Ever since the Xbox 360 arrived three years ago, the so-called next-gen era of gaming has been depressingly devoid of beautiful games. We’re not talking graphics, mind, we’re talking colors. ...

Another holiday shopping season is here, bringing with it the grim realization that, once again, the game industry has failed to learn its damn lesson. Just like every other year, seemingly every game publisher on the planet has decided to shove its biggest releases onto store shelves for the holidays, confident that they won’t be buried under the avalanche of every other publisher doing the exact same thing. ...

LittleBigPlanet is not a game that’s particularly hard on its players. It’s especially forgiving when it comes to setting conditions for earning PSN Trophies; you’ll earn one for putting clothes on your Sackboy, after the game tells you to do so. ...

After a few initial, post-launch hiccups last week, LittleBigPlanet has taken off rapidly. Hundreds, if not thousands, of PSN users have been uploading a continuous stream of homemade levels to the game’s straining servers, with varying levels of quality and dedication. ...

We all know that 24 is the highest number, so therefore this must be biggest, best, super bestest podcast of all time. We’ll let you decide whether or not math is capable of lying so’s we can focus on talking about Far Cry 2, Midnight Club: LA, Tetris Party, Castlevania and the billion other games out this week.

Plus a very special appearance by our “E” rated reviewer and compromising tales of us effing up ...

From the moment we first learned that LittleBigPlanet would enable players to create their own semi-2D levels, something weird and obsessive went to work in the back of our heads. How feasible might it be, the thing thought, to take old-school games and remake them using the level-creation tools? It couldn’t be that hard, right? After all, those old games were so simple. ...

Everyone expecting the adorable world-building LittleBigPlanet to hit shelves this week was rightly disappointed when Sony announced a worldwide recall just a few days ago. Apparently, the PS3’s biggest exclusive this fall contains a background music track with phrases taken directly from the Qur’an. ...

Since it was unveiled to a cheering crowd at the 2006 Game Developers Conference, LittleBigPlanet has left one lingering question in the back of our minds. Sure, it’s cute, and yeah, it looks easy to use. But is it really? Will new players be instantly able to create anything that pops into their heads, or will it take hours of learning and frustration before they can so much as recreate the first level of Super Mario Brothers? ...

Just in case you missed out on the biggest trailers of E3 from the Sony and Microsoft conferences, you can see them here, in all their shaky-cam glory. We've got Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2 and more - we've even got Sony's financial report illustrated with LittleBigPlanet ...

So E3's finally over for another year (for ever?) and we're left with tired eyes, full notebooks and - if you're a Nintendo fan - empty hearts. But how can we possibly sum up the mass of data in one easy-to-digest article? Easy. We convert all the game data into sexy pie charts and give you the whole show in graphic form. Go on, try a slice. ...