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The original Deus Ex was a lot of things to a lot of people. In fact, that was pretty much the whole point: it was a game where you could save the world by shooting all the bad guys, but it was also a game where you could save the world by hiding in vents. The levels all had lots of different paths through them, and the gameplay systems were designed so that you could combine and experiment with them to make progress. Whether or not you played it, Deus Ex was responsible for a lot of the good things that you have spent money on in the last decade.

Beat Hazard Ultra, created by UK bedroom coder Steve Hunt, launches on PlayStation Network in October.

Ah, betrayal. With the possible exception of Brain Training (and I stress "possible"), all videogame stories are about betrayal. Darksiders' certainly is. You play as War, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and in this alternative retelling of the Revelatory bits of the bible you find yourself called to Earth to judge the sinners before everyone's ready.

Anyone who remembers The Rocketeer has probably noticed something a bit familiar about Dark Void. I can't imagine that even the most indignant of Capcom executives would deny that the graphic novel and film's visual cues have been echoed somewhat in their "vertical cover shooter". Everything from the pack itself to the leather jacket and natty helmet has been a clear influence on the design of game's main character, and the Boy's Own Adventure ethos is firmly in place.

This is perhaps the nineteenth time I've started writing this review. If this were a montage in an old movie, this is the point we'd cut to the bin next to my desk, overflowing with crumpled balls of paper, torn in frustration from an imposing, mocking typewriter. Braid has filled my head with so many ideas, so many opinions, so many emotions that wrestling them all into a coherent critique is like trying to strangle a swan made of jelly. Every time I think I've found a mental strand that leads to the natural start of the review, it unravels. I've gone to bed thinking about Braid, and I've woken up thinking about it. From the fragments I remember, I'm pretty sure I've dreamed about it as well.

Promise is possibly the most powerful weapon in videogames. The promise and possibilities that a title like BioShock dangles tantalisingly in front of us keeps us all hanging on in there, keeps us believing, keeps us pre-ordering. Even when the shelves are awash with me-too pap, cheap knock-off licensed fodder and hyped sequels, a title like this stands out like a beacon of hope amid a sea of mediocrity. No pressure.

The shooter genre needed this. Elements of role-playing games have been creeping in all over FPS games in the past few years, but in Borderlands it's a wholesale hybridisation. Not, I should point out, in terms of choices, story and consequences - that remains with the likes of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - but with loot, levels, stats, skills and fiddling about in your inventory to max out your character. Gearbox says it's created a role-playing shooter, an RPS (which sounds strangely familiar to my ears), and that means you'll be playing a shooter that feels a lot like, well, like an MMO.

Character goes a long way. Developers know this, which is why most games based on existing characters are, at best, adequate in their construction. Ghostbusters, for example. It's a rather ordinary corridor shooter, really. Dress it up in a funny script, get a beloved movie cast back together and throw in Slimer and Marshmallow Man, and suddenly you've got something that fans will embrace regardless of the pedestrian construction. The litmus test for any licensed game is to strip away all the fan service and see if we'd still be as interested.

Did you know there is an amusing Metal Gear Solid cameo in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood? It's an apt inclusion really, because while it can't quite hold a candle to the eccentricities and convolutions of Hideo Kojima's labyrinthine stealth-action saga, Assassin's Creed is certainly getting there.

"Nothing is true," said Al Mualim. "Everything is permitted." The point of Assassin's Creed - apart from establishing a hugely successful new IP for Ubisoft - was to avoid taking the old man's words literally, and to begin with you may wish you'd done the same with the pre-release hype for the sequel.

Boy does Amnesia nail running away. It nails running away like Mirror's Edge nailed running away, which is a bit of a damning indictment of the latter game, since it was about a sexy free-runner leaping and rolling through the rooftops of a futuristic cityscape, while Amnesia is about a mentally unstable man fumbling doors open and squatting in cupboards. Then again, Mirror's Edge also gave you the option of fighting instead of running. Amnesia doesn't, which is one of the bigger reasons why it's the scariest game I've played in years.

The legendary agent whose presence looms over Alpha Protocol's Michael Thornton isn't Bauer, Bourne or Bond - although the game is eager to invite all these comparisons. It's Shepard. Obsidian has borrowed a lot from BioWare, a developer it's always had a close working relationship with, and at times Alpha Protocol can feel a little like a Mass Effect mod as much as an original game in its own right.

I'm trying very hard to suppress a Pavlovian instinct over 20 years in the making. As a teenaged boy in the eighties, Aliens and Predator pretty much defined the word "awesome", an ingrained response that has endured ever since.

Splash Damage shooter Brink is nominated for a Writers' Guild Award.

Square Enix will release downloadable content for upcoming Japanese role-playing game Final Fantasy 13-2, the company has confirmed.

This Thursday sees the launch of a DSiWare version of Cut The Rope as part of the Nintendo eShop update.

Popular zombie-basher Dead Island is still top of the UK games chart.

The PlayStation Vita is region free, Sony has confirmed.

Activision will not release a Prestige Edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Metal Gear Solid 3D launches early 2012, Hideo Kojima has announced.

The smart money says we're nine months away from the reveal of brand-new Xbox hardware, that major advances in visual technology are being held back by the hardware limitations of six-year-old architecture. Gears of War 3 begs to differ. Developed in parallel with the hugely popular Unreal Engine 3 technology, the game looks absolutely remarkable: put it side-by-side with the last game, or even up against Epic's own Bulletstorm, and it's clear that the current gen is still capable of some genuine surprises.

I squat down and my fingers instinctively spread, ready to receive a ball. No, I've not accidentally copy-and-pasted the first line of my latest letter to Penthouse Forum. This is the moment that the genius of Kinect Sports: Season 2 really comes into focus.

Sega looks poised to re-release classic racing game Daytona USA for multiple platforms.

Take away the sponsors' liveries, they say, and it'd be hard for the untrained eye to tell two F1 cars apart. So precise is the science behind the sport, and so rigid the rule set, that beneath the colour schemes the lines and sweeps are largely the same, designs dictated by wind tunnels, doing away with the wonderful eccentricity witnessed on the grids of yesteryear.

Battlefield 3 may get Camaros after all, DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson has told Eurogamer.

Bethesda has confirmed the Oblivion 5th Anniversary for Europe. It will be released on 23rd September for £20 on PS3 and Xbox 360, £18 on PC.

Microsoft top-dog Steve Ballmer has restated that Xbox Live TV will be launched this Christmas.

Update: The Resident Evil 6 video was not at Capcom's Theatre Show as Kotaku had heard it would be. Eurogamer was there and can confirm this.

There's a lot to be said about the way download gaming has dramatically broadened the types of games you can now buy. Rather than just producing cheap-and-cheerful versions of the most popular genres, most developers have headed down the path less travelled.

BioWare's iconic role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic will be half-price, £3.50, on Steam this weekend.