Long ago, far away (and that's just the graphics)

By Russell Baillie

Wild Arms **

(Sony)

Azure Dreams *

(Konami)

Both PlayStation

The future might be in sight with the next generation of games hardware on the horizon.

By judging by these timeconsuming, complex but dull role-playing titles, some games software producers are still trying in vain to update the past.

Both these games are very much also-rans, offering little graphically that couldn't have been done at the beginning of the decade on more antiquated systems.

Wild Arms at least swings from 2D to 3D when it comes to the occasional scrap between the game's three supertoddler heroes and the beasties which stand in the way.

But both come with arcane storylines about myths, magic and monsters.

They might prove culturally illuminating about the influence of epic Japanese fairytales combined with the modern world of Manga on the country's games programmers, but both are - narrative-wise - less than compelling.

In Wild Arms, it all begins 1000 years ago in the world of Filgaia, where three wee warriors must go on a quest to recover ancient relics in order to save the kingdom from the rampaging Metal Demons.

Along the way there's stuff to find, spells to cast, dragon-like nasties to fight off at frequent intervals and plenty of village locals to glean information from, all done to an irritatingly twee soundtrack of panpipe muzak.

Azure Dreams - the awful title suggesting the original Japanese game name might have lost something in the translation - is the story set in and around the frontier town of Monsabaiya, which trades in monsters' eggs from the nearby Monster Tower.

It's the turn of the son of a monster-tamer to go into the family business - raiding the tower for eggs and coming home to perform a few economic miracles with the proceeds.

With a cast of tens of both humans and monsters and the tower's ever-changing labyrinth, it doesn't lack for detail and you can at least avoid repetition. But graphically it's dated, crummy and is a clunker on most other fronts.

Both games might share a few things in common with the Final Fantasy series, that fine Japanese-developed role-player.

No doubt they too have a capacity to offer weeks of steady plod and a chance to live happily ever after at the end of it.

But these two titles clearly don't know that it's not longevity that counts, it's what you do with it.