One of the great cyclical debates in video gaming is Old Franchise vs. New Franchise. Everybody complains there is too much Mario, too many Final Fantasies, a crutch-like reliance on movie/TV cash-ins, and just nowhere near the number of wholly original intellectual properties appearing on the racks. Like in the 16-bit glory days of Aero the Acrobat, Bonk's Adventure and Bubsy, I suppose.

So Namco - no doubt still fighting against the urge to release a next-gen Mappy 3D mascot platformer - steps up with I-Ninja, a pure-fun 3D action title with combined elements of Mario64, Monkey Ball, Sonic and Legend of Zelda. And no one buys it.

I honestly don't remember how I heard of this one. I think there may have been a demo on one of the OPM PS2 discs. But however I found it, I was glad I did. It's good like first-Sly-Cooper good.

Yeah, baddie variety was nil and it's really only a thin veneer on lots of established gameplay types, but the departure mini-games, the fast/smooth action, and the convincingly cartoony art direction more than made up for it.

Memory Score: Somehow, classic gameplay plus unfamiliar characters equals refreshing. This time.

This was intended to be given out as a free bonus to people who bonus various Namco games during the Holiday '03 shopping season, such as I-Ninja.

Funny story: I was at one of the area gaming stores that I dislike, hunting up a second WaveBird controller. There was a stack of Pac-Man Vs. discs by the register and the amiable clerk gave me one for nothin'. I just asked.

Sad story: Toys R Us had no idea that I was supposed to get a free Pac-Man Vs. with my I-Ninja purchase. So either their shipment was sent to GameStop and no one cared, or else they still have a box of Pac-Man Vs. giveaways sitting in the back, Lost Ark-style.

Either way, I ended up karmically balanced: one copy of I-Ninja, one copy of Pac-Man Vs.

The long, boring saga behind Pac-Man Vs. is that it was dreamed up by Miyamoto himself one crazy day (probably at a How The Hell Are We Going To Push The Cube/GBA Connection meeting) and he called Namco to see if they were interested. So the end result is a cool-ass one-in-a-million mashup where up to four players play Pac-Man while Mario does color commentary.

Memory Score: I love trotting this out for multiplayer, because it shows off an impressive amount of gear

Whenever people start to get squirrelly about all the Mario games that hit every year, the educated gamer's response is "As long as they keep making good games, they can make as many Mario games as they want."

Sonic is what happens when you stop making good games.

Yes, in the great cosmic rivalry between Sega and Nintendo, Mario has not only won, he has lapped the blue blur. And not just because Sega's hardware went belly-up, but because somebody at Sonic decided to start making crap.

I think people were generally okay with the Sonic Adventure series, born to the Dreamcast and ported to whatever john would have them. Heroes, however, was an unlikable dud. The concept seemed sound: create various three-person dream teams, culled from the entirety of the Sonic Universe. Each team gets a runner, a fighter, and a flyer. During the typically Sonician levels, you have to switch between the three to clear various obstacles.

Only when playing it did you realize that this meant lots of stopping.

Yes, a Sonic game based on stopping.

That sound you hear is your innocence dying.

Memory Score: Thanks to years of mediocre efforts, Sonic the Hedgehog has become no more meaningful than latter day flash-in-the-pans like Spyro the Dragon or Crash Bandicoot.

Next time: a major franchise returns to Nintendo after years of staying Sony... but not in the way you expected; a major franchise appears on the Cube in exactly the way you expected... but not in the way you wanted; and a brand new title loses all hope of becoming a franchise thanks to awful sales and a transparent story... but not according to every reviewer I've ever read.