Microsoft has been doing a really slap dash job of this competition far. First, the opening date they originally listed didn’t match up with the day of the week. And now, having issued a press release about the second stage (which involves racing the developers online) it still isn’t listed on the official site.

PGR fans should visit this site regularly as it’s updated with new details on how gamers can take their place in this select group of enthusiastic gamers and petrol-heads.

Um, yes. Pull your thumb out guys!

An MMO with no elves! Just mecha-style jetcraft to fly around in while shooting stuff. Doesn’t look astonishingly polished yet but it looks to be free right now. I’ll be giving this a go when time allows, take a look.

Raph Koster being as pretentious as ever, though for once I agree with him somewhat. Thing is, surely he’s in a better position than just about anyone to change things. Um, go on then.

At least it will when they release the version with all these lovely tracks. Sadly, they all sound really hard.

I’ve always felt there was room for more rock music games though. Guitar Hero exists, yes, but why not add some heavy metal and rock goodness to Dance Dance Revolution instead of the sacharine J-Pop tosh that’s currently on offer (much as I love DDR)? Add in a eye-level laser sensor that you have to head bang through at indicated intervals and you’re onto a winner!

Transcode 360 lets you stream just about any video format to the Xbox 360. File this under “Stuff the 360 should have done in the first place”.

Remember the Gizmondo Exec who plowed his Enzo into a pole? The plot continues to thicken to a absurd degree. The car wasn’t street legal, was probably doing closer to 165 rather than the claimed 120, may not even belong to Mister Erikson (who was incidentally drunk at the time), and to cap things off they found a magazine at the scene of the crash. Not the Radio Times strangely enough, rather the thing that goes into a gun.

Oh dear. There hasn’t been a decent Micro Machines game since the PS1, and even that was far inferior to the 16-bit versions. Maybe they’ll pull off a good 3D Micro Machines finally, I suppose it’s possible given enough fine tuning and attention to detail. It does really seem like a series that will simply never be as much fun in 3D though, rather like Worms.

I’m wondering if this will be glorious or terrible. The new trailer reminds me of the repetitive Spartan: Total Warrior, though it seems you can kill swarms of enemies at once with magic or giant swords rather than having to kill them one by one (by one by… zzzzz). I wouldn’t be surrpised to see the impressive costumes appear on Costume GET! at some point either.

Given that Ron Moore was intrumental in running both shows it’s little surprise that there are many similarities. I spent most of my free time in January watching DS9 seasons 4-7, the last two in particular are hands down the best that Star Trek has ever had. Such a shame that Enterprise was pap, though Ron Moore seems pretty sure we’ll see a new series after a decent period of rest.

Wing Commander fans are hardcore, I tell ya. They’re still modding the original games and are also busy porting it to new engines too. I had no idea the fanbase was so loyal but it’s great to see.

Time for a shameless cliche: this one sunk its teeth into me and didn’t let go until the end. It is utterly criminal that Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines didn’t get the development time or marketing it deserved. Even after applying the excellent community patches it still has some issues (mainly the punishingly hard final levels and some glitchy animations) but remains a diamond in the rough that’s seen much polishing since Troika sadly closed.

The story is engrosing, the countless characters fantastically written and voiced, and there’s genuine replayability there with five different endings, not to mention how different the play through can be depending on your clan. The insane Malkavians in particular have mostly totally different dialogue options.

You can be a sneaky Nosferatu, a manipulative Ventrue, seductive Toreador, a Brujah thug… and beyond that you get to customise your character during play by spending points in the familiar Masquerade character sheet. It’s damn long too and there’s some fantastic licensed music from Lacuna Coil, Ministry and others. Had this got the time it needed you’d easily be looking at another Deus Ex for sheer player choice and overall excellence, assuming they avoided more feature creep.

It seems many of the Troika guys are now at Obsidian, makers of the similarly promising but rushed KOTOR II. Hopefully they’ll get the time they deserve to properly finish their future games, I eagerly look forward to them if so. Here’s a spoiler laden interview with one of the Bloodlines developers, it’s a great read if you’ve finished the game or don’t intend to.

Edge spotted this mesmerising experiment - 15 Gradius playthroughs layered together. Ultimately pointless but it’s interesting to watch the different ships seperate and merge at various points in the level.