Jim Kelly

Jim Kelly in Three the Hard Way.

World War Z

The main problem with World War Z is economic expectation. The film is saddled with a few too many tonal clashes, ideas and actions that fail to track organically and betray the indecisiveness of its production. Is it a horror film or an action film? World War Z spends its entire first act constructing a dire, fume life scenario, in which mankind must rapidly adapt to a mutation that turns people into heat-seeking missiles. This early action is sprinkled with the kind of on-the-fly thinking that made the Bourne series so enjoyable - here Jason's favourite lifestyle cudgel, the magazine, becomes homemade body armour. Unfortunately, the filmmakers can't leave the Bourne lifts in the details. After a helicopter rescue framed by grim necessity, Z begins to transform into a globetrotting spy flick with Brad Pitt's UN Inspector doggedly pursuing a screenwriting embed to make sense of the outbreak.

The hope that starts to trickle into the film plays by sci-fi blockbuster rules. It's a poor match to the post-28 Days Later studio horror we've already sat through forty minutes of. World War Z is a just little too keen to reach a place of stability, and in doing so torpedoes itself. Still, up against wrongheaded stinkers like Man of Steel, World War Z has much to recommend it. Although the shift to a global megaplot marks a kind of genre betrayal, it allows satirical, chaotic elements to bleed in. North Korea's solution to zombies is inspired, and at least one country appears to have resolved to go down in a blaze of suicidal, nuclear glory. The finale set on the outskirts of a slate town in Wales is a decent bit of conflict shrink too. After the insect swarm absurdity of the Israel section, it's fun to see Z returning to the prowling anti-action of its opening act. Why fill the screen with a million CG humans scrambling over each other when you can build second-to-second tension around Brad Pitt not being able to free his crowbar from the head he's just caved in?

MIA - Bring the Noize

via Bol

Lau Kar-leung

Richard Matheson

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster

Buried somewhere in a film primarily concerned with an amnesic Princess, who believes she's a psychic space alien, is an alarmist Cold War parable about the rise of Red China. The gentle, diplomatic Mothra stands in for Japan, the formerly all-powerful insect stuck in her larvae form after the events in the previous film. Mothra is beseeched by the Infant Island pixies to broker peace between Godzilla and another Toho house monster, a supersonic prehistoric bird named Rodan. The pair are currently thrashing around the Japanese countryside playing the most violent game of heads and volleys in history. The battling superpowers are told they must put aside their differences if they are to stand a chance against the majestic golden giant, King Ghidorah.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster represents another distinct shift in Godzilla's screen identity. Over the course of the series he's evolved from destruction made flesh to a cornered animal. In this film he becomes a hero, rushing to Mothra's aid when it becomes clear the little caterpillar doesn't stand a chance against the latest threat to Earth. To ease this rebranding, Godzilla has spent most of the film far away from civilisation, capering and cracking rocks over a chummy opponent's head. The radioactive reptile is still destructive but it's a safer kind of demolition. By way of contrast, the arrival of space hydra Ghidorah is marked by intense, prefecture leveling violence. The dragon spits his yellow lightning at everything in sight, reveling in the carnage and shrieking in a high, electronic voice. When Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was released in 1964, The People's Republic of China had recently become the fifth nuclear power. Given Japan's appalling mistreatment of that country only a few decades earlier, it's easy to see why they might fear an imminent nuclear apocalypse.

Mothra vs Godzilla / Godzilla vs the Thing

Easily the best Godzilla film since the original, Mothra vs Godzilla manages to weave in a human story that isn't just horrified reaction shots or aimless dithering. Following a typhoon, a gigantic egg is washed ashore and seized by greedy theme park industrialists. Tiny delegates from the mysterious Infant Island arrive to warn everybody that the egg belongs to their deity, a semi-immortal being named Mothra. Obviously, the ruthless capitalists piss themselves laughing and attempt to imprison the pixies.

Their cause is taken up by a gang of right-on journalists who journey to the God monster to plead for help with the rampaging Godzilla, who has since arrived with the intention of chowing down on the massive egg. Mothra herself is completely wonderful, a pop art insect with diamond eyes and canvas wings decorated with autumnal camouflage. Her furriness and lack of overt weaponry lend her battles with Godzilla a sense of despondency. She has to fight like hell just to match an exceptionally angry creature who has spent most of the film bumbling around stubbing his toe on historical landmarks.

King Kong vs Godzilla

Seven years after he was buried under ice, Godzilla returns to stomp all over the Japanese economic miracle. After a couple of reels of scene-setting that includes awful, shoe polish make-up, Kong getting stoned on magical berry juice and an unexpectedly clumsy American nuclear submarine, King Kong vs Godzilla finally has the titular duo meet up in a valley strewn with train debris. Godzilla has already spent several minutes trashing anything he can put his feet on, but the sight of King Kong gives him pause. The Big G is spellbound. He recognises an equal, perhaps even a mate. When a helicopter strays too close to the monsters Godzilla blasts it with his radioactive breath, instantly incinerating it. Kong misinterprets this apparently romantic overture as an act of aggression. How does he respond? He starts hurling fucking boulders at the heartbroken reptile.

Devilman by Go Nagai

Godzilla Raids Again / Gigantis, the Fire Monster

The title Godzilla Raids Again is up there on the screen, but the version viewed here is undoubtedly Paul Schreibman's hatchet job Gigantis, the Fire Monster, a nipped and tucked re-edit designed to appeal to American audiences. It's difficult to get a sense of how much damage Schreibman has done to Motoyoshi Oda's film. Although scenes have been deleted and a voice-over by the guy who dubbed Han in Enter the Dragon has been added, the film still limps along like a dreary knock-off. Like many sequels Godzilla Raids Again misses the point of the first film, punching up the boring human content and doubling down on the monsters and the amount of cities they ruin.

This new, slightly sleeker Godzilla is joined by Anguirus, another mutation who hovers somewhere between a Hellhound and an armoured crocodile. Although the duo speak the same shrill avian language, they still end up battling every time they catch sight of each other. Their fights are shot as rapid tussles that emphasise a sense of prickly irritability, rather than the slow motion weight and heft seen in later entries. Unfortunately, the fallout trauma of the first film is gone too, replaced with a cheery blitz spirit. The city wide destruction is likewise depicted as spectacle for gawkers, rather than the brain-frying horror of these towering monsters brushing up against our fragile world.

Godzilla

Rather than focus on a few determined players struggling through a monster attack, Godzilla rather appropriately takes a God's eye view of events. The film unfolds in step with a society's reaction to being suddenly attacked by an unstoppable force of nature. At first the creature is contextualised by primitive fisherman as a monstrous spirit that must be appeased with human sacrifice. Given that by this point he's already chewed through umpteen shipping vessels and dozens of sailors, that idea is quickly dropped. Next the Japanese government decides to erect a gigantic electrified perimeter fence to deter the prehistoric invader, this only ends up pissing Godzilla off.

Finally the jet powered might of the Japanese Self-Defense Force is let loose to deal with the monster. This does eventually drive him back to the ocean depths, but there's very little indication he's been hurt - he may well just be bored for all we know. In his début feature Godzilla represents the sheer indomitability of disasters both nuclear and natural. When soldiers line up to blast a Vickers gun at the beast there's a sense that they might as well be hurling fireworks at a tornado. Although never explicitly stated, it seems Godzilla is a territorial beast seeking revenge for his disrupted underwater environment. His attacks more warnings to leave him alone than outright satanic malevolence. At the film's conclusion the creature is even photographed sympathetically as it lies on the ocean floor; Godzilla looking on sadly as two tiny divers scramble around him with humanity's latest world ending weapon.

Gesaffelstein - Pursuit

Anamanaguchi - Endless Fantasy

Devilman 2: The Demon Bird

In Devilman 2: The Demon Bird Akira Fudo is becoming a vague memory. After merging with Amon, Akira has become a spiky haired thug, taken to prowling underground ruins in search of demons to fight. The real break from his former identity comes following a battle with a turtle monster who has imprisoned the soul of Akira's mother in its shell. Initially reluctant to do damage to the demon, Akira is finally convinced by the spectral remnants of his parent invading his mind and forcing him to be a spectator to her actual death in the Arctic, months earlier. After tearing his opponent apart, Akira slumps off back to his adopted home and Mika, a tomboyish school-friend who has romantic designs on him.

After driving her away with a sexually aggressive pass, Akira glowers until the house is attacked by a group of demons lead by a naked, monstrous bird woman. The first Devilman OAV presented the demons as a prehistoric race who reproduced through violent clashes. Rather than copulate, the monsters would rip each other apart and fuse the most exciting leftovers with their own bodies, creating even more dangerous creatures. This frames the extended battle between Devilman and Sirene as an apocalyptic fuck-fest, with the two opponents / lovers tearing handfuls out of each other in pursuit of a composite identity. Their battle is also terrifying from a human perspective - neither has even the faintest regard for the hundreds of people they mulch during their foreplay. Even Devilman, the notional hero, takes a frustrated swipe at a passing airliner when his efforts to kill Sirene are thwarted. Akira, and even Amon, are gone. All that is left is Devilman, an angry, possessive animal desperate to be the last thing standing.

Devilman: The Birth

Devilman: The Birth is superheroics as a pubescent acne rash. The OAV maps the body altering transformation of Akira Fudo from a mousy, but determined teenage boy into a grinning hate machine. Fudo is recruited into an apocalypse war by BMX bandit Ryo Asuka, whose father recently went insane after becoming possessed by an ancient spirit. Asuka warns that global warming is freeing prehistoric devils from their icy prisons, and that the only way for humans to survive in this horrifying new world is to merge with wandering demon souls. Naturally, Ryo has planned ahead, creating a vast underground Sabbath to attract these ghostly apparitions.

Asuka's Black Mass is a rock and roll slaughterhouse, full of shirtless junkies and vicious molls. The only way for the two boys to ascend is to lose control, thus Fudo gets naked and boozed up. The Birth then has two distinct tones, each designed to match Akira's understanding of his situation. The first half revels in a childish idea of reality. Bullies prove their malevolence by taking potshots at rabbits with catapults, and Akira's gal-pal weirds him out when she makes a romantic pass. Fudo is trapped in a shallow, school sized idea of the world. He's bored and unwilling to engage with the possibilities around him. When Asuka whisks him away with promises of a conflict that hinges on the potential destruction of his identity, Akira quickly agrees. Finally he will have a drive.

Fudo's transformation hinges on his interaction with a mainstay of the adult experience - a night club. Initially Akira is uncomfortable, he finds the drop-out adults around him alarming. The blatant sexuality of the women in particular terrifies him. He mixes, but doesn't quite engage. When the revelers start mutating, Akira does not. He hasn't lost his mind yet. The boy's change comes when he is confronted by a monster with nightmare dimensions. Fudo controls his terror, ensnaring the most powerful spirit of all. Akira and a war demon named Amon are merged into the composite identity Devilman, a violent beast that has no allegiance to either of the races who birthed him. While Devilman gleefully attacks everything in sight, Asuka reflects that he's accidentally created the most dangerous demon of all. Scared of girls, and blind to his best friend's apparent infatuation, Akira Fudo instead explores his sexuality by dominating and rending engorged, naked monsters.

Man of Steel

As a character conceived during the Great Depression you would think it notable, perhaps even timely, to reconsider Superman during a double-dip recession. The Golden Age mint of the character was a social equaliser, his early strips focused on kitchen sink scenarios in which the hero featured as an avatar for justice and basic human decency. In contrast Man of Steel presents Superman as a couch surfing millennial, an unactualised ditherer who uses his abilities in passive aggressive explosions.

David S Goyer attempts to recontextualise Superman as a lonely drifter scared to use his powers openly. This kind of indecision works for a character like Wolverine, a tainted hero with powers based on damage and people shredding violence. You can understand why Wolverine shuns situations that get his blood up. Transpose Superman into these scenarios though and he just plays as weak. The most powerful thing on the planet should not have a confidence issue, he doesn't need to refuse the call. It's disingenuous.

Human sympathy aligns with Superman when his problems are more broadly existential - his alien otherness, or his ability to match the ideals his fathers gift him. Keep him under a bridge while the man he loves most in the world is swept away and you make him seem cowardly. Include that event in a story where he never carries that pain forward into regret and you undermine your character and thesis. Man of Steel is not a carefully considered alternative take on the mythology of Superman, it's pop contrariness with zero follow through. Superman tweaked in ways antithetical to his appeal to track with a studio's idea of their target demographic. 

After the thoroughly shitty Green Lantern, it's disappointing to see Warner Bros once again overlook the key thematic appeal of their most popular movie superhero. Being Batman is Bruce Wayne's drive. His indecision is wrapped up in the execution and his longevity rather than the initial leap. His agenda is unshakably to fight crime. In Batman Begins, Wayne travelled the globe to hone and temper his resolve. Man of Steel makes Clark's journey a surface level identity crisis, resolved through expositions dumps and lifeless talking heads written like essay bullet points.

The uselessness of this Clark Kent is especially apparent when compared to a character like Faora, General Zod's right-hand woman. Unlike Kal-El, and even a Zod prone to face creasing tantrums, Faora is centred and comfortable. She has instantly adapted to her new environment, able to channel her Kryptonian martial arts into a super fighting style heavily indebted to Dragon Ball Z. She's exactly the kind of ideological opposite this film needs. She can control her powers, but doesn't want to. Her movements are precise and directed where Kal and Zod are flailing. She's the strong, silent answer to Kal's repression. Why then did the filmmakers return to Zod when they could have built the film around the fascistic allure of a beautiful Kryptonian equal who behaves like an Israeli commando? As a hook it beats the barely explored eugenics tension set up during this film's (admittedly fantastic) Heavy Metal Krypton prologue.

The real tragedy of Man of Steel is that, like Prometheus, the film is stuffed full of interesting design work made rootless by an indifferent script. The Krypton sequence is Moebius' Arzach escaping from Alejandro Jodorowsky and Juan Gimenez's Metabarons. Zod and his men are outfitted with Giger muscle suits that look like they've been carved out of prehistoric bones. Each action sequence has a distinct identity and genre through-line. The first act, featuring a slugger Jor-El, is basically the action heavy first episode of Bruce Timm's Superman: The Animated Series by way of Dune. A small town throw-down is blocked like an Akira Toriyama fight comic, and the Metropolis toppling finale has visual flourishes mined from Akira, Miracleman, and the animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. Man of Steel's action moments are steeped in these kind of clashing, discordant influences - a comic artist's reference shelf nabbed at random then hammered together around the hollow, infuriating, tale of two losers putting lumps on each other.

Samurai Jack by Andy Suriano

Transformers #92 by Geoff Senior

MP-19 Smokescreen

Images lifted from TFORMERS

E3 2013: The Wonderful 101

Hideki Kamiya continues to make it extremely difficult to outright discount the allure of a Wii U with The Wonderful 101, a kind of Viewtiful Joe sequel with added Pikmin DNA. The Wonderful 101 is exactly the sort of game I associate with Nintendo - bright, colourful, and possessed of a vague utilitarian agenda. Why be an individual when you can be an atom in a massive, alien punching fist? The multiplayer element demoed during the Nintendo Direct stream looked equally fantastic too, the screen heaving with disparate characters each pursuing their own isometric objective. It looked very much like the Power Stone 2 escalation we never got.

E3 2013: Shovel Knight

Yacht Club Games Kickstarted title Shovel Knight put in an appearance during the Nintendo Direct stream, looking very much like a dark age recalibration of 8-bit Mega Man games. Instead of a blue Astro Boy knock-off, players take control of a grumpy little knight as he bashes everybody around the head with his garden tools.

E3 2013: Galak-Z

I can't find an official trailer for this title, so you'll have to make do with microclip snatched out of last night's feed. Galak-Z is a side-scrolling shooter from Skulls of the Shogun developer, 17-BIT. The game immediately brings to mind all the blast processor shooters released early in the Mega Drive's life that aimed to look as close as possible to Japanese science-fiction OAVs.

E3 2013: Secret Ponchos

The spectral fluidity on display here in the gunslinger character's movement recalls Hayao Miyazaki animating Monkey Punch characters. It's beautiful. Secret Ponchos is an online shoot-scrapper and debut project from Switchblade Monkeys, an indie collective who felt their talents were being squandered elsewhere. No firm release date, but I'll be keeping a beady eye on this.

E3 2013: Transistor

The indie line-up presented at their conference suggests Sony are working hard behind the scenes to position themselves as an ideological opposite to Microsoft and their restrictive publishing platform. How else to explain all the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade devs shoring up with (timed) Sony exclusives? Supergiant Games follow up Bastion with Transistor, a turn-based strategy game that likes to dwarf your sword kid with augmented Deco landscapes.

E3 2013: The Last of Us

Sony opened their conference with a slew of last hurrah titles for the PlayStation 3, including this launch trail for critical darling The Last of Us. Last year, Telltale Games' The Walking Dead proved that ubiquitous tropes aren't an obstacle when it comes to creating fresh gameplay experiences. The Last of Us looks to continue this trend with a post-apocalyptic zombie scenario designed around sneaking, and hoping for passive outcomes in the face of overwhelming antagonism. Comparisons to Resident Evil 4 are already being thrown around - looks like there's life in the PS3 yet.

E3 2013: Star Wars: Battlefront

Well, what's the point of a video game expo if someone isn't trying to cram Star Wars down your throat? EA kick off their exclusive Disney deal with Star Wars: Battlefront. Picking up where Free Radical Design left off, DICE look set to dump all your favourite action figures into their Frostbite engine for you to smash to smithereens.

E3 2013: PlayStation 4

Sony unveils the PlayStation 4, sporting a look that seems designed to evoke their last unqualified success - the PS2. Aesthetics aside, the making of this system was the dying minutes of Sony's E3 conference. Jack Tretton swaggered onto the stage to announce that Sony is pursuing zero used game restrictions on their console, prompting the biggest cheer of the expo so far. He quickly followed up with a systematic dismantling of the anti-consumer policies Microsoft has in place, only wobbling with the news that PS4 online will be behind the PlayStaion Plus paywall. Sony might not have a mind-zapping exclusive to rival something like Respawn's Titanfall, but the rhetoric we heard last night indicates a company interested in listening to their customers, and delivering on what's expected of them.

E3 2013: Tom Clancy's The Division

Aside from a minutely curated fever apocalypse, the stand out thing about Tom Clancy's The Division is the clipped, believable radio chatter, framed here as a speculative audience. Ubisoft has ditched on the typical testosterone heavy party chat to focus on presenting an aspirational, egalitarian future shock. The Division promises to be a multiplayer driven RPG, offering something deliberately unlike the bro shooters that have driven this gen's online experience. A notable trend at this E3 has been developers and publishers offering games designed to undermine rather than directly compete with Call of Duty; The Division doing so with a more deliberately paced example of tactical shooting.

E3 2013: The Evil Within

Buried under all an acre of ticker tape spam is Bethesda's Pete Hines saying all the right things about Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks forthcoming The Evil Within. Hines stresses Mikami's commitment to delivering a survival horror experience weighted heavily on resource gathering and unexpected enemy behaviour. The in-game footage is extremely brief, but there are already a few hints regarding the kind of interactive invention Mikami's games are lousy with.

E3 2013: D4

Swery65 (or Hidetaka Suehiro to his Mum) follows up the Lynch loopy Deadly Premonition with D4, an episodic murder mystery that seems to involve time travel and rhythm action slap sequences. Swery's games have a tendency to be rich in incidental interaction and character detailing, but hamstrung by basic mechanics best enjoyed as a meta-text commentary on action banality. Hopefully Swery's partnership with Microsoft Studios means players will no longer have to jump through critical hoops to have some fun with his latest title.

E3 2013: Titanfall

After a couple of years of radio silence, the ex-Infinity Ward staff over at Respawn Entertainment hurtle back into our lives with Titanfall, a mech vs infantry game stuffed full of speculative Shirow tech. Interestingly Titanfall is multiplayer only, apparently designed specifically to represent the always connected, cloud calculation culture Microsoft is selling with their new console.

After Modern Warfare 2's release there were rumours that Infinity Ward was pushing to do a futuristic Call of Duty shooter, a plan seemingly derailed by a heavy-handed publisher throwing their weight around and a subsequent talent exodus. Personally, I was a little worried that much of the groundwork for such a title had been appropriated and folded into Black Ops 2 as a kind of petty riposte to the ex-Activision staff. I needn't have worried. As far as sugar rush shooters go, Respawn has ideas to burn. Titanfall is presently a Microsoft exclusive, set to release on 360, Xbox One, and PC.

E3 2013: Dead Rising 3

Although obscured here by incessant editing, Dead Rising 3's hook is a detritus rich city swamped with zombies. The segment demoed during Microsoft's conference was an unbroken stream of action, rolling from suburban gardens onto roofs, into buildings, and ending with our mechanic hero commandeering a muscle car for a splattery escape. Seemingly any old crap could be scavenged on the fly to create flesh rending weaponry, and there were also few obvious limits flagged on the play area. Even if Dead Rising 3 turns about to be a smaller variety of sandbox, just the idea of such persistent, overwhelming threat is a tempting one. Dead Rising 3 is currently an Xbox One exclusive and, considering Microsoft is publishing it, likely to remain so.

E3 2013: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

So far, the most impressive thing at this year's E3 has been Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Shown at the head of Microsoft's game heavy presentation, The Phantom Pain depicts a cybernetically augmented Big Boss sneaking around Afghanistan putting lumps on Russians; Rambo III by way of Red Dead Redemption. Franchise bells and whistles aside, the most exciting thing about this new game is the sense of scale it seems to be implying. Unlike the relatively linear paths of previous instalments, this Phantom Pain clip suggests a world teaming with detail and incident. The Metal Gear series has always been a playground - a set system for you to play with, and a variety of interactive options that each create different outcomes. This 80s set Snake Eater sequel looks set to be the most elaborate yet.

Ghosts / Black Ops II: EASY RILEY

After a couple of games full of brutalised comrades and martyred best buds, Infinity Ward raises the emotional stakes in Call of Duty: Ghosts with a super-loyal dog named Riley. Judged on the footage here (courtesy of NeoGaf) it doesn't look to be the worst move - there's always something inherently charming about having an attack animal trailing behind you, ready to tear someone's throat out. In fact, it's almost like a next-gen Shadow Dancer.



Aside from a nifty underwater assault rifle, this second clip is significantly less interesting. As a gameplay proposition there's little more here than a coral sightseeing tour - hold forward to succeed. I suppose this vid is designed to get everybody excited about the graphical possibilities the new Call of Duty engine has to offer. Pity they married that brief to the kind of zero think segment the series gets pillared for. In terms of sheer scale this isn't anywhere near as impressive as Modern Warfare 3's nuclear sub mission.



Finally, for anyone still playing Black Ops 2, here's Xbox Ahoy talking us through what looks like an excellent irritation class. Nobody enjoys being killed by explosives, so a class dedicated entirely to shrapnel should ensure a steady stream of abusive voice messages.

Akira by Sam Bosma

Bosma's tumblr

20XX's E3 Predictions

We're a couple of days away from E3, the video game industry's annual dick waving contest. Both Microsoft and Sony have new consoles to pimp, so this year's expo stands to be the most exciting in recent memory. Added spice has come in the form of Microsoft's recent and disastrous Xbox One reveal, which previewed a system apparently designed to milk as many pennies as it can from consumers, whilst offering as little re-sale value as possible. The Xbone's DRM debacle has cast an anti-consumer shadow over both forthcoming systems. Are Sony set to turn heel too?

Here are 15 of 20XX's carefully considered predictions for the show and surrounding hoopla.

Microsoft

1. I think we can expect a wet, passive-aggressive acknowledgement that the Xbone hasn't gone over very well. Microsoft will make vague, vaporous assurances that they are 'listening' to their consumers, and all the ignominies revealed so far are liquid and likely to change.

2. Microsoft will run a show centred around a roster of third-party titles exclusive to the Xbone system. Closer inspection will reveal these 'exclusivity' deals are actually a bit more like a series of expensive first-dibs. All titles to follow on other systems after 6-12 months, probably with all the DLC Xbone customers paid through the nose for.

3. A depressing and significant percentage of Microsoft Studios first party titles will be Kinect focused. Everybody openly wishes the irritating little camera system / PRISM grass would just fuck off plz.

4. A flustered exec says something in passing that reveals the depths of Microsoft's loathing for their consumer base following Xbone's rejection. NeoGaf assplodes - multiple bannings.

5. Rare are finally being allowed to make games again. Hooray! Unfortunately they're all just wanking for pennies versions of past glories with less actual content than your typical Xbox Live digital release.

6. Just so everybody in the East doesn't feel left out, a Japanese gentleman in suit is wheeled out to smile and wave at the audience. If he's from Square Enix, maybe he'll try and cue up that Final Fantasy target footage they've been boring us with for yonks?

7. Headsets! Hey you know that gaming headset you spent 300 monies on? Here's a new version because we've made absolutely sure the one you've already got for your 360 is not compatible. Not sorry!

Sony

1. Sony will be spinning hard on DRM concerns, likely coming up with a solution that places the onus on publishers. "Hey not our fault if publishers wanna be dicks guy!"

2. There will be thinly veiled digs at companies who are looking to get into the set-top box market. Maybe a younger executive will stand in front of a giga-screen flicking through acres of crappy scan-lined television before hammering the HDMI input button and arriving at a demo of the PS4 user interface?

3. A gang of chubby indie devs will be wheeled out to smile and wave. This will be slightly embarrassing.

4. A multi-tiered and confusing subscription model for online gaming and more will be revealed. It will seem that at a median level you might potentially be getting a good deal. Regardless, NeoGaf will assplode. Wario64 pleads for calm.

5. The Last of Us 4K Edition or whatever will be revealed for PlayStation 4. Sony sabotages the launch of their own game.

6. Hey! remember the Vita? Sony's unpopular handheld will pop up repeatedly, to the point were the shilling borders on begging. Everybody shifts around in their chair, deeply uncomfortable.

7. Sony will announce a free to play MMO for PlayStation 4. Absolutely nobody will care.

Nintendo

1. The poor sods demo a HD remaster of something no-one bought on the GameCube.

Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground / John Barry - Golden Girl

DJ Pooh feat. Kam - Whoop Whoop

TG20 Ratbat

Blur - All Your Life

FEET OF CLAY

Identity overload! Clay Face has a T-1000 style seizure courtesy of Batman: The Animated Series and Japanese animation studio TMS Entertainment.

Rocksteady by Dave Rapoza

KICK-HEART

Kickstarted anime from Masaaki Yuasa, the director of Mind Game and the animation director for Noiseman Sound Insect.

Lifted from Tannhauser Gatorade