S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl was one of the biggest PC first person shooters of 2007, and was a critical and commercial smash hit.

The humble mushroom: an essential accompaniment to Mario games, a vital ingredient for pizza and well known to bring on hallucinations (not that we condone that kind of thing of course).

R-Type is one of those franchises that has staked a claim as a key series in the history of gaming. The 1980s side-scrolling shooter was massively successful in its own right, spawning a raft of sequels.

It takes tremendous self-discipline to resist the urge to open this piece with a gushing dialogue on the cultural importance of George Lucas’ Star Wars saga.

DRAGON QUEST IV first appeared on the NES in Japan in early 1990, with a North American release following two years later. The game never made it to European shores.

There is really no conceivable way that if you’re male and at least 20 years of age that you haven’t at some stage played Subbuteo.

Some licenses lend themselves to an obvious route into gaming. Speed Racer was always going to be a racing game, for instance, and (to stick with the Wachowski theme) The Matrix was always going to be about slo-mo fighting and shooting.

With sales to date of well over 40 million, the success of Tamagotchi is indisputable. When it first arrived in the UK in 1997, massive press hype about the hard-to-find gadget saw stories of pre-dawn queues at branches of Toys ‘R’ Us.

There was once a time when the main thrust of multiplayer gaming was post-pub two-player sessions with the likes of Super Mario Kart, Tekken, Street Fighter II or Bomberman.

The nature of consumer games journalism means that, typically at least, it’s a certain type of game that claims most of the column space. Ultra-realistic, gory, adult, third or first person shooters with development budgets of seven figures are...

There was a time when this author had his own DS. It was a lovely, black, shiny machine that played host to loads of great, great games – New Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing, Trauma Centre, Phoenix Wright.

The whole Koei Warriors phenomenon is really quite baffling when considered in the context of the rest of the industry. We have seen companies before that survive, more or less at least, on the back of one franchise.

All game genres have their appeal, but some obviously hold more appeal than others. It’s hard to say who the current daddy is – it’s probably some sort of gun toting puzzle toss-up between first person shooters and mini-game collections.

Peripherals have lived hand-in-hand with gaming since the very dawn of the medium itself. Though they have never previously matched the assortment of add-ons and attachments available for today’s machines...

On the one hand it would be reasonable to argue that the PC is the most accessible platform for gaming known to man.

Remember when you first saw Toy Story and were blown away by the realism of the seemingly-futuristic animation? That’s probably something you haven’t felt in a while.

Overweight beer drinkers throwing pointed metal at corkboards has gripped the UK pub scene since the 19th Century. Since then, the sport has slowly grown in popularity, and even has its own sporting legend in the form of Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor.

History hasn’t recorded who exactly came up with the idea of combining the LEGO brand with other popular franchises to make a video game – but whoever it was should raise their hand and receive the rapturous applause they undoubtedly deserve.