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Crytek is a studio known for pushing the technological envelope in game development. The Crysis series in particular has become infamous for its incredibly demanding system requirements, alongside its staggering visual realism. With the third and possibly final numbered entry in the series, Crytek is looking to give the story a fitting conclusion, while proving to the world that they are the undisputed kings of gaming graphics.

Lara Croft is a gaming icon, a woman that, in the nineties, became the very symbol of video gaming and its place in society. Although many of the people who saw her in newspapers and magazines couldn't tell you that she came from a video game called Tomb Raider, they certainly recognized her face (and, perhaps, other part of her anatomy). The fame didn't last, and it didn't take long for the Tomb Raider franchise to drop in sales, and for Lara Croft to stop featuring on the cover of magazines. The last game in the series, Underworld, received mixed reviews ...

I have to admit that I didn’t have high expectations for Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengeance... (Especially with a title that uses most of the english alphabet). Over the years, the series has deeply developed Solid Snake, a character we all know, admire and love and Revengeance seemed like a long-shot. In theory, this game shouldn’t work. Set in the Metal Gear Solid universe, we would normally expect a game with an intense and confounding story, stealth based gameplay as well as quite a few hours of intriguing cutscenes. Now that I have actually played ...

I cautiously approach the gently glowing corpse, casting around for Splicers or other threats. The Little Sister on my shoulder squeals delightedly: “Look Daddy, it’s an angel!” Before we can gather any ADAM, I set up a perimeter of trap rivets and mini turrets, and make sure my speargun and drill are both fully loaded, as well as making sure I have the right plasmid equipped. When everything is set up, I carefully set the Little Sister down and prepare for the onslaught.

Starting a trilogy is the fun part – and if this generation of console franchises have proved anything, completing it is the hardest. Over the past two years, we've seen series like Mass Effect and Gears of War struggle with storytelling in their third chapters. Mastering well-known techniques and designs is the easy part – completing an epic narrative in satisfying fashion has proven to be difficult: the bigger the success of the series, the more troublesome the conclusions have proven to be. Given this recent history, Crysis 3 faced an uphill battle from ...

Developer Epic Games takes badass gaming to a new level with an excellent conclusion to one of the Xbox 360 greatest trilogies. Gears of War 3, like its predecessors, is a cover based 3rd person shooter that delivers high paced action at every corner. The game play doesn’t change from the previous two games but that isn’t a bad thing and with the addition of some new toys and a new multiplayer mode Gears of War 3 will be played addictively for some time to come.

Shootmania Storm was announced at E3 last year and then was instantly forgotten. Lost amongst talk of Assassin’s Creed 3 and Watch_Dogs, Shootmania didn't seem to offer an awful lot. A short match between two teams of pro-gamers did little to glue it into the minds of gamers, especially those not interested in yet another shooter. The beta shortly after displayed a game that was utterly unique but without enough depth to keep your mind from wondering back to your comfort title.

The Hitman games were a master class in stealth and player choice when they were originally released. Agent 47 could find a thousand ways of eliminating any target and sneaking out without anybody being any the wiser, and playing again and again to improve your playthrough was a big part of the way the series worked. With Absolution, the latest in the franchise, now available in stores, this HD collection is a nice way of comparing how the series has evolved and, in a wider sense, how the gaming industry has changed since the turn of the millennium.

Aliens: Colonial Marines, a collaboration between SEGA and Gearbox, was first announced in 2006, just short of a year before the reveal of Borderlands. Borderlands was released in 2009 to critical acclaim, Aliens wasn’t and wouldn’t be until much later. In fact, Colonial Marines was presumed dead for much of its six and a half year development cycle and perhaps, given the controversy surrounding the title since its release, it should have been left buried. With so much going for it, not least the Aliens IP, how did it all go so terribly wrong?

Battlefield 3 is a first person shooter from the development company Dice, and was the showcase game for their new graphics engine, the fabled Frostbite 2. The game features a compelling campaign based on a United States marine who is arrested on suspicion of murder and for ‘apparently’ assisting Iranian ultra-nationalists in nuclear terrorism. We follow Sergeant Blackburn as he tries to save the world from re-entering the Cold War. Battlefield 3 is most revered however for its expansive multiplayer, which, like all previous Battlefield games, has redefined ...