Xbox 360 Features

If you’ve been keeping up with this site at all, you know that I am a giant comic book nerd. The moment any type a comic book game is announced I am right on the scene with a rundown on how that characters history could play out in a game. Bar none, Spider-Man is my favorite hero of all time, so next week’s new release, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, has been on my radar for awhile. And no Spider-Man game before it has gone as in-depth into Spider-Man’s history of alternate costumes and universes, which is great for an uber-nerd like me...

We're kicking off Episode 11 of GamesRadar's Trailer Trash Theatre with a few more awful trailers from last week's GamesCom conference. We didn't get any multi-racial-pseudo-family-acting-like-morons-in-the-living-room trailers in this episode, but there are still many more ways to make a trailer... trashy.

Click on over and watch the video!

It's almost been a year since I claimed the fastest recorded time on Act 1 of the Xbox 360 version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. So I figured it's time to reveal the secrets and let you have a go at getting your own Guinness World Record. So here, in video form, is exactly what you need to do to if you wanna be a record breaker (ooh). You've got dedication already, right?

There's a very good chance that portable gaming changed forever last night . We're talking serious vision-of-the-future stuff here, and even better, that stuff is available right now. To you. For free. Trust me, shit just got real.

Last night Epic Games, creator of Gears of War, Unreal Tournament and the is-there-a-single-HD-game-that-isn't-made-with-it Unreal Engine 3, released a free tech demo on the iPhone's App store. That demo is called Epic Citadel, and is a real-time, fully controllable, first-person look at the Unreal Engine 3 running on a device supposedly less powerful than a PSP. It looks like the screenshot above, which I took last night as I played. And that is to say, it looks like a full-sized console game.

All the rules of portable gaming have changed, and if you click on, both myself and Mr. Towell will tell you why.

By now, it's possible you've finished Mafia II's story. You may have even scrounged around and found all 50 of its hidden Playboy centerfolds, giving you a complete set of what might be the best collectible whatsit ever dropped into an open-world game. But you can't really say you've exhausted Mafia II's potential until you've hunted for its ultimate collectibles: the whopping 159 developer portraits disguised as wanted posters...

The drought has ended. The desert has been crossed. Summer is over, and although that means the return of school for some, it also means the return of real game releases. For the last two months, we've had to settle and scour… this month, we finally get to play with the big boys.

Here's what to look forward to in September. Which will you be buying?

The majority of game videos on the internet are utter crap. Know why? Because they were recorded at a preview press event with some wuss of a journalist on the controller. Like me. Listen, just because we're the people you want writing and talking about videogames doesn't mean we're the ones you want signing up for a professional multiplayer tournament. Our online combat skills are usually average at best.

So when I attended the Halo: Reach review event in San Francisco last week, I decided to record footage – and audio commentary – from someone who truly knows what he's doing. In this case? Brian Jarrard, community director at Bungie. By the time you buy Halo: Reach on September 14, he'll have already been playing it for months, possibly years. This is a man whose multiplayer skills you want to watch, and study, very closely...

Hello there and welcome to a brand-spanking new episode of your favourite gaming podcast with the words 'talk', 'radar' and 'UK' in the title.

This week Matt, Justin, Dave H and Meiks are your hosts, talking rather swearily about stuff and blowing up balloons with their mouths (video below).

So what can you expect from the fearsome foursome?

- Is this news? Basically, we weren't convinced the news section was, in fact, news, so we're changing it. Big stories that probably shouldn't have been, discussed with words.
- Appreciation section!: Meiks delves into the recesses of his mind and emerges with a dinosaur game
- Question of the Week!: In which we read out your answers to the question... What's your weirdest ever dream about video games?
- More! More! More!

Listen now...

Mafia II is great. Between its deep, epic plot, warm, likeable characters and brilliant set-pieces, it's an absolute winner if you're after a thrilling slice of cool crime and smooth storytelling. And also, it has boobs. One hundred of them in fact.

Not in some horrendous Cronenbergian flesh parade, you understand. No, Mafia II contains 50 original vintage Playboy spreads as collectables, littered around the game world for your ogling pleasure. We've already told you how to find them, and believe us, it's worth the effort. The huge, HD prints look great onscreen, and even better, they're zoomable. You know, for appreciating the quality of the lighting in each composition. And stuff. But if, however, you're too lazy or impatient, or just want a sneak preview before you go and collect them all for yourself, we've captured the lot of them and spread them decadently across the next few pages. Click on! Click on now, for the love of God!

Variations on bullet-time are legion, yet the essence remains the same. Slow down the action, make enemies say “Faaaarrrccck” in a deep bass, and allow the player some extra time to lock onto his or her prey. And if you can slot in a stylish visual trick with a spinny camera or a trip on the behind of a bullet, then so be it. It’s corny and it’s become hackneyed, but it sure as hell isn’t going anywhere anytime soon...