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This is a competitive shooter, first and foremost, where teams of three face off in single death elimination matches, or in a series of varying match types, including domination, bounties, and item collection races. Call them what you will, Umbrella Corps' modes are standard concepts that have been around for decades, and players are so fragile that rounds tend to devolve into deathmatch battles regardless of the overarching objective.

Single player levels tend to be similarly basic--kill zombies and collect their DNA. Shooting them is an option, but why expend round after round when you can instantly kill targets with a melee attack? It's baffling that a single whack from the butt of your gun will kill zombies faster than a stream of bullets, but it does.

The small selection of maps in the game is directly inspired by the last few numbered Resident Evil games, and apart from the presence of zombies and unlockable character skins, are the strongest ties to the series at large. Despite their familiar appearance, the maps' inner-workings have some fresh appeal. While in Umbrella's labs, you can snake through ducts to get the jump on an unsuspecting enemy, or, in the game's outdoor locations, you can scurry up walls to gain a height advantage. In a game where most people constantly sprint and fire, it feels good to be able to disappear into the environment and wait for prey to cross your path; it's also an easy way to bide your time during single-death matches. Full video game reviews

Umbrella Corps is at its best when it allows you to utilize your surroundings, but this isn't always possible. Most games with a cover system allow you to snap to any structure of a certain size, such as a wall or a crate, but not here--only some objects are eligible, highlighted with a neon outline. Sure, you can hide behind any wall in the face of incoming fire, but only some walls--ordained without discernible rhyme or reason--allow you to enter a proper cover state and fire from safety. Because of this, you quickly learn that relying on cover is a fool's errand. Ultimately, characters move so fast, and kill each other so quickly, that you become accustomed to looking for enemies rather than hunting for cover opportunities.

You can kill opponents in three ways in Umbrella Corps: you can shoot them, kill them instantly with a melee attack, or disable their Zombie Jammer and rely on zombies that litter every map to get the job done. Every player has a jamming device on their back, which allows players to move around the map without rousing suspicion from the undead. When it's disabled--triggered by a well-placed shot to a player's back--zombies rush towards their newfound target. This is a great option in theory, but in practice, it's very difficult to execute. Whether you're standing, crouching, or prone--where you slither around like an awkward greased seal--you can cover a lot of ground with minimal effort, which results in a lot of twitchy and chaotic face offs where opponents frantically attack anything that moves.

While you can melee enemies with your gun, you might as well equip the Brainer if you prefer close quarters combat. Your Brainer is an overpowered, hybrid scythe-hammer that kills opponents in one hit, so long as they fall in the weapon's generous kill zone, indicated by a HUD projection. Using it comes with a risk--the Brainer's attack animation is notably long--but it's the fastest way to take out an enemy. Should you and a Brainer-wielding enemy attack each other at the same time, you both stagger for a moment before you can issue a follow-up attack. Typically, this results in a flurry of button presses as you try to attack again as soon as the game allows--but with both competitors mashing away, it becomes a game of luck rather than skill. Relent and try to switch weapons, and you'll probably die. Spend too much time trying to issue a counterattack, and you're likely to get killed by an enemy who's passing by. The Brainer is both the most effective tool in your arsenal, and the most likely to get you killed. Check out car driving games

You can try to adjust your strategy to account for the Brainer's peculiarities, but there's nothing that can be done to combat Umbrella Corps' broken death animations. In some instances, it takes a full second or two for a death to properly register in the game, and in that window of time, the doomed player can attack and kill others before they are disabled. There's probably a joke to made in there about how the dead don't stay dead in the world of Resident Evil, but this is a bug--not a feature--and the final nail in the coffin for a game pitched as a competitive shooter.

Determined players can earn cosmetic items and new weapons as they earn XP and level up, but a new gun or patch for your helmet doesn't wash away the bad taste of Umbrella Corps' gameplay. Its systems are either unreliable or illogical, and as a result, it feels almost impossible to get a foothold. The first time an enemy kills you when they should have been dead, you may shrug it off. When it happens the dozenth time, you'll probably wonder why you're playing Umbrella Corps at all. Link to post shooting games online. There's ultimately no good excuse

The referendum to exit the EU is unprecedented, making it impossible to make long-term predictions about the impact on the tech world. But the bombshell decision promises to shake things up as important figures and tech companies take stock of the new norm. In the US, Donald Trump lauded the Brexit movement, which he linked to his own unlikely ascension. President Barack Obama said the US' relationship with the UK remains unchanged.

In the UK, the reaction can be summed up with one acronym: PMA. That's right, there's a lot of "positive mental attitude" going round right now. And the tech world is going to need a lot of PMA.

Despite throwing its weight behind the "remain" campaign, a spokeswoman for carrier BT said that it was "business as usual" at the company. "We'll work closely with the British government and EU during negotiations, to ensure BT's views are heard, as our goal is to protect the interests of our customers, employees, shareholders and business."

Rival O2 expressed disappointment. "We believe that large businesses like ours would have been stronger remaining in the EU," said a company spokesman. "Whatever happens next we will continue to fiercely compete in our market, innovate and deliver for our customers."

Vodafone and Virgin Media were both keen to reassure customers that they'd continue to receive company support, and neither firm predicted any short-term impact on their UK businesses.

The EU is working toward eliminating roaming fees across the continent by June 2017, and there's a possibility that the UK could lose out on this benefit, said Luca Schiavoni, senior analyst at Ovum. "UK operators will no longer be subject to the EC's roaming regulation," he said.

This is not a given, though. The networks have been trying to implement these rules for several years and will want to remain competitive in the market.

Data-protection regulations, which give internet users control over what happens to their personal information, were drawn up by the EU, but they may not disintegrate when the UK is no longer a member. For now the regulations are "the law of the land," said a representative from the Information Commissioner's Office.

"If the UK is not part of the EU, then upcoming EU reforms to data-protection law would not directly apply to the UK," said the rep, who added, however, that the UK's standards would have to be "equivalent" to Europe's in order for the two to trade.

Stoicism rules

"I voted #Remain -- but I also believe that Britain will always be open, creative & entrepreneurial. Let's ensure that happens. #EUref," tweeted Rohan Silva, co-founder of tech accelerator Second Home and prominent advocate of the London tech scene. His post was retweeted by Baroness Martha Lane Fox, founder of LastMinute.com.

Not everyone shared their optimism. A number of the UK's most successful startups were adamantly against leaving Europe. TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, who was staunchly in favor of remaining in the EU, told The Guardian that now "Headquartering elsewhere is a possibility."

Due to the UK being the financial capital of Europe, many money- and payment-based tech startups like TransferWise are based in London -- particularly around Silicon Roundabout. There are some that believe this sector could be hard hit by the outcome.

James Dyson was perhaps the lone figure from the British tech scene supporting Brexit, but a spokeswoman for his company, which makes vacuum cleaners and hand air-dryers, said Friday that the firm would not be "issuing any comments at the moment."

Microsoft, which was a staunch supporter of the remain campaign, also declined to comment following the results.

Outside of the direct line of tech fire, Michael Ryan, chairman of the Independent Film and Television Alliance, believes Brexit will prove "a major blow" to the UK's film and TV industry.

"This decision has just blown up our foundation -- as of today, we no longer know how our relationships with co-producers, financiers and distributors will work, whether new taxes will be dropped on our activities in the rest of Europe or how production financing is going to be raised without any input from European funding agencies," he told Variety. Click here to see more video game reviews to learn more about Brexit

In January, it was revealed that Apple is assembling a team of virtual reality (VR) experts to build prototypes of 3D headsets to match those of VR rivals Oculus Rift, which was bought by Facebook for $2bn (£1.4bn) in 2014; Google Cardboard, which transforms your smartphone into a cut-price VR viewer; Microsoft’s forthcoming VR product HoloLens, or Magic Leap, which is being developed by a secretive US start-up.

This year the major technology players will all place big bets that virtual reality is about to change the way we live in as many far-reaching ways as the internet has. If that is true, what will it mean for the arts and entertainment? Intriguingly, the rise of virtual reality (in which a brand new reality is presented to the subject, typically via a helmet-like headset) and augmented reality (in which computer-generated elements are overlaid on the subject’s view of the real world) throws up different challenges for each branch of the arts.

For video games, recent advances in VR are a natural progression of the evolution of gameplay over the last 40 years. 2016’s most exciting new VR releases will include the cartoon-like Lucky’s Tale, the multi-player space combat game Eve: Valkyrie and the arctic adventure Edge of Nowhere, out later this year, all playable with an Oculus Rift headset and PC.

No wonder it is predicted that around the world we will spend $5.1bn (£3.7bn) on virtual-reality video games and hardware this year.

By contrast, immersive technologies are having surprisingly little impact on film. Of course, computer-generated images have led to a revolution in the kind of stories that can be told on screen. Many of 2016’s most keenly anticipated films – Batman v Superman (out 25 March), The Jungle Book(out 15 April), Steven Spielberg’s The BFG (out 22 July) and the Harry Potter-inspired Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (out 18 November) – rely on CGI to cast their spell. Click here to get animals for kids news

But film-lovers have so far failed to respond as enthusiastically to advances in the way films are themselves experienced: 3-D is best suited to eye-popping action movies, while for more realistic dramas and comedies many cinema-goers find the added “realism” a distraction.

Do we want virtual reality to make us feel like active participants in cinema – so that audiences can, for instance, touch and even taste the raw bison liver that Leonardo DiCaprio eats in The Revenant? Perhaps not. See more fun facts about dogs to relax with many fun news

A quieter revolution in virtual reality is already underway in Britain’s museums and galleries. At the end of last year, the British Museum launched its first virtual tours, in which users could explore its collection from the comfort of their sofas by using an indoor version of Google Maps’ Street View. It was part of the ongoing roll-out of the Google Cultural Institute, a scheme to provide internet-enabled access to great artistic and historical collections around the world.

In truth, the project is not as revelatory as it sounds because the virtual representation of the museums and their objects is not sufficiently fluent or realistic. But this will come. Between now and 2020 we can expect tens of thousands of cultural treasures currently stored in the archives of the British Museum, National Gallery, V&A and others to become available to the general public thanks to virtual reality.

One might presume that the theatre – perhaps our most ancient form of virtual reality – would have little to gain from these advances. In fact, 2016 will see several innovative experiments that combine elements of VR with live theatrical performance.

In November, for instance, the Royal Shakespeare Company will present a production of The Tempest at Stratford quite unlike any seen in the play’s 405-year history, as the spirit Ariel will be represented by a 3D hologram projected above the audience using technology developed by Andy Serkis’s visual effects studio Imaginarium. Is this the stuff our future dreams are made on? See more video game reviews

Reviews as Dark Souls III (12 April, PS4, Xbox One, PC) is released, we take a look back at the most challenging, vicious and downright dastardly video games of all time. In no particular order, of course, because that would be too easy.

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