When you tire of trolls, elves leave you empty, and ancient nameless horrors only elicit a yawn, there’s nothing quite so renewing as a good bout of role-playing in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian near-future where the only magic is the death that your boom-stick rains upon the legions of mutant abominations that roam a fractured landscape.

I am speaking, of course, of the Fallout series. Perhaps the most cathartic role-playing game ever to grace a pixel, the series’ combination of skills-based battle, state-of-the-art (for the time) graphics, and darkly humorous storylines is a breath of fresh air in a genre that takes itself entirely too seriously. (more…)

I recently tried an early beta version of what Turbine Inc. and Midway Games Inc. hope will be the next big thing in online role-playing games – Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. While this was a limited-access beta test meant to gauge server performance (the open beta test doesn’t start until the end of March), the platform was solid, the graphics were awesome and the overall gaming experience, while enjoyable, will be nothing new to the millions of players already addicted to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. (more…)

I have to come clean – I am a sucker for strategy games and for anything involving space. Combine these two things in a single game and I’m there. Do it really well and I will be your game’s devoted love slave for months and months. Galactic Civilizations II: The Dread Lords ($44.95) is a space- exploring, alien- encountering, civilization- managing, combat- simulating, strategy game that combines all these disparate elements effectively – even elegantly – into a single glorious game. (more…)