What's this? A love simulation? With a strategy twist? Oh yes indeed! Rainbow Angel on the Dreamcast is another of those bizarre Japanese offerings. This time you get to raise a female warrior to defeat an evil, um, thing that has taken control of the King. In order to succeed, you'll need to train the young girl in the ways of the warrior, as well as the ways of lurve. Maybe they should have called it 'Pork Sword'.

In a week virtually devoid of good demos, the Future Gamer demo ferret has really had his work cut out. He's now safely back up our collective trouser leg with a lovely little stash for you. First up is Mortyr, a first-person shooter with Nazis and guard dogs - very Wolfenstein 3D. Next we've got Force 21, a real-time strategy set in an imaginary war between China and the US. If that's all a bit too violent, relax on the slippery slopes with Winter Race 3D. It's also a bit quiet on the patch front, although the ferret did find a Voodoo3 fix for Machines. You can find them all here.

New additions to the Hints and Tips database include Pop 'n' Music on the Dreamcast, Kingpin: Life of Crime on the PC, Warzone 2100 on the PlayStation and Pokemon Snap on the N64.

As yet another week of the summer flies by, the Future Gamer Forum is still suffering from a shortage of new games to discuss. Thankfully, the Star Wars craze that gripped the Forum last week has vanished as quickly as Jar Jar's popularity in the movie. Nevertheless, some time has been spent addressing other burning gaming issues. The arrival of the UK Dreamcast at Future Gamer Towers has lead to excitement, as well as a game of 'I Spy' - "Where's this 60MHz switch thing then?" They have looked as far and wide as "next to the serial port", to the realms of the "underside" without success. And we trust them to bring us cutting edge news from the gaming world each week, huh?

Alexander Moller has been taking up so much of the Forum's time with his ranting that regulars are beginning to suspect that he might be Patrick Gannon in disguise. Possibly the most popular thread of the week has been regarding what the Future Gamer Clan's slogan should be. So far, ideas have ranged from terrible to... well, worse, so anybody with a creative mind is urgently needed! One surprise so far has been the lack of Dreamcast conversation within the ranks, despite the fact that the machine is less than two months away. Hopefully discussion on the matter should heat up as we get closer to the autumn launch. If you want to spark the DC issue or bring up a new topic (so long as it doesn't involve Alexander Moller, Jar Jar, or people saying they're off on holiday) click right here. Until next week...