With 2012 off to a good start, it’s time for us to take a look back at 2011 with our annual The Year in Screenshots feature that highlights our favorite games of the year. Rather than argue about awarding a single game as our game of the year, we here at SmashPad prefer to just tell you our 25 most favorite games of the year and give each game equal billing.

If you want a glimpse of the numbers ..read more

The Battlefield series has become one of EA’s most popular franchises, providing some of the most explosive and addictive multiplayer experiences in any shooter on the market today, rivaling even that of Call of Duty.  Battlefield 3 is no exception; marking the best entry in the series to date, DICE has gone all out to deliver a polished, one-of-a-kind multiplayer experience that you will have a hard time putting down.

What Is It?

 

Battlefield 3 is known first and foremost ..read more

Just when you think a game can’t possibly be topped, Rocksteady Studios rockets through the roof and takes off into the stars with Batman: Arkham City. The sequel to the award-winning title, Batman: Arkham Asylum, thrusts the player back into the cowl of the Dark Knight as the story continues beyond the massive destruction of the asylum. So for those who thought they actually were Batman, let’s get you out of those silly pajamas and into ..read more

id Software is one of those developers who do not release a game until they feel it is done. Unfortunately, this also makes them less than prolific. The theory though is that quality trumps quantity. With Rage this theory has proven itself to be true.

What Is It?

The last fully id developed game was Doom 3, which was released in 2004. Since then there have been new versions of Quake and Wolfenstein, but neither of those were fully developed by id. ..read more

All right, soldiers! It’s time to get back to the battlefield! It’s time for war! And this isn’t just like any other conflict. There are no crosshairs, ammo counters or health packs! If you are shot in the foot, you wrap a bandage around it and you walk it off! This is real! This is Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.

What Is It?

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is the second title in the franchise of World War ..read more

It takes quite a lot to really annoy me when it comes to PC DRM schemes. One time activation of games before playing isn’t too onerous. I can tolerate Games for Windows Live and its attempts to shoehorn console conventions onto the PC. But one thing I can’t tolerate is Ubisoft’s ridiculous draconian always-on DRM.

Ubisoft’s upcoming reboot of the Driver series, Driver: San Francisco is set to launch later this month with Ubisoft’s very well known and very well loathed ..read more

THQ and developer Volition had a pretty solid presence on the Comic Con show floor by showing off a demo of Saints Row: The Third. Tucked inside a makeshift private theater “guarded” by pimps and Penthouse Pets, a very excited presenter showed off some of the new features the Saints will be bringing to the table this fall.

Unlike the previous two Saints Row installments, you’re immediately put at the top of the chain. After two installments, the Saints have created ..read more

The title of Most Surprising Demo at Comic Con likely has to go to Mass Effect 3. A video would have been expected. But a hands-on demo? It’s a sign of how important games are becoming at Comic Con. This was the same demo shown at E3, but Comic Con provided its public hands-on debut.

The lenthy, 20-minute demo let me choose one of three classes: adept, sentinel or soldier. Sentinel was chosen to get the most general sense of how ..read more

Because Dungeon Siege is a title more widely known to PC gamers, odds are you’ve never heard of this series.  The Dungeon Siege games are known to consistently push the envelope when it comes to hack-and-slash, dungeon-crawling gameplay, and the third installment of the epic series makes a valiant attempt to bring the loot-hoarding fun to the HD console generation.  However, in doing so, the series has lost its PC identity while becoming a mediocre loot-fest on the consoles.

What’s It ..read more

One liner: The game is well worth the wait!

The sequel the world has been waiting 14 years for is finally approaching its release. Since 1997, Duke has been partaking in a little vacation and his trigger finger has itched long enough. Maintaining the first person shooter style of gameplay originally introduced to the series in Duke Nukem 3D, Forever also delivers many familiar features sure to bring back fond memories to veteran gamers. One can hope the King can appeal ..read more

Valve Corporation’s cult-following puzzle-platform game released in 2007 continues in the long-awaited sequel, Portal 2, released on PC, MAC, Xbox 360 and PS3. With two playing modes, two sets of characters and two stories, gamers should prepare themselves for hours of fun, sarcasm and infinite loops!

What’s It About?

A new aspect added to the immensely popular physics-based puzzle game is the introduction of a co-op mode in addition to the traditional single player. This opens a new facet of ..read more

Thanks the the overwhelming success of the Street Fighter IV series, producer Yoshinori Ono has taken his place as de facto head of fighting game development within Capcom. He’s not the only one within the company fighting for the cause, as Marvel vs Capcom 3 producer Ryota Niitsuma is also on board, but Ono-san has effectively set himself at the forefront. From his regular attendance at major tournaments to his constant connection to the players via Twitter and a mini-Blanka, ..read more

At Captivate 2011, Capcom treated us to more information on a pair of highly-anticipated fighting games, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Street Fighter X Tekken. The wealth of solid info on these two titles stole the show for a lot of us, and basically made Captivate a winner despite the bizarre omissions of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, Mega Man Legends 3 Project, and DmC: Devil May Cry. Not to take anything away from Asura’s Wrath ..read more

In 2009 a little PC game called Torchlight was released via various digital distribution outlets. The game had very low system requirements which allowed it to run on almost any PC. It became quite a popular game in the months since its release so developer Runic Games has decided to bring the game to a new audience.

What’s It About?

Torchlight is an action-RPG set in the town of the same name. The key fixture of the town is ..read more

As our 2011 backlog is already starting to build up, everybody here at SmashPad has taken the opportunity to look back upon the games we enjoyed the most from 2010 for our annual The Year in Screenshots feature. Rather than go through the hassle of dwindling these games down to name a Game of the Year or come up with a ton of crazy categories to give many of these games some artificial sense of recognition, ..read more

Just a friendly post to let all of our readers out there know that we have not disappeared and are just recuperating from a long stretch of holiday gaming.

The holidays brought with it fun, tons of gaming, and sadly not enough free time.  The majority of us have real life jobs with real life responsibilities and there simply was not enough time to play games, write about them and keep this site routinely updated.  In the next few days, however, ..read more

Las Vegas has always been well known as the city to let everything go…where “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”  It is only fitting that the latest entry in the Fallout series heads west to the lights, glamour and mayhem of New Vegas, a city that was spared by the bombs that ravaged the rest of the country but was left fending for itself by prospectors, travelers and warring factions.  This is no summer vacation in luxurious casinos, lavish ..read more

Left 4 Dead 2 is still going strong on both the PC and Xbox 360 and Valve continues to give fans some of the best service in the industry.  The newest content, The Sacrifice, adds a new campaign to the mix, allowing players from both games to play together.  The end result is a unique idea that works extremely well and awards longtime players with plenty of new features.

What’s It About?

The Sacrifice takes place between the end of ..read more