Elf poked the food with his stylus! I do like to sit down with Gauntlet and its quarter-lusting gameplay every now and again, and Eidos wants to ensure there isn't a single system left that can't throw ghosts, grunts, and death himself at me. The game is coming to the DS next, with 3D top-down graphics reminiscent of Gauntlet Legends, online play with VoIP (so even if the game doesn't tell you when you shot the food, somebody damn sure will), and ranked multiplayer modes including Deathmatch. I'm sure there will be more to deathmatches than the wizard getting a potion and instantly killing everyone else on the screen.
From here, the natural inclination is to wrap up with a handful of references as to who or what needs food badly or is about to die, but my main question is this: Will the game have infinite continues? My time spent with Midway Arcade Treasures made me realize something--when you can just dump in $20 worth of quarters at any point in the game and give yourself a trillion health points, honestly, the game stops being any fun. Gauntlet and its brutal arcade brethren of the day were fun because the challenge lay in seeing how far you could get before the game's sheer unfairness humiliated you into submission. Every so often, a kid with a particularly generous allowance would step up, and the spectactors would get a rare glimpse at level 15 or so. When there is absolutely zero risk of losing, the challenge is in seeing how long it takes you to get bored. I imagine that's why recent Gauntlet incarnations have included things like storylines, RPG elements, and so on. We'll have to wait and see if the DS version stays exciting, because
OH GOD RUN AWAY
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