Publisher: Wadget Eye Games
Developer: Icebox Studios
System Requirements: Windows ME or later, Intel Pentium or better CPU, 64 MB RAM, Direct X-compatible graphics cards and sound devices
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: February 29, 2012

Step into the wayback machine with me for a trip to the 1990s. This was the heyday of the point-and-click adventure. Puzzle solving. Pixel hunting. Punishing difficulty with no hints to be found anywhere. Nonsensical combinations of inventory items. We’d never have the patience for games like this today; we’d just find a walkthrough on our favorite cheats site and breeze through without a care in the world. But indie developer Icebox Studios is taking a chance that there might still be dedicated adventurers out there searching for a new challenge. Hence Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass, a classic point-and-clicker with a hearty helping of dry British wit.

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Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Digital Extremes
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz Core2Duo/Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU, 256 MB GeForce 8600/Radeon HD 2600 graphics card, 1.5 GB RAM, 10 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

We FPS aficionados love mindless violence. Doesn’t matter how well a developer dresses it up; decapitation, dismemberment and general bloody mayhem get our juices flowing. So try not to judge Digital Extreme’s action sequel The Darkness II too harshly. Despite a minimal plot and an attempt to use some Twilight Zone-style cutscenes to make the game more cinematic, Darkness II delivers the blood-soaked goods, topped off by an ancillary character that you might remember long after the story is told.

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Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Paradox Interactive
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 2.4 GHz Pentium IV/AMD 3500+ CPU, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 8800/Radeon X1900 graphics card, DirectX-compatible sound card,
2 GB free hard-drive space, DirectX 9, Internet connection for multiplayer
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: February 14, 2012

It’s hard to find something new when it comes to strategy games. Part of the reason so many of them are formulaic is because those formulas work. An examination of sales for games such as Total War: Shogun II reveals that no matter what strategy gamers say they want, they really want the ability to drive their virtual enemies before them in gameplay that is difficult, but not too difficult. They want big battles, economic things to manage, and special perks that are unlocked through strategic choices of some sort. Crusader Kings II is not that kind of strategy game. Yes, it has armies, an economy to manage, wars to fight, and all the other elements you might expect, but it’s really about building up your dynasty and interacting with people. To play Crusader Kings II is to spend time pondering potential marriages for your children, worrying about your in-laws fighting you about claims to your titles, plotting against your liege, ingratiating yourself with the church, making sure your spouse isn’t trying to kill off your older children, and, when all that is accomplished, maybe going on a campaign to conquer your neighbors.

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Publisher: Xsyntax
Developer: Xsyntax
System requirements: DirectX 9.0c-compatible hardware, Microsoft XNA Framework 4.0
Genre: Action/Strategy
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Zombies have invaded pop culture, much the way a cannibalistic biological contamination might. Similarly, the tower-defense genre has grown like an invasive species, breeding with everything from RPGs to Assassin’s Creed. Uberzombie USA uses this popular genre mutation to let you turn the family farm into your dream zombie fortress and bring three other friends along for company. Does the hybrid gameplay become a beautiful specimen or degenerate into a feral beast, rejected by all?

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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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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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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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Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Reverie World Studios
System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista, 2.4 GHz Pentium IV or AMD CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB Vista), 1 GB hard-drive space, 256 MB GeForce 7600 graphics card or equivalent, DirectX 9.0-compatible sound card, Internet connection
Genre: RTS/MMO
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now
Review by Mindy Hartman

Those darn elves, orcs and humans are at it again: building cities, competing for resources and just plain refusing to get along. Dawn of Fantasy was released a little more than three months ago by developer Reverie World Studios as their first released game. Publisher 505 Games looks like they’re trying to branch out with this publication too, as their bread and butter seems to be cutesy animal games for the DS.

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Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7/Mac OS 10.6, 1.8 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU (2.0 GHz for Mac), 2 GB RAM, 256 MB graphics card, DirectX 9.0c, DirectX 8.1-compatible sound device, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now
Written by: Michael Smith

For years, game designers have been trying to merge cinematic storytelling with interactive gameplay. Developer Telltale, known mostly for comic point-and-click adventures such as the Sam and Max and Wallace and Gromit series, goes darker and more adult with Jurassic Park, their harrowing and occasionally infuriating attempt to reach gaming immersion nirvana.

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Publisher: Nicolas Entertainment Group
Developer: Intoxicate Studios
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz Intel Core2Duo/AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better CPU, 256 MB graphics card with Shader 3.0 support, 2 GB RAM (Windows XP)/3 GB RAM (Vista/Win 7), DirectX 9.0c
Genre: Third-person shooter
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now
Written by: Michael Smith

It looks like we’re not gonna survive December 2012 no matter what we do. If the end of the Mayan calendar doesn’t get us on 12/21/2012, then the accidental detonation of a fusion bomb on the same date will surely put most of us toes-up, according to indie developer Intoxicate Studios’ debut shooter, Afterfall: InSanity. This post-apocalyptic mashup of several FPS classics has high ambitions, but falls just short of delivering on its promises.

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Publisher: Muzzy lane
Developer: Muzzy Lane
System requirements: Windows XP SP2/Vista/Win 7 (Also available on Mac), 3.0 GHz Pentium IV or greater, 256 MB graphics card, 1 GB RAM, 1 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now
Written by: Ian Davis

You’re something of a nerd. When asked what you read, you say “history.” What upset you about the movie Valkyrie wasn’t Tom Cruise, but the liberties taken with the actual facts. You regularly brag that were you Stalin (as you wiggle your thick mustache), you would have made a pre-war land-grab for Africa. Muzzy Lane Software understands you, unlike your so-called “friends”. “We know of your desires,” Muzzy whispers softly in your ear. “We know you yearn for more than just a wargame, but a mature, full-featured simulator of the mid-20th century.” Muzzy slips a disc from its coat and slyly passes it to you. It’s labeled Making History II: The War of the World. A shiver runs through your body. Can it be?

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Publisher: PETA
Developer: PETA
System requirements: A browser and a keyboard
Genre: Poorly-crafted satire?
Release date: Available now

In a world where seemingly nothing is sacred, PETA has created and launched a new browser-based game called Super Tanooki Skin 2D. In the game, everyone’s favorite plumber is depicted as a bloody, fur-wearing murderer floating away from a freshly-skinned tanuki. Players control the tiny, hairless animal as he chases Mario down to get his fur back.

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Publisher: Intermediaware
Developer: Intermediaware
System Requirements: Minimum System requirements: Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7 / 800 MHz processor / 256 MB RAM / DirectX 7.0 or later
Genre: Puzzle
Release Date: Available Now
Written by: Ian Davis

Let’s get this out of the way: Captain Backwater is pirate-y. It’s hard to communicate the fullness of this meaning. Backwater takes every pirate cliché in an awkward embrace, leaving you to sit by and pretend not to notice. If cheesy pirate sayings don’t float your boat, worry not; the theme can be surgically removed from the actual gameplay without harm. Once you carefully perform such an operation, you’ll find Captain Backwater a rather charming, straightforward puzzle game.

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