It's been a hell of a wait for it, but we're still very, very excited about the upcoming Spring release of Alan Wake on the Xbox 360. From the off it's sounded like the kind of game that could go either way, and while we're sure it's going to drip with high quality production values, it's too early to call how well it'll play.

But what we can do is bring you the latest batch of screenshots that Microsoft has released of the game. And we've got them for you right here.

We'll have more on Alan Wake in the weeks ahead...

It's 3am, and sleep is playing hard to get. I should be dreaming and snoring, but instead I'm lying on my back and listening to the house creaking while the curtains billow slightly against the draughty window.

The worst thing about being unable to sleep? The music, or bits of half remembered song that rattle around in my mind. Last night I had one miniscule section of that Tinie Tempah single running on an endless loop in my skull - in particular, the part where he raps about having so many clothes that he has to keep them at his aunt's house. It's a horribly infectious tune, with a lo-fi hookline running in the back ground that sounds like a malfunctioning Game Boy. Those lyrics, meanwhile, present a maddening enigma: if Tinie's wealthy enough to own so many items of clothing, why doesn't he simply buy a bigger wardrobe? And how does his aunt feel about having her nephew's clothes cluttering up her bedroom?

"Look, Tinie," she'd say. "I know I'm your aunt and everything, but you can't just keep coming around here with bags full of clothing. Look, here's a fiver. Put it towards a new wardrobe."

And besides, if your home's storage space was so limited that you had to keep some of your jeans around your Auntie Flo's flat, would you really want to tell people about it in your next single? These are the questions that plague me during long sleepless nights.

Anyway, Tinie Tempah was so last night. This morning's insomnia soundtrack is the theme tune from Picross 3D for Nintendo DS, which sounds like the kind of music you'd hear playing at a fairground owned by the Devil; an endless, bouncy jingling waltz of false frivolity. And it's buried in my brain like a warbling bullet, playing over and over again. It's the kind of tune I find myself humming the following day as I shuffle about, grey faced and scarlet eyed.

It's the electronic, bleepy theme tunes that are the most catchy. Think of Tetris' iron curtain ditty, or perhaps the theme tune from Taito's forgotten antipodean platformer New Zealand Story, a relentlessly chirpy number that sounds like the work of a grinning lunatic let loose on a Casio keyboard.

A theme tune's hypnotic powers appear to dissipate as it becomes more sophisticated. Compare the simplistic chirps and peeps of the original Super Mario Bros theme on the NES to the 21st century soundtrack running throughout Super Mario Galaxy; as memorable as Galaxy's soaring, sumptuous John Williams-like orchestral music is, it's the NES version's single channel calypso warble that, once heard, remains buried in some ancient synapse in the brain and refuses to come out.

Similarly, compare the original Legend Of Zelda theme with that of its modern counterpart, Twilight Princess: one sounds evocative and cinematic; the other will haunt you for months.

That's not to say that modern game music isn't catchy, however. EA's freebie online shooter Battlefield Heroes contains an opening melody that is derived from the same musical DNA as whistle-along marching tunes like Hitler Has Only Got One Ball or I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman, and it is surely one of the most annoyingly memorable themes in recent years.

But, like the themes found in Picross 3D, ancient classics like Super Mario Bros or Zelda, or even Tinie Tempah's hit single about a surfeit of clothing, it's the simplicity of the Battlefield Heroes melody that makes it linger in the mind like a noisy and unwanted squatter.

And this is the secret to writing a truly infectious videogame theme tune, I've decided: compose it on the tiniest, simplest keyboard you can find at a car boot sale (preferably the kind with a dozen keys and a demonstration button), use only a handful of notes, and play those same five or so notes repeatedly, over and over again. These are the kind of theme tunes that come bubbling up from the depths of my subconscious at 3am as I mull over life's deepest philosophical mysteries: death, the existence of God, and the clothing arrangements of rappers from South East London. 

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

Once again, Sega is plundering its back catalogue for another compilation of Mega Drive classics. This isn't the first time it has rounded up the blue hedgehog's adventures in one place, but let's face it: you've been hoping for years that you'd be able to get your hands on Sonic's best games in portable form, and without having to lug around Sega's beastly Nomad handheld, to boot.

Unlike the Mega Collection that was released on last generation's home consoles, Sonic Classic Collection only contains the first four games, but while it's a less comprehensive nostalgia trip, that's actually a good thing.

Gone is chaff such as Sonic 3D and Sonic Spinball, although no die-hard fan in their right mind would have objected to Sega cramming in Sonic CD. Best of all, they're packed into a tiny DS cartridge so you can indulge in a massive retro trip just by whipping out your handheld.

That's just what Sega is banking on here. These games have appeared on numerous platforms over the years, but the closest to this, until now, was the fine rendition of the first two Sonics on the PSP. How infuriating, then, that it didn't follow up with a fuller collection. When I heard about this DS round-up, the usual flash of thirty-something cynicism was unusually subdued by the amazing prospect, but there was one question hanging over my head: how well the games designed for a higher screen resolution would translate to the DS's screen.

Diving into the first game, it's clear that some compromises were necessary. That's fair enough, since reproducing the pixels one-for-one would mean cropping out the edges of platforms. Nintendo dealt with similar issues in its Mario Advance re-issues by making slight modifications to the platform arrangement. Sega's solution is to scale the graphics down slightly, rather than tweak the series' finely-honed level designs. I won't argue with that decision. It's the right one for Sonic, but it has some unfortunate side effects.

When starting Sonic 1's Green Hill Zone, everything looks much as you'd expect. The graphics have held up well considering they're not far short of their 20th birthday, and the character designs are still charming and expressive, even when squashed onto the DS's tiny top screen. But you'll soon notice the downside of scaling the graphics because some of the graphical tricks no longer fit the pixel grid exactly.

Back in the day, designers would alternate the colours of pixels between solid and empty to fake transparency. Sonic's adventures are littered with these and other fine detail that ends up garbled on the DS. The semi-transparent bushes in Sonic 2 exhibit a flickering effect, and the waterfalls in Sonic 1's opening act are nothing short of an eyesore as you whizz past them.

Added to that there's a niggling issue with the game's speed - unfortunate given the nature of the game, but an issue that has come up several times in bringing these games to modern portables. Some critics considered the Game Boy Advance version of Sonic 1 to be unplayable because of slowdown, and the iPhone OS version fared little better when played on anything but the latest iPhone and iPod touch. The DS version doesn't suffer from slowdown nearly as much as either of them, and it's certainly not ruinous, but it's also a far cry from the incredible versions that you can still play on your TV.

Sega may as well have kicked me in the teeth after raising expectations with the proud announcement that the games here are the US versions, easing nervousness that it would include the PAL version of Sonic 1. But rather than giving you Sonic at his most blisteringly fast, the game is compromised if you get hit and drop a lot of rings. It's not quite enough to ruin the game, but there are hints of slowdown at other moments, where there seems to be far less going on.

Some of the sound effects are a bit off, too. When Sonic drops rings, a familiar chime pipes from the DS, but it's not exactly as you'll remember it. That's more of a quirk and newcomers to the games won't even notice. Like the slowdown, it's not a disaster so much as irksome when the games have enjoyed more polished emulation on GameCube and PS2.

Just as insulting to your memories is the cheap presentation. For a series that's all about speed and motion, there's not a hint of it in the menu system, which is made up of static screens. The supplementary material consists of a dull gallery of still images. No sound test. No series history.

Granted, it's the games that are the real focus, and not only do you get four well-designed games, you also get to play as Knuckles in the second and third games, just like you'd plugged them into the Sonic & Knuckles cart on your Mega Drive.

If you're thinking of introducing your kids to Sonic, download the games from Wii's Virtual Console or Xbox Live Arcade to avoid tarnishing their first impressions of his golden days.

Given the limitations of early 90s hardware, these games were a marvel of eye candy, and you still ought to get a rush from the insanely fast gameplay. It's still worth picking this up if you must have these games in your pocket.

While Sega's hands are tied as far as screen resolution goes, it really ought to have nailed down the emulation and eliminated the speed issues to make this the perfect portable Sonic. Sadly, it isn't.

Sonic Classic Collection is out now for Nintendo DS and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

It's important to learn from your mistakes, but if you can learn from mistakes you haven't made yet, then surely you'd become invincible. That's logic. With that in mind, here are the ten most important lessons videogames have taught us about the future. Read them well. They could be the difference between living a long, healthy life and being vaporised by evil aliens.

Feel free to add your own in the comments at the bottom of the page. (NB. Reading this article doesn't guarantee you won't be vaporised by evil aliens, so don't sue us if that happens.)

10. Sport will be violent and involve a lot more sliding (Speedball 2)

Two things we can be sure of: in the future, sport will revolve around extreme violence and knee pads. Sturdy, sturdy knee pads. Franchises with monikers linked to the town or city in which they are based will be replaced by epithets that describe the style of play of each team. Brutal Deluxe, Violent Desire, Garotting Strangers. One of those is made up. The main tactic will be crippling the other team's goalkeeper, allowing a large metal ball to be thrown into the empty space. Also of note, when future sports make the move into three dimensions, they stop being as good.

9. Scientific research will be furthered via the medium of puzzles (Portal)

It's not all sitting around in laboratories, pushing buttons and mixing bubbling chemicals in a vat. Scientific progress in the future will often be governed by the dexterity and lateral thinking of test subjects trapped like rats in puzzling, portal-based mazes. Science will also become much funnier than it is now, with megalomaniacal supercomputers becoming the norm. The love of a human for an inanimate object will remain taboo. though.

8. The diplomacy vs. a shotgun blast to the face argument will rage on (Mass Effect)

Choices, choices, choices. The morality of the future, as with the morality of today, can be distilled into a simple sentence: hit them in the face with the butt of your laser rifle or leave them be. There may be far-reaching consequences. People may - nominally, at least - die because of your actions, but in the end it's about being a dick or not being a dick. And you can always go back and play the game again if you get too upset at the way things work out. Or want to hit more people with the butt of your laser rifle.

7. If you lose contact with a space ship, leave it that way (Dead Space)

It's the old haunted house riff, only played from a lot further away. There's a reason no one's answering the space phone, why there's no lights on and the whole place looks as though someone left the lid off the space blender when they were making tomato soup. Space tomato soup. If a ship drops off radar, it's best to let it float around in the vast unknown recesses of the universe. Going to save them will only lead to mutant baby things trying to bite your face off.

6. Running guns to a peaceful planet to make profit will be frowned upon (Elite)

Even in the future, making profit from the suffering of millions is considered, at best, a faux pas and, at worst, cause enough for the intergalactic police to blast your wireframe 3D spaceship into bits. Sure, you could have taken food or supplies or any number of other boring items, but nothing quite sets the pulse racing like filling your cargo hold with illicit firearms and shuttling them off to a weaponless world to spark a civil war.

5. War will become peppered with cod philosophy and introversion (Metal Gear Solid 4)

In the near future, war will be the preserve of gravelly voiced men with shards of black ice for hearts, appalling facial hair and a penchant for waxing lyrical about the way their job dehumanises them. Not only will they take time off from the slaughter and madness of the battlefield to recite soliloquies and engage in meta discussions about war and the contextualization of conflict, they'll also take great pains to confuse the hell out of anyone who hasn't been paying attention for four whole games.

4. Faceless corporations will take over the world (Syndicate)

A lot of people will tell you that this has already happened, but I don't see teams of black clad operatives walking around with heavy weaponry, gunning down insurrectionists and competitors, do you? Once cities have become isometric and grid based, then it's time to start worrying. If you see anyone marshalling troops or trying to get ahead in our capitalist society, you should keep a close eye on them. It'll only be a matter of time before they're sending goons out to brainwash you into slavish obedience.

3. Only those with strong neck muscles will survive (Gears of War)

In the face of certain death, surrounded by insurmountable odds, it won't be a helmet, or body armour, or even the unfeasibly perma-fuelled chainsaw gaffer taped to the end of your gun that will determine if you live or die. It'll be whether or not your neck is as wide as your head. Not only do Delta Squad walk away from a helicopter that crashes directly into the mouth of a giant worm, they then proceed to make their way through its intestines, cut out its hearts and escape before drowning in blood or burning in stomach acid. How? Unbelievably proportioned Scalene and Sternocleidomastoid muscles is the only logical explanation.

2. If and when we do meet aliens, they'll have motives allegorical to modern day threats (Halo)

We're often told that terrorists are hell bent on destroying Western civilization. In the far future, those terrorists will be replaced with aliens, and it won't be just Western civilization they're after, oh no. It'll be all of human civilization. Which, by then, will be surprisingly westernised. Their reasoning? An over zealous reading of ancient mythology and crazed leaders hell bent on the eradication of anything that won't bend to their tyrannical will. Some things never change...

1. The vast majority of us will end up dead (Most games)

Humanity will always be caught unawares by an alien threat, or an attack from within, or a comet, a meteor, a new disease, an angry midget with a big gun and a taste for human flesh. The single defining thread that runs through the vast majority of science fiction videogames is the lackadaisical attitude the human race of the future will have towards self defence. "Oh, we didn't realise that an entire race of subterranean, scale faced mentalists had been dwelling beneath our feet the whole time we'd been living here. Blargh. We are dead." To be honest, with that sort of attitude, you all deserved it, stupid future people.

Add your own suggestions below...!

See also:

• Top 10 ridiculous costumes in videogames
• Top 10 videogame sidekicks
• 7 things Back To The Future guessed correctly
• 86 movie sequels currently in development
• 10 videogame characters you wouldn't want to meet down a dark alley

Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most eagerly awaited releases of recent times, not only due to the massive fanbase the series has cultured during its long history, but also because this is the first time the series has graced Microsoft's box, and the first time the main series has been seen on anything other than a Sony console for years. With the fans' ever-preset cries for a FFVII remake still ringing out loud, can episode thirteen make the grade? There's only one way to find out...

This Final Fantasy outing is a totally different beast from the previous games in the series, and this is something that won't take long to hit as you progress through the game's opening couple of hours. If you were expecting an extension of the bold changes made by the developers with FFXII, along with a more interactive battle system, you can forget it. This adventure is all about streamlining the FF experience, and it makes no excuses about trimming off much of the content we usually associate with the series. Yep, if ever there was a Final Fantasy Lite, then this is it.

Featuring the kind of production values only Square Enix can muster, the game opens with the main protagonist, a female soldier called Lightning, riding a train with a group of fellow refugees who are being ‘purged' from the game's world of Cocoon to the hellish land of Pulse. Lightning takes offence at this (for reasons which are covered in depth as the story unfolds), and promptly causes a bit of a ruckus and battle ensues...

Once off the train you take control, and end up in a series of battles, your first experience of the new FF combat system. This system, as I mentioned earlier, isn't an extension of the one used in FFXII, and the direct control you had in the previous game is no longer present. Instead, Square has gone back to basics, of sorts.

It uses an ATB (active time battle) system, very similar in style to the system seen in Grandia, Controlling only the party leader, with the others being handled by AI, you have an ATB gauge that fills up over time. This gauge has segments, and once a segment is full, you can perform a move. Multiple moves can be strung together, using more segments, and more powerful moves can use more than a single segment to pull off.

Picking moves and abilities causes your character to attack the selected target, whilst your allies attack on their own, depending on the roles they have assigned. This brings up the game's most prominent new battle dynamic, the paradigm system.

Similar to the job system seen previously in FF, the paradigm system uses a selection of different roles, which can be assigned, mid-battle, to each character via the selected paradigm, which is a pre-set configuration of roles for the whole team.

Roles include Commando (physical attacks), Ravager (magical attacks), Medic (healing, of course) and Synergist/Saboteur (defensive and offensive support). Each of these roles alters the abilities a character has at any given time. A Medic, for example, can only heal and support, but not attack, while a Commando can pummel away at foes, but is unable to heal using magic.

To succeed in battle, you have to constantly switch between paradigms to capitalise on these roles, and choosing the right configuration can make all the difference. For example, selecting the ‘Relentless Assault' paradigm causes all combatants to attack the enemy, which is great, until you take masses of damage. At this point, you can then switch to a defensive paradigm, which switches out a combatant with a Medic. This reduces your attack, but leaves a character free to heal as needed.

To add to this tactical play the games also features the ‘stagger' system. Each enemy has a chain gauge, and by attacking with the right skills and moves, you can build this bar up. Once it fills up completely, you stagger the foe. This puts it into a very vulnerable state where attacks and magic deal far more damage, but only for a limited time.

This is essential in many fights, especially bosses, and gaining high attack chains to raise this meter is one of the main focuses of combat, and one that you'll need to master as you progress. It's a clever setup, and combined with the paradigm feature, makes for a very tactical and rewarding battle system.

Yes, the freedom that FFXII alluded to was nice, and I'd still like to see a Final Fantasy game with a truly free-form combat system, but this backward and sideways step isn't at all bad, and makes for one of the best, and most fluid battle systems in the FF series.

Sadly though, there are a couple of issues that hardcore fans, and RPG aficionados will scoff at instantly. First is the lack of character control for the other party members. Whilst you take it in turns controlling the various main characters as leaders, in battle you only control one character, with the other two responding as per their role definition and paradigm being used. If your leader dies, it's game over, even if the other two are at full health. Yes, you can use a phoenix down to revive an AI party member, but if you bite the bullet, they'll just stand there and watch you rot - nice.

The other notable cutbacks in battle can be seen in the lack of magic points, and the auto replenishment of health after every battle. No longer do you need stock up on elixirs to keep your magic users in spells, and as long as you win a battle, you'll be in full form for your next encounter, with not a single potion quaffed. Now, many will find this lacking in challenge, but it does help to keep the game flowing, and even as a long-time FF fan, this doesn't bother me all that much, especially when there are far more fundamental issues to be faced...

Out of battle you'll notice one major, glaring change in the world of FF - the lack of any distractions, or open world. Unlike most previous games in the series, FFXIII is about as linear as it gets. The game literally leads you from point A to B, and you'll spend the majority of the 50+ hours running along corridors and pre-determined routes. There's no overworld, no towns, and very few side quests. This is all about the main story, and Square Enix has decided to water down almost all freeform aspects of the game. The flow of the game is basically, run down corridor - fight - run down another corridor - fight - watch a cut-scene - run - fight - run - fight, and so on.

Gone are the touches like real towns with shops (these are only seen at save points), extra characters to find and converse with, secret side missions and other such staples, and whilst the game does open up later on for a while, with an open area for you to explore, for the most part, you're on rails.

This aspect has already polarised the FF community, with some loving the new approach, and others hating it. Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter, and whilst it'd be excessive to say I hate the new system, I certainly hanker for the old school explorations and free-roaming world.

Still, it's not all bad, and while wandering around there are small side paths usually leading to treasure, and often forks in the road can be used to get the drop on enemies. Battles are not random, either, and foes can be seen moving around in the world, as in FFXII.

If you manage to run into an unaware enemy, you'll score a pre-emptive strike, giving you a real upper hand. It's simple, sure, but helps to give some weight to the admittedly dull wandering along set routes.

I should, of course, mention the new summon system too. This doesn't come into play until a few hours in, but once it does, it adds a whole new dimension to the battle system. FFXIII's summons are called Eidolons, and once you meet one you'll first need to best it in combat, using specific skills to impress it. Once this is done, and you acquire it as an ally, you can call upon it in battle, as long as you have enough tactical points, which are earned by getting high ratings in combat.

When summoned, an Eidolon enters the fray alongside your party and is a very destructive force, indeed. As you fight, your Eidolon's ‘gesalt' meter fills up. At any time, and as long as you have gestalt power, you can command your Eidolon to transform (sadly, without the cool 80s cartoon SFX), at which time your character hops on board and you can decimate your foes with powerful attacks. Each character has a different Eidolon of their very own, and all are impressive to behold. The cost in TP to summon these beasts is very high, though, so don't expect to be using them in every fight.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that FFXIII isn't really an RPG, with the lack of an open world, towns, streamlined combat and such, but that's not entirely true. There are RPG elements to be found. There's a character advancement system that's very similar to the sphere system used previously in the series. This is called the Crystarium, and by spending experience points, you move through a tree of skills, which improve character stats and add more abilities, as well as roles, which come into play in the paradigm battle element.

There's also a rudimentary material-based upgrade mechanic, but this is only used to increased stats on weapons, along with the occasional upgrade to a new weapon. It's certainly not a patch on the crafting system seen in Star Ocean, and a further indication of the dumbing down that's been applied to the thirteenth release.

With Square seemingly caving in to the pressure of mass market appeal, it's clear that the Final Fantasy we know and love is gone, at least for now.

Final Fantasy XIII is an obvious attempt to capitalise on a new generation of players who want more instantly gratifying titles, and more action. This has come at the expense of much of the content we love to find in the series, and personally, I feel this is a real shame.

The shockingly linear approach and limited RPG elements have, for me, greatly damaged the title, and it features one of the most confusing and borderline dull stories of the series, crammed with so many alien terms and elements that it boggles the mind. Luckily, the auto-updating encyclopaedia is on hand to help, but still, a story should be able to stand on its own without the need to rely upon further reading material to fill the gaps.

Final Fantasy XIII is by no means a bad game, though, and with one of the best battle systems in the series, great visuals, a lengthy campaign and some great characters (excluding Vanille, whose weird semi-Australian and hideously high-pitched voice will be hated by anyone with ears), it's going to appeal to many console RPGs fans.

If you want a more traditional, complex, non-linear and freeform adventure, however, steer well clear, and go for something like Dragon Age instead.

Now, Square, about that remake of FFVII...

Final Fantasy XIII is out now for Xbox 360 and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

As I'm sure most of you will be aware, Dante's Inferno is a game based on the first part of The Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and 1321. In particular, this game is ‘loosely' based on the Inferno section of the poem (Inferno meaning Hell in Italian) and follows Dante's journey through the nine circles of hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil.

This is essentially where the similarities with the game ends, with the exception of some of the characters you meet along the way (souls and boss fights, specifically). For the journey made by Dante in the game is a bid to rescue the soul of his beloved Beatrice from Lucifer's clutches, largely, in part, due to Dante breaking his promise to Beatrice that he would be faithful to her whilst on the crusade. 

When he returns home after the crusades, he finds his father-in-law and Beatrice have both been murdered and Lucifer is taking Beatrice's soul with him to hell, leaving Dante the seemingly impossible task of fighting his way through all nine circles to get her back.

Essentially, what you have here is an excellent and, dare I say, original idea for a game. This part of history and, indeed, the story of Dante himself, has never been told through the medium of videogames (correct me if I'm wrong?), and is just the right sort of source material that could lead to a fantastic adventure of epic proportions as you delve through hell, fighting your way through against all manner of evil creatures and souls.

But, what you actually get is a clone of God Of War, but not as impressive.  

It's fair to say that, although this game borrows a lot from GoW, it is still fun to play, with some incredible art direction as you progress through the nine circles. But upon completion of the game and reflecting back, I can see some flaws which make it inferior to its ‘hack n slash' rival. But let's start off by looking at the positives, because ultimately I really did enjoy playing this game.

Firstly, the art and design that's gone into the look and feel of Hell and all who inhabit it really is quite stunning in places, with the landscape and vastness of some areas as well as the attention to detail impressing throughout.  The cut scenes clearly have had a lot of time spent on them and the voice acting, again, is something which keeps you gripped to the story throughout. 

Speaking of all this, I should remind you that this game is an 18 rating for a reason. Dante's vision of hell is not one you would want anyone under that age roaming through, especially when you get to the circle of hell related to Lust. I'll say no more to save any real spoilers.

The moves you pull off, whether they are combos or quick time-orientated, all look brutal and there are some really gruesome parts to this game which will make any fan of the genre smile.  The relics you collect on the way, which boost various stats for Dante, are plentiful, but you will find yourself using the same few throughout the game and approaching the last couple of circles.  

The weapons you use are either the unholy scythe or the holy cross, which look great to use, especially when you upgrade your abilities, spending the souls you've earned throughout the game. However, unlike games like God Of War, these are the only weapons you get, and aside from unlocking a few magic attacks, there really is no variety and you are stuck using the same weapon throughout.

The magic abilities are interesting and useful, to an extent however, but there are only five of them, so, once you've locked four slots to assign them to, it's pretty obvious which ones you should use more often.  

As you progress through the game, one thing you will notice is how short the different circles get towards the end.  The final circle, which is a nice change of scenery, is frozen over, but only took 10 minutes to get to the game's final boss and, surely, as the last circle of hell it should have been the most arduous of tasks, as Lucifer throws everything he's got at you to prevent you reaching him!

Sadly, instead the final circle is short but sweet with a pretty epic and tough battle at the end. This all makes it appear a bit lazy in the development process, having used up most of the great ideas in the first few circles and just rushed the ending of it and, all in all, makes the final battle a bit of an anti-climax.

Ultimately, though, I don't mean to be negative about what was genuinely a good ‘hack n slash' experience. There were just these moments where they could have done so much better but, sadly, didn't. 

If you are a fan of this kind of game then I do highly recommend it, even if you just rent it, as there is a lot of fun to be had and achievements a plenty if you're into that kind of thing. Not to mention the DLC coming soon, where you put your character against customisable waves of enemies in a survival mode entitled "Trials of St Lucia" and even share that experience in multiplayer and online so others can try out their luck against a survival mode you've created.

Okay, so it's no God Of War when it comes down to it, but, honestly, you'll have a lot of fun with this title and those who dismiss it will really miss out on a far better than average hack'n'slash adventure.

So, I'm on the 23rd chapter of Uncharted 2. I've downed helicopters, and I've blown up tanks. I've had fist-fights on the roofs of moving trains, and twisted the arms of gods. But as this epic game builds to its ultimate crescendo, I've noticed something: the elements that marked out the earlier stages - the platforming, the gentle nuggets of puzzle solving - have gradually fallen away, leaving little more than a relentless blast through dozens of heavily armed henchmen.

Where Uncharted 2's first few hours were a breezy vaunt through a series of imaginative set pieces, engaging characters and sparkling (at least for a videogame) dialogue, the latter stages of the game feel like the brakes have been applied to the narrative. My suspicions were initially aroused during the 13th chapter.

Set on what must surely be the longest train in videogame history, the luckless Nathan Drake has to haul himself across what feels like two hundred carriages of full heavily-armed henchmen, before taking down a helicopter with a train-mounted cannon. Had the train been half as long, this would have been a genuinely brilliant stage. Instead, it almost felt like one of those moments in Scooby Doo where the characters walk in front of the same piece of endlessly looping scenery.

It was while bogged down among the sniper fire and rocket-propelled grenade attacks of chapter 23, however, that I made my most surprising discovery. Flicking through my progress statistics, I found that I'd managed to kill - whether by grenade, bullet or Arnie-style neck snapping - almost a thousand hapless enemies. That's an absolutely jaw-dropping amount, particularly for a game which, until this point, I hadn't thought of as especially violent.

I'd previously likened Uncharted 2 to a kind of interactive Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a knock-about thrill ride with cliff-hanging stunts straight out of a 30s film serial. But nearly a thousand henchmen dead? That's more like a Rambo movie.

A brief trawl through the Internet later, and I discover the marvellous moviebodycounts.com, an exhaustive necrology of Hollywood's most violent films. Now, according to their figures, the movie with the most on-screen deaths is, surprisingly, the comparatively family friendly Lord Of The Rings trilogy closer, Return Of The King. At 836 screen killings, Peter Jackson's sequel is some 200 corpses in front of number two on the list, Ridley Scott's Kingdom Of Heaven.

But Return Of The King 's body count throws Uncharted 2's into stark relief. In a game I once considered to be a piece of light entertainment, and infinitely less violent than, say, Modern Warfare 2 or Bio Shock 2, I've managed to notch up even more kills than the most death-ridden film of all time. And I've not even completed the thing yet.

To further illustrate my point, here are a few more statistics. Consider, for example, John Woo's Hong Kong epic Hard Boiled, regarded for many years as the most violent gun-based movie ever made. That contained a mere 307 screen deaths. 2008's bloodthirsty Rambo comeback? A paltry 247 confirmed kills.

By comparison, I'm a mass-murderer, a genocidal maniac, and I barely even noticed. Return Of The King 's 836 murders weren't all committed by one person, after all.

Slightly concerned, I began to do a few calculations of my own. Dividing Return Of The King's prodigious kill rate by its equally lengthy run time (200 minutes, in the case of the theatrical version), I discover that Peter Jackson managed to film approximately 4 deaths per minute. Similarly, John Woo killed people at a rate of 2.4 per minute in Hard Boiled, while Stallone managed fractionally more at 2.7.

Over a play time of around seven hours, my killing spree sounds positively restrained - a mere 1.7 enemies killed per minute. So, while I can't help but feel a pang of regret for the scores of virtual henchmen I've gunned down, and the digital wives I've widowed, I can take solace in one irrefutable fact: I'm fifty per cent less bloodthirsty than Peter Jackson.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

Blue rinse speed freak, Sonic the Hedgehog, has been a closet petrol head since the mid-90s. Released only in Japan, Sonic Drift was a little-known kart racer for the Sega Game Gear, and provided the battery-hungry handheld with one of its better - if simplistic - racing experiences.

More than 15 years on, Sonic hops behind the wheel once again, and this time he's joined by a rogue's gallery of familiar faces from Sega's history, including Billy Hatcher, Alex Kidd, Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue and, rather incongruously, Banjo and Kazooie.

If Sonic Drift served as a cut-down homage to SNES-era Super Mario Kart, then Sonic & Sega All-Stars plays like a straight high definition remake of Mario Kart Wii. The accessible, family-friendly racing, where drifts through bends are rewarded with a brief boost of speed, is extremely familiar, as are the little tricks you can perform while in mid-air. The various game-changing power-ups all have their analogues in Nintendo's racer, from guided missiles to screen-obscuring rainbows. Vehicles come in a predictable variety of flavours, from slow but dependable cars to fast but skittish bikes.

But while Sega All-Stars borrows its mechanics from Mario Kart, its dynamics are subtly different. Where Mario Kart's race leaders shuffled constantly, and it was possible to slip from first place to last under a barrage of banana skins and dreaded red shells, developer Sumo Digital has chosen to make its power-ups a far less decisive factor; while theoretically possible, there are far fewer instances of an inferior driver winning a race through the strategic use of a flying boxing glove. The net result is a game that is slightly less forgiving for younger or less inexperienced players, but at the same time less frustrating for seasoned gamers.

There are frustrations to be found in some of the track designs, however. While the Sonic-themed stages - all flowing curves and forgiving bends - are joyously fast and entertaining, others are too dependent on chasms, bouncing enemies and other pitfalls to be any fun, and merely serve to break the flow of a race rather than add a further challenge. Still others, including the Casino level, are so needlessly chaotic and colourful that it's often difficult to tell what's going on.

Nevertheless, Sumo has done a good job of bringing Sega's long catalogue of characters back to life. It's always a pleasure to see Alex Kidd or Opa Opa again (though it's a shame that, due to licensing problems, Toejam and Earl didn't make the cut), and drifting around a psychedelic carnival as Samba the monkey has its own trippy appeal.

Sonic All-Stars' five on-or offline multiplayer modes are dependably entertaining (if somewhat lacking in options), and include deathmatches, a capture the flag derivation, and free race.

The missions, meanwhile, almost threaten to eclipse the main event. These brief challenges are one of the rare moments where Sumo breaks free from the Mario Kart template and offers something a little different. Whether it's collecting rings in Sonic's racing car, shooting down targets as Doctor Eggman or avoiding zombies in a House Of The Dead-themed level, these missions offer a compulsive diversion from the repetitive drift and boost core gameplay.

These challenges aside, Sega All-Stars is too content to work within the template already created by Mario Kart. While pretty and competently programmed - and the 360's hi-def graphics really show Wii owners what they're missing - Sumo's arcade racer really doesn't have enough ideas of its own to make it a bona fide classic.

Sega All-Stars gives Nintendo a run for its money, Super Mario retains the top spot on the kart racing podium.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

There's still no firm date as to when we can expect it, but the plan is currently for Crysis 2 to be arriving on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 later this year. This is good news. We're firm fans of both Crysis and Crysis: Warhead, even appreciating some of the problems inherent in both games. The sequel is right near the top of our gaming wish-list.

We'll keep you posted as more Crysis 2 material appears. But for now, here's a pair of screenshots that have now been released by EA.

Early signs? Not too shabby...

It's not out until the autumn, but there's already a head of anticipation building towards Microsoft's Halo Reach, the final game in the saga to be developed by Bungie.

Microsoft has now released a new multiplayer trailer for the game, as it continues to roll out footage from its blockbuster of 2010. And we've got it for you just below...

The game arrives in the autumn.

Stern silence. It's Saturday morning, and the PS3, which I ordered in secret the day before, has just arrived on the doorstep. Sarah's in the hallway, and she's not amused. She has her arms folded; if her eyes had arms, they'd be folded too. "We don't need another console," she says, as I drag the box into the living room. "We've got too many already."

I've made several attempts to justify the purchase, to myself as well as my better half: that I got it for a really good price; that we truly, desperately need a Blu-ray player to go with the HD television; that the PS3's black case will go really well with the TV stand.

Ultimately, I bought it for the system exclusives now available and yet to come: for Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2 and, best of all, Fumito Ueda's forthcoming Shadow Of The Colossus sequel, Last Guardian. It was therefore with eager hands that I tore the sticky tape from the PS3's cardboard cocoon.

For a console named and marketed as the PS3 Slim, I'm slightly alarmed by the size of the thing as I haul it out of the box. It looks like a middle-aged rock star in a black t-shirt: weighty, ungainly, and not as svelte as it thinks it is. (Having said this, the PS3 is a wee slip of a thing when placed next to the hulking menace that is the Xbox 360. The Wii sits underneath, looking gaunt and anxious.)

This sense of bloatedness continues as I power the beast up. The UI is a turgid mess of options and lists of settings with other lists of settings within them. Scrolling through it all is akin to the bafflement I feel when poring through a restaurant menu with too many dishes to choose from.

And then there are the updates. My God, the updates. First a gigantic system patch which, thanks to my village's own patented 1MB Hickband service, took close to three hours to download. This was followed by the endless forms to fill in for PSN. It's now three-and-a-half hours since I pulled the tape off the box, filled with enthusiasm, and I still haven't played a game.

It took an unpleasant, swear-filled ten minutes to find a username that hadn't been taken or wasn't mystifyingly refused. At the end of the whole, draining process I was asked if I'd like to fill in a questionnaire. My resulting outburst was keenly audible, and I'm almost surprised the neighbours didn't call the police.

With the head rush of new toy joy rapidly ebbing away, I shoved Uncharted 2 in the drive. Another patch update. I'm beginning to feel like Sisyphus. I try to form a Vulcan mind meld with the progress bars, and will them on as they crawl across the screen.

But then, just as my patience reaches breaking point, a ray of light appears among the figurative clouds. I finally get to play Uncharted 2, and it's very, very good. I begin to titter and grin, my enthusiasm at last beginning to return. Uncharted 2 is everything you could want from an arcade action epic. It's Indy 4 without the bad bits (which were many); it's Prince Of Persia with Kays catalogue models. I like the characters. I like the script. I like the way the gorgeousness of your surroundings in any of its 25 chapters successfully disguises the reality that you're actually shooting away at three or four kinds of bad guy for hours at a time.

It may have taken until Saturday afternoon to get to play it, but Uncharted 2 is perfect Saturday matinee material: trashy, airport fiction fun that wears its pulpy heritage proudly on its sleeve.

So, I've just about forgiven the PS3 for its finicky menu system, its opaque shopping experience, and its obsession with downloading things. Sarah's just about forgiven me too, especially when I tell her about Noby Noby Boy, a typically surreal PSN game created by Keiti (Katamari Damacy) Takahashi. Featuring a central character that grows and stretches as he eats his way around a world of doughnut clouds and starry-eyed animals, we both agree that it sounds like videogaming manna.

A protracted purchase from the PlayStation shop and a 365MB download later, and Noby is ours. We load it up, our thumbs primed and waiting. But what's this? A 550MB patch update. My reaction was sharp, vocal, and loosened several roof tiles.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

The Internet was lit up yesterday - in certain quarters, at least - by the chatter surrounding goings on at game developer Infinity Ward.

The company you would imagine should be riding on something of a high, having being responsible for last winter's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a game that has brought in over $1bn in revenue and counting. And yet March 1st, you suspect, will be a day long remembered in Infinity Ward circles.

Reports initially suggested that security staff had arrived at the firm's offices. As it turned out, the staff were there at the orders of Activision, which had basically locked down the offices of Infinity Ward. This followed a meeting on March 1st with IW chiefs Vince Zampella and Jason West, the meeting at which it seemed the pair had been fired (West certainly has, given a subsequent Facebook posting he made). The timing of their dismissal coincided with Activision publishing its annual report, and in there contained the following:

"The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation."

Activision has thus far stayed mum on the situation apart from that, although the excellent Binge Gamer has been reporting things. It seems that Infinity Ward's current deal with Activision expires in October, and that Activision's move may be related to that, and to protecting the Call Of Duty franchise (which Infinity Ward appears to own a chunk of). Infinity Ward was already reported to not be working on Modern Warfare 3, and it might be that that was at Activision's behest. We're clearly filling in a few gaps with guesswork here, but it's quite an extraordinary situation that's developed. We can't think of too many other situations where the heads of a studio specifically have been fired just months after delivering such a massive hit - it'd be akin to Fox giving James Cameron his marching orders from working with them again, surely?

We'd expect more details to eek out over the coming days, but for a terrific round-up of the story thus far, you can read the Binge Gamer report here.

UPDATE:

It's been confirmed that West and Zampella are no longer with Infinity Ward. Activision has also issued the following statement:

"The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models."

Make of all that what you will...

Sony has been warning users of its first generation of PlayStation 3 consoles to not use their machines while it fights to fix problems caused by a glitch in the PS3 hardware - a glitch that did not affect owners of the newer PS3 Slim machines.

The problem came to light yesterday, when users across the world began reporting that their PS3s wouldn't play games, nor would they log onto the PlayStation Network. Furthermore, reports were that earned trophies and such like had gone missing.

What was causing it all? Something not a million miles away from the good old Y2K bug. Basically, on March 1st, the PS3 system clock in those older machines was detecting the date as February 29th 2010, believing it to be a leap year. However, while the system clock was reporting that was the date, the operating system failed to recognise it. And that conflict led to many, many machines becoming unusable.

The core of the problem, it appears, is that the original PS3 was programmed to believe, for some reason, that every two years was a leap year, instead of every four. The last time it would have believed it was February 29th, back in 2008, it actually was a leap year, and thus this is the first time that the problem has come to light.

As it turned out, the machines have been going back to normal simply through the passage of time. As PS3s ticked over to March, or as users moved the system clock on to 2nd March, the problem was resolved. It was only while the PS3 system was reporting a date that the OS inside didn't believe existed that the machines would not work.

Sony is reporting now that things have gone back to normal, and no doubt has a fix in place to stop this happening again in four years' time...

Freed from the need to wrap around a blockbuster movie, with all the deadlines therefore associated with it, it's not just us that's hoping for good things from Activision's upcoming Transformers: War For Cybertron game.

Given that the movie tie-in games have been uniformly shit, the idea of a standalone adventure for the robots in disguise is very welcome, although it's saddling War For Cybertron for a fair amount of expectation.

So how's it shaping up? Activision has released a brand new gameplay trailer for the title, which attempts to answer that question. You certainly get a solid flavour of the visuals here, and it's good to hear that another deep-voiced man is being kept in work too.

There's no firm release date for the game yet, although we do know that it's arriving this year on PC, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. We'll keep you posted, and for now, enjoy the trailer...

As a fairly recent DS owner, I'd not experienced any of the Cooking Mama games previous to this one, so can't comment on how they compare. However, having played the game, I can appreciate why the franchise has appealed to such a wide variety of people.

For those who aren't familiar with the game, you must basically work your way through a series of recipes, using the stylus to chop, stir, simmer, toss and do all manner of things to ingredients in order to make a meal. The learning curve is gentle, and casual gamers, in particular, will have no problems picking this up.

Cooking Mama 3 features six gameplay modes:

Let's Cook: This is the most fun and relaxing mode, which means that even if you make a mistake Mama will help you out.

Let's Eat: Much tougher, this mode is for the more advanced chefs amongst us. If you go wrong, you're likely to fail. Judges will try out your creations and give points based on how they taste.

Combine and Create: This mode is for nothing short of an expert. Here you're expected to create your own recipes from ingredients and cooking techniques you've used before.

Let's Shop: Here you'll head to the shops to pick up what you need for your yummy recipes!

Time Challenge: Play against up to three friends using Wi-fi play. Take part in timed cooking challenges to determine who is the fastest chef!

Picture Diary: Keep a scrapbook of your favourite dishes in this digital picture diary.

This game works well on the DS. The stylus is implemented well and feels natural to use, probably more so for people who cook in real life! I found myself playing the Let's Cook mode more than anything , simply because it's more fun. You still get the sense of achievement of completing something, even if you didn't do it perfectly.

I felt the other modes were either too tough, particularly for younger players, or surplus to requirements. The Let's Shop mode, in particular, was just a silly add-on which I didn't feel added anything to the game at all.

The Picture Diary is something that I think will only really appeal to younger players. I can't see adults being interested in this element, particularly as they're more likely to want to pick the game up for five or ten minutes and then put it down again.

Overall, Cooking Mama 3 is average. Because it's trying to appeal to such a wide variety of people, I think it slightly loses its focus. As a purely casual gamer, I didn't want the gameplay to be too difficult, and I was happy just to play through a couple of recipes, then go off and do something else. For this reason, I stuck to the Let's Cook mode, which kept me mildly entertained. I guess younger players will invest more time in the game and so will more fully explore all the modes, but unless you're in a household where several of you will share this game, I'd wait until it hits the sale.

Cooking Mama 3 is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

In the final analysis, videogames are just a collection of rooms and corridors. Sometimes, the rooms and corridors are very, very large and the walls very well disguised, but nevertheless, the walls are there. You may remember, with a shudder, the 2008 reboot of Turok, in which you wandered around a lush green planet infested with dinosaurs - or this was, at least, the illusion. In reality, you were actually being herded through a series of corridors dressed up to look like a forest. Attempt to stray far beyond the ferns and fauna that lined your path, and you'd come up against an invisible barrier. The woods and soaring vistas beyond were little more than wallpaper.

Nothing takes you out of a game more quickly than, while playing the part of a rock-hard space marine who looks as though he could pull the head off a horse with his bare hands, you find your path mysteriously blocked by a flower bed. You've got arms like a shot putter's thigh, yet you're unable to break the stem of a daffodil, or jump over a rock no higher than your ankle.

Most recently, Final Fantasy XIII has come under criticism from some quarters for its particularly obvious linearity. Its environments, it's been said, are little more than a series of long corridors with a huge boss at the end of them.

The flipside to these kind of experiences, of course, is the open-world sandbox game. These take the rooms and corridors and make them much, much bigger. They take the boss encounters, non-player characters and objectives and place them much further apart, to the point where you need a car to traverse the vast distances between them.

By Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar, apparently worried that the length of time it would take to traverse Liberty City in a hotwired Nissan Cherry would leave players falling asleep at the wheel, and decided to lay on an optional taxi service to chauffeur them to and from the main points of interest.

I have a love-hate relationship with sandbox games. In fact, some of them leave me with a particular kind of dread. I'm the kind of person who gets lost looking for a post box in my own village, or who will walk out of a shop and forget which direction I came from. I've heard and read numerous reasons for this condition: a genetic deficiency; a misfiring hippocampus; outright stupidity.

Whatever the cause, the end result is the same: put me in a free-roaming virtual world, and I will get hopelessly, utterly lost. I've wandered the forbidden zones of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. like a well-armed ghost with no idea where I am or where I'm meant to go next. I've thundered around the mean streets of Liberty City in my Nissan Cherry, only to take a wrong turning onto a railway line and into the path of an oncoming train. I've lost myself among the crimson dust and prefabricated houses of Mars in Red Faction.

Oh, I know there are maps. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. even provides you with a PDA and GPS, kind of. But these toys and gadgets provide problems of their own. I've stared at the little maps too long and crashed into walls. I've stared at a PDA screen with a furrowed brow, only to receive an uncharitable bullet in the back.

So before you criticise FF XIII's invisible corridors too harshly, spare a thought for gamers like me, the perpetually lost and confused. Those of us who spend so long squinting at radars, maps and diagrams that we barely notice the wonderful world around us; those of us who are perpetually disoriented, bewildered, discombobulated and stumbling around in maze-like networks of avenues and alleyways.

Without games like FF XIII or Turok, we'd probably have had a nervous breakdown by now. Without those invisible walls to guide our path, we'd almost certainly never find our way home at all.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

With the PlayStation 3's underwhelming ‘Home', introducing the console gaming world to a hub in which avatars can stretch their limbs just like their real-life counterparts.

Microsoft has belatedly followed suit, unveiling the ‘Game Room'. In a classic case of ‘does what it says on the tin' titling, the Game Room will be a room full of - you guessed it - games. Thankfully, the games in question will not be blighted by the sort of dross that regularly finds its way onto Live Arcade, but bonafide retro classics.

Due for release March 24th, The Game Room will feature weekly uploads from MS, with its back catalogue expected to eventually consist of over 1,000 games. The likes of Centipede, Asteroids Deluxe and Outlaw are obvious admissions, but it is incredibly likely that modern Arcade classics such as Ridge Racer will also get a showing.

As far as payment is concerned, there will be a two-tier method enforced, meaning that you either pop 40 MS points into the virtual slot for a quick play, or cough up 240-400 MS points to keep the machine in your personal Arcade. In typical Microsoft fashion, your Arcade can be customised and decorated in exchange for MS points, allowing you to show off just how much spare cash you have.

Speaking of friends, there will be multiplayer support. Unfortunately, it will only be available if your friends are sitting on the same sofa as you. On the plus side, there is a hot seat mode available that allows you and a mate to take it in turns gunning for that high score, whilst Leaderboards and Achievements ensure that the Game Room will attract more than a few competitive spirits.

Expect to hear more launch games within the next month, before you lose three quarters of your friends list to High Scores.

Growing weary of slugging it out against Wolverine and his merry band of Marvel cohorts, Capcom has elected to use the seventh instalment of their frenetic fighting franchise to pit its horde of videogame icons against the creations of Japanese animation powerhouse Tatsunoko.

Where other fighting games concern themselves with twenty-button combos and the presence of at least three separate special attack meters, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars opts for a more simplified approach that places bombast and spectacle above technical pugilism.  

Undoubtedly, a great deal of the game's appeal is its sizable catalogue of combatants who are drawn from both companies' respective legacies. The Capcom roster sees the return of just a handful of characters from previous entries into the series, including ubiquitous stalwarts Ryu and Chun Li, Darkstalker's Morrigan, and Mega Man (albeit in his Legends incarnation).

Though you may bemoan the loss of your favourite fighters, there are plenty of new characters to choose from. These have been plucked from previously unrepresented franchises such as Onimusha and Viewtiful Joe, as well as more recent releases such as Dead Rising and Lost Planet that will prove more familiar to a western audience

However, the involvement of Tatsunoko is indicative that the game was initially envisioned as a Japanese exclusive; whilst great reverence is held for the studio in its home country, it possesses only a cult following in the west. This is reflected in the relative obscurity of the Tatsunoko roster. Aside from the featured cast of Gatchaman (that's Battle Of The Planets to you and me) or Casshan (who featured in the effects-laden 2004 feature film Casshern), it's unlikely that you'll have encountered characters such as Gold Lightan or Ippatsuman before. Still, they're an eclectic and esoteric bunch who mesh well with the more familiar crew of Capcom misfits.

Whilst the number of selectable characters is certainly healthy (not to mention comparable to most contemporary fighters), it's hard not to feel short changed in contrast to Marvel Vs. Capcom 2's swollen ranks, which we were reminded of during its recent Xbox Live Arcade release.

The fighting system itself is typical of previous games in the Vs. series, consisting of weak, medium and strong attacks which can be strung together to perform combos, counters and aerial assaults, as well as devastating and incredible-looking Mega Crash attacks.

Another returning feature is the presence of a tag-team mechanic, where players select two characters that can be switched between during battle. The non-active combatant can also be called upon for a rapid secondary strike, as well as incorporated into combos and Mega Crash attacks.

Although Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom lacks the depth of something like Street Fighter IV, it more than makes up for it with speed, enthusiasm and sheer grandiose. It's also instantly more accessible than other recent entries into the genre. Button mashing will get you surprisingly far, and it's often possible to do something completely amazing by accident.

The game really comes into its own when all four characters are on screen at the same time, performing their most powerful assaults and counters whilst the background explodes into a technicolour star field. The controls are pleasingly responsive and, thankfully, sidestep any kind of inane remote waggling. In fact, the game is so resolute in its use of traditional controls that it provides a wealth of alternative input options, ranging from GameCube controllers to a sideways remote.

Although the action is strictly limited to a 2D plane, all of the characters and their environments are brought to life in 3D and complimented by an attractive cel-shaded aesthetic which nods to the hand-drawn traditions of the series. The impressive visuals are almost enough to make you forget that the Wii is often criticised for its lack of graphical horsepower, though a few of the backdrops betray this illusion. However, you'll be too busy working out where each stage takes place rather than being preoccupied by their imperfections; anyone who spent time hacking up zombies in Dead Rising will appreciate inclusion of the Willamette Parkview Mall, despite the two-framed animation of its undead audience.

Console releases of even the best fighting games often fail to provide a meaningful single player experience. Sadly, it comes as no surprise that Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom does little to break this convention, offering little outside of the obligatory Arcade, Survival and Training modes. Arcade mode presents the most significant amount of content, and sees you battling through several rounds before facing off against Okami's Yami in a three-tiered boss fight. Claiming victory rewards you with some illustrations of the triumphant fighter accompanied by some text which hints at an underlying story, but proves more of a puzzling non sequitur.

Competing against other people is where the best experiences of the game undoubtedly emerge, and whilst an online battle mode is present, its limited population will leave you relying more on the local Versus mode and whoever can be lured to the sofa with the sound of hadoukens.

There are some superficial attempts to add longevity to the game through a shop where Zenny (Capcom's recurrent fictional currency) accumulated throughout various modes can be used to purchase additional costumes, stages and artwork. It's also possible to unlock several mini games for up to four players, but these ultimately prove limp and disposable.

It's easy to overlook some of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom's shallower aspects, not only because of its tight controls, streamlined fighting system and appealing cast of competitors, but also its sheer bravado.

Even if you don't recognise any of the Tatsunoko characters or some of the more obscure additions to the Capcom roster, it's a delight to watch them trade blow after increasingly ridiculous blow and revel in the bombastic absurdity of the action. This is not only a highly enjoyable fighting game in its own right and a worthy addition to the Vs. series, but one of the finest examples of the genre found on Nintendo's console.

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom: Ultimate All Stars is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

It takes a bold developer to try and do something a little different. Often these endeavours to push the envelope fall upon stony ground, with few appreciating the risks taken.

Sometimes, however, these attempts succeed, even if they often polarise the masses. Games like Sega's Shenmue and classic Cyan adventure series Myst are prime examples. You either love them, or hate them, there's rarely any in-between.

Quantic Dream is no stranger to this risky business of experimentation, and Heavy Rain is perhaps the developer's most ambitious project yet, a project that's had the PS3 community salivating for a very long time. Now that the bad weather is about to roll in, it's time to see if the wait has been worth it.

I'll say so now, just to be clear. Heavy Rain is all about the story. If there was ever any game that emphasised story above all else, then this is it. Don't worry, though. I'm not going to divulge anything here, and I promise there won't be a spoiler in sight. I wouldn't do that to you.

By now, you'll have most likely played the demo, and so you'll have some idea of how the game itself plays. Many have already criticised the game, calling it nothing more than a prolonged QTE sequence, much like Quantic Dream's previous title, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in the US). After playing the game through to the end, more than once, I can't argue with the suspected volume of QTE elements, but it's also true that there's a little more to things than simple button pressing.

QTE scenes do make up a large portion of the game, but you'll also play through sections where you explore environments, converse with others and, as FBI agent Norman Jayden, examine crime scenes and gather evidence using his high-tech glasses.

These sections, always interspersed with various types of QTE events, are all woven together to keep things from getting dull. The actual QTE elements are varied too, which may be hard to believe, but it's true. The usual ‘push X, push O, tap triangle rapidly' elements are present, of course, but there are also cleverly thought out QTEs where you have to depress a sequence of buttons at once, or use the Sixaxis motion controls to input actions (like kicking through a door, or punching someone).

Other QTEs make use of the analogue control sensitivity, and see you gingerly moving the analogue stick to perform gentle acts, like carefully and silently closing a door. It's all clever stuff, and while it's certainly not going to convert those with little time for QTE-based games, it's a novel and interesting approach to the formula. Still, it's not a full, videogame experience, and so, will definitely anger those who want more control, and involved game mechanics.

And to be honest, that's really all the gameplay summed up. Yep, Heavy Rain doesn't try to cover up its basic gameplay, and there are no real surprises when it comes to switching things up. It's basic exploration and constant, if oddly original, QTE all the way. So, with such basic actual gameplay, why would you want to play the game at all?

As I said earlier, Heavy Rain is all about the story, and what a story it is. Although I can already hear the stream of elitist movie critics scoffing at the thought of a game with a decent plot, Heavy Rain really does have one of the best plots I've ever seen in a game. The central story is simply excellent, and the direction and unfolding of the plot and the backgrounds of the various protagonists is great.

The plot revolves around the mysterious Origami killer, and tells the tale of a handful of individuals involved in one way or another with the serial murderer. Be warned though, this isn't a contrived and typically cheesy videogame plot. It's a dark, often shocking story, and one that really should be applauded.

The sense of cinematic style and direction is ever present, and David Cage, who undeniably dropped the ball, big time, with the god-awful latter half of Fahrenheit, deserves a lot of credit. The story here, aside from Jayden's sci-fi glasses, is always believable and seamless, flowing well to its gripping conclusion, save a couple of minor hitches which I'll come to later.

During the game, you take control of several main characters, and you'll witness the story from each perspective, with the inevitable crossovers as you proceed.

As you play through the game, your actions will actively change the story, and can have drastic effects on the events to come. Fail a sequence and you may change the following events, missing out whole sections of the story or changing future confrontations. Choose a certain path, and this too will shape your story, with some of the choices you're forced to make being more than a little harrowing.

The game has several alternate timelines woven together, and seeing them all will require multiple playthroughs. However, there's no game over, as such, either. The actions you take, or situations you botch up, have to be lived with, and the story continues regardless. This is one of the game's most impressive features, and it generates a real feeling of woe should you fail a sequence that will clearly affect upcoming events in an unfortunate manner. As you can't simply replay a section, you feel the actual weight of your actions, or inaction, whichever the case may be. This lends a certain gravitas to the proceedings, and really helps to get you involved in the plot more than any passive movie. The gameplay may be basic, but Heavy Rain still pulls you in, which is a major feat.

The visual element of Heavy Rain also helps to bolster the whole experience, and this is a very nice looking title, indeed. The level of detail in the environments is excellent, and while the locomotive animations of the characters are often awkward and clunky, the facial animations and gestures are brilliant, and lifelike. It's no Avatar, certainly, but this is still impressive stuff. Likewise, the audio direction is spot on, too. The music borrows from many Hollywood crime dramas like Seven and The Silence Of The Lambs, and the voice work is of a very high quality.

Despite the masses of polish in most areas of the game, however, Heavy Rain does have a few warts on its otherwise shiny exterior. The controls for walking and exploring are pretty dire, with the unnatural need to hold R2 to walk forward, while moving the right analogue stick to change direction. The camera also causes glitches in this system, leaving you to walk in the wrong direction. Characters can also be difficult to turn around on the spot, and looking at specific objects can be tricky. This is a shame, and could have been avoided with some more tinkering and a little careful planning but, sadly, it wasn't to be. It's still playable, but it's a large blemish that should have been avoided.

Perhaps more damaging is the sometimes disjointed story. Heavy Rain is designed to react to your own actions, and as you play through the game you may bypass certain sections or radically change future events. To make this system work, the story is modular, with certain chunks of the story being cut out, and others being included, depending on how you proceed. On my playthroughs, however, I encountered a couple of situations that didn't quite make sense, as if I was missing a scene, or some important information. Granted, these hiccups were always minor, but it's a definite problem, and I hope Quantic Dream can address any continuity errors.

As someone who usually finds QTE events to be a sign of sloppy and lazy development, I was prepared to be disappointed with Heavy Rain, and I had almost written it off before ever playing it, making the decision to give it a miss. Thankfully, I didn't succumb to my preconceptions and, after playing through the absorbing and brilliantly paced story, I'm pleased to say I was wrong.

Heavy Rain isn't really a game, per se, but more of an experience. True, as an actual playable game Heavy Rain is laughable, with little but a string of button pushes and controller manipulations to its name, but as an engaging narrative that's hard to put down, it's a winner. Yes, you can easily complete it in a couple of sittings, but with several endings and the chance to go back and see scenes you may have bypassed, there's enough here to warrant a purchase.

There'll be flame wars in forums across the Internet debating Heavy Rain's quality, and like some of the best risk taking titles, many will simply ignore or berate it as a waste of time, but, if you're looking for a truly impressive and absorbing interactive work of fiction, Heavy Rain is a must have.

Heavy Rain will be released on February 26 and can be pre-ordered from the Den Of Geek Store.

When a developer gets the chance to work on a huge movie licence, it's got to be like Christmas come early. Having a big name on your game's box is tantamount to printing money these days.

So, if you happen to snag the rights to, not one, but two of the most iconic action sci-fi blockbusters ever made, getting a winning title is surely as easy as a heavyweight boxer stepping into the ring with a paraplegic.

Rebellion is hardly a newcomer when it comes to the worlds of both aliens and predators, having already released Aliens Vs Predator titles before, so with past experiences under its belt, can the British developer make the most of the current generation hardware and catapult our hopes and dreams of actually ‘being' an alien or predator into orbit?

Following much the same direction as previous AvP games, you're once again given the opportunity of stepping into the shoes of a Colonial Marine, Alien or Predator, each of whom has their own campaign. The Colonial Marine's campaign is undoubtedly going to be the first destination for the majority of gamers, which is lucky, as it's here where the game shines the brightest. The Marine's campaign is fleshed out very well, indeed, and is suitably polished. It's the longest of the three stories, and it's clear to see this is where the majority of the developer's time and attention has gone. As soon as you begin, it's not long before you notice the game's major ace in the hole - the presentation.

Fans of the movies will be smiling with glee every step of the way through the series of missions, which are so full of fan-service to the subject matter it's plain to see that Rebellion knows its onions. Visually, despite not looking as good as the majority of its current-gen peers, AvP is pretty good, especially when it comes to attention to detail when reproducing the movie sets. The initial outing in the human colony is lifted right out of Aliens, and subsequent locations, such as the refinery, with its Alien 3 stylings borrow from the rest of the universe.

Character models are a little bit behind the times when compared to recent titles, but few could complain about the excellent Alien reproductions, which are truly great - something you'll see up close and personal soon enough...

However, even if the visuals don't rock your boat, the audio direction most definitely will. The FX and ambient music are absolutely spot on, and while gingerly wandering down darkened corridors with nothing but a rather ineffective flashlight and the occasional short-lived flare, you'll feel like you're truly in the movies, along with the apprehension that brings. This is the best re-creation of the totally unnerving motion tracker beep I've heard so far, and finally we have the uniquely cool Pulse Rifle bark reproduced perfectly. The voice acting is, for the most part, okay, with Lance Henriksen doing his bit as Karl Bishop Weyland, and plenty of the more memorable movie dialogue is present.

All of this is woven into a really impressive atmosphere that is at its very best in the opening minutes. With only a handgun, and no backup, you have to make your way through a seemingly deserted, and pitch black outpost. As you mooch around looking for power switches to bring the lights back on, the tiny bit of light you have isn't enough to quell the fear that begins to rise as you hear noises, and blips on the motion tracker begin to move. The fear of an Alien lunging at you from the darkness is ever-present, but doesn't come - at least not right away... It's a brilliantly paced introduction, and even once you get into the game proper, this kind of fear generating mechanic is always present.

When you do come face to, erm... face with an Alien, you shift into a different fear - one that has you frantically trying to avoid quick and painful death as you haphazardly try to take down Hollywood's meanest alien threat with a pea shooter. Even when you get to play with the better weapons like the Pulse Rifle, flamethrower and smart gun, you'll still feel more than a little uneasy, as xenomorphs are fast, agile and can run along any surface. This is a gimmick that's used brilliantly, too. Picture the scene: you're walking through a dark, empty room and your motion tracker starts to show movement in front of you. It gets closer... and closer, but still, you see nothing. Then you look up...

It's all excellent and atmospheric stuff, well worth the price of admission and, thankfully, the game underneath it all holds together, even if it all feels a little old school. AvP's control and overall feel are undeniably a little dated, with no extras like iron sight aiming or involved interaction with the environment (save a couple of switches to flick and panels to hack), and the smoothness of the controls isn't as buttery as I'd have liked. With enemies as fast and agile as the aliens, controls as fluid as those seen in the likes of CoD are needed but, sadly, aren't present. They're not bad, by any means, but you can't help feel they needed to be better.

Once you're done with the Marine's outing, you'll no doubt wish to sample the Alien and Predator's missions, and although you'd expect these to be even better than the Marine portion of the game, given the game's title, you'll, rather tragically, be a little disappointed.

The Alien campaign is perhaps the poorest of the three, mainly as writing a story about a creature that's little more than an acid-filled weapon with claws and a bitey mouth was always going to be a challenge. Shoehorning in a kind of telepathic, hive mind link to the Queen, you play ‘6', an Alien being experimented on by Weyland Yutani. Predictably, you escape and have to do the Queen's bidding, which oddly includes a lot of hunting for switches, something that simply doesn't fit with the Alien character.

As an Alien your main weapons are your razor sharp claws and tail, as well as the ability to hide in the dark and run along the walls and ceiling. The latter of these abilities is where AvP starts to unravel a little. While it's cool to perch upside-down on the ceiling in the dark, waiting for a hapless soul to walk into range of your fury, using this ability in heated battle is both confusing and clunky.

The melee combat, while passable, is also a bit stale and unwieldy. With a character that's so focused on melee combat and quick, vicious attacks, Rebellion really needed to put in more time in order to get the feel and accessibility just right. This wasn't done, and instead of a fast, efficient and downright brutal killing machine, you have a fast, clumsy and often inaccurate beast. Close up, fatality-style kills are always a laugh, though. That is, when you can manoeuvre into just the right spot to pull them off.

The Predator is one of the most tragic characters of gaming, in my opinion. Despite several tries, the games industry has never been able to truly capture the brilliance of the silver screen's star, and while Rebellion has given it a damn good try (both here and previously), the same is true again.

As the Predator, you have access to all of the staple weapons of the hunter-killer species. Wrist blades, the plasma caster, throwing discs and spear gun are present and correct, and you can also use different vision modes and utilise the ‘yeah, I know it's cheating, but it looks damn cool' cloaking device. And, the Predator can also jump massive distances, able to find vantage points to ambush foes.

Another interesting ability is the distraction skill. By selecting a point in the area, you can project a ‘want some candy?' vocal queue, causing your target to walk over to investigate, thus leaving them wide open to attack.

Given all of these tools and abilities, the Predator should be a blast to play, and for the most part, it is, but it also suffers from some of the limitations of the Alien. Melee combat isn't good enough, and some of the abilities are a little hit and miss, with stealth being a little overly tricky at times, despite the cloaking field.

It's worth persevering, though, as the stealthy option is rewarded with some truly gruesome trophy kills (if you thought Sub-Zero's controversial fatality was bad, just wait ‘till you see these), and when it does come together you get to feel like a truly elite hunter.

Sadly, the major problem with both the Alien and Predator campaigns is the size. Both are far shorter than the Marine outing, and the overall story and pacing just isn't as smooth or as well realised as the human angle. It's a notable flaw, and one that, given the title of the game, is a little unforgivable. Admittedly, The Marine is my favourite character, and I could happily play a game based solely on Colonial Marines (hmmmm, there's a thought...), but this is Aliens Vs Predator, so what gives Rebellion?

As well as the single player story element AvP also has a couple of multiplayer tricks up its sleeve. Online modes include straight up deathmatch, which is about as well balanced as a politician's expenses claim form, and modes that pit one Predator or Alien player against a group of Marines. These latter modes can be great fun, but when I jumped online, the matchmaking left a lot to be desired, with a few games quitting out unexpectedly.

The final mode is Survival, and this is where most AvP players will spend a lot of time. Either alone or with a group of friends you can see how long you can survive against wave after wave of aliens. AvP was made for this kind of challenge, and it works very well, especially when working together as a team. Okay, so it's a bit of a hackneyed game mode these days, with many other games also packing it in, but it works well, and that's all that matters.

Despite some control issues and lack of polish in the extra-terrestrial campaigns, not to mention the short-lived length, I really enjoyed Aliens Vs Predator. As I suggested in my recent Bioshock 2 review, however, to get the most out of this game you really should play it on hard. This tough and often daunting difficulty level really helps to re-create the tense atmosphere of the movies, and you'll enjoy it a whole lot more.

Fans of the films will undoubtedly enjoy the game too, and this is by far the closest anyone has come to reproducing them in game form, and even if the films aren't your cup of tea, if you're an FPS or action fan looking for a challenge you'll find plenty to get to grips with.

It's not the epic title I was hoping for, and there's plenty of scope for improvement, but the combination of the dark, a motion tracker and aliens can't fail to be cool, just don't forget to look up once in a while.

Aliens Vs Predator is released today and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

Now that we have a release date for Capcom's eagerly awaited Dead Rising 2 - with the game starting its worldwide rollout on 31st August - we've been treated to a new collection of screenshots too. You know the drill here: click on an image to make it bigger.

And then, come the end of the summer, bring on the zombies...

Bad things come in threes, the saying goes. It's superstitious nonsense, of course. It doesn't explain Jedward, for one thing. But whether bad things come in pairs, quartets, alone or in armies, there's no doubt that today's been rather trying (for me at least).

It's been a day of headaches, crashing software apps and bad sandwiches. I got home and drove into my own bin. Then I rubbed chilli in my eyes while making a curry. Temporarily blinded, I staggered around the kitchen for a bit, weeping and knocking over small jars. Like I said, a trying, ill-starred day.

On a vaguely related topic, therefore, here is my list of the six most atmospherically dark, evil and downright sinister games ever to sully our computers and consoles.

Manhunt

A sick and nasty take on the stealth genre as only Rockstar could make it, Manhunt manages to create the most palpably grim atmosphere imaginable. The hackneyed plot, borrowed from 30s movie The Most Dangerous Game, sees you take on the role of a monosyllabic man-mountain 'rescued' from death row only to be plunged into a series of sick cat-and-mouse encounters with increasingly well-armed goons. Enemies are dispatched with plastic bags, ropes and shards of glass, and there's a risk/reward system that triggers bloodier executions for the stealthiest kills. The kind of game Daily Mail journalists love to hate, Manhunt is justifiably regarded as one of the most shockingly violent games of all time.

Madworld

Clearly influenced by Manhunt, Platinum's ultra-violent brawler blends the visual style of Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez's Sin City movie with spectacularly bloody deaths by chainsaw, spike and dustbin. Along with House Of The Dead: Overkill, Madworld was Sega's attempt to court a more adult market for Wii. Unfortunately, Madworld's self-conscious use of swearing and violence make it seem all the more puerile, and all the gory signpost-through-the-eye deaths can't disguise its repetitive gameplay.

Resident Evil 4

With the sluggish zombies and fixed-perspective viewpoints of the Resident Evil sequels becoming increasingly predictable, Capcom's decision to reboot the franchise with RE:4 could not have been more timely. While the game is more action-oriented than earlier entries, it remains one of the most atmospheric sequels, and the lightning-fast Los Ganados pose a new, disquieting threat.

The Suffering

In many ways a traditional third-person shooter, The Suffering was distinguished by an unusual setting and plot (there aren't many games - or film, for that matter - set in a prison overrun by the denizens of Hell, after all) and grizzly, tense atmosphere. The ability to turn into a Hulk-like, enemy-mashing monster took the tension out of some scenes, but the game's build up, full of long shadows and creatures scuttling about in the darkness, is surprisingly effective.

Silent Hill 2

It's hard to believe now, but the original Silent Hill was a genuinely atmospheric game for its time, and one with a palpable air of menace. The steadily ramping tension reached its zenith with the introduction of the genuinely freaky Pyramid Head, an executioner-like character whose head is entirely obscured by a huge metal triangle. And what he does to those poor mannequins really is disturbing...

F.E.A.R

Its seemingly endless maze of corridors and minimalist offices may have made for a repetitive, colourless landscape, but there's no denying the sinister charisma of Alma, the psychic girl capable of turning an entire squad of soldiers into pink vapour. Making an FPS scary is a tricky proposition - you are clutching an automatic firearm for protection most of the time, after all -  yet F.E.A.R, through its mixture of well-paced storytelling (influenced by movies such as The Shining, Dark Water and Ringu) and perfectly orchestrated shocks, created a game that genuinely fulfilled the promise of its title.

After finishing this column, I noticed that I'd just made my 666th tweet on Twitter.  It's a good job I'm not superstitious...

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

I didn't grow up as your typical girl. Thanks to reading comic books I found myself running around the house wearing a towel for a cape and jumping off the second floor balcony in hopes of flying. Luckily, before I could get seriously injured playing a make-believe superhero, I discovered the joys of videogames.

Whether I was at the arcade or at home, videogames allowed me to become my favorite character and kick some serious bad guy butt! Of all the comic-based videogames, only a few were able to keep me entertained. There are even some that made me feel connected to the character in ways reading the comic book could never do.

Below is my top 10 list of those unforgettable comic-based videogames:

10. Captain America & The Avengers

I'm a big fan of those 90s arcade beat ‘em up style games and this was one of them. Up to four people could get in on the fun and play together as Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, or Hawkeye.  The game looked like a comic book come to life, flashing action words like "KRAK", "KABOOM", "TWACK", and "WHAM"! You even had the ability to pick up rocks, benches, cans, and other objects to throw at the enemy.

9.  Marvel Ultimate Alliance

After the disappointing RPG gameplay in X-Men Legends, I was happy to see Raven Software finally get it right with Marvel Ultimate Alliance. This game features a cast of classic Marvel characters and the ability to unlock more. With countless characters at your disposal, creating your own dream team of Marvel superheroes makes this game worth playing!

8.  Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe

I hadn't played Mortal Kombat since the 90s and I was never crazy about the DC Universe, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself sucked into this game. Play one out of twenty-two combatants who are ready to duke it out in either arcade or story mode. With a rather impressive storyline explaining how these two worlds came together, the classic Mortal Kombat characters felt equally matched against the incredible superpowers of the DC Universe. After several hours of game play I ended up with a nice blister on the palm of my hand.

7. Marvel Super Heroes

How can I not love a game where I get to play my favorite female X-Man, Psylocke? Set in the Marvel Universe, it features some obscure characters like Blackheart and Shuma-Gorath. Unfortunately, the game's premise, based on the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, makes for a weak objective. The object is to collect the Infinity Gems from your opponents, using them in battle, and then on to defeat the last boss, Thanos. (Thanos then steals all the gems you have collected up to that point!) If it wasn't for the weak plot, this game would've ranked better on my list.

6. X-Men: The Arcade Game

Similar to Capt. America & The Avengers, this beat ‘em up allowed not four, but a whopping six, simultaneous players! The X-Men team included six playable A-list characters: Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Dazzler, and Cyclops. Most amusing of all was the ability to kick or hit an already fallen opponent, preventing them from getting back up. People say you should never kick a man when he's down, but in this game, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game

For a scrawny 8-bit Nintendo game, it looked and sounded just like its arcade counterpart. There are some obvious differences, like two simultaneous players instead of four, two added levels, and two new bosses. Having two players didn't make beating the game any easier. After countless hours, days, weeks, and months I was able to beat the game, with help from my twin sister, of course!

4. X-Men: Children Of The Atom

This was the first in a long line of Capcom fighting games to feature characters from Marvel Comics. There are a total of ten playable characters (six X-Men and four X-Villains) to choose from. Each character has his/her own special powers or "X-Ability". Magneto is the big boss in this one. Colorful, cartoonish, and with true comic book style, Capcom could do no wrong with X-Men: Children Of The Atom. 

3. Marvel Vs. Capcom

Two is always better than one, which is why Marvel Vs. Capcom comes in at number three. Choose to play Capcom or Marvel's characters in a two-against-two battle of the best. A new feature to the game was the Duo Team Attack, allowing you to control two characters at once. Finding the perfect Duo Team was half the fun for me, finally settling on Wolverine and Gambit. Special moves, secret characters, and summoning off-screen assistance makes this game far from boring.

2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

This is not the same as number five on my list because this is the coin-operated arcade version. In my opinion, it is the crème de le crème of those 90s arcade beat ‘em ups. Up to four players were allowed to play, each one choosing between Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. $20 worth of quarters would finally bring me victory against Shredder. Voice and sound clips from the cartoon can be heard throughout the game shouting catchphrases like "Cowabunga" and "Pizza Time". Having played it so much, I bet the last thing I hear before I die will be Shredder saying, "Tonight, I dine on turtle soup!"

1. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

This is what fighting games are all about! Select three combatants from among the roster of Capcom and Marvel characters. With a total of fifty-six characters to choose from you'll never grow tired of playing. I've even bruised the palm of my left hand from holding the joystick too tight. I'm so addicted to the game that I find myself, for no apparent reason, randomly shouting game phrases like "Tornado Claw!" or "Psy-blade!". If I had this coin-op game in my house, I would never leave and no one would ever see me again...

Even though we have a slight worry that the original developer, Real Time Worlds, isn't at the controls this time (even if members of the original team are), we're still pumped with excitement for Crackdown 2. The original remains one of the absolute treats of the Xbox 360 software catalogue, and if you can get past the fairly pedestrian first hour, it's a really, really enjoyable game.

The sequel, which has been a long-time coming, has been in production for some time, and a post at Xbox.com - which has since been removed - has revealed that the release date for the game is June 11th. This hasn't been officially confirmed, but it sounds about right from where we're sitting.

Videogamer has the full story here.

Developer Bungie and the Halo franchise are set to go their separate ways once Halo Reach is released later this year. It's inevitable, therefore, that it's about the biggest title on Microsoft's release roster for 2010, and that the firm will be looking for the kind of numbers that Halo 3 attained on its release.

The game's not due out until the autumn, so we won't be finding that out for sure just yet. But the teasing has well and truly begun, with this new collection of screenshots just release to whet your appetite. Click on any of them to make them bigger...

Just a quick one: Capcom is reported to have set the release date for its eagerly-awaited zombie sequel Dead Rising 2 for August 31st. That's the day that Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 versions of the game are going on sale.

The news was broken by GameInformer, and, as such, will refer to the US release of the game. We'd expect the UK roll-out to follow on 3rd September, but that bit's guesswork on our part.

Expect the UK and US releases to be very close together, though.

If you've read my Star Trek Online preview here, then you'll know I made a perhaps contentious comment that console gaming is better than PC gaming. It seemed logical therefore to back that up with a pros and cons list to determine once and for all which is the best all round gaming format, and to justify my comments.

Let's start with my reasoning for thinking consoles are better, before moving on to an actual pros and cons list. 

For me, ultimately, it's all about convenience. With a console you can literally plug it in and play. Most importantly for me, you can play at your leisure. With most of us, our PC is also for some form of work, study or general browsing of the web. And, as such, our PCs are at a desk with a relatively comfy office chair.  Now, I don't know about you, but I sit at a desk all day at work so the thought of sitting at one all night to play my games when I get home isn't actually that appealing!. However, with my consoles I can sit on the sofa, chill out after another generic day at the office and play great games to my heart's content.

Already you can see where I am coming from with this article, but I'm keen to be as objective as possible on this, to find out whether consoles or PCs are better for gaming. I also asked friends and colleagues for input, for a non-scientific straw poll as such.

The list that's coming up will not take into account additional peripherals, I should point out. For example, you could use a 360 controller on your PC or you could use a USB keyboard and mouse on your PS3, but in the interest of fairness, I'm not be taking that into account.

In a Crystal Maze inspired scoring style, each pro item gains the format a point (golden ticket!) whilst each con will deduct a point (silver ticket!). Whoever has scored the most by the end of this article will be declared the best all round gaming format. But don't worry, the loser will still get an ‘I cracked the Crystal Maze' Crystal. Ahem.

Anyway, here's my list. And it turns out to be a fairly logical one.

PC Gaming 

Pros List 

Most games are cheaper on PC

You get better graphics on up to date machines

Comprehensive controls (keyboard, mouse)

Most RPG and RTS games are made for PC controls

Longevity of games increased with mods, often user-made on some games (usually free)

Dedicated servers

Some free DLC as with console games

Hardware / software issues can potentially be fixed yourself if needs be

Cons List 

Constant need to upgrade hardware

Constant patching of games

Less comfort whilst playing (office chair/desk)

Constant need to keep drivers up to date to ensure games run as best as possible

Loads of settings for video/sound in-game which need ‘tinkering' in order to get the game running as best it can on your PC

No split screen for local multiplayer

Initial set-up cost for high-end PC can be expensive

Continuing to keep PC ‘high-end' will be a constant, often expensive battle as bigger and better graphics cards come out, for example

Console Gaming 

Pros List 

Convenience (sofa gaming)

Little to no video/sound adjustments needed

Local multiplayer (split screen) for social/party gaming

Plug and play, easy console initial set up

Some DLC for games is free as with PC games

Patching of games is limited and rarely causes much delay for games you play often

Required updating of console itself is limited

Most people have a bigger TV than PC monitor, so big screen gaming is more feasible

Cons List

Graphically inferior to high-spec PCs

More restrict controls, with keyboard and mouse better for some games

DLC can be unnecessarily expensive for what you actually get. (Fable 2!)

No dedicated servers

MMORPGs would not work on Xbox 360 (live subscription and MMO monthly fee! Not likely.) MMORPGs might work for PS3s, but they're more natural on PC

Games are more expensive

RROD/hardware faults generally mean entire console needs to be sent back to get fixed

Games you play less often may have major patch updates needed before game will load

So the results are in and it's a tie, as they have an equal amount of pros to cons. At least that's what I found when I tried to look at it completely objectively.

Yet, I would still stand by my (console) guns and state that it is definitely easier to game on consoles than on a PC. That's just my opinion, of course, and as the lists above demonstrate, it's far from clear-cut.

Myself? I've learned that no matter what your preference is, you can't deny the alternative's ability to provide an enjoyable gaming experience. Similarly, despite each format putting up a good argument, there are clearly a lot of flaws to both which could easily put you off giving the alternative a try. I'd also suggest that those who glibly dismiss either PC or console gaming as simply better than the other may well be guilty of siding with the one they've got, rather than offering an objective overview.

Bottom line, as you might expect? It's down to your own preference: both PCs and consoles have their own pros and cons. Personally? I still choose consoles...

Thanks to Den of Geek users Broseph and Leegolas for their input on the list. As always leave your comments and creative responses in the comments section below!

With all the diners, parking lots, poodle parlours and so on, I guess it was only a matter of time before Flo made her way into the hotel business. This time, the action follows on from that of Avenue Flo, Playfirst's first foray into the world of point and click adventure (if a more casual version than, say, Myst).

The storyline continues as the happy couple who were married in Avenue Flo need somewhere for their honeymoon, and wedding planner Quinn has also branched out into honeymoons. Trouble is, the intended venue is a bit of a dump and Quinn is understandably panicking. This is where Flo comes in. She'll help get the hotel back on its feet whilst earning enough money to refurbish it. Yay, Flo! As well as these upgrades, you'll also be using points to decorate the honeymoon suite for the happy couple.

The gameplay is essentially the same as other Dash titles. You point and click to make Flo do what she needs to do... and as quickly as possible! Your customers turn up, you must see them to their rooms, take up their bags, provide them with room service and any other requirements they have, then take their cash and clean up their empty room for the next guest. This continues through ten levels in one location, then you'll move onto the next.

Although thoroughly enjoyable, Hotel Dash is really easy, and I don't think this is just because I'm a seasoned player. I was getting ‘Expert' scores on most levels, and there were very few stages where I was actually worried about completing a level. I don't think I replayed a single one due to not having enough points. As a result of this, I flew through the game and felt a little cheated at the end because it hadn't actually taken me very long. I also managed to score ‘Expert' on the final level, supposedly the hardest.

Overall, Hotel Dash was a bit of a disappointment. Although polished and incredibly fun, the challenge element just wasn't there, and, therefore, nor was the value.

I think fans of the series should still play it, because you'll love it, but just make sure you buy it from the cheapest distributor...

It's an awkward moment. We have friends around for dinner, and as we relax in our chairs with brandy and cigars, Sarah (my long-suffering better half) decides to show off her animals. "That's my Lickatoad, who I've called Jeremy," Sarah explained as she scrolled around her virtual garden in Viva Pinata. "And this is Hillary, my Chippopotamus. I've already got an achievement for romancing geese, and once I've romanced my salamanders I'll be a level 52 gardener."

To our friends, who are dyed-in-the-wool FPS fanatics, this is mystifying, horrifying stuff. They stare at the television with incredulous eyes. One of them looks as though he has a headache. Rare's pastel-hued animal management game is not going down well at all.

"It's good!" Sarah insists, to a wall of utter silence. Someone coughs. Far away, a church bell issues a muffled clang.

"Perhaps we should play something else?" I suggest, quietly removing the 360 controller from Sarah's grasp. "A shooter?" one of our friends asks, suddenly perking up.

"Gerbil Physics!" Sarah blurts, taking the controller back again. "It's brilliant!"

Our friends settle further down into the sofa, their faces clouding with gloomy resignation. Things are looking bad. If they don't like whimsical management games full of animals, I think, they're not going to be thrilled at the sight of a puzzler full of rodents either.

But I'm forgetting the fact that Gerbil Physics is one of the most accessible, gleefully fun puzzle games ever made. The aim is simple: to use your limited supply of bombs to knock down a stack of blocks (which, by-the-by, are full of gerbils) so they fall below the lower quarter of the screen - kind of like Jenga in reverse.

Within seconds, the atmosphere of the room has changed from apathy to a strange kind of sugar-rush glee; we're shouting advice at whoever happens to be playing, laughing as another gerbil is sent flying off the screen with a squeak, or jeering as a tower refuses to collapse. It may only possess a single player mode, but this is party gaming at its purest and most simple. Everybody has an opinion about where the next bomb should be placed or which block should be blown up first, and everybody wants to have the next go.

Gerbil Physics' destructive gameplay taps into a universal desire to blow down a house of cards or kick over a sand castle, and its cutesy presentation is brilliantly at odds with its explosive concept. Its gentle soundtrack is constantly punctuated by the crockery-rattling din of another explosion. The gerbils themselves are full of cheeky personality, screwing up their eyes when a bomb is placed next to them, or muttering "abject fail!" when a level goes awry.

Given that it's the product of a tiny developer called Pencel Games, and that it costs a piffling 80p on XBox Live, it's unsurprising that Gerbil Physics ends all-too-quickly - we finished the 24th and final level after around ninety minutes of shouting, swearing and cheering - but it's a proof-of-concept for a potentially incredible commercial release in the future.

With Gerbil Physics completed, we began a Halo 3 deathmatch. Curiously, the mood began to drop again. Our friends, too used to their PS3, began to moan about the 360's controller. They grumbled about the positioning of the analogue sticks, and tutted at their apparent unresponsiveness. After less than half an hour of running and shooting, these self-confessed FPS junkies wanted to go back to playing Gerbil Physics. And that, surely, is the sign of a truly great puzzle game.

Ryan writes his gaming column every week at Den Of Geek. Last week's is here.

Bioshock was, quite rightly, awarded several Game of the Year awards by many publications and websites. It was a stunning tour de force of a title that proved gaming had truly grown up, with an excellent story and superb atmosphere in a unique and absorbing world. As it was viewed as a real, bonafide landmark title by almost everyone who laid eyes on it, any follow up was going to have more than its work cut out for it, and Bioshock 2 is going to be closely scrutinised and criticised by everyone. It's got hard times ahead, make no mistake.

Luckily, despite several setbacks, and a worrying ‘too many cooks...' developer list behind it, the end result has turned out to be a pretty good effort, but is it good enough to topple the original?

Taking place 10 years after the original game, Bioshock 2 puts you in the role of the prototype Big Daddy, predecessor to the many stomping giants that made your life difficult in the original. After a harrowing event in your life as a Little Sister protector, which I won't ruin for you here, you awake in the creaky, leaky underwater dystopia of Rapture, unaware of what's really going on.

All you do know is that your assigned Little Sister isn't around, and you've got to find her, as well as fight for your very life, thanks to new head villain, Sofia Lamb, a self-made messiah filling in the power void left after the first outing. Of course, the story isn't that simple, and it soon twists and turns, as you meet the inhabitants of Rapture, but as the story is so important, I'm not going to risk spoiling it for you here.

As soon as you fire up the game you'll be in familiar territory, and the look and feel is almost identical to the original. Visually, the game is still great, and controls are very similar. Rapture is just as absorbing as ever, and the ruined underwater city is in an even greater state of disrepair, if that's possible.

Foes are all initially familiar too, including throngs of insane Splicers, the city's rather unfriendly security systems and, of course, Big Daddies and Little Sisters. However, it's not long before you meet the game's major new foe, the Big Sisters. These are fast, agile foes that make Big Daddies look like pussycats. Confrontations with these fearsome foes aren't as dynamic as the developers would have us believe, though, and they're scripted, but running into one is still reason to change your pants.

You'll also soon notice some fundamental changes that have been made to the game mechanics, many of which are welcome additions that help Bioshock 2 flow far more fluidly than the first. In particular, the control system has been tweaked. As a Big Daddy you're now able to wield a weapon in your right hand, and fire off Plasmids with your left, all without having to swap between the two as in the first game. This works very well, especially when using the one, two attack of shocking a foe and then lamping them ‘round the head. Couple this with the new drill arm weapon, a staple Big Daddy armament, and you're onto a winner.

The Pipe Mania-style hacking mini-game is no more, replaced by a little reflex testing game. This may sound simple, and it is, but it works very well, and is all done in real time, without pausing the game or going to a separate screen. This is a real relief, as one of the hiccups of the first game was definitely the stop/start nature of the hacking diversion.

The Plasmid system has been altered slightly too. Instead of Plasmids now simply getting more powerful as they level up, some evolve into entirely new powers, opening up more tactical options. Sadly, many players will still gravitate to the staple, tried and tested Plasmids like lighting, incinerate and freeze (with the latter being particularly effective in combat), but with the range of options on offer, there's plenty of room to experiment.

Weapons have also been beefed up. Well, you're a Big Daddy, after all. Instead of Jack's smaller hardware like pistols and Tommy guns, this time you'll wield rivet guns, rotary machine guns and more. These heavy weapons are initially surprisingly weak, but, as in the first game, you can use Power to the People machines to modify them, making them more powerful, and also granting extra abilities. Weapon ammo types also return, and scavaging for and conserving ammo is even more important here than in the first.

The Little Sisters also return, which is to be expected as you play a Big Daddy, and they also reprise their role as the major currency for Plasmids. However, while Jack simply had to defeat a Sister's Big Daddy guardian to get to them, this time you have to defeat a Sister's current Daddy, and then take over as her guardian (you're the Daddy now! Ahem... sorry).

With Little Sister in tow, you have to take her to specific Splicer corpses and then drop her off to harvest Adam (the power used to acquire Plasmids, in case you didn't already know). While she gathers this, waves of Splicers start to attack, and you have to protect your cute little helper. Cast your mind back to the Big Daddy training course at the end of the first game, and you've got the picture.

This makes for some hectic defensive battles where you need to use traps and anything you can find to give you the edge. Unfortunately, this is done for each Little Sister you find, and some may quickly tire of the repetitive harvest and defend mechanic, but I found each engagement enjoyable, and it really makes you think about your tactics (especially if you play on Hard, something I'd highly recommend Bioshock vets and experienced gamers do).

Once you've gathered enough Adam, you then need to take your Little Sister to her hidey hole in the wall. Here you then chose whether to cure her, or harvest her. The latter grants you more Adam, but kills the little girl (you monster!), while the former grants less Adam, but will give you less nightmares of your evil doings, and you may just get some pressies left for you later on.

Progression through the game is far more linear than the first. There's no real open world back tracking as such here, and while Rapture is just as engrossing as ever, you can't help but feel as though you're being sheep herded through the dysfunctional urban nightmare.

Bioshock 2 also suffers noticeably from a lack of mystique. One of the greatest aspects of the original was the wonderment and mystery you experienced as Jack, as he discovered this bizarre and amazing construction under the sea. This time, and obviously unavoidably, this mystery just isn't present, and you'll find everything very familiar, having seen it all before.

That's not to say Bioshock 2 is short on surprises and a great story. Far from it, Rapture has more than enough to offer, and the story is, while not quite up to the standards of the first, still great, with Sofia Lamb being a suitable replacement to Andrew Ryan (who also returns in many voice recordings). The little additions like walking around underwater outside of Rature's halls is a nice, if fairly mundane touch, and there's some nice set pieces thrown in to keep you on your toes.

As well as the single player, there's now also a multiplayer element. I'm focusing on the single player here, as I feel Bioshock really is all about the single player story. That said, the multiplayer mixture of guns and Plasmids makes for some interesting online action. It's certainly not going to topple the likes of CoD or Halo, and as with many flirtations with new multiplayer bolt-ons, I can't see players sticking around for long, but it's a welcome extra to add longevity to the game.

I must admit that prior to release I was more than a little sceptical about Bioshock 2. I liked the original so much that I couldn't help but fear for the sequel's quality, especially with the change of developer and setbacks. Thankfully, although the sequel doesn't quite top the original in my opinion, it's still a superb title that begs to be played. It improves upon some of the shortcomings of the original, and while the feel and atmosphere isn't quite as impressive as the first, Rapture is still a place you won't want to leave until the credits roll, and even then, there's the multiplayer to have a go at.

Bioshock 2 is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.