Winter in my part of the world doesn’t know the meaning of ‘curb your enthusiasm’. Its record-setting feats of frostbite and tendency to crack down on any unfrozen square inch of earth make living as me that little extra bit miserable. For regular fans of the outdoors, things must be even worse, because they actually want to leave the house once in a while and that can cost you dearly in ice-broken vertebrae.

There is some hope, even in winter of a near-nuclear variety. That hope is called skate.. The first period is part of the title and included for emphasis; the second period is to end the sentence and is included for emphasis. I emphasize to you that typically I find EA games abhorrent, but that skate, unlike so many of them, captures the essence of the titular verb so well that I’d swear I were right in the thick of the rail-grinding, half-piping, ollie-ooping skateboarding action, if I actually knew what that felt like. At the very least, with its great views and Hollywood-worthy visuals, skate makes you feel like you’re holding the camera and calling the shots for an indie documentary… or it would, if I knew what that felt like either.

I think the most fun to be had in skate is just playing around with things you couldn’t do in real life. So much fun that, come rain, or shine, or sleet, or hail as big as your face, you might want to try the real thing. It’s available on Xbox360 and that’s the version I’ve played, but I don’t plug the PS3 offerings enough, so I will because I think I can, here.

I could say the tabloids have gotten to me and that headline, but no one ever heard of a happy marriage in a tabloid… misdirected-anger-fueled ZING! No I did not just have a break-up that stuff went on the lawn by itself.

… oh games, you make everything possible! Even two genres bent to such a magnitude that one little disc could nary contain them both, you have made possible! Case in point: Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, evincing great marketing strategy for an actual worthwhile product. This excerpt from a conversation that may or may not have happened proves everything:

Visionary Designer: “We want to make this great puzzle game with these gems that can grow to exceedingly valuable proportions and then go BOOM, and time-triggered chain reactions, and TIMEBOMBS! …but everyone is too busy playing Street Fighter to care.

“What should we do?”

History-making Exec: “Take the fanbase of Street Fighter in with a great marketing strategy for an actual worthwhile product. That means you’ll have to make the name obscenely long - those suckers always fall for that. The characters can be chibi!”

I think I was enamored of this game on Xbox Live precisely because it was such an outlandish proposition - the puzzle game with the fighting game paint job, it actually profits by the wildly-gesturing, maniacally-taunting characters. Like so many kart racers, one can feel as though having played Tetris means having played just about every other puzzle game out there, but not so with Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (henceforth to be known as SPFIIT: because I’m just too tired). The most generic-sounding thing is instead a thing of sublime gaming beauty. Not restricted to the Xbox360 Live Arcade, SPFIIT is available on PSX/1 as seen here, as well as Dreamcast, and Game Boy Advance, making one of the finest puzzle games of all time available to virtually everyone on the planet.

You’re officially out of excuses not to do what the crazy girl tells you.