There are games that are up there and on everyone’s radar – or indeed, in everyone’s face thanks to the large amount of marketing or advertising it gets (Halo 3 I’m looking at you) – games that everyone’s heard about and are looking forward to. But then there are games that slip under the radar completely – sleeper hits that somehow manage to miss the marketing train and instead come to your doorstep via bus.

Fracture is one of these games. Somehow I managed to miss all the marketing and road signs stating “TERRAIN DEFORMATION HERE” and being oblivious until the folks over at Penny Arcade mentioned it by putting up this video in their news. After seeing the rather viral excitement of the presenter, I realized that the Fracture demo had hit the XBL marketplace – the only logical action from this was to actually give it a run through. And let me tell you this: I’m really, really glad I did.

Hit the jump to find out why.

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My experience with the Real Time Strategy genre began not amongst the spice-filled hills of Dune II. Nor did it begin at the side of Kane, crushing my enemies under the Iron hand of NOD. No – it all began amidst the star-spangled banners of the allies, charging the front lines even as the colossal front of Soviet Mammoth Tanks pushed forward against all that stood before it – be it tanks, helicopters or infantry. Such is the affection towards the game that if my heart were considered an Italian mafia restaurant, the best table would always be reserved for the boss of the place and his son, Red Alert 2. No other game – regardless of how powerful or good - would dare to eat at that table, lest find themselves at the bottom of the creek with their feet in cement blocks.

And yet today I find myself in a dilemma of sorts. When I was given the opportunity to partake in the Red Alert 3 beta thanks to the bossman, I was nothing short of elated and excited. To finally see the continuation of the series and the third installment – to relive part of that experience along with something more – it was and still is an exciting opportunity. However… I seemed to have fallen into a trap.

There is something I try to keep reminding myself everyday: to stop falling prey to hype, flashy banners and pimped-out sites. Unfortunately, those constant reminders failed with Red Alert 3 (RA3) as I got into my sub and dived into the beta, completely ignoring the warning signs along the way. By the time I emerged back from the murky depths, my impressions of the game had changed significantly – both for better and for worse.

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Having a wallet so empty that tiny bats had taken up residence inside, I was faced with a difficult choice of purchases today. Having to choose between Battlefield: Bad Company, GRID or finally, Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360 was a gut-wrenching decision – one that was nearly impossible to make.

Finally, against much beating over the head by my brother (and partially to spite him) who wanted to play Battlefield, I decided to pick up Civilization Revolution. After a day of playing with it and then the Battlefield demo, all I can say that it was the right decision.

Hit the jump to read more.

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There’s a heck of a discussion going around these days about how the PC as a gaming platform is dying. Some people – foul heretics, no doubt – have gone so far as to even suggest that PC Gaming is “dead” or that its future is “bleak” at best thanks to rampant piracy. One might tend to believe such people – until you realize that almost all of them are, or are deeply associated with, the major game publishers in some form or the other; or alternatively, are rabid console fan boys.

I honestly don’t know where these people are pulling their numbers from or getting the feeling of PC Gaming being dead. If these figures are coming from traditional market sales at Walmart and the gaming stores, maybe one could understand. This of course fails to recognize the not-insignificant number of sales that are going online these days. With services like Steam, Stardock, or even Amazon and Ebay, there’s really little incentive to go to the games store or to deal with annoying stupid staff that always manages to screw up your experience somehow and thus might result in the low numbers that people are claiming to see.

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I’m sure by now that many of you have already probably heard the news of Jack Thompson’s fiasco in the Florida court, which would most likely result in him being debarred from practicing law for ten years. That’s right. Count it on both hands, baby – 10 Jack Thompson free years! I’d like to feel a little bit of joy and more than well-deserved feeling of “Finally!”, but I can’t help but feel a sad bit of pity for him now.

Judging by the objections he filed with the court (which had refused to let him read it out), and the wild claims he made about the Judge Dava Tunis before walking out of his own hearing it’s quite clear that the he missed the Sanity train not once, but probably twice in a row. The entire fiasco was quite pathetic and pitiful, and I have to wonder how the hell he ever got to be a lawyer in the first place.

Still, as a gamer, it’s a relief to hear such news and see such an anti-gaming extremist out of the picture… but as a human being, I can’t help but be naturally curious. What hatred could drive this man into willingly jumping into the seas of insanity? What reasoning does he holds against gaming – that which is essentially an indoor extension of the physical activities and games of make-believe we once played as children?

Could it be he really feared that playing such violent games like Quake, Doom and the like made us naturally more violent? Well, does it?

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If there’s one publisher/developer out there that I love and respect almost as much as Valve or Westwood (R.I.P.), it’s gotta be Stardock. The folks there are a right decent bunch, having published a fair few decent games (Galactic Civilizations, mostly though) without going into all the copyrighting bullshit that’s bogged many a game company down. Thus when it was time for Sins of a Solar Empire to be released, I made it a point to pick up the game - out of principle, if nothing else.
Sins is probably the only game out in the market (other than Total Annihilation) that for all intents and purposes has beaten Supreme Commander at its own game. However, it’s not faultless. While Sins promises much, it fails to deliver on a whole.

Hit the jump below to find out more.

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If you haven’t guessed already, this week’s feature deals with the Best Real-Time Strategy Games of all time. Clearly it’s something incredibly hard to decide, especially considering just how many awesome Strategy games that are out there right now, not counting eternal classics that have withstood the test of time to this day. No, I’m not talking about ancient pieces of history like Dune II or Civilization. Indeed, for a long time the only seeming piece of strategy a computer was considered to exhibit was a simple (yet incredibly complex) game of Chess.Chess was where it all began; simple white vs black, a set piece of units and a board to play on. Many early Strategy games were surprisingly, simply digital versions of Chess. Back then, whole computers were dedicated to making veritable opponents for human players and for a while it was truly the first ‘Strategy’ game for what was considered ‘digital media’ way back in the 1960s and ’70s. This, of course, has been ever changing up to the more recent (and more famous) Deep Blue and its prodigious cousins. Granted, the entire thing would be considered more of a console Strategy Game if you want to be a technical bitch – but they are Strategy Games nonetheless.

Of course we aren’t here to discuss centuries old games that have withstood the test of time. No, we’re here to discuss the very best of RTS games – the ones that have excelled in game play, story and/or just sheer awesomeness that allows them to stand out amongst the crowd of copy-cats that inhabit most genres these days. Without further ado, on with the show!

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