Super Happy Fun Time II

Cywee Z

Not a game, but a brand new type of controller. All right, "new" is a bit strong. If you haven't guessed from the name, it's a white remote control-shaped motion sensing controller which lets you play games by waving your arms about.

The major difference is that the Cywee Z works with the PC. It even doubles up as a mouse. And it's comprised of two sections joined at the middle, which you can twist so they're at right angles to each other. You can then hold the Cywee Z like a gun or steering wheel. A rubbish gun or a rectangular steering wheel.

The idea is to let PC gamers experience playing their favourite titles using a motion-sensing controller, as the lady on the stand explained to me. The idea is fundamentally flawed as PC gamers would rather anally ingest a pineapple than waggle a bit of plastic around in order to play Call of Duty, as I explained to her in my head.

The lady showed me how to play Burnout Paradise using the Cywee Z - tilting it forward to go faster and from side to side to steer. Braking is done by pressing the buttons on the inside of the controller. It's just like playing a regular Wii racing game, only with better graphics and worse controls. Points for the name though.

Ninja Pigeon

This 2D side-scrolling platformer was made using XNA by a student at Niigata Computer College. It's a Sonic the Hedgehog clone at its core, the most obvious difference being you play a pigeon who is a ninja. The ninja pigeon lives in Paris, or rather the version of Paris which exists inside the student's head, which is a cut-and-paste mishmash of endless Eiffel Towers and Arc de Triomphes.

The ninja pigeon races around rooftops, jumps over gaps, slides down guttering and so on. He can reach quite a speed, at which point he starts leaving a sparkly trail behind him. There are some things to collect if you can be bothered. In short it's massively derivative, but earns points for starring a ninja pigeon, being called Ninja Pigeon and being better than any Sonic game produced in the last 15 years.

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury

This Wii exclusive appears to be inspired by the movie Falling Down, in which frustrated commuter Michael Douglas goes bonkers with a baseball bat. It's billed as "The funniest ever anti-stress therapy game," and it's certainly the most hilarious one I've played this year.

Stop Stress is played from a first-person perspective. The level I tried out was set on a bridge, where your character is surrounded by gridlocked traffic. The nunchuk is used to move the camera about and the remote acts as a virtual baseball bat - you can swing it about to shatter the windows of cars and so on. There are also crates to break, many of which contain goodies. The giant mallet proved to be a particular favourite as it's useful for smashing passing birds over the head.

If this all sounds like your idea of fun, good news: there's a chance Stop Stress might actually make it to Europe. The game is being produced by Abylight, a studio based in Barcelona. The developers' previous credits include The Revenge of the Smurfs, Inspector Gadget Racing and Hugo 2 1/2, but let's try not to judge. It's scheduled to go on sale here in time for Christmas.

I had quite a good time with Stop Stress: A Day of Fury, until a giant monkey in a nappy appeared and started throwing bananas at me. I made my excuses and left.