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Last month, we selected the seven best games of the year (so far) and, although only halfway through 2011, the competition was already intense. Many outstanding titles had to be cut and many editors’ feelings had to be hurt.

But that was the easy part. Now comes the true torture – the week in which I reluctantly delve into the dank, dark sewer that is the bottom of Metacritic’s review rankings to bring you the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. For every Portal, there’s a Party Megamix. For every Zelda, a Thor. These are their shameful stories...

E3 may have been light on Pokemon news, but we dig up all the stories you may have missed in the shuffle. From Pokemon happy meal toys to bootleg fighting games and Japan's latest Pokemon 3DS announcement, this is what the Pokemon fans in the office have been talking about this week. Download link inside!

With another Pokémon adventure on the horizon, get caught up on every game in the series--whether it's a new generation or the most obscure spin-off--by reading our extensive history of the phenomenal series...

Battling Pokémon is one of the most veered pastimes in gaming history, but is it actually a horrible blood sport? Two GamesRadar editors discuss the merits in our newest great debate...

Think you know Pokémon? After searching high and low, we have some info about the series that might surprise you...

Updated with 10 more incredible Poké facts!

Sequels are sure to be the focus of this year's E3, and we couldn't be more excited. But what about the neglected games and franchises that deserve another entry? Unlikely though they may be, if these sequels were miraculously announced this week, we'd thank our lucky stars...

Once a videogame hero has more than one or two adventures under his or her belt, it simply isn’t enough to just have an archenemy anymore. To keep things interesting, they need a foil, a rival, or some other angry opposite number obsessed with matching wits with them. Sometimes, those characters stick around long enough to make themselves an indelible part of the series, even going so far as to make friends with the protagonist – although more often than not, their friendships tend to be shaky at best, and even those involved might never fully admit to them. Relationships like that tend to make for gaming’s most enduring and interesting rivalries, and what follows are some of the most notable...

This month's Breaking Bad cliffhanger has us all hungry for illicit thrills. Sure, that's not a videogame (though it's inspired a couple), but with narcotics subplots in titles like Sleeping Dogs and Borderlands 2, controlled substances are all over contemporary games. Then again, you've probably been gettin' that yellowtop in-game for years without even realizing it, thanks to the well-hidden drug metaphors we're about to expose...

Thanks a bunch, Christopher Nolan. Ever since Batman Begins took the universally-reviled cinematic bastardization of a cool character and redrew it in the drab colors and long shadows of The Dark Knight Returns, the “gritty reboot” has been back in fashion. In Hollywood-speak, the term's a nice way of saying “we've screwed this up, can we have a do-over?” Of course, games being a forward-looking sort of medium, players have been wise to this trick for years now – and we're still suckers for it.

Whether it's a deeper-'n-darker sequel or restarting from scratch, rejigging your series with a darker palette and more distorted guitars is a great way to draw attention to what might otherwise be just more sequel-abuse. But how well does it work? From a player's perspective, a gray coat of paint is hardly going to turn gameplay upside down... but from a “cataloguing the tricks they'll pull to sell a new installment” standpoint, dark reboots are just gravy...