God of War: Chains of Olympus

After pumping goodness knows how much time, energy and capital into their baby, the last thing a developer wants is for it to fade into bargain bins unnoticed. You could tie it to a well-loved motion picture, thus ensuring a pre-existing audience… but what if you can’t afford the license? Then it’s time for what charitable reviewers might call “paying homage!” Here are 20 games that are just really, really big fans of their cinematic cousins… copyright be damned.

Kratos and Max Payne aren’t names frequently uttered in the same sentence. One’s the bald, rage-fueled protagonist of one of gaming’s greatest hack-and-slash franchises, and the other’s an insomniac gunfighter who’s addicted to painkillers and is soon to make a comeback as a paunchy, bearded version of himself. Above: Let’s stick with Thin Max for now, though

However, there’s one key scene

Ungames, God of War III exalted, Final Fantasy XIII defended and Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver gets done a prfoundly goofy disservice

News has been popping up around the net about a secret message in God of War 3, unlocked when you earn a Platinum trophy. The trophy description features a URL, which points gamers towards what appears to be a teaser website. It's really exciting - look:

OK, so it's actually rather dull. At present, it simply depicts an ocean scene with rocks to the bottom-left, while a thunderstorm beats down. We're used to this

By now, we all know the story: Kratos, the bald, badass protagonist of God of War III, spends all his time in an inhuman rage because years ago, Greek god of war Ares tricked him into murdering his own wife and child. And now, to complete his revenge, he's hell-bent on murdering his way through the entire Greek pantheon.

The thing is, Kratos is a son of Zeus, who also happens to be the main target of his revenge. And Zeus is at the epicenter of ancient Greece's convoluted, incestuous

What’s in a name? Only EVERYTHING! That band you and your friends started probably could’ve been the next Three Doors Down, if only you hadn’t creatively imploded during the early stages of the naming process. Games are no different.

The PlayStation Blog has posted a load of photos from its God of War community meet up, which took place at GDC yesterday. And from the looks of it, there were plenty of Kratos masks to go round.

That's a pretty gangster looking bunch of mid-80s hip hop album cover bad-asses right there. Let's hope they didn't get drunk and rip off any heads.

Check out the whole lot on the PlayStation Blog's flickr

Obscenely complicated, punctuated by flashbacks and packing more cameos than an episode of Extras, God of War is a soap opera saga worthy of any Greek legend. With God of War III’s 19th March release date almost upon us, we reckoned you lot might need a bit of a catch-up when it came to the ins and outs (and we’re not just talking about the QTE shagging here) of Kratos’ eventful past...

A couple of caveats, though.

Since it was first unveiled, Dante’s Inferno – based loosely on the first chapter of the epic 14th century poem The Divine Comedy – has been roundly derided for being a hack job of a famous piece of literature. For over a year now, we’ve heard about how the game supposedly shits on the original by turning a thoughtful epic poem into a paint-by-numbers clone of God of War.

We know. We sound like pricks sometimes. Having spent so much time crapping all over just about everything in the Game-O-Sphere, some of you may’ve forgotten that we actually like to play games. So, this episode we’ve set aside some time to talk about some upcoming titles that we’re genuinely excited about.

Oh, we’re still mocking idiotic game audio, laughing hysterically at a certain publisher’s R &B theme song, and mulling over the game smooches creepy enough to deflate boners on Jupiter. But just in time for VD, we’re also spreading a little bit of love to all comers. Don’t worry - we still have a fart button.