The Best of Big Download: February 15 - 21

A ton of huge PC game news surfaced this past week, such as the launch of StarCraft 2's beta test and the announcement of Civilization V. Who says PC games are dead? No, seriously, who? We want names. Let's take a gander at what's happened during the past seven days on our site.

Exclusive features

• StarCraft 2 beta impressions: We take a few hours to play through the multiplayer beta of Blizzard's sci-fi RTS sequel and give you our thoughts.

• Playing PC games with Alienware's Aurora ALX: Alienware's tricked out Aurora ALX is expensive but very fast. We take it on a test drive.

• Bioshock 2 review: We give our final word on the first person shooter sequel that takes us back to Rapture

• Sins of a Solar Empire Diplomacy/Trinity review: We play and review the second and final micro-expansion to the space strategy game

• Kings and Castles Interview: We are the first web site to chat with Gas Powered's Chris Taylor about their newly announced fantasy RTS game.

• Opinion: "Always On" should be turned off: We offer our humble opinion on Ubisoft's new PC game DRM policy.

• Boot Disk: Our retro games feature checks out Team 17's classic turn based strategy game Worms Armageddon.

• All You Need To Know: We give you the 411 on the upcoming open world action game sequel Just Cause 2.

Downloads

• Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943 Demo: Try out a sample version of this WWII strategy game from Paradox Interactive

• Puzzle Chronicles Demo: Its a brief portion of the latest puzzle game from Infinite Interactive.

• StarCraft II Beta Client: If you have a beta invite, you can download the client for the multiplayer beta to Blizzard's upcoming sci-fi RTS game.

• The Haunted Mod for Unreal Tournament 3: Try out the grand prize winner of the latest Make Something Unreal mod contest.

• Star Trek Online Cosplay World Record Video: Check out what some people are doing in London to break a world record while promoting the recent MMO game.

News

• Gas Powered Games reveals Kings and Castles; animal attacks Chris Taylor

• World of Tanks announced
  

• Diablo III reveals female version of Barbarian class

• Metro 2033 PC to support DirectX 11 graphics, PhysX and 3D Vision

• StarCraft II beta test begins

• Ubisoft's new PC DRM set up kicks you out of game if internet is not on
  

• The Haunted wins grand prize in second Make Something Unreal mod contest

• Civilization V announced

• America's Army 3 v3.0.7 update released

• New Project Offset tech demo video is looking good . . . and big

• Cogs and Gear win first $100,000 Indie Game Challenge