XCom, Syndicate and Counter-Strike are some of the most hallowed game names in PC gaming, and the kind of games that older 360 gamers who once dabbled in PC gaming hold near and dear to their hearts. We’ve always wanted to see them come back, and this year we’re getting a bumper crop of quality reboots – which we’re excited about.

That said, isn’t uncommon to hear gamers complain about the culture of reboots in gaming, claiming it shows a lack of creativity, and that like Hollywood the industry is running out of ideas. But it’s hard to agree with that argument given the general iterative nature of gaming – ideas’ are repeated and polished in various forms as a matter of course – and the decent quality of some recent high profile former PC only reboots we’ve had, like Deus EX: Human which shows that reboots can be done with great creativity.

There are a slew of reboots coming from various sources in 2012, including the Tomb Raider reboot, with it’s far grittier survival horror take on Ms Crofts adventures, and Ninja Theory’s alternate universe take on Devil May Cry with an all new Dante that sent fans into such an uproar, but to our minds it’s the recasting of classic PC games like Syndicate, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and X-Com on 360 that show the most promise.

Syndicate (Starbreeze Studios)

The original Syndicate was an excellent top down RTS which put you in control of a futuristic team of augmented corporate assassin’s and came to us in 1993 courtesy of a team at Bullfrog under the one and only Peter Molyneux. Syndicate is being re-interpreted as an FPS in which you play a single cyborg corporate killer by Starbreeze Studios, but it looks like the developer is making up for the loss of your team, and the originals tactical element, by giving you some interesting abilities. Your agent will have a DART chip in his head that’ll allow him to slow down time in tactical view, mark targets, use mind control on other people with chips that can make them turn on their fellows or commit suicide. You can even manipulate mechanical parts of the futuristic environment, creating cover for yourself or removing it for enemies. It’s fast paced, bloody and gruesome – you upgrade by ripping chips out of enemy heads – and it’s four player co-op mode promises to really capture the spirit of the original as your squad takes on enemy agents online.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve)

Counter-Strike was an online military shooter hit back in 1999, years before COD was even a glint in it’s creators eyes, and playing it it’s easy to see why. Playing Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists, trying to hold hostages or plant bombs or free them and defuse the bombs, and armed with realistic weapons that were affected by physics, Counter-Strike was a fun addictive experience for millions of gamers world wide. Valve is taking the right approach with it’s classic multiplayer only shooter on 360, releasing it as an updated XBLA title. From what we’ve seen you’re going to get the same classic gameplay over XBLA, only with vastly updated graphics, a better interface and a smattering of new maps and a new gameplay mode called Arsenal. Counter-Strike is a near perfect multiplayer shooter, so the opportunity to play it with our mates over Live is an exciting prospect.

X-Com  (2K)

The original X-Com: Enemy Unknown is a much beloved turns based and resource management strategy game in which you controlled squads of agents working for an alien busting US Agency in the future, and 2K is creating two very different reboots based on it. The first is an FPS simply entitled ‘XCOM’ which is set in a Norman Rockwell inspired 1960’s and casts you as head of an anti-alien FBI style agency. It’s an FPS with deep squad controls as you and two other agents take to the field battling against all manner of weird and frightening nano-tech aliens.

XCom: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis)

The second reboot X-Com: Enemy Unknown is a turns- based strategy game in the vein of the original from the team behind Civilisation, Firaxis now coming in 2013. From what we’ve seen the Sid Meier led developer is keeping what made the original great, with tension filled strategy play in which only smarts will keep your squad alive, to deep resource management as you research weapons based on alien tech. It sounds like Firaxis is really polishing X-Com: Enemy Unknown’s core concept as well as updating and simplifying its control to work on 360. It’s hard not to get excited about this double dose of reboot goodness- there’s potentially something here for everyone.

After months of speculation fuelled by job posting rumours, tests done by Blizzard on various ways to control the game and the burning desire of console dungeon crawler fans, it’s finally been confirmed that Diablo III is definitely coming to console. We’ve talked about how this was likely before, particularly once we discovered that Blizzard was testing Diablo III on joypads, but it was made official by Blizzard Community Manager Micah “Bashiok” Whipple via Twitter this week.

“Yup,” Whipple said answering a fan who asked it was coming to console. “Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo console project.” Whipple didn’t specify which consoles Diablo III was coming to, but we’ll eat our collective hats if it doesn’t appear on 360. This is some of the best news we’ve heard in ages, because it means that 360 gamers will get to enjoy one of the biggest games of 2012 –  and one that was previously going to be a PC exclusive to boot. There are so many great reasons to be excited that Diablo III is coming to 360, but here are our Top Five.

5. It’s a Blizzard Game!

Blizzard is easily one of the most successful developers in video games, and with good reason. The amount of craft and polish that goes into their games, which include World of Warcraft and StarCraft II, is incredible, but it’s the reason why they are so beloved – and successful. The Irvine based developer has generally worked on PC and never really shown what it can do on a current generation console- the old PS2 ports of Diablo and Diablo II really showed the limitations of that console compared to PC’s at the time. Diablo III, with its high action slant, is the perfect console fit for them and this time out the 360 has enough power for Blizzard to craft an experience that reflects its PC offering.

4. It’s full of dungeon crawler fun

The Diablo series is famous for its fast pace dungeon crawling action as tons of enemies pour out at you from every direction as you hack and slash, bow or magically blast your way through them in wonderfully randomised dungeons. Having played the PC Beta we know that’s also true of Diablo III –at it’s best it’s sheer pandemonium, but your abilities and skills require real management, making combat the most satisfying of any dungeon crawler we’ve ever played. Loot is the lifeblood on any good dungeon crawler, and well as having monsters constantly dropping ever better weapons, armour, potions and special trinkets, Diablo III will let players, through special NPC followers, craft more powerful versions of the gear they pick up. Both this, and the fact that you can have some followers come with you on adventures and level up to become better as they do, promises to add a whole new dimension to the genre.

3. It has a strong variety of character classes

While every ‘crawler fan can enjoy Diablo III’s combat and exploration, we all like to play dungeon crawlers in our own way, and Diablo III promises to cater to that with five very specialised classes. The Barbarian is a melee- oriented class with great health and physical power that will appeal to those who like to charge in headlong. The Demon Hunter is a ranged attack class that uses bows, crossbows and traps to tackle enemies. The Monk is a martial arts based melee fighter that relies upon speed, The Witch Doctor is a natural magic spell-caster who also uses Summoned Creatures and Necromancy and The Wizard is a pure spell caster who utilises elemental and blast magic to tear foes apart. All the classes have their own resource system that fuels special attacks and powers, and a unique skill tree to develop as you level up. There’s something for everyone here, and options to explore other classes to find out what else you might like.

2. It controls amazingly on joypad

One of the biggest worries we had about Diablo III coming to 360 was whether its controls, originally designed for mouse and keyboard, would translate to a joypad. Those fears turned out to be unfounded as Blizzard did extensive tests with ‘direct control’, as it described the joypad, and found that it more than worked. Talking about how the team successfully implemented joypads in the game last year, Diablo III game director Jay Wilson said, “ With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I’ve been ‘Oh this feels even better, with direct control…’” With comments like that, we’re looking forward to playing Diablo III on console more than ever.

1. It promises epic multiplayer madness on Xbox Live

Imagine all of the crazy dungeon crawler fun and adventure we’ve described, and then envision enjoying that with up to three friends over Xbox Live. There might be more, but at this point four players seems most likely on 360. Diablo III has been very much designed as a multiplayer co-operative game on the campaign side, with quests that throw enough varieties of enemies at you to require real co-operation and allow players using different classes of characters to shine. You’ll need to work as a team to take on some of the amazing and monstrous bosses the game looks like it’ll throw at you, and that’s an exciting prospect. But it won’t just be limited to co-op fun, as Dialbo III will also have Player Vs Player areas, where you can take you character – armed with all the goodies he’s gathered in single player and co-op – and pit him in combat against other players.

All in all it looks like Blizzard is tailoring Diablo III to be both the best single player and co-op dungeon crawler it’s ever created, which is no mean feat. It promises to be an experience 360 gamers can really start to get excited about, and hopefully we won’t have to wait for long after its PC release this Febuary to  get our hands on a 360 version.

So, did we finally get any news on the Xbox 720 at Microsoft’s 2012 CES keynote? Nope. Despite rumours suggesting that there were would be at least some mention of the next-gen hardware Microsoft kept schtum, instead supplying us with info about the Metro interface, Windows 8, and Kinect uses beyond gaming. Oh, and the above remix of Microsoft’s 15 year CES history. Which is…nice. We guess.

What did we learn then? We learnt that the Windows Phone still exists, and that it hasn’t completely disappeared in the face of Apple and Android. There are currently over 50,000 applications in the Windows Phone marketplace, with more than 300 being added every day. Nice! There were some slim and sexy Windows 7 laptops shown off too, with Microsoft head Steve Ballmer telling attendees that Microsoft 7 is the best-selling OS in the world, with over 500 million users and seven new users every second.

We were also shown a glimpse of Windows 8, being told that it is apparently “a new way of thinking about your PC”, and is “designed to work with touch…but also with a mouse and keyboard.” Microsoft promised a “no compromise experience” which “brings together the potential of a tablet with the power of a PC”.

Clearly Microsoft has been watching Apple intently. The new ‘Metro’ interface – the unified user interface system that was recently rolled out on Xbox Live and is used on Windows Phones – was  a huge point of focus, with Ballmer calling it the “heart and soul” of the presentation. Microsoft stated that Windows 8 ‘Metro-style’ tablets are still a little further away, but did showcase some prototype tablets including one created by Samsung.

Microsoft also highlighted the Windows Store, which will open in late February alongside the next beta of Windows 8, and will include many apps such as Cut The Rope that will be available in 200 countries around the world.

But enough of the boring stuff. What about Xbox? What juicy scraps of information did we get from the big wigs? Not a great deal unfortunately.

Ballmer kicked off with a look back at Xbox’s history, which includes 66 million users, 40 million Xbox Live subscribers and 18 million Kinects shipped, before he went on to discuss Xbox’s “future of entertainment”. The focus was on Xbox as an entertainment hub rather than as a games machine, with Ballmer saying Xbox was “still [about] games…but [it's] morphing, changing,” and that Kinect will be “a big part of this.” Kinect voice control for search engine Bing was highlighted, as well as a News Corporation app partnership that includes Fox, Fox News, IGN, and Wall Street Journal apps (although we assume these will likely be US-exclusive).

Microsoft did announce some genuinely new upcoming tech in the form of ‘two-way TV’, which will allow users to interact with their favourite television shows. The flagship program is Kinect Sesame Street TV, which will allow children to directly interact with and impact upon the events of episodes of Sesame Street. One example showed Grover spilling a box of coconuts, with the player then able to refill it for him using gestures.

It was also announced that Kinect is to arrive on Windows on February 1, with a video showing the technology being used to defuse bombs, teach cello and assist in physical therapy. Apparently more than 200 companies are working on applications, including Toyota, Mattel, American Express.

Kinect and Windows felt like two of the biggest pushes for Microsoft in 2012, but both were overshadowed by the all encompassing Metro. Ballmer repeatedly highlighted the OS’s placement on PC, mobiles, tablets, Kinect and Xbox 360, which is clearly an attempt by MIcrosoft to catch up in areas such as tablets and cellphones were its own OS has slipped behind the curve. “Metro will drive the new magic across all our user experiences,” he said. “In the new math at Microsoft, Metro means that one plus one really does equal three,” (no it doesn’t, Steve).

“So what’s next in 2012? Metro, Metro, Metro, and of course, Windows, Windows, Windows,” Ballmer concluded. Come on, Microsoft. We’d rather have heard more about Xbox, Xbox, Xbox.

Your MW3 Callsign is the means by which you tell other players what kind of MW3 player you are and how good you are, and the Title is the most prominent, most important part of your Callsign. But which Titles are the coolest?

Many Titles just tell other players that you play Modern Warfare 3 a lot, while others tell them that you’re prepared to spend time doing some dumb, pointless stuff just to unlock a stupid little picture on your profile. These aren’t the Titles you want.

You want the ones that can’t be obtained without doing something cool. They aren’t necessarily the hardest, and they don’t necessarily have the best names or pictures, but they are the coolest…

10.
Surgical

The hardest Title to get in Modern Warfare 2 was Dictator, which required you to empty an entire clip from an LMG without missing. It was so hard that Infinity Ward elected not to bring it back again in MW3, so the closest thing you’ve got to it now is Surgical, which requires doing the same thing but with an assault rifle. It’s still tough, but it’s doable, especially if you use the MK14, which is accurate, powerful and has only 20 bullets per magazine.

9.
All Pro

One bullet, two headshots. That’s blatantly cool, even if it’s really more a question of luck than of skill. You’d be hard pushed to do it with anything other than a sniper rifle.

8.
Wargasm

Obviously, you can make this one easier for yourself by choosing Killstreak rewards that come from three, four and five kills but still, even getting three kills in ten seconds isn’t exactly easy. And it’s not just about the skill required, it’s about the feeling you get from invoking all your special powers in one fell swoop.

7.
Hard Target

We can’t remember if there is a scene in Hard Target in which Jean-Claude Van Damme (sporting one of the finest mullets of all time) actually shoots two people dead while in mid-air, and we weren’t allowed to watch it all the way through during work time in order to check. But we’re pretty sure it’s the kind of thing JCVD would do and therefore we’re pretty sure this Title is named after that movie. And it’s a cool movie (because of, and not despite, the mullet).

6.
The Mastadon

There is no single, objective measure of pure skill in Call Of Duty, but Kill/Death Ratio is about as close to one as it’s got. And while just managing it once isn’t that big of a deal, you still have to be at least half-decent and be on top form to get 5:1 in a match.

5.
Omnicide

If your opponents’ team is dumb enough then this needn’t be that hard to get, but it’s still really cool just because of the idea of it. What better way is there to impress your total dominance upon the enemy than by wiping all of them out in just a few seconds?

4.
Friends With Benefits

Not that hard if you have a friend willing to cooperate with you, but it ranks highly in the cool stakes because it’s a funny, and sometimes devastating, way to attack. It should be the ally with the semtex stuck to him that gets the Title though – he’s the one running up to enemies and exploding, and that’s what’s cool.

3.
Invincible

Get hurt, but not killed, by enemies five times in a row without dying. That is undoubtedly an action hero thing to do, and pretty tough to pull off in Call Of Duty too. Were this Halo or something else where you get shields then it’d be simple, but it generally only takes a few hits to get a kill in Call Of Duty so it’s rare to get hit and survive to the point of full recovery.

2.
Droppin’ Crates

I’ve never killed an enemy with a crate in any Call Of Duty game, but I have killed myself in this way many times. That doesn’t count though, so this is a very hard Title to get. You’re basically depending on an enemy being stupid enough to stand on or very near your package’s marker flare, or else just being very, very unlucky. If and when it happens though, you know it’ll be a moment you’ll treasure forever.

1.
…The Harder They Fall

Not to be confused with the Modern Warfare 2 Achievement of the same name, this Title is earned for killing the top player 5 times in a row and isn’t necessarily that hard if you happen to be playing against a bunch of opponents who all suck. But this is still the coolest Title because it sums up what Call Of Duty multiplayer is all about – owning other gamers. And the more confident and skilled the player you’re owning, the greater the sense of ownage.

FIFA 12? Farmville? Starcraft II? Gears Of War 3? Batman: Arkham City?

Nope, not one of these big-name games is among the titles most searched for on Google through 2011. The actual top 10, which is probably very different to what you’d expect, is as follows…

10 – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Search traffic for Modern Warfare 3 was high from the moment it was announced, but in the weeks leading up to release it climbed even higher, spiking massively on launch day as players frantically sought out information that might give them the edge on MW3’s phenomenally popular multiplayer modes.

9 – Pac-Man

Browser versions of arcade classics are increasingly popular with gamers looking for a quick, free gaming fix on their PC and one of the most popular is Pac-Man. This is partly thanks to the awesome Pac-Man Google logo version posted on the site’s front page in May 2010, marking the game’s 30th anniversary.

8 – Battlefield 3

It may not have outsold its rival, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, but Battlefield 3 did manage to out-Google it. This seems to be mostly because Battlefield 3 spiked twice – first during the beta at the end of September, then again on the full game’s release a month later.

7 – Tetris

Some would argue that Tetris is categorically the best game ever, and there’s certainly a case for it. No other game condenses the fundamental principles of game design down to such a simple and effective formula and Tetris’ enduring popularity is testament to this. The popularity of numerous free online versions continues unabated.

6 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Since its release in November, Skyrim has been by far the most searched for game in the world, beating any other game on this list for the last month. This isn’t just down to the popularity of the game, but to its nature. There’s just so much of it to find out about and players’ appetites for Skyrim knowledge show know signs of being satisfied any time soon.

5 – The Sims 3

The Sims franchise is a law unto itself. It just doesn’t follow the same patterns and trends other games are bound by. So two years after its release, The Sims 3 is still massively popular and EA just keeps stoking the fires with regular spin-offs and expansions.

4 – Call Of Duty: Black Ops

It might have slowly declined as the year went on, but Black Ops’ search traffic was still massive throughout 2011 as a whole. Just as with Modern Warfare 3, the traffic is largely down to people searching for information on multiplayer, plus there were noticeable spikes each time a DLC pack was released.

3 – Angry Birds

As if it wasn’t terrifying enough that Angry Birds has been downloaded over 500 million times in just two years, its search traffic is still growing. There are no clear patterns or obvious spikes, it’s simply that the general populace is getting increasingly addicted to launching wingless birds at legless pigs and just cannot get enough.

2 – Minecraft

Minecraft is unstoppable. If this list were dedicated to just the second half of 2011, it would be at #1, and by quite a long way too. Not only is it hugely popular, with 16 million registered users at present, it’s intriguing and mysterious and epitomises the idea of gaming as a widely shared experience, so people are constantly looking for what other players are doing and what’s coming next for the constantly evolving gaming phenomenon.

1 – World Of Warcraft

If Google traffic is anything to go by then World Of Warcraft’s popularity has been in steady decline for about two years now, which makes it even more mind-boggling that it’s still the most searched for game of 2011. It’ll be interesting to see if it remains the top dog over 2012. Right now that looks unlikely, but only a fool would underestimate Blizzard…

I don’t understand cheating in games. Mostly it just seems to instantly undo the months of effort developers have put into balancing the challenge and reward of their games. However, some cheats are just funny, and that’s when I can get on board.

So here are five funny cheat videos that made me laugh…

Mortal Kombat

Something about this just cracks me up. I love it when they fruitlessly waggle their stumps at each other like they don’t even realise they have no arms. It’s side-splitting stuff (kinda literally).

Saints Row: The Third

Saints Row: The Third is funny enough without cheats but Heaven Bound mode deserves special mention for being so simple, so unique and so bizarre. There’s an almost serene quality to the way the float up into the sky.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

GTA V had better bring back this kind of silliness back to the world of Grand Theft Auto, that’s all I can say. Goofing around is what sandbox games are supposed to be about. Beware: video contains swearing.

Skate 3

So many games have zombie modes these days, but Skate 3’s manages to distinguish itself as funnier than the rest because it doesn’t contain any excessive, brain-spattering violence. It’s just skating with zombies, which is funny in itself.

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow

We’d like to think that when Hideo Kojima was brought in to supervise Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow he improved the overall production values of the game. But he probably spent all his time making Mercury Steam put Metal Gear references in…

Call Of Duty multiplayer has always been more about Free-for-all than anything else for me. Not sure why, I just seem to have skills and temperament better suited to it and, while I’m not incapable of earning an MvP award now and again in team games, I’m much more comfortable in Free-for-all.

Modern Warfare 3 is a very different game in Free-for-all, and I’ve had a bit of difficulty adjusting to playing team modes when my friends drop me an invite, so I figure there must be some MW3 players out there who’re having similar difficulties making the transition from team to Free-for-all. That’s why I’ve assembled this quick and easy guide to MW3 Free-for-all. With these tips you’ll advance from prey to predator in no time.

How to customise your class for Free-for-all

Perks

While you don’t need to completely change your set-up for Free-for-all, there are many Perks and items popular in team games that aren’t very useful in Free-for-all and vice versa. The Assassin perk in slot 2 is very useful in Free-for-all because stealth is such an effective tactic, and in Slot 3 you’re spoiled for choice, with Marksman, Sitrep and Dead Silence all helping you to either detect enemies or else remain undetected by them.

Weapons

There’s no particular reason your choice of primary weapon should differ in Free-for-all, but you might want to consider a silencer to make yourself more stealthy. Encounters with more than one enemy at once are less frequent in Free-for-all, so area-of-effect weapons – i.e. explosives and automatics that are good for spraying groups – are a little less useful. Personally I use a Type 95 assault rifle with Kick and an ACOG scope because it’s good for taking down a single enemy in one efficient burst at any range.

Equipment

Equipment is generally less useful in Free-for-all because it’s mostly designed to affect groups of enemies or to help control territory, neither of which is much of a priority in Free-for-all. However, the Throwing Knife is well-suited if you’re skilled with it, and the other Lethal options all come in handy from time to time. I hardly ever use Non-Lethal equipment though; an occasional Flash Grenade to flush out a camper if I’ve already used my Semtex, and that’s it. If you want to camp then other Non-Lethals can be handy but camping tends not to be that effective in Free-for-all.

Strike Packages

I don’t recommend any Strike that requires a dropped package as, without the protection of team-mates, it’s very difficult to collect your own package safely. Of course, it’s very difficult for anyone else to collect it too, which does mean that a package can be used as bait, but unless you’re using an Airdrop Trap, you’re running the risk of gifting a powerful strike to an opponent. I love using the Air Drop Trap as a lure, but I eventually abandoned Support Strikes in favour of Assault Strikes. The streak resets in Assault allow me to get UAVs more frequently and UAVs are very useful in Free-for-all because it’s important to know where your enemies are and you have no team mates launching UAVs for you. Other than that I recommend Attack Helicopter and Strafe Run because they’re activated quickly and cover the whole map.

Deathstreaks

I’d recommend either Revenge or Hollow Points in Free-for-all because you either want to be able to track an enemy down or kill him more efficiently when you do.

How to play in Free-for-all

Anticipation

Where team games are more about reaction, Free-for-all is a game of anticipation. Reactions certainly still play a part, but ideally you should be ready to kill your enemy before you even see him. There are two main ways in which you can learn to do this well…

Shut up and listen

Being quiet in Free-for-all isn’t just about stealth, it’ll help you detect your enemies too. Free-for-alls are generally much quieter than team games, and you always know that any soldier you hear is a soldier you can kill, so take advantage of the quiet and listen. A set of headphones or surround sound system will help you so much in Free-for-all that some players consider it cheating, which it obviously isn’t. To listen as clearly and accurately as possible, move while crouched most of the time and stop frequently, just to listen for a few seconds. I’d even suggest keeping your distance from noisy scenery (burning cars, flapping tarpaulins etc.) and staying away from multi-level areas because sounds above or below you will sound like they’re on the same level. Also, be extra cautious when airborne strikes are around, even your own, as they’ll make it harder to hear enemies. Use your ears to determine where your enemies are, where they’re going and what they’re doing and you will be a better Free-for-all player. But you can’t take full advantage unless you…

Learn the maps

This is important in any mode, but especially in Free-for-all where it will help you to determine where enemies are as well as where and when they are likely to come into view. In particular you should learn what footstep sounds correspond to which floor surfaces and where exactly those surfaces are, and learn the popularly used routes through the level so that you know where an opponent you’re stalking is likely to go next. You also need to learn positions from which you get good visibility but are not, yourself, very visible so that you can…

Use stealth

This is the other reason to be quiet, of course. Most good Free-for-all players will be using the techniques I’ve outlined so far, so it’s worth doing what you can to make those techniques as ineffective as possible. In addition to choosing stealthy Perks and being as quiet as possible, there are other ways to be stealthy. The way you move about is key. Stay crouched whenever possible, running only if you’re pursuing an enemy or dashing between cover. Always be aware of where you can be seen from and stick close to shadows and cover at all times. Also be aware that every sound you make has a very high chance of drawing enemies to your position, so try not to make more noise than you have to. Kill enemies using short, precise bursts and after each kill take up a cover position nearby and look out for enemies that have heard gunfire and are now heading your way.

Kill-to-death ratio isn’t everything

Kill-to-death ratio is a better reflection of your skill in Free-for-all than it is in most other modes, but it’s still not everything because the best kill-to-death ratio often doesn’t win the match. This is why camping isn’t that effective in Free-for-alls. If you stay in one spot you just won’t see other players that often and opponents who take more risks and get themselves into the thick of the action will get more kills than you. The trick is to quickly figure out where the action is concentrated – this can vary a lot from match to match – and find a position where you can get a good view of it without being drawn into it yourself. And remember it’s always better to get 5 kills within a minute then die than to get 10 kills without dying in 5 minutes.

Think like a predator

There’s a reason that the Callsign titles associated with Free-for-all in Modern Warfare 2 and 3 are illustrated by a shark and a wolf, two of nature’s greatest predators. That’s the way you have to play Free-for-all. Don’t think of your enemies as opposition, think of them as prey. Stalk them patiently, choose the perfect time to strike and make a neat, tidy kill wherever possible. Ambush tactics can be effective, but with a maximum of only eight players you will need to seek out your victims too. It’s all about being the hunter while not allowing yourself to be the hunted.

The best thing about Skyrim, if you ask me, is that you get to be a werewolf, if that’s what you want. And lately that’s all I have really wanted. I’m really into werewolves right now, in much the same way as I was really into gladiators a few years back and, more recently, really into Vikings – Skyrim’s great for Vikings too!

Anyway, my animal instincts tell me that Skyrim has to be the best werewolf game ever, but the last time I trusted my animal instincts I got arrested for peeing on a lamppost and trying to eat my neighbour’s cat. So I’ve decided to subject the matter to some highly scientific analysis in order to determine whether Skyrim really is the mutt’s nuts or whether there’s another top dog out there somewhere.

Below you’ll find Skyrim compared to every werewolf game ever (listed on Wikipedia) using the all-important scoring parameters of bigness, badness and wolfness, along with an overall score based on the highly appropriate lunar phase system. Full moon is best, new moon is worst…

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The werewolves in Skyrim are pretty big and very wolfy, especially when you run on all-fours, but not all that bad. Some of them get completely taken over by the wolf blood and turn bad, while others stay in control and use their powers for good.
Bigness: ††††
Badness: †††
Wolfness: ††††

Sonic Unleashed
Being a werehog not a werewolf, Werehog scores badly on wolfness, and on bigness too, give that a hedgehog is much smaller than a wolf. But if there’s one thing you can say for Werehog, and that’s that he was a really, really bad idea.
Bigness: ††
Badness: ††††
Wolfness: †

The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess
He’s not very big but in his wolf form Link is very wolfy. Unlike most of the wolves in this list, he even walks on all-fours. He also scores quite well on badness for being the highest age rated game in the Zelda series.
Bigness: ††
Badness: †††
Wolfness: ††††

Underworld: The Eternal War
The werewolves – or Lycans, to give them their rather fruity Underworld name – are fairly big, but a bit too Hollywood to be wolfy. They are the baddies of the Underworld universe though, so we’ll give them good marks for badness. The game, by the way, was so bad no one even dared release it in America.
Bigness: †††
Badness: ††††
Wolfness: ††

The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon
This expansion to Morrowind added werewolves to the list of classic monsters you could turn into, if you can really call vampires and werewolves a ‘list’. They were pretty similar to the Skyrim ones really although a bit smaller and with a closer association with the Daedric Prince, Hircine.
Bigness: †††
Badness: ††††
Wolfness: ††††

Castlevania: Legacy Of Darkness
He’s not the biggest wolf you’ll ever see, but there’s something very wolfy about Cornell, the hero of this adventure. Just goes to show that even mediocre Castelvania games can still nail it when it comes to classic horror archetypes. Cornell also ends up being pretty bad thanks to a nasty twist in the tale right at the end.
Bigness: †††
Badness: ††††
Wolfness: †††††

Altered Beast
The titular Altered Beast in this Eighties Sega arcade beat-‘em-up is a big fella, but not very wolfy. He just looks like a bloke with a wolf hat on. He’s bad though, that’s for sure.
Bigness: ††††
Badness: †††††
Wolfness: ††

The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery
The werewolves in this live-action point ‘n’ click adventure aren’t very big but, thanks to the lost Wagner opera that creates them, they are quite bad. Low scoring points for wolfness though, given that you barely see the wolves at all, and when you play as one it’s only in first person.
Bigness: †††
Badness: ††††
Wolfness: ††

Wolfman
This being a text adventure we mostly had to use our imaginations to determine how big, bad and wolfy it is but, judging by the state of the corpses left behind (enough to get the game an 18 rating at the time), we’d say pretty big and bad. Very little in the way of fur, teeth or howling in this game though, so not very wolfy.
Bigness: ††††
Badness: ††††
Wolfness: ††

Werewolves Of London
Unfinished 8-bit disappointment with a small, unthreatening main character that barely looks like a wolf at all.
Bigness: ††
Badness: ††
Wolfness: ††

Wolfchild
I’ve given this a low score for bigness because, regardless of what the massive, rippling, muscley fella on the game’s cover might be trying to imply, a child is a small thing. He’s also a bit of a goody-goody and only moderately canine.
Bigness: †
Badness: †
Wolfness: †††

So, despite strong challenges from both The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess and The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, our research upholds the theory that yes, Skyrim really is the best of the werewolf games. Well done Skyrim!

I know there’s still a few more games still to be released this year, but nothing that threatens to take the place of any game in this list, I’m sure. So that means its time to list the best games of the year!

There are so many popular, big-name releases not in this list, you’re going to be so annoyed. But I’m not doing it just to upset you. These really are the best games of the year. It’s just that not everyone can agree because not everyone can be right, like I am.

10.
Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon
I actually gave this a 7/10 because, given the hardware it runs on and given the price, it needed to be technically a lot better and more substantial to warrant anything more than a tentative, cautious recommendation. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the most fun games I’ve played during this, or any other, year. It’s exciting and addictive and funny, and deserves to be checked out by anyone with a love of pure action gameplay. Especially if you can find it cheap(er).

9.
LittleBigPlanet 2
Did an Xbox blog just say that LittleBigPlanet 2 was one of the best games of the year? Yes it did, and that’s because it is. Although I’ll admit it didn’t blow me away quite as dramatically as I thought it would, I still dip into it regularly and always have an awesome time with it whenever I do.

8.
Dead Space 2
I thought that the follow-up to EA’s surprise survival horror hit might lack some of the psychological impact of its forebear, but I was wrong. Yes, there were more action-heavy set pieces, but they weren’t included at the expense of tension and atmosphere at all. Definitely one of the best horror games I’ve ever played.

7.
Rage
In terms of sheer quality, no other game was a match for Rage in 2011. Yeah, it didn’t really need to be an open-world game, but never mind. When it did get down to the important business of shooting your way from one end of a level to the other it proved to be an absolute masterclass in how to make an FPS from the studio who kick-started the genre.

6.
Torchlight
For me, Torchlight is by far the best XBLA release of the year and, being a huge, complex, deep action-RPG from the creators of Diablo, has to be one of the best value packages available on the platform. Who needs a console port of Diablo III anyway?

5.
Bulletstorm
Like Rage, Bulletstorm was a welcome reminder that first-person shooters don’t have to be mindless blockbuster shooting galleries, they can be games of skill and satisfaction too. Bulletstorm does the blockbuster thing pretty well too though, with its comical script and epic pulp sci-fi story. It’s the addictive skillshot-based scoring system that really sets it apart from the pack though. Few FPS’s have this much of an imagination.

4.
Portal 2
It’s just brilliant, isn’t it? Not only is it one of the most ingenious puzzle games ever made, it boasts a quality of comedy that’s simply never been seen in any other game. I wish every game developer were like Valve.

3.
DiRT 3
I’ve been a big fan of Codemasters’ off-road racing games since Colin McRae Rally kicked things off back in 1998. The franchise has changed a lot since then, but it’s still awesome, mainly thanks to pitch-perfect handling. This year saw the excellent new addition of Gymkhana events too, which proved to be much more than a mere gimmick.

2.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
It’s tight at the top of this list and Skyrim very nearly got the top spot. It’s one of those weird games that, despite not quite being everything I hoped for, is still fantastic enough for me to get utterly lost in it for hours on end. And it’s a really nice feeling that I still have dozens and dozens of hours still left to go.

1.
Forza Motorsport 4
Skyrim is second on this list because I love huge, expansive, detailed, content-heavy games, and DiRT 3 is third because I love racing sims. It makes sense that Forza 4 is at the top then because it is both of the above. It’s an excellent racing sim with a truly massive quantity of content to play with. Not only that, it’s well designed as a game as well, with varied, flexible modes that let you enjoy it in exactly the manner that suits you. I love it.

Following the runaway success of our in-depth investigative report, Top 10 sexiest games coming over 2011, published this time last year, here’s the imaginatively titled Top 10 sexiest games coming over 2012. Because that’s why we play them, right?

10.
Mass Effect 3
The first two Mass Effects didn’t have an ‘official’ female version of Shepard so, in the interests of ‘equality’, BioWare held a vote on its Facebook feed, allowing fans to choose which of five versions of Femshep they’d like to be made the official one. And you know what they say, blondes have more… votes?

9.
Final Fantasy XIII-2
In Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning was nearly as sexy as the Gladiator of the same name (a.k.a. Kim Betts), but in Final Fantasy XIII-2 she has a fancy new look and is now even sexier than her muscular, blonde, formerly famous namesake.

8.
Anarchy Reigns
From the studio that brought you the exceptionally sexy Bayonetta comes this multiplayer fighting game, which features some sexy participants. Wii owners might recognise Mathilda here from MadWorld. What could be sexier than a skintight metal suit with sharp, spiky drill bits on the nipples?

7.
Soul Calibur V
Back for a fifth (or maybe sixth?) round of weapon-enhanced fisticuffs, it’s the proud owner of gaming’s hardest wedgie, Ivy Valentine, who will actually be reversing the usual trend and sporting smaller breasts and a slightly more modest outfit than before in Soul Calibur V. Still sexy though, as are all the other characters in Soul Calibur V, including Voldo.

6.
Tomb Raider
Lara Croft is gaming’s original pin-up but her ‘spindly legs and waist, massive boobs and lips’ look has dated over the years and Square Enix has ordered an image overhaul for the queen of adventuring. Apparantly, we’re turned off by women who look like sex dolls these days. To the modern gamer sexy means dirty, bleeding and suffering constantly. With bigger than average, if not unfeasibly large, boobs.

5.
Street Fighter X Tekken
Two classic fighting games in one can only mean one thing – twice as much sexy. Actually it can mean a whole bunch of other things too, but you have to appreciate that this article exists in a kind of isolated, sexy bubble. I’ve chosen Cammy to illustrate SFxT here because… well, seems I might have a bit of a thing about wedgies… but everyone has their own sexy favourite from these two legendary fighting stables.

4.
Resident Evil: Revelations
Rachel here caused a bit of a stir among Resident Evil fans when the trailer in which she starred, then violently died, was shown at TGS. The haters seemed to be saying that a scenario in which an extraordinarily curvaceous young woman whose catsuit won’t zip up all the way, and whose eyes are covered by her hair lest they distract you from her gargantuan cleavage, gets a mysterious, sticky, white substance dripped all over her was somewhat over-sexualised. Dear me, some people will complain about anything, won’t they?

3.
Dead Or Alive 5
Tecmo Koei has actually been uncharacteristically restrained in its promotion of Dead Or Alive so far, revealing very little of the series’ famous female combatants up to this point. This piece of art is quite sexy though, but that’s not because she’s crying. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be sweat. You weirdos are just seeing what you want to see…

2.
Lollipop Chainsaw
“Is it just me or is that a cheerleader with a giant, spiky, metal penis?” Those were my exact words upon seeing this screenshot for the first time. Not wishing to be accused of releasing nothing but upskirt shots of Lollipop Chainsaw’s teen heroine, Juliet Starling, Grasshopper Manufacture has covered her modesty in this one with about the least subtle phallic symbol imaginable. Which is sexy.

1.
DmC: Devil May Cry
I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing when I first set eyes on this piece of official DmC artwork. Is he really making a gun from his hand, placing it on his crotch and ‘shooting’ it into the face of a semi-naked woman? Yes… yes he is. I’m at a loss for words…