Games are banned in two primary ways. The first is by corporate policy. When a company refuses to sell or distribute an unrated game, it is effectively censoring the game, but they can’t be entirely lampooned for attempting to maintain a positive image. Nintendo has every right to prevent “Sextrobes: Pornigins” from being released on the Wii ...

The idiot box has had its time. These games do its job better. ...

Game cheats have spawned an entire industry of their own. It began in the back pages of magazines, then in full cheat books, and finally settled on the internet, where sharing cheats is as established as sharing ultra-niche Bolivian porn. Just ask our tireless CheatPlanet editor, Paul Ryan, and he’ll probably tell you, “Yeah, cheats. People like those.” ...

Unless you’re an eagle-eyed bargain hunter, the price of videogames can put a serious dent in your finances. Here in the US, $60 a pop means the game in question needs to offer hours of content to offset the steadily increasing cost. ...

Mums are genetically programmed to stop you doing the things you like. As you get older, perhaps you start to understand their reasoning - even perhaps admitting they're right. But not when it comes to videogames.

The secret lives of gaming's greats, in 140 characters or less. ...

You may be familiar with Andy Riley's superb book The Bunny Suicides. We liked it so much, we thought we'd create an homage to it, using everyone's favourite flower-headed people.

These Pikmin burned too bright for this world. Rest in pieces ...

Ah, noobs. With their awkward fingers and stupid questions, it's a wonder we ever let them near our joypads at all. It's nice to get someone started in gaming, but it's so hard to witness utter incompetence at your favourite games.

But instead of yelling, snatching the pad and showing them how it should be done, why not sit back, make encouraging noises and tick off each entry in our list of classic rookie mistakes ...

Have you ever seen Google Street View in action? It's incredible, and already coming up with some amazing images... it's a wonder the world survived without it. But we've spotted some more familiar faces in the passers by.

Can you spot them too?

...

Quote of the week: “You’ve obviously never had a hot grandfather.” ...