Fallout 3

In honor of the New Year, here's a look at the franchises that rose from their own ashes to become something completely different. If they could reinvent themselves, why can't you?

Game music has been a passion of ours roughly since, oh, 1985, but in the past 10 years, it’s come to mean something more. Don’t get us wrong, we still love the beepatronic music of the 8- and 16-bit periods (and the wave of chiptune artists it inspired), but the past decade has also seen licensed music become a surprisingly important part of gaming. Sometimes, this just means a selection of familiar hits to accompany our music games, but every so often, a game will use licensed tracks to careful, brilliant effect – and in the process, will expose legions of gamers to music they might never have heard otherwise.

What follows are the games and franchises that have been the most influential in bringing strange and terrifying new musical styles to gamers’ ears – and in the interest of making this our most self-indulgent Top 7 since that other one, we’ve asked a handful of our editors to explain what made each one important to them personally...

NO! We’re not talking about frigging hockey masks! Nobody has ever strapped on this mouthless, empty-eyed, bone-colored facial façade with the intent of instilling a victim with the fear and intimidation that comes with facing down a goaltender. No, virtually every game character not playing for the NHL who’s ever put on a hockey mask is doing it for one reason, and one reason only: to crib from Jason Voorhees. And that’s our incredibly loose criteria here.

With that in mind, we tried to find as many instances of characters dressing up as Friday the 13th’s hero (yes, he is the hero) in honor of Halloween. So turn out your lights and put the lawyers to bed... it’s time for Jason Masks. Let’s start with the obvious...

Tsk. Bugs, eh. In games. Nothing worse. They're not meant to be there. But sometimes they are and that's where they stay until Mr Developer stops fiddling with his massive beard and decides to do something about it. And he always does something about it because he knows otherwise gamers will just refuse to play his broken piece of programming ever again. Because unlike developers, gamers actually have standards. Although that's not actually true. Because sometimes we'll happily play a game - even love a game - that has more bugs than an 80s rap jam.

Like what games exactly? Like these games exactly. The Top 7... horrendously buggy games we loved anyway.

Virtual children are undoubtedly worse than the real thing. Diminutive, shrill and noisy, you can’t even send them to the naughty step when they’re misbehavin’. We’re used to solving our videogame problems with violence, but due to standards of ‘good taste’, that approach isn't generally allowed with young-uns. Often voiced by high-pitched women because kids can’t act, they also tend to look…weird – like shrunken adults. Because of this, we’ve put together a list of youngsters in games whose toys we’d love to take away, but can’t.

You don’t HAVE to read this feature to play and love Fallout: New Vegas. In just a few hours wandering its vast, open world, you’ll already have seen a mutant hulk wearing sunglasses, drunk babes dancing in a fountain, and possibly geckos the size of a pool table. It’s going to hook you deep, trust us. But if you want to truly appreciate the game, you SHOULD read this feature. Why? Because you’ll learn a megaton of critical information about the franchise’s history, both in the real world and in its in-game universe. And that’ll make you love it even more.

So when did the end of the world begin? Back in 1997…

A cult is most commonly defined as a religious group that preaches unorthodox believes, granted a lesser state of credibility than "real" religions and are often derided for their extreme practices and viewpoints. Ostensibly, the difference between a cult and religion is popularity. So there, that's a nice inflammatory lead into the main article.

It's about cults in videogames. Enjoy!

Gaming hoaxes are nasty things. People spend hours searching in the woods of San Andreas looking for Bigfoot, trying to unlock Sheng Long in Street Fighter II and looking for the blood code on the SNES version of Mortal Kombat. They simply aren't there. But that doesn't stop idiots from perpetuating the myths, adding 'evidence' to new rumours and watching the forums light up.

The latest is a corker - Fallout 3 is predicting the future. Will the Queen die on March 19, 2014? Will Britney win an Oscar in 2023? All signs point to no. But then you hear the story...

There aren't many things that everyone in the world goes through in life. Being born is one of those things. But, strangely, this most natural of bodily functions is very rarely tackled in video games. Maybe it's because babies come from a part of a woman that you just can't show in a game (unless you're rendering character statues in Resident Evil 5, apparently). Or maybe there just aren't enough virtual clean towels and hot water to go around.

So, clearly, when a game does tackle this subject, it's almost always memorable. So here are the top 7 births in gaming.

Some games kick off with an almighty bang. God of War, for example, let's the dog (the player) see the rabbit (colossus-sized boss) before the pad has even had time to warm in the hands. But not all games commence with such lightning speed and dramatic gusto. These are seven such stellar software experiences that take their time to move through the gears.