To those who've never delved into comics before, but would really like to try, the format can feel impenetrable. Super hero serials have decades-long backlogs, a sea of creator-owned comics can leave you little clue where to start, and the financial commitment of comic readership would make anyone anxious to invest in the unknown. It can be a daunting challenge, and you may feel like giving up hope on ever really becoming a Reader of Comics with so many obstacles in your path.

But what if you had a starting point, a story you were already familiar with transferred into comic form? Like, say, one based on a video game? If that sounds good, then you're in luck, because game developers have long since discovered the pros of going comic-side. There are now a plethora of video game comics on the market, and I'm not talking shameless cash-ins. These are proper comics done by proper comic authors and artists, often with help from the creative minds behind the games that inspired them. To help you figure out the best way to launch into game-comic readership, we've collected some of the best you could be reading right now and the optimal place to snag them. Read on, and if you think we missed a great title, sound off in the comments - help your fellow readers, and we'll get through this together.

Status: Ongoing

Co-written by comic giant Gail Simone and the lead writer of the Tomb Raider reboot, Rhianna Pratchett, Dark Horse's Tomb Raider comic puts Lara Croft in the hands of creators you know will treat her right. Its takes place between the reboot and Rise of the Tomb Raider, giving insight into Lara's personal struggles as she deals with the fallout from her time in Yamatai. It also gives a nice introduction to Trinity, the shadowy organization she's destined to encounter in her search for all manner of things mythical, priceless, and powerful. Her adventures take her to some strange places, from the jungles of South America to the subway tunnels and theater stages of London, all lovingly rendered by a rotating group of talented artists.

Best place to read it: Issues can be purchased individually from the available as well.

Status: Ongoing special release, currently complete

Shepard may be the savior of the Mass Effect universe, but s/he isn't privy to everything that goes on in its vast expanse. In fact, s/he doesn't even know everything that happens on the Normandy, and that's where the Mass Effect comics come in. Considered fully canon (and written/co-written by Mass Effect lead writer Mac Walters), these comics cover events that only get cursory attention in the games, like the First Contact War, how Liara got her shadowy title, or what everyone was up to while Shepard was in stasis. Featuring gorgeous full color art over 27 issues, there's more than enough here to help fans occupied during the wait for Mass Effect: Andromeda. Plus, how could you resist the tale of a

Best place to read it: Those who prefer physical media have .

Status: Ongoing special release

It takes some serious creativity to pull a coherent plot out of a game like Team Fortress 2, which doesn't have a hint of story and centers around a bunch of mercenaries wearing weird hats. But the Team Fortress 2 comics pull it off, because if nothing else, they are very creative. Acting as accompaniment to the game's biggest updates, the comics build an erratic, yet plausible storyline where the sudden emergence of robot soldiers and haunted swords actually makes sense. It's all as ridiculous as you'd expect, and the comic's absurd sense of humor is what really pushes it into must-read territory. It's the story Team Fortress never needed, yet is so much richer and funnier for having it around.

Best place to read it: All the comics are free-to-read on the compilation (alongside a pair of Left 4 Dead and Portal comics).

Status: Complete

When a game works well, there's little need to reinvent the wheel to make a comic of the same property. Or reinvent the cog, in the case of the Gears of War comic. Focusing on minor characters and miscellaneous happenings between the events of Gears and Gears 2, the Gears comic succeeds by focusing on what made the original so enthralling: a gritty and melancholy setting, sharp attention to detail, and plenty of heart-thumping, chainsaw-based brutality. It doesn't exactly tread any new territory, but does such an excellent job of translating the spirit of the Gears games onto the page that it really doesn't need to do anything else.

Best place to read it: The full digital collection is available on available at retail.

Status: Complete

The Last of Us has a fine prequel in the touching Left Behind DLC, but it never hurts to get a little extra love. That's what's to be found in The Last of Us: American Dreams comic, a prologue to Left Behind that focuses on the relationship between Ellie and Riley as it develops in the confines of an oppressive military boarding school. Though it boasts an art style closer to Scott Pilgrim than the CGI of its source material, American Dreams' story is appropriately poignant, and introduces the reader to a new, delinquent side of Ellie. Integrating itself into the grander story through the smallest of details but immediately feeling like part of the whole, American Dreams deserves a place on any fan's shelf right next to Naughty Dog's apocalyptic opus.

Best place to read it: Digital version of all the issues can be purchased if you're willing to pay a bit more for a Kindle or paperback edition.

Status: Complete

With nearly two decades of games to its name, Silent Hill has a plethora of content to fill out its small and ill-lit universe, and just as many gaps for new stories to fill in. Spanning 25 issues, the Silent Hill comic series tells eight standalone stories that take place within Silent Hill, each focused on a new unfortunate soul that wanders into its foggy confines. Each has its own unique art style (Downpour: Anne's Story has a realistic look with a high level of detail, while Dead/Alive resembles a disturbed child's sketchpad) and take on the nature of the town, letting each new volume approach fear in its own unique, perfectly unsettling way.

Best place to read it: This one's a little tricky, because while the series has an excellent - can all be purchased separately.

Status: Complete

A world the size of Thedas can't be contained in a single game, and even after three it feels we've only just breached the dragon's lair. The Dragon Age comic trilogy guides us a little further inside with a new story about the adventures of companions Alistair, Isabela, and Varric as they search for Alistair's lost royal father. Though the story is thick with Dragon Age lore and might seem inaccessible to those just getting into the series, the density of its narrative detail is perfect for fans who already know enough to make sense of it. That's in addition to the impressive visual detail in the book's beautiful, polished illustrations. Though it's only a trilogy, there's plenty of material here to keep fans busy during the wait for the new .

Best place to read it: Buying is the prettiest and cheapest available option.

Status: Complete

Master Chief may not talk much about himself (or anything at all), but that silence conceals a fascinating backstory that defines the Halo universe as we know it. Thankfully you won't have to wait for Chief to get chatty to hear the whole tale - you'll just have to grab a copy of Halo: Fall of Reach. A comic adaption of the novel of the same name, Fall of Reach is broken up into three parts, each detailing an important part of the Chief's life: his childhood abduction and training as a Spartan, the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, and fall of the colony of Reach (which leads directly into of Halo: Combat Evolved). While the events of the comic will be familiar to anyone who's read the novel, the comic's gives it an extra leg up, making it a worthy addition to any Halo collection.

Best place to read it: Sadly there's no omnibus for this series and it's not part of Marvel Unlimited, but thankfully the three arcs <(a href="http://www.amazon.com/Halo-Fall-Reach-Boot-Camp/dp/0785151478?tag=gredit-20ascsubtag=videogamecomics" target="blank">Boot Camp, ) are each available as a full volume.

Status: Complete

Ace Attorney might seem like an odd series to adapt to comic form, since much of its appeal rests in eviscerating your opposition with the power of lawyering. But while it doesn't have that level of interactivity, the Ace Attorney manga fully embraces the series' best qualities and creates a fun side-story for fans to get their Phoenix fix. A five-volume mini-series covering a slew of new cases, its heavy focus on the evidence lets you play a more passive part in the solving of the crime, but nonetheless pushes you to figure out the answer yourself. Featuring brain-teasing puzzles and the charm that the Ace Attorney series is famous for, this manga is great for established fans or new arrivals who want to check the story out before taking on the challenge of crime-solving.

Best place to read it: There aren't many options here for those who prefer digital editions or collections, but the are all available at a relatively decent price.

Status: Complete

Despite its wide popularity, Kingdom Hearts can be , particularly because different parts of the story are exclusive to different platforms. Thankfully, those who can't swing the purchase of a new system to play a single game can turn to the Kingdom Hearts manga instead, which covers the events of the games in a relatively faithful manner, while adding a few extra bits of story exclusive to print. The most recent (and arguably most helpful) addition to this Kingdom Hearts collection is the five-issue Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, which tells the story of Alex, Roxas, and Xion that sets up Kingdom Hearts 2. Laying out an otherwise convoluted story through simple but elegant illustrations instantly makes it easier for fans and newcomers to access the full plot of Kingdom Hearts, and any comic that does that is a winner in my book.

Best place to read it: In a vast departure from how Kingdom Hearts is typically organized, all five volumes are available to western readers and can . That was easier than expected!

Platform games are one of gaming's most enduring staples, and you can't really mention them without talking about Mario. Except I am. Put simply, there's no point in me trying to list the best platform games of all time because, like it or not, Mario titles would take up at least 50% of the entries. The best platform game ever made is probably Super Mario Galaxy 2 (so says our list). But let's not argue about that. Let's look at the challengers.

There's more to the competition than just Sonic the Hedgehog. In fact, you're about to read about 25 amazing platform games that don't have Mario in them. And they're in order too, so let's start with 25 and work our way up to the top. Let's-a go! *Gunshot*.

Ah, a familiar face. Crash is surely one of PSone's most enduring icons and his first adventure is arguably his best. The tight, corridor-like nature of the levels mean Naughty Dog (yes, of Uncharted fame) was able to cram loads of polygonal detail into every frame, making this still look surprisingly lush, especially on a PSP or Vita's screen.

The gameplay is much harder than most people remember, and finding all of the wumpa fruit (there's a blast from the past) requires some pretty serious skills and searching on later levels. It's true that non-homing jumping in 3D space doesn't work very well a lot of the time, but Crash's shadow at least allows you to see where you're landing. It's still fun, charming and easy to get hold of via PSN.

It's rare for a platform game to out-concept the infamous Glover in the 'most ridiculous premise for a platform game' contest. But Vince is the third-best voodoo doll belonging to the owner of a magic shop in New Orleans, who comes to life when zombie dust is spilled during a robbery/kidnapping.

Vince himself is a wisecracking platform hero (no, wait - come back!) who can defeat his enemies by inflicting pain on himself. Chuck yourself in a fire if it helps (and it probably will). From the world design to the N'orleans Jazz-influenced soundtrack, Voodoo Vince has a ton of personality to go alongside the tight 3D platforming design. Still surprisingly good-looking, too. That original Xbox has still got some clout, I'm tellin' ya...

Shantae is one of those games that hardly anyone talks about, but deserves much more acclaim. Shantae herself is a Middle-Eastern belly dancer and in this, her third game, she must team up with her former enemy, Risky Boots (great name – love it) and save her town from a typically pantomime-evil threat.

What follows is classic platform action, where new abilities unlock secrets in previously-visited areas. It's very similar to an old (unrelated) game called Monster World IV – in fact, it could feasibly pass as a sequel to that game. But this is better. Some might be put off by the ridiculous moments of cartoon fan-service (those costume changes are gratuitous to say the least), but it's all tame and feels good-natured. Look out for the new-gen sequel currently in development.

It's remarkable how well the oldest game on this list has stood the test of time. While you could boil this first Dizzy sequel down to an overly-punishing 'fetch and carry' quest, you'd be doing it a massive disservice. The design of this static-screened world is still a treat for the imagination. A desert island with pirate gold lying beneath the surface of the water, complete with a treehouse village, a sub-aquatic world (with a shipwreck) and cursed treasure to boot.

The one-hit-and-you-have-to-restart 'feature' is cruel, but it actually gives the game an immense feeling of peril. Every jump near a hazard – be it a jellyfish or burning torch – must be judged perfectly, or you have to start again. And each moment of discovery when you work out where an item goes is a moment of air-punching glee. Even though the whole game fits into 48k of RAM, it's still brilliant.

Channeling the likes of Rocket Knight Adventures, Giana Sisters is a fast-paced, flowing and beautiful platformer. It's dripping with classic platform iconography, too. Coloured jewels floating the air, begging to be collected. Lush forest backgrounds… glistening water… it's exactly like the platformers of the 1990s, only rendered in spectacular modern detail.

It is, however, extremely difficult. It is certainly possible to master its versatile moveset, but doing so will take a lot of time and patience. Fortunately, it's totally worth the effort, so it won't feel like a chore. And when you're dashing, spinning and leaping around like you own the place, you'll feel amazing.

Disney platformers in the early 1990s were pretty much universally brilliant, whether on 16-bit or 8-bit machines. The Lucky Dime Caper may be an 8-bit title, but it's got everything you could want. Donald himself is beautifully drawn, full of personality and charm. The movement is solid and smooth and the mallet attack feels suitably meaty.

The levels are now the stuff of cliché, what with a water area, a forest, an ice zone and desert, but you can tackle the first three in any order, then the next three in any order, too. The soundtrack is superb and the sense of drama it creates by the time you reach the final level is palpable, followed by some of the most celebratory music ever committed to cartridge. Such a pity the game isn't more readily-available today.

It's very rare to have something from your childhood remade in a way that's sympathetic to what you remember, but Castle of Illusion's HD redux is exactly that. Some moments, like the leaves in the spiders' webs, look and sound exactly how you remember them… although if you go back and play the original now, you'll be amazed at quite how old it feels.

From the over-sized library to the confectionary-filled sweet level, everything is lovingly-rendered and delivered in an organic-looking, non-regimented way. Mickey looks superb in 3D and the scattering of collectible items is challenging enough to be rewarding, but certainly not impossible. Whether you play on PSN or iOS, the experience is the same. This is quality, retro-styled gaming, only modern enough to feel fresh and relevant today. Just a shame the 'bottom bounce' has been replaced with a standard jump attack. Ah well, can't have everything.

Obviously there are many Mega Man games that have a special place in a lot of hearts, but Mega Man 2 is the most iconic. It's also one of the most hardcore platforming experiences around, with ultra-precise and solid controls, fearsome enemy patterns, and carefully rationed upgrades that come to you as you swear your way through screen after screen of chunky scenery.

It also sounds magnificent, with a classic soundtrack made up of bleeps, bloops and fizzes. Forget its actual age, there is a timelessness to Mega Man 2. It's a distillation of the joy of pressing a button to interact with a little sprite on your TV screen. The game design is spectacularly great, with an understanding of timing and challenge far beyond many games, even today.

After Mario and Sonic made platformers THE genre to play, everyone wanted in on the action. By 1993, there was an element of platformer fatigue. But even the biggest critics of the fad would have to concede that Aladdin is a very special video game. With sprites designed by Disney animators themselves, this was as close as you could get to actually playing an animated movie on your home console.

It's the Genesis/Mega Drive version, of course, that we're championing here. The SNES version, while still good, simply doesn't have that authentic feel of the Mega Drive version. With MIDI-fied versions of the feature film's classic songs, technically astonishing collision detection (knives split apples mid-air) and a tonne of gameplay variation, this is how you do a movie tie-in.

A lot of indie platformers play around with various gimmicky mechanics, but rarely make them feel as cohesive as Sound Shapes. At its heart is a simple (but not simplistic) 'stick to grey surfaces and avoid red ones' idea, which gets difficult very quickly. But this is coupled with a superb musical element.

As you play a level, you add notes to the music, building the soundtrack and avoiding various threats that all bounce along with the beat. It's mesmerising and utterly, utterly brilliant. The fact that it works with actual music tracks too – imported via DLC – makes this even more delightful. This is so much more than the sum of its parts. Like music, really.

There is an argument for one of the original SNES versions of Donkey Kong Country, but those games' controls lack the precision of the Returns series, which were given Retro Studios' usual classy treatment. This Wii U game has quality written all over it (erm… in invisible ink). And no, it doesn't count as a Mario game.

Not only is the platforming gameplay as enjoyable as ever, it all sounds absolutely phenomenal, thanks to another sensational score by David Wise, who worked on the original Donkey Kong Country. I actually know someone who listens to music from the game on a loop, it's that good. Not me, I hasten to add. But maybe you will.

The 32-bit scene was comparatively light on side-scrolling platformers, most likely because they were seen as a 'last-gen' genre now that 3D worlds had arrived. Klonoa blended the best of both sides, offering precise, smooth, colourful gameplay with 3D visuals.

It's still a 2D platformer, of course. And one that moves absolutely beautifully, despite the now prehistoric tech specs of the humble PSone. Flowing, precise and smooth, Klonoa is sheer class. It's a relatively rare game to get hold of in disc form these days, but you can buy it on the PSN to play on PS3, PSP or Vita. So do that.

There are several entries in the Ratchet Clank series that could easily fit on this list, including the PS2 original (and the new RC remake on PS4 will probably be best of all). But this PS3 game is everything the series stands for, and at its most imaginative, too.

There's the 3D platforming and melee combat we've come to know and love, plus a load of customisable and upgradeable weapons, and some time-warping puzzle-solving to boot. All of this is wrapped up in super-slick production values and topped off with a funny and entertaining script. Can't get much better than that, really. This is exemplary platforming by one of the master development teams of the genre, Insomniac.

Bionic Commando already had a legion of fans hanging onto the glory days of the '80s arcade scene. But this XBLA remake is a revelation for anyone who loved the game the first time around. Everything's better. From the graphics to the controls and the freedom of movement, Bionic Commando: Rearmed is the perfect example of an HD upgrade done right.

The game is mostly the same as it always was, only with a better ending and a few new features thrown in for good measure. And the arm itself makes for a rather unique-feeling platformer, as you swing around, blowing up walls to find secrets and generally feeling like a bionic version of Spider-Man. With a gun. What's not to like?

It's amazing to think that Cave Story is actually already over a decade old. But this 3D remake of the original platformer/shooter hybrid is undoubtedly the best way to play it. This is the definitive version of the game.

But why is it so good? It's the amalgamation of screen after screen full of smoothly-moving (and exploding) sprites, tight controls, a clever upgrade system and good old fun. Yes, it's one of those increasingly rare things – a game that is fun just to control. Add in one of the most subtle, yet brilliant, branching route systems ever seen and you've got a classic on your hands. Well… more like 'in them'.

3D platformers were everywhere in the late-1990s, but even with the mighty Super Mario 64 already owning the platform (sorry, I mentioned Mario), Rare managed to create something truly special on N64 in the shape of Banjo-Kazooie. The two-character set-up works beautifully, with Banjo and Kazooie complementing each others' movesets and playable both as a team and individually.

The textures may look primitive today, but there's still a lot of charm to the game's colourful world, and the Xbox 360 HD re-release is perfectly acceptable, if a little simplistic in terms of geometry. That still can't dull the game's humour, open design and depth of exploration. Oh, and it turns out that Kazooie is a girl. Amazing how few people realise that.

Dave Perry must have learned a lot from developing Cool Spot, because by the time Earthworm Jim came around, everything was working. Jim works as a character because his shape can morph into anything. He can use himself as a skipping rope. Mario can't do that. The 8-direction shooting lends a Gunstar Heroes vibe to proceedings as you monkey-swing and bounce around the levels, giving this entry genre-straddling elements, while remaining most certainly a platform game at heart.

But for all the technical accomplishment and game design (excluding that water level – but even that was fixed in the HD remake, so get that), it's the game's humour that makes it stick in most people's minds. You could call it low-brow, but that just resonated with bogey-hungry '90s kids everywhere. While it does feel very… ''90s' today, it's still brilliantly playable and you should get it.

It was the game to get for Christmas in 1992. Taking the super-smooth movement of the original game and ramping up the level variety, scale, speed and spectacle, Sonic Team created a timeless platform adventure. And, unlike the original game, the second level is just as good as the first. As is the third, for that matter. Emerald Hill, Chemical Plant and Aquatic Ruin form a holy trinity of gaming playgrounds.

While both the drop-in/drop-out co-op and split-screen 2-player mode have clear flaws, that doesn't mean you can't have fun with a friend. Competing for rings in the pseudo-3D special stage is still loads of fun, but it's the game's longevity that's kept it on this list. People still speedrun it. The new iOS conversion is technically more advanced than the original, while remaining outwardly authentic. However you play Sonic 2, on whatever platform you choose, you will have fun. Fact.

The Castlevania template had already been established long before the 32-bit era arrived. And before Konami turned the series into a 3D adventure, there was time to release the pinnacle of the series' 2D evolution. Symphony of the Night combines pixel-perfect 2D platform combat with 3D background elements to incredible effect. The fact that the 3D is now pretty shaky and roughly-textured somehow makes it all the more wonderful. This has become an icon of retro gaming.

It's aged beautifully in terms of gameplay, too, serving up a huge, lavish adventure, rich with stat-boosting items and new weapons to uncover – not to mention one of the best hidden endings ever. After the PlayStation version, the game also appeared on Sega Saturn, offering extra content including a new playable character. But other elements were weaker, so it's a tough call to say which is best. Both, basically.

Sackboy may be available on PS4 (with some amazingly cute friends), but it's his second PS3 adventure that remains the definitive LBP experience. The built-in levels are more imaginative than those of the original, and the joyous presentation – not to mention Stephen Fry's lovable narration – make just moving around this craft-themed world a pleasurable experience.

But it's the creation suite that really makes this indispensible. You can create regular levels, as you could in the first game, sure, but now you can actually make different genres of games. Yes, making games in a game. What a time to be alive.

Some games are built to reward skill. But few have such a sadistic slant, encouraging you to die a hundred times in preparation of nailing a level with a perfect run. In fact, it even celebrates your catalogue of failures, with an incredible, climactic cascade of replay Meat Boys all dying around that one, lone survivor.

All of this would be for nought if the game played badly, but Super Meat Boy's controls offer incredible precision. When you die, it is simply because you didn't perform well enough. Granted, the graphics are basic by today's standards, but that's because there needs to be no margin for error. A platform is a platform, a wall is a wall. This is ultra-purified platforming action – and it's the meat in the sandwich that matters, not how prettily the bread is cut.

Proof (as if proof were needed) that it's the way a game plays and not how it looks that makes it either a great experience or an also-ran. N+ is all about momentum. It takes some getting used to, certainly, but the potential for perfect runs makes this a mouthwatering prospect for anyone with an eye on getting the best score.

It's mega-hardcore, too. A single wrong move and you're dead, forced to watch a chain reaction of explosion around the screens as pieces of debris (and you) fly around, detonating more explosives. It's this knife-edge of tension juxtaposed against the beauty of a clean run that makes N+ such a delight.

Metroid was pushing all the boundaries when it first released on NES back in 1986, but it was rougher than tree bark with a sore throat and a hangover. Yes, that is rough, you're right. But Super Metroid cemented that formulative… er... formula so perfectly a few years later, it spawned two decades of imitators. The level design and control set are perfectly married, ensuring every area has something new to offer every time you learn a new ability.

The 16-bit visuals may look, shall we say, 'functional' by today's standards, but the music remains some of gaming's best – and actual tunes are used brilliantly sparingly. Super Metroid is designed to give you a sense of melancholic isolation and it gets under your skin. The series translated into 3D perfectly with Metroid Prime, but while Prime is the , Super Metroid remains one of the best platformers ever made.

Is PoP a platformer? Yes. Environmental traversal makes up so much of the game, and requires dexterity and quick-thinking to keep your character from a fall, just like Sonic or he-who-must-not-be-named. But if you do fall… well there's PoP's best stuff.

Being able to rewind time is a brilliant concept and even though it was relatively new when Sands of Time came out, it was done in exemplary fashion. Indeed, play the game too much and you start reaching for the undo button in other games. And even real life. Hit by a bus? That's OK, just rewind time and… oh yeah. Damn.

Rayman Legends is simply the best platform game ever made that doesn’t have Mario in its name. With sublime, intuitive controls that see you sprinting, sliding, wall-jumping, swimming and thwacking enemies into next week, this a joy to play – and easy to pick up if you're a newbie. It works best on Wii U, which is no surprise considering it was designed to be exclusive to that console, before going multi-platform late in development. The HD art is beautiful, the minigames an absolute riot (Kung Foot is worth the asking price alone) and the level layouts are a masterclass in game design, with secrets everywhere and constant rewards for skilful play.

As if that wasn't enough, the multiplayer co-op is exceptional, combining the best of helpfulness and bastardry as you race each other to gather lums, cut a rope to send your mate down a hole to their death or, y'know, actually work together to 100% each level. It's massive too, even going so far as to include levels from Rayman Origins. It's impossible to be disappointed with this game. If you have any interest in platformers at all, you need to play this. Just as soon as you've played Super Ma...(snip!).

You could argue that it’s foolish for developers to put so much effort into creating things so few players will find, but trust us: in the following cases, it’s worth it. Even if you have to fight tooth and nail for a trinket that's - in the grand scheme of things - completely insignificant, something about seeing what others won't makes it all worthwhile. Here's the best of the best you overachievers will get, which will certainly leave you better off than those poor saps saddled with the .

After sampling these slides, you may be asking yourself: where are all the guns? Gaming has its fair share of unlockable, world-melting super weapons too, and we've collected all those in a separate feature, . Between these two features, you're sure to unlock the most potent weapons and abilities gaming has to offer - or blister your thumbs up real good trying.

Suggested by: Sliet

How to unlock it: The title 'Big Boss' isn't something that's handed out lightly in the Metal Gear universe - and this game is no exception. First, you need to finish MGS4 on any difficulty. This will unlock the 'Boss Extreme' difficulty mode, the toughest difficulty mode in the game. You then have to finish MGS4 again on this new difficulty mode, all while fulfilling several additional challenges. These include: finishing the game in less than 5 hours, no kills, no detection, and no using of health items. You basically have to know MGS4 better than your extended family, and have your entire route through it mapped out in advance.

The amazing things you get: Beating MGS4 under these grueling conditions earns you the 'Big Boss' emblem (along with several other lesser emblems). Between them, these accolades unlock several new weapons (The Patriot) and items (Stealth Camo), but by far the most interesting is the . This unusual facemask strikes fear into the hearts of all who gaze upon it. Most enemies will instantly cower and drop all their weapons when they see you approach; others simply faint. Snake laments looking like a demon in the MGS5 trailer, but this is a true demonic visage.

Suggested by: Horusalis

How to unlock it: Obtaining Final Fantasy 7's most powerful summon can be handled in a couple different ways, but each is a hair-ripping challenge. The summon itself is found on Round Island, a donut-shaped spit of land that's impossible to explore without a gold chocobo. Obtaining the gold chocobo is the tricky part, as you must either go through a long and exhaustive chocobo breeding process that's about as much fun as helping a horse give birth, or defeat Ruby Weapon (one of the game's optional super bosses) and exchange the item you receive for a feathered friend. Alternatively, Knights of the Round is also part of the Master Materia set, but you have to defeat a different (and more challenging) super boss to get that.

The amazing thing you get: To be fair, Knights of the Round is a Thirteen ornately armored knights roll up on whatever you're fighting and deliver a barrage of sword slashes, fireballs, and comet strikes. Of course, the coup d'etat is when King Arthur himself takes the field and delivers a screen-shattering final blow. And since damage for each of the 13 hits is calculated individually, this attack easily exceeds the 9999 damage limit of other summons. Safer-Sephiroth's universe-ending Super Nova has got nothing on these overpowered knights of the roundtable.

How to unlock it: Emeralds. You have to collect so many emeralds. First up are the eight classic Chaos Emeralds, which let you transform into Super Sonic. Once you have all those, you then need to collect eight more Super Emeralds to unlock Hyper Sonic. What all this means is that you'll be spending a lot of time in the . These sadistic dexterity challenges find Sonic running along a spherical arena collecting blue orbs while avoiding red ones. Oh sure, those stages start out nice and easy, but the longer you take, the faster it gets, until you're making split-second turns one after the other afraid to blinkbecause the screen ismoving sofastyoucan'tlookawaythesoundof collectingblueorbswill haunt yournightmares.

The amazing thing you get: In the right hands, Hyper Sonic can absolutely destroy Sonic the Hedgehog 3. He moves faster than Sonic (and Super Soinc), flashes between different colors, and has a mid-air dash that can destroy all enemies on the screen. But where things get really interesting is when you collect all eight Super Emeralds as Tails or Knuckles. Tails becomes Super Tails, who's joined by a trio of super-powered birds that automatically attack enemies; while Knuckles becomes Hyper Knuckles, who can clear the screen of foes by slamming into walls.

How to unlock it: Accessing Darksiders 2's most powerful armor set requires you to collect lots and lots of stuff. We're talking Banjo-Kazooie-levels of collectibles here, including (but not limited to) 40 tome pages, 30 relics, and 69 stonebites. Each one of these things is a tiny little item tucked away behind inconspicuous rocks or dark corners in the game's world. Basically, everywhere you'd never look. And a lot of them are in dungeons - dungeons you'll have to replay multiple times if you want to find everything. Darksiders 2 is a fun game, but having to redo the same dungeon multiple times while looking for the apocalyptic equivalent of a needle in a haystack is about as much fun as having to redo your taxes.

The amazing thing you get: Darksiders II does reward you handsomely for your troubles, transforming Death into something that should be on an '80s death metal album cover. Each piece of this set provides a massive boost to Death's core stats, save for one: resistance, your Achilles' heel. Perhaps the most controversial aspect are the two purple horns that are included free with the Abyssal Spaulders. I guess all the metal spikes and engraved demon faces didn't make the Pale Rider demonic enough, so what the hell, throw a pair of horns on top of him. Why not?

How to unlock it: No matter what difficulty you choose, Dead Space 2 is a harrowing, frightening journey. Necromorphs pop out of vents, demon babies swarm at you, and seemingly sane folk turn into alien zombies at the drop of a hat. However, at its most difficult setting--Hardcore--you’ll have to fight tougher, more resilient foes with fewer resources than ever. If you manage to survive that ordeal, however, you’ll be rewarded.

The amazing thing you get: A foam finger with powers akin to Unitology’s most powerful god (Did they have a god? We never could quite get a handle on that religion). Similar to the “We’re number one” props you can buy for three bucks at homecoming, but with the power to completely de-limb an enemy in a matter of milliseconds, the “Hand Cannon” is by far game’s best weapon. Plus, in lieu of projectiles and accompanying noises, the Hand Cannon’s psychic super-powers are accentuated by Isaac gruffly exclaiming “Pew! Pew!”

How to unlock it: For many, the toughest part of Square’s debut on the PlayStation platform was managing to remove the accompanying Final Fantasy VII demo disc from the tray. Once that was done, the fortunate fighting game fans looking for something new were treated to Tobal No. 1’s “Quest Mode,” where you progress through dungeons filled with enemies and randomized potions that can be used to power or poison yourself or your enemies. The first three dungeons (which unlock the final three enemies in arcade mode) run under 10 floors each and can be completed in under 15 minutes each. But the final dungeon is a beast, spanning 30 floors and taking over an hour to complete.

The amazing thing you get: If you manage to make it all down to the final level, you’ll unlock a cute little robot named Toriyama Robo, the android alter-ego of famed character artist Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragon Ball, and designer of Chrono Trigger and Tobal’s cast). Lose at any point during the preceding 29 levels, however, and you’ll have to start all over again. BRUTAL.

How to unlock it: If you’re the exploring type in Super Mario World, you’ll find a Star Exit in five of the game’s worlds in Dinosaur Land. Each of those leads to Star World levels that are slightly tougher than the standard stages, but they also introduce different-colored baby Yoshis. These adorable Yoshis have slightly different abilities compared to the garden-variety green dino: the blue one flies, the red one shoots fireballs regardless of what he eats. However, there’s even more after Star World. Beating those levels unlocks Special World, with hard-as-nails levels belied by surfer slang stage names like Tubular and Mondo.

The amazing thing you get: Special World’s insanity includes hellish situations like a level without platforms (that Mario must traverse by remaining in his balloon power-up form the entire time) and a stage that deviously mixes trampolines and Bullet Bill. But completing the run will literally transform Super Mario World. Besides giving the environments a brownish autumn hue, plenty of enemy sprites are drastically (and oddly) altered. How so? Pirahna plants turn into pumpkin heads, Bullet Bills turn into birds, and Koopa Troopas perform the ultimate mindfreak by wearing Mario and Luigi masks. We imagine that this mode is like seeing the world through Mario's eyes while he's tripping balls on peyote.

How to unlock it: There are dozens of masks to unlock in Link’s second Nintendo 64 adventure, and while some (like the one that turns you into a powerful Goron) are easily unlocked, there’s plenty of useless ones that are fairly difficult to acquire. If you can snag every mask in the core campaign--including the one you get for basically stalking a couple for three days straight instead of saving the world, and the one you have to wait to buy mere minutes before the moon crashes into Termina--you’ll earn a final mask that turns the game’s childlike Link into a god.

The amazing thing you get: Remember how fun it was to have the projectile sword attack in the original Legend of Zelda? Remember how disappointed you were when that effect wasn’t translated to 3D in Ocarina of Time? Well, besides turning Young Link into a character straight out of Dragon Ball Z, slipping on the Fierce Deity Mask allows our hero to shoot spectacularly devastating Sword Beams at enemies, overpowering any foe in the game with just a few strikes--even the final boss!

How to unlock it: Snagging an “A” rank at the end of a Resident Evil 2 campaign is no easy feat. In addition to finishing the story in under three hours with three saves or less, you can’t succumb to temptation and use first aid sprays or unlocked weapons that use infinite ammo. Granted, you’ll probably get good enough at the game to do this in the process of playing through the game six times, because you’ll need to do that to unlock the series’ weirdest character.

The amazing thing you get: After all that repetition, you’ll gladly welcome a change of pace, which is exactly what “The Tofu Survivor” provides. You see, in addition to Leon, Claire, and Hunk, a sentient block of bean curd was also witness to the horrors of Raccoon City’s zombie outbreak. Unlike all of the aforementioned human heroes, Tofu has no access to firearms, and must fend off the undead with nothing more than a knife. So your reward for surviving a difficult run through RE2 is an even more difficult run. But this time, you’re food!

How to unlock it: Throughout the course of Vandal Hearts, there are six keys hidden on select battlefields throughout the strategy RPG. Snagging each key is usually no easy feat; in a game where proper troop placement is vital, you’ll usually have to send a soldier out to a remote part of the map to investigate a slight crack in the ground (or in one case, send a flying-type troop to pluck a key out of a lava pool). Your reward for finding each of these? The Trials of Toroah, a series of stages meant to punish your troops with unfair conditions, like traversing a spiral-staircase pyramid as archers rain hell down on you, or a straight path through a gauntlet of the game’s toughest bosses. Your reward for THAT, however, is truly awesome.

The amazing thing you get: Completing the trials gives you the ability to promote the game’s protagonist, Ash, into a Vandalier, which is basically the debug mode of character classes. In addition to some sweet gold armor, Vanadlier-class Ash also has access to every single spell in the game, which includes a high-damage spell that can hit every opponent on the map. So basically, instant victory all the time. Cheap? Yes. But dammit, you earned it.

How to unlock it: After completing the initial run-through in the Wii’s sublime remake of Punch-Out, you’ll enter “Title Defense” mode, where every character--even gaming’s biggest loser, Glass Joe--is exponentially tougher to beat. If you can run through the entire roster a second time, you’ll unlock another new mode called “Last Stand” that mimics the retirement system of the NES original: lose three times, and your career's finished.

The amazing thing you get: If you can stay upright during Last Stand (or more realistically, reset the game before notching a defeat), at some point you’ll randomly encounter the game’s coolest new fighter, Donkey Kong (sorry, Disco Kid). Once you’ve traded blows with Nintendo’s famous gorilla, you’ll be able to pick him for an exhibition match at any time. All you had to do was put your entire game progress on the line!

Kickstarter has seen a resurgence lately, what with the mega-success of recent nostalgia-fueled projects like Yooka-Laylee, Bloodstained, and Shenmue 3. After a lull last year for big-name, video game Kickstarters, it seems like gamers in general are once again ready to part with their money in the hopes of bringing new experiences to life. Which is great! But there are a few things you ought to think about before throwing some of your hard-earned cash at a project.

Rather than hard-and-fast rules, think of these as points to ponder when you're considering a contribution. No two Kickstarters are identical, so it's always a case-by-case affair - but if you consider the following, you'll feel that much better when you do decide that a project is worth your support. You shouldn't be cynical, but sometimes it pays to be skeptical.

As a general rule, Kickstarters aren't always the wondrous community efforts that they appear to be at first glance. Tucked away in the FAQ for Yooka-Laylee is the fact that there was "a plan in place using personal finances to get the game done no matter what happens." Bloodstained was already 90% funded before it was revealed to the public; the primary purpose of the Kickstarter was to in Sony's case.

These standout spiritual successors are on a different scale than the low-budget projects that really do need every last dollar if they hope to exist. It's not that your money is going into the pockets of some big corporation behind the scenes, but many Kickstarters won't explicitly list out the specifics of how exactly your contributions help make the game possible.

Now, I've never been the producer on a video game, so I have no experience balancing cost charts and divvying up funding into a realistic budget. But common sense dictates that not all stretch goals - extra modes, more bosses, bigger levels, and so on - are entirely dependent on the money that exceeds the initial funding goal. While that may be true for features that require additional salaries, like voice acting or console ports, other stretch goals are just there to be an appealing carrot on a stick.

Take Bloodstained, where an extra $250,000 of funding unlocked such goals as a Speed Run and Boss Rush modes. There's no way in hell that implementing these modes costs that much; plenty of indie platformers that were made in their entirety for less than $250,000 have 'em. Rather, they're more like little objectives to help build up excitement and nudge would-be backers into chipping in for the greater good, like the thought of a corporate sponsor matching your contributions to a fundraiser.

Banjo-Kazooie holds a special place in many of our hearts, with cherished memories of collecting Jiggies, Musical Notes, Eggs, Mumbo Tokens, Feathers, and Extra Honeycomb Pieces while sitting in front of a colossal CRT television. Yooka-Laylee was engineered to tap into that nostalgia, given that that it's a game about two animal buddies teaming up, from a studio founded by ex-Rare developers. And while Yooka-Laylee's looking great so far, it's not going to replicate the experience you had as a kid.

That's because you probably played the original Banjo-Kazooie in 1998, and you're not a kid anymore. When we're young, each game feels like a substantial purchase, and we have all the time in the world to play and replay them. Nowadays, you're a grown-up with responsibilities, strapped for time and burdened by an ever-growing backlog. Of course you're going to experience this game differently. That doesn't mean Yooka-Laylee won't be fantastic in its own way, and could outshine your fondest Banjo memories. But short of establishing a psychic link with your younger self, that experience you remember is going to remain in the past.

If there was such a thing as an albino four-leaf clover, it still couldn't match the rarity of a Kickstarter that successfully meets its estimated delivery date. It's no one developer's fault, really; there will always be unforeseen hurdles that get in the way of making a game. But at this point, you should just ignore those projected timetables, because that development schedule is basically an optimistic delusion.

They're called estimates for a reason: unlike a big-name publisher putting out a AAA game behind schedule and squandering millions of marketing dollars in the process, there aren't as many repercussions for a Kickstarter missing its deadlines. Those creators would no doubt like to deliver their product to you in a timely fashion, but they're not under any contract to ensure that a game code pops up in your email by a certain date or they're fired. You already gave them your money; all you can really do now is wait.

I believe it was the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. who famously said "Mo' project funding, mo' potential to make unrealistic assumptions about the scope of your project." With a creative medium like video games, it's understandable that additional resources would make developers' minds race with possibilities for making their project grander than the one they had originally planned. But that temptation has consequences, because at some point, those ambitions need to be reined in to the realm of the financially realistic.

The Double Fine Adventure that eventually became Broken Age made over eight times the amount it was asking for, but still needed content shaved off to be completed two years behind schedule. Chris Robert's . Or you might get a situation like the Ouya, which blew past its $950,000 goal for a total of $8.5 million, delivered the product exactly as promised, and then collapsed when consumers suddenly realize they had backed something they never really wanted in the first place. More funding than expected doesn't sound bad on paper, but it can impact a project's progress in ways that are tricky to quantify, unlike money.

Yes, nostalgia is a potent and powerful sensation, but don't let it cloud your judgment. You have to keep the perspective that, no matter how much of your own savings you're putting into a Kickstarter, the most you're going to get back is a game (and sure, maybe some extra bits of swag and brief face-time with the developers). It can be a rush donating $100, or $1,000, or $10,000 and feel like you're driving a project to the finish line - but please, consider what your future self will think of that sum once you've beaten that game and moved on with your life.

That last contribution figure isn't uncommon, either. Consider on the eve of its final day. Toejam and Earl may be peerless in the funky fresh department, but they've never done anything that deserves 10 grand of one person's money. If you're paying sums that could cover months' worth of your rent to help make a video game you have no stake in, you're either paying more than you can reasonably afford, or you're being fiscally irresponsible. Probably both, actually.

Movies and TV shows often employ something called 'stunt casting', where a famous celebrity plays a smaller part in an attempt to add legitimacy and publicity to a project. Stunt casting can also apply to the development side of games; take Keiji Inafune's role as producer for .

When a Kickstarter makes a big deal out of an affiliated name, you might want to look for the fine print that describes their actual role on the team. The ill-fated vehicular combat shooter had famed sci-fi author Neal Stephenson as... something. Only he knows what.

There's never a guarantee that a Kickstarter will be successful, even if it gets funded in the allotted time. In most cases, 'success' can be measured simply by whether or not the project ever comes to fruition. are two examples of games that were never completed even after they took backers' money. Other times, the end result may be a disappointment; many of those who had high hopes for the Ouya or Planetary Annihilation felt burned by the finished product.

But ultimately, Kickstarter is not a conventional transaction, where you pay X amount and get Y possession guaranteed. Rather, you should back the projects that you want to see happen, without the expectation of getting anything in return - at least, not for a good long while. Think of those reward tiers as a time-capsule gift to yourself; a pleasant surprise two years from now after this Kickstarter feels like a distant memory. Otherwise, the wait for gratification will be agonizing.

One minute, you're ringing in the new year; the next, you suddenly realize that the first six months of 2015 have already come and gone. With any luck, you've kept your digital backlog relatively tidy, because there are some seriously standout games from the past half-a-year that demand your attention. Hopefully you weren't planning on getting much sun this summer, because with games like these, you might not be going outside any time soon.

At the end of each month, we look back at the standout games that demand your attention above the rest of the year's releases thus far. That way, you know what to prioritize before you're caught up 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.

is an absolute marvel of storytelling, making ingenious use of out-of-order video clips to spin out its mystery. Despite the fact that the game’s unique structure means your path to the end won’t match anyone else’s, Her Story is complete and coherent, though its solution is open to interpretation. It’s a detective game that relies on your natural instinct to push its narrative forward, never nudging you in one direction or the other, letting you explore avenues of investigation as they come to you.

Watching FMV clips on a reproduction of a computer from the '90s certainly doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but you’ll be thinking about Her Story for days after you’ve tracked down that last video. You’ll find yourself rolling little details around in your head, mulling over their implications, deciding that you finally know the “truth,” only to realize that another detail makes your assumptions invalid. But then again, does it? One final bit of advice: go in knowing as little as possible, and don’t try to game the system. Be a true detective.

is another biff-pow display of Rocksteady’s exceptional craftsmanship in bringing a classic comic icon to life. Though combat and stealth are again refined and expanded within Batman’s beautifully rain-slick city, the game’s elegant design is reflected not in its individual components, but in how well they connect with one another, like nodes in a web.

Though the Batmobile’s roaring arrogance has made it a controversial addition to the Arkham series, there’s no question about how integral it is to Batman’s latest patrol. Conceptually, it’s meant to be a way to move quickly in a much wider slice of dour ol’ Gotham, and its visual appearance is, of course, inspired by Batman’s history of driving - as The Riddler calls them - rocket-powered hearses. But Rocksteady dives in fully and makes sure the vehicle connects to combat, stealth and every part of Batman. The overall game’s polish and continuity can be seen in one motion, with the Batmobile hurtling down an alley and launching Batman into full flight, right through a window and into a savage display of ne’er-do-well punishment. It’s one move, one world and one of the coolest moments of 2015. It’ll get you pumped to track down every last super criminal, including whoever masterminded the dreadful PC port.

In a sea of multiplayer shooters obsessed with grit, gore, or teabagging, stands out like a brightly colored squid catapulting through the air - which is actually a thing that happens regularly in this game. Nintendo's take on team deathmatch puts the focus on marking your squad's territory with a rainbow of ink rather than racking up kills, but it still delivers the thrilling blend of twitch shooting and coordinated tactics that define the genre.

Even if those human-squid hybrid Inklings are dripping with kid-friendly personality, this is the kind of joyous multiplayer experience that anyone of any age can enjoy. There's still weapon progression like you'd expect from Call of Duty or Battlefield, but with ink-filled Super Soaker facsimiles and colossal paint rollers. You won't hear anyone raging on voice-chat (because there isn't any), but the GamePad provides clear cues for what to do next. And while the selection of maps currently feels a bit sparse, the moment-to-moment gameplay is fresh, exciting, and - most importantly - good fun.

As open-world experiences go, takes high fantasy to new heights with its staggeringly massive world and rich, engaging storytelling. The grizzled Geralt of Rivia finds himself in landscapes that are as picturesque as they are treacherous, where otherworldly beasts and crazed cultists lurk in the wilderness. There are unforgettable side-quests and delightful supporting characters to distract you at every turn, but you best remember Geralt's primary goal: finding his adopted daughter (and witcher-in-training) Ciri before some supremely evil people get to her first.

That's not to say that you need to rush through the main story, because taking the time to stop and smell the eviscerated corpses is well worth it. The sword-and-spell-casting combat looks stunning on new-gen, and the deep upgrade system gives you plenty of options to slay your way. There are a few hitches - notably some framerate issues that can hopefully be patched out - but the sheer depth of the overall experience makes The Witcher 3 a triumph among action RPGs. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got to return to a rousing round of the in-game card battler Gwent.

It takes a lot to make a fighting game appeal to the masses. You need slick graphics, excellent presentation, and the kind of depth that'll ensnare those highly skilled players who people want to watch. has got all that, and more. While the Fatality finishers still pack in more gore than you can shake a disembodied limb at, MKX brings a lot of new, refreshing ideas to the table that really make this fighter stand out.

For starters, there's the variations mechanic: every combatant has three unique movesets to choose from before each fight, letting character loyalists mix things up and giving the roster a wildly diverse variety of playstyles. You'll also have a blast playing through the elaborate story mode, which introduces a swath of likeable newcomers while imbuing familiar faces with . The online play still has a few kinks that could be worked out, but fans of the Mortal Kombat series - or fighting games in general - will have one hell of a time with MKX.

Of all the re-releases that have come out this year, .

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is massive, sporting one of the most interesting locales ever designed. Its sprawling swamps and rolling hills - all set on the backs of two titan-sized dead gods and filled with beasts both great and small - are practically begging to be conquered. While its lush, verdant landscapes lose a little luster and detail on the smaller screen, what you trade in graphical quality you gain back in portability. Being able to take an adventure of this magnificent scope with you wherever you go is a technical marvel. Don't miss it.

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.

Good games bring out the best of E3 - and a good E3 brings out the best of games. That relationship is always true but not always adhered to, making E3 2015 one of the finest shows in years. Finally, the platform holders and big publishers are rolling up their sleeves for reasons other than showing off the latest military arm-hair rendering technology.

Both PlayStation and Xbox made investments in new, large-scale games, while the showing from independent studios came with a ferocity and appeal not seen in years past. As a result, and after 3 days of playing as much as we could, we’ve assembled this list of E3 2015's most exciting games. Just over half of them are original, one is available already, and those that return from existing properties really earned their spots. Good job, E3.

One stray white feather was all it took for all of us to collectively lose our minds during the Sony press conference because it has been so, so, long since we’d heard anything about The Last Guardian. Anyone familiar with Fumito Ueda’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus may notice that his next game appears to be a mash up of themes from the two. It combines the massive sense of scale from Shadow of the Colossus with the touching, personal relationship portrayed in Ico. We don’t know much about the protagonist (a young boy who has been kidnapped under bizarre circumstances) but what we do know is that his griffin-like catbird friend Trico is there to help him get out.

We didn’t see any other living creatures this time, but danger doesn’t have to lurk in the shadows. The environment itself is treacherous, and from what we’ve seen you’re always surrounded by soaring towers with no hint of where the surface of the world is when you look down. Using Trico’s strength and the boy’s small stature, the two make the perfect puzzle-solving pair. It’s the details that make The Last Guardian something special, from the boy’s exaggerated animations to Trico’s dog-like mannerisms. And that’s what we’re dying to see more of: the budding relationship between the two, which will hopefully culminate in a beautiful happy ending where they both make it out and ride off into the sunset. No one needs to think about the alternative …

In addition to being one of the best games at E3 2015, Fallout 4 should also take home the award for being the most hyped game at E3 2015. After its official announcement during the Bethesda press conference, Fallout 4 has sent the industry into one giant fanboy freakout. You all can't get enough of it, we can't get enough of it, and pretty soon, come November, we're all going to get our chance to play it. And why shouldn't we be excited? The core Fallout series has always maintained that ideal balance of strategic gameplay and dark, apocalyptic humor. Fallout 4 promises all that, and so much more.

For starters, you can play the role of an urban planner. Fallout 4 will let you custom build your own home, which can then grow into a settlement and attract traveling item vendors to supply you with new goods. You can roam the countryside with Dogmeat, your indestructible canine companion who fetches items for you. Then you can use those items to fine-tune your makeshift weapons through numerous add-ons and modifications. Of course, these minor details are really just the tip of the iceberg as there are (probably) tons of surprises waiting to be revealed between now and November. Time to refill that Rad-X prescription, because we're headed back to the wasteland.

Amidst all the explosions and noise from Star Wars Battlefront (we’re not complaining) and fanfare around the latest sports title, it was great to see EA back a whimsical-looking game featuring a walking yarn creature, aptly named Yarny. As Yarny, you use the yarn that you’re made of to cross obstacles and swing yourself from one place to another. You make your way through lush gardens, rainy streets and other dreamy settings that were inspired by real-life locales in northern Sweden, where the developers from Coldwood Interactive are based.

This physics-based puzzle platformer comes with a sentimental story, as hinted in the trailer and described by the creator, Martin Sahlin. It’s hard not to get a bit misty-eyed when you see the struggles Yarny has to face in the harsh, real world. Okay, maybe it had more to do with the melancholy music. Either way, the red thread represents all the bonds that we form with people in our lives. But then, what happens when all that … unravels?

It’s a marvel for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst to even exist in its current form. Its priorities are at odds with many major franchises, more rooted in acts of graceful escape than full-on violence, and its vibrant look somehow finds beauty in a sterile, corporatized city. It’s now impossible to pick up a gun as you bounce between soon-to-be-KO’d enemies like a kung-fu bunny.

But what’s most interesting about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, beyond the immediate quality of its motion, beyond its clever integration of speed-running challenges in a city of reflective shards, and beyond its intriguing heroine, Faith, is that much of this could have been said about the previous game. It had such an impact that you can’t help but view its return with suspicion, scanning for the catch, waiting for that whiff of a vision compromised in some disappointing way. But with no gunplay (for real), a three-dimensionally expanded world and a demonstrable attempt to rebuild Faith’s story, Catalyst looks like the game DICE really wanted to make all those years ago.

The creators of Killzone are working on a game that remarkably doesn’t look like a game from the creators of Killzone. Nature has reclaimed the world of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a thousand years after humanity has shriveled and settled itself as primitive counterpart to new breeds of cybernetic animals. You’ll hunt them as Aloy, a human warrior with a warm heart and quiver full of specialized arrows.

Horizon’s world seems fresh and imaginative, with thunderous cyber-beasts serving as both mystery (who made them?) and formidable opponents in combat. Guerrilla exudes an exceptional attention to detail in this aspect of Horizon: Zero Dawn, granting Aloy different arrows and ropes to pin beasts down, or tear off individual pieces of armor. And when their nuts-and-bolts spill out, she finds new uses for them in crafted armor and weapons. Aloy proves her mettle not only as hunter and engineer, though, but also as an emphatic, quick-witted personality.

Good ol' Mario. He's kept us entertained for 30 years with his his joyful koopa-stomping, princess-saving adventures, and Super Mario Maker is a celebration of that legacy. Dubious looks may have been shared over the concept from time to time (did Nintendo just design half a game and give the rest to the players?), but in practice Super Mario Maker is a solid experience that truly combines the fun of Mario's 2D adventures with a lot of creative fun.

Letting you change the style of your level between four different 2D Mario games, Super Mario Maker gives you access to almost all the different pieces of the Mushroom Kingdom and sends you out into the wild. It's a ton of fun designing impossible levels (which the game happily lets you do), putting a flying Koopa on top of five springs and watching the resulting mayhem. But once you get over your desire for chaos, Super Mario Maker gives you solid tools to design levels that are every bit as good as those in the original games. You can then share those levels with other players and try out their designs in return. Plus, no need to worry about trolls - a creator has to be able to beat their own level in its current form before releasing it to the world. Super Mario Maker is good, clean, creative fun that makes doing all the work fantastic.

ABZU is the ocean of wisdom. At least, that is what it means when you combine two ancient words “AB” for ocean and “ZU” meaning to know. ABZU stood out as one of the most serene experiences during the week of E3 2015. In this beautiful underwater exploration game, creator Matt Nava (and former lead artist on Journey) wants to create a fluid world for a player to explore and discover.

Where Journey made your destination fairly obvious, ABZU is more open, and designed in a way where you’ll naturally end up where you need to go next. The world beneath the waves is vast, and there’s so much to see. As a diver with no health gauge to worry about, you can swim around and explore, do flips, ride on the back of a manta ray or swim with a school of fish. It’s peaceful, refreshing, and easy to get lost in.

It isn't just Battlefield with Stormtroopers. Star Wars Battlefront takes an arcadey approach to large-scale online battles, one that's clearly in love with its source material even as it reshapes cinematic moments into thrilling multiplayer flashpoints. The hands-on E3 demo had 20 Rebels and 20 Imperials fighting in the Battle of Hoth, with Imperial forces escorting a pair of AT-ATs toward Echo Base's shield generators and the Rebels trying to destroy said walkers. Oh, and unlike in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebels can win.

Trading blaster fire feels like a pretty standard first/third-person shooter, but movement is surprisingly bouncy, especially with a jetpack in your loadout. Picking up a TIE Fighter or Snow Speeder token lying around the map allows you to call in air support, sending the camera sweeping up and away to follow your new ride. It's immediately ready for action, letting you transition straight to aerial battles without interrupting your frontline momentum. Battlefront's full of smart, unexpected choices that all get you doing cool Star Wars stuff faster, making it far teresting (and fun) than just a force-flavored Battlefield clone.

When the Tomb Raider reboot came out in 2013, it felt like meeting an old for the first time in a long while. Lara was different, but in a good way. Always a scholar with the uncanny ability to go exactly where the trouble is, now she's also a survivor with an indomitable will. We didn't just want to go with her on an adventure - we wanted to see her beat everything the world tried to throw at her. Now she's back to it all over again, but this time she's on a personal journey to find her place in the world and become the person she was always meant to be. And that means raiding a lot of tombs.

Rise of the Tomb Raider takes what worked so well about the previous game - a revitalized Lara, refined combat, interesting collectibles, and fun sidequests - and mixes it together with improved stealth and crafting systems. Now you can customize weapons to fit your play style, and blast through packs of enemies without firing a single bullet. Most importantly of all, its tombs are several times as detailed, latching onto one of the taproots of the series that made us love it in the first place.

In Norse mythology, Eitr is a poisonous substance and yet the source of all life. At E3 2015, it was a surprisingly excellent action RPG, inspired in equal parts by Diablo and Dark Souls. As in Dark Souls, you may be able to take down a few monsters by mashing buttons, but all your little wounds will add up quickly. It's better to focus on an individual target, feinting, counter-attacking, and dodging in a deliberate tango which will vary by your creepy monstrous dance partner. It feels great, partly because managing all those little parries and thrusts as you keep track of foes is actually quite a bit easier with a Diablo-style isometric camera than in third-person 3D.

Of course, it wouldn't be a proper Diablo-like without scads of randomly generated loot. But equipping a shiny new weapon in Eitr feels much more substantial, since you're not just clicking on enemies until they're dead - different weapon combinations offer different combos and timing to keep in mind. Not to mention Eitr's heroine makes an impressive show of sweeping around the dark, crumbling, and beautiful world, and the minimalist, groaning soundtrack adds a freaky edge to intimidating boss battles. Eitr clearly hybridizes some familiar ideas, but each individual element feels even better for the transformation.

Dark Souls is a series obsessed with finding beauty in destruction; a death poem set in motion. Your hero - stoic and resolute - expresses himself from the tip of a sword, or a handful of gestures. Words are not needed in this shrouded land of death. Your weapons fill the silence, and in Dark Souls 3 they have more to say than ever before. Each armament - from longswords to bows to magic - has some unique action tied to it. The shortbow, for instance, lets you channel your inner Legolas by firing off quick shots after a dodge roll. The longsword can circumvent an enemy's shield with a rising slash that punches through it. The goal here is to create a more active Dark Souls, one that lets you personalize your fighting style let never before.

The backdrop for all this is a ruined world on the brink of oblivion. "Withered beauty," was how game director Hidetaka Miyazaki described it. An unspecified apocalypse looms heavy over this land, its withered denizens turning to the corpse of dragon and other fallen gods for some last-ditch hope of salvation. Not even direct sunlight reaches this place; the rays intercepted by perpetual cloud cover swirling the skies above. But while the end may be inevitable, how you choose to face it - right down to using a longsword over a shortbow - is entirely up to you.

“Not everything is going to make sense,” the narrator of What Remains of Edith Finch warns at the beginning of the game, and goodness, she is not kidding. What begins as a fairly straightforward visit to a childhood landmark very quickly turns into a bizarre tale involving the death of a little girl, an owl, a sea monster, and a family with a dark and mysterious history. There’s a lot to discover (not least of which is the question posed by the title), and none of it is ordinary.

Developer Giant Sparrow prides itself on “creating surreal experiences people have never had before,” and it certainly hits that mark with Edith Finch. Whatever may be going on in that house, it’s not your typical gaming experience. In much the same way that Giant Sparrow’s previous game, The Unfinished Swan, tapped into new areas of creativity to tell its story of a boy in search of closure, Edith Finch avoids the ordinary in favor of the intriguing. You think you know what’s coming, but you don’t; what’s coming is, at least from what we’ve seen so far, far more unsettling than anything you might imagine. How wonderful.

Mobile games often get snubbed at E3 because they’re not big or flashy and, if we’re being honest, not often thought of as "real" games. Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, meant to tide us over until Fallout 4’s release in November isn’t big or flashy, but it is most certainly a real game, one with depth and personality. Perfectly tuned for its mobile format, Fallout Shelter is gorgeous to look at, has a surprising amount of detail, and its simple Vault-building concept is shockingly addictive. It is, dare I say, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.)

Plenty of mobile games are free to play and supported by microtransactions, but so many of them fail by letting those in-game purchases get in the way of the fun. Fallout Shelter doesn’t make that mistake; you can purchase bonus-containing lunchboxes if you like, but it’s entirely optional. You don’t have to shell out a single cent to enjoy Fallout Shelter’s irreverent and surprisingly challenging approach to rebuilding society. Keeping people happy and alive in a radiated wasteland is, as it turns out, really hard. You think they’d be content to just have a roof over their head, but nooooooo. They want food and water and power and music, too. Ungrateful jerks.

Wattam is what you would get if Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy had a baby - and then gave that baby crayons and cake. It's colorful, silly, and joyous. It's a celebration of everything that links us together; of our common bonds and togetherness. It’s about blowing things up in order to bring people together, which makes absolutely no sense, but that’s ok, it doesn’t really have to.

The Earth was fighting with a Bad Guy and in order to save everyone on the planet, she blew herself up and scattered her inhabitants to the four winds. (Yeah, it’s a weird choice, but run with it.) The Mayor is the sole survivor, and he wants to bring everyone back, which he does by forming increasingly large chains of friends, which he then explodes by setting off the bomb under his bowler hat. (Mm hmm, I know, just stick with me.) Wattam is simple to play, but there’s a lot to discover, like what happens when a coffee bean befriends a pillow or when The Mayor meets his long-lost siblings. The art style is utterly endearing; even the poop is cute. (Yes. There’s poop. Golden poop, even.) To make things even more charming, the characters you encounter take their names from your PSN and Facebook friends. Whether or not you tell your mom that she’s now a chibi lawn mower is up to you.

The little Kickstarter game that could, Flame in the Flood takes you with one simple objective: survive. Well, two objectives, since you're floating down a mammoth river toward something that I'll just call Hope. It's waiting for you at the river's end, but first you have to survive the miles of treacherous post-apocalyptic terrain that lies ahead. To do that, you'll have to keep yourself hydrated, well-fed, warm, and rested, all of which are difficult to do when everything from the wolves to the bacteria in the water is out to get you.

Flame in the Flood doesn't pull any punches, and you will die very quickly the first time you play. You'll have to master necessary survival skills by trial and error, and slowly build up a bank of knowledge to see you through. Dying of septic teaches you not to drink suspicious water. Collapsing from blood loss proves that you can't fight off wolves with just a stick. Starving after eating every plant you find highlight that meat is the key to survival. And you'll learn what objects are important when you realize they could have saved you. It's a slow build to success, but every time you get a little smarter, and feel an ever-stronger urge to push further.

Though didn’t impress us by venturing into new thematic waters, it did show Naughty Dog’s peerless approach to the blockbuster action game. The over-the-top destruction on display in the game’s wild car chase somehow reflected an elegant, economical approach to storytelling. When Nathan peers over a railing to take in a huge city crawling down a hillside, it’s not just for looks - we’re seeing the road to the next story beat, and by the time the chase concludes, we’ve traversed the entirety of what seemed like just a pretty picture before.

This willingness to devote resources – be it time, money or the hard work of artists – into a wide shot like that, only to have it become a “real” constructed environment and unfurl as part of the gameplay, is what put Uncharted on the map. The framing of the chase sequence borrows well from Hollywood, and the witty repartee brings the script up to a matching level. What’s even better, though, is the brewing mystery in the story’s title. Between our trio of thieves, Nathan Drake, brother Sam and companion Sully, we’re already wondering whose epitaph Uncharted 4 will be.

By all accounts, 2015 was a damn good year for E3, and the immediate future of video games is looking especially bright. But when we look back on the E3 that was, it's easy to see that - even though these many of these projects are all worked on in strict secrecy - they still share a lot of similarities with one another.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what causes everyone to suddenly jump aboard the same tracks of parallel thought. Maybe a few dozen grappling hook enthusiasts have wriggled their way into the gaming industry; perhaps everybody's got bigger budgets to spend on eye-catching CGI trailers. Call it coincidence, or call it the natural result of humanity's collective subconscious - these are some of the biggest trends that surfaced in the many amazing .

People watch E3 for the surprises, and this year was probably the best in recent memory to deliver on the impossible. Sony's conference was a megaton explosion of revivals, with the return of The Last Guardian, the arrival of Shenmue 3, and a remake for Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7. Square's own conference announced a brand new sequel to the cult-hit Nier. Microsoft even got in on the action, announcing the return of Rare to the world of game design and the arrival of backwards compatibility to the Xbox One. All of these things seemed unthinkable just last week. Now, they're more real than ever.

Look, this really shouldn't be considered a 'trend' - it should just 'be'. But this year's E3 was definitely a step in the right direction, as a good portion of the big-budget games we got to see star some admirable, . You can play as either a man or woman in Fallout 4, Emily Kaldwin is as much a main character as Corvo in Dishonored 2, Aloy slays mechanical dinosaurs in Horizon: Zero Dawn, Lara Croft was front and center in two press conferences, and many, many more games either star women, or at the very least allow players to choose their gender. Progress.

There's certainly no shortage of sequels that simply expand on prior ideas - Fallout 4 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are basically like the old games but bigger - but several publishers are taking their beloved franchises in totally new directions. Persona 4: Dancing All Night takes the social-focused JRPG and thrusts it into the rhythm game genre. Two of Bethesda's biggest franchises are getting their own mobile titles: Elder Scrolls Legends takes the sprawling RPG and turns it into a collectible card game, while Fallout Shelter is a neat little life-in-a-Vault management game. Even Ghost Recon is transforming in a big way, taking a straightforward squad-based shooter and blowing it out to open-world proportions - much like Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain's own approach to breaking away from constrained level structure.

It's shocking how many CGI trailers we saw at E3 this year, but a lot of that has to do with how many games are slated for 2016 and beyond. We get it: publishers want to sell people on the high concept of their games, and they want to do it with some pizazz. Or maybe whatever game they're hawking isn't ready to be shown just yet. Regardless of the reason, CGI trailers are ultimately an empty promise. They're all style and no substance, filled with impossibly gorgeous visuals and highly-detailed action that will in no way be representative of the final, playable product. When you see a CGI trailer in a conference, it's basically your window of opportunity to grab a soda from the fridge, because other than the name, what you're seeing isn't going to exist.

If the popularity of Batman and Spider-Man tells us anything, it's that people love imagining what it would be like to swing off of anything and everything. And while trying to fashion your own real-life grappling hook will probably land you in the nearest emergency room, games let you zip around on a metal tether with all the freedom in the world. The grappling hook is one of the Just Cause series' biggest claims to fame, so of course it's back for ?

Seriously, Platinum Games went from making one or two projects at a time to making all of the games. They're working on Star Fox Zero for Nintendo, they're going to be working on Square Enix's sequel to the cult-hit RPG Nier, they're making a brand new Transformers game for Activision, and they've still got Scalebound for Microsoft (though we'll most likely see more of that at Gamescom). Three new announcements at E3 from a studio responsible for fantastic over-the-top action games. Everybody wins.

In 2015 and beyond, it's not just enough to play your games as designed. Publishers now want you to build and share your own creations made inside the game. With the popularity - or rather, cult-like devotion of millions - surrounding Minecraft, games have an increasing desire to cater to a generation of I'll-just-build-it-myself creators. Media Molecule's Dreams expands on lessons learned from its work on LittleBigPlanet, but that's expected. The bigger surprises come from companies like Nintendo and Bethesda. Super Mario Maker aims to be the only Mario game you'll ever need, as you can create and download custom stages across a variety of Super Mario styles. Bethesda's rolling out Doom Snapmap, which allows players to create their own arenas and gametypes within the ultra-violent shooter. Even , giving players the opportunity to construct their own settlements, and even do some light programming of their own.

They say that human beings are social animals, and while we all love to kill one another in multiplayer deathmatches, we also have an inherent need to unite and take out some aggression on emotionless computers. Many of the games at E3 2015 tapped into that sense of togetherness with tight squads of cooperative players squaring off against AI hordes. , and Star Wars Battlefront's co-op survival missions pit two Rebel players against an army of Imperial troopers. We would include The Division but... we've all seen how friendships crumble in those Dark Zones when there's loot to be had.

So, E3 happened and, as expected, Fallout 4 dominated proceedings. In the course of two days, we learned more about Bethesda's post-apocalyptic RPG than we have in the course of several years of desperate hunting. Rumours were confirmed, gossip was waved away and, most excitingly, there were some real surprises in store, too.

The biggest of all, of course, was the release date. The game will be out in November, bucking the usual E3 trend of a first reveal coming years in advance. Apart from anything else, that means we got trailers, full feature rundowns and huge chunks of gameplay to watch from the get-go - here's everything we know so far.

Our Vault Dwellers have always been the strong, silent types, seemingly communicating all information via telepathy or morse code spelled out by gunshots. This time - whether you play as a male or female character - your character has a . It's apparently taken four years to write and record the 13,000 lines of dialogue required for each character, but producer Todd Howard wanted us to connect with our characters more, and this is the way to do it.

It helps that we'll be designing them to within an inch of their life, too. Far from the buttons and sliders of most RPG character creation sections, Fallout plonks your character in front of a bathroom mirror and lets you literally play with their face until you have it the way you want it. Design their spouse too and the game auto-generates a baby based on your creations. For its final trick, the voice of your Mr. Handy robot can cope with thousands of the world's most popular surnames, meaning you'll be referred to by name as you go. Immersion is the name of the game, seemingly.

This is the one main rumour that proved to be true - Fallout 4's Massachusetts setting is real if a little twisted. The big hitters are all there - there's a settlement inside Fenway Park, and the series has always made reference to M.I.T, now known only as The Institute - but this is an an alternate history, too. Real-life locations that have since been demolished still remain, like the old city centre, Scollay Square.

It's faithful enough that ex-Boston residents working on the game have said it made them homesick - but its the differences to previous games that has us interested. Fallout 4's Boston is significantly more built-up than the Capital Wasteland or New Vegas, with ramshackle skyscrapers and busy settlements popping up across the game trailers. Does that mean this game is set a fair bit later than either of the last two games?

"I'll be playing the game and run into something and be like, 'Who built this? What is this? It's so big!'" So says Todd Howard, a man supposedly overseeing the game. If he's not seen it all, what chance do we have? The focus clearly seems to be on building a world that offers up the kind of stories we can swap with friends, one of Bethesda's chief talents - and in that respect.

We've not had any official word on exactly how big it is, but screenshots show off far more than simple urban wastes, and lead producer, Jeff Gardiner, summed it up by saying "I've played the game probably 400 hours, and I'm still finding stuff that I haven't seen yet." Get working on some thumb calluses - we're going for a virtual hike.

First up, you start the game pre-war. You know those old trailers for Fallout that showed the '50s techno-Americana bliss before the bombs dropped - you're living it. For a bit. Soon, you're running for the familiar environs of a vault (number 111 in this case) and a mushroom cloud signals the end of taht chapter.

I assumed that that meant you'd end up playing as the auto-generated baby mentioned earlier. Nope. As it turns out, your chosen character survives in their vault for 200 years. No one else does. Presumably, this will be the thrust of the storyline - working out just what Vault-Tec did to keep you from dying (or aging), while your spouse and child didn't make it. Fun!

That's not to say you'll be alone. The entire first trailer made it pretty clear that true series hero, Dogmeat, will be playing a major role. I'm guessing this is a different abandoned Alsatian to the one that glitched out and disappeared in my Fallout 3 save file (although in a game where someone can live for 200 years and come out of it a bit groggy, who knows) - it's certainly a more useful version.

Dogmeat can now take more advanced orders, attacking or distracting enemies, fetching items you can't be bothered to schlep over to and, most importantly, is totally invincible meaning I won't have to stop playing to have a bit of a cry at any point.

Fallout 3 ran on the Gamebryo engine. That was modified and re-released as the Creation engine for the release of Skyrim. Fallout 4, which has apparently been in development since 2009, runs on its own version of Creation. Bethesda, it seems, does not like change.

That's not to say that it'll feel like an old game. It's clear enough from the trailers that significant work has gone into the lighting and animation style, while the face-to-face, zombie-like conversations of old are out completely. Facial expressions are far more complex, and the conversation system is dynamic, not only letting you see the scene in third-person, but even break off to run away or attack your unsuspecting talking partner.

Fallout always did a (slightly) better job than its fantasy equivalents at using junk items in meaningful ways - and yes, the Rock-It Launcher returns, thankfully - but Bethesda's collection of inventory ephemera gains new purpose with the addition of a huge new crafting system.

Every weapon and armour set can be added to, altered and made to look significantly more badass with the application of a plethora of junk. How toy rockets are being used to create a sturdier rifle stock is never fully explained, but we'll be happy just to trade in a hundred broomsticks for some discernible reason, thank you very much.

Certain plots of land in the game can be used to create full settlements, from scratch. Think of it like the building system of a game like Rust, but with way> fewer penises. Build it, and wasteland inhabitants will come - the more you offer to passers-by, the more they'll want to set up shop (if they're rare items merchants, sometimes literally).

But the bigger you build, the more of a target you become. You'll need to set up defenses (including stringing powerlines around from generators) to, er, dissuade raiders from stealing your stff and killing your new citizens. But it's worth it - build more than one settlement and you can mogul it up by sending trade caravans between your towns.

Fallout's never taken itself too seriously - expect 4 to follow suit. Even without whatever the inevitable Wild Wasteland perk brings with it, we've already spotted the obligatory nuke launcher, rideable Vertibirds, airstrikes, jetpacks, and baseball bats with buzzsaw blades strapped to the end.

Best of all, your Pip-Boy's now an in-game console of its own - you'll be finding, let's say, familiar retro games to play on your green and black display. The original Donkey Kong featuring a Pipboy player-character, the slightly eerie inclusion of Missile Commander and more will be appearing.

The biggest surprise of all was that Fallout's incredible mod community will be getting a much bigger audience this time around. Todd Howard confirmed that Xbox One players will be able to download mods made for the PC version of the game first, with PS4 to follow suit later.

There's no word on exactly how this will be done - I'd guess at a pool of approved mods, but even without the truly outlandish stuff, that's a huge step towards keeping Fallout a going concern on console for years to come.

During every gauntlet of E3 press conferences, there's always one. One moment that stands out above the rest; the kind of experience you look back at fondly, long after the game it was tied to has come and gone. It could be a hilarious line, like "Attack its weakpoint for massive damage" or "one million troops... WOW." Or maybe it's that moment when months of hype pay off with a spectacular reveal, or a seemingly impossible announcement totally blindsides you (in a good way).

Whatever it ends up being, that memorable moment is something to treasure. Now that the press conferences are in the books, it's time to reflect on the moments that wowed, shocked, and delighted us. Stay awhile and reminisce with us about these less-than-a-week-old events, won't you?

Back in the early days of Xbox, then-president of the Interactive Entertainment Business division at Microsoft Don Mattrick likened backwards compatibility to backwards thinking. "If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," the Wall Street Journal in a 2013 interview, stating that only five percent of users would utilize the feature anyway.

If only Mattrick could have heard the thunderous approval from the crowd at Microsoft's E3 press conference, when it was announced that that backwards compatibility will arrive on the Xbox One this fall.

Guerilla Games doesn't have much of a reputation to those who haven't played a Killzone game, but their next game on PS4 offers the kind of world that'll command anyone's attention. As with Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, this post-apocalypse isn't a barren desert; it's a lush, overgrown jungle resting atop a collapsed metropolis, and it's absolutely gorgeous. There seems to have been some kind of robot rebellion leading up to this strange future, because wildlife like deer and birds have been replaced by metal simulacrums (that use car alarm noises to call for help).

The trailer gives you just enough time to fall in love with the female protagonist Aloy, who seems as tenacious and capable as Lara Croft. Her arsenal is an interesting mix of old and new: arrows with bullets for heads, spears made from sharpened machine parts. And then BAM - in charge some colossal cyborg dinos, complete with blue lasers and primal screams. Watching Aloy take down one of the beasts with some metal tethers and a stab to its robot heart is enough to make Horizon shoot to the top of your 'most anticipated games' list.

It was pretty great to recognize Angela Bassett as boss Six in the trailer for Rainbow Six: Siege; her likeness was so accurate that it even recreated her distinctive mouth movements perfectly. An actress of her stature joining the game’s cast was announcement enough, but when the woman herself walked out to share the stage with Aisha Tyler to discuss her role, we kind of lost our minds.

Bassett is an Oscar-nominated actress with a 20-year career that’s included turns as Betty Shabazz and Tina Turner, who (unlike so many others) regards her role in a shooty video game with the same craftsmanship that she does any other acting performance. She treated her appearance on Ubisoft’s stage with elegant, effortless grace, giving her digitized role - and the audience that would be enjoying it - respect. Her appearance at Ubisoft’s press conference also put two women of color on the same E3 stage, a sight practically unicorn-like in its rarity. It was a moment of true class in a sea of hype and awkwardness, and we loved it.

I don't know about you, but I spent the first few seconds of Sony's press conference saying, "No, no" with intense disbelief, and the three minutes that followed watching a boy and his giant bird dog explore a temple while trying not to cry. After years and so, so many vaporware jokes, we not only saw The Last Guardian emerge from obscurity, but there was a release date attached to its fuzzy, feathery tail. Does anyone else hear a triumphant music number coming from nowhere?

The trailer itself was fairly calm, showing the unnamed little boy we all remember from 2009 shouting to call his towering Falcor-like guardian. Most of the gameplay involved him moving onto different platforms, manipulating objects to make a new path, and making death-defying leaps of faith with the belief that the guardian would catch him, oh lord please catch him! Yet it was so charming, so beautiful, so lost to us for so long that even that simple bit of gameplay was enough to get us making incomprehensible noises of joy at each other. And then they followed it up with a splash image that simply read 2016, and the tears were unstoppable.

Let me take you on a journey back in time to PlayStation Experience 2014, where Sony and Square Enix pulled one of the greatest bait-and-switch moves in game conference history. In the middle of a long evening of new game announcements and trailers, a trailer was shown filled with the nostalgic images of Final Fantasy 7. 'This is it,' thought literally everyone watching at home. 'This is when that Final Fantasy 7 remake finally gets announced.' The trailer continued: Cloud fighting Shinra's grunts, the Highwind taking flight, and Sephiroth stepping through the fire. Any moment now those visuals were going to change into something new, something modern. A new FF7 was right around the corner.

Except it wasn't. Instead it was a port of the PC version to PS4. We all died a little inside that night. But at E3 2015, Sony and Square Enix redeemed themselves by finally, at long last, announcing the remake Final Fantasy fans have been clamoring for. A new Final Fantasy 7, redone with a fresh visual style, is on the horizon. The internet's reaction can be summed it with one phrase: 'NO WAY!!' followed by 'WAIT, WAIT, NO WAY!!' It was a huge surprise, tempered only by the fact that Sony's press conference was filled with huge surprises.

Nintendo’s been getting pretty good at having some fun with their Directs and Digital Events, but the E3 transformation of Reggie Fils-Aime, Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto into muppets - and then into muppet versions of characters from Star Fox - was their most delightful move yet. Nintendo didn’t take the gimmick too far, but did let the muppet hosts stick around for a while, mostly just to dance. It was pure, unfiltered happiness, which is basically Nintendo’s shtick.

It was a perfect reminder amongst the gore and guns of other press conferences that not everything has to be gritty or mature to be fun. Nothing wrong with a well-placed headshot, of course, but the muppets of Nintendo channelled childlike joy that left us grinning. : “You know and I know the warmth you feel whenever there’s a muppet around.” Everything really is better with muppets.

Sony's press conference was filled with games we had long-suspected of being vaporware, but arguably more surprising was Yu Suzuki taking the stage to reveal Shenmue 3. Okay, so it was to reveal a Kickstarter for Shenmue 3, but still. While The Last Guardian and a Final Fantasy 7 remake were at least churning in the rumor mill, the revival of Shenmue came completely out of left field.

Chills are still running up the arms of Dreamcast diehards and Shenmue supporters the world over, and financial pledges for the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter have poured in at a rate that's shattered records (and looks poised to overtake Bloodstained as the crowdfunding platform's most-funded video game project). Hearing that beautiful orchestral theme again, it's hard to blame fans for getting swept up in the moment.

When Bethesda finally pulled the lead-lined curtain off of Fallout 4, I was satisfied. It looked great, but after years of waiting to hear even the slightest peep about the next game in one of my favorite series, I was ready to keep waiting until next year to actually play it. After all, there was a ten-year wait between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, right? Waiting ‘til spring or fall 2016 would be nothing next to that.

But Bethesda decided to get the whole thing out of the way at once, announcing a Fallout 4 release date of November 10. It makes sense in retrospect, since Skyrim, Bethesda Game Studios' last big project, shipped three years ago. That's plenty of time for a big, seasoned studio to get another project together, I just… just wasn't ready to get my hopes up for it. Sniffle.

When Nier New Project director Yoko Taro took the stage at Square Enix's press conference, it felt like a fractured dream after hours of restless tossing and turning. Square Enix's press conference was easily the most boring of the lot, long on time and short on announcements that weren't already announced the day before, but then… there was that helmet. And everybody watching who hadn't played Nier - which was a cult hit at best, so a lot of them - had no idea what was happening.

See, the helmet was a replica of Emil's weapon-form head from the original game, but nobody said anything about it. They didn't even acknowledge it was there, letting Taro deliver a standard "please look forward to it" speech as if he didn't have a terrifying Majora's Mask reject sitting on his scarf-wrapped shoulders. Which he did... unless it was just a mass delusion. Actually, it might have been a mass delusion.

During every gauntlet of E3 press conferences, there's always one. One moment that stands out above the rest; the kind of experience you look back at fondly, long after the game it was tied to has come and gone. It could be a hilarious line, like "Attack its weakpoint for massive damage" or "one million troops... WOW." Or maybe it's that moment when months of hype pay off with a spectacular reveal, or a seemingly impossible announcement totally blindsides you (in a good way).

Whatever it ends up being, that memorable moment is something to treasure. Now that the press conferences are in the books, it's time to reflect on the moments that wowed, shocked, and delighted us. Stay awhile and reminisce with us about these less-than-a-week-old events, won't you?

Back in the early days of Xbox, then-president of the Interactive Entertainment Business division at Microsoft Don Mattrick likened backwards compatibility to backwards thinking. "If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards," the Wall Street Journal in a 2013 interview, stating that only five percent of users would utilize the feature anyway.

If only Mattrick could have heard the thunderous approval from the crowd at Microsoft's E3 press conference, when it was announced that that backwards compatibility will arrive on the Xbox One this fall.

Guerilla Games doesn't have much of a reputation to those who haven't played a Killzone game, but their next game on PS4 offers the kind of world that'll command anyone's attention. As with Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, this post-apocalypse isn't a barren desert; it's a lush, overgrown jungle resting atop a collapsed metropolis, and it's absolutely gorgeous. There seems to have been some kind of robot rebellion leading up to this strange future, because wildlife like deer and birds have been replaced by metal simulacrums (that use car alarm noises to call for help).

The trailer gives you just enough time to fall in love with the female protagonist Aloy, who seems as tenacious and capable as Lara Croft. Her arsenal is an interesting mix of old and new: arrows with bullets for heads, spears made from sharpened machine parts. And then BAM - in charge some colossal cyborg dinos, complete with blue lasers and primal screams. Watching Aloy take down one of the beasts with some metal tethers and a stab to its robot heart is enough to make Horizon shoot to the top of your 'most anticipated games' list.

It was pretty great to recognize Angela Bassett as boss Six in the trailer for Rainbow Six: Siege; her likeness was so accurate that it even recreated her distinctive mouth movements perfectly. An actress of her stature joining the game’s cast was announcement enough, but when the woman herself walked out to share the stage with Aisha Tyler to discuss her role, we kind of lost our minds.

Bassett is an Oscar-nominated actress with a 20-year career that’s included turns as Betty Shabazz and Tina Turner, who (unlike so many others) regards her role in a shooty video game with the same craftsmanship that she does any other acting performance. She treated her appearance on Ubisoft’s stage with elegant, effortless grace, giving her digitized role - and the audience that would be enjoying it - respect. Her appearance at Ubisoft’s press conference also put two women of color on the same E3 stage, a sight practically unicorn-like in its rarity. It was a moment of true class in a sea of hype and awkwardness, and we loved it.

I don't know about you, but I spent the first few seconds of Sony's press conference saying, "No, no" with intense disbelief, and the three minutes that followed watching a boy and his giant bird dog explore a temple while trying not to cry. After years and so, so many vaporware jokes, we not only saw The Last Guardian emerge from obscurity, but there was a release date attached to its fuzzy, feathery tail. Does anyone else hear a triumphant music number coming from nowhere?

The trailer itself was fairly calm, showing the unnamed little boy we all remember from 2009 shouting to call his towering Falcor-like guardian. Most of the gameplay involved him moving onto different platforms, manipulating objects to make a new path, and making death-defying leaps of faith with the belief that the guardian would catch him, oh lord please catch him! Yet it was so charming, so beautiful, so lost to us for so long that even that simple bit of gameplay was enough to get us making incomprehensible noises of joy at each other. And then they followed it up with a splash image that simply read 2016, and the tears were unstoppable.

Let me take you on a journey back in time to PlayStation Experience 2014, where Sony and Square Enix pulled one of the greatest bait-and-switch moves in game conference history. In the middle of a long evening of new game announcements and trailers, a trailer was shown filled with the nostalgic images of Final Fantasy 7. 'This is it,' thought literally everyone watching at home. 'This is when that Final Fantasy 7 remake finally gets announced.' The trailer continued: Cloud fighting Shinra's grunts, the Highwind taking flight, and Sephiroth stepping through the fire. Any moment now those visuals were going to change into something new, something modern. A new FF7 was right around the corner.

Except it wasn't. Instead it was a port of the PC version to PS4. We all died a little inside that night. But at E3 2015, Sony and Square Enix redeemed themselves by finally, at long last, announcing the remake Final Fantasy fans have been clamoring for. A new Final Fantasy 7, redone with a fresh visual style, is on the horizon. The internet's reaction can be summed it with one phrase: 'NO WAY!!' followed by 'WAIT, WAIT, NO WAY!!' It was a huge surprise, tempered only by the fact that Sony's press conference was filled with huge surprises.

Nintendo’s been getting pretty good at having some fun with their Directs and Digital Events, but the E3 transformation of Reggie Fils-Aime, Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto into muppets - and then into muppet versions of characters from Star Fox - was their most delightful move yet. Nintendo didn’t take the gimmick too far, but did let the muppet hosts stick around for a while, mostly just to dance. It was pure, unfiltered happiness, which is basically Nintendo’s shtick.

It was a perfect reminder amongst the gore and guns of other press conferences that not everything has to be gritty or mature to be fun. Nothing wrong with a well-placed headshot, of course, but the muppets of Nintendo channelled childlike joy that left us grinning. : “You know and I know the warmth you feel whenever there’s a muppet around.” Everything really is better with muppets.

Sony's press conference was filled with games we had long-suspected of being vaporware, but arguably more surprising was Yu Suzuki taking the stage to reveal Shenmue 3. Okay, so it was to reveal a Kickstarter for Shenmue 3, but still. While The Last Guardian and a Final Fantasy 7 remake were at least churning in the rumor mill, the revival of Shenmue came completely out of left field.

Chills are still running up the arms of Dreamcast diehards and Shenmue supporters the world over, and financial pledges for the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter have poured in at a rate that's shattered records (and looks poised to overtake Bloodstained as the crowdfunding platform's most-funded video game project). Hearing that beautiful orchestral theme again, it's hard to blame fans for getting swept up in the moment.

When Bethesda finally pulled the lead-lined curtain off of Fallout 4, I was satisfied. It looked great, but after years of waiting to hear even the slightest peep about the next game in one of my favorite series, I was ready to keep waiting until next year to actually play it. After all, there was a ten-year wait between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, right? Waiting ‘til spring or fall 2016 would be nothing next to that.

But Bethesda decided to get the whole thing out of the way at once, announcing a Fallout 4 release date of November 11. It makes sense in retrospect, since Skyrim, Bethesda Game Studios' last big project, shipped three years ago. That's plenty of time for a big, seasoned studio to get another project together, I just… just wasn't ready to get my hopes up for it. Sniffle.

When Nier New Project director Yoko Taro took the stage at Square Enix's press conference, it felt like a fractured dream after hours of restless tossing and turning. Square Enix's press conference was easily the most boring of the lot, long on time and short on announcements that weren't already announced the day before, but then… there was that helmet. And everybody watching who hadn't played Nier - which was a cult hit at best, so a lot of them - had no idea what was happening.

See, the helmet was a replica of Emil's weapon-form head from the original game, but nobody said anything about it. They didn't even acknowledge it was there, letting Taro deliver a standard "please look forward to it" speech as if he didn't have a terrifying Majora's Mask reject sitting on his scarf-wrapped shoulders. Which he did... unless it was just a mass delusion. Actually, it might have been a mass delusion.

Every year, the E3 press conferences serve as the bombastic kickoff to a festival of big-budget games and indie innovators. This is where all the megaton reveals and announcements will happen; where developers, CEOs, and celebrities alike will take the stage and delight the audience with snappy or slightly awkward banter. And E3 2015 had more press conferences than usual, with a few newcomers joining the fray. But like gladiatorial combat, the real question on people's minds is: who won?

Every press conference had something great to offer, but some simply had more greatness than others. We've gone ahead and ranked all the press conferences, minus the forthcoming (GR+ is owned by the same parent company, so we'd be contractually obligated to give them first prize). So, which press conference stood triumphant during E3 2015? In our minds, the ordering goes something like this...

The Square Enix press conference had the air of a Japanese investor meeting, which isn't necessarily good or bad. Everyone on stage was polite and calm, moving from one game demo to the next with minimal fanfare - a stark contrast to the whiz-bang theatrics of most other press conferences. There were a few gaffes, like a translator who seemed to be asleep at the wheel and an enthusiastic Kingdom Hearts fan who realized too late that he was cheering for the wrong trailer. But man, Square Enix has it where it counts: the games.

Any mention of the Final Fantasy 7 remake gets our hearts aflutter, the teacup attack in Kingdom Hearts 3 is a winner, and the tweaks to Hitman's assassination sandbox are definitely intriguing. Plus, the cult classic Nier is actually getting a sequel, something we never would've expected in a million years. And we'll never, ever forget the surreal weirdness of a presenter with a skull mask on, and absolutely no one in the room acknowledging it.

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Electronic Arts has a heavy burden: the need to show off a slew of sports games to an audience that, let's face it, is largely apathetic about Madden, FIFA, et al. Not only that: everybody watching had their hearts set on some in-game Star Wars Battlefront footage, and EA knew it. That made it all the more difficult to sit through Pele's absent-minded musings about 'the beautiful game', or a Minions mobile spin-off.

Of course, none of those somewhat dull moments seemed to matter after the glory of the Battlefront footage. Watching soldiers shoot their way through the trenches of Hoth looked incredible, and the shifting perspectives gave a great view into vehicle handling as well. And that ending where Luke and Vader clash... we got chills. Besides getting to see our nerdy lightsaber duel fantasies realized, Unravel looks adorable, Mirror's Edge: Catalyst seems like it'll have glorious amounts of freedom, and Mass Effect: Andromeda showed just enough to get us interested.

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We get the sense that E3 is becoming more and more irrelevant to Nintendo, and you can tell by the fact that its biggest surprises - the unexpected arrival of the unreleased NES EarthBound and Ryu's appearance in Super Smash Bros. - were announced on the Sunday before the big Nintendo Direct. Thanks to Nintendo's unique videos, they can announce whatever they want, when they want, and they don't have to be tied to E3 to do it.

That's not to say there weren't things to get excited about during the Tuesday Direct. We saw the first footage of Star Fox Zero, the reveal of a Paper Mario/Mario Luigi RPG mash-up, and a new multiplayer Zelda game on 3DS, and all of that looks great. There are even going to be Skylanders figurines for Donkey Kong and Bowser that will act as amiibo when you twist the base - a pretty big surprise, especially coming from a company as protective of its characters as Nintendo. Long-awaited titles like Xenoblade Chronicles X and the fantastic-looking Super Mario Maker finally got release dates, too. Nintendo's actual E3 conference may have been a bit lacking, but when you combine it, along with Sunday's announcements and the World Championship, Nintendo's E3 wasn't too shabby. Plus, it had Nintendo Muppets. And that's pretty great.

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Ubisoft didn't pin all its hype to one or two games - it spread the love across a diverse collection, which is great. By now, we know to brace for a few awkward moments when Just Dance hits the stage (this time with some off-key singing courtesy of Jason Derulo, aka Blueshirt McSingguy, aka Mikey '2Tyte' Jeanz), and some stilted recreations of actual conversations during multiplayer sessions. But any Derulo downers were offset by Aisha Tyler's charm, and Ubisoft had something for everyone with its game showcase.

Two surprise announcements stood out in particular: Ghost Recon Wildlands, a drug-busting take on the tactical shooter, and For Honor, a PvP battle between history's deadliest warriors. The tense multiplayer of had us enraptured (even with all the scripted teamchat), with Trackmania, Trials Fusion: Awesome Levels Max, and South Park: Fractured But Whole rounding out the strong showing. We could've done with some more Evie and/or gameplay for Assassin's Creed Syndicate, of course.

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Kinect was a no-show, there was no mention of apps, and there was nary an Usher in sight - Microsoft in 2015 is leaner, meaner, and all about games. There were the expected heavy hitters, of course, and Halo 5 and Gears 4 certainly didn't disappoint, but it was all of the little surprises that added up for Microsoft in a big way.

Backwards compatibility was Microsoft's bombshell announcement of the show. It doesn't seem like much, but when it feels like everyone's essentially written off the concept with this generation and doubled down on re-releases, seeing a big publisher find a way to get older games to work on its current hardware is a pretty fantastic move, and it'll be a great way to get more people to leave their 360s behind. Speaking of re-releases, Rare Replay shows the right way to go about it, packing in 30 classic and contemporary Rare games in one package for $30. Rare's even making a brand new game, and it's all about pirates! Microsoft also unveiled a unique spin on early access, letting potential buyers actually try a demo before they spend money on an unfinished game (what a concept!). And last but surprisingly not least, Microsoft HoloLens made an impressive showing with Minecraft (of all games). A solid show from Microsoft.

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This E3 marked the first time Bethesda has ever hosted a press conference, but you wouldn't be able to tell by watching it, as the publisher took the stage with a confidence and presence like they'd been doing this for years. Bethesda's conference boasted no frills, no nonsense, and no gimmicks - just a solid 90-minute block of fantastic-looking games.

Doom is shaping up to be a wonderful blend of old-school and modern game design, with fast-paced, fluid gunplay, ridiculous hellbeasts, and the newly-announced Snapmap allows for players to make and share their own levels and games. Dishonored 2 is coming next year, and bringing along a surprising new protagonist with Emily Kaldwin. But the big surprise here came from Fallout 4 and its November, 2015 release date. Bethesda kicked off E3 in spectacular fashion.

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Sony doesn't have a huge first-party lineup slated for 2015, instead relying on Batman, Destiny, and a slew of indie games to satiate PlayStation Nation’s hunger for games. And no, Sony didn't do much to tell us differently at its E3 conference. What it did do, however, is announce the arrival of three particular games - games that have long stoked the dreams of many a PlayStation fan.

Sony opened its show with The Last Guardian, reintroducing Team Ico's lost game to the masses, and revealed a 2016 release date to go along with it. Fans have also been clamoring for a Final Fantasy 7 remake, and have repeatedly been told no - until Sony unveiled a trailer confirming its existence. Then they gave the stage to Yu Suzuki, creator of the cult-favorite Shenmue series, and announced a plan to crowd-fund the closure that fans have been craving for years. Oh yeah, Sony's also the new home for Call of Duty, yoinking it away from Microsoft in dramatic fashion. An impressive gameplay demo for Uncharted 4 closed one of Sony's best conferences in years - , this is one for the history books.

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For the first time, Bethesda is putting on its own E3 press conference. With all of the buildup of having a making an appearance, Bethesda really set out to build anticipation for its presentation and make a huge impression. Now that the show is over, it's time to review what we just saw. With that, welcome to our recap.

If you missed out on the announcements, worry not. We watched the entire thing, wrote a bunch of news articles about it, and summed up everything in one place. All you need to do to catch up is scroll through this gallery. So go ahead, get all of the most important information from the Bethesda press conference on the following slides.

Doom has never looked this fast or fluid before. An extended gameplay demo showed off what looks to be some kind of space base or factory over-run with hellspawn. The biggest thing to take away is the fluidity - it almost turns into a ballet of blood and bullets as the layer deftly maneuvers around the the corridors, clambering onto platforms, and exploding enemies into so many ludicrous gibs. And the game never seems to skip a beat, maintaining an almost hyper-realistic level of smoothness - even when time slows down when you select a gun from the weapon wheel. There's also incredible levels of detail, whether you're looking at a high-res monitor or the etchings on a new shotgun. Classic weapons return, like the plasma rifle, and the chainsaw - and yeah, it's as gory as you think it is, with demons splitting in half like a knife through butter. And you've even got finishing moves that let you rip an enemy's face apart.

It's Doom, so it's gonna get multiplayer, but you're also not limited to what multiplayer modes and maps that Id has cooked up. Doom Snapmap lets you create own competitive and co-operative multiplayer game types, and it looks like there's going to be a ridiculous amount of variety for you to dig into. You can start from predefined modes or make full custom games by editing the map layouts, the item placement, and even the game logic to make your own game-within-a-game.

It'll be hitting Xbox One, PS4, and PC some time early next year, and it's bringing back the classic weapons and shooting you love, with a few modern twists. We're talking, of course, about the giant green plasma shots of the unmistakable BFG.

On the Media's is a frank, concise set of guidelines to remember whenever you're trying to parse developing events from the modern diaspora of information sources. Of course, confusing, conflicting sources aren't nearly as common in video games, where much of the story proceeds in an orderly fashion based on whatever information game companies decide to dole out.

But that doesn't mean you should take everything you see at face value. Inspired by OTM, I’ve decided to offer some tips to help you rise above the hype cycle, starting with its dubstep-throbbing heart: trailers. By the time you're done with this guide, you'll be ready to enjoy E3 - which is like Christmas, New Year's Eve, and a stock market opening ceremony rolled into one for hype - with high hopes and pragmatic expectations.

Pre-rendered trailers have been a fixture of video game marketing for decades, but up until recent years they've been more of a proof-of-concept than a potential source of confusion. Unfortunately, as gaming visuals creep closer and closer toward photo-realism, it's become easier to mix them up with actual scenes of gameplay, or at least to conclude that they're real parts of the game with an extra layer of post-production polish.

That's not a safe assumption, and trying to draw any conclusions about a game beyond basic stuff like "this is what the protagonist looks like" and "she fights with a gun / sword" from a trailer produced by people otherwise uninvolved with the game is a bad idea. Watch this to get a better feel for what state-of-the-art CGI trailers can look like.

Even if you're certain that you're seeing a game in motion, don't assume it's the game you'll actually get to play. Much can change between an impressive reveal video and release, as was infamously demonstrated by Watch Dogs: the actual game, which released in May 2014, was notably than the live demonstration Ubisoft gave two years earlier.

It's unlikely that Ubisoft was actually trying to deceive anyone with that first gameplay demonstration. But the subtle elements that make those kinds of visuals so impressive, like soft, ambient lighting, are also the first to fall when developers need to wring more performance out of uncooperative hardware (Watch Dogs' gameplay debuted before new-gen hardware was even locked down). Those little touches can make a big difference to your gut reaction, but try to focus on the bigger concepts for a more accurate - and less potentially disappointing - impression of the final product.

Marketers love to frontload trailers with scene-setting material: expository voiceovers, extreme close-ups on impressively rendered woodland creatures, slow panning shots of the hero's new and improved equipment. That's all fine if you're already invested in the game and are eager to see every little detail, but for everybody else, it means a lot of sitting around and hoping the interesting part will start soon.

Don't just wait for it to come to you! Instead, take hold of the scrub bar and skip to the last minute - that's where the actual game is likely to be hiding. At that point most trailers have gotten all their stylistic exposition out of their systems and are getting to what's actually going to be in the box. The last minute is also where you'll find pertinent details like a release date or console exclusivity (or pre-order bonuses).

It might feel like every big game of this generation has missed its release date by at least a month, but that isn't the case. Series like Call of Duty, Madden, and Assassin's Creed have a strict yearly schedule to adhere to, and while they might shift a few weeks from time to time, you can usually count on them to release like clockwork - relatively speaking. But if the game in question isn't part of an annualized franchise, then, well, don't go planning important life events around its release date.

Many factors dictate whether a game will be delayed and how long it may be pushed back. But a delay of six months is a good, cautious estimate to keep in mind: it's long enough for the developer to apply plenty of polish, and for games that were meant to hit the holiday rush to ship in the increasingly competitive spring months, or vice versa. If no date is mentioned at all, don't anticipate a release within the year.

Trailers will often throw out a few dozen quotes with positive-sounding phrases like 'breathtaking' or 'a must-play' in rapid succession, trying to give you the impression that the game has received unanimous praise from critics. But it's a good idea to apply some skepticism to whatever marketers tell you about their product, even when they quote a publication or person you trust to make their point.

Thankfully, you can still learn a lot from the 'acclaim', even if it's not quite what the marketers intended. Are the quotes mostly one or two words, or do they use a lot of ellipses? If so, the source of that quotation probably doesn't sound quite as congratulatory when read in full. On the other hand, if you don't recognize any of the sources - or perhaps you do, but not for their game coverage - you can conclude that the people cutting the trailer had to widen their search a bit to find positive snippets.

Rather than setting up important characters or events, some trailers are intended more to establish a certain tone. Dead Island's famed did little more than tell you that this is a game on an island with zombies in it, but its shocking imagery and reverse-spliced chronology did a phenomenal job portraying a bleak, hopeless atmosphere. Unfortunately, Dead Island's zombie-slaying loot-em-up action did little to follow through on that tone. That's an extreme example, but many other games have had their thematic ambition (or lack thereof) shown up by their own trailers.

On the other hand, if you find the video's tone immediately off-putting, you can go ahead and take it as a red flag. For instance, this , which (when it's not awkwardly cackling) talks about mixing hot sauce and testicles, was fairly faithful to the feel of the game itself. That is to say, pointlessly vulgar and lewd.

remains one of the most surprisingly impactful trailers ever made. It's attracted plenty of imitators since it first aired in 2006, many of whom took cues from how it introduced Marcus Fenix as both vulnerable and an ass-kicker, and the world of Sera as a place of broken beauty. Unfortunately, not every unlikely game-and-music pairing works equally well.

The good news is that, if a trailer's doesn't suit your musical tastes, you can pretty safely hit the mute button. Music video-styled trailers almost never include significant dialogue or sound effects, and when they do, it's easy to tell from the on-screen action, giving you plenty of time to unmute it.

You can only watch so many gun-wielding characters wage a desperate war against a seemingly insurmountable enemy before they all start to blend together. No matter how well-made they are, trailers released in and around E3 all have a difficult task in holding on to your attention. Rather than distinguishing their games solely through unique gameplay snippets or impressive visuals, some companies choose to add a little something extra around the edges of their presentations.

That's why EA prefaced its introduction of NBA Live 14 with a , a US government study that explored if and how society would break down in the event of a biological weapon attack. These attention-grabbing stunts are usually only tangentially related to the game itself, so feel free to grab a snack or check Twitter while you wait for the relevant part to begin.

By their nature, work on big, fancy trailers has to begin many months before their planned debut. But since huge changes often come about in the span of weeks in game development, that means promotional materials may end up not being completely accurate to the current state of production. Unfortunately, you can't push back the release of an E3 trailer the same way you can push back the actual game (or else it wouldn't be much of an E3 trailer).

Thus, placeholder assets or other outdated material will frequently appear in promotional videos. That was likely at least part of the reason why Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Black Hand of Sauron was depicted as a tall, bald guy with a pointy face and a vaguely English accent in . But when the game launched in September, just a few months later, his nose and chin had receded a few inches, and he'd traded the orc-ney accent for the familiar voice of Nathan Drake, Desmond Miles, and The Penguin - Nolan North.

You feel that in the air? The constant buzzing of press releases and hype trailers? It's E3 season, and that means it's time to get excited once again about the future of video games. Usually, the E3 lifecycle works like this: watch a trailer and some gameplay footage for a hot new game at E3, get really excited about it, wait about a year or two, then finally walk to your local store and pick up a copy of the game.

Sometimes, though, games get stuck at the 'waiting' step and never find a way to get out. Time continues to march on, E3s come and go, and these games either disappear into the aether, or get cancelled outright, leaving behind a video or two and brief demo a handful of people actually got to try. So let's gather ‘round, reminisce on promises left unfulfilled, and pour one out for these E3 vaporware games.

When the Wii was originally unveiled at E3 2006, Nintendo also showcased an array of games that would make a case for its then-unheard-of motion controls. Look at all these beautiful people flailing the Wii Remote around as they wield a virtual sword, baseball bat, or hammer! And while demoed games like Red Steel, Wii Sports, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess saw the light of day, it was Project H.A.M.M.E.R. that was doomed to get the axe.

In Project H.A.M.M.E.R., you would play as a burly dude covered in power armor, and your objective was to swing around a massive sledgehammer, obliterating every enemy and object in sight. That seems to be about as far as the dev team got, as the game was considered "paused" as of E3 2007. While not officially cancelled by Nintendo, it's been nearly nine years since its initial unveiling, so make of that what you will.

Some console names are a bit strange (seriously Nintendo, the Wii?), while others are a bit more obvious, perfectly encapsulating what the machine is and does (like the PlayStation). But no name is more perfect than The Phantom, a console developed by Infinium labs that, other than brief showing at E3 2004, never saw the light of day.

The Phantom was a console developed by Infinium Labs (rebranded as Phantom Entertainment in 2006). Revealed in 2003 then arriving at E3 in 2004, the idea behind it was, at the very least, ambitious. For under $399, The Phantom was to be a PC that hooked up to your TV like a console, letting you download and install games directly to the device via the internet. It was essentially a Steam Machine before Steam was even a thing, but release dates came and went as the machine's release ended up pushed beyond 2005, finally removed from Phantom Entertainment's website in 2006. Perhaps the world just wasn't quite ready for a living room PC solution, but at least there's a silver lining to this story: Phantom Entertainment still exists, and - a couch-based keyboard originally designed for the The Phantom console.

Exclusives are important for any console manufacturer. Each box essentially does the same thing, so you have to give people a reason to buy your machine over the competition's. So when Sony announced in 2007 that a game from the studio behind Grand Theft Auto was coming exclusively to PlayStation, it was perceived as a big get for the company that sat firmly in second place.

It's unfortunate, then, that the only official image we've seen of the game since its E3 unveiling was the logo. A few screenshots have leaked out since then, and publisher Take-Two still claims that the game is in development. Rockstar Games is known for taking its sweet time developing games, but eight years on a single game is a bit much.

The 21st century hasn't exactly been kind to LucasArts. For every Knights of the Old Republic, there was a Star Wars Kinect; for every Mercenaries, there was a Fracture. It wasn't exactly a surprise when LucasArts effectively ceased operations in 2013 following Disney's acquisition of basically everything George Lucas owned. But it was still a shame - especially because it meant cancelling the one project that could have put LucasArts back on the map: Star Wars 1313.

Starring a young Boba Fett, Star Wars 1313 would have followed the bounty hunter's first adventures, and made it out to be a third-person shooter filled with heavily-scripted set-pieces, similar to Uncharted. Except, y'know, it's Star Wars. While the demo looked promising, 1313 was officially canned a year later, as LucasArts laid off the majority of its staff.

Some games are lucky enough to escape their vaporware fate, and there's probably no greater turnaround story than Prey, that somehow actually turned out alright considering the circumstances. Unfortunately, its sequel didn't end up so lucky.

While a sequel was reportedly in development shortly after the first game's release in 2006, it wasn't officially unveiled until 2011. Taking place after the events of the first game, Prey 2 would have followed the adventures of US Marshal Killian Samuels, a single human living among an array of alien races, hunting bounties and earning cash to survive. Prey 2 made a showing at E3 that year, but shortly after, rumors began to swirl about its cancellation. Bethesda continued to deny rumors until 2014, when Bethesda VP Pete Hines confirmed that development on the title had ceased.

So Nintendo struck paydirt with the Wii, and games like Wii Fit and Wii Sports flourished with an audience who would have never thought to pick up a gaming console in their lives. In an effort to keep that gravy train rolling, Nintendo wanted to create a controller that everyone could use, a controller so simple, all you have to do is put your finger in it and sit there. Enter the Vitality Sensor.

In an ideal world, the Vitality Sensor would have gathered the player's biometric data (namely, their pulse) and the game would then take that data and react accordingly. But despite an initial announcement by Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata at E3 2009, the device essentially disappeared without a trace. It wasn't until 2013 that Iwata confirmed why this strange peripheral never got released: turns out, it only worked for . It doesn't sound like that big of a gap, but when ten percent of the people who buy your product are returning it because they think it doesn't work, it's probably best to shelve it.

Peter Molyneux is basically the Willy Wonka of game design - except Molyneux's Fizzy Lifting Drinks don't do much more than taste like an off-brand Sprite and give you a slight caffeine buzz. Not that he makes bad games; it's just that they end up kind of pedestrian in comparison to the pie-in-the-sky promises that he makes leading up to their release. And there's perhaps no greater example than Molyneux's ability to over-promise and under-deliver than Project Milo.

The idea (as these things tend to go) looked promising, as you interacted with a virtual young boy with voice and hand gestures via Kinect, and the boy would react to your statements and change over time. It all sounded a bit too good to be true, especially considering , despite Molyneux's insistence to the contrary. Considering Molyneux's departure from Microsoft in 2012, it's doubtful this project will be completed.

You'd be forgiven if you don't remember the original Phantom Dust on the Xbox. Even though it was developed by Microsoft Japan, it's still pretty niche, combining third-person action, card-collecting, and multiplayer arena battles. Microsoft's been on a rebooting kick lately, taking old properties that the publisher owns and getting other studios to remake them for Xbox One. Phantom Dust was the latest to supposedly get the treatment, complete with an E3 2014 trailer.

But within a year of its announcement, the studio behind the remake , leaving the ultimate future of Phantom Dust in question. Microsoft has stated that they are committed to the title and that development still continues, but it's probably going to be another couple of years before we ever see anything about this strange hybrid again. I suppose getting shut down quickly is better than getting strung along for years, but still - that was fast.

Las Vegas, that strip of hedonism and hubris out in the middle of the desert, has never really been immortalized in video games (though Fallout: New Vegas gets it pretty close). There are casino games, sure, but there's never been been a game that fully encapsulates the celebrity DJ/bottle service/$7.99 all-you-can-eat buffet experience that Las Vegas is really known for. And thanks to the cancellation of This Is Vegas, we're going to have to wait even longer.

First hinted at in 2006, the splendor of This Is Vegas wasn't fully revealed until 2008, and was scheduled for release later that year. Unfortunately, thanks to publisher Midway's own personal financial woes (many of them likely brought on by This Is Vegas' ballooning costs, as the publisher reportedly spent Keep the Vegas dream alive.

Here it is: the White Whale of vaporware. Blizzard is known for only releasing games when they're "done", which of course means they take years longer to make than most, and the studio isn't afraid to shelve something if they don't think it's worth continuing - even if that means cancelling a game after years of development. StarCraft: Ghost would have put players in the role of the titular sniper as she sneaks her way through various sci-fi environments, completing objectives, and shooting Zerg in the face.

Unfortunately, development didn't go as smoothly as you'd expect. Originally planned for a 2003 release, Ghost underwent numerous delays, and even changed hands from developer Nihilistic to Swingin' Ape Studios. It was then relaunched at E3 2005 and slated for a release in 2006 - which came and went, and Ghost was still a no-show. Around that time, a little game you've probably never heard of called World of Warcraft released, and Blizzard decided to pour resources into its new MMO rather than continue working on a stealth-based PS2/Xbox game, so it put Ghost on indefinite hold. If you're still holding out hope, don't: Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime finally put a bullet in this one, confirming its cancellation in 2014.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Until the debut of the , E3 may be the closest thing we have to a video game theme park. And that's largely thanks to the way publishers transform their booth space into full-on dioramas, complete with giant, often-lifesize replicas of their star characters. It's best not to wonder how much they cost to make - just appreciate them for the cool, real-world set pieces that they are. Really, when else in life will we be able to gaze up from the feet of an actual two-story Titan mech?

E3 statues have been a time-honored tradition since the early days of the convention, giving replica makers and mannequin factories work for around two decades. They function a bit like ultra-size amiibo: they're magnificent to behold, nearly impossible to own, and sport zero points of articulation. Whether you think they're impressive or garish, it's all about grabbing your attention - and these particular E3 showpieces from years past are among the most eye-catching of them all.

Photo credits: RPGFan, MaximumPC, WiiUDaily, PlayStation Blog, The Buzz Media, Wikia, Joystiq, The Gaming Intelligence Agency, FigaroCastle

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.

'Excuses, excuses' - where in the world would we be without them? Probably turning up to all of those social functions we'd drunkenly agreed to, or heaven forbid, actually out using our gym memberships. Eurgh… Well, I for one don't want to live in a world without excuses. That's what they do in [your least favourite nation] and I'll be damned if [your least favourite politician] is going to turn us into them! *Rapturous applause*. And how about that local sports team, huh? *standing ovation*

Well, now that I've whipped you all up into a frenzy of wide-eyed excitement, it's time to bring everyone crashing back down to earth, courtesy of my very latest article. This one's all about video gaming excuses - which ones work best and when to employ them. Oh, and if you don't like it, I was ill, or really tired, or covered in bees when I wrote it. Whichever one sounds more plausible. Begin!

Ah mankind, the species for whom oblivious stupidity apparently knows no bounds. Let's face it, self-awareness isn't exactly our strong suit. We'll gladly chuckle at some talent show troglodyte only to wind up on that very same stage, fighting back tears as our all ukulele rendition of Purple Rain goes down like an anthrax sandwich. This unwitting idiocy, this 'humorous hypocrisy', if you will, is especially apparent within gaming, particularly as it pertains to the issue of 'unresponsive game pads'.

Yes, we've all gotten a good old laugh out of seeing our buddies scream in disbelief, hoisting up their 'faulty' bit of kit to demonstrate which thumb pressed which button at what time - as if their incredulous reconstructions will somehow convince us that they're in the right. Then of course the exact same thing happens to us and we proceed to perform that very same pantomime. Alas, it doesn't actually matter if the game flubbed your input or not. No-one's ever going to believe you.

Success rate - 3% - To be used in the company of overly trusting siblings and/or the elderly.

Lag, or 'the dance of the juddery ghost men' as its known to expert gamers, is a form of technological pestilence inflicted upon mankind by the vengeful gods of the Internet. Only by supplicating ourselves to their divine will - their great and terrible moodswings of spotty service - are we allowed to continue blasting our buds online. Praise be to the Internet that sent out its only engineer, that having turned off the router, saw it risen again from the dead after the customary 30 second waiting period. Amen.

As fun-ruining phenomena go, lag is a real killer, and unlike many of the entries on this list, definitely does exist. Still, it's probably best not to wheel this one out after every minor defeat; we wouldn't want you to lose all credibility, now would we? Cry wolf one too many times and the townsfolk will only be too happy to see you lining a lupine belly, so save this excuse for only the most egregious of multiplayer muck ups.

Success rate - 60% - Sadly, some folks just aren't ready to believe anything they hear online, and who can blame them - right now you're reading an article on how to choose the most convincing excuses, you daring, deceitful rogue, you.

Here's one that hardcore 'excusers' will recognise from the real world. A time-honoured appeal that’s just as prevalent on the squash court as it is in the annals of the inner city knitting society, probably. Sadly, the superior applicability of this fib also proves to be its downfall. After all, everyone's used it so often by now as to rob it of any kind of credibility. Not only that, but it's also a tacit admission of your own lacking skillset, a slowness of mind and body - a proper 'donkey braining'.

Telling your foe that you simply weren't ready is no better defence than a milk chocolate riot shield, as the members of the Belgian SWAT discovered to their detriment. So, If you're looking for an iron-clad excuse, something to spare your blushes following an almighty cock up, then prepare to look elsewhere.

Success rate - 10% - Stands a fair chance of convincing during local multiplayer matches, provided your opponent can see your cack-handed inanity in action, but unlikely to cut the mustard online. Either way, know that you use this one the expense of your dignity.

'CPU' - now there's an acronym with a dozen credible interpretations. 'Computer Punishes Unjustly', 'Coded to Play Unfairly, 'Considers People Unworthy', 'Completely Pwns Us'... The list goes on. Its real meaning - long since forgotten following the great clash of Akkator, when the armies of Bill 'The Bloodlust' Gates ransacked Silicon Valley - is of no real significance. What does matter is how often this A.I. abomination shows up to sully our good times.

Bot-based bastardry, henceforth to be known as 'botstardry' is an ever-present part of gaming, and yet, we as gamers will still call foul on anyone claiming to be so cheated. What ought to be among the most welcome of gaming get-outs is instead subjected to naught but the most eye-rolling of responses. As ever, we grab the chance to knock down our fellow man rather than joining him in solidarity. Something tells me we'll come to briefly regret that decision during the six-and-a-half seconds it takes machinekind to utterly liquefy our fleshy, cheese-encrusted species.

Success rate - 20% - Credible, though largely ignored, placing blame on the CPU is a lot like telling a jury that your evil twin did it. It may actually be true, but you'll still have a tough old time proving it. You win again Armando...

They say there's no 'I' in team, but there are several 'I's in "I'm terrible at this game and so are most of my friends, so why exactly did we choose to enter the competitive ranked lobby and subject some poor unfortunate to teaming up with us?". Finding yourself marooned on the B team is never easy, but then just what are you supposed do about it? Quit and be labelled a big fat quitter, incapable of watching any-and-all Sly Stallone movies in which he makes a big emotional speech about not giving up? Never! So you slog it out instead, trying your damnedest to 'Mighty Duck' your entire team to glory. You lose heavily.

Now it seems your only recourse is to complain. After all, being magnanimous will only get you so far when the folks responsible for watching your back are still trying to figure out which end of the gamepad fits into the disc tray. Sadly, being borne on the winds of justice doesn't really count for much on the Internet, so prepare to be completely ignored, reported and/or cast out like a big whinging leper. Better just to ride out the match and hope for better luck next time.

Success rate - 5% - The other team aren't about to stick an asterisk next to their glorious win. Likewise, your own teammates won't want to hear about how they held you back all match.

Nothing says 'commitment to the cause' quite like soiling yourself in front of your Xbox. Or PlayStation - I'm an equal opportunities purveyor of poop jokes, and damn proud of it. For the non-crazy gamer, this need to relieve oneself - ideally before turning one's undercarriage into a less colourful take on Splatoon - is simply too strong an urge to deny. When nature calls, gamers just have to answer.

Being AFK due to IBS is about as good a reason as any for mucking up online. Of course, the major limitation of this excuse is that you can't just go around using it willy-nilly. After all, no one's going to buy that you were busy anointing an outhouse when your avatar's been running around chucking chaff grenades. For a spired lie, try telling your fellow players that you were only away for most of the match, thereby making you look like some kind of post-flush wunderkind. Empty bowels AND an 18-point killing streak. We're simply not worthy!"

Success rate - 90% - 'Everybody poops', and most of them will be willing to believe that you do too.

Ate what? Don't know exactly. The console? My gamepad? The Internet connection? Yeah, that'll do: "Sorry folks but my dog ate the Wi-Fi. Just leapt right up and took a chunk out of it. Snatched those pesky radio waves right out of the air. What do you mean 'fundamental misunderstanding of the electromagnetic spectrum'. You're a 'fundamental misunderstanding of the whatever-those-last two-words-were'". Alright fine, so maybe this isn’t the most watertight of excuses.

Then again, who needs reason when you have a story about a dog, and not just any dog, but the dog - the one kids have been trotting out since the dawn of time in order to take the blame for their 'misplaced' homework. She's the evil equivalent of Lassie, keeping kids ignorant, then chucking 'em down wells. "What's that girl? You've rigged the chamber to begin filling with hydrochloric acid? Gee wiz…"

Success rate - 100% - Everyone loves dogs, ergo everyone will want to believe this excuse, however inane it is.

What's that you ask, some sort of complete mental breakdown? Well err, sort of. This fictional affliction comes to us by way of Arnie action classic (and nasal tweezers commercial) Total Recall. And no, it won't cause you to begin crying out in guttural Austrian vowel sounds. Instead, the 'schizoid embolism' results in the complete brain death of the victim - caused by their inability to determine which reality actually exists and which one boasts three-breasted women, mutant baby slings and the inimitable Michael Ironside.

What better way to paw off a loss than by telling the grinning victor that you'd simply 'slipped into a paranoid delusional coma state, one in which the very fabric of reality was torn asunder revealing the crushing weight of nothingness'? I'd say it's worth a shot, at least.

Success rate - 50% - Which side has it right? What is truth? What is a man, but a miserable pile of secrets? GRAUOOOWUGH! *mysterious xylophone music*.

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.

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 .

Everybody has one. There's a game you absolutely love for all the ways it entertains, surprises, and delights you with its digital splendor. You easily rank it among your favorite games of all time - but there's that one thing that it gets totally wrong. Maybe's it's a particular boss, or level, or cringe-worthy bit of dialogue ("I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain", anyone?). And while it's not significant enough to ruin the entire experience, these shortcomings can be a glaring blemish on an otherwise amazing experience.

And that's ok. No game is perfect, and many titles excel despite that one obvious flaw that might otherwise hold them back. Doesn't mean we can't still call these games out on their screw-ups, though. We've rounded up some flawed favorites that the GR+ editors hold dear, and it's time to get these conflicted feelings off our collective chests. If you've played any of these games, you'll definitely know what we're talking about.

Psychonauts is delightful. It's funny, charming, endearing - the very definition of quirky. Though its levels are a bit uneven (one simply cannot compare Milla's Dance Party with the brilliance that is The Milkman Conspiracy or even Lungfishopolis) and its platforming is pretty standard fare, but it's nearly impossible to beat Psychonauts for sheer, unbridled creativity. Does it really matter that it relies on tropes like collectibles when you have such memorable characters and visual style? Nope, not a bit.

Psychonauts' controls were never overly crisp, but whatever you were doing and wherever you were doing it was interesting enough to balance your frustration. Until you reach The Meat Circus, that is. The final level of Psychonauts is, to be blunt, complete bullshit. The first section of the Meat Circus combines three of the worst elements in video game design: it's timed, it's an escort mission, and it has a terrible camera. It's the culmination of Psychonauts' engaging story, and it's so unfun that it makes you wonder if you really, truly need to see Raz emerge victorious. Tossing the controller to the side and imagining your own ending to this otherwise wonderful gaming experience is a far better option than slogging through its finale.

Assassin's Creed 2 might just be my favorite game. I'd stopped playing my PS3 altogether for a few months, but I picked it back up for AC2 and was suddenly transported to Renaissance Italy. Freerunning was a revelation. Da Vinci was designing my weapons. I was a master of stealth stabbing. Florence! Venice! Tuscany! Gosh, am I in Rome?

And then. The finale I like to forget. Look away if you'd rather I didn't spoil a six-year-old game. After spending hours in beautiful atmospheric cities, taking in the sights from the Piazza San Marco, upgrading endless shiny weapons, the pinnacle of the game was… having a fist fight with the Pope. An extended, awkward fist fight where an old man kept falling down and letting you punch him. From the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. I was cowering in embarrassment. It started stupid. It ended worse. And to top it all off? Ezio didn't even kill Pope Borgia. Ugh.

Despite numerous redesigns and lengthy delays, Conviction emerged as a wonderfully fresh start for the Splinter Cell series. Its emphasis on aggressive, Bourne Identity-inspired stealth set the template for almost all subsequent sneaking games because... well, it feels so damn satisfying to play. Conviction hits some great story beats too, and they play out over a host of thoughtfully designed levels. Well, apart from one particular stage which is as baffling as it is unnecessary: the flashback to Iraq.

Having just eased players into the new, free-flowing stealth, Conviction yanks them out of the groove and into an awkwardly designed third-person shooter stage, clumsily shoehorned into the narrative as a flashback. It's clear that the developer is trying to shock players - shooting? In a Splinter Cell game? Oh Mr. Darcy, I am undone - especially given the cheeky reveal at the mission's climax. Sadly it all falls hideously flat, like a harmless prank resulting in the loss of your friend's index finger. Why? Because Splinter Cell is built to be a stealth game, and it plays awfully as a shooter. Stick to what you know, people!

While it might be quaint by today's standards set by Far Cry, Grand Theft Auto and Skyrim, Rockstar's wild frontier offered enviable freedom to simply be, while it was sculpted enough to showcase a beautiful story of revenge and (unsurprisingly) redemption. This is a world punctuated by rolling, layered thunderstorms that fill a wide sky uncluttered by towering buildings or mountains, populated by eccentric and damaged characters integral to your cause. It was the first hint of the procedural gameplay we now take for granted (a hare, being chased by a dog, being chased by a wolf), and features a soundtrack that could make a man weep.

So it's a crying shame that all this beauty, this sheer openness and offering of choice, couldn't be betrayed to funnel players towards some of its most memorable beats. My crossing the border into Mexico, backed by lilting guitars, went from breathtaking to broken as I galloped across the land - and promptly fell off my horse for one reason or another and died, spawning ahead of where I was and thus missing out on what my mates had said was a profound moment. I swore at the busted checkpoint system, but Rockstar couldn't have segued into a long cutscene, or forced my horse to trot rather than tear ahead. That's the exact opposite of a wild frontier. Really, though, the checkpoint system wasn't the one thing that was broken about Red Dead Redemption: it was me.

God of War 3 may not be a perfect game, but it's a fitting closing chapter to Kratos' campaign of rage and revenge (Ragevengeance? Your move, Kojima). Yeah, Kratos may have made another unnecessary pit stop in Hades, but it's a mere blip on his 'Greek Pantheon Murder Tour 2010', as he works his way from god to god, ripping off heads or bashing in skulls. It's super violent, cheesy stuff, but when he pays the ultimate sacrifice to finally off Zeus at the end of his quest, it's kind of poetic. Sure, he's murdered everyone, but in doing so, he has unleashed untold terrors on the Earth. He lays on the ground, bleeding out as the world falls apart around him. It's a bold move to end on, but dammit, it works. And now, we close the book on Kratos' saga...

Except we don't. Halfway through the credits, we go back to Kratos' resting place - only he's not there any more. The camera pans across a trail of blood, off the side of the mountain, and out toward the horizon where storms rage across the ocean. Surprise! Kratos isn't dead, and he's off to go and brood somewhere else. Whatever emotional impact that ending had was ripped away because Sony Santa Monica was afraid to just let the series end here, instead deciding to toss a question mark on this supposed epilogue. I wanted this moment to finally provide closure for Kratos. Now? I just don't care any more.

ModNation's amazing track builder lets you make pretty much anything you can think of. Fantastic user-created content is up-voted by the community, you can download other people's amazing work for free (if they let you, which most do), and it all looks beautiful, with countless objects you can place in its world. ModNation has everything it needs to be the best racer ever.

Except for the racing. Yes, facepalm indeed. The racing is best described as adequate. The sense of speed, powerslide-y fun-ness (yes, that is the scientific term), and weapon set are all perfunctory. Par for the course. Only they're not really par for the course, because - as we've just explored - the course itself is amazing. So this is more like a bogey, if for some reason we're using a golfing analogy for a racing game. A great big bogey on an otherwise beautiful face. That sums it up quite nicely.

As someone whose idea of a good time is scouring the internet for innovative Final Fantasy Tactics character builds, I was enchanted by Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. This remake of the 1995 Super Famicom classic is, by all accounts, excellent. There's a ton of tactical depth to discover in how you customize your fighters, and the localization of Ogre's Shakespearean plot is masterfully handled. I'd probably still be playing it today, were it not for one glaring, irredeemable flaw: the item crafting.

Item crafting in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is laughably tedious; a cruel joke that reveals the developers' long-repressed masochistic tendencies. What should've taken 60 seconds and a few button presses lasts forever, as an unholy trifecta of unnecessary menus, animations, and redundancies suck all joy from your life. Why can't I craft multiple items at once? Why do I have to watch this stupid animation of the item being made every time? Why do the menus not default to 'Yes' when I click through them so I can at least watch Netflix while making 700 iron-freaking-ingots?

The Arkham series perfectly captures the best aspects of Batman: his diverse Rogues Gallery, detective skills, cool gadgets, and knack for walloping thugs into unconsciousness. And Batman: Arkham City strikes the perfect balance between focused crime-fighting and aimless exploration, as you have the freedom to grapple atop any building and take flight from on high. So I can understand why the AR Training challenges exist: miniature trials that require you to cape-glide along a set path, teaching you subtle altitude-shifting techniques in the process.

But good God, are they no fun. The first set of AR lines is simple enough, giving you the confidence that maybe you've mastered the art of flight. Then, like a cruel math teacher transitioning from simple addition to abstract algebra, the AR Training Advanced courses drop you into extensive, bafflingly difficult flight missions that you will never complete on the first try. Maybe if you could instantly restart post-failure, the Advanced runs wouldn't be so bad - but nope, you've got to hoof it back to the starting line every single time you fall (and you will fall). You know who else spent his time flying through rings suspended in midair? Superman. And look where that got him.

For a game that rattles with vibrant, larger-than-life battles and outlandish one-upmanship between one spectacle and the next, Asura's Wrath is somehow a coherent, even touching story. The central character - a betrayed and fallen god - barrels through life, death, and even the moon in his blind rage, and it all leads to an apocalyptic showdown in (what else?)... OUTER SPACE. The writers bring an absurd revenge plot to a close without getting preachy or crushing any sympathy you had for the protagonist, and fully embrace the game's habit of transforming deities into boss fights. Yup, Asura's Wrath has a great ending. That you have to buy. Separately.

Perhaps Capcom's calculated exclusion of a vital part of the game is meant to bring you closer to Asura, closer to the rage of learning - at the last minute - that you've been tricked. It's not that DLC exists to extend the game, I can live with that, but that it's coldly inserted at the moment you'd want it the most. The fiscal cut-off in Capcom's design wasn't well received, of course, but the worst thing is that it proved the cynical doom-view of DLC: Someone really did chop out the ending of a game to make some extra money.

Overall, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker does a remarkable job of adapting the PS2-era MGS formula to PlayStation Portable. Rather than presenting a scaled-down version of the traditional sneaking mission, Peace Walker breaks up Snake's Central American exploits into a series of brief operations. And Mother Base, complete with staff to manage and a Metal Gear to build, keeps you invested even without a grand objective like infiltrating Groznyj Grad to command your attention.

Unfortunately, one aspect of this adaptation is far less successful, and it brings the rest of the game down with it: Peace Walker's boss battles are terrible. Most of them are against a forgettable series of giant robots and, unless you have co-op buddies to help you, each robot fight is glacial - they're not particularly hard, they just take forever. But the most heinous sin of Peace Walker's boss fights is their utter lack of personality. Metal Gear boss battles are supposed to be tough, emotionally exhausting narrative payoffs, not rote Monster Hunter-imitating loot hunts. And yet here I am, shooting rockets at the same dull mecha for the dozenth time, farming AI cores. It's just not right.

Final Fantasy 10 is a contender for my favorite game of all time. It came around at just the right time in my youth to grab me with its stellar art, strategic gameplay, and wonderfully realized storyline, and it hasn't let me go since. Even fifteen years after its initial release <(i>hurk), it's aged beautifully, and the budding romance that develops between its adorably dorky protagonists is one of the most genuine and touching I've ever seen in any game. It's an amazing title and would basically be perfect, if only we didn't have to experience the god-awful voice-acting.

No, really, it's awful. So bad that when I recommend this game to others (which I do a lot), I always preface it with a warning to look past the voice work. Granted, it was the first Final Fantasy game to have voice talent, so some issues are expected. But between Tidus' Shatner-esque delivery and the fact that Yuna constantly sounds like she's buffering, it's hard to ignore. Plus, the lip-syncing is so off that some characters only make sounds after their mouths stop moving. Bless Rikku's Tara Strong for being a shining beacon of quality, or my mute button might've gotten a lot more exercise.