Like floral gums and Val Kilmer, we love Captain Rainbow but don’t know why. The fact that 70% of the game is impenetrable Japanese text makes it as understandable as a philosophy thesis written using a Spirograph, and yet still that universally understood language of gaming rightness shines through. Rocks go WHAM! when cleaved with a yo-yo slash. Menu screens are torn straight from a comic book. ...

The Wii, Nintendo's magic money machine, has been crazy successful. Every month it sells an estimated sextillion units, and its games are consistently best sellers. But as we pointed out recently , its upcoming titles for the rest of the year leave something to be desired. Ignoring Nintendo-published titles, almost every game is a cooking title that teaches kids math while you lose weight playing Sudoku on the balance board. ...

There’s no point in beating about the bush here – in Madworld you’ve got a chainsaw for an arm. A frickin’ chainsaw! It’s the natural evolution of the fighting genre into something so awesome that humanity will eventually end all wars just to play it – and wouldn’t that be a mad world? ...

We’ve got a confession to make that goes against most critical response: we quite liked Need for Speed: ProStreet (at least on consoles). It was a competent and relatively accurate recreation of organized competitive racing events. Unfortunately, what ProStreet did at the same time was completely remove the essence of what made a Need for Speed game, leaving a dry approach to simulation in its place. ...

So, SimAnimals: it’s a kind of cartoon ecosystem where you play as a benevolent mother/father nature. Starting with a small area of woodland, you set about making it a pleasant place for 25 species of animals and 50 species of plants to live – not all at once though, as certain species are confined to later levels deeper within the forest. ...

Last year, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords became an unlikely addiction for a ton of otherwise hardcore gamers. Seamlessly blending the casual gameplay of Bejeweled with traditional RPG mechanics like leveling, turned-based battles, magic attacks, and a decent story (for those who paid attention), Puzzle Quest practically introduced a new genre. Now, Infinite Interactive, the developer that created Puzzle Quest, brings us another ...

The word “SPRay” is technically a shorter way to refer to the main character “Spirited King Ray,” but we like to refer to it affectionately as “The Barfing Game.” In addition to having a hero’s standard sword, two floating spirits named Gush and Liad follow Ray through this kid-centric action-puzzler. ...

A great, big festival of incredi-carnage, Dead Rising on the 360 was at the same time a blistering sandbox version of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, and a truly awesome technical showcase for ‘next gen’ hardware. ...

Los Angeles may be a town known for the highest excesses of rock n’ roll debauchery (with legendarily wayward rock acts such as Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses synonymous with the city) but Activision’s headquarters – a dull grey box located in sleepy Santa Monica – is hardly the most thrilling place in the world to get our hands on with Guitar Hero World Tour for the first time. ...

You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time, or so the saying goes. Well, it’s certainly hard to please Castlevania’s legions of bloodthirsty fans, who demand consistency and innovation in equal measures – a nigh-on impossible task. ...