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In the video games industry, like any other, few dominant factors always draw in the masses and dictate popular opinion. But for every hit, an unappreciated gem flies under our radars.

It’s a shame, really, because many of these games are true masterpieces. They do not deserve to go unnoticed. So how do these games fail to acheive such acclaim?

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At this point in time, the gaming industry faces several truly juvenile problems that do not befit its status as one of the premier forms of entertainment in the world.

For example, rating systems have yet to be properly implemented, with many games being banned from certain countries when films and books with similar content are given a free pass.

Even in the United States, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has some problems with their designations. In my opinion, their ratings are not properly delineated to encompass all types and ranges of mature content.

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"I tell you one thing -- working police in Liberty City ain’t like it is anywhere else. And it ain't like you see on TV -- I tell you that."

I’m in a squad car with Officer Mike Cabroni of the Liberty City Police Department. Cabroni has policed these streets for six years and is one of the few LCPD officers willing to publicly discuss the city’s enduring one-man crime wave.

No one in local law enforcement seems to know this mysterious criminal’s name. LCPD officially refer to him as "Perp 1." Possible street names identify him as "Nicky," "Neeko," and "Cahzin." Cabroni, in his thick Broker accent, calls him, simply, "The Guy."

"I mean, The Guy’s unbelievable. Four years of this shit -- shooting guys in the street, setting fire to people in cars, running them down. Who would want to do that? This is one sick guy we're talking about here."

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

We're taking the next four days off to spend time with our families and stuff our faces with delicious food. Head over to GamesBeat for regular video game coverage throughout the holiday weekend.

What games will you play today while the turkey roasts?

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Conan O'Brien is known as many things. He's a comedian, a host, an actor, a musician, and more. But he is no gamer. Of course, that's what makes his reviews so hilarious.

The newest edition of Clueless Gamer sees the red-headed wonder tackle Hitman: Absolution, the fifth installment in developer IO Interactive's stealthy series. Although, as Conan humorously points out, it's hard for a guy to remain undetected when he has a bar code on the back of his shiny head. He's also a bit put off when someone suggests that he hide in the same dumpster he just dropped a body in. Ew.

You can watch the full review after the break.

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I'm frustrated that the tradition of journalistic coverage on video games has now become a sort of joke told with Doritos in one hand and a cup of Mountain Dew in the other.

When I wanted to reply to community writer Nathaniel Dziomba's excellent article, "Games journalism never had any integrity" -- particularly on his point that he had led in with, what I imagined as a short snippet went beyond what I expected it to. His article and those brought together within community manager Layton Shumway's collection of Bitmob's thoughts on games journalism made me wonder: How did things get the way they are? And is there anything we can do about it?

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Developer Telltale Games has just wrapped up its five-episode "season" of games based on the mega-popular series of graphic novels, The Walking Dead. The smart money says the team will keep the momentum going and get started on Season 2, but if it wants to keep us all in suspense for a little longer, I can think of a few other properties that could benefit from the sort of faithful and nuanced treatment we got for the zombie-apocalypse drama. I don't expect to see these titles actually come out, but this is the Internet, damn it, and it's made of dreams.

1.) The Thing

In 1982, John Carpenter released his classic film The Thing, a brutal, bleak movie about a shapeshifting alien intent on assimilating and imitating every creature on Earth. It came out against Steven Spielberg's E.T., a cuddly, optimistic film about a sad, friendly alien gardener just trying to get home. Guess which one made more money?

Still, I would argue that Carpenter's film is the better story, and it deftly handles complicated issues of trust, paranoia, and what it really means to be human in the presence of an insidious outside threat.

Telltale could easily apply the skills it honed making The Walking Dead and create an amazing, tense game in which players must make tough decisions to determine who among them is really who they claim to be before the tentacles, weird head-mouths, and spider legs start a-sprouting.

Developer Computer Artworks released a sort-of sequel to The Thing back in 2002, and while it was a perfectly decent third-person shooter, its attempts to capture the trust dynamics of the film fell flat. The Thing is not about guns, although it has plenty of those -- perhaps even more than an isolated Antarctic science station would seem to need. It's about deciding whether the person standing next to you is still who he was this morning, and what you're prepared to do if he's not. It's about the breakdown of polite society and shit getting really real without warning and people you've grown attached to dying very badly, very suddenly.

Does that remind you of anything else?

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A recent foray into PC gaming has reignited my frustrations with survival-horror and convinced me that stagnation has crept its way into the sub-genre.

You see, a few weeks back, I came upon the YouTube channel of one MarbleHornets, the creator of a fake reality web series (ignore the oxymoron) based around the Slender Man legend. I have always found the concept of a faceless, malevolent entity stalking mankind since time immemorial to be a genuinely unnerving concept.

After spending far too much time watching and reading about the Slender Man, I learned of Slender: The Eight Pages, a game based around the entity.

Parsec Productions’ indie hit is nothing short of amazing considering the minute budget it was created on. The premise is brilliantly simple: You are placed in a deserted and eerie forest and are tasked with collecting eight randomly placed pages from landmarks scattered throughout the area with nothing but a flashlight. It sounds rather bland until you discover that you are being constantly watched and followed by the game’s titular character (who can literally appear right in front of your eyes or directly behind you at any given moment). With nothing to defend yourself with, the possibility of being caught behind any sharp corner or dimly lit narrow tunnel genuinely creates a tense atmosphere.

Now, it would be too easy for me to say that Slender has singlehandedly restored the survival-horror genre in terms of being able to evoke the emotion of fear and anxiety in the medium of video games, but it has reminded me of how much the genre has changed in recent years.

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I've seen a lot of Team Fortress 2 movies that made me laugh, but Story of a Sentry is the first to make me feel just tiny bit forlorn. Well, maybe it was more like sad. OK, fine! I cried! I said it! Are you happy now?

What, you think I'm less of a man? Well, watch the video yourself (posted after the break), and let's see how much of tough guy you are.

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I fear I am getting too old to be getting into arguments in video game stores. When I was 8 years old, a clerk and I engaged in a comical debate about who was better: Link or Gordon Freeman. I hadn't played Half-Life yet, and really, I was probably too young to even enjoy the masterpiece that it is. I also assumed that Gordon was related to Cathy Freeman, a famous Australian athlete and, consequently, could not see the appeal. The whole encounter was actually quite endearing. 

Fast forward 13 years. Location: EB Games, Stone Road Mall. Situation: A gentleman, ironically wearing a faded Call of Duty T-shirt, is complaining about the "lame difficulty" of new-school games and the need for a return to more "classical" role-playing games. Response: complete over-reaction.

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