The GameShadow Blog

On Thursday I’ll be posting this week’s feature. It’s talking about games as art, and linking to some great little indie developments (all free downloads) that are pushing the boundaries. It’s called ‘Free Indie Games - Games as Art: The Evidence’. It would just be called ‘Games as Art: The Evidence’, but if you don’t mention the free games bit, no one reads it.

If it’s Thursday already, and you’ve just joined us from the feature itself, welcome, what did you think?

I talk about some games like Seven Minutes and The Graveyard and largely conclude that yes, games can be considered art, but no, they haven’t quite got it sussed yet.

Agree? Disagree? Want to cave my head in with a crowbar, or crown me king of hyperbole? Let’s talk!

It’s been my great pleasure to recently launch the new Save Game interview segment here at GameShadow.

The segment is something of an interactive answer to Desert Island Discs. Each interviewee (we’ve got a huge variety of names lined up, both from high up in game development, and other industries) is tasked with selecting which games they’d take with them, were they to find themselves in the likely scenario of a hole in time and space.

Jon Hare - the founder of Sensible Software, and the name behind titles like Cannon Fodder and Sensible Soccer - told me he’d cast the entire FIFA series into the eternal depths of Hell.

Jason Kingsley - founder of Rebellion, the company behind, among many others, the original Aliens VS Predator - had strong words to say about the inverse relationship between educational systems, religion and rational thinking.

Check out Save Game here.

I’ve long been fascinated with the movement in interactive entertainment towards ‘procedual worlds’ - game worlds, like GTA’s, that function in of themselves, and where player involvement and motivation is largely through the world itself.

That’s what I’m talking about in this week’s Insight. There’s also a simply gorgeous, free zombie game - I think it’s a Half-Life 2 beater.

Find out why.

I was watching an episode of “The Shield” last night. The ever-colourful dirty cop Vic Mackey was doing his usual thing; busting bad guys with excessive force , pocketing kick-backs, wrecking his marriage and getting into hot water with his superiors, when I suddenly realised… you know what, this would make a really, really great game. And that got me thinking…

Why not check out the new feature on GameShadow - TV Shows that should be games.

Are you sick to death of playing games on your PC? Of course you not, after all you’re not insane or anything? Are you?

Having said that, maybe like a guilty schoolboy outside an adult bookstore, you’ve been recently tempted by one of the other spanky looking game machines winking suggestively at you from the shelves? Shame on you, Gameshadow can’t possibly condone such outrageous behavior outright. After all the PC is god.

But just in case… why not check out the current “competition” in this all-new Gameshadow feature, looking at the best and the worst of the console crop, just so you know what’s going on obviously. I mean, where’s the harm in that?

I had a lot of fun writing this feature.

If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you’ll know I’m not the greatest fan of the likes of ERSB and BBFC (incidentally, Hillary Clinton’s been bitching about the two of them recently, which is nice to see), but I try hard to keep it under control.

This is how I manage it.

It’s a satirical take on the whole censorship issue, including commentary on the use of kittens as silencers, and Pacman’s racially sensitive skin tone.

Check it out here.

It’s also the first in a new category of feature called Flim Flam. I’m not quite sure what it means, I just know I like it, and that everyone in the office apart from Nicholas and I hate it.

Which makes me like it more.

As ever, any and all comments are welcomed, provided they’re punctuated.

As video games have grown, so has the array of emotions they can produce. While still rare, it’s no longer unheard of for interactive entertainment to be thought-provoking, sombre, or distressing.

Which is itself distressing, given the ethical flack gaming receives in the press. In the wake of Armistice Day, I wanted to ask whether those moral outcries we read so often have any grounding.

You can find The Morality of Wargames here. Let me know what you think by commenting here, or completing the quick poll on the right hand side of the homepage.

The buyer’s guide is up, covering all the big name games this winter, along with a few you may not have heard of. Crysis and Viva Pinata are the headlining acts.

This year, we’re embracing what it is to be a gamer of all kinds, so next door to Gears of War you’ll find the demo for Atari’s My Horse & Me. All our recommendations are here to ensure you’re not disappointed this Winter, and if that wasn’t enough, every game comes with links to trailers and demos to make your decision that little bit easier.

Get the lowdown today.

I like games. Games like clichés. I like clichés.

Not quite true, but close enough. This week’s feature is a collection of gaming’s best loved mechanics and foibles, designed to keep you on the ball. There’s some things that just hold true, no matter what game you’re playing. Which is the one you love to hate?

The Persistence Principle - No matter where you shoot an enemy, he’ll die if you shoot him there enough.

That’s my personal favourite. Don’t try and argue with me - just tell us your own.

Is it bad to shamefully capitalise on a calendar event by using it as an excuse to talk about Milla Jovovich?

Is Halloween the time of year when being bad is actually kind of OK?

Is the horror film dead and buried?

Find out here.