Dead Space 3 is not the clucking fuster its preamble suggested it might be. A lot of its more contentious ideas work on a few levels. The Bench is cool. A lot of the creations that come out of it are redundant, but you can have fun with it and fun is good. Shooting at other guys with guns isn’t that bad, either. They don’t take up much… spaaace and for the most part, it’s pretty close to the Marker the whole way through (which is saying something. This game is impressively long).

Co-op was the big one, though. Having another gun at your back just doesn’t seem very conducive to crapping your space suit. And, you know, it’s not.

I have played and finished the new Tomb Raider. There. I said it.

 I was one of those lucky so-and-so’s tasked with writing ‘er up somewhere, and if one thing dawns on you when you yourself go a-Lara’ing, it’ll be this: Hot damn there is a lot of shooting in this game. And brutal shotgun-to-the-face finishing moves. Oh she looks like Bambi now, but she is soon as unlikely a mass murderer as Nate Drake. Those two should just date. More than any other game I’ve played of late, the distinction between Tomb Raider’s modest array of cannons is sharp enough that you work out what you like and what works for you pretty quick. Shotgun to the face.

It got my thinking about how I best like to dispatch digital people and creatures, and how.

Because I try not to be mean even when someone is being mean to me, let us just say that Aliens: Colonial Marines is somewhat… divisive. In that it has divided the patience of many an expectant fan. You can’t win ‘em all, although some people like it. That is cool for them and their happiness is my happiness.

More people do not, though. Metacritic collate-paints a fairly unflattering picture, and I must admit that after less than ten minutes with it I had the same impulse that I’m sure lots of other peoples did: I just wanted to find Randy Pitchford and ask him why.

I don’t like replaying games. I think you’re either/or. Some guys and gals endlessly wring every bit of fun to be had out of a game by constantly going back for more (I know a crazy man who played Turok three times. That is dedication. Maybe even the gaming equivalent of waterboarding). Some guys and gals, like me, play it once and make it an event; a grand ol’ experience to be treasured but not, under any circumstances, repeated. That would say to its initial impact, “You were not an impact.” Which isn’t true, but the first impact would listen and fall into a depressive haze, eventually dissipating.

Mass Effect 3 has made me break this rule for the first time in years…

Confession time: I am an anime fan. Not quite otaku, but if I didn’t have to afford cans of salmon, I would probably live in a cargo container on top of a Tokyo apartment block and have a comfort pillow in the likeness of Rei Ayanami.

Speaking of, I’ve been rewatching Neon Genesis Evangelion lately and something occurred to me: Why are there almost no amazing shooters based on anime licenses? You can count them on one hand with most of its fingers amputated because of gangrene or severe boredom.

I, like you, was surprised by how good Mass Effect 3’s multi turned out to be. I played it a lot, became hopelessly addicted. But while hopelessly addicted, one thing bothered me I could never find my niche on the battlefield. Then I discovered the Vorcha Sentinel…

Alright. Who called it? Yes. It was me, thankyou for asking.I’ve written extensively about my jacked-in love for ‘80s sci-fi baby cyberpunk in the past, both for games.on.net and elsewhere. Naturally and because every game dev hungrily devours just about everything I write ever*, the resurgence I picketed for in an annoying way has not stopped at Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Syndicate and even Gemini Rue.

In fact, it looks like it’s becoming a thing all over again in 2013. This year alone we’re gonna hear from Watch Dogs, Remember Me, maybe Prey 2 (I’m an optimist), and most blinding and recently of them all, Cyberpunk 2077. Okay, that last one’s slated for “when it’s ready”, but it’s definitely got your attention. Kick. Ass.

2013 is the year to turn the tables on people like Uwe Boll who turn good games into terrible movies, says Toby. It’s time to take back what’s ours, and to turn more good movies into games.

Groan. Holidays. Aren’t they great? For a while. The gravity of the situation is horrible, though. What goes up must plummet shockingly back down to earth in a great flaming meteor of terrible gamer. So while I went away and forgot my troubles with many a Melbourne chardonnay (shut up, Sydney habits die hard okay), I have returned unto the Emerald City a broken man. Rich in spirit as always (and actual spirits, oh my god, have you guys tried that Belvedere vodka?), but nowhere near the slaughterhouse of mostly accidental FPS carnage I was before Christmas happened and look, Tim. Somehow, I don’t have much money right now. You understand.

The world is ending this week though (actually, I think it was supposed to end two weeks ago and didn’t, but let’s hold out hope here, there was a fierce wind the other night), so I must decide: what game, I wondered as the outdoor cinema’s giant projector screen curled over in the possibly apocalyptic evening breeze, would I most want to be playing if the world was going to end?

Just for a change this week, Toby’s decided to use his Sitrep column to write about… oh, Far Cry 3. Well, there you go! No change at all. This week, Toby explains his love Far Cry 3‘s most hilarious feature: when things go totally and horribly wrong. With fire.

Toby McCasker spent some time at THQ HQ checking out Metro: Last Light, and came away intrigued by the rough, do-it-yourself gameplay that forces you to survive in a truly horrifying, Russian apocalypse. He grabbed THQ’s Jeremy Greiner, dragged him into a storage room, and questioned him briefly about what was even going on.