Saints Row IV

Saints Row IV PC --> CLICK
Saints Row IV PC DOWNLOAD --> CLICK

 Saints Row IV Xbox 360 --> CLICK

 Saints Row IV PSP3 --> CLICK

 Saints Row IV - PS3 [Digital Code] --> CLICK

With great power comes no responsibility whatsoever
How do you give more power to the leader of the Saints, a man (or woman) already globally celebrated as a crazed, untouchable psychopath? In Saints Row IV, Volition have made him President of the United States. The demo I played opened with the Prez swaggering towards a press conference, making snap decisions on key matters of state. Do I solve world hunger or give cancer the middle finger? Do I agree to a Nyte Blayde marathon with Josh Birk, the show’s airhead actor? Do I punch a fussy old congressman in the face, or the balls? I make my choice: screw cancer; hell yes; right in the crotch.
Obama’s an amateur compared with me. What’s next? Oh, aliens have attacked. Saints Row: The Third was wholly encapsulated by a single song on its soundtrack: Kanye West’s “Power.” Like that song, the game was brash, crude, and childishly defiant, but also self-aware. It was the moment the series found its identity. It stopped trying to be a fun GTA clone, reassessed its ridiculousness, and decided to run with it.

Naked. Saints Row IV continues to run—but now that sprint has become a superspeed blur The dubstep gun does everything you’d expect weaponized wubs to do. I tackle my alien immigration issue with an appropriately insane response. As my cabinet—returning characters Shaundi, Oleg, Kinzie and Pierce—are abducted, I run to the Oval Office, clean out a weapons cache and proceed to gun down the invading Zin across a White House under siege. For most games this would be a climactic setpiece. For Saints Row IV, it’s the second mission. Not that the relentless assault of absurdism is always matched by the game’s individual objectives. After a series of firefights through the crumbling corridors and stairways of power, the mission’s end is somewhat reserved: a turret sequence and a quick time event.

Saints Row IV’s response? Become even more absurd. When the demo skips forward, I’m back in SR3’s home city of Steelport. More accurately, I’m in a virtual recreation of it. Zinyak has placed the protagonist and his crew in a Matrix-style prison, and it’s here that the rest of the game plays out. Also: I have superpowers. There’s a sense that Saints Row IV is a direct expansion to its predecessor—a viewpoint supported by the repeated use of both setting and game engine. But if the lack of a new space to explore is disappointing, it’s balanced by the way Volition uses the setup to re-evaluate how its game’s systems work. It’s now free to provide a more enjoyable route around its open world.

Given the choice, would you rather get into a car and diligently follow the road, or sprint up a building, leap into the air and glide across the map? It doesn’t matter. You can do either. And it’s not just movement that has been overhauled. Health no longer regenerates. Instead, the enemies you kill drop arcade-style healing orbs. It seems counterintuitive at first, but the upshot is that the best way to stay alive is to stay in the fight. The wanted level has been similarly tweaked. Criminal actions draw the attention of regular beat cops. If you extend your spree, hoverbike-mounted Zin will join the pursuit. Keep going and you’ll signal a Warden—a tough miniboss encounter. Beat him and the meter resets, making you incognito again. (At least, as incognito as a superpowered president in a virtual world can be.) SR4 feels like a game that wants to challenge, but not punish, aggressive play.

SR4 also provides you with the series’ most varied arsenal to date. In addition to enhanced speed and jumping, a second set of powers provides you with combat abilities. A freeze blast will slow and shatter your enemies, a ground shockwave gives a powerful area of effect attack, and telekinesis will unceremoniously grab objects and people. It’s a skill tested in one of the new minigames, a spin-off to SR3’s Genkibowl in which I was challenged to
fling mascots through glowing hoops. Combat powers have their place, but there’s a short cooldown period between use, so the guns are still the star. Joining the inevitable standards of shotgun, pistol and rifle, I saw two of the game’s signature weapons.

One fired a mini-black hole that devastated the surrounding area (and me if I got too close). The other fired dubstep as an arcing neon laser. It did everything you’d expect weaponized wubs to do: everyone who’s hit starts dancing. And then dies. Or explodes. There’s at least one more bizarre weapon—the head-expanding Inflate- O-Ray—although I didn’t see it in action. And Saints Row IV’s toolbox of silly toys will almost certainly expand even further. As Kanye says, “No one man should have all that power.” But seeing as you do, you might as well enjoy it.

Saints Row IV PC --> CLICK
Saints Row IV PC DOWNLOAD --> CLICK

 Saints Row IV Xbox 360 --> CLICK

 Saints Row IV PSP3 --> CLICK

 Saints Row IV - PS3 [Digital Code] --> CLICK

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Has this seminal shooter reboot got brains as well as brawn? B.J. Blazkowicz thunders around the platform that orbits the edge of the Moon Dome. He has an enormous shotgun in each hand, and the noise they make is more freight train than firearm—a pounding “CHUNKA CHUNKA CHUNKA” that feels like it should climax in a “CHOO CHOO.” Wolfenstein:

Wolfenstein: The New Order - PC
Wolfenstein: The New Order - Xbox 360
Wolfenstein: The New Order - Playstation 3
Wolfenstein: The New Order [Online Game Code]

The New Order gives you an array of ways to tackle its arena combat encounters, but I choose to deal with the Moon Dome with the simplest: by holding down both triggers and running fast in a straight line. It works. B.J.’s double shotguns blast bits off the model moon in the center of the room, and send Third Reichers sailing through shattered glass to the floor. “Ever since you got to kill Hitler in the first game, it’s been about alternate history,” senior gameplay designer Andreas Ojefors tells me. “We took that and ran with it. We
asked the question, ‘what would happen if the Nazis won the war?’” That’s all well and good.

The question that The New Order answers more satisfactorily is, “If a jackhammer got to spend one night as a Ever since you got to kill Hitler in the first game, it’s been about alternate history. human, what would it do?” Another inadvertently answered question is this: what would the first-person shooter look like in 2013 if someone had annualized Quake back in 1997? The New Order isn’t an id Software shooter, but it is deeply aware of its heritage. B.J. is delivered to the London Nautica—the Nazi research facility that houses the Moon Dome—in a car with a little Quake 3 Arena rocket launcher dangling from the key in the ignition.

The game hybridizes modern and retro design, mixing partially-regenerating health with medpacks that can be gobbled in excess to temporarily shunt your health over 100, id-style. “We tried to combine the best of the old-school shooter design with the new,” Ojefors continues. “There are things that shouldn’t have been left behind, and things that should.” He’s insistent in referring to Wolfenstein as an action-adventure game, rather than a shooter—but, well, it’s a shooter. Its noncombat ideas are expressed through environmental puzzle-solving and bits and bobs of linear narrative, neither of which are totally left-of-field for a game that also features shotguns the size of railway ties. What I saw, however, was well executed.

Machine Games is partially made up of veterans from Starbreeze, the developer behind the quietly excellent The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick games and, by way of contrast, the noisily crap Syndicate reboot. The stylish ultraviolence and characterful writing of those games are visible here, particularly in an early sequence where Blazkowicz is interrogated about his heritage by SS officer Frau Engel and her Aryan boy-toy Bubi.

Think Inglourious Basterds by way of BioShock, and you’ll get a sense of the tone. The New Order is also linked to Starbreeze’s early work by a thick vein of priapic silliness. B.J.’s shotgun-slinging has the same uncritical hyper-macho swagger that informed The Darkness’s deadly tentacle weapons and the entirety of Vin Diesel’s career. When the industrial metal soundtrack kicks in and there are Nazis to be shotgunned, there’s a lot of uncritical hyper-macho fun to be had.

The New Order’s newer, smarter ideas resonate a little strangely in this context. Blazkowicz now has an upgradeable laser weapon that can be switched between man-blasting and scenery-cutting fire modes. The latter is used to find secrets and solve environmental puzzles, and a bit of clever engineering means it slices away at the world in relationship to the movement of your cursor. Want to retrieve some ammo from a crate? You only need to cut a hole big enough for B.J. to grab it. Want to make a hole in a chain-link fence, but bored with squares? Carve yourself an amusing When the industrial metal soundtrack kicks in, there’s a lot of hypermacho fun to be had. banana-shaped entryway! The laser also facilitates stealth. It’s possible to crouch behind cover, slice out a gun-hole and then take pot shots through it with one of your other weapons.

This is something that I’ve never done in a shooter before, and it’s nice to be surprised. The only issue is the dissonance—the change in pace doesn’t quite work, and the high difficulty level of the build I played meant that I felt pushed into playing cautiously despite the wide array of options presented to me. I came away from The New Order far more interested in it than I was going in, but it’s got a way to go in the six months before release. Pace and feedback both need work, particularly the transition from mindless corridor blasting to meticulous set-piece battles.

It’s also majorly juvenile, and a lot will hinge on how knowingly that sense is embraced. Machine Games’ Starbreeze DNA will help, but there are certainly times when The New Order plays like something a teenager might scrawl on the back of a history textbook. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. I would have adored it when I was 12, but I also wonder about how much the hobby has changed in the years since. Then again, this is still an industry where a grown man can answer a question with a remark beginning “ever since you got to kill Hitler...” so Starbreeze will probably be fine.

Wolfenstein: The New Order - PC
Wolfenstein: The New Order - Xbox 360
Wolfenstein: The New Order - Playstation 3
Wolfenstein: The New Order [Online Game Code]

Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs - PC ----> CLICK HERE

Watch Dogs - Playstation 3  ----> CLICK HERE

Watch Dogs - PlayStation 4  ----> CLICK HERE

 Watch Dogs - Xbox 360  ----> CLICK HERE

 Watch Dogs - Nintendo Wii U  ----> CLICK HERE

Big Brother is watching, but then so are you It’s that old superhero dilemma: if you see a crime, is it your responsibility to stop it? What if you think the victim deserves it? Watch Dogs’ protagonist Aiden Pearce has a lot in common with Spider-Man—he’s just a little more OK with murdering. A lot more, really. Pearce is an any-means-necessary style vigilante out for revenge against some Bad People who did Mean Things (Ubisoft is staying quiet about major story details) in a near-future Chicago. Like all vigilantes, he’s no friend to the police—but he has a secret weapon to deal with them. Chicago is run by CtOS, a network of computers that manage the city’s services,
including traffic lights, trains, and security cameras. With his phone, Pearce can control these systems with a single button, and can also tap into other phones to steal private information.

He’s not above emptying an innocent’s bank account in pursuit of vigilante justice. Pearce protects the people at the expense of their privacy. Among his tools is the city’s crime prediction algorithm, which digs through personal information to spot potential victims before they’re attacked. He doesn’t have to intervene in crimes he witnesses, though. In the live demo I saw, Pearce stayed hidden while a suspected rapist was murdered in an alley. Geez. The fidelity of the alley and characters made that scene feel especially gruesome. The world looks properly lived in—not as sterile as GTA’s satirical cities—with grubbier neighborhoods speckled with Aiden Pearce is out for revenge against some Bad People who did Mean Things.

graffiti and litter. Litter that, thanks to Ubisoft’s new Disrupt engine, realistically flutters around in simulated wind. When Aiden walks into a pawn shop, the light is snuffed out and street sounds give way to thumpy beats and the whine of fluorescent lights. The people in and around it walk with purpose and loiter with intentional lack of purpose. They aren’t just NPCs there to scream and be run over—they have stories and personalities. Or, at least, Ubi creates the illusion that they have those things. Personal details about pedestrians pulled up by Pearce’s augmented reality HUD reveal hobbies, fears, shortcomings, and fetish porn addictions—snippet of lives as a catalyst for
our imaginations.

It’s an effective way to convince me that I’m looking at a city full of real people, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m watching an elaborate stage play, no matter how good the motion-captured animations are. Watch Dogs might approach the uncanny valley of open worlds; it’s close enough to convincing that it induces Truman Showlike paranoia. Given the theme of the game, that unease may be an asset. When not quietly admiring the city’s fidelity, though, Pearce keeps busy by starring in a violent action game. Actually, I’m told that Watch Dogs can be played non-violently, but what I saw was Pearce slowing down time with Focus mode (hey, Max Payne can do it, so whatever) and shooting people’s faces. In his defense he prefers to murder bad guys where possible, but if a stray bullet hits someone... well, that’s more of a manslaughter, isn’t it? The first conflict in the demo starts off with a few friendly, non-lethal takedowns, the player using his hack-o-matic to turn on a forklift and open a gate, distracting nearby guards so they can be sneaked up on.

Hacking is all binary decisions—turning something on or off, or assuming the POV of a security cam. Interestingly (and nonsensically), cameras can be chained together, because hacking only requires line of sight. This is how Pearce eventually infects a CtOS server with a virus without ever entering the building. But first, it takes a cover-to-cover firefight to finish off the guards outside. Despite his usual slow pace Pearce shows bursts of athleticism, traversing the lot with daring parkour leaps and using Focus to chain deadeye shots. Focus mode and quick-draw hacking look to be especially important when driving, during which the player can change traffic lights and raise concrete blockers to end the careers of the cops in pursuit with spectacular crashes, the camera swinging around for slow-mo Burnout-style views of the wrecks. The world stops feeling quite so grounded and natural here, but it does look fun. Like in GTA, a five-point gauge indicates the level of police engagement, and players must break line of sight to escape. In one version of the demo, the driver hacks open a parking garage door, glides into a parking space, and strolls away like he’s loosely reenacting the opening scene of Drive. If nothing else, I want to do that.

Watch Dogs - PC ----> CLICK HERE

Watch Dogs - Playstation 3  ----> CLICK HERE

Watch Dogs - PlayStation 4  ----> CLICK HERE

 Watch Dogs - Xbox 360  ----> CLICK HERE

 Watch Dogs - Nintendo Wii U  ----> CLICK HERE

BATTLEFIELD 4

BATTLEFIELD 4

Battlefield 4 - Xbox 360  ----> CLICK HERE

 Battlefield 4 [Download] ----> CLICK HERE

Battlefield 4 Premium Service ----> CLICK HERE

 Battlefield 4 + Battlefield 4 Premium ----> CLICK HERE

Commander mode returns to lead the way
Bad Company and its sequel were great multiplayer games, but they lost some of what made their predecessor, Battlefield 2, such a marvelous team-based shooter. Battlefield 3 took a step in the right direction by making large-scale warfare the norm again. Battlefield 4 is going even further, by bringing back Commander mode. One player on each of Battlefield 4’s two teams is now able to view the battlefield from above, issuing orders to different squads, dropping resources such as vehicles to aid in their team’s assault, and launching tactical missiles to take down enemy units. It brings back another layer of tactics to Battlefield’s endless war, and it makes perfect sense on the large levels.

The mission I played at this year’s E3 was the same shown at the EA conference: the Siege of Shanghai. It takes place on the streets surrounding the city’s waterfront, with a river bisecting the map. A Metro station acts as one of the capture points; another is placed on top of a tall, central skyscraper. It’s designed for 64 players, and at each team’s spawn, there’s a plentiful supply of tanks, jeeps and helicopters. My first round as the game’s familiar recon class starts in typical fashion: players leaping into vehicles and immediately driving off while I chase after them in a If every server was full of tired, confused journalists, it would be my favorite game. desperate attempt to get inside. Eventually I find a vehicle of my own, and set off through the streets with a group of random squadmates. We capture our first point without taking a shot.

Next I move to another point on the roof of a multi-story car park, and leap from the van seconds before it explodes under heavy fire. I kill one, two, three people at midrange by using my sniper rifle to injure them and my pistol to finish them off. I capture the point and move on again. At this point, my squad and I have been scattered to the wind, but when I die and respawn with them later, I’m atop the game’s central skyscraper. Half the people
playing have congregated here, because they’ve all seen what happens when you destroy the building’s supports: it falls over, spectacularly. We all want to be on top of it when that happens.

My squad and I kill any enemies on top, and then wait. And wait. And then, when we realize nothing is happening, we throw ourselves over the edge and parachute down below. I land on the roof of a much smaller building, and bring my sniper rifle out again. One kill, two kill, three kill, four. I’m top of the server at this point; if every Battlefield server was full of tired, confused journalists, it would be my favorite game. For a while, it’s possible Battlefield 2 was my favorite game.

It wasn’t the bombast—though running across cratered beaches while machinegun fire pinged around your feet and jets buzzed overhead was a thrill. Instead, it was the quiet moments with my squad that made me love it: Tom Francis, Craig Pearson and I camping on top of a structure in the middle of the desert, observing the battlefield around us, picking a target or waiting for the Commander to select it for us. There was a sense that you and your friends in a squad were a tactical unit, and that you existed within the broader context of a raging battle, whether you were taking part in it at that second or not. The Commander helped with that, bonding everyone together—again, whether you ignored the person in the role or not.

Just as before, you get bonus XP if you do decide to follow your Commander’s objectives. And if your team is doing well, the Commander gets more abilities: from UAVs to provide tactical information, to artillery strikes and Tomahawk missiles. I noticed only a few changes to the game’s classes; assault, engineer, recon, and support each return from the previous game. The recon class now has the C4—previously a support class item—to
complement the sniper rifle. On the Siege of Shanghai, C4 is one of the best ways to bring down the skyscraper at the center of the map, so I wonder if the change means we can expect more destructible buildings on other levels. Each of the four classes also now has access to three types of grenade: the standard frag, plus flashbang and incendiary grenades.

It’s too early to tell how these changes will shift the flow of the game, or how the system of weapon and item unlocks might have been tweaked. So much of what makes Battlefield compelling can only be discerned from dozens of hours of play, and my session with the game ended after a too-short 15 minutes. But there’s a clearer change in the prevalence of boats: battles in the river and inlets around Shanghai were as constant a fixture as the fight for air dominance. Best of all, ejecting into the water doesn’t damn you to a long, boring swim: you launch out on a jet ski. Battlefield 4 plays like it could be a bigger, prettier and more tactically complex iteration of BF3. My only complaint from the little I played is that I never saw the map’s tower fall. I was either elsewhere in the map when it happened, or waiting to respawn. Next time.

Battlefield 4 - Xbox 360  ----> CLICK HERE

 Battlefield 4 [Download] ----> CLICK HERE

Battlefield 4 Premium Service ----> CLICK HERE

 Battlefield 4 + Battlefield 4 Premium ----> CLICK HERE

Smart Cooler for Super PC Gamer

Smart Cooler for Super PC Gamer

See Detail Before Buy ----> Click 

Smart Cooler for Super PC Gamer
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

What it does:
Thanks to the physical laws of the universe, even the smallest PC processors generate a lot of heat—so much so that they’d burn up if we just let them baste in their own warmth. Hence, CPU coolers. Intel and AMD supply lowest-common-denominator coolers with every CPU, designed only to keep the chip from destroying itself. If you want better cooling, and as overclocking enthusiasts who appreciate quiet PCs we always do, you’ll need to invest in an aftermarket CPU-cooling solution. The difference in temperature will be night and day.

What to look for:
The killer cooling formula is typically 1) a huge heat sink with 2) lots of narrow fins. Today’s plethora of massive aluminum-block “tower” designs testify to this: they just work. Copper “heat pipes,” which connect the cooler’s base to the tower, also help move heat up and out. Add a large but quiet fan (usually included) to blow away the hot air and you’re all set. We love the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. It’s been around forever, is cheap, and does a great job of dissipating heat. A true classic.
Fins
The best way to dissipate heat is to spread it out over the maximum possible surface area, which is why today’s heat sinks tend to have hundreds of wafer-thin metal fins.

Filling in the gaps:
Your CPU’s integrated heat spreader is not a 100% flat, flawless surface, and your heat sink’s base plate is considerably less so. Air is a terrible conductor of heat, so you’ll need a heat-conducting compound called thermal paste to bridge the miniscule air pockets formed by these imperfections, enabling the efficient transfer of heat from CPU to heat sink. Most coolers come with their own thermal compound, or you can buy it separately. Check for an application guide online, because it’s no fun to clean up the mess left by an overzealous application

The specs
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

Compatibility: Just like CPUs, coolers are built to be compatible with certain mobo socket designs. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO supports a huge range: Intel LGA 1150/1155/2011/1366 and AMD Socket FM1/FM2/AM3+.

Base Material: Different metals have different heat conductivity properties, making them better or worse as heat sinks. Today’s enthusiast designs use aluminum towers and copper bases.

Dimensions: Enthusiast heat sinks are big, no lie, so make sure they’ll actually fit in your intended case. This is particularly important given today’s trend toward smaller cases. (Thermalright’s excellent TRUE Spirit 120M is a more recent cooler that is actually designed to be a little smaller.) Overly large heat sinks can also block the closest RAM slots, which is the opposite of good.

Fan Specs: The best computer fans move a lot of air while being as quiet as possible, and the Hyper 212 EVO’s 120mm fan moves a lot of air while producing only modest noise. We are fans of this fan.

Alternatives Cooler for Super PC Gamer

Stock Cooler

Want to Buy ---->  Click 

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, your CPU’s stock cooler is a little broke, but it will get you by just fine if you don’t overclock and if you’re not too concerned about noise. It’s not glamorous or elegant, but keeping your CPU from baking itself is definitely a plus.
mainstReam

Enermax ETS-T40-TB

 

Want to Buy ---->  Click 

Even cooler and quieter than the Hyper 212 EVO? Indeed, and for just a small price premium. What isn’t small is the heat sink, which is more likely to clash with your case and cover RAM slots. But if you can make it fit, go for it

Thermaltake CLW0217 Water 2.0

Want to Buy ---->  Click  

Extreme
Liquid cooling used to be the sole domain of total rockstar rebel nerds, but now you can enjoy its amazing cooling efficiency with ready-made devices like the Water 2.0 Extreme. Imagine the OC potential…

PC GAMES FOR $30 OR LESS

PC GAMES FOR $30 OR LESS

The Walking Dead

When the dead attack the living,

there are no easy choices
Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games

Surviving is one thing, but living with yourself is another in Telltale Game’s The Walking Dead. Its survivors skirt around the comic and television series, telling a new story of the zombie apocalypse come to Georgia. A smattering of adventure game puzzles and action segments bow to its adaptive narrative—this game is all about making choices. Characters live and die by your words and actions; who appears and what happens in each episode depends on who you help and who you forsake. It’s up to you to decide what’s most important, but remember, a little girl is watching and learning about how to live in the new world.

Payday 2

Pull off the perfect heist

Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Overkill Software

A good heist needs a bit of planning, plenty of communication, and a touch of intimidation to end with duffel bags full of cash. A bad heist just needs ample ammunition and body bags to clean up the mess. Robbing a well-secured institution involves many moving parts—not just squirming hostages. Keep in mind that Payday 2’s extended scenarios track your performance over multi-mission arcs, rewarding your team for precision strikes with less police interference, friendlier criminal cohorts, and more cash.

Kerbal Space

Program Build, fly, and watch the fiery demise of custom rockets

Publisher: Squad
Developer: Squad

Ever looked at a space shuttle and thought, “I could do better?” Well, it’s time to put your rocket science where your mouth is, buddy, because Kerbal Space Program is all about putting adorable little green dudes on the moon. Or at least in orbit. Or at least somewhere above the... oh, nope, they just crashed into a plume of fire and broken dreams again. KSP is goofy and challenging; chances are, you’ll fail dozens of times before finally building a space-worthy rocket. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel like Neil Armstrong and Elon Musk rolled into one when your Kerbal crew leaves its first boot prints on an alien world.

GAMES FOR $20 OR LESS

Amnesia:  The Dark Descent

Hide for your life and sanity

Publisher: Frictional Games
Developr: Frictional Games

There are jump scares, and then there are dark, quiet horrors that tie stomachs in knots and submerge their sufferers in nauseating suspense. Amnesia: The Dark Descent generally
goes for the latter. Despite inspiring a renaissance of firstperson horror, Amnesia’s penchant for producing boundless dread remains unmatched. Players must balance physical health, mental fortitude, and all-important lantern oil as they explore a dingy castle full of unsettling sights and freakish monsters. Fighting its native horrors is out of the question, so you’d better keep an eye on the nearest closet or dark corner to hide in... and hope you’re alone in there.

Counter-Strike:Global Offensive

An old dog learned some new tricks

Publisher: Valve
Developer: Valve

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive doesn’t fix what isn’t broken. The original CS helped propel competitive PC gaming to its industry-defining state today, so a graphical overhaul, a few
equipment tweaks, and some new modes are more than enough to modernize the lethal classic. Veterans of de_dust and bomb-defusing neophytes alike can find a lot to love in this
update. Classic modes like hostage rescue and bomb defusal remain intact, but an official Gun Game mode (called Arms Race here) should be enough to get anybody on board. Don’t let the terrorists win. Unless you spawn as a terrorist.

Mark of the Ninja

Stylish sidescrolling stealth honed to a shuriken’s edge

Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Developer: Klei Entertainment

When a guard sees his partner strung up from a chandelier just in time for the lights to go out and 180 pounds of ninja to land on his chest, you begin to wonder why stealth sucks so much in every other game. Mark of the Ninja takes the simple act of sneaking around in a 2D environment and builds, polishes, and simplifies until it’s more or less a lifestyle choice.
You don’t have to stay quiet in Mark of the Ninja if its gratuitous combat beckons, but you seldom need to bloody your blade if you prefer wearing the shadows. Whichever path you decide to take, a generous checkpoint system and ample replayability means each scenario can (and should) play out a dozen ways. This is easily one of the best ninja games ever made.

Rogue Legacy

Each ancestor’s grave is just a stepping stone to success

Publisher: Cellar Door Games
Developer: Cellar Door Games

In this brilliant fusion of lethal Castlevania-inspired exploration and persistent RPG advancement, you can get rich and die trying. Every hero that delves into Rogue Legacy’s sidescrolling dungeons will find a treacherous new layout to map and plunder. But death is just an intermission: you can begin again as one of your character’s descendants, who benefits from all the cash, equipment, and abilities his or her forebears found and
purchased. Each descendant has a distinct class and genetic quirks like color blindness or gigantism, so getting to know your new character is almost as fun as exploring the ever-changing environment.

Metro 2033

Post-apocalyptic Moscow’s horrors mostly don’t go in the subway

Publisher: THQ / Deep Silver
Developer: 4A Games

You need to do a few things to survive in the tunnels under Moscow: scavenge everywhere and everything, always keep a few gas mask filters on hand, and try to save the good bullets for special occasions. Metro 2033’s wrecked tunnels and brief, terrifying surface interludes make a unique setting for a grim first-person shooter. Its story of tenuous survival in a nuclear winter (which destroyed the surface world and produced scads of
deadly mutants) is based on a Russian novel, but this ain’t no Tolstoy.

Teleglitch

Build guns and set traps in this top-down shooter roguelike

Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: T3P

Teleglitch looks like Doom fan fiction. Instead of a first-person romp through a moon base, it’s a tense top-down shooter with scarce ammunition and plentiful enemies. Fortunately, your lone survivor is clever, and junk like tin cans and nails can be crafted into deadly weapons. Teleglitch’s randomly generated environments are pixelated, but subtle
perspective shifts and distortion create a surreal sense of motion. Mind your woeful line of sight and you just might make it to the exit.

The Witcher 2:Enhanced Edition

 

Enter a dark and memorable fantasy world

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Developer: CD Projekt Red

The Witcher series has a complex story with many significant characters and compounding player choices. But main character Geralt of Rivia is an amnesiac, anyway, so it’s not like
anybody can expect you to remember them if you didn’t play the first game. You, on the other hand, will remember The Witcher 2’s intricate towns, deep plotlines, and intense,
fight-for-your-life battles. You’ll also remember how good it is to be a PC gamer when you get all this for just shy of $20.