Devil May Cry 4

Better known to PS3 owners as "That Song That Plays on a 20-Minute Loop During the Goddamn Installation," the aria that begins Devil May Cry 4 is nonetheless a surprisingly pretty piece of videogame music. Sung in the game by protagonist Nero's love interest Kyrie (and in real life by Aubrey Ashburn), it creates an evocative backdrop for the game's prologue, during which Nero gets waylaid by some demons on the way to Kyrie's performance...

Like Jesus, The Terminator and Elvis, some game characters just refuse to meet their maker. Whether it’s a Spartan Warrior who’s been stabbed through the chest 37 times or a half man/half cyborg who survives getting crushed by a giant boat; the following heroes love to wriggle out of death’s butter fingers.

Sometimes really great and really shit things go together like an unhappy married couple who've stuck it out for 40 years. Lollipops and tooth-terrorising drills at the dentist, six pints of lager and a ruinous hangover and, occasionally, rubbish characters and great games. And it's testament to the following titles' awesomeness that they somehow stayed afloat in spite of their hateful captains.

Some games just never stand a chance, do they? Hated on from the moment they’re announced for a variety of reasons, they’re critically stoned by journos and gamers long before anyone lays finger on pad. The following titles all fall into this category of pre-release hatred. Whether they betrayed their series’ heritage, alienated PC gamers or their developer simply shouted his big fat mouth off too much; these games loved

For a medium that lets us chainsaw faces off, punch presidents in their plums and slaughter endangered species, it's amazing how sensitive some of us get when developers do things we don't agree with. Certainly there have been many decisions to get us all worked up, whether it's Killzone 2's 'target footage'  or Shigsy shedding that last bit of lingering dignity by playing Wii Music like a diminutive Japanese John Williams. That’s

Cutscene after cutscene, they exhibit planet-shaking combat abilities and a level of indestructibility which would make God himself jealous. But as soon as you pick up the controller? The Incredible Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner and all of those showboating tricks and superhuman powers disappear into the ether.

Just why do game characters save their best tricks until we've already done all the hard work for them? Here are the worst offenders.

Devil May Cry 4 needs almost 5GB of hard drive space and a 20-minute install time on PS3. So we figured we should see how far you can get on the 360 version in that time. Video inside!