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Of the DS' major rhythm-action games, only Jam Sessions has made it to Europe with relatively little fuss - Ouendan took its sweet time, and the venerable Daigassou! Band Brothers never made it at all, despite rumours that it was in development for Western audiences as Jam With The Band. Shame, then, that Jam Sessions is ultimately the weakest of the DS' music games, although it's not without its uses. Where traditional rhythm-action games are essentially reflex tests, Jam Sessions is essentially a synthesiser instead, letting you make your own music instead of playing along to preset patterns like in Guitar Hero.

StreamMyGame has revealed fresh technology that will let you remotely play games installed on your home PC.

Rising Star has picked up the publishing rights to No More Heroes, and will be pumping it out across Europe in February.

The absolute best thing about being a gamer in the mid 80s was that you didn't have to wait very long for sequels. Like The Beatles releasing two albums a year, Epyx's blisteringly prolific output of genius multi-sport games made it impossible for die-hard Speccy fans like myself to ignore the fact that the C64 had an awful lot of games that simply couldn't be ported to other machines. Dammit.

Having carved itself a reputation for making the finest sports games in the world the preceding year, Epyx quickly released its best yet with the wonderful Winter Games.

In an all-time list of great C64 games (or 8-bit games in general), Uridium should be near, if not right at the top of the list. At the absolute peak of his creative powers, Andrew Braybrook created the kind of effortlessly innovative and visually slick horizontal shooter that even die-hard Spectrum fans liked.

After about forty five minutes, my best friend Marc put down his controller in disgust. "This isn't a game," he raged. "This is an assassination!"

The official Super Smash Bros. Brawl website has trumpeted that Super Smash Bros. Brawl will come with its own Stage Builder.

When beardy old farts bang on about how games were so much more original in the old days, they're not just wallowing in a misguided sea of addled nostalgia. Paradroid - a robot power-struggle game quite unlike anything else - is proof positive of this.

"Speedup! Rotate! Extra life! Missile! MissMissMissile! Speedup!" Those were the words which repeatedly barked out of the C64's extraordinarily capable SID chip every time you picked up the plethora of pickups which spewed forth from outer space between rounds in the frantic, but wonderful arcade shooter Mega Apocalypse.

Not dissimilar to Stuntman in concept, the novel idea of Kikstart II was to complete a motorbike assault course in the quickest possible time - preferably quicker than your opponent.

From moment Impossible Mission begins you know it's something special. Possessing one of the most memorable introductions in videogaming history (Professor Atombender's ominous verbal greeting), it subsequently delivers a devilish duel experience of platform-leaping and puzzling. As noted by programmer Dennis Caswell, players would sometimes breeze through one of these facets only to struggle with the other.

At a time in the C64's history when every other game was a tedious, bloated multiload pain in the butt, it was refreshing to come across a game which pushed all the right buttons and had the decency to load all in one go. Such issues blighted the carefree mind of a mid-teenager in 1988.

It's long been acknowledged that Miner 2049er inspired Matthew Smith to develop the wonderful Manic Miner, but its superb 'official' sequel never seems to get the credit it deserves - so let's put that right.

After initially flirting with the Atari 8-bit machines, LucasFilm evidently noted that the C64 was a more bankable format internationally. When that time came in mid 1985, it unleashed a flurry of top-rated and hugely ambitious games in the shape of The Eidolon, Rescue on Fractalus, Koronis Rift and Ballblazer.

One of (if not the) earliest arcade games to have its own TV commercial (featuring the seductive, if slightly self-defeating, slogan "The Atari game you cannot play at home!") Xevious was an impressive game to behold; even if the play mechanics were less than imaginative. That said, this was one of the first examples of the scrolling vertical shooter, and while a little sparse at times, the incredible clarity and conceptual insight helped inspire an entire generation of shmup games.

The best thing about publishers relentlessly vomiting up their ancient 'classic' back catalogue onto the Xbox Live Arcade is that there's only a finite amount of this stuff that can feasibly be bracketed as an arcade 'classic'. Remember folks, just because it's old, that doesn't make it a classic.

The grass is always greener on the other side, so they say. During the daily, predictable grind of employment, daydreams provide light relief to the monotony of life. Walking down the catwalk in Italy; singing on stage in a West End musical, or starring as Bond in the next blockbuster movie. Even serving cocktails in the new designer bar down the road can seem more alluring than your current career path. Tom Cruise certainly had a blast with it before all that dodgy Xenu business!

The original Breakout added a whole new twist to the bat 'n' ball formula back in 1978, introducing a fortress of bricks to bounce your sphere against. Its success in the arcades meant a sequel quickly followed and, while aesthetically identical to the original, the additional modes make it a more entertaining proposition.

Back in 1982, Pole Position was the star of the arcade racing track. Realistic racing games were in short supply, so this rubber-burning new arrival set the standard -- achieving tremendous success over the next couple of years. Its realistic visual style was unlike anything seen before, with a (then) unique third person perspective, good use of synthesised speech and turbo scrolling speed which gave it the authentic feel of a real formula one vehicle. Chuck in a steering wheel, pedals and a sit down cabinet and YOU were the driver, pursuing your wildest championship fantasies on the open tarmac.

It seems that Pac-People have suffered greatly from personality conflicts; never quite sure who they really are or where they came from. No matter, so long as they know what they're doing, and in that respect, the first official sequel (which was also the best unofficial bootleg) to the biggest selling arcade game of all time was a dot eatin' sensation and gave birth to the original videogame family.

It's true that those crazy Japanese can make a game from anything. And while the obscure premise and gameplay behind Mikie is pretty damned surreal, the scenario was something that was very prevalent in Japanese pop-culture, and goes a long way to explaining how this weird game might have come to be.

Burnout Paradise will be released in the US on 22nd January for PS3 and Xbox 360.

They say there's nothing better than having something throbbing and powerful between your legs and by creating 1985's seminal Hang-On arcade game it's clear Sega took this idea quite literally.

The Eye of Judgement can scan fake cards produced by colour printers, as those of you with fraudulent tendencies have found out.

Some of the most renowned old games ever have a terrible knack of ageing horribly. Take Gyruss. By virtue of the fact that it was created by Yoshiki 'Street Fighter 2/Final Fight' Okamoto in 1983, it appears to have been granted a disproportionate level of historical interest, despite not actually being anything special in its own right. It's yet another luke warm addition to Microsoft's downloadable games service, and one that sure to beg the question: why are they bothering with crap that wasn't even that interesting at the time?

The white noise of Space Invaders clones was becoming deafening in the industrious arcades, and operators were increasingly turned off by yet another space based shoot out. But Gorf (Galactic Orbital Robotic Force) brought a lot to the table; enough to make the most overfed and bloated arcade owner open their coin fed gullets for one more mouthful. In this one cabinet, gamers were given five terrific variations on the well established theme.

Standing happily on the shoulders of Space Invaders and enjoying the view while it's there, Galaga is what happens when a game developer poaches a fine concept and genuinely bothers to enhance it. Making it bastard hard didn't hurt either - those 10p pieces can't earn themselves...

What can you say about a game that's become a worldwide institution? A game that has not only had its own TV show (the Frogger cartoon was shown on American TV as part of Saturday Supercade), but has featured in numerous songs (from 'Froggy's Lament' in 1982 to the Sugababes hit 'Freak Like Me' in 2002). It has appeared on virtually every home system and has had more than 15 sequels (though notably only one arcade sequel; 1991's Ribbit). Surprisingly, however, Frogger wasn't the genesis of the series. It's actually a remake of a game from 1972 called 'Freeway'; created at Washington University for the early PDS-1 microcomputer.

Space Invaders made such a significant impact on the videogame world that for a long time after its release, the only reasonable way forward for game designers was to create weird and wonderful variations on the theme. Centipede is a prime example of how the concept could be modified to produce unique and popular titles that still fed the voracious public hunger for single screen shoot-'em-ups.