Clever! A silver PS2! That's why Sony's the leading aspirational lifestyle consumer electronics brand! They take something you've already had for five years, then make it in a different colour! Xbox 2 better watch out!



Idiotic youths can use its mirror finish to admire their tattoos and lip piercings.

Familiar foes will text message you challenges -- can YOU win their respect and become the ultimate homeboy of Cricketsville?

Great news! Sega's making one of those car-modding games, which means it's OK for us to start liking them now!

It's called "Faster Than Speed". Let's gloss over how stupid that name is.


Faster than Speed is about "rides", "tricks" and urban things we don't understand because we don't live in DA HOOD or Compton or Philly or wherever it is everyone who plays video games is supposed to live these days. (We live here).


THE OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Don’t Be Furious - Be Faster Than Speed with Sega

Enter the exciting street-racing world of FASTER THAN SPEED where the winner rules and the loser walks! The current hot twin driver by Sammy, and now available from Sega Amusements Europe, is in a new styled cabinet launched at the ATEI. Its great value price tag coupled with the excellent recorded performance results will allow operators a great return on investment.

Hit the street with the most addictive driving experience of your life! Pick from 8 customized rides. FASTER THAN SPEED will take your players into the exotic, dim-lit, back streets of over 12 cityscape tracks challenging the quickest, the fastest, the ‘badest’, and pushing the most fearless racer to conquer the asphalt! To take down your challenger, you need to burn the street with a variety of high-speed tricks.

This street styled racing game is fully linkable and allows drivers the choice of paint colours and features so he can “pimp his ride”, the more races you win the more features that become available to you. FASTER THAN SPEED also features bonus games and hidden cars as well as allowing experienced drivers to do trick manoeuvres.

Best we can hope is it makes millions to bankroll production of Xbox OutRun2 SP or OutRun3 for anything.

Authentic British street-speak and many urban youth phrases have been accurately incorporated by the Canadian developers, who spent up to ten minutes looking at some British web sites as research.

Runner-up: Gizmondo FIFA 2005!

Snoop "Doggy" Dogg is on-hand to offer tips and advice, as you battle up the world rankings and gain respect of rival cricketing gangs.

Yes, that is our entire life right there. We should probably buy this. It will understand us. We could be friends with it. *SAD SMILEY FACE*

The national sport of England. Simple, beautiful, timeless and enjoyed by all -- but that's enough about 'Snake' on Nokia mobile phones.

THE POINT IS...
We've made some "jokes" about how EA's Cricket 2005 might look, considering that EA is making games mainly for pikey youths who want to work at Jamster when they leave school so they get all the free ring tones they could ever want.

Here's the first. More cricket "hilarity" all week. Friday's is the best.

EA has captured the essence of the sport and enhanced it by including several exciting new "special moves".

Finally! The most-wanted console of all time is unveiled! THRILL at its network ready design! WOW over its connectivity features! SWOON at the list of world-beating developers already on-board! Say "Gosh!" when you see its mobile memory system! Surely this will take over the entire world!

OMAR SHARIF'S 3D BRIDGE



From the people that brought you Oliver Reed's Wrestling.

10% -- Creativity-challenged magazines copying ideas out of 'Jack'
25% -- The effectiveness of using "They started it" as an excuse
30% -- Having to wait eight weeks for a response
35% -- Shenmue obviously

Yes, of course that's a deliberately misleading headline designed to strike fear into certain hearts. The point is the forum at Gaming-Age found the below image of "Xbox 2" on Amazon. Beautiful in its simplicity. We can't wait to get one, despite reservations over that controller design.



The Amazon "review" uses the following words and phrases:

subject to change
strongly hinted at
rumoured
speculation
rumours
allegedly
expected
suggest
undoubtedly
it's thought that
no official announcements as yet
widely rumoured
hinted at

Read the full ludicrous guess-piece here (then maybe write a news story on it for your web site or cynical-yet-insightful industry blog). We're waiting for the first reader review to appear.

Lovely New Lara comes with a bluetooth mobile phone headset, no doubt designed with a lucrative tie-in with Nokia in mind. But what is she saying? Who is she talking to? It's READER INTERACTION TIME!

YOUR NAME (OR SOMEONE ELSE'S):

I THINK LARA IS SAYING THE FOLLOWING AMUSING THING:

*If the above button doesn't work because you're using a custom lo-fi web browser your friend programmed to run on your "Linux box", send an email to ukresistance@hotmail.com

WHAT WE THINK LARA IS SAYING:

"Very prickly bushes, over. Please send trousers, over. Repeat: TROUSERS REQUIRED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT, over"

"This Nokia 8870 Wireless Communicator puts me at the heart of the action like no other mobile phone"

"...and this time I won't die by walking through doors"

"Thanks to the amazing power of Xbox 2/PS3 [DELETE AS APPROPRIATE] this is my most immersive adventure yet"

"I'd like to thank everyone at Ryvita for helping get me back in shape"

There is no joke here. Reporting facts like these makes us feel like Michael Buerk standing in famine-torn Africa in 1984, or that bloke who said "Oh the humanity" when that air-thing caught on fire. You can see the disaster for yourselves. Words are meaningless at desperate times like these.

BECAUSE...
FIFA Street has taken over the country. It's probably going to win the general election. A CG Wayne Rooney will be prime minister, and new education minister MC Harvey will write a rap about school dinners. He will rhyme "reconstitued meat" with "FIFA Street".

Will the last person leaving the country please turn off the power strip so the Xboxes don't go up.

We'd find it easier to go into a pharmacy and ask for "AIDS CREAM" than go to a game shop for a copy of FIFA Street.

Direct from Japan! See Sonic Happy Meal Game expert BUST Tails Football in ONE MINUTE! Awesome reflexes! Pure speed! See the game PLAYED TO COMPLETION in 1:03!!



Download video file HERE! [6.9mb avi]

Yes, Gizmondo has a WHOLE SHOP all to itself on London's Regent Street. It's as stupid an idea as an undersea supermarket. Or a shop that only sells pre-chewed pen lids. Or a shop you go in to catch flu. Or a colon cancer booth. Or an MP3 player that won't play all of an album's tracks in a row.

ANYWAY...
So we went to the Gizmondo shop for two reasons; to see if it really exists or was just a joke, and if it DOES really exist, to see what kind of people would go in it.

IT EXISTS!
Wow. It's all new and clean. Just like the Apple store, only not selling anything you aspire to own. It'll still be new and clean when they board it up in a couple of months, too! And look! There's a person actually inside it! (NOTE: that is NOT our reflection).

A CONFUSED TOURIST!
No, the Queen's house is near Green Park. No, Tony Blair lives nearer Westminster. No, I'm not Robbie Williams. We probably should've told the poor man that the Apple store with all the iPods is just around the corner.

SOME STAFF!
There were four, but three ran away when we started taking photos. What is that man thinking? Does he think he's on the bleeding-edge of a new-media revolution? Or is he worried that there's only one person in the shop apart from some idiot taking photos, which means he's probably going to be sacked in about two months when the money runs out? If it's the latter he's too good to be working there and should start a Blog about the comedic Gizmondo cash-squandering.

SURGING QUEUES OF RABID EARLY ADOPTERS!
Or... just one man half-heartedly playing a game because he has nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. This is what games industry parties are like, only we're sober and not standing next to Richard Melville.

A TRENDY LOUNGE!
This is where the models will sit for the photoshoots, when they have a party to celebrate actually selling one to someone.

WIDE RANGE OF GAMES!
The shelf next to it had a similar row of Fathammer Classics -- the 'other' Gizmondo game currently out to buy.

MORE COMING SOON!
Here's an annoying fact. We went to the shop last week on a recon mission, at which time there was a game called "Sega Classics Collection" in this Coming Soon section. "That'll make a good photo!" we thought, thinking how we could possibly say the Gizmondo is the best thing ever because it's got Sega games. But then it wasn't here when we returned to take the photos.

SUMMARY...
A picture speaks a thousand words. The word is "HA" repeated 1000 times.

Time for another (NOT AT ALL BASED ON OUR REAL LIFE IN ANY WAY WE PROMISE) Employee of the Week. This one was submitted in the form of a handwritten note by UKR groupie "Alleycat", so if you meet us in real life don't say this is your favourite thing you've ever seen on the site.

Probably the greatest bargain in the entire history of videogames. Head to Play.com and do your bit for charity.


It's worth £1000. And all your CHILDREN.

For today, it was either another one of these stupid things no one (a) gets or (b) reads or something needlessly aggressive about the Gizmondo ad spamming service. But we've already written some SEETHING and completely unnecessary Giz-hate for the weekend (teaser trailer!) so we'll let it pass. For 24 hours at least.

Hmm, what clues can be gleaned about the form and function of Xbox 2 from this posting lifted from the ourcolony.net Xbox 2 viral marketing web site?

An animal? Inside a ball? Being steered around a series of mazes? We're no experts on intellectual property laws, but Hamsterball seems a little too close to a well-known Sega thing-in-a-ball rolling franchise for comfort.



AND WHILE THEY'RE DOWN...

Worst idea of 2005 Entry #2: The Mouse Police
It's at a budget price, but WHAT PRICE DIGNITY? Even two-year-olds would rather play games about smoking crack and kicking prostitues in the "fanny" than friendly cartoon mice.

"The cheese store has been robbed. This is a case for Agent Chester" says the press release, written in the least-enthusiastic tone possible. The sort of tone you use when your dad tells you about the new road signs they've put up.

Mind you, if we had to write press releases about a game about mice stealing cheese as our main job, we'd find it hard to be enthusiastic too. Read more about the Mouse Police.

Finally! After a 16-year wait it's the sensational return of... Doctor Zorg!

Hide behind those sofas, kids!

Due to overwhelming public demand (one email and someone asking if we were the ones that used to do those "alien jokes") we've decided to make this week Employee of the Week Week. That is, we'll be doing a new "alien joke" every day, each slightly less funny than the last as a clever metaphor for the video games industry.

As well as having a gun, Shadow The Hedgehog will "develop his mastery of Chaos energy allowing him to slow down enemies and rewind time".



Sadly, we're yet to see any publicity material refering to this as "The Fastest Sonic Game Yet". Or "The Worstest Sonic Game Yet".
WHAT ELSE WILL YOU BE ABLE TO DO IN SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG?

Mod stuff.

Play as Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Drive cars with guns on.

Gang-bang rival crews.

"It allows anyone who plays the game to relive their life, their entire individual life." Um, yes Peter, are you sure? Have you taken your medication today? You know it's not a good idea to make statements like that, don't you? Just look at what happened to your little friend Demis Hasabassabasabis and his 'living, breathing city'. Maybe, aim a bit lower, like "It's a new take on the popular Tetris style of game". Then we'll all be impressed if it's something marginally better than that.

Over the past week, all the UK game industry events have been cancelled (except EGN but that doesn't count), leaving 15 year old gaming website "CEO's" to cry over their keyboards. But fear not, UK:Resistance will come to the rescue! We're planning UK:R - LIVE for later this year. Venue is to be announced (will have wheelchair access) but expect somewhere with a capacity for at least 45 people. Attractions include Girls Aloud (TBC) repeatedly performing 'Love Machine' throughout the day, a 'Retro' games section featuring linked Dreamcasts running Sega Rally 2 and exciting daily seminars. Gary will be holding a debate entitled Games Journalism - The Future, where the merits of the 'out of ten' scoring system will be extolled followed by a discussion about whether words are even needed in game reviews in the 21st century. Jon will be hosting a talk on the Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 conversion with hardware upgrade cart and how it could still be a viable product 7 years after it's shelved release. Stay tuned for further information regarding this spectactular event.

(NB. The European Cheese Tasting Seminar have asked us to point out they will be holding their annual event as usual at the Wisbech Conference centre)

#5: Gizmondo 'TBA-TRIS'

Shapes coming soon!!!! Keep checking back!!!! New shape announcements imminent!!!!

The wonder, the excitement, the anticipation as news reaches us of a massive 89 games due out for Gizmondo. We can't wait to see 'Race'. Surely it will be a groundbreaking new take on the racing genre and not a sub-par effort along the lines of a PC driving game circa 1998? 'Jump and hit' must be a trendy simplistic name for what will no doubt be an innovative new title pushing the boundaries of handheld gaming and not just some by-numbers platform outing. And who can imagine what is in store for us with the enigmatically named 'Goal'? Until then Gizmondo owner, you can pass the time playing Pocket Ping Pong 2005.



A Gizmondo -- Yesterday.

#4: ROCKSTAR GAMES 'GRAND THEF-TRIS'



The shapes are sinking concrete-encased bodies of people you've just GANG-BANGED in an urban DRIVE-BY and are now dumping in the sea after having just raped them and stolen their money!

NEW IDEAS FOR SPACE INVADERS
You are Steven J. Invader, a space-cop in the year 22... oh Jesus. Has it really come to this? We're even boring ourselves now.

Here's something we forgot we had. It's an ancient movie of a woman dressed like Lara Croft getting her unnecessarily large breasts out on a bus. This would've originally been posted in, ooh, about 1998 or so. There's a link to it in the archives, but we can't read all that again. Too much pain.

Lara Croft getting her unnecessarily large breasts out on a bus (3.9mb).

That's the new-look Lara Croft on the left. She's lovely now! That's the old Lara on the right, as laughably and ineptly imagineered by the primary-school artists of Core Design. Ahhh, those beautiful yet HIDEOUSLY MISSHAPEN eyes, lips and cheek bones. The laughs we had!



Tomb Raider Art: Not Funny Any More *SAD SMILEY FACE*

NEW IDEAS FOR TETRIS WEEK!
#3: ELECTRONIC ARTS 'MOD-TRIS'

Pay £3.50 to buy new custom shapes! Custom shapes equal CRED!

Dear The Internet,

Why-oh-why-oh-why would anyone want to write forty-seven THOUSAND words about Manhunt?

For forcing this monumentally tedious crime onto an unsuspecting internet, NTSC-UK gains a coveted spot on the list of sites we hate. Well done!

#2: UBISOFT 'SPLIN-TRIS'



Manoeuvre one shape (a green triangle) REALLY SLOWLY down a VERY DARK grid where if you touch the sides you immediately die.

#1: MIDWAY GAMES 'DRUGS-TRIS'



Make the shapes look like DRUG NEEDLES for taking heroin because games with drugs in are REALLY COOL!

The winner and therefore loser of the Worst April Fool Joke award goes to this miserable effort from amateur hour web site Total Video Games. Predictable subject matter, tired references, boring writing and utterly hateful all-round. Why would you even bother doing that? (We mean the joke AND the web site).

EQUALLY LOWLY COMMENDED IDIOCY:
This.
This.
This.
And this.

Although the last one's meant to be serious "New Games Journalism", we think. Which is funny in a despairing has-it-really-come-to-this kind of way. Thanks to mediocrity like this, our opinion of ourselves gets higher every day. We ROCKS!

In another Earth-shattering display of unoriginality of the sort that's CRUSHING THE WHOLE GAMES INDUSTRY TO DEATH, another worse version of a cheap old game you're already bored of has been served up for you to buy again, realise you're already bored of, then forget about and wish you'd spent the money on anything else. This time it's Tetris and it's on your Sky digital TV box.



Nice, but our favourite Sky game remains trying to wank ourselves to an unsatisfactory climax over ten-minute preview screenings of heavily-edited soft pornography or never-naked coke-whores:



The best Sky game. Can you see our naked reflection?

ALL NEXT WEEK!
Or maybe just on Monday, we'll have a list of ways games companies can more accurately update Tetris for today's "urban youth". It will be the sort of hilarious joke you'll want to email to all your friends and post on web forums.

A press release full of spelling mistakes announces that Electronic Arts is buying something essential to human life. Like air, or water, or TV.

Something about the new Tomb Raider. Dunno what. Probably Lara having really big tits. Or three tits. Or four tits like that joke we did in 1999.

Some touch-screen Nintendo Revolution controller joke about rubbing your penis and/or vagina.

A Project Rub/Feel the Magic 2 joke about rubbing your penis and/or vagina.

A fake PS3 or Xbox 2 logo that took ages to make and STILL looks rubbish.

Some "humorous" suggestions about what Xbox 2's really going to be called.

That thing where you view a screenshot with PSP's photo viewer so it looks like it's running a game that it shouldn't be. Like Half-Life 2 or Halo 2 or something.



Ha ha! Things like this are funny! *cuts arm to take pain away*

A really embarrassingly obvious joke about signing exclusively to Microsoft to only do updates about Xbox 2.

A GBA 2 fake that manages to look worse than the actual DS.

A scan of a phone/photocopier/toaster/fax machine/modem purporting to be the Nintendo Revolution controller.

You know, the usual kind of life-sapping internet jetsam. But it's OK! We'll be back at lunch time with some proper news (about Tetris and soft pornography).