Ubisoft announced the release of their new Far Cry 4: Accolades trailer -- one that has media commenting with “ooh!” and “ahh!” The CryEngine-based graphics are gorgeous, the violence is frantic, and the animals are terrifying. This video highlights some of the reasons why this game won more than 25 awards at E3 2014.

The roguelike genre has experienced a revival in recent years, indicated by the success of games like The Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, and Rogue Legacy -- perhaps to the point of saturation. That's why it's refreshing to see a game like Ascendant add something new into the mix.

Raptr has just posted its Most Played PC Games for May 2014 list, a compilation that spotlights Dark Souls II’s 12-spot climb to #11. The list details the most popular PC games from May, 2014, to include League of Legends, WoW, DOTA2, and 17 others.

Console gamers have been enjoying Dark Souls II since March, but until April 24, PC gamers have had to wait for From Software’s follow-up. Dark Souls II returns players to one of the most successful (and brutal) action RPG games of the century.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick recently announced that the publisher allotted Bungie $500 million to make their next game, Destiny. To put this into perspective, Watch Dogs had a budget of $68 million, Battlefield 4 had a budget of nearly $100 million, and Grand Theft Auto V’s budget was a staggering $265 million. But if we’re using these games as examples, maybe Destiny’s $500 million budget starts to seems reasonable; after all, Watch Dogs is plagued by bugs, amongst its other substantial problems and Battlefield 4 has little to show for all the money spent on it. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto V’s previously massive-looking-budget earned the game a tremendous $1 billion in sales and -- compared to the other two -- it actually works! Money, then, surely must solve all problems.

Ubisoft has developed a number of franchises throughout its history that share dynamic, action-heavy, and social qualities. The design changes Ubisoft has made have taken steps toward giving gamers more control over how gaming experiences are defined within each universe. This is showcased from its first major free-roaming game, Assassin’s Creed, to the heavily-criticized Watch Dogs, and to next year’s The Division. With enough games in the Assassin’s Creed series and a games library sharing several similarities, it’s time Ubisoft completely follows through with the level of immersion  and social integration in its universes.

With Star Citizen's "Arena Commander" module now at full bore, we popped in last night for a quick gameplay session to showcase the dog-fighting module's mechanics. Things are pretty simple right now, given their rather slimmed-down state and use of placeholder graphics assets, but it's a solid start for the ambitious title.

The module saw a rocky launch over the last week. During this time, it was announced, then revoked, and then announced again -- and the final release didn't include the maps, which delayed players from flight by another hour or two. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of a game's launch, but the internet might have you believe otherwise.

Online gaming service Raptr has come out with some interesting data regarding consumer spending on video game hardware and software. Headlining this data is information that 74 percent of gamers plan to upgrade their PC hardware and/or console within the next 12 months.

All this GPU benchmarking, crash fixing, and performance optimizing later, I think it's about time we officially comment on Watch Dogs as more than a benchmarking tool. It is, after all, a vexingly-hyped game leaving a $68 million footprint in Ubisoft's budget. Putting things in perspective, Battlefield 4's budget hit nearly $100 million (and look how that turned out), Destiny's budget is $140 million, but even that is still pennies to GTA V's $265 million budget.

All the millions in the world, though, and I'm not sure Watch Dogs would ever be classifiable as "good" or "playable" for PC gamers.

A screenshot of one of Watch Dogs' bugs, credit to EuanMcCann.

This critical review will cover inexcusable hardware optimization concerns, PC control inadequacies, and major gameplay elements that prevent enjoyment of Watch Dogs.

Every year in Seattle, Valve holds its yearly DOTA 2 tournament, called “The International.” Valve ponies up $1,600,000 of its own money for prizes, but that’s not what makes the funding for this tournament interesting: The last two years have seen Valve’s sale of “DOTA Compendiums,” the profits of which go toward the prize pool. Fans raised an additional $1,274,381 last year; this year, with over a month before the tournament, fans have already raised an extra $6,332,765 (as of the time of writing this article).

Star Citizen stands as one of the most anticipated PC games in recent years. Space-flight simulation has been a part of PC gaming since its very beginnings, but we've scaled-up quite a bit from Galaga to now. In our very first interview with Chris Roberts, CEO & Chairman of Star Citizen's Cloud Imperium Games, we discussed the tremendous focus on graphics and technology for the game. Roberts told us that he wanted something to enjoy on his maxed-out, expensive gaming PC -- something that could make use of SLI and an X-series CPU.

After months of WIP screenshots and concept art, we're finally starting to see a few game items receive high-fidelity polish.