This week in gaming

Sticking it to Game Room

After several days recovering froma nasty virus it was lovely to be rewarded with an exciting impulse buy in the 'Game' sle this weekend, picking up a Hori EX2 arcade fighting stick (Xbox 360 licensed) for half price (£34.99). A lovely chunky piece of kit, wired, 6 big buttons representing A,B,X,Y,RT,LT, with the remainder of the xbox controller buttons being replace by smaller ones along the top surrounding the ubiquitous Xbox button itself.

Not being a big fan of the arcade fighting genre (although i did help myself to a preowned Tekken 6 at the same time) the stick is absolutely perfect for Game Room. It will work with any game that uses the dpad for movement so is perfect for the simple arcade classics available both as part of Game Room and in the XBLA.

However, despite this, i still can't crack Asteroids Deluxe. I guess more practice is required. The next Game Pack, along with the start of the weekly release schedule, isn't out til the end of this month (April 2010) and i have been able to resist splashing out too much with just 6 games in my arcade but despite this it is a compelling product. Devisive in opinion though it seems, between nostalgia freaks and those that have left the origins of gaming behind. For me i can't help trying to beat those games that frustrated me in my youth and despite a healthy dose of mid-life nostalgia it's the basic addictive gameplay of these defining little games and the framework of the Game Room itself with it's friendly competition settings and collectibles is what keeps pulling me back in.

Quickies

• Star Trek Online is just getting better with some very good 'episode' storylines which hark bark to the shows and movies.
• Broken Sword on ipod touch it's a very interestingly designed puzzler, more like an interactive comic with it's art by Watchmen's Dave Gibbons.

And, finally...

... having loaded the spring update and formtted a spare cheapo 8Gb USB flsh drive i had lying about, arcade titles, video downloads and game demos work fine running of the stick despite it 'failing' the MS performance test during the format process.

Happy Timewasting