Surreal stages, events, or gameplay that somehow just don't fit have always been present, and even expected. Their crazy graphics, weird aesthetics and ideas make sure that we have absolutely no idea what's going on. But they have their charm, they are funny, or they're simply part of the experience—and so we love them.

We collected a bunch of them below.

Bad News in DmC

source: DmC Chapter 10

The Cardbridge In Alice: Madness Returns

source: Alice Wiki

The Nightmare Scenes In Max Payne

source: Max Payne's first nightmare

LSD Dream Emulator

source: LSD Dream Emulator Wiki

Inside The Red Dragon In Rayman Origins

source: Rayman Origins Dragon Trailer

Yume Nikki

source: Yume Nikki Wiki

The Space Harrier Stages In Bayonetta

source: Bayonetta Chapter 14

The Final Stage In Beautiful Katamari

source: superadamsworld's LP

Goro Majima's Karaoke Minigame In Yakuza: Dead Souls

source: Yakuza: Dead Souls - Goro Majima Karaoke

Stage 7 In Parodius

source: cubex55's LP

There are probably a lot more mind-cracking levels or games, so you should submit your own picks below (with visual support)!

That's it. No mahine guns today. No more giant robots, no post-apocalyptic landscapes, no bloodthirsty aliens. Today, we're looking at video game concept art that's so damn bright and cheerful it'll put more peps in your step than you'll know what to do with.

It's all the work of Floriane Marchix, who is currently at Dreamworks but who used to be employed at Ubisoft, where she worked on the delightful Rayman Origins.

You'll see a ton of stuff from that game, but I've thrown in plenty of personal work as well. Because it's great.

You can see a lot more at Floriane's personal site.

To see the larger pics in all their glory (or so you can save them as wallpaper), right-click on them below and select "open in new tab".

Stephen Colbert agrees, or at least… he likes to dance. So, okay, yes, this video mashup is totally silly, but also delightful. It makes me want to both play Rayman Origins and watch The Colbert Report.

Two things that I want to do already, as it happens...

From the guys who brought you "Mario Party Down", the excellent Mario Party drinking game (with some bonus Party Down references) comes "Rayman OriGin and Tonics."

(Groan.)

Yep. It's all gin, all the time. The game leverages the abusive nature of Rayman Origins' co-op gameplay to get you as drunk as possible. Take four drinks of a G&T if you win? Wow. Something about this video, particularly the fact that they're just straight up mixing gin and tonic water in huge glasses without even ice or lime just makes it all look fairly wretched.

But, if you were playing the game (and playing Rayman Origins with your friends, I have a feeling that after about twenty minutes you wouldn't really care how wretched you were being.

I speak a little bit of French. Just enough, in fact, to get the gist of what Rayman creator Michel Ancel is saying in this interview. The Ubisoft developer confirms work continues on the long-awaited sequel to cult favorite Beyond Good & Evil, but also says that it'll need better tech than is currently available.

I'm paraphrasing here but Ancel basically says that the game is indeed being created he can't say when it's coming or for which platforms. He also says that the game needs-either better or more—technology to succeed and, when asked if Mirror's Edge was an influence on BGE2, that the work seen in the trailer was completed before he was aware of the EA first-person-platformer.

Ancel elaborates that BGE2 will have a very dynamic camera system which will make it seem as if the action is being filmed live. This detail fits with BGE heroine Jade's role as a journalist. But, this is apparently one of the areas where the increased power of future consoles is needed. So, we'll have to wait for a while longer until we can revisit the planet of Hillys.

Interview de Michel Ancel et de Christophe Héral

[YouTube, via NeoGAF]

Ubisoft's critically acclaimed platformer Rayman Origins is going to get a sequel; it's pretty much inevitable. What form that sequel will take might be hinted at in these screens taken from a marketing survey by one of our readers, hinting at a world filled with dragons, ghosts and Greek gods.

Rayman Origins received rave reviews, and Ubisoft has been on record as saying the game turned a profit for the company. The trick now is to take that amazing gameplay and package it in a way that appeals to the consumer. Ghosts, dragons and mythology might do the trick.

These images, sent to us by an anonymous tipster who stumbled upon them in a survey from marketing firm Arkenford (Ubisoft is one of its regular clients), point towards a Rayman Origins sequel that retains the same four-player drop-in/drop-out gameplay of the original, while trading the first game's outlandish world for something a bit more familiar. Seems like a sound strategy to me.

Of course these images could all add up to nothing. For one, Arkenford is a marketing survey site, and what you see there isn't necessarily what you get. And then there's always the chance that an overzealous fan was just getting ahead of themselves.

We've contacted Ubisoft regarding these images, and will update the post should we receive a response.