Who remembers the 16-bit era? I do quite fondly. SEGA and Nintendo were the big players then and the bad blood between the two ran deep. Here’s a little known fact that people quickly forget: At one point Nintendo blackballed any developer who worked with SEGA. The rivalry was bitter and featured classic mudslinging commercials rivaled only by today’s political campaigns today. Yet the games were great, SEGA had a stellar line up led by its blue hedgehog, and Nintendo had its Italian brothers running the show.

Guilty Gear XX AC Plus is one of those fighters that many gamers gush over, but very few have played. Since the fall of 1998 and the dawn of the “anime fighter,” the Guilty Gear series has set a standard for deep and engaging combat that don’t involve Capcom characters. You’ve likely heard gamers talk about the series’ flashy fast- paced action and incredibly steep learning curve, but don’t let it sway you from jumping into the fray. If you missed Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus for Xbox 360 or PS3 (or any of the other games in the series), this newly updated and re-balanced PlayStation Vita game is a great place to start.

Comics have become a mainstay in geek culture. In their infancy, they were tools to capture children’s imaginations, and featured little depth or character development. As such, comics were dismissed and labeled immature entertainment. But as the people who read those stories grew older, the complexity and depth grew as well. Superheroes went from being simple crime fighters to complex characters with realistic issues like drug addiction, depression, and marital issues. Today, readers can relate to a broken Batman who mourns the losing a sidekick, or an alienated Bruce Banner who’s constantly torn apart by his inner monster, the Hulk. Today’s comics are respected and revered, but with so much history where does someone unfamiliar with these characters begin?

Hello, interwebs. It’s been awhile since we showed you how to build an entry-level gaming PC for under $600. Hopefully, it was a great introduction. But what if you’re looking for a more powerful build — a dream machine, even? Maybe you’re interested in a high-end build and cash isn’t an issue. Maybe you just love drooling over specs. Regardless, this setup will let you run games on maximum settings without hiccup.

Everyone seemingly has their quips about the PS Vita’s small library of quality games — except the fighting game community. We’ve been spoiled with quality fighters since day one. Yes, most have been ports, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that most are quite good. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Street Fighter X Tekken, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat, and PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale are all very solid to excellent fighters — but none are 3D fighters. Enter Tecmo Koei’s Dead or Alive 5 Plus. It easily ranks in the upper echelon of graphically impressive Vita games. Not only that, it retains everything gamers love about the console version and puts it into a nice portable package.

Capcom has given players the opportunity to turn heel with DMC: Devil May Cry’s Vergil’s Downfall DLC. Players are thrown into the villain’s shoes as he seeks to quell his insecurities. Unlike Dante’s journey, Vergil’s Downfall isn’t filled with cheesy one liners. Instead, there’s a more visceral and raw character who develops — surprisingly! — in the game’s two short hours. In fact, the story arc makes you empathize with Vergil. And then makes you hate him.

When Blizzard announced that StarCraft II would be divided into three games, one for each race, the gaming community was a bit preemptive in casting a suspicious eye. Respectfully so. Blizzard doesn’t rush its games, and as such, it can be years before we even hear the word “sequel” from the company. Remember the wait for Diablo III? Yet, with StarCraft II we have received two quality games in a three year span. Luckily, the last three years have flown by for StarCraft players, much in part due to the solid content and re-playability found in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Multiple playthroughs, multiple seasons, and leagues to compete in — and lets not forget user-generated content — make it an excellent package. This continues with StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, featuring Sarah Kerrigan and the Zerg campaign.

I knew next to nothing about Wildstar pre-PAX East, but as I bounced from panel to panel, its promotional banners caught my eye. I also heared snickering and side conversations in which people pegged it as the next World of Warcraft. Anyone who’s played MMOs knows that when a game is compared to WoW you can’t simply ignore it. So I didn’t. Yet, when I wandered into a Wildstar Q&A I wasn’t expecting to be smitten, but I did. Wildstar is a new IP from NCSoft. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, NCSoft is the company behind Guild Wars and City of Heroes, so you can expect a quality MMO.

I love video games.

Everything about the medium delights me. The music, characters, level design, stories, and every single morsel that goes into creating a game — I love it all. My mother often jokes that my first word was SEGA and that Nintendo soon followed. It’s not surprising; I’ve been around games since the day my mother brought me home from the hospital, thanks to my older brother’s Atari and Master System. Everyone in my immediate family is involved in some form of gaming. Although the gamers in my family vary from the hardcore to casual I can safely say that everyone has enjoyed games at one point or another. My mother holds the house Tetris record with 150 lines and is currently obsessed with Bust-A-Move on iOS. Games are a part of my daily life no matter the console. I love them all.

As PC gaming becomes increasingly popular thanks to games like League of Legend, services like Steam, and the platform’s overall convenience, PC peripheral/accessory/component manufacturers have stronger presence at gaming conventions. Nvidia had a strong showing at this years PAX East with a prodigious booth that featured lots of gaming goodness. Gamers could sample their favorite games at their highest graphical fidelity thanks to the Geforce Titan (more on that beautiful beast in a bit), or give Nvidia’s new portable Shield handheld a whirl. Nvidia took us on a booth tour where we latched onto the Shield for hands-on impressions.