The whole crew seems to have been playing a bunch of Flash games - have you tried a free game lately? Pen15 calls in to ask about fighting game controls and whether or not simpler is better. Our decision? It's a dumb question. Then we talk about hype and let Rich prove that he walks around with sparkles in his eyes and fuzzies in his cockles. Alon lets it fly and tries to debunk the hype.

Street Fighter IV's life in 3D has Ara scared that the developers won't be able to live up to the challenge. Ara also gives his new weekly PSA on how not to stalk someone over XBOX Live. Ken, past designer of children's games, tells us about his experience and Alon wonders why no one bothered to take into account what children actually like when making the games.

Is Activision the playground bully of the video game industry? Well, we're not sure, but one thing we are sure of is that GameSpot is a house of lies. Ara and Rich confuse Alon by each having opposing opinions of two games they recently tried, Burnout Paradise and Culdcept Saga. We also wonder why it is that girls apparently prefer 2D games to the 3D variety. Apparently Yoshi has something to do with it.

This week Alon gives his stock tips after working to award a company $185 million in a US Federal Court. He also tells a story about a friend's brain not being able to handle the complexity of the Wii Remote and relays some complaints about Trauma Center New Blood for the Wii (but only because it's such a fun game). Ara rejoins the topic of game reviews and provides evidence that they often aren't even written by their supposed authors. Rich, by the way, has abandoned us for the week.

We're joined by the Executive Editor of The Escapist (escapistmagazine.com), Julianne Greer. Without much prodding at all, she readily agrees with our completely fact-based opinion that C|Net is the devil and fired Gerstmann because he overbaked the Thanksgiving turkey. This week's lesson - keep it at 325 degrees and baste often. She also gives her review of the PlayStation 2 game, The Red Star... "I give it five stars."