The indie video game scene is getting more and more exposure lately, thanks in part to sites like Game Tunnel. Partly, of course, it’s also because there are too many independently-produced games to ignore these days. The Internet is full of small companies (sometimes spare-bedroom small) founded by young guns fresh out of school or old dogs who burned out on one too many Madden sequels, all hoping to catch your attention with a game they wanted to make instead of a game some suit told them to make. Game Tunnel is there to guide you through this unfamiliar terrain, with news about and reviews of all those games you won’t find at Best Buy. The guys (yeah, they’re almost all guys) who run this site have clearly played pretty much everything and built their own games to boot. When they tell you what works and what sucks about the latest space empire adventure from some guy in Belgium, you know they know whereof they speak. Every month they post a roundup of mini-reviews of the latest releases. The rest of the frequently-updated site offers deeper reviews and a collection of columns. For a wider range of opinion, check the forum. Then go play. (Derek Winkler)
www.gametunnel.com