Congratulations on finding your way to our Guide to Guides! If you’re on the wrong console page, use our helpful links to figure out what game you would like to become excellent at first. ...

Oh my divided stars and garters, there’s an election going on! And a damn important one at that. Kinda makes you want to know the issues, what’s at stake, which candidate addresses your interests, stuff like that. But golly, all that political jargon bores the shit out of us. ...

It’s important to recognize the festivities surrounding our 7 out of 10 week are bold and warm natured salutes to mediocrity in all its forms. The contributions of gaming alone have made fantastic strides to rarely raise the bar and present us with passable drudgery time after time. ...

Let’s be honest. You don’t need a certified games “journalist” to explain why Grand Theft Auto IV is awesome or that the Dirty Dancing videogame is shit. You’re intelligent. You know what kinds of games you love and which ones you despise. ...

What is Nintendo’s biggest influence on the modern gaming scene? Motion controls? The meteoric rise of the casual market? The range of lifestyle games? They’re all biggies, no doubt. But for our money we’d have to say that the reinvention of the game advert has undoubtedly sent more shockwaves through the gaming bedrock than any of these. ...

Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda reckons gamers love freedom. “They feel more like the character they’re playing.” he explains. “They’re doing what they want to do and not what you, the designer, wants them to do. The more open, the more reactive you can make it, the better the player experience.” ...

Face it: Princess Peach wouldn’t give you the time of day if you spent twenty years rescuing her from ginger lizards. Chun-Li’s just not that into you. Lara Croft? She doesn’t even know you’re alive. Why don’t you quit chasing those quixotic chicks of A-list gamedom and broaden your horizons to something a little more... in your league. ...

This is part 2 of a weeklong series of features. For part 1, click here.

We're on to the second day of our massive, winner-take-all character battle, and already we've lost half of our combatants to death, emotional trauma or reasons too ridiculous to discuss here. With the battlefield winnowed down to 32 contestants from yesterday's 64, who will emerge to claim the title of best character ever?

Five of GamesRadar's most powerful ...

Sony’s great new mod-friendly game LittleBigPlanet is the most notable of a new breed of videogame about to sweep through the market. And we don’t just mean games populated with girly looking sack creatures. It has no discernible story, no bosses and, bucking the current trend, no cutscenes. In it, you will race through levels built from scratch by you. Or by your mates. ...

In the brave new world of the internet, everybody has power. Information is interactive, knowledge is collaborative and history is open source. The nerdy kid next door has just as much influence as a high school teacher; the dorky dude at the comic book shop has just as much voice as a college professor.

Problem is, the nerds and dorks tend to have a lot more free time - and passion - than the teachers and professors. The end result? A hilariously skewed, terrifyingly twisted view of the world in which all the wrong things are deemed "important" and worthy of serious academic discussion. ...