Here's my latest retro game acquisition - the snappily titled Sega Saturn shooter 'Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius - forever with me', originally released in 1996. If you've played a Parodius game before, you'll know exactly what to expect - it's Gradius on acid, with cats and penguins instead of spaceships, a warped, peculiarly Japanese sense of humour and zany classical music. 'Forever with me' is essentially more of the same, but with more selectable characters than ever, each with their own weapon systems.

The classic Parodius sense of humour is still in evidence (the unexpected inclusion of KC and the Sunshine Band's Disco cheesefest That's the Way I Like It is hilarious) , though many of the enemies and bosses will seem oddly familiar to fans - the ballet dancing panda, giant burlesque dancer and pirate cat ship all make a reappearance from previous games. This is possibly because 'Jikkyō Oshaberi' isn't a port of an original arcade machine, as the others were, but a remake of a Super Nintendo game of the same name with a few graphical alterations.

It's also worth mentioning that the game's menus are surprisingly difficult - far more so than the other games in the series - for non-Japanese readers to navigate through. There are a plethora of modes and options and it's very difficult at times to tell exactly what you've selected. The confusion also spreads into the gameplay itself - for some reason the weapon selection bar has been abbreviated from the traditional, instantly recognisable system (Speed Up, Missile, Double, Laser, Option, ?) to 'S, M, D, L, O, ?'. While this might not seem like a particularly big deal, it's surprising how difficult it is, while dodging bullets and feral penguins, to remember what each one stands for.

My main gripe comes from its seemingly incessant speech ('Jikkyō Oshaberi' apparently translates as 'Chatting Live') - there's a Japanese running commentary through the whole thing that can't be turned off and rapidly outstays its welcome.

Personally, I far prefer Sexy Parodius, released for the Saturn in the same year - its mission based levels provide far more variety, and it thankfully lacks the irritating speech. Still, if you're a Konami shooter fan or a Parodius completist (and I'm both), this is still well worth your money.

Tomorrow, I'll be looking at another recent Konami purchase, the Twin Bee Deluxe Pack.

If, like me, you were the gloomy recipient of a Guinness Book of Records every Christmas (usually from a well meaning auntie), the thought of a videogaming edition probably wouldn't strike you as a particularly essential purchase.

Surprisingly, the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition is fascinating – all the predictable stuff is in there for the statistic junkies (fastest ever Doom run, highest score on Dig Dug, most consoles sold in a day etc. etc.), but the real surprise is the amount of trivia on offer – from console technical specs to inside information on a huge array of games (did you know for example, that Doom's title comes from a quote in Tom Cruise movie The Color of Money, or that WAD (Doom's user definable file system) stands for 'Where's All the Data? I didn't).

Its 250 or so pages are colourful, well designed (albeit with a few forgivable production gliches), and packed full of information, quotes and facts. Sure, there's nothing here you couldn't find out in a few seconds on the net, but it's a great package and a must for any games anorak's bathroom.

I even managed to pick up a copy from WHSmiths for half price – a measly £7.50 – making it only a couple of quid more expensive than some monthly games magazines. Well worth a look.

It's fair to say that Nintendo's biggest franchise has had far more ups than downs over the last 25 years or so – the Gamecube's playable but ultimately joyless Super Mario Sunshine, in my opinion, was one of the relative lows. Let's face it, cleaning graffiti off walls isn't the greatest game concept, however you dress it up.

Thankfully, if Sunshine felt like an extended bout of community service then Super Mario Galaxy is a weekend in heaven with a steady supply of beer and chocolate. And cake.

I like this game so much I'm not even going to pretend to review it - you've probably read too many reviews of Galaxy already, and like me, thought all those videogame journalists were exaggerating. Well, believe it or not, they weren't. Galaxy is so brilliant it's ridiculous - I haven't played a game for years that's made me laugh, gasp, and just generally remind me why I like games so much in the first place. And best of all, there are few annoying faults to burst your fun bubble. The camera is perfectly placed at all times (unlike, say, Mario 64), and the game constantly takes you forward from one incredible scenario to the next. In a medium that seems to thrive on repetition, it's refreshing to play a game that isn't made falsely challenging by lumbering you with a fiddly control system or sudden difficulty spikes. One minute you're bouncing around tiny spherical worlds, the next you're buzzing around in a furry bee suit, or racing around on the back of a manta ray.

Nintendo appear to have taken a leaf out of Katamari's book, and thrown all sense of narrative logic out of the window – and it works so well you wish they'd done it sooner. Everything in the game is just an excuse for more fun - a word that many developers seem to have forgotten. Indeed, Nintendo seem to have turned fun into something of an artform with Galaxy.

When the Wii was released, the hardcore gaming community appeared to regard the console with a collective sneer, dismissing it as a graphically feeble novelty toy. With Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo have proved the naysayers wrong in spectacular fashion. Galaxy looks and sounds beautiful, and it's hard to imagine playing it without the Wii's unique control system.

A stunning game then, more than worthy of the praise it's earned. If you haven't played it yet, buy it immediately. If you don't own a Wii, buy one – and prepare to be dazzled.

There are various signs that old age might finally be catching up with you. I turned thirty last year, and already I'm suspicious of teenagers, intolerant of loud music and sensitive to cold weather.

But ultimate proof that my last vestiges of youth have forever departed came from an unexpected source: a repeat showing of Lily Allen's new show on BBC3. I didn't catch the show when it was first aired on Tuesday the 12th; rather, I read about it in some pretty savage newspaper reviews the next day. 'Stuffy old gits' I thought, when I read the critical maulings.

And then, last night, I sat with a glass of wine and gave it a watch. The show opened with an uneasy looking David (Peepshow) Mitchell sitting on a couch/bed type construction. Next to him sat Lily Allen, composed almost entirely of hair and looking similarly tense. David drank anxiously from a glass of wine while Lily read some lines from an autocue. After a few minutes of awkward jokes and false laughs, Lily introduced some clips of animals fornicating. David Mitchell pretended to laugh at footage of a bear masturbating, and took another very large gulp of wine.

Later, a band I've never heard of played some awful music and shuffled off again. Next, actor Cuba Gooding Jr was ushered onstage. Lily read some questions from some cards while Cuba made sexual innuendoes in an attempt to put Lily off. Lily, put off, giggled and made a comment about Cuba's 'big cock', and then sorted through her cards for the next inane question. Cuba's responses to these were met with a glazed, hundred yard stare from Lily, who only brightened up when she managed to work a sniping comment about never winning any music awards into the conversation.

At no point did Lily Allen appear relaxed, composed, or in control. The audience looked bored, and the attempts to work Lily's trendy Myspace mates into the format failed miserably. Pointless, shaky 'video diary' footage was shown of Lily and an equally vacuous friend driving to a posh hotel in their expensive BMW and talking about designer shoes or something.

Far from the shrewdly analytical street poet vaunted by the music press, Lily instead came across as a female Nathan Barley; the show as a whole made The Word (Channel 4's early nineties attempt at 'yoof' culture) look like Jeremy Paxman.

Still, at least Lily was happy with it – in a snippet from her blog she says cheerily: 'My TV show recording went really well on Friday, I was sh#*ting it but I'm really happy with the results...'. Nice.

I hate to sound like the Sun's über-bastard columnist Jon Gaunt, but how the BBC can justify spending license payers' money on this utter pap is beyond me. And what happened to the BBC's mission statement? I thought their shows were supposed to 'inform, educate and entertain'? Lily's screwing donkeys and masturbating bears did none of these things.

But then again, maybe the Lily Allen show is the very definition of entertainment if you're under thirty - maybe it's like the Teletubbies, which only makes sense if you're under five. Could it be the case then, that I too have become just another stuffy old git? I'm off to have a Horlicks...

Thanks to the remarkable gift of Ebay, Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus dropped through my letterbox on Saturday morning. Apart from the Parodius collection, none of Konami's Deluxe Packs were released outside Japan – presumably because of our western obsession with 3D graphics and polygons.

On the disk there's the fantastic Salamander, a horizontal shooter that is very, very similar to Gradius apart from a few details: there's no power-up bar (you simply collect weapons/speed ups as they appear), and when you die the game continues from where you left off rather than sending you back to the last check point.

These may seem like trivial differences, but it's surprising what a difference they make – the game is far less frustrating as a result, and your weapons can be built up far more quickly if you do make a silly mistake and lose a life. Where Gradius would punish you cruelly for your errors, stripping you of all your precious weapons (and worst of all, speed ups) and sending you back to a distant check point, Salamander is more forgiving, allowing for a much greater feeling of progression, even if you're useless (as I am).

Next on the disc there's Lifeforce, essentially Salamander with recoloured and redrawn sprites, and Gradius' power bar system reinstated.

The biggest and best surprise is left for last though. The stunning Salamander 2, a game so brilliant it justifies the purchase by itself. The graphics, a mixture of pre-rendered and hand drawn sprites, are sublime – just look at those screenshots below. The gameplay and difficulty level are pitch perfect (but don't play it on Saturn Easy if you want to finish it on your first go), with each level progressively more taxing, building to a genuinely tense 'bullet hell' finale.

The game is filled with some magnificent touches – the memorable end-of-level boss Golem (essentially a big brain with a giant eye on the front) from the first Salamander makes a reappearance, only to meet a sudden and wholly unexpected fate. I won't tell you what happens, but it certainly gave me a surprise...

Salamander 2 has to be one of the most underrated shooters ever, and possibly one of the best I've played in a very, very long time. It's vastly superior in many ways to Gradius V; the difficulty level is more progressive, and the graphics are more stylish, if less technically advanced.

If you have a Saturn that can play import games, I really can't recommend this collection enough. Playasia has long since sold out, so Ebay's probably your best port of call. Beg, borrow, sell your granny.

I'm not going to bore you with what you already know – by now it's common knowledge that Cloverfield is Godzilla crossed with Blair Witch, a post 9/11 fable from the minds that bought you Lost, etc. etc. etc.

Beneath all the viral advertising and hype, Cloverfield is actually a pretty good film – not without its flaws, but highly entertaining nonetheless.

First, the bad news: the characters are, for the most part, unengaging; a cotterie of wealthy twenty-something yuppie New Yorkers. Our cameraman and guide for the majority of the film, Hud, possibly the most gauche person in the whole city, has little to say apart from screaming the name 'Rob!' or 'Oh my God!' over and over again. Fortunately, this is a giant monster movie, so oscar-winning scripting and characterisation are secondary to the destruction on show, which is immensely satisfying and gripping.

Wisely unseen for much of the movie, Cloverfield's monster is a strange, chimerical creature with squid tentacles, a bald head and what appear to be horse's hooves. It's not quite the CGi travesty that The Host's creature was, but then it isn't as iconic as Godzilla either – it simply reminds you of monsters from other films.

Fortunately, the style and overall pacing of the film more than make up for the deficiencies; the early scenes, where the creature is shrouded in dust and shadow, are genuinely frightening, and the film lurches from one spectacular setpiece to another, building to a surprisingly downbeat conclusion.

The first-person perspective conceit lifted from Blair Witch is used to good effect; the way the movie finds a way to flashback to the two central characters' early life is cunning, if a little contrived.

Cloverfield's detractors may pick fault with some of the finer technical details – the everlasting camera battery, for example, or the fact that Hud, despite his state of blind panic, never once stops filming everything in a suspiciously well framed, cinematic manner – but this is really just curmudgeonly minded nit picking.

Cloverfield is essentially a rollercoaster ride, and in that respect it will certainly keep you gripped for its compact 74 minutes.

Cloverfield followed hot on the heels of that other ‘doomed New York’ movie, I Am Legend. Both films depict a military unprepared for the catastrophes that unfold – whether it’s a virus or a rampaging giant monster, the outcome is the same: the security forces are unable to protect the city’s population from impending disaster, and in both films New York is ultimately ‘lost’, with terrible loss of life.

Of course, it’s not at all unusual for movies to deal with society’s contemporary concerns, but the recent crop of movies from America – Cloverfield in particular – show a level of preoccupation not seen in cinema since the Cold War and the ‘reds under the bed’ movies of the 1950s.

Cloverfield’s striking images of a city in chaos have led some to argue that the film’s makers have simply borrowed familiar visual elements from 9/11 TV reportage to create cheap scares, but the influence runs far deeper than that.

While Cloverfield’s monster is an obvious surrogate for 9/11’s hijacked airliners, the protagonists’ reaction to its appearance is a telling exposure of America’s current underlying anxieties. Just like the hijackings of 2001, Cloverfield’s monster takes the citizens of New York completely by surprise – along with the more predictable cries of terror, a common exclamation in the movie is ‘why us?’ or ‘where did it come from?’ The military’s slow and inadequate response to the threat is an echo of the CIA’s apparent inability to pre-empt Al Qaeda’s attack, and the military’s failure to scramble planes in time to intercept the hijacked airliners in 2001.

Cloverfield and I Am Legend are films not just about fear – they’re about distrust. Just as invading Martians were a metaphor for the communist threat of the 1950s, the giant monsters and diseases of our 2008 movies represent a growing sense of insecurity. As terrible and horrifying as the disasters – in reality and film – that strike New York are, they’re not, it seems, as scary as America’s inability to protect itself from them.

After a long Sunday afternoon of tidying, throwing things away and generally sorting out, my games lair is nearly complete! In what is essentially our spare room, I've finally managed to set up all my consoles so I can simply switch one on and start playing. Just to give you a better idea of the scale of things, here's a brief inventory:

Sega Saturn
Master System
Megadrive
Dreamcast
Nintendo N64
Gamecube
Sony Playstation 2

...and far, far too many games to list, many of them Japanese imports - which I haven't been able to play for months because the room was in such a mess.

In here I also have my trusty G5 (which I use to do day-to-day stuff such as writing this blog) and my PC, which I use primarily for games.

Dotted about on shelves I have my collection of handheld consoles: A Japanese and a UK Game Gear in their boxes, an Atari Lynx and a Neo Geo Pocket. There's also a Nintendo DS lurking about somewhere, but that belongs to Her Ladyship and she plays Animal Crossing on it so much I rarely get to play it...

I've also got a few ZX Spectrums in various places, two 128k models (with and without integrated tapedecks) and my favourite, a rubber-keyed 48k in its box with Clive's BASIC programming manual.

I also have a couple of those ancient television tennis type things on my shelf - but they're a bit too retro even for me!

All I need now is a minibar, and I'd never have to leave the room again - except to play the Nintendo Wii of course, which takes pride of place in the living room downstairs.

Why am I telling you all this? I've no idea - I'm probably just showing off.

Don't worry, normal service will be resumed soon – including a round up of some of the games I've unearthed in this very room. I'd forgotten I'd even purchased some of them....