Awesome Software

Black Knight will never replace real chess, but a number of innovations including irregularly tiled boards, unlockable regions, hidden tiles and teleport pads keep things interesting.

Cortex Command may be a work in progress, but it’s already loads of fun: this game is all about the explosions, with showers of debris rendered with a detailed physics engine.

This epic battles developer diary for Battlestations: Pacific is a bit of South Pacific paradise for WWII combat buffs; it’s chock full of both cinematics and gameplay battle videos.

Putting the wow in WoW, The Craft of War: BLIND is a superbly crafted machinima by Percula with a cool storyline (Blood Elf Rogue + Onyxia) and awesome choreography. Thanks, Ash

Pyro is a bit like billiards, assuming you set your cue balls on fire and tipped the table over vertically; your objective is to light torches using elastic fireballs and combustible crates.

Our favorite psychotic rabbits with aggression issues have a very special holiday message courtesy of Ubisoft; there’s nothing quite like having yuletide joy screamed at you.

Above: Burnout Paradise remixes “Twas the night before Christmas…” with gameplay videos of the Jansen 88 special hovering and flamin’ through the streets of Paradise City.

Merry Christmas, Master Chief: Microsoft has dropped a grunt-astic amount of info on Halo Wars, with detailed UNSC and Covenant descriptions, artwork and in-game screenshots.

Vectoroid may be nothing more than a bunch of lines and points, but this homage to Asteroids is a literal blast with upgrades, enemies, hit points and a gun that never stops firing.

Made by RMIT student Kyle Downes, A Short Visual History of Videogames starts from 1972’s Pong and stops just short of current gen consoles, but is wonderfully rendered nonetheless.

Madden NFL-era kids won’t care much for Mattel’s Football, but for 70s kids, LED Football 2 is a nostalgic iPhone app; it includes running, punting, field goals and passing.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy is out in Japan; this runnin’ / flyin’ / jumpin’ opening cinematic is both gorgeous and torture for North American fans, who will have to wait until mid-year 2009.

Do want, please: the Street Fighter IV Collector’s Edition includes a limited edition figure (Ryu/PS3; C. Viper/360), an anime movie (Blu-ray/PS3, game disc/360) and CD soundtrack.

This trailer celebrating the 5th Anniversary of TrackMania is a walk down memory lane from the French-made game’s 2003 beginnings; you can download the free version here.

Connecting the real and virtual worlds, Mightier is an indie game where players draw the solution to a puzzle on paper, draw the main character and scan both of them into the game.

We have a weakness for tower defense games, so it’s no surprise we’ve wasted countless hours on Viking Defense; there’s nothing like a horde of pillagers to get your heartrate up.

Above: the digital artists at Realtime:UK have released a group of stunning cinematic sequences from Stormbirds, a near-future fighter combat game that was unfortunately canceled.

Fans of car chases should checkout this trailer for Wheelman; set in Barcelona with your car is your primary weapon, the racing game stars Vin Diesel and is due out 2/16/09.

Fast-paced, mech-on-mech combat, what’s not to like? Robokill is a top-down shooter filled with upgrades and spiffy graphics; the full version gets you over 460 rooms and 10 levels.

Fight Night Round 4’s trailer is an aspiring boxer’s dream, pitting Muhammad Ali against Mike Tyson; imaginary matchups aside, it’ll feature more realistic knockouts and fighting styles.

A less violent, more vertically oriented version of Bionic Commando, Frost Bite 2 uses a grappling hook that lets you catapult your way up walls and cliffs; it also doubles as a weapon.

Skate 2’s intro movie is a who’s who of pro skateboarders, with everyone from Rob Dyrdek and Big Black to Jerry Hsu; it’s pretty well directed, even with the quirky prison setting.

Like GTA IV sans any pretenses of doing good, we hope Mafia II will be half as fun as the premier trailer above; it’s a nice 50s pastiche of car chases, gunfights and Little Richard.