This week seemed like the kind of week I've been waiting for. I'm a real sucker for Tetsuya Mizuguchi's games. I hear we have Rez on the way, which would make me a happy bunny.

Speedball 2 is exactly like you remember. Well, it's not quite like I remember, because the computer beat the shit out of me. I used to be good at it. The optional graphics update is so-so. I wouldn't really bother with it myself, the game may look a little crusty, but it all adds up to the feel of the original. That's kinda lost with new graphics.

Every Extend Extra Extreme is pretty nice, there's a lot of Rez-like familiarity, down to there being four stages, themed visually and musically. It's also good to see the cheesey but catchy Genki Rockets song from Lumines Live present, although it's not part of the main game and is only in remix form.

You can play with your own music, but the process is incredibly long-winded, and I have a suspicion that there's something to do with DRM creeping in there. The game cannot play songs directly from the 360's media player, you have to start them yourself. It also has to "sample" the entire song by literally listening in when it's played, so it can figured out where the beats are. Then, to actually start playing the game with the song, you have to set the song going again from the media player, and the game will recognise it and match the beat. At that point, you realise that you will end up listening to the same song over and over as you play, rapidly getting sick to death of it. The built-in songs are quite ambient and don't suffer so much from constant replay.

DiscoJustice