The E4 Blog:

You may have played our controversial game, Janey Thomson's Marathon (if you haven't, you've just gotta play it now!). It's a faithful recreation of the banned 1984 arcade game of the same name. The original was removed from arcades after reports that people were hospitalized with exhaustion after playing it.

It was thought that no original Janey Thomson's Marathon arcade machine existed, but since launching our web version of the game, a collector came forward to say he has a working version (pictured above)!

It's quite a find, so we've decided to team up with the guys behind Retro Reunited and hold a contest at their game festival. The game will be available to play at their event in Huddersfield on 12-13th September, 2009. Retro Reunited will hold a contest to find the best runner (hopefully, no one will end up in casualty this time).

For more info on the event and to buy tickets, see their website www.retroreunited.info

For anyone who can't make it, you'll have to make do with our wonderful web version. Some people have managed to beat it, but unless you play it for yourself you may never get to see what happens to that cow at around 25 miles in.

Mr Weatherman says September is going to be a wet one outside, but fear not: we're preparing to bring you loads of new comedy to keep you happy indoors.

Hit US comedy, How I Met Your Mother (visit the US website), is about to kick off its fifth season across the pond (proof that we're onto a good thing) and we’re going to be airing it from the very beginning every weeknight from the 4th September. The sitcom follows the stories of a guy called Ted (played by Josh Radnor) in 2030, as he recalls to his kids the events that led to him meeting their mother.

Supporting roles come from Ted’s best friend Marshall (Jason Segel) and his wife (Alyson Hannigan from Buffy). Those of you who have seen the hilarious (IMHO) Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies may also recognise Neil Patrick Harris (who played a parody of himself in the movie), as Barney, a smart-suited but slightly outrageous bachelor. If yer old, you may also remember him as Doogie Howser MD.

Returning for a second season on the 8th of September is the world’s favourite gay brick couple, Rick and Steve. If you’ve not joined the gang in their ‘gayest of gay ghettos’ at West Laghuna Beach, then pop along to the Rick and Steve site to catch up with the funniest clips from the first series, which aired last summer.

If you like your one-liners delivered by a flesh and blood comic rather than a bunch o' toys, keep your eyes peeled for Demetri Martin (visit his website). More 4 viewers may recognise him as The Daily Show’s ‘Senior Youth Correspondant’ and as a keytar player called Dimitri in Flight of the Conchords. He’ll be appearing on E4 soon in a one off special, Demteri Martin: Person, as well as Important Things with Demetri Martin (visit the US site).

Finally, if you are feeling a little bit chilly this summer, we’ve got just the thing to get you hot under the collar when Hollyoaks Later returns to our screens with an exclusive mini-series for E4.

As every good telly super sleuth knows, the first series of Veronica Mars will reach its thrilling finale this Thursday, 13th August.

On Wednesday, we'll give you a double dose of detective goodness, firstly airing episode 20, ‘M.A.D’ at the usual times of 7.15am and 11.00am with episode 21, ‘A Trip to the Dentist’ airing at a later-than-usual time of 11.55pm on Wednesday, 13th August.

‘A Trip to the Dentist’ will be the penultimate episode of season one and will raise the potential for edge-of-seat-viewing and frighten the faint at heart (so don’t say we didn’t warn you!). However, if you want to find out what dark deed happened to Veronica on the night of Shelley Pomroy’s party, we have a sneaking suspicion that you’ll be tuning in.

Also experiencing an ample helping of post-watershed content later this week is Colorado-based drama, Everwood. We’ll be showing episode 12 at the later time of midnight on Thursday 13th August rather than the usual time of 11am.

Once the post-watershed episodes of both Veronica Mars and Everwood have aired, both shows will return to their usual morning slots.

Bo'Selecta returns for a one-off Michael Jackson special later this year.

Leigh Francis is back behind the Jacko mask, as well as some new rubbery faces, such as Uri Geller and David Gest. The show will be a chronological look at Jacko’s life, blending iconic moments from his career with a mix of real celebrity talking heads (as well as some rubber-faced talking heads too).

If you're after some behind the scenes info, Leigh is already tweeting about recording the show (as well as writing all the usual guff he goes on about). Of course, the E4 Twitter also relays news of this and other E4 shows as we get it.

We'll have clips from the new show later this year, but here's a classic Bo'Selecta clip in the meantime:

The Inbetweeners are coming back for another term!

No that's not your comedy craving peepers decieving you; our favourite fish punching, briefcase carrying, caravan clubbing foursome are set to return to E4 for a third series in 2010.

Get ready for the new series by catching up on 4OD now.

Classic moments in previous series include Jay’s high pitched ‘football friend’ rant whilst treating a car like a trampoline, Will’s awful attempts at Yoda influenced seduction (‘Fiesty one you are!’) and wig related disasters at an Old People’s home.

After swotting up on your Will-worthy knowledge, give yourself a quizzing Mr Gilbert would be proud of with one of our Inbetweeners quizzes.

Sorry for the lack of blog updates. We've been hella busy with a big, game-related announcement which we've been plotting since the beginning of the year.

Games have been really popular on e4.com - not only the E4 Games site we launched last autumn, but the exclusive games we commissioned last year have also been big hits. So, we thought why not invent our very own online game festival? We can commission a ton of new and exclusive titles, make more In a Minutes, run weekly competitions and organise an online award ceremony that celebrates the best games on the web.

We'll run it over the sunny months of June, July and August and call it E4's Great British Summer of Games (because by the looks of the weather, you might as well stay in and play anyway).

So that's what we've done, with the centrepiece being 15 commissioned games from up-and-coming developers from across the globe – many of which have never made games for anyone other than themselves before. Here's a taster of the new titles that will be appearing on E4 Games over the coming weeks:

Air Pirates

We'd been watching the early work of Sweden-based Lo-Fi Minds from a safe, calculating distance, before we decided to get in touch and ask them to make a Flash game for us. They came up with Air Pirates, where you lead a band of raiders living in a secret base located in an inactive volcano (very James Bond, we know). By day you trade with merchants for food, ammunition and weapons, by night you monitor the radio waves for air traffic reports and launch your plane to hunt down some loot. Fly planes, get in dogfights, board enemy planes... at time of writing, the game's not complete, but it's looking pretty sharp.

Straw Hat Samurai 2
Straw Hat Samurai was runner up in our Grand Master Flash competition last year. When we started chatting to the game creator, Luther Chan, about possibilities for a sequel, we just had to commission him to make it. It features so much more than the original – giant boss battles, a revamped fighting system that allows for combos, air combat and finishing moves, plus loads of new enemies.

Galactic Commandos
Another one by Luther, this time a platform puzzle game set in the future. Control three commandos - each with their own strengths, weaknesses and special abilities, through 16 levels of brain-busting action.

Janey Thomson's Marathon
We like working with Rob Manual from b3ta.com – not only because his ginger barnet means we're able to fulfil our hair colour diversity quota, but also because he makes great games and knows tons of other people who do too. One of the games out of Rob's camp is a faithful emulation of the banned 1984 arcade game, Janey Thomson's Marathon. Matt Round headed up the project and has done a great job in simulating the arcade version to work online. It's the kind of game that'll have you hooked for hours.

The Rather Difficult Game
Another by Matt Round. Can you herd cats, nail jelly to the wall and put toothpaste back in the tube AT THE SAME TIME? Finally, this question will be answered.

Curse of the Red Ninja
Allen Henderson, who made Get Lost for us last year, has crafted another ridiculous adventure game. Similar humour as before, but the game is MASSIVE. Seriously. There's an achievement system and even though Allen gave us a walkthrough guide, we've still only managed to get about half way through.

Name That Copyright Free Tune
Surfing dogs, farting bears, tramps on dinghies. There's not really much else we can say about this, other than it's made by David Homfray and it's awesome.

That's just a taster of the games we've got in store. Robin Allen, who made Cowabanga for us last year, is also working on a new title. And after being fans of The Impossible Quiz for yonks, we're really pleased that the evil genius behind the series, Glenn Rhodes, is making something for us too.

OK, so when's all this out?
When can you get your hands on all these new games and other exciting stuff? How about we release a couple of them next week, starting Monday 1st June and then put a new one out there every Friday, with competitions, quizzes and other fun stuff in between? Yeah, that sounds like a plan. It's all happening on E4 Games. Be there!

Our Skins Twitter feed hit 10,000 followers today. Watch out, Ashton Kutcher!

It's rising all the time and has a few famous fans too, so if you're on Twitter and want the latest Skins news, follow it here: http://twitter.com/skins

We also have a new Twitter thang going on, at http://twitter.com/E4com - follow that one to receive a link to the best game we've found online each day, plus the occasional bit of banter.

On the subject of Skins, the website has been nominated for Best Cross Media Project at the AOP Awards. See the full list of nominations.

We really can't stop boasting about ourselves these days, can we?

MEGA thx for all the votes! We wouldn't have won it without ya. On the Skins website you'll find...

• More details and comments on the Skins blog.
  
• Photos of Kaya, Hannah and more of the Skins team at the BAFTAs.

Last night's debut episode of the second series of The Inbetweeners was the highest rated original commission on E4 this year. It beat BBC Two's Graham Norton Show by more than 50,000 viewers in the 10pm slot, as reported on the Guardian website. That'll learn him for defecting to the other side (and by that we mean from Channel 4 to the BBC).

If you were one of the 1 million or so people who watched it, we hope you enjoyed it!

See preview clips of next week's episode on The Inbetweeners site.