I never got around to playing Bastion, but I did watch friends play it. The game seemed odd, the isometric camera angle weirded me out, and it lacked a hook to pull me into its world. This isn’t the case with Supergiant Games’ turn-based strategy game Transistor. When it was revealed at the Sony press conference on Monday evening, I immediately felt compelled to play it.

I met up with Greg Kasavin, Transistor’s writer and designer, at Sony’s booth. I was honest: I told him that I never played Bastion, or really had the interest to, but wanted to play Transistor. I asked him what it was about, how it was different, what I should expect. Kasavin laughed and said, “You know what? How about you go in cold. I think it’ll be better for you that way instead of me trying to explain everything.”

And boy, was he right.

Bethesda opened its E3 presentation with The Evil Within. On-hand representatives claimed, “We wanted to make a game that was truly horrifying.” Horrifying was right.

The Evil Within was so damn scary that I truly do not have faith in myself, or many others to review it. The game has an old Resident Evil or Silent Hill feel that keeps you not only on the edge of your seat, but on the edge of sanity.

Bad Bots prides itself on being molded from the past generation of two-dimensional shooter/platformer legends like Gunstar Heroes and Contra. While they share a gorgeous 16-bit style presentation, Bad Bots and the aforementioned games differ in one distinct aspect: fun.

Bad Bots puts you in the role of generic buff action hero Sam McRae who awakens on the Titan Hauler space cargo ship. His mission? Put down an army of rampaging former-worker robots and a meddling AI intent on generic destruction of things and stuff. Right from the get go, the game revels in its homage to the ’80s with comic book style openings and even a Star Wars-esque trash compactor scene.

There’s a new breed of PCs that fit into a strange class called table PCs. In essence, table PCs function as all-in-one touchscreen computers that also double as furniture fixtures. Before the Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon 27, most table PC’s came off as gimmicky and non-efficient as they suffered from cluttered UIs, unresponsiveness, and lag. Windows 8, however, has opened the floodgates for computers of this kind and Lenovo’s taken full advantage of the new OS by producing a beautiful, powerful computer, that can easily become an essential fixture in a home, office, or classroom.

The early stages of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller Episode 3: The Oracle don’t lead you to believe that the unfolding mystery will continue to grow in intensity, but plot twist after plot twist reveals a story where each new shock is greater than the last. Phoenix Online Studios goes above and beyond to keep players at the edge of their seats for the entirety of their playthrough. If you’ve followed Cognition from the first episode, expect a big payoff as the story elements begin to come to a head in the penultimate entry of this point-and-click adventure series.

PC gaming is often associated with pricey rigs designed to make current-gen games like Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, and Borderlands 2 sparkle with seemingly next-gen polish. Although the personal computer has the capability to push polygons at incredible levels, not all titles demand that amount of power. 2D games immediately come to mind.

2D games — both sprite based and polygonal titles that move on a simple X/Y axis — typically demand far less horsepower than the latest AAA big budget title and are usually priced accordingly. Instead of sprawling, epic affairs, these simpler games often rely on challenge, pattern recognition, and charming graphics to stand out from the pack. We’re focusing on modern 2D games — those created in the high-definition era — that we’ve reviewed or with which we’ve had extensive hands-on time. This X-List will change and expand over time as we play more HD 2D PC game.

Captain America: The First Avenger hit theaters this week, garnering very positive reviews. To help build hype for the movie, Marvel released a Web-based flash game, Captain America: Shield of Justice, which adopts many of the cutesy, 16-bit stylistic elements found in Thor: Bring the Thunder. The game, however, feels very much like a Mega Man rehash that subs the Blue Bomber with a badly animated Captain America sprite.

The horribly named Thor: Bring the Thunder, the promotional tie-in for Marvel’s big screen adaptation of its own Norse god comic, hit the Web this week. The Flash-based 2D game, which is free to play at Marvel’s site, puts you in control of the hammer-toter as you attempt to rescue a kidnapped maiden. The plot and gameplay are bare-bones–it is a Flash game, after all–but the retro music and visuals may prove enticing to those with an affinity for sprite-based video games.

Dark Souls stands out for many of reasons – though in this writer’s opinion, its incredible challenge, methodical action combat, brilliantly thought-out world and lore, and impeccable attention to detail are what set it in a league of its own. The DLC content released during the fall of last year, titled Artorias of the Abyss, further expanded the rich world and lore of Dark Souls. Everything about Dark Souls’ gameplay and setting is rooted in the mythos of the game world and vice versa, creating a wonderfully rounded and mature action/RPG/adventure.

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.