When Fiddy Cent told us we’d find him in the club, we’re not sure this is what he meant. Indeed, if the bullet-riddled rapper was found here sipping Bacardi like it’s his birthday, his torso would have more holes than Swiss cheese.  The Club is a dangerous place, where shooting is a sport - think Resident Evil 4’s Mercenaries mode with bells on and you’re halfway there. The story is simple. The Club is an underground organisation where members - from a swarthy Russian criminal to a burly ex-NYPD detective - take part in a series of violent events set in various locations in differing states of disrepair. These range from an abandoned steel mill to a disused, rusting ocean liner, each of which are realised with a bleak grime-chic aesthetic. The concept is even more straightforward - each area contains a number of armed enemies, who you have to shoot to rack up as many points as you can. Where this differs from any other third-person shooter is in its combo mechanic. Simply shooting enemies as they appear is not enough - as you make your first kill, a meter ticks down until you blast a second foe (or one of the many skull insignias dotted about each arena). Each time you tag an opponent, the score multiplier builds and the combo meter ticks down faster. The idea is to keep this going for as long as possible before it starts ‘bleeding’ - every second without a kill thereafter and your multiplier goes down by one, eventually resetting if you can’t find an enemy to tag in that time.Points are awarded based on the quality of your kills as well as the quantity - a shotgun blast to the chest from point-blank range won’t earn you the same score as a distant headshot, while more stylish moves encourage showboating. Expert players will melee-attack a nearby foe, before sprinting to a barrier, vaulting over it and rolling forward to  perforate the skulls of two unwitting goons, before spinning round and blasting an enemy behind their back.

Further wrinkles are added by the five different types of event - Sprint is a simple run-and-gun to the exit, while Siege requires you to stay alive for a certain amount of time inside a coned area (venturing outside for more than five seconds sets off micro-explosives implanted in each contestant). Time Attack is perhaps the most unusual, as you make laps of the level, with three seconds added to your clock per kill, and time bonuses to be shot or collected as you go.

While all this might sound simple enough, be warned: The Club is an unapologetically tough game whose rewards aren’t immediately apparent - unless you either practice or choose the Casual difficulty level. Here, it’s all too easy to win every single event with a points tally that dwarfs the combined total of your seven rivals - but it’s by far the best way to grow accustomed to the layout of each stage. Particularly as the low lighting and infuriatingly vague signposting in places can easily cost you a valuable combo.This is one of the main complaints we have with The Club - its graphics might be superbly solid and detailed (you’ll struggle to spot a single glitch or any frame-rate drops) but its rubble-strewn, decaying environments combined with the fast-paced gameplay mean that it’s an all-too-common occurence to miss a chalk arrow on the floor showing the way. Not only that, but some events are downright unfair - one of the siege stages takes place in such a dark indoor arena that frequently you’ve no idea where your enemies are…until their bullets have hit you and you’re losing energy at a rapid rate. Even with the gamma setting on full and your TV’s brightness turned right up, you’ll be firing blind on more than one occasion. If it’s a deliberate ploy to increase the difficulty, then it works but it’s far too cheap - especially in a game that’s already pretty damn hardcore.

It’s a pity, as The Club is a very welcome departure from racing kings Bizarre Creations - even if its repetitive nature means it’s best played in short bursts. With an amazing array of online modes to try out once you’re done with the single-player tournaments, it’s surprisingly good value too. Rather appropriately, The Club will probably become an underground cult hit, with a loyal band of fans who’ll regularly meet for an online blast or three. Expect a traditional shooter and you might come away disappointed, but those who embrace its combo culture will have an absolute blast.

Imagine owning a car where all you had to do was hold down the accelerator and it would drive itself. It’s one of those ideas that sounds great in real life, but doesn’t translate very well to the world of video games – aside from beating the clock, the racing genre is marked by the challenge of navigating courses and mastering corners. A game in which your car turns for you doesn’t sound too appealing and whilst it’s over-exaggerating matters to suggest Sega Rally is that game, it’s far too close for its own good.

It’s perfectly possible to complete whole courses without turning. Of course, you’ll collide with the sides on a regular basis (particularly with the loose handling, with which there’s plenty of slipping and sliding) but it’s almost impossible to crash with any real consequence in Sega Rally and for the most part, you’ll be politely nudged back onto the track, like barriers at a bowling alley. This, of course, takes all the danger and excitement out of cornering – if you’re in first place with one corner to go, and there’s a couple of opponents breathing down your exhausts, it’s not nearly as tense as it should be. Even if you collide with the barriers, you’ll probably end up back on the middle of the track, rather than catastrophically spinning out and weeping as your position slips from first to sixth.

Moving away from this fairly serious flaw, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that Sega Rally wears its arcade heritage on its bonnet. It’s typically bright and bold, with tracks peppered with vivid colours and embellishments, such as steaming geysers and low-flying aeroplanes. It’s usual Sega fare, although in places it’s curiously flat and without detail. The offset of this is the smoothest of frame rates, which helps create an admirable sense of high speed, and the almost offensively forgiving cornering is counterbalanced by some tenacious computer-controlled drivers who’ll attempt to nudge and ram you out of their way, even in the early stages of the game’s centrepiece Championship mode. Progress in this mode unlocks various new cars, tracks and paintjobs, although there’s little tangible difference between any two cars in any class.

The back of the game’s box boasts of “unique track deformation technology”, and cars can churn up tracks with the results affecting the course for the rest of the race. For the most part, it’s successful, as lap times can be improved considerably by following the tyre marks in the mud left by cars on a previous lap. There are, however, some graphical flaws at work where mud seems to churn up before your car has driven over it, creating the rather odd illusion of a mole permanently burrowing furiously in front of your vehicle.

Whilst Sega Rally is undoubtedly fun for short periods, it’s hard to recommend a game where the steering is almost done for you - it’s quite apt that despite the aural presence of a co-driver, he is nowhere to be seen in the actual car, obviously after having been deemed surplus to requirements. Even allowing for its immediate, arcade nature, it’s oversimplified and outdated, so much so that it’s a surprise that your opponents don’t roar off at 200 miles per hour at the beginning of every race.

Here we go then. The five games we feel to be the very best that 2007 had to offer. Agree? Disagree? Feel fairly indifferent about the whole thing? We’d love to hear from you - so please feel free to use the comments box below, and let us know what we shamefully missed from our top twenty-one.

5. No More Heroes

Chris: People often say that the best videogames make you forget you’re playing a videogame - they immerse you in their worlds so thoroughly that you become one with your avatar. No More Heroes isn’t like that - it constantly reminds you that it’s a game, with its gigantic floating pixel signs for save points, missions and destinations, and its presentation frequently referencing the 8 and 16-bit eras of gaming. It’s deceptively complex, seemingly very repetitive at the outset - indeed a snippet of dialogue slyly references this fact - but context sensitivity and timing adds great depth to the combat. It’s stylish, hip, funny ha ha and peculiar, and its lightsaber-swishing finishing moves all but make any future Star Wars Wii game utterly redundant. It’s just an immensely satisfying game, brimming with thrillingly bizarre boss battles, and a palpable tension in the build up to these intense scraps. We’re championing No More Heroes because few others will be willing to do so - we’ve a feeling its idiosyncratic approach will win it as many enemies as fans. But something so wonderfully inventive, something so full of ideas and genuine love for its medium, deserves to be celebrated by those who do fall in love with it. Which is precisely why it finds itself sneaking into our Top Five by the back door. Its blistering climax is a big help, too.

4. Mass Effect

Chris: If you believed everything you read about Mass Effect before its release, then you may well have been expecting The Best Game Ever. That it only slightly disappoints in that respect shows what an accomplishment Bioware’s space opera is. Okay, the combat is occasionally clunky, the AI a smidge on the weak side, and it’s very, very dialogue-heavy. But the ’skip’ button will barely be used by most players, such is the quality of the script. Its plot may be a pick and mix from sci-fi influences ranging from Phantom Menace through to Battlestar Galactica, but many of its story choices represent genuinely tough moral dilemmas - certainly more complex and agonising than those much-touted Bioshock quandaries. Experiment with your characters’ abilities, and you’ll find the action is much more than Ghost Recon Lite, while its universe is detailed in astonishing depth for those prepared to explore its vast, expansive galaxies. As one of the most compelling virtual worlds of the year, with several memorable NPCs and events, its technical shortcomings were but minor niggles. And this is just the first in the series - assuming Bioware can iron out the few problems present here, Mass Effect 2 could be a bona fide masterpiece.

3. Halo 3

Mike: Those pesky Japanese history teachers are lining up again, peddling their revisionist agenda on the back of a theory that Halo 3 wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. This is nonsense, of course. Bungie’s magnum opus was a gargantuan undertaking, a game where so many balls were in the air that how very few of them were dropped was a near-miracle.From the immensely satisfying campaign mode with its epic encounters and 30-seconds-of-fun redux with added equipment tomfoolery, to the ridiculously comprehensive Xbox Live matchmaking and custom game variants. How about the almost-infinite possibilities of the Forge map editor and rules configurations, or the laugh-out-loud pyrotechnic mania of 4 player online co-op through the entire campaign (battling a Scarab with 3 friends has to be one of the Top 5 gaming moments of all time)? Not forgetting the razzle-dazzle and file-sharing of the Theater (sic)’s replay functionality, or the “it’s-the-future” integration between the game itself and Bungie’s own website, of course. Halo 3 proved to be a hugely ambitious and defining event in the Xbox 360’s software library. Revisionism be damned: the game was, remains, and will continue to be rather more than a little bit good.

2. The Orange Box

Chris: Five games for the price of one. In any other year, Valve’s astonishingly generous package would easily be the game of 2007. And for many, it probably will be. Half-Life 2 is still astounding several years on, while the underrated Episode One shows just how far aheda of the competition Valve is when it comes to characterisation. Episode Two miraculously takes things a step further, with several compelling set-pieces, twists and plot developments, in six of the most perfectly-paced hours of gaming you’ll ever encounter. For me, it remains the highlight of the package, though many more would argue the corner for incredible first-person puzzler Portal. Easily the most unique game of the year, its dialogue crackled with a rare intelligence and pin-sharp wit, with its physics and momentum-based conundrums all brainteasers of exceptional quality. Its brief three-hour runtime aside, it would have easily made our top 20 on its own, as would multiplayer classic Team Fortress 2. This online shooter’s Incredibles-esque visuals and supremely balanced gameplay were unfortunately affected by all-too-frequent lag - a shame, as it’s one of the most purely enjoyable Live experiences we’ve had all year.

1. Super Mario Galaxy

Chris: When you play a game and you immediately start considering not whether it’s one of the best games of the year but one of the best games you’ve ever played, then you know you’ve got your number one of 2007. It’s difficult to pinpoint one thing that makes it so brilliant - it’s simply amazing in almost every single respect. Special mention must go to its astounding soundtrack - hearing traditional Mario themes and some brand new tunes replendent in fully orchestral clothing is an ear-tickling delight, while its rim-shaded visuals are absolutely lush, and crammed with countless imaginative little touches. As for the gameplay, I think the following (from a post I made on the rllmuk forum over a month ago) just about sums it up:

“[the variety is both] the blessing and the curse of the game. It’s like Nintendo are handing out the nicest sweets in the world, and you taste one and think ‘Wow! That’s amazing! Give me another’ and then they say ‘no, have this other amazing one’. And it’s just as good, but in a different way. You fancy another of those, or maybe even a taste of the first, but then the third tastes possibly even better. And so on, and so on. I’ve never known a game use so many ideas once and then throw them away. It’s almost too generous in places.”

So there you have it. Super Mario Galaxy is the nicest bag of sweets ever made; the tastiest videogame treat of 2007. Roll on 2008!

Seven more categories, seven more winners. Well, sort of - you’ll see. This marks the rest of the fifteen (again, sort of) that didn’t quite make our Top Five Of 2007 list. Soon, you’ll see which titles we loved the mostest over the last twelve months, and then you’ll finally get to express disgust at the lack of Uncharted, or The Darkness, or Link’s Crossbow Training. Maybe.

Game We All Wish We’d Played More Award - Crackdown

That demo? Brilliant. Bounding across buildings like Mario with superpowers was always going to be a more enjoyable way to traverse a city than Assassin’s Creed’s parsnore approach. And yet, the full game of Crackdown remains tantalisingly unplayed by your correspondent at least, while another Press Starter admits he’s not given it as much time as he’d have liked. The price of such a wealth of top releases means that sometimes even the best games can get overlooked. Rest assured we’ll be paying closer attention to Crackdown in the near future, particularly with a couple of duff Christmas presents to return and trade in…

Slightly-Overrated-But-Still-Great Award - Bioshock

Bioshock’s a great game. And it’s fantastic that we have something the gaming world can unanimously champion as a piece of art, relighting that slightly moribund fire which had almost burned out since Shadow of the Colossus. But, like all art, it’s a divisive bugger, disappointing plenty with its relatively under-tuned mechanics just as it enRaptured - ha! - as many with its incredible atmosphere and gripping story. Imperfect, then - but well worth some recognition at this time of celebration. And Big Daddies = Fab Baddies.

Cheap Knock-Off Port Of The Year Award - Ghost Squad

It’s Resi 4: Wii Edition really, but that’s far too obvious, and feels a bit cheaty - after all, one of the best videogames ever made was always going to be a shoo-in for such a gong. So we’re giving the nod to Sega’s fast, furious, criminally brief shooter, which was easily the Wii’s best showcase for Nintendo’s daft Zapper peripheral, with a mode that stripped away the cursor, and recalibrated your pointer into a ‘true’ lightgun. In other words, just like the pound-eating arcade experience. With amazing replay value, its brevity is only a problem for repeto-phobes, and the Ninja and Paradise skins added humour and charm. Ace.

Best Peripheral Dependent Rhythm-Actioner Award - Rock Band

It’s not quite as good as its unqualified forum raves would suggest, and some might sneer at its readjusted difficulty level (think original Guitar Hero Medium, rather than Guitar Hero III Medium). But Rock Band in multiplayer takes you places Guitar Hero can only dream of, not least because playing the drums is utterly revelatory and fresh. With the sort of atmosphere that’ll have you sweating under the pressure and equally elated as the crowd chants along to your biggest riffs, fills and choruses, Harmonix have taken the rhythm-action game to the next level. Corking soundtrack, too.

Best Non-Peripheral Dependent Rhythm-Actioner Award - Ouendan 2

There are people who will have you believe that Ouendan 2’s soundtrack isn’t fit to lick the original’s boots. These people are fools. Sure, there might be the odd duff track amongst its more contemporary-tinged approach, but then Ouendan had that rubbish horse level, and Elite Beat Agents had Cher and Destiny’s Child, ferchrissakes. And, as always with Ouendan, often the levels more than make up for songs you may be less fond of, from bedwetting schoolkids being rescued by familiar-looking plumbers to an intergalactic shoe salesman suffering alien foot-measuring woes. Admittedly, the sad song is no Over The Distance, but Hitomi Yaida’s Go My Way is the most swooningly brilliant pop song on the planet, so there.

Curiously Overlooked Sequel Award - Project Gotham Racing 4

On another day, this would have snuck into our Top Five, but a bit of editorial desk-thumpage from yours truly plus the promise of a heartfelt feature in the near future from Mike meant that this just missed out. Weirdly, despite the success of its immediate predecessor, PGR4 seemed to die a death at retail after an impressive first week. Perhaps it was a slight case of racing fatigue for 360 owners (particularly as Forza 2 had set the charts alight not too many months previously), but either way, PGR4’s improvements shouldn’t be ignored. A vastly improved front end, some memorable tracks (Quebec’s winding roads made for some terrifically exciting online races) and the all-new weather helped make it the best in the series yet. And bonus points for the quite brilliant Back To The Future Achievement.

Control Freak Award - Metroid Prime 3: Corruption/Skate

Two very different games, with one thing in common: near-perfection in controls. EA’s board sim managed to oust the Birdman from his throne, making Hawk’s Project 8 look incredibly outdated with its wondrous right-stick flicks and curls allowing for beautifully tactile manipulation of your board. Corruption was just as big a success, proving that Wii could do FPS controls better than twin sticks, enabling clever aiming puzzles, some blistering boss scraps, and a bit involving welding. Yes, welding. Never has fixing a borked circuit board felt so good.

Okay, so we cheated a bit. But Top 21 didn’t quite have the same ring to it. Anyway, join us very soon for the hyper-exciting Top Five. We can’t wait, and we know what’s in there. We can only imagine that you’ll be needing a lie down right about now. Happy Boxing Day!

Game Of The Year lists. Let’s be honest, despite our carping about the impossibility or unfairness inherent in ranking games in a given order, we can’t get enough of them. Rather than just present a basic Top 20, we’ve decided to do things a little differently. Only a little, mind you. After an argument or three, one threat of fisticuffs, and a ludicrously lengthy discussion of whether we should include God Hand, given that the two of us who love it played it last year (answer: no, but we’ll be running a retrospective piece sometime soon) we came up with twenty games which we feel are worthy of recognition in some way. We’ve finally decided upon a top five which, in our eyes, represent the creme de la creme of this quite amazing year of videogaming - that will be announced at some point between now and the end of the year. And we’ve picked out fifteen awards for the rest, some of which will be revealed tonight, and some tomorrow. For now, read on for our thoughts on eight of the year’s very best - and please let us know in the comments section what you think of our choices.

Short, Sharp Shock Award - Call of Duty 4

At around six hours, COD4’s campaign isn’t the lengthiest single-player game of the year, but by crikey is it one of the most intense. This knocked on the door of our Top Five party, demanding to be let in, but its relatively noob-unfriendly multiplayer lost out to a more accessible online shooter. Still amazing, though.

It-Really-Is-Better-Than-Pro-Evo-This-Time Award - FIFA 08

Panto time, folks - “oh yes it is”. FIFA is more realistic, more measured, more polished, more fully-featured, more multiplayer-friendly and just more interesting than Pro Evo 2008. Seabass and co. effectively said “will this do?” this year, and we said “actually, no it won’t this time”. We took our ball and played somewhere else - and loved it.

Fred Astaire Award - Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Tappity-tappity-tap-tap-tap. CING’s old-fashioned adventure was more interactive storybook than game, requiring you to almost constantly jab the touchscreen with your stylus to scroll through reams of dialogue. Thankfully, its noir-flavoured script was laced with a dark wit and its mysterious, twisting plot compelled you to read on, even as your wrist was in danger of falling off. A great game for those cold Christmas evenings, too.

Blue Skies Award - Sega Rally

So many modern racers lack one vital ingredient - charisma. Sega Rally had that in spades, and much of its appeal was down to its phwoar-worthy visuals. The (Augustus) gloopy mud looked like it had been piped from Willy Wonka’s factory, its jungle backdrops were lusciously verdant, and its cerulean blue skies brought colour back to gaming amid a sea of murky greys and browns. Played just as well as the original, too.

Cor-tography Award - Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Map-making has never felt so utterly magical. Aside from the most perfect use of a console’s hardware since Super Mario 64, Nintendo’s masterful handheld adventure somehow made note-taking an invaluable and enjoyable gameplay mechanic. The sense of discovery from finding the X that marks the spot, especially when you’ve actually drawn it yourself, is quite astoundingly satisfying.

Head-Scratcher Award - Zack and Wiki: Quest For Barbaros’ Treasure

Ah, of course - you have to ring the monkey to turn the snake into a grabber to pinch the key to unlock the chest! Why didn’t I think of that before? Zack and Wiki’s logic might have been odd, but it was incredibly consistent, and its self-contained puzzles were often so ingenious you felt like applauding when you’d finally figured out the convoluted solutions. Its rubbish name has already harmed its chances of retail success - it bombed in Japan and the US - but us Brits still have time to rectify the situation. So, when it finally hits shelves over here, just bloody buy it okay?

Sadly Missed Award - Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

It’s not quite the best-scripted game of the year, and Hotel Dusk pips it for stylus tappiness, but we feel duty bound to celebrate the insane genius of Phoenix Wright - and this third game in the franchise was the best yet. Marking the end of Wright’s career as an Ace Attorney (with Apollo Justice set to take over next year), Capcom pulled out all the stops, with one of the best characters in gaming this year in java-swigging new prosecutor Godot, and what is easily one of the most spine-tinglingly awesome moments in videogaming this year…expect a bit more about this before the year’s out.

Life-Destroyer Award - Slither Link

Picross DS came close, but in the end Slither Link nabbed the team vote for the puzzle game which stole most hours of our lives this year. Despite finding favour among several critics (Eurogamer memorably giving it 10/10), Slither Link remains a Japan-only release, so it’s still very much a cult hit. Yet its simplistic genius, as you struggle to figure how to string a continuous line around a series of numbers, could surely result in a Brain Training-esque DS craze - if someone just took the risk to publish it in the West. The best Touch Generations game never made, basically.

Coming tomorrow - find out which Game We All Wish We’d Played More, and which title qualifies for our Curiously Overlooked Sequel award. See you then - oh, and Merry Christmas!

A word of warning: if you play Rock Band, you’ll never want to go back to Guitar Hero. Up until now, Activision’s game has ruled the peripheral-dependent rhythm action roost. But no more; original GH devs Harmonix have upped the stakes so significantly that their old series is very definitely playing catch-up.

As I said yesterday, even without the drumming and singing elements, Rock Band would be the better game - the new Fender Strat guitar feels less like a Fisher Price My First Guitar and more like an actual, real-life axe. Sure, it’s a little lightweight - reports on its flimsiness abound, with many complaining of wonky strum bars and such - but so far (touch wood) mine has held firm against some firm and fast downstrokes; Go With The Flow in particular is a one-way trip to RSI-ville. The drums have no such issues - chunky, solid and impressively put together, they’re an absolute joy to play, and - outside the Japan-only DrumMania series - an entirely unique videogame experience. The kick drum pedal really adds to the experience, somehow making it easier to cope with the pat-head-and-rub-tummy ambidextrousness required. The singing is just Singstar all over again, except seemingly a little more forgiving - the gently undulating arrow making you feel far more in tune than the wayward dots peppered around the notes in Sony’s karaoke-fest.

Perhaps most importantly of all,  Harmonix clearly know best when it comes to note placement, especially on the lower difficulties - making it feel like you’re at least contributing to playing the song, without ever making it patronisingly simple nor overly tough - GHIII certainly has something to learn in this respect. On one or two occasions during songs you’re familiar with, there’ll be the odd ‘missing’ note that throws you, while Guitar Hero veterans will likely want to skip Medium difficulty altogether, as it’s noticeably easier here.

The basics of the guitar (or bass) playing is understandably close to Guitar Hero, with just a few tweaks - all of which improve the experience. Even on the guitar itself, the improvements are immediately obvious. The strum bar doesn’t have an irritatingly noisy ‘click’, while the fret buttons are closer together and thus it’s easier to slide along the neck. Solos now have an onscreen percentage ticking ever upwards as you play, adding pressure to perform perfectly, but also an incredible sense of satisfaction when you nail a tricky bit of fretwork - further heightened by the fact that the crowd now clap and sing along when you’re playing well. Even before you hit the multiplayer mode, these moments will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand firmly to attention, especially in songs you’re fond of - and there’ll likely be plenty. Granted, not everyone will agree, but for me this tracklist beats any of the Guitar Hero games hands-down. As always, the beauty of these games is that even songs you might be no fan of before you play suddenly turn into classics when you’re strumming, drumming or howling along - Wanted Dead Or Alive becomes a wonderfully anthemic triumph, while the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Maps is no longer just superb, but transcendentally brilliant (particularly on drums). And there’s always downloadable content for those dissatisfied with the provided songs. 

I’ve not spent long enough with the multiplayer to give an entirely balanced view of the ‘true’ Rock Band experience, suffice to say that with two or more players it becomes something even more special. Whether you’ve got a guitarist and drummer perfectly in synch, easily achieving a five-star score, or if you’ve a bassist and vocalist surviving a dodgy start and nailing the final section of a song to just about scrape four stars - with that satisfying ‘ting’ marking each rating increase - Rock Band provides wish-fulfilment like no other videogame can. True, it might be expensive, but at its very best, it will have you beaming with utter elation. One copy of Rock Band on PS3 - £90, shipping costs - £30, import duty - £who knows. High-fiving your three band-mates after an impeccable gig - absolutely bloody priceless. 

I like Alex Ward, I really do. The Burnout series has been an ever-present in my software collection, the unmatched driftathon of Burnout 2 segueing into the exciting carnage of Burnout 3 and the polished chaos of Burnout Revenge. Each new game brings something different to the table, and although the EA effect of Criterion’s buyout led to such hilarity as the “tips” screens (“Have you tried… boost?”), the extremely ill-advised DJ Dickwad (was that his name? It should have been) and the adolescent frat-boy licensed soundtrack of the third game, the series continued to maintain its freshness through multiple incarnations.

You know there’s a “but”, right? I’d hate to disappoint you guys, so here it is. Actually, I’ll let Alex Ward tell you himself. Here’s his Christmas Message to all those people who played the Burnout Paradise demo and had worries about it:

http://www.criteriongames.com/burnout/paradise/demo/merrychristmas/

The Criterion Ambassador’s receptions are known for their host’s exquisite rantings. Oh Monsieur Ward, wiz zese insults you are really spoiling uz!

All respect to Ward for passionately believing in his game - we know more than a few producers who don’t, and often for good reason - but his arguments are chock full of flaws. Set the analysis machine to stun…

“We think we made THE best demo released all year…”
Nope, that’ll be Crackdown. A demo that turned a free game with the Halo 3 beta into a must-have release in its own right, after some terrible publicity.

“Personally speaking, I don’t believe it is possible to even capture the essence of this new Burnout experience (and I use the word ‘experience’ there deliberately because this new Burnout is an experience that YOU choose how to play rather than us forcing a game structure on you - when the rest of you get to play the full game I am confident you will agree) in a single demo.”
Captain Obvious says: “So why make a demo at all, then?” The demo release has been counter-productive to the future success of the game. For all of Ward’s protestations about how it shouldn’t be compared to Test Drive Unlimited in any way, this demo controversy would seem to be the most astute similarity! Let us hope that, just as TDU recovered from its disastrous demo outings, the full Burnout Paradise shows off the game’s charms a lot more effectively.

“(always nice to see all those Gamecube owners on the internet who haven’t played the game since B2! )”
Oooh, handbag. Claws out. You know, this could be a joke, but it sure doesn’t read like it. The trouble with this comment is that the criticism I’ve read - and indeed, that I’ve had for the demo myself - has been by the people who’ve loved the Burnout series for a long time. Insulting your long-term fans isn’t exactly the cleverest thing to do.

“As for no online racing in the demo, well, there was a limit on how much of our work we wanted to give away FOR FREE. If you want to experience the rest of it then YOU HAVE TO BUY THE GAME.”
And here’s the rub. The reason a demo is there in the first place is to make people buy the game. If you can’t condense your game’s mechanics into enough of a snapshot to achieve this, then don’t release a demo at all. If you’re leaving out a fundamental component of the finished game, you can’t then complain when people ask where it is in your demo. If you leave your major gameplay components out, how is the demo supposed to entice people to buy the full version? Look at the Crackdown or SKATE demos for examples of how to give people enough content… it was the very small amount of things to do that put many people off their first experience of Burnout Paradise.

“We feel that a crash experience where YOU choose when to start and stop it, YOU choose where to play it, and YOU experiment with is way better than anything we built before.”
This reminds me of a politician’s answer, in that it’s completely changed the frame of reference of the public’s criticism. It’s not that being able to start Showtime mode anywhere is bad - it’s the extremely silly-looking mechanics of the mode itself that have left people cold. Endless crashes, spinning your car over and over by hitting controller buttons… it just looks goofy. Now, Showtime may be absolutely amazing, in which case I can only refer Alex Ward to the comments above: if you don’t show the mode off in the demo at all, how can you expect people to “understand” it?

“The lack of retry really isn’t an issue. You may disagree, but we don’t feel it is and retry would have introduced loading into the game, which we didn’t want to do.”
What happens when you only have a couple of events left to do in the entire game? Then a lack of retry becomes an issue, surely, as many people have said. It’s fine when there are plenty of untried events to find, but when they’re nearly all done, traipsing back across the map to restart the last couple of events each time you fail is going to be really annoying. I’m perfectly prepared to have my mind changed on this issue in the full game, but even in the demo it was frustrating me. I can’t help but feel that this is one of those occasions where a game design conceit has been put ahead of welcome functionality.

“(At least we used to write special tips for our load screens when we did them, most people simply do nothing….)”
Ah yes, the aforementioned hints hilarity. I think this was meant to be a joke, and in a different article it would have come across as pretty funny. In this particular article, though, again it could easily be misinterpreted.

“I hope that this answered a few questions. If it didn’t, then oh well, at least we tried.”
Did anyone in Criterion proof-read the piece as a whole and try to take out the “angry eyes”? If so, I hate to think how it read before!

The problem I have with Alex Ward’s article isn’t that he has tried to defend his game, which he has the perfect right to do, but that he has done so by unleashing insults against his potential customers and played the “but you don’t understand!” card far too much without actually explaining why people are wrong. Indeed, he has wilfully misunderstood the message of many of the criticisms levelled at the demo and the new game mechanics.

Hasn’t he thought that perhaps, if people are misinterpreting Burnout Paradise based on the demo, the problems may lie with the demo itself rather than with the thought process of those who have played it? Maybe he should be addressing his rants somewhere else… at himself.

Burnout Paradise is released in the UK on 25 January 2008 for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Today was going to see a brief ‘initial impressions’ piece about Rock Band on the PS3, but unfortunately I’ve spent most of the evening playing the damn thing instead of writing about it. I’m about forty songs into the Career Mode on guitar, and I’ve played a few odd songs on the drums. Basically: it’s amazing. The peripherals are of surprisingly sturdy quality, given the price (the equivalent of around eighty British pounds), with the drumkit being the biggest gaming peripheral I’ve ever had the pleasure of plonking down in the middle of my front room. And with a brilliant selection of songs, far better note placement than Guitar Hero III, and better atmosphere all round - crowd singing equals instant goosebumps - the guitar section alone is better than Activision’s effort.

Expect more detailed info tomorrow night. I’ll just finish by saying that this is easily the best PS3 game of the year. 

It being the season of goodwill to all men - and women too; we’re terribly PC like that, you know - we’ve decided to give all our (twelve) readers a treat, and keep the site more regular than an incontinent geriatric on a prune juice drip.

You’ll be wanting to keep your web browser pointed in our direction over the next few days, as we’ll have a veritable smorgasbord of content for your delectation and delight, to help you through the festive period of too-many-games-and-not-enough-time-to-play-em. Keep reading to find out what’s in store for you lucky lot…

Today we’ve got a Christmas gift for you - simply click this here link and you’ll be whizzed off to a brilliant interactive advent calendar courtesy of Press Start chums (well, we interviewed them once, and they didn’t say nasty things about us to our faces - that counts, right?) Rab Florence and Ryan McLeod, and their ace ‘net-based TV show Videogaiden.

Once your laughter glands have recovered from 21 days worth of daftness, lovely screensavers and disturbing pictures of Ryan which you can’t unsee, over the next couple of days we’ll have hands-on impressions of Rock Band, feet-on impressions of Wii Fit (broken little toes permitting), Press Start’s Review of the Year, and our Top 20 Games of 2007. And we might even let you into a secret about our plans for next year, which could well involve attempting to communicate with the crazy world of t’interweb using the medium of speech rather than text. Scary stuff, eh? And you’ve not even heard our voices yet.

Keep it festive, yeah?

Love,

The Press Start Team.

Ever heard the old saying, “Power corrupts”?  Of course you have, and unfortunately the latest example is gaming giant Activision, which is still resisting calls from consumers asking them to allow Guitar Hero 3 controllers to be made compatible with the PS3 version of EA’s Rock Band game.

Harmonix - the developers of Rock Band - has developed a patch to allow this compatibility, but Activision quickly spat out their dummy and point-blank refused to allow it to be uploaded.

Talking to the Boston Globe newspaper, Activision spokesperson Maryanne Lataif was unrepentant:  “Unfortunately for Rock Band users, Harmonix has been unwilling to discuss an agreement that will allow us to provide that option in a manner that maintains the high standards people have come to expect from Activision.  We believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology.”

Activision’s stance - driven by a misguided belief that they should be entitled to monetary compensation for simple controller compatibility, allied to an underlying wish for consumers not to buy the rival game at all - has seriously frustrated Rock Band developers Harmonix, not to mention the owners of the highly-rated title.  Most annoyingly for PS3 owners, the Xbox 360 version is already compatible, due to the standard requirements necessary to produce third-party peripherals for that console.

Harmonix themselves have this to say on the matter: “We are really and truly not looking at this from the financial standpoint.  We are looking at this from the consumer standpoint.”

Ironically many people had bought Guitar Hero 3 primarily to get their hands on the wireless controller to later use in Rock Band - and in future many will buy Activision’s stand-alone guitars for the same purpose - and for Activision to blame Harmonix for the present incompatibility situation is more than a little rich.

Of particular target for scorn should be the quote above that refers to standards.  How on Earth is making a controller (one that Harmonix themselves were originally heavily involved with in their Guitar Hero days) compatible with PS3 - when it is Harmonix themselves writing the patch - going to result in less than “high standards”? Does Activision think that the orange button is suddenly going to control the red one onscreen or something?  The statement is utterly ludicrous, not to mention highly disingenuous.

By their current actions, Activision is effectively biting off the hand that feeds them, and more than one videogame company down the years has gone on to seriously regret angering their customers by being so insensitive to them.  Regret where it matters most to them… in the pocket.

This sheer bloody-mindedness and greed should not be tolerated.  Sony has stayed out of the dispute thus far, urging both parties to come to an agreement as soon as possible, but perhaps it is time they stuck their oar in and stood up for the consumer.  This situation is wrong and it must be resolved immediately, with Activision allowing the Rock Band patch to go ahead for the sake of customers.

Producing a Guitar Hero sequel better than Rock Band would be an ideal way for Activision to ensure that their dominance of the music genre is maintained - not this grubby, cynical fit of pique that is harming their reputation.

It is rare that a dispute is so black and white, but in this case we can call it: Activision has gone from Guitar Hero to Guitar Villain.  In this panto season, that’s more than enough for a bit of booing and hissing, wouldn’t you say?