Note: This article was written before Thursday's 'Wii' announcment.

Be afraid, be very afraid my friends: the next generation is upon us, and things are just the same as they ever were.

Feeling rather flush last month, I decided to treat myself to a brand new Xbox 360 console �Sacrilege! All right, fine, I'm a multi-format gamer, so what? I like to have a wide breadth of games to choose from, and I feel that the best way to achieve that versatility is by purchasing all current generation consoles �years as a Nintendo fan have only served to encourage me in this pursuit.

So down I went to my local game store, a bag filled to bursting with shiny pennies clutched eagerly in my hand, and I purchased for myself a spangly Xbox 360 Core system and Oblivion, which just happens to be the rather excellent follow-up to my all-time favourite game, Morrowind. Rushing home from a hard day taking pictures of miserable parents and their ignorant, screaming children, I feverishly unwrapped the cellophane parcel of delight, plugged it in to my fiendishly fancy surround sound telly and switched it on.

Nothing happened.

Giggling nervously, I cast around for the instruction manual looking for "Catastrophic console failure" in the troubleshooting guide. While scrabbling amongst the shredded remains of the packaging, I found the business end of the plug, and realised to my eternal horror, that I had not plugged the console in and turned on the power outlet. Cough. Switching the console on after the third attempt, I picked up my pad, my hands shaking with delight.

Boy, was it uninspiring.

Not Oblivion, of course; it is indeed a worthy successor to Morrowind. However, the whole experience on the new console was incredibly underwhelming and stagnant. The graphics are much better than the Xbox, there is no doubt about that, the sound is alittle less tinny and the interface not that sticky-looking alien green that pervades the Xbox dashboard. Oh, and by the way, Microsoft, well done for getting the internal clock to work properly, it's only taken what, five years of intense and time consuming research and development? A pat on the back all round then!

You see, with every generation of Nintendo console I've come to expect an entirely new experience; a different interface, perhaps a bit like the analogue stick. Or the step up to full colour from the GB Colour to the GBA. Or the sublime stylus control of the DS compared to the digital controls of my much-loved GBA. All things considered, I've been really spoilt by Nintendo. We all have.

Every new console from Nintendo has brought in a new way to play, a new way to experience the games that we love. For example, the difference between the SNES and the NES was not a purely cosmetic on: the four-button layout and shoulder buttons added depth to gaming in as much as there were more new and innovative control options to compliment the souped-up interface.

The GBA was much the same, most importantly, it made the jump from black and white to colour and added shoulder buttons and the same ever-reliable battery life that is synonymous with Nintendo design. Gaming itself did not take a significant leap, but the justification to buy was there, as the improvement in processing power meant that the games themselves were enhanced, not simply the graphics.

The N64 gave us the first true 3D platformer and a new analogue-sensitive method of control that for the first time made gamers think about how hard they were driving their character in the game world. Say what you will about the hand-cramping style of the controller, but the rumble pak and analogue control stick opened entirely new avenues of gameplay that had hitherto only been dreamed about. The same can almost certainly be said about the DS, but not so much the Gamecube, as it has mostly managed to improve on previous design. Games such as Animal Crossing and Mario Sunshine have made very good use of the internal clock and analogue shoulder buttons respectively. Although the design of the Gamecube can hardly be called revolutionary, the games produced for it have more than made up for any questions about the hardware design.

This coming generation, however, has me a little worried. Microsoft and Sony do not really seem to be pushing the envelope in terms of how people play games, instead they appear to be serving and volleying graphical statistics that become meaninglessly transitional in an empty void of null-space, occupied by such graphical wonders as the 3DO and Jaguar. Not to say that the Sony and Microsoft consoles will be anything close to spectacular flops: if anything, the XBox 360 has proved that a ridiculous price point and substandard ideas paired with nice graphics can be a recipe for success.

The Revolution had me sceptical at first, but now that I have played the competition, I know that Nintendo have the right idea �it's not about the power under the hood, but the way you drive the car. Playing the same old gaming concepts year after year has become tiresome, and I'm looking to Nintendo to change the world. Not that there is anything the matter with smugly fabulous graphics, but a new way to experience them is an essential for me in this generation. Although that cannot be said for everybody: gamers who enjoy the odd bash here and there rather than scheduling their life around their gaming will invariably be satisfied with spangly new graphics, as the yearly sales records for FIFA go to prove.

For me, however, it's very much a case of viva la revolution.

Iun Hockley
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