High in self-esteem, are we? Maybe a little too high? Worried that you're beginning to get a bit cocky, and are in danger of alienating those around you? You need to dig out a Gamecube, fast. No, not to revile the years of fanboy ridicule that came with being a Nintendo fan when everyone else had a PS2 or Xbox (it still hurts, damnit!). Nintendo's little purple fun box has a completely different way to resize your ego. And it comes as part of a recently discovered unlockable mode in first-party jet ski racer Wave Race: Blue Storm.

Long story short: With the correct cheat mode inputs (Remember them? They were great), it's possible to make the game's commentator hurl vile and slanderous word venom at you, crushing your spirit with insults and brutal sarcasm at every turn.

We knew Nintendo were unhealthily nice. That kind of repression was always going to spill out somewhere. Full details and video are through the click. ...

Why so black? ...

We've PAXed our bags, called a PAXidriver, and we're ready to down several six-PAX of boozey drinks! So... what we're trying to say is... WE'RE GOING TO PAX THIS WEEKEND. And know what we want to do the most? Meet YOU, of course, both at our panel, and during a live, boozey recording of our stupid podcast, TalkRadar. So if you plan to be at gaming's foremost celebratory celebration, then cure our crippling loneliness and come hang out with us...

Details inside! ...

At a media event in Berlin, Sony has announced a new music service which will allow users to download and play songs directly from their PS3 and PSPs. This comes a couple years after Sony completely crashed and burned with its previous service, Connect, which also encouraged PSP connectivity. Did it learn from its mistakes? ...

At an Apple event earlier today in San Francisco, Gears of War developer Epic Games dropped in to show the real purpose of the iPhone: to competitively shiv your friends wirelessly. We hear you scream from your computer, “By what method will I shiv them?! Please tell me!” Well, get a load of Project Sword, powered by the Unreal Engine itself and due out this holiday season... ...

There’s nothing funny about being trapped in the cold dark for months. While supply lines have reached the headline-dominating miners, who have been isolated since the collapse of a Chilean mine on August 5th, it will be months before they'll see daylight again. So the rescuers, in a bit of misguided compassion, have provided them with PSPs to pass the time... ...

You've probably thought about designing your own game. You may have already dreamed up exactly what your bigger-than-Tetris game would look like and how it would work. You may have told your friends that it would be "like ICO and Gears of War combined," and then told their stupid, skeptical faces, "Whatever, you'd probably just have to play it to get it."

We have. And then we tinkered around for just long enough to find out that the whole thing is really, really hard. But, of course, not everyone gives up so easily - we wouldn't have any games if it weren't for that super-motivated 1% always making us look bad... ...

Best Buy has begun testing a new in-store program for customers to trade in their old games for store gift cards. So congratulations, you all have another entry to the list of places that will buy your games for less than the amount of change in your pockets... ...

Sure, there are plenty of gaming awards kicking around, but the Golden Joysticks are the ones to be voted by you, the guys and girls who actually buy and play the games. There are no committees of journos and games industry execs deciding who wins, just a giant online ballot box where gamers cast their votes and a piece of software spits out the final counts. So in a nutshell, that’s why you should care about the Joysticks and head to www.goldenjoystick.com to vote. Now! ...

It might lack the satin sexiness of Ada Wong or the strike-a-pose foppishness of Leon Kennedy, but this inspirational Licker costume has a special charm all of its own. It is quite simply the best Resident Evil cosplay I have ever seen. ...

Platforms like Facebook and the iPhone have made video games more accessible than ever before, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 promise to keep offering the biggest and best ‘AAA’ games money can buy. But what happens when these two clashing sides of the industry continue to pull at the same tug-of-war? Well, there were two headlines in the news this week that might seem unrelated, but they're the perfect comparative example to what's happening in the world of games... ...

As well as reminding me in a fuzzy nostalgic way that games used to look like a bunch of drunk squares, this PSOne Syphon Filter 2 TV advert also made me chuckle. ...

If you’re ever registered a Sony game or console using your real email address, you might have recently deleted a survey from your email inbox in an attempt to avoid letting Sony know how many games you buy in a month. In this case, you might want to go into that dreaded email trash bin and fish that bad boy out, because this latest Sony survey is a little bit different. And by “different”, we mean weird, random and discomfortingly invasive. It gets personal. Maybe too personal... ...

Above: Lizzie Cuevas (left). A mysterious man, possibly our new arch rival (right)

Hard men will grapple for glory in WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011. But what do these professional wrestlers wear when they’re not half-naked and wiggling with each other in the ring? We’d like to think that they like to kick back and relax in one of these seriously soft SmackDown vs Raw 2011 sweatshirts, which we received from THQ.

Are you getting the chills? Why don’t you warm yourself up with one of these hot hoodies? Come on in for your chance to win one of these WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 sweatshirts and this fantastico Rey Mysterio mask. ...

It's happening! From whatever time it is right now until 5 p.m. Pacific on Saturday, we're damaging our circadian rhythms to play games with you non-stop, and you can watch it all happen LIVE! We're streaming the entire event, both through a live camera in the office, and via direct game feed. Watch the stream inside! ...