We’ve had a lot of interest in Road Runner since yesterday, with a lot of people wanting hints and tips. Well, we’re certainly some way off the current high score on Twin Galaxies, but we can give you a few pointers.

First off you need to play with analogue controls, as a digital pad will stop you from gaining the tongue bonus. Whenever Road Runner allows Wile Coyote to get near him, you’ll eventually gain 2,000 points after a limited amount of time. You’ll know if you’re doing this correctly because Wile’s arms will be outstretched. By using this hand tip we’ve been able to double our score for the first level.

Be warned though, controlling the analogue stick is quite tricky and it’s going to take a fair while before you fully master it. Another handy piece of advice is that you should never miss a seed. If you do your multiplier immediately resets to zero, undoing all your hard work. Loosing a life makes no difference to the multiplyer, so sometimes it’s best to simply cut your loses and let Wile get you.

You need a steady hand to get into the big leagues.

Regular readers of the forum will know that I have something of a soft spot for Magic the Gathering, so it should come as no surprise to learn that I’m quite enamoured with the game that’s just gone up on Xbox Live Arcade.

Available for 800 points, Duels of the Planeswalkers is a pretty good representation of the original game, and while certain elements have been dumbed down for this new iteration, it’s nevertheless well worth picking up.

The included cards are from the Magic 2010 core set that will be available in July.

The game itself is split into a variety of different sections. There’s a campaign that sees you facing off against increasingly stronger opponents, as well as the ability to play online, either solo or with another player. Best of all though is a selection of puzzles that give you one turn to win the game. It’s a brilliant little edition that was extremely popular in the long defunct magazine The Duelist.

The actual game itself is very solid and plays very well. Although the stack has been removed (something that will no doubt annoy hardcore fans) the core gameplay is still intact and it’s as good as it has ever been. Beat an opponent in the campaign mode and you’ll be rewarded with a card that can be added into your core deck. It’s a nice little touch that harks back to the old days of ante, but it does highlight one of the biggest issues that we have with the game.

Presentation is absolutely superb. It's always easy to work out exactly what's going on.

To keep everything on a fair and even level, Duels of the Planeswalkers deck editing capabilities are virtually non-existent. Wizards apparently want to ensure that people can play online and not have to worry about facing killer decks, so they have ensured that you can’t mix and match from all your available cards.

Deck building in one of Magic’s greatest strengths, so it’s a real pity that it’s been implemented so poorly here. On the other hand, Wizards is offering additional downloadable decks in the future, so future online play should hopefully have a solid following.

It’s obviously not a patch on the official online version of Magic that’s available on the PC, but this is nevertheless a fantastic introduction to the game, and for the measly price point, something that everyone should have in their collections.

The above clash was always going to end in tears. That's a 7/7 monster you're taking on.

We’ve not had a high score competition for a while, so why not join us by playing Atari’s Road Runner. Yes it’s controls are best described as skittery as hell, and the less said about those loopy theme tunes the better, but we still cannot tear ourselves away from it.

This lunchtime drew quite a crowd from our sister mags gamesTM and Xbox 360 as Stuart and myself went head to head and while Stuart was able to make further progress than myself, he missed a few seed mounds.

Anyone who’s played Road Runner will know that missing seeds resets your multiplier, so if you want a chance of beating our high scores then you’re going to have to pick up every last one.
We’ll give you an update if we succeed in beating our current efforts, but in the meantime here’s some scores to try and beat.