“It’s in the basement; follow me.”

I follow Alan down the steps and into the cool, dark room. My toes curl on the cold cement floor as he stumbles and curses his way to the light switch. I’d asked to see his collection of Magic cards so I could bring a few decks to the local game shop where a friend of mine works. Alan is a client, so I know him pretty well. But discovering another geek in your midst requires a leap of faith and a prayer that he’s not going to reveal his life size elf queen statue -- who also happens to be his wife.

The fluorescents hum to life and the cold floor is forgotten as I look at the hundreds of boxes arrayed on countless shelves and tables. “Yep,” he says, hooking his thumbs under invisible suspenders. “Every Magic card ever made.”

With Wizards sponsoring us this week (don't worry, we're off the clock here) it got me thinking about Alan and what his place is in our digital future.

This week Cory, Julian, Allen and Lara tackle the email sack and beat it to death with sticks. If you want to submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563. This podcast brought to you by TweetMTG!

I’m busy reading a milquetoast digital rendition of “Reactor Problems for Dummies,” thinking I really should be letting everyone know I’m out of it, when a sound makes me seize up. It’s faint, no more than an understated bloop, but the implications behind it are terrifying. The 30 seconds I’ve spent hovering over a lost PDA have left quite the gulf between myself and the rest of my team. I’m cut off, low on ammo, and increasingly aware of how vulnerable I really am.

Because something is getting closer.

I decide to take a run since there’s an outside chance that I won’t get chopped to bits. I make it a third of the way before I’m treated to a slow-motion replay of my death, courtesy of a vent-spawned Lovecraftian creation of fangs and claws and jaundiced skin. Since I was the only tech expert in my quad-pod, the team is left bereft of anyone able to manipulate computers and hack gates. This results in an instant fail for the mission, as I’m derided for being the F.N.G. Despite the air of defeat permeating my e-cred, It’s moments like these that make Alien Swarm an absolute joy.

A complete single player campaign by any reasonable standard that reportedly offers more than 20 hours of solo play and unique units. A multiplayer experience that has been crafted over a public beta period extending more than 5 months and that is already featured at the highest levels of play. A matchmaking system that even during the beta, which was presumably weighted down with Starcraft's most eager fans, was able to provide competitive matches to a non-hardcore player such as myself. A robust map editor system and eagerly engaged, highly established community that is set up to deliver a diverse range of new experiences from day one. A pure RTS experience that is not hampered by the need to serve other systems besides the PC. A level of spit-shine polish that has become the trademark of a company with a flawless game pedigree. These are a handful of the reasons that I believe Starcraft 2 deserves Game of the Week as well as my $60 and pound of flesh.

On the other side I've heard the endless kvetching about the loss of LAN support, the $60 price tag and the supposed cowering deference to the Kotick Doctrines displayed by the weak willed Blizzard. I know already that as high praise rolls in for this game -- which having played over the past couple of months, I take as a given at this point -- many will assume that it is the infected opinions of those either on the take or delivered from the clutches of objectivity by the hype. I can not imagine a world where anything I say will be taken by those that subscribe to the conspiratorial whispers of impending evil as anything less than the musings of the delusional.

Either way, soon enough the only reasonable measure will be the product that lives on the shelves. Let the games begin.

The dual-stick shooter genre has seen a resurgence in recent years, thanks to Geometry Wars. While frantic, top-down shooters can be addictive, they never managed to draw me in, due to the reflexes required; I just can’t keep up.

Tri is a different story. Tri involves moving your triangle around the map and shooting at enemies, much like Asteroid. Instead of frantically dodging debris and enemies, however, the pace is slow and methodical thanks to one small change: You have to stop moving to fire. Your enemies also stop moving in order to fire, and between shots there’s a recharge time where you cannot start firing again. Holding down the fire button for longer improves your shot’s accuracy, but also increases the time it takes to recharge. This turns a rapid-fire bullet-fest into a methodical sniper battle.

The enemies also vary based on accuracy, speed and re-fire rate, which means you can have “sniper” enemies which can aim all the way across the map, or enemies that are so fast they can close the distance rapidly. The map also changes constantly, with obstacles and corners to hide behind that are necessary to fight some of the higher level enemies. An open fight would be suicide; you have to use the terrain to your advantage to win.

It’s a very minimalist looking game, with geometric shapes representing the enemies and black lines on a white background for anything else. Simplistic and easy to pick up, this game’s levels keep throwing new twists at you that keep the game interesting.

Why You Should Check This Out: Tri is a thinking-man’s top-down shooter. You stop to aim and fire every time you shoot, and your enemies do the same, which means the gameplay almost takes on a turn-based feel at times. You still have to be able to aim quickly, but the constant positioning and re-positioning of yourself and your enemies makes the game methodical. And the enemy and level variety keep the game from getting bogged down.

This is most definitely not an "are games art?" piece.

In fact, just take it as presumed that I think video games are art in a very general sense, and realize that whether you agree with me or not, I am operating comfortably from that assumption.

What I want to briefly consider is the evolution of art in games and the net good that brings as a whole.

Since I have no art history background, I am far from equipped to measure the relative qualities of art design in games, but as a consumer I can tell you that while games like The Path or Flower may be a little hoity-toity for my general tastes, I like that they make broad attempts to evolve the medium. I think independent and subversive effort to recast games into something beyond the standards we have become achingly familiar with is a valiant, if occasionally misdirected, effort.

As a result, I genuinely believe that the modern era of games, even the big budget blockbusters, more often operate from a position where a strong visual aesthetic, an artistic vision for a game, is core to production. And, in a visual medium such as this, that can only make games better.

Limbo is a bleak and lonely place; a grainy grey film reel of mistakes and terrible consequences. If this is only limbo, I am officially afraid of hell.

The game is unobtrusive to the point of slyness. I watched the opening forest scene for quite a while before realizing that nothing was going to happen until I made the boy stand up. There would be no narrated introduction, no context whatsoever. The boy was sleeping, I woke him up, and together we now faced a long, hard road through some horrible traps and unfortunate accidents. I felt somewhat responsible for his plight from the very start.

There are few things the player needs to know about silhouette boy. He is simple. He runs and jumps and pushes boxes so he can jump to new places. He is frustratingly complacent about drowning if he falls into a lake.

This week Shawn, Elysium, Allen and Rob talk games, reaching back to comforting tropes and old mascots. If you want to submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563.

I’ve never been a big fan of free-to-play online games. Something about nickel-and-dimeing players for fancy hats doesn’t sit well with me – as if monetizing the paper doll game is some cardinal sin against gamesdom, preying on my need to be an individual amidst a throng of clones. Dungeon Fighter Online is wearing down that prejudice. In the two weeks that I’ve noodled around the fictional realm of Arad, I’ve already felt the harpy call of Nexon Cash cards yodeling across the halls of CVS…

It’s surprisingly hard to recapture the feel of a good arcade brawler. Castle Crashers was a step in the right direction, but a buggy launch helped the online community fizzle out, ensuring that the only group-slaying done would be from a couch. Despite the goofy name, Dungeon Fighter Online does an exquisite job of recapturing the fun of something like Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystaria or Aliens vs. Predator Arcade. Part of this is due to the fact that the character classes – Male Gunner, Female Gunner, Priest, Mage, Fighter, Slayer – don’t really compartmentalize into traditional MMORPG archetypes. The Priest, for instance, isn’t your go-to guy for healing (he specializes in wielding huge weapons with a large radius of attack). Nor is the Mage your buff/debuff support. In theory, every character is suited for casual dungeon crawling, PvP, PvE and group work. Because of this, there's greater focus on the individual player's ass-kicking experience.

The result is a lot less MMORPG and a lot more Massively Multiplayer Arcade Beat ‘em Up.

This one's going to be short and sweet this week. Unless, you must absolutely buy something every week -- I dunno, perhaps you lost a bet or if you don't buy one game every week a bomb planted by the late, great Dennis Hopper blows up or something -- you can take a break from the relentless game craze of ought-ten.

I suppose a new Trackmania game for the DS is better than nothing at all, so I'll give it a friendly, yet dismissive greeting for show as Game of the Week. You could also engage in, and it feels like I should be joking when I say this, the new Need for Speed MMO, though I can't really imagine why. I like leveling up as much as the next guy, but grinding NFS races with a PC interface just sounds like a special hell to me.

Aside from that, not much else to say. Carry on.