Ever since Satoru Iwata has taken helm of Nintendo, the company’s direction has changed radically. Completely new consoles have been launched, new gameplay mechanics have been devised and new intellectual properties have been created. Geist is a beacon amidst this more diverse portfolio that sums up a new Nintendo. Taking a stale genre like the FPS and mixing it up to create a hybrid of styles is part of this fresh, globally aware initiative.

Well, then, LocoRoco... where do you begin? Sony have at last come up with a game tailored for simple portable fun; something they can finally, maybe, hopefully lord it over Nintendo with. It's a bloody good stab at it too. Out go streetgangs, lazily-coded ports, and duff control schemes and in comes simplicity and an attachment to squealing emotive little singing blobs of colour. Are we on for a win here? It certainly seems that way. Reading the video game forums out there (not recommended), you'd think this was the second coming.

I first saw Kamen Rider Hibiki at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show. A man with Down's Syndrome was playing it, thrashing the controller with gay abandon with no idea what he was doing. He was simply having the time of his life, and he was surrounded by kids that were obviously real Kamen Rider fans pissed off that they couldn't get near the game as a result. That, right there, is such a good analogy for Hibiki that I don't know if I even need to bother to write this review.

Let me tell you this now: Odama is fantastic. A pinball game set on the battlefield of feudal Japan? The premise is clearly genius, but so out there that the final game could have fallen anywhere along the scale. A brainless pinball mash-em-up? A childishly simple strategy game with flippers tacked on the side? It could have all gone horribly wrong... but it hasn't. The army commanding and pinball smashing fuses perfectly, with immensely compelling arcade gameplay the result.

An Ys realtime strategy game? An RTS where you're mining Cleria instead of Tiberium? A production-based skirmish system where, instead of building supertanks and secret weapons, you're churning out little guys with red hair and armoured pyjamas? A DRAG AND CLICK WARGAME THAT USES THE DS STYLUS!?

Well, bugger me! We'll have a bit of THAT!

Sigh. Another dark corridor, another twisted and mutated beast to pump full of plasma, lead or shrapnel. No doubt when I get off this level I’ll be treated to a brief trot through a courtyard or maybe a field, before being forced back underground into the “mimsy” darkness. Sound familiar? Well, don’t fret. There is a cure for gritty first-person shooter overload in the guise of Outrigger – a counter-terrorism themed FPS from Sega-AM2. The only “Rainbow” in this game is in its use of colour.