Seven ways Xbox 720's rumoured 'Holodeck' could mess with our heads

The other day my flatmate came back drunk from somewhere to find me playing Fable: The Journey, which is to say he came back to find me wedged into one corner of my tiny, Kinect-unfriendly room, flapping my arms up and down like a man trying to wrestle a duvet from the claws of invisible demons.

Thankfully, my flatmate is a practising pedant, and his scornful amusement quickly gave way to a ferocious argument about whether you can really "drive" a horse (WHICH YOU CAN, BEN). Still, it was rather embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as that time somebody overheard me playing Tom Clancy's EndWar and burst through the door in rage and confusion, convinced that I was orchestrating a terrorist attack. Good old button-free control schemes, eh? Long may they continue to compromise our dignity.

On that note, Microsoft's patented a fair few otherworldly input devices in the past couple of years. One in particular, the "immersive display system", strains the leash of credibility: it projects game graphics into the surrounding world which you can then interact with using Kinect 2.0. Assuming this is indeed Xbox 720's killer app, the possibilities are as fascinating as they are horrifying. I've outlined a few applications with reference to some of today's bigger gaming brands.

1. Gears of War 4

Epic's fourth gristly man-shooter is its most challenging to date, not least because you'll actually have to cover-lock against your TV in order to shoot at phantasmal Locust Grenadiers perched on your bookshelves. Allow them to K.O a squadmate, and you'll have to reach down and administer a restorative back-slap before the injured man bleeds all over your carpet. Get up to adjust the volume and he'll crawl after you feebly, swearing at your ankles. Heart-breaking.

2. Battlefield 4

You can't stop playing Battlefield, but not because it's too good to put down. Whenever you try to take a toilet break a heavily armed US Marine pops out of the woodwork and lodges himself in the doorway, studiously ignoring your attempts to push past. Also, you'd better shoot straight, because stray bullets and explosives now take their toll on living room furnishings. Miss with a tank shell and the game will strip away the walls to reveal a holographic Tehran.

3. Silent Hill 10

You know that bit in the Ring when the lady with the messy hair crawls out of the TV static? Well this is like that, but you can beat the offending apparition down using a common kitchen two-by-four or standard issue length of rusty drain pipe. You'll only be able to polish the thing off by stamping on it, though. It's the rules. One compensation is that Silent Hill's well-known "dark world transformation" trick now applies to the real world, overlaying your nice IKEA furniture with streaks of bloody excrement.