Genres

What happens when you blend a puzzle game with adventure and stealth elements, a pinch of comedy, and a dose of noir? The answer is Gunpoint, a unique indie game that is impossible to be tied down to a single genre. This concoction of various ideas may sound like it would create too much dissonance to be fun, but everything comes together in perfect harmony to create a one-of-a-kind adventure.

In 2004, Sony Computer Entertainment acquired a somewhat unknown Amsterdam based studio called Guerrilla Games. At the time, the studio had really only produced one game: a multiplatform third-person shooter set in the Vietnam War called Shellshock: Nam '67. Though Shellshock went mostly unheard of, one title of theirs began to stir some excitement amongst gamers, generating considerable hype: Killzone.

Since Ratchet and Clank propelled Insomniac into the role of "Masters of Weaponry," they've done everything they could to hold onto the title. Fuse is the video game form of their attempts. From the very beginning, mad weaponry is not only a feature of the game but the game itself, embodying not just your actions and means of attack, but the plot and design as well. Unfortunately, this isn't enough.

Rise of the Triad is one of those success stories that just don't happen enough in the gaming industry. Essentially a fan game, it was created by people who loved the original Rise of the Triad (released in 1994), people from across the world who worked from their homes, put money in just for the love of the project.

When Riptide GP arrived on iOS in late 2011, it brought with it a flood of beautiful memories from the early days of 3D and polygons. It was like a mix of Jet Moto and Hydro Thunder, a balls-to-the-wall aquatic racer with impressive wave physics and a fantastic sense of speed. It wasn't perfect - a little too lean on content, missing any kind of online/Bluetooth-enabled multiplayer option - but it brought back a genre I'd thought long forgotten by game developers, if only for a moment.

Defense Grid has been around for a few years now, but many gamers have discovered it because it's one of the free games that came with a Gold subscription to Xbox Live. Those who missed their chance to grab it for free should still take look at this old gem because, much like its main character, it withstands the test of time rather well.

Shadowrun's last appearance in video game form wasn't that pretty, leaving fans disappointed that Microsoft decided to turn their cyberpunk, urban fantasy pulp RPG into a multiplayer shooter. Thankfully, the mastermind behind the franchise, Jordan Weisman, headed to Kickstarter in order to fund a project designed to take the series back to its roots: Shadowrun Returns.

Prehistorik, when it was originally released back in 1992, got decent enough reviews and something of a following. What's interesting is how quickly it aged, though. Reviews from 1994 spoke of it as if it was an old fashioned retro game, a game that had aged beyond playability.

Nicolas Eymerich, the main character of The Inquisitor, is not a nice man. While the likes of Guybrush Threepwood and Eric Idle's Rincewind kept us playing with their fish-out-of-water optimism, Nicolas has already seen it all. He probably yelled at it as well. He does a lot of that. He's a very angry man. And while I can't help but think that the developers hoped his anger and intelligence might inspire players to love the darkness in the same way as House, the character is underutilized and underdeveloped. And without a full-bodied lead, the entire ...

Epic, action-packed, exhilarating, cinematic, intense, exciting and other such grandiose words are often used to describe video games these days. Whatever happened to fun? It's the one word which more than likely got people into video games in the first place. Gaming is - at its core - supposed to be fun.