2006: The year that...

July: The month that...

E3 died
After only just stretching out from the recovery position following E3 two months earlier, the shock news arrived that the Entertainment Software Association had decided to call game over on the world's greatest virtual entertainment extravaganza. Many of the show's biggest players had decided that E3 was no longer worth the massive investment and would, instead, concentrate on their own events. Sad, yes, but a great excuse for GamesRadar to write the best History of E3 feature ever...

PES got it wrong
It only happens every four years so when the World Cup rolled around we wanted to celebrate the greatest sporting tournament on the planet in some slightly tenuous videogaming fashion. We decided to let PES play out every single game of the tournament in an experiment to see if the AI algorithms were accurate enough to be able to successfully predict the scores. The result? Don't ever have a flutter based on PES predictions.

Above: Making a fake GTA screenshot is as easy as nabbing a city street image from a 3D design site, slapping on a logo and some legal copyright and it's good to go!

George Bush trained his brain
Obviously concerned for the mental faculties of US of A boss, White House resident and resolute fighter of the enemies of freedom, George W Bush, Nintendo cheekily sent the American president a DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day for his 60th birthday. Since he received his grey matter workout avid ranchman Bush has had around 263,974 minutes to improve his brain. Has anyone noticed an improvement?

The first shot of GTA IV didn't appear
GTA developer and publisher Rockstar is the master of control - it keeps its assets zipped up so tight that even a fart can't escape without someone signing a towering pile of non-disclosure agreements. Which is why we were immediately dubious when this screenshot claiming to be from GTA IV started doing the rounds. And, sure enough, it turned out to be faker than a pile of plastic dog mess. Nice try but no cigar.

Above: Making a fake GTA screenshot is as easy as nabbing a city street image from a 3D design site, slapping on a logo and some legal copyright and it's good to go!

George Bush trained his brain
Obviously concerned for the mental faculties of US of A boss, White House resident and resolute fighter of the enemies of freedom, George W Bush, Nintendo cheekily sent the American president a DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day for his 60th birthday. Since he received his grey matter workout avid ranchman Bush has had around 263,974 minutes to improve his brain. Has anyone noticed an improvement?

The first shot of GTA IV didn't appear
GTA developer and publisher Rockstar is the master of control - it keeps its assets zipped up so tight that even a fart can't escape without someone signing a towering pile of non-disclosure agreements. Which is why we were immediately dubious when this screenshot claiming to be from GTA IV started doing the rounds. And, sure enough, it turned out to be faker than a pile of plastic dog mess. Nice try but no cigar.