Dear Microsoft, this is how you get me to buy a Zune.

I don't have any facts or figures to hand, nor can i be bothered to Google them in the name of research, but I think it's a safe assumption that Microsoft's Zune doesn't sell quite as well as they had hoped. If you're not sure what a Zune is, then you're just proving me right.
Most would say that this is down to the overwhelming success of the iPhone/iPod touch. Personally, I think they fucked it all up when they changed my XBOX video library to a 'Zune library'. I never asked for it and now it takes an extra minute or so to load. These are minutes that I cannot afford to spare. However, there is a way to make this right, Microsoft, so do not despair just yet.

If you want me to buy a Zune, then there's only one thing that you have to do: make the Mass Effect 2 planet scanning mini-game an unlockable download with cross-platform compatibility. I'm serious. I want to be scanning when I'm bored on the bus, or taking a poo and then upload the resources into my main game. I need to be constantly productive on that game so that when I get to sit down in front of the XBOX, I can focus solely on being a biotic-upgrading badass, throwing mercs out of skyscraper windows and trying to nail Kelly Chambers. Lord, I could be a palladium baron if only given the chance, then she would definetly let me plow her. I could listen to Zapp and Roger whilst I did it. It would be beautiful.


This sort of thing is easily worth the £120 to me. Think I'm bluffing? Make it happen, I dare you. Planet scanning has turned me wrong. I think about it all the time. When I'm waiting for food to cook, or talking to people I don't like so much I just keep thinking that the time would be less wasted if I had planet scanning capabilities in the palm of my hand.

Nathan Drake is the coolest

It's official. Because we all said so. More features like this when I stop procrastinating.

Polls close tomorrow

Not had a chance to post much lately. Things are afoot though, so do not fear. For now, accept my apologies and know this: Nathan Drake and Gordon Freeman are tied for coolest character and not one of you fucks voted for Cody. I'll be closing the polls tomorrow so please vote if you haven't already or else I will be forced to do something creative and ingenious.

The Coolest Game Characters of All Time: Voting Time

I can't believe we actually ran a feature for a whole week. Can you!? I doubt it, but sometimes we just pull these amazing things out of our collective behind. Sorry. Enough of this silliness, there are votes to be cast!

All week long you've been hearing from us about how our chosen character is cooler than the next and I don;t mind saying that they have all been thouroughly convincing. If you didn't write your own piece, then this is your chance to voice your opinion. We had enough ideas to easily run another week of this, but I don't want to get delusions of grandeur and frankly, I'm sick of typing the word 'cool' - it's almost lost all meaning to me. If you think there really is someone that we criminally left out, just let us know in the comments- I've already had an ear-bashing over Duke Nukem's absence.

I know polls are a sensitive issue here so I'm going to say just one thing. There are no prizes to be won. Only fame and adoration for a fictional character, so remember: when you cheat, you only cheat yourself. Your mother would be ashamed.

The Coolest Game Characters of All Time: Gordon Freeman (Half-Life series)

Gordon Freeman. The Freeman. The free man. Just his name suggests transcendence.

Equal parts custom character [there are no cut scenes to disassociate you from the action - everything happens through your eyes and you control every action] and Nietzschean ubermensch. Pulled from time when humanity needs it most by the G-man, yet not a typical hero. A PhD in theoretical physics from MIT, Gordon is the strong silent type taken to the point of awesome. Even his PhD thesis has the greatest title ever, Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array [I shit you not, this is actually part of the Half-Life canon]. No other character in video games has such an in depth vita.

Gordon is not your hulking behemoth (Marcus Fenix), nor does he have a squad or assistance in the majority of whatever endeavour the G-man has him take part in (Call of Duty, Bad Company, et al.), making what he is capable of even more remarkable. Nor does he have snappy one-liners, you are not able to speak to the characters in game with your own voice, so why should the character you are supposed to become say things you'd never?

That he is capable of walking into the enemy headquarters and prevent their entire destruction of mankind armed with nothing other than a crowbar, while at each step still maintaining the belief that you could in fact do what it is he is doing is why he is the greatest video game character of all time, and so, by proxy, are you.

Ignore all these false idols that you are asked to believe in; Nathan Drake, some blue (yes BLUE) hedgehog, a criminal with a girl's name; instead make the right decision and vote Freeman.

The Coolest Game Characters of All Time: Cody Travers (Final Fight, Street Fighter series)

If you want to talk about cool game characters then there is really only one place you need look: the house that Capcom built. Capcom have been showing character designers the world over how it should be done for decades now. Their characters exude a simple, timeless charm that sees personalities expressed in small visual nuances ; whether it be Ken's irritating thumbs-up, Dan Hibiki's tears or Barry Burton's magnum.To stand out as the coolest amid the inherent coolness of your brothers and sisters is no mean feat and one that is achieved by only one character: Cody Travers.

Despite my increasingly vocal professions of love for Mike Haggar, it is undoubtedly Cody who is the coolest motherfucker in Final Fight. The classic James Dean white t-shirt and blue jeans, coupled with those fly 80's shell-toes makes Cody Travers the kind of dude that mayor Haggar is happy to see railing his daughter. His only goals in life are to get all up in Mad gear's shit and save his smoking-hot girlfriend. Looking good whilst he does it just comes naturally to him.


When Capcom retired Cody from the Final Fight series he told them where to shove it. After saving Metro City and his girlfriend he just couldn't settle down. Cody was built to fight, so that's what he continued to do. You have to admire a guy who knows his purpose and managed to brawl his way from one fighting series and into another. Getting imprisoned for his violent temperament is little more than a slight inconvenience; he frequently breaks out, seeking more opponents, only to return for a meal and a roof over his head whenever it suits him.

Cody's coolness is not so much determined by his actions, but rather his mannerisms and the style he exudes in everything that he does. Opening fights by taunting his opponents to see if they can finally do something about his boredom, still wearing those shell-toes with his prison garb and wearing those handcuffs when he has the key. What a swaggering bad-ass.

Throughout this whole week of coolness, I can see no-one else that I would rather be. Cody is nonchalant about fights when I simply panic and by playing as him I effectively become cooler. If, like me, you think coolness is all about the style and the swagger, then Cody Travers has got it down to a fine art.

Noby Noby Boy is up in yo' hood

Krandal (justtherightbullets) got his hands on Noby Noby Boy this afternoon. He went on a rampage and ate all of the street's letters and unicycles. The inhabitants weren't pleased. They went ape-shit on him with their sticks, pigs and koalas.

The horrific imagery contained in the embedded clip may shock and upset some viewers. Please, don't have nightmares.