With the release of Grand Theft Auto IV this week, it was pretty obvious that the news would be all over it. And, well the American news station CNN has gone ape shit about it. The say ‘We are training our kids to be killers’, and many other things. But they always fail to mention that most of the things you can do are completely optional. They also got good old JT on the show. View video clips of the piece after the jump.

Until recently all items within the Mario Kart series have been designed to help you progress within tense races. And any form of hindrance to your race was left down to human error and other players using the same weapons on you.

Thanks to Mario Kart Wii, the above is not entirely true any more since someone thought it would be a great idea to introduce the Thundercloud item. While it may have been an awesome idea at the brainstorming sessions at Nintendo HQ, in reality it’s probably induced more cursing from gamers than any weapon since the blue shell was introduced in Mario Kart 64.

Nintendo are treating their customers to games that were never released in their regions previously. This event is called the Hanabi Festival and is similar to last September’s festival except this time the games are from SEGA and Hudson Soft. European and Australian Wii owners can pick from two games that were Japan-only and the US version of a third game that was Japan/US-only. The games are as follows:

God of War is now one of Sony’s AAA titles. The two games on the PS2 were stunning, beautiful and epic. And these games were hard to match, or surpass. So, following along with Sony’s master class titles such as Ratchet and Clank, Metal Gear, Tekken, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy and WipEout, it is about to take the transition to PSP. But how the epic scale of the game fit on to a portable console?

I’m pissed off at games!

The most hyped up game in the Wii’s short history. But will it be the brilliant all-star fighter that every other review company says it is? Or will it fail in every aspect? Find out now…

I could sum this game up in three words. But that wouldn’t make much of a review now would it? Well for all you ignorant people who haven’t heard of the game or haven’t brought a copy the game revolves around a man called Phoenix wrights, who is a defence attorney/ CSI. And I’ll try not to make any Phoenix Wrights jokes

Mario Kart may be described as the ultimate multiplayer game. It’s hectic, unfair and damn right fun races all add up to make a perfect multiplayer experience. But there is one game that takes up all of Mario Karts multiplayer lime-light, which is Super Smash Bros. And it is fair to say that Super Smash Bros Brawl has taken all of Mario Kart’s glory. So much so, that it seems that Mario Kart Wii has come out of no where. Well, we wont be seeing Brawl for two months now, so it’s time for Mario Kart Wii to shine, and it does that pretty well.

Since it was first released Burnout has been an arcade racer. A crazy arcade racer, full with adrenalin, crashes and fast paced action. You see, there are two types of racer, the arcade race like Burnout, Forza and Grand Turismo. And there is the free - roaming racers, like Need for Speed and Midnight Club. Both stay in their own territory, and both remained popular. But now Burnout has made the jump to free roaming(and Need for Speed has made the jump to Arcade racing, funny eh). And, my god is it good.

Is it just me or are new, original, exiting games a rarity? There are games like Okami, Loco Roco and Ico that can breath new life onto a console. You don’t get many games like that any more, you get sequels and new IP’s that can end up bad. Not that sequels are bad, just look at God of War 2 and Call of Duty 4. And new IP’s can be really good as well just look at Bioshock and Uncharted Drakes Fortune, they were phenomenal. But then look at TimeShift and Kane & Lynch, which aren’t that good. So why all this mindless blabber? Well because I’m here to talk to you about one of the most original, artistic and damn right crazy games ever. And it is know as Patapon.