Developer: Spiderweb Software First released: May 2, 2011 Mac App Store release: March 27, 2011 Steam release: August 17, 2011 Gog.com release: February 5, 2013
A sprawling open-world isometric RPG, where you build a party of adventurers and uncover a plot to destroy the alliance…
Arkham Asylum sees you take the role of the eponymous Batman. Skilled at hand-to-hand combat, as well as wielding high-tech gadgets and even doing some detective work, the game sees you donning the Batcape and trying to regain control of the titular asylum, now overrun with various criminals, including of course, Batman's arch-enemy, The Joker.
As a sequel to an astonishingly good game, Arkham City manages to do the impossible, delivering a game that improves on every aspect of the original whilst keeping a firm grip on what made it so good in the first place.
Taken on its own merit, Beat Hazard is a reasonably good time, a shoot-em-up that you'd expect to find in any arcade in the early 90s. Having levels created from particular songs elevates it to being something you must own if you enjoy the genre. You can enjoy the irony of shooting things in space whilst listening to the Star Wars theme, or take a more surreal approach and enjoy the irony of shooting things in space whilst listening to some Gospel music. The possibilities are truly endless.
A tactical turn-based roguelike where you take control of a squad of customisable mechs, and must build up your forces for an inevitable confrontation with a robotic enemy.
Billed as "the spiritual successor to System Shock"*, Bioshock features weak gunplay, heavy scripting, and not particularly inspired RPG elements. Forget all of that though, because the art direction, sound and lighting design and storyline make it a wonderful experience, and worthy of its predecessor.
A critically-acclaimed first-person shooter featuring similar gameplay mechanics and themes to previous BioShock games, BioShock Infinite takes place in the flying city of Columbia.
Developer: Amanita Design First released: April 19, 2012 Mac App Store release: April 19, 2012 Steam release: April 19, 2012 Gog.com release: October 18, 2012
Amanita Design is well known for its Samarost and Machinarium games. The unique, hand-drawn art style applied to an easy to grasp point-and-click adventure game has been successful for them so far, and Botanicula is no exception.
Packed full of ideas, a great cast and a head-banging soundtrack, Brütal Legend seems simply too awesome to go wrong. But like a one-man-band at a Heavy Metal concert, the end result is a confusing mess of different noises, none of which are what you paid for.
Developer: infinity Ward Publisher:Aspyr First released: November 5, 2007 Mac App Store release: January 12, 2011 Steam release: June 6, 2013
Taking the classic Call of Duty first-person shooter series in a new direction, Modern Warfare puts the player in control of a number of different characters in its single-player campaign, as well as introducing new features to multiplayer games.