Pure developer showing off trailer of their next game

This screenshot is of Pure not the new title unfortunately. Blackrock the developer of Pure, an excellent ATV racing game, has a new title in the works. Joystiq has posted a trailer of their latest work—a Burnout-esque action racing game. Having played Pure myself (and loving it no less), I’m pretty psyched to see what’s next up for this developer. Now that I’ve discovered it is an action racing...

Gaming’s underground: an indie games primer

Like most commercial artforms, video games have a vibrant community that exists outside the commercial realm. People are making games that are less influenced by the marketability of the graphics, the concept, and the gameplay conventions—and in many cases they are not influenced at all by these factors. This gives developers and artists a blank canvas to create games that you could never find on the shelf at...

Three great gaming blogs (two new to me)

Awesome gaming blogs are coming out of the woodwork. I have found two excellent blogs in the past week that were not at all on my radar before. The first is Play This Thing! That’s their exclamation, not mine, but it is well-deserved nonetheless. The blog covers games that are otherwise starving for coverage. They cover indie games of all kinds including downloadable games, Flash games, and even board games...

Best games of 2008 you’ve never played

It seems odd to me that an article about the best games of the past year that didn’t receive much attention found a home at PC World especially since the list is not exclusive to PC games. The title of the article is mostly justified (although I hope none among you have not played the stellar XBLA title Castle Crashers). There are a number of games on the list I may have to seek out. I have experienced a few...

D-Pad Hero rocks it old school

Have you ever stepped back and taken a look at the entire rhythm game genre (that’s Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, Parappa, etcetera) and thought to yourself, “In terms of graphics, there was nothing preventing these game from existing 20 years ago.” Sure, they wouldn’t have been as pretty, but how pretty do you need arrows, circles, and text flying across the screen for it to still be fun? You...