Some retro platforming insanity that’s available for Pc and iPhone, as reviewed by and excitable geordie.

Want to see the best exploit of 2012 (so far?) Look no further than new MMO Star Wars: Old Republic, which literally lets you dance your way out of trouble.

If you’re being attacked by anything, from the lowliest enemy to the grandest boss, all you need to do is start dancing – triggered by typing /getdown – and it’ll interrupt their attacks, leaving you invulnerable.

Game-breaking. And hilarious.

This is one for the young people, perhaps – as part of another trailer for the upcoming Syndicate enshooterising, we get a potted history of Bullfrog’s original game. “A cyberpunk wonderland,” apparently. Then it segues into a pic’n’mix of previous and new Syndishoot footage, and I guess we’re supposed to think “gosh, the reticule-based adventures of MILES KILO sure are highly thematically similar to an isometric tactical game.” Still, it’s nice to see the original Syndicate (“quite a unique experience”, claims robo-lady in the video) given a proper nod – never thought we’d see that as part of a bombastic, noisy trailer like this.

Battlefield 3 has finally figured out that the key to making a successful television ad is not to pick a theme song whose essential lyrics must be bleeped, and just put it all in the hands of filmmaker Freddie Wong.

Using Back to Karkand’s forklift and “online battle tactics that many of you should know and love,” Wong, with Sam and Niko from Corridor Digital, with this 60-second spot in just 10 days. It will begin airing soon. Freddie’s excited, and he’s also excited that he got to use real explosions and a tank. And we’re excited for him.

Anomaly: Warzone Earth is an extraordinary mixture of action and strategy in a reversed tower defense formula.

The game tasks you with saving a near-future Earth from an alien onslaught. The invaders have captured world’s major cities, building huge turrets that destroy everything in their path. It’s up to you to lead an armor squad through the streets of cities like Baghdad and Tokyo, planning the route and strategically choosing which units to deploy in order to crush the opposition. Take control of the Commander, whose special abilities and quick thinking will be vital in supporting the squad in its mission, as you engage in fast-paced, tactical battle across story campaign and two heart-pounding Squad Assault Modes.

Right, this will get tongues a-wagging. C&C Tiberium Alliances is the next reboot of the Nod vs GDI universe, and as we discovered earlier it’s a browser-based “epic strategy MMO” using the dark magicks of HTML5. Here’s what it’s going to look like. In short, like C&C classic in some ways and yet… not. Really not.

Attack waves? That suggests no direct unit control to me, and the video suggests lines of troops auto-marching. That will be, um, divisive, I expect. As will the new, apparently FarmVille-esque harvesting system. Fire is very much being played with here.

Still, much remains to be seen, and the sheer scale of the war for Earth seems pretty beefy. Hopefully tomorrow’s beta will see fuller word reach our anxious, shell-like ears.

The VGAs coughed up a new trailer for Hitman: Absolution, which is crammed with sneaking, stealthery and silence. Except for all the parts with windows exploding in slow motion and The Bald One murdering almost every single person in his path, which just happens to take him through a hospital ward. Those parts are quite noisy. There’s also a crying nun. She is crying because of the constant gunfire and images of men being shot through the abdomen at point blank range. Do you want to see such things? They are below.

The Original Assassin, eh? I’m guessing it’s not John Wilkes Booth they’re trying to knock off his perch with that particular phrase.

It’s a strange oversight that the music sounds, to my ears, like blood-pumping stuff rather than the sort of morose finger-picking that a blood-soaked kill-video demands. How else would I know that the man-shooting is terribly sad and worthy? Somebody should remedy that. Just remember to mute the Hitman side of things. And then share any infinitely better examples that you concoct.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first Darksiders game, but even I’ll admit, that’s a pretty snappy tagline for its sequel.

This trailer was released over the weekend. It’s short on gameplay, but long on soft focus and dripping blood.

Darksiders 2 is out on PC, PS3 and 360 sometime in 2012.

I’ve played quite a bit of the latest entry in Croteam’s twitchtastic first-person shooter series, but I never encountered the super-speedy giant unkillable pink spider creature in the first level. Know why? Because my copy isn’t pirated.

In order to curb rampant pc game piracy, developer Croteam purposefully included a bug (hee) in Serious Sam 3: BFE that trips when the game has been cracked. The bug (I said it again!) spawn a pleasantly-pink, positively unkillable scorpion creature that will hound the player until he or she is dead, dead, dead. To give the pirate a fighting chance, the spawn point is right next to the game’s first projectile weapon. It won’t have any effect, of course, but you’ll briefly feel better.

While not a particularly effective means of combating piracy, the giant immortal pink scorpion is a fun way to catch those masquerading as legitimate customers in places like GameFaqs.

Thanks for the entertainment, Croteam!

GoldenEye 007: Reloaded is the true HD James Bond experience that you and others around the world have been waiting for.

The game offers striking HD visuals, realistic environments, and gameplay running at a consistent 60 frames per second. In addition, Reloaded features unprecedented player choice and has immense replayability with new offerings that include new MI6 Ops Missions.

GoldenEye 007: Reloaded takes multiplayer to a new level, maintaining and improving its renowned four-player split-screen action and also adding full, adrenaline-pumping 16-player online matches with more maps, weapons, characters, and game modes than ever before.