Reflecting on a time of simple graphics and complex, intertwined stories has become a favored chore of the experienced gamer. It might just be the curmudgeon in all of us, but when truly given some thought, everyone reading this article possesses the ability to conjure up nostalgic memories of games that have come and gone. It was a time when female characters were composed of the same number of pixels as their male counterparts; a time when isometric graphics, a few thatch roofs, and mind-boggling character development was the pinnacle of all things righteous; and most certainly, it was a time when the cRPG dominated primitive gaming machines everywhere. Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II are, alongside Planescape: Torment, considered to be some of the best-crafted role-playing games of all time. They are the exact inverse of new-age 'RPGs,' where the guts of a story have been substituted for the guts of a monster - if you played them at all, you played them to become fully engrossed in fantasy.

A currently disbarred Florida attorney once claimed that playing First Person Shooters drives people to killing other people. I disagree. I think 'Super Meat Boy' does.

Super Meat Boy had simple, humble beginnings as a small flash game on Newgrounds, which has amassed close to 900,000 views so far. Its player-base grew even bigger, accumulating plays by more and more people across the globe. The simple design coupled with hardcore gameplay made it a hit with just about everyone who stumbled upon its tiny hiding place within that vast sea that is the Internet. That small flash game, Meat Boy, would eventually grow until it got a publishing deal, first from Nintendo, then Microsoft. These deals would cement their status in arcade game history. Whether you enjoy Super Meat Boy or not, the fact that it exists on the Xbox Live Arcade at all is phenomenal. Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes are legendary developers in the making.

If H.P. Lovecraft made a video game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent would be it - it's the scariest game I've played in recent years. Unlike any other game I have played, Amnesia gives you no means of fighting back. Now, that might sound stupid, but being defenseless versus big-mouthed monsters helps the horror ten-fold; instead of fighting, you'll spend your time hunting for hiding places - closets, boxes, or dark corners seem to trick the nemeses effortlessly. Aren't demons supposed to have a good sense of smell? In most games you star as some near-invincible gun toting bad-ass, but in Amnesia you're just a normal guy. Immersion elevates Amnesia above most other games in the horror genre.

The graphics of Tron, the hilarious-yet-dorky aspirations of War Games, and a wave of indie innovation coalesce into a classic artillery-styled game by Lunar Workshop. Digitanks is all about careful placement of tanks and artillery in turn-based play, inevitably advancing to a game of hilltop supremacy: get in position, fortify your squadron, and rain pixilated balls of light down upon the opposition. Artillery games of the past stopped there, offering little more than an arcade battlefield for two passer-bys; Digitanks adds an expected level of strategy by enabling the construction and research of computer hardware-themed structures and upgrades. A few fancy buildings won't bring many artillery veterans back to the scene, although the gameplay just might.