Recently Adrenaline Vault writer Jason Pitruzzello had the chance to fire off a few questions to David “Darkrenown” Ballantyne (pictured left), scripter and designer at Paradox Development Studio, about Heart of Darkness, the developer’s new expansion pack for their historical strategy game Victoria II. The expansion will be available April 16, 2013.

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As the author of the long-running (almost decade and a half) Top Indie PC Games of the Year awards article series, I am inaugurating a new, parallel awards feature for games for the iPad. My rationale is simple: the explosion of game releases on the iPad makes the platform unique in that, unlike consoles, the Macintosh, and non-Apple mobile devices, the quantity and quality of iPad games are now comparable to those on the personal computer. Indeed, the 2012 release of the iPad retina display has stimulated an outpouring of games with improvements in graphics and gameplay.

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Despite the proliferation of games designed for mobile platforms, the indie computer games market continues to flourish. The personal computer—because of its openness and ubiquitous presence—remains a primary development platform. So, while many other game sites still focus their attention exclusively on conventional big-budget AAA retail offerings, or alternatively concentrate their coverage on games from a variety of hardware platforms other than the PC, for your playing pleasure I unearth the very best hidden computer treasures that indie gaming has to offer. This represents the latest in a series of annual awards articles that now has continued for almost a decade and a half, by far the longest consecutive indie games award series anywhere.

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Time to roll up the carpet on gaming year 2012. It’s been a great one on all fronts, bookended by the releases of the Playstation Vita in February and the WiiU, the first shot to be fired in the upcoming next-generation console wars, in November. Our coverage leaned more towards the indie scene this year, but we still kept our toes in the AAA waters. Here are the favorite games our writers played this year (please note the use of the word “favorite,” rather than “best”). Feel free to chime in with yours. And have a happy and safe 2013!

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Blockbuster games are getting pretty amazing. Publishers can sink hundreds of millions of dollars into projects, confident that they’ll get their investment back a dozen times over. I mean, just look at some of the throwaway set pieces in Black Ops 2? Here’s a world, painstakingly sculpted out of pixels and wireframe, but you never touch it. It’s all backdrop to the man-shooting, because if you stop to look around and, god forbid, interact with the environment in a meaningful way, you might get bored or something. It’s clear that developers have amazing tools at their disposal. Isn’t it about time they use them?

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So there I was, in San Francisco, walking down the street in 50-degree weather. It was a welcome change of pace from the 80s I had experienced during the week in my native Texas. And I was happy to be in San Francisco. Seeing the sights, eating the food, chatting with the locals, invading Brunswick, launching nuclear strikes against Italy, and examining 15th-century trade routes from India to Europe. I had been invited by Paradox Development Studio to take a look at some of their new games. I spent a number of productive hours talking to designers and looking at the games themselves.

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Editor’s note: The following first appeared on the Windows blog TuneUp. It is reprinted with the permission of the author.

Written by: Tibor Schiemann, co-founder of TuneUp Utilities

For the longest time, there was a chorus of gamers forecasting the death of PC gaming. But the number of naysayers is rapidly evaporating—recent reports show PC gaming is now poised to overtake consoles by 2014. And in some ways, this trend has been years in the making if you consider that, unlike consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360 that are based on six-year-old hardware, PCs can be upgraded and tweaked to accommodate the newest games.

In fact, recent blockbusters such as Diablo 3 and Max Payne 3 are designed to consume serious amounts of CPU resources, thrash your hard disk and give your graphics card a major beating. With PCs, you can make adjustments so that your computer can endure this, whereas consoles simply leave you with a suboptimal experience. But if you want to actually enjoy this “PC advantage,” you’ll first have to ensure that your computer is truly equipped for gaming. After all, behind software such as AutoCAD or video-editing programs, gaming ranks as the most resource-hungry application, so your PC should be prepped to handle the onslaught.

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There are very few things that’ll get me on a plane. I hate flying, I really do, what with dealing with traffic and security, then getting on a plane that has seats that always seem way too small. What few things would get me to get on a plane? Family emergencies, game conventions and big comic conventions. As luck would have it, I was invited to go to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this year as part of an ambassador program for Tomb Raider through Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. Putting all fears aside, I was able to visit E3 2012 on Wednesday and Thursday. The only other time I attended E3 was back in 2004, and I had a blast, so I was really looking forward to 2012.

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The following article originally appeared on Video Game Design Schools. It is reprinted with the permission of its author.

Written by Alanna Hardy

Technology has done wonders for the world; it has eradicated disease, brought man to the moon (and soon Mars) and increased living standards across the globe. But its shining achievement doesn’t involve the medical sciences or space travel; it is the invention of the video game. From its earliest manifestations in the 1950s and ’60s, video games have given ceaseless joy to generations of children, who in turn pass their passion for gaming on to their children. Furthermore, the same generation that grew up with SpaceWar!, Atari and Nintendo have now borne witness to two revolutionary inventions that are changing the landscape of video-game design: the Internet and the smart device. The Internet has matured into a veritable digital arcade, where gamers can choose from countless free video games or more sophisticated MMOGs (massively multiplayer online game) such as World of Warcraft. Meanwhile, mobile gaming on smart devices – an industry worth $33 billion – is a field swelling with potential for designers. Thanks to Moore’s Law – that famous formula stating that processing power will double every two years — the nostalgic, cumbersome video game console of old has vanished, only to be replaced by the invisible sinews of the World Wide Web and the sleek smartphone.

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The following article first appeared in TuneUp: Blog About Windows. It is reprinted with permission of the author.

Author: Tibor Schiemann, President & Managing Partner, TuneUp

The resurgence in classic gaming has spurred both the nostalgic and the simply curious to explore treasures like Monkey Island (1990) or Wing Commander III (1994). Back in the old days, you could power on your trusty computer running DOS, Windows 3.x or Windows 9x and point-and-click the day away. But enjoying such classics on modern machines isn’t so easy, especially considering how much hardware and software architecture has changed over the past few decades. About 90% of the time, the good old DOS, Windows 3.x or Windows 9x games won’t even start. There are, however, some tricks for running these retro games on today’s PCs.

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When we look back, I’m sure many will agree that the gaming industry has gone through a quicker and more phenomenal evolution than any other medium. The Art of Video Games is a book that celebrates this and so much more. It chronicles the early days with those who were there, all the way up to the games we enjoy today. It’s a love letter to the industry, but also an important example of creativity despite technological limitations.

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It’s understandable that Bungie would want to leave the Halo business. Once upon a time, they developed a host of different games. Around the new millennium, a bright-eyed stranger with deep pockets arrived and offered a deal they couldn’t refuse. By June of 2000, Bungie moved into the Microsoft harem, leaving behind all their children except their latest and most promising one, little baby Halo. Among those left behind were the Myth twins, two real-time tactics games known as The Fallen Lords and Soulblighter. Oppressively dark and punishingly difficult, Myth was an ancient burial ground of narrative. The bleached bones of fallen empires and the rusted armor of deadly warriors lay half-buried, whispering warnings to the players that they’ve never played something like this before. Nor have they ever since.

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I missed the Ultima boat when it first came around. My gaming diet was all action: Doom and Tie Fighter. Even years later, after understanding that an RPG’s love is different than that of a square, I couldn’t stick more then a toe or two into Ultima‘s ancient waters. I’d print out maps, manuals and spell tomes, only to stay long enough to buy the t-shirt. When I did visit Britannia, I made sure to see the well-regarded realms of Ultima VI and Ultima VII. It seemed that nothing could have convinced me to delve into the black-and-white dungeons of the Ultimas from the early 1980s. But one day, I did travel in the past, all the way to 1981, to Ultima I. Not only did I survive to tell the tale, but I also played it all in one obsessive binge.

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What do you get when you task Kurt Rolston (lead designer of Morrowind and Oblivion), R.A. Salvatore (acclaimed fantasy author) and Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) with creating a single-player RPG? An intense hack-’n’-slash experience called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The game’s creators promise a massively open-world experience with hundreds of hours of gameplay, serving as a precursor to their upcoming MMORPG, codenamed Project Copernicus. Most of us are jaded from countless promises of a game experience that never delivers, so what hope of redemption does Reckoning provide? Read on to find out.

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There was a time when I could call CounterStrike my game. I logged hundreds of hours with friends before Steam even tracked such things. I replaced my gun models, installed blood mods, and even dabbled with mapping. But somewhere along the way CS and I parted ways. Sure, CounterStrike: Source was amazing, and the Gun Game mods were a hit at every LAN party, but I just couldn’t hack the competition anymore. But now the beta test of the upcoming CounterStrike: Global Offensive has stirred me out of my single-player fever dream and brought me back into the fray. So, gather around and listen, all who have eyes to read, while I document the pain and glory to be found in CS:GO.

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