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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out for more great comment from the GamesMaster team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You know, like every other Kingdom Hearts trailer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So you've already had our , which means that in the interests of fairness (and, you know, doing our jobs to a proper and complete degree), it's time for Microsoft. Now finally back on its feet after a very rocky new-gen start, MS is in a position to really impress this year. Brand new games were teased at the 2014 show, and we know that one or two big franchises are due to return sooner rather than later. But there's got to be more than that. So what will it be?

Click on, and we'll tell you what we expect. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll laugh again, but all being well there will at least be zero reference to putting TV in your TV so that you can... You know the rest. And make sure to check back throughout the week for our run-downs on Nintendo and the third-parties too. It will be great!

If you're playing E3 Bingo at home, this is your free square. With coming by the end of the year, we're bound to see some kind of gameplay at Microsoft's conference. But that's not where the Halo news will end. First, there'll be some kind of apology for the launch of the Master Chief Collection, which will be instantly hand-waved away by explaining how much better is now.

Microsoft will also stand behind the collection as a platform for Halo, announcing new plans for the Halo Channel, and maybe the addition of Reach to the MCC. And Halo Wars, if Microsoft gets really desperate.

You can already pick up the Xbox One for less than a PS4, thanks to various retailer bundles and promotions, but E3 will signal an official offer of ‘increased value’. Now, we deliberately made that vague because… an actual price cut is fairly unlikely. What we expect to see is some kind of juicy ‘trade in your Xbox 360 for big bucks off the Xbox One’ style offer.

See, a lot of people still haven’t moved on from the last generation, and Microsoft wants to keep its 360 players in the family. So, 18 months since XO’s nightmarish launch, expect to see MS make a big play for the folk thinking about upgrading. Because if Microsoft doesn’t do it, Sony definitely will.

This is followed by the new Gears of War: Cogs of Destiny card game coming to mobile and iOS this Fall. But don't confuse that with Gears of War: Destiny of the Cog, an MMO shooter that ties into the new live-action Gears of War series exclusive to Netflix (starring J.K. Simmons as a man who is angry).

Then there's the Gears of War breakfast cereal, and the Gears of War lawn maintenance kit, and the...

Forza Motorsport 6 will be a glossy act of reparation in some ways, walking back the damage done by the transaction models and content disparities of Forza 5. Beyond that, it’ll mark another round of actual human beings saying ‘drivatar’ without bursting at a molecular level.

Oh, and kudos to the poor trailer-making folks that have to think of yet another way to show cool cars doing their thing. There’s only so many ways to swoop over pearlescent paint jobs and jiggle the camera as a Nissan GT-R roars by. Not that we don’t enjoy that sort of thing.

Yes, we get it: Minecraft is a big deal, and Microsoft needs to show off what it’s got planned for its shiny new billion-dollar purchase. That won't change the fact that the Minecraft booth will continue to be a bigger wasteland than Pripyat.

Still, that exclusive aardvark will be adorable.

Take a sandbox game. Now make it the size of the Milky Way galaxy. That's the basic premise of . With that in mind, Microsoft will give the floor to series creator David Braben to drum up hype for Elite: Dangerous - and in doing so, accidentally spoil another much-anticipated space epic set for release in 2015. See, he's a big sci-fi fan and knows some people working on Star Wars.

Braben will play up the freedom to do almost anything in the vastness of Elite: Dangerous' universe, including the creation of a galactic Empire and the piloting of various starfighters. "You can even explore a player-driven narrative in which you recover the melted mask of a previous leader, resulting in..." - and just when Braben's about to inadvertently spoil the ending of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney's lawyers will yank him offstage by cane in 1950s cartoon fashion.

Listen, we're going to hear a lot of ‘The Nights’ by Avicii at E3. Given the number of montages during the show, it’s a statistical certainty. Also, all the Woodkid songs are taken.

Microsoft’s independent game montage will be different, however, in that it’ll claim exclusivity over several games both for Windows 10 and Xbox One. And, going by recent ID@Xbox releases like Nero and Lifeless Planet, it will demonstrate a need for weird, not-quite-great games that didn't make it past Sony’s seemingly stricter curation. With any luck, might even be a game featuring ‘The Nights’ on its soundtrack. Corporate view of the zeitgeist, nailed!

After a few less-than-successful attempts at reviving prior classics (like Conker and Perfect Dark) and a few less-than-successful attempts at creating new franchises (like Kameo), Microsoft has shunted Rare off into whatever circle of hell requires its denizens to work on Xbox Avatar clothes for the rest of eternity.

But no, finally, Rare has its chance at redemption, showing up at E3 with a new entry in the nostalgia-inducing Battletoads franchise. Now, the frustrated clerks at GameStop will actually have a copy of the game, so please stop crank-calling them.

If we've learned anything from the announcement of a new Phantom Dust game at E3 2014 and its almost immediate delay/cancellation (we're still not sure which), it's that Microsoft is committed to almost giving fans what they want by rebooting cherished franchises that they definitely sort of remember. In keeping with that mission, expect the company to announce the return of Blinx, Vince, and Brute Force through beautifully pre-rendered cutscenes that tell you nothing about the games in question, but really grab your interest.

That way, when the projects are canceled within months, and leaked footage shows they don't look anything like the trailers you saw, you'll be even trigued than you were at the start. Wait, actually, 'confused' is probably the word we’re looking for.

From mandatory peripheral to dirty little secret, the Kinect has apparently become press conference poison as far as Microsoft is concerned, so don't expect it to exactly be a show headliner.

In fact, you probably shouldn't expect to see at all, outside a few snapshots of it sitting next to an Xbox One, before it's immediately covered up by a picture of Master Chief's helmet and Lara Croft getting chased by something.

It’s a year of great potential for Microsoft. Having shifted its mantra from ‘TV, TV, TV’ to ‘games, games, games’, the company will now surely try to make good on last year’s promise of having more exclusives and more reasons to play.

It will do that partly by showcasing last year’s teases in proper depth. Scalebound will be an incredibly pretty grab at the Monster Hunter market, with slick Platinum combat,, while Crackdown will crank up the neon and deliver some serious kinetic spectacle.

Interest will immediately wane when the presenter brings up the game's companion TV program, and shows off a three-minute trailer that does its best to coherently mix 24 with Agents of Shield. The trailer will be followed by several seconds of silence, and the audience will clap politely once the Defiance flashbacks stop.

Microsoft's Games with Gold rewards program is like the little sibling to Sony's Instant Game Collection on PlayStation Plus: try as it might, it can't live up to the standard set by its superior senior. In either case, free games every month are nothing to sneeze at, but where Sony consistently offers new releases on the house, Microsoft seems insistent on lagging years behind the gaming zeitgeist.

To further cement its commitment to offering the best games from three years ago for free, a Microsoft representative will excitedly mention plans to bring Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, and The Walking Dead (Season One) to Games with Gold in 2015. The camera will pan to an audience that can appreciate both the timeless quality and relative age of these titles, including a close-up of a fan who bought all of them at full price on release day shedding a single, bitter tear.

New realities are the future, and the future is now. Or rather, the future is Q4 2015/Q1 2016. Valve, Oculus and Sony are all poised to move into the burgeoning virtual reality market with their own headsets, and Microsoft would do well to not be left behind. HoloLens compatibility with Xbox One would go a long way to making that happen.

Now, that being said, we can’t imagine that such an announcement - if it’s to be made - will be more than conceptual in nature. The HoloLens was in very early stages when it was demonstrated to press last year, and the fact that it works using augmented reality instead of virtual reality means a whole other slew of problem, solutions and technology that needs to be developed. Still, if Microsoft wants this new technology to take off, getting early excitement from technophile gamers would be a very smart foot in the door.

Once upon a time, Microsoft was pretty good about backward compatibility, taking the time to make <(i>some) Xbox games playable on Xbox 360. Then it realized that good lord is that a lot of work, and so stopped, and basically just hoped you kept your old systems lying around. (Which, in fairness, we did.)

Now that the Xbox family has more than enough older titles to justify it, Microsoft will announce a streaming game service similar to PlayStation Now. Pay a certain amount each month and you’ll be able to access Xbox games you didn’t catch the first time around, like Breakdown, Crimson Skies and, of course, Phantom Dust.

While playing with Lego playsets as a kid was always fun, everyone knows the best part was mixing those boxes together and having a pirate take on an army of dinosaurs as the Millennium Falcon swooshed overhead. Lego Dimensions is meant to recreate that feeling of nonsensical childhood bliss by bringing together beloved pop culture properties into a single game, so Batman can take aim at the Scarecrow (from The Wizard of Oz) while Gandalf laughs about it in the background. Just like you remember.

The game's story is built to accommodate all that world-mixing, as it's kicked off by a villain creating transdimensional travel for the express purpose of kidnapping famous characters we all know and love. Specifically, famous characters from Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Portal, and plenty more. In preparation for Dimensions' release for every major console (including Xbox 360 and PS3) on September 27th, we've gotten a chance to dig through Lego's toy box and see what the game has in store. We're ready to share that all with you, and not just because our moms told us to.

I know we've all been staring forlornly at our Skylanders, amiibo, and Disney Infinity figures wondering when the next toys-to-life franchise will come around, and bless Lego Dimensions for being the next to deliver. Of course, in less cheeky terms, Lego is uniquely qualified to work within the format, since they've been making both parts of the equation for years.

The game's accompanying portal (which you build from bricks before you start playing) works the way you would expect, acting as a stage where you can place whatever characters you want to load into the game. However, Dimensions' portal is unique in that it's divided into three parts, and will make it possible to move up to seven characters (or objects, but more on that later) between those three sections at will. In fact, that becomes an important part of the game in some situations; during boss fights, for instance, a red light will flash under one segment when the boss attacks the characters standing there, and their hold can be broken by moving the figures to another space. Someone should tell Dorothy that all you need to beat the Wicked Witch's magic is to move over a square.

During my time with the Dimensions' demo, I had far too much fun taking Scooby Doo on a joyride through the Lego-fied poppy fields of Oz (while he's covering his eyes, naturally) before crashing into a fight with the Wicked Witch over a crystallized piece of the universe. That reality-smushing is not only a common occurrence in Dimensions, but is meant to be the driving force of the game, as you experience fourteen different worlds crashing together in humorous, light-hearted ways. Specifically, you'll see memorable places and faces from The Simpsons, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Portal, Jurassic World, Midway Arcade, Lego Chima, Scooby-Doo!, DC Comics, Lord of the Rings, The Lego Movie, The Wizard of Oz, Ninjago, and Back to the Future, all interacting as your additional playset figures allow.

Integrating this many franchises could be risky, because time constraints could mean that there's little time to treat each property with the respect it deserves. But Dimensions seems to be on the right path so far, as it puts real care was put into integrating different pieces of these stories well. The poppies in Oz make characters sleepy, the cartoony look of the Scooby-Doo world matches the original show, and transdimensional madness takes hold of Middle Earth while Gandalf is fighting the Balrog. Plus, the game contains original music from its source material and voice performance from some characters' original actors, showing a commitment to treating these tales with respect. We won't know for sure until the game is released this fall, but the fact that few moments go by without Batman being comically grumpy makes me hopeful.

As much fun as a Lego game can be, it just doesn't feel quite right if there isn't a building component involved. Lego Dimensions not only lets you build your own block creations, but actually takes it out of the digital realm and does what Lego does best: lets you build with actual blocks you hold in your hands.

Each playset comes with at least one vehicle that's built out of a series of Lego blocks, and it will need to be transformed into something new depending on what function you need it to serve. The Delorean, for instance, has one form to emphasize speed and another that gives off bursts of electricity, both of which could be super handy in the right circumstance. In order to change the vehicle in the game, you'll have to take it apart in real life and physically build it into what you want it to be, based on a digital version of Lego's familiar schematics. You're admittedly limited in what you can create (with each auto sporting three transformations maximum), and the game can only do so much to confirm you actually rebuilt your car, so it's forced to take you at your word when you say you did it. That could make the mechanic feel gimmicky in the long run, since it doesn't actually affect the gameplay in a measurable way, but it could still be fun for players who enjoy the novelty of putting a controller down to play a game to the fullest.

While there are plenty of playable figures planned for Dimensions, the story will following the antics of Batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle, showing the eclectic mix you can expect from the overall game and banking on The Lego Movie's popularity in one go. Each loses a friend in the game's opening (Robin for Batman and Frodo for Gandalf), which is what sends them on their journey through the game's many worlds.

These three characters will come in a starter pack with the game portal and the Batmobile, giving you plenty of stuff to play with right off the bat <(i>ha). Each has unique special abilities that help you progress through the many worlds you'll visit, like using a Bathook to pull apart obstructions or using Wyldstyle's master builder powers to uncover hidden keys. They'll be the primary focus of any story-based cutscenes as they work to recover pieces of dimension energy and rescue the captive Lego characters of the universe. Expect a colony of bat puns along the way.

Of course, that doesn't mean that our three heroes will be the only stars of this show. At any point you can introduce characters from other playsets into your game, letting them tag along beside the main three or having them act as your primary character. Each extra pack will also come with a vehicle that can be loaded into the game (like the Batmobile or the Mystery Machine) and driven by any of the characters, which you'll need for a variety of missions throughout.

Sadly there doesn't appear to be a co-op options as of yet, so the seven characters and/or vehicles will act as additional bodies that a lone player can switch between as they desire. But that presents an interesting new dynamic that hasn't been seen in toys-to-life games up until this point, so having a RPG-like party to control according to your wishes could prove interesting and fresh. And hey, if you can control Scooby Doo and immediately flip to Wonder Woman, I'm all for it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If seasons had personalities, summer would be bombastic and carefree - the Ferris Bueller of seasons. It's the time of year that begs you to go on new adventures, take chances, and meet new friends. We associate a lot of things with different seasons, like music, movies and books. But what about video games? Surely there must be an equivalent to your 'Summer Fun Time Jams 9' playlist within the video game world?

Well good news everyone, there absolutely is. Summer isn't quite here yet, but, if you're like me, you take every opportunity to roll out the welcome mat in anticipation the greatest time of year. So kick up your feet, pour yourself a tall glass of lemonade, and get ready for a list of the best games to get you stoked for summer.

Few games embody everything that is summer better than Animal Crossing. Even when your little village is covered in snow and sadness, there is something so inherently beachy about the relaxed pace that Animal Crossing saunters along at. It's the fact that, despite having breezy tunes and graphics so cuddly you can feel them, Animal Crossing captures summer in its gameplay as much as its aesthetic. Days spent gardening, fishing, or just idling chatting with friends - all of these perfectly represent what we associate with the season.

Animal Crossing finds a way of making work feel like pleasure, and then punctuates that with a sprinkling of social gatherings like fireworks festivals and bug catching contests. If winter is the time of year to shut off all ties and hole up in your house in front of the TV, summer is the season to get out there and make some new friends. And Animal Crossing is just bursting with friends.

Grease's Summer Nights, summer flings, and the 1967 Summer of Love all make one thing perfectly clear: summer is the season for romance. And what game captures all those tingly feelings better than Persona 4? By the time summer rolls around in-game, you're likely exhausted from keeping up with school, relationships, and - oh yeah - solving a murder. But just under half way through your year in Inaba, summer arrives and gives you a well deserved rest.

Everyone has fond memories of their summer vacations, and Persona 4 deftly taps into that nostalgia to remind us all of our younger years. Days spent at the beach, breezy nights hanging out with friends, and that blossoming romance with the cutie you've had a crush on since the semester started; it's all there and waiting to tug at your heartstrings. Just like in real life, you relish the extra free time summer vacation provides. And when the start of a new school year looms only days away, you'll remember the dread we were all filled with as the greatest two months came to a close.

This one is a bit obvious, don't you think? While some of the entries on the list have a bit of nuance to how they evoke the feeling of summer, Super Mario Sunshine is as bold as a mojito. A major departure from the more vanilla flavor of Mario games, Isle Delfino is a gorgeous resort community begging to be explored.

Not only that, but Mario's FLUDD is basically a giant Super Soaker - what else do you need? All Super Mario Sunshine is missing at this point is freezie pops so delicious you'll gladly suffer the painful cuts on your mouth just to have one.

If you've never had the opportunity to go to a beach and build a sand castle, stop what you're doing, close this article, and do whatever it takes to make that happen. I don't care how much a plane ticket costs, just do it.

You're back? Amazing, yes? Building sand castles is the official pastime of summer, and Minecraft is basically one big virtual sand castle. There is something so serenely mesmerizing about building something piece by piece. Before you know it, hours have melted away like the ice in your iced tea, and you're left with a sense of accomplishment. Turn off survival mode and let your creativity take you on a journey. Minecraft, like summer, is the the perfect opportunity to pick a direction and strike out on your own path. Who knows where your feet will take you?

The summer without a body of water to spend it with is a tragedy. Millions of people travel every year just to make sure that doesn't happen. For one second, let's pretend that you find yourself in a position in which you are unable to soak up some sun before a great blue sea. What do you do? You play The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, of course!

Nintendo's charmingly cartoony take on Zelda is the perfect game for those desperate to cool off from the blistering summer sun. An endless ocean, a world teeming with vibrant characters, and an absorbing quest as good as any book all make for a perfect way to kill a long weekend.

Harvest Moon and its spin off, Story of Seasons, could probably be found on the winter, spring, and fall equivalents of this list with how easily they evoke those seasons. But the first summer of a new game is always the most special.

There is a sense of community that begins building around summer, as the game finally begins to let go of the reins and let the player drive. You begin to feel more at ease with your farming routine, become more comfortable chatting with the villagers, and best of all, your love interest. But Harvest Moon also deserves recognition for not only capturing the feel of summer, but the sounds too. Walks through the forest to collect delicious fruit are accompanied by chirping cicadas, singing birds, and some of the catchiest music you've ever heard.

Those of you living in climates that are unsavory for large portions of the year will no doubt appreciate the moment you can drive with the windows down, letting the brisk air cool you off. It's the ultimate sign of summer's approach. Burnout Paradise is that moment captured and programmed into a video game.

It's the kind of game that you can sit down with for an hour and accomplish absolutely nothing yet still have a great time. Driving and crashing around the urban sprawl of Paradise City is a joy in itself, and the game's soundtrack perfectly complements every moment. So roll down those windows, step on the gas, and t-bone that semi truck at 90mph. You can thank me for it later.

Studio Ghibli and Level-5 have proven themselves masters at painting with emotion. With an almost careless ease, the two studios brought the world of Ni No Kuni to life in rich detail. The characters are imaginative and fun, and the world is enchanting. All of this culminates in a game that is as hard to leave behind as a summer vacation.

Ni No Kuni is the video game equivalent of a road trip. You pile in for an adventure, and, from the window of your car, you see a whole world beyond your doorstep pass by. For many, it is that moment that you begin to understand just how small you are, but as Ni No Kuni is quick to teach you: even the smallest of things is capable of greatness.

If this list didn't inspire you to start working on your 'Summer Fun Time James 10' playlist and dust off your flip-flops, I just don't know what will. Whether you love or hate it, summer is well on its way, and for those of you looking to get an early start the games on this list are a perfect way to help get you in the mood. Of course, I'm sure you probably have your own ideas for what gets you all riled up for barbecues and days spent lounging around in open fields. So what are you waiting for? Slip and slide your way into the comments and let us know what your favorite go-to games are for capturing that summer spirit!

Summer's nearly here, and you're no doubt wanting to take a break from the humdrum tedium of your daily routine. What you need is a vacation. Maybe you're dreaming of a sun-soaked beach that lulls you into a state of blissful relaxation with its swaying palm trees and churning waves. Or perhaps you're picturing a mountain retreat; a quiet, serene place to unplug and enjoy some self-reflection. Video games can offer these kinds of exotic getaways, you know - but they usually turn out to be a lot less tranquil than you might hope.

Virtual vacation spots seem prone to becoming the epicenter of some harrowing catastrophe, ruining all those plans for leisure activities in the process. So whatever you do, don't book a flight to one of these resorts if you cherish your summer vacation. Or hey, maybe you like to live a little bit dangerously - in which case, these perilous retreats will ensure that you spend every minute of your time off really appreciating the value of life itself.

This dolphin-shaped tropical paradise has it all: friendly natives, gorgeous beaches, and local agriculture that produces fruit the size of your head. But even when it's not being terrorized by a translucent vandal and his giant paintbrush, or running rampant with ink-infested wildlife, Isle Delfino would still be a questionable vacation spot. For starters, there's Corona Mountain, a live volcano that could ostensibly bury the entire island under a blanket of molten lava at any time. And Hotel Delfino, which is pretty much the only tourist lodging in town, is lousy with the hostile spirits of the dead. You're also very likely to get sprayed by an Italian plumber's back-mounted hose for absolutely no reason, which is a guaranteed day-ruiner.

Checking in to the Lakeview Hotel seems like the start to a quiet, relaxing stay in the foggy little town of Silent Hill. You've got a gorgeous view of the scenic Toluca Lake, with Maine's majestic forests in one direction and a short walk to the Lakeside Amusement Park in the other. But if you leave your room to refill the ice bucket in the middle of the night, you might encounter some rather psyche-scarring scenes. Interiors covered in rust and grime; guests who look like walking piles of skin moaning as they shamble through the halls. Maybe you should've paid attention to all those TripAdvisor reviews that complained about otherworldly horrors and the guilt-induced revelations that come with them.

Are you an affluent caucasian who some might label as a 'grade-A douchebag'? Do you enjoy flying like paper and getting high like planes? Then you should never, ever visit the Rook Islands, because you will almost assuredly end up as the ransomed captive of some deranged modern-day pirates. I know it's tempting, what with the jet ski rentals, scuba diving through picturesque reefs, hang gliding lessons, and the ultimate finale: skydiving from 12,500 feet, with a full view of the gorgeous archipelago. But I assure you that the hard landing isn't worth it, because you'll probably get picked up by . Also, he's definitely going to confiscate your phone.

Theme parks always heat up during the summer, when school's out and the sun is shining. But Horrorland seems to be trapped in a state of perpetual night, looking a bit like Universal Studio's Wizarding World of Harry Potter if it revolved around R.L. Stine's brand of kid-friendly creepiness. Attractions include Werewolf Village, where children are constantly getting trapped in meat lockers, and a 'Coffin Cruise' through the moat of a castle lorded over celebrity vampires: Jeff Goldblum and Blue Velvet's Isabella Rossellini. Best of all, the price of a single admission effectively becomes a lifetime pass, since Horrorland has the power to magically warp you back onto its haunted fairgrounds should you ever escape.

Golden sand, crystal blue skies, fluffy white clouds. Zach Fair isn't able to appreciate any of these idyllics sights on the beach of Costa del Sol, because he's too busy fending off hordes of overgrown sea worms. What should be some much-deserved RR for this elite SOLDIER operative always seems to break out into a battle on the coast - though Zach doesn't mind, seeing as it's a reprieve from the relative boredom of his chaperoned holiday. And because Shinra's exclusive resort wasn't built with combat in mind, Zach's forced to use a retracted sun umbrella as a sword. If anyone's genuinely enjoying themselves on this trip, it's those gamers who swoon at the rare sight of Zach's shirtless six-pack.

The road to a terrible vacation is typically paved with good intentions. Alan Wake's a best-selling author who's stuck in an unproductive rut, and his wife Alice thinks a trip to the remote mountain town of Bright Falls will help him break through his writer's block. Clearly, Alice has never seen The Shining or Secret Window. Within an hour of arriving at Bird Leg Cabin on Cauldron Lake, the couple's trip descends into shadowy madness, with Alice getting mysteriously abducted and Alan slowly losing his mind on account of a Dark Presence. All that being said, Alan did finally sit down and write that novel he was thinking about, so... mission accomplished!

At face value, this verdant island off the coast of Papua New Guinea seems to be the destination that'll live up to your most luxurious vacation fantasies. Imagine: sunbathing at the five-star Royal Palms Resort during the day, and enjoying the expletive-riddled rapping of star performer Sam B. at night. Of course, you'll need to turn a blind eye to the crime and gang violence that runs rampant in the nearby city of Moresby, and the fact that there's an Alcatraz-style prison island (surrounded by live mines) not too far up the coast. Also, the indigenous tribes have been practicing for generations, which eventually leads to one of those pesky zombie outbreaks that plunges all of Banoi into bedlam. There's nothing like being at zombie ground zero to put a damper on your paid time off.

Welcome, welcome! Let me show you to your room; don't mind the cultist messages scrawled in the walls. And here we arrrrrrRRRROH MY GOD A BEAR! IT'S EATING ME! IT'S EATING ME ALIVE!

A new Deus has dawned, a day of augmented cyber soldiers and gruff, goateed blokes stabbing each other with rulers. Yep, there's a brand new Deus Ex game on the way. It's called Mankind Divided, and it's great. Well, probably. It certainly looks good. The last game in this illustrious series, 2010's Human Revolution garnered plenty of praise for its inventive gameplay and amusing array of gadgets. These so-called 'augmentations' allowed users to tackle their objectives in almost any manner they saw fit - with the obvious exception of those damnable boss battles.

Still, these 'augs' were pretty damn great, oftentimes feeling more like traditional superpowers than feasible, albeit highly futuristic technologies. The difference between the two is that one day we may very well see the latter in action. All the toxic goo in the world isn't going to grant you powers, but mad-eyed Mr. Science just might. So, what on earth are we going to do with all of these abilities? Help one another? Hah, this is humanity we're talking about. I'll bet we're going to utilise these sci-fi marvels the same way we use everything else: moronically. Here's just a few examples…

What it's actually for - Handling tense negotiations. The social enhancer allows agents to subtly read and react to their target's non-verbalised intent. Optional pheromone release creates a more suggestible enemy.

How we'd misuse it - Convincing people to buy time-share condos and shady pyramid schemes.

What it's actually for - Cluster bombing an agent's immediate vicinity, thereby preventing them from being overcome.

How we'd misuse it - Massively overreacting to the threat of wasps.

What it's actually for - Reducing minute bodily movement, allowing for a steadier aim when firing a weapon.

How we'd misuse it - Hustling pub patrons out of their hard earned cash.

What it's actually for - Arm-mounted stabbing weapons, capable of eliminating numerous targets quietly.

How we'd misuse it - Pushing ourselves up in bed.

What it's actually for - Lugging around large amounts of mission-vital kit. Improves the strength of cybernetic arm prostheses.

How we'd misuse it - Hording huge quantities of useless tat/ carrying all 20 bags of shopping in at the same time (without inadvertently amputating your fingers).

What it's actually for - Keeping track of troublesome guards/ pinpointing a particular target. Ties in to cranial and visual enhancements.

How we'd misuse it - Obsessively stalking your ex/ crying deeply.

What it's actually for - Temporarily masking an agent's movements. Users are rendered effectively invisible.

How we'd misuse it - Pretending to be poltergeists, re-enacting the ending of Ghost.

What it's actually for - Non-audible verbal communications, grants live access to mission handlers, and all without giving away an agent's location.

How we'd misuse it - Gossiping and/or thoroughly badmouthing the person sat next to us without their knowledge.

What it's actually for - Displays the enemy's forecast of an agent's last known position.

How we'd misuse it - Keeping track of our house keys and/or wallet.

What it's actually for - Prevents injury from falling/ heals other wounds.

How we'd misuse it - Repeatedly throwing ourselves down the nearest staircase, for kicks.

What it's actually for - Spotting mission-specific resources and/or enemies, allowing an agent to effectively see through obstacles.

How we'd misuse it - Filthy voyeuristic escapades. Not me though...

What it's actually for - Shifting heavy objects/ creating impromptu barricades.

How we'd misuse it - Hurling loved ones into the deep end of a swimming pool.

What it's actually for - Creating unconventional entry points, allowing the agent to outfox an entrenched opponent.

How we'd misuse it - Knocking down derelict houses/ accidentally destroying listed buildings. Generally costing the local council a fortune.

'Different strokes for different folks'. 'To each their own'. 'You're just mental and my opinion is definitely better'. One of these three statements doesn't quite belong, and here's a hint: it's the exact same one that gamers most love to utter. We really are a surly, self-important bunch, at least we can be, provided players believe strongly enough in their own video gaming verdicts. One player's 'massive pile of slag' is to another 'the sweetest culmination of a thousand euphoric truths'. Defy a Zelda devotee at your peril. Defend a critically-panned cult hit at your own personal risk. It certainly doesn't take much for the long knives to come out when a fan's deepest convictions are questioned.

So then, what kind of games are we talking about? Which titles produce the most volatile of forum fracas, the most bile spewing of debates? Just what are the most polarising, the most massively divisive games of all time? Click that there page turner and find out.

Supporters see - An interactive Twin Peaks, complete with compelling, if altogether nonsensical, cast and an ambitious open-world design. Atmospheric, richly layered and boasting a self-effacing, humorous charm, Access Games' epic remains the veritable grand wizard of cult hits. In choosing to criticise its lacklustre mechanics, detractors only emphasize their own skewed perspectives - this is an experience so much more than the sum of its parts.

Detractors see - An insufferably tacky and horrendously realised title that lacks even the basic semblance of playability. Controls are atrocious, the visuals are worse, and the game's much-touted storyline reads like a teenager's pained attempts at eccentric edginess. Fans of the narrative forgive far too much, lauding its story while forgetting about every other element that makes up a game - a bit like persevering with a broken laptop because you find the particular tint of the blue screen of death to be soothing.

Let's settle it - Twin Peaks marathon. First one to question the nature of reality loses.

Supporters see - Endlessly creative, visually engrossing and buoyed by the same brand of gentle, enjoyable gameplay as its famous forebears, Wind Waker succeeds on almost every level imaginable. Its story is more absorbing, its content more diverse and its challenges more numerous and more finely honed than ever before. TWW represents the absolute perfection of an already magnificent formula. How sad that some players cannot overcome their graphical bias.

Detractors see - A needless reinvention of a time-honoured visual tradition. Just imagine the uproar had TES: Skyrim switched to cutesy characters, or Metal Gear Solid gone kawaii crazy. Not only that, but the game employs numerous unadorned fetch quests, simplistic 'shopping list adventures' that themselves make use of the game's ultra bland sailing mechanics. Majora's Mask hinted at bold new moves, Wind Waker just repaints old Ocarina and calls it a day.

Let's settle it - Wooden sailboat endurance race. First one not to drown is crowned champion.

Supporters see - A novel concept tied to a challenging narrative. Gone Home represents the future of video game storytelling, weaving a multi-faceted and emotionally charged tale of everyday familial intrigue. Though seemingly simplistic at the outset, Gone Home's sparse environment actually belies a far deeper tale, one that is both horror and not-horror, mysterious and at the same time oddly humdrum. It's a tale that relies almost entirely upon the player's own fragmented perspective for effect, prompting our imaginations to do much of the heavy lifting. We're the ones who make it horror, or thriller or murder mystery. In that, Gone Home represents a brand new breed of interactive storytelling.

Detractors see - An utterly pretentious 'statement piece' lacking in any rewarding gameplay mechanics or even basic value ($20 at release). As an adventure game it lacks challenging tasks and/or puzzle elements. As a prospective horror title it foregoes any actual menace. As a thriller, it lacks thrills and as a detective title it leaves players with an utterly underwhelming conclusion. As socially and even narratively progressive as it may be, Gone Home comes off as more of a damp squib than a revelatory adventure.

Let's settle it - Toss a coin. Then inspect said coin repeatedly hoping for some sort of clue. Go bonkers.

Supporters see - A satisfyingly brutal, intensely challenging and richly detailed 'old school RPG' for the modern age,one that foregoes the hand-holding and exposition-heavy treatment of its contemporaries for a far more difficult, albeit infinitely more rewarding payoff. Dark Souls is a game that crushes you down completely, to rebuild you in its own terrifying image, and proving only as cruel as it needs to be in order to achieve that end. Souls institutes a veritable trial by fire, the completion of which yields vast new worlds of immersion, excitement and elation. This is real adventure, one in which triumphs are only ever as rewarding as its tasks are testing.

Detractors see - Needlessly punitive, consistently frustrating and altogether unfair, Dark Souls brings the coin-guzzling difficulty of old school arcade machines direct to your living room. Particularly galling are the game's many boss monsters - overpowered behemoths that utterly annihilate the player several times over before their attack patterns can be memorized. Even then, encounters often feel cheap. So, if your idea of fun is banging your head into a brick wall over and over again until finally it cracks (or you do) then this is the game for you.

Let's settle it - Slip 'n' Slide water torture contest.

Supporters see - A more visceral and immediate take on the Dragon Age formula, Dragon Age 2 ditches its predecessor's expansive settings and associated bloat for a more driven and linear adventure. That's not to say it's a short game however, as Hawke's tale still offers up a generous 40 to 60 hour run time. Combat is smoother, its mechanics more streamlined, and the game's storytelling far less grandiose or liable to meander. Naysayers may balk at the loss of needlessly obtuse menus and character creation suites, but that's no reason to slam this bloody good title.

Detractors see - A corporate-ordered sequel bereft of any new ideas, desperately pandering to the mainstream action fan. What had seemed like an amazing franchise in the making was shortly thereafter been sullied, transformed into something far more flashy, yet much less substantial. Gone are the tactical flourishes and strategic micro management of old, not to mention a narrative of any actual significance, replaced instead by a brainless brand of combat and a largely inconsequential plot.

Let's settle it - Poor quality LARP-level sword fight.

Supporters see - The Sopranos of the video game landscape. GTA 4 added a whole new level of depth, maturity and gravitas to the tried and true sandbox formula, marrying meaningful character design to realistic and vivacious environments. Liberty City is more than just a setting, it's a character, one that horrifies and entices in equal measure. Its inhabitants are every bit as complex and emotive as their city, displaying their own particular quirks, desires and demands. Added to that is a much improved combat system and a chaotic multiplayer suite. Cynics may bemoan the loss of the series' juvenile humour, but it's a worthwhile trade-off nonetheless. Every franchise has to grow up sometime.

Detractors see - A pompous, self-important and downright gloomy addition to a franchise formerly known for its sense of outlandish, satirical fun. GTA IV mistakes sullen grit for cinematic greatness, opting for chore-like realism to the detriment of the player's engagement. Cars handle like bricks, shooting is sub-par, and inter-character relationships feel forced and occasionally aggravating. Realism for the sake of realism - even the boring bits.

Let's settle it - Invitation contest. Both sides send incessant, highly annoying invitations to one another. First one to crack loses.

Supporters see - A rollicking good action franchise boasting outlandish setpieces aplenty. Blessed with grade-A production values, top quality multiplayer modes and some of the slickest shooting mechanics this side of a Halo ring, CoD is more than just some angry tween's playpen - it's a wildly entertaining slice of popcorn cinema served straight to your console. Sadly, COD's ever-present status and mammoth sales figures have turned it into a perfect target for the contrarian 'too cool to be popular' crowd. They claim the game never changes, when in fact it's really undergone all manner of tweaks and adjustments, the kind they'd probably notice if only they weren't too busy decrying the title to actually play it.

Detractors see - Unambitious, unrefined and iterated half to death, CoD represents the game of choice for the hulking 'dudebro' masses, the majority of whom couldn't spot a quality narrative if it knocked off their indoor shades before punching them square in the face. CoD is everything that's wrong with the modern gaming scene, from the scores of irate clichés screaming down their microphones, to the publisher's now seasonal exploitation of fans.

Let's settle it - Man with the Golden Gun-style duel to the death.

Supporters see - A darker, more mature interpretation of the classic Zelda mythos. Despite ringing the changes, Majora's Mask proves to be every bit as brilliant as its illustrious predecessor, buoyed up by an equally classic soundtrack, superior cast of characters, and a richer, more varied brand of gameplay. This may be a different breed of Zelda, but it's easily on par with the triumphs of Link's Awakening, Ocarina and co.

Detractors see - 'Errand Boy: The Video Game'. Majora's Mask opted to scuttle the series' dungeon-led formula in favour of an ongoing series of fetch quests and mini-games. It's also far more linear than previous entries, and a major step back from the greater accessibility and openness present in Ocarina.

Let's settle it - Run around a costume shop adopting the characteristics of every new mask worn. First to be thrown from the premises Jazzy Jeff-style is declared the winner.

Supporters see - An exquisitely crafted, sharply streamlined, and altogether more focused addition to the recent Final Fantasy canon. It also bears mentioning that 13 looks absolutely stunning, sounds fabulous, and features a deep and malleable battle system. It's linear, yes, but who needs more tiresome fetch quests or perfunctory exploration - this is a franchise about battles, character and otherworldly atmosphere. FFX13 nails all three.

Detractors see - A sizeable step back for what was once a progressive and keenly ambitious franchise. Only the bare essentials remain. Combat, now far shallower and less thoughtful. Characters, largely clichéd and unlikeable. A storyline bereft of any real scope or weight. Gone are the vibrant, explorable cityscapes, the unique and talkative NPCs, and any kind of challenge in combat. FFXIII is little more than one pretty corridor after the next, an on-rails RPG for the brainless masses.

Let's settle it - JRPG hair-teasing contest. First contestant to pass out from all of the hairspray fumes is declared the loser.

Supporters see - An epic, oftentimes moving send-off to the illustrious Solid Snake. Metal Gear Solid 4 includes everything that made the franchise so special to begin with. and then adds a whole heap more. Gameplay is as tight and nuanced as ever, allowing players to sneak or shoot past every obstacle, while the game's central storyline justifies its lengthy runtime through top quality direction and performances. Sadly, detractors just don't have the patience for this kind of complex experience.

Detractors see - An overwrought, overlong and underwhelming adventure plagued by outdated mechanics and godawful writing. Movement is wooden and unintuitive throughout, characters are tepid and unlikeable, and those damnable cut scenes go on for far, far too long. MGS has always fancied itself a bit of a blockbuster, but 8 hours of pained, non-interactive exposition is just way too much.

Let's settle it - SM sneak-athon. Both parties don tight rubber suits and crawl around their local towns. First to be arrested loses.

Supporters see - A bold new step for the Metroid series, Other M combines beautiful graphics, compelling gameplay and a much more ambitious style of narrative to create one of the Wii's most under-appreciated gems. In keeping with the series' 2D roots, Samus returns to her agile best here, forsaking the 'tank-like' movement of the Prime titles and introducing a unique and highly responsive control scheme.

Detractors see - A short, overly linear and occasionally uncontrollable mess that disregards much of the franchise's tradition. Featuring a bevy of unskippable, overlong cut scenes, starring a newly obedient Samus, Other M consistently interjects lame, cookie cutter plot beats into a franchise that has little-to-no need of them. Give us back our strong leading lady.

Let's settle it - Both parties confront MMA champion Ronda Rousey with classic 1920's sexism. First to die loses.

Supporters see - The precision gunplay of Halo meets the endless possibilities of the MMO, bonding quality levelling elements to a rewarding and consistently-varied shooter. Hype has a way of hardening some people's perspectives, but don’t be fooled, this is a highly competent and gratifying experience that’s sure to endure and expand over the years to come.

Detractors see - An unfinished, largely generic FPS title masquerading as an online game-changer. Quests are uninspired, the setting pretty but lifeless, and the storyline all but non-existent. Go here, kill this, defend that - rinse, repeat and regret. Even the mighty Peter Dinklage can't summon up any enthusiasm for this paint-by-numbers actioner.

Let's settle it - Xbox live endurance test featuring Clockwork Orange-style apparatus. First one to devolve into casual racism and juvenile mic tirades loses.

Supporters see - An emotional roller coaster unlike any other game before it. Beautifully realised, both in terms of its graphical fidelity and authentically mo-capped performances, Two Souls ably continues Quantic Dream's stunning run of unique and challenging titles. This is the 'interactive narrative' writ large, delicately measured and consistently thoughtful throughout - certainly not one for any knuckle-dragging action fans.

Detractors see - A barely interactive 8-hour movie that scarcely deserves consideration as a game. Beyond's narrative aims for high art and misses by some margin, its runtime racked by numerous instances of dreary tedium, and all despite being almost completely linear in nature. Gameplay where it does exist proves to be just as tiresome, clunky and unfocused, with the game more than happy to press on without you, essentially relegating the player to the role of inconsequential 'page-turner'.

Let's settle it - Spot the difference contest featuring Ellen Page and Ashley Johnson's in-game avatars.

Supporters see - An aesthetically sumptuous title that isn't afraid to take established RPG mechanics in brave new directions. Final Fantasy 8 is consistently challenging, its battle systems deep and adaptable and its cast of characters more richly layered and believable than ever before. Purists may loathe the lack of traditional aeon and mana use, but in their place stands a far more customisable, if initially tricky system.

Detractors see - A needlessly fiddly experience that disregards much of what worked before in favour of change for the sake of change. The central junction system is overthought and underdeveloped, as are the levelling, SeeD, 'draw' and GF mechanics. One malfunctioning element would be bad enough, but all of them? As for the game's storyline, that too quickly descends into gibbering farce, filled with criss-crossing plot holes and poorly considered motivations? It's different, but not in a good way.

Let's settle it - See Final Fantasy 13

Supporters see - One of Ninty's teresting experiments, Zelda 2 completely defied expectations, introducing a slew of new and permanent additions to the ongoing Zelda franchise. It may be the relative black sheep of the saga, but that doesn't make it any less of a classic.

Detractors see - An awkward and unnecessary shift away from the first game's iconic framework. There's a reason later games in the franchise would better reflect the original. There are hundreds of identikit side-scrollers out there, but only one Zelda.

Let's settle it - Pistols at dawn.

This weekend, Mad Max mania comes to a head. - won't be out until this September.

But don't worry - there are plenty of games out there to help you satisfy those cravings for all things anarchic and high-octane. If you didn't know, the Mad Max films have , and the series' unique atmosphere has had a sizable influence in the realm of gaming. While you wait to play as the real Max Rockatansky, you ought to check out these titles inspired by George Miller's movies in a variety of ways. Spoiler: some of them don't even involve cars.

This 2011 shooter-racer hybrid from id software is currently the closest thing we have to a game set in the Mad Max universe (ignoring the best-left-forgotten NES game). Besides all the futuristic bits about cryogenic freezing and nanites, Rage's depiction of the desert wasteland that was once Earth feels just like the gritty, unrelenting world of the films. Everywhere you look, there's another homage: muscle cars and dune buggies covered in scrap metal and animal bones, maniacal bandits who terrorize (and sometimes feed on) other survivors, even a deadly metal boomerang that can lop off body parts just like in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Drive angry.

If not for the cel-shaded aesthetic, the Borderlands franchise would have the edge over Rage as the go-to video game simulacrum of Mad Max. The first two games feature more traditional sun-baked badlands, populated primarily by masked Psychos who would fit right in with those Mad Max savages. But I'm going to give the edge to , given how most of the denizens of Pandora's moon speak with an Australian accent, just like the casts of the first two Mad Max films. No matter which game you choose, hopping into an Outrunner or Moon Buggy with a co-op buddy and mowing down bandits is always a rip-roarin' good time.

Were it not for the Mad Max films, gaming's car combat genre probably wouldn't even exist. And while there are a decent number of vehicular deathmatches to choose from, like the Vigilante 8 games or Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012, I consider Twisted Metal: Black to be the pinnacle of the genre. The dark, horrific atmosphere in Black is just as gritty, brutal, and dystopian as Mad Max's world, complete with poor sods chained to cars (much like Lord Humungus' ride in The Road Warrior). Combatants all have a reckless disregard for the value of human life, and the automotive mayhem maintains adrenaline-pumping speed throughout each match. If you've got a PS3, I highly recommend you snag this PS2 Classic ASAP.

The original Mad Max is all about the roaring choppers, and no series does motorcycle combat as well as Road Rash. Even though being the first one to cross the finish line is your primary goal, the action really revolves around punching, kicking, or clobbering your competitors with blunt objects as you all weave in and out of traffic. If you don't feel like dusting off your PS1, N64, or (god forbid) 3DO to play the classic versions, you'll definitely want to check out , a spiritual successor to Rash on Steam Early Access.

Pick any Fallout, really - all of them perfectly capture the feeling of wandering alone through a post-apocalyptic desert, scavenging and killing to survive. You won't do a whole lot of driving (unless you fix up a Corvega in Fallout 2), but the tradeoff is Dogmeat, a loyal canine companion just like the one at Max's side in The Road Warrior. Body armor comes in the form of whatever you can find and safely strap to your body, and chems will keep you fighting at a long-term, irradiated price. If only you could sustain yourself on cans of Dinki-Di dog food.

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is a bit of a weird one, what with the chainmail-clad Tina Turner and tribes of disheveled, primitive kids. But one of the most memorable bits is the subplot with Master Blaster, the symbiotic pairing of a small, arrogant man (Master) riding a hulking, metal-masked brute (Blaster) who together keep the lights on in Bartertown. This design was taken wholesale for 's Ferra and Torr, with the slight adjustment of a little woman as the piggy-backer instead of a man. Granted, Ferra is much more suited for battle than Master, as she'll happily bum-rush opponents with her razor-sharp claws or literally bore her way through their chest cavity like a human cannonball.

If you can't fathom the thought of jumping from the roof of one speeding car onto another, you probably won't last too long in the Mad Max universe. But there's a safe way to train up before the inevitable apocalypse: play the Pursuit Force series, a pair of obscure PSP games about police officers who leap between moving vehicles with reckless abandon. These games are action-packed and gloriously campy, with your character pulling up alongside enemy vehicles and diving into the driver's seat like it's no big deal. Though the superior sequel Extreme Justice is sadly locked to the PSP, the original game is available as a download for PS Vita - just be ready for some merciless difficulty spikes.

Bullets are pretty hard to come by in the post-apocalypse, so Mad Max characters typically rely on more traditional means for deadly projectiles: metal bolts and arrows. Most road warriors fire their volleys with compound bows, but some elite baddies make use of miniature crossbows - perfect for puncturing flesh and tires alike with one hand while you steer with the other. If you're looking to simulate the act of dealing ranged death with adorably small ballistics, Dishonored has the best handheld bows in gaming (or wrist-mounted, if you're playing the Daud DLC).

Lastly, let's pour out a little gasoline for the fallen Auto Assault, which was basically the Mad Max MMO before it was shut down in 2007. Instead of killing boars and rats, all the battles took place between tricked-out vehicles, with combat that let you aim your guns and hit your nitro boosts in real time. Sadly, much like modern civilization in the Mad Max movies, Auto Assault will only live on in our memories. Whichever of these aforementioned games you choose - or others, like the spectacular wrecks of Burnout, or the car-riding possibilities of Just Cause, perhaps - we'll get through the wait for the forthcoming open-world Mad Max game together.

This year marks the 15th birthday of Jet Set/Grind Radio, a game about Olympic-grade rollerbladers who bear their eccentric souls through colorful street art (when they aren't busy grinding across skyscrapers). One of the first titles to incorporate graffiti as a game mechanic, Jet Set's a decade and a half later, when using graffiti as nothing more than a post-apocalyptic flavor enhancer has become a tired trend.

But it's not all bad. While some games have morphed in-game graffiti into little more than a forgettable storytelling shortcut, others have put the power of aerosol to good use. Whether it's giving you tips through crimson-colored etchings or letting you leave your still-wet mark on the game world, these titles show gaming graffiti's true potential. Read on, and see what games have done grandaddy Jet Set proud.

We can't all be Banksy. For every fine artist that graces the mean streets with their aerosol masterpieces, there's 1000 taggers who focus on ten-second spray jobs that are either incomprehensible or pretty damn dull. Most games don't tend to showcase that part of graffiti culture, preferring their nameless citizens to be articulate and ominous in their frantic wall-scribbling. The Last of Us, however, makes a point of including some more everyday graffiti, from messy tagging to deliberate notes that get their message across in the most functional way possible.

While some games create graffiti that tries so hard to be unnerving or atmospheric that it quickly grows stale, mixing it up is a great way to keep the player immersed. By incorporating a mix of tagging, direct messaging, and the more cryptic writings games like to go for, The Last of Us' world feels a lot more real. Plus, it's nice to get a warning about the guy who'll shoot you if you want into his house. Thanks for the heads-up!

Most 'graffiti' written in blood is hard to take seriously. That's especially the case when the message is vague and enigmatic, because you'd think when you're dying of massive blood loss you'd get to the point a lot faster. This once unique shortcut to creepy has been trod so often it's basically a five-lane highway, and now blood-based messaging almost always looks cheap. Almost, because Dead Space gets a special exemption. The first time you see CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS fingerpainted across the wall, it actually looks incredibly disturbing and gives you critical information.

Given that Isaac just witnessed his comrades being brutally murdered by an unknown monster and almost got chewed on himself, you were probably pretty freaked out when you first stumble upon this helpful and sticky message. It plays well into the atmosphere the game is building, and it's such practical advice for how to deal with necromorphs that it doesn't seem out of place. The UI kind of ruins the moment by immediately explaining what them note means, but don't blame the graffiti for that.

While Dishonored does commit some of the standard game-graffiti sins ("Rats are eating our babies" was scary the first time, but less so the ten times after that…), it's not all the same vague declarations of misery that make every post-apocalyptic reality look exactly alike. In addition to giving you information about Dunwall that's more specific than 'here be generic unrest', it's also tailored to Corvo and what in particular would catch his eye.

Specifically, the street art of Dunwall does its greatest service to the Empress, who appears in stenciled form frequently throughout the city where you least expect to find her. Given that she's the North on Corvo's moral compass, the fact that images of her are everywhere makes it feel like you're being carefully watched, and gets you wondering (usually uncomfortably) if you're doing the right thing.

Most games stick exclusively to graffiti as a controlled, atmospheric component, which is kind of ironic when you think about it. Infamous apparently decided it's had enough of the man's version of graffiti, and decided to put the spray can in your hands. Through a series of mini-games that require you to turn your controller on its side and shake it around (and you'll do it regardless of looking dumb because it's fun as heck), you choose between various 'good' and 'bad' stencil designs that you can paint across Seattle. You'll also get good or evil karma depending on if you paint something uniting or inflaming, so maybe stick to giant rubber ducks if you want to stay benevolent.

Second Son isn't the first game to make graffiti an interactive experience, but it adds an extra layer of player agency by letting you choose what kind of tone you want to give the work and how you want it to affect the world. Do you promote unity and peace, or rebellion? That's up to you, but whatever you choose, it's gonna look sick.

In the Aperture Science Labs, where everything at first seems so purposefully and perfectly arranged, it's the small inconsistencies that make you realize something's amiss. Like, say, a wall panel that's propped open a little too far. Get close enough to crawl inside, and the wall of manic scribbling that greets you removes any misguided feelings of safety you might have had.

While it might seem passé now that THE CAKE IS A LIE memes have driven us all up the wall, Portal's graffiti is cleverly designed to make sure you feel truly unsafe in Aperture while still making basically zero sense. Not only is some person hiding in the walls so he can write this stuff, but turning familiar imagery into something sinister (like a security cameras with the words SHE'S WATCHING YOU scribbled next to it in bright red) while not giving you anything concrete immediately sets you on edge. Good thing too, since that sets you up for a close call later.

Silent Hill knows that less is more, especially when it comes to street visibility and safe places to hide. The series is known for using a visual or trick only once, making the most of the one moment when it would be scary and then not falling back on it again. But enough about that one damn bathroom jump scare (*shivers*), because Silent Hill 2 does something similar with graffiti. There are only two notable pieces in the whole game, but they're used to such chilling effect that I remember them to this day. And not by choice.

The two pieces are drastically different - one is nonchalant gibberish about a missing hole in the wall, while the other is a direct threat to the state of James' semi-rotten soul - but they work together to scare the health drink right out of you. The nonsensical but eerie nature of the first primes you for fight, and, so you're even more shaken when you see the note telling James to kill himself. In one splashing of gorey street vandalism the game puts you on edge, tells you that someone wants you dead, and leaves you wondering why James and his late wife Mary wouldn't show up in the same place afterward. And isn't that a doozy of a question.

Few games like to take the 'metro station bathroom stall' route with their graffiti, but sometimes that's just the most natural, embarrassingly human way to go. The safehouses in Left 4 Dead are littered with graffiti from survivors who've gone before, with messages varying from poetic notes to helpful information to mocking the guy who wrote the poem because oh wow, that was terrible. Special ridicule is reserved for the kind of eerie messages common to other games, and you can expect a note like "We are the real monsters" to be annotated with "You are the real moron" in response.

In addition to being realistic - you know you've seen some bit of graffitied wisdom with PS I'm fat scribbled below it - it also does the exactly opposite of most game wall writing by making the world feel less empty. While you only have your wits and your three friends of varying combat skill to save you from the oncoming horde, seeing that other people have made it to the safehouses and brought their juvenile humor with them creates a weird sense of hope. Maybe misplaced, but let's try to be optimistic.

The Marvel Universe is dead! There is only Secret Wars. This is Marvel’s biggest comic book event in years. To put the premise as concisely as possible, the classic Marvel Universe is colliding with the newer Ultimate Universe, and both of them will be gone. For those coming into Secret Wars fresh, the Marvel Universe is the one created by Stan Lee and artists like Jack Kirby - the foundation of . The Ultimate Universe was created in 2000, to bring in new readers and debut revamped versions of popular characters, most notably Ultimate Spider-Man.

What happens in Secret Wars will apparently lay the foundation of the Marvel Universe for years to come. I think it’s a great jumping-on point for new readers because it’s a fresh start - a huge unknown with the potential to rewrite everything. Here are ten Secret Wars books that will be essential reading as this huge event kicks off.

Secret Wars is what happens when these two fictional entities collide, leaving behind a reality unlike either of them, known as Battleworld. 33 of Marvel’s most popular comics, like Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers, will end. So what’s left?

Battleworld is a landscape made of different parts of Marvel’s history, and the setting of Secret Wars. Marvel has even of it. Different storylines from Marvel’s past literally occupy parts of this world; they describe it as a ‘patchwork planet’. Think of it like this: the 2006 comic book story, Civil War, literally occupies one nation in this immense world, co-existing with many others. It’s Marvel’s history built into one mighty realm. During Secret Wars, Marvel will tell the stories of Battleworld in a host of new comic book series, which launch across the next three months.

Ready to get started with the comics? Click on, brave traveller...

First issue release date: May 6

You’ll need to read the main book to keep track of what’s going on, of course. This is a story that writer Jonathan Hickman has been building towards ever since he started writing both and New Avengers in 2012. Secret Wars has been in the planning stages for that long; it’s anything but an improvised event.

In the first issue, out now, we see the heroes of the Marvel Universe and Ultimate Universe having a climactic showdown, bringing both of their universes to an end. Then, in the second issue, we’ll get a first proper look at the Battleworld, which sets the stage of every book launching during the event and changes the course of the Marvel universe forever.

First issue release date: May 27

The superheroes are long gone, but a much older Wolverine lives on in the Wastelands, a kind of messed-up Marvel future where villains rule. Think Unforgiven with Wolverine, because that’s basically what Old Man Logan is - a one-last-job vision of the X-Man, originally conceived for the story of the same name back in 2008 (one of the best Marvel has ever published).

Don’t worry if you’ve never read it. This sequel stands alone, and sees Wolverine attempting to bring order to this chaotic world - which is now further complicated by the events of Secret Wars, and the creation of Battleworld. Old Man Logan is intriguing because in the ‘regular’ Marvel Universe, Wolverine died last year. Is this Marvel’s way of bringing him back, via the coolest iteration of the character ever?

First issue release date: July 7

You might’ve heard the name ‘Civil War’ in recent months, given that it forms the basis of the next Captain America movie, out in 2016, which will feature Cap fighting Iron Man and will force the rest of the heroes to take sides. This Secret Wars book revisits the idea at the centre of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s hugely successful 2006 event book Civil War: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark divided over a matter of superheroes being forced to disclose their identities (Iron Man for, Cap against), but blows it up into a much bigger story.

In Secret Wars, instead of that fight being tidily resolved after a few brawls, this new Civil War reimagines it as a conflict that never ceased. It’s now a six-year war, where Tony Stark is president and Steve Rogers is a general, with the nation broken in two over their different ideologies - it’s taking the concept as far as it can go and sounds like one of the larger-scale Secret Wars spin-offs.

First issue release date: June 3

A few years ago, Marvel made the divisive decision to erase Peter Parker’s long-running relationship with Mary Jane Watson out of continuity. This caused a loud internet upset that’s never quite gone away. Since then, though, Marvel has published some of the best Spider-Man stories I’ve ever read - Spider Island, Superior Spider-Man, Spider-Verse, all of which are worthy of the character.

But some readers never forget, and it finally seems like that’s being addressed. In Renew Your Vows, we get to see Peter Parker not only married to Mary Jane, but with a child, too (in the comics, Peter and MJ had a child that died many years ago). It underlines the extent to which Secret Wars is allowing creators to explore every major storyline in Marvel’s history - and writer Dan Slott has promised that whatever happens here will affect the Spider-Man that emerges from Secret Wars.

First issue release date: May 20

As Secret Wars begins, the old Avengers team is gone. The book and the team no longer exists. A-Force is, for all intents and purposes, the Avengers in Secret Wars, composed of quite an eclectic mix of characters like She-Hulk, X-Men pop star Dazzler, the Inhumans’ Medusa and about a hundred others, judging by the cover. The idea was to create a team of heroes from various backgrounds and see how their personalities and methodologies fit together. At the start of the book, the A-Force will be protecting a small island called Arcadia on the outskirts of Battleworld, that’s seemingly one of the last peaceful bastions of civilisation in this landscape.

A-Force comes from writer G Willow Wilson, who created the acclaimed Ms Marvel book, and Marguerite Bennett, as well as artist Jorge Molina. It’s the first all-female Avengers team, an idea that will hopefully stick around once Secret Wars has ended.

First issue release date: June 10

For me, there’s been no better and more consistent Marvel book from the last few years than Jason Aaron’s Thor. In the Secret Wars series Thors (plural), gods of thunder from various Marvel realities team up to police Battleworld. In the line-up, you’ve got the newest, female Thor from the current Marvel books, Frog Thor, Beta-Ray Bill and my personal favourite: old king Thor, a one-armed, eyepatch-wearing eccentric who rules Asgard in the far future.

Jason Aaron equates Thors to something of a cosmic detective drama, where the group travels across the Battleworld, solving uniquely weird and shocking crimes. Given that various Thors feature prominently on the cover of Secret Wars #2, this will likely be essential reading for those following the main series. Aaron describes it as “basically me doing a cop story, but with hammers instead of guns.” Sold! There’s even going to be a Groot Thor, based on the Guardians of the Galaxy tree creature.

First issue release date: May 20

In 2000, Marvel made the radical and brilliant move of creating a brand new universe, where it could release stories featuring iconic characters without the clutter brought on by decades of continuity. The Ultimate Universe, as it is known, was a big success and titles like Ultimate Spider-Man changed the way all publishers thought about comics appealing to a broad audience.

15 years later and now with its own somewhat complex continuity, the Ultimate Universe is dying alongside its older brother. This is its last gasp, from two of its creators, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley. What happens to the majority of its characters, like alternate versions of Captain America, or Thor, is a mystery that this book should reveal - what we do know, however, is that the newest Spider-Man, Miles Morales, will escape his dying universe and survive Secret Wars. He’s one of the stars of the All-New, All-Different Avengers roster that is coming after this event finishes - the existence of which is the only thing we know about Marvel’s post-Secret Wars universe so far.

First issue release date: June 24

In the case of a lot of these Secret Wars books, the appeal is seeing iconic Marvel characters in new, exciting situations. Age of Ultron vs Zombies is a book where I’m sold on the title alone. In this zombie thriller from brilliant veteran writer James Robinson and artist Steve Pugh, there’s a war-zone between Ultron’s part of Battleworld and the world where Marvel’s zombie population roams. Here, a pocket of mankind, including Marvel heroes like The Vision and Wonder Man, are trying to hold off both sets of enemies.

It sort of sounds like a Marvel version of horde mode from Gears of War, and it’ll feature reams of Marvel villains in undead form - the announcement alone showed off flesh-eating variants of Kingpin, Bullseye and Spidey foe Kraven The Hunter. Looks like a lot of fun.

First issue release date: June 17

It’s not just the planet that’s thriving with superpowered activity in Secret Wars. There’s a moon orbiting Battleworld: Knowhere, the giant space head world seen in detail in last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie. In Guardians of Knowhere, it’s the grim backdrop to a sci-fi mystery story, where Guardians Drax, Rocket Raccoon, Gamora and Angela protect those who need it in this skeezy locale. Here, they’ll face some form of mysterious new villain, who you’d expect to be a pretty rotten apple if they’re hanging out on Knowhere.

If you enjoyed last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, this seems like a pretty good place to jump in and see what the characters are up to in comic book form.

First issue release date: May 20

One of my favourite Marvel books of the last few years was the Spidey story Spider-Verse, which threw together every version of Spider-Man ever as they fought against dimension-travelling vampires (I know that sounds ludicrous, but trust me, it was great. Comic books!). In this Secret Wars series, a bunch of the best Spideys reunite for a mostly New York-set story that’ll feature a number of Spidey villains, too, including a version of Norman Osborn that may or may not be evil.

The specifics of this story are shrouded in mystery, but it’s the potential team dynamic of this Spidey line-up that I’m excited about the most: Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy from an alternate universe where Peter Parker died, and a brilliant contemporary reinterpretation of the Spider-Man concept), Spider UK (Spider-Man saying British things), Spider-Man Noir, the Spider-Man of India and Spider-Ham (a pig that is also Spider-Man). If it’s anything like Spider-Verse, it’ll be a fun team-up book that reaffirms why Spider-Man is a pillar of the Marvel Universe.