One “go” lasts for an hour and a half when you’re good, and you’ve sat there perfectly still listening to whooshing techno sounds and feeling happy. For an HOUR AND A HALF! Great music, bright, loud and lovely, it’s the best demonstration of “happy gaming” we’ve ever seen. Playing it feels like being drunk and dancing and popular! Thinking about it now is making us happy! Look! We’re doing exclamation marks!!

Did you read our review and extremely frightening Lumines fan fiction? We really went overboard on this one. Because it’s the best game of 2005, according to us and out of the ones we played.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ABOUT 2005

Since ‘completing’ Lumines, we haven’t played any other PSP games. They’re all a bit boring. Even the thrill of getting them to boot off Memory Stick doesn’t make playing inferior versions of PS2 franchises very appealing.

Stay tuned for our “New Year’s Apologies List” in which we’ll be fully apologising to everyone for everything we did (and some things we didn’t) throughout 2005.

And if we’re REALLY bored next week, we might make it “Rejected Ideas” week, in which we upload all the half-finished updates we’ve got that we never got around to finishing off. It’s Christmas, no one will be reading, and if anyone is reading they’ll be too drunk to care.

We got a Christmas card from EA! Not directly, obviously, but from someone popular with EA who got it, laughed at it, then forwarded it on to us. So we’re forwarding it on to you.

“Santa looks like a failed mascot from the 16bit era. It’s too horrible for words. Christmas is dead.” he said. A Christmas sentiment we can all agree with.

FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The only corporate Christmas card we got this year was from Rockstar, which sent out a very nice three-dimensional Christmas tree complete with bad taste bauble stickers to decorate it with. Thanks, Rockstar. Thanks for not remembering to take us off your list like everyone else did this year.

The same old “Collect things!” play that made Animal Crossing such a hit on Gamecube, only tweaked so you simply cannot stop playing it. You have to walk your dogs, else you might miss an item. You have to feed your dogs in the morning, because if your dogs get hungry and sad they might not get you good presents in the evening. Amazing Nintendo mind control. This sounds so shit and only for children/girls, but it really isn’t.

We liked it so much we splashed out on a domain name to make jokes about it.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ABOUT 2005

We’ve only just got Animal Crossing Wild World on import, so will maybe put it in next year’s list. It’s shaping up well so far!

NOT JUST BECAUSE WE LOVE ANYTHING BY SEGA! It’s a genuine evolution of the 2D Sonic play, with the tricking and boosting giving you permanent access to Super Sonic speed and making replaying levels with your enhanced trick skills a pleasure. You get better at tricking, you earn more boost, you run faster and get better still. It’s still getting better each time we play it, and we’ve played it SHIT LOADS.

More Sonic, better Sonic. And shit! We didn’t even mention the hot music that’s like the Jet Set Radio music, OR the brilliant stylus-based bonus round, OR that Blaze is a very good character, OR that Cream’s in it.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ABOUT 2005

We tried to play an MMORPG for the first time this year. It was rubbish and extremely boring. We already instinctively knew it would be, but it was nice to get proper confirmation.

Yeah, everyone’s being ironic and saying this is the best Xbox 360 launch game as a joke — but it really actually is! It’s an incredible “high score” shooter, one that also ranks you online against other players making it competitive beyond belief. All you do is rotate and shoot, but the range of enemies and speed of play is incredible.

It’s like 3D never happened and games are still about precise control and skill and fun!

Our best high score so far is 520,035 which is very fucking awesome and our Gamertag is OXM Zorg if you want to check we’re not lying.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ABOUT 2005

It’s been the worst year for games since 2001, when Sega stopped really bothering and we were lumbered with first-generation PS2 shite. If it wasn’t for the Nintendo DS the year would’ve been the worst year for gaming since records began — and we nearly didn’t bother getting a DS at all. So thanks, Nintendo! You’re not the enemy any more! You literally saved 2005.

We never got round to getting God of War. Chances are we wouldn’t have liked it as much as everyone else because it would’ve been like Ninja Gaiden only different and therefore worse.

We haven’t got confused — this list is SUPPOSED to start at number four, because we can only think of four really decent games we played this year. And we must’ve played at least 50.

This is an “Xbox 360 Brand Film”!

In it, people popular with youths — or people Microsoft thinks are popular with youths — read scripted segments of dialogue about how Xbox 360 lets you “watch your photos of b-boys and breakers, and also your honeys” (ACTUAL QUOTE!).

Here are a few grabs of the “Xbox 360 Brand Film”. Download the whole movie at the bottom:

We’re not going to rip the piss out of this break-dancing, DJ-scratching, pikey-movie too much — it really would be too easy. Maybe we’ll do a proper piss-ripping update in a year or two, once the Xbox 360 launch heat’s died down a bit.

Here, a man talks about Xbox 360. For some reason, there’s another man break-dancing in the background. Is this what teenagers do these days?

This man is a skateboarder. He calls Xbox 360 a playground.

This is jail-bait MC Lady Sovereign saying “I’m well excited man, yeah” (those were her ACTUAL WORDS!). She also says “I like racing games and beat em ups”. This is so urban.

Then a youth starts break-dancing in front of an Xbox 360 logo, as some scratching DJ plays a track that goes “Yo, yo, y-y-yo” over the top. It’s like an Ali G rip-off!

This man, Tim Watkins, says putting stickers on his Xbox 360 symbolises “human energy”. Which is an amazing coincidence, as “human energy” was also one of Microsoft’s key marketing phrases it outlined at the Xbox 360 unveiling at E3!

This is pro footballer Shaun Wright-Philips deadpanning “The Xbox 360 is all about control” (those were his ACTUAL WORDS.)

Then there’s loads more skateboarding, with the camera zooming in and out really quickly. Teenagers love all that shit!

“When I go away with England and with Chelsea we normally just carry them, we put them in our bags, and we’re on it for a couple of hours” OBVIOUSLY LIES Shaun Wright-Philips while playing FIFA 06 on Xbox 1!

This is someone else break-dancing in front of an Xbox 360 logo. Youth culture is now totally bewildering to us. And, we suspect, to whoever made this film.

Our “main job” involves sometimes having to look people from Microsoft in the eyes. It’s going to be hard after seeing this :(

Download the WORST FILM EVER here [2.9MB WMV file].

DOWNLOAD ADVICE:
This is a big file, which will probably break the web site if everyone downloads it all now in the next five minutes. So we suggest people with surnames starting with the letters A to K download it today, and people with surnames from L to Z download it tomorrow.

Also, if you’re in an office, maybe only one person could download it and make everyone gather round, instead of everyone downloading it individually? It would really help. And can all people from America wait until the weekend, please? It’s very “UK urban” and you won’t really understand if it’s serious or a joke, like everything we do. Thank you.

It’s true, look. In Japan, Edge is just a magazine about motorbikes and cars. Thanks to reader ColonelThunders for this information. We’ve already ordered the entire back catalogue so we can strew them around our flat and when we wake up each morning, just for that one delicious moment before we realise who we are and what’s really happening, we can pretend that the last ten years didn’t happen.

Solve all those arguments about which review Edge got the most wrong with the Edge Online Reviews Database!

See how Gunstar Heroes only got a six! Recoil in horror at the Edge collective only thinking Saturn Sega Rally was an eight! Laugh a bit then feel sad about Virtua Cop being given seven! Feel SICK TO THE FUCKING CORE at Virtua Fighter 4 only getting a FUCKING SEVEN as well! It’s all in there. It’s all shameful.

Kong is back! Check it out in all its high-definition glory:

Kong’s new “Super Rage” attack devastates the beautiful neon-lit streets of Las Vegas!

New playable character Amy Kong with her sexy pink fur and red shoes is a beauty to behold!

Kong gatecrashes the party at the Venetian hotel!

UBISOFT SPOKESMAN JOEY DEACON CONFIRMED THE NEWS TO THE BBC:
BBC NEWS | TV glitch mars Xbox 360 Kong game

They’ve sold ANOTHER ONE!

Riotous scenes in downtown Shinjuku!