You remember the bits at the end of Police Squad where everyone would freeze frame except for one guy? That's exactly what the passenger in the back there must feel like in the HD port of Crazy Taxi. With all the conversion staff's names making the credits roll way longer, the old 'beckoning to the camera' shot stays on the screen way too long. A passenger hops in, then starts tapping Gina on the shoulder asking why they're not going anywhere. Eventually, she drives off. Into a wall.

Clearly, we were never supposed to see that bit. The original credits sequence was a finite length, so all the 'strings' were hidden behind the scenes. But it got me wondering: What else can we all see in games that we were never supposed to? This is my pick of the forbidden fruit...

Note: A previous version of this feature was posted in April, 2014 but has since been updated.

The developers of Skyrim made a secret room full of awesome. But sadly for console gamers, this room is only accessible in the PC version of the game. I say sadly, because it's amazing. It's got EVERYTHING in it. All the weapons and enchanted versions of them. And all the armour too. In fact, one box in the room contains so many items, you need a massively high-spec PC just to open it. The list alone will crash lesser machines.

How to get it: You need to open up the 'console' prompt by pressing ~. Type in "coc qasmoke" (without the quote marks) and you're in! You're now stuck there forever unless you also use the console to teleport to a different location because there's no exit door. So type "coc rivertown", for example, and you'll arrive at Rivertown, over-encumbered with all your new loot. Yes I know that was Oblivion's wording. I used to be an adventurer too, you know. Before I took... (*gunshot*)

Apparently, there are several pies hidden throughout Dragon Age: Inquisition. Whether you're supposed to find them or not is debatable. The developers responsible have said they didn't expect anyone to find them quite so soon. Graham Kelly, environment artist at BioWare Edmonton, said on YouTube: "It is.... The Lord of the Pies. I may or may not have hidden some of his smaller flock around the rest of Skyhold."

How to get there: Sometimes the scenery doesn't load correctly in Skyhold, allowing you to step through a door and fall through the stonework, where you end up in a glitchy area underneath the castle. There, you can see the Lord of the Pies, biggest of all the hidden pies in the game. Yes, really. Look, it's wearing a top hat. It vanishes when you get too close. It's got its own music, too, which does suggest you're meant to find it… but there's no way to get there 'officially'. It isn't meant to be seen... although I think the team hoped it would be.

Restricted Area demos of unfinished games are always goldmines for anyone seeking extra tidbits of information that hasn't officially been revealed. There was a trick in the original Saints Row demo that allowed you to use a car to get past the demo's boundary… and you know what? The Final Fantasy XV demo suffers from the exact same problem!

How to get it: Simply jump into the path of a car as it drives through the demo's perimeter barrier. Do it correctly, and you can get out of the intended area and into the (unfinished and incomplete) world beyond. And there, you'll find a dinosaur and a titan, among other things you weren't supposed to see just yet. The dinosaur even has animation data. When you're excited about a hidden dinosaur's animation data, a chime should ring and a trophy unlock. "Final Fantasist – you really can't wait for the new game, can you?"

There are loads of extra areas dotted around Destiny. They're not supposed to be accessible, but if you know where to go and what to do, you can glitch through walls and into new areas. Many are simply empty, full of half-finished scenery. But some areas are actually functional. There are enemies, collectibles (dead ghosts you can actually revive) and even never-before-seen foes like this Ultra Captain.

How to get it: While it's a glitchy process, you can follow videos like if you want to get there for yourself, but keep in mind that tricking your way into non-official content runs the (small) risk of Bungie thinking you're a hacker and blocking your account. It's entirely likely this is actually content that was held back for release as part of a future DLC package, so you'll surely be able to play it 'properly' soon. Still, look at that Ultra Captain. Oooo.

This is brilliant. Gothic 2, like pretty much every RPG, gives the impression of a greater world beyond the boundaries of the game through its lore and conversational references. But then, should you manage to somehow get outside of the wall that surrounds the playable area, it's all revealed as being a sham by this single notice. By a 'mighty alien dwarf', which likely refers to a development team member of relatively minor physical stature.

How to get there: Follow the long river down from the old ruins and the stone dragon until it ends at a wall. This wall can be climbed (with practice and regular saving). Once you're over, there's not much to see or do, although there is a cave full of ostensibly dead NPCs. They're actually living NPCs who have travelled from the Valley of Mines to the Khorinis. During the transition, the game's programming 'kills' the first instance and sends it to the cave, before creating a new instance of the NPC that continues to live. You can loot the old versions' corpses. Waste not, want not.

A secret, looped version of the totally normal water level 2-2 is not very exciting. UNTIL you give it a name like 'World -1', which gives it such amazing mystique, it will go down in legend as one of the greatest secrets ever seen in a video game. Maybe that works for everything? Maybe I should call myself 'Minus Justin Towell'... There, my charisma and legendary stats have just skyrocketed. Incredible.

How to get it: Jump backwards through the wall (yes, it is possible) at the end of World 1-2 and enter the first pipe. Having circumvented the regular Warp Zone message, you are sent to the wrong level. Minus World, baby!

This strange area is full of what looks like a playschool's recreational apparatus. Coloured blocks with numbers on them, walls at various angles... it's all just part of the developers' creation process, allowing them to test out new moves for Sonic and set his jump height and acceleration instead of loading a whole level every time. Trouble is, they didn't take it out.

How to get it: There is a convoluted method of jumps too complex to list here, but the simplest way is to play the PS3/360 HD port and pick up a Chao Garden Key while playing as Eggman in his final stage. At the end of the level, you'll find yourself here. Simple!

Sonic isn't the only platform character to have a test level left in his game. Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine both have them too. This one is the second of two in the DS version of Mario 64, allowing you to test out your jumping, character hats and everything else. But all it does is make me realise how flaky DS' polygonal 3D is. Crikey, that's primitive. Hooray for 3DS, eh?

How to get it: On the PAL version, use an Action Replay to input this code, then hold Select while you load an existing save file:
94000130 fffb0000
02097360 00000000
d2000000 00000000

Pre-release versions and developer/journalist hearsay suggested there was another multiplayer level hidden away in Goldeneye on N64. It was then totally denied by Rare, but that didn't stop people trying to find it. Eventually, they did--and it only took six years! Well done, all concerned. But Oddjob is still banned. Shame the level is barely textured, hardly playable and essentially broken. See and hear it in 'action' .

How to get it: You'll need an Action Replay cartridge and the following code:
8005883E FFFF 8005883F FFFF 80058840 FFFF 800588A5 FFFF
800588A7 FFFF 800588AA FFFF 800588AC FFFF 800588AF FFFF
800588B1 FFFF 800588B4 FFFF 800588B6 FFFF 800588B9 FFFF
800588BB FFFF

Before you get all excited, this has long-since been patched out of GTA Online. But, for a time, gamers could revisit the snowy landscape of North Yankton in online multiplayer simply by tricking the game into keeping the area loaded from the prologue mission. It appeared in the sky in the south-east corner of the map, but was totally accessible with a helicopter.

How to get it: As I say, you can't get to it any more. Meh. But explains the sequence of trickery that was required, which is still well worth a look. If only to see (ahem) the world's biggest beaver.

A city filled with the wrong graphics, the wrong collision detection, glitchy (surprise) visual stability and floor that often isn't the floor, actually acting like water instead. Obviously it's completely broken and was never intended to be a place you could visit during normal play. But you can!

How to get it: The trick is to get out of the Safari zone while its step limiter is working. Get into the Safari zone, try to leave but then say you want to stay. Then save your game, reload it, exit the zone, tell the guy at the desk you don't want to play, then head to Cinnabar Island (or some others) and surf until your steps are up. Boom! Glitch City.

Maybe at this point, we should be more surprised to see 3D games that don't have a test room ostensibly hidden away yet easily activated with an Action Replay/Gameshark. But still, it's amazing to see familiar Kiddy Link running around colourful boxes like a kid who's gone on holiday but wants to spend the entire time climbing around in the play area. "Come on, Link, we're going to the beach! You love the beach! Oh fine, stay here then, ya little sod..."

How to get it: Fart on a donkey, whistle Saria's Song while staring into the center of a waning moon and then hold Z while the game loads. Nah, I'm just kidding. Get an Action Replay and input the code ZY1N-AGX5-MMCY0 94HP-XPKH-WQXF7 3Z3C-ZZVX-C21YN 1X90-8QQU-REZG3. Though that is just one test level. There are loads more .

OK, so it doesn't have any textures aside from the racers and it may be whiter than a polar bear who hasn't seen the sun all winter, but that is the Mario Circuit from Double Dash on Gamecube. It's just one of several unfinished tracks hidden away in Mario Kart DS' code. But you can actually drive on it, which is pretty awesome.

How to get it: You guessed it! Action Replay time. Use the code 023cdcd8 00000002 020484a0 d0002a00 020484a4 e0052321 and there it is.

I just *had* to end the article with this one, even though we've had an entry from Mario Kart already. There is no way anyone anywhere would see this by chance. Those numbers and letters up there are used as memory filler (all memory needs to hold data of some sort), but if you squint a bit, you can see that they act as ASCII art and show the Super Mario Bros sprite version of Mario.

How to get it: Um... you just have to look at the picture above. I'm not sure you needed this section on this slide, to be honest. But you're very welcome all the same.

Yeah, that weird white-eyed child is a deleted boss from Mother 3. The developers removed it probably because it shouldn't be viewed by anybody, ever. Having trouble sleeping? Looking at that thing will not help. Having trouble staying awake? Problem solved! Ye gads...

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

Spider-Man is one of the most popular fictional characters of all time, even bigger than Sherlock Holmes, Garfield, or Theodore Roosevelt. After some hit or miss films, Peter Parker is gearing up for a whole new reboot in 2017, and with it coming hot off the heels of the lackluster Amazing reboot, the filmmakers really need to get it right. Good thing Spider-Man's many games contain the blueprints for movie success.

The get the wallcrawler as much as any other form of media. It’s about time the filmmakers recognize that. Now, in an ideal situation, the movie producers would set aside the time to play every Spider-Man game ever made, but they’re probably busy. So, with any luck, they’ll find this feature and use these in-game examples to lead them to movie magic.

Despite how often Peter Parker mopes about his loved ones dying, he should be all smiles when he puts on the mask. Ideally, Spider-Man is constantly throwing out one liners, making comments about how goofy a villain’s costume looks, or making some meta comment about a bad guy's complicated plot. This happens occasionally in the movies, but just as often Peter is crying about Uncle Ben/Aunt May/Mary Jane, telling a villain to act rationally, or looking wistfully at someone’s grave. Movie Peter can be a real bummer.

Meanwhile, Spidey’s a regular comedian in his games. The PSone's CD tech allows for Spider-Man to be his talkative self for the first time in his self-titled release, and he hasn't shut up since. Even when a game isn’t that great, Peter's constant quips help cover the action. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions goes so far as to cast four distinct Spider-Men, all with their own brand of humor, allowing even the weakest moments to flow. A steady stream of comedy can lighten the most boring 'flip three switches' puzzles or villainous exposition delivered by Alfred Molina.

Parker is a 15-year-old high school student when he's bitten by a radioactive spider, and he hasn't aged all that much since. Unlike Batman or Iron Man, Spider-Man is a more relatable age to younger comic fans, and the producers smartly cast younger guys in the role. However, the films often rush through his teen years, getting him closer to adulthood than necessary. Tobey MaGuire's Peter is living in Manhattan halfway through his first movie, and by the trilogy’s end he’s proposing to Mary Jane. Amazing handles his youth better, but is still quick to get him to graduation in the sequel.

Ultimate Spider-Man - based on the comic of the same name - introduces Peter as a teen and keeps him that way. He’s a stressed out kid trying to balance homework and foiling bank robberies. Hopefully the next movie will keep him just as young, but even an adult Parker can feel young. Just be sure to avoid the mistakes of Spidey's Sega CD game - he sounds like a dopey old uncle making bad jokes at Thanksgiving.

Most Spider-Man movies have a scene or two where Peter starts to understand his Spider-Sense, the psychic warning system that alerts him to danger. Unfortunately, he just as often forgets those warnings, sometimes getting shot in the leg by cops, or ambushed by The Lizard, or caught by surprise in one of Green Goblin’s traps. When his Spider-Sense is active, that should never happen. For the most part, the games do their best to keep that in mind.

Often Spidey games use Spider-Sense as the reason he can dodge attacks as well as Kratos or Bayonetta, making his dexterity much more believable than theirs. The Amazing Spider-Man film tie-ins take it a step farther, using Spider-Sense to replicate the kind of enhanced vision seen in Arkham Asylum or Assassin's Creed. The powers are just vague enough in the comics that the tingling sensation can be used in a variety of ways… if you're creative enough.

Up until recent negotiations between movie studios, Spider-Man films were treated like a remote island, kept far away from all the other Avengers. Now we know that Parker will get to meet the likes of Iron Man and Captain America, the real question is just how familiar will they get? Now that the film producers have this opportunity to play with those interpersonal dynamics in more than just a couple scenes. As the games show, Spider-Man is great at playing with others.

Having characters constantly run into one another is core to the Marvel Universe - why do you think they all live in New York? - and a number of Spidey games use that to their advantage. From the original arcade game to Marvel Heroes 2015, Spider-Man fits in with just about any team of Marvel heroes. Plus, Web of Shadows and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance's plots depend on Spidey's connections to guys like Wolverine and Human Torch. Soon Spidey will be just as chummy on film as he is in games, so we need all of Spider-Man and his amazing friends that we can get.

This problem goes beyond Spider-Man, because it's difficult to find any comic book villains that are a big enough threat for an entire film. After facing enemies on the level of Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus, a guy made out of sand just doesn't seem as threatening. Movies like Amazing Spider-Man 2 end up overpowering B-level guys like Elektro for variety's sake, and it just feels weak. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a role to fill. Some villains are only worth five minutes of screen time, instead of being excluded entirely.

Spidey’s games find time to explore his dense rogues gallery without overexposing the lesser ones. Each stage in Shattered Dimensions is a contained level that follows a single villain, such as Kraven, Sandman, and The Vulture. Every nemesis gets enough time to make an impact, but aren’t seen so long that you get sick of them. The Beetle, Ringer, Swarm, and similar goofs aren't worthy of a climactic battle, but they're good for a quick back and forth with Spidey before he leaves them webbed to lightpost.

There's at least one Spider-bad guy that gets way less than he deserves on film. For readers in the '90s, Venom was a thing of nightmares. He's faster and stronger than Spider-Man, much more dangerous, and he's constantly threatening to eat people's brains. He isn't a bleach blonde twerp that tries to take Spider-Man's photo and is easily beaten by loud noises. Spider-Man 3 turns a beast into clown, and if Venom ever returns to the films, they need to make him half as menacing as he is in the games.

First seen in Spider-Man Arcade, Venom's vicious in just about every appearance, even when he's on your side in games like Maximum Carnage. His slimy green tongue is a highlight of the Marvel vs. Capcom games, and one of the first things Venom does in Ultimate Spider-Man is eat a child. This is a bad, bad man, and strong enough to fill a whole movie if you treat him right.

This whole article would be more concise with one slide saying 'don't do anything from Spider-Man 3,' but let's dig into this while on the subject of Venom. The black symbiote suit that spawns his arch nemesis is first worn by Spidey, and it changes him. Yes, it makes him more violent, but it also turns him into a bad boyfriend with an emo haircut and an interest in Bob Fosse. All this from a random rock that falls from outer space?

Spider-Man's second-most famous outfit handles much better in Web of Shadows. You can shift into the black costume at any moment, making Spidey's attacks fiercer and more devastating - like a Marvel version of Kratos. The suit's evil influence is also made more obvious in-game moral choices like choosing sides in a gang war or helping the Black Cat steal valuables from the mob. If Spidey's going bad, go all the way.

Spider-Man is a vigilante, one who'll be arrested should the cops ever find out who he is. Having a secret identity prevents that, and it also protects Peter's loved ones from being murdered by every one of his villains. So why in the hell does Spider-Man take his mask off so often in his movies? Whether stopping a speeding train speeding, helping a kid out of a burning car, or simply letting the cops remove it, he can't keep the damn thing on.

So, while you could knock the games for rarely exploring the life of Peter out of costume, he at least keeps his mask on at all times. Even the worst Spidey game - for the record, that's Web of Fire - keeps Peter's identity protected throughout, rarely even animating Parker's face. Sure, in the movies people want to see Spider-Man's handsome face, but save that for dates with Gwen Stacy or conversations in Aunt May's kitchen.

The Amazing Spider-Man films were supposed to be more than just a trilogy of Andrew Garfield's costumed adventures. The original plan was to spin-off into a series of films, including The Sinister Six, and solo pictures starring Venom and Black Cat. The next reboot seems to wash that all away, making Amazing Spider-Man 2 stuffed full of scenes that set up a future that's never coming. Don't count your sequel money before it opens.

Perhaps you could chalk it up to the studio cycle Activision uses for the 15-plus years of Spider-Man games, but sequels are rarely planned for. More often the character bounds from one bang-up to the next, getting a fresh status quo each time. Ultimate Spider-Man, Web of Shadows, and Shattered Dimensions aren't trying to build to some universe-spanning battle that may happen in five years. That urgency means there's much more time for punching The Lizard in the face right now.

Cross your fingers that the next director of Spider-Man reads this, because the world deserves a Spidey film as good as his best games. If any other fans have tips from the games, share it all in the comments!

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

Ah, Easter! That time of year when everyone eats chocolate and hot cross buns. What are hot cross buns? They're buns, traditionally served hot, with a cross across the top (sorry to stammer) to celebrate Easter. That may seem like extraneous information, but you never know when such facts may come in handy. What a time to be alive.

So, seeing as it's Easter and this is a video game website, I thought we'd eschew the chocolate (well, actually I chewed the chocolate, by which I mean I've already eaten it all) in favour of bringing you the definitive list of rabbits in games. You might think that's the flimsiest excuse for a list article you ever heard, but you haven't witnessed the incredible jokes yet on every slide. I'm here all week. Well, except Monday. The UK gets Monday off. But the rest of the week, I'm here for all of it.

Rabbits are great in Skyrim. They hop about among the lush, 3D vegetation until they become startled by your presence, at which point they run, flashing their little cotton tails as they go. Some NPCs even have them as pets. Listen closely and some guards will say: "I used to be an adventurer like you, until I took an arrow to bunny". The loss of a loved one - even a pet - can spell the end of any heroic intent. Yes, it is tragic.

But who thinks about consequences when you've got destruction magic in your fingertips? When you start the game, you'll want to start leveling up your Destruction, and rabbits are perfect for that. Can you hit a moving target? Can you make a charred rabbit corpse roll all the way down a hill? Just line up those crosshairs, cast your Flame spell and what have you got? Hot, cross bunny.

Vibri is the star of PSone classic Vib Ribbon. Made of lines and shakier than a drug addict going cold turkey, Vibri is very much 'of her time'. But still, she's become an icon, personifying (or, more accurately, bunnifying) the state of technology at the time. Imagine technology being bunnified. Weird.

Which reminds me of a joke I once heard. Do you know what you get if you turn on Vib Ribbon, put in a CD of the hardest, fastest Death Metal you can find and then leave the controller so that Vibri crashes into all the obstacles? Not a frog or a worm like in the game, that spoils the joke. You get a (cue drum roll, please!) hot, cross bunny!

Cream the Rabbit in a food processor until it's reached the consistency of the clotted Cornish classic. Next, add thyme, garlic, apple liqueur, lemon and seasoning, then leave it to marinate for several hours (overnight if possible).

Preheat the oven to 150C/gas 1. Line a 900g terrine mould or loaf tin with lightly oiled kitchen foil and lay bacon rashers on the bottom. Spoon in the creamed rabbit mixture and wrap with the kitchen foil. Cover with a lid and place the terrine in a roasting pan of water. Bake for 90 minutes. Et voila! Hot Cross Bunny.

Ah, Peppy Hare. He opens his mouth (albeit closing it again in a flappy, Terry Gilliam kind of way) and out comes 'Do a barrel roll'. That phrase is pretty darn legendary around these parts. What a guy. Oh, but I know what you're going to say and I'm not stupid. I do appreciate there is a difference between hares and rabbits: the spelling. Look, he's got ears and everything. How could I leave him out?

Of course, such famous utterances over the intercom make it imperative that you keep him in the fight. Sometimes his ship gets hit, which is unfortunate. Especially if the lasers came from your own Arwing. He starts to burn up, before sodding off home a very (wait for the mic drop!) hot, cross bunny.

MIPS the rabbit was one half of the first ever Mario 64 gameplay prototype. Everyone knows the story by now, so rather than me explain that Miyamoto wanted the core act of controlling Mario to be so fun he made a game where you just ran around as Mario, trying to catch a rabbit, and that rabbit made it into the game as a little Easter Egg, let me tell you a joke I heard about MIPS.

Right, get this. MIPS is named after the N64's internal processor, right? So, what happens when you ask that now-primitive processor to run those landmark 3D graphics at 30 frames a second for, like, twelve hours? You get a hot, cross bunny! I bet you're thinking I can't keep this up for an entire article. YOU'RE SO WRONG.

It isn't easy being a forgotten mascot. People keep telling me that Oswald could have been Mickey Mouse. Yep, that's what I heard. By which I assume they mean he could have bought some yellow shoes, white gloves and some shiny-buttoned red shorts, and had expensive and painful surgery to shorten and widen his ears and augment his nasal protrusion. The lengths people (and rabbits) will go to to get into show business. Tsk. But, perhaps fortunately, Mickey Mouse was Mickey Mouse, so Oswald was spared the whole harrowing process.

But Oswald is still pretty cool. Well, at least to Disney fans. And people who liked Epic Mickey 2. OK, he isn't very cool. In fact, I'm not really surprised that he was fired before his career had even begun. And what do you get when you literally fire a rabbit? That's right! A hot, cross bunny! Damn straight.

Ash is the protagonist in Arkedo's side-scrolling platformer, Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit. And he is dead, which I suppose officially makes him 'just some bunny that I used to know'. Granted, it's unusual for a dead rabbit to be on a list of 'best rabbits', but hear me out. This rabbit carries a circular buzz saw. Yes, they should have called him Buzz Bunny. Missed opportunity if you ask me.

So we're talking about a zombified, undead, ultraviolent rabbit who is the actual king of hell. Can you imagine meeting a rabbit like Ash in hell? Think about how angry he would be. In fact, that reminds me of a joke I once heard: You know what you get if you meet a buzzsaw-wielding rabbit in Hell? You get… (wait for it…) eviscerated! Yeah, it's not the happiest of situations.

Games can be a welcome escape, one where we steal cars, fly through space, or become anime lawyers. Yet so many licensed sports games force you to play football, baseball, and soccer the way the NFL, MLB, and FIFA want. Those simulations have their place, but there are too few alternatives if you want to color outside the lines of pro sports. That's what makes the too-rare alternatives so appealing.

Without world famous brands, unlicensed sports games have to get creative to entice fans, and so they use the classic rules as more of a guideline than a blueprint. They let you kill the referee, play alongside orcs and elves, or ingest every banned substance you can. These games are truly fantasy sports, embracing the possibilities that fiction opens up. So, which titles best took advantage of that open playing field? Read on...

Despite having Sega in the title, this wild three-on-three soccer game doesn't feature any of the publisher's famous mascots. Developed by folks who’d later work on Need for Speed, Sega Soccer Slam has similar intensity and speed on display. It’s also a bit like Punch Out!! on a football pitch, as friendly international stereotypes battle it out for soccer supremacy. The teams have representatives from each continent, and while their appearances border on caricature, the hard-hitting action is anything but a joke.

What makes it different? The international flavor covers as diverse a group of nations as FIFA, but World Cup commercials won't feature the level of violence seen in Soccer Slam. Punches and kicks are allowed, while boring rules like onsides and corner kicks are left out to focus on the uncomplicated fun. Who wants to bother with penalty cards when they could see a Mexican wrestler bodyslam a British soccer hooligan?

The original NFL Blitz games feel like an anomaly now. John Madden would never approve of the late hits, excessive roughness, and showboating that are all integral to making the classic Blitz games so fun. After Midway no longer had the NFL license, Blitz’s mean streak only grew without the 'No Fun League' overseeing every play.

What makes it different? Blitz: The League not only amps up the violence that series like Madden prefer to tone down, it also makes time for other seedier elements in the campaign. Drugs, prostitution, and graphic, career-ending injuries are all part of a story mode that's fittingly presented by NFL bad boy, Lawrence Taylor. It isn’t for the squeamish, but Blitz and its sequel offer an alternative to the buttoned down action of EA Sports. The series has since gone out to pasture, but it'll always be remembered as perhaps the first game to ever feature a visibly ruptured testicle. Wear that honor with pride, Blitz.

For wrestling fans, it’s obvious when other lovers of sports entertainment worked on a game. You can see a care for detail and history that other titles don't have, and the Fire Pro Wrestling series has that more than most. Whether on Game Boy Advance or the PS2, the isometric in-ring action is always on point, featuring a highly balanced rock-paper-scissor grappling system. Fire Pro Wrestling's graphics might not always impress, but it makes up for it by including a deceptively dense roster and close to every wrestling move known to man.

What makes it different? Some wrestling games depend too much on the star power of groups like WWE or WCW, but Fire Pro didn't bother limiting itself like that. Most entries' rosters are full of folks who are one step removed from the most famous wrestlers ever. Characters fight like Steve Austin and Ric Flair, but don’t look like them - unless you choose the alternate costumes that bear an uncanny resemblance to the headliners’ signature looks. Who knows how they got away with it at the time, but those creative inclusions make each new entry feel like a wrestling crossover that’d otherwise be impossible.

Whether it's football or hockey, the Mutant League games still mean a lot to those who grew up with the humorously morbid games. These Genesis/Mega Drive classics have you play as horror show creatures like skeletons, aliens, and trolls on fields that are strewn with corpses by the end of the game. Though only two of this cheekily violent titles were released, Mutant League spawned its own Saturday morning cartoon, which no doubt helped extend the series' legacy through constant replays in the mid-'90s.

What makes it different? Though EA, the king of official sports, may be the publisher, Mutant League gleefully breaks every rule of sportsmanship. Fighting, bribery, landmines, killing the referee - it's all legal in Mutant League, making it a great outlet for kids sick of the NFL and NHL rules. Plus, Mutant League has the edge on scary puns. Who wants to play as Bo Jackson and Jerry Rice when you could be Bones Jackson and Scary Ice?

Based on a tabletop game of the same name, Blood Bowl repurposes gridiron gameplay for fantasy geeks who may be missing out on the fun. Made by the same folks as Warhammer, Blood Bowl features orcs and goblins engaging in turn-based combat, but the bigger focus is on running a ball from one side of the map to the other, just like in American football. The only difference is this version of the sport has more apothecaries, virtual dice, and parody teams like the Orcland Raiders.

What makes it different? Aside from the NFL lacking in magic and lizardmen (not counting Jerry Jones), Blood Bowl earns its grisly name by being a tad more violent than the mainstream. You can win by scoring the most touchdowns, or you could take the more direct route by killing all 11 players on the opposing team. Much like in XCOM, death sticks in a Blood Bowl match, so you've got to be careful when putting an injured player on the field. This next down could be their last.

Also going by the triguing Muscle Bomber: The Body Explosion in Japan, this is an exciting recreation of pro wrestling no matter the title. The game's characters and attacks are as raucous as anything you'd see in WWE, thanks in part to the colorful designs of manga legend Tetsuo <(i>Fist of the North Star) Hara. His marquee style gets time time in the spotlight, be it the grapplers’ theatrical entrances, how they stand on the top turnbuckle, or posing for the crowd after a hard fought pinfall.

What makes it different? Back in the early '90s, WWE was trying its best with arcade games like Royal Rumble, but it could never match titans like Capcom. Street Fighter 2’s DNA is definitely within Saturday Night Slam Masters’ one-on-one brawls, but it adapts to the rules and legacy of wrestling. Instead of throwing fireballs, fighters routinely toss opponents ten feet in the air to catch them in a finishing maneuver, which is pretty rare in real life. The game also has its share of star power thanks to everyone's favorite politician, Mike Haggar from Final Fight, fitting right in with the rest of the squad.

NEO GEO rightfully earned its reputation for fighting game excellence, but the arcade/console hybrid has its library beyond King of Fighters. Take Super Baseball 2020, one of SNK's more creative approaches to sports. This sci-fi reinterpretation of America's favorite pastime turns the diamond into a battle of man versus machine, when teams of robots take on humans for batting supremacy. I think this is how The Matrix begins.

What makes it different? Major League Baseball prefers to take place in the here and now, not the far-off future of upgradable robots (we’ll get there someday). Unlike similar arcade sports games of the era, 2020 has a leveling and experience system similar to the RPG elements now commonplace in MLB games. Speaking of unexpected progressiveness, Super Baseball 2020 is also one of very few baseball titles to feature women playing the game. MLB is going to have to move fast to implement all this in the next five years.

Some baseball titles have light minigames for training your team in pitching, catching, and the like, but most feel like afterthoughts. Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball has the clever idea of never taking players to a nine inning game, instead focusing all its creativity on how to practice with every piece of baseball equipment there is. And the action gets as varied as carving your own bat from scratch, playing catch with people who have pitching machines for heads, and hitting a series of balls at UFOs.

What makes it different? While Rusty's Real Deal Baseball may be reminiscent of childhood summers spent playing catch in the park, the game has common with WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven. Many of Rusty's best minigames involve tapping buttons along to the music, ultimately teaching players more about keeping tempo than catching fly balls. Also, no MLB game has as humorous a sad sack as Rusty himself, the over-the-hill baseball great who sells you equipment while telling you all about his most recent misadventures.

Those are the most out there sports games for now, but are there any others that took organized recreation to the next level? Surely you have your own favorites you want to tell us all about in the comments.

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

Mass Effect. Uncharted. Deadly Premonition. The list of classics from the last generation of consoles is too numerous to count, and the gaming landscape is more vast and varied now than it’s ever been. But even with all of the fantastic moments found on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and yes, even the Wii, we hope that this next generation leaves some of the past behind it.

Things become cliche for a reason: a particular design element or aesthetic worked once, then everyone else decided to copy it because it was successful. But now that we're on to a new set of consoles, perhaps its time to drop some of these cliches like a bad habit. Oh, who am I kidding? This stuff isn't going anywhere, and I'll tell you why.

The cliche: No matter where you go, whether it's a space station, an ancient tomb, or 19th-century England, if there's a fight breaking out, there's a well-placed chest-high wall to hide behind. Thanks to the popularity of cover-based shooters like Gears of War and Uncharted, their appearance has skyrocketed, and shows no end in sight.

Why it won't go away: It's pretty easy to fill up a level with a few fallen pillars, brick barriers, or other obstacles for the hero to hide behind, and since cover-based shooters aren't exactly going anywhere, we're likely to see more of this in the future. Hopefully game developers will at least make these protrusions feel like an extension of the world, rather than a conveniently placed set of granite rectangular prisms (looking at you, Mass Effect 2).

The cliche: The music builds, the tempo quickens, and suddenly: THE DROP. Now, the klaxons are blaring, and what sounds like the soundtrack for a robot apocalypse plows into your eardrums. The first time you heard dubstep, it was thrilling in its aural audacity. But now that everything from amateur YouTube Call of Duty videos to has some kind of dubstep breakdown, it all seems to have lost its edge.

Why it won't go away: Despite becoming the butt-rock of electronic music, dubstep is still surprisingly popular (hence all the YouTube Call of Duty videos and Enrique Iglesias songs). It's almost become a joke at this point, thanks to games like Borderlands insisting on not letting this music genre die already (though I have to admit, the dubstep gun in Saints Row 4 was pretty funny).

The cliche: It's the year 20XX, and it's the apocalypse. Whether the world has been taken over by fast zombies or slow zombies doesn't matter; the undead roam the Earth, and they're going to take a bite out of you. Which, of course, turns everyone else into a zombie except you (must be all those leafy green herbs you've been munching on).

Why it won't go away: Zombies are such an ingrained part of pop culture at this point, even outside of games, that you can probably get a game greenlit by saying it's like "[insert game name here] with zombies.” Plus, it's comparatively easier to devise an AI that simply hunts down the closest warm body and eats it than it is to make an enemy that moves and reacts to your attacks. And by spending fewer resources on AI, you can just fill the screen with loads of undead.

The cliche: Slap two words together, combine them into one glorious bastardization of the English language, and you've got a brand new buzzword to trot out in front of an audience of thousands. It's gotten so bad that we heard "drivatars" and "levolution" within a few hours of each other at E3 2013. In case you don't know, those are fancy words for "player-created AI" and "stuff blows up real good."

Why it won't go away: Because publishers never learn. You watch, E3 2015 is going to roll around and Ubisoft will break out words like "clambineering" to describe the new climbing physics for their latest Assassin's Creed title. Hey, at least we get to chuckle a little bit while we watch executives and paid presenters say these words unironically.

The cliche: That game you just picked up? Well, there's going to be a mess of content coming for it in the next year or so. Sure, you can buy all of it individually like a sucker, or you can grab them all with this handy Season Pass for only $30! Except for this character pack; that's a pre-order exclusive. And that set of weapons. Oh, and we're making stuff to come after the Season Pass has run its course. You'll have to buy that separately, too.

Why it won't go away: It's all about money. While Season Passes are nice and all, there's no clear demarcation for what constitutes a "season" of gameplay. And everything released after that season is over requires a separate purchase. I'm all for paying for content, but I think that if the DLC ends up costing as much as the core game, maybe make that Season Pass all-inclusive. Or at least offer a 'Season Two' Pass.

The cliche: Wandering around a zombie-filled apocalypse? Or perhaps you're marooned in a mysterious forest? Whatever game you're playing, you can scrounge around for pieces of wood and some scraps of metal and convert them into a crude implement of pain, or find some rags and make a set of magically sterile bandages. It doesn't matter if you're playing a Super Mario-esque platformer, if there's an excuse to combine two items into another, better item, we'll find a way to fit it in.

Why it won't go away: Minecraft sold about a gazillion copies, so clearly every game needs to feature some kind of crafting system. And what better way to pad your game out than requiring players to hunt down five different herbs every time you want to craft a potion?

The cliche: OK, soldier, we need to dump a whole bunch of lore on you and give you directions to your next mission, but we don't want to put all of this in an expensively-designed cutscene. So we'll just slow your walk speed down to geriatric levels and force you to inch your way forward while you listen to us over your walkie-talkie.

Why it won't go away: It's a storytelling crutch that lets players have some semblance of control while other characters talk at them. And because games like The Order: 1886 make frequent use of the cliche even now, it's likely not going anywhere any time soon.

The cliche: Our heroes are conflicted, deep individuals who want to help out, but must also confront the hidden dark side buried within their souls. Sometimes, you must embrace the evil within to defeat the enemy without, and shaving your head is the only way you can come to terms with your anti-hero status. Or something.

Why it won't go away: Everyone can relate to a brooding male protagonist! Well, except for half of the global population, but who's counting? Plus, everyone knows that shaving your head is like a shortcut to Badass Town (Badasston?), and it essentially raises your coolness level by at least 20 points (which is actually rather difficult to do, at least from my experience). Hair's really hard to animate, too.

The cliche: Perched high up on top of a massive cathedral lies a magical spot that will let you attune your spirit with the Earth and give you the location of all the hidden collectables on the map. All you have to do is climb up there to access it. Oh, and you can replace 'cathedral' with 'radio tower' and 'attune your spirit' with 'break the radio tower', depending on the game.

Why it won't go away: People like climbing stuff, and it was fine when Assassin's Creed did it. But then every other Ubisoft game had you climbing towers to unlock bits of the map; yes, even the open-world racer The Crew had you drive to hidden satellite dishes to unlock new races. It's so prevalent, it's bleeding out of Ubisoft games and into other titles, and even games like Dying Light are featuring some kind of tower climb. Whatever happened to buying a map?

I have hope that by the time we leave the PS4 and Xbox One behind we'll have a whole different set of cliches to jettison. Until then, keep a look out for the game about the zombie space marine with the dubstep DLC pack, and you can be the first to shout 'Bingo!' when you spot it. Are there any last-gen cliches you want gone? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for more? Why not read this list of .

Sonic hasn't had a very good few months. First Sonic Boom tanked, then the bailiffs came round to repossess his All-Stars Racing car. Then he wagered Tails' plane trying to get the car back and ended up losing them both. He hasn't told Tails yet. Then there was the speculation in the press that maybe it was . Even Amy has started only calling twice a day. Needless to say, he blames a lot of other people for the situation he's found himself in… which is where this list comes in.

This is Sonic's hit list. It details all the people he feels have wronged him. The ones who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes. Of course this isn't normal or healthy behaviour; Sonic's gone a bit wrong. He tried so hard for so long, kept up his chipper demeanor and even pretended to enjoy playing tennis. Well, now he's snapped. Writing it all down is likely just his coping mechanism and he'll probably never go through with it for real. Probably.

Sonic read A Clockwork Orange the other day and was struck in particular by the bit about how Dim would be grateful to Alex for being pulled from water, even if it was Alex that had pushed him in. That's how Sonic feels about DK. Indeed, he fantasises about pushing DK into water. Deep water.

But he wouldn't help him out again. He'd stand and watch as the waves took him over, foaming and crashing like an aquatic recreation of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. He'd viddy good. Real horrorshow, like.

The Olympic Games are all about athleticism. Training. Speed. Sheer, glorious speed. It's everything that Sonic stands for. Amy? Not so much. It's not even the fact that Sonic had his speed reduced by the judges so that everyone else had a chance. It's that stupid inane grin on Amy's face when she stands on the top step of the podium, and says "That's right, I'm the best".

That's not even slightly right, Amy! You're slow in Sonic Adventure, slow in Sonic R and painfully slow on the uptake when it comes to the fact that Sonic ISN'T INTERESTED. And enough with trying to get him to babysit lost birdies. You're depriving a buzzard of its dinner.

Shadow represents everything that's gone wrong for Sonic, and is basically the opposite of him. When Sonic still actually gave a flying f*** about anything except self-loathing, he stood for eco-friendly, nature-loving, friend-helping goodness. Shadow? He 'likes guns'. And he was so blown up at the end of Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic even got to say one of his best lines: "Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog". It was poignant. It was dramatic. It had freakin' piano behind it. And yet who pops up again in everything a few weeks later? Shadow.

To rub salt into the Shadowy wounds, the utterly abysmal Gamecube/Xbox/PS2 game Shadow the Hedgehog is arguably better than Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. He can't be allowed to get away with that. It must all be... erased.

Got your own game, did you, Knucklehead? Well no-one plays it. It's only worth loads of money on eBay because so few people bothered to buy it in the first place. You know how many people have played the original Sonic the Hedgehog? EVERYONE.

This would have all been resolved much sooner if Knuckles hadn't transformed into a walking advertisement for steroid abuse. But Sonic will have his day. Just when Knuckles least expects it, Sonic's wrath will rain down upon him like a ton of lead. But first he needs to ask if Knuckles will lend him a few Benjamins, just till the rent gets paid.

It's little surprise, but Sonic blames Mario for everything. Every. Thing. The reason it rained during his 14th birthday party? Mario's fault. The reason they keep forcing Sonic to embrace the third dimension? Mario's fault. The reason he can't love Amy? Mario's fault. See, Mario's so under Sonic's skin, he is unable to think of anything else.

That time Princess Elise kissed Sonic to wake him? Sonic only woke up because he dreamed it was Mario. Yes, he is f***ed up. But whose fault is that, really? Mario's.

USURPER! That's what Sonic thinks whenever someone says the word 'NiGHTS'. Actually, he thinks that any time anyone says the words 'PlayStation', 'Knuckles' or 'Boyz II Men'.

Worse still, NiGHTS only ever exists in dreams, and that includes Sonic's. Ironic, really. NiGHTS is supposed to soothe nightmares, yet Sonic's feverish hallucinations are full of him. Him and that stupid invisible flute. It's always the same: NiGHTS plays it, and Sonic dances. He can't stop dancing. Oh god, how he can not stop.

Everyone hates Bubsy, but at least Sonic can least look down on him. The reason Bubsy's on the list is all about power. Sonic is better than Bubsy. Bubsy is worse than Sonic. This mantra helps Sonic sleep at night and he may, or may not, have scratched it into the walls of his house several hundred times. With his fingernails. Yes, some of the words are written in red.

I should probably add that Sonic's house smells funny, too. And all of the light bulbs need replacing. But even so, I hear that's better than Bubsy's doing these days.

Despite what you might think, Sonic and Robotnik actually go for drinks together nowadays. They sit at the bar, clinking their glasses of neat whiskey, reminiscing about all the various buttons that Dr R jumped on to foil Sonic and arguing about whether Sonic's invincibility music was better than Robotnik's boss theme. Happy days.

Sonic still pulls his hand away from Robotnik at the end of the evening, eschewing the manly handshake in favour of blowing a raspberry. 'Gotta blow rasps', right? Robotnik knows it's coming every time, but he still says 'ahh, you got me'. Sonic's toyed with the idea of getting Robotnik to help with the hit list, but the guy's getting on a bit now. He must've been in his late 50s in 1991, and the process of shifting that enormous bulk down from the bar stool looks like a Herculian effort at the end of each evening. Robotnik does a lot of stage work for charity, though. Sonic's considered it, but he can't bear the inevitable humiliation of asking the crowd where his career is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much has been said about women in games over the last few years, usually loudly and with awe-inspiring amounts of vitriol. As the diversity of the gaming market continues to expand and more people take interest in the medium, the call for more women who are more than glassy-eyed dolls or extensions of the main male character (you know, like actual women) has become tense.

Some developers struggle to pull it off, some insist curves and personality are too difficult to do at once, and some are too busy tweaking their jiggle physics engines to notice. But others have made serious strides toward creating believable women who are every bit as heroic and inspirational as their male counterparts, and just as we give kudos to Master Chief and Gordon Freeman for inspiring us to be awesome, these ladies deserve to be celebrated too. Here you have the 20 most inspirational female characters in gaming, who push us to be better by being so great themselves. You go, ladies!

JRPGs love the gentle healer archetype. A quiet and helpful character who lives to support the team, she (and it's almost always 'she') doesn't fare very well on her own, and unfortunately ends up looking weak and useless as a result. Yuna's been slapped with that label before, dubbed a dispassionate damsel with little to offer. Apparently the folks making that claim forget this girl puts the smackdown on anyone who gets in her way, whether it's bands of kidnappers, a diabolical suitor, or a god she's worshiped her entire life. Screw iron, Yuna has a will of diamond, and a desire to achieve her goals no matter what it takes.

Part of her conviction certainly comes from her time as a summoner, when she went through grueling training to make powerful magic beasts appear out of thin air using nothing but her mind. But even when the doctrine she grew up with turns out to be a lie and everyone she's trying to protect turns against her, she chooses to carve her own path and refuses to give up on what she knows is right. As they say, speak softly and carry a big staff, and Yuna does that with flourish. Yes. That's how that saying goes.

Obvious, right? Well, there’s a reason for that. Although Lara started life as a rather generously proportioned Indiana Jones substitute, after her gender was changed part way through development of the original Tomb Raider, she quickly established herself as the go-to female gaming icon. Why? Because of a lack of competition--back in the 90s, women protagonists were rarer than rocking-horse dung.

Since then, Lara has gone through several transformations. Some Tomb Raiders miss the point completely, overly sexualising Lara and making her ‘sassy’, but the most recent reboot showcases the strongest, most modern Lara Croft. It’s this iteration that earns the spot in this feature. Lara’s mental toughness and drive stands out most, although her ability to drive an arrow through her enemy’s retinas is pretty (straightens tie) eye-catching too.

The devout Cassandra takes a serious blow to her faith when she least expects it, and the hits just keep on coming. The death of her dear friend Divine Justinia would've been enough belief-battering for a lifetime, but that catastrophe only sweeps the dust off previously unknown horrors which threaten her very identity as a Templar and Seeker. While the reasonable reaction to that much tragedy would be to abandon one's faith and take up a new career as a bitter mountain hermit, Cassandra doesn't have time for reasonable. She has a Chantry to rebuild, because she's seen the good inside and knows it's worth fighting for.

While Cassandra can often come off as stubborn and unmovable, one of her main strengths is knowing when to hold fast and when to be willing to bend. She's shaken by the rapid decline of the Chantry, but never tries to deny its failings or abandon it, instead seeking to repair what she believes is broken. She's also the first to root out injustice where it lives, and almost single-handedly calls for the Inquisition while everyone else is too dizzy to think. Cassandra's an unstoppable storm, but one with a calm and quiet eye, too.

Like Lara, Ellie is a survivor; a product of her environment. While she could easily have been designed as a damsel in distress, used to reinforce the surrogate father / daughter relationship in The Last of Us, Naughty Dog was smart enough to dodge such simple stereotyping. It’s not Ellie’s capacity to kill that marks her out as a strong female character, but her ability to accept the world that’s falling apart around her.

Ellie is one of the most modern, realistic characters ever designed--regardless of gender. Obviously, there’s no telling how humanity would react in the face of a fungal apocalypse, but as with any situation, those who grow up knowing nothing different will normalise the world around them no matter how alien it may seem to everyone else. Ellie does that with aplomb.

The first lady to bear the title of Main Character in an Assassin's Creed game, Aveline more than lives up to the legacy of the Assassins that came before. A woman of mixed parentage living in New Orleans at a time when that family history could (and almost does) get her sold into slavery, Aveline isn't above putting herself in perilous situations to fight the oppression rotting her city.

One of the ways she accomplishes her goal is through a series of disguises that can get her access to anything she desires, from the holding cells of the downtrodden to the halls of high society. While some players have been quick to point out that this amounts to her playing dress-up, each outfit has strategic advantages and disadvantages, and she uses all three to great effect. While she can easily climb in a target's window and put a knife through their throat, she can also gather information from their household while posing as a slave, or ruin them socially and financially through the family business. She's a triple-threat, and that's before she starts to mix-and-match her skills between personas. You gotta love a lady who can kill someone with a parasol gun without even putting down her drink.

It says a lot when an eight-year-old girl is so much more capable than any of the adults in her general vicinity that they all turn to her for leadership. Fighting through every snarling, decomposing obstacle that gets in her way, Clementine never, ever, ever, ever gives up on the fight to survive, and the Ice Bucket Challenge would probably give you fewer chills than hearing her say, "Still. Not. Bitten."

Not that Clementine's some fearless automaton that exists outside the realm of human emotion and struggle. It's immediately clear in season one how defenseless she is, and while she does contribute to the group, she still relies heavily on Lee to defend her and makes some emotionally-charged decisions that threaten her survival. But that just makes her more inspirational, showing her growth into someone strong and capable over the course of season two. No matter the trials or the odds she faces, she fights through the pain and never lets her resolve waver. Man, I wanna be like her when I grow up.

If Gordon Freeman is the strong silent type, then Alyx Vance is his perfect--more vocal--female counterpart. She’s an exceptionally well realised character that perfectly dodges the simpering support role, while still retaining emotional depth. Sure, she’s seen and done some serious killing, but you never get the feeling that she’s lost connection with her own humanity. There are some wonderfully tender scenes between both her and her father, and Gordon himself.

Not only that, but she behaves like a normal human being. Many female characters are just convenient narrative devices used to push the story forward, making their behaviour seem less than natural, but everything Alyx does and says has both context and meaning. More like her, please.

At first glance, you’d be forgiven for lumping Bayonetta into the ‘male fantasy’ group of female video game characters. She is impossibly-well proportioned, overly sexualised, and tends to get naked. A lot. Thing is, all the sexy stuff is played for laughs, and once you strip that away (haha etc) there’s a well-rounded character lurking beneath it all.

Then there’s the fact that Bayonetta is a begrudging, but caring 'mother' figure. Instead of coddling her offspring, though, she keeps her daughter (well, er, it's not actually her daughter, it's really a younger version of Bayonetta herself, which creates an interesting paradox and oh my I've lost the thread of where I was going with this...) safe without shielding her from the (admittedly bizarre) dangers within the game. Look, no-ones saying Bayonetta is a classic female role model, but she manages to be realistically inspirational in a very unreal game.

Jaina Proudmoore is a lot of things: highborne, headstrong, so skilled with magic she can wipe your entire neighborhood off the map if you give her sass. But one thing she's not is particularly lucky. Her childhood love turns out to be kind of a monster (even before he becomes a shell for an undead demon king), her father seems intent on ruining her attempts at diplomacy, and her dead enemies have a nasty habit of climbing out of their graves. But if only one word describes her, its 'determined'.

While Jaina is certainly distraught when Arthas falls under the weight of his own corruption and her father can't see past his own pride, she refuses to let either define her life or hold her back. Instead, as a sorceress of immeasurable power, she directs her talents toward changing the world for the better, creating safe havens for the oppressed and working with Thrall to build trust between the Horde and the Alliance. She is also an incredible badass, and when the Horde turns on her and destroys what she holds dear? They couldn't run fast or far enough to escape to hell she brings down on their heads. No passive princess here.

It's clear that Celes would've been happy with a simple life in service to the Empire, and it’s hard to blame her. A skilled fighter and decorated general of the Imperial army by age 18, all she had to do was toe the party line, and she'd have nothing but a life of prosperity and esteem ahead of her. She'd have to take part in some incredible human atrocities as the Empire killed its way across the world, but that's a small price to pay for glory. Except she rejects that notion and gives up everything to fight back against the Empire's oppression and protect the people she loves.

Granted, she does retain a degree of loyalty to the Empire even after she's joined the Returners, and does betray her friends on one infamous occasion. But ultimately this just makes her feel more human, and makes her struggle to do what's right even more admirable. How easy would it have been to kill her friends when they're at their weakest and rule the world at the Emperor's right hand? The answer is very, so when Celes turns around and puts a knife in Kefka's chest instead, you know there are no ulterior motives. She just knows it's the right thing to do, and she does it no matter the personal cost.

Cowering in a corner isn’t the typical behavior of an inspirational hero, and since Amanda Ripley spends a whole lot of time doing just that, you'd think that would get her disqualified from joining from the Badass Heroes club. Sorry, let me rephrase: you'd think that if you knew nothing about Ripley and her terrifying adventures in Sevastopol, where staying hidden for a second more can be the difference between making it to the exit and being eaten alive. When Ripley takes cover, it's not a sign of weakness, but a will to survive, and she's got plenty of it to make it through that hellhole.

Not that all Ripley has on her side is non-squeak soles and a compact frame. She also has the intelligence and skills of a master engineer, and knows how to use any scrap of material she can find to her advantage. MacGuyvering weapons and tools on the fly while being mercilessly hunted, she survives on the back of her own brilliance and ability to keep her cool, even when she's staring at a murderous android through the slits in a locker door. The next time you're taking a tough exam or preparing for an interview or defusing a bomb, just ask yourself What Would Ripley Do?

In a way, Shepard is the ultimate example of equality in games. Regardless of gender, Shep is offered the same options and takes the same route towards saving man-kind from the Reapers during the course of Mass Effect’s story. The choices aren’t made on Shepard’s behalf by gender stereotypes--they’re made by the player. Even character design presents a level playing field--each female Shepard is unique.

This equality would be nothing if Shep was a total weasel, but he / she constantly shows strength and endurance in the face of adversity. In fact ‘adversity’ is too soft a term: 'catastrophe' is often closer to the truth. Shepard experiences loss, betrayal, bad press, and even death during Mass Effect, but fights through it to the bitter end. Regardless of gender, Shep is a proper gaming hero.

Most of the wondrous women are on this list because of how much they stand out. Titanfall's female pilots, on the other hand, are here for the opposite reason: they perfectly blend in. In a world where chainmail bras and armor-free midriffs are Still A Thing, a well-dressed and capable soldier who just happens to be female is a breath of fresh ozone, and they can bring the pain just like anyone else.

While that isn't to say that a lady can't be powerful and feminine - I refer you again to Aveline's assassination by parasol - it's all about the context in which she exists. Is she hunting down a mark in a dance club and has to look the part? Belly shirts and high heels all the way! But in a warzone where the bulkiness of your armor is directly proportional to how strong you are, metal go-go boots and form-fitting chest plates just say you're not meant to be taken seriously. Titanfall knows that and outfits its incredible ladies accordingly, proving that what's below your belt buckle has nothing to do with your military skill. It makes you wish you were nearly as cool as them, and isn't that kind of what inspirational means?

“Hang on… who the hell is Major Greenland?” I hear you ask. She’s the commander of the US base in the Old Town (Tashgar) level, and she appears for all of 3 minutes in a couple of separate cut-scenes. In that time, though, she steals the show by demonstrating how completely in control of her own troops she is. She’s probably the toughest, most commanding character in a game full of ridiculously macho men.

It’s not just cheap stereotyping either. Greenland isn’t over-written or grotesquely butch--she’s just an unfortunate officer who has been handed another shitty, under-resourced assignment. The fact that she does her duty with a foul-mouth and lashings of dry humour is the icing on the cake.

While Chell is the female ‘hero’ of the Portal series, it’s GlaDos who stands out as the stronger character. Look, Chell doesn’t even speak. Yes, you can interpret her actions as ‘strong’ given that she defies instruction in both games and acts on survival instinct, but that just makes her human. GlaDos, on the other hand, gives us more to admire.

GlaDos is smart enough to bide her time when she’s turned into a potato-clock by Wheatley, and rebellious enough to go against her programming when it’s needed. Between both GlaDos and Chell, Portal sends the message that it’s only human to challenge norms and authority, and that makes the pair of them a very compelling female duo.

Faith is a character of few words, but plenty of actions… usually involving death-defying free-running that would make most people feel a little . There’s little doubting her physical strength and toughness, and it’s telling that DICE chose to make her gender a non-issue by making the game first-person. While playing Mirror’s Edge, you could equally be controlling a man.

Throw in Faith’s healthy disrespect for a corrupt government, and her willingness to stick up for weaker characters while putting her own life at risk, and it’s safe to say she’s a first-class female protagonist.

One of the greatest tricks Nintendo ever pulled was convincing the world it doesn't exist. Hang on, wrong cultural reference. One of the greatest tricks it did pull was keeping Samus’ gender a total secret right until the end of Metroid. And not just the regular ending either--you need to finish the game under pretty harsh conditions to earn the knowledge. Or you can just look on YouTube, I guess.

Back in 1986, female protagonists were super-scarce, which perhaps explains why Nintendo kept Samus’ gender ambiguous. On the one hand, it could be a statement about how women shouldn’t be treated differently to men in games. On the other, it could well have been a ploy to avoid alienating a group of players accustomed to seeing leading men in games. In reality, it’s probably a mixture of both.

There’s no shortage of ‘girly’ tropes in No One Lives Forever (lipstick explosive devices, anyone?), but protagonist Kate Archer proves that female leads don’t need to ditch their femininity to be taken seriously. She’s a strangely comfortable half-way house between James Bond and Austin Powers, meaning she can quite happily mix the light hearted stuff with more serious terrorist-fragging.

By more modern gaming standards, No One Lives Forever is a little hammy. It’d be great to see the series revived with a more up-to-date reboot, much like the latest Tomb Raider game. Sadly, that’s hugely unlikely to happen.

Given the often goofy nature of the Yakuza series (and a general trend for Japanese games to feature weaker women), it seems an odd place to find a compelling female character. However, while Kazuma Kiryu--series lead, and total badass--is the star of each game, he owes his life and humanity to his adopted daughter figure, Haruka.

While Kaz is away knocking 7 shades of shit out of his enemies, Haruka essentially runs the Sunshine Orphanage in Okinawa. She cares for kids who are barely younger than her, and the resulting ‘mature outlook on life’ she gets from this allows her to offer Kazuma valuable advice throughout the Yakuza series. Sure, she sometimes plays the damsel in distress, but these moments of fragility only arise from her relationship with Kaz and her youth, not the strength of her character.

Samantha is the only character on this list who doesn’t actually appear in a game at all. Players discover her story while exploring the family house as her sister in Gone Home. However, you actually learn more about Sam than your own character during the game, which probably makes her the real star.

And everything you discover points towards a strong female character, struggling against the rather old-fashioned attitudes of her family. No spoilers here (as the game isn’t yet a year old and it has just been confirmed for console), but the way Samantha kicks back against society and the will of her parents is something to be admired.

Want more amazing ladies in your life? Well, not sure how much we can help with that, but you can sure read about them! Check out .

Whenever a game gets adapted into some other form of entertainment, it can be something of a crapshoot. The personalities and motivations of your favorite heroes and villains may work just fine in the context of the game, but might feel paper thin when you take away the actual act of playing. Accordingly, when writers have tried to expand on one-dimensional character designs to justify new stories beyond the games, they've been known to take certain liberties that don't always go over too well. That's how we got things like Dennis Hopper as a germophobic, human-dinosaur-hybrid King Koopa, or Sonic's inexplicable obsession with chili dogs.

But every so often, something stupendous happens: a character actually gets better when their identity is entrusted to someone who doesn't make games for a living. What was once a bland or unrelatable character transforms into a fascinating, relatively complex individual, with personality traits and aesthetic redesigns that make the new twist infinitely more endearing than the original. Once you get to know what these seven characters are like outside of their respective games, you'll desperately wish these versions could be promoted to official canon.

In the games: Besides his egg-like physique and gigantic mustache, Dr. Ivo Robotnik doesn't leave much of an impression. Building death machines in his image and is certainly interesting, but Robotnik himself doesn't do much besides show up for boss fights and lose spectacularly every time. I get that he wants to conquer the world, but there's nothing particularly intriguing about Robotnik's rivalry with Sonic.

But in the cartoons: You've got two brilliant varieties of Robotnik to choose from here. There's the seething, dastardly version from Sonic the Hedgehog, who rules over a totalitarian dystopia with an iron fist and a Grinch-like evil smile. Or there's the total opposite (and my personal favorite) from Adventures of Sonic: an insecure, short-tempered buffoon with mommy issues who can't even keep his robot underlings in check. One Robotnik is on par with Darth Vader in terms of imposing malevolence, the other is a woefully flawed egomaniac who you just can't help but root for. In both cases, he's the primary reason you'd watch these shows at all.

In the games: When Dr. Light built Mega Man's little sister, it seems like he set out to make the android embodiment of deeply ingrained Japanese sexism. Whereas her Blue Bomber sibling has the ability to absorb the powers of any Robot Master he defeats, Roll was brought into existence for the express purpose of being a housekeeper. In place of a Mega Buster, she's outfitted with a broom and a vacuum cleaner. Hoo boy.

But in the cartoon: Yes, the animated series still gives Roll a transforming vacuum cleaner where her arm cannon should be. But rather than using it for domestic dusting, Roll can actually suck up incoming artillery and blast it back at her attackers, or suction apart robot henchmen piece by piece. Instead of being a docile child who always hangs back from the action, this teenage Roll has grown out of that frilly little dress and suits up to fight by Mega Man's side. She's got all the versatile combat capabilities of classic Roll's cameos from Capcom's Versus fighting games, without the unpleasant infantilization.

In the games: You're Gilgamesh, a knight clad in gold armor, off to save the magic maiden Ki from the evil demon Druaga. That's about all the plot there is to find in this obscure arcade dungeon crawler that Namco put out back in 1984. Searching for any clues to a deeper narrative proves difficult, because you'll be too preoccupied with the obscenely convoluted methods for surviving the perils of each maze-like stage. How anyone actually managed to complete this game in a pre-FAQ era astounds me.

But in the anime: This strange hybrid of medieval fantasy and zany comedy picks up 60 years after the game leaves off, introducing a new generation of characters (though Gilgamesh and Ki still show up from time to time). The heroics now fall to a resilient warrior named Jil and his ragtag group of tower-ascending Climbers, who have a goofy interplay between them that's in line with what you'd hear in MMO party chat. The for yourself.

In the games: Candy Kong seems like she was designed for two purposes: saving your game, and . This hourglass-figured simian does nothing more than stand there in a pink swimsuit, giving her about as much character depth as a busty stick figure drawn in the margins of a high school notebook. When she's not doting on DK, Candy Kong likes to... actually, that pretty much covers it.

But in the show: Leave it to a French Canadian TV series to do what Rare seemingly couldn't: make Candy Kong feel like an actual individual. Instead of being defined by her relationship with Donkey Kong, Candy has her own problems to deal with. She enjoys her job at the barrel production plant (which finally explains where all those barrels come from), and hopes to one day run the company herself. But Candy constantly has to shut down advances from her lecherous boss Bluster Kong, and deal with the frustration of DK's struggle to emotionally commit. It's not the most progressive redesign in history, but this Candy Kong is centuries ahead of her game counterpart.

In the games: If you're playing an Earthworm Jim level that revolves around Peter Puppy, chances are you're not having a lick of fun. The idea is that Peter transforms from an adorable puppy into a monstrous purple hellhound whenever he's feeling threatened, which is pretty cool. But it's hard to like him when he's constantly beating the snot out of Jim, just because you couldn't master the punishing timing of an escort mission or ace an erratic trampoline-catch minigame.

But in the cartoon: As in the games, Peter often 'Hulks out' under pressure and inadvertantly ends up beating Jim like a drum (usually to the sounds of his , seeing as Jim's voiced by none other than Dan Castellaneta). But when Peter's not going berserk on his super-suited buddy, he's actually quite the timid, sympathetic sidekick, constantly trying his best to stave off his inner beast while he tags along on Jim's wacky adventures. To keep his anger at a minimum, Peter oscillates between chipper optimism and hilariously melodramatic angst. Oh, and he actually has the decency to wear some clothes in the cartoon, instead of prancing around buck naked all the time.

In the games: If Peach (formerly known as Princess Toadstool) had a gold coin for every time she's been kidnapped, she'd have enough capital to be the Bill Gates of the Mushroom Kingdom. This pink-clad sovereign treats being a hostage like it's her trained profession, and the only resistance she can ever seem to muster is a schmaltzy cry for help to her mustachioed suitor. There was that time she got to do the rescuing in Super Princess Peach, but defanged platforming and the ability to attack by crying rendered that role reversal kind of pointless.

But in the comics: Forget Mario. The Princess Toadstool from the Nintendo Power comics is more than capable of saving herself, as demonstrated by her resourceful use of a feather cape to glide right up on out of Bowser's castle. Not only that, when Mario ends up being the helpless prisoner for once, the fair Princess sets up an ingenious switcheroo by trading her dress for Luigi's green get-up. Only in the pages of will you find imagery of Peach threatening to bomb Bowser and his offspring to kingdom come if her demands for Mario's freedom aren't met. If only the games could be so bold with her portrayal.

In the games: Nothing about Meowth really makes it stand out from the original 151 Pokemon, and 718 total designs later, its odds haven't exactly improved. Sure, Meowth might snag a temporary spot in a cat person's Poke-team, and the Japanese koban coin embedded in its forehead is a neat touch. But when your Pokedex is full to bursting with overpowered Legendaries, you're likely going to bench this just-plain-ordinary feline.

But in the anime: This Pokemon's personal story is tragedy defined. Before he started getting into all manner of Pikachu-kidnapping shenanigans with Jesse and James, this particular Meowth did the impossible: he taught himself to walk and talk like a person through sheer force of will. He is the sole member of an entire species to have bridged the gap between human- and Pokemon-kind, and he did it all for a love that may never be reciprocated. Maybe you think that you could never feel moved by a scheming, wise-cracking kitty who sounds like a dialed-down Gilbert Gottfried with a Brooklyn accent. But and I beg to differ. Looks like Team Rocket's making sorrowful tears stream down my face again.

Pretty great, right? If only these characters could be so cool in their respective games. Know any other good ones, like Hudson Horstachio and the gang in the Viva Pinata cartoon? Let me know in the comments below!

And if you're looking for more Top 7 goodness, check out .

Despite what you may have heard, old games aren't crap. In fact, some of them are quite the opposite. The kind of games you could take home to meet your parents, who would later remark at how dashing they were, even with that streak of grey in their perfectly-styled, cartridge-black hair. And you only have to look at our list of the to see that no fewer than four of our top 10 are more than 10 years old (which will be our cut-off point for 'retro' in this article, for argument's sake).

But there's a problem. Modern technology isn't kind to old games. Fuzzy RF connections make playing old consoles on modern TVs a harrowing experience. Modern technology highlights their flaws. Modern technology has pointed out the weird spit stuff at the edges of their mouths and that their shoes are made from mammoth hide. Sure, you can try getting together the right kit like an HD upscaler to help, but the simple fact remains that old games look their best when they're reworked to be the best they can on modern consoles. And that's what we're here to celebrate: the best modern retro conversions money can buy. Get Ready!

Sometimes, developers think it's wise to change a game's art style when re-releasing it. That's only going to annoy long-term fans, unless it turns out to be exactly how they imagined the first game to look in the first place. Well, The Secret of Monkey Island fixes that problem by letting you switch between the two at any moment.

And who can resist doing exactly that, all the time? You can even play a sort of 'spot the difference', as long as you don't just keep saying "well, that one's made of huge pixels and that one isn't". You'll be there a long time if you do. There's also a completely re-recorded soundtrack, made with real instruments (yes, wow!). As for the game itself, Monkey Island is still the funny, charming, lovable point-and-click adventure masterpiece it always was, only now in HD and sat on your dashboard.

Nintendo had the best of intentions when it decided to port a selection of NES games to 3DS, complete with stereoscopic 3D visuals. Turns out it took so much work to convert the games, Nintendo decided it would be just as much effort to make new games instead, so stopped making the conversions. But at least we got this sensational port of Kid Icarus. The handheld world (and humanity's collective awareness of the existence of eggplants) is better for its existence.

But why? Well, it's ultra-hardcore, pixel-perfect platforming action straight from the '80s. That finely honed 2D gameplay never looked or felt this good. There are new backgrounds with variable levels of depth, a full save system instead of the original NES game's passwords, and tweaks to the game's physics. That last one preserves the acceleration effect of the original if you want a more authentic experience, or affords new, super-tight control for those who crave precision. You did good, kid. You did good.

Daytona received no fewer than three separate home conversions before Xbox 360 and PS3 finally . Everything is just as you remember it from the mid-'90s, which is actually nothing like the original actually looks if you play it now in standard definition. 1995's finest chunky 3D car models look superb through HDMI, and the blue sky and green grass are outrageously bold viewed on a decent modern TV. New games are scared of colours like this.

But there are more options and modes to play with that don't appear in the arcade game, including an endurance mode that sees you actively seeking to preserve your tyres, as you'll start struggling for traction unless you pit in. There's also online play, although you'd have to arrange with someone these days as the servers are almost certainly empty. Best of all (disclaimer: may be the opposite) is a karaoke mode so you can sing along with 'Let's Go Away'. All together now: Daytonaaaaaaaaa!

The original Half-Life is rightly held up as a watershed moment for narrative-driven first-person games, but it first came out in 1998. In case you didn't know, that's the same year that dinosaurs became extinct. So to say 3D visuals have 'moved on a bit' is like saying iPhones are a bit better than two cups and a bit of string. Suffice to say, trying to suspend your disbelief enough to enjoy Half-Life now requires a lot of determination.

Or rather a lot of determination to fix it. A group of fans decided to remake Half-Life in its entirety using Valve's Source engine – the one that powers Half-Life 2. Models, textures… the lot. The result is so impressive, Valve gave it their official support and the majority is already available to download (for free) on Steam. The remaining portion's release remains TBA. Even so, the existing part is exactly how it should be and you should play it.

Nevermind all the online issues for a minute (I know, they're unforgivable), let's focus on the great conversion of Halo 2 for Xbox One, as part of . The original Halo had already been given an anniversary edition that rejigged the visuals and added online play, but Halo 2's facelift is a major reason for buying the new collection on its own.

It's so solid. Everything looks like it's actually there and would provide tangible resistance if you could somehow prod it through the TV screen. But, best of all, despite a major cosmetic overhaul, it plays exactly like the original. Nothing's been changed - something that's proven with a toggle button that switches between the old visuals and new in real-time, just like Monkey Island. Of course, Halo 2 was already excellent. Play on the original graphics setting now, however, and you'll be struck by how Spartan everything looks. Which is also an incredible pun. What's that? I'm fired? OK, it's a fair cop.

The wonderful thing about Oddworld: New Tasty is that it's not a 1:1 recreation of the original game, it's a 1:1 recreation of what you remember the original game being like. Why? Because it doesn't look like that anymore. The pre-rendered graphics may have aged better than most PSone titles, but they're no substitute for a powerhouse console actually drawing these detailed environments in real-time.

And the power of new-gen (it's been on PS4 for a while but it's hitting Xbox One, too) means it all looks so beautifully effortless. All the expression in Abe's face, all the animated production lines… it's blissfully slick. And the game is still absolutely lovely, in its own slightly icky way. Follow me. OK. Parp.

What happened to gung-ho 2D side-scrollers? They were everywhere in the arcades of the 1980s. Maybe everyone forgot to take them out of the arcades when they got closed down. Ah well, as long as we have remakes this good, it's no great loss.

is one of the best last-gen PSN/XBLA games you can buy. Amazing, considering it's a pretty straight port of a game from 1987. Why is it so good? Graphical enhancements, control improvements, a new final level and countless other small adjustments that make the experience amazing. Is his arm his wife in this one? It's hard to tell.

The you can buy on the App Store isn't the same Sonic CD that appeared on Mega CD/Sega CD back in 1992. It's a remake. It started life as a proof-of-concept by Christian Whitehead, running on his Retro Engine, and was so impressive that Sega hired him to make an official port that found its way to Android, Xbox 360 and PS3, too. It's brilliantly authentic, yet demonstrably better than the Mega CD original in every way.

The frame-rate has been smoothed out and is so consistent, it would probably run at 60fps if you loaded it on a toaster. The original, famous Japanese/English soundtrack is now available in all territories, but the US version is in there too if that's what makes you happy. There's retina display support for iOS and widescreen as standard, plus the all-new ability to play as Tails, once you finish the game once as Sonic. It's the best handheld Sonic game ever made – and it was never even meant to be on handheld. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

M2 is the team responsible for all of Sega's 3D classics on 3DS, and 3D OutRun represents the pinnacle of its work. You get a pixel-perfect recreation of the 1986 coin-op (except for the unlicensed Ferrari sprite, which has been tweaked), only better. First-off, it now supports widescreen, meaning you can see things you never would have seen in the original. There are two new music tracks that run on the original MIDI sounds from the arcade board. Fully emulated, too. Selectable Old/New and Japanese/International hardware configurations. Oh, and a daft new credits sequence.

But there's much more going on under the surface. The arcade original ran at 30 frames per second, which was always astonishingly smooth as these massive sprites were scaled effortlessly (some say 'rampantly') all over the screen. 3D OutRun runs at 60fps, which will leave your face melted like Jack Black's after that guitar solo in School of Rock. Sixty. Frames. Per. Second. Oh and in 3D too? The original game's sprites were all calculated in 3D space anyway so of course the effect is gorgeous. This is how you do it. Needless to say, you have to buy it right now.

Almost any premise can be the basis for an entertaining video game. Undesirable tasks like waiting tables or mopping up icky fluids are made by Diner Dash and Viscera Cleanup Detail, respectively. Euro Truck Simulator 2, which might sound like prescription-grade sleep medication to some people, is consistently among the most-played games on Steam. No matter how peculiar the concept, clever game design can turn even the most ordinary real-world activity into virtual fun.

Except when it can't. Some game ideas should never make it past the spit-balling phase, as any attempt to turn them into digitized amusement can only end in tears. That hasn't stopped some developers from trying, God bless 'em, but the results pretty much validate every cynical thought that pops into your head when you hear the quick pitch. These seven games (on seven different systems, no less) tried to make the best of an idea that some boardroom executive miraculously green-lit. But right from the start, these core concepts were doomed to fail.

If packing a can of pepper-spray doesn't feel like enough, learning how to physically defend yourself from an attacker is a great way to walk more confidently through the world. Usually, this involves learning from a trained instructor, who can show you exactly how to deflect incoming strikes and protect yourself from harm. What you shouldn't do is expect to feel prepared to fend off an assault when your instructor is an unfeeling game disc and a Kinect sensor that can vaguely detect how you're moving.

Calling Self-Defense Training Camp a game feels like a misnomer, since the situation it's attempting to prepare you for is deadly serious. But in a real-world scenario, the basic, methodical movements you have to make for the Kinect to register them won't dissuade an attacker, unless they have a deathly fear of artistic expression and mistake you for an interpretive dancer. Here's a better idea: Leave the comfort of your living room and spend some extra money so you can attend a real self-defense class and get some actual training.

The eye-straining search for Waldo (or Wally, as you UK readers will know him) has always delighted children, because the imagery in these picture books borders on sensory overload. Picking out the striped-shirted explorer from a massive crowd of people is only half of the fun, because no matter where you look at Waldo's surroundings, there's some kind of goofy spectacle or visual pun to take in. You could spend hours gazing at the same two-page spread and not see everything it has to offer.

Unfortunately, trying to recreate such jam-packed pictures on an 8-bit system just doesn't work. Finding the NES version of Waldo takes about two seconds, since all those colorful background characters have been replaced by pixelated stick figures. That could be construed as a good thing, since the default mode slaps you with a time limit, but the scenes are so visually bland that you'll want to be whisked away from them long before your ten minutes are up.

Dance Dance Revolution, whether it's in arcades or at home on a dance pad, is great. It's light, physically active fun when you're first starting out, and a rigorous workout once you're ready to crank up the difficulty. Its total focus on lower-body footwork might not make you the world's greatest dancer, but tapping arrows in time to catchy J-Pop songs is a blast. Yet somehow, porting an experience where your feet are stomping and jumping onto a giant controller just doesn't translate all that well to a handheld.

DDR on GBC at least tries to make the most out of a less-than-optimal situation. The chiptune arrangements of existing songs might be harsher on the ears, but at least they're familiar to fans. Your groovin' avatar is limited to a few basic animations, but it's better than empty space. And if you want to make your fingers feel like legs, a clip-on arrow pad peripheral is included. But it begs the same question as wearing shoes for gloves: Why take an experience based on feet and try to make it work for your hands?

When the Xbox One first launched, fans of fighting game had to make a choice. They could go with , a Kinect 2.0 game that forgoes time-tested inputs like 'arcade sticks' or 'buttons' for unreliable motion controls. You can probably guess which one did better.

The idea of a motion-controlled fighting game is sound, since it'd be great to physically throw a punch and see the on-screen character react accordingly. But because that level of motion-detecting tech doesn't exist in the world of gaming just yet, Fighter Within opts to link moves to completely incongruent poses, like crossing your arms to initiate a throw. Fighter Within might fail its ambitious intent, but I'll give it this: despite some uninspired character designs, it certainly looks fantastic.

I feel for Konami on this one. When you're trying to devise ways to sell more DDR dance pads for the Wii, there's not a whole lot to go with besides tiring track and field events or the simple act of walking in place. Regrettably, Walk It Out chooses to go with the latter. By marching in time to generic music, you can do such riveting things as taking a stroll around a nondescript neighborhood, or moseying through a polygonal park.

Whether you're using a WiiFit board, a DDR pad, or just the Wiimote/Nunchuk combo, the result is the same: you, walking in place, wondering if this was the best thing you could've done with your money. There's no demo for Walk It Out on the Wii Shop Channel, but if you want an idea of how it plays, simply stand up, turn on some music, and start moving your legs up and down. You're now doing for free what Walk It Out charges $29.99 for.

Setting up beer pong is pretty straightforward. All you need is a long, flat surface, some cups, a few cans of beer, and people to play with. Beer Pong: the video game has none of these things, attempting to recreate them with a PlayStation Move controller and a TV. If you try to make this substitution at a social gathering, you've just committed the biggest party foul of them all. Now, if it was just a matter of finicky, unreliable motion controls failing to simulate the simple aim-and-toss, that would be one thing. But it gets so much worse.

Since there isn't a Sony-approved peripheral for administering alcohol to the player's bloodstream, Beer Pong! tries to simulate inebriation by adding a brownish tinge and nausea-inducing camera movement to the festivities. And because this is a game aimed at those wild and crazy college kids, your plastic-looking avatar can attempt to 'distract' opponents by adjusting their bikini top or squeezing their crotch. Playing Beer Pong! defeats the purpose of beer pong: You won't get drunk, you won't make friends, and you won't have fun.

Think about all the times you've had to reluctantly use a seedy public restroom. The putrid smells, the abrasive toilet paper, the indecipherable (yet somehow threatening) graffiti. Is that an experience you'd want to simulate? Toilet Tycoon hopes the answer is 'Yes', because every aspect of this sim that no one asked for involves filthy lavatories in some form. Your primary goal is to rise to the top of a toilet empire (I wasn't aware such things existed) by beating out your many rivals (again, I had no idea) with the optimal lids, flushers, and bowls in each stall.

As with any spreadsheet simulation game, you'll have to weigh costs and benefits in your careful selection of loos and latrines if you hope to succeed. You can also pay poor slobs to go and messily vomit all over the competition's facilities, or research upgrades in what can only be described as an alchemy outhouse. But in the end, all the bells and whistles just come back to the core concept of playing a game full of grody bathrooms.

Those seven games seemingly prove the old adage about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Have you had the misfortune of playing any of 'em? Or maybe you'd prefer a rousing game of Pet Pals: Animal Doctors (pictured above), which asks you to zoom way, way too close to the problem areas of injured, suffering, sometimes bloodied animals. Sound off in the comments below!

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Like them or not, quick-time events do serve a purpose: they help bring a brief flash of hectic interaction to what would otherwise be a static, potentially yawn-inducing cinematic. But QTEs tend to rub a lot of people the wrong way, since they usually create a binary win-loss scenario of 'do exactly what the game tells you, or die'. You'll typically spot QTEs hiding out in heavily choreographed action scenes, since things like camera angles and pinpoint timing are too unpredictable to leave in the players' hands.

But sometimes, a QTE doesn't kick off an epic duel, or send your character leaping to safety right before a screen-shaking explosion. They've become so prevalent in games that we've reached a QTE saturation point, where even the most mundane, peculiar, or downright silly actions might be coupled with a frantic button mashing or finger-cramping twiddling of the analog sticks. So, which QTEs have to power to obliterate your immersion or boggle your mind with their ridiculousness? Press your right arrow key in the next five seconds to find out, or risk being stuck on this intro slide forever.

It's official: slowly raising your hands (not even above your head, mind you) requires more effort in than it does in real life. Admittedly, this is meant to be a tense moment, so Galahad immediately throwing his hands up in surrender would kind of ruin the suspense. But you might be too distracted to appreciate the subtle facial expressions and threatening tone of the scene when you're hammering away at the Triangle button to make a virtual man move his arms a few inches.

The only thing tense than a knows this, so to spice things up during a stealth mission, you're accosted by a pre-mutation Master Splinter mid-sewer crawl. What first appears to be a simple rodent turns out to be a terrorist operative, flushing out any soldier wimpy enough to writhe in agony when bitten on a hand that's encased in military-grade leather. Giving the middle finger to an animal that doesn't comprehend what I'm doing isn't how I'd choose to spend my last moment alive, but this soldier is willing to make that sacrifice for the good of the universe's strange sense of humor.

You've just saved thousands of innocent lives by shooting down a missile headed straight for the White House. And there's only one proper way to celebrate such a heroic mission accomplished: a gloriously campy QTE. There's a certain kitschy charm to this triumphant, button-prompt-induced pose, in that Top Gun, I-can't-believe-how-cheesy-this-is-but-I-kinda-like-it way. And yes, it's made infinitely better when paired with .

I know we're here to talk about a lackluster Kinect game, but let me digress for a second. In , something as simple as giving Duck a high-five becomes a great character building moment, as you bring the slightest glimmer of happiness to a desolate wasteland. In Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, giving your cockpit comrade a poorly motion-detected fist bump feels decidedly less meaningful, besides providing a brief respite from awkwardly waving your hands in the air like a fidgety mime-in-training.

For all their fancy sweat effects, lifelike crowds, and scanned-in player faces, modern NBA games are getting the fundamentals flat-out wrong. You can't try to conform the athleticism of b-ball to a controller's analog sticks; that's just nonsensical. Everybody knows that being able to slam-jam means having a deep understanding of pressing four brightly colored buttons in time with your opponent. I'm willing to bet good money that before Michael Jordan ever set foot on the blacktop, he was honing his legendary skills with Milton Bradley's Simon.

Whether or not you have the instantaneous reaction speeds needed to succeed at this QTE (in a game that rarely uses them) has no impact on Ezio's tale of honorable retribution. But some players are utterly devastated at the thought of leaving Leonardo da Vinci hanging when he initiates a bro-hug. And in extreme cases, it's been known to warrant a full second playthrough just to rectify this moment of inadvertent, tragically auto-saved snubbing. That jilted look on Leonardo's face when you stand motionless in front of his open arms is devastating.

It seems like no matter where Leon Kennedy goes in Resident Evil 4, there's at least one massive boulder trying to squish him flat. So after an entire game's worth of fleeing from giant rocks like a terrified , being able to deliver some of Chris Redfield's mean right hooks to a giant rock feels downright therapeutic. I can't argue that Redfield's repeated kidney punches to unfeeling stone do produce favorable results, but his fists must be the consistency of unrefrigerated Jell-O by now.

Telltale's cartoony take on Jurassic Park sticks to the film's logic that a tyrannosaurus rex can't see you if you're motionless (despite the fact that this bit of advice is ). So when a QTE asks you to stay completely still at the feet of this imposing predator, a mini-game of fiddling with the analog stick feels just a tad disconnected from the life-threatening situation at hand. Remember, kids: when your parents bark at you to sit still, what they actually want you to do is fidget in place ever so slightly for a few seconds, just like Nima here. Also, this all happens moments before you flee the dino at a full sprint, so I guess staying still wasn't the best option after all.

I'm 100 percent positive that the grieving process takes longer than a three-second establishing shot showing that you've lost your left arm. At least you're able to feel a wee bit more emotion than Jonathan Irons (aka Frank Underwood, aka Kevin Spacey), who seemingly forgets all about his son's untimely death by the time he's walked to his car. Honestly, it's a bit hard to blame him, seeing as we only knew Will Irons for a single tutorial mission before he was written out of the story for (attempted) emotional impact.

For a series that lets you bludgeon people with a giant penis-shaped bat, this QTE is surprisingly and delightfully wholesome. Instead of squeezing off rounds with that itchy right trigger finger, why not flex that digit to chow down on a stack of fluffy, buttery pancakes instead? I think that was one of the lines from the first draft of John Lennon's "Imagine". There's no fail state here, but I imagine that The Boss' fancy fork flip could've gone very, very wrong if it required a timely button press.

Wouldn't it be great if, just once, the Spider-Man films toyed with the kind of hilariously embarrassing slapstick on display in this QTE? All that money toward crafting state-of-the-art CGI, just to see Spidey slam into the ground with a sickening thud like someone doing a cannonball into an empty swimming pool. Hey, he's a superhero, he'll survive - and if anything, it'd gave that bug-eyed lady a hearty bellylaugh before they both perish in a fiery explosion.

Know of any other goofy, illogical, or ridiculously inane quick-time events? Well hurry - share 'em in the comments below! Just promise me that whatever you do, you won't call the in Shenmue 2 unnecessary, or you might succeed the QTE of bringing a tear to my eye.

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Final Fantasy is one of those rare constants in the gaming world, with every year seeing another release for the RPG standard bearer. And while the numbered entries in the series get increasingly experimental, it's the Final Fantasy spin-offs that often allow Square Enix to really flex its creative muscle. From Final Fantasy Legend all the way up to , spin-offs are where FF gets experimental, with varying results that simply beg to be ranked.

At the outset, we disqualified possible entries like Chrono Trigger and Bravely Default, because true spin-offs must contain actual FF elements, be it characters, settings, or monsters. From there, our catalog included genres as diverse as fighters, kart racers, and rhythm games, all connected by a devotion to Moogles and Chocobos. All have now been ranked for all time (until we update it again), so read on to see where your favorite side quest ended up...

Looking back on its mid-’90s release, perhaps fans were a little too harsh on Mystic Quest. Released on the SNES in place of the more challenging Final Fantasy 5, Mystic Quest is meant for western gamers might be unfamiliar with the basic concepts of role-playing games. All these years later, when Mystic Quest isn’t standing in FF5’s shadow, this modest adventure isn't so bad.

From a design team led by veterans of the SaGa series, Mystic Quest is undeniably stripped down to the RPG basics, but it gets those basics right. If Final Fantasy’s massive exposure in the west hadn’t made it redundant, it would still function as a fine primer for the series, and RPGs in general. Meanwhile, the soundtrack remains essential, and is arguably the most underrated in FF history. Should you never pick up the game, at least give the music a listen.

3D brawlers like Tekken and Virtua Fighter were in vogue in the 32-bit era, so even RPG publishers like Square did their best to cash-in. FF's owner started a partnership with developer Dream Factory to helm the imperfect Tobal series, and the teams were looking for a fresh start with Ehrgeiz. The wild fighter has a weird cast of characters and some projectile combat to make it stand out, but its enhanced PlayStation port has a secret ingredient: Most of Final Fantasy 7's cast is playable.

In the late ‘90s, few games were bigger than Final Fantasy 7, but Square steadfastly avoided exploiting its popularity with FF crossovers. Bringing Cloud, Sephiroth, Yuffie, Tifa, Zack, and Vincent into the wacky arenas of Ehrgeiz was certainly unexpected. Ehrgeiz hasn't aged the best, but there's a charm to its manic, unbalanced combat, and said charm extends to its dungeon-crawling/brawling hybrid Quest mode. If you can forgive its dated looks, it's a fine distraction for FF completionists.

No series has truly 'made it' in terms of spin-offs until it has a kart racer. Chocobo Racing finally made Final Fantasy’s karting wishes come true in 1999 by having the series’ signature chubby bird head to the raceway. The yellow fowl competes against other beasts like Mog, Bahamut, and Cactuar, with FF8's Squall and Parasite Eve's Aya sneaking in as unlockable kart enthusiasts to fill out the roster.

Square does an admirable job channeling Mario Kart 64 and Crash Team Racing, even adding some signature Final Fantasy locations, spells, and abilities to shake things up. However, using sprite character models that clash with its polygonal world means Chocobo Racing isn't all that modern. Enjoying it now makes you wish Square Enix hadn't cancelled a 3DS sequel. Still, blasting around in the Chocobo's rocket boots and hitting competitors with Firaga will always be a little fun, so the classic is worth searching out.

Another of FF's cutesy side games, this time the doll-sized Chocobo goes underground to search out his fortune in an expansive series of random caves. The iconic bird is accompanied by a brand new Cid, a young man out to collect treasure so he can build - you guessed it - an airship. There's also a ton of amnesia, just to check off another Final Fantasy trope. Made in the famously hardcore mystery dungeon style, each step the Chocobo takes is matched by the unseen enemies, which adds a lot of planning to the action-strategy mix.

What puts this one over the Chocobo's previous mystery dungeon game on DS? The colorful Wii graphics help, but it also separates itself from other Roguelikes by borrowing the core FF job system. Cid and Chocobo can switch up abilities, and the dungeons adapt to reflect that, adding to the dense game's replayability. Plus, there are few things cuter than seeing a Chocobo dressed as a Black Mage. The 2008 game is the last of the Fables sub-series, marking the end of an all too brief collection of all ages FF games.

This is one of the Chocobo's simplest titles, but that doesn't mean this FF spin-off should be overlooked. Arriving on the Nintendo DS when the touch controls still felt novel, Chocobo Tales follows the title character's quest for magical story books that expand into numerous minigames. Usually the bottom screen recreates some classic FF actions, from casting magic to steering in a Chocobo race.

There's also a card game mechanic that works almost as well as the touch controls, and the lovely child's book art design helps to cover the occasional misfires. Chocobo Tales also offers up multiplayer variations on some of its best minigames, making it a rare FF treat that can be shared with more than one person. If you're tired of the FF's dark and brooding side, Chocobo Tales satisfies like a potion in a boss battle.

FF gets more and more complicated with each entry, and while innovation is welcome, sometimes you're nostalgic for a nocent time. You know, with less existential dread and more saving princesses and crystals. The 4 Heroes of Light is just such a throwback, drawing inspiration from the earliest FF titles, while streamlining many of the best parts and adding new facets to the combat.

There's the Crown system, a clever, hat-based approach to the standard FF job system, and the Boost mechanic to turn-based combat means fights take a bit more planning. The character design apes the spare style of FF's DS remakes to great effect, and the music is grand enough to fit its legacy. The only major negative to the game is that it's overshadowed by its spiritual successor, Bravely Default.

One of the newest entries on the list, Type-0 is a game that seemed like it would never be available to English-speakers. Released late on the PSP, Sony's portable was dead by the time Type-0 came to the system in Japan, dooming it to stay unlocalized forever. But the HD port to PS4/Xbox One makes dreams come true, so consider it a gift even if the militaristic game isn't perfect.

In case you've yet to see our , the game's biggest issues are some obtrusive menus, finicky camera, and merely tolerable voice acting, but there are definitely some positives to be found. The tone is darker and bloodier than any FF before it, including an opening segment where a bleeding Chocobo is executed by soldiers. The grittier feel and intense circumstances win out most of the time, and it has a singular style many recent FF games lack.

Final Fantasy 12 is a very divisive title for the fanbase, offering a plot that's either compellingly complex when exploring a massive world, or annoyingly obtuse and lacking in a clear main character. Strange, then, that the late-era PS2 game would see a slimmed down spin-off on the DS of all systems. Stranger still that the side story is essentially a real time strategy game.

Taking place midway through FF12, Revenant Wings also has Vaan as the leading man, but with the decidedly less messy goal of being a successful airship captain. FF12's battle system is helpfully streamlined with RTS mechanics, allowing for armies of the signature beasts to be at your command. And the game’s chapter structure makes it easier to play on the go. Revenant Wings is just the type of light epilogue its heavy predecessor needs.

This fighting game is officially pronounced Dissidia Duodecim, but don't hold that odd titling against it. This is a dream crossover for longtime fans, bringing together the beloved leads from almost every FF entry, from Cecil to Lightning and everyone in between. And the story does its best to service the fans who've always dreamed of seeing Cloud and Squall smash each other with their ridiculous swords. (That’s sounds dirtier than we mean.)

The action does its best to keep up with the premise, even when the gameplay gets more stat-based than a brawler like it requires. [012] is also both a remake and a prequel to the first Dissidia, making it the ultimate Final Fantasy fighting game, for now anyway. If you never checked out this celebration of everything FF, it's worth downloading to your Vita - or PSP, if you can find it.

In 1996, the Final Fantasy series officially left Nintendo's systems and went exclusively to PlayStation. For fans that grew up with FF on the SNES, it was a sad turn of events, and it made the eventual homecoming all the sweeter. But Crystal Chronicles changes many of the series most established elements. It ditches active time battles and solo exploration, replacing them with speedy teamwork and innovative dual screen play.

That innovation comes at a cost, namely three Game Boy Advances and three cords to plug them into your GameCube to make for ideal co-op. Predating tablets, the DS, and Wii U Gamepad, all but one player control their character with a GBA, using the extra screen to manage attacks and items. If you have all the tech, exploring the miasma together makes for some engrossing couch co-op, and none of its sequels could top the original's unique approach.

For a very brief period of time, WiiWare seemed like the hot place to publish short-but-sweet games. Before Square Enix abandoned the platform like most third parties, it released two surprisingly fun tower defense games as Wii downloadables. Spinning off from Crystal Chronicles - itself a spin-off - My Life as a Darklord is slightly better than its predecessor, mainly thanks to the darker edge of playing from the bad guy's perspective.

Set right after FFCC: My Life as a King, you play as Mira, the new Darklord who commands a kingdom's worth of monsters. Would-be heroes keep invading her tower, so you set up special traps on the fly to keep them from reaching the dark crystal. Fighting wave after wave will keep your attention, as will the nefarious thrill of playing as a big bad in an FF title. My Life as a Darklord is perhaps the best original game WiiWare ever saw - too bad you can't download it from anywhere else.

Did anyone expect a team-up between Final Fantasy and Disney to be one of the most popular series in modern gaming? Kingdom Hearts is just the action-RPG to prove it possible, and while later entries may ease up on the FF content, the original game features Cloud, Aerith, Squall, and most of FF10's cast in major roles. Their more complex emotions and backgrounds deepen the world of Kingdom Hearts in ways Mickey and the gang’s unending positivity can’t.

Beyond the confusing sight of Aerith talking to Donald, the story of Kingdom Hearts is a heartfelt one of love, loss, and friendship. Sora must master the Keyblade to find his best friends, and he'll have to vanquish almost every notable Disney villain to do it. The core FF titles that follow adapt some of Kingdom Heart’s combat, and Kingdom Hearts’ visuals and soundtrack hold up well in the recent HD rerelease. Kingdom Hearts has grown into something much bigger, but it all began here, as an excellent Final Fantasy spin-off.

One of FF’s most consistent features is its music, with composers like Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu, and more crafting some of gaming’s most harmonious songs. If you were ever going to make a spin-off rhythm game, it’d need to be massive to soak in just how many wonderful tunes are in the series’ catalogue. The more than 200 tracks included show Curtain Call is just such a game.

Virtually every FF title, spin-off or otherwise, is represented in Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, all with at least a stage or two exploring a given game’s best moments. More than any other release on this list, Theatrhythm: Curtain Call is the most succinct recognition of Final Fantasy’s legacy, while also being a quality music game in its own right. Tapping along with your stylus is catchy fun, making another listening of ‘Eyes on Me’ feel special all over again.

Crisis Core is a prequel to one of the most beloved Final Fantasy games ever, but rather than focus on its main characters, it tells the story of the mysterious Zack Fair from SOLDIER. A friend of Cloud’s, and Aerith’s first boyfriend, Zack only made a brief appearance in the original game. His past was ready to be explored, and we're glad Square Enix finally got around to it. Crisis Core fleshes out Zack's history, and creates a poignant story that’s very much worth telling.

A contrast to the moody leading men of the series, Zack is likeable, friendly and easy to connect with, which makes the inherent tragedy much more heartbreaking. The game looks gorgeous on PSP, with memorable cutscenes and great gameplay. A fast-paced action-RPG, it is designed to be played in short bursts, delivering what fans have been waiting for... Well, short of a full-on remake of of Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy Tactics seems like a potential misfire. It cuts out the fancy graphics and much of the storytelling, and triples the amount of stats, a potential recipe for boredom. But instead of putting players to sleep, Tactics is a cult success, and at launch FFT made the hardcore genre more famous than ever to western gamers. Despite some excellent sequels, the original and its remake are still kings of the isometric battlefield.

The demanding turn-based combat keeps you saying ‘just one more’ over and over again in each grid-based map, but the true main event is the Job system, which uses Final Fantasy 5’s masterful class mechanic, beefing it up with an even more diverse set of skills and abilities. Assigning jobs to the massive roster of characters allows an incredible amount of team customization that consistently rewards trial and error. Later sequels try too hard to mix things up, making the originator not just the best in the sub series, but the best spin-off in Final Fantasy history.

Those are the best side games that FF has ever seen, but what are your feeling on the rankings? I'm sure you want to just dive into the comments and tell us how right we are. Well, get on it already!

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In the olden days, your first time playing a game rated M for Mature was a big deal. Maybe it was the fact that, like getting your driver's permit or being able to vote, the power to buy a game deemed too bloody or scandalous for younger eyes felt like a true coming-of-age moment. Maybe your first M-rated game was like a secret hidden from your parents' prying eyes, or smuggled to you by a hip relative like clandestine tickets to an R-rated movie.

Now you've got all these kids getting Call of Duty as a present on their eighth birthday, or playing Five Nights at Freddy's and skipping those 'ESRB' or 'PEGI' things altogether. It's not like it's illegal for parents to buy age-inappropriate games for their children - but there was a time when booting up something M-rated as a youngster had a certain mystique about it, with the sense that you were suddenly ready for anything (except maybe those ). So, which gory, gratuitous experience ushered you into gaming adulthood?

It was wonderful fun growing up around the founding of the ESRB, because even though game ratings existed, parents didn't notice or particularly care about them yet. That's how my friends and I got our young hands on Perfect Dark at the tender age of 11. GoldenEye's weird cousin with a head for alien conspiracy theories, Perfect Dark made us feel like we were getting away with something every time we played it. You could blow people up, blood would splash across the wall whenever you shot a guy, and sometimes enemies would call you a bitch as they went down. Everything a pre-teen could want.

But what really made Perfect Dark great was the multiplayer mode. Sure, it was just a bunch of blocky maps where you could play King of the Hill or shoot up mooks, but that was only part of the draw. What we loved was being our own little army, eliciting shrieks of AI terror and spraying the walls with gore, crushing those who would oppose us with the sort of chilling cruelty only a child can wield. That is, until we turned our digital guns on each other. Does anyone else hear child-like cackling on the wind?

Like all good things in a young boy's life, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis came by way of a cool older cousin. Violent games were forbidden in my household, so I dove into this one with ravenous curiosity. The blood. The guts. The gore. I wanted to see it all. RE3 was my glimpse into gaming's seedy underbelly. Then there was the Nemesis itself. Powerful and imposing, this unstoppable monster hounded my every step; its guttural cry of "STARS!" heralding my imminent doom.

Tragically, after a mere three days in Raccoon City, my parents put the kibosh on RE3. I was distraught. YouTube didn't exist yet, so how would I know if poor Jill made it out alive? That's when I found the novelization of RE3 at a local bookstore, which I secreted away under my mattress. I figured, 'My parents want me to read more, so even if they do find this, they can't get that mad, right?'

Let's see here... we've got a serial-killing clown, a dude who got his face mutilated during a botched surgery, a girl who has a porcelain mask nailed to her skull courtesy of an abusive father figure, and a Vietnam veteran turned cannibal. And that's just on the character select screen! The most iconic part of the car combat Twisted Metal series is its utterly deranged cast of psychotic misfits, but David Jaffe and co. went extra dark and disturbing for the PS2 installment.

My parents agreed to buy this horrifying concoction for my 13-year-old self based on one condition: I would skip all the potentially psyche-scarring cutscenes, meaning the only violence I would ever see would be car-on-car. I held up my end of the bargain (since I was too scared to watch anyway) - but I wasn't quite prepared for a stage set-piece that lets you fry death row inmates to a crisp, or Brimstone's special attack that launches a suicide-bombing zealot onto enemy vehicles. Let's just say my mom wasn't exactly pleased to see that kind of imagery on the family TV.

My older brother was always there to lead the charge, so I never had to worry much about getting M-rated games. As long as I kept it low-key, I could play pretty much any of his purchases without (voiced) concern from our parents. I never got in trouble at school for reenacting all that 'Animated Violence' and 'Animated Blood and Gore', so I guess it worked out ok.

Speaking of which, the only thing I vividly recall about the N64 Turok games is the blood. I doubt anything else about them is still remarkable (except maybe to virtual fog enthusiasts), but that blood was really something. It's even more impressive when you consider that Nintendo made Mortal Kombat fighters bleed frickin' Ecto Cooler just a few years before. But I digress: My first truly M-rated experience was throwing a razor-sharp Frisbee into Turok 2's giant eyeball boss so I could watch blood spurt as it bounced around inside the vitreous humor. Hooray for video games!

At least Connor got a chance to play his copy of Turok. See, I come from a pretty religious household (true story: My mom made me throw away some Magic: The Gathering cards I'd bought from a friend in middle school because the devil). So other than a quick round of Mortal Kombat or Doom at a friend's house, M-rated games were out of the question. But one day, when I was 13 or 14, I decided to press my luck and rent a copy of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. I don't remember how it happened exactly, but somehow the game slipped past the watchful eye of my parents and the Blockbuster clerk well enough for me to take it home and play it.

For five whole minutes. I slapped the cartridge into my N64, booted up the tutorial, and began wandering through this foggy, dinosaur-filled realm. I took aim with my bow, and loosed an arrow toward an unsuspecting mook. Decapitation! And, because this is how these things go, this was the exact moment my dad walked in my room, shouted "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" and promptly grounded me for a week. I felt upset about it at the time, but I'm honestly kinda grateful. He saved me from a pretty terrible game.

I was in love with adventure games from the late '80s and early '90s, and the only reason I had access to them was because my dad had colleagues who would share their games. So in between playing King's Quest and Police Quest, my dad had also passed along Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards because he had no idea what it was about. Yeah, I know. I even helped Kickstart the remake a couple of years ago... and still haven't played it.

Parental controls weren’t really a thing with my parents, unless I was tying up the phone line (and he took my modem). So naive, clueless little me was walking around as this pervy guy in a white suit trying to hit on women. I kinda knew who he was since he made a cameo in Police Quest, but I didn't quite get the full picture until many years later. Many, many years later. Luckily for me (or maybe not), I couldn't figure out the puzzles and didn't get the jokes, so wandering around trying to kiss whoever showed up didn't really get me very far.

Had the ESRB actually existed when Mortal Kombat 2 launched, that would technically be my first, but instead the honor officially goes to Duke Nukem 3D. The FPS certainly earned its rating with gory violence, crude humor, and even some heavily pixelated nudity. Back in 1996, all of that had an intoxicating charm to me and my juvenile friends. It was such a thrill knowing my parents would disapprove of Duke Nukem saying “I'll rip your head off and shit down your neck,” let alone him literally doing that during the post-boss-fight cutscene.

Today, Duke’s reputation as gaming’s bad boy seems so quaint. His gory escapades look tame next to God of War, and his dirty attempts at wit can’t really compare to the colorful insults of Saints Row. Also, once I saw films like They Live, I realized all of Duke’s best lines weren’t even original. Nowadays, I'm mortified whenever I think about my seventh-grade self's excitement for Duke's breakout hit.

So, how about you? What was the first M-rated game you ever owned or played, and how did it all go down? Did you incur the wrath of your parents, or exploit their inattention to what you were actually playing? Or heck - maybe you were old enough to just buy it for yourself, no questions asked! Share in the comments below.

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There’s a lot said about gaming’s depiction of women, and with good reason. For all the talk of sex positivity and the empowerment of sexuality, there’s a long history of objectified digital ladies. And I’m sure that regrettable lineage of underdressed women has you thinking the same thing as me: Where are all the nearly nude men in gaming?

Purely in the interest of equality, I went searching all over the internet for sexy, scantily clad gaming dudes. After sifting through A LOT of scandalous fan art, I finally found a handful of hunks that reach for similar heights of fanservice as women like Bayonetta. Just to clarify, these are dudes who not only wear very little, but actually appear intentionally provocative, as opposed to power-fantasy musclebound brutes like Kratos. Without further ado, here are the most shockingly underdressed men in gaming...

The Dead or Alive games are (in)famous for one thing, and it isn’t balanced gameplay. The series has been cashing in on the appeal of its buxom female cast for years, and the majority of Dead or Alive 5’s DLC is made up of a near endless number of sexy costumes. For the most part, the guys of DOA5 are left with jokey downloadable attire like Santa Claus and his reindeer, but this alternate look of Ein’s doesn’t seem intended for laughter.

Now, the incubus his costume refers to is basically the lady-tempting equivalent of a succubus, not the awful rock band. That said, it doesn’t seem all that satanic to me. All the leather, red nail polish, and novelty horns look more like he bought a ‘Sexy Devil’ outfit for Halloween. Ein’s Incubus look is still a far cry from the flowers and string the ladies are bedecked in for DLC, but it’s still nice to see that some of the DOA guys can strut their stuff.

I wouldn’t describe any of the Castlevania characters as sexy during the 8-bit era, but things took a turn on PlayStation. Not only did games like Symphony of the Night take clear inspiration from Metroid titles, but everybody got a whole lot prettier. Nowhere is that shift in design more obvious than with Simon Belmont. By the time he appeared in Castlevania Judgement, he had taken his whole ‘whip wielding’ motif much farther than anyone expected.

Much like Ein’s Incubus attire, Simon’s Judgment apparel is a lot of belts and leather wrapped around an exposed torso. Credit for the design goes to concept artist Ayami Kojima. She worked on most Castlevania titles from Symphony onward, and Kojima clearly has skill with crafting attractive men, though most weren’t as kinky as Belmont in Judgement. His short pants and tattooed midriff are definitely a change from the heavy armor of the original NES box art. You have to think Dracula would even be a little uncomfortable if Simon showed up wearing that.

Street Fighter has its share of underdressed guys, from the handsome psychopath Vega to the bearish wrestler Zangief, but they can’t really compare to this duo from Street Fighter 3. Brothers Gil and Urien are both leader’s of a dangerous cult, with Gil making himself the messianic figure as Urien tries to usurp control. Both have the power of Greek gods, and the bodies to match, as you can no doubt see. Seriously, how can Ryu keep a straight face when battling either of those guys?

The two are wearing virtually nothing, not even shoes, though what’s a little foot pain to a god? If anything, their sole garment - one small posing pouch apiece - have the effect of emphasising their nakedness. Street Fighter 4’s big bad, Seth, is fully nude, but is as smooth as an action figure below the waist, effectively removing sexual connotations. Less so with Gil and Urien’s body wrappings, which effectively works as both sacred and scandalous garb. It’d be sexy if the two weren’t so into kidnapping and world conquering.

Goichi ‘Suda51’ Suda and his team at Grasshopper create strange games, perpetually the result of their creator's lifelong obsession with punk rock, pro wrestling, and horror films. Even his lesser works, like Killer Is Dead, still offer a more distinct world than you’ll find in many other games. I mean, how many other action titles feature an arch enemy who exclusively wears gold chains and lives in a palace on the moon?

David is the big bad of Killer Is Dead, a self-styled lunar king, bedecked in naught but the gilded dental floss and thong befitting of that status. It shows you how nuts the whole game is that David can dress this way without anyone commenting on it. Killer is Dead garnered some controversy for its raunchy dating minigames, but David’s garb somehow missed the headlines. Ironically, said minigame makes players work to see the dates in their underwear, while David is dressed down from the outset. That’s very charitable to players, no?

These days Raiden is fully accepted as one of gaming’s elite stars, but fan reaction wasn’t so charitable when he first appeared. Most players were apoplectic that he replaces fan-favorite Solid Snake - up til then the lone protagonist of the Metal Gear Series - so early in the game. Konami only made it worse by not revealing that was the case ahead of release. Unlike the grizzled Snake, Raiden is a pretty boy who’s much more sexualized than his predecessor. I mean, Snake didn’t have to stand around with just a straw obscuring his penis, did he?

Raiden’s stripped down torture scene, followed by his nude escape, rapidly became one of the most talked about scenes in gaming. And I get why: it’s easy to admire Raiden’s acrobatic skills as he does cartwheel kicks while covering himself with his hands, though I think some fans weren’t ready for the character to be so exposed. Most western fans weren’t prepared for such nakedness. This might explain why Raiden became much more popular when he exchanged his snow-white body for a gunmetal grey cyborg death machine…

Devil May Cry star Dante has always looked more like a ‘80s glam metal singer than a paranormal investigator. Seriously, just about any of his outfits would fit on the cover to a Poison album, but Dante’s standard garb in Devil May Cry 3 takes it to a whole new level. He keeps his signature red leather duster, and this time he’s going shirtless underneath, save for the strap right across his chest.

Just like with Capcom stablemates Gil and Urien, the leather line situated on Dante’s upper torso makes his shirtlessness more pronounced. The coat’s accessory draws the eye much more than an unobstructed view would. Of course, if you prefer to see Dante go fully topless, DMC3 offers that as an alternate costume, though you have to finish the game first before you unlock your just desserts - and that’s no simple task even on the Easy setting.

If you’re ever thinking of digging up Final Fantasy 7, please do me the favor of playing Vagrant Story first. That game’s been underrated from day one, and with apologies to writers of Cloud/Sephiroth fan fiction, Vagrant Story has sexier guys as well. Unfortunately, thanks to the limitations of technology, their outfits could only really be appreciated when you look at the concept art.

When you see the muddy textures and jagged polygons of the PSone game, it might not be immediately obvious lead character Ashley is wearing bottomless chaps, but the official art confirms it. Meanwhile, his rival Sydney is channeling David Bowie with an emaciated look and low-hanging pants that must require magic to keep from staying on. This game needs an HD remake so people can truly appreciate those designs! And also, you know, to play it or whatever.

So those are the most ludicrously underdressed gaming guys I could find, but I’m always looking for more examples (purely for research). If I missed any unclothed examples, tell me all about them in the comments!

In the market for more thrills? Check out our list of .

Move through this gallery to see characters from some of your favorite franchises, like League of Legends, Street Fighter, and everything in between [note to editor - these will change depending on what I actually photograph]. Maybe you'll be inspired to don your own gaming garb...

For more great games of dress-up, check out the .

Move through this gallery to see characters from some of your favorite franchises, like League of Legends, Street Fighter, and everything in between [note to editor - these will change depending on what I actually photograph]. Maybe you'll be inspired to don your own gaming garb...

For more great games of dress-up, check out the .

Move through this gallery to see characters from some of your favorite franchises, like League of Legends, Street Fighter, and everything in between [note to editor - these will change depending on what I actually photograph]. Maybe you'll be inspired to don your own gaming garb...

For more great games of dress-up, check out the .

When you put a ton of smart, creative people in the same space, good things are bound to happen. That's the idea behind the Game Developers Conference, the annual week-long gathering that invites people from all walks of game industry life to sync up and share ideas. As of today, GDC 2015 is wrapping up, and after five days of attending panels, playing indie gems, and getting a closer look at the VR tech that may very well determine gaming's future, we're feeling thoroughly enriched.

But if you couldn't make it out to San Francisco this year, don't fret. We picked up tons of interesting factoids and behind-the-scenes stories at GDC '15 - the kinds of tidbits that can get overlooked amidst all the news and previews. So here, in one convenient location, is a collection of the most downright interesting things we learned at GDC. Get ready to feel enlightened... or at the very least, feel like you've got a cool new anecdote to share with a friend.

It's probably no surprise to learn that triple-A game developers use a lot of data and focus groups to fine tune their games. Bungie was no different when it came to developing the missions and systems of its open-world shooter, . The dev team used lots of pre-release testers to play early builds of the game and let the creators know which parts of the game were fun and which sucked.

Typically, pause buttons are used to take a break from a game and collect feedback from the test participants, but because pausing isn't possible in an online-only game like Destiny, the developers had to think of some other way to get that precious data. The solution: give players instant access to button combinations that would tell the developers when they felt confused, lost, frustrated, or when something awesome happened. From there, the developers were able to create heatmaps of the awesome spots (as well as the not-so-great areas) and fill out the lame spots with extra awesome stuff. Awesome, right?

At the more technically focused talk titled ‘ Motion Capture Pipeline,’ Naughty Dog’s Damon Shelton talked about what happens with motion-capture data after the actors are done. Basically it takes a lot of programs and developmental elbow grease to craft the people of that dystopian future, including test footage using two of the only complete character models. So, to map out the involved animation of Ellie battling a Clicker, Naughty Dog had to make a ton of test footage featuring Joel’s model attacking the last person you’d expect him to.

Obviously this footage of Joel attacking Ellie would never be used in the game, Naughty Dog dropped the proper models in when all the assets were complete. Still, it must have been odd during development to cycle through hours and hours of footage of Joel attempting to bite Ellie’s face off. Shelton also revealed that Joel’s actor, Troy Baker, is actually a few inches taller than Joel, so they had to shrink the actor down to fit the finalized character model.

Back when first came out, a lot of people were shocked to discover how good it was. Meanwhile, the folks at Telltale Games were just shocked (and incredibly relieved) that so many people liked it. "We were sweating bullets when Walking Dead went out, because it was so weird," Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner said during a panel on the company's narrative approach to gameplay. Specifically, the game was an odd entry in the adventure game genre, since it had very few puzzles and focused almost entirely on player choice and dialogue. Given that standards for the genre were set by the likes of Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island, The Walking Dead looked like a bit of an odd bird, and no one was really sure how it was going to pan out.

Thankfully, things worked in the game's favor, but that hasn't made the Telltale team less anxious. "Every time something comes out, we are terrified [about] how it's going to be received," Bruner noted, pointing to the skeptical reactions the studio received received after announcing Tales from the Borderlands. Still, the goal remains the same as it did in The Walking Dead's development: "I don't think we were trying to build… the world's greatest anything. We just wanted to build something that we thought was good."

Danganronpa and its sequel got a lot of critical buzz last year, but still stayed under the radar for many mainstream gamers. Those who played it loved the characters and densely written plot, but perhaps the series potential is limited by its platform. The Vita isn’t known for big sales, and Danganronpa's creator wishes things were different.

While clarifying that he wasn’t being paid in any way by Sony, Kazutaka Kodaka began and ended his presentation with funny slides that exclaimed, 'why won’t people buy a Vita!' He didn’t elaborate on those frustrations too much, as he soon dove into the nuts and bolts of writing a game’s story, but the situation is understandable. Kodaka and his fellow developers are certainly invested in the handheld, even if the sales are dwindling worldwide. It's tough to maintain a system on niche titles like Danganronpa, even if they do tell some of the best stories in games.

Much like his most famous games, Japanese developer Hidetaka 'Swery65' Suehiro is so quirky and unassuming that you just can't help but love him. While hosting a panel about the development of the Xbox One episodic mystery D4, Swery hinted that . But that's not all - he also shared a whopping 65 tips pulled from his very own development process, including this valuable bit of wisdom to game makers: don't play the game you're creating every day.

"By leaving a little bit of room [between playtests], it allows for you to not get stale and have the same [recurring] opinions," he said. To ensure that he doesn't miss the forest for the game-development trees, Swery onlys plays the games he's making once a week - on Thursday, to be exact. Some other fun facts about Swery: whenever something bad happens at the office, his solution is to simply hug it out. When developing the characters for his games, he likes to map out a timeline for each of their fictional lives. Also, he owns four Power Gloves.

Stop me if this has happened to you: you're on a prisoner transfer ship, and all of sudden, the ship is attacked. You, the crew, and all the prisoners are rushed onto escape pods and jettisoned down to a mysterious planet. You find yourselves lost in an underground dungeon, and must work together to get out. It's so awkward, right? I hate it when that happens.

Dungeon of the Endless is a little bit dungeon crawler and a little bit tower defense. You explore randomly generated dungeons room by room, collecting new items and leveling up your characters in solo or co-op play. You also earn currency used to build fortifications in the rooms you've visited, in case hordes of enemies spawn when you enter the next area. Once you finally reach an exit, the finale involves running back to your starting point, picking up a special item, and slowly carrying it to the exit, all the while fending off an endless stream of enemies pouring in from all sides. Hope your fortifications are up to snuff in time for this PC-to-Xbox One port.

Magicka 2, a game about mages mixing magic spells to defeat imposing hordes of enemies, . This is new territory for publisher Paradox Interactive, which is known for catering exclusively to the PC market - though apparently not for lack of trying on Sony's part. "Sony asked earlier if we would like to publish our games on PlayStation 3," Paradox studio manager Mattias Wiking noted during a demonstration of Magicka 2. "We said 'No, it's a bit too complicated for us. We need to do regular game updates that our fans are really demanding.' So, it wasn't really a good platform for us."

What happened to change Paradox's mind? The PS4, and serious efforts by Sony to simplify the process of developing for it. "One day Sony came and said, 'Now we have the PlayStation 4... we're gonna make it really easy for everyone to publish their games." Wiking explained. "And we were like, 'Yeah, this will work.'" As Sony and Microsoft vie for ever more exclusive content from third-party developers, it's interesting to hear straight from the creators about how these interactions go. If Paradox's example is any indication, Sony has genuinely upped its game for this generation, with a focus on making its system attractive to a wider range of game makers.

If you're a fan of the ship combat from , but wish there was a lot more to it (and it was set in space), Rebel Galaxy is your space sim. You own a spaceship, with which you can do whatever you want. There is a full, open-world galaxy for you to explore, tons of characters to meet, and plenty of opportunities to rake in the dolla' bills.

There are many ways to approach Rebel Galaxy. Those who are keen on a complex storyline can follow the main quest chain, help or exploit important characters, and make universe-altering decisions. Alternatively, you can just skip all of that and raid merchant ships for their valuable cargo, becoming an infamous space pirate. The choice is yours.

Ever wanted an asymmetrical online multiplayer game about being constantly freaked out? You absolutely need to try , which has a simple setup but horrifying results. Rounds start with everyone controlling one of the Flock: large, skeletal creatures living in the eternal darkness of ancient Earth. Somewhere on the map is the Light Artifact; if you're holding it, you're winning the game. Naturally, the other Flock will try and take it from you, but you can stop them by shining your light in their direction. Should a Flock move while exposed to the light, they'll instantly burn to a crisp.

Imagine it: you're running through a narrow, stone valley. It's completely dark, save for the dim beam emanating from the Light Artifact. All around you are clicks and scrapes from the Flock's talons as they encircle their prey, unseen. Suddenly, a crash! You spin around, coming face to face with one of the hunchbacked beasts, knowing that the moment you look away it will cut you down. But, from behind, you can hear the scratching drawing closer.

To announce that Unreal Engine 4 is now free to everyone, Epic Games showed off a mesmerizing cinematic trailer, which depicts a giant open world that could easily double as the next entry in the Elder Scrolls series. At a subsequent panel, Epic divulged the secrets to developing this stunningly convincing landscape - but the bottom line is that proper lighting plays a huge part in a world's believability.

Hundreds of reference photos of cliffs, plains, and moss-covered rocks were taken to create a scene reminiscent of the Isle of Skye in Scotland for the . But even with high-res textures covering the landscape, the scene still needs to react properly to incoming light sources, or the illusion is shattered when shadows don't line up with their environment. Luckily, Unreal Engine 4 can handle some absurdly complex lighting jobs, able to compute the amount of sunlight that should bounce off the ground onto other objects, or the way light scatters on human skin.

Outside of the meeting rooms and show floor, there were a number of displays in the halls and foyers of the Moscone Center. One of the most interesting had to be the Videogame Museum’s display near the North Hall. The Texas-based organization brought some of its most valuable artifacts from gaming history for all to see.. This display was dedicated exclusively to the history of Atari, the first truly mainstream console maker in the US, and the showing wasn’t limited to mere games.

There were pristine game boxes, countless promotional materials that were kept in very good condition, and working models of every system setup. And the mood was perfectly set by '80s pop hits playing in the background. Check out our for a first-hand look at the loving tribute to a huge part of gaming history - and make it complete by listening to Boy George while you do it.

Are you annoyed at how rare interactive toys like amiibo can get? Do you wish Nintendo would just make a few more? Well, it’s not all that easy, as GDC’s Disney Infinity 2.0 panel attested. The second release in Disney Interactive’s toys-to-life series added a ton of new figures to the world, many from Marvel Comics, and the production took 10 long months.

The amount of pre-planning for figures even afford the Disney Infinity team the lead time to help inspire the comics themselves - the current look of Venom in the comics is informed by his Infinity design. The developers also dodged any questions about Star Wars figures being added to the mix... but if that’s happening in time for December’s new film, then the toys are likely being made at this very moment, right? Unless they somehow shortened the production time since 2014.

Was this look behind the scenes engrossing? Do you want to ask the folks that attended GDC some more questions? Tell us all about it in the comments!

Want to get even more GDC trivia? Check out .

If you've played games for any length of time, you've likely heard this at some point from your parents/significant other/teacher/driving instructor: "Put those games down! They'll rot your brain! And watch the road!" Yeah, sometimes that's true. I've collected enough doodads and saved enough worlds that they all start to blend together into a mindless mash of bullets and gruff space marines. But not all games are brainless. Some actually strive to teach you something.

Games aren't just an amazing entertainment medium. They're a powerful tool that can be used to teach countless skills in ways that are way more compelling than sitting through two-hour lectures or filling out a hundred workbook pages. Play these games and you might actually learn something, much to your parents' chagrin. Eat that, mom and dad! I mean, thank you for raising me, and I appreciate the birthday check you sent last month. Yes, I will call more.

The incessant clacking of plastic guitars may sound like nothing more than a cacophony of noise, but it's the first step down the road to music appreciation and developing actual rhythm. Games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band let you take apart individual sections of songs and focus on them, subtly teaching you how the bassline for, say, 'Reptilia' fits in with the rest of the song. But if you want to graduate to actual rocking, well, you're in luck.

Rock Band's drum controller is actually a pretty reasonable facsimile of the real thing, complete with four drum pads and a foot pedal. While it's missing a few items from a full kit (namely the hi-hat), if you're drumming on expert, you're probably ready to join a band. If you're looking to get good at playing guitar (or bass), Rock Band 3's pro controller will help teach you actual chord structure. Or, hell, just grab a real guitar and hook it up to Rocksmith, a game which actually teaches you how to play guitar by slowly increasing difficulty levels and throwing fun mini-games your way. With enough dedication, you could go from gamer to rock god in a few months.

Quick: What's the best way to travel around the globe in 80 days? If your answer has the words 'Travel Channel' anywhere in it, you're doing it wrong. It's 19th-century Steampunk London, and you're following in the footsteps of Jules Verne's classic Around the World in 80 Days, and if you don't know your way around a globe, this brilliant mobile game will teach you real fast.

Do you take a hot air balloon across the Middle East? Or do you hitch a ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway? Where does that train even start? (Answer: it's Moscow) 80 Days' maps may not be entirely up to date (considering how much has changed in the last decade, let alone century), but it'll provide a decent crash course in world geography, culture, and even teach you how to survive on as little money as possible. Who knows? Maybe it'll even inspire a bit of wanderlust of your own.

You've seen Apollo 13, right? Three people get shoved inside a tin can, shot into space, everything goes horribly wrong, and somehow they get back to Earth relatively unharmed? Yeah, outer space is hard, and it's probably best to get some hands-on rocket-building experience without sacrificing actual people to do it. That's where Kerbal Space Program comes in.

Learn how to send your lovable Kerbals into space, land them on the moon, or get them to orbit their home planet through loads of trial-and-error (mostly error). You'll need to take into account things like trajectory, gravity, weight, propulsion, fuel, rocket shape and more to launch your Kerbals out of the atmosphere (and build a subsequent rocket to rescue those Kerbals once the first mission inevitably goes south). It's a fantastic way to learn actual rocket science. Hell, even NASA has endorsed the game, providing additional add-on missions and digital rocket parts for the realistic space-sim. Just… don't think too much about the Kerbals you've sent to their doom. It's all in the name of science.

Back in my day (God, I'm so old), if you wanted to learn about science or engineering, you got a few wires, some clock pieces, a potato, and you went from there. Now? Well, we've got Minecraft, and it's not just good for punching trees and turning them into swords or whatever you kids do these days. Nope, now you can actually learn electrical engineering, thanks to an in-game mineral known as Redstone.

With Redstone, you can power all sorts of mechanical devices. But it's not as simple as just hooking it up to whatever. No, much like actual electricity, correctly using Redstone means having to wrap your brain around how its current moves, splits, and transforms based on the blocks you use. Throw in some different logic gates and if you're good enough, you can create something as complex as a . So yeah, if you figure out how to use Redstone, you could probably figure out how to properly wire an actual city block with energy. Or at least how to wire up a clock without using any potatoes.

If you're like me, you abandoned all good sense, advice, and market trends to pursue a career in online media. Don't be like me. Take some time to learn a programming language. As our society moves further into the digital age, learning how to code is becoming ever more important. Hell, they're even teaching it to grade schoolers along with reading and arithmetic; it's that big of a deal. And like any skill worth learning, there are a few games you can play that will teach you the basics.

If you want to learn the logic behind if/then statements and recursion (also known as loops), look no further than a shot, which incorporates actual Javascript into the gameplay. Enough practice and you could become a level 50 Zuckerberg.

Along with coding, quick and accurate typing is probably one of the most important skills you'll need in today's workplace. No one wants to wait for a report from the guy who hunts and pecks at keys with his index fingers. But games are all about shooting guns and clicking on bad guys. They can't teach you how to type. Or can they???

Spoilers: They totally can. Check out , a twisted gem of a game that trades light guns for keyboards. Instead of shooting at zombies with bullets, you'll need to type out the on-screen prompts as quickly and accurately as you can. With randomized word selection and multiple difficulties, Typing of the Dead will put even the most adept keyboardist through the grinder. It's as awesome as it sounds.

If your dance moves have a tendency to clear a floor or put anyone within elbow's reach in the emergency room, you need to do two things. First, quit cribbing from Saturday Night Fever. I know Travolta seems hip, but seriously, no one wants to see that finger pointing move any more. Second, maybe it's time to give Dance Central a shot.

It's a great way to learn some rhythm, get in shape, and master a few professionally choreographed dance moves in the process. And thanks to the Kinect, you'll get instant feedback on how awkward and clumsy you look, which you can use to fuel your own self-loathing and drive for improvement. Sure, you probably wouldn't want to bust a lot of these out on an actual dance floor, but the increased coordination will certainly help.

Staying in shape is hard work, especially when fast-food companies continue to to get me to shove grease and fat down my mouthhole. Thankfully, Nintendo is there to help me not only get in shape, but increase my awareness of how my body operates. Hint: fried Twinkies don't help.

Wii Fit U has something for everyone. Yoga newbies and aficionados alike can work on their poses and breathing exercises. A variety of minigames will get your heart pumping while you have some fun in the process. And Wii Fit U will track your activities as well as your progress with different graphs, giving you perspective on your weight loss over time. It's not perfect, but it'll do more to improve your health than pretty much every other game in existence.

Supply and demand. Buy low, sell high. These are things that people spend tens of thousands of dollars on business school to learn. Or, you can skip all that and pick up a copy of Recettear, which gives you your very own item shop. It's up to you to figure out how to make it profitable.

You'll learn valuable skills like customer service, inventory management, and haggling. Keeping your patrons happy is a surefire way to gain repeat customers as well as new ones. Plus, by placing high-value items in the shop window, you'll be able to draw in even more customers as they lust after your rare and unique wares. Now, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure you can list Recettear on an application for a small-business loan. You probably won't need to kill off a bunch of monsters to secure inventory for your actual, real life store, though it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

If you want to pick up a new language, get ready to spend a lot of time doing a ton of boring memorization and verb conjugation. You didn't pick up English overnight, so don't expect to be parlez-vous français-ing without putting the time in. If only there was a way to learn a second language and make it fun, too...

Good thing you're reading this list, because there totally is. Games like Influent and the My Language Coach series break down vocabulary words, verbs, and sentence construction into easily digestible parts, and let you practice to your heart's content. Both games have tons of audio recordings of native speakers of each language, and they're filled with puzzles, minigames and other activities to keep things interesting. Just because you're managing your dangling participles doesn't mean you can't have fun while you do it.

While these games will help teach you some important real life skills, you only get out what you put in. So really, you should just play more games to get really smart. Have you learned how to become a culinary mastermind thanks to Cooking Mama? Let me know in the comments!

Looking for more? Check out the .