When The Last Of Us Part II's new trailer debuted at this year's E3, protagonist Ellie enjoyed a slow dance and kiss with another woman. My queer friends and I confessed to one another that we were assuming the worst.

In The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, nine-year-old Chris Eriksen sets up a tower of his father's beer cans for his superhero alter-ego, Captain Spirit, to blast into the abyss. He had to practice his aim for that day's big, imminent fight against his arch nemesis, Mantroid.

While his dad slept in a drunken stupor, he took out the recycling, briefly suffering a whiff of the sour smell of stale beer. In Captain Spirit, released yesterday, a superhero always finds good use for a garbage situation.

While the writing and plot might have been a little hokey, there's something about being able to share a story. So you're looking for narrative experiences for a party or to kill some time with a friend, here's 15 games worth checking out.

Gamers often talk about the convergence of film and games. But in Life Is Strange, some of my favourite moments are the literary allusions because they make the world feel richer and more authentic.

In the second episode of Life is Strange: Before the Storm, teenage protagonist Chloe Price can no longer act as if nobody gets her. Someone does, and she's into you. Episode two's biggest strength is capturing the electricity of a new crush. Together, Chloe and Rachel Amber create a force of nature, not unlike the flames burning up Arcadia Bay. You don't just crush on somebody, after all. They crush you, too.

Within minutes of starting Life Is Strange: Before The Storm, Chloe Price smoked a cigarette, stood in front of a moving train, tagged some graffiti, used a fake ID, insulted a burly man, drank beer, and nearly got into a fight. It seemed like she was trying too hard to be edgy. By the end of the first episode, I realised that was exactly the point.

As the longest strike in Screen Actors Guild history chugs on, video game voice actors are making painful career sacrifices to show solidarity with their union. 234 days into the strike, after Microsoft announced Life Is Strange: Before The Storm, fans immediately sussed out that award-winning voice actress and SAG-AFTRA member Ashly Burch will not reprise her original role as the rebellious teen Chloe.

One of the few leaks confirmed before E3 was the news that Dotnod's teen adventure Life is Strange was getting a well-deserved prequel, titled Before the Storm. And if you wanted to see more than the teaser shown during the main conferences, here's almost 20 minutes of gameplay.

Get ready for a hella teen time in Life is Strange: Before the Storm, a prequel starring Chloe and Rachel before the events of the first game. There will be three episodes total, with the first one releasing on August 31st.

We're just over a week away from E3, and video game companies everywhere are leaking like ships in a hurricane. Today's rumour is an apparent prequel to Life is Strange, made by a new developer and scheduled to be revealed within the next couple of weeks.

Here's an interesting fact: not only was the original Life Is Strange a pretty cool, unique video game -- it was also tremendously popular. It sold 3 million copies.

So a sequel was sorta inevitable. And yes, here it is.

Life is Strange is, in its own way, one of the prettiest video games of the past few years. It shouldn't surprise any of you, then, that the art behind the game is also very easy on the eye.

Excellent news for fans of DontNod's excellent young adult adventure game Life Is Strange -- Legendary Pictures has announced that it's turning the series into a movie.

Completely! Accompanying the news that the game has been ported to Mac and Linux, Life Is Strange developer DONTNOD has marked down the first episode by 100 per cent for the rest of ever.

Theologians have long known that the happier a soul is, the more experience points it gives you when you feed on it. It's in Leviticus, or something. But vampire games often lack that idea in any meaningful sense. Characters may talk about strong souls and weak souls but, as a player, it has little bearing on how you play. Dontnod, in its new game Vampyr (which is being developed by a different team than its breakout hit Life is Strange), aims to change that.

Heard of Life is Strange and not entirely sure what it's about? Well, time to be simultaneously informed and amused as Honest Game Trailers tackles this odd blend of teens, time travel and uh, hipster Patrick Bateman.

Given that most owners of Life is Strange were pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns in Dontnod's episodic teen adventure, you might enjoy hearing the following.

In contrast to Mark, the difficulty I had with this was keeping games that weren't released in 2015 off the list. I did a lot of exploring in 2015, and participating in a fortnightly game challenge also meant I was working through my back catalogue more than I ordinarily would have been.

But that's not to say that there weren't plenty of new releases worth paying attention to. If anything, 2015 has probably been the best year for releases since the launch of the new consoles. So without further delay, here's my unordered selection of what I thoroughly enjoyed from the last 12 months.

It's coming to the end of the year, so let's remind ourselves about all the good -- and bad -- games that came out. Just in case, you know, some of them pop up for sale over Christmas.