I don't know if you noticed but it's pretty much Christmas time - the trees are going up (and the non-trees) and I'm already bored of Christmas tunes (apart from Mariah of course).

Anyway, I digress. This week's links are some of the best ever (perhaps), with not one but TWO awesome games to while away your free time AND did I mention I met World Cup legend Sir Geoff Hurst?

My week in pics & links 

 
The greatest Wii games

 
Santa's selection: PS2 games

 
Santa's selection: PS3 games

Family games for Christmas

Gadget stocking fillers

 
Sensi on Xbox Live Arcade blog

The coolest links of the week

Let's start with those flash games - the first was sent in by blog friend Sii, but he's entirely outdone himself this time because Smokin' Barrels is quite simple awesome.

Secondly - Alienware have put up a really nice little flashgame called Hyperblast which has the added bonus of rewarding the truly gifted gamer with prizes (one of which is a rather spiffy laptop).

Henry Biggs - one of our cars editors - and I were chatting about the best old-skool satire on the web and he picked out his favourite from the sadly now mothballed Satire Wire

I picked out TVGoHome - the site which Charlie Brooker ran back in the day - couldn't really pick out a favourite from the archives but here's a random sample

Brilliant audio clip of Mitchell & Webb lampooning the media's obsession with user generated content.

An interesting news piece about 'The future of the internet - and how to stop it' a speech given by Jonathan Zittrain.

This made me giggle; a pen sized polonium detector.

Gamerhelp's hidden truth behind video games is worth a read

A strange tale of boy and his python

Now - I'm off to play Smokin Barrels, have a great weekend

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I was lucky enough to be invited along to the Xbox Live Arcade Event - which also gave me the chance to play Sensible World Of Soccer - a game that I number among the greatest of all time.

I have to confess that I was worried about the controller - the last time I pwned at Sensi was when I had a Zipstick attached to my beloved Amiga, so I was delighted when I saw that there were some Madcatz Xbox joysticks (pictured in the girl's hands below)

By the way, if anyone can come up with caption for the above photo then I'll put it in the Friday links tomorrow.

Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen technical hitches we couldn't use the joysticks with Sensi - so with some trepidation I sat down to see if I still had it.

The great news is, Sensi is still awesome. Even with the Xbox controller, the moment we flicked the updated graphics off and went into the classic graphics it felt like coming home again. Several bouts of best of three later and I was reigning champ.

Of course, when there's a photographer lurking around it's not the coolest thing in the world to be seen pumping your fist in celebration...

But hey ho. It's better than that face you pull when you hit the post

Anyway, whupping Xbox's Luke Gregory and JCPR's Neil Watts wasn't actually the highlight of the night - because the special guest at the event was World Cup legend Sir Geoff Hurst.

Now, I know gamers and footballers don't necessarily make the best mix - but I am reliably informed that several people had asked who he was - which surely should have brought instant expulsion from the bar.

But I'm not complaining, because the upshot was I got a very pleasant 20 minutes with World Cup legend Sir Geoff Hurst as he explained to me that 1966 team-mate (Sir) Bobby Charlton would have been the first name on the teamsheet of today's England side (ahead of Gerrard and Lampard) and that he reckons the restriction on tackling from behind in the modern game would have made him an even more potent force up front.

Annnnyway; here's a photo of World Cup legend Sir Geoff Hurst from the event. A thoroughly pleasant fellow.

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Ahh Christmas - my favourite time of year. The only downside of this is that there are a million things that ought to be on the site at this turn of the calendar, including run downs of the games you should buy for all the main consoles AND all the gadgets I want AND all the stocking filler tech etc etc.

So, to cut a long story short, I've spent the last few weeks drawing together many galleries of Christmas stuff including games lists for the four main home consoles (PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360).

A few of these have been made public already

 
Santa's Selection:Xbox 360 games

 
Santa's selection: Nintendo Wii games 

The best gadgets for Christmas

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As I arrived at our offices today I spotted a bizarre snake of tinsel on what I can only assume is someone's idea of a modern Christmas tree

Now, I'm all for progression (It's probably somewhere in my job description) but is this even vaguely Christmassy?

A) it has no branches to hang stuff on
B) There's no room for presents underneath (unless they are inside in some weird vacuum) 
C) It's NOT A TREE

They'll be playing Christmas carols in November next... 

Goodness, you blink and it's Friday. Which of course means that it's time to engage in the proper reflection of what we have achieved.

I'll sum up my week in my traditional pictorial form:

20 blogging tips from the experts

Why the keyboard will never die

Amazon unveil 'future of books' 

The best gadgets for Christmas

PlayStation 2 classics

I've also been working away at Christmas selections for the major consoles and PC, which should be surfacing next week.

Cool links

Katherine Fluke sent through an awesome 'procrastination flow chart' I'm currently in the procrastination loop and enjoying the journey.

This bit of news is one of the biggest links of the week, but if you haven't seen it, The Jeep Renegade appears to be inspired by the Warthog in Halo 3

The most expensive button in the world? Google have suggested that their 'I feel lucky' option costs them $110m a year

A nice little story about the Live tools also contains the suggestion that Microsoft's sky drive will expand dramatically from it's current 1 gig

In the US it's Thanksgiving (I'm reliably informed by our US office member that you can get a three-legged turkey with an extra leg skewered on for that extra bit of drumstick) and Ars technica takes a look at what they thankful from 2007

Geek meditation - made me laugh

An amusingly sarcastic commentary from the excellent Spong website to the news that kids can buy adult games.

Evasive much Rafa Benitez?

Mario Bros music on Tesla coils is amusing.

Finally, Bradfields has a squeaky trainer, but it hasn't stopped him providing a few links:

Mr T and his night elf mohawk in World of Warcraft

The sexiest ever teapot

The Metro this morning featured a story about the iPhone. Except it WASN'T about the iPhone, it was about the British Chiropractic Association getting their name in lights (and, hey, it just worked again) by attaching some of their research to the buzz product of Christmas.

Tim Hutchfall from the aforementioned BCA: "People who use gadgets like the iPhone for hours in cold conditions are more prone to strain injuries as they are exercising less flexible tissue."

What an absolute joke. Of course what the BCA ACTUALLY seem to be saying is that any repetitive fine motor movements in the cold over an extended period could be doing damage - fine.

But they couldn't say texting or something more universal because no papers would pick it up. Of course by sticking an iPhone in suddenly it's news worthy. At least for the Metro.

Absolute journalistic tosh.

Well, I've had a little time with Mass Effect, and early impressions are very favourable.

You've probably seen the Penny Arcade joke about the elevators - and it's certainly not unfair in suggesting this particular thing is a little...erm...slow. 

I have to confess, after reading a few reviews of the game I was expecting the combat to be really terrible but, even as an FPS addict, it isn't. Actually, and as I say it's early stages, I kinda like the combat so far, and it's all very exciting ramping up my XP with my spritely sniper rifle kills.

One note of warning though - this isn't a game that you can lightheartedly dip in and out of. When I say it's complicated I mean it's COMPLICATED. Brilliant depth, which is definitely a good thing, brings some scary amount of information overload.

I designed my character at the beginning because I wanted to be an 'infiltrator' (awp whore to the end) but I didn't actually rotate the face properly when I did it so I am now playing a man with a pair of duck lips.

The plot seems fairly novel at this point (Although the spectres are clearly Jedi knights :)) and I'm enjoying the pace of progression.

Of course, that is held back slightly by my utter fear of missing something meaning I have to run in the opposite direction to the way I'm meant to in order to make sure there isn't anything cool. 

Anyway - I'll keep you abreast of my opinion as I go along. But there's nothing I've seen thus far to suggest that it's not worth a trip to the shops on Friday to pick up a copy.

A few weeks ago, the MSN editors were given a very interesting demonstration of successful blogging by two very well know British bloggers - Graham Holliday and Johnnie Moore.

As part of this I was asked to produce an article summing up some of the conclusions and repackaging them as a hints and tips piece for MSN T&G.

I decided to do it as a gallery of tips, although in retrospect I'm probably not that happy with this and probably should have done it as an article.

The upside of a gallery is it allows people to dip in and out as they see fit - but the downside is that sometimes the text, even when it's well over 1,000 words, seems to be stretched a little thin.

Anyway - it will be headlining the site tomorrow I think.

20 blogging tips from the experts

And on a totally separate note - that probably isn't worth another post. Tomorrow will also bring my opinion on the humble keyboard. I think it's got a future...

I was at dinner the other night with, amongst others, author Fred Buller and a bibliographer where I was asked if books had a future.

Now, as anyone who read my article from earlier in the year will know, I think that books - traditional paper ones - are as close to a perfect technology as you can ever get.

Interestingly, Fred is a writer very much from the old school. His recent book 'A Domesday book of giant Salmon' which has been judged something of a classic by the likes of the Daily Telegraph and Country Life was written, get this, entirely in longhand, no computer, no word-processor, not even a typewriter.

Can you imagine researching a book about record anything without using the internet or search engines? But Fred's in his eighties and, frankly, if it aint broke...

Still, this conversation brings me neatly to my point which is that Amazon have announced a few details of their eBook reader 'Kindle'

The Guardian's Jack Schofield sums up fairly neatly what all the fuss is about, in the ever excellent Tech blog,  and the Newsweek article which it references gives a fair account of the bonuses of an eBook.

I'm (hopefully) moving house fairly soon which is the time when I'm most likely to feel that an eBook reader weighing a few grams is preferable to the mountains of books that I will have to move.

But, frankly, for all my love of technology - the paperback is still the king.

From IM Faux Pas to finding out why Mario has a moustache, it's been another fascinating week for T&G, and, of course, the week wouldn't be complete without our traditional round up of all that's worth linking to and several things that I happened across and wanted to share.

First of all, let's start with how the week shaped up on T&G. All pics clickable yada yada.

Get safe online: Take responsibility

Fallout 3: the game of 2008?

Editor's hands on: WED 8000

The phoney war

Instant Messaging: Faux Pas

A brief history of Mario

Charles Martinet: The voice of Mario

Links ahoy

I actually noticed this Guardian piece on Radiohead's sales last week but it's still bugging me now. I think it completely misses the point; has Prince sold more tour tickets on the publicity generated? I'd imagine so. Have more people heard Radiohead's album than would have done if it was more expensive? Yes. Did they make more money than if they'd had a publisher? I reckon so.

Sii has chipped in with his flash game of the week Bike Mania - I actually played something very similar to this a few years ago but it was motocross - anyone remember what I mean?

Yahtzee's hilarious review this week is on Clive Barker's Jericho - he didn't like it..

Speaking of reviews: Gamer TV had this to say about Super Mario Galaxy

Five stars is a fairly common rating from the press for SMG but Variety took a VERY different look at it - saying: “Super Mario Galaxy” is proof positive that Nintendo still has some of the best videogame development talent in the industry, but they no longer have the best platform on which to work."

Guardian games writer Keith Stuart has written a really good article about how to combine fatherhood and gaming

Finally, this Android video from Sergey Brin of Google - who is talking about open source phone software. It's....fair...to...say he's....not...the...most...natural of speakers. BIG hair though.

Nothing from Bradfields this week (boo) but remember that I love getting your links and suggestions - feel free to comment any time through the week.

I nipped out of the office to meet Charles Martinet today - even if you don't know the name then you would probably recognise his voice if you had played any Nintendo video game over the past decade or so.

Because Charles Martinet is a voice over artist who: in his own words:

"It's a-me Mario! and Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Toadsworth, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi.”

Hearing him do this minutes after meeting him is pretty cool, to be honest. His voice just morphs effortlessly from character to character and it was great fun to interview him

Charles Martinet: The voice of Mario

Obviously Charles was promoting two of the big Wii titles for November. Super Mario Galaxy and Mario v Sonic at the Olympics

But I couldn't resist asking him about the film stinker Super Mario Bros with Bob Hoskins in the starring role.

"Well they didn't use 'Mama Mia or the voice but maybe the next one..."

"I actually kind of enjoyed it and the trade show was great fun that year. But I think that the cartoon series and the movie strayed away from the purity of Mario and I don't think that will ever happen again.

"Mr Miyamoto is such a genius and his creative team are so clear on who this character is - if anything happened again I'm sure you'd see a clearer vision." 

 
Video: Assassin's Creed: TV trailer

Well - today I've been beavering away on the history of the world's most famous computer game character Mario.

Starting out his lengthy life (in gaming anyway) as Jumpman and a carpenter (!) Mario quickly became one of the most important figures in consoles - and tomorrow, of course, sees the UK release his next big adventure Super Mario Galaxy (which begs the question; after Bros, Land, World and Galaxy where to next? Universe?)

A brief history of...Mario

I'm actually going to interview the voice of Mario (and Luigi! and Wario) Charles Martinet tomorrow, which will be kinda cool, as a promotion for the Mario v Sonic at the Olympics game which is coming out soon.

Five things I learned about Mario whilst writing the article:

He was originally a carpenter
He was named after a warehouse landlord.
Somebody has actually described the frankly godawful Super Mario Bros film a 'cult classic'
Princess Peach wasn't a peach until 1996
Mario has a moustache because it was easier to draw than a mouth

Another week - another slightly odd marketing gimmick - but this time from the very worthy cause of Get Safe Online.

Their gimmick? A fortune cookie.

Mine said:

"Great security: great wisdom - little security, little wisdom."

I was hoping for 'Help, help I'm stuck in a fortune cookie making machi...'

Get Safe Online website

When I banged out a little piece called 'social networking faux pas' a few months ago it seemed to really catch the imagination, becoming one of my most viewed stories of all time.

So, with shameless predictability, I pencilled in a follow up piece called 'Instant Messaging Faux Pas' and within about 30 seconds of thinking about what I would include I was up to 10 decent ideas. A quick office poll provided another eight or so and I sat down today with just a few sentences to string together and requisite screenshots to add in.

But, as sometimes happens with these things, even the best prepared stories can suddenly be harder to write than the most desperately thrown together breaking news piece.

Anyway, I finally got it together and, I think, it's turned out pretty well - with the concept as a whole as strong as when I came up with it and it should be a piece that really clicks with my audience.

Instant messaging: Faux Pas

Only a few days until launch - and the official trailer is out

Video: Assassin's Creed: Official launch trailer

You've probably seen some of the surveys released as part of it, but in case you haven't you should know it's Get Safe Online week.

I spent yesterday at the GSO summit, which had a number of major industry figures speaking about the ever-present need for education in an increasingly online world

There was a few very interesting things to come out of the day; SOCA's Sharon Lemon explained how organised crime is increasingly moving into online crime - and admitted that the anonymity of the internet and the lack of a unified global law was a major problem.

However, the biggest thing for me about online security is how little people seem to think it is up to them to keep themselves out of trouble.

Of course the software manufacturers, ISPs, police and government need to play their parts - and it's fair to say that sometimes they could do better, but people really need to realise that they are putting themselves in severe financial risk EVERY time they go online without updates to their anti-virus software, the security patches for their OS or a firewall.

To that end, I wrote the following opinion piece.

Get safe online: Take responsibility

As I said last week, I had the opportunity to watch a section of next year's Fallout 3. My interview with Bethesda's Pete Hines is now up on the site.

Fallout 3: the game of 2008?