It's that time of the year. That one time where I spend most of the time of the day sat at the computer and absorbing all the information from more games than you can possibly think of.

I've been following E3 since 2004, and I can say that these were easily the crapiest conferences at E3 yet. Part of the reasons could be to do with no big console or handheld anouncements, or even anouncements of top selling exclusives. But the shows where very lackluster. It seemed that only Sony tried to keep me entertained, as they showed the most games.

Microsoft's conference was really borring. But at least I was interested in some of the stuff shown. When they were going to show off LIPS, a singstar like game, a woman singer called Duffy with a terrible voice was about to show it off. Luckily for us Gamespot watchers, the content was block. To keep us satified they gave us Dancing Mastercheif! What's sad is, that was easily the most memorable part of the Microsoft Conference.

I can't believe it, but Nintendo's conference was terrible. It was a flop. It was hardly entertaining or interesting like the past 3 Nintendo conferences. Very few games were shown, and little gameplay was shown altogether. The segment on Animal Crossing seemed to last forever. You know, I'm not a fan of the game, I don#t particuly want to have to make a coffe, come back upstairs and still wait another 5 minutes. But they had to talk 10 minutes about Pokemen, some unimpresive snowboarding game for the Wii board and Wii music which looks completly uninteresting. The only thing that did get me excited was the anouncement of GTA DS. That was it. Only one thing I now know, that I didn't know before from watching the conference. It didn't help they did more talking than Bill Gates could ever do.

Then there was SONY. Right from the introduction, I knew this was going to be the best conference. From the flashy stage to the brilliant array of games. SONY had games, games and more games. There was alot of talking in between, and repeated trailers, but at least I actually enjoyed this.

But yestarday wasn't all that bad, because the Gamespot stage demos were superb. Lengthy demo's of some of the best games such as Resistance 2, Ratchet and Clank: Quest For Booty, inFamous, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Prince of Persia... yeah, it was top quality games non-stop. (It was so good, that my name got shouted out 4 times)

I still need my E3 conference emblem to have Microsoft and Nintendo light up. Despite a rewatch, they're still not there, hmmmm.

Recently, I decided to download Phase for my Ipod. I've been wanting to give it a try for a while now, and I finally have my hands on it. It's a good rhythm game -- about as good as a rhythm game can get on an Ipod. Developed by Harmonix, Phase is an adictive game for the Ipod. So much so that my click wheel has started to come off.

Phase is very easy to pick up and play. You select a song you want to play, and your in the action. You press the left side of the click wheel, the middle button and the right side to hit the corresponding notes. When there is a 'Sweep' of notes, you have to slide your finger across the click wheel corresponding to the position of the sweep of notes. Tough, this is rather awkward when using the Ipod Nano model, as the click wheel is tiny, and it may not recognise your finger sliding across at the worse of times.

The game is rather punishing in it's difficulty. Even with an accuracy of over 90%, you can still fail a song. Rather than going Halo, it's back to health packs -- and a limited number at that. Each checkpoint (The amount of which varys depending on the song length) has a set number of stars which you need. You will loose/gain lives depending on how many stars are needed for the checkpoint. If it requires 4 stars, and you only have 2, then you will loose 2 lives. There are score multipliers for every number of notes you hit in a row, which helps you to recover if you're near a checkpoint.

Phase does a good job of recognising your music, and planting notes that match the music. Tough, it does only work well with songs with strong beats. Guitar heavy songs, muffled drums and reverbed vocals can create a random sloppy mess (Sorry Korn fans). Sweeps are hit or miss. They appear when the music suddenly changes in pitch or volume. This works great with synths, but is abruptive during heavy metal and crazy Jimi Hendrix riffs. Luckily, there is a limit to how many can apear at a time, so techno enthusiasts will have a bit more to do other than sliding their finger left and right.

Choosing the songs you want Phase to recognise is a rather uneasily lengthy task. When you have brought and downloaded the game, there will be a new playlist created called 'Phase Songs'. Only songs that you drag into this playlist, will be playable on Phase. Since you can only put one song into a playlist at a time, this can become frustrating. Also, it may take a few attempts to sync your Ipod, before it recognises the playlist itself. It would be much more convenient if it would just work with all the songs that are on your Ipod.

One major annoyance I have with Phase, is that it is very easy to accidentally reset your Ipod mid-game. Not only have you reset the settings and high scores within the game, you have defaulted all the settings on your Ipod. This can become very frustrating.

For just £4, Phase is a very nice game. It will work with any song you want it to play, tough some songs will play much better than others. Controls may feel clumsy, but you will get used to it.

Phase loves:

In Pieces - Linkin Park
In The Belly Of A Shark - Gallows
Land of Confusion - Disturbed
Duality - Slipknot
Pork and Beans - Weezer
Technical Difficulties - Julien K

Phase Hates:

Korn

UPDATE: You HAVE to convert songs to AAC to play them on Phase. The game doesen't tell you that until you've put them onto the Phase playlist, transfered the songs onto your Ipod and then you attempt to play them.