The only thing lovelier than Katie Holmes is Katie Holmes waking you up in the morning with a 16-inch deep pan Super Supreme Meat Feast she’s just ordered for breakfast as a “thank you” for letting her wee on you. Not that we’re into that kind of thing — we prefer stuffed-crust Hawaiians*.

*Not a euphemism for rent boys.

…or at least that’s what it feels like, anyway. Come on, stupid clock! Faster! Faster!

Of course, a new Sakura Wars game is like the first shit after a night on the razzle. First of all it has a solid and satisfying feel that makes you flood with relief. Then, two hours later when you’re having a giant robot battle with an anthropomorphic marmot on a circus tightrope (or something equally stupid) you realise it was just the pace car, and all that’s left is fifteen to twenty hours of insubstantial crap that makes you regretful and nauseous.

This time, though, Sega have got a secret weapon. Allow us to introduce… WHEELCHAIR GIRL!

To celebrate the advent of a truly UK:R sex symbol and to win over those who might still be in two minds about importing the game, we’ve written a verse of love to get you all in the mood for love and flowers and tweeting birds and help you to forget that the game’s set in America.

Oh, Wheelchair Girl.
You wear glasses and a lab coat.
Your personality will probably be bland and kindly, like Kohran in the good ones on the Saturn.
You come from Boston, so you will be very posh and thus utterly dirty.
You are a med student too, so you will know all the names and be shocked by nothing.

Oh, Wheelchair Girl.
You are so much better than other wheelchair girls
Like that one from Silent Hill.
She was a bit plain, and tried to kill us with dogs.
We will tell our friends that you are by Sega and not RED or Hudson
(As we have been doing since the Dreamcast to avoid embarassment)

Oh, Wheelchair Girl.
I long for the moment of beauty when we become one
Our bodies singing a pure and unsullied aria of love to the heavens.
You will probably have to go over the side of the bed
So that your legs don’t get in the way.

Oh, Wheelchair Girl.
My heart has an access ramp.

We thank you.

Day two and we’re already sort of regretting this. This week’s second Employee of the Week update features a joke about flight data recorders because, sickos that we are, there’s nothing we like more than reading the last dying words of doomed cabin crews as they plummet to the ground.

Sorry, mum. It’s not your fault we turned out like this (it was because of weird Uncle Paul and that secret he made us keep).

How can this sentence…

“I was a bit like a volcano. An erupting volcano. I paused the PlayStation. I went to the kitchen and collected the knife. Without realising it, I stabbed him”

…actually be said by a human being? And we thought throwing a controller and accusing the console of “being gay” was over reacting a bit.

Story in today’s Sun newspaper:

We often “feel like a volcano” after losing at something, but the worst we’ve ever done is shout “cunting fuck” quite loudly into our knees through gritted teeth. We’ve never had to go somewhere (kitchen) to get something (knife) to accurately display our anger with.

IN OTHER NEWS:
Oh, you know, just the usual filler piece about a dad allegedly KILLING ONE OF HIS FOUR-MONTH-OLD BABIES because of possible video game rage:

This one is a lie. It’s the paper suggesting that because they heard he got angry playing games once, that must mean he’s a killer. This is nasty and irresponsible reporting, and that’s why we read The Sun every day.

We’ve saved up a few more of our “alien jokes”, to help you get over not being able to spend two hours a day watching Maria Sharapova bouncing around in something you can imagine is her nightie.

Here’s the first of this week’s maybe even as many as eight Employee of the Week updates.

We just got our first play of Everyone Loves Katamari. Give us a second to stop crying with sheer joy before we give you simple, point by point explanation of what you should do.

1) The scope is bigger. For example, in the high school level you can travel from room to room and they all load as seperate areas allowing for a whole new level of… er… levels. The boys’ shower room has a fat old man trying to peer over the lockers at the boys changing. Every day the game designers show us they understand their demographic better and better.

2) The graphics have been very slightly improved, so it’s still like Jet Set Radio only now it looks better.

3) The tone of the game is more whimsical. One level is a huge garden full of magical creatures and you have to start off by collecting flowers. Seeing the ball covered in millions of tiny flowers is fantastic enough, but then you get to reap amoral terror and end up covered in screaming, struggling centaurs, pixies and leprechauns.

4) Whereas the vocals of the original were limited, every level of the demo is backed by a freaky bass-heavy piece of J-rock or pop. So it’s even more like Jet Set Radio.

That’s why we say to the world and say it loud:

BUY KATAMARI 2 THIS THURSDAY AND PRETEND SEGA MADE IT!

Go on, it’ll be easy. It’ll help you sleep better too.

Then they email screengrabs of the TV show to us, like we should be impressed about it. They probably think we’ll do an update on it, somehow endorsing their efforts. The idiots.

AN UPDATE ON THE GLASTONBURY DAYTONA USA 2 FLAG:

These do look a bit unconvincing, but before you say we faked them ask yourself one question — why THE HELL ON EARTH would we or anyone else spend time poorly Photoshopping a Daytona USA 2 flag onto three scenes of blotchy Glastonbury footage?

If you’re female and read UK:R, chances are you see the funny side of our posts. Chances are equally good that you WON’T see the funny side of Women-Wise.

Women love playing games, including anything from adventure and puzzle games to strategy games and RPGs (role playing games). Some industry sources say that at least half of all “gamers” are female when you factor in those who play on-line games and gender-neutral games like cards, trivia, backgammon, and other board games.

Translation: “Sorry love, women are shit at Tekken.”

Women Wise(TM) was formed to encourage women to use and create new media with a female perspective. In our programs we take the basic elements of good game design and expand upon it with a female friendly point of view. Our upcoming line-up includes games, interactive stories, enhanced music CDs, and edutainment titles. We know that’s a lot of territory to cover!

Translation: “Sorry love, women are shit at Tekken.”

The Women Wise(TM) line-up of products is a reflection of what women have been telling us, and what men have also indicated, would be great titles to enjoy. Some of our titles are pure fantasy – an escape from busy, demanding lifestyles. Others reflect your interests, dreams, and passions. Topics include rich stories, areas of women’s interests, including health and wellness issues, spirituality, sports, women’s business, creativity, and, of course, more adventure entertainment.

Translation: “Sorry love, women are shit at Tekken.”

The first title releasing under the Women Wise(TM) brand is part of a complete digital media entertainment package created especially for women. Along with an ebook novella, The Legend of Lotus Spring(TM) is a CD-ROM entertainment title designed with special attention to what research shows women look for in interface design, story and character creation, and visual treatments in software titles.

Translation: “Sorry love, women are shit at Tekken.”

Cyber@nnie(TM) is your techno savvy sister in cyberspace. She’s fun, hip, witty and super smart – a sensuous geek! She hangs out around our site, so give her a click for words on the industry, techno tips and resources.

Translation: “I PRESSED that, but nothing happened!”

Like Puzzle and Adventure Games? Jewels II is a favorite among women. It has received accolades in the press, and it took top honors in the Atlantic Digital Media Festival.

Translation: “Sorry love, women are shit at Tekken.”

Twenty years of bloody struggle by all three women that play proper video games, and then the other eight zillion turn up late to the party only to decide they want to use Yahoo Online Partnership Wist to start a globe-spanning knitting circle, and demand to know WHY THEIR NEEDS AS WOMEN aren’t being met by the developers. Not to worry though, we’ve started work on a chat bot called Nicebloke 1.0 which will keep these old-at-age-24 harridans glued to their chat clients and out of our games for good. Updates on our work will follow.

It’s tempting to despise the young, to look at the technology today and wish fondly that the information technology revolution had arrived in OUR childhoods, or at the very least to curse fate for making us witness the rise of the video game and thus the ultimate destruction of everything we loved.

So when the voices start, just put the scissors down and try the following UK:R “Lifestyle” advice for building more positive outlook towards modern life.

1) YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A NETKIDDIE

Think of the most embarassing and/or misguided thing you did, said or perpetrated as a tween. Maybe you thought Bon Jovi wrote the greatest lyrics ever and wanted to tell the world how clever and deep he was. Maybe you wrote prose about your Dungeons and Dragons characters falling in love and getting married. Maybe you had a “Unicorns and Mermaids” phase, or worse a nihilist gothy phase, or worse a Roxette phase.

Without the internet, all you had was a scrap book full of cut out pictures from magazines stuck on with Pritt Stick that the kids on the bus stole and threw around. With the internet, you would have had a free webpage covered in broken links screaming it from the rooftops to everyone in the world with a computer what a dork you were which would have ended up on Something Awful or Losers.org or any other of the million other sites that aren’t bored with people’s homepages yet.

2) ATARI ST OWNERS WERE BAD ENOUGH

Think of the most smug and irritating console or computer advocates from your school. Now give them XBoxes.

3) MOBILE PHONE CAMERAS

Remember when your pants fell down after PE and you cried for weeks because the WHOLE WORLD (ten people) had seen your arse? If that had happened today, that arse would have been circulated to the UNIVERSE before you’d even got home to watch Alias The Jester. By the time Top of the Pops was on, a nonce doing a google search for “CHILDREN’S BOTTOMS” would have found it, snagged it and uploaded it to a fileserver. When you woke up in the morning, fat greying diddlers from Toledo to Timbuctoo would have printed it out to fling string over you.

When we were young, kids simply had the amoral passion for sociopathically destroying people’s lives that Davros did. Now they have his technology too. And this means:

4) THEY’RE ALL GOING TO DIE

Some day (and that day will DEFINITELY BE SOON) you’re going to throw yourself off a bridge after a night of cathartic self debasement causes you to forget that you still live with your family and stagger down to breakfast with no pants on, half your head shaved, vomit caking the front of your vest and – should the gods have smiled on you – a salty floppy swinging folornly from the tip of your majesty. Still, that’s taken three decades (give or take) of systematic spirit-crushing; imagine if someone had mobilised the information superhighway to give you that vital shove at an age where setting the video wrong and missing Red Dwarf meant the end of the world.

We’re already seeing them burning out like Roman Candles, sometimes even doing the public service of taking their car-boot-dwelling ratfamilies with them. That’s why we say to you all, hold on. A brighter day is coming. A brighter day involving lots and lots of dead scriptkiddies.

Maybe even him.

Oh please.

Mushiking rocks! It’s just like 1995 all over again! Sega’s weird beetle-collecting GBA game Mushiking has crushed all opposition (like they are beetles and Sega is a TANK) to grab the Japanese all-formats number one spot, beating such major gaming franchises as, er Chibi Robo and Drag-on Dragoon.

See Sega’s Mushiking triumph HERE AND NOW!

MEDIA CREATE WEEKLY CHARTS
All formats (Japan)
Week starting 20 June 2005

1. GBA – The King of Beetle Mushiking: Greatest Champion
2. DS – DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain
3. PS2 – Zill O’ll infinite (incl. Limited Edition)
4. GC – Chibi Robo
5. PS2 – Drag-On Dragoon 2: Love Red, Ambivalence Black
6 PS2 – Rakusho! Pachinko Slot Sengen 3
7. PSP – Coded Arms
8. PS2 – Futakoi Alternative: Ai to Shoujo to
Machineguns (incl. Limited Edition)
9. DS – Advance Wars: Dual Strike
10. PS2 – Kenka Bancho (incl. Limited Edition)

Well done, Japanese children! Your game choosing is much greatness brings!

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
We’ve been thinking for some time about doing a “joke” update where we make up “hilarious” pretend Japanese game names and say it’s the real Japanese chart, but THE TRUTH — DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain and Drag-On Dragoon 2: Love Red, Ambivalence Black — really is stranger than fiction.