Super Smash Bros Brawl allergic to dust

Life can be cruel. After waiting years for Super Smash Bros Brawl to arrive, it turns out that a number of people have been unable to run the game. Turns out that if the disc drive lens in your Wii is even a little bit dusty, it might have trouble reading data off the SSBB dual-layer DVD. The solution? Fill out this form, and send your Wii off to get cleaned. Nintendo are going to shoulder all the shipping and repair costs, so that's all well and good. In the meantime, it's probably best to pop your copy of SSBB into a cupoboard and pretend it doesn't exist until your console returns. We can't help but think that the SSBB manual is going to be one of the most impatiently well-thumbed pamphlets ever made...

Insane girl and talking bunny in bid for freedom

It takes a lot to raise a smile here at GamerSquad, embedded as we are on the frontline of gaming, slowly withering under a barrage of blustering press releases and breathless announcements of the 17th iteration of games that weren't all that good to begin with. Once in a while, though, we do have to give credit where it's due. Daedelic Entertainment's press release announcing their new PC point and click adventure game Harvey and Edna: The Breakout, got a gruff, grudging chuckle out of us:

'In a truly insane move, Daedalic Entertainment has announced Edna and Harvey: The Breakout, a new point & click adventure game that will make do without real-time particle effects, parallax occlusion mapping or integrated physics engine... Edna and Harvey brings back the good old days of adventure gaming, when animals were more articulate and 800x600 was considered high-definition.'

It bodes well for the game, which promises a look at the lighter side of wrongful imprisonment and mental illness. The game is initially due in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in May 2008, with other territories to follow as soon as - we presume -  the necessary deals are made.

Trailer Park: Bangai-O Spirits (Gameplay)

 

Some games - Animal Crossing, for instance - are good to curl up with in bed as you wind down at the end of the day. Others, such as Bangai-O Spirits, seem somehow less suitable for a pre-sleepy time gaming fix while the wife drifts off to the land of nod beside you. There's certainly no lack of bang! going on here, and the regular appearance of fruity pick ups only adds the frantically bizzare nature of it all. If it plays anywhere near as well as it looks, Bangai-O Spirits is going to be a must for the DS, though a good pair of headphones is probably recommended to prevent your fellow commuters from clubbing you to death with your handheld.

Sign up for Multiwinia

There are few gaming companies with more street cred than Introversion, so it follows that getting in early on their next game will make you a struttin', finger-snapping hep cat - or at least as near as is possible for game-obsessed fanboys like us. Anyway, Introversion have put out the call for people interested in beta testing Multiwinia, the multiplayer version of Darwinia that they have in the pipeline. Better be quick, though, because it'll fill up quick smart. Go! Now!

Zak and Wiki demo now online

Capcom have put together a web-based demo of their highly rated puzzle game, Zak and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. If you click on the 'Gameplay' tab, you'll find a demo level that involves faffing about with keys, water and ice. We're not going to tell you how to solve the level, purely because the joy of these things comes from working out the puzzle yourself - any scandalous rumours that we couldn't work it out and eventually quit out of the whole thing with significantly lowered self-esteem are simply not true.