Anybody who already owns a copy of the latest instalment of the highly successful FIFA series will have the option of purchasing the full UEFA EURO 2012 game for £15.99, 1800 MS Points and 2,500 FIFA Points on PC.

UEFA EURO 2012 is the only official game of the 2012 European Football Championship and allows players to recreate all the drama, excitement and the inevitable, resulting disappointment, if you happen to follow England, of what is apparently one of the largest and most watched sporting events on the planet.

In an attempt to avoid looking like a cynical cash in on a money making series, although that’s probably what it is, EA Sports have worked hard to make UEFA EURO 2012 a unique gaming experience. Features in the game include a new Expedition mode, which enables fans to build, manage and compete with a customised team against other European nations, crafting the perfect strategy for European domination. It’s essentially Risk, with football. Here’s a video guide:

The game will also give the player the ability to alter real life story lines, with the return of a feature that made the 2010 South Africa World Cup game rather interesting. EA SPORTS and Coca-Cola Zero are teaming up to deliver an online service that will drive real-life story lines from the UEFA EURO 2012 qualifying campaign and during the tournament into the game, enabling fans to relive dramatic moments with challenges based on real-life matches.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to take England to the Quarter Finals of Euro 2012, where I’ll lose to Portugal in an ultimately disappointing match.

The imaginatively, and predictably, titled PES 2013 will apparently move the goalposts, offering “football fans an unprecedented level of control” as the Konami team try to score one over the ever growing, ever popular FIFA franchise, when the latest PES 2013 title returns to the field this Autumn.

Endorsed by Cristiano Ronaldo, PES 2013 sees the series returning to its roots, with the emphasis on the individual skills of the world’s best players, and giving the player the total freedom to play any style of ball, which includes for the first time full control over shots. This follows further consultation with both football and PES fans alike, and the result is the most faithful recreation of modern day football to date, with players modeled to match the running motions, abilities and playing styles, and the flicks and turns of their real-life counterparts.

PES FullControl, or PES FC for short, forms the basis of PES 2013’s innovations, with a number of new additions that will allow the user to control players like never before. According to the press release, amongst these innovations, three key elements include:

• Total Freedom of Control: Pro Evolution Soccer introduced the concept of freedom of movement, the new ‘PES FC’ in PES 2013 goes further with total freedom over ball control.
• Dynamic First Touch: PES 2013 introduces subtle ways to receive the ball, from traps, gently lifting it past an attacker to run on to or a variety of other moves. First touch is everything and players can trap the ball using the R2 button, killing the speed of a well-hit pass and bringing it instantly under control, or using the momentum of the pass to turn a defender.
• Full Manual Shooting and Full Manual Passing: PES 2013 offers fully manual passing and for the first time ever manual shooting, allowing users to determine the height and power of each. Long low passes can be sent skimming across the pitch, while shooting  the user has total control over where the shot is placed. Skill and precision are needed to master these, but passes can be made into open areas, allowing lone strikers to thrive, while offering an unrivalled variety in ways to score.

Very much like last year’s instalment of the FIFA series, PES 2013 will see an overhaul of the game’s defence system, with using positioning and physical strength to your advantage becoming an important part of the 2013 PES match day experience. Also much like FIFA 12, Player Individuality becomes a key feature, with the very best players being instantly recognisable via incredible likeness and signature attributes skills and tricks that bring them to life. The way they run, turn, trap and move the ball, shape to shoot and even celebrate will be noticeably different during play.

PES 2013 will also boast better connectivity and atmosphere. The popular myPES application will extend the connectivity and communication between Facebook-using PES fans, while the game’s audio effects are being tied closer to the on-field action to provide the kind of buzz seen at top-tier matches, with crowds growing in excitement as their team starts to exert pressure. Jon Murphy, European PES Team Leader, had this to say:

“This is an exciting time to be part of the PES community, and PES 2013 marks a new level of playability with the return to our key ethos of utter control and freedom. Football is all about making magic happen with skill and precision, and PES 2013 truly encapsulates this. Fresh faces within the development team and some very exciting ideas will breathe new life into the PES series, and we look forward to showing what we can do in the coming months.”

Whether or not, however, the latest instalment in the PES series can stop FIFA’s Manchester United-esque dominance in the football simulation market remains to be seen.  More news and more terrible, terrible, football related puns and metaphors to follow soon. In the meantime, here’s a teaser trailer of Cristiano Ronaldo alone in a stadium, looking all dead serious and handsome.

The most exciting news to come out of the event was the announcement of a third instalment in the Lost Planet series, accompanied by a CG trailer showing off the new protagonist, Jim.

While little is known of the story for Lost Planet 3, Capcom have revealed that Jim, a pilot of one of the utility rigs shown in the trailer, has taken up a contract on the increasingly dangerous planet of E.D.N III, the familiar setting for fans of the series.

Mixing first person combat in the utility rig and the classic third person action which the series is known for, Lost Planet 3 is expected to iterate on the series multiplayer components while delivering a new chapter in the Lost Planet story.

Although no official release date was pegged, Lost Planet 3 is slated for a an early 2013 release.

In addition to the release of the Lost Planet reveal trailer, Capcom also appeased Resident Evil fans with a new story trailer detailing the ‘C-Virus’ and the announcement of an earlier release date for the highly anticipated Resident Evil 6: 2 October 2012!

While showing off Leon Kennedy in more depth than in the first trailer from earlier in the year, the new trailer has dispelled rumours regarding the mysterious male character, confirming that it is a wholly new character to the universe: Albert Wesker’s son.

Alongside the two big announcements, Capcom allowed people to get their first hands-on experience with some of the big releases on the horizon, including DmC: Devil May Cry and the PS Vita version of Street Fighter x Tekken.

Capcom have further detailed the forthcoming PS Vita title has including the Cross Play function, allowing players to compete with those playing the PS3 version of the game as well as other players on the mobile handheld.

Pop over to the Capcom Youtube page to get a better look at their forthcoming line-up and some of the amazing trailers to come out of last week’s event.

Radio stations now announce the state of traffic, police will give chase for breaking the speed limit, and the criminal underworld has a functioning economy (there’s probably the potential for some US economy-based satire for that point, but it escapes me).

If, however, the sound of accurate traffic reports isn’t exciting enough, it’s also rumoured that police will keep on the lookout for your character for up to 72 hours even after the initial ‘wanted’ level has faded in the wake of speeding, shooting or stealing your way across Los Santos.

However, it seems likely that this former employee is keeping back a substantial number of secrets, so I’ve listed a number of likely additions to the award winning franchise that will surely be confirmed as the weeks go by. In typical Nostradamus fashion, I’ve also awarded points for inevitable correctness.

5 points: Not content with making driving  an ever more realistic experience, GTA V will feature icy conditions that can send players careering off the roads into strategically placed cardboard boxes, hotdog carts, and unfortunate citizens of Los Santos.

15 points: À la Hitman, players can wear the outfits of their victims to walk around  largely undetected.

25 points: À la Silence of the Lambs, players can wear the faces of their victims to walk around largely undetected.

50 points: Players will be able to ‘tag’ spots around Los Santos to strengthen the influence of whatever gang they support in multiplayer. Taking a leaf out of Mass Effect 3′s book, the single and multiplayer aspects will feed into each other, as tagging leads to the sale of graffiti until players can flood the economy with the sale of suddenly fashionable modern art. The ‘gangster in formaldehyde’ is our protagonist’s personal favourite.

200 points: Further promoting realism, stealing cars now initiates a very entertaining mini-game which the player will have to replay every single time a vehicle is hotwired. Fortunately the flat-head screwdriver required also doubles as a rather effective short range weapon.

500 points: Players can now do much more than just take drugs (in-game); they can make and deal them too! After all, why bother working your way up in the criminal underworld when you can manage a meth empire worth upwards of twenty dollars? As Vice City was to Scarface, so GTA V is to Breaking Bad and, as a result, campervan-cum-meth labs will be added to the list of controllable vehicles.

There you have it! All in all – a healthy 795 points earned which I’m assuming I can use to buy day-one DLC.

Officially revealed at E3 2009 following a lengthy teaser campaign on the internet, which was also used as a platform to announce Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker, it was not until one year later that we got out first proper glimpse at the game.

Sporting a new tagline, ‘Lightning Bolt Action’, and focused around the concept of Zan-Datsu (cut and take), the new instalment in the Metal Gear franchise seemed like a logical sidestep for the franchise.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising was to be a different sort of experience to others in the series, if not a great departure in terms of tone. Gone was the stealth suit and the sneaking, but what the game now seemed to focus around was the amazing athletic capabilities showcased by Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

The gameplay was said to focus on two main gameplay features: stealth would remain a crucial factor, but hiding and sneaking would now be replaced by lightning quick speed and agility. Raiden would be able to out manoeuvre his enemies rather than be forced to evade them.

Secondly, the player would be able to cut anything, be it enemy soldiers or parts of the environment to suit your needs, opening up new methods of defeating your foes and altering the way you navigate the levels.

The trailer shown at E3 2010 revealed Raiden, less advanced than we saw in MGS4, attacking a cyborg which looked similar in art style to the Beauty and the Beast unit members. Upon defeating the enemy, he ripped out a power source before absorbing its energy. The trailer also showcased some of the Zan-Datsu elements.

It was ambitious and different, but it didn’t feel like a wrong direction for the franchise. Fans raised an eyebrow at seeing Raiden taking centre stage once again, but there was no denying that the premise looked appealing.

However, it was not to be.

Following a long, well documented series of development issues, many spawning from the cutting mechanic, the project was cancelled in 2010. However, Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta and Vanquish, stepped in to take over the project.

The timeline of the game has been shifted to post-MGS4, rather than the original plan for it to bridge Raiden’s story between MGS2 and MGS4, and having lost its canon position in the Metal Gear Solid storyline, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was revealed to the world at the Spike Video Game Awards 2011.

Fans were shocked at the difference between the original trailer shown over a year before, and the new direction with the game had clearly taken.

The original version of the game, while very different to the Metal Gear Solid games which had come before, still fit with the aesthetic and tone of the series.

The new trailer, which still showcased the cutting mechanic and fast-paced combat, revealed that the game was very different to what had been shown before.

Scenes such as Raiden hurling a Metal Gear Ray (complete with glowing orange weak spot) into the air before cutting it in half felt more akin to games such as Vanquish rather than something which existed in the same universe as Snake and Ocelot.

In contrast to this video, trailers prior to the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots tackled the issues faced by an ageing Snake and issues such as the horrors of warfare. They even went so far as to show an exhausted Snake tackling the issue of his own mortality.

The new tone of Metal Gear Rising seems to have done away with the core of the series, replacing a deep narrative and character relationships with a garish aesthetic, out of touch with the roots of the franchise or the fan base.

Hideo Kojima and Platinum Games have since gone on record multiple times to try and reiterate the great aspects of the game: It will run at 60 frames a second; the gameplay will still feature the ambitious cut-anything mechanic which was shown in the original trailer; the story will deal with issues from the past of Raiden and his “Jack the Ripper” days.

However, the damage may well have been done, and may be too difficult to mend. The new art direction, which feels in-keeping with other Japanese third person adventure games like Lost Planet, rather than the overtly Western feel Kojima imposed on Metal Gear Solid, has not sat well with diehard fans of the series.

While the Metal Gear franchise is hardly lacking releases, with the 3DS version of Snake Eater and the HD collection for both Xbox 360 and PS3 coming out in early 2012, many were hoping that Rising would be the infusion of new content which the series needed this year.

While it is rumoured that Kojima is working on Metal Gear Solid 5 (which various job announcements now seem to corroborate), there is no telling how far away that may be from being revealed. As such, fans of the series face the choice of boycotting Revengeance and its radical change of direction for the series, or take a risk and see where Platinum Games have taken this beloved franchise.

Mass Effect Executive Producer Casey Hudson stated the intention to provide ‘even more context and clarity to the ending of the game, in a way that will feel more personalized for each player.’

The pack will feature additional cinematics and epilogue scenes in order to, in the words of Bioware co-founder, Dr. Ray Muzyka, ‘strike a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team’s artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe.’

Perhaps most importantly, the pack will be free on all platforms until April 2014, though it remains to be seen whether this will be enough to put to rest the innumerable theories, complaints, and Marauder Shields memorials.

Surely by starting any review with reference to that isometric squad-based shooter set in a cyber-punk future, you are achieving very little.

At best, you are alienating any newcomers to the series, forcing them to skim read the article until a review score pops up at the bottom and they can make that impulse decision whether to buy or pass.

However, at worst, you are teasing out the warm glow of nostalgia from fans of the series, and those sorts of fond memories (no matter how much the passage of time may have corrupted them) are very difficult to beat.

But perhaps a brief nod to the source material is all that is needed in the long run, for Starbreeze do little more than that throughout the entire game.

The new Syndicate may share a few basic concepts with the original game – trench coats, evil corporations (or Syndicates), and a couple of the weapons on offer – but at its core it is nothing like the material on which it is based.

Syndicate is a modern first-person-shooter through and through. The gunplay feels across between Killzone and Call of Duty, a simple cover system in place when crouched behind walls, but for the most part utilising the basic two gun/iron sights of every over game in the genre.

The usual run-and-gun game play is augmented with the inclusion of ‘Breach’ moves – abilities which allows you to wirelessly access enemy chips to aid you in battle. Suicide eliminates the enemy subject, while Backfire momentarily disables them, giving you a brief chance to gain the upper hand.

The most useful of these moves is the Persuade ability, which forces an enemy to take your side and aid you in battle (before also committing suicide). Each move requires you to hold down the key until the right moment, similar to the active reload found in Gears of War, although unlike Gears there is little feedback or bonus for achieving a perfect breach.

While these functions are fun, and will become essential later in the game, there is rarely any strategic need for them. The AI are simple, either running at you or standing near cover, and as their damage resistance increases throughout the game, use of the Breach moves simply allows you to get past them quicker, rather than unloading clip after clip into increasingly bullet-spongy foes.

The Breach function returns in a few minor quick-time events during which you have to manipulate the environment around you. Occasionally these feel useful, especially late in the game when moving cover can mean the difference between life and death, but at other times it is just to remove an arbitrary obstacle which is holding back your progress through the level.

At its core there is little to separate Syndicate from any other first person shooter available in the market these days in terms of moment-to-moment game play besides the Breach mechanic and the occasional (and infuriating) plat forming section.

There are a couple of brief moments when the game tries to break out of the mould and try something new during the boss fights. One forces you to use the Dart overlay (a bullet-time, x-ray vision mode) to track an invisible enemy, while another requires you to breach incoming missiles to deflect them.

What does set Syndicate apart from many other throw-away FPS games, however, is the general look and feel to the game. Gone is the 1993 grimy, Blade Runner-esq future of the original, and in its place we find a future somewhere between the Tron Legacy soundtrack and an iPod.

Almost every item in the game comes with an identifying icon hovering above it – annoying at first, prompting you to think everything is a collectable, but which reinforces the concept Starbreeze are driving at.

The world they create feels a little ridiculous – countries are irrelevant and corporate entities rule supreme – but all of these minor additions, such as the holograms, computer screens and vehicles, feel at home in the world they have built.

The sound effects, which all sound like they are from Tron, together with the Skrillex soundtrack, work perfectly. These digital tones are accompanied by some great voice work from Brian Cox and Rosario Wilson, who provide the voices to two of the main characters throughout the game.

Additional touches, such as the use of business terminology makes the world of Syndicate feel fleshed out and deeper. Enemies are terminated as readily as contracts; hostile takeovers happen with militaristic force, and end of each chapter in the game is punctuated with an “End of Trading” summary detailing your performance.

The plot is almost non-existent, establishing from the outset that you are a new sort of agent with a new type of chip, and that corporations do not get on. From then on out everyone in front of you is fair game and your finger will rarely lift from the trigger. Occasional references and story elements can be linked to the original game, but so loosely that they are little more than fan service.

While you could argue that this is a failure on the part of the developer, it means that the story never intrudes on the minute-to-minute action, providing the most basic of frameworks to justify transporting the player to different environments.

The inclusion of a cooperative online mode ticks the box for multiplayer options. Squads of four teammates can take on various objectives with a variety of load outs/Breach options. While this part of the game adheres most to the source material, allowing players to tinker with their agent and load outs, it feels a little tacked on, but adds an essential replayability factor sorely missing from the single player.

Syndicate is not a bad game, but there is little to set this reboot apart from so many other games which are currently available. The shooting elements are altogether unremarkable, treading the well-trodden path of every FPS, while other elements are barely improvements over those utilised in games such as Project Snowblind.

Yet while it may be dull and functional in many respects, the look and sound of Syndicate is not one of them. If you are willing to forgive it for sticking too closely to the tried and tested formula of the modern shooter, and embrace the beautiful digital future Starbreeze has built, then you may find an enjoyable experience hidden within.

This review is based on an Xbox 360 version of Syndicate provided by EA Games.

In the past 4 games you used to wander around the city, get approached by random thugs and then a fight would start. You would punch, kick and smash bikes around the heads of your opponents until they are knocked out then you would be given some experience points and continue to wander around the city until that happens again.

With Dead Souls the battles are separate from the city wandering sections because the city is separated into 2 parts, the normal city areas and the quarantine zones. The quarantine zone is the area that houses all the zombies. and where most of the action happens. This means that the city is mainly used for moving the story forward and also a lot of the side options.

You can play UFO catcher and arcade games at club Sega, go drinking at one of the bars, chat up some women at a hostess club or even sing Japanese karaoke. These are all good distractions but singing and drinking wont help with the zombie issue now will it.

When you venture into the quarantine zone the gameplay changes from city simulator to zombie killing simulator and this is both a blessing and a curse. Killing zombies is fun, using guns to shoot off limbs or running around with a revving chainsaw for a bit of hack and slashery is simple and entertaining.Some of the guns even have infinite ammo so you don’t ever need to worry about carrying loads of bullets around if you don’t want to.

However the controls take a lot of getting used to. In fact I really did not enjoy my first hour or so with this game, mainly because in previous Yakuza games you were mostly melee attacking thugs so it played out sort of like a fighting game – the controls weren’t perfect but they worked.

The story in this game is a bit of a mystery. I can’t tell if it ties into the main Yakuza cannon and if it does I can sort of see where but it’s a weird fit. One of the guys you play as supposedly died in one of the previous games and another playable person has never been playable before so it might just be an offshoot rather than established lore.

You play as 4 different people and they each start out with their own story. Yet despite being independent the leveling up system has you leveling them all up together. You start playing as Shun Akiyama, the owner of a money lenders and a hostess club. His story revolves around trying to help his assistant who has gotten sick and needs medical attention.

You play through that and as you go through his story you level him up, give him new skills, upgrade his weapons ect and generally make him a bad ass zombie killer. Then his story cuts off and it places you in the shoes of Goro Majima, who is sitting there watching a zombie movie when real zombies break in and start attacking.

The game informs you that he has all the skills and abilities that you gave the last guy and that all the items and weapons you had are in a storage box ready to be picked up and used again. It really feels like more of a pallet swap than an actual change of characters but I suppose it was the only way Sega could make your progress from the previous section count and not just have it feel like you went through those last few hours for nothing.

The graphics look almost exactly the same as the ones in Yakuza 3 and 4 and as a result the game looks older than it actually is, however,  you do tend to have quite a large number of zombies on-screen at a time and I never experienced any slowdown so I guess having older graphics has its upside sometimes.

Over all this game is good. It’s by no means an amazing game but it is definitely my favorite Yakuza game so far. If you want to try the series out for the first time I would suggest getting one of the other ones cheep and trying that first. If you know you like the series however but are unsure about the change in style then try it.

It makes a nice change to kill zombies rather than punching and kicking random attackers, and if it turns out you don’t like the gunplay then at least you can spend your time playing table tennis, getting a massage and playing some pachinko.

It seems EMI aren’t afraid of starting a ‘beef’ with the producers of the hit hip-hop game, Def Jam Rapstar, as they begin a lawsuit citing theft of songs performed by Kanye West, DMX and Li’l Wayne amongst others. The lawsuit amounts to about $8million in total, a sum that would likely purchase a substantial amount of ‘bling’ but let’s hope the matter is settled before violence spills into the streets.

Onto a different kind of music, who here remembers KISS? Sure. And Gene Simmons? Well, a little less, but yeah, though mainly from that Rock School program on Channel 4 a few years ago. How about Shannon Tweed-Simmons?

Well you will now; Shannon (Gene’s wife) has got her very own video game, ‘Shannon Tweed’s Attack of the Groupies’! (available on iTunes) The complex gameplay features Shannon as a playable character planting money-trees and buying weapons to fight off hordes of KISS groupies, and the more you play, the more you unlock, including photos and enticing[?] secret material. And to think, some people say video games can’t be art …

If you’d rather play any other game, then you’re in luck! Arona Race is another game! And  Hebrew-language point and click ‘em up at that. Developed by Israeli developers Alon Simon and Oren Rubin, it tells the story of Yigal, a student who must try and avoid eviction from his house. If the distressingly Kafka-esque  bureaucratic element isn’t enough to tempt you in, then the humour just might be, with a script featuring witty dialogue such as when our hero complains ‘I don’t have money … pita bread with dry rice is all I eat!’

Unfortunately, you will probably need to speak Hebrew to get the most from the game, and my own understanding is largely cobbled together from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Actually that might have been Latin …

Slightly more up to date: Epic Games, they of Gears of War fame, have announced that they’re partnering with a division of Applied Research Associates Inc. to apply Unreal Engine technology to power training programs. No word yet on whether this will lead to new recruitment requirements that demand potential soldiers possess their own bandanas, gravelly voice, and torturous back stories but it’s exciting nonetheless.

Unfortunately Virtual Heroes (the ARA division) have announced a partnership focusing on medical scenarios – seemingly forgetting that, just like in real life, all you have to do is press X to revive.

Finally, the City of St. Augustine had an unexpected benefactor on Saturday, as Assassin’s Creed producers Activision provided the city with detailed 3D scans of a 200 year old Spanish Constitution monument .Gratis.

The city wanted the scans in order to allow possible replication of the monolith, but Activision’s intentions are a little less transparent. Unsubstantiated rumours made up just this second revolve around pieces of Eden hidden within the obelisk’s construction. Either that or Activision has started to try and appeal to the lucrative archaeologist and epigraphologist demographics.