Five reasons why.
An ARPG underdog.
It's no longer a game.
Quantum Conundrum is many things -- an innovative puzzler, a follow-up project from Portal's Kim Swift, a lesson in bad parenting skills. Seriously, who leaves their kid on the doorstep of a crazy uncle whose house is a labyrinth of murderous puzzles? It also has its share of little annoyances, not the least of which is a poor narrative and puzzles that feature one of my most-hated gameplay mechanics. As such, Conundrum's conundrum (see what I did there?) is that it creates some unnecessary frustration around some really great ideas. Read More »
Creating a gauntlet of traps designed to pulverize, impale, and melt all green skins was a solo job in Robot Entertainment's stellar Orcs Must Die! The studio decided to give the War Mage a friend for its sequel, and now we know when the co-op carnage will begin: Orcs Must Die! 2 is set for launch in July. Read More »
Like James Brown, I feel good this morning after reading the latest from the four-man indie team at Almost Human. In their latest blog post, the devs behind Legend of Grimrock describe how they've been able to ditch their pieced-together Franken PCs and replace them with proper developer rigs, all thanks to the success of their grid-based, throwback dungeon crawler. And the ever-thankful devs are already putting those shiny new computers to good use: a Legend of Grimrock follow-up is now in pre-production. Read More »
World of Warplanes is not a flight sim, so you won't be taking off and landing in Wargaming's upcoming dogfighter. That doesn't mean you won't get to pilot a class of planes designed to take off and land on aircraft carriers. See for yourself in our exclusive first look at World of Warplanes' carrier-based fighters. Read More »
Nearly five years ago, developer Crytek -- previously known for its genre and graphics-busting island adventure Far Cry -- outdid itself with Crysis, a shooter that made 2007's graphics cards scream for mercy. Set on the fictional Lingshan Islands circa 2020, Crysis has you assume the role of a nano-suited US Army Delta Force soldier codenamed Nomad to investigate a mysterious alien structure. Unfortunately, the North Korean government has the same idea, and is determined to secure the extraterrestrial swag at any cost, putting themselves at odds with your team and any pesky aliens lurking within. Read More »
"Golden poop!" is my new favorite thing that I've ever read in patch notes. But really, I'm not sure what I was expecting from Edmund McMillen, the mind behind The Bind of Isaac. In celebration of the roguelike/Zeldalike/Robotronlike's 700,000th sale, he's released a free content update that features a whole bunch of new stuff, the best of which is clearly the golden poop. I'm not sure what the feces does, but hey, I'm sold. Read More »
You know what's useful for hunting zombies? A gun. You know what DayZ creator Rocket has decided to take away from us in his most recent update? A gun. Man, that's harsh. The super popular ArmA 2 mod was already brutal enough, but without a starting gun when you spawn, it seems downright unfair. Build 1.7.1 replaces that useful little pistol with a puny flashlight, which is significantly harder to score headshots with. Read More »
Ah, the base assault. A tried and true gaming tradition. But rarely do we get to take part in them on such a massive scale. That's what PlanetSide 2 is for. The trailer within features a firefight over a base on Tech Plant Hvar. There's planes flying around, bombs dropping, huge guns, and tons of footsoldiers blowing each other away. That's what I call massively multiplayer. Read More »
The clever detachable keyboard/cover included with Microsoft's recently unveiled Surface tablet caught my eye, forming a puffy white thought cloud above my head filled with PC gaming possibilities. Microsoft, for its part, did nothing to fill that cloud with images of Surface as an ideal PC gaming tablet. But hey, we've been doing just fine without MS recognizing PC gaming for years, we'll manage. So forget about Razer's funky handle-bar gaming tablet, Project Fiona, Surface could finally bring true PC gaming to tablets. Here's why: Read More »
Let's see here. Best Console Game, who cares? Best Handheld/Mobile Game? Doesn't concern us. Ah, here we are! The Game Critics Awards' Best PC Game nominees of 2012. Company of Heroes 2, Hawken, Planetside 2, SimCity, and X-Com: Enemy Unknown. Not a bad lineup. Every year, after E3, a collection of gaming outlets come together (including us!) and decide on the best games of the show. It's kind of like a dog show, but with significantly less barking. Sometimes. Read More »
The final beta weekend event for The Secret World is set to kick-off on Friday, and it's a biggun. Not only is Funcom taking the wraps off of its persistent player vs. player war zone, it's welcoming everyone to take part. That means you. No, not you, you. Alright, what the hell, you can all come in. Simply register with The Secret World by Friday, and you'll receive your key into the last beta for the conspiracy theory MMO. Tinfoil hat optional. Read More »
Diablo 3 Update 1.0.3 is now live, inexplicably reducing the damage done by a number of monsters and bosses, most notably on Inferno difficulty. Before the patch kicked in, though, one player decided to tackle Inferno in all its impossible glory... with a Hardcore character. With permadeath and loot on the line, Toronto, Canada's "Kripparrian" became the world's first Diablo 3 player to complete all four difficulty levels, including pre-1.0.3 patch Inferno, on Hardcore. *Standing to applaud* Read More »
Exit the Dominatrix. The $30 standalone Saints Row: The Third expansion announced just over two weeks ago has already been axed, or, in Saints Row terms, been bashed with an outrageously over-sized sex toy. THQ announced this morning that Enter the Dominatrix will now be the core of a "vastly expanded, full-fledged sequel." Read More »
Did you get a feeling of deja vu last week, when you heard that League of Legends had been hacked, exposing private data from its users? Did it remind you of a similar announcement from last year, when Steam got hacked? Or maybe you're thinking of the time Sony lost a bunch of user data. Or Rift? Or maybe it was Sega, Square Enix, Epic, , or Bethesda. Read More »
It's not easy to add entirely new mechanics to a carefully-crafted strategy game like Civilization V. Gods & Kings takes two elements that were specifically excluded from Civ V, religion and espionage, and introduces them to a game that was engineered to be as tight as a drum and sometimes as confining as a straitjacket. The results are better than you might expect, but don't expect miracles from gods or kings: Civilization V remains the same game you've always known. Read More »
A new generation of free-to-play shooters is transforming what it means to be free.
The very best games we saw at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo.
Developers might be chasing a model that no longer works in today's world.
| 2 | Civilization 5: Gods & Kings | PC |
| 3 | Shogun 2 -- Fall of The Samurai | PC |
| 4 | Krater | PC |
| 5 | Diablo 3 | PC |
| 6 | MechWarrior Online | PC |
| 7 | Dead Space 3 | PC |
| 8 | Skyrim | PC |
| 9 | Darksiders II | PC |
| 10 | StarCraft II -- Zerg | PC |
| 2 | Shogun 2 -- Fall of The Samurai | PC |
| 3 | Krater | PC |
| 4 | Diablo 3 | PC |
| 5 | Skyrim | PC |
| 6 | Doom 3 | PC |
| 7 | SWTOR | PC |
| 8 | Rage | PC |
| 9 | Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion | PC |
| 10 | Mass Effect 3 | PC |
| 2 | MechWarrior Online | PC |
| 3 | Dead Space 3 | PC |
| 4 | Darksiders II | PC |
| 5 | StarCraft II -- Zerg | PC |
| 6 | Dishonored | PC |
| 7 | Call of Duty: Black Ops II | PC |
| 8 | PlanetSide 2 | PC |
| 9 | Heroes & Generals | PC |
| 10 | The Secret World | PC |
