I’ve played a bit of Audiosurf before, and I quite liked it, but I never really got into it in any kind of obsessive, must-get-100%-on-Message-In-A-Bottle kind of a way like I did with the earlier Guitar Hero games.

Then I got an e-mail:

“You used to have the worldwide best score for: everything counts [live] by depeche mode

Now the Audiosurf player ‘Prozak Junkie’ has beaten you. Launch Audiosurf and reclaim the top spot!”

I didn’t even know that I had (or used to have) the worldwide best score for anything, really. And, had I never found out, losing that mantle would never have bothered me.

Now, of course, I’ve got to beat that Depeche Mode loving bastard!

Last night, on ITV4 (at an hour when I should have gone to bed, but was willing to watch anything to avoid doing so) I caught a few minutes of the ridiculous Michael Winner/Charles Bronson vigilante-fest, Death Wish 3.

Which reminded me that there was an Amstrad CPC game (also on other 8-bit systems, I presume) based on the film. At the age I was at the time, I didn’t have a clue what the film was all about, but I was quite bemused by this game in which you reduced handbag-toting grannies to smouldering piles of flesh with a rocket launcher.

And this was years before GTA…

So these days it seems we’re obsessed with DRM and how it does or does not affect sales of PC games. Still, while the methods change, the principle of stopping casual piracy is nothing new.

Eurogamer has done a fun retrospective on some of the copy protection methods employed by publishers over the years.

I have to say, I reserve particular disdain for the Lenslok system. As a young lad, I couldn’t ever get past the copy proetection on any of the Lenslok games my Dad had (legitimately) purchased, so any time I wanted to play any of those games, I had to ask him to do it for me. And even then I don’t think it was easy…

A few years later, though, and I was able to get past the copy protection for Midwinter without even looking at the manual. You were shown a picture of one of the game’s 50-odd playable characters and asked to name them. And, sad bastard that I was (am?), I knew all of their faces off by heart…

I’m not normally one for milestones, but there’s one coming up fairly soon. It’s been a long time (perhaps too long) in coming, but better late than never I suppose.

So, in case you’d noticed this yourself and were lying awake at night wondering if I’ve got something special planned – well, I do. Kind of. I mean, you know, they’re reviews. Of games. Like the ones we normally do.

If all goes to plan, we’ll have #98 soon, and then a double-whammy to bring up the century, whip off the helmet and kiss the FFG badge on my shirt. (That’s a cricket reference for you there).

Hello.

With the new season starting, I’ve rediscovered my low-level interest in Formula 1. And as such, I took the opportunity to dig out one of my old games for a (sort of) topical update.

Check out our review of Formula 1 ’97, mofo!

So there’s another Prince of Persia game on the way, The Forgotten Sands. Not apparently a game adapation of the upcoming movie (if it was, it would be a game of a movie of a game which is a rather amusing concept), but certainly timed to coincide with it. It’s a return to the Sands of Time trilogy, an approach which feels rather dismissive of the 2008 game, but isn’t unwelcome.

Currently we don’t have coverage of anything PoP, which is a situation I believe needs fixing given that the franchise goes back to 1989. That said if I attempt the original it will probably just lead to falling in pits and dying a lot. Let’s put it in the “get around to it… sometime” pile of revered oldies.

I definitely do wish to cover the Sands of Time itself, though, as that one’s still a greatly enjoyable classic. Apart from the slick acrobatics I loved the enchanting Arabian-Nights feel, so much more atmospheric than the angst and nu-metal of the sequel.

Later games are too new to fall on our radar for now, but there was also a lesser-known first attempt at 3D in between the original platformers and Sands of Time. That wasn’t particularly well-received but might be fun to take a look at.

Hello everyone. Rik has now written nearly a hundred reviews for this site while I lag some way behind. So in an effort to close the gap I blasted though a bit of Rise of the Triad.

Good evening.

One new review tonight – a welcome addition to our sports section in the form of FIFA Soccer Manager.

Well, I say welcome…as much as you can welcome something you’ve not played for 11 years because it really, really upset you.

These days I probably get to spend more time playing on the DS on the way to work during the week than trying out more recent releases on the PC.

Although my favourite game genres are probably sport and racing, I’ve come to realise that these areas aren’t where the DS really excels. So rather than buying watered-down versions of well-known console releases, I’ve tried to find games that work well on DS.

I’ve recently finished a couple of DS adventure games that I’ve really enjoyed. Their merits have been well-documented elsewhere, but for what it’s worth I’ll add my own endorsement.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 sees a down-on-his-luck former cop check into a hotel with nothing more than the hope of flogging some office supplies in his mind. As the (extremely eventful) evening progresses, it turns out he’ll have to turn detective once again to unlock the mysteries of the hotel and its guests. Despite one or two gameplay flaws, the story is genuinely engrossing, and though the script isn’t perfect, I found myself almost missing my stop on more than one occasion to find out what happens next. One you won’t put down until you’ve finished it (and that’ll take a little while, too).

Once I was done with that one, I also had Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations to go at. It’s the third game of a trilogy that was originally released on the GameBoy Advance, but it works well on DS (which has since seen a couple of further titles in the series). I started with the third game because, well, it was the only one I could actually get hold of a copy of. As with Hotel Dusk, there are one or two gameplay annoyances, but there’s no arguing with the fact that there’s 15 or so hours of gameplay that’ll keep you engrossed until the very end. I’ve managed to get the first of the trilogy second-hand, and I’ll certainly be trying out the others as soon as I get the opportunity.

What’s striking about both games is that they have memorable characters that you can really warm to. While I like a nice gravelly-voiced action hero as much as the next gamer, after a while they largely become interchangeable. Hotel Dusk’s Kyle Hyde is the kind of reluctant protagonist you can get get onboard with: he’s got a certain skill for unpicking a mystery, but he’s also a flawed character with a drink problem and plenty of regrets to carry around with him. At the start of the game, he doesn’t want anything more than to just get through the night, but as things progress and unfold, he finds that some of the questions from his past can be answered if he gets involved with some of the mysteries involving his fellow guests.

Phoenix Wright is a slightly more light-hearted game, but it still has the capacity to involve you in a way that’s all too rare these days. Although there’s a faint sense of ridiculousness about the whole enterprise (not least in its interpretation of the legal system) the main characters are all pretty well rounded, and there are themes of loss, regret and redemption which permeate the story and make you care about what happens.

Oh, and if that doesn’t impress you, then how about the fact that, during the courtroom scenes you can alarm everyone on the train by shouting ‘OBJECTION!’ into the DS microphone? Don’t worry – you can also just hit the touch screen if you’re easily embarrassed.

Howdy.

While the real Winter Olympics are taking place, we’re glumly ignoring real-life athletic achievements in favour of attempting to replicate them by hammering a few buttons on our PC keyboard.

So here’s a review of Winter Challenge for you.