I couldn't quite work out the group of four mechanic. Is there any broader meaning to it in terms of prizes and such, or is it just to make the competition more human? And can you arrange it so that your friends are in the group?

I'm not too sure, to be honest. Possibly you're right, maybe it's to give you an element of competition other than seeing if you can answer a series of sterile questions on your own.

You can invite others in to the pre-game lobby, yes; so you could potentially play against 4 friends over live, which adds another interesting element.

Trying 1 vs 100, I see potential. Or at least, I can see it hooking me in, which is a first for anything to which the term "MMO" has been attached. I was convinced I was heading for the scoreboard until it started having questions about lakes in Albania and suchlike and ruined my streak.

Generally though I've mostly been playing Gears of War 2, despite my complete lack of skill. I particularly like the Horde mode. Don't really get on with RPGs, even RPG-lite like Fallout 3, which I recently borrowed off a friend. I just can't take that type of game seriously. Consequently I ended up putting my entire points quota into the "luck" attribute and consistently chose the most sociopathic dialogue option. This didn't seem to hamper progress.

If you haven't already, check out the demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum. I didn't really have any expectations for this game until very recently, but the demo has completely won me over. The combat is satisfyingly crunchy and not overly complex. There's loads of ways to take down bad guys stealthily and stylishly. It's got the cast from the excellent animated series. My only concern is that the demo's too short to get a feel for how the game as a whole will play out - it's not clear whether the gameplay evolves much or just stays the same throughout.

Mumpo - you gave me a real nostalgia-worm (by, that's clumsy) with that Usborne space-game book, I had that, along with the knights/medieval one and the WWII one. I think there was a Western one as well? Great fun.

And those of you talking about Europa Universalis & Hearts of Iron, I'm a major Paradox Interactive gamer, not played EU3 yet, but plenty of EU2. I got talking to a chap on atrain recently who's a playtester for HoI3, sounds all jolly exciting.

Big fan of their Crusader Kings too, any further recommendations of Paradox-style games gratefully accepted.

Their other big game is Victoria, which is basically an incredibly detailed empire management sim. There aren't all that many companies that make games like Paradox (well - there's probably quite a few in Germany that we never hear of in the English speaking world), but you might like the Anno series. It's a very different genre (city building and trading), but it has a similar appeal of tinkering with your economy and watching things slowly unfold. You might also want to try out Axis and Allies, which you can play online at GameTable. It's an old board game, so it's a fair bit simpler than most Paradox games, but very much in the same vein.

Yeah, I have Victoria, it's installed, patched, but I've not yet played it. I've started a game or two but got lost almost immediately and with my perma-problem of not having the internet at home it's a bit of a bind with strategy guides & the Paradox Forums etc., I guess I should just download some to my memory stick, print them from some other computer and then keep them in my study. Or get broadband.

These Anno games sound fun, I was a big Sim City fan on the SNES, so I will look more into them - I take it they're English language, not German (or Latin)? I could probably just about get away with games in German, but easier if I don't have to.

And, well, this is where I'm outed as an utter spod. I have A&A for the PC, bought second hand for buttons, but I've never been able to get it to run. But, I've been a player of the boardgame for over twenty years and am due to go round my mate's tonight to continue our four-player game of the Limited Edition Revised Third (I think) Edition that my mate had specially shipped from New Zealand as we weren't able to find a copy elsewhere...

There's a freeware rip-off of A&A called TripleA. The makers were ordered to pull it down by Hasbro, but it's a piece of piss to find on the forums.

As for the Anno games, the developers are German, but they've all been released in English editions. About the only problem is that the main official forum is German language, although there is a much smaller English language one (and a dedicated Steam forum for 1404). The DS version of Anno 1701 is probably the best strategy game on the platform.

Oh, and if you don't already, you should listen to the Three Moves Ahead podcast. It sounds like it would be right up your street.

All good stuff, thanks, I'll look into those with the usual mumble about lack of internet making it hard! There's a schoolboy joke in there somewhere.

I've been revisiting Company of Heroes, replete with the add-ons. A brilliant game.

If Steam is telling the truth, GY's been enjoying it a bit, too.

Oh and I haven't stopped playing TF2 since it came out. Just genius.

Yeah, I've been playing the multiplayer fairly seriously for the first time, now that Raskolnikov has a computer that can run the game. It's made me realise how bad I am at CoH, despite having played through the single player campaign (including the expansions) at least three times. I'm not normally a competitive multiplayer kind of guy, but I love CoH enough to want to get better. I'm currently level 9 (for the Americans), but that's at least two levels too high. My last two level gains came primarily from people dropping on me early on.

Rask and I have yet to win a single 2v2 automatch, although he's a lot better than me single-player.

I've played almost no 'competitive' multiplayer, I really enjoy messing about with three friends on skirmish, kinda co-op against the computer.

I'm slowly learning to get better, but still struggle managing a battle on three fronts. And attacking with anything less than overwhelming force is usually fatal for me.

I have just lost close to an entire week of my life to HoI2 (CORE 0.4), the blame for which I place squarely on GY, for linking me to the HoI3 demo.

We should try some CoH 3v3, assuming timezones are not problematic.

sw2boro: re. Victoria, the brilliantly named VickyWiki has some great explanations that you might be able to save/print. Peru & Belgium are good starter countries, and there's a beginners guide to Brazil on VickyWiki (tho' I'm not convinced it's particularly good). As ever with Paradox games, I'd also recommend mods. Victoria's certainly the weakest of the EU/Vicky/HoI trilogy, but it does have the beautiful ability to export games into HoI2, so you can just keep on going...

My Playstation is starting to collect dust as I have discovered the weird and wonderful world of emulators.

I recently downloaded MAME and now have over 100 titles of arcade goodness. I even bought a joypad for my laptop to fuel my new found addiction. Its fantastic. Last night I spent over three hours on Darius Gaiden.

Today I got hold of the Megadrive, SNES and Amiga emulators and currently have Sensible Soccer running in another window. Pure class...

Tried HoI3 this week, but it runs like a dog on my laptop, and the editing of files isn't working as well as I'd like it to (no patience on my part either).

...so I'm happily spending my breaks playing Civilisation Revolutions on the iPhone, which has got me hooked.

I finally got around to playing the HoI3 demo and I'm afraid I had much the same reaction to it as I did to HoI 2, namely that it hurts my head too much. It probably doesn't help that the game only lets you play as either the major powers or someone who's going to get invaded by Germany immediately, but even so, I just have a lot more trouble with it than any other Paradox game. I never have any sense of whether or not I'm going to win a battle (unless I'm obviously outmanned), and it took me fucking ages to work out something as simple as rebasing an air wing. Even when I did that, I couldn't work out if my ground attacks on the German advance were doing any good.

We should try some CoH 3v3, assuming timezones are not problematic.

Good call. What's your Relic name, Wolf? I'm cdammers and Raskolnikov is Rusticator.

Lots of interesting stuff to talk about today, as Gamescom kicks off in Koln.

First up, Shadow Complex is out on XBLA today and has been getting rave reviews. It's a gorgeous looking Metroidvania style game with a few twists. I'll be picking it up tonight and will report back.

Second, the long rumoured PS3 slim has been announced. It's about 2/3 the size of the existing machines, uses 1/3 the power, has a 120GB hard drive and costs $300/Eu300/£250. The existing models will be phased out. Still no PS2 compatibility, though. Grr.

Finally, I've been playing AI Wars, which is an indie strategy game probably best described as a mix of Sins of a Solar Empire and Tower Defence, and is the first strategy game I've played in a while to really mix things up. It's got the same giant-space-battles-in-planet-systems-connected-by-nodes thing going on as Sins, but a competely different dynamic. Basically it's an asymmetrical game where the AI's tech and agression is directly linked to the pace and style of your own expansionism (you can play single-player or co-op, but not against another human). Also, each type of unit has a hard cap on the number you can build, but there's no overall unit cap. So you have to pick and choose which planets to take and which to avoid, and coordinate your research and expansion to ensure you have enough ships to achieve your goals.

It takes a lot of getting used to and the interface isn't very friendly at first, although it is quite powerful once you learn your way around. The tutorial is very good, too, explaining not just the mechanics but strategy and tactics as well (something that the Sins tutorial was rubbish at).

Oh yeah, and a new trailer for Uncharted 2.