by Raymond Knott Few bands have been able to achieve the widespread acclaim and notoriety that Ladytron enjoys while simultaneously managing to avoid the watering down that comes with attaining huge commercial success. Touring with such a varied lineup, including Brian Eno, Nine Inch Nails, The Presets, Simian, Franz Ferdinand, and The Faint, even doing production work for Christina Aguilera,...

Dead Island By Techland, Deep Silver Genre: First-person survival horror RPG Multiplayer: up to 4 players! Rating: Mature for Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol The beautiful tropical island resort of Banoi has recently gotten a whole lot deadlier… The relentless hordes of the undead have somehow cropped up here on this...

Velvet Assassin By Replay Studios and SouthPeak Games Genre: Third-person sneaker Rating: Mature for Blood, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Drugs Back during World War II, Violette Szabo was a British secret agent in charge of a French Resistance in Nazi-occupied France. She performed two covert ops missions before being captured, interrogated and executed in early 1945. That’s what...

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Classic TV has long been one of my loves, including this gem, which is available both on DVD and through Netflix! The story goes like this: Begun in 1988 on a local cable-access channel in Minnesota by writer and comedian Joel Hodgson, and friends Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, Patrick Brantseg and Jim Mallon, this...

Paul Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and the voice of Seth Rogen Genre: Sci-fi comedy Rating: R for language including sexual references, and some drug use Around 70 or so years ago, an alien crash-landed on Earth, and after being the guest of our government for as many years, decided to escape. He finds the perfect companions to help him...

Devil May Cry series By Capcom One of the best console-to-PC ports of a popular game is currently available on Steam, so why not look at it and its prequels? This is the kind of twitch-action I can get into, similar to the previously-reviewed Bayonetta by the same creator; it’s got a great style, a wise-cracking protagonist and interesting supporting...

Deus Ex By Eidos/Square Enix Genre: First-person RPG Since 2000, there’s been one series of RPG with the deepest, most politically charged story, the most diverse means of game play, and the most intense high technology on display. That series is Deus Ex, named after the Latin term “Deus ex machina,” or ‘god from the machine.’ This series explores groups...

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom By Blue Byte, most recently distributed by Ubisoft Genre: Real-time strategy For almost twenty years, a German-based software company, Blue Byte, has been manufacturing some of the best-regarded “underdog” strategy titles, the Settlers series. This series, while it may have a storyline in some of its installments, and sure, a little combat, focuses...

HOARD By Big Sandwich Games Genre: Top-down Action-strategy Rated: Everyone for Fantasy Violence Downloadable Yet another independent title finds its way onto my computer, and like most others I’ve tried, this one is really great. You take control of a dragon! How awesome! And your goal is to amass more gold than all the other dragons. (It’s a competitive game...