Learning from failure is an important part of life and, consequently, video games. Getting killed by a tricky boss teaches you how to recognize patterns and to respond with correct timing. Losing all of your troops gives you a valuable lesson on prudence and strategy. With a lot of time, effort, and perhaps a little help from your friends (or a strategy guide), you can finally overcome a game's most arduous challenges and earn yourself the bleakest, most depressing ending ever. Wait, what?

Most of the time, failure is the result of an inability to complete certain objectives, not having enough supplies, or poor decision-making skills. But if you want to fail in these seven games, you really need to work for it, fighting absurdly difficult bosses or making wildly counter-intuitive choices, all so you can watch the world burn. Caution: I'm gonna be spoiling like mad up in here. You've been warned.

If you've played Spec Ops: The Line, you know exactly how meta its ending already is. Commander Konrad, the man you were sent to rescue, has been dead for weeks, and your brain has been messing with your perception of reality to rationalize the atrocities you've committed to complete your mission. By confronting and 'killing' the projection of Konrad, you give yourself a chance to atone for your actions. Or... you can take the hard way out.

After the credits, you're confronted by squad of US soldiers. You can drop your weapon and go with them, thus giving yourself a chance at redemption, or you can open fire on them and attempt to take them all out. I say 'attempt', because this is actually much harder than it sounds, considering you're one shell-shocked mess of a human going up against an entire platoon. If you're able to kill everyone, you grab the walkie-talkie off the nearest dead body, and utter to your superiors the same words 'Konrad' said to you when you first arrived: "Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai." So much for atonement.

Like Drakengard before it, spin-off Nier's endings start off bittersweet and get progressively more bleak as you unlock them. In order to earn the final (and most depressing) ending of the bunch, you'll have to go through several rounds of New Game+, then commit the most eternal of video game acts: deleting your save file.

Once you beat the game the first time, you can use your save file to continue playing, starting over from the midpoint of Nier's story. Completing it a second time will unlock a different ending, providing a little more context to the story, but still not really resolving anything. Completing the game a third time will finally give you a chance to choose one of two final endings: do you kill one of your friends and then live the rest of your days waiting to die from a plague known as the Black Scrawl, or do you sacrifice your entire being to save her? If you pick the second option, all memory of your existence is erased from everyone you've ever interacted with - and all of your save files disappear along with it. It's actually kind of poetic. Still doesn't make playing through a game three times any less of a time sink.

Harvest Moon certainly isn't an easy game by any means. There are so many different tasks to juggle as you tend to your farm, like milking cows, rotating crops, and wooing one of the locals. But even if you flail about with no plan or routine in mind, you're still bound to get something done. But in order to get Harvest Moon's bad ending, you're not allowed to do anything for an entire in-game year.

In order to get Harvest Moon's bad ending, you have to make sure that your farm is barren by the end of the year. This means no planting or selling crops or buying any animals. Heck, it's probably best if you just don't talk to any one at all, lest someone actually form an opinion about you. After twiddling your thumbs and resisting the urge to do something, anything, other than waking up and going to bed for an entire year, you get , leaving your whimpering dog behind on the front steps as you run as far away from this hick town as fast as your legs can carry you.

Bioware made a big deal out of how Commander Shepard could die during the final suicide mission in Mass Effect 2. What they didn't mention was how difficult it was to actually make that happen. How hard is it? Let's just say that Emmet from The Lego Movie could have stumbled his way to victory with more grace.

If you want Shepard to bite the bullet (along with else in your squad), you have to completely forgo completing any of your companions' loyalty missions. This not only puts your squad at a disadvantage (because they won't be able to access their best upgrades without completing them), but it also means abandoning some of the best content Mass Effect 2 has to offer. Then, simply ignore your squad's suggestions during the final mission and assign the worst possible soldiers to complete the required tasks (Jacob for hacking, Miranda to handle the biotic shield, etc.) Pull off all of that, bring two disloyal team members with you for the final battle, and voila, . Congratulations?

Like Mass Effect 2's ending, you have to be very deliberate with your choices if you want to see the Origami Killer get away scot-free. It also helps to know who the Origami Killer is, a fact that you probably won't realize until you've seen the plot hole-laden twist near the end of the game. But once you know who the Killer is (spoilers: it's the private detective Scott Shelby), you can then put all the pieces in place and help him get away with murder.

Essentially, you need to make sure that all of the people Scott meets during his investigation (parents of previous victims and potential witnesses) end up dying. That guy in the convenience store? If you rescue him during the stick-up, you're actually hurting yourself, so just don't do anything and the situation will… resolve itself. Also, playable characters Madison and Jayden have to die, but in very specific points in the story. You know what? Just read this , because there's no way you'd be able to get this without obsessing over a corkboard covered in pictures and bits of string.

Because of its arcade roots, House of the Dead was designed to suck as many quarters out of your pocket as possible. It's a difficult game, and enemies are relentlessly gnashing and clawing away at you in an attempt to take a bite of your tasty brainmeats. But if you want to see the game's bad ending, you need to be flawless in your execution; good enough to beat the game without using a continue, but not so good that you score over 62,000 points.

House of the Dead's good ending is surprisingly easy to get in comparison. All you really have to do is play the game with a modicum of skill, and you'll easily score over 62,000 points by the end of it. But if you want to see lead hero Thomas' fiancée turned into a zombie, you're have to be much more judicious, only offing the demons that will either progress the scene forward or are about to kill you. And you can't just refrain from killing anything; the number of continues used has to end in a zero, so you're better off not dying at all in order to guarantee that you see the bad ending.

The Disgaea series is known for ridiculous difficulty spikes and for turning level grinding into an artform, and hey, if that's your jam, these turn-based RPGs will eat up hundreds of hours of your time. But even the most ardent Disgaea die-hard has to admit that trying to earn the bad ending in Disgaea 2 is borderline Kafkaesque.

You need to accomplish two things before going into the final boss: you need to have over 99 ally kills (and one of them has to be main heroine Rozalin), and you need to have earned over 99 felonies (which are granted by fulfilling certain requirements in the Item World). Oh, and you need to make sure you're powerful enough to beat the level 2000 boss (which replaces the level 90 boss you'd normally fight to watch the good ending). After dozens upon dozens of hours of grinding just to stand a fighting chance, you're finally rewarded with an in which the hero kills and (quite possibly) eats his friends. Yaaaay...

Congratulations! You made it to the good ending of this article simply by clicking those little arrows. There is a bad ending, but it requires finding a hidden pixel somewhere on this website, then muttering the secret passphrase under your breath three times while spinning around on one foot (which you'd only know if you bought the GamesRadar+ Official Strategy Guide, of course). If you've got an obscure downer ending you'd like to share, let me know in the comments!

Looking for more? Be sure to check out these .

Using environmental storytelling in a game is a bit like raising a pet tiger. It takes a lot of work to pull off, but if you manage, the result is beautiful and will capture the imagination of anyone who lays eyes on it. But if something goes wrong, that project will destroy everything you love and probably rip out your throat. Well, maybe not that last part, but that still gives you a pretty good idea what havoc bad environmental storytelling can cause. Doing it well can improve a game immensely, but doing it poorly can undermine everything you tried to build. Not deadly, but not pleasant.

The reason environmental storytelling can have such a big impact is that it's meant to build up the world by embedding visual stories into the setting. When it's done right, the environment feels as alive and complex as our own world, which pushes us to explore it more. But done badly, it makes the setting feel flat and fake, ruining our immersion and loudly saying this isn't real, nothing to marvel at here. To show what I mean, I've gathered some of the best and worst examples of environmental storytelling in all of gaming, where relying on the environment helps or hurts the game world as a whole. Let's see how nasty a metaphorical tiger bite can be.

The idea of high-society types lugging around giant tape-recorders might seem odd (sorry, eccentric), but BioShock's audio diaries serve such a useful function that you can forgive them for looking clunky. Specifically, they give you small peeks into the world of Rapture to help you unravel the mystery of why everyone's either dead or trying to murder you while their flesh melts off.

The diary-and-note mechanic (building the world up through first-hand accounts from people who live there) can be difficult to manage without giving too much away, since many games get too obvious and use them as big red X's to mark the plot twist. Thankfully, BioShock sidesteps that problem by using most logs to flesh out the world of Rapture, from a parent whose daughter has been turned into a Little Sister or a police chief who watches Andrew Ryan's transformation into a vicious tyrant. There are clues about the plot buried in there too, but since those decorative diaries seem just as important as their story-focused cousins, you won't realize what you've heard until you're curled up in a ball wondering how you could have missed it.

The hidden diaries in Murdered: Soul Suspect give collectaholics something to do, and do a good job of not blowing the plot, but in the end they swing too far the other way and end up being irrelevant. Most hone in on the lives of various characters, like Ronan's wife Julia and his nemesis Baxter, which sounds like it should enhance the game's noir vibe. But it quickly becomes obvious that those characters have little connection to the world around you and don't affect the plot much, so any examination of their lives is largely a waste of time.

Granted, some of Murder's notes do contain fun tidbits, like the fact that Ronan named his gun after his mother for reasons he should probably work out with a professional. But the moment you put that note down it disappears from your mind, because it doesn't have any real impact. We're given no real reason to care about these characters, since they barely affect the plot and aren't particularly interesting, so their observations about the world don't end up meaning much. As a result, the level of attention they get from these notes feels wasted. The magazine in the basement of the apartment building looks like a better read, and you can't even pick it up.

If you don't think a child's Crayola masterpiece could leave you misty-eyed, find one the next time you're playing The Last of Us. This game gives you plenty of space to poke around the remnants of the old world, and it's not just generic piles of trash or overgrown cars either. These are detailed environments that demand your attention and a little somber thought.

Maybe it's a busted-up library, or an office full of simple trinkets, or a kid's room with posters, books, and toys still in place. The fact that each location is unique and familiar in a way that's inconsistent with the hellhole Joel and Ellie are swimming through highlights how important this stuff is, since it's all that remains of the lives that unfolded here. That in and of itself is a story, of the things we take for granted and the people who left it all behind. You can't help but wonder what happened to them, and that's how the world grows inside your mind.

You know how in driving scenes in old movie (or bad modern ones), you can tell that the world out the back window is just a picture on a green screen and there isn't really anything there? The world of The Order: 1886 feels like that, where decorations meant to flesh out fantasy-London are flimsy and paper thin, and if you're not careful you might punch through them and ruin the whole shot.

As opposed to The Last of Us, where every picture on an old desk has meaning, set-pieces in The Order are all fluff and no substance. Sure, that poster of a man on an oversized bicycle is cool, but all it does is shout "SO VICTORIAN" without actually telling you about the bizarre, werewolf-y place you're supposed to be in. Even actionable items have this problem, because when the game encourages you to inspect a random smoking pipe with no clue why you're doing it, you're going to be a lot more confused than enlightened. Is it special somehow? Who does it belong to? Is there a clue inside about where the werewolves are? What's the answer??

Jet Set Radio may be grinding toward its fifteenth birthday (which is like 107 in video game years), but it still has plenty to teach contemporary games about the art of tagging. Jet Set uses graffiti not just as a gameplay mechanic, but to tell you something about the world of Tokyo-to and the West Side Story back-up dancers - I mean gang members - who occupy it.

Each gang you encounter has their own unique style, and while that's apparent in their elaborate fashion choices (it takes confidence to wear a mummy costume out in public everyday), each group's graffiti helps strengthen their sense of identity and gives the world more flavor. You can also add your own art to the game's original version, letting you inform the style of the game in a way that's specific to you. And yeah, you spend a lot of time painting over as much of your rival gang's street art as possible, but that doesn't take away from the impression you get from their style and where their work pops up. A mummified cube painted at the pinnacle of a skyscraper? What an artistic/completely badass soul.

Oh my God, we get it already. Almost any game where society has collapsed due to some sort of apocalyptic happening has so much graffiti scattered around the world that it ultimately stops being meaningful. Sure, it's cool the first time you see a compelling message like "No One Leaves" or "You'll Die Before We Starve", but after finding it written three or four times in the exact same configuration, it starts to lose its oomph.

While making the most of resources is fine (it's unlikely any player is going to see every place where "Rats are eating our babies" is scrawled across the wall), many games get too comfortable with the idea, so if you're paying attention to the environment at all you're going to be sick of it halfway through. Now suddenly an attempt to make the world feel more organic and alive has backfired, and we see that texture asset for exactly what it is.

Silent Hill is creepy 100% of the time, but sometimes it's a bit less subtle about it than others. While the foggy, largely-deserted landscape of the 'normal' Silent Hill is unnerving, the 'nightmare' Silent Hill is a hellscape of blood-splattered torture machines and that removes any uncertainty about whether or not you're in a safe place (you're welcome). Plus, the whole town likes to shift from one to the other at random, taking you out of an already uncomfortable situation and spinning you around so you're lost and confused and terrified. It's like the world's worst game of pin the tail on the donkey, except the donkey's a mutilated corpse.

This spontaneous world-shifting is used , establishing the town's sinister nature without giving away what's causing it or what murderous healthcare professional is going to fall on your head next. Even without being explicit, the changing environments communicate that something is very amiss, ensuring that you're appropriately scared without having to rely on anything cheap.

As ambitious as Final Fantasy VIII tries to be with its story and its many, many, many different plotlines, some of those choices don't exactly pan out. One of the most obvious is the concept of Time Compression, which is confusing from the get-go and not explained very well. Instead, the game tries to convey what Time Compression is while it's happening, through a series of rapid environmental shifts as our heroes catapult toward the future. And it does not work at all.

While the changes in setting might have been all right if there was context to show you where you'd landed, the game moves so fast that it never really gets around to it. All you see are psychedelic and/or featureless landscapes that give you no idea where you are, so you completely miss out on everything that's happening in your confusion. Apparently there's a lot going on too, because at that moment you're hurtling along the timestream and fighting every sorceress that ever lived, so that when Ultimecia dies she has no other body to jump into. Did you get that? Yeah, me neither.

One of the keys to making a game world feel alive is to create the sense that you aren't the center of the universe. You may be a world-renowned hero or a dreaded assassin who gets a lot of lips flapping, but real people are going to talk about things that are in no way related to your latest exploits. Dishonored makes a point of inserting those conversations into every location you visit, and even if people share a word about the bloodthirsty killer who's roaming the street, they spend a lot more time talking about whiskey and cigars.

While Dishonored does have its fair share of repeated dialogue (I wonder if that one guy ever got his own squad), most of its NPC exchanges are unique, focusing on some aspect of Dunwall that gives the world character and meaning. You learn how the working class is treated by listening to maids complain about their bosses, and see how deep corruption runs by hearing guards bully a woman out of her rations. And yes, some of those conversations are mission-relevant, but you have to know what you're looking for to figure it out. Oh, a brand that marks anyone stamped with it for instant banishment? Do go on.

Hearing NPCs spout the same bit of dialogue over and over again isn't ideal, but it won't necessarily bring your disbelief crashing down in a hail of arrow-to-the-knee memes. That is, until you've heard every bit of NPC dialogue a hundred times over, the way you do in Assassin's Creed. That flattens the world faster than if it took a Leap of Faith off the tallest building in Jerusalem and completely missed the haystack.

While each entry in the series is guilty of this to a degree (with Unity doubling down, though that might've been a glitch), the platonic ideal of this problem is the very first AC. You'll often hear NPCs giving sermons and talking amongst themselves, which is meant to show there's a whole world outside of your existence and you're just a silent knife in the crowd. But those digital folks are limited to a few set remarks, so you'll probably hear most of what they have to say before you're done with the first mission. Eventually you can tell what someone's going to say after a single word, and it reminds you that as big and pretty as this city is, its inhabitants don't have much going on under the hood.

As video game stories grow in complexity and the worlds that contain them get more elaborate, we can probably expect these touchstones of environmental storytelling to survive into the near future. But every new release that passes through our consoles makes us that much better at detecting what works and what doesn't, and the evolution of these techniques will be interesting to watch. Which of these examples do you think worked the best? Which annoy the heck out of you? Did I miss your favorite aspect of environmental storytelling in my fixation on copy-paste graffiti, because it's seriously everywhere? Tell us in the comments below!

Don't want to put this collection of words down just yet? Read on with .

Remember back in high school there was always that one kid who could somehow grow a full and luxurious beard? He always looked so mature, and interesting, and somehow more respectable. He was our de facto leader, the one true teen, blessed with the rich, rugged whiskers of a Brian Blessed or a Tom Selleck. While the rest of us made do with a paltry patch of lip fur - we still looked like late stage foetuses, regardless - this one kid was leaping way, way ahead of the curve. So, why am exactly I talking about this? Well, for a start, I owed Mr. Blessed a favour, and secondly - moustachioed adolescents just so happen to be the perfect metaphor for games that look light years ahead of their competition.

They may exist on the same hardware, but they're anything but equal - these are the gob-smacking, eyebrow raising, fist-pump inducing titles that looked so good they were very nearly next-gen, no new hardware required. Feast your eyes on these.

Egad, do you even remember what the Game Boy Color looked like? All those garish hues and simplistic sprites, swirling around the screen to the sounds of a Nokia 3210 begging for death. Doubtless New Nightmare was intended to be different - more immersive, and far darker than anything the GBC had previously witnessed. And different it certainly was - different from good, - but while the game itself was absolute grade-A human manure, New Nightmare's visuals were a cut above its handheld contemporaries. Squint and you might even mistake it for a GBA title... almost.

Ah the Atari Jaguar, the overzealous hare to Ninty's turtle and Sony's, err, turtle… and maybe Sega's turtle too. The point is that the Jag took a great big early jump into supposedly next-gen gaming, only to wind up losing the race in short order. Whether by ill luck or poor planning, Atari's final console found itself performing a weak, over-hyped, half-generational leap at a time when the rest of its competitors were revving up for the full double jump. It was the Dreamcast of its day, only without the great games and lasting legacy of warm, gooey feelings.

Yet despite its rapid obsolescence, Atari's machine did manage to produce one outstanding looker. It may not seem like much today, but at the time of its release, AvP was damn near the diamond-standard in home console visuals.

Seeing slick 3D graphics emanate from your humble SNES must've seemed like pure witchcraft back in 1993. The machine itself was already some two years old by that point, and the standard was seemingly locked in. Oh sure, later games would continue to look better and better (the SNES was a particularly cocky console like that), but the kind of total, seismic shift entailed by Star Fox's release was a ludicrous advancement, regardless.

The game didn't even require one of those ultra faddish stop-gap peripherals to play. No Sega CDs here, oh no. Star Fox's technical wizardry all occurs inside of the cartridge itself, newly kitted out with the powerful Super FX chip. For a more modern comparison, imagine buying an Xbox One title that suddenly started throwing holograms across the room, firing off game-appropriate scents, or making you a cup of tea. That's how wildly unexpected this baby was back in the early '90s.

As remarkable as Star Fox's appearance may have been to the comparative cavemen of the 1990s, DK's SNES outing was almost even more impressive. Not least because Rare achieved it all without the aid of the aforementioned Super FX. Instead the studio bet big on the relatively 'simple', hitherto underutilised technique of pre-rendering its art in 3D, before importing it into the game. The resulting title boasted some of the most extremely detailed graphics of the era, with the likes of Killer Instinct and Abe's Oddysee later following its lead.

Unreleased and largely unknown in the west, Tobal No.2 represented Square's efforts at a competitive fighting title during the genre's most proliferate period. Despite being bundled with a demo of the hotly anticipated Final Fantasy VII, Tobal No.1 fared poorly enough in the region that it effectively put the kybosh on No.2's Western release. Too bad, because the game itself looked eyeball-blastingly fantastic - or at least it did at the time. Fluid animations, semi-rounded edges, somewhat recognisable faces - it's practically the holy grail of PSOne-era design.

It seems the name Naughty Dog and the term 'visually spectacular' oftentimes go hand in hand. That's because the fine folks behind Crash Bandicoot are absolutely, positively bonkers when it comes to wringing out every last drop of potential from Sony's home consoles.

When it came to creating Crash, the team did everything from writing a new programming language to completely ignoring Sony's memory restrictions. In many ways the game was a completely custom job, and one that even internal Sony programmers were unable to repeat. Crash co-creator Andy Gavin wrote all about it - it's a fascinating read.

Conker's foul-mouthed tirades may have won him a great many admirers, but don't let that fool you - this scatologically-minded squirrel was no one trick pony. Rare's resident rascal also boasted some of the slickest, most lushly textured visuals of the entire 5th generation. Yes, he may have appeared late on in that cycle, but the visual difference between his game and, say, Super Mario 64 remains truly remarkable.

'Boobs'. There, I've just about summed up the entire advertising campaign for Fear Effect 2. Luckily, the game itself isn't quite so shallow, though it remains just as aesthetically pleasing. Where other games of the era were content to model a crumpled up dustbin and call it a face, both Fear Effect and its sequel gave us actual human features, albeit in a slightly stylized form - mixing FMV backdrops with smooth cel-shaded characters.

It’s no exaggeration to state that Fear Effect 2 could've easily passed for a PS2 title. Hell, it still looks good enough to be mistaken for a modern indie hit today. So, how on earth did developer Kronos accomplish this titanic feat? Perhaps through some sort of arcane ritual? Nope, they just shipped the thing on 4 full-to-bursting discs. That's four times the chances of your idiot uncle using one as a drinks coaster. No wonder they called it fear effect.

Poor old Dreamcast, you simply peaked too soon. Much too strong for the 5th gen, much too weak for the 6th. Though you might have had a chance, I suspect, if it weren’t for the poor fortune of facing off against the single most successful console of all time. Curse you PS2, and all of your brilliant games!

Still, the Dreamcast had plenty to recommend it, including the Shenmue series, a pair of ambitious open-world adventures boasting some seriously impressive visuals. Packed with colourful crowd scenes and vibrant environs that feel truly, uncannily alive, Ryo's epic tale looked every bit as revolutionary in 1999 as its 'real-life' RPG gameplay felt.

So beautiful, yet so cruel - Ninja Gaiden Black is the veritable cheerleader of the video game landscape. Smooth as silk and a joy to behold, if not always to play, (y'know, because it's so darn hard) - Black looks more like an Xbox 360 launch title than an original XB game. The very fact that its PS3 port (known as Ninja Gaiden Sigma) looked a little shoddier for the switch should speak volumes about just how pretty this original effort was.

Early Xbox fanboys certainly had their work cut out for them as far as the all-powerful PS2 was concerned. Sony had the sales - roughly 6 times that of the Microsoft machine - the lineage, thanks to the PSOne, and the vast majority of both the timed and non-timed exclusives. Yes, Halo was great, but not enough to compete with the likes of God of War, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy et al. The one solitary area in which Xbox aficionados could be certain of victory was in regards to graphical performance. Xbox games just looked better, and titles like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory were instrumental in proving it.

Detailed environments, smooth animations, and a quality of lighting unheard of on home consoles of the day made Chaos Theory the poster child for the Xbox's visual supremacy. It also didn't hurt that the game's PS2 port utterly paled in comparison. Of course, what most fans neglected to mention is that the game looked better than just about every other Xbox game too…

One of the single best ways to help a game stand the test of time is to try and eschew 'realistic' graphics in favour of a more artistic approach. Cel-shading - or 'the art of drawing big black lines around everything', because screw you high school art teachers - remains one of the most popular means to achieving that end.

2003's Dark Chronicle (aka Dark Cloud 2 in the states), stands as testament to the success of this method, looking just as good today as it did during the latter parts of the PlayStation 2's heyday. Though not as smooth as similarly styled Valkyria Chronicles, the titles remain a fair sight more comparable than any other '03/'08 pairing you could mention. Just ask the likes of Jedi Academy and The Force Unleashed, or Devil May Crys 2 and 4.

This spot could just as easily have been filled by Silent Hill 4, another gorgeously gory title that somehow managed to look like a million blood-soaked bucks. So, If that's your preferred option, I say go wild. Run with the antelope, sing it in the valleys, scream it from the highest mountain top. But for me, Silent Hill 3 looks just a smidgen better.

Whatever the case, neither title has any business whatsoever working on a PS2. It's quite simply stunning what the developers were able to achieve here. Ultra smooth textures, believable character animations, icky schlong monsters. This game has it all!

As visually striking today as it ever was, Okami represents further proof that a strong art-style can and will endure the test of time. Where other, more 'realistic' games quickly become little more than running sight gags - i.e. "I can't believe we used to think this looked good" - Okami and its ilk remain just as vital as ever.

Sure Capcom may have opted to give it the whole HD treatment later down the line, but in truth the game barely needed it. When viewed on a proper, standard-def CRT TV, Okami positively glows, marrying cel-shaded design - there it is again - to ink wash-inspired visuals. There's little more that needs to be said here, other than to perform that weird kissing gesture that cartoon chefs are so fond of. Bellissimo!

Black certainly isn't the prettiest game on this list, though that's largely by design. Few 6th generation titles nailed the grim and gritty aesthetic quite so well as this. What's even more surprising to note is the sheer level of attention being paid to destructibility, one of the game's biggest features and a major drain on resources.

With so much processing power being set aside for crumbly biscuit physics, you'd think the rest of the game's graphics would suffer. Not so, in fact they're some of the best on the platform. It seems the lesson here is a simple one: Don't compromise on anything ever, and everything will work out just fine. Just don't apply that to marriages. In every other respect, you're basically good.

Here's a rare example of a cross-platform title where the old-gen outing looks better than the new. Odd I know, and partially a matter of taste, but there are a few good reasons why this might've occurred. For one, the older system was far better understood than the then-cutting edge Xbox 360. With the game likely being made for the former and ported to the latter, there wouldn't have been many opportunities for true enhancement.

As such, the 360 title appears overly bright and blurry, representing a clear case of a studio throwing fancy effects at a game in the hopes of making it look somehow 'newer'. Still, that's one mighty fine looking Xbox game. Well done, you old geezer.

Proponents of the 'size doesn't matter' debate, look no further than this all-time great. Squished onto one of the GameCube comparatively tiny discs, Resident Evil 4 still managed to look a thousand times better than its eventual PS2 port. A few blurry textures aside, this is a title that could've shown up in the early days of the Xbox 360 and no one would've batted an eyelid.

This, of course leads to the obvious conclusion that the game was actually developed many years into the future, before being sent back in time as reward for our good behaviour. Cheers Capcom.

It's no secret that the longer a development team has with a console, the more power it's able to procure from it. Games at the end of a cycle simply ought to look better than those at the start, where the pressure to go cross-platform and get to grips with some new-fangled technology tends to weigh heavy on the developer. Normally, these visual improvements emerge at a steady rate, eventually reaching a plateau of sorts during the mid-point of a PlayStation or Xbox's life cycle.

Halo 3 represented its series' starting point on the 7th gen. Halo: Reach therefore was its plateau - a modest improvement all around. Except, of course that it wasn't, for after wresting control of the franchise from long-time developer Bungie, 343 Industries set about sacrificing every goat it could get its hands on in order to summon up the sheer level of black magic necessary to produce Halo 4. It may not be 8th gen, but it's damn close enough for a game operating on 2005 hardware. Sumptuous stuff.

Alright alright, let's just get this one out of the way good and early: The Last of Us: Remastered looks a whole lot nicer than this initial effort. I suppose that's kinda the point. And yet for my money the game's PS3 incarnation already looked as good, if not better than most 8th-gen experiences. The whole thing just looks so… soooo… well, I don't know exactly, I guess it defies description. No amount of swooning superlatives could hope to do it justice, and so I'm just going to go ahead and coin a new one myself - 'fansplanshish'. The Last of Us for the PlayStation 3 looks absolutely fansplanshish. Go ahead and jam it in your eyeholes.

Never have I been more sure of the Apple/ Satan relationship than after seeing this stunner in action. How else do you explain the sheer visual majesty on display on a smartphone screen? There can be little doubt about it. Some poor, unfortunate intern definitely wound up on an altar in order to make this happen.

The problem with adding a smartphone game to this list is that the format's generations don't tend to last so long or mean as much. Saying that Infinity Blade looked next-gen therefore doesn't really accomplish a great deal. Still, it's quite an achievement, and a clear winner over the medium's usual fare. When everything else looks like Angry Birds, Infinity Blade may as well be the second coming.

There, that should minimise the deluge of 'But you for got about Game X, you idiot!' in the comments. But it won't, will it? Have at it, I can take it.

Guns! They’re great, aren’t they? In games, we mean. The look and feel of a good gun can single-handedly transform a by-the-numbers shooter into something a bit special. And it helps if it looks badass too, since you spend 99% of your in-game time staring at the back end of it. In celebration of the gun, we’ve rifled (ha!) around the Xbox’s back catalogue to bring you 15 of our favourite bullet-dispensers of all time...

.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to get it: Simply jump into the path of a car as it drives through the demo's perimeter barrier. Do it correctly, and you can get out of the intended area and into the (unfinished and incomplete) world beyond. And there, you'll be able to get up close to the dinosaurs you could previously only see in the distance, and even find a massive titan (pictured), among other things you weren't supposed to see just yet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That feeling you get when you’re falling over is just awful. When you’ve tripped and there’s nothing to grab onto, and you just seem to crumple in slow motion, knowing that this is gonna hurt and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Or when you have a falling dream and wake up going “AAH! Huh? Wha?” from the shock of that brutal, imagined impact with your mattress.

But as harsh as they are, our memories of this feeling and any sense of empathy that goes along with them become as naught when we see someone else falling over. Watching someone flail their arms about in attempt to avoid face-planting a curb is hilarious, and you know it. It’s even funnier in video games, where physics... well, don’t always act like you expect them to. You want some examples? Of course you do. Click on.

Although the Skate series never quite reached the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater level of mainstream love, it certainly became famous for some other reasons. Namely, what happens when you lose your board and it all goes wrong.

If you type “Skate 3” into YouTube, you probably won’t get many actual gameplay videos. In fact I don’t know if anyone in the world is actually good at Skate, since evidence suggests that its players usually just spend their time trying to injure their rider in as many ways as possible. Its accidents get so savage that there’s a dedicated mode where you just have to cause as much damage to your poor avatar as possible. But the real fun begins when the physics bugs out and things start to get...zany.

Many of the games in this list have a common factor: the ragdoll button. A designated control you can hit to intentionally send your character head first into a suicide dive. When developers put this sort of thing into a game, they must know that players aren’t going to get anything productive done.

In Goat Simulator, a quick button tap turns your goat all floppy. While there’s a lot of fun to be had by going round sticking your tongue to people, and headbutting gas canisters until they explode, there’s a simple joy in just pressing a button and watching your goat tumble down a hill. It’s like having access to your own one of these: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg )

Gang Beasts is a game about wobbly Jelly Baby men fighting. It’s basically Power Stone, if Power Stone had underwater physics and was populated by drunken babies. It should come as no surprise that it has a dedicated “flop”. I dare you to not laugh within the first few minutes of firing it up

One (or all) of your friends will probably die within the tutorial, and it only escalates from there. You’ll fall off the top of a ferris wheel and crash through the wooden planks below into the water. You’ll witness players knocked off the top of speeding trucks, as road signs leave permanent imprints on their faces. It’s a fighting game where it doesn’t matter who wins. It’s all just about who gets maimed the funniest.

I remember a conversation I had with a friend back in the mid 2000s, to the effect of “Wouldn’t it be cool if one day you were just running along in a game and randomly fell over?” I don’t know why we were talking about that, but it actually happened. Then, a few months later, the first Assassin’s Creed was announced, and one of the early presentations showed Altair running too fast into a bystander and tumbling to the ground.

We thought that was hilarious, and that’s when we finally knew the next generation of gaming was coming. Forget graphics, and huge, vibrant open-worlds. Next-gen falling over. That’s where it’s at. There’s plenty of other plummeting in Assassin’s Creed too, of course. In fact it’s a trademark core mechanic. Jumping off a building into a pile of hay? Not exactly funny perhaps, but brilliantly preposterous all the same. And of course, given the series' additional propensity for sweet, sweet glitches over the years, there preposerousness to spare for all.

I was probably halfway through the story of Grand Theft Auto 5 before I realised that if I pressed the attack button while in mid-air, my character would ragdoll into a self-loathing, diving faceplant. Needless to say, the next hour or so wasn’t spent planning heists or murdering gangsters. I was attempting to do front flips over park benches. Very few of them went well.

But that didn’t matter, because my failed attempts were way funnier than what would’ve happened if I had succeeded. Pro-tip: If you’re going to try this, make sure you target a bench that someone is already sitting on. Watching two bodies become momentarily entwined before the stranger gets up and runs away in fear is great fun. Though to be fair, I was playing as Trevor, so who knows whether it was actually fear, disgust, or the exciting area of the Venn diagram in between?

Back before EA’s FIFA franchise took over the world of the beautiful game, there were quite a few football series around. One such also-ran was Sony’s This Is Football. I can’t remember if the games were actually any good or not, because my fond memories were formed for entirely different reasons.

Number one: Even back then, developers understood the importance of a dive button. In This Is Football, you can use it to try to fool the referee into giving you a free kick. Or, as I did, you can use it when no-one is even near for purely comedic effect, and watch the ref give you a totally-worth-it yellow card. Number two: the two footed tackle button, with which you can impart the falling fun to other players, by way of your most brutal Sunday League fantasies.

Okay so there’s not much funny about the falling in this one, but it deserves a spot on the list for being one of the very, very few games which is entirely about falling off things. Actually, what am I saying? A game whose core concept is essentially ‘plummet from tall stuff’ is hilarious. Especially if you have a friend with a fear of heights, and make them play it for a whole afternoonv for your own amusement. Could actually do them some good. It’s kill or cure, anyway, and either way it’s funny.

Even if you don’t have a monstrous fear of altitude, the game is pretty terrifying. To get the highest score it’s all about getting “hugs” and “kisses”, which sounds lovely and innocent, but bear in mind that they’re actually being imparted by the sides of buildings as you fall.

In Just Cause 2 you do a hell of a lot of flying, falling, tumbling, and rolling. The grappling hook which you use to propel yourself around is probably one of the best additions to any open-world game there’s ever been. Not only can you attach a plane to a car and watch hilarity ensue, it also has some (relatively) practical uses.

Such as entirely breaking the laws of physics. Falling hundreds of metres to your death at terminal velocity? Well if you have a grappling hook, never fear! Just Cause 2 teaches us that you can simply fire the hook into the ground moments before you land, and pull yourself in for a soft landing. Who said video games weren’t realistic? Me. I did.

As games now rival films in their ability to whip up a shrieking whirlwind of hard cash and column inches, celebrities treat them less like a spoddy hobby and more like serious star vehicles. No more grainy mid-’90s FMV with Mark Hamill – nowadays we’re talking hi-def double bills with Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. Even ol' Kevin Spacey has gotten in on the action. These are six of the most complete celebrity facial and vocal performances. Total dedication to the craft is all we accept. Recognise!

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007 games entered original territory after The World is Not Enough. This 2004 outing got Brosnan’s face and voice for the first and last time, though both Connery and Craig had a pop later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looking for more? Why not read this list of .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eating dust at the back of the racing pack while waiting to see What you need is the competitive edge that only an eye-searingly loud custom decal can provide. We risk blindness to bring you these…

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First things first: please don’t write in and say that those are actually leopard or ocelot markings. Firstly, this isn’t Stupid Spotty Cats: The Official Magazine, and secondly, we’ve burned our retinas clean off in the process of putting this piece together, so we wouldn’t be able to read them. Though remember: in Forza, as in real life, cheetahs never prosper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you're a series fan, you know exactly what you're in for with 's slate of upcoming DLC. That's not really a bad thing, mind - the heavyweight shooter series knows how to make a map pack sing, with oodles of new score streaks and timed events to keep players guessing. Not to mention the indispensable Exo Zombies mode, which expands on CoD's fine tradition of cheesy undead survival with super-powered exoskeletons for everybody. Check the trailer for Episode 2: Extinction below to see for yourself.

As per usual, each pack will hit Xbox One and Xbox 360 first, with release on all the other platforms expected about a month later. Each of the four packs is available on its own for $14.99/£11.59 or as part of the $49.99/£34.99 season pass - which includes a few other bonuses such as the Atlas Gorge map and early access to DLC weapons. Click on for more details on the Ascendance and Havoc map packs, and check back in for more as the season rolls on!

Advanced Warfare's Ascendance DLC map pack, set to go live on Xbox 360 and Xbox One on March 31, is all about getting vertical - kind of like those old Mountain Dew commercials, but with a high-tech grappling hook instead of a sailboard. Players can use the new gadget to zoom around Perplex, Site 244, Climate, and Chop Shop, but only in the Exo Grapple playlist.

Ascendance also adds the new OHM directed energy LMG/shotgun hybrid for use in competitive matches (which Xbox season pass owners are already using to shoot through walls) and its customized variant. Meanwhile, the second episode of the four-player co-op Exo Zombies campaign takes John Malkovich and company to the outskirts of an Atlas facility, where they'll (hopefully) overcome new zombie hordes with a unique selection of traps and weapons. Click on for screens of all the maps and details on previous DLC.

You want more competitive maps? Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's Havoc DLC has more competitive maps. Four more, to be exact: Core, Urban, Drift, and Sideshow, and you can click on to see screenshots and brief synopses for each one. But what good is a bunch of new stages without some new guns to carve them up? Thankfully, Havoc also drops in the AE4 directed energy assault rifle and its customized variant, the AE4 Widowmaker.

Advanced Warfare's first DLC pack also includes the first episode of the Exo Zombies campaign, which sees four civilian employees of the Atlas corporation struggling to survive against an outbreak among the company's elite soldiers. And yes, it amps up the now-standard camp factor, complete with face-captured performances from John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Rose McGowan, and Jon Bernthal to give Kevin Spacey a run for his PMC money.

We're already halfway through Advanced Warfare's Season Pass, but we'll still be sure to give you all the details on the Supremacy and Reckoning map packs as we get them. Until then, what's your favorite map so far? Let us know in the comments!

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It's a real feat for a game to actually surprise you. We've entered an age where every character reveal, every playable mode, multiplayer feature, or gameplay quirk is carefully calculated and announced at the most opportune moment to build hype to an absolute fever pitch. By the time you've bought the game, you've likely already been exposed to nearly everything except the ending (and sometimes that, too).

But sometimes, the PR machine waves a character in your face with their left hand, while holding the super secret true playable character behind their back with their right. Or we already know who the characters are, but then find out you get to control the sidekick once the main hero finds themselves in quite the pickle. However it happens, a proper fake-out is a rare thing in video gaming, and these are some of the most satisfying switcheroos ever. Needless to say, there will be spoilers.

Ubisoft loves to tell people about its games. It seems that in the weeks leading to an upcoming release that Ubi can't go more than a couple of days without showing some new 'dev diary' or revealing every single, granular gameplay feature. But even after hours of behind-the-scenes footage and character profiles, fans weren't prepared to spend the first six hours of Assassin's Creed 3 as British transplant Haytham Kenway, and not his son Connor.

Say what you will about the pacing of those opening hours (OK, fine, yes, they were a tad slow), but they set the stage for Connor's own tale of revenge and redemption. This posh chap has a hidden blade! He's looking for artifacts from the First Civilization! He's… a templar? What the hell? It's a bold move for Ubisoft, and I'm surprised that the whole thing hadn't been detailed in a five part mini-documentary two months before release.

BioShock 2 puts you in the role of one of Rapture's hulking Big Daddies, but there's a surprising bit near the end that puts you in the shoes of another iconic denizen of the underwater city. After losing consciousness, a particularly adept bit of handwaving puts you in control of a Little Sister, allowing you to wander through Rapture's vents and hidden crevices. With this flip, BioShock 2 turns into a whole different game, as most of the citizens you come across don't even react to you. You even catch a glimpse of Rapture as it was during the old days, before everything went to hell, thanks to the Little Sister's special vision.

Unfortunately, the moment is fleeting, lasting only a handful of minutes. Being forced to wander around Rapture and avoiding splicers while sucking Adam out of the recently deceased could have been a twist that rivalled the 'would you kindly' of the original Bioshock. Instead, you pick up a few items and are back in the Big Daddy suit in the time it takes to watch a commercial break. Still, the brief time spent looking through the eyes of a Little Sister is hauntingly effective, revealing sight into the twisted lore of Andrew Ryan's failed creation.

Following up one of the greatest JRPGs of all time is a tall order, so there was practically no way Chrono Cross could ever hope to escape the shadow of its predecessor. Even so, it certainly has its charm, and it's got a few surprises and fake-outs of its own. Case in point: half-way through this adventure, you end up switching bodies with the main villain of the game.

Yes, technically you're still hero Serge, only now you're stuck inside of the body of an evil talking cat. But this Freaky Friday scenario actually impacts how you play, and not just because you have a different set of techs to use in combat. Now that you're the big bad, all of the heroes you've recruited this far want nothing to do with you, so you have to find a totally new set of companions to help you regain control of your actual body. It's not as bold as killing of the main character like the first game did, but it's pretty damn close.

Oh, no! We've been captured by zombies and tossed into an underground prison with no hope for escape. Though, I suppose that's better than being eaten alive, but still! Who will save us? Only thing we can do now is pray: "You are a friend who I have never met before. If you hear this message, go to the south."

And suddenly, you're not playing as Ness anymore. You're now a boarding school student named Jeff, who lives several continents away from where Ness and Paula are held captive. After receiving this mysterious telepathic message, you break out of school, cross a pond with the help of the Loch Ness monster and a monkey obsessed with bubble gum, and make your way through a dungeon built by a guy who loves to build dungeons. Finally, you find your father, who has been working in his lab on a flying machine. After an awkward exchange of pleasantries, you're off to finally rescue the best friends you've never met before.

What's a list of potential fake-outs without an appearance from Metal Gear Solid 2? You'd be forgiven if you thought you'd be spending most of your time playing as series mainstay Solid Snake. I mean, he was only featured in every E3 trailer, the demo that came with Zone of the Enders, and even the cover of the goddamn box. But nope, as soon as you beat the Tanker chapter (which will likely only take a couple of hours), you're spending the rest of the game as newcomer Raiden.

If you're like me, you probably went through the five stages of grief in real-time. It starts with denial ("Maybe he's just wearing a voice modulator… and grew his hair out… and changed his name…"), moves on to anger ("I can't believe Kojima would trick us like this!"), and trucks right on through to bargaining ("Just let me play as Snake for a few minutes, and I'll buy all your games. Even Boktai!") and depression ("...stupid game."). But then, as we looked back, we realized what a ballsy move it was to drop Snake for the second act, and that Raiden wasn't such a bad character after all. And thus, acceptance.

The Arkham series actually takes more than a few cues from the Metal Gear series, with its emphasis on stealth and its uncanny ability to surprise the player and get inside their head. The Scarecrow bits from Asylum and the Mad Hatter side quest in City both evoke that same sense of "hey, wait, is my game broken" found in the best parts of Metal Gear. They even share a similar character switching moment, though Arkham City is kind enough to give Batman back to us when it's done.

You're given control of Catwoman a few times throughout the course of Arkham City, as she goes on the prowl, looking for thugs to beat up and valuables to steal. She controls similarly to Bats, but she's much more lithe, agile, and her whip can make quick work of her opposition's weaponry. While her inclusion was announced prior to the game's release, the best part wasn't. Near the end of Arkham City, Batman is in mortal danger and Catwoman has a choice: Does she take the cash and walk out of the bank vault, leaving the city behind, or does she reluctantly drop the money and go save Gotham's last hope? Arkham City actually lets you pick option A, complete with a fake roll to credits as she strolls out of the vault.

The Last of Us features not one, but two incredibly impactful character switches. The first happens right at the beginning, when you're put in the shoes of Joel's daughter, Sarah. She wanders bleary eyed and groggy around her house, looking for her dad while teaching you basic movement and interaction controls… and finds herself smack in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. When the perspective finally shifts to Joel, you know that some truly bad shit is going down.

And then, about halfway through the game, it happens again, this time thrusting you in control of Joel's new companion, Ellie. After getting impaled by a piece of rebar, Joel is (understandably) too weak to walk, or even stay conscious. And so now you play as Ellie, as you try to combine all of the skills that Joel taught you over the months to hunt for game, look for medicine, and survive. While she doesn't have Joel's brute strength, she more than makes up for it with her resourcefulness and that knife she carries around.

As outlaw John Marston, you've travelled to Mexico and back, you've finally taken out Bill Williamson and his gang, and gained amnesty for your crimes thanks to a deal with the government. Now that you're back at home, you're running through tutorial missions again, this time teaching your son Jack how to rope horses and wrangle cattle. You've been away for a long time, but now, you can finally settle down and bequeath life lessons to your child and steer him on the right path.

Until the government reneges on their deal, shows up on your doorstep and guns you down in cold blood. This is the part where the credits are supposed to roll… except that they don't, and now you're in control of an older, angrier, hairier Jack as he attempts to get revenge on those who took his father away from him. This character switch is brilliant because it doesn't just set up the post-story free-for-all most open world games provide. It also calls directly back to the cyclical nature of violence and tragedy that Red Dead Redemption's themes have been touching on the entire time.

It's nice to get surprised by a secret playable character, and it's even better when the change makes for a dramatic turn in the story, or reveals some surprising, undiscovered detail about the world around the protagonist. What are some of your favorite character switches? Let me know in the comments!

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