Publisher: Lace Mamba Global
Developer: CBE Software
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 3.0 GHz Pentium IV or better CPU, GeForce 8400 GS/Radeon HD 4200 or better graphics card, 1 GB RAM, 2 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Indie game development has come a long way in 20 years. It started out as one lone coder peddling 8-bit shareware games on floppy disks in plastic bags to anyone willing to try them out. Things are a bit more high-tech these days, but the passion to create a great game with minimal resources is still alive and well. Witness CBE Software, a two-man Czech development team that has created J.U.L.I.A., an intriguing and visually impressive sci-fi adventure game that tries to give a fresh outlook to a shopworn genre story.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz Core2Duo/Athlon 64 X2 4000+ or better CPU, 1.5 GB RAM (XP)/2 GB RAM (Vista/Win 7), 256 MB Nvidia 7800/ATI X1800 or better graphics card with Shader 3.0 support, Internet connection
Genre: MMORPG
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

When it comes to MMOs, it’s absolutely vital to do your homework, doubly so if the game is based on a beloved franchise. With the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Wars MMOs have entered their ninth consecutive year, even as servers for Star Wars Galaxies were closed down last December. If you’re a fan of Star Wars or BioWare, then you’ve been bombarded with hype for months regarding this game. It’s not just a question of whether SWTOR can replace SWG, or whether BioWare can lend its roleplaying touch to a genre renowned for grind. The question plaguing anyone who cares is whether it’s worth the subscription. In an answer that will no doubt lead to accusations of favoritism and bias, I have to say yes. BioWare has created something special with SWTOR. Why it’s so special will take some explaining, but believe me when I say I haven’t lost my mind.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
System requirements: Windows XP (SP3)/Vista (SP1)/Win 7, 1.8 GHz Core2Duo or better CPU, 1 GB RAM (XP)/2 GB RAM (Vista/Win 7), 256 MB Nvidia 7900/ATI X1800 or better graphics card, 15 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RPG/Shooter
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

The word “epic” is passed around liberally in critical media, be it the movies or videogames. The unquestioned master of the epic film was director Cecil B. DeMille, whose films carried such massive scope and reach that only Cinemascope could hold them. In gaming, developer BioWare has crafted perhaps the first true epic story in the industry’s short history with the Mass Effect series. The 80 to 100-hour journey finally reaches its end in Mass Effect 3, in which one person truly shapes the future of billions.

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Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Developer: Pendulo Studios
System requirements: Windows XP (SP2)/Vista (SP1)/Win 7, 2.0 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM Win XP (2 GB Vista/Win 7), 256 MB GeForce 6800/Radeon X800 or better graphics card with DirectX 9 support, DirectX 9-compatible sound device, 4 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

My aunt lives on a farm in the middle of the Wisconsin countryside. Like Keepers of the Citadel, innumerable cats run around, performing secret but essential tasks. As needed as they are, no one’s taken care of them in years. Once you could wonder into a barn and be greeted by a furry tribe of cuteness, but now you find a swarm of hideously inbred monsters. Adventure games are like those cats. Leave them alone in a vacuum for a decade and what comes out is a sickening mixture of all the recessive genes of 1990s point-and-clicks. Yet, where there’s a will, there’s a market. Some studios actually manage to craft fun games out of inventory puzzles. Adventure vets Pendulo think they can straddle the line with Yesterday and still deliver an approachable yet hardcore classic adventure game. Wrapped up with the styling of a horror thriller, is Yesterday a cute and cuddly kitten, or a mangled, inbred beast?

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Publisher: Evolved Games
Developer: Trickstar Games
System requirements: Windows XP (SP2)/Vista/Win 7, 2 GHz Core 2 Duo/Athlon X2 4000+ CPU, GeForce 6800/Radeon X1600 graphics card with Shader 3.0 support, 2 GB RAM, 1.5 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Simulation
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Once upon a time, Jane’s was a title that meant something. Being the foremost producer of military analysis, they once licensed their name to produce a series of well received, highly detailed military simulations. Longbow, F-15, Fleet Command; if it had the Jane’s logo on it, chances are it was the best you could find. Today, after a decade of lying dormant, the proud logo once again appears, this time on Jane’s Advanced Strike Fighters. However, it ends up being more Bay of Pigs than Normandy Invasion.

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Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Neocore Games
System requirements: Windows XP (SP3)/Vista (SP2)/Win 7, 2 GHz Core 2 Duo or equivalent CPU, 1.5 GB RAM (XP)/2 GB (Vista, Win7), 512 MB Nvidia 8800 GT/ATI 3850 or better graphics card, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound device, DirectX 9.0c or better, 16 GB hard-drive space
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Neocore Games has returned to their flagship title with a sequel. It’s time to return to Britannia and continue the adventures of King Arthur and his knights. This time, the player doesn’t rule as Arthur, but as Arthur’s son, desperately trying to heal the land and his father, and save the realm from demonic hordes. With plenty of combat to go around, and plenty of story with which to engage, Neocore is very ambitious with their new offering, attempting to capture and meld both strategy and role-playing genres.

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Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Microsoft Studios
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista/Win 7, Dual Core 2.0 GHz CPU, 256 MB graphics card with Shader 3.0 support, 2.0 GB RAM, 10 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Simulator
ESRB rating: E
Release date: Available now

Once upon a time, flight simulators were popular. Their intricate details were great at showing off what your new home computer could do, and besides, who doesn’t want to fly? At some point, those with only a passing interest got tired of feeling like they needed actual flying lessons to buzz around, and flight simulators fell into the purview of those weird people who run virtual airlines. After canning the team that developed Flight Simulator, Microsoft is back with the new Flight, a free-to-play sim that’s aimed at those with an interest in planes but who don’t own a $200 joystick-and-pedal setup. Does Flight succeed at broadening its audience without alienating core sim fans?

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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, GeForce 8800/ATI Radeon X1900 graphics card, 2 GB RAM, 2 GB hard-drive space, Direct X-compatible sound card, DirectX 9, Internet connection for multiplayer, retail copy of Victoria II
Genre: RTS
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

It’s been almost 18 months since Victoria II was released, and Paradox Interactive has decided that an expansion is in order: Victoria II: A House Divided. The expansion doesn’t add any additional time to the original game, which is still set from 1836 to 1936. Instead, it focuses on additional game mechanics and a scenario that starts at the beginning of the American Civil War. Rather than giving more of the same, AHD aims to add even more nuanced gameplay to a franchise that’s already very complicated. It’s a more ambitious expansion than its simple name belies, and, even moreso than the base game, it rewards strategy players for patient and thoughtful gameplay.

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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: Namco Bandai Games
Developer: From Software
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

I’ll be the first to admit I have a problem when it comes to games: I’m a gaming masochist. The first thing I always do is crank up the difficulty. But I wasn’t prepared for Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to Namco Bandai and From Software’s Demon’s Souls. The sequel takes everything you thought you knew about fairness in games and crushes it under hordes of undead and massive dragons.

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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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