Following on from Part 2 and Part 1, it's time to present a little more randomness from the British video game retail scene - where there are plenty of interesting oddities (and indeed, high quality games!) that you don't get to see in North America. Here goes:

Though it finally got released in North America in late 2006, with two iterations of the series now available, the Singstar franchise has been blasting Europe and Australia since 2004, with eight PS2 versions thus far. It definitely works a lot better for the post-pub crowd, mind you, and even the U.S. tracklist feels a bit Anglophile (probably one of the reasons it hasn't stood out), but it's a shame we didn't get more iterations outside Europe. (There are even regional variations within Europe, btw!)

Nintendo's Touch! Generations brand, showcasing its top casual and 'mainstream' focused titles, "..was launched in Europe on June 9, 2006 with the release of Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?", according to Wikipedia. The brand is mentioned but not really pushed THAT hard in the States, so I thought it was fascinating to see, in HMV in South London, an entire Touch! Generations-branded rack of games.

While here, I have discovered something quite wonderful - a number of the British-specific UMDs are actually Region 0, which means they will play on American PSPs. Sure, UMDs are hardly 'cool', but Series 1 of surreally awesome The Mighty Boosh definitely is, and HMV were clearing out the double-disc UMD for UKP5 ($10), so I picked one up for myself and fellow Gama editor Brandon Boyer. They also have League Of Gentlemen Series 1 and various other Brit shows (even a little Doctor Who!) on UMD. So obscurists, feast now.

Fun! I think we'll have one more of these before I run out of pictures - and depending on whether there's any fun game stores in Finland, there may even be more, tragically.