…-ographic DVD magazine cover:

They’re using a photo from about 1999, which brings back memories of spending two hours a day wanking over… anyway. We’ve said too much. People at work read this and we know our mums Google our names.

It’s easy, really. If you’ve got a blog or web site or magazine and are planning on taking screenshots of OutRun 2006 in the coming days or weeks, follow this handy guide to avoid embarrassing yourself by taking shit grabs of the world’s prettiest driving game.

We’ve used the PSP version here, but these rules also apply to the Xbox, PS2 and PC versions of OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast. Have fun!

OUTRUN 2006 SCREENSHOT TIPS:

1. No one likes to see cars going in straight lines down empty tracks, so make sure there are lots of other cars/lorries on the screen.

2. Slide a bit, so there’s smoke coming off the wheels and you can see more of the car. That’s immediately 50 percent more exciting! You slide by tapping ‘brake’ then releasing it and steering hard to one side, just in case you’ve only ever played Burnout and aren’t used to the concept of ‘steering’ to get round corners in driving games.

3. Get to the last section of track on the Hard route and take a screenshot of it, so people know you’ve played it enough to get really good at it. Catching it when it flashes text across the screen makes it even better, but that’s advanced stuff we’ll go into at a later date.

4. Take one of the car going up to the line. It’s always pretty, and doesn’t even require any gaming skill at all!

5. Get some from the in-car view. It’s hard to play like this, so you will earn the respect of your readers. And it lets geeks examine the road textures.

6. Take one of the crazy mini games and Heart Attack stuff. More stuff happens on screen, so it looks more exciting still!

7. Mini games. If you’re struggling with all this, send us an email and we’ll do it for you. We’re the world’s number one authority on taking amazing screenshots of OutRun, and we’ll happily do it for you for nothing.

8. Feel free to use these ones, even if you’re a web site or magazine we usually hate, like, say, Edge. Or… no, we were thinking of Edge again. The whole community needs to pull together in times of OutRun games coming out. We even saved these ones at JPEG compression quality 6, which is higher than usual, so they’ll come out OK.

9. Beautiful! We might do some Xbox and PS2 screenshots soon, just for fun.

10. Is this enough to get the message across?

11. This is the absolutely last one. Remember to take a grab of your car crashing.

12. That’s definitely it now. You MUST take one of the radio music select screen. Basic stuff, admittedly, but some people need to be told this shit.

13. The ‘SUBTEXT’ to all this is that the game looks really amazing on PSP. That’s the idea behind the update. It’s like a visual review.

14. Don’t make us have to tell you again.

Well done on giving OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast 8/10, but you could’ve made a bit more effort taking the bloody screenshots.

Look at this. It’s a car, going down an empty road in a straight line. That’s the EXACT OPPOSITE of what OutRun 2006 is about. Well done! You drove five seconds down the first track! What amazing OR skills! We’d better watch out if we ever meet the GamesTM staff on Xbox Live!

OutRun gives you so much amazing detail, effects and scenery to play with, and this is the best you can do? We’re embarrassed on the team’s behalf. Looking at this dull screenshot makes us blush with shame for the entire games magazine publishing industry. We didn’t buy this issue, by the way. We found it on someone else’s desk. We have to make that EXTREMELY CLEAR.

It’s another car, going down another empty road in another straight line. You only get ONE CHANCE to take screenshots of OutRun 2006 in your WHOLE LIFE, and THIS is the best you can do? Such a waste! It’s being PRINTED IN A MAGAZINE for god’s sake. The British Library saves a copy of EVERY magazine ever printed – FOR EVER! So put some effort into it.

The GamesTM team pushing their straight-line-driving skills to the MAX once again, this time driving down the first track for 20 seconds! This is not how it should be done.

SEE ME AFTER SCHOOL
Come back tomorrow for our OutRun 2006 screenshot masterclass. You all need it, although it’s sadly too late for GamesTM to avoid making an embarrassing mess.

Sega could do anything in the early 1990s, such was the dominance of the Mega Drive. It was, dear children, a bit like the PlayStation2 of its day. Everyone knew its name, everyone wanted one, even the Game Gear was a bit cool like PSP and its TV adverts were stylish and much talked about. But sometimes power goes to your head…

…leading to the series of adverts that ran in Viz. Viz is a comic book for grown ups (students) full of the sort of sick, gutter humour we simply cannot stand. Sega went so far as to create its own special ads to fit in with the Viz style.

They’re not what traditionalists would call “funny”, and even in 1992 the idea of “waggling a joystick” being a bit like having a wank was a very old joke. Besides, the Mega Drive pad had a little d-pad not a THROBBING SHAFT so it’s not even based on reality.

Sega doesn’t piss in the snow, it pisses in the *wind*.

Nowadays it’s all viral marketing web sites. How we miss proper adverts with prices on. Thanks so SEGA SCOUT “No. 7” for the images, which appear to be scans.

On the one hand we’re as excited as a 12-year-old boy having his first wank over seeing Kylie’s knickers on Top of the Pops, on the other we’re worried about how much work we’re going to be generating for ourselves:

We should just give it 10/10 now and have done with it. But that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?

Great to have it back. Like the first prescription beaker of methadone in the morning. More totally unnecessarily over-the-top drugs analogies soon.

THE UK:R OUTRUN 2006 PLAN OF ACTION:

Uploading loads of PSP screenshots

Taking the piss out of GamesTM’s review

Uploading loads of Xbox screenshots

A bullet-pointed review of all three versions (PC excluded due to not ever being able to make PC games load/work/look good)

Homoerotic Flag Man “bear” fan fiction

Only it’s calling it the “Origami Project” so people think it’s really cool, like something from Apple.

To celebrate having the idea of putting a PC in a different kind of box, Microsoft has spent 150 million dollars on making a viral flash web site:

Yes. You’re that thing that’s going to be like a slow old PC in a different kind of box.

Yes. You’re going to be able to do all the things PCs can, only everything will be slightly harder because you won’t have a mouse.

Yes. We can go to wi-fi hotspots and wonder why no one ever sends us sexy messages on MSN.

Yes. We’ll be a bit more worried about being mugged than usual because you’re in our bag and you cost a lot of money.

Learn what processor you’ve got, how many USB2.0 sockets you’ve got and what version of Windows you use. Dying to meet you! xx

We got this so-called “Cheese” chao keyring from eBay, because we like Cheese. He’s Cream’s friend so is therefore also our friend! It says “Sonic X” and “Cheese” on the front of the box:

Looks like any old chao to the casual observer…

BUT THIS IS NOT CHEESE! Cheese wears a red bow tie and has a “smiling mouth”. What we’ve got here is a Sonic Adventure chao that’s been shamefully rebranded as “Cheese” to cash-in on the success of the Sonic X cartoon.

Cheese wasn’t even born (invented) in the year 2000, and he was born in Mobius not China. This has been sitting in a warehouse for six years waiting to be resold. They’re pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers. This is a simple warning to all Cheese fans out there.

Bring on the spurned! Now that Gizmondo has been revealed as the senior management cash-hoovering disgrace that it was always clearly designed to be, the poor, disgruntled staff are breaking cover with their tales.

Our first Gizmondo employee to speak – hopefully the first of many – is anonymous anonymous person ‘Mr Anonymous’ (not his real name).

These words were typed in by an actor.

Hi! I was working in QA at Gizmondo for 8 months before getting offered a new job 3 days before they fired us all :)

I dunno if this will be of any interest to you but you might be amused to hear that I got paid late on about 5 of those months because they just didn’t have the money to pay us (apart from that one time their bank manager made a mistake and they showed us all a copy of the letter from the bank manager so we would actually believe them). So for about a week every month or so, the Gizmondo QA department among others would refuse to do any work until we got paid. Some of us had to borrow money from petty cash just to afford to make it into work on several occasions.

When I joined it was a whole development studio (used to be Warthog) and they had some cool sounding games in production which probably would have been the best games on there, but obviously when they realised no money was coming in after the launch they thought making good games was going to be too expensive and ‘downsized’ by firing their developers leaving just a rather demoralised QA department.

Other than that, we all had a hilarious time hearing about the CEO paying his wife for marketing consultancy and paying us out of his own pocket when funds were low. Especially when we then later read headlines like “Former Gizmondo executive’s mafia convictions revealed”! Of course any news we heard about the company’s finances ended up on the internet long before we were told anything.

As for the games, I think the only game I really enjoyed playing was SSX which is probably better on every other platform anyway. It’s a shame they never got chance to release the augmented reality games using the camera cause they were ace. Or you know… finishing their flagship game Colours might have helped their sales a bit. Everyone likes GTA clones!

Also please say hi to all the great people from Gizmondo QA who all read this site religiously!

Keep me anonymous please, I’m not sure what I can still be sued for…

Thanks, Mr Anonymous (not his real name)! Did YOU work for Gizmondo? If so, please get in touch. We’d particularly like to hear from the following:

Anyone who used to work in the shop, particularly the people who said they remember the day we came in to take our photos and are apparently blaming UKR for killing the console.

Anyone who used to post on the official Gizmondo forum – to this day we remain convinced you were all paid employees embarking upon rudimentary “viral marketing”.

Anyone else who got bummed by the Gizmondo scam. Bulletproof anonymity assured.

These are our top five improvised DS touchpens rated on functional use, preparation needed and cost to replace.

5 – HOUSE KEY

PREPARATION: None
USE: Pretty duff really. Too small to see what you’re doing, and scratches the screen up something rotten. You can file the sharp bits off using the edge of the kerb. but then you can’t get back in your house any more.
COST TO REPLACE: All your dignity when you have to call the landlord at chucking out time because you got shitfaced and left the key in the pub instead, plus the locksmith’s callout charge and expenses.

4 – TOOTHPICK

PREPARATION: Cleaning the scotch egg off it so people don’t think you’re scum
USE: Average. Hurts your hand after a while because it’s too thin, then you drop it and can’t pick it up because people would think you were REALLY odd if you picked up a lost toothpick.
COST TO REPLACE: Practically none.

3 – THE FRAME OF AN AIRFIX MODEL BROKEN UP A BIT

PREPARATION: You have to wiggle it a lot to break a stylus-sized bit off it, then chew the end a bit to get the sharp bits off which ends up with you getting a mouthful of plastic.
USE: Very good. Light, small, customisable and enjoyable. Sadly lots of fun to play with too, though, so you’ll probably absentmindedly snap it in half the next time Fifty Cent comes on your television.
COST TO REPLACE: Variable.

2 – AN ACTUAL PEN

PREPARATION: None
USE: Depends on the pen. With the biro bit clicked in, it’s perfectly functional for most games like Animal Crossing and Resident Evil which run on menus. For games that require more, precise touchpen control can be achieved by using the actual nib of the ballpen. This, however, leaves annoying but removable stains (much like most of the things we enjoy doing).
COST TO REPLACE: Only the discomfort of having to explain where all the office biros have gone.

1 – HALF A DISPOSABLE CHOPSTICK

PREPARATION: A minute or so spent chewing it down to a point, and getting some SERIOUSLY worried looks on the train
USE: Shockingly, amazingly perfect. Not only is it practically weightless and easy to wield, but the soft wood makes it comfortable and satisfying to hold and use and equals absolutely minimal wear on your DS screen. Furthermore, carrying a chewed and jagged spike of wood around makes you look scary and mental so nobody will laugh at you for playing Nintendogs.
COST TO REPLACE: A few pence if you buy a big pack of them.

VERDICT: A surprise victory for Asian cutlery! Chopsticks – they’re not just for jamming viciously into your eye to take the pain of Xbox 360 away any more!