That guy's a Maniac...

You've all seen these: The standard retail display for UK game sellers. There's a bunch of games, maybe organised alphabetically and then in pride of place a selection of 10 or 20 games next to some big numbers. This particular display was snapped at Currys/PC World/Tech Guys type store. You see them everywhere though, GAME, Gamestation, Toys'R'Us. This is the frontline of game retailing. The burning question is what the fuck is the reasoning behind the numbers? Is one better or worse than ten? Let's take a closer look at this particular display, snapped on the 13 December in detail. At number 1 is Wii Party. Could it be top seller? Or maybe a new release? At number 2 we have Just Dance and the Prince of Persia Wiimakes. Possibly top sellers still? Although I didn't think PoP did half as well as Just Dance. Nor was it half as fun. In at number three we have the Force Unleashed 2? Number 4 is both Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics and that classic game, Big ...

Right! It has been a week now. And Pokemon Pearl is fucking awesome! It is more of the same but with some fairly funky remixes. So what benefits does the DS bring to the series? Well… to be honest not that much. Most of the game is controlled with the D-Pad and DS buttons and there is not much cause to use the touch screen, you use the touch pad to select your pokemon attacks, thankfully the touch buttons are big and can be used by fingers and not the stylus. The only time the stylus really comes into play is the name input screen. There are other touch pad functions in the Pokétech, which is a device that shows up on the touch screen, it has a pedometer, the item finder, a clock, a calculator… all welcome additions to the pokemon world. Other than that the game Is playing along nicely with some rather interesting evolutions, including examples of sexual dimorphism, and allopatric speciation.