September 12, 2011: elevated wallet threat (PC only)

Hard Reset, which is so very Painkiller meets Deus Ex and doesn’t bother with stealth or hacking, is out this week for the PC. I love what I’ve seen of it. I’ve been told it’s short, but it’s also half the price of a regular release, so do your own math. It’s also entirely missing any sort of multiplayer, so be sure the carry the two.

Red Orchestra 2, a World War II shooter in which you can’t even play as the Americans, is out this week. However, it’s not available for the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. In fact, but you can’t even play it with a 360 controller. You’ll have to get your mouse and keyboard out of the closet.

King Arthur: Fallen Champions is the standalone sequel to King Arthur, a very scenario-based strategy game that plays a bit like one of Creative Assembly’s games, but with more magic than usual on account of Merlin and company. It’s only on PCs because it’s an RTS. Duh.

One of my favorite RTS developers, Petroglyph, is trying trying again, this time with a free-to-play MOBA called Rise of the Immortals. It goes live this week. Only on the PC, of course.

Finally, Sengoku from Paradox is out this week, and it has way too much math for any console gamers to figure out. It’s also got enough Japanese names to really confuse a gaijin like me. But I love how it takes the more personal, character-driven approach of Crusader Kings to convey the ebb and flow of feudal Japan. For all the glorious armies and rich artwork of Shogun 2, sometimes a guy just wants to concentrate on the strategy game parts of his strategy game.