Blog Posts by Gordon Cameron

There’s no getting around it: gaming is changing.

People routinely play games on Facebook (and it’s not all just ‘Villes on there anymore, either). People routinely play games on their phones. People routinely play games without spending a dime – or spending precisely as many dimes as they’re comfortable with.

One of the themes of 2013 is the way developers are retooling classic designs and genres to fit the new platforms. Whether you yearn for classic role-playing adventure, are jonesing for a slick first-person shooter, or want to puzzle like it’s 1989, there’s a new slate of free and mobile titles gunning for your dwindling free time. Here are 5 worth watching.

Post-It notes are eminently useful, but they don’t seem like the most promising medium for creative expression.

“Au contraire,” says YouTube videographer Michael Birken. Well, not literally, but the sentiment is expressed in the magnificent bit of stop-motion animation captured below. Ms. Pac-Man munches her way through a maze and Mario battles Donkey Kong to rescue his best girl -- all rendered with thousands of Post-It ‘pixels’ on an office wall:

William Shatner's never been afraid of high tech.  After all, he starred in a TV series that set the standard for pop-culture sci-fi, developed a series of cyber-noir novels, and got in on the ground floor of the dot-com boom by becoming the pitchman for e-travel agency Priceline.com.

So upon hearing the news that Shatner's launching his own iPhone app, our first reaction was, "what took him so long?"

The app, called "Shatoetry" and co-created by Lev Chapelsky of Blindlight Apps, takes advantage…of Shatner's…famed…penchant for dramatic pauses and…over-the-top line readings, allowing users to put the actor's legendary pipes to work sending out messages of their own devising across numerous social networks.

(Credit: Nintendo)Nintendo faces a tough task with each new Mario game release: they've got to recapture the familiar platforming comfort food that fans have been craving for over a quarter-century, yet add something fresh to reassure us that the formula hasn't gotten stale.  The most acclaimed Mario titles -- from Super Mario 64, with its triumphant entry into the third dimension, to Super Mario Galaxy, with its ingenious miniature planets -- have found a way to strike that delicate balance between old and new.

Releasing Sunday for the 3DS, New Super Mario Bros. 2 aims to do exactly that by focusing squarely on gold. Yes, you still hop on Goombas, smash blocks, and munch mushrooms, but now it's less about saving the princess and more about saving as many gold coins as you can. A curious tweak, but is it enough to make this particular Mario another must-have?

Couch potatoPerhaps they should be called 'immobile' games.

According to a survey conducted by casual game developer PopCap, respondents say they spend more time playing mobile game devices in their own living rooms than in the places you'd expect — such as in line at the grocery store or on board an airplane.

First job, first kiss, first pet -- firsts are a big part of life, and so it is with games.

From MMOs to Madden, from sophisticated CG cinematics to gritty shooters, gaming's biggest franchises, genres, and techniques all had to get started somewhere.  Journey back in time with us as we excavate the obscure origins of the gaming world we take for granted today.

Think eSports aren't real sports?  The 5,000 fans who gathered at the Austin City Limits Live's Moody Theater last weekend -- having plunked down hard-earned cash to attend the Redbull Battlegrounds Starcraft II tournament -- might beg to differ.

Braving the sweltering Texas heat, fans lined up to see 16 of the world's finest Starcraft II players compete for a $41,000 purse during two solid days of intensive round-robin play, with live commentary by top eSports announcers such as Sean "Day[9]" Plott and Mike "Husky" Lamond.  With the action projected on a massive screen for the benefit of the auditorium, Plott, Lamond, and other commentators breathlessly narrated a grueling series of digital battles.

Zombie SwipeoutWhere, oh where, would we be without zombies?  These shambling, brainless baddies are the perfect outlet for gamer rage.  Squish 'em, shoot 'em, run 'em over: dealing out pain to the undead never seems to get old.

The folks at Gamedoctors — an indie app developer recently acquired by Zynga — understand the primal joy of zombie-smashing.  In fact, they made a game about it, fittingly named ZombieSmash!, which became, er, a smash hit on the iTunes store last year, garnering a 4.5 star rating from thousands of voters.

Now they're back with Zombie Swipeout, a follow-up that's set in the same cartoon-horror universe.  But instead of smashing zombies, this time you slash them to pieces with a host of suitably brutal weapons, edged or otherwise.