I've never played the first one, so no comparisons with that from me. Apparently there was some grumbling over certain spell combos (water + fire = steam) not working in M2, but that's been fixed, and a new combo for poison was added to boot. The graphics are on the very pretty side of cartoony, and the whole game is clearly tongue-in-cheek. The humor didn't always have me slapping my knees, but it's very charming, from the pervasive nods to pop culture ("A massive cold front is coming," says John Frost) to the option of giving your character a voice set called "Arnold" that sounds a lot like Will Sasso spoofing Schwarzenegger on Mad TV, and, last but certainly not least, the hilarious gibberish spoken by the NPCs. It sounds a lot more spirited than Simlish, and I'm ashamed to admit that I briefly thought it was Swedish.

The main draw here is obviously the clever and addictive experimenting with sheer endless combinations of various elements, which you can then unleash on your enemies (and on yourself, for better or for worse) in a number of different ways: as good old-fashioned rays and sprays, branching charges, weapon enchantments, area blasts, mines, and more. Want a fiery death ray that arcs to several foes at once, like lightning? You got it.

If the game has a drawback, it's that it's pretty damn hard, at least in solo mode. Magicka 2 was intended as a multiplayer experience, of course, and although the single player difficulty has been dialed down a bit in recent patches, later enemies come in such overwhelming numbers, to say nothing of certain bosses, that even the most adroit keyboard wizard will be hard put to survive without some assistance. Fortunately, it's easy to call in other aspiring mages. And even though they can do each other as much harm as the swarming monsters (friendly fire is always on), frustration is kept at bay through the sheer zaniness of the chaotic battles. It's a rather unique game, and comes at a very decent price, too—definitely a winner in my book.

If you've been waiting for a deep discount sale on "Divinity: Original Sin," you may have noticed that it just doesn't seem to be happening—and the game's been out some time by now. Perhaps it's because whoever sets the prices knows that what they have here is worth asking—and paying—a little extra for. They're right. D:OS is not without its flaws (inventory management is dreadful, and even the battles you're meant to fight in the beginning can be damn hard until you get the hang of things), but it's an absolute beauty, lovingly written (nearly free of spelling mistakes, too), and allows such a level of interacting with the game world and everything in it that you could spend hours mucking around just a few buildings experimenting with what can be made by putting what together. It's a fantasy immersion fuss bucket's dream. Single caveat: If having to repair your gear in Diablo III was already a mind-numbing chore for you, Divinity's everything-is-interactive type of approach may strike you as mere tedium. But if you like to play RPG's like it's for real, this is your game.

It's a bit tough at first to get past the rather dated look of the game (although it's nice enough to convey atmosphere and immersion), but the complexity and depth it offers soon make you forget that. In many ways, "Mount and Blade: Warband" offers more freedom of action that many MMOs promise these days: you can be a wandering adventurer taking on quests here and there, a mercenary in some king or queen's war to regain a throne, or you can focus on trading goods. Whatever you do, the world in which you travel is filled with roving warbands, bandits, plunderers and deserters, many of whom are itching to kill and/or rob you, so you'll never be able to avoid fighting for long, and that's what this game is all about, of course. Combat is no easy affair. You need to actually pay attention to your opponents moves, and block accordingly—fighting in M&B is no simple matter of hitting tab and bludgeoning merrily away. The same goes for ranged combat. Expect a lot of humiliation as you learn your way around the game. The rewards are a more realistic medieval combat experience than most other titles offer these days.

Lovely game. There's lots of hacking, slashing, and barrel smashing, to be sure, but it's got depth, too, and loads of good ol' "they-don't-make'em-like-that-anymore" RPG charm. The voice acting alone is nearly worth the price of admission. The graphics are actually very nice, even at full resolution. Just be aware that while you can swivel the camera and zoom in and out a wee bit, you're locked into a top-down camera view (which is odd as the game is fully 3-D), so if being able to position your POV freely means a lot to you, that might bug you a little. Aside from that, there's nothing to complain about here—certainly not at this price.

Visually, the game's a stunner, although the scenery comes out ahead of the people inhabiting it, who can look a little... shall we say, corpse-like? You move freely around the enormously sized maps and do what you want, pretty much when you want it. Isn't that what many of us dream of when we imagine the ideal fantasy RPG? No rails, no linear story, no "must do this to do that" (aside from completing a chapter to move to a new zone). However, TW2 takes this "freedom of choice" a bit too far, and at times you end up feeling rather lost, if not to say insignificant, going about your quests and adventures here and there in a massive world that seems to care little about what you do or what happens to you. The storyline ("nothing important 'cept something about a dark lord and the end of the world") is easy to ignore, and it almost appears that you can ride off into the sunset and forget about it all instead of risking your life, or your sister's life, or whatever it was, and leave the whole thing to someone else. Sounds a bit like the real world? Well, there you go: verisimilitude in spades! But sometimes, in a game, a bit of linearity or urgency is needed to keep you interested. As a sandbox, this game works well, and you may enjoy wandering, riding, and sailing around Antaloorbut as an adventure tale, TW2 doesn't bring on quite enough steam.