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Has it really only been 12 months since the last avalanche of “Best Games of 200X” awards? Well, we all love a good list, and you won’t find a better barf bag of random praises than our own Platinum Chalice awards, the place to have someone else’s gaming opinions shoved upon you. How important are these awards? So important. Real important. What do the other guys have, gold trophies? Screw that.

Videogames have always been violent. Violence is inherent in the medium, inseparable from the essential experience of playing games. Without competition and conflict resolved by violence, games wouldn’t be games: they’d be screensavers. Gore is a slightly different matter, though. Better graphics and physics have ushered in a new era of explicit gruesomeness.

Hope your ass is in-costume for our moderately special 25th episode of TalkRadar. This time we’re chatting up the least scary moments in otherwise scary games, then Charlie dares to suggest that games are, in fact, never scary. Then we fight about Silent Hill 2.

Also: all the usual BS we yap about every week, lovingly accentuated with profanity, sound effects and allegations that no judge or jury could ever prove.

Love’s a funny old thing, ain’t it? It inspires great works of art. It knows no boundaries, conquering race, creed and geography. And it totally forces you to fork out for cheap-ass chocolates on anniversaries. While love affairs can end a bit messily in real life, we’ve yet to see a couple with romantic woes commit international espionage or murderise a series of skyscraper-sized monsters for each other. But in video games? Hell, its normal practice for digital Cupid’s arrows. So, in the spirit of being a week late for Valentine’s Day, we thought it was high time to celebrate some of gaming’s most ruinous romances.

Every single game ever made wants your character dead. Well, unless it’s got dancing babies on its box or it’s trying to lose you weight by forcing you to swing your arms around like a twat. With that in mind, we thought it might be helpful to give you a guide on how to spot impending video game danger. After you’ve brushed up on our exhaustive guide, which covers every sure-fire sign of peril from ominous music to

When he started sharing his idea of an orchestra playing music from videogames, people thought the veteran composer Tommy Tallarico was off his rocker. It took him three years to convince publishers and developers that he was sane. “Imagine me making a call to Taito in Japan, asking them for the rights for the score of [1983 arcade hit] Elevator Action. “I’d like to play the theme tune to the game at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Hello... hello?’”

Greetings. Yup, we know we're late with the podcast today, but rest assured it's worth the wait. If only to hear Cundy chat about a big package of nuts he's brought into the studio. Nathan would like a grab at them - will Matt let him? All is revealed inside this week's TalkRadar UK.

Champions are made of more than mutant powers and godly origins. Join as we pay tribute to the average men and women who rose above great odds in our countdown of gaming's top everyman heroes...

Have you already played the best videogame 2011 has to offer? The question may sound crazy with six months – and a massive, sequel-stuffed holiday calendar – left to go, but just look at the contenders. A Valve masterpiece. A Rockstar epic. A Nintendo classic. An Epic experiment. Three of the titles below scored a perfect 10/10 on our site and, depending on which GamesRadar editor you ask, the other four possibly deserved to as well...