BioShock 2 had you playing a lumbering Big Daddy in search of the Little Sister you were meant to protect. Minerva’s Den is a separate story for the same game: you play a different Big Daddy with a different goal. You’re looking for The Thinker, a punchcard-driven artificial intelligence developed to run Rapture’s automated systems.

That means you start from scratch, in terms of weapons and abilities, but they come fast enough for you to quickly tool up for the play style you like. The additions to the combat formula are all worthwhile, but don’t change it dramatically. That means it’s still creative and fun, but doesn’t feel refreshingly new.

There’s a Gravity Well plasmid that sucks enemies into a singularity and spits them back out – entertaining, but a pretty slow way of dealing with the least dangerous enemies. And the new Ion Laser weapon is a very straightforward damage-dealer, as is the new Big Daddy type that uses it.

The most enjoyable novelties are the new security bots: firing rockets, lasers and electricity. When hacked to follow you around, the electricity one is a hilarious and handy companion, repeatedly shocking your enemies so you can take your time with their fate.

Minerva’s Den takes around five hours to play, and the story is intriguing and substantial. It’s also focused: there’s almost no peripheral backstory lying around, every audio diary you find is a piece of the puzzle.

Accordingly, it asks you to do more exploring than the main BioShock games. Most areas are large hubs with no clearly marked goals, riddled with Adam, Tonics and Plasmids to upgrade your abilities.

For the most part that’s great, but you’ll occasionally hit a dead end and be unsure how far you’re supposed to backtrack, or what you’re looking for. And if you miss a major audio diary, the plot makes less sense.

Not that it makes perfect sense even if you don’t, of course – it involves powerful ideas, but operates under the same magical logic by which a secret city on the ocean bed is a viable thing. The main thrust of the plot requires a credulity leap of that kind, which is a shame, but it doesn’t prevent the game being engrossing.

As with both BioShock games, the antagonist isn’t nearly as convincing or interesting as the conflicted characters along the way, and his taunting wears thin. But Minerva’s Den is more consistently engaging than BioShock 2, because the meat of the story isn’t diluted by a lot of empty philosophy. The sting in its tail isn’t quite as potent as either of its predecessors, but it’s a satisfying ending once you make sense of it.

One warning: you need to buy the DLC through Games for Windows Live, even if you didn’t get BioShock 2 from there. Once it’s downloaded, run BioShock 2 normally and find it under Extras.

Aargh, me hearties. Aargh. In almost every way, Lego Pirates is one of the best of the Lego Whatever series, from its swaggering Jack Sparrow to the epic range of locations from the movies.

Its cute, mimed retellings of these are genuinely funny. Even the traditionally very basic combat feels oddly satisfying as cartoon swordfighting, greatly helped by excellent battle themes straight from the original movie soundtracks. The main problems are, as ever, that the Lego series shows as much interest in changing its formula as the Chuckle Brothers, and anything that’s annoyed you about previous games will still be here. The puzzles are still about smashing everything until you find the relevant hidden object. The AI remains dreadful. Where Lego Pirates takes a step up is in its level design and humour, which both gel perfectly with the movies’ style and characters, and provide some amazing set-pieces.

Unfortunately, as entertaining as all this is, Lego Pirates is one of the dodgiest ports in recent memory, with the longest loading times. Getting into the game takes minutes, as does waiting for individual levels and their many cutscenes. There’s still no online support for the two-player mode, and – at least at the time of writing – good luck even finding the PC version in a shop, although it’s available at Play.com etc.

When Jack gets repeatedly slapped in the face by his crew, then kicked hard in the balls for good measure, it’s hard not to sympathise. The only difference is that you haven’t done anything to deserve it, except choose to play his game on PC.

Think of Beep as a quantum physicist wearing tie-dye trousers: it’s clever with the physics, but not so easy on the eyes.

It’s a 2D platform game where you control a little robot on wheels, or Wall-E as forged by Korean merchandisers. You visit different planets in a solar system (there’s a cute level selection menu with a rocket) to collect chunks of flaming gold rock. These rocks unlock more levels and more planets, but as always, it’s a little more complicated than it sounds.

Through the 24 short levels you’ll have to dodge the attacks of robots, blast lasers and most cleverly use your antigravity beam to move bits of the environment around. For example: plucking a square of desert and dropping it to block an invisible laser, then carrying it with you to climb higher. Or moving separate pieces of environment around like those old picture slider puzzles. You even have to pile up the carcasses of your enemies occasionally. Death to the robot traitors! Early on the real challenge is getting used to the mouse-and-WASD setup in a 2D environment, but only because it’s sensitive like a pimply drama student called Malcolm.

The levels span swamp lands, desert, dark caves and ice, but there’s a distinct lack of eye candy on offer unless blocks coloured in slightly different colours are your idea of visual sherbert. There are some nice puzzles, but the looks lack that final slick of lipstick and blusher: they’re bright, but ultimately boring and too simple. The Undergarden has the same style of 2D puzzling and platforming, but with more originality

Guardian of Light finds Lara deep in the Yucatan peninsula having just located yet another powerful MacGuffin. This particular item releases a nasty old demon, and soon Lara is off on his trail through the Mayan jungle. One of the best things about Guardian of Light is that it makes exploration enjoyable and rewarding. The levels are lush and moody, beckoning you onward with thoughtful details. Though your primary objectives are always straightforward, the levels vary widely in terms of length and layout, mixing long, multistage puzzles with dramatic moments of desperate action. Fully exploring every level is an unqualified pleasure, and aside from the natural thrill of discovering the unknown, there are many tangible rewards for thorough players.

Some of these rewards are immediate, like new guns, skill-enhancing artifacts, and health and ammo power-ups. Others, like red skulls and score-boosting gems, help you complete the many challenges each level has to offer. Rewards for high scores and speed runs are offered on every level, usually in addition to an array of level-specific challenges. These include finding hidden symbols throughout the level, passing a dangerous section on your first try, or perching a giant stone ball on top of a pedestal using explosives. Challenges are enjoyably varied, and completing every challenge in a level the first time through is extremely tough, if not impossible. Fortunately, Guardian of Light makes it fun to replay levels, and the challenges that fuel this replayability always seem tantalizingly within reach. Striving for a high score and speeding through for a quick completion time are two very different yet very entertaining ways to play, and even though you can get through many levels quickly, there are hours and hours of adventuring to be had here.

Of course, Lara Croft’s brand of archaeology involves more bullets than brushes, so expect to be gunning down plenty of enemies in your quest. The simple combat controls make maneuvering nimbly and shooting accurately a breeze, provided you are using a gamepad. The keyboard and mouse controls aren’t precise enough to handle some of the acrobatics, notably jumping at odd angles between small platforms. Though you can tough it out and progress through the game, the action is much more enjoyable with a controller. To help maximize your fiend-vanquishing potential, you can equip a few weapons at a time for slick, instantaneous access. You find or earn a large variety of pistols, shotguns, rifles, and heavy weapons, as well as artifacts that you can equip to bestow boosts to your basic battle attributes. When Lara does sufficiently well in combat without taking damage, her power meter fills up and eventually grants her a special ability. These abilities, which are governed by your equipped relic, include a powerful attack boost, enhanced speed, or, if you’re lucky, a combination of a few powers. Keeping your power meter full requires that you avoid taking any damage, but it’s key to completing high score challenges (you earn more points per vanquished enemy). This helps make combat more than just pointing and shooting, and the variety of enemies you encounter encourages you to make good use of your arsenal.

While all of your weapons, artifacts, and relics are effective, they are not all created equal. Some deplete your ammunition supply faster than others, and it’s fun to search for new weapons while sticking with your favorites. One of those favorites is probably going to be your spear. Aside from sticking into enemies with a satisfying thwack, this weapon can stick into walls, where the light-footed Lara can use it as a platform to reach higher areas or traverse dangerous pits. Another favorite is likely to be your remote-detonated bombs, which, in addition to the obvious applications, are used in a variety of different environmental puzzles.

Whether you encounter them in the normal course of the level, through diligent exploration, or in one of the many challenge tombs, these puzzles are another big highlight of the game. They use Lara’s skills in conjunction with environmental elements in a variety of clever and surprising ways. Using Lara’s grappling rope to rappel down a cliff seems straightforward enough, but add in some moving pillars, and you’ve got something a bit trickier. Maneuvering large stone balls onto pressure pads is simple; using bombs to accurately propel large stone balls through the air requires a lot more precision. Whether the challenge lies in executing a particular action or just figuring out what to do, you won’t want to leave any of these engaging puzzles unsolved.

Between exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving, there’s a lot to enjoy as a solo player in Guardian of Light. But team up with a friend to play cooperatively, and you’ve got a whole new set of challenges. While one of you plays as Lara, the other plays as Totec, a muscular ancient Mayan. Though Totec’s voice actor is hammy and unpleasant, you are subjected to his voice only during the rare cutscenes that string along the equally cheesy and forgettable plot. The action is the star here, and when you play cooperatively, the game changes in significant ways. Totec is the only one who wields the aforementioned spear, but unlike Lara, he can’t stand on it. To get him to higher ground, Lara must lend a hand with her grappling rope. Totec also carries a shield that can be used to reflect enemy projectiles or provide a makeshift platform for Lara to leap from. Totec can also wield firearms, though he lacks Lara’s magical pistols of unlimited ammunition.

The two must combine their abilities to solve puzzles that are different from the single-player puzzles in crucial ways. Solving these cleverly altered conundrums and fighting the emboldened hordes of enemies makes for a very fun time, providing you can get someone over to your house to play with you. The entertaining mix of exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is perfectly matched with enticing rewards and engaging challenges that will have you tripping over yourself to replay levels again and again, especially if online leaderboard competition is your cup of tea. Cooperative play makes this adventure even more enjoyable, and though the disappointing lack of online support may sting for weeks to come, it shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this impressive arcade adventure.

Darksiders comes to the PC from consoles unchanged. Therefore, you hit the ground running, destroying rampaging fiends by slicing them with your gigantic sword, throwing vehicles at them, and morphing into a giant flaming form capable of swatting demons about like flies. You also discover one of the game’s simple but savory joys: the manner in which locking on to an enemy zooms the camera in and the viewing area narrows to give the action a widescreen, cinematic flair. This is an especially effective touch when you perform one of the game’s barbaric finishing moves, a possibility when you have whittled down an enemy’s health and the appropriate prompt appears above its head. All this, while a colossal beast marches through a crumbling city suffering from the torment of a battle between the armies of heaven and hell. It’s a grand and entertaining opening that sets the stage for an enjoyable adventure stuffed with vibrant swordplay, as well as rousing cutscenes in which hammy actors compete to discover who can chew the most scenery.

It doesn’t take long for the story to devolve into absurdity. War doesn’t have the cavalier charm of Devil May Cry’s Dante or the smoldering gravitas of God of War’s Kratos–easy comparisons to make, given the combat’s similarity to those two action classics. The tale is too simple and predictable to get you invested in his fate, but there’s a sincerity to the self-conscious dialogue and its robust delivery that gives the proceedings a whimsical appeal. That appeal is furthered by the game’s muscular character models, grotesque monsters, and swelling soundtrack. Rivers of lava give off a vivid glow, and corroding cliffs rise above you, all part of a vision that indeed seems to look to the book of Revelation as its primary inspiration. While the cutscenes look a bit too pixelated in comparison to the action’s sharper look, Darksiders’ striking art style makes it easy to look at–though distracting screen tearing will have you rushing to turn on V-sync in the visual options. Unfortunately, you won’t find many other options there, outside of screen brightness. If the game has trouble keeping up with your PC, you won’t be able to turn any settings down; conversely, if you want to clean up some of the aliasing and blurry textures, you are out of luck.

Once the combat draws you in, however, you probably aren’t going to worry too much about Darksiders’ noticeable console roots. The executions are violent and satisfying, and the cinematic lock-on adds extra thrills, but battles are more than just fun to look at: they are fun to play. War’s primary weapon has a good sense of weight, making even the simple skirmishes of the first hour a blast. In time, your repertoire of moves and special skills evolves immensely. You purchase new combos, slot in enhancements, and can even use an additional weapon–a scythe that feels even more ponderous than its counterpart. Add to these options a horse to summon, flight sequences, and a spinning blade to toss, and you have a game loaded with combat variety. You execute flying beasts in a rewarding sequence of consecutive leaps, shoot beams of energy at descending hosts of angels, and lock wits with a number of exciting bosses. There is a clear sense of growth that comes from gaining combat upgrades and new skills, and the game follows suit by introducing you to stronger and more agile enemies.

On the flip side, this “everything but the kitchen sink” approach betrays Darksiders’ clear appropriation of other games’ signature mechanics and makes for some unwieldy controls by the time you reach the final hours. The combat recalls that of several beloved action games, but the ransacking doesn’t end there. By the time you earn a device that more than evokes Valve Software’s classic Portal, it’s hard not to imagine a development team talking about how cool these other things in other games were, and throwing in everything they could to see what would stick. Yet there’s clear expertise in the way these ideas are gradually stirred into this admittedly heavy mixture. No one feature is relied on for too long, and diverse enemy patterns make every move a useful one. The feature creep is more noticeable in the increasingly elaborate controls. Certain moves require a surprising number of button or key presses, and you eventually spend more than enough time in the game’s cumbersome menus swapping items and skills about. You may also experience occasions in which your jumps don’t register the way you expect, and War goes plummeting into a yawning abyss or a pool of scorching lava, among other platforming and climbing peculiarities.

In addition to its other inspirations, Darksiders echoes the modern Legend of Zelda games, both in the way the world is structured and in the prevalence of extended puzzle sequences. The world is amazingly large, and once you explore certain key areas, you can travel to them quickly through the game’s network of wormholes. You access this network by visiting Vulgrim, a delightfully snide rascal with a sneering voice and an ever-increasing array of moves and goodies to purchase. Once you’re done dealing with this dastardly demon, it’s off to the next mass of monsters–and to the next substantial puzzle that stands between you and the next explorable area. Most of these puzzles are excellent and challenging in just the right way, requiring both a bit of thought and clever use of your weapons and the environment. Progressing may involve using your throwing blade to light sequences of torches in order to ignite a bomb, moving around statues and activating crystals, and plastering portals on crucial surfaces. A long puzzle sequence near the end halts the pace more than it should have, but overall, the environmental dilemmas are a nice respite from the constant rush of gushing ogres.

You can play Darksiders with a keyboard and mouse, but the combo-heavy action is best experienced with a controller, as you may expect for a game that looks to console standards as its primary inspiration. But while developer Vigil Games purloined most of its ideas from other games, it chose from the best of the best and mixed them into a package overloaded with variety and sensory pleasures. That overload manifests itself in Darksiders’ convoluted controls, but the game introduces new mechanics so evenly that they won’t often interfere with your demon-dicing satisfaction. The platform deserved more tender loving care in the way of graphics options (and a little additional content in the way of Devil May Cry 4 and Jade Empire wouldn’t have hurt). Nevertheless, a great game is a great game, and Darksiders is a fun, flashy, and altogether entertaining look at the final clash between the pearly gates’ platoons and the legions of the damned.

First, here is a quick primer for newcomers. Civilization V, like previous games in the series, is about leading a nation through the eras of history, starting with a single city and expanding across the map. At the outset of any given game, you select a leader (in this case, one of 18, or 19 if you purchased the special edition from Steam), each of whom possesses a particular benefit that disposes his or her civilization to a particular style of play. Americans get a range of sight bonus; the Siamese get diplomatic bonuses with miniature nations new to the series called city-states; the English get naval perks; and so forth. From here, you collect resources; make deals with other civilizations; manage your economy; and go to war and attack the cities of your enemies when the time is right. There are four main ways to win a typically lengthy game of Civilization V. You could dominate through military means and defeat every civilization’s capital city. You could be the first to gun through the technology tree and build the parts necessary for a spaceship that whisks you away to Alpha Centauri. You could ally with nations and city-states across the globe and win a diplomatic victory via a vote at the United Nations. Or you might become the cultural envy of the world by developing a large number of government policies and researching a mysterious undertaking known as the Utopia Project. There is also a fifth victory condition: possess the highest score when the turn limit has been reached.

Whether Civ is new to you or not, it’s easy to appreciate the newest game’s user-friendly interface, which makes figuring out what to do next a breeze, meaning more of your time is spent strategizing and less of it is spent fumbling around. The organized nested menus are intuitive and easy to get used to, and Civ V does a good job of only displaying vital information on the screen while making other information easily available with just a few clicks. A single action button leads you through every aspect of your turn. If a unit is waiting for orders, the button says so, and clicking it takes you to the unit in question. If it’s time to research a new technology, you click the button and it opens the research menu. There are a few aspects of the interface that could have been cleaned up. Switching between a city’s production menu and the production queue is needlessly clunky, and the diplomatic overview doesn’t label the tiny icons indicating what luxury resources other civilizations are producing. But most of the time, you always have the information you need when you need it, and neophytes should never feel in the dark.

A few of Civilization IV’s features have been eliminated–most notably, religion and espionage–though many players aren’t likely to miss them. However, longtime aspects of the series have returned. Your advisors are there if you need a bit of direction, though unit automation and little icons representing each advisor’s suggestion in the production menus mean you won’t often need to pay them a visit. The exhaustive Civilopedia is only a click away and offers a wealth of information on every aspect of every feature. You still build wonders like the Egyptian pyramids, the hanging gardens, and the Great Wall, which generate the culture resource and provide other tangible benefits, without coming with the turn-by-turn maintenance cost of standard structures. The culture you gain is spent on social policies, which have replaced the governments of Civilization IV. Each time you reach the cultural resource benchmark, you select from the policy list, which is split into multiple policy types, each of which has its own sub-tree. The benefits you reap are cumulative, and while there are certain balancing restrictions in place, you still get a lot of freedom in how you want to progress. The mid- and late-game flexibility make it an excellent addition to the franchise. The first change you’ll notice, however, has even more impact on Civilization V: The map is divided into hexagons rather than squares.

The move to hexagons sets the stage for Civilization V’s tactical combat. In the past, you could stack units into one army of doom (or a few armies) that rolled across the map. Now, with the exception of special units (the great general, for example) and workers, units cannot occupy the same space. As a result, you must be extremely conscious of each unit’s weaknesses and strengths; a unit’s position in regards to both its enemies and other friendly units; and whether or not any terrain bonuses apply. There is a rock-paper-scissors relationship among units that further deepens as units level up and you progress through the eras. When units level up, you choose one of several upgrades for them, such as an attack bonus when attacking from flat terrain. As they level up further, the possibilities expand, which means healing bonuses for the unit, as well as neighboring units, or greater degrees of the same enhancements. Helpfully, you can also choose to fully heal the unit when it levels at the expense of choosing another bonus, which is a mighty handy ability that can save a veteran unit from the jaws of defeat. This excellent new system layers tactical combat onto the strategic map, making battles much tenser–and much less abstract. It also encourages you to keep your veteran units alive. And while it costs you a bit of gold, you can also upgrade units into more powerful iterations (a trebuchet into a cannon, for example) when your research path allows it.

That sounds complex, but it’s extremely simple to keep track of battles in Civilization V. When you hover over your intended victim, you get a quick preview of the likely outcome of battle, though a preview won’t tell you of other potential consequences. You might win the battle but move into range of a city’s defenses or next to a squad of riflemen prepared to defeat you. In fact, similar points could be made about most of Civilization V: It’s complex enough to support all of your schemes, but it’s easy to interact with it. Veterans who are into micromanagement and like to plan at a snail’s pace can manage every worker’s actions, select an automated focus for each city’s citizens (gold, culture, and so forth), and control each scout’s moves hex by hex. But if you’d rather concentrate on the broader aspects of your strategy, you can leave a lot of these actions to the AI, which does a mostly creditable job of doing the right things at the right time.

Nevertheless, you do need to keep an eye on automated processes. Minor civilizations called city-states are one of Civilization V’s newer additions. While you need an open-border agreement to pass freely through the territories of other civilizations, you may pass through a neutral city-state’s borders without such a treaty, though city-states that aren’t friendly to you will take offense at trespassing. Units set to automatically explore will think nothing of passing through neutral territory. The damage to the relationship is small, but it’s still an annoyance to get a notification that you’ve irritated a city-state because your scouts weren’t conscious of the borders. A toggle to allow or disallow exploring units to pass through city-state borders would have been a helpful addition.

City-states may be partners to that particular pathfinding inconvenience, but they are overall a positive addition to the franchise, if not a dramatic one. You can interact with them, but only in limited ways. By offering them gold or units, you gain favor with them, becoming friends and perhaps allies with them. When friendly, you can move through city-states without consequence; when allies, they will join you in war, where they don’t have a lot of impact but can still ease some pressure. Money isn’t the only way to increase your standing with city-states. They will make various requests of you–build a road to them from your capital, defeat some barbarians, or take up arms against an enemy city-state, among others. Doing their bidding earns you favor, but it can have other outcomes as well. Genoa may want you to defeat Venice on its behalf, but should another civilization be protecting Venice, you might draw unintended ire. And if you get particularly aggressive, city-states may band together to try to defeat you.

Another purpose city-states serve is that they get a vote in the United Nations, making them helpful in winning a diplomatic victory if you work especially hard (and spend huge amounts of coin) to cultivate lasting relationships. If you are seeking this method to victory, you might be tempted early in the game to bring a city-state into your fold, but it’s a temptation you should avoid. Your relationships with city-states crumble if you don’t maintain them, and gold is too precious early in the game to waste your first 250 coins on a friendship that will dissolve within a few turns. In fact, diplomacy can occasionally feel a bit haphazard because of infrequent but noticeable AI oddities. You might request open borders in one turn and be flatly refused–only to have the same civilization propose the same agreement in the next. A weak nation might attack you and refuse your attempts to call for peace, only to sue for peace and gift you with a nice sum of gold and luxury resources a few turns later. As a rule, competing civilizations seem to favor war over harmony, which makes diplomacy feel a bit hollow. Furthermore, the descriptions of other leaders’ moods seen in Civ III and Civ IV have been dropped, so you’re not always sure of your standing with another civilization.

That isn’t to say, however, that diplomacy isn’t viable. Focusing on nonmilitary means can still inspire a well-deserved victory. Pushing through eras to win a scientific victory is particularly enjoyable; this is in part due to the well-balanced technology tree, which prevents you from gunning forward willy-nilly from one era to the next. Focusing on technology also has entertainment value, unlocking the game’s most powerful future-era unit–the giant death robot. (Nukes are fun; robots are even more fun.) But even if you want cultural or diplomatic victory, you can’t ignore the science resource. Structures you need or at the very least should have for other types of victories–the U.N. or the Sydney Opera House, for example–require planning and smart use of the tech tree. But this is the tightly balanced way of the Civilization series: Every action, unit, technology, and structure is tied to everything else. And it’s this balancing act, as well as the tweaks and on-the-fly adjustments you need to make, that keeps players so captivated.

You will also be captivated by Civilization V’s great looks and serene soundtrack. You may or may not miss Civilization IV’s glossy global view, but it’s hard not to be drawn in by the newer game’s sunny visuals. The great leaders of the world are particularly noteworthy. Montezuma announces his arrival from behind a bright flame while wearing an elaborate green headdress. Wu Zetian’s porcelain skin, silky garments, and icy glare are just as memorable. Each leader speaks in his or her native language, which is a wonderful touch. Elsewhere, waves lapping against the shores and exaggerated battle animations give flair to the strategic map; even the fluffy clouds indicating unexplored areas have a certain amount of class to them. The soundtrack is equally classy, made up of a wonderful array of understated orchestral tunes. Musical repetition is all too common in slow-paced strategy games. While tunes certainly repeat in Civilization V, the gorgeous and diverse classical mix here, featuring such composers as Dvorak, Mahler, and Grieg, as well as original music utilizing familiar themes, is unlikely to wear out its welcome.

In fact, Civilization V is not likely to wear out its welcome in general. Random maps, numerous civilizations, and many other options keep the game fresh time after time. If predictable behavior patterns start to bother you (the aggressiveness of the Aztecs, for example), then you can randomize civilization attitudes. If you tire of the early game, then you can start in a later era. Remove barbarians from the map or set a maximum number of turns, if you prefer. And as in Civilization IV, you can adjust the game speed to accommodate marathon sessions or quicker matches. (Though any given game is measured in hours, not minutes.) User-created mods are also likely to be a big part of Civilization V’s future, and it’s easy to download mods in the game menus. There are already a few available, including a great one that allows you to play on an array of real-world maps.

Multiplayer games are also a possibility for the most patient players. You can set a turn timer to limit how long players get to consider their next move, but even so, the pace is at the whim of those involved, so matches can get bogged down in the early hours. Luckily, most of the customization options available to you in single-player games are available in multiplayer games as well, so you can keep things moving with the right options activated. Gone are hotseat and e-mail play options, with online and local network play as the only ways to play with others. By nature, Civilization V is a game you enjoy most with friends instead of random strangers, though the simple interface makes it easy to find and join available Internet games. Should you want to limit your game to friends, you must invite them through the Steam overlay. (It’s too bad there is no button built into the in-game interface for friend invitations, as it would have been a nice user-friendly touch.) Nonetheless, games tend to move smoothly without any notable lag, though we did run into glitches while playing online. At several points, the action button refused to progress to an end turn prompt, forcing us to open a random menu for the match to continue. At other times, switching from the production menu to the production queue caused certain buttons to become unresponsive. (The random-menu fix was effective here as well.)

But those are tiny irritations in a fun and complex game bursting with joy and constant rewards. Sid Meier’s Civilization V sucks hour after hour of your day away, giving rise to plans of global conquest and thoughtful tactics. Of course, you could say the same of Civ games of the past, but what makes Civilization V a praiseworthy successor is how it changes up key elements of the franchise. The game’s core values–expansion, exploitation, exploration, extermination–are as strong as ever. But the newer tactical combat and addition of city-states give strategy veterans new ways of tackling their goals, while a friendly interface and expansive Civilopedia help newcomers get up to speed relatively quickly. There are a few aspects of Civilization V that could have used a bit more attention, but even as is, this is yet another classic edition to a series that consistently rewards and renovates. If you have even the remotest interest in worldwide domination, you owe it to yourself to get lost in one of the most rewarding turn-based games in years.

Two new mini-campaigns are the highlights. Because they get to the good stuff fast, both seem aimed at fans of previous King’s Bounty games who might not have had the time to devote untold hours to the massive core campaigns. The Champion of the Arena campaign ditches most story elements for an involving tactical experience where you take on one cataclysmic battle after another. Instead of trudging around for hours putting down lots of wolves, undead, goblins, and those funky plant things out of The Little Shop of Horrors, you go right for the gusto against eight towering bosses in the Thousand Emperors arena. You take on huge turtles, condo-size spiders, fat toads, and other ugly beasties that can’t even fit on the screen. You get showered with gold, runes, and experience points with every win, but combat is still no walk in the park. Relying solely on hacking and slashing will get you a quick ticket to loserville, so you have to know what you’re doing tactically and how to get the most out of spells and special unit abilities. If you don’t max out the damage inflicted by your troops on each turn, you lose. There is even some semblance of a plot here, as you can take time out between arena battles to get involved with various guilds of demons, tech-minded dwarves, undead, dull humans, and the like to expand on the roster of available troops.

The other new campaign, Defender of the Crown, is almost as enthralling, but in different ways. It is a more traditional King’s Bounty campaign and serves as an epilogue to Armored Princess, with Princess Amelie fighting through the land to earn the title of Defender of the Crown of Darion. The plot has been trimmed back, as has the size of the map, so battles come fast and furious in the countryside and in arenas. The randomly generated scraps are even crazier than those found in Champion of the Arena, with Amelie running into murderous mobs before she even gets out of the castle grounds. The whole campaign has been structured as one of those “best of the best” battle royal deals with everything stacked against you, even the terrain, since you often have to deal with things like laser traps, enemy-protecting walls, and spellcasting statues. At the same time, you never feel cheated, because the battles have been so cunningly structured that you always have a chance to win. All in all, it’s a fitting finale for Amelie that wraps up her original campaign with even tougher challenges. You probably don’t want to take these quests on until you’ve finished that campaign, however, because you need every ounce of experience earned from the original game to have even a slim chance of emerging victorious.

Other additions in Crossworlds are less headline-grabbing though still worthy enhancements to the core game. A “director’s cut” version of the Armored Princess campaign, called Orcs On the March, adds a pile of new units, items, spells, and quests. More of everything makes this the best way to experience the campaign if you’re a first-timer, although there might not be enough here to make it worth a replay unless you’re a serious fan of the series. A full game editor has also been tossed in, so fans can make their own adventures. The look and sound seem to have been mostly carried over identically from Armored Princess, although battle arenas have been dressed up with some new scenery. Many locales look extra creepy now, thanks to more cobwebbed stairs, dark shadows, slimy swamps, and so forth.

Although King’s Bounty: Crossworlds feels awfully familiar, it is also the best version of the strategy role-playing hybrid yet released. The recycling of some content is a bit disappointing, but the Armored Princess campaign has been spruced up and expanded, while the new mini-campaigns expand on the tactical nature of battles and let you fight monstrous foes on murderous maps right off the bat. Even though there isn’t anything dramatically new here, the gameplay is so refined and the combat so well designed that you can’t help but get drawn into many more hours with one of the most consistently impressive strategy role-playing franchises out there.

Your initial reaction to this downloadable content may very well be: “Who’s Jimmy?” PlayStation 3 owners were given an introduction to this bald brigand in a free add-on called The Betrayal of Jimmy; everyone else will be hard pressed to wonder why they should care about this character beyond his frequent and amusing use of the f-word. Raspy voice acting and dark shades give Jimmy a barely veiled air of acrimony, but aside from the great-looking cutscenes that open and close this adventure, mission descriptions are the only source of context for his crimes. You may think that the exciting prison escape that thrusts you back into the atmospheric Empire City sets the stage for another thrilling and tightly scripted mob romp. Instead, Jimmy’s Vendetta is more of an arcade take on Mafia II’s mobster mayhem. You drive from one timed mission location to the next until you reach the inevitable final showdown, getting scored on your performance and a chance to see how well you did compared to other players on the online leaderboards.

Unfortunately, the lack of narrative really hurts Jimmy’s escapades. A number of missions involve stealing a vehicle and driving it to a garage, often located a good distance from your starting location. Several of these vehicles, like a police transport and a giant tanker, are slow, cumbersome, and boring to drive. In Mafia II, longer driving sequences had context in the larger story, and the chatty and funny Joe Barbaro was usually there to provide a few laughs and groans. After all, a road trip is always more fun when you have someone along for the ride. Here, not only do you drive more sluggish vehicles, but you also have no company, and there’s no attempt to elevate these missions beyond “drive truck from point A to point B.” Action-based missions are thankfully more stimulating because they rely on Mafia II’s strong combat mechanics. Several of them are quite good, and the manner in which you earn more points for stringing kills in quick succession has you pushing forward to get headshot after headshot. The best of these missions feature opportunities to blow up cars and trucks, which is always fun due to Mafia II’s impressive explosions, which look and sound terrific and leave behind husks of flaming metal. A couple of missions in which you protect a vulnerable civilian are also enjoyable because they give you a chance to pick off incoming enemies from behind cover and rack up the points.

Other shooting missions are incredibly frustrating because they lack the clever cover and enemy placement of the main game. In many scenarios, you face legions of angry adversaries but are given few, if any, places for a respite. This is an unusual design choice, given that Mafia II’s shooting mechanics are derived directly from modern-day cover shooters like Gears of War and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. All too often, you are stuck out in the open with only your wits and luck to save you, and Jimmy is remarkably fragile. And because you are usually in a hurry due to the ever-ticking timer, you will frequently deal with cops in addition to your main foes. As Mafia II fans know, Empire City is crawling with fuzz craving to chase a speeding vehicle, and because the timer encourages you to move at top speed, they’re on your tail constantly here. These two elements–oversensitive police and a clock pushing you to rush–don’t fit well together; some missions are already exasperating enough without throwing cops into the fray. The final operation is the most maddening; on top of these other annoyances, you engage enemies in the tight confines of a mansion. Remember how the camera pulled in extremely close to Vito whenever you entered apartments and hallways in Mafia II? Now, imagine trying to handle a shotgun or tommy gun at the same time. You can’t see, you can’t maneuver, and you can’t wring any fun out of it.

The slapdash nature of this DLC is disappointing, considering Mafia II’s outstanding sense of place and time. Empire City is a wonderful place, and the day/night cycle and weather effects make the world come alive. The game also comes alive when you get a chance to light the skies with flames and fury, taking down nearby enemies and racking up the points in the process. But these sparks are too often snuffed out by frustrating mission design and deadly boring driving sequences. It could take you five hours or so to gun your way through Jimmy’s Vendetta, which at $9.99 sounds like a great value. But there’s only so much value in an add-on this inconsistent, and even the most fanatical Mafia II players should give pause before devoting time and money to Jimmy’s revenge tale.

Your first task is to travel to Illium and seek out Liara, who fills you in on some important details regarding her role in your resurrection and subsequent employment by Cerberus. There’s some interesting information to glean here, but it’s unfortunately glossed over quickly so that you can put your main plan into action: find the mysterious information dealer called the Shadow Broker and rescue Liara’s friend Feron. As is so often the case, the mission hits a snag all too quickly, and an Asari Spectre called Tela Vasir gets entwined in the expanding web. The story is straightforward but involving, due in part to some exceptionally well-choreographed cutscenes. It’s easy to point to a thrilling biotic-heavy battle as one such cinematic, but subtle cues, such as a fleeting close-up of a guilty pair of eyes, help the more restrained scenes carry equal weight. But Lair of the Shadow Broker isn’t always so solemn. Several outbreaks of humor, including a funny reference to the original game’s use of omni-gel, are sure to put a smile on your face. And as you would expect from a Mass Effect game, the storytelling is elevated by emotive voice acting and understated new music that enhances the dialogue but never overwhelms it.

After a bit of story exposition as you interact with various items, you’re tossed into the action, taking cover behind objects you’re clearly meant to take cover behind, so that you can then pop out and blast away at the foes that descend upon you. The basic action remains unchanged from the main game, which means you fling biotic powers about, shoot your firearms of choice, and command your two teammates to use their own skills when the situation demands it. As always, combat is intense and satisfying, and as always, a few flaws wriggle their way into the proceedings. Friendly AI still have trouble making good combat decisions; sometimes standing on surfaces to make their shots rather than taking cover behind them. And the cover system still glitches out on occasion, not allowing you to pop out when it seems you should be able to do so. But enemies attack at just the right pace, so individual battles never drag on too long, nor are they over so quickly that they end up being unsatisfying. The DLC’s first half ends with an enjoyable boss fight, though the real focal point is a vehicle chase that comes just before it. The controls aren’t as silky smooth as you’d want, particularly in the Xbox 360 version, and the whole sequence is over before you know it. Yet this high-speed pursuit in a flying taxi is exhilarating, evoking Blade Runner, or perhaps more precisely, The Fifth Element.

Aside from that exciting excursion, The Lair of the Shadow Broker’s first half is great fun but standard issue. It’s the second portion that elevates this DLC to something special. The featured trek across the exterior of a colossal spaceship is tremendous. Gray clouds ripple against the horizon and dust swirls about as you hear the wind swoosh and the distant electricity crackle. It looks and sounds phenomenal, but it’s more than just eye candy: it lends a palpable sense of chaos, as if to communicate that you truly don’t know what might happen next. The steep inclines of the ship contribute to the fearsome tone–as, of course, do the foes that swarm upon you. The intensity builds until you finally make your way into the safety of the ship’s interior, where you find another entertaining boss fight waiting for you.

You do get to spend some quiet time with Liara, which is appropriate, given your history of friendship and, perhaps, romance. She doesn’t join your crew as a permanent member, but that doesn’t diminish the value of this great new addition to the Mass Effect universe. The Lair of the Shadow Broker is worthy of your time (more than two hours) and your money ($10, or 800 Microsoft points). If for no other reason, buy it to experience what is likely the best combat environment yet for a sequel rightfully lauded for its visual artistry.

You start the hunt by importing a Dragon Age character or creating a new one, at which point you are whisked to Flemeth’s door, where apparently a mysterious figure has been sighted. As it turns out, it isn’t Morrigan–it’s a Dalish elf called Ariane, who believes Morrigan has stolen a tome of some importance from her clan. It’s a convenient reason for her to join your party, though she has very little to offer in the way of conversation from that point forward; most of her lines are plot-driven, revolving around an ancient word with unknown meaning and the scattered pieces of a vital object. Later, a mage joins your quest for even flimsier reasons, and surprisingly, he has even less personality than the dull, characterless Ariane. Your party is rounded out by a mabari hound, which means you at least get a full party, though his origin is never explained, and he comes across as the easiest way to round out the party without having to explain another character’s presence or write additional dialogue. The voice acting gets the job done, but it isn’t up to the standards set by the main game and its previous DLC, though to be fair, the script calls for little beyond tossing out plot elements. It’s all filling in the blanks without a lick of creativity, just so you can reach an insulting “cliff-hanger” that apparently sets up events in Dragon Age 2–but does little else.

And so you set out to find Morrigan for purposes only vaguely explained, starting in a library at the Circle of Magi’s tower. You run into an old friend from the main game here, though his presence isn’t explained and comes across as a feeble attempt at fan service. Your main goal in the library isn’t to chat with your pals, however, but to click on a bunch of bookcases until you can shift the adventure into a higher gear. Once the quest gets moving along, however, you find that the highest gear never reaches the speeds Dragon Age: Origins is capable of reaching. You explore a few areas, and they look quite lovely and provide a pleasant backdrop to the flurry of particles and explosions your colorful spells and skills emit. Unfortunately, the enemies you meet as you slash and claw your way through these nice environs don’t put up much of a fight. You slice up the usual suspects on your travels, but you won’t need to fiddle with your party’s behavior patterns or perform any micromanagement. A menacing monstrosity provides a few momentary thrills, but while this great-looking boss lends Witch Hunt some combat variety, you needn’t fear defeat, for it never ventures near.

You can finish Witch Hunt in around 90 minutes, but that’s 90 minutes you should devote to Dragon Age: Origins’ other, better DLC. Even Morrigan herself seems bored by the whole thing, displaying little of her signature sneering wit in the precious few moments she appears onscreen. The main game is, at its core, fun to play, and so you may still squeeze some amusement from the simple battles and appreciate the obscure hint of events to come. But even the most fanatical Dragon Age enthusiasts will come away bewildered by a brief and hollow addition to a universe that surely must have greater mysteries to reveal than this.