Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series is one of the most extensive of all time if you count all the side series and spin-offs that bear the name. Dissidia 012 (spoken as “duodecim”) is the second entry in the Dissidia side series. An action RPG/fighting crossbreed, Dissidia is the ultimate Final Fantasy tribute.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: BioWare
System requirements: Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Win 7, 1.8 GHz multiple-core CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB Vista/Win 7), 256 MB graphics card with Pixel Shader 3.0 support, DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: DLC content not rated; base game Mature
Release date: Available now

The teaser trailer for Mass Effect 3 shows a lone sniper picking off enemies from inside Big Ben in London. But how we get to this situation after Mass Effect 2 is a closely guarded secret. Developer BioWare has revealed a tiny bit of the mystery with Mass Effect 2: The Arrival, the final DLC pack for the second adventure in the trilogy.

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Publisher: Team17 Software
Developer: Team17 Software
Genre: Shooter
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

First and foremost, I have never played either of the previous titles in the Alien Breed series on Xbox Live Arcade, but the idea of blasting hostile alien monsters with guns is a genre that always sings to me as a gamer. Is that enough for this game? It only took me to play the third and final installment, Alien Breed 3: Descent by Team17 Software, to get a good idea about what this game has to offer.

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Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together has long been considered one of the best tactical RPGs ever made. Originally released in Japan on the Super Famicom in 1995 and North America on the Playstation in 1998, Tactics Ogre was long overdue and more than deserving of a remake. Square Enix has provided one, bringing it to the PSP.

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Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Developer: Joshua Nuernberger
System requirements: Not available
Genre: Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated
Release date: Available now

Hello folks! Alaric here, with another report on my ongoing love affair with indie PC games. This year promises to be quite fruitful as high-profile releases go, and I must admit that I’m really eager to get my hands on some of the upcoming goodness. However, out of nowhere comes an amazing indie offering, which, come December, will be a very serious contender for my 2011 Game of the Year. I’m talking, of course, about the recently released Gemini Rue. Much like Auralux, Gemini Rue was developed by a student. One notable difference is that it was created using Adventure Game Studio, a free tool available to everyone. Despite being this developer’s first-ever commercial offering, it won the Student Showcase award during the Independent Game Festival 2010. When I first got my hands on it, I wondered whether it could live up to the honors it received. I didn’t wonder for long.

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Publisher: Sega
Developer: Creative Assembly
System requirements: 2 GHz Intel dual-core/2.6 GHz Intel single-core or equivalent CPU, 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista/Win 7), 256 MB DirectX 9.0c-compatible graphics card with Shader Model 3.0 support, 20 GB hard-drive space
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Coming away from the successful release of Napoleon: Total War with good sales, The Creative Assembly has decided to go back to where it all began. Total War: Shogun 2 is a remake of their classic first release, and gamer expectations could not be higher. Competing not only against a market full of strategy games, but also against their own earlier success, the designers have undertaken a task that is almost as difficult as the historical politics covered by the game, which is set in the Warring States period of 16th-century Japan. Your goal is to become Shogun. And since every other clan is also trying to become Shogun, there’s a lot of fighting and diplomacy along the path to victory.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Tiburon
Genre: Sports
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

Spring is in the air and March Madness is reaching its end, but before the first pitch can be thrown on opening day, there’s one more epic sporting event to undertake: The Masters (“A tradition unlike any other,” I believe the tagline goes). It’s fitting, then, that EA has chosen this timeframe to release (as it does every year) its newest Tiger Woods golf game, aptly named PGA Tour 12: The Masters.

As the name might suggest, the bulk of the golfing action revolves around The Masters, the major PGA tournament held at the Augusta National Golf Club. For the first time in the series, Augusta has been completely re-created, so you can get a fairly realistic sense of what playing those 18 holes feels like. There are 16 courses included in the game (including such fan favorites as Pebble Beach), with at least 20 others slated to be available for download. Throughout the game, you hone your golfing skills to win the ultimate prize—the illustrious green jacket.

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Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Canada
Genre: Sports
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

In all the wide world of sports, boxing is arguably the most cinematic. Its punchy pugilists, our modern-day gladiators, battle in the ring before screaming masses, shedding their blood and working their opponents to the bone, all for our entertainment. In the end, there can be only one, and it’s that sentiment that provides a compelling narrative hook each time out. From Rocky to Raging Bull and the recent Mickey Ward tale, The Fighter, Hollywood has continually served up a series of Cinderella men ready for their close-ups on the canvas. It’s this same approach that EA uses with Fight Night Champion.

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Publisher: Chillingo
Developer: MachineWorks Northwest
Genre: FPS
iTunes rating: 9+
Release date: Available now

I took some Advil, but the pain continues. I try to remind myself that behind every game, no matter how poorly executed, is a team of developers and designers with more talent in their field than I possess. Painkiller Purgatory is based on a PC game that was released more than seven years ago. At this point, I really want to purge my mind of everything that’s wrong with FPS games on the iPhone. I want to cleanse my mental palate by playing an FPS on the PC, but the following paragraphs will be instrumental in helping all iPhone owners avoid purchasing mistakes. There’s always a very small chance that I’m wrong, so feel free to express your opinions in the comments.

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Publisher: Alawar Entertainment
Developer: Aliasworlds
System requirements: Windows XP, Vista or 7; 1 GHz processor; 512 MB RAM; 64 MB video card; DirectX 9.0 or later; 80 MB hard disk space
Genre: Simulation
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

Admit it! We all have those guilty pleasure games. You know, the ones we engage in while we’re sitting in waiting rooms, commuting or supposed to be working. Casual games may take some serious heat from the hard core crowd, but the truth is that from time to time most of us in engage in them, so there’s no denying their popularity. My Farm Life is the most recent of these to come across my desk. It’s a lot like Farmville, so the hook is there, but will it remain on my desktop or end up in the recycle bin?

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Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
Genre: Music
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Until recently, gamers could only satisfy their love of dancing in games such as Dance Dance Revolution. While DDR made us perform some pretty fancy footwork, everything above the waist remained largely unused. The Nintendo Wii brought in a new wave of arm-friendly dancing games, but it still felt like there were parts of our bodies that weren’t getting down as much as we wanted. Dance Central, developed for the Kinect by Harmonix Music Systems, gets your whole body involved. Is it worth it, or should you sit this one out?

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Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Good Science Studio
Genre: Action
ESRB rating: Everyone
Release date: Available now

Years after the Nintendo Wii proved that there was a large market for motion-controlled games, Microsoft decided to throw its hat into the ring with the Kinect. Unlike other motion-controlled devices, the Kinect requires no controller, and is instead controlled by the user’s body. It comes bundled with Kinect Adventures, which is a series of mini-games that showcase what the system is capable of.

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Publisher: Southpeak Games
Developer: Topware Interactive
Genre: RPG
ESRB rating: Mature
Release date: Available now

One cent. That’s how much a copy of the original Two Worlds would’ve set you back from one online games retailer a few months ago. I know, ’cause that’s where I got my copy of the PC version. It wasn’t all that bad, at least in the first few hours that I played before I started in on the sequel, Two Worlds II. I was unfortunate enough to get a Playstation 3 version instead of one for the PC (more about that later), but I went in hoping that the new adventure would be worth more than its predecessor.

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Publisher: Alawar Entertainment
Developer: Alawar Entertainment
System requirements: Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, 1.7 GHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, DirectX 9.0-compatible graphics card, DirectX 9.0-compatible sound
Genre: Horror Adventure
ESRB rating: Not rated at press time
Release date: Available now

I’ve never been a huge fan of point-and-click adventures, preferring a more active style of game, but I know they’re extremely popular as mystery or horror games. Stray Souls: Dollhouse Story is a new horror puzzle adventure from Alawar, and I found myself a lot more engaged by it than I expected to be.

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Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: 1C Publishing
System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista, 2 GHz dual-core CPU, 1 GB RAM, 4 GB hard-drive space, 512 MB GeForce 6800GTX or better graphics card with Shader Model 2.0 support, DirectX-compatible sound card, DirectX 9.0c, Majesty 2 version 1.4.356 or newer
Genre: Strategy
ESRB rating: Teen
Release date: Available now

Taking a game genre and making it unique is something that is difficult to do. Now take the one that is best served on a PC, also known as strategy games. Making it unique is something Majesty 2: Battles of Ardania, an expansion from Paradox Interactive, does.

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