Publisher: E-One Studio
Developer: E-One Studio
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Win 7 SP1, 1 GHz CPU, 2 GB RAM (3 GB for Vista/Win 7), 512 MB graphics card with Shader Model 3.0 support, 4 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

From the minute Hoodwink sauntered into my review queue, I knew she was trouble. Stylish cell-shaded graphics wrapped around a noir plot set in the future, she was like the lovechild of Tex Murphy and Tex Avery. She seemed too good to be true. She was an adventure game, after all. Yet, she’s a game, and I’m a reviewer. If decades of games journalism couldn’t change that relationship, then neither could I. I took the job, and damn the consequences.

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In celebration of this year’s Gamescom, Ubisoft is running a $1 game sale. The event runs from now until August 19 and features four games, each one available for only one day. The sale begins with HAWX 2 and will gradually include From Dust, Silent Hunter 5 and Driver San Francisco. Meanwhile, other Ubi games are heavily discounted. The trick is that you have to use Ubisoft’s Uplay client to download and play them, but for the frugal gamer, it remains a bargain. More information on Ubisoft’s Gamescom sale can be found here.

Back in 2007, Vanguard was intended to be the spiritual successor to the original Everquest. Designed by EQ vet Brad McQuaid, the game launched to a hailstorm of drama. Bugs, missing features and poor performance quickly sank Vanguard at launch. And yet, for the last five years, the only way to sample just what became of this game was to buy it and pay the monthly fee. Left with either closing down the remaining two servers or opening it up for all, today Sony Online Entertainment has chosen the latter and has relaunched Vanguard as free-to-play (click here to visit the official site). This will either increase player numbers and move SOE to keep working on one of the last hardcore MMOs, or it will be a chance for the voyeuristic among us to see this classic disasterpiece first hand.

Only five months after launch, Microsoft has ended active development of its free-to-play simulator Microsoft Flight. The news comes right after the release of the Carbon Cub Deluxe, which provides a 3D cockpit for the plane already included in the Alaskan Wilderness DLC pack for an extra $15. The game was met with hostility from core sim fans and featured a questionable DLC system, which likely contributed to its downfall. Regardless, it was a solid sim that never realized its potential. It’s unclear how long Microsoft will continue to maintain the game’s servers.

Source: Kotaku

A few months ago I reviewed the casual-focused Microsoft Flight. Apparently I was the only gamer who didn’t view it as a personal assault against all of sim culture. If even reading its name tortures your ulcer, just get yourself a license for Xplane and never want again. I was a believer in the concept of a small free-to-play flight sim that focused on VFR flights. The aerocash hunts, missions and unlocks were a great idea and made a genuinely fun flight sim. But for all of MS Flight‘s inventiveness, it seems that most of the creativity went into making the DLC a rip-off in new and exciting ways.

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Publisher: Soldak Entertainment
Developer: Soldak Entertainment
System requirements: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac OSX 10.4, 1.5 GHz Pentium IV CPU (2.0 GHz for Mac), 256 MB RAM, GeForce 2 or better graphics card (GeForce 3 for Mac), 200 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: 2012

Drox Operative is an action RPG set in space. Wait, wait, come back! Did I mention it’s made by Soldak, the guys behind the amazing Depths of Peril and Din’s Curse? Well, it is! This means a large, randomly generated, dynamic universe and combat that does something new. Don’t dare call it a Diablo clone.

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Publisher: Remedy
Developer: Remedy
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 2.0 GHz dual-core CPU, 2 GB RAM, DirectX 10-compatible video card with 512 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, 8 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Action
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Alan Wake is one of those rare games that makes you want to show it off to non-gaming friends and family as a beaming example of the medium. Now, Remedy has released Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, a $15 chunk of standalone DLC. It expands the combat, continues the story, and includes a new arcade mode. But is it worth the investment, or is it just more of the same?

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Publisher: THQ
Developer: Illfonic
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.0 GHz Core2Duo/Athlon 64 or better CPU, 2 GB RAM (3 GB for Vista/Win 7), 512 MB GeForce 8800 GT/Radeon 3850 HD or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, 3 GB hard-drive space
Genre: FPS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

In the mid-1990s, a new genre hit the gaming scene with a bang. Soon, burly men with guns blew platformers off their thrones with well-placed rockets and tea-bagged the remains of their cartoon mascots. As new technology allowed for a revolution in graphics, new networking infrastructure created the online deathmatch. The FPS genre arguably hit its peak around the turn of the millennium, powered by lightning-fast online frag-fests exemplified by Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. These are the halcyon days that developer Illfonic tries to recreate in Nexuiz. However, the result is more “A Bigger Bang” than “Beggar’s Banquet.”

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Publisher: Penny Arcade
Developer: Zeboyd Games
System requirements: Windows XP, 1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, DirectX 9.0c-compatible graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, Windows Media Player, 200 MB hard-drive space
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

It’s another day at Strange Developments, Inc., and investigators/god-killers Tyco and Gabe await their next case. The phone suddenly rings. On the other end, a dark, brooding silence with hints of fear. This can only mean one thing: a phone call from someone inside a dark mime cult. Our dashing heroes dash off heroically to investigate. Thus starts the third chapter in the On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series, an utterly delightful JRPG spin on the venerable web comic Penny Arcade from retro-masters Zeboyd Games.

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Wine, like golf and good scotch, remains a pursuit of the elite. Connoisseurs sit around sipping $50 bottles of wine, smacking their lips and debating the difference between “aged oak” and “corky” flavors. Of course, the joke’s on them. You see, we humans suffer from something called “confirmation bias,” which means that we’re more likely to see (and taste) what we expect instead of what’s actually there. It’s been fairly well documented that the more a person thinks a bottle of wine costs, they more they like it. No doubt this phenomenon exists in gaming as well. I like a masterpiece as much as anyone, but I have to admit: sometimes I want a thoroughly mediocre game.

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Publisher: Chillingo
Developer: Cobra Mobile
System requirements: Windows/Mac OS, 95 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Tower defense
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

We can learn a lot about life from games. For example, the archetypical tower-defense game requires you to assume a passive role and defend against waves of invaders, yet you’re never allowed to offensively strike back, or even tactically retreat. Victory is impossible; only non-defeat can be achieved. Even then, we merely shift to a new battlefield, often not of our choosing. For all of the genre’s inherent meaning, it’s surprising that there are no bullying or racial minority-themed TDs. Yet, on the genre tree, we must first pass through the “WWII Belt” before reaching more fruitful branches. And yet, as iBomber Defense demonstrates, perhaps this isn’t the worst place to be.

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Publisher: Big Fish Games
Developer: Tuttifrutti Interactive/Casual Mechanics
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, DirectX 9, 272 MB hard-drive space
Genre: Hidden object
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Who doesn’t like The Flintstones? While it’s a short, fun show satirizing 1950s suburbia, most importantly it’s a known quantity. You always know what you’re getting. Fred bumbles about his marriage, Barney offers questionable support, while Wilma and Betty are the brains of the operation. Casual games often get a short shrift for their similarity with one another, but like The Flintstones, that’s its selling point. While Casual Mechanics’s hidden-object game Antique Mysteries: Secrets of Howard’s Mansion colors within all the lines, it’s built so well that you might not care.

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Retired baseball pitcher Curt Schilling has a thing for MMOs. Having lots of time and piles of money lying around, he started his own game company, 38 Studios. He brought in all the big names. R.A. Salvadore is the Director of Creative Content. Todd McFarlane is the Executive Art Director. They even hired Travis McGeathy, the lead designer of Everquest. Schilling wasn’t messing around.

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Publisher: Red Wasp Design
Developer: Red Wasp Design
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.8 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, OpenGL-compatible graphics card
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Oh, what is man? What can pierce the sky with metal and fire? What can split the foundations of the universe into kindling for laptops and iPods? What god is man? And yet, when we stare at the universe, either through a telescope or a microscope, we see the same things. Beyond the banality of planets and particles, we see a large darkness. No matter how much we look into it, it never looks back. This is our modern horror, the unthinking, unfeeling insanity of H.P. Lovecraft’s lauded Cthulhu mythos. These century-old works of fiction have gripped the modern mind and spread through Internet culture like a mutated cult. Heck, even Batman’s Arkham Asylum is a nod towards Miskatonicly minded individuals. However, when the awakening cults finally hit gaming, I expected a Korean MMO, a card-battle game, or something equally insane. What we got was The Wasted Land, a turn-based strategy game originally on iOS. Much like the works that birthed it, what The Wasted Land lacks in body it has in soul.

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Big Finish Games wants to revive the classic sci-fi noir detective Tex Murphy, and they need your help. Codenamed Project Fedora, this will be the sixth game in the full-motion video adventure game series. All the original elements are coming back: creators Chris Jones and Aaron Conners (with Jones reprising his lead role), strong character-driven plots, and FMV. New this time are branching story paths, giving a little more flexibility to the man of mystery. Project Fedora promises to not only introduce Tex Murphy to newcomers, but also to resolve the cliffhanger ending from Tex Murphy: Overseer. Kickstarter funding for the endeavor ends on June 16th.