One of the things which I've never been able to understand is why people buy walkthroughs/use cheats for computer games. For me, the completion of a game is never the main objective in and of itself. Instead, the main reason I play video games, and this may sound a bit tautological, is because it's the actual game playing I enjoy. If I don't enjoy playing it, then I won't. Whether I get past a certain section is irrelevent as long as I enjoy the process of doing so.

One of my favourite games is Ikaruga. For those who don't know anything about the game, it's a 2d shoot 'em up, though that hardly does justice to the game. What the game really is, is a showcase for the complexity of simplicity. Stripping away all the chaff from shoot 'em ups, it instead introduces an utterly ingenious game mechanic. The ship and all enemies have one of two polarities, black and white, and your ship (which can switch polarities with a button press) is capable of absorbing hits of the same polarity. Now what would be a gimmick in other games is exploited to the fullest by the developers.

However, this is also a game in which despite having owned the game since it's launch almost 2 years ago, has utterly defeated me. From time to time, I will sit down, put in the disc and sit down and try and get a little further. Sometimes I would get in the zone and make it a little further. Other times, I'd stumble. However, even on the worst of the stumbles, if I was offered a walkthrough or cheat that would guarantee progress, I wouldn't take it. For me, video games have always been about the journey, not the destination. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

Konami has set up a contest in which you can design a camouflage for Snake (or whoever we control this time) to wear in the latest Metal Gear Solid game. The image must be a 640 pixels by 640 pixels JPEG image. The design must be original… you can read the terms and conditions […]