There’s something decidedly raw about CD Projekt RED’s second game, “The Witcher 2.” It’s in the unforgiving combat that punishes the player for every mistake. It’s in the story that forces players to make tough moral choices.

“Firefall” is a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online, third-person shooter game. With jetpacks. If you aren’t already sold by the mention of jetpacks, consider the talent behind the game’s developers, Red 5 Studios. The company was founded by Mark Kern, team leader for “World of Warcraft.

Early last February, Tim Schafer and his studio Double Fine Productions turned to Kickstarter as a means of raising $400,000 to fund a new point-and-click graphic adventure game.

“Crusader Kings II” might be a spreadsheet, but so help me God, it is the most engaging and addictive spreadsheet I’ve ever played. It’s the latest in a proud line of unabashedly complex grand-strategy games from Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive, focusing on medieval Europe between 1066 and 1453.

“Gunpoint” is the pet project of Tom Francis, an editor at PC Gamer UK and one of my favorite game journalists. After critiquing games for ages and having endless suggestions about how each one could be improved, he decided to try his hand at developing his own game.

“Dear Esther” is an art game. It’s lavish, polished and beautiful, but for all of its prettiness, there is no traditional gameplay to speak of: The sole purpose of the game is to wander around on a desolate island and listen to the occasional bits of narration that flesh out the story.

I’ll shamefully admit that I don’t have much experience with the “Tribes” franchise. I bought “Tribes 2” when I was younger, yet I was so frightened by the complex ESDF control scheme that I never got around to playing it much.

The original “Monday Night Combat” (“MNC”) remains one of the oddest genre experiments in games, and luckily it happens to be as fun as it was experimental.

With “Mass Effect 3,” BioWare finally looks poised to balance the RPG and action duality of the game, which leaned toward the former in “Mass Effect” and the latter in “Mass Effect 2.” New additions like melee attacks, a larger skill tree and weapon upgrades should make it a more complex game than its predecessors, though I’d wager that most people will be buying the game to see the trilogy reach its conclusion.

There’s nothing like going to a bar with friends, kicking back with some wings, and watching the big game on Championship Sunday. The big game I’m talking about has no burly Americans or bone-crushing hits, but it does involve skinny Korean dudes and their ridiculously nimble fingers. It’s not football. It’s StarCraft. And it’s coming to a bar near you.