What with the recent announcement of Shenmue 3, we feel it's time we did an Edge-style retrospective of the development of the video game "Epic," just to show that such a thing CAN be done in less than twenty five thousand words. It's easy, all you have to do is remember that video gaming is an area that's always riding the wave of what you can get away with on the technology and resources available, therefore the milestones are by and large defined by the limitations. Hence:

THE PROBLEM: Shigeru Miyamoto needs a memorable character for his new game. However, he has only sixteen pixels and a handful of colours to work with, no graphic artist on the project and no skill at drawing faces himself.

THE RESULT: He gives the character a big nose and moustache to hide his face and plumber's dungarees to make the arms visible against the body. Mario and the character-based franchise phenomenon are born.

THE PROBLEM: Hideo Kojima wants to make a Rambo style game, but the MSX-1 can't keep track of more than two or three bullets without the machine having an eppy.

THE RESULT: He makes a game where the idea is NOT to shoot people. Metal Gear and the cross-genre story-based epic are born.

THE PROBLEM: Will Wright is a sadistic cunt who wants to convince the world that a game where you have to do the washing up for eighteen hours is more fun than one where you shoot zombies in the teeth and kung-fu people's knees off.

THE RESULT: The Sims.

THE PROBLEM: Yu Suzuki is a sadistic cunt who wants to convince the world that a game where you have to do the washing up for eighteen hours is more fun than one where you shoot zombies in the teeth and kung-fu people's knees off.

THE RESULT: Shenmue.

Let's hope that part three adheres to Yu's world-beating formula of one hour of awkward button mashing interspersed with twenty nine hours of doing the washing up.