Wrestlevania

I didn't like the whole barbed-wire rape scene when I originally saw the film. On second viewing it made more sense and provides a fitting climax to Alessa's story.

Yes; Child Alessa tricked Rose into staying with her in the ash world (Silent Hill's "light side"). Basically, either Alessa 'killed' Rose when Rose allowed Child Alessa to enter her body. Or Christabella killed Rose when she stabbed Rose in the chest; Alessa would have kept Rose 'alive' for her own purposes then, such as crawling over the seal and opening that gate to hell through which Burnt Alessa - her fuller demon manifestation - was able to enter the church and get busy with the fizzy.

If you noticed, Alessa began switching the world back to light--that's why he stopped trying; he couldn't exist any longer.

Your mate wot licks peoples "columns" down the pub. (Apparently.) But I'll shut up with that now as it's obviously unfunny, and I don't know this person from Adam.

...so the fact that, once he's cornered Rose and Cybil in that small room, he smashes through the door with that -off great cleaver of his before desperately, hungrily trying to rip that iron bar from across the entrance isn't enough to spark Brown Trousers Time in the brkl household? The Red Pyramid (to give the character its proper name) is an extremely evil, near unstoppable, tank-like SOB--the film did an excellent job of relaying this.

"Looks human at first glance, but definitely isn't upon closer inspection." Finding unfamiliarity in what you thought/hoped was familiar. Bit like ginger by all accounts, then...

That's down to an individual's perception and interpretation of fear and terror respectively. Scared the shit out of me though--and I've never played any of the games further than their (limited) demos. I thought Silent Hill was an excellent example of a 'paranoid isolation' horror film. I also thought the mother/child interplay and narratory drive was believable and consistently used to great effect.

Magic.

...or a touch screen. We've not seen anything of the Wii/DS connectivity - and therefore possibilities - just yet.

I don't think this was the best setup to demonstrate the Wii. If you watch carefully, the IGN presenter - and, later, the Nintendo representative - struggles to control the various avatars consistently--Wii Tennis being particularly note-worthy in this respect. This could be for any number of reasons, not least the lack of space and custom calibration. Having said that, the guy from IGN spends quite a lot of his time in BWii shooting his own units in the back. So maybe both he and the Nintendo rep weren't on top form that day anyway... I don't really think this clears up any doubts, all told. If anything it's confirming what people may have only seen in print before now; that Wii is an initially-awkward beast to get to grips with, and that at least some of the first generation of games won't control all that well. Which is to be expected in all fairness. I'm disappointed that Red Steel's supposedly updated sword controls are still pre-scripted, and not an accurate reflection of the player's real time Wiimote movements. Fingers crossed that LucasArts can pull it off. But I'll be damned if the graphics don't look sufficiently detailed and fluid--every game shown fairly whips along, and I don't think I noticed any slowdown either. Some of the special effects in the Red Steel demo are extremely pleasant too and the textures don't look half-bad either.

What happens when you munge 1,000 unique player replays from a chaotic and freeform racing game like TrackMania Sunrise? You get The 1k Project II. And, whilst people continue to debate the merits (or not) of "video games as art", I think this is breath-takingly beautiful.

You could try installing Greasemonkey and then loading the GameTrailers.com Direct Download Videos user script. Didn't work for me though.

Fixed.

dotstream You can read my earlier impressions of this bit Generations title on the Idle Forums. Dialhex A deceptively simple-looking puzzle game. Play occurs in a haxagonal grid. Triangular tiles fall from the top of the grid until they come to rest against other tiles already in play. You rotate a hexagonal selection of tiles until you match up six same-coloured tiles within your reticle. Once you have dispensed enough tiles of a particular colour, tiles of a new colour begin falling into play. The game simply continues until the board fills with tiles. Music and sound effects are suitable, but will start to grate slightly after prolongued play. Boundish A collection of five quite different mini games, which share a common theme; deflection: Pool Flower An incredibly simplistic - and therefore somewhat dry - clone of Pong; the only difference being giant sticky blobs which roam the screen and slow your movement. Painfully simplistic and not much fun. Box Juggling You move your stickman character left or right in order to keep a bouncing box up in the air for as long as possible. Over time more boxes are gradually introduced. Fun for a few minutes, and maybe one which score whores will find appealing. Power Slider Another variation of Pong, this time played on a unique figure-of-eight court. Either player orbits one half of the figure-of-eight, and is able to adjust the attitude and aftertouch on the puck by angling their pad higher and sweeping the contoller as the puck is rebounded. Enjoyable enough against the computer, but requires a second human player to get the most fun out of it. Human League Another weak Pong clone, which this time puts each player in charge of two bats. Both bats are controlled simultaneously by the player, and... that's about it. Provides entire seconds of gameplay before rapidly becoming extremely dull. Wild Go Round Similar in principle to Power Slide (above) but this time both players orbit what looks like a giant vinyl record. Players influence the rotation of the court depending on how much impact they put into the puck. The twist comes from how the rotation of the court dramatically alters the trajectory and destination of the puck. Playable, but certainly nothing special. Of the three, either dotstream or Dialhex would definitely be worth consideration--depends on whether you prefer action or puzzles on the final choice, but I'd recommend getting both. Boundish, while polished enough, is just far too basic to warrant any recommendation from me; even though you get five games on a single cartridge, the games themselves are so weak that they only serve to cheapen what looks like a bargain. So best avoided. Overall: dotstream 3/5, Diahex 3/5, Boundish 1/5

I thought there was just one "column" involved though?

No, granted that aspect is suspect. But even if it was choreographed, would it cease to be 'art' - if indeed you consider it 'art' in the first place?

It's out in the UK tomorrow (Monday, 4th September). Coincidentally I sat down to rewatch this last night and it's still just as good. And not just good "for a video game movie" either; it's a genuinely nasty and frightening popcorn B-flick. Being able to spot the landmarks (from playing the games) is just a nice, 'clicky' bonus. Sean Bean's fucking awful though.

1,000 unique human experiences expressed through a single form, facilitated exclusively and intentionally by a video game. Does it for me.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Blade Runner (1982) Kwai tsan tseh (1984) - aka "Wheels on Meals" Akira (1988) Batman Returns (1992) Groundhog Day (1993) Pulp Fiction (1994) Ghost in the Shell (1995) Heat (1995) Se7en (1995) Twelve Monkeys (1995) L.A. Confidential (1997) Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) American Beauty (1999) Being John Malkovich (1999) Fight Club (1999) American Psycho (2000) Gladiator (2000) Me, Myself & Irene (2000) Lost in Translation (2003) Batman Begins (2005) Huo Yuan Jia (2006) - aka "Jet Li's Fearless" OK, I admit; twenty-five's a tad extreme. But I love films so I tried to shortlist my most favourite flicks from the various genres above.

RED ALERT!!! Today, it appears some UK branches of the Boots high street chain are having a mass clearout of games consoles and software; they're selling everything from the original Xbox to the shiny new Game Boy Micro for a miserable £10 - with games! A friend of a colleague picked up a last-gen Xbox with two games for a tenner this morning from the Bury St. Edmunds branch. So, if you've got a decent-sized Boots store near you, it's worth getting your ass down there super-quick. You might net yourself a shockingly good bargain!

This morning I sidled into HMV, whilst out shopping with 'er indoors, for my highly irregular trawl of their customarily dilapidated games section. As I was ambling past the GBA titles, heading deeper into the heaped mass of digital bric-a-brac, something jammed into the bottom row of multicoloured carboard stripes caught my eye. An instant flash of recognition; no, it couldn't be... Could it? I bent down to get a better look, wondering if it really was a copy of the game I was hoping for. It was the bottom edge of the packaging, so I had to pull - actually it was more like wrench - it free from its cramped confines to see if I was right or not. And to my great suprise and delight it was in fact a copy of a game I've been trying to get hold of for (literally) years; Astro Boy: Omega Factor! Once my wife had convinced me to stop running in tight circles, said title thrust above my head as I screamed with excitement and shear disbelief, it was all she could do to stop me leapfrogging the assembled masses on my way back up the cramped isles to the checkouts at the front of the shop. And the icing on this particularly sweet and most unexpected little cake? The sticker on the front read '£9.99'--there's mud in your eye, shitty Hong Kong black market counterfeiters of eBay notoriety! I'm absolutely ecstatic about finding an original, genuine copy of this rare little diamond. And yes, believe the hype.

We already checked the website here as soon as we heard about it--no luck. I think it's one of those random, "manager's discretion" type affairs. It's got to be happening elsewhere though.

Well, maybe I'll have to press on a bit further then. I've just reached the part where you fly those attack pod things for the first time; am I about halfway through? I believe Prey has been pretty successful commercially, so I'm going to be bold and suggest that 3D Realms are now pouring all their resources into Duke Nukem Forever. Who knows--perhaps we might even see a surprise Christmas 2006 release?!!

You'd also get £415 in change too...

It would be good to know if you find any deals (and where, geographically). Same for anyone else who goes a-huntin'.