Last June saw the release of an interesting title with a ton of ambition and plenty of big names to back it up. Shadows of the Damned comes from the creative minds of Suda 51, the man behind off-the-wall titles like Killer7 and No More Heroes, and Shinji Mikami of Resident Evil fame. The game features egotistical Mexican demon-hunter Garcia Hotspur and his wise-cracking sidekick Johnson, a floating skull who can transform into a variety of weapons. Hotspur's girlfriend, Paula, is captured by the demon-lord Fleming and the pair must enter the underworld to rescue her.

This bizarre set up leads to a game that is equal parts hilarious, irreverent and disturbing. It also stands as one of the most stylistically original titles in recent memory. On top of the crazy setting is a solid third-person shooter with interesting weapons, cool boss fights and plenty of crazy mechanics, like shooting goat heads to light up an area.

Hit the jump to hear why Shadows of the Damned is a title that you might have missed.

The past year has been full of successes and failures. In 2012 Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft will continue to try to balance both the casual and more dedicated gaming crowds in an economy where every penny counts. What do these 3 giants need to do to gain momentum in 2012?

Hit the jump to find out...

We’ve finally arrived at the end of our Writers Choice Awards. It was no easy task to simply decide on a single Game of the Year, so each of our writing staff decided to say a few words about their favorite games before deciding on our Game of the Year.

We appreciate all of you readers who have taken just a little bit of time to read our content over the past few days and we look forward to doing this again next year (this assumes that the Mayans were wrong about 2012).

So hit the jump to see our Game of the Year for 2011.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s already 2012. We decided it would be best for us to take a look back through 2011 and decide our games of the year. We’ve heard what you readers have to say, as well as some of our podcast hosts, but now it’s the writing staff's turn. So, we threw our writing team into a small room filled only with steak and rabid bears and asked them to come up with the highlights of 2011.

Today we are looking at the best cooperative and competitive multiplayer experiences, seeing what was the best innovation in 2011 and opening our ears up to the best original soundtrack of the year.

Hit the jump to see today’s winners and runners up.

Everyone is doing Game of the Year lists, handing out awards left and right to very deserving games. In fact the Talking About Games community has already crowned their Game of the Year and the staff awards are coming up in a short while. Before the "serious" awards make their rounds, however, I wanted to recognize many of the games I've played this year for doing things differently than other games. I also think that it would be unfair to pull out the best and brightest only to leave the lesser games among the unmentioned. That's how I came upon the idea of doing The Participation Awards.

Now we all know how participation awards work. As a kid we all recieved some kind of award along with everyone else that seemingly recognized us for just being there, just showing up, just participating. That's what I'm doing here and I'm looking at some of the best and worst games of 2011 and finding the true meaning behind them. The memorable aspect of them. So without further ado I give you my 2011 Participation Awards, Part Two. If you missed Part One make sure to check those out as well.

If you hit the jump maybe, just maybe, I'll give you a Participation Award as well.

Everyone is doing Game of the Year lists, handing out awards left and right to very deserving games. In fact the Talking About Games community has already crowned their Game of the Year and the staff awards are coming up in a short while. Before the "serious" awards make their rounds, however, I wanted to recognize many of the games I've played this year for doing things differently than other games. I also think that it would be unfair to pull out the best and brightest only to leave the lesser games among the unmentioned. That's how I came upon the idea of doing The Participation Awards.

Now we all know how participation awards work. As a kid we all recieved some kind of award along with everyone else that seemingly recognized us for just being there, just showing up, just participating. That's what I'm doing here and I'm looking at some of the best and worst games of 2011 and finding the true meaning behind them. The memorable aspect of them. So without further ado I give you my 2011 Participation Awards, Part One. Look for Part two tomorrow.

If you hit the jump maybe, just maybe, I'll give you a Participation Award as well.

I downloaded Uncle Gamer religiously every week because it was both entertaining and informative. Then something happened, somewhere between listening to Parris talk about lefty and or all the amazing events he got to attend because of podcasting I decided I needed to be involved also. I went from being a listener to being a wanna-be. I wanted to be on a podcast, I wanted to go events, I wanted to get free stuff, I wanted the awesome stuff Parris got and most of all I wanted to be like Parris. Well liked and respected in the gaming community.

If you want to read praise for Uncharted 3, go HERE. For an examination of the other side of the arguement, keep reading. . .

Uncharted 3 can be called many things: epic, cinematic, gripping. However, original is definitely not one of them.

The style of story is lifted right from the archives of Indiana Jones. The platforming is a simplified version of what is found in Tomb Raider. Every awesome set piece in the game is ripped from a movie. Running from man-eating bugs? The Mummy and a number of other movies. Escaping a sinking ship? Every ship movie ever made. And what’s sad is that’s really the only place where the game shines.

I am going to start an experiement by (gasp) giving up my iPhone for sixty days and exclusively use a Windows Phone. You might be asking yourself why am I doing this? I was approached a few weeks ago by Microsoft with the opportunity of playing some of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade titles that will be coming to Windows Phone and all that I am being asked in return is to give my honest opinion on my experience with using a Windows Phone and Xbox Live Arcade.

The sixty days exclusively with Windows Phone was my idea and today is day one of this experiment as I just received the phone and I will begin the process of getting it activated and updated. Currently the phone does not have the upcoming Mango update and I am unsure if or when I will get it but as soon as I do I will make sure to give my impressions.

I plan on updating my experience with Windows Phone and any new Xbox Live Arcade titles once a week, this will include the good, bad and ugly. Not to mention how tempted I may or may not be to return to using my iPhone.

I have no idea how this will go but lets consider this post the unboxing of my journey into Windows phone and here is a picture of the box to prove it.

All of your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.