Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Lords of Shadow is the latest Castlevania in over two decades of games which encompass ten centuries of the past and eight thousand years of the future. Since the eleventh century Count Dracula has walked the Earth, rising every hundred years to spread his evil influence across the world, and at every resurrection he has been foiled by a descendant of the Belmont bloodline.

Death happens a lot in videogames, but for some reason it never seems to stick. From heroes who get infinite do-overs to supporting characters who “die” only to resurface at the nick of time down the road, videogames might be the only medium in which the audience feels surprised, and perhaps even cheated, if a dead character isn’t magically brought back to life.

Not so lucky in love? Dreading Valentine’s Day because it’s yet another reminder of what some vindictive ex did to you, or how everything was once going so well and now all your dating options are miserable? Do you feel like breaking a heart this time around? If so, may we suggest these killer organs who are already seeking to break you.

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?’”

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.

In examining the best gaming franchises in recent years, we’ve found the best titles to be those that tweaked a significant portion of the core mechanics. On the surface, gameplay is largely the same, yet with different environments (see: Halo or almost every Nintendo game from Twilight Princess to Mario Galaxy).

Then we thought, “why stop with Street Fighter?” There’ve got to be a billion goddam skeletons creeping through virtual graveyards just begging to have their toothy visage slapped on the immortal internet. Who are we to deny them such a privilege? So, without further yammering, we present, just in time for Halloween (y Dia de los Muertos), the biggest batch of skelleys you’ve ever seen...

You’ll often hear about games lauded for their exceptional soundtracks. Some succeeded with NES-style bleeps, others had orchestral scores or fully licensed songs that lent credibility to a medium struggling to be more than a toy.

Pardon our geekboners, but holy f**k Mega Man 9! Instead of dragging our boyhood hero through any more tired Star Forces or Battle Networks, those understanding folks at Capcom are giving us the Mega Man game we’ve always wanted.

What took ya so long? And more importantly, why haven’t other games turned to their pixilated roots when MM9 is making it look so damned easy? Tecmo Bowl is about to rise

You know that red line that pops up in Word, Firefox or any other program with a spell check? It's helpful, don't get us wrong, but they really should spend some time working on spell check's virtual intuition. When we typed "Firefox," just now while writing this article, the red line asked if we meant "firebox." Um no, we didn't. And that's what happens countless times every second across the world when people type in video game names -