rFactor2's innovative physics and ambitious new weather and track dynamics may keep serious sim racers like myself logging seat time, but that goodwill will dissipate quickly if some of these more glaring deficiencies aren't dealt with quickly. ISI's track record at this kind of stuff is solid, though, so I'm hopeful we'll see a good sim develop into a great one over the next year or two.

During each mission, there's a chance for some turn-based squad combat to occur. These fights, I'm sorry to say, are a poor man's XCOM.

GameSpy, however, is a website that gives away the answer to the riddle of whether The Cave is worth playing: yes. It doesn't hit the ability-powered platforming highs of Trine or the old-school adventure challenge of Maniac Mansion, and it appears the devs struggled to focus and define this ambiguous hybrid.

Freespace 2 this is not, but even with its frustrations, Strike Suit Zero is an anime inspired shooter with its balls against at least two walls. It's dumb, possibly dumber than it intends, but it's also the kind of action you're not going to feel bad for enjoying.

Primordia isn't a bad adventure, just not one with the spark of other recent attempts - not least Wadjet Eye's own library. The basic ideas are solid, and it's worth checking out at least the demo for the humor that the Horatio/Crispin dialogue brings.

This may seem like a given, but the best way to sum up Storm Legion is that it's an expansion for players who love Rift and want more of it. Where most expansions attempt to transform and refine gameplay, this one seeks only to enlarge it. Its sole (and worthy) contribution to MMO innovation lies in its spectacular player housing, and that doesn't change what Rift is at its core. I doubt it'll be enough to win back people who've left out of disillusionment with one feature or another, but for those who're still here it's a keeper.

Still, there's a huge gulf between disappointment and betrayal, and I did ultimately enjoy Absolution for what it is -- a game that still carries the torch of the Hitman series, but chooses to carry it down much less interesting roads.

Still, the single mode and the tiny useful areas of the massive maps make Primal Carnage a bit of a one-trick dinosaur. What's there is terrific, there just needs to be more of it. Here's hoping it doesn't go extinct before it evolves into something really great.

In the end, one of the many cluttered rooms serves as a metaphor for the whole experience: sure, all the stuff in there works, and it serves a purpose, but a little more elegance could have made the whole remarkable.

Expectations. Every game has them coming out of the gate, but remakes and reboots have it even worse. In the case of Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, a reboot of the original Painkiller and its expansion Battle out of Hell, it's less about these small details and more about the substance. Is the action still fast? Are the enemies stupid and plentiful? Are the weapons still ridiculously awesome? Yep, you bet, and... well, mostly.

It takes some getting used to, but in the end, Fallen Enchantress largely fulfills the promise of its genre-blending premise.

I found myself eager for Hotline Miami to end before it did (after about eight hours) and had little desire to return to improve my scores.

Warfighter was clearly rushed out the door to get the jump on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and suffers for it.

Ravaged didn't help itself with its $25 price tag, either. It's not an unreasonable cost by any means, but with a growing number of strong free-to-play shooter options and Valve doing the Valve thing by charging $15 for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Ravaged seems slightly overpriced by comparison -- especially without bots to give it value when no one else is playing.

At first, it's all very charming, but with the frustrations that come with difficulty spikes and often clunky controls, it gets old very quick. We don't play games for the same reason we go to museums, and RCR makes that frustratingly clear.

Keep in mind that this isn't an everyman's game -- its linear levels, the absence of bundles of loot, and even the quirks of its combat whittle down its potential audience -- but there's a lot to love about how this RPG sings the glories of the underdogs.

Collectively, these tweaks add a number of new tactics to the Worms repertoire, and another layer of customization. Revolution is a positive step forward. It's not, however, a game-changer, and if you're tired of the basic Worms template, it's not going to draw you back. It's no revolution. As a revival though, there's lots to like, in the old and the new.

War of the Roses is a game I desperately want to like more than I do. It's the end product of so many high-quality pieces, but unfortunately it fails to really pull everything together.

Speaking of puzzles, most in the episode are easy and you should have no problem finishing it in less than three hours. Another annoying case of "adventure game logic" rears its ugly head towards the end of the game, though: Lee appears to have the magical ability to fit a full-sized blowtorch and gas canister inside his back pocket and climb up a ladder unaided. In the real world, getting this contraption up the ladder would've been a puzzle in itself. For a franchise that depends on realism to sell the misery and horror of something so implausible as reanimated corpses, that disregard for authenticity is a step in the wrong direction.

Leviathan's core problem though is that it's a DLC created to answer questions that nobody was asking, after an ending that itself answered too many, which you know from the start isn't actually going to mean much in the great sweep of things. If you can ignore that though, or simply don't care, it's fun addition to Mass Effect 3 and a great reason to be excited about whatever new adventure comes next.

The thing that really annoys me about this port is the controls. It's absolutely ridiculous that we can't customize the keys at all beyond cycling through the preset options and inverting the mouse. Other than that, Activision has done a respectable, though not exceptional job here.

I can say, though, that Darksiders 2 plays really, really well on a decent PC, so what it lacks in fidelity it at least partially makes up for in smooth framerates.

It's a fun, competitive multiplayer shooter that stands alongside its paid sibling. Now if only more people would learn to play the damn thing.

Short enough not to wear out its gimmick, with enough complexity that getting a perfect score will take a fair while, there's lots to like about A Virus Named Tom.

Even though design decisions like these can be frustrating, it's not enough to really detract from just how damn charming Unwritten Tales is most of the time, especially when it has a cast of such likeable characters carrying the load. And for only $20 it's a good value for those looking to scratch their classic-adventure-game itch.

For all that, though, The Secret World succeeds as a thinking man's MMORPG. Many of its features demand intellectual prowess as well as the usual dose of combat mastery, and none of its competitors come close to matching its affection for the esoteric. It has its issues, to be sure, and all of the investigations and sabotage missions available won't stop a good amount of players from spending 20 minutes with its combat and dismissing it as a substandard World of Warcraft clone.

Not counting those pauses and time spent scratching my head about obvious puzzles, The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav clocks in at around six to seven hours, which makes me balk a little at its $30 price. Comparatively, Walking Dead is $25 for the season of five two-hour episodes, and Resonance is $10 -- two adventure games you really should play this year. Satinav, on the other hand, carries with it a number of disclaimers that you need to be aware of before jumping into this fantasy adventure game.

Endless Space easily earns a strong recommendation to fans of this genre. But I also can't quite call it a great game, because it lacks the flavor that makes games like Alpha Centauri, Sins of a Solar Empire, or Civilization so great.

Either way, unless you despise RPG combat to the point of cursing the heavens and hitting your eyes with rusty nails at the sight of active-time battles, you'll have nothing to regret after spending a few hours in Tycho and Gabe's company.

As intriguing and well-crafted as the adventure is, Tiny & Big peters out on a flat note that leaves me wanting more.

There's no disputing that Quantum Conundrum has some great ideas here, and perhaps it's even something this creative team can build upon. I just hope they dial back the amount of first-person platforming involved to solve these puzzles the next time around, and create a more-compelling world that I actually want to explore.

Gods & Kings is Civilization V with a few new things to do, and a lot of new civs and units. Does that disappoint you, or excite you? Then you have your review.

Pushed to the extremes of an MMORPG, even the commendable highs of its unrelenting focus on combat run out of steam long before you even reach the level cap, and that's a terrible fate for a game that otherwise shows so much promise.

Dedicated and studious players might be able to look past the limited information on how to play if they're familiar enough with the genre and don't mind learning by trial and error, but less patient newcomers will be left on the proverbial sidelines.

If it sounds like I have a love/hate relationship with Risen 2, then guilty as charged. This is one of those games that's brimming with quirks, ranging from the minor (killed turkeys give you chicken meat) to momentously glitchy (complete a couple missions in the "wrong" order late in the game and an overarching quest breaks). And for all the artifact-gathering and hand-wringing over Risen 2's "big bad," the final fight is anti-climactic and relatively easy. But... for all its problems, I still recommend this game to RPG fans who are forgiving angels in real life, but unforgiving scurvy dogs in-game.

Considering the multiplayer aspects are the brightest spots of Sniper, it's asking price of $50 feels about $10 too high, but it's something I'd definitely consider come sale season.

Toy Soldiers still has a lot to recommend it. The PC version comes with the Kaiser's Battle and Invasion DLC expansions, and its level designs have just enough variety to make at least one playthrough interesting. Some of those scenarios I'll probably come back to a few more times to improve my score. But still, Toy Soldiers is just a little too repetitive to enter the tower-defense hall of fame occupied by games like Defense Grid and Orcs Must Die! The clue is in the name: it's a brilliant toy, but just short of a truly great game.

Modern Times' strengths really shine in sandbox mode -- an area Tropico 4 shied away from -- which will provide more than enough hours for $20 of game for those who left Tropico 4 wanting more.

Flight intends to carve out a niche for pilots who want a more casual, friendly, and inclusive sim, and that's something that's never really been done before. In a best-case scenario, Flight could introduce this genre to gamers who typically have brushed it aside under the assumption that it's too hardcore.

The PC version of Alan Wake includes the two mildly interesting special episodes that debuted on Xbox 360 post-release as DLC. Continuing from the end of the main game, these gritty episodes delve deeper into the psyche of Alan after his adventure in Bright Falls, but rehash themes and environments seen in the first six episodes. They're worth playing if you just can't get enough of Alan and the darkness swirling inside his noggin, just don't expect new environments or a clear resolution to the character's fate.

As a final misstep, there's no final, ultimate puzzle that combines all the mechanics I'd learned -- it just sort of ends.

The biggest letdown of all, however, may be the quick-and-dirty nature of EDF's PC port, evident from the "Press A or click to start" opening prompt. It didn't crash on me, but that's it. Beyond that, however, it's locked at 30 frames per second, lacks any significant graphical options, and has a multiplayer match-finding tool that could be unfavorably compared to a maze filled with minotaurs.

The silver lining in all of this is that the game is kept compact, and To the Moon can be finished in a sitting or two, before it really wears out its welcome.

Controls and lonliness issues aside, I did enjoy most of my time with SkyDrift. It's a well-produced budget racing game with a wide variety of racetracks, and a nice change of pace that doesn't involve dragons or terrorists. Just make sure to try the demo first to be certain you can handle the control weirdness.

It's still not nearly enough to save what is a fundamentally bad shooter. The smartest thing GamersFirst did was make APB: Reloaded free-to-play, allowing players to find out for themselves without the upfront cost.

The revamped GUI leads you brilliantly and "ergonomically" to the build chains you want to produce the goods you desire, without needing to constantly recourse to rollover tips or a game encyclopedia (although both are also available), and this just makes the whole experience pleasant and logical.

I think the biggest "revelation" to come out of this most recent Assassin's Creed title is that the series has reached a burnout state. I hope the team takes a break and gets back to the drawing board to analyze how the series itself can move forward, and to be innovative again, rather than being hard pressed to meet a release date.

I can really only think of one down side to Serious Sam -- it costs $40. This is a game that provides hours of good, stupid fun, sure, but that just seems a bit steep for a game that's neither particularly novel nor very long from start to finish.

Need for Speed: The Run is an odd duck. It's an arcade racer that does some things really well, but is insistent on having you interact at times with a Michael Bay-esque experience (I guess that's why he was asked to direct that trailer). Like his films, The Run is much more about style than substance. It's a decent arcade racer, and for those looking for a mindless racing experience, chances are you'll find something to like here.

Jurassic Park just feels like an iOS title, and it suffers on the PC because of it.

On paper, it sounds brilliantly inventive. Nail-biting edge-of-your-seat conversation? That's practically unheard of in games. Unfortunately, L.A. Noire drops the ball.

I can understand why Modern Warfare 3 has changed so little in the last four years, given that so much money is resting upon its shoulders, but that doesn't make this developmental stasis any more forgivable.

At its core, War in the North isn't a bad game; it's merely a disappointing one.

Glitches and control scheme issues aside, I had a tremendous amount of fun playing through Renegade Ops. Variety of vehicles and playstyles, tons of cool powers to upgrade, and the online features make it a solid offering for PC gamers who are fans of twin-stick arcade shooters -- especially if you like some '80s action-flick machismo thrown in for good measure.

There's little that takes away from the game, but also little that makes it stand out.

The real killjoy – and potential deal breaker – is the horrendous UPlay system's draconian requirement that you be connected to the internet at all times to play.

Rest assured that the whole feeling like a cybernetic bad-ass is fully intact in this five hour adventure.

There's a lot to like about Rage, but for every good thing it does there's something equally annoying or dated, leading to a very uneven experience. Adroit fans of the first person shooter will still enjoy themselves, especially after the first couple of yawn-inducing hours pass and things really start hotting up, but it's not quite the masterpiece we know id were once capable of.

It may not have every team, every stadium, every tournament, and every player out there, but there's plenty enough in its gameplay to satisfy any video game soccer fan.

While last year's effort truly took my breath away, I can't shake the feeling that this year's effort is more of an engine tune up than a complete rebuild. It still remains the number one F1 game on the market, but that's more about the lack of any competition than the game pushing the boundaries of last year's winning entrant.

While its mechanics can become tiresome the further you progress, ACE Team's signature presentation and wry humor manage to pull it through. Just like Zeno Clash before it, Rock of Ages as a whole is unlike any other game I've played or seen before, and that's a rare thing to be able to say.

By the end of my roughly eight-hour, straight-forward Space Marine adventure, I couldn't help but feel Relic Games missed out on a golden opportunity to take what is a good game – and a strong debut for the Space Marine franchise – and elevate it to great.

I can say that if you're tired of the preoccupation with the omnipresent emotion of "fun" most games seemingly need to contain, and like the idea of an experience which garners actual thought, you would do well to give Trauma a look; just remember that what you'll find will depend entirely on what you're looking for.

Legacy is a promising development for fans hoping the franchise's third installment will feature a return to the tactical gameplay of Dragon Age: Origins. Unfortunately, it's a bit too late for Dragon Age II, and Legacy's legacy is as a $10 reminder of the full game's shortcomings.

The ground it treads is hardly innovative, and the grind is intolerable. Clan play helps to skirt these issues, but in general, World of Tanks is a dull slog to be enjoyed solely between rounds of other, more interesting games. Vision slit.

Aside from these few relatively minor negatives, F.E.A.R. 3 is a very solid shooter that covers a lot of the right bases -- I just wish the developers had put as much imagination and creativity into the single-player campaign as they did into coming up with new multiplayer modes. And, you know, actually made it a bit more scary.

Aside from these few relatively minor negatives, F.E.A.R. 3 is a very solid shooter that covers a lot of the right bases -- I just wish the developers had put as much imagination and creativity into the single-player campaign as they did into coming up with new multiplayer modes. And, you know, actually made it a bit more scary.

Aside from these few relatively minor negatives, F.E.A.R. 3 is a very solid shooter that covers a lot of the right bases -- I just wish the developers had put as much imagination and creativity into the single-player campaign as they did into coming up with new multiplayer modes. And, you know, actually made it a bit more scary.

Trite as it is and pointless as Obsidian's slavish adherence to some of the old standby systems (like loot and leveling) seems, I genuinely hope it gets another crack at Dungeon Siege. The series has never been particularly memorable, but at least under Obsidian's guidance, it's mostly fun.

And that, as insane as it sounds, is the crux of the matter: Duke Nukem Forever feels like it was rushed out the door. So many of the design decisions are poor, so much of the maps are unbalanced (going from uneventful to extremely difficult in a flash), and the graphics are so shoddy, that an experienced gamer can come to no other conclusion.

And that, as insane as it sounds, is the crux of the matter: Duke Nukem Forever feels like it was rushed out the door. So many of the design decisions are poor, so much of the maps are unbalanced (going from uneventful to extremely difficult in a flash), and the graphics are so shoddy, that an experienced gamer can come to no other conclusion.

Whether you see it as a fantasy-slanted Gears homage or a punched-up and streamlined dungeon-crawler, the end result is roughly the same: Hunted is an adequate diversion for co-op aficionados, but little more.

The real issue here isn't so much that Armageddon is a mediocre game -- which it is -- rather that it's such a letdown after its excellent predecessor.

The real issue here isn't so much that Armageddon is a mediocre game -- which it is -- rather that it's such a letdown after its excellent predecessor.

Whether you see it as a fantasy-slanted Gears homage or a punched-up and streamlined dungeon-crawler, the end result is roughly the same: Hunted is an adequate diversion for co-op aficionados, but little more.

Darkspore's just a mediocre game. If you're dying to run around and smack enemies on the head with your left mouse button, it might be worth a few bones -- but you're better off waiting until it heads to the inevitable discount on Steam before you commit.

SOCOM 4, like any new game in a series that has a near-and-dear fan base, is going to rub some people the wrong way. But it's really not a bad shooter; its biggest issue is going to be whether there's a there there, to quote Gertrude Stein.

The initial thrill of zipping around high above Wuhu Island's tropical terrain in full 3D fades well before you exhaust the meager amount of activities woven into the two main modes. What you're left with after that point is only a couple hours of flight time to breeze through -- assuming you feel like milking every last drop of fun hidden in these limited depths.

MvC3 tends to emphasize flash over substance... and that's totally cool, for some folks, as MvC3 is going to divide the fighting game audience, including series faithful. Some will like that it's more accessible (if a bit stripped down), while others will decry the dumbing-down of their favorite series and its lack of arcade sauce.

MvC3 tends to emphasize flash over substance... and that's totally cool, for some folks, as MvC3 is going to divide the fighting game audience, including series faithful. Some will like that it's more accessible (if a bit stripped down), while others will decry the dumbing-down of their favorite series and its lack of arcade sauce.

With development teams like Criterion and Black Rock constantly raising the bar, it's unfortunate to see a racing game as passionless as Test Drive Unlimited 2. Ambitious map size and amazing architecture (seriously, some of the purchasable homes are incredible) can't make up for lackluster racing.

Short games aren't immediately terrible, but even the short ones ought to have something to justify their length as much as the long ones.

A (mostly) pleasant surprise and a return to form. Considering how poorly the original trilogy aged (if you ask me), that's pretty... well, bananas.

Even though I cursed and swore my way through the bulk of the game, the characters and the story moved me in a way that very few games do. But, epic disappointment or epic tale, it definitely earns its name.

Too bad money is so ridiculously easy to accrue that Fable III's silly shift into a morality tale about the burden of the crown falls flat.

What we get is an amalgam that is best labeled "Battlefield Warfare" -- an admittedly entertaining concoction, but one that tastes awfully familiar.

What we get is an amalgam that is best labeled "Battlefield Warfare" -- an admittedly entertaining concoction, but one that tastes awfully familiar.

Other M is a sum of imperfect parts and compromised ideas.

For such an intricate setup, Mafia II doesn't quite deliver on the promise of making you feel like a gangster until the last few chapters. You spend a lot of the game watching things develop slowly from behind the glass, as Vito makes a name for himself in action sequences separated by a little too much downtime.

Straight fights in C&C4 play a lot like a boxing match between two guys with iron jaws and teensy weensy hands. You and your opponent can pound away at each other till you're both spent like an addict's last dollar, but nobody's knocking anybody out.

SupCom 2 is a pretty darn fun time... it's probably just not what SupCom fans expected.

If this new AvP were like a grapefruit, and you were like the Dole Fruit Company, you would probably buy it only for use in juicing, not to be eaten on its own, as it just doesn't have enough meat. And by "buy it only for use in juicing" I mean you probably wouldn't buy it at all, because it isn't very good.

Despite its flaws, Dante's Inferno is definitely worth checking out, if only because it presents a unique visual take on one of literature's greatest works. It's occasionally shocking and often annoyingly repetitive, but the action is good enough to keep you engaged through what is a thought-provoking experiment in converting classic literature to a game.

Though the game features several imaginative environments, the same can't be said for its pedestrian, trope-riddled story.

Unlocking all the characters requires beating the single-player arcade mode no less than 16 times, a mind-numbing chore that borders on Super Smash Bros. levels of grind-ness.

MAG, much like actual war, is often an ugly, confusing mess that tosses a group of people into extraordinary situations where they can overcome through teamwork or die as frustrated individuals. If you're looking for just another game to see your name on top of a leaderboard then keep on walking.

The ideas weren't taken to their logical conclusions; the designers stuck their toes in the water, pulled them back, and decided they needed to gather a little more gumption before they could dive in. Maybe in Dark Void 2, in which a brash, headstrong pilot gets a hold of a jetpack created by an aging engineer and uses it to fight zombies, we'll see the full-fledged realization of this game's genuinely interesting designs. Until then, however, jetpack fans will have to settle for half-baked.

Maybe in Dark Void 2, in which a brash, headstrong pilot gets a hold of a jetpack created by an aging engineer and uses it to fight zombies, we'll see the full-fledged realization of this game's genuinely interesting designs. Until then, however, jetpack fans will have to settle for half-baked.