DEFCON

A barebones RTS game, DEFCON is extremely easy to get into, but hard to master. Defend your cities from the enemy's nukes and use your own to attack their's. The game plays light ambient music that tries to make you feel emotional and stuff, and a lot of it is artsy. Thought, it stays simple, and out of the way. SAM sites for anti air and for launching nukes, Airports, Aircraft Carriers, and Nuclear Subs. That's it.

It's totally not deep and involved as some.. most other RTS games, but if you want to ravage with a global thermonuclear war, there aren't any other games better to choose from.

Doom 3

While not exactly scary, Doom 3 is a pretty classic FPS by today's standards. No iron sights, no tactical lights (unless you download a mod for it), and not a huge focus on multiplayer. Maybe it's me looking through my nostalgia glasses, but I like Doom 3. Run around murdering demons in a dark, dank, Mars outpost. Fun stuff!

Defense Grid: The Awakening

When I first played Defense Grid, I wasn't sure what to think of it. I had gotten it for the Potato Portal 2 ARG thing, and it was one of the ones I had to glance over really fast. Coming back to it, I found myself actually liking the game itself. It's a cute little tower defense game. Build towers to make mazes and slow the enemies advance to your power generator. The plot is a bit dumb, and it doesn't usually matter, but the game itself is simple and fun.

If it's cheap, get it! I liked it.

Orion: Dino Beatdown

Dino Beatdown is extremely unpolished. It looks like shit, it's horribly glitched, connecting to servers is a crapshoot, it's poorly optimized, has some seriously shitty sound effects, and I can't get enough of it. Killing waves of dinosaurs has never been more messed up or fun. Make sure you have a friend with you or it might get a bit tiresome.

Mass Effect 3

I've just completed Mass Effect 3 in a total of 28 hours. I think on the whole, it's generally a good game, though, with time to reflect, I'm sure I'll see it as a bit shit.

Most of the time I was playing involved:

Walking around the Citadel, not knowing where the hell I was going.
Scanning Planets and Systems in the hopes I'll find something useful.
Hiding in cover waiting for my shields to recharge.
Hiding in cover waiting for the enemies to poke their heads out.
Getting killed by insta-kill moves and things you have no time to react to.
Killing enemies that are completely boring cannon fodder.

The endings were also so horrible because it didn't matter what you did during any of the games because the choices are the same no matter how you went about it. A B or C. Take your pick. Literally 90% of the ending cutscenes are the same. It's stupid. As a game that prides itself on user decision affecting gameplay, this was really unforgivable.

Orcs Must Die

In Orcs Must Die you fend off waves of attackers from reaching your portal. You use traps, a spear, a crossbow, and a variety of special powers you'll never touch to stop them from advancing. The game is pretty good. I like it, but I was let down by the lack of online beyond leaderboards. This is a game dying for co-op, and it was boring without it. Maybe because it was too easy or something, but it is still a good game. Once you figure out overpowered the arrow walls are though, the game is pretty much over.

Renegade Ops

If you've ever played Smash TV or that special zombie mode in black ops, you've played this. It's a top down shooter where anything you point at dies. You control a tank or car as you drive through the level completing timed objectives. You have infinite ammo with your basic machine gun, and then you can pick up things like a flamethrower, railgun, or rockets. I really like it. Once you get used to driving and shooting at the same time, this game is really good. It's simple and fun.

Just be sure to have a controller on hand. You won't get far using a keyboard.

Audiosurf

Audiosurf is a game where you ride a track while hitting blocks to your mp3s. The technology works most of the time, though things with loud backing tracks won't have as much 'kick' to their main instruments in the game as you would hope. Dubstep = good, Heavy Metal = meh. The game is a bit boring by itself though, and it never really kept me too interested. If you want a casual game to listen to your music, you'll probably be satisfied with Audiosurf. If you're looking for something that will challenge you, you might want to get something that has the music patterns made, rather than generated.

ARMA II

Another game that is like Red Orchestra, Arma 2 takes a long time to get used to the controls, but if you put in the time and effort, it's a really good game. Single player is just a mission mode, but multiplayer is what you'll be playing most of the time. Huge expansive maps and a bunch of people in it is really fun, though in some servers, people get really uppity about what you have to do. All those idiots with the mics may ruin it for some people, but, if you are really committed to getting good at the game, you'll find that Arma 2 has a lot more depth than other shooters such as Call of Duty or Battlefield. 

It just isn't as 'pick-up able'. You seriously need to dump at least 20+ hours into the game to get decent, even if you are a veteran of other shooters.

Saints Row: The Third

I have never played the previous one, which everyone says is superior, but Saints Row the Third on it's own is an amazing game. The storyline actually kept me interested, even if some plot points were shoehorned in, and the sandbox is like GTA 4 on acid. There are a bunch of customization options for your character, your car, and your strongholds. You can upgrade your dude/dudette to have infinite ammo and take no damage from things, but please don't. 

Once I made it so that I couldn't be hurt at all I instantly regretted it because I felt I had no point in continuing to play. I'll prolly make another character again, lol. Get the game. It's great.

Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander is Command and Conquer. It's an RTS, it has aliens, and it has the good guys trying to keep/restore justice, and the guys that want shit to be evil. Only difference is that it's like Warcraft, in that your commander is actually a unit that builds stuff, instead of things just popping out of the ground in Command and Conquer.

It's a good game though. I found it in a bargain bin at Ollie's (greatest cheap store ever) for 3 dollars. 3 dollars! I know its sequel is out (I tried it once), but I'm too lazy/poor to even think about getting it.

Mortal Kombat (2011)

Mortal Kombat isn't the most technical of fighters. It'll probably never have the huge following Street Fighter or Marvel VS Capcom has, but it is a good game. Fatalities have replaced those retarded heroic brutality things from MKVDCU, and X-Ray attacks have replaced Rage mode. I haven't played any of the games on the PS or PS2, but I know that this is a good game. I like fighters. I play MvC3 and SF all the time. Maybe it's nostalgia of my SNES days, but this game is really good. A lot of bugs persist far into it's release, but I can see past that as it doesn't affect me that much.

People wonder if MK will last after the big fighting game tournament, EVO, this year. Netherrealm studios will make sure that it does last with all the DLC characters being released. Fuck yeah, Kenshi.

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins is my kind of game. An egregiously long fantasy RPG game. Fully completing the game would take you about 5 years and a half a day, and that's if you skip the dialogue. All the combat and exploring works just like you'd expect it. My biggest gripe with the is the camera. It's controlled with the right mouse button, the same button used to attack and interact with things. The tactical view is horrible and useless, and the game doesn't even register my mouse wheel's movements. I'd rather play the game from the viewpoint of Dungeon Siege rather than Diablo, anyway, so it didn't matter as much. It's just a bit weird I didn't even have a choice.

My second play through has made it easier to advance, now that I know what I'm doing. I'm not sure how Dragon Age 2 will fair, but the 30 hour adventure I had in Dragon Age: Origins has set itself in stone as one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Maybe it'll be one of the best RPG series I've ever played.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

AC: Brotherhood is really good. The inclusion of multiplayer works surprisingly well, and the plot actually moves forward a whole lot even though the game seemed like an extended add-on to AC2. There aren't any new inventions from Leonardo, there isn't any traveling between cities, and the game as a whole feels like it's being held back to conform with the previous game. This is a very large add-on to Assassin's Creed 2, and it's still fun as the rest of the series. If you didn't find the early Assassin's Creeds amazing, this game won't change your mind. If you did find earlier installments good, then you'll have the same feeling for this game.

Civilization 5

Civ 5 majorly improves on past installments. One game can last around 20 hours if you want it to, and it's fun to build up your city and nuke the neighboring enemy. Although the inclusion of multiplayer is a joke, and very poorly done, playing with bots offline is still awesome. If you're even somewhat into strategy games, you will enjoy this game.

Psychonauts

Psychonauts is a trippy and fun game. There are so many different environments you will encounter through the game, and all of them great. No multiplayer and no side-missions makes this game suffer in the replay department, but the single player is too good to pass up. It's colorful, unique, and a breath of fresh air from the many 'gritty' and 'realistic' games. From taming a wild bull to stomping around a city populated by fish, this game is great.

Moonbase Alpha

While not an amazing game by any stretch of the imagination, Moonbase alpha is hilarious. The developers didn't put in anything 'funny' persay (besides microsoft sam reading chat messages), but trolling and screwing around in this game is great. It's free too, so play it. It's better than a lot of other games out there.

Red Orchestra: OST Front 41-45

While it is a very hard game in the worst ways possible, Red Orchestra is still fun. The controls feel like you're wading through mud, and you'll be pissed off that you can't kill anything half the time, but the sheer size of the maps along with the ability to fight with somewhere around 80 people in one server, makes it an interesting play nonetheless. I give it a very tentative 'play' because many may not want to take the time to get acquainted with the.. 'interesting' controls.

Battlefield 2

One of the best games of yesteryear, Battlefield 2 is amazing. A few years may have outdated the graphics by some standards, but the gameplay is still there. Lack of single player may be a downer, but multiplayer is still going. It may not be on its last limbs yet but its time is coming. Until then, this game is great fun, and cheap too.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

While the Single Player may not be all too gob-smackingly great, the multiplayer is enough to hold it up. BFBC2 continues the tradition of intelligently including vehicles in their multiplayer maps. Who doesn't want to fly around in a helicopter killing people? With DLC, map packs, and a huge user base, BFBC2 is a good buy. Until the multiplayer support runs out that is.