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Rayman helped put Ubisoft on the map many years back and frankly, it's time for the publisher to return the favor after shelving the armless wonder for years in favor of Rabbids and rehashes. Luckily, Rayman Origins is everything you'd hope for from a revival of the classic platform hero: it's bursting with color and creativity from every bit we've seen and played. And most importantly, it's a lot of fun.

Normally, when a bunch of jaded games journalists get together to preview an upcoming game, most of the noise in the room comes from the game itself. Within minutes of being let loose on the Gamescom demo of Rayman Origins, however, we heard something we hadn’t heard in years, at least not in a professional context: a lot of laughter and shouting, all of it coming from the supposedly world-weary writers at the controls. Clearly, this merited further investigation...

Whether or not Rayman Origins actually stands a chance in hell when it arrives in stores next month remains to be seen, but judging by what we’ve played so far, it certainly deserves to. It’s vibrant, fast and beautifully animated like few other games out there, 2D or otherwise. It’s also surprisingly fun, with inventive, cleverly designed levels that range from quick, easy romps to crushingly difficult speed runs. Most importantly, though, it has an “OK, just one more level” appeal that sucked us in and kept us playing for hours longer than we intended.

That may be too generous for a preview. We’ve only been able to play through about the first half of the game, after all, so it’s entirely possible that Origins turns to crap right after that. Possible, but unlikely...

With ex-Sony man Phil Harrison on board and fingers in practically every gaming pie (thanks to distribution deals with publishers the world over), and a brand that everyone recognises, Atari has the foundations in place to become great once again. But, most shockingly, it's actually got some great games to back it up. Here are five games Atari were showing off that we reckon you're going to want to play.

Back in the day, before GTA: Vice City, San Andreas and GTA IV, we used to play a game where we'd try and guess where the next GTA game would be set. As well as locational suggestions like Tokyo, South America and Europe, we also considered different time-frames - Victorian London, the 1920s Gangster scene. But one scenario seemed to fit the best - GTA: Wild West.

And while Rockstar will rightly distance the forthcoming Red

We’ve been desperate to get to grips with Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption since the first time we watched John Marston ride into town. And finally, we’ve been handed the reins to give this superb looking cowboy game a go.

We were given a demo of one mission but by Rockstar but were handed the pad to try out two others. There was also time for us to do a heck of a lot of off-mission stuff too, which we’ll bring

If you’ve been following coverage of Red Dead Redemption, you’re probably already aware that a set of new multiplayer co-op missions, under the name Outlaws to The End, will be available on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network tomorrow. You’re probably also aware that they’re free, meaning you should grab them regardless of anything we say here. What you might not know, however, is exactly what’s in store when you finish the download tomorrow...

With less than a week to go before the trigger is pulled on the second round of downloadable content for Red Dead Redemption, publisher Rockstar Games invited us to check out the Legends and Killers pack for ourselves. Bringing with it a small host of add-ons for competitive multiplayer, the new pack boasts new maps, new characters and – perhaps most significantly – tomahawks...

We’ll be honest; we were going to tell you how impressive our latest demo of Red Dead Redemption played out with hundreds of words. But then a video came along and changed everything.