Genres

At the heart of every Walking Dead story is the disintegration of humanity and the ultimate loss of innocence: when civilization is stripped away, the world turns into a cruel, dark place where death becomes the only place to be safe. With their single-handed resurrection (and revolution) of the point-and-click adventure genre, Telltale Games' Walking Dead: Season 1 delivered one of the most harrowing, emotional gaming experiences in recent memory - showing the TV show (and reminding the comic) how to tell a heart-wrenching (but satisfying) narrative in the ...

The combat in Dark sucks. By extension, this means almost all of Dark sucks, as it's built, by and large, around this idea of combat. You see, it's a little known fact that vampires can only clumsily walk up to enemies, bash them over the head or suck their blood, making loud slurping noises like granny at Christmas and alert everybody within a five mile radius.

One of the most well-received games of 2010, Limbo was one of the signature XBLA releases that established it as a legitimate digital platform. Quiet and haunting, Limbo's puzzles and ethereal setting challenged gamers to find their own way, devoid of traditional storytelling devices and control tutorials. The game's experience was about dark wonder and discovery: and this week, Playdead's first title found its way onto the iPad.

Every spoiled little rich kid has wanted to grab a slingshot and destroy his house while shooting at all the members of his family, right? Okay, so I guess I have no idea. The creators of Naughty Boy decided that this seemed like a decent premise for an iOS game, and they went for it. It's completely ridiculous, but who doesn't want to destroy a mansion armed with only a slingshot?

Pester is a top-scrolling shoot 'em up where you fly your ship against tons of enemy fighters, dodging an occasionally absurd amount of enemy fire, grabbing power-ups and wiping out as much alien scum as you can before you lose all your lives. It's as simple a concept as it ever was, with the arrow buttons controlling your movement.

While not without its hangups, Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition is a solid fighter that takes the franchise back to its roots while pushing it forward at the same time. The fantastic campaign, combos that require more skill than luck and clever new additions not only make this one of the best Mortal Kombats in years, but it's also one of the best fighters on PC.

Final Fantasy VII is a classic. Its story, its score, its mechanics - for many this was the game that defined what RPGs should be. With another re-release, this time on Steam, Square Enix proves time is no barrier to a decent game, although a little polish might serve to get rid of the dust.

Painkiller: Hell and Damnation is an arena shooter not entirely unlike Unreal Tournament or Quake. It's a corner of the FPS genre that's been ignored in mainstream shooters for the vast majority of this generation, with the exception of Unreal Tournament 3, which VGChartz tells me only sold around a million units on consoles, and Serious Sam, a franchise which has evened out at around the 60-70 mark on Metacritic.

Contra Evolution Introduction Remakes are a finicky endeavor; nostalgic gamers might enjoy updated graphics and sound with their favorite old titles, but messing with classic gameplay elements is a big no-no. For others, remakes are an opportunity to make an old game better, taking the framework and name of the original and dressing it up with modern game mechanics. Contra: Evolution – which finally released in the App Store this week after debuting in China a few months earlier –…

Garfield has eaten too much - as always - and has decided that he needs to take a nap - as always. He's not likely to get an easy sleep, however, because as soon as his head hits the pillow, he's transported to a mysterious dream world where he can fly by flapping his arms, collect flying lasagne, dodge UFOs and pay exuberant prices for costumes that don't actually matter. Welcome to Garfield's Wild Ride.