2006 is going to be the year of handheld gaming. No question about it.

HOLY

JESUS

OF

GAMES.

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.

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.

So we’re told by someone we trust and believe (not with our life, but definitely with Sega news). That’s the entire story. We can’t even think of a joke about it or a reason why Sega’s pretending it isn’t. But there you go. A short factual piece. Here’s a screenshot of OutRun2 on Xbox from last year, because looking at OutRun2 makes us happy:

Happy days will be here again! (March, 2006).

Now known as OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast. Breathless, neverending, constant, unbelievably bias, childlike, innocent, loving and tender 24/7 coverage coming soon!

This is reason number one to “keep going” through the winter.

OUTRUN 2006: COAST 2 COAST DRIFTS ONTO PSP, PLAYSTATION 2 AND PC

Ferrari License Brings 12-car Line-up to Classic Arcade Racer

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast is being developed by UK developers, Sumo Digital Ltd, the team responsible for the critically acclaimed OutRun 2. OutRun 2006: Coast-2-Coast is scheduled for release in March 2006 for PS2/PSP/PC. For more information on these and other SEGA titles, please visit www.sega-europe.com