To sort this great mystery out once and for all I went and asked prominent psycologist Dr Sigmund Freud. 'The Frood Dude' , as he has come to be known in recent weeks following a shock appearence at San Dimas High, had this to say:

"Well, we have to notice that it is a hand, not just any hand, but a masculine, controlling, Master hand. This hand controls the phallic little figure people. It wants tactile contact with them. We can presume this is unequivocally linked with the player's desire to masturbate at the sight of various Nintendo mainstays beating each other to death. Humans are polymorphously perverse cretures and can derive pleasure from and number of objects. However, I feel that it goes a little deeper than that.

The unconscious always desires the phallus. Males are afraid of castration - losing their phallus or masculinity to another male. Through the medium of simulated violence they castrate their opponants. The Master Hand is representative of both joy and fear. On one hand it gave life to your childish avatar but on the other there is the fear that it could cause it damage and threatens to 'castrate' the player.

The Master Hand is that of your father and you are once again put into the role of a child. What we see is a visual representation of the Oedipus complex at work! Oh what a wonderfully deep game. What did you say it was called again?"

Mr Freud then ran off to his local Game store, but was sidetracked by a copy of Barbie Horse Adventures.