PS2 Features

Chances are, at some point in your romantic life, you'll have had a stinker of a date. Your potential love interest might have snuck off to the toilet when it was time to pay the bill and never came back. Maybe they had breath so bad, it would sink a luxury cruise liner. Or worse, perhaps they just had an annoying laugh. Still, we doubt any of these disastrous encounters can match the potential pitfalls of dating certain game characters, which include finding out your date is just a cover for an elobarte hit, getting set on fire during a romantic walk, or having your partner morph into a boulder monster mid sexy time.

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...

Mario and Luigi. Abbott and Costello. Sunny and Cher. All fine double acts, no doubt. But you know the thing each of them were missing? Good old fashioned slaughter to really solidify their partnerships. That’s where the grizzly duos inside come into play. Inspired by our recent playthrough of Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, we’ve decide to document some of gaming’s recent, really homicidal pairings. Two murderers are better than one, after all.

We're not gonna lie – this is a sparse month for games. The biggest publishers are saving their biggest products for September, October and November, leaving August with a very short list to choose from.

Fear not, however, because scattered across the barren wasteland of the next four weeks are some very promising oases of gaming goodness. Some of these titles will be just enough to last through the end of summer, while others have the potential to keep you occupied – and happy – right through the fall, distracting you completely from Call of Halo or Fallout Rising 2...

Ever since I was but a lad, the prospect of my first virtual hit a mere glimmer in my eye, I’ve had a dream. Oh, alright then, ever since I finished Blood Money. Anyhoo, that dream is of a world where Scotland always qualify for the World Cup. An existence where Back to the Future II's hoverboards are both affordable and in plentiful supply. And, most importantly, a world where the next Hitman is announced at this week’s E3 as an open world game.

Read inside to find out why Agent 47 doing a Niko Bellic would be a murderously good idea. 

Criminals aren’t the most respected members of society in real life, but they can make for some fantastic videogame characters. Perhaps it's because the game industry is clearly trying to turn our nation's children into a breed of hyperviolent superthugs, just like all the know-it-alls who don’t actually know much of anything keep saying. At any rate, we've chosen our favorite prisoners from gaming history, so read on for our glorification of digital lawbreakers and give them the credit they deserve. If you don’t, they’ll just steal it anyway...

One in five Americans are born with some sort of personality disorder – something that makes them zag when everyone else zigs. It might be as subtle as a nervous tic, as confusing as Asperger's or as overt as psychopathy. But mentally unstable individuals are part of the real world – and part of the world of videogames as well. Sometimes their damage leads them to be horrible, monstrous villains, and other times it can make them loyal friends, or complex protagonists. No matter what it does to them, though, it's usually hard not to be sympathetic to their problems, and to, in a way, fall in love with them... even if they're murdering sociopaths...

Mario and Luigi. Abbott and Costello. Sunny and Cher. All fine double acts, no doubt. But you know the thing each of them were missing? Good old fashioned slaughter to really solidify their partnerships. That’s where the grizzly duos inside come into play. Inspired by our recent playthrough of Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, we’ve decide to document some of gaming’s recent, really homicidal pairings. Two murderers are better than one, after all.

Swear words are used in film, TV and games to glorious effect. But sometimes the sheer quantity of obscenity causes the words to lose their meaning. Ever the cultural explorers here at GR, we’ve compiled a list of the ten swearing-est games we could think of. Then we grabbed footage from the first hour of each, and chopped it down to just the dirty words. Very scientific.

Check it out. But remember: this video is categorically

In all honesty, some games would be better off left on the whiteboard at the design meeting. Whether they're too ambitious, too expensive or simply too good to be true, we're frequently led to imagine great things only to have our expectations dashed when the game finally arrives. How could these games be so good on paper yet underwhelm so spectacularly? Let's take a look...