Trauma starts off with an arthouse game impression that it never quite shakes. However, instead of lacking gameplay or fun, Trauma turns philosophy and meaningful dialogue into an excellent point-and-click adventure game. It follows the journey of a woman who survived a car crash which traumatized her physically and psychologically. It explores her surreal dreams during psychiatric sessions, with each "correct" solution creating more dialog and exploring more of the woman's psyche. It's incredibly interesting, especially if you are a adventure games, as it takes the puzzles of them and merges it with a zen-like, damaged feeling.

The visuals of Trauma are incredibly impressive. They appear to be photos, but then they play tricks on you, such as using 3D rendering and object deformation. The first time you see a wall crumple into nothingness, we guarantee you will be surprised. This combination of photos, photomanipulation, and 3D rendering gives trauma a unique feel that we can't really say any other game quite replicates. It reminds us more of a traditional art installation, not a game, and it's excellent that it does this. After all, we've been looking for to a good arthouse game for a while.

Shank is an XBLA game, which makes it unusual in that it is one of two XBLA games to become finalists in the IGF. We don't really know what is it about, other than it features lots of gore and cartoony enemies to chop to bits. And really, isn't that all you need in a game? Plenty of action and violence can be just as entertaining as a thoughtful and introspective art piece. The biggest surprise, however, is that Shank is being developed by Klei Entertainment, who are known for their saccharine sweet game Eets. It's quite a style change, but not an unwelcome one.

Shank's visual style can best be describes as visceral. It's very dynamic and fluid, with showers of gore and smooth animations being the key points of the art. In motion, it looks fantastic, and it's sort of fitting that we end on it. With Shank, almost every major art style has been represented in the visuals finalists. There's painted, photographic, pixel, silhouette, and then Shank's dynamic action.