February is going to be a great month for indie gaming, one of the main reasons being eagerly awaited Retro City Rampage, coming out on Monday the 20th.

THE PLAYER is out for a friendly frolic of CRIME CAPERS when suddenly ambushed by EVIL GOOD GUYS. They will stop at nothing to end his RAMPAGE OF DOOM threatening the citizens of Theftropolis City. Are YOU bad enough to defeat the EVIL GOOD GUYS?

Sadly, I do own neither an Xbox nor a Wii, but I can’t say I wouldn’t want this particular title being ported (even poorly) to my beloved PC.

Also, a trailer that I forgot to add when it came out, for some unknown reason.

I’m strongly recommending you to read it, in case this wasn’t clear by this point.

I think I’m starting a “Drawings” category, as these don’t have much to do with design, actually…

None of these features are really necessary, giving results as different as Little Big Adventure and King’s Quest VIII. These games move inside a triangle of awesomeness that could be represented like this:

Many could argue that RPGs themselves are already a mix between Adventure and Action games, but they involve a lot more; character progression, abstract (often relatively randomized numerical-based) combat… In any case, there’s something obvious that relates Dark Earth, Time Commando, Bioforge and Alone in the Dark. Each one of them leaned towards a different point of the triangle, sometimes almost resting on one of the sides.

And while this ambiguous genre has prompted some jewels in the past, it just… well, disappeared. Vanished. Caput. What happened?

I guess one of the main reasons leading to the end of the action-adventure brawlers was the evolution of graphics. Once the games could be done entirely in 3D and still look quite awesome, this kind of games became something closer to, let’s say, the original Tomb Raider games. I’d say Dreamfall was the last one that could “fit” inside the triangle above, and it sometimes looked like an average third person shooter (although combats were scarce), but that one sort of sprout out of nowhere as the genre had been defunct for years. Survival Horror games are descendants of this genre as well, and at this point I don’t think anyone could deny the similarities between the original Resident Evil games and Alone in the Dark. Yet, what once were slow-paced survival horror games, have ended up becoming a new subgenre of action games, where everything explodes and ammunition is plentiful, save for a few exceptions.

But I can’t really think of recent games that did it right. Or rather, that tried to do it, at all. And I really don’t understand why, as somehow this feels like a style of game that could work perfectly on consoles. Hell, Dreamfall played better with a gamepad.

I certainly wouldn’t mind to play a new City of Lost Children (well, obviously not ANOTHER City of Lost Children, but something similar :p), or a new Dark Earth. Or even a remake of King’s Quest VIII that turns it into something actually playable. But I guess it just won’t happen.

Castle Story is like Minecraft, if Minecraft was an RTS, Canadian, based around the idea of building castles and then blowing them up, and pretty much what we could call a “game” in the ancient sense of the world.

While the idea isn’t completely original and groundbreaking (King Arthur’s Gold + RTS + 3D), the product Sauropod Studio is developing is actually looking quite good and, especially considering we’re talking about alpha stages here, fun. It’ll set some tongues wagging in a not so distant future, I predict.

Now, if  these past holidays meant for you as much as they meant for me, maybe you’d like to see something along the lines of this list with the games coming to PC you want to play this year. While I’m predicting some of them will suck monkey balls (I’m looking at you, Syndicate!), there are way too many games coming out in 2012 that I do want to play.

But wait, there’s more! Maybe you are aware already, but since the 19th of December there’s a new site in town, that calls itself AgedGamer. Presenting the portal as DIYGamer‘s bro, old games get new reviews, or rather re-reviews by anyone who wants to contribute. I’m thinking on trying myself, although my Shakespearian language skills seem to be degrading lately.

Also, an awesome picture of Michael Berryman wishing you all a happy new year. Because.