Perfect Dark XBLA has finally been patched into the condition it should have been released in in the first place, so I bought it. So far it seems to be just as fantastic a game as I remembered from a decade ago, but with nicer graphics and a silky-smooth framerate, so well done to all concerned.

I still had some MS Points left over, though, so at the same time I also picked up the splendid Retrofit: Overload.

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Most people will have realised by now that it was Pac-Man's 30th birthday last week, with the Google homepage interactive banner probably being the most celebrated of the celebrations.

If not for an alert WoSblog viewer, though, this reporter might have missed out on a Pac-party taking place just along the road, in what's rapidly becoming WoSblog's twin town of Swindon.

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It's flipping lovely.

This week, WoSblog was presented with something rare – a reason to go to Didcot, a town whose claims to fame are many (it's the home of Britain's third-worst architectural eyesore!) and which I've passed through countless times on trains but never actually alighted in.

That's just not the kind of opportunity WoSblog passes up on.

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Someone asked me yesterday on the WoSblog Formspring page what the most unfairly-maligned and under-rated videogame in history was, and I had to think for a few minutes before I remembered.

It's Clockwork Games' magnificent 3D Lemmings, and as I remembered it I also remembered I'd done a little mini-featurette on it a couple of years ago for the now-defunct Total PC Gaming. As a passing diversion, the piece is reproduced below.

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Turning successful videogames into pinball tables is a fairly logical step. Turning them into fruit machines is an altogether trickier business.

Nevertheless, it's been done a surprisingly large number of times over the years, with varying degrees of success.

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If a week is a long time in politics, 26 months is forever, right?

  "This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn’t it? Everyone wants
  to be in our gang. So I want to make something very clear today.

  Will I ever join a Conservative government? No.

  Will I ever join a Labour government? No.

  I will never allow the Liberal Democrats to be a mere annex to
  another party's agenda."

- Nick Clegg's first speech as leader to the Lib Dem conference, March 2008

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Where by "missus" I mean Mrs Pac-Man, of course.

This is a piece I originally wrote for Retro Gamer, taking a look at some of the curious attempts made by the pinball industry to stay hip and relevant when suddenly faced with the videogame explosion in the early 1980s, by turning some of those videogames into pinball machines.

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We're almost done with the politics stuff, viewers. Normal WoSblog service will be resumed shortly, but first I thought I might as well share with you an email I received this morning.

Back on Monday, when uncertainty still ruled as to who'd be forming the next government, the website 38 Degrees invited its users to send emergency emails to Labour MPs, urging them not to block any potential "progressive alliance" by vowing to vote against electoral reform, as many threatened to.

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to write anything today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8676607.stm