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.

You can randomize population (electoral votes), wealth, issue importance, and demographics, but all this does is divorce Political Machine 2012 from context even more. There are historical and social reasons for red state/blue state divides, reasons that Republicans tend to be more successful in rural, poorer states, reasons that certain issues may be more important to California and New York than they are in Georgia and Tennessee. But Political Machine 2012 is only interested in the game of presidential politics -- and unfortunately, it doesn't even do a good job with that game.

In almost every way, this is a very good PC version, and definitely superior to the console versions. We got great graphics options (including that HD texture pack!), smooth performance, and customizable keys. It's also quite stable -- in almost 25 hours of play I hit exactly two crashes to desktop, and neither cost me any progress. If not for the irritating lack of consistently clickable menus Sleeping Dogs would be hard to complain about.

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 $15 (or $25 for two copies) Orcs Must Die! 2 is a fantastic deal for a terrifically entertaining game.

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.

Blacklight's a smart and polished take on a very tried-and-true formula, and if that's what you're looking for, there's really no better F2P option.

Luckily, action sequences have been tightened up considerably from the first episode, with interactive points actually on the object in question and not somewhere nearby. And there are just enough quick-time events to keep you on your toes, though they are less frequent than before. The focus is on the slow burn of a terrible, desperate situation; the realization that no matter how many obvious monsters you've sheltered yourself from, a worse one might be standing right next to you.

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.

With multiple paths and endings and a dense story it's totally worth more than a single playthrough, even after you've managed to get through all the head scratching. Like the rest of Wadjet's catalog, Resonance is an absolute must play for any classic adventure nut, and worth checking out for any more modern fan.

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.

Krater is a game with many problems, most all the more irritating for being specifically added to the formula instead of simply messing it up.

I do feel that $40 is a little steep for a stand-alone expansion after developer Ironclad's Vancouver, British Columbia neighbor Relic has spent years training me to expect a $30 price for its content-rich Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 expansions. But on the other hand, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is an outstanding and unique real-time strategy game that offers a welcome, slower alternative to StarCraft 2's intense pacing. As a life-long fan of sci-fi space battles, I simply can't help but strongly recommend it.

DiRT: Showdown delivers bargain-basement entertainment value for the high, high price of $50. With its neutered physics, limited driving venues, clunky multiplayer, and diminished off-road racing options, discerning arcade racing fans should just write this one off as an unanticipated pothole in Codemaster's trailblazing DiRT series.

Even if Max Payne 3 does not transcend genre, it is at least an example of genre at its best.

Gratuitous Tank Battles may do a brilliant job of catering to some idiosyncratic gaming tastes, but I don't think it has much to offer the tower-defender or the strategist.

As long as you are aware of and accept Diablo 3's online limitations, I wholeheartedly recommend it. A week after launch, the servers are up and running smoothly, though "scheduled maintenance" still brings them down from time to time, usually in the wee hours of the morning. But solo players who would rather live their gaming lives offline -- or have less than perfect faith in the stability of their internet connections -- should probably hold out for the offline-friendly Torchlight 2 instead.

Again, Nexuiz is by no means a bad game. It does, however, seem like a superfluous one.

Really, being boring is Confrontation's greatest flaw. Sure, there's a slew of frustrations, both technical and design, but those are oddly welcome after the tedium of everything else.

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.

I occasionally caught glimpses of a competent simulation underneath the bugs, poor instruction, and rage-inducing interface, but not even the best of today's strategy games would be tolerable to play if subject to the malfunctioning saves, crashes, and sloppy presentation of Port Royale 3.