game Rankings. Sorry, I am not allowed to play it. I wont touch anything under 80%. Nope... Well... Maybe I'll let the Mario Party games through... And Sonic 3D Blast... That game was cool... And maybe a few others... Whatever... I don't really care... But nothing else... Well... There was this one other... No, wait, no... Nope... Nothing else... Yeah... Well, look at the time... I best be going... Ha, ha...

Well, its a different type of game.

Strikers is much more a competitive, hardcore game (I struggle with it, casual gamers will get caned).

Strikers is more intense - so I would probably say that is more fun. But it definitely depends on who you are playing with - none of the people I would target with M&S could play Strikers. 

This is definitive proof to me that the review system has become obsolete and irrelevant.

Although *some* people could argue that the game is a 7 - it should be averaging around 8 - 8.5.

Too many reviewers play games like M&S with a preconceived idea of it, don't think about the target market, try to rush through it as a single player experience, etc. 

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Then again, these are the same people that gave Mario Party 8 a 5 (i.e. IGN). Mario Party 8 is sitting on 64% on gamerankings - and we all know how well that has done.

M&S probably deserves to be 5-10% better than MP8, so from that perspective - it makes sense. 

 i agree that you should not always accept what reviewers say about games in general. most are paid by money from companies that sell games and so even if not on purpose they give better scores for these games

i bought m+s for my son and me to play and we had a ball with it. definitly better than what the so called reveiwers said about it so if you are not sure do what shams did and rent it out. you might be surprised..... 

The reservation I have about this game is the controls. Most reviews claim they're pretty awkward for some of the events. Have they been an issue for any of you who have played it?

while i didnt like MP8 and think that it deserves those low scores, Mario and Sonic deserves better. I would rate its multiplayer 9/10 and singleplayer hmmm i dont know but who the hell buys those games for singleplayer anyway.

I have 4 Wiimotes+Nunchuks and Component Cables and we had a lot of fun on my friends 47 full HD tv while drinking.

Controls: are a lot of fun, very responsive and easy to learn. even the girls were able to play and enjoy it. (though some glasses got broken :p)

Graphics: are like a step above Wii Sports. They suit the game well and although the Wii dont support HD the graphics still managed to look great on the HDTV in 480p.

Gameplay: is awesome. You know, here in europe we are big soccer fans and we were playing like always FIFA 08 on the PS3, but this time i brought along the wii and Mario and Sonic. My friends even refused to try the game and lought at me because PS3>>>>>Wii, you know they are all Sonyfanboys and ultimate FIFA lovers (in my city everyone is a sony fanboy). So i had to force them to give Mario and Sonic a try. Finally we started playing and all of a sudden we were having more fun than we had with FIFA. The game was very competitive even though we were all a little drunk. The good thing about the game was/ is that the so called "mini games" can´t be really called mini games here. If you play a tourney you feel like every game is connected to the other in some way and it feels like a whole complete game, unlike other "minigame" collections. So this game cant be called a minigame collection like say RRR2 for example. The only problem here is that you need 4 wiimotes+nunchuks to enjoy the game at its fullest glamour. having 4 people running the 100m sprint at the same time is by far much more fun than having only 2.

 Altogether the game rocks. i will give it a 9/10. But dont forget that if you want to enjoy the game at its fullest glamour you need those 4 wiimotes+nunchuks, a big HDTV and of course Component Cables! (i have this cables: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5607975 ) 480p gives this Wii game an additional nice nextgen feeling which most wii games lack graphically.