As sequels go, Stuntman: Ignition is a long time coming – the PlayStation 2 original was released a good five years ago. The change in publisher – Atari flogged the brand off to THQ – probably has something to do with it. Going by the demo on Xbox Live, it’s a lot more forgiving than the first, although it’s doubtful that it’ll stay in your console for as long as, say, Gran Turismo.

It’s a busy week for the Wii, with Boogie, Cosmic Family, Tamagotchi Party On and a couple of EA sports games out. Boogie has been getting polarised reviews – some say it’s good fun, others say it’s too simple. Tamagotchi hasn’t scored well, while Cosmic Family is unlikely to be worth your time – it’s an education thing first released on PC many moons ago. Next week doesn’t look much better for Wii: a load of rubbish PlayStation 2 budget games including Billy the Wizard and Ninjabread Man are expected. Still, Super Paper Mario and MySims are also out in September.

Worms Open Warfare 2 sees the wrigglers back on DS and PSP. Also on DS are another Dragon Ball Z game and Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighters Battle. Game are doing the latter for £19.99, if you can stand yet more hacking and slashing.

It looks like the Official Nintendo Magazine will have the exclusive low down on Red Steel 2 next issue. At least that’s what their ‘next month’ page suggests – it features two kanji symbols and the phrase: “Your move, young grasshoppa…”. It continues: “Bigger. Better. Bolder. Bloodier. And oh – it’s online”.

Perhaps Ubisoft will be arsed to put in proper sword movements this time, and not just lazy pre-scripted animations. Good news about the blood though – the original looked oddly sanitised.

Comparing Space Giraffe to Tempest 2000 – undoubtedly Jeff Minter’s best known title – is a bit like comparing Super Mario Kart to Wipeout. Certainly, they both fall into the same genre and feature similar power-ups, but the tactics you need to master to ensure success are vastly different.

Any novice can pick up Space Giraffe and make pretty colours appear by randomly running around the grids firing off ‘hoof shots’, but to learn the many nuances the interactive tutorial needs to be paid attention to. It’s likely, for example, that for your first few goes you won’t notice the vital white bar that moves up the grid. Shooting enemies powers it up, and only when it’s nearer the back of the grid can you ‘bull’ enemies that have made their way to the front. Bulling them, or ramming to be more exact, builds up your multiplier – essential for making sure you don’t get laughed off the leader boards.

Then there’s the art of leaping off the grid to master. This lets you avoid enemies that cannot be rammed, such as flowers, and can also get you out of tight spaces. On some levels, those with tight curves in particular, it’s also useful for getting a better view of what’s coming around the bends. One thing the tutorial forgets to mention, though, is that you need to listen to the sound effect that each enemy produces. The flowers for one are irksome entities that will kill your giraffe if you crash into them, but as they give off a distinctive ‘ping’ noise when shot you can always tell when one is around.

Staying with the sound for a moment, the ’90s-style rave soundtrack suits the chaotic nature of the game perfectly, while the random mutterings of a child on the title screen is deeply hypnotising. A few sound effects from Gridrunner ++ make a cameo appearance, and predictably there are loads of ‘baas and ‘moos’ too. Minter is an avid animal lover, if you weren’t aware. Block rocking bleats indeed.

Like all good shooters, Space Giraffe definitely has the ‘one more go’ factor, and with 100 levels to play though – most of which you’re unlikely to beat on your first go – there’s plenty to get stuck into. However, the giraffe is a cruel mistress. At times it’s just too trippy for its own good, with bullets often becoming obscured by flashes of light and subliminal background imagery. The fact that you can still be killed while using the smart bomb is a bit off, plus there are times when you can die from getting hit by stray bullets left over from vanquished foes while zooming onto the next grid.

But as mentioned earlier, even with its minor gripes it’s brain-meltingly addictive stuff and surprisingly varied to boot – each level offers something new, or is viewed from a slightly different perspective from the last. We found ourselves repeatedly starting the game from scratch just to better our scores, and to see how far we could get without losing a life, or to looking for an easy way to get an achievement. There are loads of nods and winks to video games of yore too, which is always a good thing in our imaginary book.

The phrases “re-invented” and “all-new” strike fear into my heart when mentioned in relation to the Worms series. But they apply to the single player missions and party games respectively in Worms: A Space Oddity.

It’s for Wii, so there are “gesture-based maneuvers” and all that jazz, but we’re promised “classic Worms game modes” too. And it’s in space, obviously, with a new visual style which I haven’t seen. Online multiplayer – some of that as well.

But will it be any good? Worms games disappoint all frequently these days, but Team 17 are doing the do, so let’s stay positive. Worms and Wii should be an excellent combination, after all.

Good work everybody: Bioshock is numero uno, pushing the lacklustre Transformers to second place. It’s the second fastest selling 360 title (behind Gears of War) and Blue Dragon has charted highly too, in at #9.

GRAW 2 is back in at #10 thanks to the belated PlayStation 3 version, released last week, and also takes top spot in the PlayStation 3 chart. Looking further down we find Moto GP 07 – the Climax one – at #33, and Resident Evil 4 and Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree both re-entering at #25 and #33.

Trauma Centre is this week’s biggest faller, down from #11 to #30, although this could be down to a lack of copies on shelves rather than a drop in popularity. Nintendo of Europe have an annoying habit of underestimating the demand for certain Wii titles.

It’s been a busy week in the world of gaming, with Games Convention 2007, Sierra’s Game Day and the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) all taking place. Rather than bore the pants off you with details of the new Spyro game, FIFA Street 3 and Homie Rollerz on DS, we’ll get straight to the good stuff.

It would have been pretty stupid for the Penny Arcade ‘peeps’ not to show to their previously announced game at their own show. Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is what they’re laboriously calling it, and it’s now heading to Xbox Live Arcade in addition to PC. Details are scarce, but expect something along the lines of the recent Sam and Max adventure games. Have a look at the trailer – it’s not as pretentious as you might expect.

Platform games on Xbox 360 are a thing of rarity, so naturally Totems is worth a mention. It stars a female shaman (shawoman?) named Gia, who can run along walls Prince of Persia style and transform into different animals. Publishers 10actle – who are also doing a new Ready 2 Rumble – were pimping their Semantic Environment Sensing System, which allows Gia to perform a wealth of actions with just one button. There’s a teaser site here, but you’d be better off looking at the shots on IGN.

Wondering what happened to Geist developers n-Space? Wonder no more – they’re currently working on the apparently ace DS version of Call of Duty 4. They’re cramming a lot into it, including four multiplayer modes, Black Hawk helicopter on-rail shooting sections and touch screen controls that actually work. Characters will automatically melee when close to an enemy, for instance.

D3 Publishing have really been pulling their socks up recently, so there’s hope that the Wii-exclusive Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire will turn out to be one of the more substantial Wii efforts. It drew large crowds at Comic-Con, and has been frequently compared to God of War and Zelda. Developers Land Ho had a hand in Sega’s Panzer Dragoon series, so rest assured that they know their dragons.

It’s a bit worrying that the PlayStation 3 games that look the most promising are also the ones less likely to appeal to the causal gamer. LittleBigPlanet, we’re looking at you. As such, Loco Roco Cocoreccho is pretty much doomed to obscurity. Using the Sixaxis, it already looks much busier than the PSP original. There’s no sign of the black enemies though, which is probably down to Sony being billed as racist over their inclusion in the original. But well done on avoiding sticking a ‘2’ at the end of the title.

Another well done goes to Sierra for shunning the use of licenses for two of their upcoming titles. PROTOTYPE is by Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and Simpsons Hit & Run developers Radical Design, and appears similar to the last Hulk game only shinier and slicker. Again, the lead character is the result of a failed experiment. Then there’s WET, a third-person guns and swords affair with a red-haired feisty female lead. It’s being done by A2M, whose back catalogue includes nothing but cartoon and movie licenses. There’s nothing like a little change in the old routine once in a while.

If you’re in the mood for videos, then you might like to watch the new ones for Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, the zombie infested Dead Island, Ubisoft’s Leipzig Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 teaser and the Metal Slug ‘inspired’ Commando 07 on DS.

Q: Which of these three screenshots has been taken from an upcoming Wii racer?

A: The last one, which is – unbelievably – a shot from Midway’s Wii-exclusive Crusin’. The other two are from MSR and Roadsters on Dreamcast, both of which look immeasurably superior despite running on hardware that’ll be ten years old next year.

If the relativity unknown Torus Game can make Indy 500 Legends on Wii look respectable enough, then surely Midway can spare the manpower to buff up those rough looking polygons.

It’s not uncommon for videogame soundtracks to be released alongside a game, but there’s usually a price involved. Nicely, the orchestral soundtrack for the rather marvelous Bioshock has been made available to download for sweet nothing.

It clocks in at 23MB, and you can get it either by heading over to the Cult of Rapture website, or using the following direct link:

BIOSHOCK SOUNDTRACK, 23MB

After toning down Manhunt 2 and re-submitting it to the ESRB, Rockstar’s blood stained sequel now has a release date – 31st October – and a new M (Mature) rating.

That’s only for US gore-hungry gamers though – it’s not yet known if the BBFC will let the new version go on sale, or even if Rockstar will try again to get it on UK shelves.

If it doesn’t then you could always import the PSP version – provided cutting a man’s nads off using a pair of pliers sounds like your kind of thing. You sick puppy.

Xbox 360 sales should be on the up this week, thanks to the price drop and release of the black Elite edition. If you’re going to pick up a shiny new game to go with it, then Bioshock should be top of your list – it’s a first person shooter with both brains and beauty. Apparently Blockbuster are doing the tin version with a free faceplate for £34.99.

If RPGs are your thing though, then you’ve bought the wrong system. Just joking – and it’s not as if the PlayStation 3 and Wii are swarming with stat-packed epics. Anyway, Blue Dragon for 360. Reviews have been mostly positive so far, and it features character design from Dragon Ball Z artist Akira Toriyama and the music has been composed by Final Fantasy bod Nobuo Uematsu.

On other formats, the influx of EA’s annual sporting updates is upon us with Madden NFL 08 available on PlayStation 2 and DS, while PlayStation 2 also gets NASCAR 08: Chase for the Cup. Anno 1701 is the only other DS release this week. It’s published by Disney but don’t pass judgment just yet – it’s apparently quite good. Even Edge liked it, handing out an 8.

Next week we can all boogie on down.

A survey was recently carried out in Japan to discover what they consider most symbolic of good old England. The top three answers were fairly predictable: The Beatles, fish and chips, and Harry Potter. When English people were asked the same question about Japan their answers were Godzilla, Hello Kitty and vending machines selling used school girl knickers. Although this might not actually be true.

New term, new angst ridden Harry; new hardware, new ‘fully interactive’ Hogwarts. EA’s definition of ‘fully interactive’ is pushing it a bit, however; experience points are gained by lighting torches, fixing broken statues and hanging fallen pictures back on the wall, using spells that are gained early on in the game. You’re free to do what you fancy though – the school timetable has been thrown out of the window, leaving you to recruit the 26-strong Dumbledore’s Army and explore Hogwarts at your own leisure.

You can have more than one task on the go at once, while the map system is nicely done – simply select a place you want to visit and a set of ghostlike footprints will appear on the floor to lead you to your destination. Even so, there is an awful lot of backtracking – never mind being ‘the boy who lived’, in this game he’s ‘the boy who ran down lots and lots of corridors’. The talking paintings provide a few shortcuts as long as you have the right password, and it’s not as if the corridors are bland – even though it’s a multiformat release, it looks quite fancy in places and there’s a decent atmosphere, mostly provided by the random students nattering in corridors. “You belong in St. Mungo’s!” Cheers mate!

To get fellow wizards to join your secret army, most require you to carry out a favour, like find five talking gargoyle statues or shimmy along ledges and down drainpipes to retrieve a lost pair of binoculars. Later missions, particularly the ones that involve causing chaos in the school, are somewhat more inventive, such as re-arranging giant cogs on a clock to make it run backwards. Lessons only appear once you’ve carried out a sub-quest for a teacher, and even then they’re optional. Mini-games are present too, including Potter-ified variants of chess and patience.

The fact that not much happens in either the book or film has worked in EA’s favour – without any storyline constraints, the developers (who have a blatant love for all things Potter) have been able to create the ultimate Hogwarts experience. It’s without doubt the best movie tie-in to be released this year, although when you consider that the competition is made up of Rise of the Silver Surfer, Shrek the Third and Surf’s Up, it’s not that amazingly high praise.

Nyko’s Wii Party Station is something that you’re going to be in one of two minds about – you’ll either think it’s shit, or really shit.

Designed to match the Wii itself, it’s a white block with two beverage holders, a slot for your Wii remotes, a bowl for crisps or other snacks and an LCD score keeper. There’s also a separate attachment for dips and at the front of the unit there’s a fan just in case your mates stink your house up every time they come over.

It’s hard to believe that people actually get paid to design things like this.