You play as Lee, who is essentially a likeable everyman thrown into the same situation that seemingly every video game character must face at some point – zombie apocalypse. I will go into no more detail than that – the slow reveal of Lee’s back-story is a highlight of the game, and should not be spoiled. Much of the plot differs from that of the graphic novels, but some characters and situations have made it into the game, which is generally said to run closer to the source material in tone than the Frank Darabont-steered television series.

What Telltale are serving up here bears strong similarities to their recent Jurassic Park adaptation, but is a far more well-judged and refined experience. While Jurassic Park: The Game constantly forced quicktime events on the player, even when performing ostensibly simple or trivial tasks, The Walking Dead flings those hurdles into the player’s path more sparingly. Wrapped around them are short-lived exploratory sections and Lee’s pensive encounters with other survivors.

Those encounters form the basis for the most memorable aspect of the game. On a handful of occasions during the narrative, you will be forced to make difficult choices. Decisions are the most important component to a survival horror experience, and The Walking Dead throws up some humdingers. It also strongly implies that these decisions will help shape the narrative in later episodes – it remains to be seen to just what extent that will be the case, but the prospect is intriguing. Regardless, taken in isolation a couple of the calls the player is forced to make in this first episode alone are shocks to the system, and will probably be most welcome to gamers who are becoming a little fatigued by the black and white morality of series like Mass Effect and Fable.

The Walking Dead doesn’t just deal in grey through its challenges to the player’s morality – it is also the prevailing graphical impression. The art assets feature thick black outlines; a clear effort has been made to capture the literal look and feel of the graphic novels. The game has evidently been produced on a tight budget, but intelligent use of lighting, strong voice-acting and efficient pacing come together to leave little sense of cheapness. Expect your first playthrough to take between two and three hours. You may find further value in a second playthrough to see how alternative choices play out.

The football team I support have not exactly covered themselves in glory this year. In fact, they’ve covered themselves in something far more brown and sticky than glory. Not sticks. As such, it’s the time of year when I turn to Sports Interactive’s Football Manager series, in an attempt to right the wrongs of my team’s season.

I used to have a fairly solid grip of Football Manager. I’d mastered its forebear Championship Manager back in the day (by simply buying Gabriel Batistuta for all of the money and then winning everything), and my most recent foray featured some decent success albeit peppered by saddening episodes of misfortune.

This year though I have struggled more than ever with the newest installment in the series, Football Manager 2012. I have listed the four hardest parts of the game below. They’re not key components or anything, but they do affect things a little.

Also – please remember that, even if you don’t like football, misery is also a universal language so read on.

4. Training (or “Why can’t you all just be better at football and leave me alone?”)

I don't know what any of it means. One of my coaches is called Vizolli - does that help?

Player training in Football Manager 2012 is more complicated than a thousand entwined balls of string watching a David Lynch film about calculus.

You have to construct tailored training schedules for each position/role within your team. Then, you have to assign players and coaches to those schedules. Coaches have attributes and specialties, and can’t really work on more than one schedule at a time, so you have to juggle them around until the schedule ratings look pleasing enough to the eye. Once you’ve spent 14 hours doing that, you can set individual players to have a specific focus on top of the schedule you’ve already assigned them to. Once you’re happy that all those plates are spinning correctly, you can still screw it all up by selecting too high a setting for the percentage of your squad’s training time that you want them to spend familiarising themselves with your tactics and formation.

By that point it won’t matter though because, if you’ve taken the time to configure every aspect of your player training in the intricate detail that the game demands, civilization will have ended and the small mole-man creatures over which you will have dominion will care little for the fact that you had the foresight to ask Steven Gerrard to concentrate on making better decisions.

Friend? Brains? What is Steven Gerrard? Friend?

3. Interacting with Players (or “Why do you hate our team so much?”)

Oh yeah, he's wrapped around my little finger alright.

You remember that episode of The Simpsons where Krusty reads on the auto-cue that he has to talk to the audience and he says, “Talk to the audience?! Oh, this is always death”? Well, I feel about a million times more anxiety than Krusty when I have to talk to my players in Football Manager 2012.

New for this year is the ability to set the tone of what you want to say, be it when talking to players one on one, or to the entire team. I always get the tone wrong. It’s as simple as that. Always. Wrong. Tone. Wrong. Always.

Also, while you're here, would it kill you to be better at football?

2. Tactics (or “Do as I say for once in your muppet lives, or so help me I’ll sob like a little girl.”)

The Team Instructions screen. Also known as the Exploded Brain screen.

Setting tactics and strategies in Football Manager 2012 is a perplexing and time-consuming way to simulate what it is like to have ungrateful people balls-up their lives because they didn’t listen to you. Sort of like raising children.

There are countless trillions (I’ve counted them) of ways to configure your team and player instructions. You can tell players how often you want them to run with the ball. You can tell them how often to take long range shots on goal. You can tell them how aggressively you want them to tackle opponents. All of this is pointless because individual player “Preferred Moves” will override your instructions. Does your central defender like to abandon his post and go pointlessly marauding up the field every five minutes? Hard luck, nothing can stop him.

I'm not naming names or anything, Daniel Agger.

1. Playing Matches (or “Aaaaargh why does the searing failure burn my eyes so acutely?”)

I re-loaded and re-played this match 17 times. This was the best result.

During matches, you can edit your formation and tactics in just as much depth as at any other time. You can give pre-match, half-time and post-match team talks. You can monitor your players’ performance in intricate detail, even down to their body language and general demeanour. You can issue shouts from the touchline.

You can flick peanuts at the screen and wear your pants on your head too, if you like.

None of it matters. None of it helps. Apart from the pants. They give you a unique perspective on the whirlwind of misery that Football Manager 2012 has brought into your life.

A perspective that smells faintly of something brown and sticky. Not sticks.

The recent titles in the core FIFA series have provided lasting appeal through complexity. Their high level of authenticity rewards varied tactical approaches from players in what feels like a realistic manner. In contrast, FIFA Street offers little tactical variation, and arguably little variation in how it feels to control different footballers and the way they move around the pitch. Instead, it includes complexity in a different facet ‒ in the overwhelming amount of skill moves the player can use to beat defenders. There are myriad ways to flick ball over an opponent’s head, or around them, or even through their legs (a technique referred to as “Panna”). The footballer collision and physics engine has been successfully imported from FIFA 12, adding a satisfying nuance to one-on-one situations, and this combines with the multitude of skill move options to create a simulation of surprising depth.

The central “World Tour” mode of FIFA Street has you build a squad from scratch (featuring your FIFA 12 Virtual Pro, and your friends’ Virtual Pros too if you can stand to look at your friends), selecting events from a world map and besting them on three difficulty settings to unlock various rewards, such as new hoodies or shorts for your team. Occasionally you will be able to recruit replacement squad members from vanquished opponent teams, or you can stick with your original roster if you like, earning experience and skill points to spend on attributes and skill moves. The process for doing so is a little arduous ‒ the interfaces in FIFA Street suffer from the same stickiness and incongruity as in the core FIFA titles, but you soon learn to live with them. There is some variety to events and arenas. In “Last Man Standing” each time you score a goal, your team loses a player. The winning team is the first team to lose all their players in this way. It’s good fun with friends, provided you enjoy swearing at your friends. The “Panna” mode is also worth a mention ‒ in it, you earn points by beating opponents with skill moves, but can only bank those points by scoring a goal. It’s one of those game types that will have you sticking your tongue out in rapt concentration like a Spirographing five year old. The modes can be played in local and online multiplayer, as you’d expect.

So, FIFA Street has plenty to offer. Ultimately though, the problem is that the control pad technique required to master FIFA Street is far in excess of what it takes to succeed in the likes of FIFA 12. To improve in online competition, players will need to put in arduous practice as if they were trying to master Street Fighter IV, or Skate. The average core FIFA series player is likely to find FIFA Street easy to learn but very difficult to master, and so will probably rather just go back to FIFA 12. Those that stick with it are likely to find FIFA Street a sports title of rewarding depth featuring a high skill ceiling which is just unpredictable enough to keep things fresh.

Marking the shift in the series’ focus from tension built from plodding reveals and effective body-horror to tension built from having six Spanish people trying to insert farmyard tools into your skull at any given moment, Resident Evil 4 is lauded by some as one of the greatest games of all time. My experience of the game was buying it on release for the PS2, completing it over a weekend and then never playing it again. A HD remastering has been available for download for Xbox 360 for quite some time now, so I recently decided to stump up the £14.99, or 1564.542 Microsoft Points, and plunge back into it. I partly did it to see if the intervening six years or so since its original release have weathered or galvanised Resident Evil 4’s appeal, and partly because I’m bored to hell with every other game there is in the world, and I’m especially damned if I’m going to dip into Shephard’s Dull Grey Metal Corridor Escapade 3 any time soon.

Also, I guess that Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City thing just came out, so if you like you can think of this as a timely topical retrospective, rather than the irrelevant nonsense it oh so clearly is not. Anyway, here are the things I’d forgotten about Resident Evil 4.

7. Ashley

FFS.

For half of Resident Evil 4, you have to escort Ashley. Ashley is some sort of female character, and not in the good way like Pamela Anderson’s character in Baywatch. Ok, maybe she is a bit like Pamela Anderson’s character in Baywatch ‒ her breasts have jiggle physics. Capcom aren’t stupid ‒ they know to take an opportunity when they see one ‒ and you’d better believe that there is no more golden an opportunity at Capcom than the opportunity to fully implement breast jiggle physics.

Now, Ashley’s AI isn’t actually that bad. She will wait where you tell her to wait, and if she’s following you she’ll do so reliably. She’s a bit annoying, yes, but what can you do? Leon inexplicably has to save the president’s daughter on his own (we’ll come to that), and because she’s a lady that means you’re going to have to listen to her constantly asking you to do stuff (I knew a lady, once, and that’s how it is). The problem is that Ashley and her jiggly boobies accompany you in countless fierce battles with all sorts of enemies, where she can take damage and eventually die, or get carried off, all while offering absolutely no combat effectiveness. The game simply doesn’t care that Ashley is with you ‒ you’ll seemingly face every type of foe with her in tow that you’d face on your own.

The first few times she dies, it’s amusing. Leon will stop what he’s doing, raise his hand to his brow and say “Oh…….no….” in the resigned yet disgusted manner of a man who has perhaps just found out that he got a goat pregnant. Once that hilarity ebbs away though, one grows tired of Ashley’s fragility.

This is fine in something like Ico, but having Ashley and her brittle funbags tag along to half the encounters in Resident Evil 4 is like having to wheel Stephen Hawking through the hellish imp-laden corridors of Doom. With two watermelons sellotaped to his chest. Which leads me to my next point……

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6. Game is HARD

Stressful.

Resident Evil 4 doesn’t mess around. Either you’re good enough, or you’re not. Leon can be insta-killed in at least 3,643 different ways I’ve counted. He can be decapitated by a chainsaw (extra funny when it happens when Ashley is standing right there next to him), he can have his face melted off by the acid spew of a giant insect, he can be crushed by rolling boulders, he can be stabbed right in his heart, he can be minced by lasers and one time I swear that I once picked up a green herb from the floor and he got it stuck in his eye and it killed him right there on the spot.

That’s just on “Normal”. There’s a “Professional” mode too, for idiots.

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5. You can’t see things that are stood right next to you

The default camera position. Good thing nothing evil sneaks up behind you. Constantly.

The camera in Resident Evil 4 hates you and everything you stand for. Half the screen is taken up by Leon’s fat back, and the other half is like peering down a tunnel you have to walk through on your way to receive surgical treatment for your chronic cataracts. Your blindspot is 90% of Leon’s surrounding area. You can move the right stick to get Leon to look in a certain direction, but he will focus so intently on this next direction that you’re far better off quick-turning, running off in the opposite direction, turning back and moving Leon so that whatever object it is you wanted to look at is now positioned in the gap between his fat shoulder and the corner of the screen.

I’ll mention at this point that Resident Evil 4 is definitely not the sort of game that cheaply delights in incessantly having enemies sneak up behind you in the middle of battles, which is good to know.

Oh, hi there!

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4. The Merchant

Ashley, Leon and The Merchant. Chillin'. Ashley tenderly cupping her own boob like how girls do.

In Resident Evil 4 there is a bloke called “The Merchant”. He turns up about an hour in and tries to sell Leon stuff, re-appearing regularly after that point. He has several outposts throughout the various enemy strongholds in the game and, frankly, is highly suspicious. He is never explained, and has a creepy accent, but then thinking about it, nobody is explained in Resident Evil 4, and almost everyone has a questionable accent. It’s a lot like Leeds.

I’d forgotten he was in the game, but his presence makes me happy. He’s an endlessly entertaining chap, and the banter sparkles from the get-go. You end up looking forward to selling him valuable items, which he greets with the statement “Oooh, I’ll buy it at a high price”. He dresses in black and sounds like Gollum crossed with Antonio Banderas and he’s alright.

Also note that if you kill him he stays dead forever and you can't buy or sell stuff for the rest of the game, which is pretty funny if you think about it, but not when you inevitably end up actually doing it and instead find your actions saddening.

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3. All of the barrels

Sentient barrel attack.

There are two things that rooms in Resident Evil 4 are filled with: 1) evil monsters intent on killing you, and 2) all of the barrels.

The barrels are wooden, and can smashed with a single swipe of your knife, as long as the game’s collision detection doesn’t get distracted by a butterfly or something, which I think definitely happens quite often. There are sometimes precious treats inside, like ammo, health or treasure (which can be sold to The Merchant for money and the opportunity to talk to The Merchant). Sometimes there is nothing inside. You’ll never know the delights concealed within the barrel unless you swipe it with your knife. This is key to the appeal of all of the barrels.

Soon, the game becomes an excuse to swipe barrels and feast on their sumptuous innards. Nothing else matters. This eventually begs the question: is the entire game just a subtle treatise on the importance of wood in modern day society, more specifically the wood used to create barrels? Or are the barrels in fact a metaphor for the conflict in Afghanistan?

I guess we’ll never know for sure. Despite that, though, we will still undeniably have all of the barrels to keep us company whilst we ponder all of the barrels, which is comforting.

Swipe me! Go on, swipe me with your big, strong knife! I know you want it! I know you want what's inside of me! SWIPE ME!

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2. Even for Resident Evil, the bad guys are morons

in coming image.

The US president’s daughter (Ashley) has been kidnapped somewhere in Europe (happens). The president isn’t Liam Neeson, so he has to rely on other people to go and retrieve Ashley. They apparently have some fairly solid intel that Ashley is being held in some unspecified country where they speak Spanish that looks very much like it is probably Spain, but is never called “Spain” because presumably Capcom were worried about being sued by……the nation of Spain? Anyway, the player takes control of Leon as he rocks up in a rural village in this unspecified country, and is told to find and retrieve the president’s daughter on his own, because, well, the president isn’t made of secret agents you know, and shut up, and why don’t you try doing his job for a day if you think it’s so easy?

It’s hard to be sure on most of the plot points because they fly past so quick like drunk pigeons, and I was heavily distracted thinking about all of the barrels. Best I can tell, the big idea is that, beneath the village, there is a mine where the bad guys have unearthed Las Plagas. Las Plagas is a parasite that controls human hosts and links them to a central consciousness, submitting their will and making them a tool of whoever is in control. The bad guys want to use this to take over the world, which is totally fair and what most of us would do in that situation. They infect Ashley with the parasite, the idea being that she will return to her father’s side under their control, and then kill him. It’s a solid plan at a high level, but they struggle with implementation.

Leon is captured early on, and they infect him with the parasite, rather than just killing him. Well played, you think. There’s a certain macabre artistry to that decision, which almost makes it forgivable until it is revealed that the parasite takes several hours to take control of the host. Even worse, they don’t even throw Leon’s guns, equipment and radio in the lake. Unsurprisingly, Leon wakes up and proceeds to rescue Ashley and methodically kill the entire Las Plagas-controlled village, and all of the bad guys one by one, stopping only to spout non-sequitous poorly-translated puns, and also talk to The Merchant.

Ha ha ha yeah, good one Leon. Wait... is he serious?

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1. Leon in Resident Evil 4 has the exact same face as Jill in Resident Evil 5

It's messed up.

Fans fondly remember the original PlayStation installments in the series (which has been trundling along, with a couple of breakdowns along the way, for over 16 years now), and in particular the first sequel, Twisted Metal 2: World Tour for being a consistently enjoyable, imaginative and well-made title. Capers it enabled included shooting down the Eiffel Tower in the Paris level, and using it as a makeshift bridge on to the rooftops, for no other apparent reason than it was funny. The series had that cheeky charm early on, but that morphed into something a little darker with Twisted Metal: Black, released to critical acclaim in 2001 for PlayStation 2. In fact, chunks of the game including almost all of the cutscenes were removed entirely from the European release, partly due to the release date falling within the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and apparently partly due to rating concerns.

2012’s Twisted Metal is close in tone to Twisted Metal: Black. The well-produced and directed cutscenes included in the campaign mode and the tales told therein can feel almost unremittingly bleak. The themes they explore are decidedly more Manhunt than Mario Kart. Three characters are explored in separate chapters, which take the form of processions of combat levels of ascending intensity, bookended by the aforementioned cutscenes and their macabre fables. The combat levels are admirably varied. Alongside basic deathmatch, players are also placed into electric cage matches (where a “cage” area moves around the level, and if you don’t keep up and stay within its boundaries your health is gradually drained), juggernaut matches (a massive, heavily-armed lorry meanders around the map dropping off additional opponents until it is destroyed) and battle races (opponents race and, er, battle with each other on the way). The final mission of each chapter takes the form of a boss battle and these are the gameplay highlights of the entire package, for reasons I won’t spoil. You can use any vehicle you’ve unlocked in any of these levels, regardless of the character you’re playing as.

You’ll probably be done with the singleplayer campaign after six or so hours, unless you get drawn into Trophy hunting. Singleplayer challenge modes and both local split-screen and online multiplayer are also on the table. The original development focus of Twisted Metal was said to be on providing a multiplayer-only experience, comparable to games like Warhawk, and so the online multiplayer component of this release is well-formed with no clear balancing issues. You’re given a persistent character to level in ranked matches, and unlocks bring a now obligatory sense of progression. If Twisted Metal’s brand of carnage really clicks with you, there is the potential for a long, loving relationship online with it. For most, though, the action is likely to grow overly repetitive after a few hours. To do major damage to opponents, you generally have to get up pretty close. As in most combat games, the closer you get to the fulcrum, the more control over your own destiny you relinquish. As such, many will start to bump their heads on the resulting skill ceiling before long, and will be tempted to return to combat titles like Battlefield 3 that reward a little more variation in approach, and even let you perform that variation from within a vehicle if you absolutely insist.

Some have complained about the unconventional controls but they’re fine once you get used to them. The real problem with Twisted Metal in 2012 is that the fundamental game at the core remains intact from 1995, and it doesn’t look like it can be transferred with true success to the modern online competitive multiplayer market without that core being changed more profoundly. Competing online in this game is unlikely to satisfy most modern gamers, and so with a campaign mode that someone could be done with in one night’s play, this game struggles to offer proper value at the full price point.

Everyone gets bored of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim eventually. For me, the tipping point was the 17,685th time that someone ended a sentence with “It’s in this dungeon, here”. The 17,684th time I had to go and get something from a dungeon, I loved it. There was just something about the 17,685th time. I know it’s irrational, but that’s how it is. I know someone who is on their 40,081st dungeon, so everyone is different. Maybe the 40,082nd dungeon will be their tipping point.

Anyway, to pass the time until the next thrilling dragon battle, I’ve been shooting things in the crotch. Here are my favourite picks – five crotches to shoot before you die.

5. Lydia

Obviously.

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4. Jarl Balgruuf the Greater

Jarl Balgruuf the Arrow-Crotch, more like. Ha!

Jarl Balgruuf is kind of a big deal. He has a blonde beard and nice, colourful clothes. He sits on a throne. Do you know how he got to be where he is? I’ll tell you. He got to be where he is by taking arrow shots to the crotch like how a man do.

You think he’s going to call his guards or go crying to that special mage bloke when you fire an arrow at his groin? You think Jarl Balgruuf is even going to say anything more than “Be careful!” when you unleash an arrow at point blank range into his genitals? You think you’ll get a rise out of him even as the arrow head perfectly skewers his left testicle? Then you don’t know Balgruuf. Balgruuf is a man’s man. He hunts the greatest sport of all – getting shot in the crotch by arrows. Even if you shoot him in the crotch so many times that his health bar empties, all he will do is stand up, fall to his knees whilst awkwardly glitching around and around in his throne, and then sit right the hell back down where he was three seconds ago, looking straight through you as if he’d never seen you before.

Which he hasn't, because Balgruuf sees only the arrow and his crotch.

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3. Odahviing (the stupid dragon you capture)

All the Hind Siiv Alduin in the world can't save your crotch now, my friend.

The main quest in Skyrim is as boring as a librarian who is notably boring. Fighting dragons in Skyrim is somehow even more boring than that. Imagine that the librarian just started telling you about the dream they had last night.

A mission late in the main quest has you capture a dragon, and my word it is an idiot of a dragon. You shout its name into the night sky, and it flies over and walks into a massive dragon trap that Jarl Balgruuf just had lying around. Then there is some sort of conversation and the dragon decides to fly you to Valhalla or wherever it is that you “complete” the game. I forget why he agrees to do this. Maybe he took one look at all the arrow holes in Balgruuf’s crotch and drew the wise conclusion that the man is not to be screwed with. Anyway, the point is, the dragon is held in place, can’t move, and you can totally shoot him in the crotch as many times as you want.

Look at that one. Right in there. Happy, happy times.

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2. The hunter who sits at the Cliffside Retreat

I find your opinions on poaching fascinating, crazy cliffside hunter lady.

There’s a little shack on top of a large cliff in the western area of the map. There’s a woman who sits by the shack, who sometimes sells bits of pheasants and rabbits to me and presumably just sits and contemplates bits of pheasants and rabbits the rest of the time when I’m not around. Wait, what’s that I hear you say? Do women even have crotches? The answer is that most scientists would agree that they probably do, but no-one will know for sure until we ask a woman.

Well, you can get pretty close to this hunter lady. By pretty close, I mean you can sidle right up to her amorphous black crotch and shoot it at point blank range whilst she gazes down at you with a peturbed look on her face.

Which, coincidentally, is a fairly accurate account of how I lost my virginity.

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1. Any giant (I named the one in the pictures Jeremy)

Giants are initially docile, and they have very little crotch protection. And massive crotches.

Giants are essentially giant people. People have crotches. Ergo giants must have giant crotches.

If you are serious, I mean really serious about shooting people in the crotch, then giants’ crotches are your Moby Dick. You must pile upon their crotch humps the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by your whole race from Adam down; and then, as if your chest were a mortar, burst your hot heart’s shell upon it. Or something.

Keep your cool, brave and noble Crotch-Warrior, and you will prevail. By shooting someone in the crotch repeatedly. For that is the Crotch-Warrior way.

Shooting people in the crotch is a big commitment. It is a noble profession, yes, but it is not always glamorous. People might stop you and ask why you’re shooting them in the crotch, and you might naturally start to ask yourself that very question, inbetween crotch-shooting episodes. I say to you right now, don’t use the knowledge I have given you here today if you’re unsure about whether or not it is morally right to shoot people in the crotch. That question has no place here. The last thing we need on the crotch-shooting circuit is half-baked crotch-shooting.

Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer’s Edition

Ready Up has genuine pedigree in the field of gaming world records, which you can find out more about by clicking here. So, it was a very happy day when three of our team were asked to write sections in the 2012 edition.

Yes, you can read about the movers, shakers and record-breakers of the last year in first person shooters with Kirsten, fighting games with Dan and racers with John. Once you’ve feverishly digested each word in those sections, you can feast further on the rest of the book. Want to know what the first album ever to debut in a social networking game was? Who was paid the highest fee ever to appear in a game advert? What does the world’s largest game controller look like? Does it mean that King Kong can finally take on Godzilla (and that giant wolf-thing) at Rampage?

The answer to this, and many other less important questions can be found in the book.

The great thing about books is that even if you can’t access the internet due to total worldwide data network outage or (more likely) zombie apocalypse you can still read them in the bath, or wherever it is that people read books these days. If you were to possess Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer’s Edition, once the world recovered you would then be one of the most informed members of the new gaming society, or failing that you could walk around telling zombies which racing game has the highest number of polygons per car ever (hint: it came out last year).

Close, but miles off. Stupid zombies.

The great news is, to achieve that vision, you don’t even have to buy the book! That’s right, we’re giving away two copies of Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2012. No gaming bookshelf is complete without the latest edition, so get on it and enter below. Closes Feb 17th, 2012.

For a chance to win, all you need to do is answer this simple question: What are the names of the Karting trio above?

A: Dom, Marcus & Cole (you schlegg!)
B: Kirsten, Dan & John
C: Peach, Mario & Yoshi

Guinness World Records 2012 Gamer’s Edition is out now! For more information visit:

www.guinnessworldrecords.com/gamers

Sometimes I get Bono to cover for me, for no obvious reason.

If you’ve never been exposed to UFO, and like pixels, you can download the game right now from Steam for a few pounds. It’s what I did a while back when my craving to jump back into it became too much.

It looks like I wasn’t the only one with that craving, though. A few clusters of developers and publishers seem to have noticed that there is one influential series in particular that hasn’t yet been remade, and so are looking to plug that gaping hole with a release of their own (ignore that). I’ve already written about the new XCOM FPS title, which regrettably appears to have slipped off the edge of a very large cliff.

You can play the beta of Xenonauts right now, which is Goldhawk Interactive’s exciting community-fuelled re-imagining of UFO in a cold war setting.

Also looming onto the horizon is Firaxis’ (the studio behind Civilization) recently announced XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which will release for consoles and may offer an interesting alternative approach to that taken with Xenonauts.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

None of that is the reason I’m here, though. No, the reason I’m here is to relate to you a story of extreme bravery in the face of extraordinary peril. I’m here to tell you the story of my recent revisit of UFO.

When I first fired up the game I chose the hardest difficulty setting. Not because I’m confident, or because I am in any way proficient at the game. No, I selected the hardest difficulty setting because I am an idiot.

UFO essentially boils down to arming and equipping a group of multinational soldiers and sending them into battle with the alien forces in an attempt to fight off their gradual invasion of Earth. As in life, it can be difficult to remember the often seemingly random combinations of letters that make up foreign people’s names. So before I did anything else, I renamed my squad of soldiers so that, in the heat of turn-based battle, I could remember which ones to protect and which to sacrifice.

What was needed was a simple naming convention. Obviously, I chose to name the weaker, less accurate soldiers after Manchester United players. Naturally, the stronger and more accurate soldiers were named after Liverpool players. The players with French-sounding names were left as they were, because in battle they can be instinctively disregarded as Arsenal players.

As you can see, they all look exactly like their namesakes, with the possible exception of Ryan Giggs who looks like Guile.

My merry band of X-Com operatives named after famous footballers (and Dirk Kuyt) initially fared well against the alien horde. The only soldiers we lost were French. Ryan Giggs was leading the charge with Paul Scholes, and they formed a formidable partnership, until on a mission in Jamaica Ryan Giggs was shot in the groin by an alien had to recuperate back at base for two weeks.

He actually took out a super-injunction on me. He was really shot in a far more embarrassing place.

As it goes, I forgot to put Giggs back in the squad after he recovered, so he missed a lot of action. I like to think that he was running around the base on his own with a football the whole time. Meanwhile, Paul Scholes killed three aliens with one grenade on one mission and was accordingly promoted.

'You can take back all the medals I've won in football - the finest moment of my career was when a fictional and poorly rendered represention of me was promoted to Sergeant.' - Paul Scholes, last week.

The whole tactic of sacrificing Manchester United players in favour of Liverpool players was failing horribly, mainly because Paul Scholes was killing everything with grenades before the Liverpool players could get there. This changed, though, on a mission to secure a landed UFO on a farm near Chicago.

As soon as Paul Scholes wandered out of our plane he was shot in the knee, suprisingly not by an arrow, but instead by searing green alien plasma. Two aliens were holed up in a farmhouse right next to our vehicle, and were taking potshots at my poorly rendered representations of professional footballers, who simply couldn’t return fire accurately given the superior position of their foes. I had one more soldier left to try to kill the aliens before the end of our turn (and certain death for most of my squad). I’d given dependable Dirk Kuyt the rocket launcher, and he’d carried it into battle on every mission without even using it. However, he was now my only hope. I peeked his head out of the plane, and he took aim and fired. Did he do us proud? Did he step up?

Yes. Yes he did. For none can stand against the might of Kuyt.

Sadly though, it was the last true moment of glory for my merry band of fake millionaire sportsmen. Just one day after Paul Scholes returned from knee knack, the aliens attacked our base. I hadn’t installed defences, because (as I think I’ve mentioned previously) I am an idiot. The aliens landed on the soil above our base, and poured in through the hangars and access lift. My squad were scattered all over the place. I formed them into two groups, and tried to hold down their respective sections. Rio Ferdinand, Eric Cantona, Peter Schmeichel and Dirk Kuyt were holed up in the west living quarters. Paul Scholes bravely led the other team, comprising the rest of my force, in the east storage area.

The west team were first to bite the dust. An alien popped his head around the corner and took a shot at Eric Cantona, who took a solid hit to the chest but was still standing. Before the alien could take another shot though, Rio Ferdinand instinctively dispatched the extraterrestrial fiend with a laser rifle headshot. The game doesn’t render it, but I like to think that the alien’s head exploded dramatically and wetly. It’s irrelevant anyway, because the very next moment, all four of that team were obliterated by what can only be described as a small nuclear warhead.

Those evil alien bastards.

So, it was down to Paul Scholes and my other five remaining soldiers.

I really should have hired more soldiers. I was employing 40 scientists at that point. 40 scientists! Not one of them was around at the time of the alien attack. Not one. I could have strapped live grenades to them and walked them right up to the aliens, but no. They were all out buying test tubes or something. Selfish.

Anyway. I still felt the situation could be salvaged. Paul Scholes had proven himself in grenadefare, and he was in a room filled with grenades. This was simple. I would instruct Paul Scholes to gradually and methodically throw grenades into every corner of the base until his arm got tired. Then I would strap live grenades to the remaining Manchester United players and walk them right up to any remaining aliens. Essentially, as long as my team still had the air in their lungs to strap live grenades to each other, and walk up to aliens, we were golden.

What I had forgotten is that aliens in UFO can use mind control to take over your soldiers and use them to kill your other soldiers. So, when I looked up from the sketch of Paul Scholes throwing a small grenade at a larger grenade that I was working on to see John Barnes being taken over by aliens, walking over to Ryan Giggs, and firing his rocket launcher directly into his back to kill both of them and Nick Barmby, it again dawned on me that I am an idiot. Yet, I still feel that much blame lies with John Barnes here.

Why, John Barnes? Why? Not this. Never this.

I’d packed my forces too closely together, and now they were all dead, apart from Paul Scholes, Luis Garcia and Ole Solskjaer. The next turn, aliens took over Luis Garcia and he shot Paul Scholes three times in the back with his laser rifle. It was down to Ole Solskjaer.

The first point of order was to kill the now alien-controlled Luis Garcia. Ole Solskjaer did so. The next point of order was to be shot at by every alien in the base, and somehow survive to the next turn. Ole Solskjaer did so. The following point of order was to start throwing grenades. My new plan became to have Ole Solskjaer pick up all of the remaining grenades, fight his way through to the hangar, and then hide in the corner and throw said grenades at the door until there were no more grenades.

Ole Solskajer did so.

To say that Ole Solskjaer went on an insatiable grenade-fuelled rampage of alien bloodlust would be to sell short the unbearable glory of what occurred. He killed five aliens single-handedly in hand-to-grenade combat. That is to say, he used one of his hands to throw grenades at five aliens until they all became green stains on the wall. Even the game itself had to pause proceedings and pass comment on the sheer awesome it was rendering:

Yes. I know.

At that exact moment, I received an email from an unknown sender, with just the below picture attached. I will never know for sure who sent it, but I am assuming it was God.

He also killed a man with a trident but it happened so fast I couldn't get a screen-grab.

All good things come to an end, though, even insatiable grenade-fuelled rampages. Especially insatiable grenade-fuelled rampages, in fact.

The aliens presumably got bored of being blown up and fired a small nuclear device into the hangar, rupturing the fuel tanks and turning brave Ole Solskjaer into such a fine mist that the game couldn’t even render it.

With my forces spent, the world was defenceless. The aliens had won.

This is the screen you're shown when you lose. It might as well be the title screen.

In fairness, though, that picture doesn’t look too bad. What you’ll essentially have is a bunch of people with extra arms, crouched around a campfire singing songs about Norwegian ex-Manchester United players. I’d call that something to aim for. Sounds a bit like Skyrim.

Boom! Headshot. Happy Trails! Also, welcome to the party pal. Also, Yippee-Ki-Yay. Also, I'm an exceptional thief. Also, let it snow.

I mention all this because circumstances in my life are pulling me away from that community, and severely restricting the time I get with those friends. I’ve struggled with this fact for months, and have felt angry with the situation. Like the Hulk but with more crying. Now, though, I have come to terms with it. What you learn as your grow up is that you can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t be all things to all people. If you have an open heart, and make friends readily, you won’t get to spend time with them all.

Like a prostitute with too many clients. Sorry.

Of course, most people probably learn that lesson when they’re 13 years old. My development has always been behind, though, due to the four solid years of my adolescence I spent trapped inside the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time.

Four years. Six hours a day. The water-cake is a lie.

Although as you get older the amount of free time you have to spend with those you care about becomes more limited, you don’t forget about them. You miss them, and you idly think about what they might be doing on some rainy Thursday afternoon (usually you conclude that they’re probably dicking around on Facebook with the rest of the world).

So this article isn’t a call to arms, a request for all the friends I’ve met online to meet up in a Minecraft server and build a giant, throbbing heart of love and fellowship.

Or a giant, throbbing anything of love and friendship.

I’m writing partly to encourage anyone who ever feels lonely when gaming, or wants people to boast to when MrCuddleswick only kills them three times in a round of Modern Warfare, to pick up the figurative pen and introduce themselves on a forum of their choosing. I recommend Character Select, because it has the highest handsome levels on the Internet, but the choice is yours. Think about how many people in the world there are that have access to the Internet (I saw a computer with a 56k modem in Wales a couple of weeks ago so it is definitely reaching some pretty remote areas now). If you don’t fit in with the first community you find, then try again with another community. The rewards are worth it.

In truth, however, this article is really for me to wave and say hello to the friends I miss. The friends I used to speak to every day but no longer can. As the community has grown, it has widened, divided, expanded within those divisions and evolved. Some people fell out with each other, some grew incredibly close, and some even totally hooked up and got it ON.

I’ve raised a glass to you all over this festive period. Thank you for the good times, and the bad times, and the sexy times. I’ll see you all as soon as I can.

Or next week when I get fired from my day job for constantly referencing 80s movies and play games forever instead.

Yay.

I’ll assume you just stopped reading to go and buy it, and this is now three hours later. You have completed all the levels. Unfortunately, I have something unpleasant to tell you: you played it wrong. Let me tell you how you should have played it.

The true glory of Scribblenauts is the same as in real life. You have to become really good at just one thing. One skill that you excel at. A niche.

Plumbers are good at plumbing. Gardeners are good at gardening. Doctors are good at having cold hands. Footballers are good at cheating on their wives.

In Scribblenauts, you can summon any object you wish to try to complete puzzle-like 2D levels. In the end, it becomes too simple.  The main test is jumping through the hoop of figuring out what exactly it is that the designers want you to create in a given context. What you have to do to truly make the most of Scribblenauts is train yourself to solve solutions using a pre-conceived “special skill”.

My special skill is velociraptors.

Yep. This is happening.

Anyone can complete Scribblenauts. However, only a gifted few have the nous to best the game using velociraptor-based solutions wherever possible. It’s like speed-running, without the speed and the running, and with more velociraptors.

Prepare the Schoolhouse for a new year? Velociraptors. Help with the pit-stops? Velociraptors. Give the workmen their tools? Velociraptors? Velociraptors. Velociraptors, velociraptors, velociraptors.

Velociraptors.

Now, granted, some problems are not easily solved by the enthusiastic application of velociraptors.

Ok! I know just the thing!

It is a big challenge.

That man does not look refreshed.

What you’ve got to do is mix it up. Work around the problem, whilst staying true to yourself.

Right... I think I understand...

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. There are many types of velociraptor.

Big. Small. Baby. Angry. Vegetarian. Scottish.

When pursuing velociraptor-based strategems, you will quite naturally often find yourself under threat from rampaging hordes of velociraptors. When this inevitably occurs, may I recommend the anti-velociraptor turret?

Accuracy can be a concern, yet still notably less of a concern than the velociraptors.

So, find your own way. You can’t be the velociraptor guy. That important position in society has already been ably filled. Figure something else out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was Ready Up’s man, live on the scene as it happened. For your convenience, I took notes so I could provide a breakdown of the main talking points:

00:01 – We see a notice that this trailer may contain inappropriate content for children. There is also a URL displayed below this cryptic message – www.esrb.org. I’ve been to this website, and I’m 90% sure that it is some sort of viral marketing ploy. Supposedly “esrb” stands for “Entertainment Software Rating Board”, but absolutely no one has told me so far that “esrb” isn’t the Norwegian for “GTA V will be set in a zoo in Norway”, so that is now the front-running theory.

00:08 – We’re on a beach. There is a couple walking towards the sea, possibly suicidally. One of them might be David Hasselhoff – it’s impossible to be sure on this point. Importantly, they have a dog. Will there be dogs in Grand Theft Auto V? Yes. Can you car-jack a dog? Maybe, I guess. Can you car-jack David Hasselhoff?

Hell. Yes.

00:12 – We’re looking at some palm trees in the foreground, and skyscrapers in the background. It looks warm. I should also mention at this point that there is a man saying words constantly throughout the trailer. I’ve watched the trailer 400 times and I still don’t know what he’s talking about. Something about dreaming of velociraptors in a field of barley, I don’t know.

00:18 – Golf! There is golf in Grand Theft Auto V. Golf buggies too. That will be seen as a huge leap forward from the golf buggies of Grand Theft Auto IV. Huge intersection between the two markets of golf and Grand Theft Auto, always has been. Rockstar are still wise to this. Also, BLIMP! There’s definitely a blimp up there in the top-right corner. I now can’t wait for the blimp mission, and the series of missions leading up to the blimp mission.

00:19 – Jet Ski! Were there jet skis in the other Grand Theft Auto games? No one remembers, or answers.

00:21 – Mountain! Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas had a mountain. God I wish someone would remake that game with current tech.

00:23 – There is a man in a car. This is the first hint we see in the trailer that you will be able to drive cars in Grand Theft Auto V. Wait a minute – that car appears to be transforming. Is this, in fact, the first hint we see in the trailer that you will be able to drive Transformers in Grand Theft Auto V? Almost definitely.

Fat bastard simply will not fit in my garage. Tried everything.

00:29 – Windmills in a lovely desert-like landscape. Looks like Red Dead Redemption. That can mean only one thing: Sodding. Cougars.

00:32 – We see an authentic-looking American highway, complete with signs. It was impossible to read them and I don’t know how to rewind the video.

00:33 – A blonde lady in a bikini walks away from the camera. Could be Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown. Can’t be sure. It might just look like her. Decide for yourself.

She is the one on the left.

00:36 – Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air is confirmed.

00:41 – We see a burly man in a suit who looks a bit like Tommy Vercetti from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This is particularly exciting because Tommy Vercetti wasn’t just a simple amalgamation of Tony Montana and Michael Corleone, and in fact he had his own totally original and intriguing story arc which we’re all very excited to hear more about.

00:45 – Planes, plants, wicker baskets and choking men – all now confirmed.

00:47 – Some men jump out of a van wearing masks. It looks like some sort of heist. On the side of the van it reads “Pest Control” and “Los Santos”. Oh my GOD! That’s it! It’s the confirmation we were waiting for! There WILL be pest control vans in Grand Theft Auto V.

We will have to wait for confirmation that you can actually drive the pest control vans.

00:53 – Some homeless people standing on the sidewalk under a bridge. Looks like a main road. Every Monday night, the Ready Up community will accidentally crash into these people during Cops ‘n’ Crooks. Might as well get used to it, so this is the first thing I’m going to make everyone do when the game is released.

00:54 – A man in sunglasses and a nice red top walks past. We can see the letters “L”, “O”, “S”, “S”, “A” and “N” painted in graffiti on the wall behind. No idea.

00:57 – Prostitutes and liquor. Both fine on their own, but never mix them. That’s my advice. Use it well.

00:59 – A poverty-stricken chap holds a cardboard sign up asking for money. People are saying he looks like Niko Bellic. He doesn’t. Interestingly, there is a sign behind him that might possibly say “San Fierro Bay”, or maybe “Send Fred Bongs”. I don’t know what any of those words mean.

01:00 – More homeless people under another bridge. Some have tents. I don’t think I’ve ever crashed into a tent in a car in a videogame. I’ve done it in real life, obviously. You have to do that when you join the staff team at Ready Up. At least, I had to. At least, I did.

01:01 – Tony leaned in and shouted “fighter plane” at this point. Not to be pedantic, but it really is more of a fighter jet.

01:01 – On closer inspection, that isn’t a fighter jet. It’s STARSCREAM!

Yep. 100% confirmed. Give us a wave.

01:04 – We see some large machinery doing……something……in the foreground. In the background we see some impressive draw distance. We can make out the blimp again, quite clearly. Rockstar are really pushing the blimp. Will the final battle be atop the blimp? Yes. Will the 20 missions before that involve raiding enough ladders from enough DIY stores to be able to build one enormous ladder that reaches the blimp? Yes. Will Italian guards throw rocks at you as you climb the ladder? Wrong game but probably still yes.

01:08 – A flaming car. In the background, skyscrapers. The skyline looks slightly different to before though. The sky is overcast. Maybe we’re looking at a different city? Overcast, burning car…..Glasgow is on the cards.

01:09 – No wait, the camera rises above the burning car to reveal…….the blimp. Glasgow is off the cards. Stupid blimp.

01:10 – We see a great big jet plane zooming over a nondescript hill, and the camera pans over to finish the trailer with a wide sunset shot of the city, mainly showcasing the blimp. Draw distance is superb. Blimp distance is difficult to judge.

Throughout most of the video I’d been thinking it was a very small blimp in the foreground; a blimp that a hamster might use to move between tall hamster buildings perhaps. However, I’ve spent a few hours visualising and drawing the blimp, and I’m now thinking that it is a normal-sized blimp that is simply far away.

For your convenience, I have highlighted the blimp in the above picture.

What we have learned

1) If the game is set in a Norwegian zoo, it is a large, diverse zoo, with a blimp and only one animal.
2) You can probably drive cars in Grand Theft Auto V.
3) Transformers are in. 100%.
4) Pest control vans.

In summary then: the blimp.

N.B. Please let me know if I missed any appearances of the blimp.

Ha! Try shooting our heads off with a flamethro-oh wait she has.

Thus, AbsoluteGaming is right up our street. They run gaming nights and challenges all week long, and offer prizes and (more importantly) bragging rights to those who finish top of the pile. Unlike much of competitive gaming on the web, there is no particular focus on shooters. Of course, Gears of War, Halo and Call of Duty are all on the menu. Alongside those though, AbsoluteGaming offer regular Grand Prix and time trial competitions in Codemasters’ Formula One series and Forza 4 (along with similar action with the likes of Dirt 3, Blur and the Need for Speed), and match-ups in the Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA football series. If you need something a little more slow-paced, you can compete in the Tiger Woods golf games, or take part in some poker tournaments. You may be more likely to find us in those tournaments because Laura hasn’t yet figured out how to shoot our heads off in those particular arenas.

absolutegaming.co.uk

Their support for the FIFA series in particular is comprehensive. They’ve blended some great new ideas with tried and tested formulas, leaving plenty of room for glorious, glorious banter:

- A variety of different multi-tiered leagues, featuring club, international and Ultimate Teams, with relegation and championship battles each season.

- Monthly ladders for games between members, and monthly tournaments ranging from World Cups to the Johnstone Pain Trophy and Simulation leagues.

- Their site currency “Scudo”, which is earned through playing games through AbsoluteGaming and can be used to buy teams for the season ahead – the more active you are, the more chance you have of getting the team you want for the coming season.

- Every other Tuesday is 2 v 2 night – two AbsoluteGaming members team up with each other to compete against other pairs.

- Any night of the week there should be players available for some relaxing Pro Clubs action.

- They have even hosted worldwide tournaments on behalf of the Xbox Community Network.

If he was really playing to win, this tackle would be one metre higher. Shame.

Now is a good time to check out AbsoluteGaming and get involved, as they’ll be marking their 2nd birthday with three special tournaments between the 10th and 12th of November. On Thursday 10th November there is a Forza 4 Grand Prix, on Friday 11th November there is a FIFA knockout tournament and on Saturday 12th November they round it all off with a Modern Warfare 3 Carnage Night. For each of those that you participate in, you will receive an entry into their prize draw. Check out this link for more info.

The introductions of “Tactical Defending” and “Precision Dribbling” have significantly altered the balance of the match engine. Possession is turned over less frequently than in FIFA 11, despite a slightly heightened chance of passing interception on default settings this time around.

In previous FIFA releases from recent years there was little timing required in tackles. Players could simply hold down a certain button, and the defender would automatically run directly towards the opponent with the ball to attempt a tackle. As such, defending was notably simplistic. Some timing was required, but the defensive side of the game was starkly under-developed in comparison to the finesse-laden shooting and dribbling aspects.

In FIFA 12, though, under the default control setting, this system has been replaced. A button can be held down to instruct the defender to automatically follow an opponent who is running with the ball, maintaining a distance of one to two metres (or you can do this manually if you wish). Then, to actually move in and attempt a tackle, you must then press a second button. This action can be easily mistimed, at best leaving your defender trailing in the attacker’s wake and at worst resulting in a conceded penalty kick and disciplinary action from the referee.

On the dribbling side, attackers running with the ball will automatically slow their gait when approaching an opposition defender. This gives the player controlling the dribbling attacker far greater room for error than in FIFA 11. The value of playmakers like Wesley Sneijder or Andres Iniesta increased in FIFA 11 because greater finesse was required in passing. The value of those players has further grown in FIFA 12. Their agility and responsiveness makes them even harder to tackle now that player-controlled defenders suffer greater risk from misreading dribblers’ intended direction. Instruct your defender to stab out a tackling leg at the wrong moment against a Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, and there’s a good chance the opposition team will be exuberantly somersaulting and posing in celebration near the corner flag seconds later.

As such, depending on the competing formations and strategies, FIFA 12 matches become open, end-to-end affairs far more commonly than in FIFA 11. This may reduce the sense of realism for some players.

However, those players probably won’t notice, because that crucial sense of realism persists due to the new animations provided by the heavily augmented player impact engine. The new engine is not quite as dynamic as the promotional material implied. Patterns will appear as you spend more time with FIFA 12, but for every time that a collision appears overly familiar there will thankfully be another time when players collide in a painful-looking manner that rings so true that you’ll involuntarily wince as if it were happening to your groin.

It’s important to stress how well all of these new elements come together. There aren’t any apparent exploits, and tussles for possession never feel scripted or even anything less than fluid. The testing team at EA Canada have produced truly great work here, with just a year since FIFA 11.

Beyond the match engine, EA Canada have added functionality and modes, many of which are in response to requests from the community. A myriad of gameplay sliders can be tweaked to your heart’s content, governing items such as opponent passing reliability and full-backs’ enthusiasm for overlapping. Online, your progression in adversarial ranked matches is tracked through a league structure, with promotions and relegations according to success. Players now choose their team before entering matchmaking. The game then automatically pits you against an appropriate opponent based on your team selection. The history of unranked matches against friends can be tracked, with the victor of each 10-game series receiving a shiny trophy. The Pro Clubs mode has been further enhanced, and will no doubt continue to grow in popularity. Competing in almost all modes in FIFA 12 will gain you XP, which goes towards your own leveling progression and if you wish it can also contribute towards a score for your chosen real-life club, placing you in competition with the fans of other clubs. The new EA Sports Football Club interface serves as the hub for this functionality. The overall interface and presentation of the game has been polished, and menus are generally a little more responsive to navigation than before, although there is still plenty of room for improvement in that respect.

However, with all these refinements and new ideas, there is a risk that the FIFA series is becoming a jack of all trades and master of none. The Career Mode illustrates this worry most clearly. If you play dedicated football management games, then FIFA 12’s Career Mode remains a pale imitation in comparison. It offers initial promise of depth but quickly becomes staid. Some players may find it more permanently diverting, but most will bore of the tired scenarios after one or two seasons. Taking multiplayer out of the equation, the only other real longevity for the lonesome player is in unlocking accomplishments with their Virtual Pro and taking on the Ultimate Team Mode once again. Both are experiences that haven’t really changed much since FIFA 11. It will be interesting to see what EA Canada can come up with for next year to truly freshen things up for the single player.

Not that setting up the game was a walk in the park for us three PC players. As best we can tell, playing a Football Manager network game over the Internet requires three things:

1) Pseudo-VPN software (we used Hamachi).
2) Firewall software that doesn’t act like a dick (impossible – we had to delete our firewall software).
3) A small novelty bottle of gin with which to ply your router (pour into a free ethernet port).

Even then, you still have to add Glaswegian guile, Suffolk resolve and Berkshire whinging to the mix to get it to work. Oh Lord how I did whinge. I whinged at the router, I whinged at SI Games and I whinged into Skype at my friends. If I hadn’t put all that energy into whinging, they probably wouldn’t have worked it all out for me so quickly.

We chose to compete in the English Premier League, and drew teams out of a hat (leaving the top four from last season out, because we are just a little bit hardcore). I was doing the actual draw myself, with everyone else intently listening to a Skype group chat. As such, my friends had placed their trust in me – the team I follow, Liverpool, was sitting there in the hat, and it would have been oh so easy for me to fix the draw.

I drew for myself first, and Liverpool came out. I put it back in, out of sheer chivalry. “Amazing scenes”, said John, disbelieving. I drew again, and Fulham came out. I was happy with that, because Fulham are the team with the comedy statue of Michael Jackson outside their stadium, and I’m a huge fan of making unpopular and regretful decisions. As my new chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed, eventually found out.

Home sweet home.

Ste got Newcastle United, and John got Tottenham Hotspur. In the data update we used, Tottenham are one of the best sides in the league and comfortably have the strongest squad of the three teams we drew, Fulham are a stable mid-table team with a modest budget, and Newcastle have a weak (newly-promoted) squad and a huge wad of cash to spend.

We set to work in the first transfer window. I splurged my entire transfer budget on a Croatian playmaker (I didn’t need) named Milan Badelj that I’d bought in a previous singleplayer season, largely because the words “Croatian” and “playmaker” excite me. In that way, yes. John called upon his rich knowledge of Football Manager to sign a young, quick Czech striker named Vaclav Kadlec. I did not dare ask if this excited John in that way.

Ste called upon his rich (and, it turned out, pernicious) knowledge of rubbish ex-Liverpool strikers to ejaculate a combined £16 million or so on Milan Baros and Djibril Cisse. Ste also forked out around £5 million for the Manchester City striker Jo, which was surprising because by that point John and I were expecting Ste to bring Stan Collymore out of retirement. “Just wait”, said Ste. “Just wait”.

We waited. Nothing happened. Certainly no goals.

For those unfamiliar with football, what Ste might as well have done with his transfer budget is buy Jedward, cut all of their legs off and play them up front. This also almost definitely would have gone down better with the Newcastle faithful.

Ste started cutting the legs off of the left one first.

Towards the end of the first transfer window, I took the important step of finally looking at my current playing squad. As it appeared that Fulham had only one left-back, and because I had already wasted all of my money on a presumably handsome yet ultimately pointless young Croatian midfielder, I suddenly realised I was screwed. I needed a left-back, fast.

John came to my rescue, by signing my skillful moneybags Senegalese striker Diomansy Kamara for £1.5 million. I was happy to see him go not just because of the much-needed cash injection, but also because Diomansy Kamara has a Decisions attribute rating of 5 out of 20. This conjures up images of Kamara arriving at training each day wearing nothing but a rubber chicken, because he’d given away all his possessions to a company that sent him an erectile dysfunction email once. Nevermind – he’s John’s problem now. See below for the video John made regarding how well that went:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We cried with laughter for 5 solid minutes when that happened. It was the greatest moment of my life.

Even with the cash from the Kamara transfer, I was struggling to find a new left-back. John recommended that I sign the Hearts left-back, Ruben Palazuelos. In case you didn’t know, Hearts play in Scotland, so I was understandably highly skeptical of his abilities. Nonetheless, I quite like saying his name – “PA! LA! ZUE! LOOOOOS!” – and that is more than enough for me so I signed him up.

However, it soon became apparent that this was not a good call. Palazuelos moves so slowly across the pitch that you’ll swear that he has only one leg, or at least you would if the lack of grace with which he kicks a football didn’t strongly imply that one of his legs is three times the length of the other.

He's the one in red. That's how he runs.

Once our transfer business was completed, we began the far less interesting business of actually playing matches. All three of us started the season brightly. Ste’s Newcastle racked up a win away at megabucks Manchester City, my brave Fulham side bravely secured a 0-0 draw at the hideout of the shadowy corporation Manchester United, and Vaclav Kadlec scored roughly 10,000 goals every game for Tottenham, propelling John into a tussle at the summit of the league.

However, as the Autumn drew to a close the cold, harsh winter weather began to take its toll on the hastily assembled Newcastle squad. Almost all of Ste’s players had one of their limbs snap, twist or burst, leaving him with a threadbare collection of shankers and bottlers. He even had to play Alan Smith.

Smith is paid £50,000 a week. Ste could not shift him for love nor money. Nobody offered either.

Newcastle plummeted down the league, closely followed by my Fulham side. I also had injuries to deal with (Ruben Palazuelos’ one good leg contracted gout or something, keeping him sidelined for five months), but Fulham’s big problem was psychological. The epicentre of ennui that swept my squad was our main striker – a man named Bobby Zamora.

My “friends” quickly discovered that Zamora’s achilles’ heel is apparently that, if you praise him publicly in the press, he can slip into a sort of existential reckoning. This cripples his morale, and makes him even less likely to score a damn goal at least once in a while (which is very unlikely indeed at the best of times). I tried whinging at him, but it didn’t help.

So, every week, either John or Ste would release a press story praising Bobby. The AI managers even got in on the act – just when Zamora had perked up a little in mid-December (mainly because Ste and John had grown bored of prodding him), Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Mick McCarthy, out of nowhere, said that he thought Zamora was an excellent striker, and he would love to have him in his team. This somehow destroyed Zamora’s fragile psyche once and for all. I put him on the transfer list and moved on. I like to imagine him sitting in a darkened room, painting abstract art and listening to The Cure.

There he is, telling everyone to be quiet so he can listen to The Lovecats again.

With Zamora locked safely in his fortress of solitude, and the Icelandic striker Eidur Gudjohnsen now leading Fulham’s line, we rose back up the table to glorious mid-table mediocrity. John was still riding high in the league, battling for first place. He was also through to the final of the league cup after beating Wolves in his semi final (shove that up your pipe and smoke it, McCarthy). Ste and I had to face each other in the other semi final to decide who would win the right to have Vaclav Kadlec score 14 goals against them in the final. I won the first leg 1-0, and we drew the second.

The exit from the league cup piled the pressure on Ste. Knee-deep in a relegation dog-fight, and also eliminated from the FA cup by lower-league opposition, he had been fearing for his job for a few weeks. Eventually, we all woke up one morning to the news that Ste had been relieved of his post as Newcastle manager. John and I initially were stunned and left numb by the news, but after a few milliseconds those emotions were overruled by a powerful inclination to laugh out loud. Ste was the Geordies’ new Chosen One. He was supposed to bring balance to Newcastle, but all he did was figuratively shag Natalie Portman and kill Samuel L. Jackson.

Pictured: Ste meeting disgruntled Newcastle fans on the steps outside St James' Park.

That’s where we’ve left it. The next game is the league cup final between John and I. In the league, we’ve each won once in our two fixtures, so it’s surely going to be a hard-fought battle. My plan hinges on introducing Zamora to Kadlec 15 minutes before the start of the match, in the hope that Zamora might depress Kadlec so acutely that he won’t leave the dressing room at Wembley because no-one understands him.

Beyond that, many questions linger. Will Newcastle accept Ste’s new application for his old job (they’re apparently “considering” it at the moment)? Will John win the league/league cup/FA cup/Champions League (sigh)? Will Ruben Palazuelos apologise to me for existing (as he very much should)?

I’m looking forward to finding out.

Kazuya’s team-mate, standing behind him, was called Yoshimitsu. He was wearing a full coat of armour and was carrying a sword. Ryu remarked to himself that this situation did not seem fair.

Ryu glanced to his rear, and exchanged a sage nod with his team-mate, a small Chinese lady called Chun-Li. She was not carrying a sword, and the only armour she had was a pair of spiked bracelets that were bigger than her head. She also seemed to be suffering from acute elephantiasis of the thighs, which looked painful and restrictive.

Ryu looked back over at Yoshimitsu, who at that exact moment was stabbing a rhino to death with his sword whilst teleporting. Ryu again remarked to himself that this situation did not seem fair.

Dying rhino not pictured.

The fight countdown started. Ryu cast a glance out of the screen to the man controlling him, seeking reassurance. The man with the Ready Up t-shirt did not look like he knew what he was doing. Ryu recognised him as Simon, one of the members of the Ready Up team who plays Street Fighter. Sadly, though, Simon is too cool to actually be any good. Ryu gulped, then stiffened his resolve and focused his mind on the coming battle.

“FIGHT!” shouted the announcer.

Kazuya leapt forward and kicked Ryu in the chest so hard that one of his bounteous pectoral muscles burst, showering them both in hearty chunks of man-breast and nipple. Ryu staggered back, clutching the empty space where his left pec—his best pec —had once been.

Bounteous.

Ryu looked down at his exploded boob, then turned to look at Simon through the screen. There was an understandable look of concern on Ryu’s face. Simon nodded authoritatively, and surprisingly pulled off a dragon punch.

Ryu soared through the air, letting out an involuntary “Shoryuken!”. The tattered remains of his left pec flapped nastily in the breeze.

The dragon punch did not connect. Simon had mistimed it, as usual. Kazuya waited patiently below Ryu as he helplessly fell from the air. Kazuya then produced some sort of scissor kick thing that was so fast that it made the air glow yellow for no apparent reason. It was quite something. As if God himself had painted Kazuya’s feet with radiance.

This is pretty much how it happened, except that Ryu was crying at the time.

Anyway, the move slammed into Ryu so hard that his spine actually flew off. It bounced off through the jungle ruins, as Ryu yelped in pain. Ryu’s anguished cries registered with Simon, and so he asked his opponent how to tag in a team-mate. He stopped playing to ask this, but his opponent didn’t.

As Ryu gingerly and inexplicably rose to his feet, with no spine and no left pectoral muscle. Kazuya performed some sort of grab move and, whilst Simon’s opponent explained how to tag in team-mates, Ryu was spun around and thrown to the ground. This got lots of dirt from the floor of the jungle ruins into Ryu’s wounds, which was generally seen as unfavourable by Ryu.

Simon tagged Chun-Li in at this point. She bravely entered the fray, and launched towards Kazuya with a spinning bird kick. Simon was pretty happy that he’d pulled off a spinning bird kick; even after 15 years the charge moves still give him trouble.

Whilst spinning around upside down and moving very slowly towards Kazuya, Chun-Li noticed that she was going to fall short of her opponent, and started to fear for both her and her breasts’ safety, having seen what Kazuya had done to Ryu moments before.

Her worries were short-lived, though, because Yoshimitsu tagged in for Kazuya and immediately cleanly sliced Chun-Li in half. Well, it wasn’t immediately. There were roughly 10 seconds of mistimed blocks from Simon that Chun-Li had to execute as Yoshimitsu delivered a flurry of kicks, punches and slashes directly to her brain care of her face. Also, it wasn’t exactly a clean slice in the end either but let’s not dwell.

The important thing is that her life bar was gone. So, Ryu came back into the mix with a sliver of health remaining.

Then Simon’s opponent treated him to a Cross Art attack, where both team-mates get involved in some sort of unpleasant super move. Yoshimitsu started pummelling Ryu, who flew up into the air with an understandable look of concern on his face. Then Kazuya came back in for the finishing move, during which he essentially minced Ryu. Ryu’s white dressing gown thing landed neatly on top of the pile, giving it the outward appearance of Shepherd’s Pie.

Yet again, Ryu cursed the day that Simon discovered Street Fighter.

Guan Ma Rippenden Ho-Wah Exclusive 7

Wisely eschewing the more showy zeal of Guan Ma Rippenden Ho-Wah Exclusive 6 in favour of expanding on the strong foundation of Guan Ma Rippenden Ho-Wah Exclusive 6 Arcade Edition, Guan Ma Rippenden Ho-Wah Exclusive 7 was the first game in the series to utilise Thunder Action Response combos.

An explosive moment of Thunder Action Response in the seminal Guan Ma Rippenden Ho-Wah Exclusive 7.

Holy Blast Brush Challenge

Another timeless Japanese underground classic, inexplicably overlooked by the mainstream. This bouncy, upbeat horror title cast players in the role of a schoolgirl armed only with a hairbrush that displays ghosts when held up in front of a torch. Although its true meaning is endlessly debated on forums, few argue that the highlight of 2002 was the scene in the garden, despite, or perhaps because of, the controversy regarding what the nude mountain goat did to the hairbrush. A masterstroke, either way.

Screenshot.

The Hidden Chair

Edgy survival horror designed and built in its entirety by one man - the guy who says “Resident Evil” and “Resident Evil Two” quite slowly and very loudly on the title screens of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. He had no prior experience of programming, so he cleverly turned this to his advantage by implementing the project through Microsoft Powerpoint, saving time and resulting in very little compromise in final quality. The twist ending kept us all guessing, as we clicked the final slide’s contents slowly into view, one-by-one. The Hidden Chair also featured some amazing use of fonts to convey growing tension.

Note the soft edge of the chosen font in this memorable early scene from The Hidden Chair.

Go Go Happy Hamish Rhythm Explosion Deluxe

A piercing deconstruction of the human condition through the medium of Kinect-enabled dance action, Go Go Happy Hamish seamlessly blended live action clips from 90s television shows with charmingly quirky graphics. It received some notable pockets of critical acclaim, but was shunned by a general public laughably more concerned with fluffy baby tigers and promises from Peter Molyneux of small boys called Milo.

Go Go Happy Hamish Deluxe. The only reason anyone should use Kinect.

Minecraft

Minecraft allows you to build a giant urinating penis in the sky.

Pictured: a giant urinating penis in the sky.

Knowing and delicate satires such as Duke Nukem: Forever and BulletStorm skewer the reportedly dire situation so intelligently and dryly that they knowingly ironically appear submissive to the trend.

So you’d think that when a genuinely complex protagonist is wheeled out in front of them at great expense and effort, and he isn’t wearing space marine armour, and doesn’t sound like Nathan Drake or have massive tits, they’d all stand up and applaud with renewed vigour. They would clap until left with blunted stumps, surely, if a talented writer/director was empowered by innovative technology to weave a cautionary parable around their story’s tortured central soul?

Or, perhaps they just wouldn’t bloody notice.

There he is. Right there.

Of course, the reason they didn’t notice is because the game is five hours too long so they got bored. Also, crucially, the narrative is fragmented with all the elegant grace of an unconscious bear on a trampoline.

VYou is what’s new.

VYou is the newest and most fun thing about the Internet ever. You create a profile. You ask people questions, and they answer back in the form of a webcam-filmed video. Then they ask you questions, and you also answer back with your webcam. All your reponses line up on your profile, and can be instantly clicked and loaded up by anyone with even a passing interest in your face. You don’t even need a profile to ask questions. If you like, you can just roam the site endlessly and anonymously, asking people who their favourite character is in EastEnders, or why they don’t watch EastEnders.

Some people say it’s as if Twitter and YouTube made sweet, sweet love and created VYou as their offspring. Others see it more as a forum, where you can add body language and intonation to your posts. It is assuredly its own beast though. One of our favourite things is how futuristic it all feels. This is the sort of thing Tom Cruise would use in Minority Report, probably to post videos asking where his minority report is. What really matters, though, is that it is a warm, inviting community that continues to grow quickly.

Most important of all, however, is that Ready Up have the premier gaming channel on VYou. The team are on there right now waiting for your questions. Ever wondered what we look like at 1:00 AM on a Wednesday, and wanted to ask us if Sonic could beat Mario in a fight at that exact moment? Visit our channel, check us out in all our bedraggled glory, and do so with glee.

Ready Up on VYou. Our faces, in you eyes, on demand - http://vyou.com/channels/readyup

So, now you need to decide what to ask us. The world is your oyster. Want to know if they have Halo in Wales? Ask Laura. Want to know why Sonic is on a horse? Raise it with James. Burning desire to know the last game that made Lauren throw up? Get on VYou and ask her.

You can use VYou however you like. People from all walks of life are signed up. Some users are candid and insightful. Some are more playful, or have inappropriate relations with their teddy bears. Some of them are writers. Some of them are relationship or fitness gurus. Some of them are dancers. Some of them are pensioners. A few of them are celebrities. One or two of them will draw you a picture of a velociraptor riding a jet-ski for no other reason than the fact that you asked.

Get on there and get involved. You might even find Tom Cruise.

When you move your arms, the Jedi might also move his, and then you will be immersed.

I watched all the footage, read all the copy and listened to all the podcasts. I still didn’t care.

Then I suddenly realised I was tired of something else. I was tired of the cynic inside me. The part of me that sneers at all the sequels, sneers at Microsoft for peddling Kinect, sneers at the new Sony handheld and sneers at Nintendo for apparently allowing reception classes at primary schools to design their consoles. I can’t moan about all this familiarity, and then also moan that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all pushing new hardware that can potentially empower developers to produce truly fresh experiences, fail as they might.

This time ten years ago, Grand Theft Auto III was probably just about falling onto my radar. This year, the games industry is nonchalantly farting out games of that quality for fun. There are consoles with better graphics than the PS2 that fit in your pocket. There’s a console that you don’t even need a controller to play. There’s a football game that’s more realistic than actual football. There’s even a new Tomb Raider game, for the love of boobs.

Pictured: Boobs.

Videogames are capturing the imagination of an ever-widening market. E3 is the epicentre of that buzz, and the aftershocks are more powerful than ever. So, I’ve made a choice. I’m going to let it all wash over me. Instead of pointing the finger at the re-imaginings and sequels, I’m going to wallow in them, munching at them like a full bag of Skittles until I feel sick and pass out. Then, when I wake up at some indeterminate time in the future, we’ll all be assessing whether or not Kinect, Wii U and Vita are empowering developers in the way the manufacturers have claimed they will.

For now then, it’s going to be an incredible year. Modern Warfare 3 is surely going to somehow top its forebears, presumably by causing the entire world to explode in a shower of moustaches. Battlefield 3 will do its best to rain on the parade. Uncharted 3 will similarly deliver an interactive big-budget action movie experience directly into our faces. FIFA 12 and Forza Motorsport 4 will take authenticity to dizzying heights, ensuring that most of my Christmas holiday will be spent between trying to realistically injure the groins of the entire Manchester United squad and racing around the Top Gear test track in a reasonably priced car. Deus Ex: Human Revolution will give both my new PC and my moral compass something meaty to chew on. Dark Souls will immerse, Gears of War 3 will bring us together and Rage will dazzle us with its sandy splendour.

Rat-a-tat-a-tat, neeeyown, dukka-dukka-dukka, ka-boom. Yay.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. Bring it all on. I’ll moan about sequels properly next year. Scout’s honour.

It’s been nearly six years since I had a decent gaming rig. Even then it was just a matter of slapping a mid-range card into a three year old shop-bought system. Before that we had a modest Pentium unit, whose main contribution to my gaming world was that it could run Championship Manager without a boot disk.

For those who are too young to know what the hell a boot disk is, allow me to provide a metaphor: imagine that your car doesn’t have enough power to drive to the shops, but if you put a floppy disk into it and then turn it on, it will suddenly have enough power because it no longer has seats, brakes, mirrors, indicator stalks or furry dice.

If you’re too young to know what the hell a floppy disk is, I hate you.

Before the Pentium system, we had a 486 DX2. It cost well over £1000 and had 8MB of RAM and 263MB of disk space. I know these figures well because I needed to compress the hard drive to install Championship Manager 97/98, and had to use the aforementioned boot disk to free up enough memory to run it. The processor ran at 66MHz. 66! For reference, that’s only 1/8 the speed that Tony’s brain can come up with obscene jokes. If my family had bought Tony instead, we could have run Championship Manager 97/98 on him, and it would have saved me a great deal of bother.

Bad news Simon - Alan Shearer just equalised so you've been relegated. To lighten the mood, have I told you the one about the vicar and the filing cabinet?

It was so sweet to finally play those games after having to go to so much effort to simply load them up. It made classics like UFO: Enemy Unknown, Sensible World of Soccer and Syndicate even better. As a result I love them all dearly and, yes, I would mate with them too if I could (but CDs shatter and pierce nastily when you try that).

So, PC gaming might just be where my heart truly lies. Those formative experiences have been the basis for not just my hobby, but also my career. However, this new PC represents the first time I’ve ever built a system from scratch.

I think the blue Intel box contains the gerbil that powers the USB hub.

Daunting at first, but I realised something early on that helped greatly.

You see, building a PC is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. You insert things where you think they should go, and then you enthusiastically flick what appears to be the switch several times only to have it stare back at you glumly.

Also, it will start to smoke if you use it too much.

The biggest problem was mounting the stock CPU fan on to the motherboard. I couldn’t get it to sit right for ages, mainly because every time I tried to push it down into place, the motherboard creaked sickeningly, as if at any moment it was going to explode a shower of green plastic directly into my eyes. Fitting the processor was similarly troubling. There was a metal lever that I had to push down to lock the cover in place. However, the lever was stiffer than Ryan Giggs at a Miss Wales competition and, you guessed it, the motherboard made a sickening creaking sound as I forced it down. My face was locked in an uncomfortable cringe throughout this and many other stages of the process, but eventually we got there.

Here is the depraved, unholy orgy of wires you ordered sir.

So, now I’m back on the PC gaming scene. I already feel persecuted, and suddenly I’m filled with incandescent rage by lacks of dedicated servers, or by choppy frame rates. I’ve spent 80% of my time so far changing settings in games, trying to achieve the best balance between performance and quality that I can. It takes me back. I’m already considering installing 64 bit Windows, just in case it gains me an extra 5 frames per second in Rift.

Of course the flip-side of all this excitement is that I now have no money, for PC gaming is like throwing your wallet into a special jet engine that explodes just after it shreds wallets.