Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: Techland
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.66 GHz Core2Duo or better CPU, 512 MB GeForce 8600GT/ATI 2600XT or better graphics card, 1 GB RAM, 7 GB hard-drive space, DirectX 9.0c
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

Zombies have practically replaced Nazis and space aliens as gaming’s enemy du jour. From Plants vs. Zombies to Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising and beyond, the shambling undead are everywhere these days. Developer Techland (Call of Juarez) and publisher Deep Silver feed our hunger for all things undead with Dead Island, a massive survival horror RPG that tries to overcome its myriad faults to provide us with fright-filled zombie carnage.

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Publisher: Majesco
Developer: WayForward
Genre: Action-Platformer
Rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

We can’t all be Lara Croft. That’s the hard lesson BloodRayne learned when she first debuted on the PlayStation 2. This vampire assassin was cut from the grindhouse mold, and despite starring in a handful of engaging action titles on that generation’s consoles, the feisty femme fatale couldn’t quite reach Lara’s level of celebrity. Instead, she seemed stuck in her B-movie-esque roots long before film director Uwe Boll grabbed hold of the property in his one man battle to drag gaming as far from art as possible. As a result, a promising property died well before it could find its stride. Enter WayForward, a talented team of developers who have performed some real-magic in the 2D platform space, with such notable titles as Shantae, A Boy and His Blob and Contra IV. With Bloodrayne: Betrayal in their mitts, hope was renewed that this vampire would rise once again.

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Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Paradox Interactive
System Requirements: XP/Vista/Windows7, Intel® Pentium® IV 2.4 GHz or AMD 3500+, 2 Gb RAM, 2 GB HDD, NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 or ATI Radeon® X1900, Direct X-compatible sound card, Internet connection for multiplayer
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

With the release of Total War: Shogun 2 this year, it seems inevitable that clones will appear on the market cashing in on Creative Assembly’s success. Fortunately for strategy gamers, Paradox Interactive has decided not to bother making a Total War clone when trying their hand at depicting feudal Japan. Instead, Paradox has finally released Sengoku, a game that they describe as a “…deep character driven strategy game, [where] you play as the head of an illustrious Samurai family.” While armies fight one another and ninja conduct covert operations, at its heart, Sengoku is a game that focuses less on warfare, and more on feudal Japanese politics and people. This is a strategy title that wants players to worry equally about whether a neighboring clan might declare war and whether a disloyal vassal might plot the downfall of your clan’s ruler.

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Publisher: Flying Wild Hog
Developer: Flying Wild Hog
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.5 GHz Pentium IV/Athlon 64 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 512 MB GeForce 8800GS/Radeon HD 3870 or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX-compatible audio solution, 4 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Not rated at press time
Release date: September 13, 2011

Remember the good old days of PC shooters? When it was just you, a bunch of absurdly overpowered weapons and a seemingly endless horde of enemies? I do, and apparently so do the folks at new development house Flying Wild Hog. The Polish developer’s first game, Hard Reset, gives you everything you want from an FPS, dressed up with some strikingly gorgeous visuals.

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Despite my best attempts to successfully manage my time, I always overbook myself and wind up behind. True to form, this week’s App Attack has 8 apps total because I couldn’t pass up a good app. I could have pushed two back to next week’s article but several of the games have recent release dates and each app deserves recognition. This week’s apps left me plenty entertained and at times surprised at how fun they were. I hope you’ll purchase a few and experience the same thing.

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Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Neocore Games
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, AMD Athlon 4000+ or equivalent Intel CPU, WinXP 1GB RAM, Vista/Win7 1.5GB RAM, Nvidia 8600 GT (256Mbyte) / ATI Radeon HD3650 (256Mbyte),DirectX 9-compliant sound card, DirectX®: 9.0c or higher (included in the installer), Nvidia (AGEIA) PhysX (included in the installer), 8GB hard-drive space
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Pending
Release date: 9/16/2011

Capitalizing on the success of King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame, and no doubt wanting to whet players’ appetites for the upcoming sequel, Neocore Games has released the stand-alone expansion King Arthur: Fallen Champions. Unlike its predecessor, Fallen Champions focuses only on story-telling and tactical battles; there is no kingdom management. This tighter focus makes Fallen Champions much more of an RTS title, although it still keeps some of the role-playing found in the original.

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Publisher: Hothead Games
Developer: Hothead Games
Genre: Action-RPG
ESRB rating: Teen
Release Date: Available now

Humor in games is a tricky art. With comedy so dependent on timing, it can be a tough haul for a developer hoping their pixels execute that pratfall or nail the punch line every time. LucasArts, in its heyday, played host to masters of the form, with guys like Ron Gilbert and Tim Shafer producing some true comic classic adventure games. One of the nice perks to our shiny, new digital distribution age is the ability for these auteurs to find a whole new audience hungry for their particular brand of humor. While Shafer and his gang at DoubleFine have produced some bite-sized gems over the last few years (including Stacking and Trenched), Ron Gilbert joined forces with Hothead Games to unleash the clueless hero DeathSpank. Having overseen DeathSpank’s first two adventures, Hothead now presses forth – sending DeathSpank out on his first adventure, The Baconing, without Gilbert’s guidance. DeathSpank’s biggest task at hand is not how he’ll slice through the malevolent masses but rather will his sense of humor hold up now that someone else is pitching the jokes.

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Publisher: Disney Interactive
Developer: High Impact Games
Genre: Action-platformer
ESRB rating: Everyone 10+
Release Date: Available now

Ever since I became a father, I’ve looked forward to my monthly Guy’s Night Out with my buddies with particular relish. With the majority of my friends staking their claim on my side of the fatherhood fence, we love to down a few brews and then hold court by telling stories peppered with references to anything airing on Disney, Nick Jr., Cartoon Network, or the myriad of cable off-shoots that those networks have sprung. The other guys hear iCarly or Yo Gabba Gabba and we might as well be speaking in Parseltongue. And while the source material is usually inane programming you can’t believe your kids could mine any entertainment from; every once in awhile you spy a diamond in the rough. For me – that treasure is Disney’s Phineas & Ferb; which means the arrival of their summer platformer – Phineas & Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension actually brightened my late Summer doldrums when it showed up on my door-step.

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The days are getting shorter and some of you may be headed back to school. Fall is right around the corner, but don’t fret, because there are enough iOS games in this week’s App Attack to keep you busy through those boring lectures and premature evenings. A few of this week’s apps are free to try (requiring a purchase for the full version) while a couple of the other apps are from major developers and carry with them a heftier price tag. Each app is worth the asking price, otherwise I wouldn’t waste your time by including them in this round-up. Download or purchase a few of them and watch those Fall hours fly by even faster.

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Originally published in May 2011, reprinted for additional content.

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Zen Studios
Genre: Pinball
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

There are certain games that I believe will always be transported into video game form, no matter what generation of console is on the market. Board games like chess and checkers, and sports like baseball and football will always find a home somewhere in the digital world. But we must not discount an arcade staple of such simplicity, and yet such intricacy, that has survived the gaming world for ages – pinball. Pinball FX2, an Xbox Live Arcade franchise, is slowly becoming the gold standard for casual play, and they have just released a new themed table, Mars, which has a sci-fi outer space theme.

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Publisher: Hazardous Software
Developer: Hazardous Software
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7/Mac/Linux, dual-core CPU, 1 GB RAM, graphics card with OpenGL 2.0 support
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: August 29, 2011

Innovation is much prized in an industry such as gaming, which has had its various genres set in stone for a long time. More often than not, new ideas usually arise not from the established AAA developers, but from the small companies willing to take creative and financial chances to bring something new to an old concept. Such is the case with Achron, in which new developer Hazardous Software has taken the standard RTS formula and given players a new dimension to exploit.

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I almost don’t believe that Thursday’s already here. As is always the case, there are too many video games to play and never enough time to play them all. Despite my frequent negativity towards the massive amount of bloating in the iTunes app store, I’m starting to notice developers testing the boundaries and incorporating new mechanics into games that might otherwise be passed off as clones. The result is games that are familiar, yet still fun to play. This week I have a collection of games that will be immediately familiar to play but with some entertaining twists.

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Eidos Montreal
System requirements: 2 GHz dual core CPU; 1 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB (Vista and 7); GeForce 8 or Radeon HD 2000; Windows XP, Vista, 7 with DirectX 9.0c; 8.5 GB disk space
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: August 23, 2011

2011 has so far been a great year for games in general and for highly anticipated sequels in particular. A lot of favorites got follow-ups; some were impressively good, while others were of the sort not mentioned in polite society. Different types of gamers looked forward to different game worlds getting expanded, and quite a few of us were holding our collective breath for Deus Ex: Human Revolution – a prequel to one of the best role-playing games of all time: Deus Ex. The classic PC masterpiece was released in 2000, and blew away the critics and the audiences alike. In 2003 a sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War was released for PC and consoles, and although it was a decent game in its own right, it failed to live up to the glory of the original and has always remained something of a disappointment to the hardcore fans.

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Publisher: Wargaming.net
Developer: Wargaming.net
System Requirements: Intel from 2.2 GHz or equivalent AMD Family processor; minimum of 1.5 GB RAM for Windows 2000/XP, 2 GB for Windows Vista / 7; 3.5 GB har disk space; Shader Model 3.0 GeForce 6800GT video card with 256 MB of RAM / ATI X800 with 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0c; DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card; Internet connection speed of at least 128 Kbps
Genre: Action MMO
ESRB rating: Not yet rated
Release date: Available now

Imagine driving a Tiger tank through a deserted city, spotting a smaller Soviet vehicle. You take aim and fire a HE shell at it, killing its engine and setting it on fire. But before you can finish it off, a Soviet T-34 ambushes you from an alley, spots for some artillery, and you get obliterated, only to respawn and live to fight again. This is a typical day when playing on Wargaming.net’s servers for World of Tanks. It’s been almost a year since I last looked at it, and the game has grown up. Wargaming.net calls WoT, “…a team-based massively multiplayer online game dedicated to armored warfare in the mid-20th century.” Focusing on Soviet, German, and US panzers from the period, and boasting maps with a wide variety of terrain, it offers those who love their heavy armored vehicles a chance to get into the nitty-gritty of armored warfare.

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Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Techland
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, most game developers are falling down in love with each other. If a new title doesn’t build off the foundation erected by yesterday’s hits, then it usually aims to follow the same blueprint for success. A few years back, Techland scored a modest hit with their Call of Juarez title, which was notable for dressing the first person shooter in Western duds. That game was fairly formulaic yet novel for sending gamers down the dusty, scarcely traveled trails of the old West. The prequel, 2009’s Bound in Blood, made a greater impression by promoting the narrative and flashing back to tell a fairly engaging tale of two brothers bound and divided by lost gold. Since then, Rockstar has completely revolutionized the fledgling Western genre with the mammoth Red Dead Redemption which now saddles Techland’s latest release, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, with the daunting task of measuring up to that masterpiece.

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