PC Features

Diablo III may look awesome, but it’ll be quite some time before the franchise that redefined the dungeon crawling genre hits store shelves. In the meantime, Sacred 2 continues to look like a sweet sequel for lovers of leveling up and loot. We recently scored an exclusive sneak peek at the Dryad, one of the new classes lined up for Sacred 2. Scroll on for some fresh screenshots and a first look at her deadly skills.

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Remember when killing monsters repeatedly for loot wasn’t called “grinding” and was actually really fun? Leveling up before the rise of MMOs never felt like a chore, but Sacred 2 looks like it might return a bit of that old school charm to the dungeon crawler genre post Diablo 2 and Titan Quest.

Mario is a cultural phenomenon. Final Fantasy is epic. Resident Evil, Fallout, Diablo... all of these classic franchises will eventually be tossed away, but they won't be stamped with expiration dates anytime in the foreseeable future.

Other franchises started growing mold before they even left the grocery store shelves.

The somehow-less-inspired franchises may sell millions, contain lovable

Mario is a cultural phenomenon. Final Fantasy is epic. Resident Evil, Fallout, Diablo... all of these classic franchises will eventually be tossed away, but they won't be stamped with expiration dates anytime in the foreseeable future.

Other franchises started growing mold before they even left the grocery store shelves.

The somehow-less-inspired franchises may sell millions, contain lovable

Some characters are just doomed to die in games. It seems the Nazis were born to wear sharp uniforms and chow down on your bullets like a tasty bratwurst. Cops are always destined to get blown up by your rocket launcher a day before retirement. And the sole purpose of videogame zombies is to have Piñata-style heads that explode with the slightest contact – just replace the tasty treats with festering bits of frontal

Saints Row 2 is not a better game than Grand Theft Auto IV. Let’s just get that out of the way now. Its action isn’t too deep, its story is kind of stupid and it’s nowhere near as immersive as the game that its detractors will accuse it of copying. The reality, though, is that Saints Row 2 isn’t trying to be GTA IV at all. In fact, it seems specifically designed for people who hate GTA IV.

Looking for a game you can play with your friends? We’ve dispatched our crack team of editors to sort through six of this holiday’s top games and deliver a verdict on the season’s best co-op offerings. For this feature we focused on high-profile shooters and action games, because it doesn’t really make sense to compare Animal Crossing or LittleBigPlanet to Gears of War or Call of Duty.

When did professional darts players attain to the status of WWE stars, playing to stadiums full of screaming fans and strutting into the place with an effing intro? Bluster aside, there is no way that holding a Wii remote like a dart is “realistic.”

Yes it’s 4/20, which, among other, less whimsical anniversaries, is the day to celebrate marijuana, bros! WOOOOO! As the urban legend goes, 4:20 p.m. was the time of day that high schoolers would light up after a long day of class. Ever since, it has been seen as the correct time of the day to inhale, hold your breath, exhale and follow up with pizza rolls, Facts of Life reruns, and maybe videogames.

Saints Row was never the most serious franchise, as its greatest positives are just how insane, profane, and jokey the titles are. The third game promises the return of pimps, speedos, urine, dildos and even more irreverence than we can predict. On the show floor of E3 2011, we picked the brain of one of the guys behind the series to see just what’s going down in the Row...