It's no secret that I bought the PS3 as a blu-ray player and my gaming has remained almost exclusively on the Xbox 360. However this year there are a couple of PS3 exclusives that have my full attention: the first is the newly released Heavy Rain, on my radar ever since its intriguing casting trailer in 2006 (the tech is now much improved), and later in the year comes The Last Guardian. I felt surprisingly comfortable splashing out on the special edition of Heavy Rain despite the lack of tangible incentives. The reason is simply that, even if the game turned out to be average, it needs to be a financial success because this is exactly where I want to see the medium evolve and more developers need to start experimenting in this space. As it turns out the packaging alone almost justified the extra cost, with its beautiful embossed rain-slick appearance.

Quantic Dream describe their creation as "interactive drama", a title that will make sense to anyone who sampled their previous offering, Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy, depending on your geographical location). Their creativity is evident from the installation sequence, a typically tedious affair that no one enjoys, which prompts you to remove a square of paper provided in the box and instructs you in making the origami creation on the cover (the killer's calling card in the game). The game itself is often mis-perceived as a series of quick-time events that require a series of button presses those displayed on-screen. Although the visual stimulus is the same, the mechanics are very different because there is no defined scripted sequence through each scene. Instead you choose the actions to make, and not only is "failing" a series of actions not fatal to your progress, but it may even be intentional. For example in one early scene, surely any good father would let his own son beat him in a mock swordfight.

Very much an adult game, Heavy Rain is a noir thriller, with the player taking on the roles of four different characters investigating a serial killer called the Origami Killer. However the storyline can diverge depending on how you play out a scene, substantially altering the ending, particularly if a character dies or critically fails in their investigation. Adult themes extend to flawed characters: a grieving father trying to reconnect with his son; a drug-addicted FBI agent; an insomniac photographer. Their moods and perceptions are evoked through impressive performance capture and some neat camera tricks as much as voice acting. Where the game sometimes fails in its lofty goals is that the on-screen prompts are not always intuitive and one often triggers an action without real intent, somewhat breaking the intended immersion.

Nevertheless the style is pitch perfect, it's rendered beautifully and Heavy Rain marks a real step forward for mature games. In a world where killing is still considered the chief gaming mechanic, it's just a shame more people won't be exposed to it.

I have long been a proponent of the value of games in honing skills with real-world application, be it basic numerical skills in card games, reaction-enhancing twitch shooters or the more cerebral puzzle solving and strategising. Arguably none captures this moreso than Solium Infernum. Broadly it operates like a giant game of Risk/Civilisation set in Hell, played over a month or two. It’s turn based with people sending in their orders when they have time, which are then processed simultaneously and the results sent back.

What sets it apart is the strict protocol of netherworld diplomacy. One cannot simply invade another Archfiend’s territory on a whim, but instead but must first have a valid vendetta due to an insult or refused demand. It takes several turns to go war. The flurry of emails (ideally in character) in the turns in between is filled with the backstage politics and deceitful intrigue that are sure to destroy friendships over the course of a game.

After reading a detailed game report at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Adam, Sam, Sparkie, Tom and I all started a game. You know, because I clearly like them too much. I have discovered that nothing drives the human competitive urge so much as the profound knowledge that someone tried to convince your friends to destroy you. Unfortunately since they all read this site, that’s about all I can safely reveal for now. Suffice to say my anagrammatic alter ego, Peril-Eye Lawman, has his Eye firmly fixed upon the infernal throne.

Finally, links from the past month:

• RadioTuna will help you find free online radio stations
• A stylish Facebook desktop app showcasing the latest version of Silverlight
• RainyMood does just one thing but for those who need background noise to focus may find better than white noise and less distracting than music
• 3D Dot Game Heroes is a gorgeous take on retro pixel art games (even if it is a shameless Zelda homage/rip-off)
• A neat eco-kitchen concept

When I first saw footage from Japanese action game Bayonetta, I wrote it off as selling itself solely as an overtly sexualised slice of Japanese insanity. Then the reviews hit in December praising the beauty and precision of its action gameplay and it garnered 9’s and even a perfect 10 from the typically critical Edge. It’s not that my first impression was wrong — it is both those things — it’s just that it might not be such a bad thing.

Bayonetta is making people uncomfortable. There exists an age divide of sorts. Broadly speaking up to the age of around 22 guys find her sexy and (gaming) girls find her empowering. Above that both genders begin to view the game as awkwardly exploitative. The question is, in a medium where female portrayal is a major issue, is Bayonetta a step forward or backward?

Bayonetta’s appearance is clearly stylised, with impossibly long legs and the fashion sense of a latex-clad librarian. This is beyond mere Lara Croftian unrealistic body image and more in the sense of Gears of War’s steroid-fuelled juggernauts. But the entire game feels like an ode to this one character with sweeping camera angles sliding between her legs or focusing on her pursed lips as she gazes suggestively into the camera, sucking a lollipop. Meanwhile her clothing is formed from her hair meaning that when performing her powerful “hair attacks” she is left momentarily disrobed. The game’s insanity is infectious and soon you don’t even question the idea of strapping pistols to stiletto heels. I mean why wouldn’t you?

Yet while the development team was led by Hideki Kamiya (of Devil May Cry fame), the character designer was a woman, Mari Shimazaki. This means her provocative character is female-driven rather than being an expression of male fantasy (or at the very least represents female exploitation of male fantasy). She's certainly no damsel in distress — an intimidating, strong character (mentally and physically) who dispatches throngs of enemies with deadly feline grace. Stylised physical appearance is par for the course in videogames, with both overly muscular male and excessively lithe female characters. Videogames certainly revel in hyper-stylised men, be it their brutishness or androgynous allure. Why should they bar women from receiving the same treatment? Is the largely desexualised approach with characters like Half-Life's Alyx and Portal's Chell really the ideal, or is there room for something at the opposite end of the spectrum too? The bottom line is this: I fear I feel Bayonetta is exploitative because some part of me is trained to believe it must be, irrespective of whether or not it actually is.

This is still, of course, purely a male perspective. If you're interested a in a female one, Leigh Alexander and Tiff Chow would be happy to oblige.

At the end of last year Modern Warfare 2 landed with such explosive force that it not only breached its way into mainstream press headlines, but it also sent dozens of excellent games scurrying for cover in Q1 2010, which is now the most impressively packed first quarter I can recall. The hype was justified given Infinity Ward's past performance, the impressive in-game footage already shown off, and the fact pre-orders alone guaranteed profits dwarfing pretty much any other title this year. It is, for all intents and purposes, the public face of gaming for 2009. Which is hugely disappointing.

It is not, let me be clear, because it is a bad game. On the contrary, I've just finished playing it and am on the same high as with the climax of its predecessor. While it had a rocky start jumping erratically around the world with short missions that felt like a greatest hits of Bond locations, it gradually sucked me in so that I really did care by the final twists and turns of its tale. It is a stellar title at the peak of the shooter genre, but in some ways therein lies the problem. This is a genre that has existed in much the same form since the early 90s, though the graphical technology and AI has improved in leaps and bounds. It is still what springs to most non-gamers' minds when they think of videogames. I am not about to apologise for the genre — it can be vibrant, creative and in some cases is arguably a valid competitive sport. However given the wealth of varied experiences offered through videogaming in the past year, it's a shame the mainstream public will just think of another military shooter.

So what were the best games this year?

Batman: Arkham Asylum: A licensed game that did not poorly ape the recent film but instead struck out its own path, drawing on Batman's comicbook heritage. Mark Hamill's deliciously insane turn as the Joker rivals Heath Ledger's performance (in a different way). Combining intelligent investigatory and brawler elements with the back-catalogue of villains locked away in Arkham, it was a surprise debut hit from Rocksteady Studios this summer.

Braid: Independent developer Jonathan Blow lovingly crafted this beautiful, haunting, artistic and fiendish puzzle platformer in which you affect time to complete your goals. Its careful learning curve may sharply steepen but it does reward the patient. Its ingenuity on par with Valve's Portal (though Braid's indie development arguably compares more directly to its predecessor Narbacular Drop).

Assassin's Creed 2: While it might seem there is only so creative a sequel can be, this was the consumate sequel, as if Ubisoft had listened to every single complaint about the first game and addressed it, particularly the repetitiveness. The action shifted to Renaissance Italy, once again recreated in stunning architectural detail (right to the peak of every church and tower since you can scale them all) but now feeling much more alive. Perhaps not wishing to waste all the historical data they gathered during development, the in-game database is fascinatingly educational as you explore Florence, Venice and more. Depending on your perspective it could be as much an art history project as a videogame.

Uncharted 2: There is a long-running debate as to whether games should become more cinematic and story-driven or strive to differentiate themselves. There are merits to both approaches, but none nailed the cinematic feel so much as Uncharted 2. Arguably the only reason people were not even more impressed by this game is that the first installment was already so good.

Dragon Age: Origins: this adult fantasy roleplaying game opens with a different Origins story depending on your chosen class, which then affects portions of the main story, may be something of a gimmick. Very real, however, are the characters Bioware has created, each with their own personalities and rich backstories that really drive the game forward moreso than the overt (and somewhat derivative) plot. Fully voice-acted, the biggest disappointment is that whenever selecting party members for a quest, you know will be missing great dialogue and banter from the others. And if they dislike you, they'll even leave. Meanwhile, ike 2007's The Witcher, its darker tone also allows it to deal with heavy themes like racial tensions.

A while ago when I compiled a list of films you may not be planning to see (but, for reference, probably should), I wasn't entirely sure about including An Education, but a combination of the quality of the trailer, the writer and the calibre of the supporting cast convinced me to highlight it with a poster too. Fortunately it seems I have been vindicated with the film receiving not just rave reviews but its lead actress Carey Mulligan being tipped for an Oscar. Doctor Who fans may recognise her as Sally Sparrow from Blink, one of my favourite episodes (not least because it was written by Stephen Moffat). So consider this a reminder to go see it when it's released at the end of the month.

I am not buying Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on release. To gamers, that will sound like a pretty bold statement. An outright refusal to buy what is widely expected to be the best game released this year? Surely I jest. But no, Activision has asked me to pass it by. At least I assume that's what they meant when they increased the RRP to £55. In practice that means it will be available for no less than £45 and their argument, insofar as they have deigned to proffer one, is either "it cost us quite a lot to make" or "well, people will pay it anyway". Unfortunately both are true. High end videogame development is expensive but when your game is guaranteed to sell in the millions, recouping costs is of limited concern. And people want this game so they will pay for it. That's how free markets work. My not buying it (until the price drops) won't change anything because others will. The bottom line is this: one day my children will ask why their videogames cost so much and I will have to explain it's because people's convictions don't run quite as deep as their wallets; but at least I can tell them I tried.

Finally, some are commending Spike Jonze's documentary on Maurice Sendak as a more impressive achievement than his adaptation of the author's seminal Where The Wild Things Are.

Forever's Not So Long is a fantastic short film that I'd prefer not to spoil by summarising. It is, after all, only 13 minutes long. I would humbly suggest you can find a (baker's) dozen minutes in your day to do yourself the favour of watching it. It has the effect I often find with short stories, making me wonder whether many good "full length" products are actually still overlong for their content. One could easily see this being extended into a considerably longer film, and yet when the credits role we have seen absolutely everything that was necessary. It is no less thought provoking for its brevity and anything more would risk detracting from its simple poignancy.

It also makes me very curious to see the 2005 short film that spawned this year's longer cinematic version of 9, a post-apocalyptic animated film directed by ex-WETA animator Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov. I have heard a few people suggest the less fleshed out original is actually the stronger of the two.

Not much in the way of news. While my flatmate Anna is away I've found myself generally exhausted rather than making particularly good use of the extra space. I'm finding that having someone around in the evenings probably adds some much-needed post-work energy. I've spent a few nights playing Uncharted on the PS3 and swiftly found myself agreeing with the excellent reviews it received. It is easily one of the best exclusive game on the system to date with its cinematic flair, colourful art (a welcome change from the traditional grey and brown palette of most early games in the current generation), likeable scoundral protagonist and a fun if unoriginal storyline that runs somewhere between Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider. With its sequel just weeks away, my hopes are certainly high.

Last night I went with Rav, Angie and Andy to see comedian Ed Byrne performing at the Vaudeville Theatre. Even if you don't recognise the name, you'll probably know him as the likeable long-haired Irish guy from Mock the Week. In terms of fame he's a decidedly mid-level comedian and he knows it, so he plays off it. His observational humour runs the gammut but, having married just over a year ago, wedding commentary was rife. Which, with Andy's wedding preparations just taking off, was hilarious. Much as this may sound like a veiled insult, Ed's set was both better and more consistent than I had expected.

Finally an interesting piece on how the security in Snow Leopard, Apple's latest version of its OSX operating system, is still playing catch-up with Windows Vista.

A year into working life, I'm not entirely sure where the time has gone. These 6-month trainee seats seem to fly by and, we collectively discovered, it's with some apprehension we suddenly find ourselves no longer first years and instead expected to help out the new crop. I'm moving into a litigation seat, a department that seems incredibly busy and is likely to cut down on my free time significantly. While I shall endeavour not to disappear entirely, at least you know why in advance…

To be honest I didn't "get" Spotify at first. I thought it was trying to replace Last.fm but without its "scrobbling" feature which tracks the music you listen to and suggests others, as well as comparing your tastes with friends and letting you see what they're listening to. Eventually I caved and gave it a whirl about a month ago. I swiftly realised that Spotify wasn't competing (out of the box it supports Last.fm, scrobbling everything to which you listen) and has much loftier goals: nothing short of a paradigm shift within the music industry. In fact, quite how it got away with it remains a mystery to me. After downloading the client music player (which is simple, vaguely reminiscient of iTunes) you have access to a vast library of music for free. While there are still notable gaps at present, every single album recommended to me by someone in the past month has been on there. That's quite something. For licensing reasons Spotify isn't available in the US yet, but they are working on it. The service is ad-supported but a subscription fee of £9.99 per month will remove them. With an iPhone App just released for music on the go, this really could change how people acquire their music. I highly recommend everyone with the remotest interest in music signs up to both these services: I'll probably start mentioning more albums now that linking to a Spotify playlist is as simple as providing a URL.

My bank holiday weekend has been equally split between having friends round the the flat each day and playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum. Eschewing the usual film release tie-in model, they have instead crafted a game that stands wonderfully in its own right, feeding off the entire comicbook back-catalogue. By setting the game in Arkham, they are able to wheel out any Batman villain they want, since virtually all were incarcerated on the island at some point. All its required mechanics work wonderfully — stealth, combat, gadgetry — and it looks stunning to boot. Mark Hamill turns in a deliciously gleeful performance as Joker that really pushes the game forward. Probably the year's best game so far, you don't even need to be a particular fan of Batman to enjoy it, and I recommend people pick it up before the inevitable "holiday season" crush of new titles begins.

Quick links:

• An interesting article on the systematic destruction of the cinematic vampire.
• Personas offers an interesting visual representation of those vanity Google searches of your own name.

In the past few years collector’s edition releases of major videogames have become a popular way for publishers to convince hardcore fans to part with a little extra cash. An extra £5-10 for a fancy tin box, an artbook and an extra disc with behind-the-scenes development footage is a pretty easy sell. The cheap approach, often used to entice pre-orders, is free-to-produce in-game content like an extra outfit or gold guns (yes, that happened). This year, all that has changed as videogame publishers have decided to up the ante.

The price of a collector’s edition game has rocketed to around £60-70, which in a recessionary year may seem either ill-advised or a blatant attempt to bolter lacklustre mid-year sales by cashing in doubly over the always-busy Christmas period. But the contents are a world away from the old fancy box and book. Batman: Arkham Asylum includes a fullsize batarang (that’s 14” of vigilante justice, one supposes, in marketing speak) for the proud owner to display/fight crime. The "black edition" of Assassin’s Creed II contains an 8.5” statue of protagonist Ezio as well as the game’s soundtrack on CD (and I’ll be honest, I’m tempted by this one). But the crowning jewel of this year’s line-up is the £120 “prestige edition” of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which comes with fully working night vision goggles. Seriously. If next year’s Dragon Age: Origins doesn’t come with a real dragon egg, I suspect fans will feel cheated.

I’m a collector, I understand the mentality and, if we can find the right price-point for this stuff, it’s no bad thing. At least it’s real stuff we’re being offered. Unlike the new clothing and accessories for sale in Microsoft’s new Xbox Avatar Store. Paying a little to express oneself digitally is okay, but this stuff is all really advertising so I find the future plans to unlock related clothes through in-game achievements far more appealing. The problem again is pricing. 80 points (about 70p) for a t-shirt or a hat might be okay. But it shows that they know us far too well when they charge 400 points (about £3.50) for a virtual lightsabre, and it almost seems worth it.

The Riddick franchise is an unusual beast. Originating with the anti-hero in David Twohy's modest budget 2000 sci-fi film Pitch Black, its success was a pleasant surprise for all involved. The amoral convict Riddick was an instantly alluring character so expectations were high for the big budget The Chronicles of Riddick, slated as the first part of a trilogy. Sadly it proved grossly underwhelming and to most, myself included, it seemed the franchise would die there.

Yet in a bizarre twist of fate, it was a videogame adaptation that kept Riddick alive. Trouncing the rule that all movie-to-game adaptations are universally rubbish, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was one of the best first-person action games of its generation. Eschewing the film’s plot it instead focused on its greatest strength, Riddick’s character, and placed him in a triple max prison from which to escape. At least in its opening hours it is the closest you can get to playing the first season of Prison Break. It kept the gameplay varied as the pace shifted between gritty melée combat, stealth sequences and larger firefights.

Above all, it nailed Riddick's predatory movements accompanied by Vin Diesel's unmistakable gravelly growl. Vin Diesel was clearly aware of how well the role of Riddick suited him, and he has thrown himself as fully behind the games as he has the films. He actually founded developer Tigon Studios who produced Butcher Bay with Starbreeze (sorry girls, but Vin is very much one of us geeks — he's an avid gamer, and even used to play Dungeons & Dragons…).

And so years later, Riddick's return is not in film but a videogame sequel. Assault on Dark Athena is a stunning looking game with some incredible digital acting: good voices coupled with very physical performances from its characters, using body language rather than merely moving lips. This aside, and much like the Chronicles film, it fails to live up to its predecessor, with generic action and highly derivative gameplay. However that is only the half the package. The real gem, and easily worth the price alone, is a full remake of the original Butcher Bay in stunning HD. That the game does not show its age at all speaks volumes about the quality of the original as much as hinting at stagnation in modern releases.

So now, at last, we have a Chronicles of Riddick trilogy. It's definitely not the way Twohy would have envisioned it, and his film could yet surface, but it is a trilogy nonetheless. Given Riddick's character, it seems fitting that his franchise too would take any route to survive.

The biggest news out the Game Developers Conference has undoubtedly been the OnLive service, which has been heralded as everything from the end of consoles to the death of retailers to a complete joke that won't actually work. Depending on whom you talk to. The basic idea is simply a combination of videogaming and cloud computing. This simply means that rather than installing and running a game locally, you contact a server online and all the heavy number crunching happens at that end with the results being sent back as streaming video. That means you could play high-end games on minimal hardware – even NetBooks are able to decode video, which is all that is required.

The fact this is developed by the guy who brought us WebTV suggests we should take this a bit more seriously than we might be inclined. The key was developing a video encoding algorithm that cut out the usual latency in the process to produce almost-instantaneous results. However limitations even in broadband delivery mean there will be additional delays in sending your control inputs to the server and in receiving the video back. By all accounts the (obviously highly controlled) demo was very impressive. As with many others my instinctive reaction is that this sounds great for some games, but first person shooters and action games that rely on split-second timing will surely suffer. Nevertheless, consider my curiosity piqued because if they can make it work, wow!

A new mp3HD lossless mp3 format was recently announced. It's backwards compatible insofar as it maintains the same file extension and contains the lossy version as well, so will play on current hardware. However that effectively means putting a lossless-size file onto your player only to get lossy playback which isn't particularly efficient use of space, so I can't really see this one taking off.

And since this has clearly turned into an unashamedly techie post:

• For those who share my font fetish, here are some font tools via Lifehacker.
• Real-word applications using Microsoft Surface were demoed at the launch event.