If you own the game and your PC exceeds the recommended specifications, you'll be able to use The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim High Resolution Texture Pack. When the game was released last year, one of the few criticisms was that gamers with powerful PCs couldn't take advantage of all their extra resources. This free DLC takes care of some of that.

Minimum specs for your PC are Windows Vista/7, 4GB of RAM, and a DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with at least 1 GB of RAM with fully updated drivers. Of course for the best experience, you'll want an even more powerful PC to make sure you never suffer from slow down.

Released in conjunction with the Skyrim Creation Kit for modders, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim High Resolution Texture Pack is a fantastic free gift that's essential for anyone with a powerful enough PC

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Tropico 3: Gold Edition which offers 10 new mission campaigns that aren't available in Tropico 3. Tropico 3 Gold challenges you to build cities and play the part of an all-powerful “Presidente” in a resource-rich paradise. It’s your choice whether you play the part of a benevolent dictator or a ruthless thug.

In Tropico 3: Gold, you have control over everything from your island’s infrastructure to its economy and diplomatic relations with competing superpowers. You have to deal with the demands of domestic disputes as well as manage international relations in a game which is loosely based on the Cold War (and with more than a hint of inspiration from Cuba and Fidel Castro).

There are two main modes: a 15-mission Campaign Mode and a Sandbox Mode where anything goes. There are plenty of real-world elements such as election recounts, rebel attacks, bribery and corruption to deal with. You can also pick to play famous characters such as Che Guevara, Evita Peron and Fidel Castro. Alternatively, you can create your own dictator and write your own speeches and manifestos.

Tropico 3: Gold takes elements of Sim City but with an original political twist that makes it an excellent game.

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In game tools

Functions and resources

Additional widgets available for Overwolf are screen capture, Steam chat, Overwolf Chat, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Messenger, and Twitter.

Conclusions

Good looking, functional and free, Overwolf is well worth checking out.

Download Overwolf Beta 0.28.170.36556 in Softonic

You can download the file here, or play the game online. Minicraft was created in 48 hours for a Ludum Dare competition with the theme 'Alone'. Like its big brother, in Minicraft you are free to roam around wherever you want, looking for resources and fending off monsters.

Not quite Minecraft...

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If you're familiar with the type of game, Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles will be very easy to get the hang of. The aim is to move around the game by clicking objects and areas for clues, helpful objects and information. You'll need to use these items to progress further in the game and hopefully uncover how experienced hunter Sir Baskerville was killed by a mere dog.

As ever, Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles is very polished. There are two difficultly levels, and in the harder one, the puzzles are noticeably difficult. The music is atmospheric, the graphics are detailed and rich, and the story is enough to keep even the most demanding gamer happy.

The only problem with Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles, in fact, is the type of game. Compared to other modern PC games, it's very slow and laid-back and contrasts sharply with options like Darkness II and Mass Effect 2, to name but a few! For many, a relaxed game is actually what they want, making Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles a great, atmospheric choice. If you're an adrenaline junkie, though, look elsewhere!

For a challenging point and click adventure, Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles is an excellent option.

Download Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles in Softonic

The first Mass Effect took story telling and player choice to new levels in video gaming, while the second was more accessible and perfected the third person shooting action. Mass Effect 3 has a lot to live up to, but has a fantastic platform to build upon.

As well as concluding the saga, Mass Effect 3 also adds a multiplayer mode. This will allow you to play as different species (Asari, Drell, Krogan, Turian, Salarian and human) for the first time, in cooperative battles against waves of increasingly challenging attackers.

Your PC will need plenty of free HD space, and 2GB of ram is the absolute minimum. Mass Effect 3 on PC will require EA's Origin - you won't be able to play it through Steam or on its own. Check back on February 14 for our demo impressions!

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Bandicam works with games or programs that use DirectX or OpenGL for graphics which includes the vast majority of games on PC such as Skyrim, Minecraft and WOW etc.

The good thing about Bandicam is that it can record high quality videos but compress them so that the file size is relatively small for HQ video when you want to upload it to YouTube. For this reason, Bandicam is becoming increasingly popular with gamers that want to show-off their gaming skills and favorite moments such as this example from World of Warcraft:

Bandicam is fairly easy to use although there are a lot of framerate settings and preferences that may intimidate you at first. The easiest thing is capturing video though - you simply target the Bandicam snapshot tool over the Window you want to capture and hit record. Bandicam supports MPEG-1 (including VBR mode), Xvid and MJPEG video codecs, PCM and MPEG-1 Layer II audio codecs and videos in AVI format. It also allows uploading of still frames in BMP, PNG and JPEG format. Recordings created in Bandicam can be uploaded directly to YouTube in a highly compressed file. You can upload to YouTube in 720p and 1080p full HD videos. The highest resolution possible is 2560x1600 pixels and you can also record over 24 hours continuously with Bandicam although obviously, you won't be able to upload a video of that length to YouTube.

The main problem you may experience with Bandicam is lag when creating screencasts. This can be due to a variety of reasons and the developers have put together a useful troubleshooting guide to overcome such problems. One tip is simply to change the codec setting you're using from MPEG-1 to Xvid for example. Note that in the unregistered version of Bandicam, a watermark will be shown on the recorded video and the recording time will be limited. If you purchase and register Bandicam, you can use it for an unlimited time, without watermarks and record for up to 24 hours.

Note that in the unregistered version of Bandicam, a watermark will be shown on the recorded video and the recording time will be limited. If you purchase and register Bandicam, you can use it for an unlimited time, without watermarks and record for up to 24 hours.

Bandicam is a powerful video recording tool for anyone that wants to take screencasts or video of games.

Download Bandicam 1.7.0.126 in Softonic

Toribash does this and a whole lot more by putting you in control of the type of moves you want to make. This addictive game features everything from Sumo to Kick Boxing and Sword Fighting to Judo. Just about anything is possible in a Toribash game where the characters look more like Lego men than real action figures but the amount of moves they can perform is literally infinite. The graphics in Toribash in fact are a downside in that they're not exactly very attractive but the gameplay more than makes up for it.

Note that Toribash may not be a game suitable for kids as heads and limbs break off with alarming regularity. The basic aim of the game is to fight an opponent and score points for the amount of damage you inflict. This basically means breaking them into smithereens! The more limbs you break in Toribash, the more points you get. To gain more points, each joint can be relaxed, contracted, extended or held which is what makes the gameplay so incredibly flexible since there are no set moves. In this demo version, you can only use limited servers plus you can't earn belts but for $20, you can upgrade to the full version.

If you're a martial arts fan, or just enjoy breaking limbs, you will love Toribash but parents should proceed with caution before letting their kids run wild on it.

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If you've ever played Farming Simulator, you'll know what to expect from Ski Region Simulator. You will be given a variety of tasks throughout the day to complete to keep things running smoothly. This could be rescuing injured skiers, clearing snow covered roads or placing snow machines on slopes.

The area of mountain in Ski Region Simulator is impressively large, but the graphics are poor, especially close up. There is plenty to do in the resort, but nothing is exciting. This is a simulator in the driest sense, not suitable for thrill seeking gamers!.

Ski Region Simulator is slow and methodical, but if that's what you enjoy, the game provides hours of activities. It's a shame there isn't more fun or life here; it never feels very inspired.

There really aren't many options for Ski resort management simulators - this is the only one we've seen - so it's shame this isn't better.

Download Skiregion Simulator 2012 in Softonic

Lego Digital Designer provides you with a huge amount of Lego pieces of all sorts and sizes with which you can build anything you can come up with. Besides free creation, you can also use pre-rendered 3D figures included in Lego Digital Designer, either for editing them or for taking them as models for your own designs.

The program displays a 3D working area to place pieces than can be panned, zoomed or moved in any direction to get a better view of your creation. Just bear in mind that you need to be extremely accurate with your mouse and move the working area a lot in order to get pieces in the appropriate spot.

Pieces are selected from a floating menu: you'll find them conveniently organized by categories and grouped by size. And you know what? They're endless, like in any child's dream! Once your work of Lego-art is done, you can upload to an online gallery or even order it in real Lego pieces.

Lego Digital Designer enables you to build anything with Lego on your PC and share it online.

Download LEGO Digital Designer 4.2.5 in Softonic

Set up

Like the game, Minecraft Server doesn't come with instructions and can be challenging for beginners. You can find a tutorial here. In essence setting up takes four steps:
1. Download Minecraft Server.
2. Execute and configure the server.
3. Check your Firewall settings.
4. Open the Minecraft game client and connect to your server.
Once you're up and running, your friends can join you using your computer's external IP address. Minecraft will then play as usual, but won't be such a lonely experience!

If you can put the time into setting up Minecraft Server, it can be a lot of fun. However, compared to most commercial games, it's incredibly complex!

Performance

The more players you have in Minecraft Server, the more resources it will consume - if your PC is not very powerful, you may notice some lag and fan noise!

Download Minecraft Server 1.1 in Softonic

To try the Skyrim Pony Dragon Mod, simply unzip the file and copy the files into the Data directory of Skyrim. Read our guide here for more detail. Next time you meet a dragon in Skyrim, it will be a lurid giant wide eyed flying pony. Even the dragon roars have been replaced with more suitable noises!

This is a fun mod, which doesn't add anything to Skyrim's gameplay. Skyrim Pony Dragon Mod is very well made though - the new cute ponies/dragons look really good, and are actually quite unnerving! This is one of the funniest Skyrim mods currently available.

Download Skyrim Pony Dragon Mod 1.0 in Softonic

Similar to one of Nexon's other FPS offerings Combat Arms, Sudden Attack is fast-paced and intense. It's also a great game for players who are new to first person shooters, as it comes with a helpful tutorial to get you started. To learn the different controls within Sudden Attack, there's a Boot Camp, which serves as training as well.

In Sudden Attack, the goal is to complete daily missions where you can earn experience points. Via the game's achievement system, you can earn different titles and perks for completing specific tasks within the game. There's also a demolition mode called Prison where the goal is to either plant a bomb or defend a target area where a bomb is waiting to be set off. Additional weaponry can be purchased in-app as well.

Up to 16 players can get in on the action with one another over the span of 38 maps. There might be some lag time while in multiplayer mode due to the server connection, but it was minimal. There are six game modes in Sudden Attack, which offer decent variety.

Sudden Attack's graphics are of good quality but a bit blocky, and the setting is gritty. The sound effects stand up to other games in its class as well.

With lots of weapons and a good variety of game modes, Sudden attack is a FPS that will appeal to a wide audience.

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From the very beginning, speed was what defined Sonic against Nintendo's Mario, and Sonic Generations has a ton of that. Whether in 2 or 3D, Sonic Generations is really fast - but to get the best experience, you have to learn the levels. Inexperienced players will find the adrenalin rush interrupted by enemies and obstacles - learning through failure is how Sonic Generations works. If you find repeating levels irritating, Sonic is simply not for you!

Sonic Generations looks fantastic throughout. the presentation is great, and the animation and environments have never been better. This is one of the best Sonic games for many years, and avoids most of the pitfalls of some of his worst games! Fans will love it, and there is hardly a better introduction to the high speed platform thrills of a Sonic game.

Try out the free demo from Steam, which gives you a 'classic' 2D level and and excellent over the top 3D level to play through. Both need practice to perfect, so it's well worth downloading.

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