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Anomaly Warzone Earth has been described as a reverse tower defense, and while this is marginally true, it misses something essential: rather than simply trudging endless waves of units towards a generic goal, you are actively dismantling the opposition. It's not so much reverse tower defense as tower attacking. It's also absolutely fantastic, and an extremely strong first showing from indie studio 11 Bit. Excellent production values, clean and concise game mechanics, and excellent replay value make it a steal at its asking price. It is probably the most highly polished $10 game you will ever play.

Download the Anomaly Warzone Earth demo right here on Big Download!

There's not many games that let you play as a dragon. Not a cute, almost human-like dragon such as Spyro, or a human that turns into a dragon like Divinity 2. Normal, fire-breathing, princess-stealing, loot-gathering, town-torching dragons are fairly absent from the rosters of gaming protagonists. Their actions are a bit hard to justify in a story-focused game, after all. Hoard aims to change that. Not the story bit, as the game is almost entirely arcade-like, but rather the playing as a mostly evil dragon part. Flying around and torching everything from towns to ogres has never been this satisfying, and Hoard has quickly become one of our favorite short-session games. Pop in, play for a few minutes, pop out. It's brilliantly designed, fairly cheap, and visually stunning. We found it difficult not to immediately love Hoard straight from the get-go.

The stoic and thoroughly difficult AI War has received three expansion packs to date: Zenith Remnant, Children of Neinzul, and Light of the Spire. Each one offers new units, scenarios, and AI types to bring to bear For this multi-part review, we'll be examining each expansion pack individually and giving them individual verdicts. After all, each expansion is independent of the others and brings new ships and Ai types unique to that particular expansion. The one thing they have in common, however, is how much the increase the difficulty compared to the original game. These expansions are for the hardest of the hardcore.

Going against what may be common sense, there is indeed such a thing as a single-player board game. One where the player competes more against the system and their own honesty than the machinations of other players. They are certainly not as common as competitive board games, but they can be just as fun. They also make for fairly excellent videogames as well, as letting a computer handle all the grunt number work lets the player focus on playing rather than managing the game. Fate of the World is a game like this. It would not feel out of place on somebody's kitchen table, cards spread out around the place and little tokens organized into convenient plastic baggies. Red Redemption has crafted a title that is educational and entertaining while providing us with plenty of nostalgic reminders of board gaming, and it's easily the most compelling of any remotely educational game that we have played.

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.

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.

Wrapping a guy in an explosive flail and then kicking him into a set of spikes before detonating it. Knocking over a man with a huge cannonball, then exploding it. Shooting a radio-controlled bullet into a man, then steering him into a huge wall of spikes. These are but a few of Bulletstorm's 131 skill shots. In telling you them, we hope to emphasize a singular, focused point: Bulletstorm is not a normal first-person shooter. You won't really be challenged to avoid dying, and enemies mostly serve as cannon fodder for your rather impressive arsenal. Rather, it's a surprisingly smart shooter that is genre savvy in its plot and exceedingly intelligent in its mechanics. While it's a bit short (for single-player enthusiasts, anyway), it's also quite fantastic and merges arcade scoring with oh-so-satisfying murder.

Check out all Bulletstorm downloads

Atom Zombie Smasher toes a very careful line. On one hand, it is a supremely accessible and entertaining game. On the other, it's totally surreal and devoid of the context most people would associate with zombies. The result is a bizarre, hilarious, fun strategy game that manages to keep from being tied to a single genre. It's not surprising given the developer's background in blocky, colorful, surreal games. It's the strongest indie release this year so far, however, and has the potential to keep its position at the top until 2012.

Funnily enough, there's no atom smashing.

Download the Atom Zombie Smasher demo

Shoot 'em ups, such as DoDonPachi or Tyrian, moved from the realm of the mainstream and into the hands of small indie developers a long time ago. After all, they are fairly easy to develop, have solid core mechanics, and utilize mostly 2D graphics. Who's That Flying?! (WTF?!) is one of these games, and while it's not particularly revolutionary, it's a polished and fun shmup that almost anybody can get into. It's also unusual in that it is a fairly benign port of a console game, and manages to be fun without suffering from the traditional issues of ports.

Indie darling Arcen Games has created two incredibly stellar titles: the difficult co-op strategy title AI War and the refined puzzler Tidalis. They aren't going to simply sit around and continue updating those two games, however, and their latest announced title is the intriguing A Valley Without Wind. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where monsters roam, supplies are scarce, and magic is rampant, it aims to bring procedural generation to the realm of adventuring. Set out in a direction and explore while interacting with inhabitants in interesting and meaningful ways. Erik Johnson and Chris Park of Arcen Games sat down with us to talk a little more about previous successes, the direction of A Valley Without Wind, and the future of Arcen Games.

Gallery: A Valley Without Wind Screenshots