Let me beeee your fantasy...


There's a moment in Final Fantasy XIII when everything clicks. After fumbling through a jumble of confusing terminology and a dozen-plus overly linear point-A-to-point-B dungeon maps, we found ourselves in a giant stadium flooded with hostile soldiers equipped with rocket launchers - all amid a backdrop of dizzying icy pathways.



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They'll tell awful jokes and eat all your food...


There's a dream out there among gamers. Not the dream of a unified console that would put an end to tears spilt over the harsh words of forum wars - that's just unrealistic.



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Less of an RPG and more of a 'choose-your-own-adventure'.


The Butterfly Effect is a theory about how the smallest of actions can have major repercussions down the line. It's often used in RPGs, but never to the same extreme as Way of the Samurai 3.



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Finally, we find out who ate all the pies.


In the games industry, imitation is rarely flattery and it's not often sincere either. Usually, it's an attempt to squeeze a bucketful of cash out of someone else's ideas. And so we arrive at The Misadventures of P. B. Winterbottom, which reveals itself, almost immediately, to be a total rip-off of Braid's brand of time-twisting platform-based puzzling.

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Or as we like to refer to it: 'Sonic Kart'.


They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and given that Sonic and Mario have become more cosy in recent years, we reckon Nintendo's moustachioed plumber won't mind too much that his old rival has totally ripped off Mario Kart. Not that we're complaining - the Xbox 360 hasn't had a decent kart-style racer in, well, ever.



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Less Crouching Tiger, more Police Academy 7.


Where next for the creatively bankrupt Dynasty Warriors series? Having completely run out of ideas, Strikeforce has the heroes of ancient China transforming into Dragon Ball Z-style characters and flying round like maniacs.



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A virtual debut that fails to make us Jump.


Measured against the robustness of its predecessors, Guitar Hero: Van Halen weighs closer to the anorexic AC/DC Live: Rock Band than the impressive stock of either Metallica or The Beatles.



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Chris and Jill team up to face an old enemy...


"Is that the old mansion?" Well yes, it is. Sort of. It's not really. We think? It kind of is. Look, just shut up and play the game.



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Sci-fi's biggest scrap is about to chestburst onto your Xbox 360!.


From now on, every time some casual gaming type tells us that graphics aren't important and they can get by with blurry, indistinct visuals, we're going to point them in the direction of Aliens vs. Predator.



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Make like McAfee to save an online ecosystem from viral demise.


To a certain demographic - 30 going on 12 - the first few seconds after launching Introversion's XBLA strategy game will be the moment that they lose their collective maturity and start alternating between sobbing and laughing gleefully.



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