It’s comforting, isn’t it? Though our hobby is famous for igniting stupid flame wars and for inspiring stubborn fanboy bias, all gamers – no matter what their console or genre preference – can agree on, and rally around, one unassailable truth. Party games suck. ...

We absolutely know that you've been waiting with eager anticipation for a feature to come along that catalogues examples of new games that share an identical name with an old game. It doesn't happen very often, so it's genuinely exciting when it does. Anyway, we've written that feature, and this is it. Direct all messages of thanks and amazement to the comments thread. K? Cheers.

Afrika | PS3 | 2009

The new Afrika: Is ...

Last week Capcom confirmed Super Street Fighter IV, a slight update to this year’s critically acclaimed Street Fighter IV, which will tweak certain fight mechanics as well as add several new characters to the fray. One of those new fighters is Juri, the first Korean character in the series’ 20 year history. This got us thinking, now that South Korea has a star fighter, how many countries are represented by the number one fightin' franchise? ...

They actually got paid for that crap, you know ...

You know that friend nobody likes? The one that keeps showing up because no one’s told him to buzz off? That’s what water levels are to videogames. Upon arrival, they kill the mood and alienate anyone who was on the fence about staying or leaving. In short, they tend to ruin the entire flow of a game that’s otherwise just fine, and very few titles have been able to do liquid environments right. ...

Anything new and relatively untested will be subject to more misconceptions than facts. Ridiculous and sensational news reports about the seedy underbelly of Animal Crossing and batshit-insane lawyers like Jack Thompson have diluted the truth about gaming. Combine their ignorance with our own misconceptions as gamers, and there’s a lot of nonsense to sort out. We can’t sort it all out, but we can at least hit some of the bigger points of confusion with our hammer of truth and brief internet research ...

The Tokyo Game Show used to be filled with eccentric Japanese titles, destined to be locked away from all but the most hardcore collectors. Those days are over. Almost every major upcoming title on show this year was confirmed for release outside of Japan. ...

FIFA is brilliant for forgetting real football and rewriting history, as those of us who spend hours holding back the tears and replaying England’s highest profile disasters can attest (Germany ’96, Argentina ’98 and - ooof - Portugal 2006). And with FIFA 10’s My Live Season, you can do it every week, replaying the fixtures of your favourite team, and powering them to the top of the league with Stalinist fervour. ...

Is everyone loving The Beatles: Rock Band? In this new age of lifelike mo-cap, crisp digital audio and video games being more mainstream than ever, we’re finally seeing the most famous rock gods and musical heroes take to the polygonal stage in games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. ...

Earlier this week, publisher Capcom announced that Super Street Fighter IV, an expanded, stand-alone follow-up to this year’s fighting megahit, will arrive in stores sometime in 2010. Aside from tweaking the gameplay (like every Street Fighter expansion before it), the new game will introduce around eight “new” characters, some of which - like Korean fighter Juri – will be genuinely new. ...