Much to everyone's relief, Andy Smith finally finished Planescape "shredded though someone's bowels" Torment this week.

When we say 'finished', however, we don't mean he actually completed it. Oh no. You see, after getting near the end he found that he kept on dying and was unable to continue. And that, after weeks of playing the bloody thing, was just too much for him: losing it completely and missing the outro, he chucked the disc in the bin with a couple of choice words (namely fuck and it).

"I felt cheated," he announced in the pub afterwards.

Having let himself down so badly through his own sheer, majestic crapness, he then faced the problem of what to with his days again. After all, finishing a game is a bit like finishing with a girlfriend: it leaves a huge gap in one's life.

Finding the idea of throwing himself into work unappealing, in the end he did what you always do when you lose a girlfriend: he went out and got himself another one. Final Fantasy VIII, in his case. Unfortunately.

Why 'unfortunately', you cry? Final Fantasy VIII is a splendid game!

And verily it is. But it's not Andy's kind of game. After booting it up he not only proceeded to skip the glorious state-of-the-art intro, he also decided to ignore the instructions completely. Ten minutes later he was putting the disc away, claiming he "couldn't get his head round it".

"A bloody heathen," Gideon called him.

Today though, we were hoping to report that our most senior games expert is once more back on firm ground (he's started Close Combat), and we actually believed his early assurances that he was doing well - until we heard a commotion coming from his part of the office:

"Doh! I've just pressed the wrong bloody button..."