Kinect, Microsoft’s revolutionary motion-control gaming peripheral, is now available for Windows PCs, retailing for an exclusively priced $249.99. When first released for the Xbox 360 in 2010, it became the fastest selling consumer electronic device, pushing 10 million units in 60 days.

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The Microsoft Flight Simulator series returns for the first time in six years with Microsoft Flight. Instead of arriving in traditional retail form, MSF will be free to play, and will feature the futuristic ICON A5 amphibious mono-wing and the entire island of Hawaii to explore. If you wish, you can branch out beyond your beautiful basics and purchase additional regions and aircraft using the money earned in your daily labors. To keep you coming back, there’ll also be “daily aerocache challenges” and a variety of mission goals to complete.

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Starting today, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC players can download and install mods directly from Steam with the new Steam Workshop. Using the “upload to Steam” feature in the recently released Creation Kit, modders can upload their creations, and players can view, sort and rate mods, as well as see which ones their friends are using.

Bethesda’s open-world RPGs have always been fertile soil for player-created modifications, which allow each user to tailor the game to their preferences. Even before the official Creation Kit, ambitious modders were already fixing, rebalancing and adding to the province of Skyrim. The list of launch mods is fairly thin, but expect it to balloon quickly very soon. To get the ball rolling, Bethesda has released an official high-resolution texture pack to PC users, free of charge. Additionally, the entire Elder Scrolls series, including Skyrim, is 33 percent off on Steam during Valve’s Midweek Madness sale. If you haven’t already snapped up this Seal of Excellence winner, you now have 33 percent less excuses.

The popular FPS/tower-defense hybrid Sanctum will be receiving a sequel in 2013, according to Joystiq. After launching on Steam last April, Sanctum became an indie success story, quickly selling more than 300,000 units. The game took the typical tower-defense formula and injected it with more than a few ampules of adrenaline. In four-player co-op, players have to carefully construct and upgrade their defenses to stop waves of monsters, before leaping into the fray with their own upgradable weapons. No details are available on what new features await players in Sanctum 2, except that PSN and Xbox Live players will also get to experience the teamwork.

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Kerberos Productions
System requirements: Windows Vista/XP, Core2Duo or better CPU, 512 MB graphics card with DirectX 10 support, DirectX 10 (February 2011 or newer), 2 GB RAM, Vista-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Fans of 4X games spent last summer waiting in anticipation for the release of Kerberos’s Sword of the Stars II. Given the excellence of the previous installment in the series and its expansions, expectations were high as trailers were released and the developers teased their fans with tidbits about the game. After wrestling with it for hours on end, it’s clear that SOTS II doesn’t live up to the hype. In fact, it doesn’t even live up to the basic promises to be expected of any game that had an original release price of $39.95.

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Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Developer: InterWave Studios
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 10.6.7, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or better CPU, 2 GB memory, 6 GB hard-drive space, 128 MB DirectX 9-compatible graphics card with Shader 2.0b support, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device
Genre: FPS/RTS
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

My PC brethren, turn in your hymnals to #1337, and sing along with me: “Mods are good, mods are great, mods are things we appreciate.” Some of your favorite games started out as mods, and the others were undoubtedly influenced by them. Indie developer InterWave has been in the Source mod scene for a while now. Both Stargate: Last Stand and Insurgency (which is quite nice) are notches on their collective belts. Tossing the budget-o-meter up from “freebie” to “costs money,” they’ve cranked out the generic-titled Nuclear Dawn, which proclaims to offer a “full FPS and RTS experience within a single gameplay model, without crippling or diluting either side of the game.” Featuring six maps and 32-player matches, Nuclear Dawn isn’t just a funny pun on my mother-in-law’s name. It’s the best multiplayer FPS that you should be playing right now.

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Publisher: Zachtronic Industries
Developer: Zachtronic Industries
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 10.5.8 (Leopard), 2.0 GHz CPU, graphics card with frame buffer support, 1 GB RAM, 300 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

SpaceChem doesn’t seem to have a lot going for it. It’s a simple-looking 2D game about programming machines to build molecules. Yet, under this unassuming surface lies a game of such seething excitement that it’ll have you shouting and yelling more than when you play an FPS. I myself spoke such dark utterances that Khorne himself shivered. How can a science-themed puzzle game go so right?

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Developer THQ has announced its list of upcoming releases. Sneaking out first on February 17 is UFC Undisputed 3. Then comes the company’s fiscal 2013 slate, which includes Darksiders II in June, South Park: The Game and a new WWE title in Q3, and Metro: Last Light and The Devil’s Third in Q4. In 2014 and beyond, THQ plans to release an unnamed game from Turtle Rock, inSANE from Volition, Homefront 2 (Crytek), the new game from Patrice Désilets’ THQ Montreal, and Dark Millennium Online, which will be completed with the aid of a “partner,” company boss Brian Farrell has revealed. On top of these, THQ has four unannounced core games in development for release in fiscal 2014.

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Ino-co Plus
System requirements: TBA
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Everyone 10+
Release date: Q2 2012

In 1994, Simtex released a 4X game entitled Master of Magic. Like every similar RTS at the time, it initially looked like a Civilization clone. Despite initial bugs, it was far more then just Civ with spells, and it quickly became a strategy classic. A few games have tried to capture its spark since, most infamously 2010’s Elemental, but none of them have quite made it. Unwilling to let such a great spirit languor in DOS emulators, Paradox Interactive is giving MoM a modern body in the form of Warlock: Master of the Arcane. The details are so enticing it might cause your carpal tunnel to flair up in anticipation.

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If you have set aside your February 7 to relax with your favorite Ubisoft games, you might want to rethink your plans. According to Eurogamer, most of the developer’s games will be unplayable or otherwise impacted when the company starts the process of moving its game servers. Some of the games that will go totally dark include HAWX II and The Settlers 7 (PC), and Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell: Conviction (Mac). Console games and certain PC titles (Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco) will be unaffected by the move, but all games that require Uplay authentication will be unplayable. No word was offered on how long the work will take to complete.

After dozens of hours in the province of Skyrim, I’ve done a lot. I’ve plundered tombs, slain dragons. I’ve picked a point in the landscape and gone there, full of manly purpose. I’ve listened to many personal stories and stuck my mailed fist of intervention into more then a few faces. Though my adventuring might someday come to an end, it will never truly find a conclusion. Yet, through all of it, I have reached one conclusion:

I like Fallout: New Vegas better.

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Another MMO seems to be released or switches from subscription to free-to-play almost every month. Up until now, only the venerable EverQuest has stood strong and resisted the FTP tide. But after almost 13 years, the time has finally come for the last of the classic MMOs. Sony announced today that EQ will be moving to the FTP business model starting sometime in early March. Lead producer Thom Terrazas said in the EQ Player’s Blog that growing the player base was a prime reason for the decision. “With the gaming landscape changing every day, we want to ensure we continue to evolve the game to keep players engaged and bring in even more new players to further expand the community.” If you’re already a paying subscriber, you might be tempted to demand a refund, but don’t worry; your subscription fee gives you a number of advantages over the free players. A detailed comparison of free, silver and gold memberships can be found here.

Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU, 256 MB graphics card, 2 GB RAM, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX 8.1-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

There was a time when some part of creator Dick Wolf’s ubiquitous Law and Order TV franchise was on the tube almost every day in the US. Some didn’t last long (Crime and Punishment, Trial by Jury, Law and Order: Los Angeles), while the parent show became one of the longest-running scripted shows in American TV history. These days, only Special Victims Unit remains, but now Wolf and NBC/Universal are pushing the franchise into new frontiers with the help of game developer Telltale.

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The gate swung open.

Revolted by the thick scent of excrement in the chamber, Locklear hastened to the ladder affixed on the far wall and ascended its filth-slick rungs. Behind him, Gorath and Owyn reluctantly did likewise, gaffing on the noxious vapors in the shaft. “This is nothing,” Locklear grunted, shoving upwards against a grating. “All the windows in the palace are open right now. You ought to smell it in the winter.”

Darkness surrounded them as they slithered out of the privy, their only impressions of the chamber provided by the faint flicker of distant firelight. Ten yards before them the hall joined with an elaborate colonnade stretching in either direction. “Somehow I hadn’t pictured my first visit to Krondor like this,” Owyn sighed, falling blindly into step behind Gorath and the Seigneur.

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Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Developer: Rocksteady
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.4 GHz Core2Duo/Athlon X2 4800 or better CPU, GeForce 8800GT/ATI 3850 HD or better graphics card, 2 GB RAM, 17 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Developers take their careers in their own hands when they set out to make a superhero game. If they want the legions of comic-book fanboys to give their game their seal of approval, it has to be almost perfect. All of the canonical i’s have to be dotted and the t’s have to be crossed, over and above the things that the rest of the gaming public want to see (good story, great graphics, etc). Rocksteady accomplished this with Batman: Arkham Asylum back in 2010. Now they’re trying to make lightning strike twice in the same place with the sprawling action/adventure Batman: Arkham City. In most ways, they’ve succeeded. In some others, not so much.

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