PC Features

One moment, I’m clinging to life in the boxing ring. Thanks to a nefarious promoter, the only chance I have to win this fight is to overcome tremendous odds and knock out a better, stronger opponent. My family, my trainer, and my lady are all rooting desperately for me to find a way to succeed despite the fact my foe has knocked me flat. A few minutes later, I’m in Times Square as Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, playing two-on-two against Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. The crowd is on top of us, beats are pumping in the background, and I’m trying to launch Kareem’s patented skyhook over McHale with little success...

To say that Sword Girls features girls with swords is quite an understatement. In addition to the titular sword girls, the collectible card game tries to tickle just about every anime fetish you can think of with cat girls, magic girls, goth girls, and maid girls. Of course, Sword Girls also features the mother of all girl-types with schoolgirls. Lots and lots of schoolgirls. We can’t decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. That’s for you to determine...

As internet speeds and digital storage gets cheaper and cheaper every year, downloadable games get closer and closer to matching the experiences provided by their retail counterparts. They also offer the chance for smaller development teams to experiment or stray off the beaten path; we doubt that EA would ever publish a game featuring a dead fetus is a power-up. They draw the line at killing unbaptized babies in hell thank you very much. And hey, there’s no better way to detox from a 100 hour Skyrim binge than with a quick, fun 5 hour game. In anticipation of our year end Platinum Chalice awards, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite 2011 downloadable titles across all platforms to help you separate the w00t from the chaff...

In this edition of PC Gamer Plays, we're playing Frozen Synapse, an elegant game of tactics and psychology from indie developer Mode 7 Games. Check out the videos inside to learn more about Frozen Synapse's unique and thrilling take on squad-based strategy, and see how PC Gamer's Evan Lahti fared in a battle of wits against Mode 7 co-founder Ian Hardingham...

Presents! Everyone likes presents! But, what if you want to take a different route and give the favorite gamer in your life something different from the norm? Sure, we’ve got an awesome game-free gift guide, but nothing says “You’ll always be my Player 2” more than something handmade...

This week’s question comes from GR reader LongNuts (classy as usual, guys), who asked what Blizzard is actually doing every week when they take World of Warcraft down for several hours for “maintenance.” PLUS: How many "bits" are current-generation consoles, really?

You may not have heard of Massive Black, but you’ve heard of its clients. Since 2003, the collective has grown from a handful of concept artists, animators, and 3D models to a full-on commercial art house supported by an international team of digital artists. The studio’s done work for Blizzard, Sega, Nintendo and EA with teams in downtown San Francisco and Shanghai. After creating a successful artist-driven collective with ties to the biggest names in the entertainment business, what's next for Massive Black?...

Amidst a holiday onslaught of AAA blockbusters, a trio of unlikely suspects pulled our attention away from slick shooters and ambitious adventures. The Sifteo Cubes are to blame, and they're quite unlike anything we're touched before. These one-inch displays are encased in durable, kid-proof plastic, but this is one case in which the surprising form factor is decidedly less important than what these little curiosities can do. Like bite-sized iPhones, the Cubes can be tapped, tilted, and flipped to play games, but more interestingly, each can sense its proximity to other Cubes, creating unique gameplay experiences that utilize all three at once.

Cool, right? We thought so, which is why we got our hands on a starter set and put some of the initial apps through their paces...

Saturday morning, I met up with the rest of my unit at our intended rendezvous point: Akihabara Station.  Our original plan involved a recon of the games section at the massive Yodobashi Camera store, picking up an Apple TV at Bic Camera, and lunch. But what I should have learned by now is that in combat, nothing ever goes as planned...

In this PC Gamer Protip, Senior Editor Evan Lahti divulges our strategies for successful sniping in high-realism WWII shooter Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. Whether or not the challenge of RO2's large-scale territory battles is for you, many of these long-range combat tactics apply to any shooter with big guns and scopes. And if you love sniping as much as we do (despite what might be said about our ilk by less-precise soldiers), it's just tons of fun to watch 200 meter beheadings. Watch the introduction above, and run through our complete course in the videos inside...