If like me you're impatient when it comes to waiting for PAL conversions but at the same time reluctant to have the innards of your machine tinkered with (for fear of warranty issues) the much anticipated release of Datel's 'Freeloader' for the Gamecube could not have come sooner because as you'll all no doubt know Nintendo aren't exactly speedy when it comes to bringing their AAA titles to our shores.

For those not in the know, Datel have been working on what some would see as the Holy Grail for European gamers. Freeloader is a nifty piece of software that 'tricks' your GC into thinking it's an NTSC machine be that Japanese or US, therefore allowing you to play imported games months before and in some cases ever before hitting your local game supplier.

So what do you get for your money? Well, in all honesty not a great deal but this is what makes Freeloader so simple to use. Inside the box you'll find the Freeloader disk together with a rather thin but comprehensive instruction manual. Aside from owning a Gamecube, an NTSC compatible TV and an imported game this is all you'll need to get yourself up and running. For review purposes I managed to get hold of US versions of Metroid Prime and Resident Evil Zero.

The manual gives descriptions of three different ways to get your foreign title working but I found the standard loading method to work fine. All you do is put the Freeloader disk in your GC, switch on the power and wait for the Freeloader screen to appear. Once this appears is simply a matter of opening the GC whipping out the Freeloader disk, replacing it with your imported game and closing the lid. Hey presto! You're playing an imported game on your PAL GC. It's worth remembering that an extra memory card will be needed if you plan on saving in a JAP game due to the way in which the GC formats the cards but hey it's no hardship really.

Both titles worked perfectly via Freeloader every time and it's clear at this stage at least that Freeloader is well worth the money. Despite some hiccups with an earlier version of the software (RE Zero was one of the few incompatible games) this latest version, which is 1.06 if you're interested, seems to work well with both of two test games. Whether ALL future titles will work with this current version of Freeloader is anyone's guess but at the moment it's nigh on essential European gamers get themselves a copy, if only to play the forthcoming Zelda update out later this month.