10 Things We Know About Halo 4

New guns, new gear and ancient aliens – here’s everything you should be getting excited about.

Start of a new trilogy
Bungie might have flown the coop, but the story of the Master Chief is far from over. Halo 4 is the first in a brand new trio of games known as ‘The Reclaimer Trilogy’ so expect to see the big MC activating plenty of ancient technology.

New UNSC weaponry
Humanity’s researchers have had over a year to fiddle about with all that new alien technology, and you’ll see the fruits of their work in Halo 4. Expect an array of improved UNSC armaments, as well as new alien treats to try.

Could these iconic weapons be making a return in Halo 4? We'll just have to wait and see...

More vehicles to control
Halo: Primordium might not be coming out until 2012, but the cover art tells us everything we need to know: it’s confirmed concept art for Halo 4, and the ships in the sky are of Forerunner origin.

The Forerunners are alive
We might not have seen the Halo system creators for thousands of years, but it doesn’t mean they’re dead. According to 343 Industries’ Frank O’ Connor, Halo 4 will let you explore Forerunner architecture ‘when it’s not completely inert and empty.’ If it isn’t empty then surely it’s inhabited, right?

Mysterious new foes
We only caught a split-second glimpse of this screeching cybernetic enemy during the Halo Fest presentation. Could it be some kind of Forerunner Sentinal AI? All I know is that is doesn't look at all friendly...



Cortana’s in trouble
She’s one of the smartest AI programs in the universe, but it comes at a cost. After seven years of service Cortana will become ‘rampant’, and quickly begin to lose her marbles. She’s not got long left now, So Halo 4 will likely focus on finding a way to save her.

The Chief has changed
Don’t get too attached to the Chief you’ve seen in Halo 4’s first teaser trailer. 343 Industries recently admitted that the model has seen four separate revisions since then. It’s still not confirmed that he’ll even have a jetpack.

He won't change much. Don't panic.

It’s not long after Halo 3
Some have suggested the events of the game occur 36 years after Halo 3, but 343 assures us that the game begins in 2553, a mere one year after the game’s finale.

Five years for us, but only one year for MC.

The Flood may show up
I reckon we’ll fins out more about The Flood in Halo 4. Originally found in powdered form on an abandoned cargo ship, it’s created by another species. If The Flood only affect organic beings, is it possible that they’re agents of Halo 4’s robotic looking foes?

The most hateful creatures in video game history? Quite possibly.

More clues are coming
If you’re dying to know more about Halo 4, I know where to look. Halo novel Glasslands promises to tease info on new UNSC technology, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, out on November 15, is said to contain loads of clues.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Halo: Combat Evolved

The idea for Halo was first conceived in a Catholic girl’s school in Chicago.

Halo’s very first press release in 1999 described the game as a “third-person perspective sci-fi action epic that takes place indoors, outdoors, in the sky and beneath the surface of a world of astonishing realism.” It featured both “epic single-player” and “role-based co-operative multiplayer…that is as much lived as played.” It would “release simultaneously on PC and Mac”.

Halo was originally called Solipsis, after the planet it was set on. Other oddball concept names included The Crystal Palace, Hard Vacuum, Star Maker, Star Shield and The Santa Machine.

Halo’s initial setting was a planet known as the ‘Dyson Sphere’ (built around a sun at its centre) and then a ringworld with a population that included sea monsters, dinosaurs and strange chicken-like creatures that could be captured and used for transport.

Before he was limited to only two weapons, Master Chief had a ludicrious arsenal at his disposal. This epic loadout included not only pistols and rifles but machetes, flamethrowers, spearguns, harpoon guns and even a gravity wrench.

For all it breathless hype, Halo wasn’t considered the jewel in the Xbox’s launch line up. That accolade was instead bestowed upon Oddword: Munch’s Oddysee.

During Halo’s first European press tour the demo computer blew up (literally there was smoke). Joe Staten, lead writer and cinematics director, remembers it well: “Having no computer made our first demo go, er, poorly. ‘Imagine if you will, there’s this green guy called Master Chief, and he’s fighting against some purple space aliens called The Covenant. Cool huh?’”

A huge amount of time was spent working out how to map the quintessentially PC shooter controls to the Xbox’s huge joypad. The analogue stick would never match the precision of the PC’s mouse, but auto targeting would be considered too easy, so Bungie built in a mild assist that helped the cross-hairs stay on target for an extra second.

Bungie spent the final months on Halo working until the small hours whittling down the game’s 10,000 bugs to the handful that survive today.

Halo arrived alongside the Xbox on November 15th 2001, the biggest game on Xbox and the first Microsoft title ever to carry a “Mature” rating signifying it was for adults only.

Once the Christmas season had passed Microsoft sold 1.5 million Xboxes and shipped a million copies of Halo, making it by far the biggest game on the console.

8 Things I Dislike About Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Now don’t get me wrong, Deus Ex Human Revolution is a brilliant game. The universally high review scores speak for themselves. But I’m not here to stroke the game’s already bloated ego. I’m here to deliver a brutal aug-enhanced body blow. The time for sycophantic gushing has passed. He may have metal arms capable of crushing steel girders, but Adam Jenson doesn’t frighten me. No sir. It’s time to get nasty. So then, here’s a list of things I disliked about Deus Ex:

Adam Jensen’s Voice
The lifeless, nasal drone that passes for Jensen’s voice is a constant source of irritation. Clint Eastwood was clearly the inspiration behind the protagonist’s gruff drawl, but that doesn’t stop him from sounding like a listless sat nav. Cheer up ya miserable bastard, you’ve got robotic arms for goodness sake.

The Hacking System
Hacking stuff is supposed to make you feel like an uber-cool secret agent, right? In theory, yes. In Deus Ex, no. I felt like an inadequate, perpetually bewildered idiot. Without the maxed-out stealth hacking augmentation – which effectively renders you invulnerable to detection - I’d have cracked. The majority of people I’ve spoken to love the hacking system, so I guess it’s just me, and this makes me hate it even more.

Bugs
The occasional bug is forgivable, especially in a game as ambitious as Deus Ex. But when those bugs interfere with the core gameplay mechanic, things start to fall apart. On more than one occasion, while hiding from pursuing aggressors, I’ve witnessed NCPs walking straight through closed doors. And more often than not it’s the very same door I’m cowering behind. What should have been a wonderfully tense game of cat-and-mouse degenerates into a comical farce. Like I said, the occasional glitch is pardonable, but walking through closed doors? C’mon already!

The Third Person Cover Mechanic
Okay, hear me out on this one. The third person cover-mechanic employed by Deus Ex generally works very well indeed. Darting from cover to cover, unseen, right under the noses of your enemy is empowering stuff. Slipping out from the shadows to brutalise an unwary guard never gets old. In fact, skulking around a laboratory and picking off unsuspecting lab technicians with a silenced pistol reminded me of GoldeEye's sublime Facility level. However, in the thick of an all-out gun battle, with enemies homing in on your position from every angle, flicking between the third-person cover-mechanic and the traditional first person perspective can be jarring and a little disorientating.

Character Models
The distinctive gold and black colour scheme that permeates Deus Ex’s cyber-punk environments is often beautiful. The same thing can’t be said for the storefront mannequins that populate the game’s four cities. Every character you encounter has the same hideous waxy pallor and robotic mannerisms. If I were feeling charitable, I’d suggest that these unsettling character models were a deliberate attempt by Eidos Montreal to convey the increasingly blurred boundaries between man and machine. But I’m not, so I won’t.

Loading Times
For a game that is so much about the delight of experimentation, with often fatal consequences, the loading times punish you. Even on a high-end PC, they clock up 20 to 30 seconds; running off disc on 360, I sometimes sat there waiting for just under a minute. Here’s a tip: if you install the game to the 360’s hard drive, the loading times become bearable.

Boss Battles
Gah! Those horrible fucking boss battles! The freedom to decide how you deal with the numerous denizens of Deus Ex is without a doubt the game’s greatest strength. So why in god’s name did Eidos Montreal think it was a good idea to strip you of this choice and force you into fighting some monumentally awful bosses? These confrontations add nothing to the game. Quite the opposite; they take away. They fall into the tedious category of ‘single enemy with a zillion hit-points’ that every shooter has employed since the days of 8-bit. Like the final boss of Bioshock, they feel completely at odds with both the tone, and the praxis of the game. See what I did there? Bosses should have been excluded.

The Dialogue
The dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. It’s functional, sure, but it comes across neither naturalistic, nor as proper drama should. This, plus the shonky facial animation – the lip synch is like a badly dubbed seventies kung fu movie – limited my ability to empathise with the characters in any meaningful way, which is why my usual ‘second time through, be an arsehole to everybody’ became the modus operandi for my first run instead.

Videogames: The New King Of Entertainment

Gamers have known it for years. But it's time to bring the rest of the world up to speed. Here's why videogames are THE ultimate entertainment media...


Real life sucks. Ever since evolution saddled us with self-awareness, we’ve been wallowing in a mire of existential angst. Why are we here? What does it all mean? What’s the fucking point? Life is complicated enough without the added burden of unanswerable questions plaguing our every thought. Add to that our inherent ability to feel guilt, shame and paranoia and you begin to wonder how we ever make it through the day.

So then, how to cope with the problem of being a living, breathing human being? The answer, of course, is videogames. Of all the brightly coloured baubles we have to distract us from our slow slide into the grave, videogames are the most consistently engaging. Sure, HBO has been a worthy contender – The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Band Of Brothers – but it’s videogames that are the true king of entertainment. And here’s why:

Achievements and trophies provide a digital library of every gaming triumph you’ve ever accomplished. You simply don’t get that with films. Managing to quash an awkward boner when Jessica Rabbit saunters into view is surely deserving of some kind of accolade? But no, all I’m left with is a nasty pang of self loathing. Rubbish.


Mario will never place a shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger at the thought of his music becoming part of some bland corporate mechanism. And it's highly unlikey that Master Chief will ever be accused of child molestation. The iconic videogame characters who we love and cherish will never disappoint or disgust us like their real-life celebrity counterparts. Apart from Rayman. He’s a total cunt.


“If you don’t play games, you’re not just missing out, you’re wilfully ignoring the most rapidly evolving creative medium in history”


Ignore the naysayers. Videogames bring people together. And not just to shoot each other’s faces off in Call Of Duty. Bejeweled Blitz, Pokemon, Boom Blox, Animal Crossing – these are just a tiny handful of games whose creativity has enchanted all ages and crossed cultural divides. Videogames are even challenging the assumption that art is a passive experience for the audience. Beat THAT Tate Modern.


In no other medium can you realise your geekiest fantasies with such heart-pounding gusto. Every niche is catered for, from the heady heights of saving the universe (Halo), all the way down to your run-of-the-mill fishing simulator (Sega Bass Fishing). Wish fulfilment has never been so accessible.


Despite its rise in popularity, gaming is still a relatively esoteric pastime. Every cunt has an opinion on The Godfather, but only gamers can tell you why Beyond Good & Evil is an essential purchase.


One of the last and most explosive bastions of anti-videogame ignorance in the UK, The Daily Mail has often demonised gaming culture. But it’s okay. It really is. Being reviled by the Daily Mail has become a badge of honour. At least Ricky Gervais seems to think so...

Five Bastard Hard Videogame Moments

I consider myself a hardcore gamer. You’ll never catch me sobbing like a spanked child when faced with a challenge. Nope, not me. My dinkle twitches into life whenever I’m confronted with an awkward Xbox achievement. Cheating is unthinkable; the last refuge of a coward. Fuck you for even thinking about it.

Still, even gaming gods have their off days. And sometimes, on those super rare occasions when a videogame is, you know, a little too devious for its own good, I sometimes, but very rarely - almost never in fact - consult the internet, just to make sure I’ve covered all my bases. But I’m not cheating. Perish the thought. I’m simply moving things along. I’m a busy man and my time is precious. Yup, busy busy busy.

So then, below are five occasions when I’ve had to consult the internet for a quick information fix. Because I’m a busy man. Not because I’m shit at games.

Braid
Insanely bewildering, like a Kafka novel come to life. A super intense workout for the brain, guaranteed to have you weeping blood in frustration. The time altering mechanics coupled with some truly masochistic level design makes for a double hard bastard of a game.

Breaking point: Fickle Companion, World 4-7. Keys unlock doors, right? But what if the key you need has a mind of its own? How exactly do you unlock the door when the key you’re holding suddenly, and without warning, leaps from your hand and fucks off to the other side of the level? What then!?

Solution:


Saw 2: Flesh And Blood
Plunging your hand into a toilet full of used syringes in order to retrieve a rusty nail is just one of the ridiculous, counter-intuitive mini-games in this sordid world of torture porn. But pain, frustration and death are to be expected from a Saw game – it’s the franchise’s raison d'etre. Just don’t expect me to grin and bear it when nasty design flaws are the cause of my suffering.

Breaking point: Those fucking balancing beams. Yup, believe it or not, walking along a plank of wood proved this game’s toughest challenge. Following the onscreen prompts to push the trigger buttons only seemed to hasten my demise. Having fallen to my death for the 156th time I was convinced the game was broken. But no, after consulting the internet I found that as well as the trigger buttons, which moved my character forward, I also had to use the L-Stick to balance. After another 47 fruitless attempts at walking across that cunting plank the game took mercy on me and crashed.

Solution: Fuck knows; I shattered the disc into a million tiny pieces with a hammer.

Halo Reach
Completing the campaign on legendary is hard, but achievable. Trying the same feat with all skulls turned on and without help from a fellow spartan is truly a test of one’s gaming mettle, but still achievable. It’s only when trying for a 100% achievement record that I became unstuck.

Breaking point: For a developer with such a fond regard for its fans, it makes it doubly unpalatable that Bungie created such a painfully hard achievement. I’m talking, of course, about the ‘If They Came To Hear Me Beg’ achievement, where the player is asked to ‘perform an assassination against an Elite to survive a fall that would’ve been fatal’. And yes, it’s as hard as it sounds.

Solution:


Just Cause 2
For my money the best open world game on the Xbox. A massive, gorgeous game-space bursting with real-time potential. See that snow capped mountain looming in the distance, begging to be climbed? Well, you can climb it. And then you can jump off it, free fall for an age, and in what is surely one of gaming’s greatest moments, deploy your parachute and glide gracefully onto the sandy beach below. Magical.

Breaking Point: Trying to find the Vanderbildt Leisure Liner (VLL). In order to complete the ‘Try Everything Once’ achievement you have to drive all 104 vehicles. But guess what? The sodding VLL doesn’t actually exist! A glitch in the game code means that the vehicle never spawns!

Solution: I had to buy the ‘Black Market Aerial DLC pack’. The additional vehicles included in this package helped me hit the magical 104 mark.

New Super Mario Bros Wii
Roping in a couple of playmates is never a problem when you mention the ubiquitous Italian chubster. Faces light up and eyes mist over with childhood nostalgia. That mystical Mario allure has yet to wane after all these years. Sharing power ups, boosting a chum to reach a Star Coin, piggybacking a weaker player over tricky terrain - all these wonderful moments of teamwork are integral to the happy, shiny, let's-be-friends feel. Until, that is, you reach THAT level.

Breaking point: World 9-7. Lurking beneath the candy-coated exterior is the very essence of Satan himself. The pixel-perfect jumps required to navigate the level will cause many to self-harm and may even induce cancer. The icy terrain poses a twin threat. Not content with being a slippery bastard, it also has the infuriating habit of disintegrating under foot. Add to this the fiendishly placed Star Coins and you have all the ingredients for an aneurism. Trust me, this makes The Lost Levels look like a trip to Alton Towers. Not fun.

Solution:

A Non Gamers Guide To Serious Gaming

Everyone has an opinion on The Godfather, but only gamers can tell you why Beyond Good & Evil is an essential purchase. But fret not, you too can blag game-savvy credentials with this handy ten point guide.

Non Gamers are a dying breed – a dusty antique from a bygone era. The Wii’s idiot-proof controller and gimmicky lifestyle peripherals suckered in a whole new demographic of gamers. Care homes across the country were kitted out with Miyamoto’s motion controlled console to help the elderly residents escape the crushing bleakness of their surroundings. Nintendo’s shrewd Blue Ocean Strategy helped them shift 86 million units and ushered in a new era of accessibility. Games for everyone! Huzzah!

But even in this brave new world there still exists a gaping chasm between this generation’s tech savvy youths and the parents who raised them. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than when Essex boy Ryan Cleary was arrested on suspicion of masterminding a global computer hacking operation from his bedroom. “I thought he was playing computer games in his bedroom”, said Ryan’s bewildered mum as cops swooped on her extended bungalow in Wickford.

Now, let’s get one thing straight: this guide won’t help you thwart digital terrorism. What it will do is make you look less of a clueless tit in front of your mates. And that, of course, is by far the weightier issue. After you’ve read this guide you’ll be able to feign knowledge on the topics that gamer’s truly care about; everything from the dreaded Red Ring of Death to the uber-loony world of Katamari. Hell, it even explains why you should hate Gears of War’s game designer, Cliff Bleszinski. Yup, it’s all right here, in easily digestible fun-sized chunks…


RROD
How best to explain the gut wrenching nausea that strikes all Xbox 360 owners when the RROD strikes? Well, imagine how you’d feel if you woke up to discover your loyal mutt, Fido, bludgeoned to death at the foot of your bed. Now multiply that horror tenfold. You’re still not close.

The Wii U Reveal
Aka the biggest balls up of the decade. Even the tech savvy journos that comprised E3’s audience let out a collective ‘eh?’ after the Wii U was unveiled. The source of confusion was Nintendo’s barmy decision to show only the controller. The actual console was no where to be seen. In an attempt to placate the bewildered attendees, Satora Iwata hastily tweeted a pic of himself holding both the console and the controller. Incredible.

Cliff Blezinski
The Cliffster. Dude Huge. Good ol’ Cliffy B. The head honcho at Epic Games. Whatever you choose to call the irrepressible scamp, one thing is clear: he's a bit of a tit. You see, Clifford is far too busy fellating himself to notice what the world thinks of his smug, self-congratulatory posturing. We don't like it Cliff. Please stop.

Rage Quit
In the grand scheme of things, what is a kill/death ratio? It’s a small number contained within a game that only you and a couple of your mates really care about. In the grand scheme of things, it's the lint from the belly button of life. No one dies because their kill/death ratio (hoho) dropped by 0.4%. So don't be a total douche rag and rage quit out of a game because your stats might take a hit.

Spawn Camp
I know it's tempting to march up to your enemy's spawn and repeatedly kill them as they appear on the map. But don't do it. It's a dick move. What are you hoping to achieve by spawn-camping? Does it make you more attractive to the opposite sex? Will everyone applaud your gaming skills and offer to buy you a beer? No. People will think you're a cunt.

Duke Nukem
If it took a craftsman thirteen years to make a teapot, you'd expect that teapot to be the best darn teapot around. If, however, that teapot spat boiling water into your eyes every time you poured a cuppa, you'd be justified in your apoplectic rage. You'd demand a full refund and compensation for your scarred fizzog. And the craftsman responsible would be laughed out of the National Potters' Guild. Got that, gearbox?

Katamari Damacy
Crazier than The Priory at full capacity, Damacy’s success is a load of balls. Big sticky balls to be exact; or to give them their technical name, Katamari. The aim of the game? To roll your adhesive orb over every object in your path, thus creating a chaotic ball of bric-a-brac. Yup, it’s as mental as it sounds; more so when you factor in the high-octane Japanese-pop soundtrack.



Videogame Blogs
Everyone in the world writes their own gaming blog. Yes, even your dead gran has one. Thing is, 99.9% of them are shit. The remaining 0.1% have a combined readership of seven people. Competing against the likes of VG247, CVG, Eurogamer and Destructoid is a waste of time. So don't bother. Do something more constructive, like pissing into the wind.

Staggered Release Dates
Aka sloppy seconds. Forced to endure the squeals of delight as those around you prod and poke their brand new toy is surely a breach of human rights. Any element of surprise or novelty is tweeted into oblivion. You've completed the game before you've even played it. Not fun. Worldwide release dates need to be mandatory practice, on pain of death.

L.A. Noire
How can a game be excellent and shit at the same time? 'Tis indeed a mind bending paradox, but something that L.A Noire manages to achieve. The gurning, squinting, shifty looking characters that inhabit L.A. Noire’s world are excellent. The mechanics that drive the narrative are shit. Conclusion? Flawed yet fundamentally likeable, just like Detective Phelps.

Bonus: A Non Gamer's review of Ocarina 3D

Ten Videogame Icons Gone Bad

The Ten Best Videogame End Credits

How do you stop gamers from slipping into a catatonic stupor during those dreary endgame credits? Simple. Keep ‘em entertained. Here’s how it’s done…

Admit it. When the end credits roll you instinctively hit the skip button. And who can blame you? The sluggish crawl of scrolling text was never intended to set the heart pounding with excitement. Even the prospect of a ‘secret ending’ or an additional cut-scene is paltry reward for the tedious name checking you’re made to endure.

Developers have had to up their game to keep us entertained, in some cases eschewing the traditional credits-accompanied-by-music for an interactive mini-game. As a consequence of this dedication to detail, gamers have been blessed with some truly memorable end credits. Below are ten of the best.

Rogue Warrior

Forget his Oscar nominated performance in The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke’s most memorable moment is to be found after completing Rogue Warrior. Composed entirely of phrases taken from in-game dialogue, Mr Rourke’s gruff voice lends itself surprisingly well to ambient rap. Typical line: ‘I’m over here fuck face/There’s gonna be fucking asses bleeding all over the place’. Genius.

Click here to hear Rourke swear some more

Zelda: A Link To The Past

Those beautiful 8-bit synths never fail to send a prickle up the spine. Only those with the hardest of hearts remained dry-eyed as the camera panned over the eclectic cast of characters encountered on Link’s epic quest to secure the Triforce and restore peace to Hyrule. Nintendo, always keen to imbue their core titles with a sense of familiarity and history, used A Link To The Past to establish the musical core of the Zelda series. While the very first Zelda game originated the "Hyrule Overture", many recurring motifs of the Zelda scores come from A Link to the Past.

Click here for a potent dose of nostalgia

Katamari Damacy

Ah yes, the undisputed king of the end credit mini-game. Crazier than The Priory at full capacity, Damacy’s success is a load of balls. Big sticky balls to be exact; or to give them their technical name, Katamari. The aim of the game? To roll your adhesive orb over every object in your path, thus creating a chaotic ball of bric-a-brac. Yup, it’s as mental as it sounds; more so when you factor in the high-octane Japanese-pop soundtrack. I've chosen Katarmari Damacy’s end credit mini-game for this top ten because it takes ball rolling to its ludicrous conclusion.

Click here to let a little sunshine into your life

Flower

Snooty film critic Roger Ebert dismissed Flower as nothing more than a glorified ‘greeting card’. If the sour-faced curmudgeon had actually played the game he so confidently criticized, his views may have been given some credence. Thankfully Ebert’s poisonous drivel has had no impact on the game’s deserving success. For the uninitiated Flower uses the PS3’s Sixaxis motion control to guide an airborne petal through the fledgling fauna that grows on the game’s beautiful grassy vistas. The interactive end credits are simply a seamless continuation of the game. Perfect.

Click here if you want to feed the troll

‘Splosion Man

It’s fun to blow shit up, right? It’s a sentiment that developer Twisted Pixel has taken to heart. ‘Splosion man, the game’s endearingly psychotic hero, has but one ability at his command: the power to explode at will. Chasing down evil scientists and turning them into sizzling hunks of charred meat is just one of the game’s many twisted charms. Despite the game’s ludicrously simple one-button control set up, ‘Splosion Mab is a rock hard platformer. And that self-canabalising end-boss is a quite simply a total bastard. It’s only fair then that we’re rewarded with such a barmy end credit video.

Click here to see what really makes 'Splosion Man blow his load

Silent Hill 2

Cor blimey. You really have to hand it to the Silent Hill team. They come up with the most out-there shit on both ends of the spectrum. True masters of the bizarre. To unlock the legendary ‘Dog ending’ players are required to play through the game a patience-shredding three times, while snagging specific items in the process. Those who took up the challenge were rewarded with what is surely the most unexpected conclusion in videogame history.

Click here for Maria’s celebrity doppelganger

God Hand

Any song that contains the line “God power keeps my pimp hand strong” automatically qualifies for this list. God Hand was directed by celebrated Resident Evil designer Shinji Mikami, which would explain the game’s inelegant controls, likened by one reviewer to a “Sherman tank trying to manoeuvre through San Francisco's twisty Lombard Street”. Despite the criticism, the game gained a cult following for its hardcore sensibilities and intentionally cheesy script. Oh yes, and that ending.

Click here for God Hand’s wince-inducing poster

Portal

How do you end one of the most unique games of 2007? Well, in Portal’s case with a song; a pitch black ditty as sinister as it’s funny. Sung by GLaDOS, Portal’s ominous, disembodied, antagonist, the hard part for developers Valve was finding someone who shared an affinity with psychotic robo-women to write the lyrics. Step forward Jonathon Coulton the lunatic genius who penned the words to Still Alive. When asked why he was the man for the job JC said, ‘I generally write about misunderstood monsters anyway, so it wasn't that much of a stretch for me to channel GLaDOS’.

Click here for an exclusive interview with Jon Coulton

You Have To Burn The Rope

Despite the game lasting approximately 40 seconds, Burn The Rope was a finalist for the Innovation Award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival. With tongue firmly in cheek, Joystiq praised the game for its "stunning character design and addictive gameplay". The true star of the show is, of course, the sublime end credit song, surely the ultimate feel-good finale. Altogether now, ‘you burned the rope and saved us all!’

Click here to burn the rope

Mass Effect

A suitably epic end credit song performed by a band called Faunts. The catchily-titled M4 Part II was originally released as a five song EP in 2007 and was only available via a digital download service. If you’ve ever wondered what Part I sounds like, click here – a word of warning though: the track is even longer than its follow-up at over 9 minutes, and that wonderful riff doesn’t kick in until 3.05.

Click here for the original crab-themed music video

The Ten Best Videogame Straplines

Any games journo worth his salt knows the power of a good strapline. Forget the flabby luxury of a lengthy critical analysis. The popularity of Twitter and the disheartening cult of text-speak indicates a trend towards concise sound-bites of information.

Print is struggling to maintain its relevance. Videogame reviews have had to evolve. Over the past decade straplines have become shorter, snappier and more succinct. Below are ten of the best.

‘Faith no more?’
Mirror’s Edge

It works because it captures the increasing sense of disillusionment with a game that was touted as the most visionary IP in years. As journos became better acquainted with the gameplay it soon became clear that Mirror’s Edge was not quite as seminal as they were led to believe. Bonus points too for eschewing the easier ‘Leap Of Faith’ cliché.

And it also works on a much simpler level. Faith is the name of the game’s female protagonist. Faith No More is a well known American alternative metal band. There’s an awful lot of info being conveyed in that innocent little strapline.

‘Heaven Cent’
50 Cent: Blood On The Sand An excellent example of the good old fashioned pun. Ultra concise and totally unambiguous – all the hallmarks of a great strapline. Hell, it’s better than the actual game.

‘Get your ass to mars’
Red Faction Guerrilla This one has it all: the mention of Mars; the funky pop culture reference; the indication that, yes, the game is worthy of your attention. It’s a micro review that tells you exactly what you need to know.

‘Dead Mobs And Boomsticks’
Left 4 Dead

Straight up brilliant. A riff on the Disney musical Bedknobs And Broomsticks. It’s cheeky, funny and a totally accurate description of the game.

‘Put annelid on it (sigh)’

Worms Armageddon

An atrocious pun, but one that’ll make you smile as well as groan. The bracketed ‘sigh’ pre-empts our exasperated response. The journo responsible was no doubt sniggering to himself as he pictured the pained grimaces on reader’s faces.

‘Time to call Rentokill’
A Bug’s Life This strapline is a call to arms - it’s time we rid the world of the cancerous movie tie-in by any means necessary! The reader is left under no illusion as to what the reviewer thinks of this game.

‘He chutes! He soars!’
Just Cause 2 Poetic, triumphant, and bang on the money.

‘Political Broadcasts not included’
Mario Party With seven sequels worth of sugar coated mini games, Mario Party is far from the political powerhouse alluded to in the strapline. It’s in the top ten because it lingers in the memory (whether one wants it to or not). It’s now impossible for me to look at Mario Party without thinking of Benito Mussolini.

‘Slam-dunk the street punks’
NBA Street No prizes for guessing what this one’s about. And it rhymes too!

‘All sewn up?’
LittleBigPlanet LittleBigPlanet is a living, organic tapestry, made not of pixels or polygons, but of playroom detritus that has a texture so convincing you want to reach into the screen and touch it. The sewing reference perfectly encapsulates sackboy’s handmade look and the game’s patchwork aesthetic.

Better still is the cynical tone of the question – it’s a clever nod to the gratuitous level of hype the game managed to generate before its release. We all knew, long before the first reviews were published, that LittleBigPlanet would score a perfect 10 across the board. And we were right. All sewn up? All stitched up more like.

How to create the perfect strapline

The Ten Worst Videogame Straplines

Poorly paid, overworked and under pressure. It's little wonder why some games journalists just don't put the required effort into a pithy strapline for their review. Below are ten of the worst.

‘It’s better than we thought’
Mini Racers
BORING! No time, effort or imagination has gone into this strapline. It reeks of apathy. 'Tis arse gravy of the worst kind, and it tells us absolutely NOTHING about the game.

‘As pleased as punch’
Knockout Kings 2000
A pun only works if it’s atrociously bad or totally original. This tired old cliché is neither. When games journos perpetuate the same old formulaic platitudes they should be forced to write for a tips and cheats magazines or, worse still, ONM.

‘Winback wins us over’
Winback
One diligent reader, himself a games journalist, kindly pointed out that a strapline must ‘never, ever, use a word that features in the game you are covering’. Well, if that is indeed the case, this strapline has committed the ultimate sin. Twice! An epic fail.

Magical? Pah! Schmagical, more like…
Magical Tetris Challenge
‘Schmagical’? The lazy-arsed twat who shat out this ridiculous strapline is a schmabsolute schcunt.

'Disney’s quacking good adventure'
Donald Duck
This game stars a duck. And ducks, as we all know, go ‘quack’. Cows go ‘moo’ and sheep go ‘baaaa’. We learnt all this at nursery-school. Another lesson in farmyard noises really isn’t necessary.

'This game’s wheelie hot!'
Wheels
Ah yes, here it is again, regular as clockwork. Good old Mr Reliable. Whenever there’s a game involving cars you can bet your fucking arse cheeks that there’ll be a ‘wheelie’ awful pun attached. It’s the law.

‘Look out’
Penny Racers (see picture above)
Surely a candidate for the most ambiguous strapline of all time. It could be applied to absolutely anything and means absolutely nothing. It has no bearing on the game whatsoever. Simply awful.

‘Stick it on your Christmas list!’
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
The ultimate Christmas cliche.

'His nickname’s Air, he’s got no hair'
NBA Live 2000
Fuck me. This one really scrapes the barrel. Michael Jordan’s nickname is ‘Air’. He is also bald. The studious journo responsible for this atrocious strapline thought he’d share his comprehensive knowledge of basketball by rhyming these two facts. Genius.

'Gex is back!'
Gex 3: Deep Cover Gex
Any cunt who thinks a third installment of Gex is something to be celebrated should have his ballsack jabbed with toothpics. ‘Gex is back!’ is your cue to run screaming in front of an oncoming heavy goods vehicle.