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It has been four years since its release and Crysis is still being held up as the machine-killer of all PC games. Whenever you buy a new rig, chances are you will hear the inevitable, "Well, yeah, but can it run Crysis on the highest settings?" As a game, however, it had a number of faults, including unintuitive suit usage, hilariously idiotic AI, and a lack of focus in many of the massive levels. Crysis 2, as strange as it seems, feels like a direct response to these criticisms. A developer redressing a game's flaws in said game's sequel? No way! That's not to say, however, that Crysis 2 is without its own flaws. While it's a fantastic game worthy of picking up, it's also currently suffering from one of the worst launches we have ever experienced. This is the gist of Crytek's latest effort: an excellent game, but one filled to the brim with experience-altering issues.

It was one of the truly great classic games of the 1980s. Choplifter made a lot of pre-teen and teenage boys happy with its gameplay premise of piloting a helicopter with the goal of rescuing prisoners of war from hostile forces. Released in 1982 for the Apple II PC, it was one of the few games at the time that was later ported to the arcades, rather than the other way around.

Now developer InXile Entertainment (developers of the upcoming fantasy RPG Hunted: The Demon's Horde) has announced plans to give the franchise a revival with today's reveal of Choplifter HD. The game's first screenshots and the first gameplay trailer seem to show that while the graphics have improved the basic gameplay design is still intact. We got more info about Choplifter HD from InXile's founder (and former founder of Interplay) Brian Fargo. The game itself is due for release for the PC later this year.

Download the Choplifter HD trailer at Big Download

Homefront starts with a fascinating idea: What if the United States could no longer sustain being a global military superpower? Furthermore, what if an aggressive foreign power invades, turning the world superpower into an occupied country? The concept is a great source of speculation, especially given some of the recent real-life events around North Korea, and would no doubt make for a great story. However, Homefront falls far short on delivering on its promise.

Check out all Homefront downloads

There is a classic reviewer adage when asked to review an MMO. Simply enough, it states "you can't review MMOs." In most cases, this is true, as MMOs are designed to be ongoing and involved experiences. Unlike single-player games, you are encouraged to play MMOs for hours upon days upon weeks upon months. It's no secret that developers even put in extra incentives for dedicated players, such as vanity titles and awesome gear. When you base an MMO off of the success of previous games in the genre, however, it makes reviewing a much easier prospect. Such is the case with Rift, and while it shamelessly cannibalizes other developers while winking at you knowingly, one can't help but be drawn into the world of Telara. Minor flaws aside, Rift is one of the strongest MMO launches we have seen, and gives us hope that other developers will attempt to match Trion for their polish.

It's a PC game that for the most part has flown under the radar but very soon it will be letting a lot more people know that it's getting closer to launch. It's an upcoming free-to-play shooter called War Inc Battle Zone. Announced during E3 2010 last June the development team at the colorfully named Online Warmongers and publisher Arktos Entertainment have been working on the game for some time and held its first closed beta test in 2010.

Later this year the second closed beta test will be held for the game before it's official launch later in 2011. Big Download got Online Warmongers' Chief Operating Officer Matt Candler to tell us more about War Inc including how it will stand out from all the other free-to-play shooters currently available to play.

The time has come to take up your weapon, dust off the spellbook, and look destiny in the eye before kicking it where it hurts, because this is Dragon Age II. Players take the role of an all-new hero named Hawke, who fled with his family from the town of Lothering as the darkspawn destroyed it, and ends up in the city of Kirkwall. From there, the hero goes from being a impoverished refugee to one of the most important figures in the series. Since the Blight is happening in your old homeland, there isn't much emphasis on fighting darkspawn, but there's still great controversy to uncover and overcome. Fans of the previous game may need to get used to how much has changed, but the game features a lot of fast action, an excellent story, and some great characters.

Download the Dragon Age II Demo
Check out all Dragon Age II downloads

The car combat game genre gets a new entry today as developer Steel Monkeys and publisher Meridian4 are scheduled to release Post Apocalyptic Mayhem via Steam later today. It will have a bargain price of $9.99 (with an additional 20 percent discount for its first week of release) and will also have a 3-game bundle available for $24.99. The game's premise is pretty simple; in a nuclear wasteland, folks like to race vehicles and blow each other up.

Big Download got a chance to ask Steel Monkeys for some more info about Post Apocalyptic Mayhem and got our questions answered jointly by Executive Producer Edwin Loo and Lead Designer Craig Williams.

The so-called MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game genre has been exploding on the PC game scene in the past year and later this spring yet another free-to-play game that based on this genre will launch. It's called Rise of Immortals from developer Petroglyph. Using the fantasy world that Petroglyph introduce in its downloadable strategy game Guardians of Graxia, the game aims to take the MOBA game trend in some new directions. It's currently taking sign-ups for its beta test.

Big Download got Petroglyph's community manager Mathew Anderson to tell us more about the game, how it relates to Guardians of Graxia and other features of the game.

When it comes to fighting an eternal intergalactic war, few games compare to the Dawn of War series. Dawn of War II - Retribution ups the stakes by including a number of gameplay changes and improvements compared to the previous games, with the most prominent feature being the inclusion of six playable races for the campaign mode. Although the events from Chaos Rising shape what's happening in the sector, the Space Marine campaign isn't a direct sequel and the amount of corruption or purity players chose to stick with have no bearing on Retribution. All the campaigns use the same series of maps with special events and dialogue changed to suit the player's faction. They also pretty much follow the plot of defeating a Chaos plot to gain power while trying to stop the Imperium from purging all life from the sector, but are enough differences in characters and motivation to make each story feel unique. Especially when playing a faction like Chaos and battling the Space Marine heroes featured in previous games.

Check out all Dawn of War 2 - Retribution Downloads

After years of "serious" first person shooters that perhaps took themselves a little too seriously, 2011 may be a year where the "over the top" shooters make a comeback with titles like the already released Bulletstorm and the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever. Sometime this summer, developer Croteam will release Serious Sam 3, the next game in its FPS franchise.

The game already looks like it will stay true to the roots of the previous games in the series, although with an all new graphics engine. Big Download got more info about the game from Croteam CEO Roman Ribaric along with its CTO Alen Ladavac.