Wrestlevania

Street Fighter has always let you choose your own button assignments, so I wouldn't even worry about it.

"RIDE ON TIME! -IDE! -IDE! -IDE ON TIME!" Yeah, no shit.

As tempting as it is to bleat "HERESY!" at this, you're right; even though it was the hey-day of Pop, there was an awful lot of shit during the 80s. It's still my favourite decade, musically, but you do have to dig for the gems. But the same goes for any decade's music, so it's a moot point.

Oh definitely, thanks for sharing, Ben. After the quoted fiasco with ShitToo.net - and the apparent inability to get the hardware anywhere else (Amazon UK, Play.com) - I'm resigned to the fact that I'll be playing with the standard Xbox 360 controller. Not ideal, but I'm almost past caring now. I've an unused wired version I bought for my PC years ago, so I'm going to modify that [see earlier link] and leave my two wireless controllers intact.

People will no doubt slam Eurogamer's review - and others, inevitably - for relying heavily on nostalgia. But then I think that's entirely missing the point of what Street Fighter IV achieves and who it's aimed at. Personally, I'm now more excited than ever.

Having not really enjoyed the demo on 360 very much - and having never tried the demo on my PC at all - I've taken a punt and bought L4D via Steam just now. Here's hoping it runs on my shonky old PC... Scratch that--it's unplayable.

Since swapping my old 22" widescreen CRT gaming telly for an LCD monitor, I've not been able to play my Dreamcast. So I'm thinking about adding a VGA port to my Dreamcast manually. Has anyone here done this (or similar) before? Would appreciate any tips or suggestions, before I start randomly burning stuff with a soldering iron, as I've not done anything like this before.

That's as much as I paid for the machine when I bought it, but still cheaper than trying to find one now if I were to cock it up. So thank you for the personal recommendation. I need to tot up how much the various electronics would be, and then make a decision as to whether I'd likely fry the wee beasty or not if I attempted the conversion myself. Would be satisfying to say I'd managed something like that though... successfully converting it, I mean. Not murdering the poor thing.

Heartily agree - and what splendiferous couplets you have, Mr Remo. I think you made interesting points about game design, over-used mechanics and stagnant level structure throughout. I'm certainly not going to get pissy that you scrutinised fundamentally tired and dull gameplay in the way you all did; it was still interesting and constructive which, in turn, still elevates you well above most other gaming podcasts out there I've tried. I do not want to listen to a bunch of douchy, squealing MegaNewsCorp PR sock-puppet hacks verbally masturbate each other blind, about whatever qualifies as this week's New Hot New Game!®©™ Beta. And, in doing so, completely ignore the title(s) furiously fapped over just last week – like it/they never even existed. Anyway… thank you.

A remix of Kate Bush's seminal Cloudbusting. Struggling to remember the exact name of the remix though, otherwise I'd link to an online version of it.

What's a realistic battery life figure, toblix, for decent usage during a day? I'm hearing sub-4-hour horror stories at the moment. verohari's keen to make the jump to the G1 next month. But I'm currently suggesting she go for the Nokia E71 at the minute, based on the apparently pathetic battery life of the G1.

It's merely the name of a sub-genre and refers to the layering and build-up of the music. It's not any sort of pretentious artistic mandate. Anyway...

Believability is what struck me most about Generation Kill. My brother served in Iraq for a good chunk of last year and some of the experiences he had are intimately related through Generation Kill's infrequent skirmishes and incidental encounters. At least there were for me, as an outsider trying to frame what my brother experienced as physical events.

Ladytron consistently turn out some of the best vocal Progressive tracks around at the moment, and I absolutely love them. But I don't care if they're writing P(o)op music as well. In a somewhat archaic way, it's like getting upset that your favourite painter might have taken a commission to do a sculpture or two as well, during their career. Doesn't make sense to be outraged by it IMO--and if it improves the shit smeared across commercial radio stations, so much the better.

Yeah, this sort of "environment fatigue" is what spoilt the experience for me in the first game as well.

Nobody should have to resort to that...

Interesting how Gaeta's character is perceived by different people; I was really sad that he was executed. He had the balls to start a full-scale coup in order to do what he believed to be right, and he'd been through a lot (his very dangerous double-dealing on New Caprica for example). I didn't feel anything for Zarek, however. Having been written into the whole BSG canon as a terrorist, to my mind he had to be killed before the end of the series. I don't think slaughtering the Quorum was entirely necessary to the story, and it was done purely to cement the viewer's dislike for and distrust of Zarek if you ask me -- and as a mechanism for Gaeta to begin his process of regret. Both interesting characters and well played.

DanJW, Scratch: thank you. This sort of stuff fascinates me, bizarre as that might seem. I bet Monolith were glad to get the brand back.

...and now the only online shop in the UK I could pre-order one of the new controllers from is refusing any further pre-orders. Worse, they never sent me any notification that my pre-order was logged last week. So I'm trying to get confirmation from them now. It's not looking good though and I may ultimately have to resort to . Update:

Tried the demo on Xbox 360 myself too a couple of nights ago. The scares seemed superficial and not very engaging to me; making the lights flicker, while hitting the player from random directions with minor damage, doesn't mandate a clean pair of trousers in my book. I will try it again, however, as the gunplay in the original was excellent. The AI and level design of the first game also made things more interesting than I expected, too. One small detail's puzzling me, though: what's with the name? I thought Monolith weren't allowed to use the F.E.A.R. brand anymore and so decided upon Project Origin instead of F.E.A.R. 2? And wasn't there a Monolith competition to name "The Legally Not (But Really It Is) F.E.A.R. Sequel" anyway, which is where Project Origin came from in the first place..?

What controller are you using, SiN?

I demand a royalty fee.

Yeah, well, you're still missing YET ANOTHER ROUND OF GRAND THUMB AUTO this evening. Mwah-hah-hah-hah-ha! ...whereas you'll be riding my rocket hard later on. Er, "biotch" etc.

"Mmm, Helvetica..." (Hello!)

Punts arse in huge, shiny, Kevlar-reinforced military issue boots.