When it comes to popular media, we love to look back towards "the good ol' days". But while this reverence for nostalgia can be great, often it also leads to some laziness.

Say cheese!

June may be the month of E3, but it’s also the starting line for the gaming year to truly kung-fu chop its manual stick into top gear and start firing on all cylinders. No matter your taste, budget or platform, June is a reminder that video games are an all-encompassing force whose power could be harnessed to take over the world. I mean, let’s play some video games this month.

Yoku’s Island Express is whimsical, charming and a joy to play. It’s developed by people who have an obvious love and deep knowledge for both pinball and Metroidvania games, and frequently delights and surprises by taking established genre conventions and quite literally flipping them about.

Something I remain resolutely firm over, is the fact that the 1990s had the best villains spread across various animated series. From Batman to Mighty Max, ReBoot to X-Men, we were swimming in a golden age of talent and characterisation that has been unsurpassed since then. Don't believe me? Here are ten examples to get all nostalgic over.

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is one of the best musou games ever made, lovingly rendered in green and filled to bursting with fan service content that makes you feel like the greatest badass in all the land.

The distribution methods may have changed and the quality may have dipped here and there, but after a decade Warner Bros. Animation is stronger than ever. With dozens of films produced and a soft reboot coming later this year when Superman goes in for a second round against Doomsday, which films are truly the best? Here’s our pick of the bunch.

Dark Souls seldom gives you the keys to the castle. Everything from the smallest victory to the game’s oblique narrative has to be taken from its clawed grasp. Story isn’t dished out in hour-long cut scenes or a 500-page codex. Like everything else in Souls, story requires effort, patience and dedication, as you extract information from cryptic dialogue and myriad descriptions.

Team Flash may live to fight another day, but is the fastest man alive ready for the next big bad of season 5?

Detroit: Become Human manages to dial back Quantic Dream’s usual style of storytelling and instead focus more on the characters and their personal journey resulting in one the most compelling adventure games in recent memory.

  Electronic Art’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2 led the charge, walking away with more than just greediest monetisation of the year nomination. It finally pushed the gaming community over the edge with its implementation of loot boxes and pay-to-win mechanics. It was an entertaining saga with EA’s AMA on Reddit breaking records for the most downvoted comment in the platform’s …

Games have gone mainstream, but we as players can still do more to make them inviting. If you see a new player in a competitive online game, cut them a little slack. Offer them five minutes of guidance and perhaps tell them not to worry.