Resident Evil 4

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?

Once a videogame hero has more than one or two adventures under his or her belt, it simply isn’t enough to just have an archenemy anymore. To keep things interesting, they need a foil, a rival, or some other angry opposite number obsessed with matching wits with them. Sometimes, those characters stick around long enough to make themselves an indelible part of the series, even going so far as to make friends with the protagonist – although more often than not, their friendships tend to be shaky at best, and even those involved might never fully admit to them. Relationships like that tend to make for gaming’s most enduring and interesting rivalries, and what follows are some of the most notable...

If there's one thing videogames have become exceedingly good at, it's forcing tedious, mind-numbing busywork upon unsuspecting gamers. Repetitive and tawdry tasks, or uninspired, frustrating, cut-and-paste missions infest an inexcusable number of games, and it's getting pretty dire.

I'm sick of games making me do the same old shit, and it's about time somebody did something. Nothing solves the world's problems quicker than a sarcastic list column, so join me as I stomp my feet over the miserable chores that videogames keep imposing upon me...

George Romero (director of Dawn of the Dead and the father of zombie movies) says he'd be interested in making a game. This also coincides with the news that Jun Takeuchi (director of Resident Evil 5) won't be returning for the sixth instalment of the survival horror series.

And this got us thinking: how friggin' awesome would it be if Romero and Capcom teamed up to make Resi 6? The answer? Loads. Like loads and loads. And inside you'll find out why we think the zombie Zen master could help give the series just the shot in the undead arm it needs.

You don’t have to see or play absolutely everything on this list to be a proper zombie connoisseur, but you should at least know them. These are the genre’s defining relics. Some are responsible for the very creation of the zombie mythos, others adapted and advanced it, while the rest simply encapsulate it so exquisitely that they must be experienced. This may not be everyone’s definitive list of zombie lore

Sam Fisher’s gone through some midlife crisis-sized changes over the past couple of years. One minute he’s a tortured emo agent on the run, with as little respect for the law as he does for kept facial hair. The next he’s a malicious murderer, who makes Jack Bauer look like Jack Osborne.

Above: From badly groomed to just plain bad

The Conviction of 2007 has heavy influences from

Before we dunk our collective heads into the salty man-pool that is E3 2009, let’s take a moment to reflect on the events and images of E3 2004. Just five years ago Nintendo was struggling, Sony was unquestionably on top and Microsoft only had Halo 2 to keep fans attentive. Today… well, it’s a little different, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves

Yeah, yeah, videogame movies suck. We're bored of saying it. But regardless of the suckage and widespread critical kicking they receive, they just keep on coming. Why so? We doubt that they're made for the love of it, so it must be because they can actually make a few bucks at the box-office. Can it really be true and, if so, how much money do video game movies actually make?

We picked 10 videogame movies and found out how

Unless you’re a rookie cop on his first day on the job, a woman in a comically inappropriate cocktail dress or an ex con with nothing to lose, chance are you’re going to die in Resident Evil. Horribly. Want to know about every significant death in the Resi series? You’ve come to the right place. The following list of big, fat death reveals how each character met their maker, whether it was by zombie, tyrant or erm…

What would be the best thing to wear to a zombie apocalypse? Would we go for the bullet-proof vest (but zombies don't have guns!)? Or the side-split evening gown (too much leg for the undead!)?