Gears of meh... You're not missing out on much on PS3, it's a great looking game but pretty annoying to play.

Where did you see that? I remember reading something about a sequel being done by a different team in the US, which didn't fill me with confidence, but then I assumed it was all off because Capcom are getting sued by New Line Cinema over the first game.

You just went the wrong way. Most of Dead Rising never puts you in situations like that, if you're prepared to experiment a bit. You can mix up some zombie repellent if you need to go into a heavily infested area, or find a weapon that makes it easy to plough through crowds. If you find the fighting too hard, grab the clown's chainsaws plus a couple of books that make them last almost forever and you're practically invincible. Alternatively, walk over their heads. That game rules. I'm going to have to break it out again tonight. Never did get the 'zombie brad' achievement.

If you want to explore, you can just forget about the tasks and do your own thing. As long as you're alive at the end, you've completed the game - it's up to you if you want to rescue people. There's also a brilliant bonus mode that you get after you finish it, where all the survivors are after you. You have to kill them for food and weapons, and last as long as you can, but you can't just hole up and wait because your health is constantly running out. You're obliged to explore and raid all the food shops. There's so much in that game, it's a shame Capcom didn't make it a bit more accessible. I know other people who said 'this is great' at first and then gave up on it after missing a few missions.

Did you realise you could save at any time by going to the toilets or security room? Also, you're supposed to play it in chunks - do a few hours, mess up something, go off and explore, find something cool, then restart and do it better but with your character at a higher level. Makes fighting the armed blokes pretty easy. Buy it back! You're missing out.

Burnout Paradise lets you take snapshots and send them to the player who just took you down. It's usually just a middle finger raised to the camera or a photo of an empty wall. I've had some pretty good ones, including a French guy who looks like a human version of the Crazy Frog. With the hat and everything. But yesterday I got my first hardcore porn shot! I'm only playing on standard def, thank god, so it took me a while to figure out what was going on - there are at least three people there. First I was like - oh! - and then I was like - ewww! Filed a complaint against him, of course.

Who needs brakes when you can powerslide? My record drift distance is 1.1 miles! I feel Burnout calling me... wasted evening, here I come! Again. Might download Rez HD as well, that was superb on PS2. Shame the Xbox version doesn't support the Trance Vibrator peripheral, though. I've got two of those little beauties...

Anyone playing Burnout Paradise then? I didn't like the demo at all, but the full game is great fun. Racing can be a bit annoying, because it's easy to crash or take a wrong turn when you're trying to read a map at 200mph, but the exploration, stunts and road rage bits are brilliant. When I checked the stats last night, I was shocked to find I'd managed to spunk away 18 hours on it already, and I only picked it up last Friday.

If anyone's got a DS, I can recommend Advance Wars Dark Conflict. It's easy to get into and unbelievably addictive. I remember when the first one came out on Game Boy Advance. One more go... just got to see what the next level is like... and the next... Before I knew it, it was gone 5am on a work night.

They had to give everyone the same game, otherwise there'd be nothing to stop people claiming 800 points for multiple Silver accounts. Played Undertow last night, and WOW! What a piece of crap! Couldn't tell what's going on at all (I had been to the pub, though)

There's a free game up for Xbox owners, in case you hadn't spotted it. Undertow - used to be 800 points but it's free until Sunday. Can't argue with that.

No, I walked clean out of the city without getting rumbled. If you can stab the target when nobody is looking, and get far enough from the body before the guards start going crazy, you can do the slow walk to the exit. There's often a group of scholars that will take you there. For the book burners, I did most of them from the rooftops with the throwing knives. Admittedly it's no Hitman, but there's at least a little bit of freedom to go for a clean hit on a few of the missions.

Hmmm.... I managed to do a few assassinations without alerting anybody at all. The one with the guy on the boat, the book-burning dudes and a couple of the earlier ones spring to mind. The mad doctor in the hospital as well. There's an achievement for doing it stealthily on the Xbox version. Regarding your other points, I quite enjoyed stealth murdering tramps and beggars, so I was glad of that feature. And the investigation info is all revealed in one of the menus - it took me until a second play-through to realise it was there, but it is. Guard placement, patrol routes, secret entrances and all sorts. It's not just to tick the boxes, it's to show you where to go if you opt to play without the radar and HUD. As for the fighting, it's what you make of it. You can concentrate on one enemy at a time, just chipping away at them, or you can get really good at the combo controls and become like a knife-wielding whirlwind, hacking away all over the place and taking them out in threes and fours. Once I figured out the counter-moves and how to do stuff like throwing the enemies around, I loved the combat in this game. Best sword fighting ever, I think.

SWOS is ace! Really, really hard, though. The Xbox controller isn't the greatest thing for it. I've scored two goals so far, both against Derby. Gellechar with a tap-in from a rebound and a slide-rule finish from Sottin.

I'll be sure to keep you posted. Bet it doesn't show up until it's almost ready for launch, though. There's too much riding on that one to risk it being damaged by a negative preview.

That one is in the office now, on PS3. The levels are really small and you have to shoot up the scenery to add to your multiplier for a high score. It's the first-person shooter equivalent of Geometry Wars, which is my lazy comparison since it's from the same dev studio. Short and replayable.

Madness. Utter madness.

....aaaaaaand there was a ginormous bug in it, so it's been taken down already. Jeez. I was really looking forward to getting home for a game of SWOS. Did anyone manage to get it before it was offed? The bug meant you couldn't play online, but the rest of the game functions okay.

Sensible World of Soccer is out for Xbox Live Arcade now.

All games work like that on the Xbox I'm not at all impressed with the demo, though. I want a proper race on a fixed track, not some free-roaming thing where you've actually got to read a tiny map while driving at 200mph. Man, I can't believe how they've buggered up Burnout. The third one was my favourite racing game ever, but then they added 'traffic checking' in 4, so there was no need to steer, and those revenge takedowns, so there was no penalty for crashing and absolutely no challenge. And now this. DJ Atomic, or whatever that annoying git is called, and a city you're supposed to navigate at huge speeds. It's Test Drive Unlimited with irritating crashes every few seconds.

Burnout Paradise demo is online now for Xbox and PS3. I really can't stand realistic racers, so this is where it's at for me. Looks the business! There are some people here playing the full game and apparently it's very good but a bit hard to find an event to race in, since you have to get around freeways and through the streets.

That's the Tokyo tower level, the best one in the game. You escape through the streets afterwards, which is pretty cool, but you just played the game's finest moment. Definitely not for you then. In the story, the guy whose face Kane carves up in that scene is the father of Kane's ex girlfriend, who Lynch murders 'by accident' on an earlier level. It would make a decent movie, I think. Shame they messed up so much of the gameplay. There are two endings, and both of them are pretty unpleasant. The more I think about it, the more the game seems like a really nasty piece of work.

Which level do you get on the K&L demo then? I really liked the prison break and the Tokyo tower ones. Still, my copy would be going back to the shop if there was anything else I wanted right now. The last few levels were dire.

I just got past the most horrible difficulty spike in Kane & Lynch, which almost ruined the game for me. Took me about 30 attempts, over four days. After some brilliant levels of bank robberies, prison escapes and hostage taking, it all goes full-scale urban warfare. There's a bit where you've got to cross big plaza surrounded by ruined buildings. Enemies spawn all over the place, and about every 90 seconds a helicopter passes overhead and it's instant death if you're caught in the open. That was just terrible. The rest of the level after that was quite good, because it was such a relief to be back inside a building again, but I almost gave up on the whole thing. I managed to shoot down the helicopter, and crossed the plaza by running forward to make enemies appear, then legging it back to safety and picking them off from beyond their activation range. It's like shooting at mannequins, they just jerk a bit as the bullets hit them, then fall over when they've absorbed enough lead. Rubbish! The rest of the game is so good. I don't regret getting it, but it's a shame it wasn't all like the earlier heist stuff.

I just went straight for the icons rather than bothering to look for eagles. You can highlight them and they'll flash on your radar from miles away, if that's any help. Certainly useful when 'sweeping' the city for objectives and viewpoints.