Portable powerhouse

In today's column in the paper, read about the first laptop that truly cuts the mustard as a games machine while not weighing a ton or looking like a pile of melted grey goo.

And - surprise! - the machine comes from Dell. The Inspiron XPS (generation 2) can handle monstrously demanding games such as Battlefield 2 which even desktops can struggle. Plus, with a 17-inch screen and packing some powerful speakers, the XPS doesn't just run the games, they look and sound the part too.

One thing that gets me, though, is that the XPS battery lasts barely for an hour of gaming on battery juice, so why get a laptop at all to play games? Unless space or portability is an absolute necessity, a desktop is always gonna be cheaper and, yes, better. You could spend three grand speccing up the XPS to the max. Be sure you want it that bad.

Reviewed in games is the outstanding God of War for PS2. With a criminal lack of publicity for what could be the platform's best ever title, GoW may not burn up the charts but it would be insane to miss out on a fantastically varied, sumptuous-looking and compelling game. And yes, that is Linda Hunt doing the voiceover.

Worth a look for the kids is Madagascar, an all-formats little number which bucks the trend of crap movie tie-ins.