When an open-world Mad Max game was teased last week, the Australian journalists wondered among themselves whether the game’s main character would actually feature an Aussie accent.

There’s no real surprise here: no. He doesn’t. Mad Max has a grizzled, American tone. Thankfully, it was the only real disappointment of a behind-the-scenes demo shown to games.on.net on the E3 show floor.

Fighting zombies is as much a part of video games as collecting coins in Mario, or madly trying everything in your inventory in a point-and-click adventure. Wolfenstein, as one of the first and most popular FPS titles, represents a huge steppingstone for the industry.

The team behind the latest iteration of the franchise, Machine Games, is attempting to recapture that same sense of joy gamers had when they first encountered the original in the early 1990s.

Based on a hands-on demo played by games.on.net on the show floor, we believe they’re showing good signs of succeeding.

Australians woke up this morning to the bewildering news that Microsoft had performed a complete about-face on the hotly controversial issue of its Xbox One always-online DRM and game-locking strategies.

I’ll always remember Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara as a beeping, flashing arcade cabinet, sitting forgotten in the lobby of Valhalla, one of Perth’s only two Nerd Stores. Nobody ever seemed to play it, but every so often I would drop a coin or two in as I went past on my way to thumb greasily through sourcebooks for games that I, on my pathetic 13-year-old pocket money, could not possibly afford.

Fast forward to 2013: I have no less than 50 Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks on my living room shelf, and Shadow Over Mystara has been bundled together with Tower of Doom and re-released in HD for just $15.

The times, they are a-changin’.

The battlegrounds of ancient Rome are reminiscent of Westeros. Yet while the real-time combat may not be quite as up-close-and-brutal as a Game of Thrones style throat-slitting, it’s in the courts of political intrigue — the wheeling, dealing and figurative backstabbing — that the wars of Rome II are won and lost.

You are upside down.

Your vision is blurry, and the dim light around you isn’t helping. But as your eyes begin to adjust, you see them: bodies. Just like you. Hanging upside down, the blood obviously drained from them like sponges.

This already grim situation is made worse by the clanking buzz of a chainsaw breaking through a human spine. You can’t see it, but blood, muscle and tissue are splattering on the floor.

Soon, a massive brute passes by you to a nearby room, carrying the top off a human body. He begins to mutilate it with a machete.

This is The Evil Within. It’s disgusting, it’s brutal, and survival horror fans are going to love it.

Jonathan Blow was the most accomplished E3 presenter I saw all show.

While most demos consisted of rehearsed hyperbole, checking off each key message in easily quotable soundbites, Blow instead took his audience on a thoughtful journey of understanding. In doing so he conveyed perfectly what his new game, The Witness, is aiming to deliver to players.

This year’s E3 featured a surprising number of zombie-based games, and unfortunately, many seem to miss exactly what makes zombies so interesting.

Dying Light, developed by Dead Island studio Techland, gives some indications it may have something unique to offer. But at this stage, it’s far too early to tell.

In an E3 full of “next-gen” 3D engines “taking it to next level”, it was somewhat startling to stumble into the tiny Daedalic Entertainment booth and be greeted by the sight of a humble hex grid. Startling yet, after three days of sprawling open worlds, incredibly refreshing.

During our Watch Dogs demonstration at E3, we saw a game where there’s more than just hacking the environment — Ubisoft also want you to focus heavily on stealth and keeping your reputation clean. Patrick offers a further look.

The Arkham series of games will be given a number of changes under a new studio, but a behind-closed-doors demonstration at E3 shown to games.on.net reveals this franchise is very much playing it safe.

So many zombie games, and so little quality. Fortunately, the stand-alone version of DayZ has shown that it has the ability to stand above the crowd and deliver what was so great about the original mod in a polished package.

In a hands-on demo played by games.on.net on the E3 show floor today, we saw a variety of new features and tweaks, including new animations and a much cleaner and sophisticated inventory system.