I must admit I disagree with you about Faramir, but never mind. As to the soundtracks, well they actually seemed to improve as things went on. I'm rather a film soundtrack buff generally, and so bought them all at the time. while there are a couple of rather nice bits (ways concerning hobbits), in the fellowship soundtrack, I didn't really think things got going until the Return of the king. I also think Howard shaw overuses strings far too much, in particular that one melody (occasionally usedin brass). In fact me and my brother dubbed it the one tune for amusement value in the 1st film.

Thhings did get going later on though, and I actually enjoyed the rohirim theme.

It also makes very good background music for playing Ad&D to.

for film soundtracks, I was recently most impressed to the soundtrack of the Narnia film (I need to get that on cd), and of course Attack of the Clones and Prisoner of Ascaban, ------ imho John williams' two greatest! It's such a shame he couldn't do Goblet of fire or Order of the Phenix.

I couldn't agree more Timberwolf. And some similar boss battles. The one I had was a plant boss not unlike Flaagra from Metroid Prime, but with some differences. Flaagra was powered by solar panels that you could shoot, deactivating them for a short time. This would enable you to cause damage. But each time he was hit he would create another panel, so then you'd have two to neutralize before you could harm him, then three and ultimately four.
  The creature I thought up would be different. It would be a plant like Flaagra, but it would be housed in a lake of toxic water, which would not only hurt you if you touched it but render the boss invulnerable. The boss, of course, would not be without its share of attacks. One could be where it spits out globs of venom that must be avoided, while another could be its tentacles, with wich it could try to hit you or even pull you into the water. So how to damage this boss, you ask. Around the room there would be four switches, switches that would be hidden in small alcoves at various points of the room. You could only get at them with your Morph Ball, or whatever we called it. Then to trip them you would need bombs, which you would have acquired by this point. Your first goal would be to bomb all four switches, which would lower the level of the water, rendering the creature's weak point exposed. So at that point it would draw in its tentacles to protect itself, occasionally opening them to either attempt to swat at you or hit you with its venom. Only when the mouth was open, I.E. right before or after an attack, would the creature be vulnerable to missiles. Or you could shoot at the tentacles, which would make it withdraw them more quickly, then before they close back in fire a missile to do damage. Then you could, to add challenge, make it a timed fight, where if you didn't kill it in a certain amount of time the water level would rise again, rendering the creature invulnerable and healing it if you wait too long to trip the switches again. Of course the problem as others have pointed out is that to program an audio Metroid style game would take quite a long time and might seem to most of the developers we have, to be too great a job for one. They might either then abandon the project or turn it over to someone who'd totally ruin a potentially great game. Or they'd team up with a third-party developer, run into licensing issues and scrap the project as in the case of Castle Quest. Then there's also the problem of having an interface too complicated for a gamer to easily remember, although I'm confident that could be dealt with. But finding a developer willing to spend the kind of time that would be required for such a game, let alone one who had that time, isn't likely to be an easy task.

That was actually my idea, to design a game in the same style of Metroid, though with a different story and characters. Personally though, I don't like the idea of a suit management system. The Metroid games didn't really incorporate this feature unless it be to collect the upgrades and things like that, and too much would get time-consuming. That's just my two cents though. I just want to see a Metroid style game, developed for us blind folks, but I'd like to see it done right.

Ah, I do remember that. The suit management thing I was referring to though was SK8's thing about how you'd have to collect materials to maintain your suit in optimum condition. That, in my opinion, would get way too time-consuming. But simply being able to turn off certain functions of your suit would be good. Heck, you could even make it a requirement for accessing certain areas. There could be a jump that was too low for you to make with your Space Jump, so you'd have to deactivate that system in order to continue.
  Are there any soundtracks for the Turrican games out there? You've got me intrigued, although I didn't notice any at Galbadia Hotel. Granted I wasn't exactly looking for them so I might browse there later today, after I get the key to my new flat. At least I'm hoping I'll get the key since I'll be signing the lease.
  But another game we could consider for remaking in audio would be Blaster Master for the NES. It features some of the same platforming and exploration as Metroid, though granted it isn't nearly as extensive. A game like that though might be simpler to make and wiser to start with.

I actually did find what seemed to be a complete Turrican soundtrack on GH. Needless to say I can see what you're talking about now. I found an MP3 entitled Prologue, and it inclded a narration about the Machine, also known as the Dark Lord. It did rather put me in mind of Metroid, both in terms of music and storyline in a way. It would be interesting to attempt such a game in audio form, especially if, as you've said, the developer wouldn't object.

Hi. Here's a simpler, but still metroidy game, Kid Icarus. It was an old NES game that came out in the same year as metroid.

Well james, Kid Ickerus is about as Metroid like a game as you could think. It uses the same game engine apparently, and I believe was written by the same chap. I have however, never had chance to try the game myself, owing to the fact that the Nes never did very well in Britain, ----- in fact, i've never even seen! one over here, accept in a collection of very broken seeming pieces once on a markit stall.

I have played a few Nes games via other systems, such as the mega man aniversery collection, and the Nes classics series. Apparently kid Ickerus was due for release in that series but never made it.

You actually need a wireless network to connect to bryan? One owned by somebody else? This isn't the way i've seen things working before generally. Here, I have a home hub system which functions nicely as a Dsl connection. I admit the wrent on it certainly isn't cheap, but with the amount of use I get out of it I think it's worth it.

Potentially, other computers could connect to it wirelessly, but given the size of my flat, it would essentially turn my laptop into a slightly fatter version of my infra red keyboard lol!

but I suppose if anyone else comes round with a computer, I can give them the password and they could use the hub, ---- it's a shame you don't own the flat next door Bryan, I could give you the password, and you could help with the hub wrent.

I solved the turrican business, apparently the so called original soundtrack is a remix by Cris Huelspech himself, the chap who famously wrote all the turrican music. i've downloaded it Bryan, sinse it's really nice to here updated instrument versions of all those great tunes, and I love the drama type sequences, though I'm not sure how they fit into the turrican storyline, sinse in T2 Bren Mcgire was the last surviver of a space mission which was attacked by the machine and it's minions, and the game took place on the planit Landorin, which the machine had previously conquered. Nothing about attacking the solar system or a unit of soldiers with Turrican sutes.

One of my various writing projects is a turrican story, which attempts to reconcile the plots of the games (there was almost no link betwene T1 and T2 at all), but with various other things to do at the moment, I don't know if I'll ever get it finished, though I stil pull it out and work on it occasionally.