This week: We regret that due to an unfortunate incident involving a row of innocent shoppers and a machine gun Game Kid cannot be with us this week. Instead, while our respected gaming satirist busily hatches a cunning plan to escape from prison (his old washer woman routine was foiled when his skirts snagged on rusty nail) we have the doubtful pleasure of leaving you the hands of his Scottish cousin, McGame Kid (TM). Already he's getting all peripheral on us...

Och aye me wee ones; top of the morning to you (cough) and, bless my sporran, it's good to be wid ya (cough), all the way from the bonnie glens, so it is.

You know, McGame Kid (TM) was wandering through the heather the other day, lonely as a traffic warden in a restaurant, when a nagging question occurred to him. It was this: We have games where you can use guns (like Time Crisis), and games where you can use steering wheels (like Formula 1), so why can't we have games where you use both?

Yes - I can see that this thistle of a question has been bothering you too. So just to give those industry types out there a little nudge in the right direction so we can all sleep easily in our beds at night, in time dishonoured fashion McGame Kid has come up with a couple of ideas of his own...

Getaway Driver

It's the obvious one to go for, really, but the best ideas in life are often the simplest, and this game has got 'hit' written all over it. Imagine. You're outside a bank; the engine is running and you're busy pretending to read a newspaper while drumming your fingers nervously on the steering wheel.

Suddenly you hear shots. A woman screams. There are more shouts, then the sound of running feet, and then the car door is torn violently open. Hastily your accomplices stuff themselves in the back as one of them screams "Drive!" Game on. Digging the idea? Yes it's multi-tap murder and mayhem time! One player drives while the others lean out and fire out the side windows or though the back and try and take out the convoy of cops in pursuit.

It's a bit like Grand Theft Auto, really, only this game is a 3D first-person affair and you'll be tooled up with shooters and steering wheels. A split screen would enable the driver to concentrate on driving and the others to concentrate on the cops (solo bank robbers would have to attempt to do both, though - tricky, eh?). Naturally there would be a variety of suitably famous car chase locations to choose from, the best of them being 'that hill' in San Francisco.

Other treats on offer would include plenty of driving down the wrong side of the freeway, jaunts around shopping malls, log trucks that pull out in front of you and take the roof of your car off, bridge-jumping, road-block busting and perfectly executed displays of driving on two wheels down narrow alleyways...

Next Week:
3D rabbit shooting from the back of a Land Rover...