PS2 Features

 If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, fan games are the ultimate love letter. Unofficial sequels or remakes of existing game franchises created by ordinary gamers, they range from casual ROM hacks to full-out new games created from scratch.

You know the type: spiky hair, sad eyes, too many belt buckles in his ensemble to count. You might meet one or two of these guys in fighting games, or starring in a Prince of Persia sequel; more often than not, you’ll see them wangsting their hearts out in a sprawling Japanese RPG epic.

The Week of Hate continues with our next “100 Reasons” video. This time, we score a 20 critical for double damage on the nerdiest of all genres. Save versus this, bitches!

While playing a bit of Spirit Tracks I bumped into a tiny old man named Niko, who’s apparently been a part of Link and Zelda’s watery quests since the Wind Waker days. After that revelation shook its way through my bones, I realized, oh hey, his name’s Niko… as in Niko Bellic!

26 more cases of "Oh, that's interesting" inside!

Say hello to our brand-new TalkRadar template! Now each and every podcast has its own page, making it searchable and comment-able for our everlovin’ fanbase. This week we welcome Scott Butterworth from PlayStation: The Official Magazine, discuss dudes who look like chicks and answer more questions from the listeners.

You know the type: spiky hair, sad eyes, too many belt buckles in his ensemble to count. You might meet one or two of these guys in fighting games, or starring in a Prince of Persia sequel; more often than not, you’ll see them wangsting their hearts out in a sprawling Japanese RPG epic.

The adventure genre should probably get the award for best ghost pirate of all time (Monkey Island's LeChuck), but the award for most prolific use of both ghosts and pirates in a genre has to go to RPGs. RPGs were overdoing the pirate thing well before pirates were overdone as a general fad. And any RPG fan knows that it's not a real quest until you've encountered a ghost ship as either a dungeon or a boss. Naturally, these two mainstays overlap from time to time...

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?

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.

Just in time for Black History Month, GamesRadar is proud to present a completely unrelated article about fat people. Chubbies are everywhere these days. Your next door neighbor could be a fatty. More than likely, your mom is one, too. Oh, Snap!