The technical category marks the first appearance of one of our favorites from the competition: Joe Danger. Imagined almost like the bastard child of Trials and Excite Bike, its cartoony visuals and addicting gameplay make it one of the best entries this year. Developed by Hello Games, Joe Danger follows the titular stuntman as he goes on one last tour, thrilling and chilling audiences in all sorts of locations. It should come as no surprise that Joe Danger is as good as it is, since the developers have worked on some stellar mainstream titles to get the experience and cash they need to make Joe Danger. The game is incredibly fun, and the natural progression of the campaign mixed with the replayability of the levels kept us coming back for more and more. It's a must-buy when it releases later this year.

The impressive technical bits of Joe Danger are related almost entirely to the physics. Unlike other games, Joe Danger plays it rather fast and loose with physics. After all, you are playing a stuntman, and you expect to see some awesome stunts! Boosting and flying through the air headfirst into a wall may not seem like a technical achievement, but the successful distortion of physics mixed with the mayhem when you crash is quite impressive. Your bike splinters and break, you go all ragdoll, and the world is somehow a better place thanks to your rampant destruction. Joe Danger is the only game in this category that perverts physics, as the rest are fairly normal in that department.


Limbo is one of those games that uses physics quite well, and it's the next game on our list. A repeat nomatination, Limbo was also nominated for visual excellence thanks to its striking art style reminiscent of shadows and darkness. You play as a young boy, who is traveling through a dark world to a location unknown. As mentioned before, this could be an interpretation of the world being limbo, or imagination, or whatever you want to think it is. The game is certainly artistic, and it has a slow and deliberate feel about it that makes it quite compelling compared to many other games in the competition.

The technical excellence contained within Limbo is focused almost entirely on the physics. Everything in the game has weight and purpose, even the player. You must use this weight and manipulation of the environment to solve many different puzzles, from stacking boxes (oh boy!) to manipulating the forest itself. While this doesn't seem like much, its actually one of the only games we've seen that incorporated physics so thoroughly, and for this it is definitely worthy of attention. Beyond the physics simulation, Limbo is not an especially technical masterpiece, but then again, physics is the new realm for games, and the better it is used the better it will become in the future.

Heroes of Newerth is the latest game in the long-running Savage line from independent developer S2 Games, and it takes a considerable different approach than previous games. Where Savage and Savage 2 were some of the first games to incorporate RPGs, FPS games, and RTS games all in one, Heroes of Newerth is more traditional. In fact, you could say that it's a carbon-copy of Defense of the Ancients. We've seen a lot on Heroes of Newerth, and even played the beta, so seeing it as a finalist in the IGF may be a bit strange. However, despite any gameplay flaws, Heroes of Newerth does have a technical backing greater than most indie games can aspire to.

Heroes of Newerth, as mentioned, plays almost exactly like Defense of the Ancients. Instead of mixing things up a little like League of Legends or Demigod, it's almost a straight port of the popular Warcraft 3 mod. You control a single hero, who must kill enemy units, monsters, and other heroes until one team gets the upper hand and takes out the other. It's that simple. The game is the kind that just about anyone can learn, but the community is rather harsh, so unless you are prepared to be peppered with comments belittling you as a noob, you may want to try friendlier games like League of Legends first. If you're into Defense of the Ancients, however, this is precisely it, and you'll love Heroes of Newerth for following the formula so closely.

The technical excellence in Heroes of Newerth comes entirely from the netcode. Heroes of Newerth has some of the best netcode we've seen, especially given the vagaries of the modern broadband connection. Pings are almost universally low, connections and disconnections are handled with grace by the server, and it feels like you are playing with friends in the room, not across the world. This is the very definition of technical excellence, and this sort of good netplay could be used in many other indie games to improve them. The best part about the online play is the rankings, which keep you always in the know regarding losses, wins, disconnections, and even minor statistics such as maximum damage dealt.