An animal? Inside a ball? Being steered around a series of mazes? We’re no experts on intellectual property laws, but Hamsterball seems a little too close to a well-known Sega thing-in-a-ball rolling franchise for comfort.

AND WHILE THEY’RE DOWN…

Worst idea of 2005 Entry #2: The Mouse Police
It’s at a budget price, but WHAT PRICE DIGNITY? Even two-year-olds would rather play games about smoking crack and kicking prostitues in the “fanny” than friendly cartoon mice.

“The cheese store has been robbed. This is a case for Agent Chester” says the press release, written in the least-enthusiastic tone possible. The sort of tone you use when your dad tells you about the new road signs they’ve put up.

Mind you, if we had to write press releases about a game about mice stealing cheese as our main job, we’d find it hard to be enthusiastic too. Read more about the Mouse Police.

Finally! After a 16-year wait it’s the sensational return of… Doctor Zorg!

Hide behind those sofas, kids!

Due to overwhelming public demand (one email and someone asking if we were the ones that used to do those “alien jokes”) we’ve decided to make this week Employee of the Week Week. That is, we’ll be doing a new “alien joke” every day, each slightly less funny than the last as a clever metaphor for the video games industry.

As well as having a gun, Shadow The Hedgehog will “develop his mastery of Chaos energy allowing him to slow down enemies and rewind time”.

Sadly, we’re yet to see any publicity material refering to this as “The Fastest Sonic Game Yet”. Or “The Worstest Sonic Game Yet”.

Mod stuff.

Play as Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Drive cars with guns on.

Gang-bang rival crews.

“It allows anyone who plays the game to relive their life, their entire individual life.” Um, yes Peter, are you sure? Have you taken your medication today? You know it’s not a good idea to make statements like that, don’t you? Just look at what happened to your little friend Demis Hasabassabasabis and his ‘living, breathing city’. Maybe, aim a bit lower, like “It’s a new take on the popular Tetris style of game”. Then we’ll all be impressed if it’s something marginally better than that.

Over the past week, all the UK game industry events have been cancelled (except EGN but that doesn’t count), leaving 15 year old gaming website “CEO’s” to cry over their keyboards. But fear not, UK:Resistance will come to the rescue! We’re planning UK:R – LIVE for later this year. Venue is to be announced (will have wheelchair access) but expect somewhere with a capacity for at least 45 people. Attractions include Girls Aloud (TBC) repeatedly performing ‘Love Machine’ throughout the day, a ‘Retro’ games section featuring linked Dreamcasts running Sega Rally 2 and exciting daily seminars. Gary will be holding a debate entitled Games Journalism – The Future, where the merits of the ‘out of ten’ scoring system will be extolled followed by a discussion about whether words are even needed in game reviews in the 21st century. Jon will be hosting a talk on the Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 conversion with hardware upgrade cart and how it could still be a viable product 7 years after it’s shelved release. Stay tuned for further information regarding this spectactular event.

(NB. The European Cheese Tasting Seminar have asked us to point out they will be holding their annual event as usual at the Wisbech Conference centre)

#5: Gizmondo ‘TBA-TRIS’

Shapes coming soon!!!! Keep checking back!!!! New shape announcements imminent!!!!

The wonder, the excitement, the anticipation as news reaches us of a massive 89 games due out for Gizmondo. We can’t wait to see ‘Race’. Surely it will be a groundbreaking new take on the racing genre and not a sub-par effort along the lines of a PC driving game circa 1998? ‘Jump and hit’ must be a trendy simplistic name for what will no doubt be an innovative new title pushing the boundaries of handheld gaming and not just some by-numbers platform outing. And who can imagine what is in store for us with the enigmatically named ‘Goal’? Until then Gizmondo owner, you can pass the time playing Pocket Ping Pong 2005.

A Gizmondo — Yesterday.

#4: ROCKSTAR GAMES ‘GRAND THEF-TRIS’

The shapes are sinking concrete-encased bodies of people you’ve just GANG-BANGED in an urban DRIVE-BY and are now dumping in the sea after having just raped them and stolen their money!

NEW IDEAS FOR SPACE INVADERS
You are Steven J. Invader, a space-cop in the year 22… oh Jesus. Has it really come to this? We’re even boring ourselves now.

Here’s something we forgot we had. It’s an ancient movie of a woman dressed like Lara Croft getting her unnecessarily large breasts out on a bus. This would’ve originally been posted in, ooh, about 1998 or so. There’s a link to it in the archives, but we can’t read all that again. Too much pain.

Lara Croft getting her unnecessarily large breasts out on a bus (3.9mb).