There's nothing quite like a Stella Artois hangover. Drinking a reasonable quantity of any alcoholic beverage is almost certain to give you some kind of unpleasant side-effect, but the headache that Stella provides is nothing short of cataclysmic.

I woke up this morning feeling like somebody had taken an axe to my skull. The pain rapidly became so acute that I could only open one eye, and I spent much of the afternoon shuffling about in my dressing gown like a zombie.

On a different topic, I feel compelled to tell you about the rather wonderful Mysterious Cities of Gold boxset, now available as an HMV exclusive in a nicely packaged slip case. Postcards, a poster/map and booklet are all included, and all thirty-six episodes are presented on six disks with plenty of extras.

Anyone who remembers the series from their childhood (and the number of fanpages and forums on the net suggests that I'm not alone) will absolutely love this set; anyone else will more than likely wonder what the fuss is about. Viewed in 2008, MCOG's faults are rather glaring; some of the voice acting is less than top-notch, and the eighties animation is crude by modern standards (though personally I love old-school Japanese animation).

The story though, is still a great one - I'd almost forgotten just how epic it is, in fact. 16th century brats Esteban, Tao and Zia search for the eponymous golden cities and encounter all kinds of ancient technology along the way, including an Inca aeroplane called the Golden Condor.

I've also just found out that original writer Jean Chalopin (the French genius behind MCOG and other childhood favourites Ulysses 31, Inspector Gadget, to name a few) has penned a film version, currently in production. Details are sketchy, but Wikipedia says the film will be computer animated (no surprise there), and shows a reassuringly well-designed poster. Check it out:

Galaga. Ikaruga. R-Type. You've got to love 2D blasters, and it's a real shame that the genre's been so neglected in recent years.

Thankfully, Hudsonsoft have swooped in from Japan with Star Soldier R, the 12th(!) game in the long running series.

And first impressions suggest that this is a very good game indeed, with nicely rendered (if rather familiar) 2.5D polygon graphics and big explosions. Like all the Star Soldier games, R is a top-down shooter, with a horde of aliens to exterminate.

Unfortunately though, the fun proves to be rather short lived because, bizarrely, Star Soldier R consists of a measly two levels. Instead of a varied, multi-level campaign, Hudsonsoft have given us the dubious pleasure of a timeattack game instead, with the emphasis on achieving highscores and moving up the online leader board, where your prowess can be compared with other players worldwide.

This would be a fantastic idea if this was an extra feature released alongside a full, six or seven level campaign, but it's not - and we're left with what feels oddly like a playable demo.

Still, what's here is eminently playable for a day or two, and for 800 points it's not terrible value.

I only hope that Hudsonsoft will get round to releasing a full version, because Star Soldier R feels like the first third of what could be, given the chance, a minor genre classic.

Like the sad, sad man that I am, I lurked around in the living room last night until midnight struck, anxious to see whether Nintendo had let me down yet again... as far as I can recollect, there have been three separate dates for the release of WiiWare in the EU.

To my pathetic, childish glee, WiiWare's up and running, just as the big N said. And it was with considerable anticipation that I handed over my 1000 points in exchange for a download of LostWinds. Forget the saturated hype of GTA IV or WiiFit - it's this little £7 game that, for some reason, has captured my imagination and become one of my most looked forward to titles of this year so far (with Super Smash Brothers Brawl not far behind).

So was it worth the wait? From the first hour or two of play, I must say yes. Who'd have thought that a relatively low-budget, download-only game could feature some of the most captivating graphics I've seen on the Wii? They may not have the eye popping impact of Super Mario Galaxy, but thanks to some stunning character design and subtle effects, LostWinds looks every bit as good.

The detail in the game's central character, a small boy called Toku who sports a strange hat that I wouldn't mind owning myself, is brilliantly realised and animated.

A special mention must also go to the music, which reflects the game's whimsical, dreamy nature perfectly.

Thankfully, LostWinds' beauty isn't skin-deep - it's just as bewitching to play. Toku is controlled by the nunchuck analogue stick, while the game's minor innovation - wind power - is achieved with the wiimote. Striking lines through the screen wafts Toku up into the air, and a scribbling action will gently break his fall.

As you progress through the 2D platform landscape, new powers are added to your arsenal, allowing Toku to drift ever higher to previously unreachable parts of the map.

There are puzzles to solve (blowing flames onto vines to disintegrate them or wafting water onto thirsty seedlings, for example) and enemies to fight, all with your trusty cursor.

LostWinds has a quite unique, almost zen-like atmosphere of ethereal calm - think of the best films of Hayao Miyazaki and you're on the right lines. Most of all, LostWinds feels like a labour of love. It's a small, modest game admittedly, and doesn't exactly push back the boundaries of gaming – but it's beautifully made and a real joy to play.

Possibly the best £7.00 you'll blow (sorry) on your Wii all year.

If Nintendo are to be believed, we Europeans should finally be getting access to WiiWare some time tomorrow (Tuesday 20th May). I for one can't wait - not only is it a great idea (quietly pilfered from the likes of Steam or XBLA, you could argue), there are some truly excellent looking games due for release.

If the previews are anything to go by, Frontier Developments' first offering - 2D platformer Lost Winds - looks like it could be an instant classic. It appears to be one of the few games that will actually make full use of the wiimote, as you use wind power to blow away enemies and waft your big-hatted avatar out of harm's way.

The game's graphics look beautifully designed and realised, and reviewers have so far heaped the game with praise. And at only 1000 points (about 7.50GBP I think) it's a bargain too. I can't wait.

Hudson Soft's Star Soldier R has also got me in a bit of a lather. I've no idea if it will be as good as its predecessors, but I'll be downloading it anyway - we're not exactly swamped with traditional shoot-em-ups these days, after all. Besides, early impressions look encouraging, with lots of spaceships, explosions and big colourful numbers. Just look at this screenshot:

Looks fabulous.

So if Nintendo are as good as their word, I should be playing these lovelies by this time tomorrow evening, so expect some reviews very soon...

Nintendo Wii's Mii Contest Channel is a pleasant diversion for a few minutes or so between bouts of Mario Galaxy or Zelda: Twilight Princess.

In case you haven't heard of it, it's an online competition where Wii owners can enter their Miis into themed contests; recent themes include 'Little Red Riding Hood without the hood', 'football fan', or 'Genghis Khan', for example. As well as entering their Miis into the competitions, players can also judge them, choosing the best submissions out of a random selection they feel best fit the theme.

While it's all good wholesome family fun (as Nintendo enterprises always are), it's a shame the themes can't be a little more edgy. In case any receptive Nintendo execs are reading, here are a few of my suggestions:

• Serial Killers

• Communist Dictators

• Famous Porn Stars

• Disgraced Politicians

• Famous Cult Leaders (i.e. David Koresh)

• The Cast of Dallas

• Gary Glitter

• Bill Gates

• The Varying Weights of John Travolta (by Decade)

I'm sure I can't be the only person who's rather excited at the thought of potential nerd-fest Aliens: Colonial Marines. This is a video game with the kind of gestation period usually associated with cathedrals – it was originally scheduled to appear on the PS2 back in 2001, but was dropped for undisclosed reasons. Rumour has it that it's now pencilled in for an autumn 2008 release on the PC, 360 and PS3, and from early screenshots and previews it looks like it's going to be worth the wait; the aliens look incredible, and the tri-functional assault rifles from the old James Cameron movie are present and functional. Fabulous!

Unsurprisingly, it's going to be (you guessed it) a first person shooter, but that's no bad thing. Who wouldn't like to run around LV426 blasting Giger's finest creations?

Sega's website isn't exactly overflowing with information, but here's hoping the finished product will live up to the promising details revealed so far...

All together now, 'That's it man, game over man, game over!'

I'm a shockingly lazy person at times – and because this is one of those times, I've decided to post some links to some of my latest writing efforts. Call it recycling!

For starters, why not sample my review of the singularly turgid Z-Grade horror movie The Cellar Door?

Then, as a main course, how about a quick look at my latest Den of Geek weekly column, where I harp on pompously about driving games?

As for dessert... well, there is no dessert. What do you think this is, a restaurant?

My next post will be a proper one, not a glorified advert. I promise.

I realise this may sound very odd, so please bear with me. Last year, we installed a pond in our back garden. While it's all lovely and full of fish and weeds and aquatic snails, we don't have any frogs.

I really like frogs, so to rectify this, I went to my mother's house and took some frog spawn from her (much larger) pond, with the intention of putting it in mine and starting a lovely colony of frogs in my back garden. The only trouble is this: fish love to eat frog spawn.

This is why I decided to keep the spawn in my bath (more accurately, a leaky fish tank in my bath) until they're big enough to scare the fish away.

Now I've got a bathroom teeming with tadpoles, and they're absolutely fascinating to watch – it's like being a ten year old kid again. Once they're a little bigger (I may wait until their front legs have grown), I'll put them out in the pond to fend for themselves. Until then, they've got plenty of weed and plankton type stuff to eat.

{I should note here in passing that there's a separate shower cubicle in our house. Just wanted to point that out.}

This leads me neatly on to Will (Sim City) Wright's forthcoming opus Spore. I've been really looking forward to this game, partially because I love the whole 'sim-everything' concept, partially because I hope that Mr. Wright will atone for The Sims, which I personally found utterly appalling - I found its falsely jovial, materialistic dolls house gameplay shallow and its emphasis on 'popularity' particularly odious.

His earlier Sim City on the other hand, was fantastic, and I'm sincerely hoping that Spore will be more like the latter than the former.

Sadly, early screenshots of Spore are a little disappointing, at least to me; it looks like the biblical book of Genesis reimagined by Pixar.

Still, you can't judge a game by its screenshot, and I hope that my initial reaction is wrong - it's just beginning to look as though Wright's 'Sim Evolution' concept is going to be dumbed down to appeal to the widest possible audience at the expense of depth, which is a shame.

Until it's released, I'll have to withhold judgement - and tend to my army of tadpoles, which for now, are infinitely more interesting than Spore...

There are two things in gaming that have a tendency to leave me cold: expensive marketing hype and derivative first person shooters. This goes some way to explain why it's taken me nearly a year to succumb to Bioshock's shadowy charms.

But succumb I have, and I don't mind admitting that my preconceptions about the game couldn't have been more wrong. Not only does it live up to the hype, it transcends the commonly accepted boundaries of the FPS genre.

Its pitch black storyline – that artfully recalls the great dystopian novels 1984 and Brave New World – is told economically and subtly through diaries and posters rather than uninvolving cut-scenes. You play the sole survivor of a plane crash, the game opening on a stunningly realised moonlit sea with burning wreckage all around you. Somewhere to your right a lighthouse looms, and you've little choice but to swim towards it. This, it turns out, is the gateway to Rapture, a secret undersea city where a once idyllic society has torn itself apart.

From the moment the bathysphere doors open, Bioshock has you gripped in its violent, at times surreal world; Rapture's denizens, called Splicers, are an insane bunch, wearing animal masks and leaping out of the shadows. Armed with little more than a wrench for protection, you're forced to stumble on through the underlit rooms and corridors, some semi-submerged, others littered with corpses. More details are revealed as you explore; as well as the Splicers, there's a small army of children, the Little Sisters, wandering the city, protected by the Daddies, who clomp about in huge diving suits. The Little Sisters, thanks to some bizarre scientific experiment, carry ADAM, a resource that is used to power your Plasmids. Plasmids are powers that can be collected as you progress through the game, allowing you to fire electricity from your fingertips, manipulate objects telekinetically, and more besides.

The Little Sisters present a moral dilemma that's central to the game; do you protect them, making progression more difficult, or do you kill them and harvest the ADAM for your own advantage?

Despite its heavily scripted format, Bioshock never feels too linear thanks to these choices it provides. You can choose to play the game as a traditional FPS, sticking to the conventional weapons (which include pistols, tommy guns and shotguns), or you can concentrate on using Plasmids, which can be collected and levelled-up to insane levels of power. Bioshock's enemy AI also ensures you're rarely given much time to relax; while it doesn't throw an army of foes at you as other FPS games do, they're fast, aggressive and occasionally quite scary.

In light of the huge marketing levels and critical praise Bioshock received upon release, it was perhaps inevitable that the game received something of a backlash. Online forums are full of disgruntled gamers criticising Bioshock for its repetition, for being too easy or 'dumbed down', and other trumped-up charges. While I'll admit that it's not perfect – and few games are – I'd have to side with the critics and say that Bioshock is worthy of every word of adulation it's received.

Visually and aurally, Bioshock is never less than astonishing, with imagery that pulls deftly at your subconscious fears. Greater still is the quality of its writing and ideas; the game's utopia-gone-awry is inspired, and I'd even suggest that Bioshock could have just as easily been the premise of a classic novel or film.

While I have few criticisms, I personally found the 'hacking' subgames to be an extraneous waste of time – to be suddenly confronted with a 'Pipedreams' puzzle game rip-off in the middle of an intense, atmospheric FPS seemed jarring and unnecessary, even more so when you consider that you don't actually have to play them; if you have enough money (and you usually do) you can simply click 'buy out' and sidestep this element altogether.

Viewed as a conventional FPS, Bioshock can admittedly seem rather slow paced – but that's because it isn't just a conventional FPS. It's a game that rewards you for exploring, taking your time and discovering the little details hidden in the shadows. Players who simply tool up and sprint for the finish are really missing the point. Bioshock is as much about its story and atmosphere; no other game, apart from perhaps Ico, has such a genuine sense of place. Its art-deco world is a joy to behold, and its inhabitants seem like living, breathing people – and killing them isn't consequence free.

One of the first people you encounter is a woman standing over a pram, whispering to her baby. For a second or two you pause, wondering 'friend or foe?'. And just as that thought crosses your mind, she's lunging at you, screaming like a feral animal. Instinctively, you shoot her, and she crumples to the floor. You step closer, and notice for the first time that the pram was empty... It's an unforgettable moment, one of the earliest in a game crammed full of them.

Stunning.

Visionary developers Grasshopper, the minds behind the brilliant Killer 7 and the Wii's No More Heroes (which I've yet to play but can't wait to get hold of) are apparently creating Kurayami, a game based on 20th century writer Franz Kafka's novel The Castle.

While details are best described as sketchy, these early production visuals show an intriguing taste of how the game could look. Rumoured to be for the PS3, it'll be fascinating to see how Suda 51 and team will bring Kafka's strange, paranoid story of a remote village and its mysterious castle into the domain of videogames – but I for one can't wait. Basing a game on a literary novel isn't something that's been attempted before, and the results - given the developer's illustrious track record - could be electrifying.

So far, I've managed to resist the temptation to buy a PS3, but Grasshopper may be about to release a killer app to test my resolve...

More news on this when I get it - but until then, why not have a little look at my column on this very topic over on the superlative Den of Geek?