Simon

That's kind of interesting, but kind of horribly wasteful. With Nintendo's whole vibe of 'sharing', giving the Cube a handle so you can take it to your friend's house or whatever, they probably worked hard at making it a tough little bugger to screw with. People have told me that the Xbox is 'notoriously' fragile, but that show would suggest otherwise.

It will be interesting when games technology hits a plateau, because presumably, it's going to affect the usual cycles of the industry, i.e. there won't be as great a call for another generation of consoles and graphics cards every x months/years. This might be ignorance/short-sightedness, but that seems something possible, and something that would affect how the industry operates in big ways. It's hard to imagine a climate in which there aren't massive launch titles, and certain games that everyone 'has to upgrade for', every few years. But that could happen at some distant point in the future. This industry pace shift would probably be a good thing for developers, overall.

I'm seriously considering taking my first MMO plunge with World Of Warcraft when it starts to retail in Europe. I guess it will probably have to be about the only game I play for a while though, as I'll need to devote all my gaming free time to it to justify the monthly fees. By the way, does it have a set release date in the UK yet? And will it come with a free month?

Yeah, definitely their first game, though they did produce a catchphrase back in 2002: "You have the insanity...of a manatee." I think GameSpy kind of phrased it badly, it doesn't really make it clear if they mean the past work of the individual team members. Anyway, great to see the game being hyped up like this.

Nickelodeon doesn't really register with me anymore, I've not been aware of anything on there for years, but I can't remember it ever impressing me a lot even when I knew the TV guide by heart. Cartoon Network is often worth watching though. Home Movies is probably my pick of their Adult Swim lineup (besides the untouchable Futurama, which they have now).

Yeah, I can't wait for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Wes Anderson rules. I'm going to catch Team America: World Police this coming weekend too. It's just come out here in the UK. I was excited by the trailer, but I'm kind of wondering whether it will be awesome just for having puppets doing all the dumb patriotic action movie stuff, playing it straight, or whether the novelty of that will wear off. There may well be more to it, and I'm actually rarely disappointed by the South Park guys, so I'm hopeful, but also prepared for it not to totally rock my socks. Hmm, what else? I think you can never see The Incredibles enough times.

I shall have Loboto. Thanks ysbreker

I love the box art. Okay, no explosions, but it's nifty nonetheless. It has a wonderful swirliness, and reminds me a little of the Grim Fandango unfolded CD case / save game screen, just in the mingling of different locations and characters of the game in a kind of mish-mash of stylish iconography. What with the Action News updates and this, Psychonauts seems pretty close to being unleashed. I'm super-excited about finally getting to play it, and also wondering what Double Fine will do next.

I was hoping someone would spot that.

I like the website...I go there a lot. I haven't really got annoyed with the layout, but yes, there are times when the comic won't load, so they need to fix the technical side. I guess a visual overhaul wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't think there's urgent need for it. The main thing is keeping it simple and streamlined, so the couple of things that PA does really well are easy to get to and look at. No clutter.

I'm planning on giving it a go later in the year when I'm not busy with university, maybe I'll buy a chunk of a few months' account time and spend some long summer nights being an orc. Though I like Blizzard a lot, I tend not to like MMOs, but all the positive press is suggesting this is the one that breaks the mold, not demanding unsociable hours upon hours for you to get anything out of it. Also it looks really cool, with a proper art style and many unique areas of the world. I think Guild Wars looks kind of promising also, so if I get a multiplayer-only game in the near future it might be that. We shall see...

Only a few hours more to go here in the UK. Woo yeah! Actually, I'm already over 2005. Yeah, Psychonauts gets released, Episode III wins the Palme D'Or, space pirates invade Earth, world peace, blah blah blah. 2006 is the year all the cool kids are waiting for.

Finish it? How does that happen? Do you mean beating every pirate, finding every treasure, finding all your family, etc. in one career? That's hardcore.

A lot of people heap praise upon Sony's PlayStation advertising, and good luck to them, obviously it's been incredibly ultra-successful. But that's scary. Is it even a real advert? It seems too creepy. Probably more creepy than the ultra-creepy Scottish alien-girl 'Fi-fi' in the (UK only?) PlayStation TV advert from a while back. I thought maybe something was wrong with my TV at first, but then it made me very uncomfortable, more likely putting me off PlayStation than making me want to buy one. I really didn't like watching that advert, I was glad when it stopped appearing. And 'legos' is wrong! How has this awful word abuse crept in? Grr.

I got a Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB a few months back for £75, the 9800 Pro was £140. I just had to upgrade from an ageing Radeon 7200 and work within a budget of under £100, so that was really my best option. I wasn't convinced that twice the price = twice as good an upgrade anyway, but maybe I was wrong. No problems yet, but I've not really pushed it, at all - look at the games I'm playing right now in my sig. This will probably just about manage Half-Life 2 but I've not got that game yet. I guess Doom 3 would suck on it, but I can't really be bothered to try that one anytime soon.

Yeah, I'm waiting for Firaxis to release the patch that adds breakdancing before I play any more of this game. I wonder if people will play this with their dance mats when it hits the Xbox. With the 9-button keypad control the game has, maybe you could just map that layout directly onto a dancemat and play the whole game that way, not just the dancing. Dancing your way to victory in ship battles and swordfights. Just to clarify, this is not something I would ever be seen doing, ever.

There's not really a freeroaming 'do anything' RPG element. It's all about sailing, battling, fighting, trading, and courting, the objective being to become notorious, and retire wealthy, happy and prosperous. You can become a governor at the end of the game on the retirement screen, but no, there's no paths like that outside of the pirate framework that the game is all about. Basically you can explore the Caribbean as you wish, and establish allegiances with the English, Spanish, French and Dutch, or just make your badass fleet of war galleons a complete menace to everyone, intercepting everyone's military payloads and treasure fleets. If you take sides, you will be rewarded for capturing/sinking ships and plundering towns, mainly with higher ranks (eight, from Captain to Duke) which in turn can gain you the interest of a governor's daughter. The romance quest has several stages but you can only have a romance with a governor's daughter. The other quests involve killing off famous pirates like Blackbeard and Bart Roberts (thus pushing yourself further up the leaderboard of notorious pirates), finding buried treasure, and finding your four lost family members. You really want to do as much of these as possible for a successful career. So there's a basic framework and not much hidden depth to the game, but I'd say that's no bad thing. Don't expect a 'do anything' feel because, at it's core, it really is just an update of the original's very simple network of mini-games.

From 'Adventurer' difficulty upwards, the game becomes more of a challenge, you can't just bash the other guy whenever he's getting ready to swing in a swordfight, and ports are less tolerant of you sinking their ships. I think the range of difficulty levels are pretty well-designed, I can't imagine people getting frustrated with this game. It's a terrifically addictive game for me. I loved the original, with its blend of different fun gaming elements, and they've retained that really well, only now there's added bonuses, like a super-intuitive keyboard interface and a really charming art style. All the little animations on the menu screens just draw you right in. The best word I can think of to describe this game is 'neat', it doesn't really revolutionise any genres, or even build on the original that much, but it's just honed the Pirates! concept into a very fun whole. The main reason I keep coming back to this game right now is that sense of "I can do better" every time I reach retirement. There's a small pool of mini-games Pirates! revolves around, and you do the same thing every 5 or 10 minutes, but somehow that doesn't get boring or repetitive, probably because I'm fixed on that addictive competition with myself.

It sucks when you've pre-ordered because of an offer and then the store goes back on that, but if you know you'll want a game when it comes out there's no harm in it, and you're safe in the case that it does sell out. In most cases there's nothing to worry about though. I don't know why they have things on the release charts in shops saying 'Pre-order to avoid disappointment', when the vast majority of games will be stocked. I pre-ordered Pirates! on the Internet a few months back because I knew I'd want to play it, and it was a really good price - but I hadn't actually pre-ordered anything in long time before that. It's never seemed necessary. A lot of people I know had pre-orders down for GTA: San Andreas, which makes sense. That was flying off shelves. In the first week, I didn't see it at all in my local HMV.

To be honest, I was so jealous of how accurately you captured the spitting noises, I didn't want to draw attention to them. My favourite was "Kwaaark, pthuh!", that's awesome. To break it down, "Kwaaark" is a lovely build-up sound, it creates a sense of anticipation and some serious phelgm volume. It's followed by a very punchy "pthuh!", probably plenty of spit trajectory there, you can imagine. Criticisms: 1. More letter 'a' in "Kwaaark" would not go amiss. "Kwaaaaaaaark" - see? 2. Maybe a sloshy sound in between the "Kwaaark" and the "pthuh!". All in all, though, well done, they sound great.

I'd definitely say no and do the family thing, but I guess you don't want to let your evil hardass boss who doesn't understand Christmas down or something. Is it worth it for 4 hours pay? Maybe the mistletoe is a good thing, I'm just waiting for a happy Christmas ending to this tragic tale.

When I got my Thrustmaster gamepad I downloaded the Sands Of Time demo to try it out, and I was pleasantly surprised by the game. It seemed like the fighting might become annoying, but overall it was easy to pick up, and seemed like a polished, quite fun game. Maybe I'll get it out of a bargain bin somewhere when I've run out of new stuff to play. Warrior Within, on the other hand, looks a bit rubbish. I haven't played it but I don't like the Goth-Persia approach they seem to have taken with the art style. It just seems lame to drench a game idea in 'stylish' darkness as a 'new' approach, as if that's going to make it more exciting to play. To be fair to them, it sounds like they have built on Sands Of Time with a few gameplay elements too, but it's not a game I am dying to play at all.

Jazz Jackrabbit is pretty similar in concept to Bucky O'Hare. I don't know why I never noticed that before. For nostalgia trippers, this page offers the classic Bucky theme tune and lyrics, so you can sing along. "Let's croak us some toads!"

Cool, but I haven't finished the first game on the Xbox yet, and I've got plenty of PC games to get stuck into before February, so I can wait and get the PC version this time.

Now you mention it, I do feel like I've seen a lot of Che recently. Maybe he's the new Coca Cola mascot and they're starting a grass-roots marketing campaign like 'I Love Bees' or something like that. I wonder what percentage of the Che Guevara T-shirt wearing population actually know who he was and what he did.