Haven't got too long to chat this month - I've got to get down to Games Exchange with this enormous box full of terrible rushed-out Christmas games.

Woo hoo!

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Coo, I don't know, you wait all year for a half-decent video game, then three million awful ones arrive all at once, for no other reason than that it's nearly December.

But of course, December is when all the good ones arrive too, so you've got to play/demo/read about all of them to make sure you don't miss anything.

It's almost as if the games business thought gamers were still all 12 years old, and had all their games bought for them by their mums.

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Good old The Games Business, eh? Still the absurd barrage of releases around this time of year makes things very difficult for all of us.

(All my poor old magazine-writing chums, for example, have to write a whole extra issue - dated "Christmas" - in order to squeeze all the games in, and for no extra money either.)

So, in order to help everyone negotiate the seasonal avalanche, I've come up with a useful cut-out-and-throw-away series of handy, easy-to-remember tips.

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Hard-pressed reviewers! Here's a top tip for quickly working out whether sports games are good, or rubbish.

Start a one-player game using all the default settings. Put the joypad down and relax in your reviewing chair with a nice cup of tea and a stopwatch.

Time how long it takes the computer opposition to score against you.

Example: ISS64 - 42 seconds ("Good"). NHL 98 - 19 minutes ("Rubbish"). See how easy it is? Now you try.

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If that's too tricky (or if you haven't actually got as long as 19 minutes to review the game in), try this one:

Count the minimum number of separate intro/credit/options/loading screens you have to plough through before you can actually start playing the game. Score double for ones you can't skip through with the fire button.

Starting at 100%, knock 20% off the score for every one over five. End of review. (Try it with a game you've already reviewed - it really works!)

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Official Playstation Magazine readers! Got a limited amount of cash, and can't decide which games are "worth buying"?

Don't panic - they all are!

(According to PSM's own figures, out of the 300 games they've reviewed so far, a whopping 260 are "worth buying". PSM's lowest-scored Playstation games ever, of which there are just two, get the rating "borderline crap")

So, as you see, there have been NO crap Playstation games EVER - it's Official!

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Running out of time. Better hurry.

People who think a PC would be a good buy for playing games on - wake up!

Anyone who thinks they've got any real influence over what happens in Final Fantasy VII - stop dreaming! Wake up!

Anyone who DOESN'T think video game characters are better than real people - look at the evidence! Wake up!