GripShift (PS3)

Did a few more levels, for want of anything else to do. My net connection's very flaky today, so I can't sign into Live or the PSN any more.

It's not been the best gaming day ever.

flOw (PS3)

Blimey. There's not much to flOw, is there? Took a couple of levels to work out how things worked, then the next four were completed easily, then instead of brand new creatures, end credits. Took game time less than an hour. I enjoyed it while it lasted but I do feel slightly ripped off, even though it was only £3.49. I can't see it having much replay value, for me at least.

The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (360)

Did some housekeeping when I started up. Conjured up some zombies to harvest their souls to replenish the charge my magical weapons, wandered over to a blacksmith to have my armor repaired, that sort of thing.

Then, finally, into the Shivering Isles. Started off well enough, but then things went a bit weird.

I tried talking to people at the beginning who should have died, except the monster that was meant to kill them ran and jumped into a lake instead. So when I talked to them I got a (console window?) line at the top of the screen and a "I HAVE NO GREETING" message where their subtitles should be. After wandering around for a few hours of game time wondering what to do I got a message saying all the guys who should have been killed had been and I could continue with my quest. Which I did, until the game locked up when I tried looting a corpse.

Slitherlink (DS)

My wife's got back into this and got stuck on a puzzle so I tried to help, but couldn't. (She got it later on.)

Earth Defence Force 2017 (360)

Nope, all vehicles suffer from the y-axis problem. Being able to invert the y-axis is important to me, hence the name of this blog.

Apart from that problem I'm having a blast. I'm up to level fifteen now. I died a couple of times, but should be able to beat it with the correct weapon choice.

Earth Defence Force 2017 (360)

Right, Earth Defence Force 2017 first impressions, based on a 90 minute session.

It's really quite good. Frantic alien-blasting fun. Lots and lots of enemies, lots of weapons, nice clean graphics, exploding buildings, seemingly endless levels, atmospheric lighting and fellow soldiers whose b-movie shouts, while repetitive, really add to the experience.

You really haven't lived until you've seen a tower block crawling with giant ants, levelled said tower block with a rocket and then switched to a machine gun to exterminate the ants.

Definitely seems to be worth the £17.99 Play are asking so far.

There are a three problems, though.

The first is that, like the PS2 version, the game's full of both slowdown and framerate problems. It doesn't spoil the fun and it's better than the PS2 version was, but there's a lot of it.

The second problem is, for me, rather more serious. There's an option to invert the controls and it picks up the player's setting from the 360, as it should... but then doesn't seem to apply it to the tanks. (Possibly other vehicles, too, but I've only tried the tank so far.) Makes the tank pretty much useless to me in battle. This will be a pretty big problem if the vehicles turn out to be necessary.

The third problem is the most serious for me, but less serious for most other people - there's a lot of stuff I miss from Chikyuu Boueigun 2. I love having the game English, but I miss London and I really, really miss the lady with the jetpack. It was great fun to go zooming about the levels instead of trudging around on foot. If you've not played Chikyuu Boueigun 2 you won't miss her, but I do.

None of those problems make me regret buying the game, but I can't ignore them.

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution (PS3)

Just out of curiousity. It really does look dated compared to VF5, with a distinct lack of polygons, lighting and texture quality. It's fair bit harder, too. No kyus put up much of a fight in VF5, but I was having trouble with the 10th and 9th kyus in this version.

Tried out the Tutorial, which is incredibly comprehensive. I got as far as having to learn how to juggle opponents and left. I wish there was a similar mode in VF5. Learning in VF4 is all very well, but some things will have changed.

Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)

Started over in Quest mode with a new charfacter, Lei Fei, just for the hell of it, really. And I want the cool blindfold he can get.

Went up a few ranks and won the annoyingly prize-free Beginners Tournament.

Jetpac Refuelled (360)

With Resistance finished I'm free! Free! So I downloaded this before setting my Shivering Isles download going.

Fun factor: Good

Nostalgia Factor: Infinite

I'm third on my Friends leaderboard in the Retro section after one go. Not too shabby. I'm rubbish at the new Refuelled mode, though.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Yeah, okay, I lied.

I put the game back on again, stopped dying and saved the world. Well, Britain. Good enough for me!

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PSP)

Awwwww. I've been playing through the modes I need to post a score in to get an online ranking and I've come to Command Attack. This gives you a move to do, followed by another, and another, and another... etc. You get the idea. Unfortunately, I can't do a lot of the moves. I don't have the kind of brain that can perform a ten hit aerial combat. I just don't.

I'm a bit upset now.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

It looks like I'm at the final level now. I think I'll leave it until tomorrow. Partly because I want to extend the experience... but mainly because I kept dying.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Just done the most intense part of the game so far - the defense of Tower Bridge. That boss battle that took me ages at the weekend? Try three of them, lots of normal enemies... and then an even bigger boss.

Of course, now I have a rocket launcher at my disposable. It helps.

Did I mention that I love this game?

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Into the final set of levels now, I think. It's got quite hard, but not yet too hard.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

No, look, I don't understand. I honestly cannot understand why people don't like this. It's brilliant and it just keeps getting better and better. I don't understand the reviews or the reaction from a lot of people online. I am loving it.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Ah, saving the world single-handled. That's what video game characters do best.

I'm starting to use more weapons now, there seem to be more and more opportunities to get a bit creative. I even found a good place to luse the blobby mine gun, which is a first. And one section became a lot easier once I'd noticed there was a nice sniping position on the way in that I'd missed the first time.

I love this game. I know some people don't, but then some people don't like Doom 3. Maybe I'm a freak... but I'm a freak having fun, so I win.

Zombie Zone (PS3)

Plucked this off the shelf to test the PS3's backwards compatibility. It's not even listed on Sony's site, but from the brief go I had it seemed absolutely fine. Camera was much worse than I remember and there's really nothing much to it, but, as I've mentioned before, you're a girl with a big sword fighting zombies while wearing only a cowboy hat and bikini. Sometimes that's enough.

Gran Turismo HD (PS3)

Unlocked a few more cars, drove round the same track a few times.

You know, they could release GT4 with these graphics, call it GT5 and I'd not only buy it, but I'd be happy with it. I know, I know, I know.

GripShift (PS3)

Not the best game in the world, but an excellent-value download from the Playstation Store. Just a shiny and slightly fatter version of the PSP game, but that's no bad thing. I fully completed all of the Beginner tracks this evening and had a good time.

Forumla 1 CE Demo (PS3)

This is actually really, really good with the driving aids off and damage on. Played it for quite a while this evening. Nearly finished a 10%-length race at one point, but hit a barrier on the penultimate lap and lost a wheel. Bit too hardcore for me, but if I had time and money that don't exist I could see myself getting into this.

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PSP)

While my wife played this on the PS3, I played the PSP version. Doesn't look as pretty, but there's more to do. I got through the first dojo with Jack-5 and then updated my ghost online. Maybe one day people will be able to download it and beat me up, while laughing at the ineptitude.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Spent three more hours shooting mutants in the face this morning. Enjoyed every minute, even the boss battle that took me about ten tries.

The difficulty is just about perfect for me on Normal. Nothing feels too hard, but I am dying now and then. Reviews have been talking about how excellent the weapons are, but I've found myself relying on the Bullseye for the vast majority of the time. The new spoldgy mine weapon I found this morning I really can't find a use for and the ricochet weapon is imprecise and runs out of ammo far too quickly.

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PS3)

Ah, Jack-5. Overpowered to the very max. I couldn't beat him, so I fought as him and had great fun. I worked out a few moves, went up in rank a few times and bought some nice cosmetic upgrades.

Now my wife has taken over again and is playing as Lili. She seems to be enjoying herself. I'm thinking of digging out the PSP version. Not as shiny, but the single player game is more fleshed out.

Next weekend I think we might use the last of my Gamestation credit note for another controller.

In case you'd not noticed, we are loving this new console. It's not got a great range of games yet and it's very expensive, but the games we have are all great fun and it's just a lovely, shiny piece of kit. Apart from not charging the controllers when in standby mode and having an insulting short charging cable that doesn't reach the wife's side of the sofa from the console, of course. Bad Sony.

Motorstorm (PS3)

This really is great fun. Very, very tense at times and requiring extreme concentration.

Each vehicle really is different. Took me ages to learn how to drive the bikes, the first time I encountered them.

Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)

Had a bit of a change today. I've gone from using El Blaze to Goh and my wife has switched from Pai to Vanessa. She seems to have taken to Vanessa, but I'm not convinced by Goh. I really don't understand some of the things he does. I like the whole zombie look he's got going on, though.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

It's great fun and when I woke this morning I ran downstairs so I could play it again (well, ish), but whoever decided those radial mines were a good idea needs shooting. They're too fast to be a reasonable reaction test to Mister In My Thirties here, so they just kill you dead and turn bits of the game into memory tests - normally bits five or ten minutes after the last checkpoint.

If the running and killing wasn't so much fun I'd have turned it off in a grump.

Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)

My wife just beat a 10th dan in a tournament. I'm very proud of her.

Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)

This has eaten our evening. The wife and I are alternating, playing half an hour or an hour at a time each. There doesn't seem to be a way to switch users within a game on the PS3, which is really bloody annoying, as it takes ages to get into the game each time.

Virtua Fighter 5 (PS3)

Leapt straight into Quest mode. Chose El Blaze as my fighter and won a few matches and rose through the ranks a little. Got a notice that a tournament was starting for beginners, so I joined in and won. Hooray!

Now my wife's playing. She's never played fighting games before, but she like Tekken and she seems to be loving this. All that "VF is for the hardcore only" talk can go hang.

Up there with Motorstorm in the prettiness stakes, too.

Motorstorm (PS3)

First impressions of this game were not good at all. It gave me a race and a choice of different types of vehicle, so I chose the buggy and got started. It felt slow and unfair and I came last. After switching to the bumper-cam the speed felt better and the fun started to seep in. Still, I wasn't winning. So I tried a rally car. This time I managed not only to do better, but to push the car so hard that my engine blew up and I exploded over the finish line in first place. Rarely do games say "hey, you're getting it!" quite so clearly. That was the first click.

On to the next race, no choice of vehicle, had to drive a racing truck. I couldn't win. Try after try after try and I kept coming last, or thereabouts. I even in my desperation tried the motion-sensitive control method... for one lap. It's like Excite Truck, but not quite right. Might be reasonable with some adjustment, maybe, but the stick's fine, I think.

Anyway, the second click happened when I tried a different route round the track. Suddenly my last place became fourth. Then first. That's when I realised that when the game tells you that you have to choose the best route round a course for your vehicle it really, really means it. If you try and take a buggy through the deep mud the big rigs churn up for breakfast you're just not going to make it. Your stick and trigger skills won't matter, you need to go a different way.

So once that second click happened I started winning races fairly easy. It's really good fun, but - boy! - does it try to hide it at first.

A couple of other things to note. It looks phenomenal and anyone wanting to show off the graphical power of the Playstation really should check it out. On the downside the load times are appalling. Race restarts are instant, thankfully, but the screen where you choose what vehicle to drive takes so long to load that I think it can fairly be described as broken.

Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)

Now, I really like this. It's a fantastic, old-school run-and-gun FPS. The graphics are about the standard you'd expect from a PS3/360 FPS and the English setting doesn't add as much as I thought it might, but on the plus side the controls work incredibly well - yes, on a Dual Shock, sorry, SIXAXIS - and the sounds are excellent.

It doesn't really do much - it's a standard FPS tarted up a bit with nice weapons - but I do like some old school FPS action at times. Remember, I'm one of the sixteen people who ordered Doom 3. There's no squad tactics, no cunning enemy AI, no advanture elements, it's just running around shooting mutants in the face.

Forumla 1 CE Demo (PS3)

With the driving aids on and damage off it's very dull indeed.

With the driving aids off and damage on it's much more dynamic, but my wheels keep falling off.

I don't think I'll be buying the full game, though for patient, careful F1 fans it seems like it could be decent.

Genji: Days of the Blade Demo (PS3)

Rubbish. It's fairly standard hack and slash action with lovely lighting and a terrible, terrible camera is appalling.

I mean, I did get to fight a giant enemy crab and expose its weak spot to do massive damage, but it wasn't really much fun.

Ridge Racer 7 Demo (PS3)

It's meant to be more or less the same as Ridge Racer 6. It's not, there's a big difference: in RR6 I could win races. In this demo, my best position is tenth. Ouch.

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PS3)

This is marvellous. Can't remember any of the moves from my time on the PSP version, but never mind. It's really great fun, but I've got up to what I presume is a boss as he's incredibly annoying and I can't beat him. I had a few goes and gave up.

Gran Turismo HD (PS3)

It plays just like Gran Turismo; it looks prettier.

And there's not very much to it.

Third Impressions (PS3)

Well, I've now set Gran Turismo HD, Tekken Dark Resurrection, Gripshift and demos of Formula 1, Genji and Ridge Racer 7 to download.

Gran Turismo is finished and is now installing itself, which takes a strangely lengthy amount of time. Ah! Here we go! Now to... play!

Second Impressions (PS3)

It's bloody massive. Huge. Enormous.

Plugged optical, HDMI and power cables in round the back. Plugged the controller and a USB keyboard in round the front.

Set it up easily enough - connected to my wi-fi network without hassle. Am in 1080i mode, but may drop down to 720p and see if that's better. Audio's coming out of my receiver via an optical connection.

Am now doing an update to the system software to get it up to 1.60.

One day I may even play a game on this thing!

First Impressions (PS3)

It's really, really heavy and doesn't fit into my trolley.

Also: I'm sick and it's raining.

I'll set it up soon.

Slitherlink (DS)

I got past my block and now I'm pretty much flying. I'm sure I'll hit another wall, but I've been dispatching the second set of puzzles in about four minutes each.

Slitherlink (DS)

Whoa! I was getting through the puzzles okay, but then got to about number twelve and it has no zero squares, so I have no idea where to start. New techniques needed - soon!

Sam & Max Hit The Road (DS)

More of a tech-test than a play session, but I managed to get it working and watched the initial cut scene and then talked to Max in the first room. Hooray for emulation!

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

Beat the boss who is me, got the Soul of Wolf, then died a long way into the Long Library, making me gah and gnash and turn the game off.

I wasn't enjoying it that much anyway. Any illness that can stop me enjoying Castlevania is evil. Evil!

Virtua Tennis 3 Demo (360)

Off work sick, remembered about this, tried it out.

Now, either it's because my head is all messed up with purest ill or it's because the difficulty level is insane, but in four matches I managed to score a grand total of two points.

I don't think I'll be buying this.

Slitherlink (DS)

My wife's had this a while and has told me it's great, but it took John Walker's amazing review on Eurogamer to convince me to try it out.

It's excellent, indeed, but I fear my brain may not be up to the later puzzles, given how much it's already struggling.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360)

Yes, I have the Playstation version. But it's on a disc and therefore not the future, so I used some points to get the 360 version. (There's also the fact that I have no idea where a Playstation memory card might be.) It's just as I remember it... almost. I don't remember the mirror-me being so bloody annoying. I've left it for a bit.

(If you don't know what "just as I remember it" means it translates to "one of the best games ever made". The graphics aren't as good as I remember and the endless GBA and DS versions mean it's slightly over familiar, but it's still wonderful.)

Trip To Gamestation

So, this afternoon my lovely wife and I wheeled about a hundred and fifty old games or so up to Gamestation.

They wouldn't take Just Cause or Tomb Raider: Legend because they were imports. I'd forgotten about that. Just Cause was actually a PAL copy, but had "Distribution outside the UK only" written on the back, so I they wouldn't take it. They also couldn't take Michigan: Report from Hell, which though an official UK release was obviously so badly distributed that no copies even made it as far as the Gamestation central computer.

When pulling the games out of the bag I decided I couldn't part with Mario Golf, Hitman Contracts, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution or Thief: Deadly Shadows, so they come home with us, too.

Anyway, after all that I was given a credit note for a massive £543, which means that on Friday we can get a Playstation 3 with two or three games. Hooray!

I'm now absolutely terrified of losing that credit note. I'm effectively going to be carrying around over half a grand in my wallet for the next week. Eek.

(If I left it at home I'd be terrified of a fire burning it up, or rats eating it, or gremlins stealing it, or a local time-space disturbance sucking it into an unholy vortex.)

Splatterhouse (Wii)

As a Friday The 13th one I had to buy this. It's not at all bad. I got to Stage 4 and then my credits ran out. Not too bad.

The boss with chainsaw arms and a bag over is head is awesome.

2*Ash + Jason(Part II)

Er, that's his formula.

Peggle Deluxe (PC)

I'm now on the 400,000 point levels. They are really rather tricky, but great fun.

I've got my wife addicted now.

New Adventure Island (Wii)

Put this on for a few minutes after checking the voting channel with my wife. Started the session on level 2-1, ended the session on level 2-1. I hate frogs.

Peggle Deluxe (PC)

Adventure mode was finished off quite quickly, so I'm now working through Challenge mode. I'm currently on the "get 300,000" points levels, which are very satisfying. I've settled on the Zen ball as my preferred power-up.

Peggle Deluxe (PC)

It's sort of like pachinko, but different. It's good fun. Fine. Okay.

What I don't like one little bit is the demo model. You download the full game, you can play it for an hour, then it kicks you out and asks for money. Twenty dollars in this case. The itch was there, but I didn't scratch. I could resist. But! Here comes the evil bit. After your hour is up, the game lets you start it up for two minute sessions. Yes, just two minutes. Just enough to keep the craving alive, but not enough to satisfy it. After several of the two minute sessions I threw my hands up in defeat (possibly literally, I don't remember) and paid my twenty bucks to carry on playing. The payment takes place inside the game. You don't even have to open a browser or wait for an email.

I'll probably be bored it after two hours of play, but that hour just wasn't enough and those two minute sessions meant I couldn't forget.

I'm so weak. I wish companies wouldn't take advantage.

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth (PSP)

Well, I've finished the first chapter now. I gave all the artefacts I got to Odin and sent up one completely levelled character, so I got a got a rating. I'm still not quite sure that I know what I'm doing, but I think I'm doing okay.

And I'm having a lot of fun and the little stories between dungeons are very well done. I'm not surprised it built a reputation as a lost classic after its appearance on the Playstation.

Valkyrie Profile Lenneth (PSP)

I've had this RPG for quite some time, but today was the first day that I felt I was in the right frame of mind to give it the patience I was sure it would deserve. I was right, it does require patience at the beginning. There's about an hour or so of very limited interaction before you really get to do anything. (It's one of those games with save points during cut scenes.)

But now I have got to play it I'm very impressed. I'm four hours in and I've worked out what's going on mostly, I think. I can heal during battle, I've worked out how learn new skills and level them, all that. Haven't been able to use an item during battle yet, but maybe I've not got any yet. A lot of this isn't explained very well, or at all. But it's great fun, with a lovely battle system and enemies visible in the (side-scrolling) dungeons before you fight.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

The Creature nearly got me.

Well, The Creature did get me. About twenty times, until I trekked back to the shop and got some potions.

Now he's dead.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

Oh.

It's got to hard again now. I got one of Castlevania's trademark fake endings, then worked out how to avoid stopping at that point. Now I've got to go through lots more paitnings, only this time their far too hard.

It doesn't help that I made a terrible mistake and sold half the really good stuff I was wearing and I didn't notice until after I saved. I'm stuck miles into one painting, short on cash and out of potions. It's not fun.

I may pretend the bad ending was the real ending and leave this now.

Worms (360)

As far as it goes, this actually is very good. (Ignore what I said about it playing like it was underwater, I seem to have been on crack.) It's just a pity it doesn't go further. Challenges are getting quite hard now.

Hitman Blood Money (360)

Completed!

Final two levels completed today. They were pretty good, though I didn't like being forced into a couple of gunfights. I did the final mission very badly indeed, having to kill eleven security guards in a huge gunfight at the beginning. Still, the job got done.

I've still only got 185 achievement points, though. And finishing on Expert didn't give me the points for finishing on Rookie and Normal. Darn.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

After a long break I've come back to this refreshed and I'm finding it so much easier than I did before. Bosses have been dropping all over the place and I found a great new weapon called Nebula, that's sort of a slow homing whip. Sort of.

I still hate Medusa Heads though. Oh yes I do.

Hitman Blood Money (360)

I'm being very sloppy now. I'm not trying to be, it's just the silent methods really aren't obvious any more. I had to kill a sheik earlier and simply couldn't find a disguise to get me into his private area. In the end I set off a bomb nearby to distract the guards, got in without being seen, killed my target, but then couldn't get out without being spotted and had a really quie uncool run to the parked car waiting to take me to safety. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Worms (360)

Sigh.

I honestly, honestly want to like it, want to love it, but the more I play the more disappointed I am.

I don't know if it's my memory or the game, but the physics don't feel right. It feels like everything's too heavy, or that the game's playing out underwater, or something. It's just slightly off, but things just don't seem to behave as they should. The ninja rope doesn't feel quite right, either. I don't know if it's me or the game, but I can't seem to hook myself over things, it's like the length changes a little too slowly. Thinking back, though, I don't think I've ever got on with the ninja rope on any console version before.

And the selection of weapons seems ever more stingy and drab.

Why couldn't this have been the first 150MB Live Arcade game? Packed with all the customisation and weapons we could ever want? Why couldn't it be Ultimate Worms instead of Worms Lite?

It's a missed opportunity and it's a crying shame.

Worms (360)

Despite the name, it's not Worms. Not really. It's some sort of Worms Lite.

The core gameplay is there, unquestionably. The game just works fine and is good old Worms... what there is of it. It's what there isn't that's the problem. There's just so much missing. The crates don't explode properly. There's no petrol bomb, no baseball bat, no drill. Customisation options are sorely lacking. I've not yet seen a mine fizzle out, nor seen any weapons apart from the standard ones come out of crates.

And the first time I played I did a load of challenges and while it saved progress in those - I was the 92nd fastest player in the world on Challenge 2, last I checked - it didn't save my team stats. I thought the delays were to get rid of bugs?

It's a real shame, because there's an engine here with so much potential. There are people who can look at this game and be very proud of what they've created. But it's just the skeleton, there's no meat. I am genuinely missing things. I've wanted to use the baseball bat a couple of times. I've wanted Worms to dance around on beds of fire. I've wanted to drill down on to a Worm positioned directly below me.

It is a very, very good Worms Lite. It's just not the real thing.

(And can I delete the foreign language Worm voices, please? I really don't want to hear them when playing.)

Hitman Blood Money (360)

So, after not wholly-botching the You Better Watch Out... mission, I was off for some Death On The Mississippi. Haven't cracked it yet, after a few tries. Managed a cleanish kill (by which I mean the target died and so did any civilian witnesses) or two, but there are seven targets on this level and I've not seen most of them.

Had quite a disturbing moment when I threw a body into a furnace to dispose of it, only for the "Target Killed" icon to come up aftwerwards. It was then that I remembered I'd only knocked them out when I'd attacked them. Oops.

Hitman Blood Money (360)

One thing about going through old games and throwing out those you'll never play again is that you're reminded of games you never finished and do want to play again. Like, obviously, the excellent Hitman Blood Money.

I did the tutorial again to remind myself how things worked, then started the first Mission on Normal difficulty. It was so hard that I gave up and loaded my old save, which was set on Expert difficulty. There doesn't seem to much difference, really. When I last played I'd got stuck on the mission "A Murder of Crows", but after some experimentation and some less-than-clean kills I managed to complete it. I only got a Gangster rating and left four witnesses alive, but I didn't do badly enough to make me go back and do it again.

Now on to the next mission, where I have to kill a porn baron. I've not got very far yet, just a couple of badly-botched and fatal excursions.

Crackdown (360)

Now my stats can't go down I decided to kill lots of civilians and cops today. It was fun for a while, but the cops are never any real challenge so it wasn't as much fun as it is in other sandbox games.

Playstation 3 Plans

I went into Gamestation today and put down £20 on a Playstation 3. Probably won't get one on launch day, they don't reckon, but I'm not overly bothered. The reason I've gone there - when Game and many online stores still have preorders for launch day open - is that I want to trade in games against the cost of the console, given that it costs an obscene amount of money in this country, and Gamestation give the best prices in town.

To that end I went through all my PS2, Xbox, 360 and Gamecube games and asked a series of questions.

1) Is it a UK game? If no, leave on shelf, if yes, proceed to next question.

2) Will I, thinking realistically, ever play it again in my life? If yes, leave on shelf, if no, proceed to next question.

3) Is it something that, even if it won't get played, will still be loved? If yes, leave on shelf, if no, put in "to be traded" pile.

I've ended with about two hundred games to trade in and the vast majority of the games that I'm keeping are only staying because they're foreign. They're mostly very old PS and Xbox games that I picked up very cheaply several years ago, so I doubt I'd get more than a quid or two each. And I'm guessing the likes of Pro Evolution Soccer 2 and Dave Mirra BMX 2 won't even be taken. Even the most recent stuff I'm getting rid of - 360 launch titles - won't be worth anything much by now. I'm not going to take everything in at once, but some time in the next couple of weeks I'll be taking the first hundred or so up to Gamestation. I'll see what happens.

The person behind the counter is going to hate me, I'm sure.

(Actually, I'm pretty sure my Dave Mirra 2 is a US copy, so I shouldn't have put it in the bag. I'll find out in Gamestation, I guess. And I'm already regretting not keeping Mario Golf on the Gamecube, so I think I'll take that back, too.)

Kororinpa (Wii)

Well, that's the forty-five main levels done.

Got some secret levels to do and, I assume, more to unlock. Then there's Mirror Mode and trying to improve completion times. (This is where the Wii really needs Friends Lists and Leaderboards.)

Super Mario World (Wii)

Ack!

I forgot you couldn't save after every level in this version. I'm never going to be able to finish this. I've done the easy stuff and now I'm into the sections where every level is a killer.

Kororinpa (Wii)

This is good fun, but I'm in the mid-twenties now and the levels have become really quite tricky. Also, after a session I find my forearm really aches, which I've never heard anyone else mention. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

Super Mario World (Wii)

Yeah, I spent some more points. At least it was on a good game this time. A classic g