As of midnight on the 31^st December 2011, as the clocks ticked over into the New Year and parties the world over toasted to good health, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 became the first current-gen console to be on sale for eight consecutive years. An impressive if unsurprising fact, given the head start it was granted by Sony and Nintendo’s late arrivals, but it’s also unusual. The current consoles have been part of the longest running cycles ever experienced in the modern games industry and though Microsoft and Sony have been adamant that ten years should be the target length of life for their machines, consumers and developers are arguably itching for new technology.

It’s partly the reason rumours, however small or fleeting, have been analysed, speculated over and, more than likely, blown out of all proportion over the last few months. Halo 4’s announcement, for example, was quickly followed with speculation leading many to believe it would launch accompanied by a new machine at the end of 2012. Though Microsoft debunked these rumours faster than the Master Chief reloads his assault rifle, it remains a tantalisingly real prospect.

As 2012 enfolds and each passing month brings us closer to gaming’s biggest event, E3, which would make a perfect platform for a next-gen announcement), a reveal seems imminent. The only question is, will Microsoft’s new machine launch this year, or next?

It’s become evident the economic downturn experienced across the world over the last few years has made clinging on to the current console life cycle the smart choice, for publishers, developers and manufacturers. If rumours are to be believed, though, Microsoft will once again be first to step into next-gen territory ahead of the competition. Test units and rough approximations of the technology have been rumoured to be with studios such as Ubisoft Montreal and even a next-gen Kinect has been touted to be so accurate it has the ability to lip read and interpret emotions from facial expressions. That at least holds hope that future Kinect games will actually work without constant misinterpretations of your actions.

Hex-core CPU’s, AMD graphics processors and 2GB of DDR3 RAM are just a few of the nonsensical technical specifications bandied about as potential make-up of the next-box. Better graphics really are the minimum requirements for a new machine, too. Despite this the 360 has changed beyond all recognition to truly offer an entertainment hub, complete with TV, music, movies and social networking. Recognising this as the consoles renewed focus, there has even been rumours of two distinct versions of the console. A hardcore gamer’s choice and a Kinect-focused set-top box to cater for the fledgling family market.

An interesting prospect and all this conjecture provides no end of fun, but the bottom line is serious. A new console is needed to fuel not only an aging industry economically, but also creatively. For everyone’s sake, we hope these rumours turn out to be true.

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4. Carrier trolling

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3. Plane trolling

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2. Four’s a crowd

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1. Travel to nowhere and let people spawn on you

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The Ten Best Side Quests Ever

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain! Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

Side Quest #10: GTAIV – Hating The Haters

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The side quest ‘Hating The Haters’ is pretty standard GTA stuff, take phone call, meet guy and so on. What makes this so memorable, however (as is the case with much of Rockstar’s output) is that this hardcore, po-faced gangsta stuff resolves itself in a ridiculous chase on pink Faggio motor-scooters. At the time, we laughed so hard one of our faces burst off.

Side Quest #9: Final Fantasy VII – Chocobo Breeding

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Side quest in the traditional sense? Perhaps not, but successful breeding of the ultimate Golden Chocobo results in the attainment of the Knights Of The Round Materia, which in turn facilitates the defeat of Emerald Weapon, which in turn unlocks three Master Materia and on it goes. Overall, it’s an enjoyable excursion that’ll take you a good twenty hours.

Side Quest #8: Red Dead Redemption – Flowers For A Lady

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This side quest is one of the ‘Stranger Missions’ you’ll happen upon from time to time. Sometimes a good side quest isn’t all about the doing, but instead about the punch line. This side quest in Red Dead Redemption has one of the best. Since it may prove a minor spoiler for some, we’ll leave it to you as to whether you want to watch the whole vid.

Side Quest #7: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – A Night To Remember

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Since this side quest may constitute a spoiler of sorts, we’ll leave it to you whether you want to watch this brilliant video. In summary; think the movie The Hangover. You wake up remembering nothing of the night before and have to piece together exactly what debauchery you took part in. Brilliant side quest and brilliant riff on a pop culture meme.

Side Quest #6: Dragon Age 2 – All That remains

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Side quests like this don’t really feel like side quests at all, and you know why that is? because this one isn’t. It’s a plot quest, but we would argue that there really aren’t any plot quests in Dragon Age 2. The whole game felt like a bunch of disconnected side quests. This was its best, so we don’t mind bending the rules a little here, though we’re certain somebody’s going to stick a comment in somewhere like’ That’s not a side quest! That’s not a side quest! You can’t have that one! Lame. Idiot,’ and so on. Before you do, we’ll make the playground caveat that if you so much as mention it, you automatically smell of wee.

Side Quest #5: Fallout 3 – The Superhuman Gambit

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Side quests come in many different flavours, some emotional, some exciting and some that are just plain damn funny. The Superhuman Gambit side quest from Fallout 3 falls very much into the latter category. Two men, both believing they’re superheroes, go head to head. It’s The AntAgonizer Vs. The Mechanist; only your intervention can decide the outcome in this hilarious side quest.

Side Quest #4: Knights Of The Old Republic – Unidentified Republic Solder (Hrakert Station)

Some side quests have no video, only sweet, sweet memories. A bit of a random side quest this one, and not necessarily something that everyone agrees is a side quest in the traditional sense. On Hrakert station, you’ll ‘meet’ a Republic Soldier, hidden in a locker and too afraid to come out. You can be a good Jedi and coax him out or leaving him alone, but if you’ve been a bad boy (or girl), the option appears ‘Insert Lightsaber Into Locker’ – you had to be there.

Side Quest #3: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion ­– Whodunit?

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Side quests this good only come around about, oooh, once every five years or so. We’re getting into the upper echelon now; the best of the best. Whodunit? – a part of the Dark Brotherhood side quest line – put players in a house with half a dozen guests. The player had to murder them one by one without anyone else cottoning on that it was you. The most brilliant part of this is how they all started accusing one another, just like in a real murder mystery. This side quest is the dog’s pyjamas.

Side Quest #2: Mass Effect 2 – Jack: Subject Zero

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When it comes to side quests everyone will have their favourites in Mass Effect 2. For us it was Jack’s loyalty side quest entitled Jack: Subject Zero. As well as being kick-ass in terms of atmosphere, story and action, it also has a very pronounced and effective emotional core. When we play this, we feel. And that is a commodity that very few videogames can claim to instil. Awesome side quest.

Side Quest #1: Fable III – Hollows & Hobbes

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As far as side quests go, from concept to punchline, this is, in our opinion the finest piece of outside the box thinking ever to appear as a side quest in a commercial RPG. You may disagree, in which case, feel free to call us all a bunch of ****s in the comments below. Everyone else does. Happy side questing!

Got kids? Then check out our guide to the best Kinect kids games for this Christmas.

Looking for a gift for a gamer this Christmas? Check out our gifts for gamers guide.

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain! Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

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Innovation was the name of the game. Series creator Hideo Kojima used every tool at his disposal to put players into the experience, and indeed to bring the experience right out of our TV screens and into our living rooms. Psychic vibrating controllers are deserved of particular mention. But, Mr Kojima, we draw the line at your story, which was largely nonsense. Nevertheless, Metal Gear Solid remains one of the most engaging and innovative titles in videogame history.

9. Day Of The Tentacle (PC)

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Games aren’t funny. That idiom has resonated through games journalism for the last decade and a half. But there are exceptions to every rule, and along with the fantastic Monkey Island series, Day Of The Tentacle still represents easily the funniest game of all time. It came at a time when writers Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Gary Winnock had reached their zenith. Amazingly, it’s still hilarious today.

8. Tetris (Multi)

Some of the best games of all time are also the most enduring. Tetris is definitely an example of this. It’s appeared in every form and format, from keyrings versions tall the way up to complex 3D versions ustilising the Z-axis. Simple. Timeless. Brilliant. Don’t believe us? Play it right here, right now. (above).

7. Portal 2 (Multi)

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The first of our Valve titles on the list, here’s the second, more modern, example of games that tickle our funny bones. Intuitive, delightful, mind-bending, elegant. Portal 2 is a masterpiece of game design.

6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Multi)

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Okay, so this is what we call a new entry. You know, when you were young and Top Of The Pops counted down the top ten and you thought you had it all sussed, but then Bam! Rick Astley cuts in at number three between Sonia and Bananarama, and you’re like WTF?! That’s what Skyrim has done to us; surprised us in ways in which we thought ourselves unsurprisable.

5. GTA IV (Multi)

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Say what you like about GTA. Go on, say what you like. Finished? Good. GTA IV is a masterpiece. There are those who complain that it’s too structured and that it’s not ‘fun’ enough and this or that, but honestly, those people are probably running fetch missions for Brucey while we’re busy with eight friends racing Faggios around a skate park. An open world is what you make of it, a playground, and Liberty City is the best playground of them all.

4. Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64, 3DS)

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No need for any justification here. This is the archetype for a cross-stitched world where the unlocking of powers steadily unlocks further parts of the world. And so it rolls, with one of the most fascinating and delightful worlds ever seen in a videogame. If you didn’t play this first time around, it’s now available for 3DS and as good as it ever was.

3. Super Mario 64 (N64, 3DS)

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Did you get all the stars? Mario’s first step into the third dimension was also his best. Sure, you could say that Mario Galaxy and Mario Galaxy 2 do more, but they would be nothing without this game forming its bedrock. A true masterpiece, no less, and now available for 3DS.

2. Thief: Deadly Shadows (PC)

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Deadly Shadows was a highly focused stealth game set in an open fantasy city with a single objective for each mission: to creep past the guards and rob the shiny-shinies from a nominated mansion/crypt/dungeon. It was consistently tense and atmospheric, and featured The Cradle, a trouser-soiling mission that can often be found in top ten lists of the best levels ever made.

1. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (Multi)

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Narrative, gameplay, feel, invention, physicality, consequence, emotion. Half-Life 2, at the time of its release, represented the pinnacle of all, tied into a beautiful bow of gaming so good, it was pretty difficult to just move on and play other games. We got over it, eventually, but in the seven years in between, there’s really been nothing that’s felt quite this whole. Its later release on consoles as part of The Orange Box, which contained Episode 1, 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, sealed its place as the finest bits and bytes ever to be committed to a single DVD.

Got kids? Then check out our guide to the best Kinect kids games for this Christmas.

Looking for a gift for a gamer this Christmas? Check out our gifts for gamers guide.

If you liked this article, there’s plenty more where that came from. You can download the latest issue of 360 Magazine (also available in all good newsagents) through iTunes to your iPad or iPhone for just £1.99 per issue. Bargain! Or go here for the United States iTunes store version.

Glitches and bugs, bugs and glitches. An NPC glitches into the side of a building. Treasure disappears before our eyes. Quest lines end in dismal failure on account of important storyline characters badly gored in the anus by a random mammoth.

Now, we’re not going to talk here about how great a game Skyrim is. This is not that place and there’s no need; if you’ve played it for more than a couple of hours, you already know. And neither are we here to defend the existence of these kinds of bug, nor here to argue whether or not the final experience of the game could or should not be perfect. No, we’re here to throw some numbers at you.

But first of all, let’s talk about consensus. Out there in the big, wide world, there’s a consensus that Skyrim has too many bugs. But in a game as complex and unpredictable as Skyrim, we’re all experiencing different bugs, rather than the same bugs. That in itself should tell you everything you need to know about the issue at hand.

If we were to ask the average gamer how many bugs there are in Skyrim, the answer would most likely be anywhere between ‘lots’ and ‘millions’. However, ask that same individual how many bugs they have personally experienced and that answer somehow manages to drop to somewhere around ‘a few’. This then becomes less about bugs and more about the overwhelming power shared experience has to colour our opinions. Through YouTube and through various internet forums, we’ve adopted this notion that the ‘millions’ of bugs in Skyrim are all-prevalent.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to here it _ so the saying goes – will it make a sound? In the case of Skyrim, if we don’t experience a bug personally, what right do we have to stomp about the internet whining about it?

This point is perhaps a little churlish, and perhaps we are going out on somewhat of a limb, so let’s draw it back in. Let’s do some sums. Let’s say, for example, that the bug you experienced in Skyrim was indeed a mammoth killing a quest-imperative NPC. Let’s say that when that NPC left his house that morning to come to work, there was another NPC blocking the doorway to his shop, and that second NPC was there because of a bizarre sequence of random factors conspiring together to get that single unusual result. Let’s say that the chances of the second NPC blocking that door on that day are 500:1.

Now, the quest NPC has to make a decision. He can’t work that day, so what shall he do? Let’s say there is a 10:1 chance he’ll cross the bridge out of town and go up the road a way to pass the time before bed. The matter of him being on the road then becomes 5000:1 (500×10) – a figure we’ve pulled out of thin air by our own admission, but we reckon it’s a fairly conservative estimate.

Now let’s talk about the mammoth. That day, the mammoth, along with its giant herder, was attacked by a dragon. The giant died, the mammoth survived. Let’s say the chances of this occurring at that exact time of day at that exact location with that exact outcome are – conservatively – 10,000:1. Then let’s say the matter of the mammoth stampeding across the road at the exact place our NPC happens to be is about 500:1. This means that the chances of attacking our NPC are, for the sake of argument, around 5,000,000:1. Multiply that by the chances of the NPC being there and you have a bug that crops up exactly once in every 25,000,000,000 (25 billion) games.

Of course, looking at that figure, it would be easy to suggest that if that were the case, then it would never happen. The fact that bugs like this happen all the time is that Skyrim is not a game with just one mammoth and one quest guy. It’s a game with hundreds of thousands of different factors all playing out against one another.

Still think it’s fair to criticise it for being buggy? Yes? Okay, how about we take a look at the cost to a developer to find this specific bug and fixing it. There’s no need to chuck out any specific figures here. It’s a simple curve. The less bugs, the more the cost of QA spirals out of control. A conservative estimate suggests that to have Skyrim bug-free at release would have cost Bethesda literally billions of dollars; perhaps even hundreds of billions.

There is no way around it; the final leg of QA must be done by us; the gaming public. It’s not like Bethesda is refusing to fix these things is it? And so we come full circle to the article title. Calm down, be glad that games exist of such depth, intelligence and complexity, and most of all… please… quit whining.

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5 Things Skyrim Is Missing

Is Skyrim an offline MMO?

Skyrim’s funny glitches Part 1

Skyrim’s funny glitches Part 2

Skyrim’s 5 most fantastic locations

We all know the next generation of consoles will be arriving. ‘When’ appears to be the major debate, but what concerns us most is a question of a different kind altogether. What we want to know is ‘how much is it going to cost us?’

We’re not talking the price of the console, nor the doubtlessly ludicrous pricing of its first round of titles. No, we’re talking about the ways in which Microsoft and Sony are likely to go about doing a Sam Fisher on your cash – a stealth-kill to your anxious wallet.

No Backwards Compatibility

Both Microsoft and Sony have wheeled out all sorts of excuses as to why full backwards compatibility wasn’t available on either console this generation. ‘People don’t want it/need it’ they said. ‘We can reduce production costs if we take it out’ they said. ‘Lots of games work for the last generation, just not the ones you want to play’ they said.

The truth of the matter is that backwards compatibility was cut down in its prime so they could monetise all that content and sell it back to you once your disc copies had turned to dust. Probably. It’s for that reason that those expecting backwards compatibility may be in for a rude awakening.

Offline Passes

With the way things are going, there’s no doubt that the industry as a whole is united in its attempts to stamp out the second-hand market. Taking away our multiplayer on traded games is just the start. The logical progression is discs, or whatever media format next gen will arrive with, will come with unique signatures imprinted onto them.

Once ‘paired’ with your console, they will not be useable anywhere outside your profile. The technology for this already exists. The platform holders are unlikely to change the rules mid-gen, but with new machines on the market, they’re in a position to make it so right from the off.

All Side-Quests Are DLC

Let’s face it, a lot of people just buzz along to the end of a game without stopping to take in the view, let alone indulge themselves of a game’s many other distractions. If this is you prepare to not be ripped off. Games for you will be cheaper; you’ll pay twenty bucks for your side-quest-free campaign experience. Those who like to explore, complete and indulge in a game’s many distractions, however, look out. Moneys are likely going to be incrementally charged you for everything. You’ll probably have to pay money for an in-game NPC to give you directions.

Sports games are going to charge you for a new ball when you lose it or kick it out of bounds. Driving games are going to charge you real money for new tyres. Think about it; we’re really not very far off this model now and we’re all sitting idly by while we slowly boil like the proverbial frog in the pan.

£500/$700 Minimum

With truly epic graphics technology on the cards (nVidia’s Project Denver the current conjecture of choice), PS4 and Xbox 720 are going to cost you an absolute fortune, but then, you knew that, right? What’s money compared to realistic skin on an NPC’s knee?

Cloud Space

All your saves and other data will be stored on the cloud. With a mind for fairness, the amount of space you occupy on said cloud will be subject to tiered pricing. Oddly, this means that those who play the most (the most loyal) will be charged more.

Note: This article may or may not have been entirely made up because the author liked the title. Thanks for your time.

For more on the next generation, go here for why GTA V May Delay Next-Gen, or check out our article on Next Gen Launch Games.

As we head into the busiest time of year in the games industry, Bethesda’s Pete Hines has reiterated a hidden truth that is often ignored. Of all the triple-A games, with their huge budgets and marketing campaigns, only a few will go on to sell anywhere near enough. He’s the first to predict that this Holiday season will be home to a few casualties, and considering the quality and breadth of titles heading our way, can the industry afford to lose even one of its premium studios?

It seems reasonable to expect that, due to the huge numbers of competing games, there will always be a few that fail to sell the numbers their publishers hope to. Over the course of the last few years, big names like Capcom, EA and Rockstar have experimented with releasing titles sporadically throughout the year to huge success, so why hasn’t everyone followed suit? To launch everything in the scant few months leading up to Christmas seems illogical and unnecessary, dinosaur thinking left over from the toy-industry’s past. That consumers only want videogames as presents at one time of year is as barmy as it sounds. Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, Resident Evil 5 and Lost Planet 2 have all shown that the demand for games throughout the year is as high as ever. As long as the quality is there, then gamers are willing to purchase.

It makes it all the more frustrating to see big names like Pete Hines express worries for titles that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t fail. Few of the games seeing a release in the next few months will be below average, and all are exciting in their own right, but consumers have finite resources and an expensive game is an extravagance many cannot repeat more than once. So why do publishers insist on releasing their games at the busiest time of year? The Christmas holiday rush is a tantalising opportunity that, when played in the right way, can garner huge sales, but 2011 will be one of the busiest periods for gaming in years.

And as Pete Hines asserts, some games, regardless of their quality, will be hurt by the packed release schedule. So which games could potentially lose out? It’s hard to see Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 being affected, but what about Rage or Saints Row: The Third? November is bristling with so many games that even players with cash will have a job finding the time to play everything.

Until the games industry finds more appropriate anchors throughout the year, we’re unlikely to see a move away from the big rush to Christmas. If more publishers like Rockstar, EA and Capcom continue to push their releases into fresh parts of the year, and a culture grows around this, we’ll see a steady stream of titles and greater chance of success for more games.

After the down-scaling that sucked a lot of the fun out of E3, Europe seemed primed for it’s own version of the ostentatious Los Angeles expo. So the relative void that the streamlined 2007 and 2008 E3 conferences left gave the German authorities (Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware) space to create their own expo, in a conveniently central European location to represent the European gaming community. In 2009, the same year that the ESA decided that a shrunken E3 wasn’t such a good idea, Gamescom launched to the applause of jetlagged journalists and advocates of a home-grown Euro equivalent of E3.

We expected a comparatively faltering start – after all, this was the debut of a video games expo that wasn’t just treading the footsteps of a giant, but one that lay in the shadow of that same giant, launching just two months after E3′s annual June extravaganza – it’s going to take time to establish itself, of course. But three Gamescom’s in and no-one’s really taking a chance, what with developers still announcing big games or new developments in L.A. and then handing them down with perhaps a conciliatory increment to Cologne. It’s great that the masses of smaller developers who aren’t able or haven’t the budget for representation at E3 have a similar opportunity at this more convenient venue, but currently Gamescom feels more like a “me too!” for Europe, than a counterpart to the E3 juggernaut. Are we expecting too much, too soon from Cologne for it to compete with an Expo that has been around for 15 years? All we know is that E3 has once again upstaged Gamescom this year.

10. Guwange

It’s a bullet-hell shoot-’em-up from Cave that was originally released in 1999, it’s deeply rooted in Japanese culture (the traditional stuff, not the half-naked lolita stuff) and it’s not even benefited from the HD Vaseline sheen that is given to most retro games dragged into the modern age. And that title! What the hell is that? It sounds like a disease and it’s pronounced Goo-wan-gay, which may or may not have had anything to do with why no one bothered buying it. And yet, underneath all that lies a compelling shooter with short, tight levels and plenty of replay value. Still, that name, eh?

9. Microbot

So, you play as this little microbe, right? You’re a good microbe, and you get injected into the bloodstream, right? And you have to shoot the bad microbes!” Instead of firing Brad for coming up with such a ridiculous idea or relegating him to bring-in-the-biscuits-and-keep-your-mouth-shut role at the board meetings, someone decided to make it. It’s not bad either, even if it is just a twin-stick shooter with an ambient soundtrack. What? Like you know what music your veins listen to!

8. Roogoo

You’ve got to feel for the developers, who must have seen Xbox Live suddenly rocking their game’s gamerpics and feeling very confident when checking the sales of their actual game. You can picture the ‘is this a mistake?!’ panic as they close and open the spreadsheets to double-check. For whatever reason, it just didn’t sell. Even worse, Roogoo was decent. A genteel puzzle game that saw you spinning discs to allow shapes to fall through – we’ve made it sound terrible, but it’s worth trying the demo. If not, at least check the gamerpics out. We heard they’re pretty good.

7. Garou: Mark Of The Wolves

You can also picture the buying process for the curious Xbox 360 owner who stumbled upon this game on marketplace. So, it’s not Street Fighter, it’s not Mortal Kombat, it’s not Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 – it’s Garou: Mark of the Wolves. What does that mean? It doesn’t matter that it was one of the first 2D fighters to feel modern, with low jumps, just defence, multiple Supers and so on. No, it was ignored because it had a name that sounded more like a Native American pan-flute album than a badass fighting game. The game was advanced, the marketing team was not.

6. Boulder Dash XL

This didn’t sell because it’s a retro remake and “EURGH RETRO GAMES!” is the usual reaction to anything that doesn’t feature team deathmatch and 200 graphics. This is where we’d trot out the usual defence of ‘retro charm’, which is a lazy way of saying ‘it’s colourful and has characters who are supposed to be cute but because it doesn’t have 200 graphics, we can’t tell’. So instead, we’ll say this. It’s quite good. It’s an undemanding retro update of an undemanding retro game that you can play while you’re on the phone or writing top ten lists.

5. E4

It has a black background, techno music and lots of colours, so we’d garner at least 75 per cent of the reviews made some reference to discos or drugs. We’d also garner none of them made reference to the fact that it’s almost impossible to lose, making this the ultimate feel good game on Xbox Live Arcade. All you need to do is press a button every few seconds and your score will hit tens, hundreds, thousands of millions of points while a pretty light show plays. And nobody bought that? Pah. Shame on you.

4. EXIT

There should be a brilliant joke in here somewhere about a game called Exit failing to sell but God knows what it is. That’s at least three minutes of thought that’s failed to come up with something when we should probably be saying things like ‘sublime platforming’ (true) and ‘massively under-rated’ (also true). As if to make it even more confusing, developers Taito then released Exit 2 on Xbox Live Arcade, which was somehow worse and sold even less. There’s a message in there somewhere but we’ll be damned if we know what it is.

3. Moon Diver

Imagine Contra with spells and melee attacks replacing the guns and you have Moon Diver. As a game, it worked well enough, even mirroring Contra’s difficulty level (at least until you levelled up some). As a concept? Yeah, that’s a problem. You have Contra without guns on sale alongside three versions of Contra with guns – Contra, Super Contra and Hard Corps: Uprising. They all sold well, Moon Diver didn’t. Three of them had guns. One of them had spells. You know, just saying.

2. Poker Smash

This must have been a complete mindfuck for the six people who bought this. It’s poker except it’s not poker. No, that would be the easy thing to do. This is a puzzle game, where you have to match up tumbling cards based on real poker hands. It was a well-polished and unique puzzle game but there was a big problem with it. It demanded intrinsic poker knowledge to be fully enjoyed. Guess what the people with that hardcore poker knowledge are up to? That’s right, actually playing poker, not a Tetris-in-a-poker-costume variant.

1. Virtual-On OT

This was quite a cool project in that it was a Japan-only release during Sega’s golden years (ie when they weren’t releasing pap like Thor) which relied on its twin stick arcade control to work properly. That became possible when dual sticks became control standard and Sega decided to update the whole shebang – controls, graphics, leaderboards, the works. Still a great game too but even so, it might as well have been a Japan-only release again because no-one bought it. Those who did failed to understand it. Oh well. Thor 2, anyone?

10. Skinning animals
Red Dead Redemption

There’s no issue here with the actual act of killing and disembowelling a bunny rabbit, or skinning an armadillo just because you thought it would be funny. No, we just don’t think we’d be able to do the act of skinning these critters much justice – after all, it takes John Marston a good three or four minutes to teach his son how to skin an elk. That’s just the kind of valuable time we could never commit to learning ‘how to flail’ instructions.

9. Orb collecting
Crackdown series

Exercise is an element of the Kinect-shaped future that we’ve seen and are quite nervous about, even if we’re not all massive fatties here on 360. But the thought of leaping, jumping and grabbing in your living room to get a hold of those addictive glowing orbs doesn’t fill us with as much joy as it normally would when you compare it to just pressing a couple of buttons. Think of the untold levels of sweat. Disgusting.

8. Harvesting Little Sisters
Bioshock

Acting out the noble option when encountering Rapture’s Little Sisters wouldn’t be too difficult via motion controls – an air palm to the face, a healed child, a feeling of goodness. But the naughty option would just make us feel a little bit //too// bad. Granted, you don’t actually see what happens, but it would mean you’d be standing in your living room pretending to assault a child. That’s not something we’d be comfortable explaining to friends or family, frankly.

7. Mixing potions
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Not that the whole searching through meadows and gathering flowers to mix together into something that lets you breathe underwater for 10 seconds thing isn’t //great//, of course. We just don’t want to have to pestle and mortar the hell out of the air for a few seconds every time we want a new potion – which is of course quite often. Lactic acid buildup in the hand and forearm can kill – never forget that simple (non) fact, Bethesda.

6. Fist bumps/air guitar
Army Of Two series

It’s bad enough the attitude backing up Salem and Rios exists without having to put up with their inane quips, their altogether moronic behaviour and – worst of all – their incessant fist-bumping, air guitaring and whatever else these apes do to acknowledge a bromantic bond between them. How could it possibly be worse? Why, if you had to physically act out this nonsense, of course. It would single-handedly cause the idiotification (not a word) of everyone who played the game. Guaranteed.

5. Rewinding time
Prince Of Persia series

Time reversal allows the Prince to do over the last few seconds of his life – ideal if there’s been a bit of a spike-to-the-groin incident. But to get back, he has to reverse time, and to reverse time you would have to do everything you’d just done – backwards. That kind of action just isn’t what we signed up to on this runaway Kinect train, even if it is an entirely hypothetical and utterly ludicrous suggestion on our part.

4. Stealthily crouching
Hitman series

Actually murdering people would be fun with Kinect – especially garrotting those slimy sons of bi… ahem. But getting to the target in the first place? That’s where motion control would present a problem. Crouching, you see, is something that – like Crackdown’s orb collecting – would involve physical exertion. Physical exertion involving a lot of using old, decrepit knees that don’t function like knees should any more. Basically, it would remind us that we would make terrible, //terrible// hitmen/women in real life.

3. Ridiculous combos
Bayonetta

Or insert your own combo-heavy game into this top 10 – we just went with Bayonetta as it’s still fresh in the mind. Fighting games – fine. A few punches, maybe a kick, everybody’s happy. But 100-hit combos involving jumping all over the place like a prat and holding a sexy pose at the end of it all? No, no, no. That just wouldn’t be doable at all. Bayonetta and all like it must never use Kinect for evil like this.

2. Sex
Dragon Age: Origins

This is another one where you’re free to insert any suggestion you have, but we’ve gone with BioWare’s epic Dragon Age for one very good reason: elf sex. The thought of air-grinding Morrigan or faux-bumping uglies with Alastair would make us never want to enter our living rooms again. But explaining to your significant other just why you have to thrust at the screen to make two elves have it off? Well, that’s your relationship over right there.

1. Tequila Time
Stranglehold

Or bullet time, if you want to use the parlance of our times. Tequila Time slows down the game world and the actions of Tequila, the player character in John Woo’s overlooked hoot. What would this mean for Kinect? Well, having to do everything in super-slo-mo, moving, aiming, shooting, ducking and diving all at an unnaturally slow speed, just like that scene in Spaced. Actually, come to think of it, that sounds bloody brilliant…