Nidalee the Beast Mistress found herself alone in the jungle as a young girl after her fortune-seeking parents died of a mysterious disease. Taken in and raised by a family of cougars, the cats taught the huntress how to fight tooth and nail. She's rejoined civilization in order to protect her home from being ravaged by war, and she looks quite fetching in animal furs.

Check out the official bio for Nidalee below, along with some screens of her in action. To play one of the most addictive PC strategy games around for free, visit www.leagueoflegends.com.

Nidalee, The Beast Mistress

There are few dwellers, let alone champions, residing in the blasted and dangerous lands that lie south of the Great Barrier. Much of that world still bears the scars of past Rune Wars, especially the mysterious Kumungu Jungle. There are long-forgotten treasures in these strange places which many risk life and limb to acquire. The champion known as Nidalee was only a young girl travelling with her treasure-seeking parents when they lost their way in the dense, rainy jungles. The jungle was unforgiving, and she watched her parents suffer agonizing final days as they fell victim to a mysterious and vicious disease. As improbable as it was for a child to survive in the inhospitable jungle by herself, she did just that. Her youthful innocence and a fortunate naïveté caused her to appeal to the beasts of that place and she was taken in by a family of cougars and raised as one of their own. She grew and somehow absorbed the raw magic of the dense wilds, evolving beyond both her human physiology and her feline affectation. On one pivotal day in her life, standing over the torn remnants of a Noxian squad of woodcutters, Nidalee chose to rejoin the so-called civilized world, to fight in the League of Legends so as to protect the vast woods from both Demacia and Noxus.

Nidalee was taught to fight by her feline family, battling viciously with tool and nail. Something in her feline ways may draw you to her, but remember that she is no pussycat.

Ability Descriptions

Because Nidalee can transform into a cougar, she has two sets of abilities. One ability set for when she is in human form, and a different ability set when she is in cougar form.

Javelin Toss/Takedown
Javelin Toss: In human form, Nidalee throws a spiked javelin at her target that gains damage as it flies.
Takedown: As a cougar, she grabs her opponent by the throat and attempts to bring them down, dealing more damage based on how wounded the target is.

Bushwhack/Pounce
Bushwhack: In human form, Nidalee lays a damaging trap for unwary opponents that, when sprung, reveals the target and reduces their armor and magic resistance for 12 seconds.
Pounce: As a cougar, she pounces forward, dealing a small amount of damage when she lands.

Primal Surge/Swipe
Primal Surge: In human form, Nidalee channels the spirit of the cougar to imbibe herself and her allies with increased damage and attack speed for a short duration.
Swipe: As a cougar, she rapidly claws enemies in front of her.

Aspect of the Cougar
Nidalee changes her form, switching her ability set in the process. Leveling up this skill improves Nidalee's cougar form abilities.

Prowl (passive)
Moving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 25% for 2 seconds.

Tropico 3 is the third game in a series that tasks you with assuming control of small, tropical islands then building the most benevolent (or malevolent) regime you can manage with the limited resources at hand. While the second game shifted emphasis to the age of pirates, this one takes us back to the age of Batista and the Cold War.

Can Tropico 3 lead its people into a new era of peace and prosperity? Or will it be taken out back and shot with the rest of the revolutionary pigs?

Loved
It's Good To Be The King - I've got to say, having never played a Tropico game before, I love the premise. It sounds completely uninteresting, but there's a reason power-mad little men are always fighting for total control over small Latin American countries: it's fun. Or, at least, these games make it fun, somehow glossing over the nastier aspects of totalitarian rule, and whatever is left, brushing it off with a smile and a wink.

Hands-On Rule - In Tropico 3, you're not some ethereal presence, hovering over the land as a mouse pointer. You're given an avatar - which can be suitably customised with big hats, cigars and medals - who can wander around the countryside on foot or in a limo, inspiring the people to do things faster/better. It's a shame more strategy games don't do this, as it's nice to see your rule given a little on-screen representation outside a collection of statistics.

Zeitgeist - Like I said, Tropico makes the Cold War fun. But it also does a good job of basing both its tone and indeed core gameplay on the politics of the time. The entire game hinges on your ability to interact with the US and Soviet Union, and having to both manage your daily affairs and keep the superpowers happy adds a nice piece of context to your actions.

Simlish - I'm often intimidated by strategy titles that have you rule your kingdom/land via numbers and sliders. Tropico still does this, but the way it provides feedback is a big help, taking the route of more recent SimCity titles and making each inhabitant a personality, who will tell you how hungry they are, what their job situation is like, etc. Seeing angry mobs forming on street corners, or groups of workers trudging off happily to the banana plantation, is a much better way of presenting the workings of your government than raw numbers.

Hated
The Garden Path - With a big strategy game like this, you need a good tutorial. Problem is, Tropico 3's is too good to start with, then not good enough for the more complicated matters of state. It could have done with smaller training wheels, but leaving them on a little longer.

Click & Miss - Tropico is a fully 3D game. No grids or tiles here. Which leads to problems laying down roads and buildings, as quite often the game seems to delight in refusing to link up two perfectly compatible pieces of road, or in letting you place a building on a perfectly flat piece of ground. So, yeah, the actual process of enacting your will can be a little hit-and-miss.

Shut Up - To update you on the status of your people and your island, you'll continually be interrupted by DJ Juanito, telling you this, telling you that, all in the most grating voice an actor could possibly manage. If only the game had an option to have the man shot.

Tropico 3 won't be to everyone's tastes, sure; at the end of the day, it's still a "proper" strategy game, requiring you to juggle resources, micromanage the economy and make sweeping diplomatic decisions. But the way the game wraps all that up and personifies it, immersing you not just in the stats but in the world, also makes it one of the more accessible and presentable games in the genre.

While it's a little rough around the edges, Tropico 3 is a game you can't help but be impressed with, its vision, black humour, originality and sole tenancy over a gratifying niche outweighing any issues you may have with the game's learning curve or interface.

NOTE: Throughout the month of December, Kotaku will review some of the games that we missed earlier in the year. We're catching up.

Tropico 3 was developed by Haemimont Games, and published by Kalypso Media for the PC (version played) and Xbox 360. Released on October 20 on PC, and on February 2, 2010 on Xbox 360. Retails for $40. Played all 15 "missions", and spent considerable time in sandbox mode. Smoked two cigars, had countless dissidents shot, and consumed several glasses of expensive French brandy.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Right before Apple launched games for the Apple iPhone on the App Store, Square Enix released the original Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes, a strategy RPG for the original click-wheel iPod. The game used your own music to generate troops in battle, with power, class, and rarity determined by the song used in creation. You could even power up your characters when not playing, just by listening to the music that summoned them.

It was a brilliant concept, but why wasn't it on the iPhone instead? Well now it is, and I can stop asking that question.

Song Summoner follows the story of Ziggy, a young conductor with the power to give music physical form. His brother has been kidnapped, and he must rally the troops to fight by your side.

The iPhone version of Song Summoner features more than 50 unlockable troops to aid you through a story twice the size of the original game, for more than 30 hours of gameplay. 30 hours of gameplay is a hell of a deal for the $9.99 asking price, and there's also a free lite version available if you want to try before you buy.

I've spent the past hour going through the music on my iPhone, trying to create the perfect army. Apparently Weird Al isn't good battle music. Go figure.

Mytheon is an online PC game that combines action RPG gameplay with an element of collectible strategy games. Players take on mythical gods using collectible Power Stones, which transform into creatures, buildings, and spells. Think of it as a collectible card strategy game with the cards replaced with stones, and you get the picture.

Browse the gallery below for background information on some of the game's scenic locales.

The island features a diverse geography; from craggy, impassable cliffs to rolling meadows and gardens. While Amphitrite resides in the peaceful Nereid's Garden where the sparkling ponds and fountains reflect the tranquility of the sea, Triton presides over his namesake cove amidst the foam and crashing surf. Within the Temple of Poseidon, the vengeful sea god prepares his minions for the coming battle with mankind.

The Dominion of Hades is the epicenter of Hades' power in the Underworld. From this dark, luxurious palace, Hades and his queen, Persephone, rule the Underworld without mercy.

Remnants of a city lie just beyond the field's borders, long abandoned by its inhabitants and now overrun with diabolical beasts. What was once a thriving marketplace, surrounded by the homes of the townspeople, now lies uninhabited.

Gloomy corridors and cavernous halls exude an eerie sense of foreboding to those who would risk entry within. Divided into three great regions - the Hall of the Dead, the Garden of the Furies, and the Court of Hades, Stonecasters must embark deep into this fiery stronghold and face perilous legions of undead monsters in order to confront Hades himself, his power enhanced within his own domain.

The Shattered Isle is home to Poseidon, the supreme ruler of oceans and earthquakes. The isle is also home to Amphitrite, Poseidon's beloved wife, and their son, Triton. Together, the family forms a triad symbolic of the ocean's tranquility, treachery, and unrelenting dominion. These qualities are reflected in the domains over which they preside.

Since their victory over the dragon, the sacred grove has become infiltrated with fierce warriors of Ares, the god of war. The dusty furrows of the Fallow Field are dotted with the skeletal remains of dead trees; now home to carrion creatures that prey upon the unwary.

The Dominion of Hades is a monument to death and destruction. Home to the immortal god of earthly wealth - Hades, lord of the dead, rules his realm with an iron fist.

The skeletal remains of past invaders lie half buried in the sands surrounding crumbling columns and scarred boulders. Waterfalls cascade down stone ledges, casting a fine spray that coats the rocky surfaces and foliage.

Players will travel to the distant land of Colchis, once home to the famed Golden Fleece, now protecting Argos. Two distinct regions form the land of Colchis - the cast Fallow Field and the Grove of Ares. Jason and his Argonauts braved many dangers there to claim their prize, including an epic battle against the Colchian Dragon who guarded the fleece.

The newspaper was profiling Kevin Durant, guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder has chucked his controller many a times while playing games such as NBA 2K10.

Star player he may be on the real basketball court, but it seems that he stinks on the virtual one.

He's put his lack of gaming skills to good use.

He told the paper:

"People might not believe me, but when I go home (after practice) I play video games and I lose all the time," Durant said. "And I get so mad that I come back and I want to win everything. Something that small puts that winning mentality into my head."

That quote ran in the paper on Friday. That night, Durant scored 25 points against the Detroit Pistons, leading his team to victory. See? Controller-throwing pays off.

Kevin Durant finds the key to winning [The Oklahoman]

(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

SOE's fascination with card games finally comes full circle. After years of creating collectible card games based on their popular MMO properties like EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, now the company's Denver studio is creating a strategy game based on the inspirations for those games - Magic: The Gathering.

Magic: The Gathering - Tactics draws on the Planeswalkers lore of Magic, putting players in control of 3D figures and spells from the popular CCG. The game will include both single player scenarios and online PVP multiplayer. As with any Magic-related product, fans can expect regular content expansions and strong tournament support, along with achievements and rankings.

"By collaborating with Wizards of the Coast, we're able to combine the strengths of both companies to develop an innovative, online, 3D game based on an extremely popular IP," said John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. "We're going to be taking the Magic: The Gathering Multiverse places players have never seen."

I still prefer the Xbox Live Arcade Magic game myself, as it's the straight-up card game and not a strategy derivative, but it's nice to see the PlayStation 3 getting a little Magic loving either way.

Look for Magic: The Gathering - Tactics to hit the PC in early 2010, with a PlayStation 3 release coming soon after.

When R.U.S.E. was first announced with a trailer showing to players battling it out on a giant touch table, we were skeptical. Then they showcased it at E3 on Microsoft's Surface, and we were impressed. Now that multitouch gameplay is closer to coming home, as Ubisoft and Microsoft team up to ensure your fingers can do the walking in Windows 7.

"Making images interactive is at the core of the video game industry, and over the last few years we have been striving to make this interactivity as intuitive and direct as possible. Today, thanks to Windows 7 and its full multitouch support, the barrier between the player and the image has been removed: they become one", said John Parkes, EMEA marketing director. "As a strategy game relying on a clean and intuitive interface built around the zoom, R.U.S.E. was the perfect candidate for Ubisoft to demonstrate how multitouch improves and streamlines the way games are played".

Of course you'll still need a touch-ready monitor, but hey, in a couple of years they'll just be handing those out to people in the street.

Why "pre-season" you ask? The competitive online strategy game uses a seasons model in order to keep gameplay fresh for everyone involved. October 27th sees the start of its pre-season, a period in which players can form teams, learn the game, and formulate strategies in advance of season one, which kicks off in early 2010. The model also allows Riot to cycle content, meaning the set of Champions you have at your disposal and the maps you play on can change with each season, keeping the game fresh and the competition on their toes.

Riot has just opened up the beta for the game, allowing anyone interested to sign up and participate for free, holding on to their accounts once the game launches. The closed beta has been running for awhile, so you're late to the game, but every extra day helps. You've got five. Go play.

Tropico 3 is almost a re-launch for the Tropico franchise, taking the series back to its roots after the sequel went a bit off course. The demo, available now for the PC, features the opening tutorial and the first two missions from the game. In Bananas, you must convince an American conglomerate to invest in your crops, making your nation a true banana republic, while in Second Chance you are deposed and set adrift on a new island with only your most faithful followers, forced to rebuild with nothing but a handful of servants and a hunk of dry rock.

The demo runs a little over a gig, and while Kalypso suggested we mirror it ourselves, we figured we'd leave that to the professionals.

Tropico 3 Demo Download [FilePlanet]

Order of War is a World War II strategy game for PC with a slightly different angle than all the other WWII strategy games out there: it's not really for strategy gamers, it's for history buffs. There is strategy involved, of course, and nothing bar other types of gamer from getting in on Order of War's action (except maybe the ESRB rating). However, the real thrill of the game is supposed to come not from executing a classic pincer or sweeping the map's control points the fastest – but from knowing exactly which unit to send against the Panzerfausts and exactly when to select the cinema camera view.

What Is It?
Order of War is a PC strategy game that recreates the Operation Overlord period of World War II (everything after D-Day pretty much). Players can control either the American or the German forces for nine missions each in singleplayer or go online where the Soviet forces are also available.

What We Saw
I played as the US forces in one of the multiplayer maps that will be available in a GameSpy-sponsored demo that goes live September 15.

How Far Along Is It?
Final – the game ships September 22.

What Needs Improvement?
Is It Germans or Nazis? Order of War was handled by the London branch of developer Wargaming.net and one of their big markets is Germany. Understandably, attitudes toward Nazi history are more complex for them than they are for the US – where it's so vogue to hate on Nazis – and it looks like the developer made some sacrifices in the historical accuracy department (which they're trying to appeal to) so as not to upset a potential market. This is why I didn't see a single swastika in the game – not on insignia, not on loading screens and definitely not in flag form when you capture a base playing as German soldiers.

Maybe a Little Too Simple For Some: There's not much resource management in the game and no tech trees to build out. It's a very simple capture-the-flag setup where having more flags nets you more resources and allows you to call in reinforcements from better positions on the map. It's historically accurate, sure, but could be pretty boring for hardcore strategy gamers.

What Should Stay The Same?
Accessible: The game isn't too complex or too heavy-handed in its portrayals of the various armies to drive away a gamer who'd never heard of WWII. The user interface doesn't clutter up the screen, there isn't too much text to read and it's generally easy to comprehend the buttons that put infantry into trucks and deploy them back out when you're moving units around. The game even eliminates a common noob strategy gamer mistake: instead of requiring you to deploy reinforcements at the base camp and then send them out on the map with a rally point, you can just click where on the map you'd like reinforcements to go and the game will automatically deploy them from the nearest flag you've captured and send them toward that point — instead of leaving them standing around at the home base to get bombed.

Pretty: The main camera options for the battlefield are pretty typical: you can pull all the way back for a top-down view or zoom pretty far in for a third-person view (though not close enough to make out individual soldiers' faces). However, there's also a cinema camera option that will automatically go to where there's fighting on the map and do its own cutting to craft a very pretty movie of the fight as it unwinds. It's so captivating you might not even realize you're the one getting blown up.

There's As Much Strategy As You Bring To the Board: Order of War may be "accessible" (or "simplistic"), but it's not "easy." The game won't give you everything you need to beat the other player unless you work for it, and that other player will be working for it, too. Instead of relying on the setup where the guy with the most resource points or the highest-level base wins as so many real-time strategy games do, Order of War really comes down to who is smarter on the battlefield – or at least down to who still has units left on the field to capture a flag after everyone else got blown up.

The Music: The music swells to a dramatic crescendo at some points during the combat, but for the most part it adds to the experience instead of distracting from it. I'm told it's done by the guy who did Neverwinter Nights.

Final Thoughts
Order of War is for the history buffs, but it does appeal to a wider audience of gamer on an emotional level. I say that not because the game makes me want to beat the beejesus out of Nazis or Germans, or whatever they call them in the game. I say it because the music and the cinematic mode coupled with the simplicity of gameplay create an experience that's engaging, but not challenging to any preconceptions I have about WWII or strategy games. I'm not looking at swastikas and thinking "Hate! Kill!" and I'm not shopping for upgrades that will whore resource points faster. I'm just looking at a battle unfold that may well look like something that took place 65 years ago through a lens that makes everything look like a war movie – but just the exploding battle parts of it.

Order of War is only the first of three Western-developed titles coming to North America via Square Enix and its new global agenda, along with Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander 2 and Double Helix's Front Mission Evolved. Order of War promises large-scale battles in which players take control of the Germans or the Americans as they battle in occupied France and Poland.

Yes, it's another World War II game, but I can't see Square Enix jumping on the World War II bandwagon unless they thought they had something pretty damn special on their hands. Players can judge for themselves by downloading the single-player demo, available right now at http://www.orderofwar.com.

It's the same drill as last week. Capcom takes two of the most iconic fighters on either side of the Marvel VS Capcom 2 conflict and pits them against each other, releasing videos showcasing the strategies used to defeat the two heaviest hitters the game has to offer.

First we have Zangief teaming up with the Sentinel to take on a double dose of the Hulk, with a little Storm thrown in for good measure.

And then we see the Hulk, Cable, and some Cyclops backup tearing Zangief a new one, with Storm once again buttin in at the end.

Much better than my Zangief strategy, which consists solely of jumping and kicking.

Unicorn Games' hardcore strategy game, XIII Century, recreates the battles between Teutonian knights and their target, Pskov city (which is part of present-day Russia).This expansion, Blood of Europe, zeroes in on more of the legendary fights as well as adding. Eight new missions in particular focus on the battles fought by Dovmont, Prince of Pskov.

The game looks pretty good both in the overhead God view and in the zoomed-in battlefield mode that actually lets you see the heads fly during combat. A definite requisite in historical Russian combat.

Tropico 3 ditches the second game's pirate motif in favor of a return to the original Tropico, with players once again stepping into the role of El Presidente, managing the day-to-day affairs and development of the blossoming island nation. Kalypso is offering a select group of players the chance to help make sure their vision is true and unfettered by game-stopping bugs. All you need to do is head to the Haemimont Games website, fill out the closed beta application, and then wait. Oh the waiting you will do. So much waiting.

Actually the beta kicks off on July 13th, so you probably won't be waiting that long. For more information on Tropico 3, visit the official website.

Petroglyph shaves a little of the fuzz off of the original Mytheon announcement, which spent more time talking about microtransaction-based game that was creating an entire new genre rather than going into actual detail on the gameplay. From what we see here, you collect (or perhaps purchase) Power Stones, summon creatures, and use special powers based on the color stones the creatures have an affinity to. It actually sounds sort of like an action collectible card game with stone discs instead of cards.

Mytheon is currently scheduled for a 1st quarter 2010 PC release.

Plants vs Zombies is to tower defence what Nintendo's Advance Wars is to turn-based strategy: a game stripped of everything but the raw tactical essentials, then pumped so full of charm and neat little touches that hours, days, even weeks of your life may just be lost to it.

Loved
Simple Works Best – Plants vs Zombies appears simple, even simpler than many other tower defence games. You lay plants out across a small grid to stop the advancing zombies. Who, generally, only come at you from the one direction. But the map's basic layout belies the game's deeper complexity, with the number of enemies you face and ridiculous number of plants at your disposal making every level a deeply strategic affair.

Play It Again, Zombie – The game has a "campaign", where you move around the outside of your house battling the undead. While playing, you think it's the main event, but really, it's just a tutorial for the game's other modes: mini-games, puzzle and survival, which include things like a Horde mode, games where you play as the zombies and even a Harvest Moon-style garden, where you water your plants and...play music for them.

Oozes Charm, Not Brains – Most tower defence games are, to be kind, bland. Cheap visuals, dud designs, a legacy of their Flash game heritage. But PvZ is gorgeous, each zombie full of character, each plant a wildly unique botanical weapon. And I advise everyone to stick around for the pop song conclusion to the game.

Sure, at first glance, Plants vs Zombies looks like just another [name your favourite tower defence game]. But PvZ's beauty lies in the fact that it is just another tower defence game: the perfect tower defence game, balancing boundless strategy and frantic mouse-clicking better than any other title in the genre, while keeping a smile on your face the whole time through.

Plants vs Zombies was developed and published by PopCap Games, for the PC & Mac. Retails for $20. Played Adventure, Mini-Game, Puzzle and Survival mode to completion (barring "endless" levels).

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

The third title in the popular Tropico series of island management sims once again places players in the role of "El Presidente", the ruler of an island in the Caribbean during the Cold War era. The game centers around developing your island nation, keeping the citizens happy while juggling the various political factions trying to win your influence.

It sounds very much like a remake of the original Tropico by Bulgarian developer Haemimont Games, rather than the full sequel delivered by Frog City Software, the developer of Tropico 2: Pirate Cove. If it manages to carry over the tongue-in-cheek humor from the original title as well as the themes, characters, and settings, it could very well be worth strategy gamers' whiles to plan for an island vacation this fall.

Demigod is an action real-time strategy game with role-playing game elements that obviously takes a great deal of inspiration from the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients. Instead of commanding armies and managing resources, players take on the role of a single demigod, battling against other like-powered beings for a chance at a promotion to full-on godhood. It's a fast-paced answer to the slow and plodding pace featured in many real-time strategy offerings, with a strong focus on online multiplayer.

Does Demigod meet its goal of offering a fresh, new experience to the strategy genre, or is the game suffering from delusions of grandeur?

Loved
Divine Gameplay: Much like the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, Demigod is not a real-time strategy game. It's an arena combat game with a real-time strategy feel, role-playing game leveling, and first-person shooter goals. When the game is at its best the balance that Gas Powered Games has achieved between the different elements truly shines through. Depending on the options chosen before battle and the payers involved, games can be quick and dirty or long and drawn out. There is no real resource management and no complicated troop commands to master. Just get in, level your demigod, and get the job done. Simple, elegant, and amazingly addictive.

A Varied Pantheon: While there are only eight different demigod characters to choose from, each has a wide variety of different powers to choose from, meaning that two different players using the same character can wind up playing it in entirely different ways. If another player tells you that a certain character sucks, odds are they just aren't playing them right. A great deal of the strategy in Demigod comes from knowing which powers to level based on the round's goals and your opposition.

A Wealth of Options: With only four game modes and eight maps, Demigod might seem a bit limited at first, but a generous set of match customization options adds a great deal of variety to the title. If the plain vanilla matches are getting old, you can always start off with large amounts of cash, increase the game's pace, or start your demigods off at maximum level to see how things play out across an even playing field.

Heavenly Presentation: Demigod looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. The action plays out fluidly from both a far-off top down perspective or zoomed in close to the action, and the arenas themselves are works of art. The demigods themselves have real character, from their voices and rumblings to their unique behaviors.

Hated
A Supreme Lack of Guidance: There is absolutely no tutorial mode for Demigod, and I mean none. Outside of the odd tip while games are loading, there really isn't anything that tells you how to play included in the game proper. Upon first starting up a single player tournament I expected some sort of hand-holding to ensue, but that simply wasn't the case. As a result, my first round of play ended with me losing horribly. A game that has the capability to be as engrossing as Demigod does could really benefit from some sort of demonstration showing players how much fun it can be once you know what you are doing.

Ungodly Broken Multiplayer: Stardock continues to work on stabilizing multiplayer, but as of this writing it is still pretty much broken, at least where I am concerned. I've never been able to join a quick match or participate in the game's ongoing online Pantheon tournament. My only success at joining an online game has come from joining a custom game, and even then I've had to wait in a lobby chatting while we watched other players fruitlessly trying to connect. Once you get into an actual game it's gobs of fun. Getting there, however, is no picnic.

Demigod has the potential to be a truly great game; it just isn't quite there yet. It's got a unique sort of gameplay that successfully blends aspects of several different genres into a completely compelling, suprisingly deep, and utterly addictive multiplayer experience. Unfortunately the focus here is on multiplayer. With very little offered in the way of a single player game, Gas Powered Games is obviously banking on Demigod's online aspect, and quite frankly that isn't working at the moment.

Once the online connectivity issues are sorted out, Demigod will be a force to be reckoned with. Until then, picking up a copy is akin to paying $39 to participate in a glorified beta test.

Demigod, developed by Gas Powered Games, published by Stardock, released April 14th for the PC. Retails for $40. Completed single player tournament with multiple demigods on normal difficulty, played multiple single player skirmish rounds, and several cutom online multiplayer battles. Was unable to connect for multiplayer Skirmish or Pantheon modes.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Which was a shame! After all, it was simple, it was cute, it was a first-party game, it was everything the PSP needed to get people remembering they could still play games on it. But, for whatever reason, it never caught on.

Which brings us today to the game's sequel, Patapon 2. Can the addition of some new units and an ad-hoc multiplayer mode help push the series into the PSP limelight, alongside its spiritual sibling LocoRoco?

Loved
It's More Patapon – This game is a rehash. We'll get to the downside of that later. But on the upside, it's more Patapon! More missions, more rhythm-based combat. It's nice to see the little guys again.

I Need A Hero – Perhaps the biggest single addition to this sequel is the introduction of a "hero" Patapon, a single character who acts as a sort of "avatar" for your army. Like normal Patapon you can level him up, but since he's nigh on indestructible, he'll not only see you through most missions, but you'll grow awfully attached to the little guy. I named mine Bill.

The More The Merrier - The other big change for Patapon 2 is the addition of an ad-hoc multiplayer mode. It doesn't really add much, just a simple two-stage multiplayer mode, but if you can somehow find one or more other people who own the game, it's a good laugh hearing other people chanting "pata pata" as strangely as you do.

Hated
Patapon 1.5 – I'll pull up short of calling Patapon 2 lazy, but boy, is it similar to the first game. Too similar. Same interface, mostly the same Patapon (a few new ones are added later), same bad guys, same challenges. You'll quickly get the impression this could have been released as extra content for the first game, not spun out into a whole new product.

Experience Required, Apply Within – Patapon 2 features an all-new leveling system, based on an "Evolution Tree", which lets you redeem cash and items in exchange for fine-tuning your Patapon improvements. Problem is, the tree – along with other things, like the game's new "fever" (ie combo bonus) system and how to actually use things like the Hero Patapon – aren't ever really explained. Patapon veterans will get a handle on things, but if you're new to the series, it'll all seem a bit overwhelming.

Patapon 2 is, sadly, a bit of a disappointment. With Sony's renewed push on the PSP, and with the critical (if not commercial) success of the first game, this should have been one of the shining lights of 2009 for Sony's handheld.

Instead, it's a glorified expansion pack. Which will please existing fans of the series no end, but really, the original game - and the PSP itself - deserved something a little more approachable and a little more of an improvement.

Patapon 2 was developed by Japan Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. To be released on May 5 in the United States, will retail for $20. Played single player campaign to completion, played 3 games of ad-hoc multiplayer.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Sort of.

Fans of Relic's previous two games will be surprised to find that Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II bears little resemblance to either. Where Dawn of War shot for Warhammer's sense of epic warfare and came up short, this game goes in the opposite direction, forgoing scale for intimacy as you find yourself in command of an army of...eleven men.

Which is tiny. Teeny tiny. Definitely not the sort of thing you expect from a real-time strategy game. Which is lucky, then, because Dawn of War II isn't really a real-time strategy game. Least, not one like you've ever seen before.

Loved
Level Up - You'll only end up commanding between 8-11 men in the game, split over four "squads", and those four squads are led by heroes. Don't think of these heroes as RTS pawns. Think of them as RPG party members. They have names, they never really die, and between missions their attributes can be levelled up to make them more formidable. You'll grow very, very attached to them.

Loot Drop - The RPG similarities continue with loot, which is dropped throughout missions. You'll get better weapons and better armour for killing bad guys, which can then be used in later missions. Because the game is built on such a small scale, these items can actually be seen on your men in battle (oh, look, he's carrying his new Heavy Bolter!), which is a real kick.

Homeless - Unlike previous Relic games, Dawn of War II has no buildings. Your men are dropped into a mission, and that's it. No unit building ,no resource gathering, you don't even need to hold command posts. It's just you, your men and the mission at hand, which is really, really liberating.

Choose Your Own Adventure - Giving RTS players a choice between 1-2 missions is nothing new, but giving you a choice between 2-4 missions on each of 3 planets is. Such choice means if you wake up one day and only want to fight Orks (each enemy army plays a very different game), just fly to a planet with an Ork mission and you're set.

Not One Game, But Two - All this RPG talk of loot and levels applies only to the singleplayer campaign. Multiplayer matches are more like those found in Company of Heroes or Dawn of War, with units to be built, strongholds to be upgraded and command points to be held. This effectively means you're almost getting two games for the price of one.

Rock, Paper, Chainsword - Aside from your "avatar" character, a Space Marine Force Commander, you can only take three of the game's five other squads/heroes into battle with you. And each of these squads have wildly varying strengths and weaknesses, meaning you not only have tough strategic decisions to make when deciding who to take on a mission, but flexible tactical options at your disposal once on it.

Hated
Wash, Rinse, Repeat - Most missions involve you having to fight your way across a map to fight a boss (yes, this game even has boss fights). Actually, 95% of missions have you doing this, and while it's a blast, some more variety would have been nice, especially when the few defensive missions in the game prove to be the game's most enjoyable.

If what you've read above makes the game sound like a rich, creamy Diablo/Warcraft III/Company of Heroes soup, well, that's because that's exactly what it is. One minute you'll be using cover and flanking like Company of Heroes, the next you'll be using special powers to bring down a colossal boss character, the next you'll be collecting loot off its corpse and improving your "party" with it.

Which makes this an amazing game to play. It's like Relic have taken some of the most addictive and endearing elements of both real-time strategy and role-playing genres and smashed them together, the resulting game something that's able to appeal to fans of both genres without alienating either.

Warhammer 40000: Dawn Of War II was developed by Relic and published by THQ for the PC. It was released on February 19, and retails for $50. Played single player campaign to completion, played multiple skirmish battles online. Did not play co-op campaign, which game also features.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.