It feels like Christmas in June around the GR+ offices as each editor eagerly awaits . Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care, in the hopes that President and CEO of Nintendo Co., Ltd., Satoru Iwata, or Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox division and Microsoft Studios, soon would be there. Our heads swim with visions of game announcements and release dates; of Master Chief waking from his slumber and Nathan Drake ducking behind some crates.

We're ready for E3, and we hope you are too because this year's show is going to be massive. There are a ton of new games on the horizon - from Kingdom Hearts 3 to Fallout 4; Halo 5 to Forza 6. To help make sense of it all, each editor has selected the one they're most excited to see at the show. Let us know which one you're most excited to see, and join us back here on Sunday (06/11) when the E3 excitement kicks off at the .

Now, I like to think I'm a pretty sensible person when it comes to E3 expectations. I take gameplay footage and previews with a grain of salt, trying to keep my own hype levels in check as much as possible. But I will be filled with all of the joy in the world if I get to see playable at E3 this year.

The Elder Scrolls series has never really struck a chord with me, though I really appreciate the wonder of simply wandering around an expertly-crafted world and getting into as much mischief as possible. That's why I love Fallout - the sardonic spin on 1950s Nuclear Age Americana combined with familiar landmarks and retro-future aesthetics speaks to me in a way fantasy environments like Skyrim just don't. Now, take all of that, the glorious open-world choose-your-own-adventure gameplay Bethesda is known for, tweak the gunplay to make it a bit more fluid, and throw it on new-gen consoles. Yeah. Gimme all of that.

Not only is this certain to be at E3, it’s also guaranteed to provoke a reaction. When the game was properly revealed back in April, many moaned about the lack of drivable AT-ATs, the OP hero characters, and the scarcity of prequel content. My reaction was “Holy shit that looks incredible. Give me this game NOW!” accompanied by a lot of Kermit The Frog-style manic arm-waving.

Why? Aside from the fact it’s freaking Star Wars, and you get to pilot freaking X-Wings or zoom through freaking Endor on a freaking Speeder Bike while lasering holes through freaking Ewoks, it’s made by DICE. Those guys know exactly what they’re doing, having finely honed their multiplayer craft over more than a decade of Battlefield games. For me, its the dream combination of developer and subject matter. And I’m not naive - I know that reveal trailer was all prettied up - but if it’s a fraction as handsome as that, it’ll be a proper new-gen showpiece. Let’s, er, just hope there are no Battlefield-style launch issues, eh…

It’s really happening! Studio Head Rod Fergusson recently announced a name change for Black Tusk Studios to The Coalition, to better represent the team and what they’re working on--. And there will be fo at E3. Last year all we got was a brief flash of a Gears cog, likely to remind us that Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about the franchise. With all this excitement swirling around Halo and Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears will fit in nicely with the rest of Xbox’s lineup.

Now where will they take the series? Phil Spencer has said the new Gears will return to the darker, grittier tone of the earlier games, which I’m sure anyone who has played Judgement will not complain about. I’m secretly hoping that the new Gears will be about Carmine brothers’ backstory. Who was Carmine’s mom? Maybe the brothers are on a quest to find their father and along the way they find out they have a half-sister. And it’s a point-and-click adventure game! Just kidding. Pass me a lancer, please.

We’re well into the Xbox One’s second year on the planet, and who better than to exploit the power of the console than a first party dev? And, especially one that only does racing games - that specialisation might serve a niche but by the gods of silicon, it’s my favourite niche.

Despite its limitations and nauseating microtransactions, Forza 5 was beautiful, a great technical example of what’s possible. It was also an early step, a very polished proof of concept. Consider the time Turn 10 has had, the lessons the team has learned based not only on its own successes and mistakes, but those made by Forza Horizon 2 developer Playground Games - should be spectacular. It’s no secret the two teams have a pipeline between the two studios. They share data, insights and - here’s where I’m crossing everything - the know-how for a dynamic weather system at full HD and at 60 frames. Ladies and gentlemen, start your drooling.

Want to know how excited I am about ? I just bought an Xbox One specifically so that I can play the best version of it as soon as it comes out. Yes, it is that big a deal and you should be equally excited. In fact, 'big deal' is an understatement when it comes to Microsoft's exclusivity contract with Square Enix for the game. That's a megaton. And I don't think I'll be alone in buying a console specifically to play it. I had started to think the days of buying a console just for one game were over (Titanfall wasn't quite that good), but I'm very happy to be proven wrong.

It does concern me a little that the game will also be available on Xbox 360, as that does suggest the Xbox One version may have been scaled back in order for the game to run on the old hardware. But having said that, there was never any sense that the previous game's scope and content had been reduced to fit on last-gen tech. 2013's Tomb Raider is clearly one of the best games ever made. And the thought of Crystal Dynamics taking everything they've learned from that experience and channeling it into a new-gen focused (if not new-gen-exclusive) experience fills me with excitement. Man, I can't wait.

Let's be honest with ourselves: when Kingdom Hearts 3 finally gets released it's going to be a real hot mess - and I couldn't be happier. It may buckle under the weight of a backstory , but that will only heighten the game's strongest asset: its strangeness. Seeing all the weird interactions that come from mashing together all these disparate styles and characters is what I treasure in Kingdom Hearts.

This might all sound like I harbor some ironic, detached love for the series; that I don't really like Kingdom Hearts, I just like laughing at it. This is not the case. For all their absurdities, the Kingdom Hearts games do an excellent job at nailing the thousands of tiny details that make a good game feel great. I'm talking about the different jingles the keyblades make as they strike an enemy, or the visual flash of Sora's Explosion ability. Are these cheap thrills? Sure, but when you're game has pirate Johnny Depp fighting shadow monsters alongside Donald Duck and an anime character, cheap thrills are A-OK.

I’m going to catch some flak for this - I know I will. But when it comes to cohesion of creative vision and storytelling, I don’t think 343 Industries merely followed in Bungie’s footsteps, I believe they eclipsed them. Halo 4 could have been a disaster, and yet it’s my favorite single-player Halo campaign thus far (just barely edging out Halo: Reach), with a quality multiplayer component as well that … okay, yes, was a stretch too far away from what made Halo multiplayer great, but if the beta is any indication, 343 has learned from those mistakes.

I’m a lore guy. Growing up, I loved to read, and the more fantastic the tale, the better. Halo has a wonderful universe to play around in; one that simultaneously feels epic and impossible, yet grounded and human. I have no fears whatsoever about the quality of Halo 5’s gameplay, and despite the addition of aim-down sights (something I once proclaimed would, if added to the series, make me quit) I quite enjoyed my time with the reworked multiplayer. In the end though, I’m in it for the story, and I can’t wait to see where Chief’s journey goes next.

PlatinumGames is a developer as focused and nimble as its own combat systems. The second-party-dev-for-hire has teamed up with Sega, Nintendo, Konami and Activision, making fast-paced, nonsense-packed action games with a near-perfect hit rate. Now it’s in cahoots with Microsoft, making an Xbox One exclusive about rad young dudes toting swords and Beats by Dre knock-offs while riding dragons. If there’s a better elevator pitch going, I will run to the nearest tall building immediately to hear it.

But, as we Scalebound isn’t at E3. As if in ultra-cool protest, Platinum’s just revealing another brand new game instead. We have no idea what it is. Some are pointing to Vanquish 2, others Metal Gear Rising 2. Whether it’ll be another Microsoft exclusive is in question. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me - this is a studio that’s casually knocked out some of the best games of my lifetime, no matter who it’s nominally working for. Whatever the game turns out to be, it’s likely to be my favourite game at E3. Because Platinum.

A few months ago, I got a glimpse at the enigmatic , a game that falls into the same exploring-empty-environments category as Gone Home and Dear Esther. While it may look like Rapture is treading ground that should probably be paved by now, there's something special about it that won't leave my mind, and I'm excited for the possibility of it showing up at E3.

Without giving away too much, it's clear that Rapture's charming country setting is covering up some terrible past mishap that didn't leave much of a mark. One spirit tells another that her husband went upstairs an hour ago and hasn't come down, but all you find on the next landing are some bloody tissues. You find a man praying in a church before something happens to him; though you don't know for sure what you've seen, there are enough hints to give you an idea, and it's horrifying. Every moment in the town a mix between peace, uncertainty, and sinking realization, and it has a way of making you feel alone in knowing the truth. I want to see even more of that strange town at E3, but I also want to see other people witness it for the first time. Then we can all be alone together.

Aside from being a secret Sonic the Hedgehog game (shhh, don’t think about it too much), Mirror’s Edge is my favorite kind of AAA production: flashy, bold and uninfluenced by conventional wisdom. This means plenty of pitfalls en route to the ending, but a refreshing and stubborn adherence to ideas that might not ‘play well to the audience.’

I hope DICE can strike a better balance in its return to Mirror’s Edge, now dubbed “Catalyst.” I want them to stick to their guns - which is to say, not have ANY guns - and elaborate on the best thing about Mirror’s Edge: the sense of inhabiting a fleet-footed body, and to know where all your limbs are in a beautiful 3D city. The game is about holding your breath before the next vertiginous vault - a moment that deserves to be explored more fully alongside Faith, an interesting heroine who never really got the origin story to match her bounding mystique.

If I don't see at least one Cacodemon during E3, I'll be devastated. Those horned, grinning, cyclopean monstrosities are what evoke my fondest memories of blasting my way through E1M1 on my dad's office computer, or going on shotgun sprees in Doom 2 with just a keyboard (no mouse-look required). The Revenant from the recent looks nice, but what I'm really amped up to see is a floating red orb of demonic death barfing out giant fireballs in 1080p.

And there might be an added bonus to Doom's spotlight during , depending on whether or not id's John Carmack is invited to speak onstage. I've heard tell of Carmack's uncanny ability to spout a continuous torrent of unscripted, uber-intelligent commentary, but I've never witnessed his robot-like streams of genius consciousness for myself. It may not be quite as riveting as gameplay footage of Doomguy demolishing an Imp's innards with a rocket launcher, but I'd still be pretty stoked.

It's no secret that I'm totally obsessed with everything Destiny. I've played the game just about every day since launch and plowed through every raid, strike, and mission. With the release of the House of Wolves expansion, there are even more reasons for me to return to our futuristic solar system to stamp out the Darkness and defend the Light. So, when there are rumors swirling that Bungie is going to announce the details for a new, massive expansion at E3, you know I'm about to get hyped.

Some of the details on the . The next expansion is coming on September 15, there's going to be a new Raid, and all of the classes will be getting a new subclass. All very exciting information. And if it all ends up being legit, E3 is going to be quite a treat. I just need to get a glimpse of the new Void bow ability for the Hunter class and I'll be happy.

Before I got a 3DS, my interest in Fire Emblem began and ended with the Smash Bros. roster. I'm not much for tactics - observe how shamefully I saved and reloaded through XCOM, abandoning the campaign once seeing into the future was no longer enough to keep my troops alive - and I usually don't have the patience to play through sprawling JRPGs. But I gave Awakening a shot just to have something in my cartridge slot aside from Super Mario 3D Land, and I found one of my favorite games in years.

Nintendo hasn't told us Westerners too much about Fire Emblem If (or even confirmed whether that will be the title outside of Japan), but it seems to make some pretty big changes to series fundamentals: a new set of weapons added to the rock-paper-scissors style vulnerability system, throwing out weapon durability, letting you build your own castle - not to mention introducing two distinct armies and storylines to choose between. Maybe if I wasn't such a recent Fire Emblem convert I'd be more disturbed by all of If's changes, but I can't wait to see how they all play out.

Look, I know that it’s really unlikely that we’ll get more than a brief glimpse at during the show. The Persona of the moment is Dancing All Night, which I’m also super stoked to play, but I’ll take any shred of information about the next vehicle for fusion, dungeons and steak croquettes. A 30-second video. A character name. A costume. I’ll lap up any crumb of information I can get and consider it a feast.

What Persona 3 did well, Persona 4 perfected. A seamless blend of the fantastic and the mundane, both games pushed expectations for characterization and gameplay for JRPGs, with stylish characters and catchy tunes. Both games swap the typical world-saving teens that typically populate JRPGs for more relatable heroes, as concerned with defeating enemies as they are with passing history class. They also touch on serious issues like loss and identity in immensely personal ways, avoiding the temptation to wallow in melodrama. They’re two of my most-played and most-beloved games, so I’m eager to see what new ideas Persona 5 presents. And no, having Jack Frost in it doesn’t count.

Okay, I was already very, very excited about . And now I’m eveb more excited. Because while I’m months and years off really getting deep into the game, I already have a sense of the kind of Street Fighter it’s going to be. And ye gods, is it enticing.

Street Fighter 5 blows the doors off the series overarching fighting philosophy. Gone is the focus on, er, Focus Attacks and Ultras, which opened up high-level play in SF4 while also funnelling it in a specific set of directions. Replacing it is a madly eclectic approach to even stalwart characters, iconic moves remixed or removed entirely, fighting styles switched up completely, and crucially, everyone now has an utterly unique technique, many of which would support an entire fighting game on their own, making for insanely asymmetric, but so far utterly balanced, freewheeling, anything-can happen fights. A Ryu who can parry anything vs. a torpedo-less Bison who can catch fireballs and throw them straight back? It might look like business as usual, but it plays like nothing you’ve ever seen before. More. I need more, now.

It's astounding just how much Street Fighter 2 got right. The controls are tight, the graphics are crisp (even now, provided you appreciate pixels), and the music is interminably catchy. But perhaps its biggest triumph is its roster, which started out at a mere eight fighters. For a fighting game to thrive, players need to feel truly invested in their chosen character, establishing the kind of deep connection that can carry across multiple games and even decades. SF2 put forth the kind of designs that are still iconic and appealing almost 30 years later.

Take a trip with us down memory lane as we examine how the original World Warriors stayed the same, even as game platforms and graphics were changing. Be sure to maximize each image (by clicking the little 'expand' icon in the upper right) for the full effect, because it's incredible to see these subtle evolutions up close. With on the horizon, let's take a look back at the legendary fighters who got us here.

Special thanks to for the backgrounds.

Ryu is a paradox, given that he's a nondescript leading man who's somehow unforgettable. It's got to be his plain-yet-immediately-recognizable outfit, which (like the design of so many national flags) consists of only three bold colors. This makes him about as visually interesting as a crash test dummy - especially next to some of Street Fighter's oddballs like Necro or Sodom - but his modest appearance matches his nomadic lifestyle and detachment from notions like glory or fame. Ryu is a World Warrior in every sense, traveling the globe with a singular focus: become stronger.

Despite the fact that Honda's always hundred-hand slapping opponents or torpedoing his entire body at them headfirst, he's actually a pretty nice guy. Sumo wrestling is as much about tradition (like the real-world practice of tossing salt before a match) and prestige as it is two large dudes slamming into each other, and ol' Edmond fights for the honor of his beloved sport rather than any directly self-serving means. His gigantic eyebrows and red, kabuki-style facepaint make him look intimidating, but Honda's all smiles outside of the ring. He's also absurdly muscular for a sumo wrestler - or any human being, really - which looks even more exaggerated given his hunched, low-to-the-ground fighting stance.

It's a fact: kids love Blanka. Don't believe me? Just take a look back at some of the old Street Fighter products and advertisements and you'll see a recurring trend: . A cross between a gorilla and the Jolly Green Giant, this Brazilian beast is the ultimate Street Fighter wild card. Ryu? Chun-Li? Guile? They could almost pass for everyday people. Not Blanka; he's one-of-a-kind, and that made him the de facto poster boy (poster beast?) for Street Fighter 2. If you knew anything about video games in the '90s, and you saw this guy's smiling face rolling your way, you knew exactly what game was being advertised.

It all starts with the hair. Guile's pristinely trimmed, impossibly large flat top is his most notable trademark, besides his stalwart patriotism and passion for being a family man. He seems to suffer from 'Resting Soldier's Frown Face' (or RSFF as it's known in the medical community), though it's hard to blame the guy: he lost his Air Force buddy Charlie Nash to the evil machinations of M. Bison's Shadaloo. Now he travels the world searching for any clue related to Charlie's supposed death, taking the time to hurl Sonic Booms, comb his blonde mane, and whip on a pair of sunglasses mid-fistfight wherever he goes.

Ken Masters is that cool older cousin or fun uncle you had growing up. He's got a sweet sports car, a smokin' hot stable-and-monogamous relationship with his wife, and that blistering red gi which he probably dyed himself. While Ryu has always been the Street Fighter straightman, Ken isn't afraid to let his hair down and bring some style to the fight. Or at the very least crack a smile. However, his easygoing demeanor belies a forceful and finely-tuned fighter who is every bit Ryu's equal - as seen in the two black belts they share.

If all law enforcers took as much pride in a sense of justice as Chun-Li, the world would be a better place. She may not dress like your typical Interpol agent - what with those spiked bracelets and Princess Leia-esque hair buns - but she takes her job to serve and protect seriously as she searches for her father's killers. And if you're in need of motivation when doing leg presses at the gym, just imagine how grand life would be if you had the same kind of sturdy, tremendous thigh muscles as Chun-Li. If you want to high-kick hundreds of times in the blink of an eye, you're going to need some serious lower body strength.

Zangief's character design tells a story, one of struggle and triumph in the Russian wilderness. The pronounced scars on his legs, arms, and back are a testament his grueling bear-wrestling training regimen that has molded him into such a destructive warrior. His inhumanly large muscles display his resolve and dedication to becoming a grappler without equal. And finally, that mohawk and beard reveal that the big guy is not without a sense of humor - or, at the very least, was a fan of The A-Team growing up. Just don't say anything negative about his glorious homeland of Mother Russia, unless you want to go for a ride in a Spinning Piledriver.

One of the most striking aspects of Dhalsim's design is also one of the most contradictory. Dhalsim is himself a yoga master and a pacifist, though he routinely goes against that belief to help raise money for his village in underground fighting tournaments. So if fire-spitting Stretch Armstrong is such an enlightened warrior, why does he wear a necklace of human skulls!? Nothing says 'Zen' like three dead people hanging around your neck. Maybe it's for the intimidation factor - I mean, the poor guy does fight a Russian bear-wrestler and a Brazilian monster-man. Whatever the case, it has endured as a bold fashion accessory to this day.

. The focal point of the year for All Of Games. The lunatic party-festival that shapes the climate and the excitement for all of us, wherever we are, for years to come. It gets bigger every year, it gets better every year, and with this new generation really starting to hit its stride, surely this year’s has the potential to be the best yet, right?

Well of course it does. But there are some things it almost certainly won’t have. Some things that, when you’ve been through enough E3s – whether present or not – you start to miss. Things E3 used to do, and used to represent, that either don’t exist now, or have been moulded into rather different, modern formulations. We’re not just talking about the fact that we were younger and more springy back then, because that’s just stupid nostalgia. And we’re certainly not talking about the higher ratio of booth-babes in the old days, either, because that’s just stupid. No, these are the things, silly and important, concrete and abstract, that used to really define old E3s. 2015 will be a great show, but we can’t help wishing that they’d just bring back…

Okay, this one is probably partly informed by us just plain missing the pre-Wii Nintendo that was, but goddamnit if Ninty’s real, on-stage E3 appearances didn’t feed directly into the company’s greatness back then. As brilliantly endearing as Iwata’s performances are in the modern Direct broadcasts (and seriously, they are; anyone who’s never felt the compulsion to do one of his little hand gestures while saying the d-word in everyday conversation categorically has no soul), the videos’ edited, contained nature just can’t compete with a bona fide Nintendo press conference.

Nintendo fans, for better or worse, are rabid like no other. When you cram a thousand of them into one room, for an audience with the Great Ones, you get a giddy, deliriously goofy atmosphere you just will not find in any other conference. And Nintendo knew exactly how to play up to that. Reggie’s comic, on-screen persona these days is great, but the loveably meatheaded, natural badassery that led to the caricature was even better. And let’s not forget that whatever games were announced, the highlight was always the perfectly-teased appearance of a live Miyamoto, just as giddily goofy himself, and entirely unafraid to brandish a Hylian Shield without a hint of irony. A crowning moment of awesome each and every year.

‘Last days of Rome’. That’s the best way to sum up Activision’s brief run of ludicrous ‘Just because we can’ parties at E3. Ludicrously decadent, immensely more lavish and star-studded than they ever had any need – or justification – to be, those gigantic nightclub-cum-concert-cum-circus affairs would have been offensively grandiose if they hadn’t been so grandiose as to be delightfully stupid.

The peak arguably came in 2010, when Activision’s ‘conference’ hosted the likes of Eminem, Usher, Rhianna, Deadmaus, Pharrel Williams and Soundgarden. The epoch-making line-up of games that warranted such a show? Tony Hawk: Shred, Guitar Hero: Megadeth, and True Crime: Hong Kong. The last of which you might remember was eventually released by Square-Enix, as Sleeping Dogs. A party worth every nonsensical penny, then.

E3 is a fantastic spectacle these days, and a great reason to be smug about being into games. For a week, the entire press, mainstream and otherwise, has its eyes on us. We are championed. We are reported on feverishly. We are exciting and we are massive. But that global, blanket attention has a flip-side. In having to cater for such a huge spread of reporters with such eclectic audiences and angles, the big companies have got a bit safer about things.

There was a time back in the day when console reveal stage-demos were performed not by developers, or well-choreographed party-bots, or pre-canned footage, but by on its booth, and handed out beer mugs and condoms, because why the hell not? There was time when the biggest party in the games industry felt more like a big-budget nerd-fest than a slick, business tentpole run by polished, perfectly coiffed men in suits. Obviously E3 is better now, in many ways. And obviously its current set-up is better for the industry. But damn, it was fun when it was a bit scruffier, too.

These days, you tend to go in knowing the rough shape of the big three's announcements. Nintendo will play around with an old franchise or two, to varying degrees of effectiveness, announce a few cool-but-nebulous things that are ages off release, and then talk about cool-but-obscure Japanese games and 3DS faceplates. Sony will showcase a mixture of visually stunning AAA, emotive narrative, and indie invention. Microsoft will bring the explosions, the Call of Duty demos, a couple of token attempts at eclecticism, and otherwise perform a slick iteration on its 360 glory days, with additional garnish. That’s great. Everyone has their identity locked in, and the big three are catering to very specific audiences who love their stuff.

But check out Ashley’s highly completist, highly eclectic of the games of E3 ’95. Nintendo brought gory fighting games, platformers, the Virtual Boy, Earthbound, and goddamn Doom. Sega dropped the Saturn, and showed it off with Panzer Dragoon, of all things. Sony had Wipeout and Tekken sitting right next to the original Legacy of Kain. Yeah, the 2D one. Old E3 was fricking nuts, and you never knew what you were going to get. Hell, let’s not forget that the Saturn was announced as available to buy that day during Sega’s conference in ‘95. Okay, it turned out to be a terrible idea, but still. Surprises! And speaking of which…

This might be rose-tinted bullshit talking (hey, it’s fertile ground, they’d grow well), but old E3 used to feel more surprising even beyond the eclectic weirdness on show. You see there was also the delightful way that the internet used to not go out of its way to try to spoil every announcement weeks in advance, like a big excitable puppy who is also a gobshite.

I remember back in the solely print and page days, the E3 issue of any good games mag was like opening up a paper Christmas from a mad sci-fi future. Even with access to faster reporting later on, the conferences maintained their status as megaton surprise-bombs for quite the while. Until, that is, the internet decided that nebulous insider sources and slow, dribbling leaks were more fun than having several solid hours of unexpected amazement thrown in its face. Even when leaks turn out not to be true, they deflate things. Even the most clearly deceitful extravagance adds a special kind of mad hope, making the ultimate truth of a conference disappointing, however great it is. , but if Alex isn’t announced at E3, that’s all anyone’s going to be talking about.

This is the big one. In fact, in spirit, it probably encompasses pretty much all of the prebious. The source of old-school E3, if you will. The natural spring, blurting forth that particular kind of fun in its raw, unsullied form. I’m talking about pure, unrefined, ‘90s rad. You know instinctively what I’m talking about. It’s appearing in your mind right now, not as cogent, specific thoughts, but as an electrifying blur of colours, sounds and feelings.

Most of those colours are variants on neon pink and green. Most of those sounds are triumphant yells of ‘Awesome!’ while things explode, blue electricity crackle, and all manner of vibrant goop squelches around in the background. And the feeling? Nothing but the most strident, exciting, summertime 'Hell yeah'. Games were back in the day. And games marketing really was. And so E3 really, really was. Screw it, if we’re getting back The X-Files, and Twin Peaks, and Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Doom, I’m starting the campaign to Bring Back Rad right here and right now. If anyone needs me, I’ll be digging out my old Hypercolor t-shirts with an immense sense of righteous vindication.

And speaking of t-shirts, that raddest of rad dinosaurs (by Joao Lauro Fonte) is on one, at .

The Oculus Rift VR headset is an incredible piece of technology - but really, what is it without some killer games? To get you psyched up for what the headset makes possible, Oculus showed off a swath of new games that'll accompany the peripheral's launch in Q1 2016. Here's a brief look at everything revealed thus far, so you can start thinking now about whether or not you want to invest in Oculus' vision of gaming's future.

There have been space sims before, but none of them give you the feeling of actually sitting in the cockpit of your own starfighter. Wearing the Oculus Rift, you can look around the cockpit freely, getting a full view of the ships around you while you blast them with machine gun-like energy weapons and missiles. The combat looks to be inspired by Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, with massive vessels engaging in ship-to-ship combat while small, one-man fighters dogfight between them. There's even a moon-sized spherical ship that invades battles to blast your allied space cruisers with a superlaser.

This third-person, moodily lit dungeon crawler should strike a chord with fans of The Legend of Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus. You're a young boy wandering through ancient, overgrown ruins, inevitably awakening some giant stone golems along the way. (What is it with golems and trying to flatten whoever's unlucky enough to wake them?) It's hinted that you might continuously age as the game progresses, which could unlock additional abilities or combat skills. We're not yet sure how the Oculus headset itself factors into the gameplay, but we can't wait to find out.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. This intriguing thriller from the makers of looks like a cross between Tomb Raider on an icy tundra and the unfathomable Elder Gods of Lovecraftian horror, which all but ensures that it's going to be an amazing VR experience. The trailer shown during the conference has a voiceover of a woman pleading to our main character Victor (Viktor?) not to pry too deep into the mysteries of this icy wasteland, lest he descend into madness. So of course, you're going to look into whatever transdimensional terrors have crossed over into our world, even if it means cowering in fear when the cabin you're in gets surrounded in shrouds of darkness, slimy tentacles, and foreboding whispers.

The developers at High Voltage are bringing their first Oculus Rift game to the VR headset next year. All we really know about it at the moment is the name - which by the sound of it is probably going to involve shooting a bunch of robots in 3D. Whatever it is, we're excited to see more.

Most sports games play from the perspective of a spectator, but when you put on an Oculus and play VR Sports Challenge, you actually play baseball, football, or hockey from the athlete's view. The game will be releasing sometime next year, so you won't have to wait long to live out your pro athlete dreams.

There's not much to say about Esper just yet - it looks like a first-person puzzler a la Portal or Quantum Conundrum, where you use telekinesis to manipulate your environment. Expect to pick up and put down many blocks, orbs, and maybe some clear pipes... using your mind. And probably the controller.

This shmup-RTS hybrid is already available (for free!) on PC, but it's being revamped for the Oculus. If you're a fan of the Genesis cult classic Herzog Zwei, this is the modern equivalent, where you split your time between managing captured military bases and zooming around as a transforming jet-mech. If that sounds radical, that's because it is.

Oculus has its share of gritty, serious games on lock, but that doesn't mean the family crowd will be left wanting. Lucky's Tale is a platforming adventure game starring a cape-wearing fox, not unlike the mascot-headlined platformers of yesteryear, so the Rift will have something even the younguns can enjoy.

That's not all for Oculus Rift games; Oculus teased that they're currently working with big and small to produce new experiences or port and enhance existing ones to make full use of the Rift headset. That includes proven names like Square Enix, Harmonix, and the aforementioned Insomniac Games, but Oculus is also pursuing independent developers with 10 million dollars of investment. With that kind of money, anything can happen.

Street Fighter is an institution, having repeatedly revolutionized the fighting game genre, and after a few years of obligatory overhauls and re-releases for SF4, it's finally time to see what the next chapter holds. Street Fighter 5 is coming to PC and PS4, and we've played it extensively. Fists were broken, teeth were knocked out, and many, many fireballs were thrown to bring you the information you're about to read.

SF5 retains the core principles of the series: one-on-one 2D fighting, with only a joystick and six attack buttons to work with. But as with any new fighting game, there's a lot you'll need to learn on the path to greatness. To bring you up to speed, here's everything we know so far about Street Fighter 5, from the comfortably familiar to the excitingly fresh.

If Sony's trying to establish itself as the premier destination for console fighters, snagging exclusivity for a franchise as legendary as Street Fighter is a big win. Xbox One and Wii U owners hoping to duke it out in SF5 may want to invest in a PS4 or now, because it looks like the next chapter in Capcom's fighting franchise won't be available anywhere else for some time. But there's a silver lining: this is actually a great move for the game's lifespan.

That's because Capcom's developing SF5 for cross-platform play - a monumental first for the series - in an effort to unite the community into a single centralized playerbase. Online bouts against friends or high-level competitors will no longer be restricted by whichever platform you own, and both versions are being built to maintain 1080p/60fps parity in Unreal Engine 4. Instead of fracturing the audience into isolated spaces, everyone's invited to the same online party in SF5, which should greatly enhance matchmaking and the rate that new combos and tactics get shared around.

The Street Fighter cast is packed with fan favorites, and so far it seems like Capcom is leaning on nostalgia as the guiding force behind its character choices. You'll want to check out our full breakdown of the , but Ryu, Chun-Li, M. Bison, and Nash (who you may know as Guile's counterpart Charlie) are all familiar faces that have made the return for SF5. It's standard operating procedure for new Street Fighter games to mix a bunch of established characters in with some newcomers, but it's still unclear what that balance will be in SF5's final roster.

We also don't exactly when SF5 takes place in the timeline, though visual details both small (Bison's head of white hair) and large (Nash's stapled-together zombie body) imply that these battles could be taking place long after the events of the Alpha series and SF2, but potentially before SF4 and SF3. If Capcom's not careful, the Street Fighter timeline could end up being just as confusing as Legend of Zelda's.

Focus Attacks are the central mechanic in Street Fighter 4: the ability to absorb a hit and unleash a devastating, inky-looking counterattack, or cancel a move to strengthen your offense or defense accordingly. Street Fighter 5 does away with Focus Attacks entirely. Instead, the focus (sorry) is all on the new V-Gauge, a small red meter just above your super bar. The length of the V-Gauge depends on your character, varying between two and three segments (from what we've seen so far). And managing this bar is key to victory in SF5's fast-paced brawls.

All the core mechanics of SF5 (V-Triggers, V-Skills, and V-Reversals, but more on those in a minute) come back to the V-Gauge, as you build or deplete it over the course of a fight. In the simplest terms, a player with a full V-Gauge has far more options than one without. So what can you actually do with these precious ruby-colored bars? Well, for starters...

Ultras are the other big system in SF4, where taking damage is the only means to activating a potentially tide-turning attack. They're designed to be the ultimate equalizer, but SF5 ditches Ultras and the idea of soldiering through the pain so you could dish it out yourself. Instead of flashy Ultras, each fighter has a unique V-Trigger, a special mode activated by pressing HP+HK. And though they can help you mount a comeback, they're more about playing your character to their full potential.

You're all but guaranteed to build up at least one V-Trigger each round, and once you've got it locked and loaded, there's no reason to save it for later. That's because of how powerful they are - giving Ryu chargeable, guard-breaking fireballs, or adding multi-hit properties to Chun-Li's normals, for instance - and the fact that the V-Gauge empties between rounds. While some are special move-enhancing modes, others like Nash's short-range Sonic Move teleport are a single action. Learning how each fighter's V-Trigger works will be crucial to your success.

So you know you want the V-Gauge to fill up, because it enables your powerful V-Trigger. And while taking and dealing damage will build it up little by little, your V-Skills are your primary method for boosting up your meter. Executed by pressing MP+MK (the old Focus Attack input), V-Skills are little maneuvers that provide tons of utility. They're a bit like the traits from : individualized modes or moves that can bolster your usual playstyle.

And when you'll bust them out depends entirely on your chosen character. For instance, Ryu's V-Skill, Mind's Eye, is actually a SF3-style parry exclusive to him, while Nash's Bullet Clear can absorb an incoming projectile (or bop the opponent if they're close enough). Using your V-Skill effectively is the best way to build up your V-Gauge, and there's no limit on how often you can utilize it. As with V-Triggers, true SF5 mastery will only be possible once you understand how all the V-Skills function.

The last ability related to the V-Gauge isn't as flashy as the other two, but it's arguably just as important. If you've played any of the Street Fighter Alpha games, you may remember the Alpha Counter, which lets you do a counterattack on the opponent while blocking. V-Reversals work almost exactly the same, letting you spend a bar of your V-Gauge to push back against an incoming onslaught and create some space.

Opportune use of the V-Reversal is crucial when you've got someone like Bison rushing you down, and you just need a moment to breathe and think about your next move. The input is a little tricky: while blocking an attack string, you need to tap toward the opponent and press all three punches. The distance it puts between you and your opponent also varies, so you'll have to get a feel for how they all work.

With all this talk about the V-Gauge, you might think that it's the only bar in the world that matters. Au contraire - the pulsing blue super meter and its four equal parts are still a factor in SF5, and it works the same way it did before. If you've got at least one bar of meter, you can unleash an EX version of your special attacks by pressing two buttons instead of just one. And once the meter's full, you can bust out a super attack, which have been renamed to Critical Arts in SF5.

Most players will probably rely on EX moves more than Critical Arts, but you'll need to decide whether you want more opportunities for decent damage or one chance for a devastating (but risky) attack. Finding that balance while managing your meter is necessary, and unlike the V-Gauge, any unspent super meter you build in one round will carry over to the next.

Having duked it out dozens of times in the two currently available stages, China and London, they're not too different from what you get in SF4: vibrant, moving backdrops that are interesting to look at without being distracting. Goofy spectators have lined up for each bout, including a four piece band in the London train station and an alarmingly stereotypical shopkeeper in the neon-lit streets of China.

But the levels can shift this time around. While SF4 had shattering pots and detachable plane wings, SF5 will let you open up entirely new areas if you KO your opponent in a certain spot. In China, you can cause a nearby tour bus to speed away or bust into the aforementioned shopkeeper's property. That said, the length of the stage will remain the same, and not every level has these transitions; what you see is what you get in the London level.

Netcode is a hotly debated topic in the realm of fighting games, given how it can completely determine the quality of your online experience. Slow matchmaking or rage quitters aside, you're guaranteed to have a bad time if every game you play on the 'net suffers from crippling lag, random drops, or missed inputs. SF4's netcode seems to run the full spectrum from great to unplayable, but SF5 hopes to smooth out online play with some new technology.

Dubbed "Kagemusha", Capcom has built this proprietary netcode for SF5 entirely from scratch, instead of porting over SF4's systems. If you're familiar with the popular GGPO netcode used in games like Skullgirls, Kagemusha is said to function in much the same way, utilizing mystical 'rollback' techniques to ensure that both players see and feel each fight in the same way. It's complicated stuff, but the bottom line is that SF5's online experience should be superior to that of SF4.

You've probably encountered the frustration of a one-frame link when messing around with SF4's combo trials. In essence, these are normal attacks that are crucial to some big-damage combos, but must be executed with the kind of precise, pinpoint timing (a single frame of animation) that eludes the majority of players. Capcom's Peter 'ComboFiend' Rosas tells us that they won't be as prevalent in SF5. "One-frame links are actually a big topic for us, because we know that it hinders some people from realizing their full potential," says Rosas. "In terms of input leniency and things like that, we're actually looking into methods to solve that, because we want everybody to be able to access damage."

That's not to say that executing combos will be easy, but reducing the need to master these overly-demanding timings should help reduce the gap between skilled and fledgling players. "Even if you can't perform a one-frame link, the damage differential between somebody who constantly does them and somebody who [knows some basic combos] won't be too far," says Rosas. "We want everybody to always feel like they're in the game."

It's hard to forget all the great 2D fighters that the Street Fighter franchise has spawned over the years, from 1992's genre-defining Street Fighter 2 all the way up to 2014's Ultra Street Fighter 4. However, within those two decades of Street Fighter releases there were a lot of oddball games that took the world warriors in some very... interesting directions. Most people are used to seeing Ken and Ryu square off in the ring, but their travels have also taken them into the realms of board games, slot machines, and even a pen-and-paper RPG.

With hype rumbling in our minds, we got a hankering to comb through the franchise's storied history and shine some light on the curios that attempted to capture the spirit of Street Fighter, even if they abandoned its core gameplay tenets entirely. Here are our picks for the best (and strangest) Street Fighter games that have nothing to do with 2D fighting.

Street Fighter 2's board game adaptation feels like someone handed the designers a picture of the SF2 box and said, "Make a game about that." Up to four players pick a character and roll dice to move around the board (which, fittingly, is a bunch of streets). Eventually, two players will collide and a fight breaks out. This is also handled with dice, with higher die rolls trumping lower ones a la Risk. Fighters grow stronger with each victory, and the game ends when someone either reaches max level or defeats M. Bison, who is holed up in what looks like a Panda Express. With its over-reliance on random dice rolls, the Street Fighter 2 board game ultimately fails to replicate what makes the video games great - despite being entirely about fighting and streets.

To fighting fans, the Cannon Spike is best known as Cammy's Shoryuken facsimile, where she rockets into the air bootheel first. But it's also the title of a wildly offbeat shmup that Capcom quietly snuck into arcades and the Dreamcast in 2000. It's a top-down run-'n'-gun starring those elite, army-trained street fighters Cammy and Charlie Nash (who's back in Street Fighter 5, if you didn't know). They could team up with other iconic Capcom blasters like Mega Man and Darkstalkers' B.B. Hood to take down waves of robots who are quite clearly disturbing the peace. You've even got the claw-bearing Vega (aka Balrog, in this case) as a recurring baddie, complete with a redone goth-meets-SM look.

The backstory behind this Street Fighter 2 version of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots gives a very dark alternate ending to the original Street Fighter 2. As narrated in , "From around the globe, the street fighters came, bashing and banging until only Ryu and Guile remain." So what happened to the rest of them? Did they all beat each other to death? In that case, M. Bison would've already been defeated, so what motivation do Ryu and Guile have to keep "bashing and banging" each other? When will the carnage end!?

FMV games were all the rage in the '90s, giving the the illusion that you were in control of a photorealistic experience, even though it was more like long periods of doing nothing interrupted by frantic Simon Says. To its credit, Capcom put a smarter spin the concept than most, repurposing the footage from Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie by casting you as a voyeuristic Shadaloo cyborg observing the film's events from afar. Yes, there are some moments of 2D fighting as a reskinned Ken sprite in the Super Turbo engine. But all the the familiar street fighting is bookended by long periods of watching the anime with a distracting android-eye overlay, hoping to score 'battle points' by responding to button prompts with inhuman speed.

Continuing a proud tradition of random crossovers between Japanese companies that make fighting games, Namco X Capcom is a vehicle for watching adorable, sprite-based versions of your favorite Namco and Capcom characters hit each other. Player input and strategizing isn't as important here, as the game really isn't all that difficult, so you really can just sit back and watch the little guys do their thing. If you missed the original on PS2, then the spiritual 3DS successor should give you a good sense of its tactics. For the super fans who want to see these characters in a new setting - or in a new game whatsoever (poor Captain Commando) - this game is probably already in your collection, so let's just move on.

Localization is a delicate art, where taking some liberties with Japanese-to-English porting can create a franchise black sheep that causes ripples in the space-time Street Fighter continuum. Case in point: Street Fighter 2010, which was rejiggered for American markets to evoke two Capcom franchises that had nothing to do with the game itself (and if anything, it's line with Strider). The original version has you platforming and zapping aliens as Kevin Straker, a titanium-plated future cop. But to cash in on Street Fighter hype, the localization renamed him to Ken, implying that this was the same blonde-haired playboy who threw fiery dragon punches, then went on to become a world-renowned scientist and law enforcer.

This card game comes by way of Cryptozoic Entertainment, which has made similar games based on Naruto, The Lord of the Rings, and DC Comics. All of these deck-building games use the same ruleset, so if you want to make the hybrid Naruto/Batman/Chun-Li deck from your wildest dreams, that's entirely possible. The rules themselves are simple: you buy cards to power up your character, then use those cards to attack your opponent(s) and earn victory points. When all the cards are gone, each player tallies up their victory points to see who won. Sadly, this ends up feeling like the card game equivalent of button mashing, as the randomness of what you're buying and playing undercuts the strategic elements of any good fighting game. But hey, at least it's thematically teresting than a game of War.

Given that the mobile game market is a bit like the Mega Millions Jackpot these days, Capcom would be foolish not to attempt a parlay of Street Fighter's fame into an Android/iOS spin-off. The result is Street Fighter: Puzzle Spirits, which is actually line with Puzzle Dragons than Puzzle Fighter. Instead of dropping blocks Tetris-style, you're tapping on a 6x7 grid of colored orbs, where adjacent spheres become mini-Hadoukens, and adjacent fireballs become nondescript swirls that look like candy. And rather than a team of monsters, you assemble a line-up of iconic specials (and even some normal attacks, like Ryu's overhead medium punch) that you can unleash in one giant combo. So, not too off from the source material, then.

While Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo contains 2D fighting, it is not itself a 2D fighter. Instead, it's a tile-matching puzzle game, similar to Tetris Attack or the Puyo Puyo series. Players build up clusters of similarly colored gems before shattering them with corresponding Crash Gems, 'bomb' pieces associated with the elements of fire, water, lightning, or leaves. The bigger the cluster gets before shattering, the more blocks get dumped onto your opponent. Therefore, the key to mastering Puzzle Fighter comes from learning when to hoard your gems and when to shatter them all in a chain of colorful explosions. Give and take - it's very Zen-like in that way. Unless you pick Dan, in which case defeat is inevitable.

Pinball is one of those fantastic mediums where anything (blockbuster films, typically) can be turned into an exciting and physically tangible game. Street Fighter 2 Pinball is no exception, condensing the spirit of Capcom's 2D fighter into a legitimately fun ball-and-flippers experience. It's all about capturing the theme on the playfield: you've got Chun-Li as a Spinning Bird Kick spinner, Zangief busting out a Spinning Piledriver on a ramp, and M. Bison staring back at you with an evil grin whenever you lose a ball. The artwork is all spot-on (giving that electrified beast Blanka primo placement), and the backglass even managed to capture the young heart of . If you can't find this Gottlieb machine in person, try the SF2 table for the digital Pinball FX2 instead.

When it comes to Street Fighter tie-ins, publisher White Wolf had the unenviable job of basing an entire game around one of the most invisible aspects of any fighting game: the story. It's hard to imagine a game of Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game that doesn't go the way of the 1994 Street Fighter motion picture: all random vignettes, awkward fights, and no cohesive plot to be found. Even so, this pen-and-paper RPG spawned four more books before going out of print, as well as a planned fifth book that will include characters from the Street Fighter 3 games. We salute those folks' dedication to carrying the SF2 tabletop torch.

If a Japanese franchise doesn't have a pachinko machine, it may as well not exist. Where Westerners have slot machines, pachinko is the mindless, minimally interactive gambling of choice in Japan. Folks of all ages line up to watch balls drop between pegs in a cacophonous room full of machines bouncing metal off metal. This Street Fighter-themed machine makes it more exciting than it sounds: all the while, you're watching a plastic-encased monitor embedded in the playfield that shows original CG footage of Ryu and Chun-Li teaming up against Akuma. And if you're lucky enough to trigger a jackpot, then entire machine lights up in an eye-searing rainbow of neon colors and loud noises that seem purposely engineered to trigger epileptic seizures.

Speaking of slot machines, it's nigh unbelievable that Capcom would give its blessing to the virtual Street Fighter 2 slots on InterCasino.com. We're staring at the legit-sounding copyright info emblazoned right beneath the slots, and we still refuse to accept it as reality. It's not that it's a fundamentally abysmal game, either; slot machines work with what little they can to capture a theme, in this case subbing in Vega's mask, Balrog's gloves, and Dhalsim's necklace for the cherries, bells, and 7s. You can even pick your own character - Ken, Ryu, Sagat, Chun-Li, or Guile - which is pretty neat. But the problem is that no matter who you choose, they're rendered as hideous, amateur-looking 3D models, squaring off with two frames of animation against an M. Bison who looks just as homely. while you spin is an affront to the eyeballs.

Released in 1999 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash is a celebration of both companies' massive stable of characters, all crammed into a simplified card game. Players summon monsters (or, in this case, fighting game characters) which generate SP points. The 'monsters' then fight, while players use those SP points to play support cards and give themselves an edge. While these games didn't have a huge impact in the West, Card Fighters Clash (and its stellar chibi art style) did resonate enough with some to earn the sequel game an unofficial English translation patch. One super fan has even adapted it that you can print out and play at home.

There should be no disagreement: Doom is one of the best games ever made. I like to describe it as a perfect killing engine. Every part of it works in concert to create something you just want to deal death in. Over and over again. It’s fast, violent, uncomplicated, but deceptively nuanced. Two decades later it still holds up because every piece of it pushes toward its goals.

That doesn’t mean there is no room for modernisation or improvement. Mouse look, engine fixes and modern level design via custom-made map packs are a massive boon to playing Doom in the 21st century. But there are some modern shooter tropes that would be unacceptable - not objectively awful, but desperately ‘not right for Doom - if added. I’ve picked out a few that would be especially heinous crimes if visited on id’s reboot. Pray that none of these turn up when the game is revealed at .

Doom’s most basic enemies - the Zombieman, Shotgun Guy, and Chaingunner - are not there to prove a challenge. There is a reason they are the only enemies to drop ammunition while every Pinky Demon, Spider Mastermind and Revenant leaves nothing but a delightfully colourful corpse behind: they’re interactive ammo dumps, there to be harvested as much as fought. They’re not just enemies. They have a very specific design purpose.

Now, this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be a threat. An unchecked Chaingunner will reduce you to swiss cheese in moments, and an ignored Shotgun Guy is happy to make mincemeat of your back. But they cannot take the same punishment they deliver, single shotgun blasts felling scores of zombies (more on this later). Even higher difficulties have no effect on this: the wall of meat may be deeper, with more enemies to cut, blast and melt through, but it never takes longer to get through a layer. That’s vital to Doom’s unique pace and flow.

Doom is packed with enemies. If going for 100% runs at levels, you will regularly be blasting away hundreds if not thousands of hellspawn in a half hour period. Equally, they will not come at you one at a time, but in waves, seemingly unbeatable hordes teleporting on top of you with every grabbed key and opened door. Even the Cyberdemon, Doom’s rocket spewing boss creature, feels underdressed without at least a milling crowd of Imps to distract you, absorb your ammo (at the cost of their oen lives, of course) and trap you in a fatal corner. Again, this stuff is fundamental to Doom’s deceptively strategic flow.

Small battles can be used effectively, especially when introducing a new beast. The first episode of Doom finishes with the ‘bruiser brothers’ - a pair of super-deadly, high HP Barons of Hell - stepping out of the walls and assaulting the player joined, only by a few unthreatening Spectres. It’s a memorable moment precisely because it’s so rare, and Barons make all haste to join the rest of the cast in assaulting you en masse later on.

The heroic Doomguy is a man of strong back and many arms. There is no gun that he cannot find a place for somewhere on his person, and he does not need to discard his pistol, no matter how pathetic it may be, to pick up that Super Shotgun, Rocket Launcher or holy BFG. He is no ordinary marine trotting through Call of Duty: Demonic Warfare. Realism went out the door around about the moment the dead started coming back to life.

A varied and always accessible arsenal is a core part of Doom, and an important support strut for its excellent level design and ever-changing situational demands. Each weapon has its place and purpose, be it the Chaingun’s exceptional room clearing ability, the Rocket Launcher’s insta-gibbing of grouped targets at any range, or the BFG’s unique position as a panicked ‘oh fuck’ key. Constant, reliable access to these options is vital, especially if ammo is running low. Plus, the idea of having to pick between the Super Shotgun and Plasma Gun frankly reduces me to tears. Speaking of which...

If Doom is the best FPS of all time, then the Super Shotgun (SSG) is the greatest gun of all time. Forget the more realistic, speciality weapon you may be used to today, throw away the ineffective-at-medium-range ideal. Come sit by the burning demon corpses and let me explain. The SSG is an icon of death, a beautiful blunt instrument for reducing enemies to nothing. Its inclusion in nuDoom is mercifully already confirmed, by way of half of that recent being dedicated to it. What’s important now is that they get it right.

The SSG does more damage than a rocket launcher if all of its pellets hit. Faced with a squad of twelve zombies in two ranks, the SSG will annihilate them in a single click. In enclosed spaces, demons - with all their spiked carapaces, and claws, and three foot mouths rimmed with thick teeth - have nothing on the SSG. It is their god of destruction, your saviour, and every shot fired should fired from it should leave you with no doubt that something on the other end is experiencing Hell on Earth.

This is two-fold. On the one hand, the idea of pressing a button to get into cover is antithetical to what makes Doom. It is, basically, too complicated. With Arachnotrons turning the air green with plasma from half a map away, Mancubi shelling you to within an inch of your life, and the glowing eyes of Spectres bearing down on you with every passing second, you do not need to be worrying about whether the game has decided you’re hiding or not. If there is a wall between you and the bad guys, you are safe, if there is not, you better be moving.

You see movement is another big part of the Doom equation. Like in the many deathmatch FPS that followed, remaining static in Doom is a death sentence. The vast majority of enemy fire comes from big, clear projectiles that can and should be dodged, allowing you to close the gap or find an alternate route. Ducking in and out of cover is an act of sprinting between safe zones, not finding a good camping spot. Cover in Doom is actually about encouraging movement. It’s about speed and freedom not, well...

Doomguy does not get tired. He does not need a wee rest after running the 100 meters. Doomguy has a walk-key for being optionally careful, not a run-key for getting somewhere optionally fast. He gets everywhere fast. He is Usain Bolt on a specially concocted IV drip of jet fuel, energy drinks and exploding suns. Doomguy will stop when he’s dead. And even then, only for a bit.

If all other pieces of advice here are discarded, let this one remain. It is vital to the Doom experience that you move quickly, constantly. Not only in comparison to the size of levels, but in relation to enemies as well. They don’t get to run away, and you will outrace all but the most deadly projectiles. Not only that, side-stepping fireballs and even melee attacks is a bigger ego boost than all the perfect headshots in the world. Outnumbered, and even rarely outgunned, Doomguy is never, ever outpaced. That’s what it’s all about. That’s Doom.

The protracted, cinematic cut-scene is perhaps the least Doom thing in modern gaming. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being told a story as much as the next functioning human being. But I don’t need a reason to shoot a seething horde of anathema in their evil skulls. They are the eternal Bad Guys; that they were summoned here by the machinations of some foolish scientists messing with teleportation (or, Satan forbid, ‘unlocking the 24th chromosome’) is largely irrelevant. Now that they’re here, they just need to die, and I have the tools to make them die.

Going to the extreme of the original games’ end-of-episode wall o’ text isn’t an option in 2015, but thirty-second cutscenes that inject some purpose or a sense of place will be very welcome. Tell me where I am, what happened here, and what I’m doing next, but never wrest control from me for too long. All should be skippable, with any additional exposition hidden away as Dark Souls-like environmental secrets, or inserted into the UI in some unobtrusive and easily ignored way while I’m clearing another room of hostile hellspawn.

Nobody in Hell likes everyone else in Hell. They don’t like anything - they’re in Hell. Doom’s monster in-fighting proves that the forces of evil are inherently racist, and the gameplay is all the better for it. Why would a Mancubus, fatty hide charred from an errant fireball aimed at your sprinting form, not turn his cannons on the foolish Imp that threw it? And when his aim falters and takes out half the advancing line of Pinky Demons, why wouldn’t they become distracted for a moment to chew his rebellious little face off?

This sounds like an impossibly intelligent AI fantasy-land but it was all possible, common and downright fantastic in 1993. Without the benefits of in-fighting, ammo would quickly become a scarce resource and, presumably, even your ringed knuckle would fall off from overuse eventually. Beyond that, it’s just bloody fun. It’s another way in which you’re smarter than your enemies, able to manipulate them to your will and make them take each other out while you’re in another part of the level. And it just makes Doom even more brilliantly, cleverly chaotic.

Through Doom’s impressive bestiary there is precisely one reskin, not counting invisible variants of other enemies. The Baron of Hell is the bigger, tougher, red cousin of the Hell Knight, with twice as much HP. That’s it. He’s the only reused monster. While you will kill hundreds of each type of enemy throughout a campaign, each is so different from the rest - in both look and purpose - that it never gets old.

The ultimate example of this is the Arch-Vile. The flickering flame decal that obscures 90% of the screen is a warning sign that one is nearby and locked on to you. Break line of sight immediately or take a crippling amount of damage. Out of its way? OK, it will now start resurrecting its slain friends, creating a wall of very angry shielding to get through before you can directly damage your main foe. They are nothing like any of their Hellish compatriots. Correct deployment of Arch-Viles in custom maps makes powerful memories. Every enemy in Doom has similar possibilities and uses, and that should - in fact must - continue.

Perhaps Doom’s most underappreciated factor is its colour. Behind all the gore, the wonderful selection of weapons, and the brutal bestiary of enemies is - usually - a lovely Technicolor texture. There is chrome, and mud, and even sewer levels in both original games, but the water is a deep blue, the chrome a glowing silver, and the sparsely-used dirt such a disgusting shade of brown that you can’t help but marvel at it.

This is partly due to the technology of the era. Enemies, danger areas, and pick-ups all have to be easily parsed at resolutions that would make your 1080p-accustomed eyes bleed. More than that, maps are so large and open that objects regularly have to be identified at long range. The upshot of all this is that every sprite and texture is still instantly recognisable, partly caricatured out of necessity, but dripping with personality as a result.

showed us just how important Mother Base is to The Phantom Pain. After the events of Ground Zeroes, Big Boss and friends aim to rebuild their off-shore military fortress bigger and better than ever, and this fully explorable facility is massive.

As you Fulton soldiers to recruit them into your army, you can assign them to different departments, like RD, Medical, and Intel. Assigning them to the right department will determine the kind of upgrades you're able to research - so if you feel like snagging that rocket launcher sooner rather than later, perhaps it's best to shift your employees around to make it happen. Plus, there are specialists out on the field, capable of unlocking unique gear and special features within Mother Base. The Phantom Pain even has its own version of Dragon Age: Inquisition's War Table, allowing you to send combat troops out on timed missions to earn items and make Big Boss' life in the field a little easier. Many of these missions can take hours, though, so while you're off doing important life stuff (like sleeping), make sure your soldiers are working hard before you sign off. When you log back in, you'll find the results of their excursions waiting for you.

While the shift to open-world stealth gameplay means blowing out certain aspects of Metal Gear Solid’s design, it also means scaling back on others, and in The Phantom Pain's case, that means dialing down the cutscenes. Not that there won't be any long-winded monologues, but the first 16 hours or so of the game puts a much larger emphasis on the gameplay, and you won't have to twiddle your thumbs waiting for the action to get going.

For a nice change of pace, The Phantom Pain puts a lot of its secondary information on cassette tapes, rather than dumping everything on you via hours of static codec conversations. Want to know more about the political landscape of the early 1980s or what happened to your comrades after the events of Peace Walker? Pop in a tape while you're travelling across Afghanistan or exploring Mother Base.

Unlike other Metal Gear games, Big Boss won't be funnelled down a linear path from the beginning of the story to its end. Instead, you'll choose from a variety of missions from a menu, similar to the PSP entry, Peace Walker.

You get a series of story-based mission that will further The Phantom Pain's narrative, but you also have a huge variety of Extra Ops to choose from, ranging from assassination missions, to recruiting specific soldiers, or even hunting down old members of your squad. Completing these missions will reward you with additional resources, which you can then use to build extra weapons and gear. If you're stuck on a particularly difficult story mission, take on a few side quests, research a rocket launcher, and blow up your problems with ease.

While we know the, ahem, clothing-deprived Quiet and Big Boss' horse can help out in the field, two other buddies can accompany Big Boss in his stealthy endeavors. If you're observant, you'll be able to find and recruit your own wolf pup, who can then be used to either distract guards or attack them on cue. Taking any of these buddies with you on missions will make them more loyal to you, and the higher their loyalty level, the more responsive they are to your commands.

The other buddy is a bit less… organic than the others. After a certain point in the story, Big Boss will get his hands on what looks like a mini-Metal Gear - a bipedal battle tank with a built in tranquilizer. Despite its default lumbering gait, it's surprisingly versatile, allowing you to speed across vast distances with its boosters, or to sneak across the battlefield by activating its 'silent running' option.

The latest feature revealed for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain will make Snake a nigh-undetectable master of stealth and subterfuge… and will also make him look completely ridiculous. Konami recently revealed the glorious chicken hat, a piece of equipment which players will be offered if they get killed or otherwise fail in Snake's quest for vengeance too many times.

You're free to pass on the hat, but you'd be giving up one of the most versatile tools in tactical espionage action that isn't made from corrugated paper. Guards don't tend to get out of sorts when they see Snake wearing it (unless he sticks around too long or starts shooting at them), because they think he's just a harmless chicken. Just a harmless, man-sized chicken with an eyepatch and a robot arm. Apparently there's no penalty for wearing the hat other than occasionally catching its weary stare as you try to follow otherwise serious cut scenes.

Looking for formation on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain? Click on for everything we know about the game.

At The Game Awards 2014, a new trailer for Metal Gear Online - the multiplayer companion to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - was shown. Right off the bat, it looks like you can have eight players on a team - if the above image is any indication. The developers did confirm that the Metal Gear Solid characters themselves will be playable, so you won't be running around as a bunch of generic-military-shooter-men (though there are still plenty of those).

In the ensuing firefight, a variety of traps and tools were shown. Early on Snake hijacked what very much looked like a tiny Metal Gear built for one, and rode it around the battlefield wreaking havoc. Not necessarily the stealthiest way to go about it, but it sure looked like fun. As for traps, the opposing team deployed a balloon mine that, when triggered, hoisted an unsuspecting player up into the air for easy shooting. They also had a… um… stuffed dog toy that they just dropped on the ground. This seemed to function much like the dirty magazines of yore, leaving its victim hopelessly infatuated (and ready to get shot down).

Looking for formation on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Just click on to the following slides for everything we know about the game.

There's a fresh gameplay demo of Metal Gear Solid 5, and it's stuffed full of new features. You can watch the video underneath this article, but here are some of the highlights... It shows a typical mission in one of Phantom Pain's open-mission areas. Snake is sent in to extract a hostage, and he takes new female companion Quiet with him. She has the ability to evaporate into a cloud of smoke, and reappear at set locations on the map. So, as Snake progresses through the woodlands in this demo, Quiet moves around the level to cover him with sniper fire.

While Snake can take out most enemies himself, Quiet is used as a back-up or for removing multiple threats at once. The hostage, for example, has two guards. Snake coordinates with Quiet, picking a target each to eliminate them at the same time. Apparently, there will be other allies that can be used as support characters throughout the Phantom Pain. Before you ask: it's unlikely they'll be human-controlled characters.

The demo shows off several interesting gadgets and moves too. We see the Phantom Cigar in action, which Snake can smoke to pass the time. This will allow you to change the conditions for each mission. In the demo, it's a dank, rainy day to start with but, as Snake puffs on his stogie, time passes. Night comes and goes, and the next day is much more clement. It's understandable that you'd want to tackle some missions at night, but it's unclear if the weather or time of day will have much impact on the gameplay.

Another nifty gadget is the Active Decoy. In the demo, Snake uses it in two ways. The first, rather amusing use, sees him bump a guard off a cliff-edge with the decoy. It then inflates in the shape of a person, drawing the attention of another near-by enemy. Snake then zaps this distracted fool with a power-glove. Later in the demo, Snake deploys three decoys while he's being chased by a group of militia. While they shoot up the inflatables, causing them to wither in a comedy fashion, Snake flanks his opponents and shoots them dead.

Even Metal Gear fans will admit the series history is really hard to nail down, so let's make it clear right now: The Phantom Pain's Snake is Big Boss, aka Naked Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3, the star of Peace Walker, father to Solid Snake, and the villain of the original Metal Gear game. It's set in 1984, 11 years before Solid's first battle with Big Boss. In The Phantom Pain, Snake is just trying to rebuild.

According to early sources, his nickname for MGS5 appears to be Venom Snake, likely because he's filled with venomous rage in a quest for revenge on the people that killed and tortured those closest to him. He plans to do a lot of damage, but he's got to do a lot of rebuilding first. In fact, Snake himself has been rebuilt this time, including a newly acquired cybernetic arm and some very different gameplay.

The Phantom Pain appears to begin with Big Boss/Snake dead on a stretcher. He's eventually revived and but is in a coma for the next nine years. When he awakes, he's missing an arm and has to quickly relearn his motor skills, because the hospital he's staying in is under attack. After escaping, Snake is set on revenge on the mercenaries that did this to him, so he starts to rebuild his army, this time under the David Bowie-esque moniker Diamond Dogs.

The Phantom Pain seems to be a lengthy tale of revenge on the part of Snake, as he slowly builds up the private military group that will presumably become Outer Heaven. As he rebuilds his reputation on the battlefield, Snake will meet friends old and new, as well as taking out armed guards with tranquilizers and CQCs. But will he find the mysterious XOF team that seems to be responsible for all his pain?

Classic Metal Gear games are known for sneaking in tight corridors and quiet hallways, though the series opened up more and more with each sequel. The Phantom Pain makes the world bigger than ever by adopting a truly open world gameplay. Snake gets dropped into a base and can explore it however he likes, planning his approach however he chooses, using new tools like the iDroid to mark waypoints along the way.

The changes feel natural for the franchise because the combat is still there, you just have way more places to hide. MGS has always been about giving players room to experiment, and Phantom Pain's map is apparently bigger than every previous Metal Gear combined. That's a lot of space to drag around bodies.

It took years before MGS creator Hideo Kojima announced The Phantom Pain, but he was talking up the game's technology long before we ever saw Snake's new arm. Kojima built the Fox Engine to be a flexible set of tools for making games for both 360/PS3 and Xbox One/PS4, able to create natural looking environments and realistic fabrics with ease. Now that we've seen the fifth Metal Gear Solid in action, we have to admit that the Fox Engine looks like a success.

MGS5's prologue, looked incredible--even the rocks were worth gawking at. Facial animations were marvelous, as were the weather systems and shifting time of day. Early footage of Phantom Pain seems to only build on Ground Zeroes visuals, looking better with each new trailer and screen. The series has always looked great and MGS5 doesn't look to ruin that reputation.

MGS5 has some insanely huge maps, so it's a good thing that Kojima isn't forcing Big Boss to crawl around the miles of open world. For the first time in series history, MGS5 adds in drivable vehicles, putting Big Boss behind the wheel of jeeps and tanks. He can even ride a horse around the world, as we've seen in an early Afghanistan level, and the horse defecates in real time--seriously, new-gen horse poop.

Snake can also take to the air via helicopter. Though Snake is alone on his tactical espionage missions, he can call for help from his team, including airstrikes via copters that he can ride along in. How will all these transportation options change the gameplay? And what other planes, trains, and automobiles will be available in the final game?

Snake already had to deal with losing an eye, but when he wakes up in his hospital bed he has to come to terms with losing his left arm and having chunks of shrapnel embedded in his skull. His prosthetic is pretty advanced for 1984, with all the maneuverability of a normal arm, but with special abilities. Do you recall how Snake normally taps on a wall to call over a curious guard? Well, that arm can now make that arm wherever, no wall needed. How's that for advanced?

Snake's cybernetic enhancement fits with a series full of augmented characters like Gray Fox, Raiden, and Revolver Ocelot, and the tech advancements don't stop there. Snake's iDroid is a great asset for planning out missions, summoning weapons, or listening to emotionally draining conversations. And to help time pass in game, Big Boss now has an e-cigar that he smokes while the in-game clock quickly advances.

The whole of MGS 5’s narrative is split and seems to be pre- and post-coma. Before Snake heads off to dreamland, he’s seen assisting a familiar face in the accompanying hospital bed. Master Miller (a.k.a. Kazuhira Miller) had teamed up with Big Boss prior to the Peace Walker incident to form Militaires Sans Frontières. When Boss awakes, Miller has been kidnapped and Snake has save his old friend from being tortured to death. And Snake gets help from his classic frenemy, Revolver Ocelot.

With Ocelot, Miller, and other familiar faces hanging around, the game still finds room for new characters. There's The Quiet, a controversial femme fatale that seems to have a complicated past. There's also a character that looks a bit like Psycho Mantis, as well as some other potential bosses with wacky names, such as Skull Face, Code Talker, and Eli. We look forward to hearing their life stories in separate 40 minute cutscenes.

Many Metal Gear fans skipped over the PSP entries in the series, which is too bad, and not just because they were fun. Peace Walker appears to be very important to the plot of The Phantom Pain, and MGS5 is even adopting some of the portable entry's most ambitious ideas. Namely, MGS5 has the return of the Mother Base and Recruitment systems.

As before, Snake and his team operate of Mother Base, and the giant tanker has been rebuilt using resources Snake finds in the field. Big Boss can acquire new soldiers and items via the returning Fulton system, which basically means you can attach a balloon to anything and it'll fly to Mother Base. It works on people, cars, anti-aircraft guns, even goats. Yes, goats can become members of Diamond Dogs.

The first publicly available taste of MGS5 is already available and... so far so good. As detailed in our , Snake plays better than he's ever played before, with everything from combat animations to moment-to-moment movement feeling more realistic when exploring Camp Omega. The game also delivers on its promise of taking the previously linear Metal Gear series and transitioning it into a more open-world, player-decision driven progression path. And though there isn't much by way of story here, Ground Zeroes' narrative treads the same thought-provoking ground you'd expect from a Kojima game.

Plus the game sets up a ton of plot points that Phantom Pain will no doubt explore. You learn the fates of Peace Walker characters Paz and Chico, you meet the despicable villain Skull Face, and you witness the attack on Mother Base that puts Snake in his lengthy coma. This is all essential info for Phantom Pain, plus it gives you ample time to adapt to the new controls.

When the star of 24 was confirmed to be the new lead in MGS, director Hideo Kojima had this to say about Kiefer Sutherland as Big Boss: "I wanted Snake to have a more subdued performance expressed through facial movements and tone of voice rather than words," Kojima said. "The game takes place in 1984, when Snake is 49 years old; therefore, we needed someone who could genuinely convey both the facial and vocal qualities of a man in his late 40s."

Sutherland will not only lend his vocal talents to our favorite spy, but also his movements as well--Snake's animations will be modeled after motion captured data. "It's an honor to be able to play this character," Sutherland said. "This character has an unbelievable legacy, but there's a real personal quality to this character that I've connected to. I'm not a gamer and I even knew about this game. I was certainly keenly aware of the legacy of these games." For fans of David Hayter's portrayal, you can hold out hope that Hayter still technically remains the voice of Solid Snake.

Yeah, we've heard this before. Hideo Kojima is claiming that Metal Gear Solid V is his last Metal Gear game, and that he'll pass the franchise off to his staff after this one. Before you get too worried, you should remember that he said literally the same thing when Metal Gear Solid 4 was announced. Kojima saying he's making his last MGS game is like The Rolling Stones saying they're on their last tour.

Kojima claimed that the reason he's making it at all is because he wants to reinvent the series before he leaves. That's why it's Metal Gear Solid V instead of 5 (V is for "Victory," in his mind), and that's why he's leaving David Hayter in the past. But will he really go to all the work of redefining Snake only to abandon him?

We still don't know everything, though. Can you... ever know everything about Metal Gear? What do you think? Let us know in the comments what you think about Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

And if you're looking for more, check out .

Typical. You play 16 hours of Metal Gear Solid 5, choke hundreds of Russian guards, disable an armoured tank with C4, flee from a chopper gunship as your horse’s hooves crumble an Afghan cliff edge and tackle a lightning-fast super-soldier unit of ‘Skulls’ with experimental governmental weaponry… but it’s Billy Idol who kills you. Ok, we weren’t *directly* taken out by the bleach-haired 1980s rock artist, but by our desire to steal his song ‘Rebel Yell’ for our tape collection – and it’s this insane desire to risk everything in the quest for rare items, resources, equipment and, er, a Long Eared Hedgehog, that typifies everything that’s mad, spectacular and uniquely *Kojima* about MGS5.

It’s almost impossible to capture everything we did in our huge hands-on with MGS5, but a few weeks ago we sent in a FOXHOUND unit of four GamesRadar+ editors to see as much of the game as possible. Our collected thoughts are right here, and in another more anecdotal feature, due tomorrow. Don’t worry, there are no big plot spoilers here, but a clearer sense of how the open world works, and an answer to the biggest question of all – will MGS5 truly be the series’ sign off Hideo Kojima deserves?

If you played last year's concise, tonally downbeat but highly replayable MGS: Ground Zeroes – which is currently free for PS+ subscribers – then you have a good idea of the core gameplay (give or take a few UI tweaks). Ground Zeroes is, in many ways, a test-bed for the larger ideas offered in The Phantom Pain. You've got vehicles to drive, buildings to explore, and a variety of gear to help you in your sneaky expeditions.

The Phantom Pain is an evolution of ideas presented in prior entries in the series, with you in the role of anti-hero Big Boss, aka Venom Snake – at least, that’s what we’re led to believe, but we’ll spare you the conspiracy theories for now. The Phantom Pain drops you in open environments, rather than funnelling you down segmented areas like in prior Metal Gear games – no longer can you evade pursuit by simply running to the next screen. Instead, you'll need to use cover (Snake ‘snaps’ to objects when you’re crouching nearby) and scout the area through your binoculars, which will actively mark enemies on your HUD – a bit like Far Cry.

If you get spotted by an enemy soldier, you now have a few seconds of ‘Reflex Mode’ slow-mo time to react with a well-aimed tranquilizer dart to their face and halt the alert. The Metal Gear series has never had the friendliest of control systems, and the lack of tutorials meant many never got to appreciate their exemplary nuance and accuracy.

MGS5 is even more progressive, with richly layered controls and deeper RPG-style upgrades than open-world contemporaries like GTA5. The game’s subtleties, mercifully, get revealed in layers as you progress – but it’s still possible to feel initially overwhelmed by the variety of controls and options. Bottom line: MGS5’s controls are able to keep up with its different ideas, creating a sandbox of almost unrivalled potential.

Sure, you could beat MGS: Ground Zeroes in a four-minute speed run, but most reports neglected to mention the 20-30+ hours required to reach that skill level. Camp Omega’s compact location forced you to experiment with the game’s more nuanced stealth and evasion skills – and MGS5 rewards that investment. The opening Afghanistan section feels around 20-30 times bigger than Camp Omega, juxtaposing wild open plains, valleys and mountains, with intimidatingly huge military bases, encampments and interiors.

This isn’t like any Metal Gear game you’ve ever played – imagine what Kojima hinted at with the intro level of MGS4, but with scale and awe of an open world like GTA5 or The Witcher 3. Sure, there are the expected cinematic sequences, but there's a hell of a lot of actual game here, too – if anything, fans might lament the *lack* of cut-scenes, with some story delivered in Uncharted-style, restricted-control, real-time gameplay, or via hours of (often hidden) audio tapes.

There are multiple ways to get around, whether by helicopter, horse, or simply hoofing it on your own two legs – with some more, well, *mechanical*, assistance in later locations. See an enemy encampment on the way toward your objective? Take it on head-first by force (using the 100s of weapons that can be researched by your Mother Base’s RD department, each with a unique feel) or sneak past it by trudging up the mountain path beside it. You can even tap X to hide on the side of your horse as guards stare obliviously at a ‘stray’ animal passing through their camp. Capturing enemy guard posts not only earns you resources (item pick ups that are sent to Mother Base for building new weapons and equipment), but makes invading nearby larger bases easier – trip an alert, and guards have no allies left to call in.

You can tackle missions in almost any order, with optional side-missions that benefit your progress. For example, one side mission asks you to rescue a translator. Upshot? You can interrogate Russian-speaking guards to learn where their colleagues are hiding, making infiltration easier.

Despite its gargantuan size and scope, MGS5 gets its biggest ideas from the portable game, MGS: Peace Walker. Rather than moving through a series of linear environments, you'll select a mission from a list of ever-expanding objectives, then hitch a ride on a helicopter to the mission location.

Like Peace Walker, The Phantom Pain's missions are set across both day and night - but here, that transition is far more dynamic. Enemy troops maintain a schedule, and as time passes, they'll move around the map, taking over their comrades' posts at various times throughout the day. A ghost town at noon can be teeming with enemy soldiers at midnight, and Snake need only puff on his Phantom Cigar (selected from the item menu) to accelerate the flow of time. Be careful: it’s easy to get too excited by the visual effects and overshoot your intended infiltration time. In daylight, Snake gets temporarily blinded as he exits dark rooms, increasing the risk of being caught. At night, you can use the shadows, shootout searchlights and turn off power generators to stay out of sight – but guards will rush to investigate a power cut.

Mission types are plentiful and varied. Across our 16+ hours, we fought a flaming psychic projection with a shotgun during a tense horseback pursuit, took out key enemy radar emplacements with C4, snuck into heavily-guarded prison complexes to drag out a scientist on our shoulders (with a big benefit for your RD effort) and used an experimental government weapon to fight a lightning-fast cyborg unit called ‘The Skulls’ - the creepy dead-eyed dudes from earlier trailers.

Being a Kojima game, the best bit is that you don’t even need to fight them: one colleague completed this section just by calling his horse and running away. Or, you could simply opt to chopper down to a random Landing Zone (LZ) on the map, tranquilize a stray wolf and send it on a Fulton recovery balloon back to your HQ (there’s a Red Dead-style list of rare animals to collect). Whatever you decide, you'll need to find as many supplies as possible, because the biggest idea The Phantom Pain yanks from Peace Walker is its best: the Mother Base.

Mother Base acts as the game’s central hub. It’s the home of your ragtag cadre of mercenaries, and where all of your equipment research takes place. It's not just a hideout - it's the factory for everything you'll ever use while you play The Phantom Pain, churning out new guns, grenades, and upgrades for you and your crew to use on missions.

While you're out exploring the Afghanistan desert, you'll come across blueprints for additional gear, as well as countless enemy troops out on patrol. These soldiers can be, ahem, 'persuaded' to join your team by knocking them out and strapping a Fulton balloon onto their person. Upgrade your Fulton balloon (by ‘hiring’ more soldiers to work in RD, completing missions for GMP currency and exploring the map for precious metal pick ups – it’s a virtuous cycle), and you can steal gun emplacements, or even tanks. As long as you're in an open area (and the weather is clear), the balloon will send items, animals and soldiers sky-high, where a helicopter will collect them, give them the new hire paperwork, and voila - they work for you now. Collecting soldiers will expand your base, allow you to research and upgrade new gear, and you can even send your burgeoning army on excursions against enemy encampments – rewarding you with improved conditions (like destroying enemy helmet and shield supplies) to make missions easier. And as you gain more skilled employees, additional wings of Mother Base will open up, allowing you to store vehicles, additional supplies, and even animals. But that's not all...

Mother Base isn't just a glorified menu screen like in Peace Walker. As you play and gather new recruits (one early mission asks you to find the scientist who developed your metal hand, unlocking research upgrades that allow you to scale previously-inaccessible rock faces, or use the hand like a radio-controlled rocket…) your base continues to grow and evolve, and what starts out as a single platform in the middle of the ocean quickly blossoms into a military fortress. When we unlocked our first base extension (unlocking a shooting range mini-game), it took us almost 5 minutes to drive across the connecting bridge by jeep. Just time to pop Aha’s Take on Me on your Walkman, or catch up on a backstory cassette about the formation of The Patriots, or the fate of Dr Strangelove.

It's not just for show. You can unlock a portable shower for washing blood off your fatigues, practice grappling with your troops and popping in to say ‘hi’ will actually improve soldier morale - which is important if you want to keep your troops from constantly trying to pick fights with each other (and consequently, ending up in the brig or sickbay). If you manage to find and capture the cute wolf-pup DD, you can keep popping back to Mother Base to see how he grows up – with some priceless interactions with Revolver Ocelot. Better yet, when DD is big enough, you can equip him as a buddy on the mission load-out screen, who can be tasked to distract or maul guards. Oh, and don’t forget to visit Mother Base on your real-life birthday for a nice surprise…

The deserts of Afghanistan can be a harsh and lonely place. Thankfully, Snake's got a buddy or two he can call on to help him out. When you first land in Afghanistan, you'll have D-Horse, a trusty steed that will carry you with haste over the sandswept plateaus to your next objective. But a horse can only get you so far - he’s hardly combat ready (unless Kojima later introduces soldiers with throats made of sugar cubes). D-Dog is the more aggressive buddy, leaping up guards and keeping them busy long enough for his master to finish them off. Order him to sit and bark - using the context sensitive command wheel on L1 (also used to whistle for D-Horse) - and he becomes a manual distraction. A little too ‘Crufts’ for your liking? Research new doggie costumes back at Mother Base and more brutal tricks will be added to the command list.

Incredibly, this entire dog-training path can be missed entirely, should you fail to extract the puppy D-Dog in the first place. If you’d kick yourself over that, you’d be distraught if you failed to recruit Quiet - yes, the clothing-averse sniper is another buddy. The how and the when are dangerous spoiler territory, but enlisting Quiet makes life that much easier: her cloaking device lets her enter distant outposts and feed back intel about enemy placements, or she can be ordered to fixed points on your iDroid map to act as overwatch. With her scope trained on the battlefield, any alerted guards can be silenced before they call for their friends. Look closely and you can even see her laser sight dancing on their heads.

If Quiet is the graceful killer you can see yourself buying an action figure of (embarrassment about malleable torso aside), at the other end of the scale is a pair of hoofing great mechanical legs known as D-Walker. It’s hilariously clunky: stomping around on noisy metal limbs and firing tranquiliser darts out of a massive cannon. Sure, it has a stealth mode, but this simply means dropping to its knees and trundling along on a set of hidden wheels - it’s like trying to infiltrate a secret military facility in a shopping trolley. Of course, all this is set to change by exploring deadly upgrades in its tech tree - alas, we simply don’t have time to recruit the necessary specialists (certain kidnappees have unique skills) to develop them. D-Horse won’t be put out to pasture just yet…

The more you take each buddy with you on missions, the more loyal they become, making them more responsive to your commands and capable of using a wider range of equipment. We didn’t have time to fully explore this idea, so we’re not entirely sure how it works as yet.

It’s hard to overstate the popularity of Minecraft on YouTube. The video-sharing platform is a home to tens of thousands of gamers who upload their escapades to be enjoyed by a wider community. Around the middle of 2014, those videos had been viewed a grand total of 31 billion times. Wowsers. As with any community, there are superstars who’ve gathered a huge audience. They have hundreds of thousands of fans, and with the money they earn from their channel, a lucky few are even able to quit their jobs and play Minecraft for a living.

If you want to join those hallowed ranks, we’ve gathered together some advice for you from the very best in . You’ll learn from Minecraft superstars about the technical and artistic principles necessary to create a brilliant Minecraft YouTube channel. Just don’t forget us when you’re raking in the cash and adulation of your legions of fans, yeah?

As a sneak peak here's our chat with Redstone expert and rising YouTube star . Join us as he natters about Minecraft in schools, the fundamentals of circuitry and how YouTube made Mojang’s finest what it is today...

Going back, can you remember your first experience of Minecraft, and can you tell us what it was like? I remember it because some people at my school were talking about Minecraft and they were chatting about this game and saying it looks like Lego. You know what: I quite like Lego! So I hopped onto the computer. I asked my mum’s permission to buy it, because I was a little bit younger at the time. I got it and I was up till about 4am working on my first hut. It was made entirely out of dirt. It had holes in the roof for the torches and I remember on the first night I tried to sleep and just immediately got blown up. That was one of my first experiences of Minecraft. I’m glad I kept it up, but that could have been the end, almost!

Did you have any idea then how big the game would eventually become? Oh, no, definitely not. I got it in the Alpha stage. Back then you’d tell people: ‘I play Minecraft’ and they’d be confused. They’d be like: ‘the graphics are awful!’ They’d talk about how terrible it looked compared to all the other games…

What makes Minecraft such an enticing prospect for you? It’s just raw creativity. You make the fun in the game. It’s not like Call Of Duty or something like that. You have a very defined role in Call Of Duty where you have to go along and kill the other team. It’s great fun, but as far as Minecraft is concerned, there are no real instructions. There’s no real goal or motive. I mean technically you don’t have to do anything in the game. You can just walk around and punch trees! But you make your own little journey. It’s great fun messing around with what’s possible in this world, like I do with redstone, to see what I can do there.There are plenty of possibilities, for example, in building and things. You can build a giant castle. Nobody needs to build a giant castle! It’s not one of the aims of the game at all, but it’s just one of those things you can do if you want to.

The castle is pretty much the go to for everyone, right? Funny that! Yeah!

Do you think Minecraft should be held up as an educational resource for younger kids? I guess so yes. It requires quite a lot of logical thought and it forces you to be a lot more creative than other things in the market. If people are getting into redstone, it teaches you some of the fundamental things about Boolean logic, which is to say the fundamentals of computing. That’s a pretty big deal. Outside of that, it forces you to be creative and use your brain and assess what you’re doing and better whatever it is that you’re working on.

And then there’s the community aspect as well. Are you proud to be a member of the wider Minecraft community? It’s one of the more friendly communities I can think of on the internet. It was extremely welcoming. When I started out on YouTube, everyone who’s a similar size to you will help you out. Everyone seems to have a common interest in Minecraft, and obviously you get involved in your own little communities. If you’re all working together, as a team, it allows you to build friendships quite easily. There are plenty of little servers that are people from all over the world working together as a little group on their various projects and things. I’ve experienced that, and it’s something you see right the way throughout the community.

What makes Minecraft perfect for crafting videos around? It comes back to the fact that the person who’s creating the video has full control over the content they’re producing. In other games it relies on being extremely good at one aspect. Here you can just have fun with friends on a server, and that will make a good video because you’re clearly having fun! Other than that there’s the whole tutorial aspect. You can show people various bits, how to do the technical elements, and also you have the full Let’s Play. It’s essentially limitless. there’s not a set achievement structure. Let’s Plays can run on for hundreds of episodes without running out of content. That’s one of the main things that’s kept it going so well in terms of YouTube. Obviously you have the whole modding side, there’s always content available.

How important is YouTube for Minecraft? It’s very important because without it I don’t think Minecraft would be where it is today. That’s my own personal opinion. The reason a lot of my friends found out about Minecraft is because some of the YouTubers that they were watching originally started playing Minecraft. They saw it and they thought… well first they thought it looked rubbish, but when they saw the creative elements and all the things that you could do with it they got into it. It’s one of those games that blew up on YouTube pretty quickly, and suddenly it was in all of everyone’s sub boxes and feeds, and people were looking into it and wondering ‘what on earth is this thing?’ That’s the sort of thing that I don’t think Minecraft could have achieved through traditional advertising. If you showed me an advert on the TV, and it was like: ‘It’s building. With blocks.’ I’d just be like: ‘that doesn’t seem like anything I’d be interested in’. YouTube was a huge element for Minecraft’s success. And I know that’s biased from a YouTuber!

If you had the keys to YouTube is there anything you would change? There’d be a few things in terms of the YouTube side of things. Like if they were a lot better at pushing videos to people that were subscribed to you. That seems to be something that YouTube are phasing out. It seems odd to me. That’s the one thing I’d change. But it works as it is. It probably isn’t perfect, but it does function well. And I’m yet to find myself looking for an alternative. Currently I’m perfectly happy on YouTube. It suits me down to the ground. A few little tiny problems, but other than that it’s running smoothly.

And if you had the keys to Minecraft, what would you change there? I think there would be a few little bits. It wouldn’t be the hardcore elements of the game. They work perfectly fine. But in terms of my own little niche of redstone, there are a few little elements I wouldn’t mind adding. Cogs, pulleys, things like that. That would be really good fun and would add a whole new area of the world. Other than that, it’s probably not perfect. There are plenty of bugs in Minecraft and there are things people like to complain about, but you forget that it’s a game that functions perfectly well. I’ve played Minecraft for five years now. I paid 13 pounds for it, the best 13 pounds I’ve spent in my life. I’m in no position to complain!

What is your favourite build? Aw blimey. This is going to be a tough one. I could take this a couple of routes. I could go for my first ever redstone contraption which was a 2x2 door that was using just wooden doors. That was one of my first ones so you could say it was one of my favourites. Phoar… I’ve… There’s a lot of them. I don’t know why but I’ve got a fond memory of the armour stand jump scare device. It’s funny because it’s so very pointless. It was when flying blocks were first introduced, and we had the ability to launch entities at great speed. So I placed an armour stand behind the door and a flying block behind the armour stand. If you walked past it would just launch out at you, and I’ve always liked that contraption just because it was very silly.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do with redstone? I’d almost go back to my first redstone project again! Oh, I don’t know. I’ve worked on some things that have never come together, and I’ve worked on them for hours and hours on end. I know I say don’t give up, but, when things go so wrong, you have to know when to stop! Looking back, they’re getting on, but there was an infinitely expandable 5x5 door. Back then it required a lot of piston action, that was getting on two-and-a-half, maybe three years ago. That was my first proper large scale redstone project. That took a lot of work!

Game trailers are an art form in and of themselves. With only 180 seconds or less to impress their audience, they need to tell an immediately arresting story that gives a snapshot of what an hours-long game will make you feel. One way to tie it all together is with a recognizable piece of licensed music, a familiar, melodic thread to guide you to the highlights of this virtual world.

E3 is gaming's trailer season, and you can bet that you'll be seeing plenty of trailers using licensed music to promote the many . With that in mind, we wanted to look back the trailers that were made more distinctive, more memorable, and (most importantly) more effective because they chose to revolve around familiar songs. Hey, all you E3 2015 trailer-smiths: these are the ones to beat.

Not all pulse-pounding rock songs are created equal. While banking on the power of screaming lyrics and throbbing rhythm usually gets a game some attention, about a million other trailers are doing the exact same thing. To be heard over all that noise, a trailer's musical accompaniment has to be distinguishable from generic beats and connected to the game in a way that makes the two feel inseparable. That's what folksy thrasher song 'Beast of America' does for the trailer of the same name.

It's difficult to envision this trailer with any other song, since the game and the tune seem tailor-made for each other. You have rustic humming and drumming at the beginning that drips with Americana. You have the obvious nods to a broken American dystopia that's everywhere in BioShock Infinite. You have vicious vocals and guitar riffs that highlight the violent, angry, and enormous visuals that fill the trailer. And you have a unique sound that stands out in your mind and makes the game do the same. Now you can't think of either the song or game without the other, which is exactly the point.

"What do you want, Michael?" asks a psychiatrist as a drum machine begins marching and keyboard strains slowly lift in the background. Michael is conflicted. He has the dream; the big house, the family, the money. But he also has nothing; his family hates him, and his days are filled with a crushing sense of self-loathing and worthlessness. As Michael begins to question what he really wants, Queen's 'Radio Ga Ga' forms the backdrop for one man's quest for meaning in a town full of fleeting opportunities to find it, and I honestly can't think of a better fit for this spectacular, explosive trailer.

The lyrics are a perfect metaphor for Michael's existential plight - a grasp at nostalgia for days gone by, when listening to the radio was something that mattered, not just 'some background noise'. Michael is a man attempting to regain the feeling of the glory days of his youth, when a big score was around every corner, but finds nothing beyond the regrets that come with mid-life crisis. Even the melody evokes strains of melancholy in its immensely danceable beat, punctuated by scenes showing exactly how Michael's life is falling apart around him. Rockstar is good at a lot of things, but ever since Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, it's been an expert at creating the perfect soundtrack, and Michael's trailer is its ultimate masterwork.

The most memorable trailers can strike a chord with people who have no intention of playing video games in general, let alone the one that's being advertised. And juxtaposing soft, melancholy piano melodies with Marcus Fenix's alleyway encounter against the Locust hordes creates the kind of attention-demanding scene that can enrapture anyone. You've got to appreciate just how big of a gamble it was for Microsoft and Epic to advertise their new red-blooded, M-rated shooter - packed with guns-blazing violence and chainsaw bayonets - by giving a brief, perfectly-scored glimpse into the forlorn desolation of the post-Emergence Day apocalypse. That gamble paid off, big time.

It's all anchored to Gary Jules' somber cover of 'Mad World', which puts the sadness of Tears for Fears' original lyrics into focus. The song was certainly memorable in Donnie Darko, but the Gears of War launch trailer makes it absolutely unforgettable for an entire generation of gamers. I still get chills when Jules croons the chorus just as Marcus is desperately firing on a gargantuan Locust he can't possibly defeat.

Ok, yes, it's dubstep. Go ahead and get all the hate for that particular overused musical style out of your system, because Nero's 'Doomsday' is the perfect backdrop for the delightfully bombastic, cheerfully ridonkulous action of . Really, what other kind of tune are you going to put behind a trailer that tells you to "Get ready to joy puke your face off"? Jazz? Stop.

Borderlands is a game that rejoices in its absurdity, revels in its violence, and reminds us that shooting things is a really, really fun thing to do. Borderlands 2 cranks up the volume in every way possible. The 87 bazillion guns get bazillionder, there are more skills (for the payment of bigger bills), and it’s 1,000 degrees hotter. Mostly, though, it's a colorful departure from typical gritty shooters and it simply wants you to have a good time doing violence on Pandora. The thumping beat of 'Doomsday' accentuates the quick shots of Borderlands 2's gameplay, accelerating your pulse until the volume plummets and Handsome Jack makes his appearance. We're gonna need a lot of guns...and 96.5% more wub wub.

When it comes to Prince of Persia trailers, Ubisoft has a format they like to stick to: footage of the Prince beating up enemies and using time-travel acrobatics, while a Moviefone narrator talks very seriously about destiny. The point is to make the Prince look like a proper action hero, but it pushes a simplistic view of who he really is. That's what makes the E3 trailer for the 2008 Prince of Persia reboot so interesting: it presents the Prince in a more thoughtful light, and the accompanying song - Sigur Ros' dreamy ballad 'Sæglópur' - shows just how different this Prince of Persia is meant to be.

Avoiding the quick transitions between fight scenes that you might expect to see, Sæglópur's gentle rhythm slows the trailer down, honing in on the way the characters move together and the world they're moving through. It also strengthens the mystical nature of their combat, and it feels like the music is given form through the Prince and Elika's colorful explosions of magic. The crescendo of the song comes just as Elika turns their battlefield into a lush, sunlit landscape, showing this is what the game is meant to be about: these two rebuilding the world. This new Prince feels different from his generically impressive former self, because Sæglópur has given him a different tone. One that sticks with you well after the trailer is over.

This trailer is all fire and rage and hate; a descent into madness stretched across five minutes that feel like an eternity. Leading the charge is its title track 'Nuclear' by English prog rocker Mike Oldfield, which I wrongly assumed had been written specifically for the trailer. This song perfectly encapsulates what's going on with Big Boss' character, while also invoking the overall tone of this game. The lines 'I'm nuclear / I'm wild / I'm breaking up inside' sum up the game's protagonist in a nutshell: a broken soldier whose life has been going to hell ever since the events of Metal Gear Solid 3.

Layered on top of these lyrics are images of violence that are extreme even by Metal Gear standards. This creates a striking contrast between and rest of the series. Sure, Snake's exploits have explored torture and other dark themes, but they've always been tempered with the levity of giant robots and people with superpowers. None of that is on display here. Instead it's all stabbing and torture and dismemberment, which together set a powerful (if not grisly) expectation for how this adventure will play out.

A lot of the trailers on this list take a solemn, serious tone, amplified by a poignant piece of music. And when it comes to melancholic drama, there's really no topping the original Dead Island trailer. So I was delighted to see the reveal go in the complete opposite direction, with its bright, light-hearted, and comically chaotic tone. Ignoring the fact that this sequel takes place in California - which, last I checked, is not an island - this trailer perfectly captures the fun side of a sunny zombie apocalypse.

Pigeon John's 'The Bomb' is irresistibly catchy, making you want to clap along to the poppy rhythm which, like a zombie's diet, is organ-centric. And John's jovial, self-congratulatory chorus of "I'm the bomb and I'm 'bout to blow up" perfectly matches the vanity of this tanned, teeth-whitened male model even as he slowly decomposes, as well as the impending explosion of undead pandemonium that's erupting right behind him. Even with the gazillion other trailers shown off during E3 2014, the song - and the accompanying scene of morning cardio gone to hell - kept running through my mind all week long.

If you're a fan of 19th century sea shanties, you've probably heard doesn't match that description at all, and the rendition of 'Drunken Sailor' used in its E3 debut trailer (changed to 'Drunken Whaler' to fit the game's environment better) becomes a whole lot darker to match.

The visuals in this trailer gracefully lay out the basics of Dishonored: where you'll go, who you'll run into, and the violent methods you have to dispose of most of them. However, it's the song that really lodges the whole thing in your brain. The music alternates between unsettling wisps of sound and pounding industrial cacophony; add that to a creepy child singing 'slice his throat with a rusty cleaver', and the music drives home that there's something deeply wrong with this place and everything you're seeing in it. Where the images could easily have been a dull catalog of whos and whats, 'Drunken Whaler' brings Dunwall to disturbing life, and makes you want to experience its horrors for yourself.

E3 starts this Sunday, when Bethesda hosts its inaugural press conference to show off the likes of , Doom, and any other unannounced projects it has tucked away. Dishonored 2 anyone? After that, it's a week of big game announcements, hardware news, and loads of overweight nerds dressing up like Mario and trawling the LA convention centre for free swag.

We're always excited about E3, and to get you in the mood, we've decided to tell you about the games we're most looking forward to at the show. As ever, feel free to let us know what's hottest in your world too. Or if there are any unannounced titles you're desperate to have revealed next week.

Check out for more great comment from the GamesMaster team.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, kids, but this one seems like a shoo-in to be revealed next week. And even though I've seen nothing official of it yet, I want it almost as much as I want to take my next breath. Unpopular opinion time: I was very slightly disappointed by . It's an utterly brilliant game, of that there's no doubt, but it didn't draw me into its world in the same way that the Souls titles have. The environments weren't as varied or alluring, and the lack of depth in terms of character building and equipment selection left me a tad cold.

I hold the first Dark Souls up to be the finest game ever made, so to have Miyazaki back at the helm, and bringing the series to current-gen for the first time (in a bespoke manner, at least) is about as exciting a gaming proposition as I could imagine. If a new to boot, there's a very real chance that I'll actually explode.

The numbers! The endless stream of numbers! It seems you can't go big at E3 without tacking a digit on the end of something we already know about (or, worse, a subtitle seemingly pulled out of the hat at random). That's why Hello Games' space exploration… thing… is my most wanted game of E3.

Despite chatting with the folk working on it and absorbing every last drip of info that has trickled forth I still have no idea what to expect, beyond colourful dinosaurs and weird fish aliens, once I get my hands on the pad. It seems like an age since that's been the case at E3, and so, barring Team Ico turning up to the party with The Last Guardian (ha!), I'm clinging to the unknown in that vast sea of sequels and reboots. That, and Joel bagsied Dark Souls 3.

So canonically the bad guys won? Fair enough, that's certainly how 90% of my runs went in Enemy Unknown. Nevertheless I remain undeterred – I'm positively itching to take command of my own scrappy band of resistance fighters and bring down the totalitarian forces of The Man (or, rather, The Alien).

Between the stealth, melee combat, airborne HQ, and the more futuristic bent, looks like it'll genuinely shake up the franchise. Given Firaxis' track record, I'm optimistic that it'll be for the better. And as a loyal PC gamer, I can't help but be excited by the possibilities inherent in the studio moving away from consoles – advanced procedural generation and robust, open modding tools, could make this a game with a seriously impressive life-span. I got tingles when the announcement trailer ended with “Welcome back Commander”. I've missed you too, weird, shadowy, Optimus Prime-sounding council man.

RPGs have and will continue to enrich our lives immensely. Because when an RPG fulfils our wildest expectations, we're not just sitting on the sofa, mourning tomorrow's seven am start for the weekly slog. We're commandeering our own ship and crew across the universe. We’re stalking dragons amid ruined castles, on the way to becoming grand ruler of all we survey. We’re utterly invested in fighting for a cause, with the future of an entire, carefully crafted universe dependent on our actions; both good and bad.

However, throughout the course of enjoying epic adventures through hours of innovative open-world gameplay, I have, on occasion, been dragged crashing back to reality. The cause? The odd incoherently lacklustre areas, popping up to take the sheen off even the mightiest of RPG worlds. From the likes of the Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls games, to lesser known but equally brilliant titles, such as Divinity: Original Sin and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, there is one common thread. All of these games are great, but, thanks to one bad-apple location, none of them is perfect. So what’s wrong with them, exactly? How and why do these dull areas detract from our overall RPG experiences? Here are six games that pose the dilemma.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is a great big magnet of character attachment. Falling in love with characters is unavoidable. You can even possess your own castle-come-love-mansion where everyone just adores you and thinks you're great. And the open-world exploration throughout is beautiful, varied, and did I mention beautiful? But as the hours trickle on, a sense of deja vu begins to settle in. It's not that the areas suffer from visual similarity, since BioWare has done an excellent job of moulding diverse landscapes. It's the open world gameplay that feels stuck on repeat.

This is especially apparent in the later stages of the game, in areas such as The Hissing Wastes. As a wasteland, we’re understandably faced with a barren expanse of land to explore, but with set-dressing greatly reduced, the game’s underlying structural issues are accentuated horribly. Repetitive fetch quests, 'blank spaces' that offer no reward for exploration, easy battles, too many rifts to close… It’s all too obvious. Essentially, we’re faced with open-world gameplay experienced as copy-and-paste, and while DA: I saves itself from any grievous damage thanks to a gripping storyline and extremely well crafted characters, this structural stuff potentially hinders any yearning for future replay.

There are many, many great things we can say about Oblivion. Massive and addictive open-world? Check. Gripping storyline? Yep. Diverse character development? Of course. But do you want to go back and close that gate? Nope. Not even a little bit. While not quite as bad as ironing, closing the oblivion gates to keep the baleful Daedra at bay seems to be a universally hated chore. The gate destinations themselves are well crafted, in terms of their vibe, at least, owning a suffocating presence of death and despair that only increases our urgency to close them. However, in terms of structure and design, navigating your way through dead-end passages, caves and identikit rooms, in a realm where everything relentlessly wants to kill you rapidly loses its appeal.

When you eventually do the deed, the return of those verdant, deer-filled fields evokes an overwhelming sense of relief, if only because it’s over. Except that it’s not. More gates open up, in addition to those needed in to increase the haul of sigil stones. Exploring otherworldly new areas has never felt so tedious, rendering the gates of Oblivion places we are desperate to forget, rather than powerful experiences to remember.

I like Final Fantasy 13… don’t look at me like that - I really do! The game’s linearity, while heavily criticised, suits the pace of the storyline in many respects, and the environments explored along the way are magnificently eye-catching, married with tough battles involving plenty of trial and error strategy. Saying that, by the time we enter Gran Pulse, expecting a vast and dangerous plain appropriately feared by the people of Cocoon, we’re more than ready for some addictive open-world exploration.

Gran Pulse is certainly vast and dangerous. But unfortunately, also painfully boring. Sighs could be heard from across the globe, as wandering RPGers first plodded from battle to battle, plain to plain, like lost souls searching for meaningful NPC relationships and butterflies to chase. Instead, after such a long and ominous build-up, the disappointment is overwhelming. Once Final Fantasy games open up, the usually explode with character and content, filled out with bustling towns and cities, fun and urgent side-quests, and many a mystery to investigate along the way. Without this to break up the monotony of random enemy encounters, Final Fantasy 13 becomes, well, just random enemy encounters, really. It suffers heavily, leaving us truly not wanting to come back for more. Not that there is much more to be had in the first place.

From the multi-cultural Citadel and the beloved Normandy, to moons, planets, space stations, asteroids, starships and really scary reaper nest monstrosities, Mass Effect offers vast scope on a munificent sci-fi level. So why is one of the best RPGs ever skulking around on this list? Because of an exploration feature I choose to forget. Or try to. But can’t, because it’s terrible.

As the saviour of multiple universes, it’s your responsibility to harvest precious materials to ensure full competency in the end-game. In the first ME, this means taking your crew for a joyride in the Mako buggy, dropping in on a planet, and scouring the environment using a radar. Despite the awful car handling, this is passable the first time round. The second, third, fourth and fifth times, however, demonstrate three specific things: That alternative, off-track exploration results in sheer nothingness, that getting stuck up mountains due to horribly springy physics (a lot) is furiously dull, and that seeing rocks and then more rocks, over and over again, forever, truly dampens our yearning to explore the majesty of the universe. BioWare misses an opportunity here, and this is a feature I hope to see improved in ME4. It’d be epic to carry out such tasks, and even side quests, on a vibrant and fully realised alien world. Mass Effect is a universe of brilliantly crafted cultures, so can we make it a bit teresting to explore please?

With its bold, chunky production design, shot through with vibrant colours and textures, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning almost feels like the offline version of World of Warcraft, delivering a stunningly spirited world you really want to explore. Its vast array of caves, ruins, magical forests, towns and cities positively burst with life. And like the Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls games, it delivers huge scope, easily containing 50 hours of exploration in addition to the main storyline.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all those hours are exciting. Akin to Dragon Age: Inquisition in this respect, the open-world areas, while diverse, offer exploration that sometimes feels strained. I started to feel this in Klurikon, a region entered after a memorable battle with the hideous (and enormous) Balor. Sadly, a little inadvertent grinding at this point saw the game deem me over-levelled, detracting from the importance of side quests, and making me feel punished for my earlier enthusiasm for exploring its world. Simply, Klurikon just wasn’t designed to accommodate my wandering. Massive nerd tears were shed as this pattern increased in intensity towards the end of the game; the growing tedium emphasised without the strength of a ‘good-enough’ storyline.

As if in answer to our prayers, Larian Studios put major focus on its game's environment, not just in form, but in terms of making the fabric of the world an engaging game mechanic in itself. There are four main regions to explore as you progress through the game, with busy fishing towns, forest villages, and secret-filled dungeons en masse. But in addition to delivering the expected looting, lock-picking, object-moving, lever-pulling and trap-triggering, Divinity: Orginal Sin’s environment is design to be a weapon in its own right.

Whether you’re creating volatile surfaces to trap enemies, or setting off deadly substances for game changing damage, using the environment to your advantage is a table turner, and often the most effective way to win the game’s uncompromising battles. So what do we actually have to complain about? The problem, alas, is the environmental structure around the action. The difficulty of battles and abundance in loot necessitates far too many repeat visits to towns along the way. Quests work similarly, to the point where toing and froing from place to place, repeating conversations with the same vendors and characters, feels like a tedious mess of bureaucratic busywork. Get it all cleared, and then you’ll find that the next area brings all of that again, but it’s tougher. Talk about making a rod for your own back.

Aaand here we are. The final part of out marathon series of predictions articles for E3 2015. is done. Who's left? Everyone else. It's not all about the platform-holders, after all. Those guys make the boxes, and push the shiniest, tentpole games, but we have a whole industry of other, friendly global megacorps vying for our attention each and every day. So let's give them a bit of attention, shall we?

EA? Ubisoft? Square-Enix? What do you guys have for us? What's that? You're not going to answer until the show? Well, we're just going to have to throw out some ideas of our own then. Really good ones, that everyone should read.

The conference will go off without a hitch, complete with pulse-pounding cinematic trailers and polished demos touted as being available on the show floor. For the finale, the presenter announces that the Doom beta will be immediately available to the public, and walks off stage as a five-second promo video for The Elder Scrolls 6 appears on screen.

The conference concludes to the sound of rapturous weeping. Some chairs are thrown in hysterical fervor. One person leaves the room on fire, and doesn’t even care.

Towering over Yves Guillemot and using her well-earned credibility to protect the Ubi CEO from his own awkwardness, Aisha Tyler tries her best to act like everything is perfectly normal, as several overweight Ubisoft producers try to breakdance to a song from Just Dance 43 (or whatever we’re on now).

As one of the ‘dancers’ spasms wildly around on the floor to All About That Bass, like a cow that’s fallen onto an electrified fence, the audience prays for a yawning chasm to open up under their seats and swallow them forever.

Dark Souls and its sequel are two of the biggest critical wins Bandai Namco has scored in years. We imagined all kinds of glum faces and desk kicking when it was announced that Sony had snagged From Software’ spiritual successor, Bloodborne, but we also expect that frown to be turned upside down at this year’s E3.

You see the thing is, for all of Bloodborne’s fantastic gameplay evolutions and entrancing, arcanely captivating new lore, the Souls fandom is still incredibly strong. Those games are so dense - and so different to Bloodborne, despite their philosophical similarities - that there’s more than enough room for both series to co-exist. Bandai Namco will not want to let a fanbase like that go, so do not at all be surprised to discover that it has commissioned From to make a new one, though do not expect ‘main’ series director Hidetaka Miyazaki to be at the reigns. He’s likely busying himself with Bloodborne’s expansions.

After the resounding ‘Yay! Wait, what? Ohhh...’ reaction to Hitman; Absolution’s ‘tweaks’ to the series’ classic formula, Square-Enix and IO will be eager to redress the balance and re-convince old slaphead’s fanbase that they’re still capable of delivering the Machiavellian goods (before walking nonchalantly away, unnoticed, as a huge explosion goes off, killing all the most vocal detractors).

Expect Hitman: Whatever This One’s Called to be revealed by way of a lengthy, in-depth demo showcasing the Blood Money-style focus on dynamic, mini-open-world plotting, and the multitudinous ways Agent 47 can off people undetected, while wearing a variety of goofy disguises. Though, this being E3, there will be at least one major shoot-out and cinematic detonation sequence, which IO will spend the next two weeks reiterating is not indicative of the way the whole game works.

Our first taste of was impressive, no doubt, but it was heavy on the highly choreographed, pre-rendered cyberpunk action. As in, zero gameplay footage was shown. Don't count on a live on-stage demo during Square-Enix’s press conference, either. What's more likely is a sizzle reel of the different approaches Adam Jensen can take to defuse the same one situation, intercut with cinematics filled with big orange explosions and golden bloom lighting. This trailer will be bookended by a way-too-self-serious developer positing questions about the morality of mechanical augmentation in the year 2029. Absolutely no mention of '#CantKillProgress' will be made.

In an ingenious marketing move, Square-Enix will hand out replicas of Jensen's trademark slide-in sunglasses on the show floor, dominating social media as fans take countless selfies while doing their best 'I didn't ask for this' pose. This will all backfire when one pair of these slick shades inevitably takes someone's eye out.

In lieu of actual gameplay, the trailer will consist entirely of slow, panning shots of stars. And planets, and general outer space stuff. Meanwhile, an old man with a really craggley voice will spout vague lines of narration about humanity transcending its limits and reaching the next stage of evolution, et cetera.

No one will have any idea what this is all about until the word "Shepherd" gets dropped in and the camera slow pans to reveal a broken down Mass relay - at which point the entire internet explodes.

While Star Wars Battlefront will absolutely be the golden child of EA's press conference, those context-free images will be more than enough to keep everyone ticking over until next year. Hey, it’s Mirror’s Edge. When have vague promises ever not worked for a fanbase that rabid?

As of now, the advertising for Assassin's Creed Syndicate has primarily revolved around its main character Jacob Frye, and largely ignored its other main character, his sister, Evie. Ubisoft has promised more of Evie in the weeks to come, and will certainly make good on that promise this E3.

Expect an effect-heavy trailer that confirms her existence with no hint of how her abilities will translate to gameplay, because that will be saved for the real Evie reveal. At Gamescom. But the soundtrack will be sick.

It will contain five minutes of footage from old Kingdom Hearts games, and twenty seconds from the actual game they're showing off. Not one of those twenty seconds will involve gameplay. The release date will be replaced with an illustration of Nomura flipping everyone the bird.

You know, like every other Kingdom Hearts trailer.

Since its announcement at Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference, Rise of the Tomb Raider has acted as one of MS’s signature exclusives, earning itself a feature spot in the most recent Xbox TV ad. Yet usual publisher Square-Enix has apparently forgotten that Lara exists, if its non-existent advertising campaign for Rise is anything to go by.

With titles like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy 15, and Just Cause 3 on the books for this year, the chances are that won't change this coming E3. Looks like Lara will only be getting love from Microsoft. Millions of dollars worth of love.

Though afterwards they will not acknowledge that they have done this, and look with confused expressions at any journalist who asks about it. The game will continue to exist only in realms beyond our understanding for years, perhaps centuries, to come.

Should the proper incantations ever be uttered however, it may actually, one day, cross over into our universe. It will release on the same day as the inevitable Prince of Persia reboot, and the cycle shall begin anew.

The company will hold a “live” Battlefront match on-stage, which will feature Y-wings dropping bombs on AT-ATs as Darth Vader and Boba Fett mow down legions of Rebel troops. It will be awesome, and cinematic, and rousing, and make everyone forget the truth that in real game conditions they’ll probably spend half their time running to somewhere, only to be sniped by an enemy miles across the map.

The presentation will also tease Visceral Games’ Star Wars entry via a trailer that shows a man strapping on various pieces of armor as a gravely voice states that he is “the last,” he is “the sword,” he is … a bounty hunter. Fade in on Boba Fett’s helmet being picked up. Cut to black. An EA spokesperson asks the audience, “How many of you out there liked Star Wars Galaxies?!” Three of us let out feverish hooting, our eyes wide. “...Nevermind!” say EA, as the show continues.

Remember Wet? The Bethesda-published game starred Rubi Malone, a “problem solver” whose favorite answer to a pop quiz was two smoking barrels and blood-soaked katanas? Sure the first game didn’t garner much praise from consumers or press, but it has a devoted fanbase, and with the recent rise of strong female action protagonists like Katniss Everdeen and Marvel’s Black Widow, there’s no better time for a comeback.

Come back to us, Rubi. Please. Some of us still care.

FIFA 16 has taken a brilliant step by into the mix. It’s a move that aligns FIFA games closer to what modern football is, rather than the corporate box-ticking the game can sometimes be. Unfortunately, there’s still a long way to go before FIFA-the-game is an accurate representation of what football really is and not what the laughable Bond-esque villains who ru(i)n the game want to paint it as.

So, while adding women's teams is the best thing EA Sports has done in a long time - yes, even better than corner flag physics - there are some less impressive aspects of modern football that need addressing. Whether it’s the (ahem) 'banter' of Twitter, or ensuring the noble profession of diving is given its due reverence, here are some more tweaks EA need to make if we’re going to get the game football deserves.

Football might be called the beautiful game, but really it’s built on the hungover sweat of teams like The Red Lion Rovers and The Cross Hand Geezers. These teams have one genuinely good player and ten others who want him to pass to them. So, let’s bin all the idolisation of current superstars. No more fawning over how good a job they did capturing the soulless abyss behind the eyes of pixel imposters.

Instead, let’s celebrate the people who treat tackles like an invitation to commit GBH and reward themselves for a ten minute run out with a sausage roll and an ale. Because do we really need another year of the Premier League presentation in FIFA? Nah. There’s a team editor for the holdouts who absolutely need to have the correct team, while the rest of us can bask in football the way we usually play it.

Get any game of FIFA going and the first thing you’ll hear is Jim Stelling blabbering on about the match. But then you’ll hear the roar of thousands as they cheer your gang on, every second of the game, never relenting in their vocal appreciation of what’s unfurling. Even in the most turgid of 0-0’s, especially when you’re accidentally napping between tackles. If only it were anywhere near the truth.

This isn’t to say that stadiums designed to hold a small nation's worth of people don’t generate ear-ruiningly loud noises, it’s just they don’t do it as often as FIFA suggests. We’re here for realism, so someone needs to turn the crowd noise dial down from 11 to maybe 3 or 4 and ensure that only the biggest moments get the cheers they deserve. Nobody is leading a chorus of “Who are ya?” because you’ve put five passes together.

The Twitter population is so incredibly funny, with its lame jokes and hurried photoshops that really hammer home the fact that your team is getting scored on more times than your mum. I mean, technically that may be true (so where's the insult, really?) but it's an element of the game that FIFA the video game really hasn't included. It's in the game… so why isn't it in the game?

In honour of this, FIFA 16 should round up the ‘best’ of these 140 character tirades and have them flash on screen every time you concede goal. Playing as Arsenal and losing by a mile? “What time is it? Five-past Szczesny LOL”. Every goal conceded would bring a consuming sense of dread, knowing the Wilde-esque wit that’s waiting for you. There could even be some cheat codes to unlock some Lineker/Morgan classics.

Despite the fact the world has landlords, traffic wardens and taxmen, I’m yet to see a more hated profession than professional referees. These men and women are only trying to ensure a game of football doesn’t devolve into a colour-coordinated brawl, yet they’re always wrong (except when the decision goes the way the fans want) and everyone hates them. However, in the FIFA games, they’re robo-eyed demigods, capable of sensing a minor infraction even when it’s physically impossible for them to see it.

That needs to be sacked off right away. If we’re going to indulge FIFA’s obsession with using real names, then I want to see each referee being as consistent - or, rather, inconsistent as they are in real life. Dubious offsides, leg breaking tackles that aren’t noticed, and comical villainy that is ripped out of the pages of Marvel. There’s no greater pain in football than watching your team get robbed because of the ref who ate all the pies and now is the time to get the simulation right.

Diving is either a frowned upon evil or the figurative Liquid Snake of football depending on whether you support the team who are doing it. It’s a part of the game that will never truly go away, because then pundits might actually have to talk about what’s actually going on in a match. What’s surprising is that FIFA has never got out it’s moustache wax, given its upper-lip hair a good twirl and put a dedicated dive button in the game.

The rebellious PES does it, Sony’s long-forgotten This Is Football series did it, maybe EA Sports just needs to loosen up, bend at the knees dramatically take a tumble into giving us the option to dive. Preferably with its arms flailing and a look on its face that suggests every bone in it’s body has just combusted. It would be worth it for the videos of sore losers being cheated out of a game alone.

The greatest things football has given the population in ascending order: The genius of Lionel Messi; Goodison Park; the half-time pie. Overpriced and understocked, perfect in all weathers and the principal reason why people will wander off before the half-time whistle has even been blown. Yet, year after year, FIFA cruelly ignores the lukewarm joys of sinking Suarez like gnashers into a half-time pie.

It’s easily rectifiable of course. All I’m suggesting is that a real-time Kinect mini game replaces the current yawn-o-vision highlights. Said mini game should have you rubbing your hands trying to keep warm, moaning about the completely useless ref (with extra points for inventive profanity) and making exaggerated 'disappointed' gestures when you realise they’ve sold out of all the pies. All in the comfort of your living room! Only once have you experienced something as soul-crushingly awful as losing out on a (fake) pie can you truly appreciate beating Leyton Orient 1-0 in the 89th minute.

So why hasn’t FIFA given us a taste of football’s universal language? I’m not asking for commentators to swap their vocabulary with Ray Winstone, but the sanitized player reactions clearly need the occasional swear to really sell the idea that the game is bigger than life and death.

If you follow a football team, you and your wallet are acutely aware of just costly supporting them can be. Maybe you get this season’s kit and a ticket to one of their games. Then you realise that means no more food for the month. And if you want to go for an away trip? Well get ready for some non-essential organ harvesting...

Yep, EA needs to find a way of extracting the maximum amount of money once you’ve bought the game, something that will get you parting with your cash week in, week out... Hang on, sorry, I just realised I’m describing Ultimate Team. As a hapless, recovering UT addict, I try my best not to think about, lest I whack another tenner on fake player cards. Fair play EA, you’ve been nailing this aspect of football for years. Well played. Let's exchange shirts and walk into the tunnel hand in hand.

is a bit of an anomaly. In an age when most MMOs end up going free-to-play within a year (hello Wildstar and The Elder Scrolls Online), FF14 is going from strength to strength. And with good reason. Not only is it a great example of an MMO, but it’s also a fantastic Final Fantasy experience it’s its own right. It also works perfectly on consoles too, everything mapping to a PS4 or PS3 pad perfectly.

And now that world is about to get even bigger with the Heavensward expansion on 23 June. Following the events of the current story (you’ll have to complete it to get to the new areas), your adventurer sets off North to the gleaming city of Ishgard and beyond, and the story let alone any side quests. After a hands-on with it I’m as giddy as a Spriggan with a shiny new rock, there’s just so much on offer. So here’s seven reasons why Heavensward is going to be epic...

After waddling around A Realm Reborn with nothing but the tease of Gyshal Greens to keep it going, your Fat Chocobo is feeling seriously peckish. Whip out a slice of cake and your mighty yellow steed will be so excited he’ll take flight, his rolls gently wobbling in the wind.

You can also fly a more stern-looking Griffin and your normal, average weight Chocobo, but there’s a real sense of glee as the lemon chubster frantically reaches for his sugary prize. The sense of scale as you fly is just as joyful, the new areas are enormous. With multiple layers and hidden nooks to explore, swooping down over the landscape filled me with awe.

The healing Astrologian, defensive Dark Knight and damage-dealing Machanist all slot into the existing class balance nicely, each one bringing a little something special to the table. They’ll all start at level 30 rather than at one and you won’t need a base class to unlock them.

With such a huge Great sword, the Dark Knight feels appropriately weighty when swung during one of it’s many ‘dark’-themed moves. They also have two stances. Darkside will see you do some serious damage, but will drain your MP, while Grit will see you through any tough blows enemies can throw at you and get them to hit you rather than the rest of your party.

Machanists act a bit like the already existing Bards. They have two Turrets (one for groups, one for single targets) that need to be placed down to lend a helping hand, and can be switched to buff your party when needed. The Turrets won’t follow you like a Summoner’s pet will, it’s all about skillful deployment.

Finally, Astrologians are the star of the expansion (see what I did there, eh? EH?!), employing healing spells to keep your party alive, stances to aid with damage or buffing your friends, and a deck of cards that keeps you on your toes by dealing (and needing to manage) one of six random effects.

Part of a Free Company (that’s a guild in FF14 parlance)? Then you’ll be able to buy a workshop for your house and work together to fashion your own flying boat out of fancy lumber and nails. Accessible from the same door as private rooms, the workshop is a separate area where you can remodel the look of your house or swap out airship parts before sending them out of exploratory adventures.

The launch of Heavensward and airships will definitely be putting any crafters and gatherers out there in high demand. You’ll have to work together to build four different types of ship parts that are then slotted together. Each piece has different stats so, for example, you may build a speedy ship, but it’ll run out of fuel faster. It adds an interesting layer of customisation, though Square Enix has yet to release any details on what the rewards for sending out your ship will be.

As well as adding the three new Jobs, the expansion will also see all of the current classes getting an update as the reach the new cap at level 60. Adding so many new moves and making sure they all gel together is a tricky balancing act, and one that it still being worked on, but what I went hands-on with was promising indeed.

I tried out the Monk class, notorious in the current game for having an irritating dip in punching power when you find yourself with nothing to hit during a lull in hostilities, but the additions in Heavensward completely make up for that. You’ll be able to trade in your greased Lightning stacks for a powerful kick - great if you time it to land just before a break in a battle - and a Meditation mechanic that sees you stack the move while you have nothing to smack. Reach five stacks and you can choose to heal your TP (the stuff that lets you perform fancy moves) or unleash a really big attack to make up for lost time. It really keeps you on your toes, and as soon as I went back to playing without the new moves I found myself really missing them.

Adding an expansion to an MMO is a tricky business. New players start noticing it more as hype builds, but the amount to catch up on can be quite intimidating, and existing players often rocket off in the freshly added sunset to try out all of the new toys, leaving any newer players behind in the dust.

Game producer and director Naoki Yoshida aims to rectify that with a raft of measures to help new players catch up. If you’re starting fresh when Heavensward launches you’ll get to enjoy the benefits of double experience points for faster levelling, and priority in dungeon queues so you can work on finishing the current A Realm Reborn story. You’ll also be able to run dungeons with friends at higher levels without them scaling down, to help you power right on through. Yoshida’s aim is for people to play through the story “like they’re binge watching their favourite TV series.”

Like loot and running through dungeons? Then Heavensward will have eight new ones for you to challenge, among them the Sharlayan Library, which I got my hands on. Filled with books (that have a disturbing number of teeth and demons poking out of them), as well as angry ink pots and magic frogs, it’s an enchanting place. Its also a challenging one. While the group I was with was still getting to grips with new skills, they were all experienced players and yet we still wiped on bosses. It was never frustrating though, as each failure felt like a lesson that saw us come back even stronger.

You’ll also have more say over how your party approaches dungeons, with the updated duty finder letting you set a ‘loot master’ or having ‘greed only’ on rolls to give everyone an equal chance, as well as syncing everyone down to a lower level or challenging it with fewer party members to make things more challenging.

Okay, so those are the six BIG reasons to pick up Heavensward on 23 June, but there are so many other exciting additions that I couldn’t choose a seventh. So here’s to all the other little reasons that this is the MMO you need to be playing, be that on console or on PC. Deep breath now everyone…

A new eight-man raid (with a normal and hard mode) set inside a giant living Fortress called Alexander that’s coming two weeks after launch; an extension to the crafting system that lets you specialise in three crafts, and a similar system for gatherers that grants ‘divine favours’ for getting rare items; your retainers will also be rising to level 60; a new Frontline PvP area with a completely different rule set that features varying spawn points and ruins to take control of; a brofist emote; and new large-scale FATES, recipes, hunts, treasure maps, sightseeing points, quests, and, most importantly, new Triple Triad cards to dish out the pain. With so much on offer, I can’t wait to get stuck in.

The latest trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight - which is due on June 23 on PS4 and Xbox One - is so action-packed we had to take a five minute breather just to take it all in. For months it's seemed like the deck has been well and truly stacked against the Caped Crusader, with a cabal of villains led by a reinvigorated Scarecrow and a small army with the titular Arkham Knight at its helm looking to take Bats down for good.

Not to worry though as he's now joined by Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman and the ever mysterious Azrael. Alongside some brutal looking team-up takedowns we see some Riddler-stamped droids with green fishbowls for bellies (chemical warfare anyone?) and the return of the Batwing. Check out the trailer embedded below and tell us what you make of the new war for Gotham…

Batman: Arkham Knight is about escalation. Escalation of threat, by way of the Scarecrow’s chokehold on the entirety of Gotham City. Escalation of scale, thanks to the vastly increased play area that setting facilitates. Escalation of conflict, with the whole Bat-Family along for the ride, and now playable. Escalation of gameplay, by way of Batmobile racing, tank combat, and AI-driven, pseudo co-op beatdowns.

But how is this stuff going to work? How can it possibly gel with the lean, focused design of the previous Arkham games? Well actually, you’d be surprised. Having gone hands-on with everything recently, it’s time we gave you some in-depth impressions, so click on and check out everything there is to know about Batman: Arkham Knight, updated with all the news from out latest demo. And then have a look at the latest gameplay trailer embedded below, and tell us what you make of the new war for Gotham…

has a great story, but it plays things way too safe. The prequel lacks the innovation you'd expect from a new Arkham game, probably because Origins was developed by Warner Bros Montreal; not series-creator Rocksteady. It was a stop-gap, while Rocksteady spent time working on a new Batman game for a new generation of consoles. It's clear that Arkham Knight is the real follow-up to Arkham City.

Rocksteady has already mentioned numerous times that Knight is the conclusion to the Arkham trilogy of games. It's interesting to me that Rocksteady barely acknowledges the other 'third' game, Batman: Arkham Origins. That stubborn mindset shows that Rocksteady isn’t just going to settle for business as usual: the team is going to shake things up for this trilogy's finale, starting with an addition fans having been dying to see...

Rocksteady finally has a drivable Batmobile in its Arkham universe, and it's central to the new game. It looks like a combination of Christian Bale’s tumbler and the Michael Keaton-era vehicles, and it moves like an unstoppable beast. It plows through trees, concrete barricades, and taxis, all while being nimble enough to jump over gaps and even drive up walls if you've built up enough speed. It flies through the wide city streets with a powerful engine, blasting fire out of the back.

Gotham City has been rebuilt to make room for the Batmobile, so it slots in naturally. The driving is impressively integrated with Arkham’s traditional grapple ‘n glide gameplay. If you’re flying, a button press will summon the Batmobile for Bruce to hop right in, while you can eject out at any moment and return to the air. Even the Riddler challenges are now underground driving tests, trading brainteasers for drift racing.

You know how in Arkham City you’d sometimes suffer that irritating momentum break, as a smooth, flowing glide to a target location was suddenly stalled by a distinctly less dramatic ‘Batman opens a door’ animation, and accompanying loading screen? Forget that. To transition between exterior and interior parts of Gotham now, you just need to smash through a window and start punching guys. It feels brilliant.

Particularly when you bring all of Batman’s new abilities together in one focused assault. Example: A Gotham Fire Chief is being held hostage in a small room at the top of a building. We don’t mess around trying to find a back door in. Instead we tear toward it in the Batmobile, double-tap X to launch ourselves out of the cockpit and into the air, transition straight into a glide to cover the remaining distance, then target a dive-kick at one of the goons w can see through the window. Glass shatters. Bones shatter. The Bat wins again.

As you're driving around Gotham (or through it, depending on your driving skills), the Batmobile is virtually indestructible. It's built like a tank, and can even transform into one. With the push of a button, it morphs into a nimble machine (also called battle mode) that lets you strafe and move around in all directions with ease and fire everything you’ve got at enemy drones. Armed with heavy cannons, rockets, a Vulcan cannon, riot suppressors, and who knows what else, Batman’s sweet ride is fully-loaded with a ton of toys to play with. It even has a containment unit in the back that can hold people or other precious cargo.

The Batmobile's standard form, or pursuit mode, comes equipped with booster rockets (to do booster donuts) and a power winch that’s strong enough to raise bridges and elevators. Like a good sidekick, the Batmobile comes when called, but it also comes with a remote so you can switch views and control the Batmobile from any location, helping you solve puzzles and essentially save yourself when you're in a pinch.

Don’t go worrying that the Batmobile’s tank-like combat mode is going to turn Batman into Master Chief. You might be in a vehicle, but this stuff feels like a natural extension of Batman’s hand-to-hand freeflow beatdowns. In battle mode, the Batmobile pivots and strafes like one of Halo’s Ghosts, but is augmented with a rapid, lateral boost-dodge, allowing it to duck and dive around incoming fire like a champion boxer dodging punches. And you’ll need that ability. In fact the combat is built around it. Because this is really about evasion, not shooting.

Laser lines on the ground indicate the path of incoming fire, turning rapidly from green to red as the threat increases. What differs the experience from that of a traditional shooter is the speed that everything moves at. Those lines are pulsing in and out constantly, crossing each other, cutting off parts of the ground, and opening up new windows on a second by second basis. The battlefield is really a dancefloor, with the close-quarters combat areas making the affair feel like a cramped, taught fight for survival rather than an exercise in target practice.

Too many games make compromises to stretch themselves across current-gen and last-gen. Arkham Knight is part of a growing group of PS4/Xbox One/PC-only games, and that focus is really paying off. Arkham Knight looks so good, with lighting, weather effects, and intricate visuals that the old systems could never duplicate.

It is one of the best looking titles I’ve seen, and the devs explain that the game simply couldn’t be created on the old hardware. In particular, they say that the Batmobile is only possible in Arkham Knight thanks to the current-gen horsepower they have at their disposal. It certainly looks like one of the true show-pieces for the new set of consoles.

The Arkham games have always kept the full glory of Gotham City tantalisingly out of reach. It's in the background of Asylum, a chunk of it forms the jail in City, and Origins blankets another portion of the town in snow. Arkham Knight gives you ALL of Gotham City. On a clear day. And it’s approximately 20 times the size of Arkham Asylum. The demo gives me a guided tour of the city, including the blazing neon of Chinatown and the famous clocktower base of Oracle.

You can appreciate the wide-ranging scope of the city because all the people have been evacuated. Call it a lame excuse if you like, but thanks to a toxic threat from the returning Scarecrow, all the regular folks in Gotham have town, leaving the burg to the cops and crooks that stayed behind. I’m fine with this reasoning, mainly because it opens up the sprawling, lovely metropolis to be enjoyed to its fullest.

Despite Gotham being evacuated, the GCPD’s finest are still around to back Batman in this most desperate of times. While the offices of the police HQ are briefly seen in a corruption-smashing mission during Arkham Origins, this time around, everyone seems to be on the same side. Headed up by Jim Gordon (again emphasising the hero relationships that Arkham Knight seems to be pushing), the GCPD is now a living, breathing place.

After capturing certain villains, Batman can actually drive them to the station for questioning and incarceration, and even better, he’s free to explore the station at will. Investigating the holding cells after taking down the Penguin’s mob, we happened upon a bunch of imprisoned goons, who unwisely chose to throw some verbal abuse at the Dark Knight. Though with a quick tap of Square, we found ourselves able to grab one goon’s head and smash it into the cell bars, so double-justice was done. Elsewhere, we stumbled upon the evidence room, in truth a heartstring-twanging museum to the whole trilogy, by way of key character props dating right back to Arkham Asylum. Pro-tip: If you want to make Batman really sad, check out Talia’s sword.

Batman’s combat skills are still the gold standard in action-adventure, and Arkham Knight looks to beef them up considerably. When it comes to hand-to-hand, Batman can now hold onto weapons after disarming thugs, beating them with their own clubs, all while he smoothly chains combos together. While in stealth mode, the Caped Crusader can use Fear Takedowns, a move that gets the drop on three thugs at a time via a brief QTE. That’s in addition to Environmental Takedowns for unique knockouts based on where the guy is standing when you attack.

Batman’s newfound ferocity manifests in the Batmobile sections too. When chasing an armored car, the Dark Knight can shut it down with some well placed Neutralizer Rockets. And when the driver crawls out of the wreck, Bats threatens to break his arm unless he coughs-up some information. Of course, Bats then breaks the thug’s arm once he has given up the info. Nice. Also, did we mention batarangs to the face?

Tacked on multiplayer modes aren’t always bad, and Arkham Origins shows that there’s room for engaging, team-based combat featuring the Bat-family of characters. Despite reasonable quality, Origins’ online battles didn't go over well, so it makes sense that Rocksteady isn’t going to spend any of it’s resources on multiplayer. Like a good book, and the dour caterwauling of James Blunt, Arkham Knight is meant to be enjoyed alone.

Rocksteady mentions that - based on the size of the current team - it would have a tough time creating great single and multiplayer modes, so the team is sticking with the solo action it does so well. There are still the challenge rooms to keep you busy afterwards, including the Harley Quinn and Red Hood pre-order bonuses. And while the British studio has confirmed there won't be any co-op modes either, Arkham Knight will feature the new , which enables you switch between some of Batman's allies mid-fight for some brutal team-up beat downs. Sadly it's locked to combat only, but you will be able to choose from Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman as you bring a league of justice to Gotham's criminal underworld.

Fear not. Rocksteady has not lost the run of itself with the addition of the extended Bat-family. This is no last-ditch attempt at escalation for escalation’s sake, throwing in unnecessary scale just because. Arkham Knight’s combat is still a resolutely focused affair. Back-up from the likes of Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman is more of a cinematic flourish.

When you battle in freeflow, you’ll sometimes find an ally fighting alongside you, keeping half of the (huge) mob off your back, but never dictating the pace of the fight. When you trigger a co-op takedown (which looks stunning, by the way), both heroes will smack down the chosen mook together, before control transfers to the other character, effectively tagging them in. You’re still playing a single-player fight. You’re still controlling a single character at a time. It’s just that there’s greater spectacle now, and a blistering sense of drama.

Early footage from Arkham Knight show familiar faces like Riddler, The Penguin, and Two-Face boldly stalking the streets of Gotham, while Scarecrow goes as an unseen force that’s risen up in the villain ranks. These guys have all moved up to fill the void left after beware Arkham City spoilers The Joker’s death in the previous game. This means Batman is facing a more solidified force without Mr. J’s chaos disrupting their plans... but that’s the least of his problems this time around.

See, the Arkham Knight in the title isn’t actually Batman, but a mysterious new villain Rocksteady conceived in conjunction with DC Comics. Arkham Knight appears at the end of my demo, beating Batman convincingly, and seemingly shooting Bruce in the face as the screen fades to black. Arkham Knight’s style will remind comics-fans of previous Bat-pretenders like Azrael and Red Hood, but this new enemy’s motives and identity remain a closely guarded secret.

Arkham Knight sees the Scarecrow go from fear-inducing annoyance to a criminal mastermind out to level Gotham City. He's replacing The Joker not only in the criminal underworld, but also in Arkham's DLC, where Scarecrow will be the boss of a number of bonus missions. And all of them will be exclusive to PS4.

Alongside Harley's pre-order missions (set prior to the events of the main game), Arkham Knight's season pass will also feature a prequel story featuring fan favourite Batgirl (playable for the first time in the series). A Matter Of Family won't be set in Gotham, so fans should expect an entirely new locale for the Bat lady. There's also Seasons Of Infamy and Gotham City Stories which throws you into the shoes of Bats and co as you fight an invasion of no-good villains.

The game’s reveal hinted at some other interesting bits of new gameplay functionality and the like, but that’s not the most pressing question for fans that grew up with Batman: The Animated Series. They want to know if Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman for multiple projects and the first two Arkham games will return after being replaced in Arkham Origins. And the answer is yes.

It was confirmed in the earliest preview, which is good because we already had a hunch he'd be back. After Arkham Origins was announced, Conroy himself said that he had just recorded stuff for a new Arkham game. And yet, he wasn’t the voice in Arkham Origins, making the then-unannounced Arkham Knight is confirmed as the game he was referring to. Arkham Knights' Batman is supposed to be very experienced and later in his career than most incarnations of Batman, making Conroy the perfect fit for the established crime fighter.

The Dark Knight is one of the most omnipresent characters in pop culture, but people can't get enough of the Caped Crusaders. They want to know when his next comic series, film, or video game will come out, and now there's an answer for one of those. Batman: Arkham Knight now has the global release date of June 23. Yes, that's a worldwide date, avoiding the standard separate launches for different parts of the world.

Because it's a major release in the modern age, you'd be right to guess there's an extra-fancy special edition, filled with exclusive DLC, an art book, a comic, and statue of the Batmobile - or a Batman memorial, which seemingly implies a dark ending for the Dark Knight.

The Batman is almost upon us. If you're a goon in the Arkham universe, that phrase usually means it's brown-trousers time. Thankfully, most of you aren't. So it's good news. Got anything to say about Arkham Knight? Let us know in the comments below.

And if you're looking for more comic fun, check out .

There was a time when video game voice acting could've conceivably doubled as torture. Simply slap a pair of headphones on your primary suspect and proceed to bang out a 'best of the mid-'90s' VO playlist. I'll bet that by the time they reached Grandia, said villain would have been too busy contemplating the innumerable, illogical absurdities of the 'Jill sandwich' to put up too much of a struggle. Word to the wise - if they're muttering something about a wizard, the moon, and sucking on their thumb from the foetal position then you know you've gone too far.

Thankfully, in-game audio has come an awfully long way since then. For example, we now have actual professionals voicing our icons, as opposed to whichever member of the penal system didn't fancy stamping out license plates that day. Today's big list of stuff will attempt to acquaint you with some of the more prolific players in the modern industry. Particular attention has been paid to the most versatile stars therein, as opposed to folks like Keith David who're specifically contracted for their rich, silky speaking voices. Sorry about that Keith, but knowing that the same bloke voices both Batman and Sonic is just way teresting.

Who? Robin Atkin Downes is a film, television, theatre and video game voice actor, mo-cap performer and music producer. He also has experience in directing. Think of him as the Swiss army knife of this list. A Swiss army knife with great hair.

Who else? Downes portrays Metal Gear Solid's Kaz Miller, Just Cause's Rico Rodriguez, Uncharted 2's Tenzin, Ratchet and Clank's Captain Slag, Team Fortress 2's Medic and Gear of War's Locust Kantus - among others.

Who? Jennifer Hale is the veritable 'first lady' of video game voice acting, though she's also appeared in several live action productions. Last year Hale engaged in a spirited 8-week hot-air balloon race, vying against Tara Strong for the opportunity to call 'dibs' on all of 2015's best roles. Of course, none of that actually happened, but it should've done.

Who else? Hale is the woman behind Bioshock Infinite's Rosalind Lutece, MGS2's Emma Emmerich, Metroid Prime's Samus Aran, Halo 4's Sarah Palmer and Mass Effect's female rendering of Shepard. She also provided the voicework for both versions of Metal Gear Solid's Naomi Hunter (both the early British and later American incarnations).

Who? Mike Patton is the uber eclectic frontman of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, and about a dozen other bands. He began voice acting in 2007, and is typically tasked with providing gruesome monster noises.

Who else? Patton has provided the pipes behind Portal 2's Anger Core, Left 4 Dead's Infected (including the Smoker Hunter variants) as well as The Darkness' titular nasties. Oh, and he's also responsible for Bionic Commando 09's gritty, cheeseball hero.

Who? Tara Strong is a well known voice over artist and television actress. Her distinctive surname was bestowed upon her by the old gods after witnessing Tara's completion of the 12 labours of Hercules. Of the 12, Tara counts the Lernaean Hydra as being the single most challenging foe.

Who else? Strong has voiced Batman: Arkham's Harley Quinn, Mortal Kombat's Ferra, Metal Gear's Paz, Jak Daxter's Keira and Final Fantasy X's Rikku. Plus a boatload more.

Who? Armin Shimerman is a film and television actor best known for playing Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Principal Snyder and Star Trek: Deep Space 9's Quark. Fun fact: Shimerman came up with the design for Quark's face while bashing a catcher's mitt with a baseball bat? No, not really, but he might as well have done.

Who else? Shimerman has appeared as Mass Effect's Salarian Councillor, Ratchet and Clank's Dr. Nefarious and Bioshock's Andrew Ryan.

Who? Grey DeLisle is a singer, voice actress and occasional stand-up comic. She also goes by the pseudonym of 'Grey Griffin', which probably comes in really handy during live action role-playing.

Who else? DeLisle has voiced Jeanne from the Bayonetta series, Catwoman in Batman: Arkham, Sly Cooper's Carmelita Fox and Amanda from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Who? Nolan North is a professional actor and voice over artist/bona fide gaming institution. Little known fact: both he and Troy Baker are immortal Highlanders simultaneously attempting to corner the voice over market, because of course 'there can only be one'.

Who else? North voices everyone from DOTA 2's squealing Gyrocopter pilot to the CoD franchise's zombie-mad Richtofen. Other characters include Uncharted's Nathan Drake, Injustice's General Zod, Batman's Oswald Cobblepot and Portal 2's Space, Adventure and Fact Cores.

Who? Ellen McLain is an opera singer and voice actress who regularly contributes to Valve Corp. video games. Her husband is similarly involved with the company, having provided the voice of the Sniper in Team Fortress 2. And no, they didn't meet up while screaming robotic threats into a microphone. Shame.

Who else? McLain's work includes stints as DOTA 2's Broodmother, Left 4 Dead's Witch monster, Half-Life 2's Overwatch speaker and - most famously of all - Portal's array of talkative turrets and the evil A.I. GLaDOS.

Who? James Arnold Taylor is a professional cartoon and video game voice actor. Long-term exposure to the man's unique brand of laughter has been known to cause ferocious irritation in viewers.

Who else? Taylor's most notable roles include Ratchet from the Ratchet and Clank series, the Clone Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi (both in video games and TV) as well as Final Fantasy X's boisterous lead character Tidus. He also does a rather good Jack Sparrow impression.

Who? Lani Minella is a professional voice actress specialising in video games. I wonder how many people accidentally call her Liza Minnelli on a daily basis?

Who else? Lani voices the female infected in The Last of Us, Sheeva from Mortal Kombat 9, Ivy in SoulCalibur, the Koopa kids from the Mario franchise, and the female fighters in the Worms series.

Who? Troy Baker is a musician, mo-cap actor and award-winning voice over artist specialising in video games. He spends much of his time coated in brightly coloured ping-pong balls trying not to laugh.

Who else? Baker's work includes appearances as Batman: Arkham's Two-Face, Metal Gear Solid V's Ocelot, The Last of Us' Joel, Far Cry 4's Pagin Min and Arkham Origins' Joker.

Who? Jen Taylor is a professional voicework and theatre actress, contracted to the Halo franchise for the next 187,000 instalments, or the complete heat death of the universe - whichever comes first.

Who else? Taylor's impressive C.V. boasts several big name gigs, including those of Princess Peach and Halo's Cortana. Other notable performances include No One Lives Forever's Cate Archer, Left 4 Dead's Zoey and DOTA 2's Medusa.

Who? Fred Tatasciore is a prolific voice actor appearing in film, television and video games. He once voiced one of Jar Jar Binks' annoying Gungan buddies, and probably felt really terrible about it afterwards. We forgive you Fred, you couldn't have known.

Who else? Tatasciore has voiced Baird from Gears of War, Zeratul (Starcraft 2), Bane (Arkham City), Mario (Assassin's Creed 2), both the Tank and Boomer monsters from Left 4 Dead, and Mass Effect's Saren Arterius.

Who? Terrence Carson is an acclaimed stage actor, tv performer and vocalist. Fun fact: Carson was also betrayed by almighty Zeus. He was pretty chilled about it though.

Who else? Carson has portrayed God of War's vengeful Spartan Kratos, the Saints Row series' Big Tony and Star Wars' own Mace Windu.

Who? Quinton Flynn is a video game voice actor and writer. Fun fact: the name Quinton Flynn would also suit a restaurant critic and/or a wealthy teenaged adventurer.

Who else? Flynn voices Sonic's Silver the Hedgehog, Metal Gear's Raiden, Henry from the No More Heroes games, and Crash Bandicoot's Dr. N. Gin.

Who? Mark Hamill is a professional acto… - y'know what, forget it, the man's Luke Skywalker, LUKE SKYWALKER damn it! Oh and he was in all those Wing Commander games too…

Who else? Hamill has provided the voice behind CoD 2's old-timey narrator, X2's Wolverine and of course Arkham's main-series iteration of the Joker.

Who? Matthew Mercer is an anime and video game voice actor. His name is also an anagram for 'Mew Meth Carter', which in the context of the Pokémon franchise would certainly explain a lot…

Who else? Mercer provides the pipes behind Street Fighter 4's Fei Long, Arkham Origins' Anarky, Resi 6's Leon, and Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell's Blackbeard.

Who? Roger Craig Smith is a professional voice actor specialising in anime, video game and cartoon-based voicework. Since winning the role of Batman in Arkham Origins, Smith has received numerous lewd phone calls from a man referring to himself only as 'Conroy Kevin'. Police are baffled. And of course, none of that actually happened.

Who else? Smith lends his considerable talents to a wide array of gaming icons, including Ezio Auditore (Assassin's Creed 2), Chris Redfield (Resident Evil 5), Batman/Bruce Wayne (Batman: Arkham Origins) and err… Sonic the Hedgehog. That's quite the range.

Who? Steve Blum is a professional voice actor specialising in anime, cartoons and video games. Fun fact about Steve: he was only one botched birth certificate away from being called 'Steve Bum'.

Who else? Blum has voiced Sub-Zero and Reptile in Mortal Kombat X, Wolverine from the X-Men franchise, Killer Croc in the Batman: Arkham series, Vincent Valentine in Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, Final Fantasy Type-0's Cid, and Grayson Hunt from Bulletstorm. Also, about .

Men with bomb-spears decimating oncoming traffic. Getting sustenance from the maggots living on a rotting corpse. A powerful, imposing weapon unironically named the Thunderpoon. All of these play into Mad Max's unique post-apocalyptic aesthetic, and it continues full-force in the upcoming Mad Max game, already revving its engines for a September 1 start.

As E3 approaches, we've gotten a closer look at this new addition to Mad Max's vicious universe, developed by the folks at Avalanche (of Just Cause fame) exclusively for current-gen. We now know what there is to find in this post-apocalyptic Australia and the poor bastards who occupy it, most of whom want to kill our 'hero' Max in all manner of horrible ways. We know more about the story, the world, the combat, and your ultimate enemy, Scrotus. Yep..

The Mad Max films take place in a barren and lifeless hellhole. As petrol reserves dry up and the nations of the world turn to chemical warfare to secure what's left, society breaks down, leaving only bandits in DIY battle jalopies to fight over the remains. Each film focuses on a new adventure in the sad-sack life of former highway patrolman "Mad" Max Rockatansky, who spends his days trying to survive in the harsh Australian wilderness, which has only gotten more vicious with the addition of murderers on motorbikes.

Avalanche's Mad Max keeps that same world and aesthetic, and in a welcome move, doesn't focus on rebooting Max's tragic origin story. Instead, it starts him on a new adventure in a desolate outback while integrating the most iconic parts of the films. We have Max acting as the lone road warrior as he tries to outrun and outgun gas-guzzling auto-monstrosities. It has grim-looking locales like the smoke-belching Gastown, showing the macabre shape that society has taken on. It has Max driving his beloved pursuit car, the V8 Interceptor, and in fine Mad Max tradition it has him losing that car to marauders in the opening scene. Such is his life.

Sorry, Furiosa fans, but it doesn't look like Theron's enthralling amputee truck driver will be making an appearance in this Mad Max, nor will any of the wives or Immortan Joe's army. Though they're coming out close together and , the movie and game aren't actually related. Instead, after he's yanked out of his precious Interceptor and left in the desert to die, the game centers on him building his life and resources back up, one car part at a time.

We don't know too much about the plot besides that, and Director Frank Rooke , and in the recent Savage Road trailer he's called 'The Driver' with a notable level of reverence. Is he some sort of grizzled Australian god? Well, yes, but do the people in his world also think so?

Life in Mad Max's savage world is impossible without wheels to keep you from ending up as a vehicular manslaughter statistic. So when the Interceptor becomes the Intercepted and our madman finds himself without a vehicle, he has to build his brand new magnum opus from scratch. And what do you know, the resulting junker car is called the Magnum Opus. Insert groan-worthy genitalia joke here.

While the Magnum starts off as an unimpressive pile of junk, there's plenty of scrap material around that Max can use to upgrade into a much cooler pile of junk. Such scrap can be found in encampments full of homicidal bandits, lost in the desert, or scavenged from cars after you've crippled them and dealt with their drivers. But the best sources of scrap by far are convoys that roam the desert sands, and while they make tough opponents, take them out and you'll have plenty of supplies to turn the Opus into a proper dream machine. That's all thanks to Max's constant companion, a mechanic named Chumbucket (yes, I know) who allocates the scrap to different parts of the car as you see fit.

While Chumbucket (it never gets less ridiculous) is usually pretty amicable to whatever misguided activities you want to partake in, he gets whiny when you abuse the Opus. It's just as much his baby as yours, after all. Unfortunately for him, beating up your ride comes with the territory, since the vast majority of this game's combat is on wheels. Slam into other vehicles at high speed, hit them with bombs on sticks, shoot them from the driver's seat or harpoon their wheels right off - whatever it takes to bring your enemies to a screeching halt is fair game. Sadly for Max, the maniacs he's hunting have deadly options of their own, so be prepared to defend yourself if you let those enemies get the jump on you (onto, say, the roof of your car).

There is thankfully one thing that makes Max's life a little easier: a focus feature that slows the action to a crawl while you line up your moving shot. That makes it simpler to actually hit careening targets, giving you the option to broadside them with a grenade, pop their tires, or harpoon and yank the driver out of their car at high speed. Vicious, but effective.

While car combat is the game's life-blood, Max gets attacked and yanked from his car so often that some basic fighting skills really are a must. He puts them to use via basic melee combat reminiscent of Batman and Shadow of Mordor: he can punch enemies into oblivion, or get special animations and deal extra damage by tapping the Counter button at just the right time. This is likely where some of the spiffy animations from the debut trailer came from, where Max snaps a guy's neck by holding his arm and kicking him in the face, because otherwise there isn't a specific creative-neck-snapping button.

This type of combat isn't particularly new or fresh, since we've seen both Batman and Mordor's Talion employ combat that's visually similar but more mechanically complex. However, that looks to be intentional, since it is very much second to car combat and is clearly meant to give you some means of defense while on foot. The gunplay is particularly telling in that regard, since it's purposefully sluggish and unpleasant to use, keeping you from leaning on it except in the direst of circumstances. Really, it's just there so you don't die the instant you step out of your vehicle. Unless you get hit by a different vehicle, anyway. No promises there.

As mentioned before, while there is a central campaign to Mad Max, it's primarily an open-world adventure, and Rooke and team have gone to great lengths to make this desert wasteland as enthralling as possible. "It distracts you so much that you’ll end up saying, ‘Er, I’m just going to go over here and do this,’" says Rooke. "You can’t help yourself – there are so many things to go off and do." In practice, this means a map full of quests laid out in front of you, showing where you can pull down Gastown's imposing warning statues, find and loot caravans, or destroy bandit camps as you collect scrap and survival essentials like water and food.

As you speed across the wasteland in search of supplies and shinies, some areas will be more dangerous than others, adding to an overall danger meter that prohibits you from taking certain actions. For instance, you won't be able to do extensive car upgrades when the danger meter is above an appropriate range - why bother trying to do a repair when you'll get shanked and robbed for your efforts? Defeating renegade camps and bosses across the land helps lower that danger meter, making this unforgiving hellhole slighter safer for everyone. But mostly you, and that's what matters.