Quiet in July; less so in August. Gamescom and PAX dictated the schedules, but our news and preview links have been well-worn elsewhere so we’ll stick to the social media side of things here.

Celebs! August’s Kinect/famous face crossovers weren’t limited to gaming events, with Martina Hingis’ appearance followed by the less sporty and feminine but more musical and stubbly Example, who gave it a shot in Ibiza and popped up in a video to talk games later. We also got a Golden Joystick nomination in the Sports Game category, which may result in celebrity association depending on who hosts it this year. How about Ortis Deley? Little bit of topical satire.

More awards and subjective list placings: three years (’91, ’94, 2000) in GamesRadar’s landmarks of gaming were represented by Rare titles, GoldenEye topped a separate list of British games, and there were solid showings for us in the best SNES game rundowns erupting out of the internet left, right and centre on the occasion of the SNES’ anniversary: IGN’s feature was brought to our attention first, then PC Mag and GamesRadar chipped in. Rareware Archives covered crossover tunes and replayability, while Diddy Kong took the surreal fight to Goombella in the first round of GameSpot’s Game Sidekick showdown.

As always, email to the Rare website came in a multitude of uncanny shapes and forms, from early through to late in the month. The web team moved offices and the Birmingham team sat out riots, but Cherry 7UP made things better. We saw nostalgia for Alien 8 and Rare predecessor Ultimate, learned some new words and found a new favourite Spanish actor and game title. In the world of video, our search for Friday Sports stars turned up its first successful entrants, while It’s Mr. Pants got played and one man’s Rare-heavy best man speech went down in history.

And that was that, pretty much… but September’s going off as we speak! Stay informed by tracking us on Twitter and Sporty or Rare variants of Facebook. We’ll welcome you with the awkward but well-meant courtesy of in-laws from that disreputable cul-de-sac on the other side of town.