Yesterday, YouTube channel Adam Savage's Tested shared an extensive breakdown of Valve's Half-Life: Alyx, going hands-on to compare the still-in-development game across a variety of VR devices. And, now, the internet has eked out the gameplay from that original 30-minute video and squashed into down into an easily digestible 11 minutes of juicy stuff.

Tested's off-screen footage, taken from around three hours of play-through, steers clear of plot details and certain advanced mechanics for obvious spoiler reasons, but it does give a solid look at some of the motion-control-based interactions that players will be able to deploy over the course of Alyx's reported 15-hour run-time.

The newly released 11-minute edit (created by YouTuber zck2020) features Half-Life favourites like shambling headcrab zombies and ceiling-dwelling barnacles. On the VR front, though, teleportation and full locomotion movement are showcased, as are a range of natural motion-based interactions, including aiming, reloading, grenade-tossing, door-opening, and more.

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With Christmas just around the corner, the winter sales are now in full force across practically every digital game retailer you can name. Whether it's Steam, Green Man Gaming, Gamesplanet or your other favourite store there's money to be saved.

Let's start off with the Steam Winter Sale. As we've come to expect from this yearly raid on our wallets, there are thousands of games up for sale, along with a couple of silly gimmicks to try and get you to spend more.

This time around they're in the form of Festivity Tokens and Holiday Quests. Completing the latter will earn you the former, which can then be spent to claim cosmetic goodies or discount coupons for use across the store.

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In one of the opening missions of GTA Online's latest update, heist aficionado and lovable oaf Lester talks about how he was a good kid before he played Street Crimes Gang Wars, the in-universe version of Grand Theft Auto. As the bassline hums in the background, he starts to ramble about the gun-toting opportunists trying to lift your cargo, a set of arcade cabinets necessary to kickstart a run-down arcade business, a front for the game's latest (and greatest) heist. "They must be gamers," he says.

A walking parody of all things but especially itself, minutes later GTA Online treats me to a radio advert for Shark Cards, the game's infamous microtransaction system that has made it the most profitable entertainment product of all time. Shutting my car door after a successful delivery, I get my usual daily text from Agent 14 about purchasing a million-dollar Mobile Operations Center to help with the efficiency of my Gunrunning business, one of many plates that need spinning if I'm to stay afloat in this demanding second life. I don't even want the unnecessary vehicle but my brain, falling prey to the marketing machine, wonders whether completing this latest big score will afford me the currency necessary to get him to stop nagging me.

A packed-out patch for a six-year-old live service, The Diamond Casino Heist is designed to turn heads, all the way down to the balance tweaks that players have been begging for. The greatest issue addressed concerns the most hated (and loved) vehicle introduced in Online's history, the Oppressor Mk 2.

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Holy macaroni it's the final Five of the Best of the year! This is our weekly series where we sprinkle some love on the overlooked parts of games. We've talked about potions, caves, hands, shops, hubs, maps, mountains and many more. There's a Five of the Best archive if you fancy a butcher's.

Snow! I wonder about snow. Hardly any falls where I live so whenever it does, everyone gets very excited for it. The ugly grey concrete we see every day is hidden under a fluffy white blanket, as if to say, "Don't worry about all that stuff, unless of course you walk into it, but go out and do something else instead. Be with friends! Be with family! The trains don't bloody work anyway." So the country grinds to a halt and we all rush outside to slide down hills on sledges, baking trays, dustbin lids, plastic bags - anything we can find. There's no thought for safety as people plummet down, careering into people walking up - I once saw someone perform a whole impromptu somersault - and we all return home at the end of the day with bruises and a spot of hypothermia. It's a great day out.

So when I see snow in a video game, the same butterflies of excitement flutter around inside me. But I wonder, is it the same for those of you who live where it snows a lot? You must see so much you are sick of the sight of it. Do you like snow in games or does it give you nightmares? Do let me know!

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Brilliant indie biking game Lonely Mountains: Downhill has announced a festive event for the holiday season - and if you haven't played it yet, now's a good time to quickly tell you why.

Imagine a semi-open world Trials Evolution game on a constant downhill slope festooned with boulders, jumps, split paths and whole other routes to find. The only sounds while you play are your wheels on the loose stones, the wind and passing birdsong. It's wonderfully relaxing - with that Trials instant-retry mechanic should you mess up.

Well, now it has Christmas trees and presents to open in exchange for festive outfits:

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'Tis the season to be jolly, and what better way to turn yourself into gleeful receptacle of festivity than with a great big pile of video game sales? Yes, the time has come for Valve to honk its holly-bedecked discount klaxon and usher in its latest Steam sale - and Epic is following along today too by kicking off its own cinnamon-scented store sale for the holidays.

Not only will you get your usual price discounts on games, both Valve and Epic are bringing their own gimmicks to their seasonal sales. Over on Steam, customers can earn Festivity Tokens to be traded for money-off vouchers and a vast array of Steam-based bric-a-brac, including chat stickers, profile backgrounds, emoticons, and chatroom effects.

You'll get 131 Festivity Tokens for every 1 you spend in the sale (by comparison, it'll cost 5,000 tokens to acquire a voucher giving you 3.80 off your next purchase), and it's possible to earn 100 tokens each time you complete a special Steam quest.

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Fortnite's pristine Chapter 2 world has finally lost its layer of shrink-wrapping. Between a fresh dusting of snowy Christmas locations and the crash landing of Fortnite's Star Wars event, the battle royale map now has Epic's busy fingerprints all over it once more, some signs of wear and tear.

Amongst Fortnite's festive decorations and newly snow-capped zones you'll now find an ice hotel, a Christmas lodge, and a ski resort with a disco which pumps out obnoxious music. The aftermath of the game's live Star Wars marketing bonanza, meanwhile, has left crashed TIE Fighters dotted around the map, shot down by a Geoff Keighley-introed Millennium Falcon. Their wreckage has been kept burning, designed to act like a signal flare for players to go investigate.

Don't get me wrong - Fortnite's old map had needed replacing. It ended up cluttered, especially over the game's time-bending, location-warping Season X which deliberately drove the game to a breaking point. The coffee cup rings left over from two years of apocalyptic live events and smaller, daily changes had finally become too plentiful to ignore. It felt like time to strip everything back for a fresh coat of varnish. And with that, Chapter 2 gained room to fit in some of its best new additions - large expanses of water, a better sense of scale, and Lazy Lake.

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Developer Saber Interactive's enormously popular co-operative zombie shooter World War Z has just received a new update on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, this time adding an explosive new undead variant and a new horde mode.

Both additions arrive as part of World War Z's so-called Season Two of post-launch content, which has already introduced the likes of new missions and a new weapon. Now, however, players can face off against a new Special Zombie type known as The Bomber, described as the "unfortunate result of a military demolitions expert getting chewed on by a zombie".

Saber Interactive calls The Bomber a rare encounter, and notes that while it's extremely volatile, it brings valuable bonus loot for those teams with the skills to defeat it. That first requires precise shots to the "safe zones", such as its legs, then, once down, players can defuse the timed bombs strapped to its body in order to secure their reward.

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Arsenal star Mesut zil will be removed from Chinese versions of PES 2020 after publicly criticising the country's treatment of Uighur Muslims.

NetEase, which publishes PES in China, explained zil's removal in a post on social media platform Weibo (via The Independent), which said it came after zil's "extreme statement about China on social media".

"The speech hurt the feelings of Chinese fans and violated the sports spirit of love and peace," NetEase's statement continued. "We do not understand, accept or forgive this!"

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In a rare move, Fortnite is giving away Fortnite skins for free this Christmas in its new Winterfest event.

Log on now and you'll be able to visit the Lodge, home to Fortnite's frankly frightening nutcracker character Crackshot. Each day, you'll be able to open one of 14 gifts and activate a fresh challenge for a further reward.

There's no need to log on every day, either - just check-in before the event finishes on 8th January 2020 and you can catch up.

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