Even if you haven't been one of the millions of people glued to their keyboards for the last few years for so much as a sniff of an update on the most highly anticipated video game sequel ever, chances are, you're aware that Grand Theft Auto VI is finally, finally mere months from release.

Two and a half years since the first trailer dropped, Rockstar Games finally made pre-orders available this week, with the game's much-delayed release date of November 19 surely set to stick.

The GTA series has a long history of absolutely smashing it when it comes to its soundtracks, with rock, metal, hip hop, pop, dance and even classical all richly represented at various points throughout the franchise. In that spirit, ranking every main entry Grand Theft Auto soundtrack from worst to best seems a nigh-on impossible task. But you know what? We're gonna try and do it anyway.

7. Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)

Just like the original, Grand Theft Auto 2 features a brilliant, diverse array of original compositions, building on its parent game by adding in more radio stations that can be accessed depending on which area of the game you're driving through. The reason it's bottom of this particular list? Despite expanding the soundtrack size of the first GTA, the sequel still feels like a slight step back because of the outstanding soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion to the original that was released just a few months before. That bolt-on featured licensed music in a GTA title for the first time, so the hop backwards to a 100% original soundtrack felt like a missed opportunity. Still, GTA 2's music is hella decent in its own right.

6. Grand Theft Auto (1997)

Every great gaming franchise has a thoughtful, immersive soundtrack to match, and the original Grand Theft Auto's was a game-changer in every sense of the term. Introducing the ingenious idea of having an interactive, in-car radio that could switch between stations and, therefore, genres gave the game's open-world-ish feel extra depth and personality. It also added a hilariously unhinged layer to the game's controversial violence; gleefully smashing into cop cars while playing propulsive 70s funk jams felt like the kind of cheekily subversive chaos that was destined to be lapped up by a generation weaned on South Park and 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. Rockstar would innovate even further as the series wore on.

5. Grand Theft Auto III (2001)

Featuring three hours of music that included both real world and fictional artists, GTA III's soundtrack felt like as much of a leap forward for gaming as its namesake's much anticipated jump into 3D. From lush instrumental tracks like Scary Movies to classical cuts from the likes of Mozart and Verdi, it packed in an impressively diverse selection of songs in its runtime. Plus, it gave many hip hop fans an introduction to Royce Da 5'9", who'd later find fame as one half of hip hop duo Bad Meets Evil, also featuring some fella named Eminem. GTA III's music would inevitably pale in comparison to what followed, but this was as forward-thinking as gaming soundtracks got in 2001.

4. Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)

After some 80s and 90s detours, GTA IV brought the series screeching back into the present day, and had a soundtrack to match. This was rarely as prevalent as with the introduction of the radio station Electro-Choc, which brought with it glitchy EDM cuts from the likes of Simian Mobile Disco, Deadmau5, Justice and K.I.M. There were plenty more fresh strokes being added, too: Liberty City Hardcore brought the rage courtesy of punk rock killers like Bad Brains, Sick Of It All, Cro-Mags and Murphy's Law (whose frontman Jimmy Gestapo presented the station). There were also rock anthems from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, plus a ton of hip hop, indie, pop, jazz and reggae. It lacked the stand-out anthems that felt title-defining like those offered by Vice City and San Andreas, but on a purely musical level, GTA IV still delivered the goods.

3. Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

GTA V did a particularly great balancing act that both tipped a cap to the nostalgic soundtracks of the sixth gen GTA titles while injecting a huge dose of contemporary, cutting edge whoppers. As well as getting stuck into the West Coast Classics Station and jamming Dr. Dre, N.W.A. and and Snoop, you could also switch on Radio Los Santos and enjoy fresh cuts by the likes of A$AP Rocky, The Game, Freddie Gibbs and Future. If rap wasn't your thing, you could still get stuck into old school hardcore, classic rock, modern electronica, millennial pop and much, much more. For sheer variety, it's hard to look past the latest entry into the series, and on that front, GTA VI certainly has its work cut out.

2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)

Much like the game itself, San Andreas's soundtrack took the blueprint of its predecessor and built on it spectacularly. While the game's vastness and crazy amounts of character customisation/upkeep was a little too much for some, what was in no doubt was that its music absolutely slapped. Adding lashings of r'n'b, soul, country and reggae, San Andreas also made the most of its 90s setting courtesy of ringing in tracks from decade-defining heavyweights including 2Pac, Cypress Hill, Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, Bobby Brown, Boyz II Men and many more. It made for an incredibly eclectic, bulletproof soundtrack that could appeal to music fans across the board.

1. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)

Capturing the feel of its mid-80s setting magnificently, Vice City doesn't just boast the best soundtrack of any GTA game, but one of the single best video game sountracks of all time. Anyone who picked it up at the time will never forget that first moment they jumped onto a moped and parped along blasting Billie Jean. With over nine hours of music across seven unique radio stations, players could hear heavy metal classics from Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest or Iron Maiden on V-Rock, switch over to Wave 103 for some synth pop bangers courtesy of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Tears For Fears and Blondie and then have a listen to Wildstyle for foundational hip hop anthems by legends like Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC.

All at the tap of an L1 button. GTA soundtracks have got even more diverse since then, but for creating the perfect soundtrack to a game set in a particularly iconic era for pop culture - as well as providing countless hits perfect for heists and high speed chases - Vice City remains GOATed. Oh, plus: that main theme is an absolute worldie.

Grand Theft Auto VI releases November 19. Pre-orders are available via Playstation and Xbox

The first billion-dollar franchise in gaming history, Guitar Hero made a new generation of kids want to pick up an instrument. It also made Slash, the cover star of the third entry, a celebrity all over again. In 2010, Classic Rock looked back on how the Guns N’ Roses guitarist became just as famous among gamers as he was rock fans.

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell identified and explored “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point,” at which something cool becomes something global, something unstoppable, a cultural touchstone.

Speak to any A&R man, any journalist, any ad exec, look in your record collection or at your pile of DVDs, watch a TV show like Shark Tank/Dragons’ Den, and you’ll discover lots of good stuff that never reached the Tipping Point, that never went global, that remain instead small and generic pleasures.

Guitar Hero, a simple, clever computer game that distilled the essence of playing a musical instrument down to the push of a button, and that has become a revenue stream so great that it might yet forge a new and unseen future for the flagging business of flogging records, nearly didn’t reach its Tipping Point. It nearly didn’t tip, it nearly didn’t become the first single game in history to generate one billion dollars in revenue; it almost didn’t become the entry point for a new generation of kids to get into guitars and guitar music.

That it did is one of the more remarkable success stories of the new century, and at its centre is a man who hasn’t seen the inside of too many boardrooms over the years.

Guitar Hero was devised by video game company called RedOctane, who had created some hardware for an arcade game named Guitar Freaks, which was a hit in Japan, and liked the idea of producing a version for home gaming. They partnered with a developer, Harmonix Music Systems, and made the first version for around $1m. Their hunch was good: the inaugural edition of Guitar Hero, which had a metal-style logo on the box and a hand-held controller shaped like a Gibson SG – the guitar favoured by AC/DC’s Angus Young and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi – was a hit. It won awards, was called ‘probably the greatest rhythm game ever invented’. RedOctane realised that the guitar-shaped peripheral was what they called ‘the magic sauce’ – the little extra ingredient that made the game special.

The 47 playable songs it featured were expanded to 64 for Guitar Hero II, which became the fifth-biggest selling game of 2006. It was now available for both Playstation 2 and X-Box 360 platforms, the latter version came with a Gibson Explorer-shaped controller. The key to its expansion was the arrival of big name bands like AC/DC and Aerosmith, Van Halen and Guns N’ Roses.

“We’d hit the sweet spot,” said developer John Tam. “They [the bands] understood that we’re not going to embarrass their music, we’re going to actually pay homage to their music and get it to the point where people are going to understand their music in a totally different way than they’ve ever experienced it before.”

The franchise was now worth serious money, but it still hadn’t tipped. It wasn’t a brand known to the man in the street. The game meant nothing outside of gaming circles. Then a company called Activision bought RedOctane, paying $100m to acquire Guitar Hero. A few months later, Harmonix was purchased by MTV Networks (they would go on to develop the rival Rock Band game). With Harmonix gone, the third edition of the Guitar Hero franchise was developed instead by Neversoft, an Activision subsidiary whose team had become so obsessed with the first editions of Guitar Hero that they spent their weekends off playing it.

While the template was set, the game still lacked the extra edge that would push it beyond its natural boundaries of hardcore gamers. Guitar Hero had real songs by real bands, but the game featured no actual rock stars, relying instead on a series of avatars created for the purpose – avatars with faux rock star names like Axel Steel and Izzy Sparks. The company decided to address the issue for the third edition.

Slash, the man who would ultimately ‘tip’ Guitar Hero into popular culture, had already encountered the game, and was at best ambiguous about its pleasures.

“I was on the Gibson tour bus with the Gibson guys for a meeting and I had my wife and kids with me,” he says. “You know how little kids are at a meeting, so I was looking for something for them to do, and they had Guitar Hero. So I figured out how it worked and got it working for them and realised they had all this cool music that you don’t hear all the time. Anyway, the Gibson people realised that I was sort of like intrigued by this game so they sent me one to my house. I have a little office at the back of the house with a TV set in it, and I hooked it up. I got obsessed with the fucking game! I had to beat the game. I think I spent the better part of a week in that room, not taking calls, missing out on dinner. That was on ‘medium’. Next I started on ‘expert’. I started going through that – same fucking songs over and over only a lot faster. I was about halfway through, and I thought, you know what? This is embarrassing. So I unplugged it and put it in the closet. About a week later, Guitar Hero called and asked me if I’d be interested in working with them in developing the game.”

Slash wrestled with the idea. “I’m not a real video game guy,” he admits. “You get asked to do things a lot, and my first reaction is to ask, ‘Is this cool or not cool?’ You can’t do everything that people put in front of you because a lot of it’s lame, and I have a bad tendency to just go for whatever. But I sort of analysed it for a second and I guess what happened was, initially, I didn’t think it was all that cool, but the fact that I was so into the game itself, I was sort of won over. I went and met with them anyway.”

Even so, there was no immediate rapport between the parties. “The meeting was in one of those big boardrooms with all these executives,” says Slash, “and I think there was one guy in there who really knew who I was. Activision has all of these different levels because it’s a multi-billion dollar company and it’s made up mostly of executives. Apparently they didn’t really want to meet me because they didn’t know what to expect. It’s funny, actually, because five years ago I probably would have scared the shit out of them but I had it together when I went in this time. Went in sober and all that kind of stuff.”

When it came to discussing the specifics, things were woolly too, as Slash remembers. ‘They really didn’t know what they were doing when I first went in there. They had this idea of having an individual sort of representing the game. They wanted someone who was going to be the guitar hero. I think it was down to a couple of people. We sat and talked about it and we wanted this character in the game that was going to be me, and there would be these battles. All that was fine and dandy but I have to admit, when I signed on to do it, it was only the nerdy kid in me that made me say yes. Everything else about me said, no, don’t do it.”

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes: ‘Things can happen all at once, and little changes can make a huge difference. That’s a little bit counterintuitive. As human beings, we always expect everyday change to happen slowly and steadily, and for there to be some relationship between cause and effect. And when there isn’t – when a movie made on a shoestring budget ends up making hundreds of millions of dollars for example – we’re surprised. I’m saying, don’t be surprised. This is the way social epidemics work.’

The little thing that made a big difference for Guitar Hero III was not the presence of Slash in the game – after all, it also features another rock star, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine – it was the box that the game came in. Slash’s avatar, all top hat and cool curls, was front and centre. All of a sudden, the game had a face recognisable to a demographic that extended way beyond gamers.

“I didn’t know it had come out,” Slash says. “I never saw the box. What happened was, we were doing the Velvet Revolver tour for the second record [Libertad], we were about to do a US tour and I asked them if they would be interested in supplying me with a bus, because I was taking my family out with me. I needed my own bus for that. They could paper the bus. They were like, ‘Okay, cool’. It showed up in Boston. I went to get something to eat, and walking back to the hotel I see this fucking huge picture of me on the side of the bus. I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, how am I supposed to travel around in that?’ That’s when I first got exposed to what the image on the box was going to be like. It was pretty overwhelming. I mean, Tom Morello’s in the game too. It was not so much being in the game; it was having my image on that fucking box.”

The game hit stores in October 2007, carrying the sub-title Legends Of Rock, another subtle parent-persuader. It featured 73 songs, and was available across Playstation and Xbox platforms, and this time Wii, PC and Mac too. Activision called it “our largest product launch ever”. It made $100m in its first week, and in the remaining months of 2007 became the year’s biggest-selling game. Activision could barely meet the Christmas demand. Six months later, when the thing had really tipped, it had sold more than eight million copies. As of the middle of 2009, Guitar Hero III had exceeded one billion dollars in revenue, and is now said to be the second-biggest selling computer game of any kind since 1995.

The by-product of all of these sales has been the impact on the life of the man on the box. “I have a specific story that will sort of shine a big bright light on that fact,” says Slash. “A friend of mine who’s a producer, he’s got, I guess, a six-year-old little boy. I went over to their house, and I’d never met his little boy. I went over there, and the kid lost his mind. ‘You’re the guy from Guitar Hero’. He couldn’t get over it. A bit later on that night, he came over to me and went, ‘Hey, do you play real guitar too?’ I try not to pay attention to all of that going on, but the biggest change in my day-to-day existence was the acknowledgement of kids under 10 years old.”

Ironically, for a platform that has produced a new, unexpected and much-needed revenue stream for the dying business of selling music, Slash didn’t actually make much money from Guitar Hero.

“For me, personally, when I signed up to do it, that particular game really took off,” he explains. “The game wasn’t as big before that. It was a little more under the radar when they called me up. And I did it for a pretty modest amount of money. There was no offer of a royalty or anything. Now after the fact, I’m like, fuck…

“It’s definitely changed the way we look at selling records, because as the record business goes into decline, the gaming business has been selling a lot of music. That’s been an interesting development for sure. If you’re in a band, the luckiest thing you can have is a guy from Activision or from the Rock Band people come along and say, we’d like to chronicle your career. There is a lot of money in it.”

Enough money, in fact, to make it a key part of the promotional strategy of many bands. Slash’s friends in Metallica, for example, began work on the Rock Band version of their 2008 album Death Magnetic just days after they had finished recording it.

“It’s nothing like playing the guitar. I’ll be the first to tell you that,” says Slash of the game and its success. “I was off the road and wasn’t doing anything when I got exposed to Guitar Hero II. When I hung around for that week, I wasn’t jamming or anything. I got physically used to playing it. When they sent me the new one with me on it, it showed up and I didn’t take it out of the box for probably three or four months. My security guard was over at my house and he wanted to see how it worked. I’d been touring, I’d been playing guitar every day for however long – probably close to a year – and I took it out figuring I was probably still good at it from before. Because I’d been playing real guitar, when I plugged it in and played it, the difference was such that I could not play Guitar Hero. I would have had to have practiced. There’s nothing similar apart from the way that you hold the guitar.”

And yet, in spite of that, it has a strange and magnetic appeal to it that is reinvigorating rock music and the rock business.

“It’s a work of genius because it works,” says Slash. “When you design something you can come up with all kinds of crazy ideas, but it’s when it really hits a nerve that it becomes a sort of phenomenon. It’s done a couple of cool things. It’s opened kids’ eyes and ears to a lot of music they never would have been exposed to, great rock’n’roll stuff that’s just generations away from them. It’s been spearheading a rock revival for kids, it really has. The other thing is, one of the big questions I got asked when I first got hooked up with Guitar Hero was, as expected, ‘Oh, it’s just more mindless gaming. It’ll kill the guitar industry’ and all this other naysayer crap. But in the course of a pretty short amount of time, it turns out that statistically, more kids were picking up the guitar as a result of Guitar Hero.”

Not a bad legacy for an old boy in a top hat who doesn’t care much for computer games.

Originally published in Classic Rock Presents Slash, March 2010.

The metal-inspired soundtrack for 1993 shoot-’em-up Doom entered the Library Of Congress’ National Recording Registry last week, joining music by the likes of Metallica, Beyoncé, the Beatles and Bob Dylan. In 2024, Hammer interviewed designer John Romero, Bury Tomorrow bassist Davyd Winter-Bates and Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor to find out how the game was created – and why it made such a lasting impact on heavy music.

In January 1993, upstart US game developers id Software put out a press release announcing a game that would revolutionise the world. According to the press release, it was set in a scientific research facility where “wave after wave of demonic creatures are spreading through the base, killing or possessing everyone in sight”.

Gamers would play one of four off-duty soldiers. “As you stand knee-deep in the dead, you must eradicate the enemy and find out where they’re coming from… the safest place is behind a trigger.”

The hyperbole didn’t stop there. Such was id’s confidence in the game, they proclaimed that they “fully expect it to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world”. They had a striking name for this soon-to-be released classic: Doom. The only problem? Its creators had yet to write a single line of code for it.

Not that the devs at id were worried. They’d already upended the industry the previous year with the anarchic Wolfenstein 3D, a dark, blood-soaked, shoot-the-Nazis counterpoint to Mario and Sonic, with cutting-edge audio that allowed players to feel the impact of every bullet they fired into the bad guys. That game, like its yet-to-be-written follow-up, had been created by a team that worked and partied together in a small housing complex in Mesquite, Texas.

Unlike such corporate counterparts as Electronic Arts, id Software’s informal office was more like a university hangout. These four 20-somethings spent their days laughing, coding and blasting metal late into the night as they tinkered with game engines and pushed computer tech to its limits. John Romero, who co-founded id in 1991, was the lead designer on Wolfenstein 3D.

“We were all total metalheads, and that attitude really started coming through,” says John, speaking to Hammer via Zoom. “There wasn’t a game that was that violent, the crazy speed… it was genuinely shocking.”

But it was nothing compared to what John and the id team had in mind for Doom. Sending players straight into the depths of Hell, the vision for id’s gnarly demon-slaying epic was to bring their favourite metal album covers to life. Hitting shelves and shareware sites in December 1993, Doom was an instant phenomenon, matching Wolfenstein’s first-month sales in just one day.

One-upping Wolfenstein’s sense of speed and combining it with a uniquely hellish brand of futurism, it was unlike anything else in videogames. Bury Tomorrow bassist Davyd Winter-Bates remembers booting up Doom’s iconic title screen as a young kid.

“I had to get my uncle to buy it for me,” he says. “After Wolfenstein 3D, I thought shooters couldn’t get any better, but Doom really blew me away. The weapons, the soundtrack, the speed… it was just super-, super-cool.”

How did id wind up creating the most metal videogame to ever hit the medium? For John Romero, metal wasn’t just a soundtrack, it was his life. Moving from the US to England as a computer-loving teenager in 1983, it was here that he fell love with the genre.

“I used to be in the back of the bus going to high school, and they’d have a giant boombox,” he says. “I’d crank it all the way up and play Accept until everyone’s head was banging!”

He was a budding singer, even trying out for a metal band. “But it didn’t work out because they wanted me to scream,” he says. “So I stuck with programming.”

Metal’s loss was gaming’s gain. When John and his id colleagues began working on Doom, their only thought was, “This is gonna be the best game in the world.”

As Pantera blasted out of the id office speakers, something took shape that was darker and more violent than anything ever released before. Doom felt like it was written in blood. Its giddying speed, unrelenting violence and terror-inducing sense of momentum were an adrenaline-pumping shotgun blast to the face, while its demonic imagery, metal-inspired cover art and scalpel-edged logo was metal brought to (virtual) life. All it needed was a killer soundtrack to match.

“It wasn’t ever like, ‘Hmm, what kind of music should we use?’” says John. “It was so obvious that it was metal.”

The only snag was that id’s longtime composer, Bobby Prince, wasn’t a metal fan. Instead, he loved jazz. Cue John and the rest of id going full School Of Rock and giving him a crash course in the genre.

“We sat him down and said, ‘Right, let’s talk about metal,’” says John. “Between us, we had all the bases covered – prog metal, thrash etc. We gave him CDs from Pantera, Slayer – different groups that had certain sounds that would be really cool to translate to MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface]. Alice In Chains, too. Even though that was kind of grunge, Jerry Cantrell was a badass metal guitarist.”

This intensive programme of homework paid off. Listen to the still-iconic soundtrack today, and the thrash influence clearly punches through the virtual instruments. The metallic MIDI bleeps and bloops added a mosh-ready feel to the carnage.

“Bobby did a really great job making the music,” John says. “Even today when people talk about how metal Doom was, they still remember what it was like to hear those songs back in the day and how crazy that was, because you just didn’t have anything like that. But today… it’s horrible!” he adds with a laugh.

For the young Davyd Winter-Bates, that “horrible” soundtrack changed him forever. “I played Doom before I was even properly into metal,” he says. “I was listening to all those 8-bit riffs, like, ‘This isn’t pop music!’ I think a lot of my love of real heavy thrash riffs comes from slaying beasts in Doom.”

As Doom’s legend spread, its influence inevitably fed back into the metal world. “Gwar were nuts about Doom!” John Romero recalls excitedly. “It was like, ‘Holy crap!’ Rammstein played Doom all the time, too. Doom massively influenced the creation of that group.”

One of Doom’s most famous fans was Trent Reznor, who became obsessed with the game on tour. Such was his fandom, that the Nine Inch Nails leader would collaborate with id to create the soundtrack to Doom’s landmark follow-up, Quake. Abandoning its predecessor’s apocalyptic hellscape for a more gothic castle-style locale, Quake swapped Doom’s gore-splattered approach for shuffling undead, oppressive atmospherics and a deeply unsettling brand of supernatural horror.

“I knew when we were making Quake that what it needed was disturbing industrial music,” John recalls. “We thought, ‘What if we had Nine Inch Nails do the soundtrack?’ Who didn’t love NIN? The Downward Spiral was brilliant.”

Coincidentally, id and NIN shared an agent, though John and his colleagues didn’t know that at the time. One of the company’s business guys reached out to the band to see if they would be interested in getting involved.

“They go, ‘Holy shit, we play Doom all the time!’” says John. “And then Trent comes out to see us.”

John recalls that, at the time, he had lingering doubts about whether NIN could pull it off. “I was like, ‘That’s fucking cool, but can they do no lyrics? Can they just make an unsettling thing?’ Because their sound is great, but it’s also very high-energy industrial, can they do something that’s not as high energy?”

The finished soundtrack proved they could. “The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack was so good,” says John. “I needed Quake to be a deeply unsettling and violent world where you don’t feel safe, and they matched exactly that aesthetic.”

Quake may have redefined 3D videogames when it was released in 1996, but much like its cast of formidable demons, Doom refused to die. A successful sequel, Doom II: Hell On Earth, landed in 1994, its code allowing fans to constantly mod new single and multiplayer maps into the game. Two more spin-offs, Final Doom and Doom 64, arrived in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

Like so much connected with metal culture before it, Doom became embroiled in controversy. In 1999, two teenagers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, shot and killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado, before turning their guns on themselves. The media picked up on the killers’ love of Doom, making it a scapegoat for the shootings alongside Marilyn Manson.

By the mid-2000s, Doom’s popularity had finally been superseded by other games. Doom 3, a reboot of the original game, was released in 2004, but fans didn’t respond well to its slower-paced take on survival horror. Yet this brooding behemoth refused to stay buried. In 2016, 12 years after the last instalment, Doom emerged roaring once more in the shape of a reboot that reimagined its demonic limb-blasting for a new generation of gamers and metal fans alike.

John Romero was no longer involved with id Software, but the Doom reboot enlisted Mick Gordon, an Australian musician and acclaimed videogame composer, to work on a soundtrack that would become as iconic as the original. He was blown away by how the developers working on the new version had nailed the feeling of the original game. Yet the people behind the game had one significant request.

“One of the pre-conditions of working on Doom was, believe it or not, no metal. Nothing,” he told PC Gamer in 2016. “You’d think it’d be the opposite, right? The worry was that it would be corny.”

Thankfully, Mick sneakily incorporated more and more guitar into his compositions, morphing an unsettling electronic soundtrack into something with the teeth to match its snarling demons. The end result was a brutal, low-tuned, riff-filled sonic assault: a sophisticated realisation of what Doom could have originally sounded like.

The game itself was a hit, shifting two million copies in its first year on sale, and Mick’s crushing soundtrack – a mix of industrial, djent and extreme metal – became a success in its own right. He even ended up performing a track from it live at the 2016 Game Awards, backed by drummer Matt Halpern of prog metallers Periphery.

“Mick is obviously immensely talented, and obviously loves Meshuggah, like everyone should,” says Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor, an avid fan of the Doom reboot. “I remember hearing that soundtrack and playing that game and just thinking it’s so awesome that something like this could happen, because this is not the safe choice. Generally, first-person shooters have heavy electronic elements or dark industrial elements, so players think they’re gonna get electro, and then when it hits, it’s a metal riff. And that’s so cool.”

Bury Tomorrow’s Davyd Winter-Bates sees Mick Gordon’s soundtrack as being just as important to late-2010s metal as the original was to the early-90s scene.

“Yes, it can be a gateway to more people liking metal, but, at the same time, those extra soundscape elements also show us what that genre can do,” he says. “The only problem I have with that soundtrack is sometimes the riffs are too good, and they distract when you’re playing.”

And John Romero? The Daddy of Doom himself was blown away by the soundtrack. “I love it!” he enthuses. “It was really awesome. Mick Gordon did such a great job.”

As with the original Doom more than two decades earlier, the reboot’s influence bled into the metal world. Misha Mansoor says he saw an upswing in interest in djent and tech metal from people who might not have otherwise encountered it.

“It was a perfect storm, because Mick did a really, really great job with the soundtrack,” he says. “People got to experience what metal could be, as opposed to this sort of watered-down impression of what someone thinks it is. When someone gets to experience that in earnest, you can have those ‘Oh shit!’ moments where everything clicks, and it becomes your gateway drug.”

Mick Gordon himself has become a go-to collaborator for metal bands. Bring Me The Horizon enlisted him to work on 2020’s Post Human: Survival Horror album. The composer has also worked with the likes of Architects, Motionless In White and Monuments, while the 2016 iteration of Doom and its acclaimed 2020 sequel, Doom Eternal, influenced Bury Tomorrow’s 2023 album, The Seventh Sun.

“Part of what makes that soundtrack so good is everything that’s going on – from the squelching to the shooting, to the reloading to the voiceovers – it all ties in,” says Davyd Winter-Bates.

“On our last record, we started to do that with things like chains and sirens, weird things that we would just be like, ‘Hey, we should put this noise on there!’ I really liked the idea of pulling in things that aren’t necessarily instrumental into our music. Adding in those things comes from playing games like Doom.”

John Romero’s time working on Doom may have come to a close long ago, but his love of the series and for metal has never left him. Now living in Galway, Ireland with wife and fellow game developer Brenda Romero, he still attends as many metal gigs as he can. Recently, he’s contributed to Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind comic book, celebrating the band’s 1983 album.

Right now, John and his studio, Romero Games, are working on an all-new shooter that’s shrouded in secrecy. Whether or not it’ll have the same impact as Doom remains to be seen, but the legacy of John’s blood-soaked art continues to reverberate in the worlds of gaming and metal alike.

This article originally appeared in Metal Hammer issue 386, May 2024. The eighth Doom game, Doom: The Dark Ages, was released by Bethesda last year.

Songs by Slipknot, Papa Roach, The Offspring and more have been added to the soundtrack of videogame Battlefield 6.

According to a report by The PRP, Slipknot’s Duality, Papa Roach’s Last Resort, The Offspring’s The Kids Aren’t Alright, Silly Goose’s Cowboy and Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle) are among the songs which have been added to the second season of the online first-person shooter game, which kicked off on Tuesday, February 17.

They’re available to players who pay for the Battlefield Pro Pass, which grants access to a radio station that plays music in various in-game vehicles. Rounding out the package is I’m The Problem, the title track of the 2025 studio album by country star Morgan Wallen.

Battlefield 6 launched back in October and was an instant success, amassing a peak concurrent player count of 747,000 the day it came out. Limp Bizkit partnered with composer Henry Jackson to put together the soundtrack of the game, which featured fellow nu metal acts such as Godsmack and Drowning Pool during the first season.

To promote the release, Limp Bizkit released their single Making Love To Morgan Wallen, to which the country musician’s inclusion this time around is likely a reference. They also put out the song Battlefield: The After-Party, a reworking of the Battlefield theme.

In an interview published on the Hollywood Records YouTube channel, Jackson explained how Limp Bizkit joined the project. “In a really early meeting, I just threw out, ‘Does anyone got a sentence or key word?’,” he remembers (via Rolling Stone). “And I guess, it not being a romantic comedy – it being a video game – the word that came out straight away was ‘destruction.”

He added: “There was a lot of aggression techniques in the engineering and [production]. It’s not polite.”

Season two was supposed to drop last month, but it was delayed so that the developers could “develop and refine” it following fan feedback.

Producer Phil Girette told TechRadar: “Season two is definitely bigger than what we have done in season one. We have the maps, we think they’re going to be quite strong. We have the additional gameplay mechanics. We have popular vehicles coming back like the Little Bird. There’s a whole new addition in REDSEC [a battle royale-style gaming mode] itself as well.”

Making Love… and The After-Party may well be followed by more Limp Bizkit music, as the band confirmed last spring that they were in the studio. Their last album, Still Sucks, dropped in 2021, 10 years after its predecessor, Gold Cobra.

Meanwhile, Slipknot are set to release a new project entitled Look Outside Your Window after much delay on Record Store Day, April 18. The melodic rock release features singer Corey Taylor, DJ Sid Wilson, guitarist Jim Roots and percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan and was recorded during the sessions for 2008’s All Hope Is Gone.

As we approach the final few weeks of 2025, it’s hard to argue that it’s not been the year of the Nintendo Switch 2. Following its April launch, the world has gone Ninty crazy and if all things Nintendo is your thing and you’re also a Lego fan, then there are some eye-catching Black Friday deals to snap up - including this awesome Lego Super Mario Game Boy which is on sale at Amazon with 18% off. It’s down from £54.99 to £44.99.

Sadly, it’s not on sale in the US right now, but the Lego Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi set most certainly is, with Amazon cutting the price from $129.99 to $104.99 - down 19%.

Aside from the Game Boy and Mario & Yoshi Lego kits, you can also get money off other Nintendo Lego sets.

The next kit I noticed was a sale on the 1972-piece Mario Kart kit, with Mario himself at the wheel. Amazon UK has cut the price by 30% from £149.99 to £104.99. In the US, meanwhile, you can fire up a blue shell and nab Mario’s nemesis Donkey Kong in his DK barrel kart with 33% off - down from $34.99 to $23.49.

Nintendo recently announced a Switch 2 version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and if you're a fan of the franchise, then this Lego Animal Crossing set deal might be of interest.

K.K.’s Plaza Concert set has been reduced, with a 22% discount in the US, with the price cut from $79.99 to $62 - while the UK price has been cut from £69.99 to £59.28. The 550-piece kit comes with everybody's favourite guitarist alongside Isabelle and Audie, and there's K.K.'s camper van included and more.

Finally, there's a small discount on the awesome Lego Nintendo Entertainment System model, with Amazon cutting the price from £339.99 to £331.26. Sure, the price drop isn't much but there's limited stock available.

Looking for more Lego deals? Well, with the Black Friday sales in full swing, we're covering all the biggest and best Black Friday music deals to help you pick up a bargain.

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The new reveal trailer for Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 contains a bizarre start-stop industrial remix of Metallica’s Master Of Puppets.

The announcement for the next entry in videogame publisher Activision’s long-running first-person shooter series dropped on Tuesday (August 19), and it’s scored by a quasi-futuristic reimagining of the title track from the thrash metal masters’ 1986 album, intended to reflect the game’s setting of 2035.

Watch below.

Since its release, the trailer has been derided by fans of the series, currently having 110,000 ‘dislikes’ on YouTube against 30,000 ‘likes’. Users in the video’s comment section are criticising the series for straying from Call Of Duty’s initial World War II-era setting and “gritty” tone, with many comparing the preview negatively to teasers for upcoming rival game Battlefield 6.

“This actually made me pre-order Battlefield 6,” reads the top comment, with 39,000 ‘likes’.

“EA is probably going to throw a giant party tonight,” adds another user, referring to the Battlefield series’ publisher, Electronic Arts.

Black Ops 7 follows last year’s Black Ops 6 but will be a narrative sequel to 2012’s Black Ops II. It comes out on November 14 and pre-orders are now live.

Master Of Puppets has been something of a mainstream fixture in recent years, following its inclusion in a pivotal scene in the season finale of Stranger Things series four in 2022. The sequence depicted character Eddie Munson playing the song on guitar as the sci-fi/horror show’s protagonists battled the villainous Vekna, and the track entered global charts for the first time in decades in the wake of the broadcast.

Metallica are gearing up to play one of the most intimate shows of their career, set to take place at the 250-capacity Stephen Talkhouse in Long Island, New York next Thursday (August 28). The hyper-exclusive concert is being held to celebrate the launch of the band’s new SiriusXM radio channel, Maximum Metallica, and audio of it will be broadcast on the channel from September 1.

At the same time, the band are at the centre of rumours that they’re preparing for a residency at Las Vegas’ multimedia venue the Sphere. Drummer Lars Ulrich neither confirmed nor denied the reports during an interview with Howard Stern, but bassist Robert Trujillo told the DJ last week that he’s already imagining what the shows will look like.

“I’m already thinking like, imagine this, imagine that, imagine, you know, because Metallica’s music is so visual,” he said. “I mean, imagine a song like [1986 instrumental] Orion and what you can do with that, you know what I mean? The possibilities are endless.”

Metallica are touring Australia, New Zealand and select Asian markets later this year and will play across Europe in summer 2026.

Calling all fantasy fans! For Diablo IV: Season 8, world-renowned videogame developers Blizzard have partnered with Berserk, the iconic manga and anime series set in a medieval Europe-inspired dark fantasy world. Plus, they’ve enlisted Finnish metallers Beast In Black to write a brand new song to soundtrack the mayhem.

Since Diablo launched in 2005, metal fans have been heavily invested in the dungeon crawler role-playing series – and it’s easy to see why. Its vast world is filled with barbarians, sorcerers, necromancers and druids, all navigating the harsh, hellish terrain by hacking, slashing, shapeshifting and conjuring. The release of Diablo II: Resurrected was even accompanied by Start Again, a collab track from YouTuber Mark The Hammer and Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia.

For this groundbreaking new partnership with Berserk – the first non-Blizzard IP collab of the Diablo franchise – the developers knew they would need a song worthy of this monumental event. Enter: Beast In Black, a band who have made a career out of crafting sprawling, triumphant heavy metal, and have extensively written songs inspired by the Berserk series – dating all the way back to their 2017 debut album, Berserker.

“Our label, Nuclear Blast, asked us if we had ever heard of the Diablo series,” guitarist and founding member Anton Kabanen recalls, of hearing of the news that Blizzard wanted them to write something for the game. “Of course, we said yes!” The song is called Enter The Behelit, named after the supernatural egg- faced artefact in the Berserk series (also called the Beherit).

“All these three parties – Diablo, Berserk, Beast In Black – they share so many similarities in the thematic settings of their world,” he enthuses. “The sinister, grim, dark world is a classical juxtaposition of good and evil, like light and dark, yin and yang, so to speak. That is very much on point in this collaboration. I think it’s a very good match.”

Anton reckons metal fans are inherently drawn to the darker side of life, and therefore art. “Something about us as metal fans, we just feel these things resonate,” he smiles when discussing the appeal of Diablo. “I don’t know if it’s encoded in our DNA, but we are drawn to these apocalyptic scenarios. The light fighting the dark, it’s fascinating. That’s the sort of videogame or music that I’m always drawn to.”

Diablo IV: Season 8 heralds the return of Belial, one of Diablo’s Great Evils (the seven most powerful demon lords of Hell). He wants to seize control and banish Sanctuary (aka the Mortal Realm) to the Realm Of Lies (one of the seven realms of Hell, and his domain). To carry out his desires, he spreads horrifying apparitions across the land, which players must stop by harnessing the powers of forbidden magic. The game features myriad Berserk-inspired items, including character skins, pet and mount bundles, and free emblems.

Berserk will also feature in Diablo Immortal, in the game’s first external crossover event, with players able to take part in special game modes, acquire cosmetics, items and familiars inspired by Berserk, and face off against iconic characters from the Manga series.

Enter The Behelit will be released digitally, and as a limited-edition gatefold vinyl run of only 200 copies, which will also feature remastered versions of two other Beast In Black Berserk-inspired songs: Die By The Blade and The Fifth Angel. The Diablo x Berserk art is on the front of the vinyl, and the Diablo Immortal art is on the back. For Anton, it’s something of a bucket list achievement to be so closely involved with this project.

“I always thought, ‘How cool would it be to have some kind of official connection to Berserk?’” he begins. “One of my dreams was to have an album cover for Beast In Black drawn by Kentaro Miura himself, which is impossible now, unfortunately [the Berserk creator passed away in 2021]. But when this happened, and we saw that amazing vinyl art, it was the easiest cover art for us ever. Even though it wasn’t done by Kentaro, you can easily feel that his work has been respected by the artist who drew that. And there’s the blessing from the official IP owner of Berserk there. That was kind of a, ‘One thing done in my dreams wish list’ moment.”

With so much riding on the song, Anton admits he felt a huge sense of relief when the people behind Diablo and Berserk gave it the thumbs-up. “After that, we can collectively let it go,” he smiles. “Now it’s just for the fans of Diablo, Berserk and Beast In Black – the fate of the song and the game is in their hands now. We let the people decide.”

With such a beloved game welcoming in such an iconic set of characters, plus a killer, pure heavy metal accompanying song, it’s hard to see how people won’t be won over by Diablo IV: Season 8. Could Beast In Black appear in this world again sometime?

“Art unites,” Anton cryptically smirks. “When we find a common interest in the field of art, we will go there if time and circumstances allow it. I fully stand behind this.”

Diablo IV: Season 8 launches on April 29. Berserk content will be live on Diablo Immortal May 1-May 10. Berserk content goes live on Diablo IV from May 6-June 5. Watch the Enter The Behelit video below. For more information on Diablo x Berserk head to the official Blizzard website

Gojira, Spiritbox, Babymetal and a host of other modern metal greats have been confirmed for the soundtrack to WWE 2K25.

2K, the publisher of the annual pro-wrestling videogame franchise, unveiled the songs set to appear on the 2025 iteration in an Instagram post on Thursday (February 20). They include Only Pain by Gojira, Suffocate by Knocked Loose featuring Poppy, Hurt You by Spiritbox, Curse by Architects, Ratatata by Babymetal featuring Electric Callboy, and It’s Supposed To Hurt by House Of Protection.

Tracks by Eminem, Jelly Roll, Amyl & The Sniffers and others will also show up in the game, which is set to come out on March 14.

2K write on social media: “The #WWE2K25 soundtrack slaps harder than a finishing move!”

Rock and metal used to feature prominently in WWE’s annual videogame series, which was known as SmackDown vs Raw until 2011. The likes of Trivium, Three Days Grace and Disturbed featured on early entries, before the series took a more pop- and hip-hop-oriented focus. Last year, the game’s soundtrack was compiled by pop superstar Post Malone.

Gojira, Spiritbox and Knocked Loose x Poppy were all recently nominated for the Grammy Award For Best Metal Performance, along with Judas Priest and Metallica. Gojira ultimately took home the prize, winning for the first time with a rendition of revolutionary song Ah! Ça Ira that they performed with opera singer Marina Viotti at the 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony. The Frenchmen will headline Bloodstock Open Air in Derbyshire in August.

Spiritbox will release their long-anticipated second album, Tsunami Sea, on March 7. The band are the cover stars on the new issue of Metal Hammer, which you can order online now and have delivered directly to your door. Inside, the band talk all about their new record, as well as their journey so far and collaborating with such stars as Megan Thee Stallion.

Architects release their new album – The Sky, The Earth & All Between – on February 28. The singles Seeing Red, Curse, Whiplash and Blackhole are now streaming.

I first got my hands on the iconic Nintendo Game Boy back in 1991 and the hand-held console - along with Tetris, Super Mario Land and Gargoyle’s Quest - reintroduced me to gaming after years away from my much-loved ZX Spectrum.

I’ve been playing a lot of Game Boy titles over the last few months thanks to my Nintendo Switch Online membership, so I was blown away when I saw that Lego are planning on releasing a Lego Game Boy in October.

The only info is from a very short video that Lego uploaded to social media, showing a handful of Lego blocks, two shiny A & B purple buttons and a grey Lego D-Pad floating in the ether, accompanied by a lovely retro chip tune track.

It’s not the first time classic games consoles have been transformed into Lego form. The Lego Nintendo Entertainment System has mostly now sold out and so has the Lego Atari 2600, which came with replica gaming cartridges.

Lego and Nintendo have also joined forces previously on a number of kits including the Super Mario World & Yoshi model and a range of Super Mario Kart sets.

If you’re looking for more Lego stuff, check out our guide to the best Lego kits for adults which covers guitars, band logos, pop culture and more.

Further details on the Lego Game Boy will be revealed in due course.

Iron Maiden: Legacy Of The Beast is shutting down after eight years.

The role-playing mobile game, which lets players control multiple incarnations of the metal legends’ mascot Eddie The Head, will no longer be playable or downloadable after December 31, 2024.

Developer Neverender Games says the title is being pulled from app stores so that it can focus on future Iron Maiden-related projects.

The company offers a lengthy statement on the deactivation, thanking players for their ongoing interest since Legacy Of The Beast launched in 2016. It also reflects on the intensive promotion that surrounded the game, especially Iron Maiden’s Legacy Of The Beast world tour. The band played a career-spanning setlist on the trek, which ran across the globe from 2018 to 2022.

“As far as the future goes, our team is continuing to work on new projects with Iron Maiden that we are excited to share with you somewhere down the line,” Neverender continues (via Blabbermouth).

“We must, however, bid farewell to this chapter first and to do that we want to celebrate the incredible legacy that we've all built together with you. So now it’s time to dust off those flight cases one last time and end with a bang and a momentous end of tour party!”

Legacy Of The Beast will give you Ed till it’s dead. Neverender says the title, during its last four weeks of activity, will host a number of in-game giveaways, rewarding players for their “loyalty, passion and dedication”.

Shortly after their Legacy Of The Beast tour wrapped up in 2022, Iron Maiden announced their next global jaunt The Future Past. That stretch of shows, currently in the middle of its final leg in South America, sees the band celebrate material from 2021 album Senjutsu and 1986’s Somewhere In Time.

The metal veterans will return to the road for yet another tour next year. The European leg of the Run For Your Lives run starts in June, and the band will celebrate their 50th anniversary with a setlist exclusively containing songs from their first nine albums. The tour is set to continue into 2026, so dates on other continents are expected to be announced soon. See all announced shows below.

Iron Maiden Run For Your Lives 2025 tour dates:

May 27: Budapest Aréna, Hungary *
May 31: Prague Letnany Airport, Czech Republic *
Jun 01: Bratislava TIPOS Arena, Slovakia *
Jun 05: Trondheim Rocks, Norway ≠
Jun 07: Stavanger SR-Bank Arena, Norway *
Jun 09: Copenhagen Royal Arena, Denmark *
Jun 12: Stockholm 3Arena, Sweden *
Jun 13: Stockholm 3Arena, Sweden *
Jun 16: Helsinki Olympic Stadium, Finland *
Jun 19: Dessel Graspop Metal Meeting, Belgium ≠

Jun 21: Birmingham Utilita Arena, UK ^
Jun 22: Manchester Co-op Live, UK ^
Jun 25: Dublin Malahide Castle, Ireland *^
Jun 28: London Stadium, UK *^
Jun 30: Glasgow OVO Hydro, UK ^

Jul 03: Belfort Eurockéennes, France ≠
Jul 05: Madrid Estadio Cívitas Metropolitano, Spain **
Jul 06: Lisbon MEO Arena, Portugal **
Jul 09: Zurich Hallenstadion, Switzerland **
Jul 11: Gelsenkirchen Veltins-Arena, Germany **
Jul 13: Padova Stadio Euganeo, Italy **
Jul 15: Bremen Bürgerweide, Germany **
Jul 17: Vienna Ernst Happel Stadium, Austria **
Jul 19: Paris Paris La Défense Arena, France **
Jul 23: Arnhem GelreDome, Netherlands **
Jul 25: Frankfurt Deutsche Bank Park, Germany **
Jul 26: Stuttgart Cannstatter Wasen, Germany **
Jul 29: Berlin Waldbühne, Germany **
Aug 02: Warsaw PGE Narodowy, Poland **

* = Halestorm support
^ = The Raven Age support
** = Avatar support
≠ = Festival date

Brütal Legend’s developer is “torn” on how he’d approach a sequel to the cult metal video game starring Jack Black and Ozzy Osbourne.

Tim Schafer, director and studio head at Double Fine Productions, discusses a hypothetical Brütal Legend 2 in a blog post celebrating the original’s 15th anniversary. He says that, despite popular demand, he’d be unsure what genre to make the game, given the original mixed elements of action-adventure and real-time strategy (RTS).

“People ask about Brütal Legend 2 all the time, and I’m torn about that,” Schafer admits. “I know some of them want it with an evolution of the RTS stuff and some of them just want God Of War with [main character] Eddie Riggs. I understand the logic of making the second option, but I’m much more excited about the first.”

Programmer Chad Dawson adds, “There’s so much of a world to explore that could be done in many ways. It could be an RPG [role-playing game], it could be an RTS. Or even an auto battler!”

Schafer has long expressed interest in making Brütal Legend 2. In 2015, he claimed that if Double Fine’s crowd-funded game Psychonauts 2 proved a success, a Brütal Legend sequel would be on the cards. “We’ve always said that we wanted to make sequels to both Psychonauts and Brütal Legend," he said. “We can’t make any promises, but if Psychonauts is a success for us, then perhaps Brütal Legend 2 will be more possible?”

In 2014, Schafer said Black “might be up for” voicing Riggs again in Brütal Legend 2.

The first Brütal Legend – which starred Black as Eddie Riggs and had such rockstars as Osbourne, Motörhead’s Lemmy and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford cameoing as non-playable characters – was released to mixed reviews. Many critics were confused by its genre mashup, which was half demonic beat-’em-up and half strategic. However, the game flourished into a cult classic.

Be honest: when you made your predictions for where gaming might go over the next few years, you didn't predict that a game about a cat idly making its way through a dystopian city would be a smash hit, right? Released last year to relatively modest fanfare, BlueTwelve Studio's Stray soon become one of the biggest word-of-mouth hits of the modern gaming era, eventually being awarded Playstation Game Of The Year at the Golden Joystick awards and prompting a film adaptation to be put into production. If you missed the hype or were, quite frankly, unsure about spending upwards of £30 on a game about a cat, you can now pick up the Playstation 5 edition of Stray for less than half price - £16.95, down from £34.99, thanks to this Amazon Black Friday deal that's still rolling.

Set in a dystopian future where robots, mutant critters and nefarious forces run amok, Stray lets players explore this fascinating, dangerous and strange new world through the eyes of an adorable, four-legged feline. Released on July 19 2022 on PS4, PS5 and Windows (Xbox and Mac editions would follow the following year), Stray won awards for its innovative gameplay and excellent soundtrack, not to mention beating out some stiff competition to land the coveted Playstation Game Of The Year award at the 2022 Golden Joysticks. 

The first game produced by BlueTwelve Studio, it enamoured hardcore gamers, casuals and cat-lovers alike thanks to its beautiful design, clever gameplay and simple but compelling story. Plus, y'know...you get to play as a cat! What's not to love about that?

If this deal isn't for you but you're still looking to make some savings heading into Cyber Monday, make sure you have a proper browse through our best Cyber Monday music deals. Where it's vinyl, audio equipment, collectables or merch, we've got you covered.

It's no secret that metalheads love a good video game, stretching right back to the days of Doom and carried forward with ultra metal-friendly titles like Metal Hellsinger. 

But although it's been a good while since the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have helped to spread the love for rock and metal in the gaming world, that hasn't stopped gamers from tackling some of the most notoriously difficult titles using the 'instruments' those games provide.

But Twitch streamer MissMikkaa has found a way to increase the challenge even from that - by completing FromSoftware's brutally difficult Elden Ring... on an actual acoustic guitar. 

Using a software programme, MissMikkaa has a set-up that means her playing now directly controls her character onscreen. 

“I’m using a program called Abject Audio Inputs which can keybind mouse and keyboard inputs from audio frequencies," she told gaming website Eurogamer. "I have my guitar plugged directly into my goXLR [mixer] so that the software captures the audio from the guitar only. Then in the software itself I can see what frequency is being output from the guitar when I play it.”

Watch a video of MissMikkaa in action below:

Created by FromSoftware - the same developers who created the similarly gruelling Dark Souls, Demon Souls and Bloodborne - Elden Ring isn't exactly a cake walk at the best of times, but we must admit, MissMikkaa does make it look fairly effortless. 

In one video she even beats one of the game's early bosses, Margit while the guitar twinkles away like some lost Led Zeppelin noodling. 

Back in 2016, Canadian gamer Bearzly (real name Benjamin Gwin) earned a Guiness World Record for completing Dark Souls using a miscellany of gimmick controllers including a Rock Band guitar, drum kit, and piano, Donkey Kong bongo drum, microphone (using voice control only), dancemat and steering wheel. 

No word yet if MissMikkaa plans to make her own submission to Guiness, but we'd say it's certainly worthy - especially consi dering she has already uploaded videos of certain sections of the game being beaten just using a dance pad. 

What makes the perfect gaming experience? A good sound set-up? Sure. A massively expensive gaming chair? Without a doubt. Every conceivable snack within grabbing distance? Definitely. A VR headset that can kill you in real life? Uh, wait, we’ll get back to you on that.

But that’s what digital entrepreneur Palmer Luckey claims to have invented. Luckey, the man behind game-changing VR company Oculus (of Oculus Rift fame), says he’s come up with a custom headset that will literally kill a player if they die in a game.

Luckey writes on his blog that his headset uses three explosive charge modules, tied to a photo-sensor that detects when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency. “When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user,” he adds.

Why exactly is he doing this? Simple. “The idea of tying your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me – you instantly raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players inside it,” he writes. 

"Pumped up graphics might make a game look more real," he continues, "but only the threat of serious consequences can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game. This is an area of video game mechanics that has never been explored, despite the long history of real-world sports revolving around similar stakes." 

Aside from the glaringly obvious risk of guaranteed death if you fail within the game, Luckey also admits that there were "a huge variety of failures that could occur and kill the user at the wrong time", so it's pretty much a lose-lose situation. Based on its current faults, its inventor is yet to "work up the balls" to try it out for himself, although, we're sure his reluctance is mostly due to not wanting to die by the hands of his own creation.

Luckily, this absolutely terrifying lump of dystopian horror remains “a piece of office art, a thought provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design. It is also, as far as I know, the first non-fiction example of a VR device that can actually kill the user. It won’t be the last.” 

That's one big fat nope from us.

You only need read our recent takes on Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and the excellent new Thor: Love And Thunder trailer to know that we don't need much encouragement to get on board the superhero hype train here at Louder.

That said, 2K have just dropped a trailer for what looks like the most heavy metal Marvel video game ever made with Midnight Suns. In the space of one two-minute clip, we get to see a hellish demon-queen causing mayhem (more on her later), vampiric Marvel favourite Blade (famously played on the big screen by Wesley Snipes and soon to be played in the MCU by Mahershala Ali), Ghost Rider (also-famously-but-in-the-wrong-way played on the big screen by Nicolas Cage), a uniquely suited Spider-Man and, most interestingly of all, demonic versions of The Hulk, Venom and (we think) X-Men mainstay Storm. Oh, and it's all soundtracked to Metallica's Master Of Puppets. Badass.

Midnight Suns is based on the Midnight Sons series from Marvel Comics that first debuted in the early 90s. In the original run, a team featuring the likes of Morbius, The Living Vampire (just-now-famously-played on the big screen by Jared Leto) and two different variations of Ghost Rider unite to stop the rise of Lilith, Mother Of All Demons (who we can safely say is the hellish demon-queen lady seen in the trailer). Doctor Strange is also a prominent part of the Midnight Sons canon and will be appearing in the game, as will some Marvel heavyweights including Iron Man, Wolverine, Captain America and more.

Anyway, enough hastily-assembled exposition from us: feast your eyes on the coolest game trailer you'll see this year (at least until we get another God Of War: Ragnarok one).

Hey, Max Portnoy, drummer of the band Tallah, here to talk a bit about some of my favorite horror video games. One of my favorite things to do besides playing music is playing video games, and horror games are something I've always enjoyed. A lot of my work is horror inspired. I've directed and edited a couple of Tallah's music videos at this point, along with all our teasers and I draw a ton of inspiration from the horror games I've played over the years. I think I actually prefer horror games to horror movies at this point. They feel very immersive and really draw you in for a good scare more than other forms of horror content. Anyway, let's get into some of my top picks in the horror video game genre!

Tallah’s debut album, Matriphagy, is released on October 2

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1. Outlast

Outlast is definitely my favorite horror game that I've ever played. I love the storyline and the characters involved. The whole game just builds up suspense the entire time and I love the fucked up situations that occur, for example, the whole section with Trager is probably one of my favorites of any video game. The character is so memorable and the sequence of events are so iconic. I also really like the mechanic of using a camcorder on and off for night vision in certain sections, and the use of battery power adds another layer of concern to an already stressful game. 

2. Alien Isolation

As a big Alien fan, this game was amazing for me. It's got a similar vibe to Outlast in terms of gameplay but I'm just obsessed with Xenomoprhs and the Alien franchise so I was totally stoked on it. The sci-fi horror theme is one of my all time favorites, and this game just nails it perfectly in my opinions. You really feel in danger and helpless in this game with the Alien running at you, even if you have a flamethrower in your hands haha. 

3. Left 4 Dead 2

Now, I wouldn't exactly consider Left 4 Dead 2 a scary game, but it falls under the horror genre and it's one of my all time favorite games in general. The characters are great and memorable, and I especially love how each different special infected has their own personality and their own piano theme that plays for each one. I've been dying and hoping for a third Left 4 Dead game, but it doesnt seem like Valve really wants to put one together, but thankfully, L4D2 has enough replayability to keep me happy in the meantime. Plus the loads of community made content helps keep things fresh. 

4. Slenderman

I know it’s definitely not the scariest game around but I feel like it's a classic, and I'm talking about the OG indie version that you'd download from a web browser. There's a certain charm to it that is just overall creepy, and I love the aesthetic of the whole thing. I'm sure people have noticed with the scribble papers we use in the Tallah artwork.

5. SCP Containment Breach

This is a classic that I used to play with my friends all the time years ago. There's something about indie horror games that is creepier to me as opposed to a game from a big name studio. SCP-173 is definitely my favorite, because I feel like the concept behind it is unique and has a different playstyle from other games. 

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6. Outlast: Whistleblower

I realize this is a DLC of the original Outlast game, but I feel like it stands on it's own. I love the fact that you can see easter eggs and references to the original game/storyline that is happening at the same time. The whole Eddie Gluskin/The Groom scene is totally fucked up and sick too, which I loved. Gave me strong Trager vibes from the original game. 

7. Amnesia

This is probably the first horror game I got into at a younger age. I was introduced to it years back from watching PewDiePie videos in like 2010 haha. It's totally a classic though and the unlimited amounts of maps and stories sets it apart from others. 

8. Devotion

Really cool and fun game that I'd reccomend to other horror game lovers. I love the aesthetic and playstyle. One of the best horror games to come out fairly recently, and I really enjoyed the incorporation of puzzle type elements to the game. It gave the game a bit more layers to it rather than just being a straight up one dimensional scary game like some others. 

9. Dead Space

Another classic survival horror game. Like I was saying earlier, the sci-fi horror theme is one of my favorites, and this game does a great job of nailing it. Definitely a go to game for others who love that theme and aesthetic.

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10. Resident Evil 3

Alot of people were probably expecting one of the Resident Evil games to make its way into my list, and here it is. I'm a huge fan of anything zombie related (Shaun Of The Dead is my second favorite movie of all time) so of course I'd love a game series involving a zombie apocalypse. I had been excited for a new Resident Evil game for a bit and really dug this newest one, and for anyone who likes the series, you should totally give it play

Activision have announced they’re remastering Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 complete with the original soundtracks.

The much-loved Pro Skater 1 made its debut on the original PlayStation in 1999, with Pro Skater 2 arriving in 2000 and are widely regarded as the best skateboarding games ever created.

Both games will be released in a single package on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on September 4 – and not only will they boast stunning 4K visuals, but the original soundtracks from both titles will remain intact.

The official launch trailer below features Dead Kennedys classic Police Truck, while some of the other artists crammed into the games were Primus, Suicidal Tendencies, Rage Against The Machine, Bad Religion, Unsane, Papa Roach, Fu Manchu, Anthrax & Public Enemy and Powerman 5000.

A full list for the remasters has yet to be released, but it’s possible that a couple of the songs may fall by the wayside due to copyright restrictions.

Along with revisiting some of the original games’ locations, players will also be able to tailor a range of options thanks to Create-A-Park and Create-A-Skater.

Hawk himself will be in the game, as will Bucky Lasek, Steve Caballero, Bob Burnquist, Geoff Rowley, Elissa Steamer, Kareem Campbell, Rodney Mullen, Andrew Reynolds, Eric Koston, Jamie Thomas, Chad Muska and Rune Glifberg.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 & 2 is now available to pre-order. Find details below.

• Buy Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2 on PlayStation 4
• Buy Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2 on Xbox One

Sure, the PlayStation 5 might be grabbing all the headlines, but can you actually get your hands on one right now? Probably not, as they've been flying off shelves since the console launched at the end of 2020.

So the next best option is Sony's PS4 or the higher spec PS4 Pro - and thankfully, these are readily available to purchase and offer gamers a wealth of amazing content.

But before we dive into the best deals out there, let's take a look back at Sony's history in the console market. When they burst on to the scene back in the mid-90s, many thought their ambitious plan to dominate the gaming landscape would fail. After all, at that time it was Nintendo and Sega who ruled the roost – and they had already seen off challenges from Atari’s Jaguar and Trip Hawkins' 3DO (remember those?)

But Sony hit the market at exactly the right time, ushering in a new era for graphics, gameplay and sound. Anyone who witnessed Namco's Ridge Racer running on the PS1 for the first time will you it was one of those moments – a moment which opened gamers' eyes to the possibilities of what a home console could do.

And over the last quarter of a century, the Japanese giant have gone from strength to strength, pushing the envelope by delivering four massively successful games consoles and a range of spectacular first-party titles.

And let’s not forget Sony’s PS VR headgear, which simply has to be experienced to fully appreciate. I could bang on for hours about how amazing No Man’s Sky, Skyrim and Tetris Effect are – and it’s a smart bit of kit that is only compatible with the PS4, PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro.

Visit our friends over at GamesRadar for all the latest info on the PS5

Best PS4 deals: what to look out for

The price of a brand-new PS4 can vary depending on the retailer, whether the console comes bundles with any games or if it’s a special edition console. When the PS4 Pro and the PS4 Slim were launched back in 2016, they were priced as follows (approximate prices; console only):

• PS4 Pro 1TB - £349/$458
• PS4 Slim 1TB – £310/$407
• PS4 Slim 500GB – £259/$340

Best PS4 deals: What makes the PS4 so good?

For a start, the PS4 is made by Sony. Not only has the Japanese company got a well-earned reputation for building brilliant tech in general, it’s now one of the world’s biggest console manufacturers.

Released to much excitement in November 2013, the original PS4 delivered significant upgrades on previous iterations, including a sleeker chassis; a removable 500GB or 1TB internal drive; a 1.6GHz, 8-core AMD Jaguar CPU (described by AMD at the time as its “most powerful” CPU to date); and a 1.84-teraflop AMD Radeon GPU. When the PS4 was launched, it was said to be roughly ten times as powerful as the PS3.

Complementing all this extra power, speed and storage was a revamped controller called the DualShock 4, which boasted a more ergonomic design, a two-point capacitive touchpad, a built-in speaker and LED lights, and enhanced motion tracking.

With the PS4, Sony ramped up the sociability factor, enabling gamers to customise their menu interface, link Facebook profiles to PlayStation Network accounts, and view new content from their friends in real time. 

The PS4 is also compatible with PlayStation VR, meaning you can put on that space-age headset and immerse yourself in amazing virtual adventures, all from the comfort of your living room.

Unfortunately, the PS4 is not backward-compatible, which means that anyone upgrading from a PS3 has to buy all their favourite games again. This doesn’t seem to have put people off, though. As of December 2019, more than 106 million PS4s had been sold, making it the fourth most popular games console in history – behind the PlayStation 2, the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Game Boy.

Best PS4 deals: Which versions of the PS4 are available?

In 2016, Sony launched two new PS4 models – the PS4 Slim and the PS4 Pro. The former was effectively a replacement for the original console and, as the name suggests, was slighter (11 x 10 x 1.5 inches as opposed to 12 x 10 x 8.2 inches) and lighter (4.6lb instead of 6.2lb) than the 2013 model. Not a huge amount changed under the hood, with support for faster 5GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 3.1, and better power efficiency, being the key improvements.

The differences between those two consoles and the PS4 Pro are far more noticeable. Slightly bigger and heavier than the original PS4, it boasts a faster processor (2.1GHz, 8-core AMD Jaguar), a much better GPU (4.2-teraflop AMD Polaris) and 1TB of internal storage as standard, making for a generally smoother gaming experience.

Most significantly, though, the PS4 Pro enables you to play supported games, and stream video from PlayStation Plus, in glorious 4K HDR (– providing you have a 4K television, of course. While the original PS4 and the PS4 Slim offer 4K support, it’s for video streaming only.

Best PS4 deals: What titles have been released for the PS4?

To date, well over 2000 PS4 games have been released, meaning you won’t run out of options any time soon. The biggest hitters right now include Red Dead Redemption 2, Death Stranding and Call Of Duty. The PS4 supports both physical (Blu-ray disc) and digital titles, the latter of which can be downloaded or streamed from PS Plus or PS Now. 

New titles can cost up to about £50/$65, but you can get your hands on some pretty awesome older titles for much less if you shop around. If you’re not keen on shelling out those kinds of prices for one game, explore the aforementioned subscription services, which offer all-you-can-eat streaming – for a monthly or annual fee – discounted purchases and early access to demos and betas.

Digital versions of games are regularly put on sale through the PlayStation's online store, meaning you can always grab a bargain.

Best PS4 deals: What other consoles are available besides the PS4?

Much like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the football world, the PS4 has shared the spotlight with the Xbox One ever since the latter was launched in September 2014. Just as the original PS4 has morphed into the PS4 Slim and the PS4 Pro, so Microsoft has augmented its range with the One S, the One S Digital Edition and the One X, all of which offer powerful performance at a similar price to their Sony counterparts.

Another option is the Nintendo Switch. Released in 2017, this versatile device can be used either as a handheld, a table-top or a TV-based console, and boasts an impressive library of titles. However, its resolution tops out at 1080p, and we would argue that its performance doesn’t quite hit the heights of those rival offerings.

There's also the portable Nintendo Switch Lite which comes in cheaper than the original console. However, this version can't be hooked up to a TV and is for portable use only – but it's ideal for gaming on the go or, indeed, while lounging about on the sofa!

Which console should you go for? Until Sony and Microsoft launch their new gaming machines – the PS5 and the Series X respectively – before Christmas 2020, you simply won’t find better than the PS4 – especially the PS4 Pro. And with those new launches imminent, retailers are sure to start dropping the price on current models. Game on!

Thinking of picking up a PlayStation 4 Pro as a Christmas present or maybe even as a treat for yourself? 

Well, now could be the ideal time to take the plunge as Best Buy have slashed $101 off the console’s list price – reducing it from $399.99 to $298.99. Or you can pick up the Pro with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare for exactly the same price!

The console is a step up from the original PS4, with Sony's latest model able to get you gaming in eye-popping and glorious 4K, with many PS4 games enhanced for 4K TVs.

And talking of TVs, if you're in the market for a 4K HDR TV, Best Buy have you covered as they’ve taken a whopping $230 from this TCL 65-inch TV. It was $729.99 and it could be yours for $499.99 right now.

Best Buy also have big savings on a range of PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch software, including FIFA 20, Control, Monster Hunter: Iceborne and much more. 

For other deals on games consoles and software, check out the latest bargains!

Christmas is fast approaching, which is, frankly, hard to believe as it doesn't seem that long ago we were lighting up the BBQ in the soft, warm glow of long summer evenings. 

But, with December 25 just around the corner, thoughts have – very suddenly, in my case – begun to turn to the festive season and what to buy family members.

Games consoles are always a good bet for all ages – and luckily, Walmart have lopped handfuls of dollars off the PlayStation 4, Xbox One S and X, and the Nintendo Switch.

There are some great bargains to be grabbed on the site, but we've hand-picked a few stellar deals which are sure to light up faces comes Christmas morning.

Recently, the boffins at Lego released even more expansion packs for Lego Dimensions to the sound of applause and drool from gamers everywhere. Ghostbusters, Adventure Time, Mission Impossible and more were suddenly thrown from their respective dimensions into the Lego universe for our pleasure. And having not played the Dimensions game on its original release (LIKE IDIOTS!), we thought it was time to catch up with the rest of the world and see what was going on. Spoiler: it’s really good.

Console Gaming Has Changed

Remember back in the day when you could stick a new game into your PlayStation and within five minutes you’d be controlling a polygon version of yourself, fighting dragons and collecting gems? Those days are long gone. Before we could actually play Lego Dimensions, we needed to download a frankly baffling 18gb update. Depending on your ISP and internet package, this could take you hours. If you’re buying this for a small child or a moody teenager, download the update before handing them the game.

The Technology Involved Is From Star Trek

Okay, it’s not technically from Star Trek, but you do now have the equivalent of a Transporter in your house. Connected to your console via USB, this futuristic gizmo beams whichever Lego character you place on it – that’s right, they’re made of real Lego! These characters and vehicles can then by upgraded onscreen, if you have collected the right amount of studs.

Batman Is The Star Of The Show

Just like The Lego Movie, Batman is the greatest character in the game – at least, from the initial three. Lego Dimensions comes with Batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle and the game is weighted heavily toward the caped crusader. Your car is the Batmobile, his skill of using a Batarang comes in handy more than most, and he stars in most of the early cut scenes. But he is Batman, after all.

Gandalf Is More Useful Than You Think

Sure, he might be an old codger with a nobbly staff and a beard you can live in, but he’s a bloody wizard! He can perform actual magic, not some David Blaine standing in ice nonsense, he has real magical powers. And that helps a lot. In every level you want to smash open everything to achieve Rule Breaker status, but more often than not you will miss something breakable… unless you use Gandalf and his auto-lock firing. Wherever you stand on the screen, if you press fire then Gandalf will find something nearby. Thank us later.

Your House Isn’t Safe

Similar to the Tetris effect – where long-time players hallucinate building blocks or try to stick everyday items together – playing too much Lego Dimensions will make you want to kick the ever-loving crap out of your bedroom. Your wardrobe, drawers, desk, plants, dog… nothing is safe when you’re on the hunt for studs. How else are you going to Hire A Hero and unlock all the hidden secrets?

Some Big Doctor Who Fans Work For Lego

One of the early levels in the game is the Doctor Who world, featuring Peter Capaldi as The Doctor. That’s pretty cool for Whovians anyway, but the eye for detail in the level is a wet dream of any new-era Who fan. From the cybermen, daleks and the (still terrifying) weeping angels trying to kill you, to the blink and you’ll miss it inclusion of the crack on Amy Pond’s wall, there are many many easter eggs dotted around.

The Voice Cast Is Fantastic

We just mentioned Peter Capaldi putting in a shift as The Doctor, but that’s just the tip of the Legoberg. Loads of actors have leant their vocal chords to the game, including Elijah Wood, Christopher Lloyd, Will Arnett, Dan Castellaneta, and Gary Oldman kicking ass as the evil Lord Vortech. Sadly Ian McKellan didn’t reprise Gandalf.

You Can Embrace Your Geek

Playing through levels and collecting studs along the way is one thing, but if you have the right characters there are so many worlds to explore – sandbox style! There’s Lord Of The Rings, Adventure Time, Ninjago, The Simpsons, Ghostbusters (original and 2016), Powerpuff Girls, DC Comics, Harry Potter, ET… the list goes on. Sadly, there is no Wayne’s World to explore.

Prepare To Spend A Lot Of Money

All these worlds might sound exciting, but you can’t just stroll through the dimension portal willy nilly. These areas are only accessible by the relevant characters, which can get interesting. You’ll be able to wander into Mordor because Gandalf comes with the game, but if you want to take a serious tour of Springfield you’ll have to buy that pack. The same goes for Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, Adventure Time etc. And with the likes of Sonic, Gremlins, Lego Batman and more on the horizon, this could turn into a full-time occupation.

It’s Ridiculous

Yeah, you might need to buy Finn and Jake to really dive in to Adventure Time, but the whole point of the game is to mix it up. We smashed the crap out of the Yellow Brick Road with Batman, then saved the Springfield nuclear power plant with BA Barachas, then bounded through The Shire with Lord Voldemort like some weird spin-off movie. And just like Lego in real-life, the only limit is your imagination… or how much Lego you have.

Lego Dimensions Year 2 is out now.

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Insomnia is the biggest gaming festival in the UK. It essentially started out as a giant LAN party; 72 non-stop hours of gaming. Since then, the event had evolved into a smorgasbord of geekiness. Here’s the 10 things we learned while we were there.

If you walk through the Birmingham NEC on any other day, you’ll find a barren wasteland. This weekend, if you followed the aroma of Monster energy drink and exhaustion, you’ll stumble upon something quite spectacular. The event takes place every 3 months, and this weekend, the NEC saw a footfall of almost 100k for the 58th instalment of Insomnia, hosted by Multiplay Events.

The festival appeals to both hardcore and casual gamers alike. Whether you’re heading down with your rig for a 72 hour gaming marathon, to enjoy the variation of stalls and stage shows, or meet your favourite YouTuber - Insomnia caters to everyone.

Here’s what else we discovered:

BYOC is an ambiently lit cesspit.

The LAN hall is undoubtedly the focus of Insomnia. The BYOC (bring your own computer) section saw almost 3000 PCs this weekend. That’s a LOT of heat, and a lot of sweaty gamers. The hall had a bar, a number of food stalls, and if you order a Dominos, the event staff will bring it to your table. It’s like being in the privacy of your bedroom, with thousands of other people to share your shame. However, if you don’t fancy lugging your computer hundreds of miles to do something you’d just do at home, you can ignore it entirely.

It’s incredibly easy to get a beer.

Considering the NEC saw almost 100,000 people pass through it’s doors this weekend, there was rarely a queue for the bars inside the event. I also didn’t feel too judged darting in between disgruntled parents, carrying two Jagerbombs at 3 in the afternoon. So if you’re not particularly enthusiastic about the festival entertainment on any given day, getting blind drunk is always an option.

‘Vlogging’ becomes acceptable.

Let’s face it, we’ve all looked at someone talking to a backwards facing camera and thought ‘wanker.’ However, you’ll see it so much throughout Insomnia that you won’t bat an eyelid at it. You start to appreciate that a lot of the guests here are making a living out of this trend, and so it subconsciously becomes okay to do. Though, there’s a 90% chance that you’ll appear in someone’s video, looking gormless as hell. So beware of that.

Cosplay is a serious business…

I’ll level with you, I don’t understand cosplay. However, I stuck around and watched the ‘Cosplay Masquerade’ and was pleasantly impressed by the level of work that goes into the design and craftsmanship that had gone into some outfits. Good work, pervs.

…But not as serious as the pub quiz.

Oh boy. The world famous Insomnia pub quiz. Assemble your team, and strap in. The main stage is filled with 260 round tables, stacked with complimentary alcohol from publishing behemoth Bethesda. I58 saw the biggest pub quiz yet, boasting almost 2600 people. I can’t remember the last time I had to pirouette around a stretcher on my way to buy Jagerbombs, but I certainly did. If you’re not completely ruined on Sunday after the quiz, then you’ve done it wrong.

You’ll end up buying something you don’t really want.

Fact: geeks cannot resist buying crap. And 10 giant halls filled with stalls, will ensure you’ll end up buying some sort of video game or pop culture orientated shite. Whether that be a Pikachu plushie, a witty shirt, or an entire set of 4k monitors, the event will do its very best to financially annihilate you.

Always Insomnia responsibly. Unless you’re at the pub quiz.

YouTuber’s don’t give a fuck.

Another big selling point of Insomnia, is the roster of special guests that appear throughout the weekend. YouTuber’s are a hugely popular spectacle, and people in their thousands will turn up to meet their favourites. I expected a level of segregation between YouTube personalities, and the thousands of fans here to see them, but there isn’t at all. They’ll just wander around the event at their own leisure, and stop to talk to anyone. Imagine Iron Maiden wandering through the stalls of an arena before taking to the stage - fans would lose their shit. There’s no air of pretentiousness at Insomnia.

You’ll never be bored.

The Multiplay team always go all out to make sure there is something going on at all times. Insomnia boasts three stages, filled with entertainment from game shows, live demonstrations, to talk shows with internet personalities. The festival also puts on evening entertainment. A particular highlight of I58 was The Dark Room. An interactive, event hosted by Australian comedian John Robertson. The audience must come together as a team, and attempt to escape The Dark Room - an incredibly unforgiving puzzle game. Even if you’re not a gamer (I’m looking at the disgruntled parents) the live shows are hilarious regardless.

There’s always a bar in sight, too.

You’ll leave with at least 6 new friends.

The sense of community at Insomnia is incredible. If you’ve been to a music festival before, you’ll know how alcohol and shared interests will hand you some new best mates. This event is no different. YouTube and gaming can often be considered secular, and so it’s exciting to meet like-minded people. I started to run into the same faces over the weekend, until my social circle became a fucking omnishambles of people I knew and didn’t. Insomnia isn’t just a festival, it’s become a community. And it’s always looking to expand.

Insomnia by name, and by nature.

The name implies that you’re not going to get much sleep and if you manage to somehow do everything Insomnia has to offer, sleep is not an option. The expo opens at 11am, with entertainment running right through until late. There’s a casino nearby that’s open constantly, as is the LAN hall in the NEC. Insomnia is truly an incredible event.

You don’t have to be able to recite all the Pokémon by heart, or have 700 hours in Skyrim to compensate for never going outside. As long as you can stomach copious amounts of beer and the smell of 100,000 nerds, you’ll be just fine.

For details about the next Insomnia event head to the Multiplay website.

The gaming world loves a scandal. It seems as though every few days, the community finds something new to collectively lose its shit about. Of course, even if there’s nothing happening, the games world is perfectly happy to make one up. The latest controversy is very real and it revolves around gambling on one of the most popular competitive first-person shooters, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Firstly some background for the non-gamers. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (or CSGO as it is know as in gaming shorthand) is made by Valve, the guys behind Steam, the PC’s biggest online platform (96 million users and growing). CSGO is one of the most high profile professional eSports (electronic sports i.e. playing games for money) games in the world. Like ‘proper’ sports, pro-players can win millions of dollars in the major tournaments.

Another unusual feature of the games world is that CSGO also has a vibrant community of content creators. Using the game’s modding tools, fans can build whole new levels for the game, or even new skins to personalise the game’s huge arsenal of weapons. These skins actually sell through the Steam service, with rarer ones fetching up to five figures. Yes, there are people who will drop $10,000 on a cosmetic change to your virtual (or ‘pretend’ for you non-gamers) weapon.

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Here’s where the gambling comes in. Some enterprising folks have set up gambling sites that use CSGO weapon skins as currency. Some throw all of these weapon skins into a big pot with the lucky winner taking all (and the site skimming a percentage off the total of course). Other sites allow folks to gamble on the outcome of professional CSGO matches and tournaments. It’s big business. According to Bloomberg, the market for CSGO gambling is worth $2.3 billion.

This is where things get murky. Gambling on eSports in this manner is so far unregulated. Many regions restrict gambling to over 18s. Other don’t allow it at all. In the virtual spaces where these web sites operate, regulations and policing is sporadic, if it exists at all. More problematic is that many of these sites use a piece of code which allows them to link to user’s Steam accounts and distribute winnings automatically.

The code itself is perfectly ordinary. It’s available to all developers working on Steam and allows them to award prizes, distribute virtual content and do all of the fun things that modern games do to keep their players happy.

The fact you can then use it for what is effectively illegal gambling, is just one of the many delightful wrinkles in the rapid evolution of gaming. In a bid to make sure this doesn’t happen, Valve, the creator of Steam has made it against its terms of service - always a sure fire solution to illegal operations.

In addition to allowing minors to gamble, allowing gambling in areas where it’s forbidden and most distressingly - violating Steam’s terms of service, there’s another problem - because the games sector never likes to just partially ruin things for itself.

However, it’s when you turn your attention to the murky world of pro-games teams, YouTubers and Twitch Streamers, who are some of the most high profile people in the gaming world, that the sudden huge growth in eSports, streaming channels and online gambling, that it all gets messy…

Several streamers and pro-gamers have been caught endorsing and promoting gambling sites, while absent mindedly forgetting to tell their thousands (and in some cases millions) of fans that they were being paid to do so.

Twitch streamer and YouTuber PhantomLord, whose streams have frequently seen him betting on gambling site CSGOWild (losing over $12,000 on a single bet at one point), has been banned from Twitch altogether for violating its terms of service. He’s since gone on record to imply that Valve was involved in his ban.

The same gambling site has been at the centre of its own controversy, when it emerged that members of the FaZe Clan pro-gaming team have been promoting the site, without mentioning they were being paid to do so. After initial news of the links emerged on YouTube, CSGOWild issued a statement saying it was all a bit of a misunderstanding and that it was perfectly straightforward sponsorship.

Other high-profile gamers have also been caught on the ‘dodgy end’ of gaming’s rapid evolution. Two popular YouTubers known as Trevor TmarTn Martin and Thomas ProSyndicate Cassell have been promoting the gambling site CSGOLotto without mentioning they actually founded the site.

Valve itself is now being dragged into the issue, with the company hit by a lawsuit alleging they “knowingly allowed an illegal online gambling market and has been complicit in creating, sustaining and facilitating that market”.

In response, the company has sent cease-and-desist letters to 23 different CSGO gambling sites, forcing several to close their doors and others to promise to change the way they operate.

While this can all be seen as bad behaviour and poor decisions, by inexperienced young scamps, rather than outright criminality, it does show just how quickly the whole concept of ‘gaming’ is evolving. There are YouTubers out there who command an audience of millions - and who are entirely independent and unregulated. The same is true for pro-gamers and ‘cyber athletes’, who are earning enormous sums from playing games. The economies of the biggest online games are now exceeding the GDP of some countries.

In such an environment, it’s only a matter of time before the bad guys show up. While the world’s press loses its mind over Pokemon Go, there’s an entire subculture out there which few people outside the games world are even aware of.

If you’re one of those people who still think games are something for kids and that they begin and end with consoles and games like Mario, Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider, the next ten years or so might be quite upsetting.

On the other hand, the good news is if your kids are smart, know their way around a few popular online games and have a little enterprise, working in video games may eventually be considered having a ‘real job’.

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The Final Fantasy series is the Metallica of video games. Its been around for 29 years, it’s reinvented itself numerous times and it’s had a couple of dodgy releases, which are overlooked because, well, it’s Final Fantasy.

It remains one of the most popular games series in the whole wide world. Its name is synonymous with cutting-edge graphics and huge game worlds populated with memorable characters and iconic villains.

And I just don’t care.

I’ve tried time and time again to get in to Final Fantasy. Each game I’ve tried has managed to put me off the series more and more with what feels like gleeful, deliberate impenetrability.

Let’s start with Final Fantasy VII, the title that is consistently praised as the finest game in the series. I’ve started it numerous times and each time I’ve aborted before anything even remotely interesting happened. The game just feels… wrong.

Let’s be honest, the turn-based combat is bloody annoying. Yes, yes, there are nuances in there, related to elements and materia (aka ‘random fighting stuff’), but it still feels like there is an overall lack of strategy to these encounters. With a few exceptions, if you level up enough, you can beat the shit out of almost anything. It’s not turn-based gaming’s fault. I’m a huge fan of games like Civilization and Total War. Games that rely on turn-based mechanics to allow actual strategies. In comparison, combat in the earlier Final Fantasy games feel clunky and unnatural, like trying to play chess in boxing gloves. With a hammer.

Then there are the arse-nippingly aggrevating random encounters. Wandering round a location you see nothing but the player on the screen, only to have everything dissolve into unexpected combat with a random monster at some arbitrary moment. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s because other Japanese RPGs, like Zelda for example allow you to see enemies, so you can choose which to fight and which to avoid.

There there’s the overall lack of consistency thing, or as some people call it, the needlessly weird shit. One minute you’re fighting Shinra guards armed with machine guns and next thing you’re attacked by giant hypnotic butterflies. It seemed at times that the art team for Final Fantasy VII spent a large amount of time designing characters during the tail end of a particularly intense and unexpected acid trip.

But it’s not just Final Fantasy VII that scrapes a rotting fingernail down one’s soul. I’ve played Final Fantasies IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XII and bloody XIV too. Each one has been singularly uninspiring. The games have continually failed to excite me the way it seems to captivate millions of other gamers around the world. It’s not just me. There are thousands of us out there, carefully avoiding making our opinions known on forums and groups because we know you love them. All of them. Each tousle-headed Japanese scamp with a stupidly large and utterly pointless sword, each breathtakingly rendered waif and every frigging monster in ever frigging game.

In a bid to avoid killing players through teeth-grinding high blood pressure (we assume) Final Fantasy XII introduced a more “action-oriented” approach to combat. Just select the target for each character in your party, then let them fight away until they won or lost. Woo! For the terminally dull, it even included an auto-fight system, that allowed you to tailor each character’s behaviour in combat so you could just sit back and watch. Bloody hell. The role I played in this role-playing game, was of a man who was deeply, deeply bored.

And while we’re on the subject of the ‘sequels’, nothing really links the various games together other than the previously mentioned impressively un-fun mechanics. I get that it must be hard keep a coherent story together across fifteen games, but if the only thing linking your games is the sheer impenetrability of the storylines and the fact the number on the box has gone up by 1, then it’s not a sequel, it’s a ‘you might also like’ suggestion.

Final Fantasy XV is due out on September the 30th on the PS4 and Xbox One. It’s a beautiful looking game. The combat system has been entirely refreshed to make it more action-oriented and characters can roam the world in a ‘free running style’. The main character is an emo crown-prince on a quest to retrieve a magical crystal to save his homeland.

We had a meeting, we discussed this very carefully. It’s still bollocks. Sorry.

Pokemon Go has gripped the world in a crazed desire to catch the rarest, more powerful pocket monsters. As usual there are some people who have gleefully abandoned common sense in order to fill their Pokedex and win, whatever the cost.

We’ve not yet had any (confirmed) deaths thanks to the game, but with some of the epic levels of idiocy on display from players all over the world, it looks like it’s just a matter of time before the game becomes more dangerous than Grand Theft Auto, Bath Salts or sticking fireworks up your butt.

Here are five stories from around the world to reassure you that you’re probably normal.

5.Driver hits a police car in Baltimore while playing Pokemon Go

In one of the dumbest displays of Pokemon hunting so far a driver crashed into a parked police car in Baltimore on July the 18th. As the video shows the car bounced off the parked police car and came to a halt further down the street prompting the officers, who weren’t in their vehicle, to take off down the road following the offending vehicle.

Luckily no-one was injured but the first thing the driver said to the officers was to admit he’d been playing Pokemon Go while at the wheel.

4.Two guys fall between 50 and 90 feet off a cliff hunting Pokemon

In a sure fire contender for the 2016 Darwin awards , On July the 13th, while hunting Pokemon in Encinitas, California, two guys in their early 20s fell off a cliff. One man was found three quarters of the way down the 90ft cliff, with his friend at the bottom, by firefighters who attended the scene. Both had apparently crossed a fence bearing signs saying, “No Tresspassing” and, “Do Not Cross”. Neither were charged with tresspassing.

3.Two teens shot at while playing Pokemon Go at 1.30 in the morning

In a less self-inflicted, but still verifiably dumb move in a country where gun ownership and home protection are enthusiastically practised, two teenagers, aged 19 and 16, were shot at by a homeowner in the Palm Coast area of Flagler County, Florida on the 16th of July. The homeowner heard noises outside his house at 1.30am. He saw a car parked outside his house with its brake lights on so he grabbed his gun and went outside to investigate. The householder claims he heard a voice say, “Did you get anything?” prompting him to raise his gun and tell the teens not to move. The car then sped off, encouraging the gun-toting homeowner to fire several shots at it.

Thankfully no-one was injured although the 19-year-old had to explain to his mother why the car had bullet holes and a flat tyre when she got up in the morning.

2.Irishman jumps into traffic to catch a Pokemon

On July 21st, over in County Down, Northern Island, police stated on Facebook that they had received reports of a man jumping into traffic on the A2 main road near Holywood. The update stated: “I don’t care how rare the Pokemon is, it’s not worth your life. Pickachu would be ashamed.” A neighbouring Police station in Craigavon summed it up with the hashtags: #DoubleFacePalm and #NotEnoughPalms. Presumably because they’d get in trouble for #FeckingIdiot.

1.Bosnian demining charity warns of the dangers of Pokemon hunting in minefields

This one sounds so ridiculous it just couldn’t be true. Right? However Bosnian LAND MINE REMOVAL charity Posavina bez mina has issued a warning (translated by the BBC) to budding Pokemon hunters on the dangers of venturing into dangerous areas of the country to catch rarities like the Charizard.

In Bosnia around 120,000 LAND MINES are still undiscovered, covering around 2% of the country’s landmass. That’s actual land mines, which were created specifically to kill and maim the unwary. Luckily there’s no reports of people losing lives, or limbs in their quest for new Pokemon, but Jesus Christ people, please consider your local conditions before heading out hunting.

Team Rock(et) are big fans of Pokemon Go, but it’s hard not to laugh at some of the unbelievable stupidity the game is causing (LAND MINES FOR GOD’S SAKE!) Ash managed to traverse the length and breadth of Japan without suffering more than embarrassment, losing his hat and a bruised Weedle.

It was Meowth who said “I’m totally unprepared to deal with life’s realities.” You’re not alone, big guy.

At the end of last week, Nintendo unveiled a new console. Sadly it wasn’t the highly-anticipated new NX - which is currently surrounded by a whirlwind of rumours. Instead, Nintendo announced a brand new mini version of the much-loved NES called the NES Classic Edition, which comes complete with some of the all-time greatest NES games. The machine will launch on November the 11^th 2016 priced at a reasonable $60 but even at that price it might not be worth it.

It’s fairly awesome that Nintendo has decided to revive the NES for retro gaming fans. You can expect to play greats such as Super Mario 1, 2, and 3, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Castlevania, Castlevania II, Final Fantasy, Kid Icarus and more. These are games which defined a generation, if not their respective genres. In fact, there’s not a single bad game on the 30-title strong NES Classic Edition games list. The console also comes with a classic NES controller.

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There are some drawbacks, though. The NES Classic Edition has no internet connectivity or even a cartridge slot to support original NES titles, meaning there’s no way to expand your collection beyond the 30 built in games. This seems quite restrained for a company that offered retro gaming fans a colossal array of classic games from no less than seven different consoles like the NES, SNES, Megadrive and Master System on some of their latest devices.

Nintendo seems to have dialled back their commitment to retro gaming. The Wii U’s virtual console only offers games from classic Nintendo platforms and although this has been expanded to include the titles from the Gameboy, Gameboy Colour, and Gameboy Advance they seem to have forgotten at least some of the passion for classic gaming that was so apparent in the Wii’s virtual console. In some ways this new mini NES reflects this.

SEGA a long time ago licensed out the Megadrive circuitry to numerous manufacturers resulting in a glut of Megadrive copies hitting the market all with a range of built-in hit (and miss) games. Some of these even offer a cartridge slot to allow folks who still have Megadrive cartridges to play those too.

The absence of a cartridge slot in the NES Classic Edition and no internet connectivity to allow the purchase of more NES classics from the Wii U virtual console is a bit of disappointment. It makes this new mini console seem like more of a gift item, than a new console allowing players to revisit the glory days of console gaming. Even so a NES with 30 classic games for $60 is still a fairly good deal, we’d just like to see Nintendo recognise the audience out there who’d love to revisit the games they grew up with.

Five moments where game soundtracks rocked

Since Hello Games announced their space epic game No Man’s Sky its massive galaxy of 18 quintillion procedurally-generated planets has been causing more than a bit of a stir.

While most of the frenzy surrounding the game has been around the vast setting and the potential for unique experiences some of the excitement has been around the announcement of Sheffield-based maths-rockers 65daysofstatic as the folks behind the game’s soundtrack. The band has released their work on No Man’s Sky in album form and will be touring the album later this year across Europe beginning in Tilberg in the Netherlands is October and ending in Glasgow, Scotland in mid-November.

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65daysofstatic’s contribution to No Man’s Sky goes further than contributing an album’s worth of tracks for use in the game though. In fact No Man’s Sky’s music is every bit as procedurally-generated as the game’s planets.

Paul Wolinski from the band explains their involvement with No Man’s Sky in a brief chat with Wired magazine. He began, “Procedurally generated music is something we’ve been interested in for a while but the way it tends to play out is that most generated stuff in computer games tends towards ambience: quite granular, soft, synthy stuff because the music’s never sure what action it’s about to be soundtracking.”

He went on, “We decided on a two-pronged attack. We recorded linear stand-alone compositions, because we want the record to be worthwhile in its own right, but at the same time we collected a big sound library of individual sounds, instruments, melodies and beats.”

From these building blocks the game assembles the soundtracks for every individual encounter via a series of algorithms that aim to create music that fits the mood whether the player is strolling around on a planet surface or jumping accidentally into the middle of a massive space battle.

No Man’s Sky will release on the PC and Playstation 4 on August the 12^th.

Five moments where game soundtracks rocked

Ever fancied raising an army of marauding Orcs and Goblins and leaving a trail of destruction across the world? How about raising an army of the shambling dead to build an empire of the night?

Now you can. Total War: Warhammer is the game that so many gamers have been waiting for since the Total War series first marched onto the scene with Shogun: Total War back in 2000. The series is known for blending a turn-based empire-building strategy overview mode with massive real-time strategy battles featuring hundreds and thousands of soldiers.

Until now the Total War series has focused on historical empires from the ancient Roman Empire to the days of the Napoleonic Wars. Not any more. Developer Creative Assembly has teamed up with the Games Workshop to build one of the most exciting titles in the series to date and Total War: Warhammer is the result.

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As a jumping off point in the massive Warhammer fantasy universe that the Games Workshops has created Total War: Warhammer focuses on the Old World and the races of the Dwarfs, the Empire, the Vampire Counts, the Orcs and Goblins and forces of Chaos.

Each faction has access to their own unique array or units, heroes, resources and technology and development trees.

Heroes are a new thing to the Total War series. This brings in the use of magic and special abilities during battles to help turn the tide.

The Vampire Counts can raise the dead during a battle for instance adding extra units of zombies to help influence the result of the battle for instance. The Dwarfs use magic in a different way using it to forge runes which enhance units and weaponry in a variety of ways.

As well as leading armies and providing extra punch in combat, heroes can guide and watch over conquered provinces, spy on enemies, attempt sabotage and assassinations and counter the actions of enemy heroes.

They also level up as they gain carry out actions and fight in battles which gives them access to enhancements of their skills in different areas, new abilities and even mounts ranging from barded warhorses to great flying beasts increasing their impact in battle even further.

There are interesting tactical changes to the Total War formula. Each faction is limited to the sort of settlements they can capture. While all factions can sack or even raze a settlement they are only interested in capturing settlements they can actually use. The Dwarfs only want mountain fortresses that are occupied by other Dwarven factions or the Orcs and Goblins while the Vampire Counts believe they are the rightful rulers of the Empire and are only interested in capturing human settlements for instance.

It’s a curious spin on the way Total War functions and it adds an extra dimenson to the way you must approach conquering the world.

The whole story of the game revolves around the factions regaining what they see as their rightful power in the Old World and preparing for the eventual rise of Chaos again. Chaos appears some time later on in the game as a marauding nomadic faction and are one of the toughest enemies to beat. They arrive like the armies of Attila or Genghis Khan and cut a bloody swathe across the Old World claiming the dead for their malevolent gods.

The plan is to conquer as many regions as you can and buidl up your economy and armies in order to satisfy your faction’s lust for power and prepare yourselves for the arrival of the forces of Chaos in order to beat them back to their home in the Northern Wastes.

The campaign map is where the majority of the action takes place laying out the whole Old World to explore, enact diplomacy and conquer but the individual battles are a revelation.

Total War’s battle engine has always been brilliant allowing players to pull out and view the entire battle and guide units to counter enemy maneuvres or zoom right in to the action to watch the soldiers hacking away at each other or see a cavalry unit smash into the side of the infantry with a devastating charge.

What is really cool is being able to see how they have brought the quirkier fantasy units to life. Yes there’s ranks and ranks of spearmen and archers but it’s things like the Goblin Doom Diver Catapult which rains crazed kamikaze Goblin hangliders down their enemies or the Dwarf Slayer units with their huge axes, ginger beards and lack of armour cut a frenzied swathe through enemy troops that really brings the magic.

Total War: Warhammer as a Total War game is as accomplished as any other game in the series. It may not have the detailed naval battles of Shogun 2 or the political detail and siege warfare of Rome 2 but it excels in capturing the spirit of the Warhammer universe completely. As a Warhammer game it perfectly brings to life the unique units of the game’s factions with every bit as much detail and care as the miniature scupltors of the Games Workshop.

There’s only one thing to do when you play – crank up some Alestorm, raise up a massive Dwarf host and go crush some Greenskin heads.

Score: ⁹⁄₁₀

It looks like Bungie is beginning to call time on their support for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Destiny.

From August they will begin stripping back the features that will be available to players on PS3 and Xbox 360 starting with live events, Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner Crucible matches.

They’ll also be reducing items made available to players through Exotic item seller Xur. Around the same time the first load of live features disappear Xur will stop selling Exotic weapons and armour to PS3 and Xbox 360 players although Exotic and legacy Exotic engrams will still be available.

Finally they will be disabling all methods of purchasing the in-game transaction currency called Silver which can be used to buy personalisation items like Emotes.

All of this is in preparation for the arrival of the Rise of Iron expansion on PS4 and Xbox One on September the 20^th.

There is nothing to fear though as Bungie has prepared a method for Destiny players to transfer their characters from the older console versions into the PS4 and Xbox One versions. It’s worth noting that the account import procedure is carried out through either Playstation network or Xbox Live so PS3 players will only be able to upgrade to PS4 and Xbox 360 players will only be able to upgrade to Xbox One.

The transfer system will go online some time in August ahead of the launch of Destiny: Rise of Iron and more information on what is going on is available over on the support pages at Bungie.net.

Valve has launched their annual summer sale on Steam and this year they’ve added discounts to their own hardware as well as a massive selection of heavily discounted games.

For the uninitiated, Steam is to PC and Mac what Playstation Network and Xbox Live are to the PS4 and Xbox One. The main difference is that Steam’s sales are legendary for offering insane discounts on games.

Both the Steam Controller and the Steam Link game streaming box are available with 30 percent off taking their prices down to £27.99 each.

Both Activision and Ubisoft have go in on the action too. There’s 50 to 67 percent off almost all of the games in the Call of Duty Franchise and Assassin’s Creed games are on sale with between 35 to 75 percent off.

The new Doom is available with 40 percent off and the Witcher III: Wild Hunt has 50 percent off. Fallout 4 is also half price while Shadow of Mordor is a steal with 75 percent off. The Dark Souls series is also heavily discounted with between 25 and 75 percent off.

There’s far too many discounts list here in detail but don’t worry about not having enough time to sift through them all. The Steam Summer Picnic Sale is running until July the 14th.

Hideo Kojima was a special guest at Sony’s E3 press conference this week to unveil his first game after leaving Konami.

Death Stranding is his new game and all that was really revealed during his short appearance on Sony’s stage was digital versions of the game’s star, Norman Reedus’s butt cheeks as his character wakes naked up on an oil-soaked beach surrounded dead sea life.

There are five mysterious figures watching the devastation hovering in the distance over the ocean but that was about as much as the trailer woiuld give away.

It was all very cryptic and you can see for your self in the trailer below. This is typical of Hideo Kojima though preferring to be cryptic and mysterious about his games before he’s 100 percent ready to show them off.

Expect this to release on the PS4 exclusively no earlier than Christmas 2017 but it’s more likely to be pushed into 2018.

It looks like Sony was not pulling any punches with their E3 press conference this year as they opened up the show with a live gameplay demo of God of War 4.

There have been plenty of rumours swirling around for some time about a new God of War game coming for the PS4 and it looks like they may have been fairly close to the mark.

The gameplay demo showed an older Kratos going on a hunting trip with his son in a snowy, Scandinavian-like environment. The architecture on show has a very Norse mythology feel to it as some of the rumours from last year suggested but what was most interesting was the interplay between father and son as Kratos tries to soften himself to deal with his son. It’s not quite the deeply emotional gameplay of The Last Of Us but it’s certainly an indication that the God of War series is maturing.

There’s a little bit of the hardcore bloody combat that the series is known for as the duo are interrupted as they track a stag by a large troll-like creature wielding a huge stone pillar as a club. After the fight Kratos and son locate the stag and have a proper father and son bonding moment as his son takes aim and kills the stag. As they approach the stag to claim their kill the camera pans back to a wider Skyrim-esque shot complete with snow-capped mountains and a dragon swooping towards the pair.

There was no mention of a release date for God of War 4 as yet but we can probably expect it to appear no earlier than Christmas of 2017 possibly even early on in 2018.

Bend Studios, the team behind the Playstation classic series Syphon Filter have announced a brand new title in development on the PS4 called Days Gone.

Days Gone follows the story of a former bike gang leader turned bounty-hunter in a post-apocalyptic North America ravaged by some kind of plague that turned most people into monsters not unlike the fast-moving zombies of 28 Days Later.

The feel of the game is very much like The Last Of Us but with bikers. It looks like there might be a bit more to it as the live demo during Sony’s E3 press conferece this week showed hunting down a character he seemed to know before being attacked by a horde of ravening undead.

What was particularly impressive about it all was the sheer number of enemies on the screen chasing the main character and the environmental tools that the player could use to slow the chasing horde down like closing shutters and gates and letting logs and debris loose to fall on enemies alongside the typical exploding barrels. Speed and number of enemies and the way they swarm seems to be the closest yet to the panic enducing numbers of hungry undead that make the best movies so terrifying.

There’s no release date yet for Days Gone but PS4 gamers can probably expect to wait at least until late on in 2017 or early in 2018 to get their hands on it.

As E3 week draws to a close it’s traditional for games journalists to write a piece rounding up the biggest talking points of the games industry’s biggest event of the year and what they mean for the next 12 to 18 months for gamers. With that in mind here’s 1200 words about ducks.

Only kidding. E3 was far too interesting this year not to talk about it. Let’s start with Microsoft.

Microsoft’s E3

For Microsoft E3 was all about announcing new hardware and trying to present Xbox as an ecosystem rather than a box of electronics that sits under your TV. To a certain extent they were successful. They opened with a new smaller Xbox One which is definitely a welcome announcement given how huge an unwieldy the original Xbox One actually is. The new Xbox One S is around 40 percent smaller and doesn’t require the bulky power brick that has been so familiar to Xbox gamers since the Xbox 360 launched way back in 2005. Support for 4K video including a shiny new 4K UHD Blu-ray drive and HDR support for video and games are also welcome additions to a console which was struggling to keep pace with the PS4 in terms of hardware power and features.

Then Microsoft went on to show off a slew of Xbox One exclusives from Gears of War 4 and Forza Horizon 3 to Scalebound and new pirate MMO Sea of Theives all of which would also be released for Windows 10 PC and would offer Xbox One gamers and PC gamers the chance to play together online through the new Xbox Play Anywhere initiative. This also means that any title featured in this year’s press conference that is purchased digitally on the Xbox store would net the buyer a PC copy and and Xbox One copy. On top of this it offers cross- compatible cloud saving funtionality meaning that you can stop playing on Xbox One and pick up exactly where you left off on your PC through the magic of Xbox Live. This gave the impression of a a fully connected gaming ecosystem between the PC and Xbox One through Xbox Live.

Microsoft rounded out their show with the final pillar of this new Xbox ecosystem Project Scorpio – a powerful new home console capable to playing games in 4K resolutions and supporting Microsoft’s VR device of choice the Oculus Rift. Project Scorpio will be fully compatible with all existing Xbox One accessories and games and Microsoft promised that, although the Scorpio will launch in Christmas 2017 all games released going forward will support Xbox One and Project Scorpio. “No-one gets left behind,” was the refrain as Xbox boss Phil Spence closed out the show.

It’s a curious development that could very well spell the end of the console generation as we know it. It could also kill the Xbox One dead as folks wait to see what Project Scorpio will be capable of when it releases in 2017.

Microsoft’s most exciting game reveal was that of indie title We Happy Few from Compulsion Games. It looks like a frightening mix of Vaudeville and Orwell combined into a first-person adventure.

Sony

While Microsoft was all about hardware Sony focused very much on the games that they have on the way for the PS4 and Playstation VR which launches in mid-October.

They opened with something Playstation fans have been craving since the PS4 was announced and that is a proper God of War sequel. God of War 4 has snow, dragons and Kratos’s son in it as well as Stargate SG-1 actor Christopher Judge lending his booming voice to Kratos this time around.

More interesting was the announcement of the latest project from Syphon Filter developers Bend. Days Gone looks to be a blend of Sons of Anarchy and The Last of Us as the game follows a bike gang leader turned bounty hunter as he makes his way through a post-apocalyptic American wilderness. The sheer volume of zombies shown off in the gameplay demo alone makes this game look exciting as it pushes the futility of a post-apocalyptic existence even further than any other game has before.

Metal Gear Solid creator and the closest thing video games has to an auteur Hideo Kojima appeared briefly to unveil his first game free from the shackles of Konami called Death Stranding. All that was shown off was a cinematic trailer that was typically cryptic for Kojima and showed off a little too much of digitally rendered buttocks of the game’s star Norman Reedus for my liking. Still it looks like it will probably be a special title to look forward to.

None of these games had release dates though and unlikely to appear any time before the end of 2017/beginning of 2018.

Horizon: Zero Dawn shows serious promise. While the game has slipped into a release in January 2017 it looks very exciting. Set in a far flung future where robotic animals and dinosaurs roam the Earth and humanity has returned to a more primitive way of life, fending off the more dangerous robots with slings, arrows and spears. It looks huge and very vibrant and has a nice blend of fantasy and science fiction that reminds very much of Ninja Theory’s Enslaved: Journey to the West. Watch out for it when it arrives in January.

Resident Evil makes what looks like a triumphant return in January too with Resident Evil 7: biohazard. It’s making the jump to a first-person perspective too and offering the chance to play the game using the Playstation VR headset adding an extra later of atmospherics for those curious about VR.

Nintendo

While Sony and Microsoft were busy showing off snippets of lots of different things Nintendo focused on one thing – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Since this game was unveiled at the Video Game Awards at the end of 2014 it has been almost all that Nintendo fans have been talking about. It’s a massive free-roaming environment more akin to games like Fallout and the Elder Scrolls series. It’s also beautifully rendered with a watercolour style of artwork that feels so perfectly Zelda it’s untrue.

Nintendo were so excited to finally be showing off The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that they devoted almost a whole day of livestreams to showing off just one massive area of the whole game map.

It also looks like it was well worth the effort as a newly published chart of the most-talked-about E3 games on Twitter was topped by the new Zelda game with 573,000 mentions over the second-place title Battlefield 1 which clocked in with just 200,000 mentions.

Honourable Mentions

Elsewhere the most exciting announcements came from Bethesda and Ubisoft. Bethesda announced a PS4 and Xbox One remaster of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which looks absolutely sumptuous and they finally unveiled the new Prey game which Arkane Studios Austin have been working on for the last couple of years. It shows a great amount of potential.

Ubisoft had a few intriging highlights to their press conference. The best of these was Matt Stone and Trey Parker taking to the stage to talk about South Park: The Fractured But Whole. The new game looks like it will take on the comic superhero world the way The Stick of Truth eviscerated the fantasy genre – cleverly, funnily and with one hell of a potty mouth. It’s coming this December and it will be hoot when it arrives.

The other was their new extreme sports MMO Steep which is set in a massive region of the Alps across Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland. It will offer extreme sports fans the chance to paraglide, wingsuit base jump, ski and snowboard with friends across some of the most gorgeous terrain in Europe when it releases at Christmas time.

That’s it for the E3 coverage this year out. Next up in the gaming summer is Gamescom, Europe’s big trade show which sets up camp in Cologne in August.

Microsoft has announced two new pieces of Xbox console hardware which will be released between now and Christmas next year.

The first is the Xbox One S; a smaller more functional version of the existing Xbox One. The One S is 40 percent smaller than the launch Xbox Ones and will launch with up to 2TB of hard disc space. It will also include support for 4K HD video from streaming services and 4K Blu-ray movies and HDR (high dynamic range) imaging for both video and games.

HDR will give both video and games a greater luminosity and wider ranges of tones which makes the colours more vibrant and details and shadows much sharper.

The One S also include an upgraded version of the Xbox One Controller with a longer range of wireless connectivity, Bluetooth and Xbox One connectivity support and a textured back for more comfort and control.

The Xbox One S will launch in August and will come in 500GB, 1TB and limited edition 2TB flavours.

The second piece of hardware announced was the the new Project Scorpio Xbox console. Microsoft called this the most powerful console ever created and it will feature enough processing power to bring true 4K gaming to home consoles as well as full support for virtual reality devices.

Project Scorpio will be fully compatible with all existing Xbox One hardware, accessories and software with Microsoft promising that no-one will be left behind.

In addition to all this every Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive title announced at this year’s E3 showed off the “Xbox Play Anywhere” tag. The tag means that anyone who owns both the PC and Xbox One versions of these games will be able to pick up and play from wherever they left off whether it be on PC or Xbox One. Further to this, all of Xbox Play Anywhere games give players both a Windows 10 copy and an Xbox One copy of the game when they’re bought as digital copies from the Xbox Store.

Microsoft has also enabled cross-platform multiplayer for all of the titles announced during the E3 press conference meaning that both PC and Xbox One players can face off against each other across Xbox Live.

E3 would not be E3 without some interesting surprises for gamers to mull over.

This year it has opened with Elder Scrolls and Fallout makers Bethesda showing off what they have coming for gamers between now and the end of 2017 but in the opening sequence of their E3 Showcase show they put in something of a teaser for Wolfenstein fans.

The show opened with a sequence inspired by the old DOS PC operating system black and white interface. It showed a file listing including the history of id Software’s classic games from Commander Keen right up to the latest Doom game. In the listing after Wolfenstein 3D, New Order and Old Blood, current games in the series were followed by a mystery title New Colossus.

Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Old Blood were impressive games and were exceedingly well received so it makes sense that another game in the series would be on its way however this was the only mention that the Wolfenstein series got during the whole show.

Many of the show’s other featured games will be getting shown off at QuakeCon, Bethesda’s big fan convention, which happens annually in Dallas at the end of the summer and perhaps they might bring something Wolfensteiny to show off then.

Bethesda has announced as part of their E3 showcase this weekend that they have remastered The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for release on PS4 and Xbox One.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition will collect all of the game’s content including the three big expansions on to one disc and give it a pretty stunning visual update for gamers on the current generation of consoles to enjoy.

The updates will also include mod support for the console versions allowing PS4 and Xbox One gamers to access a massive array of content created by the Skyrim community as well as enjoying the original game in with all of its new updated visuals.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition will be coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One (yes, PC gamers aren’t getting left out) on October the 28th of this year. As a bonus anyone who already owns Skyrim and all of the its content on the PC will get a copy of the Special Edition for free.

Ubisoft has announced Watch Dogs 2 but almost all of the details set to be announced yesterday online leaked before the official event including the teaser trailer.

Almost everyone in the gaming world knew that the Watch Dogs 2 announcement was coming most likely at E3 next week but Ubisoft decided to tease it a week early by giving it an online unveiling.

This didn’t work out so well for them though. First a banner ad appeared on gaming site IGN a day early complete with the game’s release date of the 15th of November this year. Next the reveal trailer leaked on streaming site Twitch.tv and was subsequently shared on Twitter.

All of the leaks have been removed now but now the cat is out of the bag rendering the big reveal yesterday a bit redundant.

Watch Dogs 2 will move on from the first game’s Chicago setting to San Francisco and will release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on November the 15th.

Original reporting of the story comes from gaming sites Polygon and Gamereactor.

The makers of Rock Band and Fender have announced a new deal that will see the iconic guitars continue to appear in the music game series for the next 10 years.

Fender guitars have become the ultimate image of rock thanks to legendary musicians from Jimmy Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Eric Johnson and Bruce Springsteen. Harmonix on the other hand created a gaming revolution in the form of the music games series Guitar Hero and Rock Band allowing anyone to jump in and play along with their favourite tracks from all across the rock world.

The Rock Band series has included Fender guitars for some time to increase the authenticity of the game’s experience and the new deal will see the legendary guitars like the Fender Stratocaster and Precision Bass continue to appear in Rock Band games until 2027.

“We are pleased to continue our successful relationship with Harmonix. Harmonix continues to impress us with their attention to detail and precision in faithfully recreating our classic instruments,” said Fender’s Marc Van Vleet. “The experience they create of being a rock star ensures their global audience feels the passion and excitement of being in a band when they strap on a Rock Band guitar or bass.”

Rock Band 4 is the current game in the series and is available for PS4 and Xbox One. For fans of the series it is completely compatible with all of the content released for Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and Rock Band 3.

Festival season is upon us and while metalheads are looking forward to dusting off their tents and beer coolers for Download, Bloodstock and Stone Free, gamers are readying themselves for a summer of big shows showing off what they can expect to be playing on their platform of choice over the next year or so.

The first of the big summer games shows is E3. This is the mother of all games shows. Scheduled for June of every year the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 as it has become known is the show to watch for all of the biggest game announcements.

E3 takes over the Los Angeles Convention Center for almost a week with all of the big players in the games industry showing off what they hope will be the biggest games of the next 12 months. It’s not just a bunch of booths dedicated to gaming’s most exciting upcoming releases though. E3 hosts press conferences from all the names you’d expect like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony as well as Bethesda, EA and Ubisoft.

Each press conference lasts between 60 and 90 minutes and is crammed to the gunnels with the kind of big reveals that keep gamers guessing and hoping for when they’re not submerging themselves in their favourite game worlds.

It’s a fantastic and sleepless time with games journalists cramming themselves into sweaty theatres across LA to see the press conferences with more watching the shows being streamed live on the internet on each host’s own website and Twitch.tv.

There are some awesome surprises every year as well just to keep gamers guessing. Ubisoft, for instance, opened their show a few years back with Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains playing Man In A Box to showcase their guitar game Rocksmith to the world. He then jammed along with the game for a while before revealing that the band’s latest single, Stone, would feature as part of the latest Rocksmith’s track listing.

This year’s E3 is promising to be bristling with big announcements. Both Microsoft and Sony are rumoured to have new versions of their current home consoles to show off this year with extra power to support the latest VR and 4K technology that is entering the mainstream. Nintendo also has their new console, currently dubbed the NX, which may or may not make an appearance although they’re more likely to focus on Zelda for the Wii U.

It’s not just hardware though. Bethesda will be showing off big games like their new Dishonored title which is due out later this year as well as rumours that the studio behind Dishonored is also ready to show off what they have done with the Prey series that they are believed to have been working with.

EA will finally be unveiling Mass Effect: Andromeda which is one of their most eagerly-awaited games of the new console generation. This will show alongside their latest sports games like FIFA 17 and Madden 17. There’s also the WWI themed First Person Shooter Battlefield 1 and the debut Titanfall 2 gameplay footage to be expected. They also have two Star Wars games in development. The first at Visceral Games (aka the Dead Space Studio) under the watchful eye of former Uncharted director Amy Hennig. The second is being developed by Titanfall developer Respawn, led by God Of War 3 director Stig Assmussen. Either of these could make an appearance.

Ubisoft is a bit of a dark horse this year as they have no Assassin’s Creed game coming in 2016. There are strong indications that they will be announcing their hack ‘em up open world sequel Watch Dogs though as well as showing off more of the exceptionally intriguing Ghost Recon: Wildlands which was unveiled last year. Maybe we’ll see more of South Park: The Fractured But Whole too.

There are also big rumours that Rockstar has a big new announcements to make. They have a habit of appearing on Sony’s stage to announce big things like the PS4 (PC and Xbox One) version of GTA V and there’s a lot of buzz surrounding their Wild West Red Dead series. A sequel to the superb Red Dead Redemption would be warmly welcomed and could be the big surprise of this year’s E3.

Microsoft will probably be showing off Gears Of War 4 which they hope will make as big an impact on the Xbox One as the original games did on the Xbox 360 and the there’s the hope of a return to the stage of the much-loved Crackdown 3 which has been conspicuous by its absence. We can probably expect more Forza too.

Games-wise Sony has the beautiful looking title The Last Guardian which will probably show alongside Heavy Rain developers Quantic Dream’s new sci-fi game Detroit: Become Human. There’s also the possibility that they finally might be ready to show off a new game in the God Of War series. The Sony show will also play host to this year’s new Call Of Duty game Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfar, plus more content for Bungie’s Destiny.

Several new reports are claiming that Microsoft will announce a new smaller Xbox One. According to the one trusted Xbox source it will be 40% smaller than the current Xbox One and will include a new 2TB hard-drive.

Also on the rumour slate is the possibility of Microsoft showing off a new Xbox Media Stick streaming TV service, similar to the Chromecast or the Amazon Fire Stick designed for folks who like the media features of the Xbox One.

Finally there are rumours of an entirely new Xbox console on the cards. The device apparently has a codename and is slated to be announced and released in 2017. It ’s expected to be significantly more powerful than the current Xbox One with increased graphical processing power to support 4K gaming and the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality device.

The rumours come courtesy of technology site The Verge and gaming site Kotaku.

Gaming is just littered with Gothic references from the amazing pieces of Gothic architecture that litter games like Darksiders to the art style of Castlevania to the Nine Inch Nails inspired music from Destiny’s Hive quests.

You can’t escape it. But, there are some games that embrace the dark heart of all thing Gothic and bring them to life with flashing pixels. Here are just a few examples of them.

5. Devil May Cry

It’s hard not to include any Devil May Cry games in this list. Shinji Mikami spent a while at Capcom and during his tenure there he created solid gold classics like the Resident Evil series and the Devil May Cry series. Dante’s constant battles with the forces of Heaven and Hell are ornately and elegantly Gothic everywhere you look.

His battles take him through some of the most ornately designed Gothic architecture ever seen in games especially in the fourth game in the series – the first to appear on Xbox 360.

The first three games are where it’s at though with a combat system that focuses on finesse and combos over relentless button bashing. The first three Devil May Cry games are an ode to all things Gothic wrapped up with some of the most elegant action gameplay ever designed.

4. Quake

Dark overbearing environments? Check. Freakish monsters that would scare the pants off H.P. Lovecraft? Check. Soundtrack by the Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor? Check.

Quake was the first first-person shooter to be rendered in true 3D and id Software took full advantage of the new technology building a game that is oppressive and deeply atmospheric. Besides what’s more Goth than using nine inch nails as ammunition to slaughter endless waves of hellish demonic creatures?

3. Darksiders II

Playing Darksiders II is like playing a Legend of Zelda game that grew up listening to nothing but Type-O Negative. You play as Death, skull-faced and all dressed in black and purple armour, as he attempts to resurrect the Earth and save his brother War from eternal damnation.

Its art style is very comic-book Gothic having been created by comic writer and artist Joe Madureira. Crumbling Gothic architecture combined with a story that smacks of futility with Death travelling across the dimensions to forgotten places in search of a way to prove that his brother War was not the one who triggered the Apocalypse condemning Earth to becoming a demonic realm make for an entertaining - if mildly depressing - experience.

2. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

We could literally shove any of the numerous Castlevania titles that have appeared since 1986 but Lords of Shadow makes the list for two very good reasons.

The first is that it is an excellent 3D reboot of the series which had been up to this point (2010) a 2D platform exploration game. It follows the cursed Belmont clan as they head towards a future of vampirism and everlasting torment and combines the classic blend of platforming and action the series was known for with a wider and more detailed 3D view of the action courtesy of the power of the PS3 and Xbox 360. It was beautiful and exceptionally dark and is one of the finest Gothic games created in recent years.

The second reason for including this game is that it is narrated by the ever-awesome Sir Patrick Stewart and the lead character Gabriel Belmont is voiced by Robert Carlyle whose performances add to the dark and foreboding atmosphere that makes the game so compelling.

1. Bloodborne

From Software do relentlessly miserable extremely well. They have raised it to an artform having homed their skills on the ‘Souls’ series of games. Bloodborne follows on in the spirit of the Souls games by being fiendishly hard and irrepressable dark and overbearing. This time though it is set in a grim Gothic, Victorian-style city of Yharnam which is striken by a disease turning its inhabitants into unspeakable beasts. You assume the role of the Hunter and are tasked with hunting done the Pure Blood in order to cure Yharnam and wake it up from its horrific nightmare.

If possible it’s even darker and even more oppressive than the Dark Souls games helped by the fact that the game takes place exclusively at night. Moonlight and torchlight are your only friend as you shoot and slash your way through a succession of ever-more brutal enemies. It’s deeply atmospheric and hideously punishing making the game instantly appealing to the more masochistic of gamers.

That’s our countdown of what we believe to be the finest Gothic games of all time. You can debate the ins and outs of the list and give us suggestions that we may have overlooked in the comments section below.

Microsoft has assembled a pretty metal line-up of titles for June to celebrate Games With Gold’s third birthday.

For the uninitiated, Games With Gold is the reward programme for Xbox owners, which gives Gold subscribers free games every month.

Over the course of June Xbox One gamers will get their hands on the deeply odd (and kinda metal) Goat Simulator between June the 1st and June the 30th and Ubisoft’s massively-multiplayer online racing game The Crew between June the 16th and July the 15th.

It gets more metal for Xbox 360 gamers, who will be able to bolster their collections with the cute-yet-entirely-gruesome indie platformer Super Meat Boy between June the 1st and June the 15th and the atmospheric hard-as-nails strategy title XCOM: Enemy Unknown between June the 16th and June the 30th.

Both XCOM and Super Meat Boy are supported by Xbox One Backwards Compatibility programme meaning that Xbox One owners will be able to play all four games without needing to dust off their old Xbox 360s.

The rumour mill has gone into overdrive in the run-up to the huge E3 games expo, which takes place in LA in June. A supposed leak has given some new details on the upcoming sequel to the blockbuster mech battler Titanfall.

According to a Reddit post, picked up by games site Polygon, Titanfall 2 players will have a grappling hook tool at their disposal, to aid their free-running and to get into their Titans more quickly.

The original post has been deleted but to add a bit of legitimacy to the rumours, the user also posted a piece of artwork that they claim will feature on the Titanfall website after the game’s big unveiling at E3 on June the 12th.

All of this is unconfirmed at the minute but what we do know is that Titanfall 2 is destined for release in the last calendar quarter of this year, along with the newly announced Battlefield 1. It is believed the sequel will include a single-player campaign, something missing from the original. The game should hit all of the current games systems with PlayStation4, Xbox One and PC versions expected.

Xbox One gamers can finally get their hands on the critically acclaimed skateboarding title OlliOlli 2.

Roll7’s OlliOlli 2 was previously only available on the PS4 and PS Vita but now, timed exclusivity has ended and the studio has released it for Xbox One with a few extras in the form of OlliOlli 2: XL Edition.

The XL Edition includes five new worlds, 50 new Amateur and Pro levels and 250 new Challenges. It also includes the new Combo-Rush local multi-player mode for two to four players. It features 100 different levels for players to go head-to-head across in a bid to top the leaderboards. The final addition is a new Free-Skate mode for folks to chill out and practice before attempting the game’s more fiendish levels.

OlliOlli 2: XL Edition is available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox One now priced at €9.99/$12.99(US)/£12.99.

The Doom series is very much like the Guns ‘N’ Roses of the video game world. When it first arrived it was ballsy, fast-paced and brutal beyond comparison. It defined much of what we see today in the games world.

Then it lost its way for a while and eventually disappeared off the map completely. The latest game is almost like the Chinese Democracy of the series. Announced way back in 2008 as Doom 4 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 it was to be a return to glory for the Doom franchise. It rapidly descended into development hell as id Software, the series’ creators went through numerous trials such as the overdue release of Rage, their previous title, a buyout by Elder Scrolls makers Bethesda and the loss of the final founding member John Carmack to VR start-up Oculus Rift.

During those eight years of development hell the game was taken back to square one at least once and so, it could easily have been as bad as Guns ‘N’ Roses’ awful Chinese Democracy album. Thankfully it is very much not.

What we get instead is a return of Doom’s glory days with a focus on the very things that made the original games so special in the first place. There’s a few modern touches to make the newest generation of gamers feel more at home too, as well as all of the visual bells and whistles that come with the latest generation of console gaming hardware.

Call of Duty’s dominance in the first-person shooter world has drastically changed the way FPS games are played. Gone is the focus on the break-neck pace of run-and-gun gameplay to make way for a more ponderous flow increasingly using cover mechanics to bring a more authentic feel to the gunplay.

Doom 2016 throws all of that nonsense out the window and folks who’ve been weaned on the likes of COD and Battlefield may be in for a nasty surprise. Indeed it took a small amount of adjustment for me as I began playing to get my head around Doom’s gameplay mechanic.

It has been designed as a brutally paced shooter and it actively punishes players who like to hide behind cover and take their time planning their path through a level. Gone is the iron-sight aiming option with only option being to shoot from the hip. Instead the left-trigger, traditionally used for finer aiming, now enables a weapon’s secondary fire modes which can be unlocked with upgrade modules hidden throughout Doom’s very intricately-designed levels.
The enemy AI too is designed to discourage the use of cover for anything more than a split second. Enemies will swarm you; they’ll jump or teleport around behind you and generally do anything they can to surround you forcing you to keep moving at all times.

There’s one final mechanic to encourage players to pick up the pace and that is the Glory Kill. Do enough damage to an enemy – and I mean any enemy – and they will start to glow either blue or gold. When they glow (blue means the enemy is staggered but out of range of the Glory Kill while gold means they are close enough to execute) it means that they have been briefly stunned and players can use an execution move on them by pushing down the R3 button.

This unleashes a wide variety of extremely gory, context-based finishing moves from ripping hearts out to beating them to death with their own arm to crushing their skulls under your boot if you attack from above. It’s exceedingly satisfying and has the added benefit of causing the deceased enemies to drop additional health and ammo pick-ups helping to keep you in the fight.

Levels have a nice bit of variety too. The game is set on Mars (where else?) in a science factility where the research has led to an accident that has torn a hole in the fabric of the universe allowing Hell’s minions to pour in and corrupt our reality in a graphically macabre fashion. This means one minute you’ll be crushing demonic skulls in tight corridors and the next you’ll be fighting cybernetically enhanced beasts on the surface of Mars itself.

Pacing is almost perfect. Doom 3 was guilty of re-using the same set-piece over and over again to keep the game moving – enter a room; lights go out; monsters appear; lather, rinse, repeat. Boring. Doom 2016 just keeps it simple giving you short periods of exploration (finding hidden secrets are a necessary evil for tooling yourself up for the fights ahead) as a breather in breathless between set-piece battles that usually involve large and variety hordes of enemies.

There are some nifty simple levelling-up mechanics that allow you to keep one step ahead of Hell’s minions. One is the weapon upgrades system. Each weapon has two choices of mods that can further be upgraded to add extra combat flexibility and these are available from droids hidden around Mars. The shotgun, for instance, offer the option of a burst-fire mode and explosive rounds. These can be switched between in-game using the up button on the d-pad allowing you to freestyle your way through combat.

Both modules can be upgraded adding extra bonuses like faster recharge times and more damage. The final tier of upgrade is opened up by completing a challenge usually involving killing so many enemies using the module.
Every level also includes challenges to complete that vary from finding all of the secrets to killing a certain amount of enemies in a certain way. These unlock extra weapon upgrade points which are used to open up the additional features of each weapon mod.

A lot of thought has been put into how the single-player mode of Doom is played with all of the elements tied neatly together to cleverly and simply reward players better for going all out and getting the most out of each level and every encounter. There are also Rune Challenges hidden throughout the game which unlock special passive enhancements to the player like increasing the radius at which your player absorbs the items dropped by an enemy after a glory kill.
What’s more the whole thing is wrapped up with a crushingly heavy industrial metal soundtrack that complements the frantic action almost perfectly every time.

While the single-player is fresh, exciting and deeply-involving, Doom’s multi-player provides a bit of a disappointing contrast. It retains the pace of the single-player but it feels very rough around the edges. The visuals are toned-down enough that you notice a bit more jagginess and jerkiness of movement during play. It also lacks the imagination and inventiveness that brings the single-player to life. It’s just a selection of the same old multi-player modes like team deathmatch and capture the flag boosted by a load of blandly customizable player models and loadouts.

Overall Doom is a stunning achievement. It took id Software long enough mind you. The simplicity and depth of the single-player is staggeringly fresh for a series that is pushing 23 years old. Where it is let down is the stale and rough feeling of the multi-player. It’s disappointing given that Doom was the series that gave us deathmatch mode multi-player in the first place. It’s not bad, it’s just not enough especially when contrasted such an impressive single-player mode. Doom is still well worth the money though for the pure blood-soaked joy of the single-player. It’s definitely more Appetite For Destruction than Chinese Democracy.

Score: ⁸⁄₁₀

Warner Bros has announced that it is bringing Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City to PS4 and Xbox One in full HD glory.

Both games have been lovingly upgraded from the Unreal Engine 3 to the Unreal Engine 4, the technology behind the stunning visuals in Batman: Arkham Knight so that PS4 and Xbox One gamers can experience both classic games in more breath-talking detail than ever before.

Batman: Arkham Asylum launched back in 2009 and proved rapidly that it was possible to make a decent superhero video game scoring a modest 92 percent on Metacritic.

The 2011 follow-up title, Arkham City, broke more conventions by being a better game than Arkham Asylum, proven by its 96 percent score on Metacritic.

Both games will be released on PS4 and Xbox One in a bundle dubbed Batman: Return To Arkham, which includes all of the downloadable content ever released for both games, on July the 29th.

It looks like the Steam Summer Sale is scheduled to happen at the end of next month if the latest leak is to be believed.

A Reddit user by the name of MrFreemanBBQ has posted a screen grab that he claims to be from a confidential Valve email containing the start and end dates for the 2016 Steam Summer Sale. The image features an email predominately in English but the month names are bizarrely written in Russian Cyrillic script for some reason.

If the leak is genuine the Steam Summer Sale will run from the 24th of June until the 4th of July and will probably have some kind of Independence Day theme.

MrFreemanBBQ has a decent track record for being correct on leaks of this nature and the Steam Summer Sale last year ran over a similar period last year so it’s probably fairly certain that the leak is true.

If you’re not familiar with the Steam Summer Sale, it’s when the world’s largest PC games store (125M active users and counting) offers games at such ridiculous prices that otherwise rational people buy huge quantities of games they’ll never get around to playing - and are grateful for the opportunity.

Ah, heavy metal and video games. A slacker’s paradise; at least according to the moral majority. There’s not much else to do whilst we all sit about fulfilling our roles as jobless, pot smoking stereotypes is there? Don’t know about you, but when we’re not cruising in our clapped-out car, headbanging in unison with our mates to Bohemian Rhapsody, we’re sat about in our pants jamming crushing riffs, repeatedly killing things with the mindless mashing of buttons, desensitising our already volume addled brains.

Here then, without further irony, are Hammer’s top ten most metal video games of all time!

10. Iron Maiden: Ed Hunter

Word has it that Iron Maiden are pretty metal. With their iconic talisman Eddie, the band were the first to adopt an identifiable mascot, indelibly impacting the visual culture of heavy metal forever more. Not content with constantly referencing past literary works, the Irons took steps forward into the brave new world of digital storytelling, releasing on-rails shooter Ed Hunter in 1999, in which the player hunted the erstwhile Eddie through landscapes inspired by the band’s classic album covers, and to the galloping tune of their greatest hits. The game wasn’t great, but don’t let Eddie hear you say that.

9. Beavis & Butthead

Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge didn’t realise he was predicting the future when he placed his twisted progeny in front of the TV to pick holes in everyone from Pantera to Faith No More. The original trolls, their successors have taken to the internet in droves. In this adventure released on the Mega Drive and SNES, our beloved morons set out to recover lost GWAR tickets, a tragedy with which all fans of alien penis monsters can identify. Reviews at the time stated that the game ‘doesn’t suck, but doesn’t rule either’; precisely the kind of apathy the boys relish.

8. Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child

Licky tongued lothario Gene Simmons has not only defined theatrical rock ‘n’ roll with Kiss, he redefined capitalism, such is the shameless amount of merchandise available. You can gulp Kiss wine from your Kiss flagon, whilst sat in your Kiss coffin, protected by a Kiss condom whilst playing mediocre shooter Psycho Circus, in which a Kiss tribute band, imbued with Kiss’s powers (after paying a hefty franchising fee no doubt) set about slaying the demonic hordes of the Nightmare Child. If fatally wounded, players didn’t lose lives in the game, but were instead sued in court for image defamation… probably.

7. Halo

Redefining shooters upon its release as the Xbox’s flagship title in 2001, Halo’s mix of punchy storytelling, intuitive combat and an enigmatic hero inspired a generation. Its sequel was a watershed moment in online gaming, as people took to a then fledgling Xbox live in their droves. For the first time coming together in a gleefully violent death orgy was easy, entertaining bored bands in tour buses the world over. Halo 2’s soundtrack featured lord of the frets Steve Vai, and later, for its remastered edition on Xbox one, new music written by Halo obsessive, Periphery’s Djent maestro Misha Mansoor.

6. Doom

In 1993 id Software ruined everybody’s trousers with the release of Doom, a genuinely scary, ground-breaking first person shooter that updated the trail they had already blazed with Nazi-masher Wolfenstein 3D. Doom defined the FPS genre, and its hallmarks can still be seen in shooters today. Earning its metal credentials for its Satanic overtones, the player – a space marine tasked with closing portals to hell that have opened on Mars’ moons – is somewhat of an antihero in Hammer’s eyes, what with all of the gratuitous slaying of eternal metal ally Satan’s mates he dishes out within the game’s nightmarish techno-maze.

5. Quake

Id Software smashed it again when they released Quake in 1996. An updated version of Doom, Quake had graphics that for the first time rendered real time 3D environments; blocky, polygonal realms of violent suffering that were eye-poppingly impressive. Players explored nightmarish gothic environs whilst perforating Lovecraftian monsters with a (nine inch) nail gun (the ammo crate for which had a very familiar logo on the side), the soundtrack was composed entirely by none other than arch-goth Trent Reznor, a forerunner perhaps for the soundtrack work to follow later in his career; for which we’ve heard he has been moderately successful.

4. Fallout

Fallout is a post-apocalyptic RPG that attained success in the nineties with two top-down, open world adventures. Years later the title was resurrected by Bethesda softworks, master craftsmen of the epic Elder Scrolls, bringing a vivid reimagining to legions of new fans. Latest instalment Fallout 4 gives players miles of radioactive wasteland to explore in whatever manner they like, as long as they like hunting mutated abominations with an expansive personal arsenal. With a lethal dose of cold war paranoia and a powerful anti-war message at heart, it’s pretty much like playing an interactive version of Megadeth’s Rust In Peace.

3. Tony Hawks Pro Skater

Metal and skateboarding have always been best mates, perfectly complementary pastimes with a shared love of grotesque artwork. When Tony Hawks came out on the PlayStation in 1999 it was utterly gobsmacking that it, and its sequels, came with a killer soundtrack, featuring cuts from Anthrax, Rage Against The Machine, Motörhead and Suicidal Tendencies, among many others. Before then, games soundtracks could have been fairly considered bleepy nonsense; now here you were grinding 30 foot rails to the Dead Kennedys without having to actually go outside and try and get good at something at the expense of your pathetic carcass.

2. Guitar Hero

For those of us for whom shredding a tennis racket in the bedroom to Slayer wasn’t enough, 2005 brought us Guitar Hero, which gave the player a sophisticated tennis racket substitute with little coloured buttons to frantically stab at whilst trying (and often failing in a spittle-flecked rage) to keep in time with the over-zealous fret athletics of Dragonforce. Several sequels later, Guitar Hero Metallica, on which, *chortle*, its reported that the drum tracks were really easy to play, metalheads finally got to thrash along to all the ‘tallica tunes they’d always hoped for. Oh, and a couple off Reload.

1. Brütal Legend

From the creative mind of adventure game guru Tim Schaeffer came Brütal Legend, in which the player controls erstwhile hero Eddie Riggs, Jack Black in customarily scene-chewing, rawk-god guise, as he set out about saving a fantasy realm rendered straight from all your favourite ‘80s album covers, cleaving demonic hordes asunder with his flying V guitar/axe, lovingly called ‘the Separator’. The game’s cast of voice actors was legendary, featuring Lemmy (RIP), Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and Lita Ford. Also, it has a freakin’ umlaut in the title. Apart from that there isn’t much metal about it at all.

Holidays are coming and we’ve had a bit to drink, so in our Baileys haze we’re giving away some Xmas treats on Metal Hammer: Roadkill!

As the mercury is dropping and the threat of snow looms in the air, Roadkill players are now able to download and play the game’s fourth world a chilly winter wonderland – Rockjavik – for no money whatsoever.

The level also comes with two new tracks: Triumph Of Death by Vader and Rise Of Darkness by Immortal!

And if you still haven’t had your fill of heavy fuckin’ metal, there are two new songs available in the Roadkill store! There’s Inherit The Crown by Suicide Silence and The Essence Of Silence by Epica.

Speaking about Roadkill, Brian Baglow, the executive producer of Team Rock Games, said, “The response has been amazing. Metal fans worldwide have been killing creeps, destroying demons and fighting the forces of Hell for a couple of months now and the feedback and the love has been fantastic. As a thank you, we wanted to give our players worldwide the perfect Christmas gift of MORE METAL.”

Metal Hammer: Roadkill is out now for iOS and Android devices. The Rockjavik level is FREE until the beginning of January 2016.