NXT, Hall Of Fame, Axxess, WrestleMania, Raw: even for the most ardent of WWE Network addicts, the hottest weekend on the wrestling calendar can be a challenging one to keep up with. For four days, an entire city becomes over-run with 6 ft beastmen, beautiful divas and passionate fans, all wanting their super-sized slice of the sumptuous WWE cake. And as you’ll very shortly learn, that cake is an actual thing.

See, GamesRadar headed to San Jose ostensibly to talk video games with the likes of Xavier Woods and Sami Zayn, but couldn’t help noticing numerous happenings that go far beyond the realm of WWE 2K15, Monday Night Raw, and Seth Rollins’ shocking title win at ‘Mania. Here, then, are the 13 must-read secrets from our time spent in Silicon Valley – including Ronda Rousey’s love for Dragon Ball Z and Paige’s admission that she too is a secret glutton…

The New Day hasn’t done much of note since its debut last year. Despite that, trio member Xavier Woods might have just anointed himself GamesRadar’s favourite wrestler. Away from the ring, he’s living his WWE dream exactly as we would. “I have a briefcase that I carry with me when I travel, with a built-in 19-inch TV,” he reveals. “My PS4 straps inside along with the controllers and cords. When I get to hotels I pop that open, I get on the internet, and I play Final Fantasy XIV until I pass out.”

“I wasn’t very social as a kid, but video games were a good way for me to connect with other kids. I was obsessed with everything from Nintendo onwards – Mario, Duck Hunt – and I still have my regular NES. I even had a Virtual Boy – but that thing gives me migraines, so I had to get rid of it.” His favourite game ever? “Mario Kart: Double Dash on the Gamecube. If they put all the options from that into modern Mario Kart, the online game would be unreal.”

WWE wrestlers were housed in the Fairmont Hotel, eight miles from the hosting Levi’s Stadium, for the weekend. To enjoy a drink at the bar on any given evening was to live out every fan’s dream: Bret Hart and Natalya catching up with family and friends, The Miz and Maryse beaming with Hollywood smiles, John Cena’s dad enthusiastically congratulating Rusev and Lana on their bout with his son in the hours after Mania. And then there was… the cake.

Specially commissioned by the hotel and designed to mimic the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, this calorific wonder greeted wrestlers and fans alike upon entry to the building. It contained 50 pounds of dark chocolate, with red fondant and gold and silver dust added for that final jewel-like flourish. And it was being sold off after the show to raise money for Leukemia Lymphoma Society, at a cool $1500. Presumably delicious, /and/ made for a good cause? That is our kind of elevenses.

Friday night saw San Jose State University host a three-hour NXT show featuring what WWE hopes will be its WrestleMania headliners of the future. Japanese import Hideo Itami and Irishman Finn Balor got understandably loud reactions from the 5,000 strong crowd (who seemed especially well-fuelled thanks to an unconventional 10pm start time), but it was New Jersey trio Enzo Amore, Colin Cassidy and Carmella that popped the audience loudest. The trio's call-and-refrain entrance shtick echoes The New Age Outlaws, packing in more catchphrases than Roy Walker. Booked right, this unconventional trio can be huge on the main roster.

Also evident from the show: divas Charlotte, Sasha, Bayley and Becky Lynch are already good enough to compete believably with big stage ladies Paige, AJ Lee and Nikki Bella; Itami's future looks secure now that he's reclaimed the GTS finisher ‘borrowed’ by CM Punk; and Rhyno, the former ECW favourite defeated by Baron Corbin mid-way through this particular card, still has plenty of gore in the tank.

With former indie favourite El Generico – now better known to NXT fans as Sami Zayn – hotly tipped for a main roster debut on Raw which never materialised, GamesRadar was surprised to hear him cut a promo on Friday night in which he stated he was sticking around to reclaim the NXT title from Kevin Owens. Yet he categorically refuted our suggestion that he’s content to stay on the main roster’s periphery.

“I’m not in a rush. This time last year, everyone was telling me ‘I can’t wait until you’re on the main roster’, but this year I’m hearing much more of ‘I love you on NXT’,” he explains. “But I’ll never be happy being sedentary. As long as I’m with NXT my goal is to be champion and leave a void here that when I leave either can’t be filled or is very difficult to fill. The goal is always to move forward.” GamesRadar’s prediction? A WWE call-up and secondary title run (imagine an Intercontinental showdown with Daniel Bryan) at Summerslam.

WWE Axxess at the San Jose Convention Center featured Superstar signings (and ginormous queues for Superstar singings) with close to the entire roster, in addition to the ability to step inside the 16-foot high, ten-ton Elimination Chamber (although security was stepped up after one attention-seeking twonk decided to climb the structure). Its big pull, however, was a curtained-off Hall Of Fame showcase, packed with items familiar to fans young and old.

The casket bearing Brock Lesnar’s name which went up in flames before his WM30 contest with Undertaker was there, next to the real European and Smoking Skull title belts, and countless outfits worn by Randy Savage – most of them signed. Fans also delighted in being photographed next to a daunting life-sized statue of Andre The Giant. Most humbling were the many items taken from Ultimate Warrior’s always kaleidoscopic wardrobe, including – poignantly – the coat he wore for his final Raw appearance, just two days before his untimely passing last April.

Wrestling fans have long accepted that WWE merch is a bit naff. Shirts with noisy (and often senseless) slogans on the rear – made of heavy material that takes on twice its own weight the instant you add a single drop of sweat – have been a company mainstay for longer than Howard ‘The Fink’ Finkel. It never stopped us from buying them; but you had to accept a cloud of existential sadness would accompany every wearing.

Well, not this year. Packed with more than 600 items, the WWE Superstore in downtown San Jose showcased an array of shirt designs that could be worn in public without the threat of city-wide laughter. (The Mecha Powers tee featuring AI versions of Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage? Oh goodness, yes.) Not only that, the $35 tees on show boasted a lighter, thinner material which enabled us to enjoy Mania in comfort //as well as// looking relatively normal. It was an experience almost as miraculous as that main event finish.

WrestleMania weekend tends to be a festival of cosplay. Spotted at Axxess alone were a pint-sized AJ fan wearing matching garb who could have passed for her sister (it felt un-PC to request a photo), and three huge dudes in full-on Shield attire – including bandanas across their mouths – who’d have been arrested for intimidating the public if they went out dressed like that in Croydon.

42-year-old Danny from Sacramento was our favourite, however. In addition to looking (a bit) like Macho Man, he had the voice and mannerisms down pat. He’s been attending events as a Randy Savage looklike for ten years, and has seven Macho-style outfits, all of them self-created. “It takes about two months to make one outfit, and it’s not as expensive as you think. It’s the belts that are expensive.” Do we sort of want him to make us one ahead of Mania 32 in Dallas next year? Ohhhhh yeeeah.

Though some mock its legitimacy – the Bushwhackers, really? - WWE’s annual Hall Of Fame ceremony has become a fixture of WrestleMania weekend. Glitz and glamour is laid on thick, with wrestlers and divas kitted out in all manner of designer suits and expensive gowns. The thing you don’t see on camera: their front row seats are reserved using nothing more than names on pieces of paper, just as yours might be at a local theatre for an amateur production of Battlefield: The Musical.

While we might lament Luke and Butch’s induction, one Hall Of Fame entrant deserves every last ounce of recognition. Connor ‘The Crusher’ Michalek, a young wrestling superfan who passed away from brain cancer at just eight years old, was inducted via a series of moving speeches from Ultimate Warrior’s wife Dana, Daniel Bryan, and his father Steve. It was a stirring reminder of how this fake sport touches very real lives, with the male bravado so commonplace among wrestling fans replaced by humility and tears throughout much of the speeches.

17 minutes, 23 seconds. That’s the total amount of time it would take for you to sit through Ronda Rousey’s catalogue of UFC fights, all of them wins. It’s unsurprising, then, that the most dominant woman on the planet got a near-deafening reaction from the 70,000-plus crowd when shown on the big screen at WrestleMania. But this was a mere hint at what was to come.

Rousey later joined The Rock in the ring to send cocky ownership duo Triple H and Stephanie McMahon packing – and she did it wearing a Dragon Ball Z T-shirt. As reported by , away from the Octagon Rousey is a huge World Of Warcraft fan, and also used to moderate a Pokemon forum. There’s always been a crossover between wresting and games, but this goes down as the most high profile example ever. The only way it can be topped? Goldberg returning at Summerslam in a Cloud Strife tee.

Anyone who’s seen the fantastic Fighting With My Family doc showcasing the Knights of Norfolk will be aware of Norwich lass – and two-time Divas champ – Paige’s initial struggles with homesickness on arrival in Orlando. “I’d lived by myself in England, but here it was so different,” she tells GamesRadar. “I’m different from the rest of the girls, and they weren’t very nice to me for the first six months. They were very territorial. I got a lot of crap, and was crying every night on Skype.”

She says the turning point was realising she wasn’t here to make friends, and in the 18 months since has grown to love her adoptive homeland. “Great food, great company, great people. You get to see so much more than in the England. Desert, mountains…. and the weather’s a little bit better, isn’t it?” As for the American thing she loves most: “I enjoy the junk food, I’m a big cheesecake fiend. When I came over here I put on 40lbs of cheesecake weight.” If only we could look similarly svelte after a twelve-pack of Krispy Kremes.

At a Fairmont Hotel conference call to promote WWE 2K15 on Monday morning, Hulk Hogan openly told journalists that he was meeting Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in the afternoon to go over plans for that night’s Raw. But when the time came, both his NWO troupe and rivals DX – who’d received huge ovations from the crowd when interrupting Sting vs Triple H at WrestleMania – were absent. So too Trips, Undertaker, The Rock, and Bret Hart, all of whom had appeared the previous night.

Instead, on what is essentially the start of a new WWE season, younger bucks and beauties were given a chance the shine, with sparkling results. Every match delivered. Lucha Dragons and Geordie high-flyer Neville’s aerial prowess shone through on their official debuts; both title bouts (Bryan vs Ziggler and Cena vs Ambrose) could believably have headlined most pay-per-views; and despite some unnecessarily base chants regarding their sexual preferences, the six-woman tag bout showcased particularly strong work from Natalya, Naomi, Paige and AJ, proving that the #givedivasachance hashtag has turned heads backstage. A sign that WWE finally recognises wresting fans love /wrestling/? We can but hope.

A full four days after the San Jose State University show, city-wide fan love for NXT showed no sign of dying down. GamesRadar saw more grown men wearing Bayley T-shirts than those bearing many main roster stars, even before AJ Lee adorned that particular purple-and-yellow garment on Raw. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens merch was omnipresent, too.

Then there were the chants outside hotels, while waiting to head inside Mania and the Hall Of Fame, and – incredibly – throughout the six-man main event of Raw. Bayley, Zayn and Owens were clamoured for alongside Hideo Itami, Tyler Breeze and Sasha Banks, as veterans Big Show and Kane looked exasperated (and Randy Orton furious). But while the big names mightn’t like it, this fan love for its next wave of stars is exactly what WWE needs. Adam Rose and Bo Dallas floundered on the main roster as NXT’s cult-like popularity hadn’t reached wrestling fans’ wider conscience. Now the opposite is true, and names like Owens and Finn Balor should be instant stars as a result.

WWE announced the live attendance as 76,976, which, to our eyes, seemed slightly exaggerated. The stadium was sold out, but one entire side of it housed three massive video screens and the entrance way. Including the pre-show, 39 men and four ladies competed, 9 of them pulling double duty. With 23 matches and 22 wins Undertaker remains the most experienced, and successful, WrestleMania combatant. 11 wrestlers or divas actively participated at Mania for the first time, among them Sting, Paige, Rusev and Hideo Itami.

Three belts changed hands: Daniel Bryan scored his first Intercontinental title victory, while John Cena’s US Championship triumph kicks off his fourth reign with that particular strap. The total wrestling time on the show was two hours, six minutes and 51 seconds, with Sting vs Triple H having the longest match from bell to bell, at 18 minutes and 36 seconds.

That then, was WrestleMania weekend. We’d love to know your views on the event itself, as you saw it back at home. Match of the evening? To our eyes, the honour goes to the Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns main event, chiefly for the impromptu, unconventional title-winning introduction of new world champ Seth Rollins. And that ladder match. Good Lord, that ladder match...

Want more wrassle-related content? Check out our interview with .

Finally, after a few months of stellar-but-familiar sequels and re-releases in 2015, March offered some excellent games with original premises. And funnily enough, our picks for the best games of the month share a fundamental connection, despite being at opposite ends of the ESRB spectrum: they're both really, really hard. The good kind of hard, where you learn from your mistakes and grow as a player with each imposing challenge. But just be ready for a few fits of shouting and/or cursing at some point.

Every month, we look back at the best games of 2015 thus far, sorting out all the must-plays from the rest of the recent releases. That way, you know what to prioritize before you're inundated by all the other amazing . So, without further ado, here's what you should be playing right now to tide you over until next month.

somehow manages to be diamond tough and lovingly tender at the same time, balancing out its demanding difficulty with a story that'll practically yank your heartstrings right out of your chest. Playing this open-world platformer puts you in a wondrous state of conflict: the tight controls inspire you to run free throughout the lush world, but the sheer depth of the beyond-gorgeous backdrop art makes you want to stand still and gaze at the environment for hours.

The protagonist Ori is such a cute li'l critter that it's hard to watch the fuzzball die again and again while you struggle to overcome the many deathtraps and spike pits in this treacherous forest. But you'll get over any bruises to your ego, so long as you remember that you're the one responsible for plunking down checkpoints before delving into the trickier bits. The degree of challenge here may rattle anyone without an affinity for hardcore 2D platformers, but Ori's dazzling presentation has a universal, heartfelt appeal.

You’ve probably heard that is really hard. You might've heard it’s really easy. The reality lies somewhere in between. Yes, it sends an army of writhing, fanged, flayed, terrible, tormented beasts your way, beasts only someone bragging about their perceived gamer cred would ever deem a pushover. But it teaches you how to deal with them expertly, their unique attacks and defenses and behaviors, building you up until you look and feel like a great gothic badass. And when you do, you'll have earned it.

In streamlining some of Dark Souls’ complexities (the weight system, magic attacks, a few character skills here and there), Bloodborne gains a rawer sense of immediacy, with vital combat that require relentless attacking sans the comfort blanket of a shield, and unpredictable bosses that force you to develop reflexes alongside your already honed skills of pattern memorization. Oh, and the world. That mystifying, atmospheric, intricately hewn world. Developed for PS4 from the ground-up, the enigmatic Yarnham looks like a beautiful waking nightmare.

If you've yet to succumb to monster hunting fever, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Plenty of games let you battle vicious beasties and craft fancy gear - but few can develop the kind of player investment and cooperative dedication typical of Monster Hunter. For the uninitiated, is a great way to educate yourself on its gloriously addictive ways. Not just because it's the most beginner-friendly entry in Capcom's hit series - it's also the best Monster Hunter game yet.

Gathering materials and killing harmless herbivores is really just a build-up to something greater: downing fearsome creatures after incredibly demanding battles that require true mastery of your chosen weapon. Series vets are already familiar with MH's captivating gameplay loop of fighting and looting, but the new Charge Blade and Insect Glaive playstyles offer entirely unique ways to test your prowess. If you're looking to start or join a dedicated hunting party - preferably with an expert as your guide - Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate offers the kind of adventure that can hook you for hundreds of hours.

Majora's Mask is... well, it's a bit weird. Instead of following the familiar formula that Zelda games have stuck to for years, Majora's Mask asks that you play the same three days over and over again, trying to make the world a little bit brighter each time. It's certainly strange, and more than a little stressful - but taking the time to learn its rhythm opens up one of the most intriguing and creative Legend of Zelda games ever made. Perhaps that's why, 15 years and a 3DS port later, it feels even better than ever.

Much of that feeling is thanks to the improvements found in this portable version of the N64 classic. The updated Bomber's Notebook makes tracking numerous sidequests a painless process, boss design has been retooled to make things teresting, and additional save points help make portable adventuring much more palatable. Plus, New 3DS owners even have some improved camera control with the C-Stick. Whether this is your first time playing through those ominous 72 hours or your hundredth, is a master quest that stands the test of time.

Grim Fandango is, without a doubt, one of the most unique video games ever made. The quest of an undead travel agent as he attempts to atone for his sins is a love letter to film noir greats like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, but it also transcends its influences to be something truly original. And with , you'll finally get to play this lost classic on your PlayStation 4, complete with (some) updated graphics and a fantastic re-recording of the original score.

Grim Fandango is also one of the most uniquely frustrating games ever made, and the Remastered edition only serves to highlight its many game-ruining bugs. Whether it's glitching out a puzzle, clipping you through a wall, or just flat out crashing, Grim Fandango Remastered actually seems buggier now than it did 17 years ago. Make no mistake: Manny's journey is still definitely one worth revisiting - just remember to save your game. Often.

sounds kinda ridiculous at first - it's literally a remastered HD version of a rebuilt SD version of the original Resident Evil. Turns out the joke's on us, though, because that's all we really needed to enjoy the survival horror staple all over again: the HD Remake gives all the main characters and the Spencer Mansion an enticing facelift but keeps the little quirks that make Resident Evil awesome/a total headache/undeniably unique.

You'll still need to manage eight (at most) inventory slots, and you'll still need to keep your distance from downed zombies - or preferably burn them on the spot. The most major change is the new default control scheme, which makes it handle more like a modern fixed-camera game, but you're free to select the old 'tank' controls if you want. With modern conveniences where it needs them and good old weirdness where it doesn't, Resident Evil HD Remake is a near masterpiece… of unlocking.

Those are the first few games that made their mark in 2015, but they won't be the last. Stay tuned to this page to see what will are the best games for every month this year. Only time will tell!

For formation on 2015's releases, be sure to check out our list of the .