One of the purest joys in life is watching terrible dancers try to dance. Horrible rhythm, weird contortions, the gasps for breath, even the overly passionate closed eyes (as though the music is causing physical pain). I love it all. I could watch it for as long as they have it on.

That is why I think the following game idea is so amazing.

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When I first heard about XBLA, and the kind of games you would be able to buy, I was a little skeptical of any real quality coming from it. Geometry Wars was neat, but I was really expecting it to be a medium used to foist Bejeweled clones upon us. I never expected to get something quite like “Shadow Complex”.

Shadow Complex is Chair Entertainments’ second shot at an XBLA game. While their first game, Undertow, wasn’t especially strong, they have come back this time around with renewed vigor. Shadow Complex is a breath of fresh air for the downloadable games market, and makes me reconsider what the platform is capable of.

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Almost every gamer I know has one. Especially those who are collectors.

That stack of “must play” titles that you never actually got around to playing. You may have started most of them, but never played more than half. It isn’t that you don’t like the game. In fact, you were enjoying it quite a bit. There are just too many games to play in a day and you have a real job/family/school work/etc.

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"Jacob's Ladder? Really? You just went there?"

I trick Luke into playing a harmless little Star Wars game and he responds by unleashing a horror of biblical proportions upon me.  If you were to take all that was terrible in the “Mario Party” and “Fuzion Frenzy” games and then distill them down to the point that all that was left was pure bile, and then throw in a couple of bits of Bible trivia you would have “The Bible Game.”  Now I am in no way against the Bible and I am in no way against games. If I thought that this was an honest attempt to teach kids about the Bible, I would be all for it.  Instead, this game is simply a cheap ploy to get church goers to fork over money.

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"Nice to EAT you!"

Just about every game has a weapon of some kind, most are interchangeable, some are entirely forgettable.  However, there are some weapons that stand out, that people talk about long after the cartridge has gone into the closet and the disc is all scratched up.  These are the weapons that transcend their utility to become works of art.

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