Have you ever played a game that you just don’t understand. In the slightest. At all.

I’ve got a couple of games rental lists online, and I’ve basically stuck the entire 360 catalogue (and a few Wii ones as well) on them, sifted out the sports titles, and then let luck (and the postman) deliver games through my door.

I’ve pretty much been able to understand every game up to now. You don’t get instructions, but usually you’re given some kind of tutorial and all becomes clear. Then there are some that are not exactly rocket science (Cars, for example, which I played while everyone else was on Burnout. How hardcore am I?). And then one comes along which is just, well, plain ol’ weird.

Kengo Zero hit the doormat the other day. I knew it was coming, and had read various reviews ranging from “dreadful” to “crap”. I must admit, they’re pretty spot on. It seems that the Japanese have an unhealthy fascination with people wearing wooden shoes and dressing gowns whilst waving great big swords around. Maybe the British games industry is missing a trick and we need a load of fairly similar games about the English Civil War.

Anyway, the game comes with no explanations whatsoever. The stories of the various characters are weird - they just seem to be roaming Japan when they stumble across various fights, then end up on a boat (where they have a fight), then fight a man with a glowing face.

The piece de resistance came last night, however, when I was scanning the achievements. There is one called “Five Man Contest” where you have to win the, erm, Five Man Contest. Beat five opponents and the 25 Gamerpoints are yours. I thought I’d give it a crack, expecting it to take a while as the AI goes from mouth-breather to Stephen Hawking (but obviously with someone else using the joypad) seemingly at random.

So I started the contest and came out, sword swinging. I thought “hey, I’m doing ok here” as my first opponent fell… and then I realised something… it was actually playing itself. I wasn’t controlling a thing. At no point anywhere in the contest set-up did the game imply I wouldn’t be playing, and yet there I was… not playing. Not playing but 25 points better off. Aside from the “Press Start” achievement in the Simpsons, the easiest achievement ever!

Now if only I could find a way for the rest of the game to play itself…

I am no prude, not by a long way but it really, really annoys me the ammount of smutty phone line adverts that there are at the back of 360 mags these days.  Offers of ” a 30 second quickie” or “mature lady waiting for your call, now” do nothing to excite me, in fact quite the opposite.  Yes I know that these ads probably meant the difference between the mags going bust or continuing but they are entirely innappropriate to the subject matter.

Two situations where these ads really get to me are:-

1. Sitting at home lesiurely reading with either girlfriend or young daughter beside me, turn a page to be assaulted with nude, nearly nude, bikini clad women offering their unique services. “honest, it’s a game mag!”, “well you must all be really sad then!”, hard to argue against faced with eight pages of it.

2. Sitting in the car park at Tesco at lunchtime flicking through a mag just as someone walks past at the “classified” adverts, that must be a sight to see.

They say that sex sells, and I have no doubt that in some cases it may be very true.  Anyone remember the Barbarian game on the Spectrum, in which a page three model was used in the advertising?  But these ads are not selling the product, they are being used to suck in guillable teenagers and milk them of their mobile phone money. (sorry that last sentence seemed innuendo laden-didn’t mean it, honest).  However pick up a mag for the Wii and there are no such adverts, they are just filled with what I want to read about, games!

I only have council telly, no Sky for me but I have recently seen that XLeague are starting to show bikini babes and the like.  This really does nothing to help the games industry as a whole, merely make it easier to take shots at.  This is not the porn world , this is video games, we don’t need all this.  So to all offending mags please take note, if I wanted a 30 second quickie I would pick up Mario and Sonic at the Olympics and if I wanted to speak to a mature lady I would phone my mum!

During the well publicised bad times when many Xbox 360 owners were returning their consoles for repair, I was stunned to hear stories of people purchasing Core consoles to continue playing for the two weeks they would be inconsoleable (sic). More money than sense I thought.

Fast forward to this weekend and I find myself the proud owner of a brand new 360 Arcade. Considering there’s nothing wrong with my existing Premium console, what prompted such an expensive purchase?

In an acronym: HDMI.

My Christmas present to myself last year was a new LCD television to replace the 5 year old 32″ CRT which has done sterling service but at a maximum resolution of 480p - yes folks, my headshots have been aimed at things with more jagged edges than a bread knife.

I was particularly looking forward to seeing the 360 at its best resolution so imagine my dismay as I plugged the cable into the new television to find it only supports 768 through the VGA port! My cunning plan had turned into something you could not pin a tail on and call a fox.

Now I wouldn’t call myself a AV purist but I would readily accept the label of stubborn. So at 9pm on a Saturday night I drove to Tesco and bought an Arcade console and an HDMI cable with the express intention of achieving my aim. Once I’ve posted this, I will be playing CoD4 in glorious 1080p and no doubt missing how inaccurate I could be with my aim. All this for the princely sum of £219.96.

For those of you abhorred by this tale, take solace. I objected to paying for a cable that would allow me retain optical sound whilst using the HDMI cable so I butchered the old cable with a screwdriver. After all, no point in wasting money is there?