The newest, best thinking man's FPS
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a lot of game. Filing it squarely in the FPS genre does the game a disservice when one considers all the genre-bending going on here. It's part FPS, part open-world choose-your-own-adventure RPG, part social adventure, and a not too subtle exploration of transhumanist philosophy.

One thing's for sure though: it's all good.

Playing as Adam Jensen in a Deus Ex world set years before the events in the original game, you're thrust into the the game with little more than a pat on the back. You play a security chief for a mega corporation on the brink of a major scientific breakthrough. That's when things go bad.

Jensen -- no slouch on the bad-ass scale by himself -- is quickly and decisively beat down by a couple of "augmented" soldier-types who do a fine job of showing Jensen what happens when you replace a few key body parts with mechanical upgrades.

Jensen basically dies. But he gets better. And that's where the game really begins.

Deus Ex is a world where humans can upgrade themselves, provided they have the means. The medical breakthroughs are impressive: the blind can see, the paralyzed can walk, and so on. But the improvements don't end with helping the sick. Even healthy men and women choose augmentation, replacing legs, arms, and more with improved mechanical parts. The multi-national chain of "LIMB" (Liberation In Mind and Body) clinics do double duty as convenient upgrade hubs for Jensen and reminders that this technology is essentially freeing humanity from its natural trappings. This, then, begs the question: when humanity's traditional limitations no longer apply, at what point are we no longer human? Do we become something else entirely, and are we slaves to the new paradigm? Or are we still fundamentally human regardless?

Indeed, that's what I found to be Human Revolution's most attractive feature. Sure, it has passably impressive graphics, sound, and FPS gunplay. But, none of that sets this game apart. It is Deux Ex's fearless exploration of more mature themes that gives it high marks in my book. Both the narrative and the gameplay gently ask the player to consider the true nature of humanity, yet the game never becomes a tiresome sermon. It's a theme that the murder/mystery/conspiracy story unsteadily rides throughout the 30+ hour globetrotting adventure, and the game is better for it.

As the player earns more experience points which, in turn, can be spent on Jensen's considerable augmentation options, the player is subtly shown that augmentation is less a choice than an evolutionary imperative. You realize that humans will eventually have to make fundamental decisions about their nature; in this game world for sure, but also in the real world's not-too-distant future. As a species, we'll have to do some serious soul-searching to redefine what it means to be human. In game, one begins to look on augmentations as a necessary evil more than a welcome means to make Adam Jensen more powerful.

That's as it should be. When presented with so many options, it is immensely satisfying to be asked to think about those options. Do I run in guns blazing and play this game like every other FPS? Or do I play it like a pacifist, choosing only to incapacitate my opponents instead of killing them? Do I upgrade my stealth augmentations, or invest in the "Typhoon" which basically turns my torso into a bomb? The game allows me to choose how I want to play (which is an accomplishment all on its own), but more importantly, it makes my decisions meaningful and pervasive by letting my choices effect characters, events, and even Jensen himself.

For me, by the end of the game Jensen had gone through each level with a ninja's grace and a pacifist's care. No computer was left unhacked and not a single death (except for bosses) bloodied Jensen's hands. And it was thoroughly enjoyable because the game never said, "play through this level this way." It simply gave me a ton of options, and I chose the one that fit to the way I wanted to play. In a time when video games are increasingly choosing to remove player choice because it's just too complicated to tell a non-linear story, Deux Ex challenged convention and presented me with more ways to play than I could possibly experience in a single play through.

Except when it comes to boss fights. Curiously, the boss fights were unimaginative affairs where the only choice is to break out the best lethal weapon and unload on the bad guy. The boss fights are creatively and thematically incongruous with the rest of Deus Ex, prompting me to wonder if these sequences were tacked on at the last minute or outsourced to a team who didn't intimately understand the kind of game they were making*. Thankfully, though, the boss fights are few.

As I would expect, Deus Ex has its share of bugs. Its open nature predisposes it to some measure of roughness around the edges. Still, that's no excuse. Twice I ran into side missions that could not be completed because the mission wouldn't update when I completed one part. The "Talion AD" side quest was a particular disappointment because it was broken right as it started (when I picked up the pocket secretary behind the butcher shop, the mission didn't update and spawn the next waypoint in the sewers), robbing me of a potentially interesting side-story. There was also a boss fight so buggy that I was able to stand point-blank in front of the boss and unload my combat rifle into her head until she died. She never fired back, her A.I. obviously caught up in some sort of loop.

But these technical failings pale in comparison to what the game does so well. It gives you meaningful choices in a world that could soon be all too real. It asks you to consider the social, personal, and philosophical implications of those choices while shooting, sneaking, hacking, and generally bad-assing your way through a fully-realized world.

By the end of the game, Jensen is a power-house amalgamation of machine and man. He's a joy to maneuver through enemy-infested territory regardless of how you choose to play (gun-happy or ninja-stealthy). In the end, when you put all the philosophical musings aside and just let the game be, it still manages to get the adrenaline flowing and the blood pumping right up until the final satisfying climax.



*After playing through Deux Ex, I read up a little on the game's development and learned that the game's boss fighters were indeed outsourced.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

The other day, a most outrageous thought struck me as I absently watched the kids in my neighborhood playing in the street. These young kids were actively participating in Murder Simulation. What seemed like innocent childish play at first was, instead, a nefarious mental and physical conditioning for a future of violence and murder. You see, these kids (boys and girls!) were "playing" with squirt guns.

Squirt guns and their ilk are dangerous physical appliances that teach a kid how to kill efficiently and to love it. The most basic squirt gun is modeled with craftsman-like precision to imitate real guns. Some even provide "squirters" with vibration-feedback, effectively turning the act of squirt gun fights into a kind of mental masturbation! And don't think it ends simply at my neighborhood street. This insanity is a world-wide epidemic orchestrated by the highest echelons of our government! I learned on the internet that the US Military is using squirt guns to train our nation's troops. They're literally using modified versions of these guns, as well as their own guns, to do one thing: to break down the inhibition to kill among new recruits. That's right! Our military is training troops to kill!

And it gets worse, people. Think of the water balloon. It's not such an innocent toy when you consider the inevitable result of encouraging your kids to play with them. There's really little difference between a water balloon and a grenade. In a child's eyes, they're both thrown with the same intent! Some kids even add food-coloring to their water, reinforcing their murderous fantasies.

If a child grows bored of the standard squirt gun, companies like "Nerf" are there to provide more complex murder simulators with their "Super Soaker" line of murder simulators. These things are the definition of evil, with their high-powered pump-action mechanisms which can shoot streams of water with compressed air. And don't even get me started on the gun-like apparatus you can screw onto the end of any ordinary garden hose. Talk about giving kids virtually unlimited ammunition to explore their most depraved imaginings! This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he's a squirt gunner!

I, for one, have had enough. I am a one-man squirt gun wrecking crew! I love the smell of burning squirt guns in the morning, and I'm making it my personal mission to expose the squirt gun industry's evil intentions in whatever way I can. I encourage you to join my righteous cause. If you see a kid playing with a squirt gun, immediately take it away and burn it. Then tell the parents why you did what you did. With any luck, they'll keep their kids inside the house and playing video games, safe from other kids who would incite them to join in on the squirt gun murder simulations.

A fitting end and a new beginning.
Activision has balls, I'll give them that. When they fired Infinity Ward's founders and effectively encouraged everyone to abandon that company, they were in serious jeopardy of killing their CoD franchise. Regardless of whether or not Infinity Ward's founders were doing anything illegal, Activision took a billion-dollar risk when they fired those guys.

Which is why it's impressive that a Call of Duty game was released this holiday at all. And, it's even more impressive that it's a good game; bursting with the AAA features and solid technology that have kept gamers coming back to the series for years.

But, it's not better than Black Ops or Modern Warfare 2, partly because of Activision's over-zealous efforts to make an extra buck on a franchise that is already making their executive team mountains of money.

I'm talking, of course, of "Elite," which is effectively a side-project (not part of Modern Warfare 3 per se) that takes all of the stat-tracking I was so fond of in Black Ops and presents it in an app ill-suited to the task. For the low price of a $50 subscription, Elite effectively weakens MW3 both because it's a broken piece of technology in its own right (months after release, many features are still absent or in an obvious beta state) and because it makes MW3 look less feature-rich.

It's not for lack of trying, though. MW3's multi-player is loads of fun and more accessible than ever. They've rejiggered the killstreaks (renaming them point streaks), allowing players to earn their special events in easier ways. Gone are the days when you had to survive and earn kills in order to get your high-value killstreak. Now, you can earn an EMP by doing little more than sticking it out, even if you die a lot.

It's an interesting design decision, if you look at it objectively. In previous CoD games, the best killers earned the best killstreaks, usually regardless of what the map objectives were asking them to do. Now, less skilled players are allowed to earn high-level streaks, provided they do things that help the larger team achieve their objectives. I applaud the designers for recognizing the unstated problem and trying to solve it, but in practice, I'm not sure I agree with the solution.

Maybe that's because I'm traditionally one of those guys who was used to earning the high-value killstreaks. Now that everyone is getting them, it's not so impressive. And I miss being impressive.

Perhaps more telling is how MW3 has won out over Battlefield 3, at least with my core group of friends. We all pretty much agree that Battlefield 3's multiplayer is a better designed, deeper experience. But, we keep coming back to MW3. Why? Because MW3's lobby system lets all 9 of us play together on the same team. Battlefield 3 doesn't consistently allow more than 4 people to play together, often splitting up more than 4 people onto opposing teams. So, we end up playing a less impressive game because that less impressive game allows us to play together.

It's features like that which make MW3 the go-to multi-player game of the year. You can easily match up with friends. All your friends can earn impressive and helpful streaks. Killing is easy, with liberal use of lock-on barrel-sighting and auto-aiming. The average multi-player match -- when you're co-operating with a solid team -- is a ballet of controlled chaos. Its organic ebb and flow create an epic beauty that leaves you asking for one more game over and over again, late into the night.

While the multi-player game presents new ideas that probably won't be fully explored or refined until the next sequel comes around, the single player game caps the Modern Warfare trilogy nicely. It picks up right after the events that closed out MW2 and, through about 6 hours of non-stop adrenaline-charged soldiering heroics, leaves the player emotionally spent. Seriously, when I finished the single-player game, I realized I was panting. My heart was beating fast and my hands were a bit clammy. MW3's single player game has that kind of effect on you.

In fact, the single-player campaign could have benefited from better pacing. MW3 is full-throttle from the first minute. The action only slows down for loading screens, and even then the game does its best to make those exciting. The end result is a single-player experience that leaves players exhausted; so exhausted that some gamers might actually crave a change of pace before the world is saved. It's sensory overload with achievements.

But the single player game, while impressive, is not why millions of gamers keep playing. Soap's story is done, Makarov is finally defeated, and World War 3 is over just a few hours after it has started. And no one really cares. It's all about the multi-player. Despite my misgivings about the changes, the multi-player game has delivered again, against the odds. It's a game worth picking up night after night, especially if you have a great group of friends to play along with.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

I’ve been playing iMAME on my iPad with my iCade all day now.

I’ve played 80 different games so far today, and have been wowed by each of them in many different ways. But here’s where the mixed feelings come in.

I don’t like pirating video games.

But I justify my MAME playing with all kinds of excuses.

You see, many of the games available through MAME are impossible to find in the real world--several have even been lost forever, what with their hardware destroyed, etc. MAME offers players a chance to experience arcade games that were never offered up to the mass-market.

So, I find myself justifying my theft of these ROMs with the idea that I’m educating myself... That I’m going on an historical journey through the annals of video games.

And of course, I am. I’m learning so much about video games just by playing these old classics. So I will continue to play them.

It’s just a shame that so very few of them have been made available, in their true arcade-perfect forms, for public consumption.

I feel that if I let my morals win in this case, I would be depriving myself of the rich experiences offered up by so many incredible vintage games.

So... It’s the first of 2012, and already my vice is up 1 against my morals, which are at 0.

What a year.

More style than substance
At first impression, it would be an understatement to call El Shaddai unique. Based on biblical apocrypha and influenced by nearly every kind of art style there is, this game bucks just about every modern trend.

Enoch's story is told through Lucifel's perspective, when the game pauses between levels to tell a story. The gameplay itself isn't much concerned with the narrative, focusing instead on the sci-fi psychedelia and anime fantasy the game's lead artist is so obviously enamored with. Oddly, the two seemingly disparate directions compliment each other, especially in the first half of the game's roughly 8 hours.

I enjoyed Enoch's jaunt through biblical legend. It was fun to see Luciel (who's destiny is known to the gamer, but not to Enoch) talk with God as if he's an old friend. In one such telephone conversation when he says to God, "Why don't you take a break for a little while? I got things handled down here," you understand the subtext more deeply than your in-game character could possibly guess. In fact, Luciel's brief updates to the man upstairs are some of El Shaddai's more inspired subtle touches.

What lacked inspiration was the same-y combat. Despite three different base weapons, the combat is rather simplistic. Sure, Enoch runs up against a variety of enemies, but nearly all of them can be dispatched in the same way. Changing up the weapons will make you more effective at killing enemies, but there's nothing to prevent you, or even discourage you, from mashing Square through every fight from beginning to end. Couple this with El Shaddai's liberal use of jumping puzzles and before long the main motivation for moving from one level to the next is to see what new artistry they'll throw at you.

Even the narrative eventually gets too convoluted to make sense. In true japanese anime fashion, the game falls in love with its cleverness. Near the end of the game, it bludgeons the player with ham-fisted metaphor and melodrama, ultimately devolving into an unintelligible kaleidoscope of boss fights.

But oh is it beautiful! From start to finish, El Shaddai is a sight. From stark ruins to celebratory futuristic cityscapes (complete with geometric fireworks), El Shaddai puts on quite a show. Each level presents the gamer with a new art style, each more unique than what you'll find in any other game released this year. It's a game that calls out to other game publishers and developers, challenging them to be as fearless in their endeavors.

El Shaddai is not a perfect package, though it is a unique one. What it lacks in substance and gameplay, it tries to make up for in artistry and style. Unfortunately, it's never quite enough to set this game up as a classic.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukka, or Festivus, BVG.net hopes Santa brings you every video game on your list.

Unless you've been naughty, that is. Naughty people deserve a lump of coal and a broken internet connection. And rest assured, Santa knows if you've been naughty. He makes a list. He personally checks it twice, not content to leave such an important detail to his elves. The big guy has been working with a nearly infallible system for years. Don't think you can fool him forever.

But enough about naughty people. They get enough attention on the other 364 days in the year. Instead, let's take a moment to remember what this season is all about: getting and giving video games!

If you're a gamer, you've doubtless been blown away by the quality of games offered up this year. From Portal 2 to Batman: Arkham City, to Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and Uncharted 3; everywhere you look, you're bound to find an awesome game to play. It has been a crazy year for awesomeness. So, go out there and buy one for your friend. Spread some joy. Then get back home as quickly as you can, jump onto your gaming platform of choice, and spend the evening racking up headshots in true holiday tradition.

And have a happy new year!

One of WP7's quick pleasures
Orbital for Windows Phone is a solid port of the 2009 iPhone original, complete with features one would expect on the Xbox LIVE platform including achievements and leaderboard support.

Thankfully, it maintains its original minimalist charm. It's still a simple game where you shoot a projectile into a field and hope for the best. Each shot produces an "orb" which ultimately needs to be destroyed by hitting it with other orbs shot from your cannon.

The Geometry Wars-inspired art style is a perfect fit for the game, and does a great job of keeping the gamer's attention focused on the gameplay. The sounds are equally clean and direct. The whole package, then, feels well edited and intelligently designed, even if it doesn't take many chances in game design.

Orbital supports two-player local play, which is a stroke of pure genius. It is in this mode where the game's strategic potential shines. Each player is tasked with filling the shared gamespace with orbs, trying to block off the opponent while keeping his own side clear of orbs. It's an engaging back-and-forth turn-based affair that is the perfect distraction when you're waiting for a table at a restaurant.

Indeed, Orbital could easily become one of your go-to games when you're looking for a quick 2 minute distraction. It's easy to understand, easy to play, and it's one of the few mobile games that is fun to play with friends.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

We all love to love the things we love.

But all good things must come to an end.

l was doing some thinking the other day, and I realized that most TV shows made in the US remain on the air until people lose interest. And that's when we decide that Series X is over. Then, looking back on the series, we inevitably have the conversation about when it lost its steam or jumped the shark. Instead, why don't we do what a lot of British TV shows do, which is to end them when it's appropriate to the story, and before everyone is sick of them? It's much more artistically satisfying, and way more respectful to the viewer. And then we can look back on them fondly, and with the same intensity of passion that we had while watching them.

And of course, I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this...

Luckily, in our industry, we don't have a lot of story arcs that NEED to end. One can compare something like Mario to Monty Python's Flying Circus. There isn't a story that binds one episode to the next, so the longevity of the franchise is much more robust. But for something more story driven, like Lost or Resident Evil, the longer the series lasts, and the more details that get invented, the more disbelief the consumer needs to suspend.

Taking Resident Evil for example, I would give a dollar to anyone who can tell me what has happened in that world from about Code Veronica on, and explain why it makes sense. By now, I'm so confused by the story, and the gameplay is always so samey, that I look back on the franchise not as something to admire and cherish, but as something to snigger at. Resident Evil went from an edgy and exciting zombie apocalypse gone awry to little more than a campy zombie shoot-em-up.

What got me thinking about this was my recent beat of Assassin's Creed Revelations which I'll be posting soon. I love the Assassin's Creed games, but Revelations was unnecessary. Oh, sure, it was good. But we didn't need it. I want Assassin's Creed to end. The story is so awesome. The gameplay is top-notch. If this franchise turns into another Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid I will lose a lot of respect for Ubisoft. They have made something with Assassin's Creed that could go down in video game history as one of the coolest stories ever told, so long as they don't beat it to death and bleed it out first.

And so my challenge to this industry is for developers and publishers to have the courage to make their franchises stop. Let them stand on their own and live on in our memories not as gradually decaying has-beens, but as ever immortal triumphs.

A nice reminder that something big is about to happen
Remember how we all thought that Brotherhood was going to be little more than an expansion to Assassin’s Creed II? And remember how we were all totally wrong?

So, based on my previous expectations, when Revelations was announced, I was sure that it would be another massive and worthwhile entry to the series.

And it’s not that I was wrong, but another Brotherhood this is not. This game is much more like the expansion that we all thought Brotherhood would be.

Revelations does offer some noteworthy, well, revelations. But the vast majority of the game is spent in what seems like a sidequest; focusing on Ezio’s adventures into the twilight of his life rather than focusing on exploring the story and getting down to what we’re all curious about which is why the fuck Desmond killed Lucy at the end of Brotherhood!

Like all Assassin’s Creed games, this one has ace combat and fantastic contraptions to play with, but it isn’t content with simply meeting the status quo. In Revelations, the addition of bombs, while awkward at first, ends up being an excellent addition to Ezio’s arsenal. And while I loved the tower defense segments at first, they start to become impossible to win, and you can tell that they are actually impossible--you’re not just failing them. The game is throwing unbeatable challenges at you. And that is never a good feeling for a gamer. So, in the end, those kinda sucked.

My biggest complaint with the game is that it didn’t really further the Assassin’s Creed meta-plot in any meaningful way that couldn’t have been explained in the opening cutscene of the still-inevitable Assassin’s Creed III.

Yes, it’s a fun game. Yes, it’s nice to get to know Ezio more. Also, it’s nice to get to know Desmond through his strange and abstract adventures within the rebooting Animus. And subject 16 was something else.

But really, this game does not need to be played by anyone only mildly interested in the series.

Myself, I’m a complete sucker for this series, so I played the game with an unhealthy obsession. And the ending definitely made me salivate for the next entry in the series. It couldn’t come soon enough.

Reviewed by CommanderVideo

After Shattered Dimensions impressed with its refreshing variety and risk-taking, I was really looking forward to Beenox's follow-up. What I got was a sloppy mess of a game that never lived up to its promised potential. If only Activision and Beenox could rewind time and set this mess right.

It begins well. Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel) figures out that Alchemax's evil genius Walter Sloan (voiced by Val Kilmer) is up to no good. In an inspired opening credits sequence, Miguel crawls through air ducts as he stealthily tracks Walter to his time lab. He then witnesses Walter take a step back through time where Peter Parker is killed fighting Anti-Venom. It's a neat start that screams potential.

It's all down hill from there, though. The game's biggest hook was the promise that actions in the past would affect the future. So, things you do with Spider-Man would help or hinder 2099's efforts. Only, those events are rare and heavily scripted, giving the player no sense of influence over time.

A good story might have made up for Beenox's failing with the time events. Instead, the story is another disappointment. While the dialog was strong, the story these characters fought through was both confusing and sometimes unimaginative. Val Kilmer's Walter Sloan character is unceremoniously erased from existence about half-way through the game, to be replaced by another main bad guy. Only, this replacement doesn't make any sense, which only serves to cheapen what little hope I had left in the story.

Combine those complaints with the fact that you're often placed in too-small confines (effectively neutering Spider-Man's web-slinging, a defining trait of the character), presented with sloppy spelling in the game's menus, forced to repeatedly fight the same kinds of enemies, and ultimately plod through uninspired boss battles, and you're left with a game best avoided.

My suspicion is that Activision tasked Beenox with two Spider-Man games after their impressive Shattered Dimensions effort: one, to make a quick "sequel" and, two, to make an Amazing Spider-Man game to release along with the upcoming movie. My guess is Beenox put their B team on Edge of Time while their best talent went to the as-yet-unannounced movie tie-in. At least, with an explanation like that, I can fool myself into looking forward to what Beenox may do next with the license.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Poker with personality
There have been more video game iterations of Texas Hold 'Em than of any other card game. At least, that's how it seems. I don't have hard evidence to support this fact, but these days it seems like you can't take two steps near anything electronic without bumping into one version of Texas Hold 'Em or another.

It's no surprise, then, that the Windows Phone has its version of the game. What is a surprise is how well they implemented it with the Xbox LIVE experience.

First, you're presented with your own Avatar at the title screen: not some made-up, game-specific character. No, this is your Xbox LIVE Avatar, represented perfectly on the game's title screen. He or she will stick with you (provided you don't run into the bug I eventually did) for the duration of your play time. It's the game's first and most obvious step in connecting you with the card game on a more personal, intimate level than you may have expected. It works remarkably well, too.

Of course, when you're actually sitting at a "table" and playing the game, your avatar becomes a simple thumbnail picture with minimal animations in the corner of your screen. That's the way it should be: the action is on the cards, the pot, and the raises and calls. Since you cannot (as of this writing) play multiplayer matches on the phone, there's no need for controlled character interactions that might help you bluff your way to victory.

That's one the of game's disappointing aspects, in fact. It's a strictly single player affair. Every hand is played against a variety of A.I.-controlled players who quickly become all too predictable. Before long, you'll be at the final tournament table with full knowledge of the end result because the A.I. can't possibly fool you. Thus, winning the final pot is a bittersweet triumph.

Still, this portable poker game is a good distraction and fine practice for working out the finer aspects of your Hold 'Em skills. Moreover, because you earn experience points for various hands and actions, there's a feeling of progression even when you lose a hand or two. Indeed, because the game integrates seamlessly with the Xbox360 version (of the same name), allowing you to transfer your earned bankroll and XP over to the console, the portable version becomes an essential tool for the hard-core player. That feature alone is enough to earn the portable version high praise for creative innovation.

It loses points for some annoying bugs, however. At some point in my 10-ish hours of play, the game forgot my Avatar and replaced him with a generic preset character instead. The game offers no way to go back and choose your real Avatar, so I was stuck with this hoodie-wearing homeboy in the last few tournament tables. Of course, the gameplay was the same, but the action lost some of it's charm. I missed my Avatar!

Another bug, if you can call it that, is in the laggy bet slider bar. If you want to raise, you need to use the slider bar to select the amount of money you want to throw in. The problem is, the bar doesn't scale with the higher level games (where the pots and bets are bigger), meaning you have to fight with the bar to zero in on the amount of chips you want to lay down. With a slight movement of your finger, the bar will either slide too far to the right (too many chips) or too far to the left (no raise). Eventually, I ended up simply calling just to avoid that bar.

These problems, though frustrating, don't dramatically detract from the quality game at its core. The proven poker game coupled with the larger RPG-like leveling system make for a compelling portable poker experience. And if you're a devotee of the XBLA version of the game and an owner of a Windows Phone, it's essential that you download this app as well. Microsoft has created a cross-platform experience worth betting on.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Holy awesome sequel, Batman!
We all know that Batman: Arkham Asylum was amazing. Rocksteady did something special with the Bat-universe, bringing it into video game form without sacrificing any of what makes Batman cool. The only question, then, was could they do it again in the sequel? Could Rocksteady hit the ball out of the park again?

The answer, much to my enjoyment, is yes. Arkham City isn't the sequel I was expecting, but it was exactly the sequel Arkham Asylum needed. As an open-world prison, Arkham City is a perfect place to allow Batman's particular skills to shine. Gone are the confines of Arkham Asylum, replaced now by more player freedom, truly engaging side-quests, and a healthy helping of Catwoman.

In fact, Catwoman's presence provides a welcome change of pace from Batman's brooding. And Rocksteady did a perfect job of making her accessible from a gameplay perspective. She controls similarly to Batman, so there is no learning curve; but in character, motivation, animation, and narrative, she is just different enough that her occasional chapters feel like a breath of fresh air.

Not that playing as Batman is ever boring, mind you. It's just that Catwoman adds a nice bit of flavor to the game. Still, her part in this game is small. This is, after all, a Batman game and more than anything else, Rocksteady excels at making the player feel like the Dark Knight. Arkham Asylum's famous (and oft-imitated, I'm looking at you Capt. America) combat style has been improved, giving you more options to bring the hurt to the bad guys, especially after upgrading your abilities. Gliding over Arhkam City is liberating and empowering. Facing down a group of 10 armed thugs is thrilling, not frightening. It's good to be the Caped Crusader.

Despite all this, Rocksteady did stumble a bit on some details. The most obvious is how the gamplay directly contradicts the story. Like with the first game, the entire story is supposed to take place over one long night in Arkham. Only, if you include all the side-quests, Batman has far more to tackle in one night than even he could possibly handle. Couple that with an unfortunate fatal poisoning early in the game, and it feels wrong to attack any side-quests while Batman is dying. The narrative makes him seem determined to beat the poisoning, but the gameplay allows me to detour from the cure for as long as I want. Indeed, why should I spend so much time hunting down meaningless Riddler trophies when I'm mere hours away from an early grave? I appreciate the freedom afforded me by the gameplay, but I only wish the story supported it a bit more solidly.

That said, Paul Dini's story is as engaging as one familiar with his work would expect. He weaves a perfect Batman detective story with an ending so much more appropriate than the disappointing Joker fight we were forced to experience in the last game. I'm happy to say I missed some of the subtle clues scattered throughout the game and was taken completely off guard when the final reveal hit me square in the go-nads. It made me want to play through the game one more time just to see it again from a new perspective.

If you have any interest in Batman at all, play this game. If you enjoyed the first game, odds are you've already played the sequel. But, if you're on the fence because you're not a die-hard Batman fan or if you haven't played the first game, fear not. This super-hero game is nearly perfect and you deserve to play it.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

A powered-up version.
Sudoku is that curiously addictive puzzle game that happens to be just as fun with a pen and paper as it is on a computer or smart phone screen. Microsoft hasn't changed any of the core gameplay (else it wouldn't be Sudoku), but they have given gamers a reason to put the pen and paper away in favor of playing the game on the touch screen.

First, it's a free game, which already makes it attractive. It is supported by adds, so if you don't like a small banner taking up your screen, this isn't the game for you. Personally, the adds didn't bother me and, in fact, were easy to ignore.

Second, the game adds power-ups to the Sudoku formula. Power-ups come in the form of modifiers such as time-slowers (for the Lightning mode), auto-fill, and the like. The power-ups don't change the basic game, but they do a nice job of spicing things up and giving old pros new depths to challenge themselves with.

Third, the game integrates beautifully with your music and photo libraries, giving you backgrounds/wallpapers based on your recent photos and, if you like, background music to play while you're trying to figure out where those numbers should go.

It's not a perfect package, though. The game could use a zoom function. It was easy to touch the wrong squares because they were rather tiny. A zoom function would have made it easier to go into the square you wanted, then choose the number you needed. This is especially true in the game's Lightning mode, where every second lost counts against your final score.

Speaking of touching the wrong square, the game also has an annoying bug which occasionally ruined an otherwise perfect game. Once in a while, you'll find a blank square. You'll go to put your number in it, but the game won't let you select it. It's as if the game thinks the number is already present in the square, but it's not displaying it for you. You can fill in all the other squares, but the game won't finish because you haven't filled in that one last square . . . but you can't fill it in, because the game won't let you.

Considering that Sudoku is all about putting numbers into squares, this sort of bug is unforgivable even though it only happened to me a couple times out of the roughly two total hours I played the game on my phone. I mean, I would have forgiven a bug with one of the power ups or with the way the game integrates with my music and photo libraries. But a bug with putting numbers into the squares? It's quite a failure, that.

Still, it's a free game. The power-ups are a nice new touch and the achievements do a great job of encouraging return visits. If you own a Windows Phone, I recommend Sudoku.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Video game consumers are a unique bunch. We buy unfinished product at full price, then hope the developer/publisher updates the game via downloadable patches. I'm not pleased with this relatively new business practice, but considering how accepted it is by the larger video game consumer base, I don't see it going away any time soon. In fact, the practice is so successful, imagine if it caught on with other industries, such as:

New Car Sales: $40,000 will get you a shiny new coupe that'll take you from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. Of course, the passenger seat isn't quite finished. We expect to have that done in a few months. We'll ship it to you when we're finished, and you can install it. Until then, you can drive anywhere you want, so long as you drive alone.

Movies: Imagine settling into mid-row seats to watch the newest summer blockbuster. You've been looking forward to this movie for months. The lights dim, you patiently sit through the previews, and then the action finally starts. About 20 minutes in, though, the movie stops. The house lights come back on and a text message appears on the screen saying that you'll be able to download the rest of the film by the end of the year.

Buying prescription medications: Your throat hurts, so your doctor sends you to the pharmacy to pick up an Rx. They give you a syrup. It helps with the fever, but it doesn't do anything for the cough. You call the doctor and he explains that the cough medicine won't be fully effective until you've purchased a few refills at the pharmacy.

The Best Gears Yet!
Gears of War 3 is the videogame equivalent of a summer movie blockbuster. You have your big explosions caused by big men with bigger biceps all playing to the beat of a big mess of a story. You never doubt that the hero will make it through to the end, and you expect the journey to that end to be one hell of a roller coaster ride. In that way, Gears 3 is a triumphant success. You'd be hard-pressed to find a game better able to capture that summer movie blockbuster vibe.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should make it clear that I didn't play Gears 3 the way the developers intended. I didn't play on the "normal" difficulty with A.I. controlling my squad mates, then eventually work my way up to the Insane difficulty in Co-op with like-minded friends. No sir! Three friends and I went online co-op, Insane, Arcade mode from the start and never looked back. Thus, my impressions of the game's finer details will undoubtedly differ from the what the average Gearhead might experience.

That said, Insane mode (coupled with Arcade mode) is one of the game's more impressive features. The tension that builds as each of your squad mates are killed, eventually leaving just one lone survivor trying to stay alive long enough for the respawn clock to tick down; when you're one heartbeat away from failure and your friends are rooting you on as they watch helpless from their death cameras. . . it's an emotion rarely felt in this modern era of games built to gently hold your hand through their too-easy campaigns. Gears of War 3's Insane co-op campaign (in Arcade mode) revels in this tension. It feeds on it and, in turn, dares each player to keep up. Each bullet that hits you is a nearly fatal shot, each enemy is a bullet sponge that'll suck up an entire clip before it goes down (if it goes down), and you're constantly outnumbered by an impressive variety of enemies, each with their unique strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, it felt impossible. In short, despite your character's obnoxiously over-exaggerated super-human physique, he's outclassed and outmatched by the enemy.

It's a formula that results in a ton of sweet, sweet gaming tension right along with too many failures and restarts to count. So, gamers expecting effortless progress through the campaign should dial the difficulty down a bit. But, if you have stomach for it, the emotional rewards for fighting through definitely outweigh the cost of numerous checkpoint restarts.

Of course, Insane Mode is not without faults. The "Lambent Zerker" boss fight may be an epic, fun fight in the normal campaign. Indeed, it started out as pretty fun in Insane mode. But then the fight dragged on for nearly an hour, with only tiny changes to the boss's attacks. Half way through the fight, all four of us were so tired of fighting the creature (we weren't getting killed any longer, having long since learned how to avoid the thing's attacks) that we felt tired relief and sad disappointment instead of rejuvenating fiero when we finally killed the thing. That boss fight was a classic example of a game being made "harder" by simply increasing the enemy's hit points. From a game design perspective, it was transparent and lazy.

Regardless of the difficulty you choose to play in, the Gears gameplay trappings are as solid as ever. The "active reload" is back, and I still love it after all these years. The weapons are varied, with each one offering a fun way to dispatch enemies. Boss fights are huge, epic moments that once again reinforce that "summer movie blockbuster" feel. The level design is perhaps a little more formulaic than in previous games: you always know when you're entering an Encounter, due to the curiously strategic placement of the cover objects. As the player, you know you're walking into a manufactured war zone, which occasionally distracts from the fiction Epic is trying to immerse you in. However, you still run into those zones, excited to see what challenges you'll be faced with next.

On a technical level, more attention should have been paid to where co-op players spawn back in. Too often, I would spawn eye balls deep in a horde of Locust, with my only surviving friend a mile away. I'd die as quickly as I respawned, forced to wait another 20 seconds before joining back into the fight. It was annoying when it happened, but it never happened enough to detract from the overwhelming feeling of awesome you feel when taking on overwhelming odds and emerging triumphant with your three friends.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Now...

Skyward Sword might be able to change my mind, but I have to admit, I’m tired of Zelda games.

And I doubt that I’m the only one.

The Zelda franchise has gotten like the Pokemon franchise for me. Every new version is like playing the same game that I’ve played a dozen times before. I understand that being 37 years old, I’ve had Zelda in my life for longer than I’ve been doing most anything else that I currently do, and most people playing Zelda games are not in my shoes.

So I understand why Nintendo keeps making them. There’s always a new audience of youngsters looking for that feeling of adventure that I felt while playing the original. And I wouldn’t take that away from them at all.

But I think that I might have finally outgrown my tights, pointy ears, and Master Sword.

This has been a long time coming, and it’s a hard thing to do, but I think I’m going to leave Zelda in Ganon’s hands, knowing that there are millions of other heroes out there more interested in saving her than I.

I have loved you for too long. I’m sure it’s not you. It’s me. Goodbye Zelda.

The best Western game ever made
This game had me 100% until the unfortunate but necessary end-game scenario.

I put the game down after hours and hours of faithful commitment, because I hit a Shenmue forklift moment. I had to suddenly start working the farm. And this was enough to disinterest me.

Sadly, the developers HAD to do this. You see, by doing these chores and living your straight life after being a renegade, you learn to value what you have, and it’s only then that you realize how much it would hurt to lose it. This, and this alone, make the end of the game powerful.

The best thing about Red Dead Redemption is the genuine sensation of Wild West that you get. Even though I beat it nearly a year ago now, I still think of it when I’m camping in the back country of the West. This game sticks with you because it’s so incredibly good at placing you within the world. You don’t just play Red Dead Redemption. You start to live it.

Each of the characters are genuinely lovable/hatable. The motivations behind the main character are believable, and the tension is appropriate.

Yes, it is possible to get sick of the side missions, but that’s why they’re side missions. Yes, there are some features that make no sense, like leveling up your wilderness states, etc. But if you’re the type of person who likes to destroy your games, there are plenty of goals to work towards with this one.

Personally, I play my games more for the story, and the overall experience of progressing down the critical path. And this game does very well at making that rewarding.

I can’t say much more about the game without spoiling it completely, so I won’t. But I will leave you with this thought...

If you want to play a video game set in the Wild West, there is no better game to play than this.

Reviewed by CommanderVideo

It's difficult to read any video-game web site these days without coming across an article bemoaning the deluge of quality titles this holiday season.

The articles are all the same: They don't have enough time to play all these fantastic games! They ask: Why can't publishers spread out their releases so all the hard-core gamers can buy all the great games, instead of having to choose one or two during the holidays and, ostensibly, leaving the rest to gather dust on the store shelves? It's not fair to gamers and it's not fair to the games, they argue.

The answer is simple: money. Publishers make more money if they release their best games in the holiday season. To that, you may answer, "They'd make more money if they spread out their releases throughout the year!" No. That's not true. It's simply not. Stop trying to be an arm-chair economist. You're embarrassing us.

That said, I am one of those guys excited for this holiday's offerings. I mean, first Batman: Arkham City, then Battlefield 3, then Uncharted 3, then Modern Warfare 3, then Assassin's Creed: Revelations!? One week after another, I'm inundated with extreme quality (not to mention a lot of "3"). It's thrilling. It's also putting a strain on my non-video gaming life. Who has time for sleep when there's another Riddler puzzle to figure out?

Now is a great time to be a gamer. But with all these great games, there isn't enough time for the gamer.

Trick or Treat!
Costume Quest is the best Halloween themed RPG ever released in downloadable form. The old-school RPG gameplay (turn-based, with simple attacks and swing meters) helps evoke those same nostalgic emotions that the game's setting and story call back to.

Remember what it was like to walk around your neighborhood on Halloween night? I'm not talking about when you were a teenager trying to terrorize the kids, but rather when you were young enough to still believe in magic and old enough to appreciate a well-made costume? Remember when collecting the biggest candy horde was your night's goal? Remember that house at the end of the block that you refused to go to because you just knew there was something strange in that house? Remember when you could wear a Superman cape and suddenly have the power to fly?

That's Costume Quest, and that's why it is awesome. Sure, the combat mechanics are perhaps too simple, the graphics aren't mind-blowing, and the game is a little too easy to completely destroy in the first play through. But this game doesn't concern itself with your traditional expectations. It's trying to transport you back to your innocent youth and allow you to experience the childish joys of Halloween once again. For that reason above all others, this game is a treat.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Wonderful nonsense!
As a long-time Penny-Arcade fan, I was both excited and worried when I heard that they were partnering with Hothead to make a game based on their video-game pop-culture comic strip. Excited that they might make a fun, unique game, and worried that they'd screw it up like so many liscensed games do. Thankfully, the final result is a satisfying RPG that stays true to the inspiration.

OtRSPoD's gameplay is standard by-the-numbers RPG fare: encounters net you experience points, there are a few boss fights, and you'll earn some support (read: summon) characters as you progress. It's nothing you haven't seen before. The difference is in the setting. Penny-Arcade and Hothead have created a world I want to live in: a world where mimes are your most powerful enemies, followed closely by barbershop quartet singers and hobo slum lords. Oh! And clowns! Seriously, you get to kill clowns. What more do you need?

Like Commander Video, I could have used a little more side questing in this first episode. Or, at least, rejiggered math to increase the level limit. I reached level 15 (the max level) right at about the time when I fought my first clown. This meant I spent a significant amount of time fighting enemies without earning any XP, which made the victories less triumphant.

But fight on I did, right up until the final boss for this episode, which was a bit confusing. Because, somewhere along the way, my merry party became less concerned with tracking down and fighting the big hulking Fruit Fucker who destroyed my house. Instead, they were concerned about shutting down a portal between two worlds and killing a god. I mean, sure, the god needs killing and no responsible adult will just let a portal bridging two worlds stand idly. I get that. Every man should do his part to avoid Armageddon and all that. But, that Fruit Fucker demolished my house! An offense like that cannot go unanswered. But somewhere half-way through the game, it became an unexplained footnote. For me, it should have been priority number one; evil invading gods be damned.

So, what seemed at first like a harmless side-quest ended up being this episode's climax. It's no big deal, really. As long as I get to take down the Fruit Fucker in Episode 2, I can forgive them their meandering narrative. In fact, that's one of the things I like most about the Penny-Arcade game: it's always familiar, but never predictable. It's a ride that'll have you laughing out loud and cursing the mime because you couldn't figure out how to counter attack his imaginary (yet no less effective) machine gun.

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder

Whatever happened to the Chocolate Milk kid? You remember him: 6 years ago an enterprising Xbox LIVE gamer recorded the voice of a nine year-old as he argued with his mother while he played online. He wanted chocolate milk. She didn't get it for him, though she said she would. That made her a liar, which apparently justified a litany of curses at his mother.

It was both uproariously entertaining and a frightening display of the negative effects of poor parenting. If you haven't seen the video, I highly recommend it.

Recently it occurred to me that the Chocolate Milk kid probably isn't a kid any more. He's solidly a teenager by now (15, if my math is any good), assuming he survived his mother's inevitable nervous breakdown and subsequent suburban killing spree. This lead me to wonder what kind of person he is growing into.

The charitable side of me hopes his mother, father, or other responsible grown-up took a sledge hammer to his Xbox, locked him in his room, and withheld all sustenance (including chocolate milk) until he either learned the error of his ways and apologized, or until he passed out from malnutrition. Or both, ideally.

I like to think he developed a sense of responsibility and respect. I hope he learned humility and found a way to channel his lactose-deprived aggression into more useful endeavors. Maybe he's thinking of joining the military, where he'll be able to scream and shoot, but in the honorable service to his country.

But, I'm probably giving this kid too much credit. Judging by his mother's poor example of parenting skills, I'd guess his teenaged years have only made him worse. I imagine a spoiled little boy pretending to be a man. He's disrespectful to his female classmates, thoughtless about his future, and the proud owner of a ridiculously high gamerscore. In other words, he's probably grown to be just like every other teenaged Xbox LIVE player I routinely mute when I play online.

It's enough to make you weep for the future of our species.

Every November, I end up picking up a great game and playing it with my cousins while in a drunken and food-coma induced stupor. Last year, it was Donkey Kong Country Returns. The year before, it was New Super Mario Bros Wii. And before that, it was ExciteTruck. What I’m wondering is what Nintendo will give us this year for our multiplayer Thanksgiving...

Yes, I know I skipped a couple years in there, but I can’t remember what we played in 2008.

But seriously, where’s the holiday multiplayer love from Sony and Microsoft? My most memorable gaming moments of any given year are the annual Thanksgiving bash and the ABEANBCVGWMEI. And lately, Nintendo has been dominating each of them in the multiplayer arena.

Seeing as how I haven’t heard much from The Big N for November, I’m starting to get a little worried that my cousins and I won’t have anything to play.

Even though we all know that the Wii is in its death throes, it still is Nintendo’s ONLY home console. And judging by their track record, Sony and Microsoft ain’t going to be given thanks by me come dinner time in little over a month.

Nintendo, I hope you come through. I would hate for my annual toast to have to go to Samba De Amigo again as it did in 2007.

In 1941, RKO Pictures released what eventually became known as the greatest movie of all time. Though initially a financial disappointment with mixed critical reception, Citizen Kane went on to be recognized as a game changer in Hollywood.

Orson Welles redefined the art form. His use of new technologies, innovative story-telling techniques, and an uncompromising dedication to the artistic vision influenced every single serious filmmaker for decades since. To this day, you can't watch a movie without attributing some aspect of it to Citizen Kane. Before this film, movies were stuck in a creative rut, content to rehash the same tired stories in the same way time and again.

Video games are in the same pre-Kane situation. Out of the hundreds of games released in any given year, it's rare when one even attempts to stretch the boundaries of the form, and rarer still when one does it well. Motivated by monetary gain, game publishers are risk averse. So, they prefer to continue making the same games we've all played. It's sad.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love me some Black Ops. If you throw the newest co-op shooter (shmup) in front of me, I'll immediately start twitching like so many Pavlovian dogs. I've played as many sequels and "me too" games as I have unique originals, and I usually have fun. But I'm getting bored. I want more.

Video games need to grow up. They need their own Citizen Kane to shake up the status quo. Games must evolve to be defined by their emotional relevance instead of the technology that powers them. In other words, we need to stop looking at games as the newest Unreal-powered FPS, giving credit to the tech and genre instead of the game's merit as an artistic collaborative effort. But that won't happen until someone makes a game that nails those goals, so it can then serve as a guiding light for future endeavors.

Some games have tried. Heavy Rain attempted to break new ground. In some ways, it succeeded. It certainly presented us with a mature story with a solid emotional core which had a lasting effect on the player. But, it also fell prey to some of video gaming's nefarious traps (bad camera controls, confusing iconography, and inconsistent quality in the final hour of the game).

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus come tantalizingly close. SotC's unique narrative structure explores one of the most profound elements of the human condition from an interesting angle. Ico explores the values of friendship and human companionship. Both games are undeniably innovative, but have they redefined the form?

Gaming needs a Citizen Kane. I have faith that, somewhere out there, there is a modern-day Orson Welles working on a little project that'll change everything. I have no idea what that game will look like, how it'll play, or if I'll even like it. But, I'm eager to play it.

I think that games are becoming too ubiquitous.

It used to be that I could buy, play, and beat every GOOD video game released in a year. Lately, not so much. There are so many games released nowadays that I wonder how we as consumers even choose what to play. For me, I usually only play games that other people tell me about, that I see at trade shows, or that are big enough to be forced down my throat through traditional marketing means like billboards, etc.

The bummer about this head-in-the-sand attitude I’ve developed is that I will inevitably miss out on some very nice experiences.

And here’s what I’m getting at...

I think there are too many games in the marketplace for a guy like me.

Whereas I used to play games every waking minute of my daily life, I’m not able to do that anymore (nor do I have the desire to). So I go for the quick kills. I’ve been enjoying games that can be beaten in under 10 hours these days. I’ve got an iPad and an iPhone, and even though almost all the games on those platforms are bitterly awful, I choose to play them over sitting down and playing a “real” game. Why? Because the store is in my pocket, the products are cheap, and for the amount of time I have, I don’t want to deal with load times, installations, hefty downloads, or (as lame as it sounds) turning on my TV, my speakers, my console, etc.

The fact that there are games on every single electronic device I own lowers my expectations and increases my tolerance for crapulence. And this makes me sad.

Here’s a real-life example: I bought El Shaddai for $65.00 the other day, and I’m no where near as entertained by it as I have been by my most recent beat: Anomaly Warzone Earth HD, which cost me $4.00. I will do my best to beat El Shaddai, but so far, aside from the often beautiful visual effects, El Shaddai is a sub-par brawler with a confusing story that’s so fucking pretentious it’s kind of sickening.

We need to figure out why these smaller, often crappier games are taking consumers away from the bigger, often more meaningful games. Or we’ll all be trying to find catharsis through Angry Birds Version 2000 soon.

Bastion, you are freaking me OUT!

Your production values are so amazing for an XBLA game that you’re setting the bar to new heights.

And this is sad. All games should be able to hit these highs. Then again, if they did, would we even notice the gems among the turds?

When I look at my collection of XBLA games, there are a few that stand out as having incredible production values, but more often are those that kinda stink in the PV department.

And here’s the interesting thing: Most of the stinkers are from big-name publishers. GASP!

Is the Indie Revolution finally being televised?

Stay tuned.

Thanks in large part to Activision's mishandling of their property, much has been written about the "death" of the music genre. Guitar Hero saturated the market, eventually to the point where no one cared when a new GH released. Ultimately, Activision put the series "on ice."

Activision's problem was they didn't continue to evolve their brand. Sure, they experimented with the DJ Hero games, but the core Guitar Hero fantasy was never brought to its logical conclusion. The promise was unfulfilled. Thankfully, Harmonix chose to quietly blaze a trail where Activision feared to tread. Rock Band 3 is a satisfying evolutionary step in the franchise, and no where is it more impressive than when you play "Pro Guitar" with a real Fender. If you're breezing through the songs on the Expert difficulty with plastic guitar controller, the only way for you to take your game to the next level is to throw down $279 (plus the price of a midi-converter) for a real guitar.

I'm lucky enough to have that guitar, and it's awesome. Mind you, I was a bit intimidated by the thing. I have no previous music training: I can't read music and everything I know about rhythm, I learned from music games. But that's okay. Harmonix figured I wouldn't know much, and they built Rock Band 3 with me in mind. Once I plugged in my Squier Guitar, I was allowed entry into the Pro Guitar Lesson menus. Here I found more lessons than I can count, arranged by difficulty, and set up to teach me how to play a real guitar. I'm currently working my way through the basic lessons: learning how to strum, playing single notes, fingering the frets. I have a long way to go before I'll be rocking out at Madison Square Garden, but, at least this time, it's a possibility.

Which is probably why I'm so excited for Ubisoft's upcoming RockSmith. It takes Rock Band 3's idea one step further. RockSmith has figured out a way to let you plug a guitar directly into your game console (via an included USB/audio cable), and let your real guitar control the tunes in-game. I'm already sold on RockSmith and I hope it's successful enough to reinvigorate general interest in music games. Who knows? If it's successful, maybe Activision will regret their mishandling of their franchise.

I know a guy (let's call him Ron) who religiously buys a game guide with every game. If a guide isn't available at the store, he'll look one up on gamefaqs and have it comfortably close to him on his laptop before he even turns on his console.

He tells me he's doing it so he can be sure to "fully experience" the game. He wants to get all the achievements/trophies, find all the secret areas, go on all the side quests, unlock all the easter eggs, etc. Spoilers don't bother him at all. He doesn't like leaving games unconquered, which is a sentiment I can respect.

Of course, he's missing the point. He and I often argue about the validity of his gaming experiences. He's perfectly happy to play through a game according to another's rules and recommendations. He undoubtedly enjoys himself and he's proud of his PSN trophy score. But, I know he's missing out on what makes gaming so great.

In the time I've known him, Ron has never felt that unique primal sense of discovery common among great adventure games. He hasn't fumbled upon a slick move in a fighting game and spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how he pulled it off. He hasn't taken the road less traveled because he wanted to see what might be over the next hill; he took that road because he had inside information that said exactly what he'd find over that hill.

He's effectively skipping to the end of the book before he even reads chapter 1's heading.

Is this a valid way to experience video games? Judging by the popularity of gamefaqs and the library of published game guides, there must be plenty of people who routinely use the game guide crutch. And, to be honest, I'm a bit jealous of Ron's PSN level.

But, I still believe in finding my own path through games. Ron may say I rarely get to experience 100% of what the game has to offer (thereby not getting my money's worth), but I beg to differ. By not playing according to a script laid out in a game guide, I'm experiencing the game more fully.

Today is the day when we Americans celebrate our independence from France. As our founding fathers rode their war-carriages into battle against alien forces both spectral and corporeal, this famous battle cry could be heard against the backdrop of the untamed lands we now call home…

"Live Long and Prosper! Freedom Fries for All!" - Cuba Gooding Jr., The 1st President of the United States.

And this is the beauty of independence. You can do whatever you want. Because of that, I choose to believe in my story of the US's independence above rather than all that boring stuff we learned in history class a billion years ago.

And it's with this spirit of "I'm doing it my way" that each of us independent video game studios approach our work. When you only have yourself to answer to, you're free to try things that invested parties might be wary of. Investors and big publishers demand a return on their investments, and this is why we see so many sequels these days - they are safe bets. New IP is dangerous. With a new game, you have to build brand recognition, define the audience, convince people that it's worth trying, etc. Life becomes hard.

But, like our founding fathers, for those of us who strike out and seek it, the challenges of gaining independence far outweigh the risks. We're looking for something new, and everything else is simply unacceptable.

So in addition to celebrating our freedom from the Martian Overlords, I will also celebrate my independent video game developer cohorts and colleagues. We are the pioneers who will prove that video games are art and put that silly argument to rest once and for all. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but it will be soon.

The best is yet to be discovered.

And sometimes what you get, is.

Every now and then, a game comes along that changes your life. It’s not often, but it does happen. And then you beat that game. Perhaps you beat it several times. Maybe you destroy it. But it ends. And you love it.

You wish for a sequel that’s exactly the same, but MORE. You want it so badly.

Years pass, and your hunger for more of what you loved grows.

And just when you think you’ll never get another chance to experience such greatness, a sequel is announced. And it’s the spiritual successor to your beloved life-changer. Day-one, you’ve got the game in your hand.

And then you play it.

And that’s when you realize that everything you wanted was wrong. It’s just more of the same. And in fact, you’re bored because you’ve already played this game, years ago, when you fell in love with it in the first place.

Child of Eden, I’m looking at you.

But sometimes you get something entirely different from what you wanted. When they announce the game, you almost cry because you’re so disappointed. But you buy it on day-one anyway. You loved the original that much.

And as it turns out, the furthest thing from what you wanted ends up being exactly what you needed.

Metroid Prime comes to mind.

Microsoft: Kinect, Kinect, Halo, Kinect, cheesy acting. If you love your Kinect, this press conference was for you. If, however, you don't want to be the controller, Microsoft doesn't really like you.

Sony: Struck a nice balance between pleasing the hard-core and exciting the casual "Move" players. Also, used valuable time to apologize for the PSN problems.

Nintendo: The Wii U's big reveal was more of a frustrating tease.

Activision intends to deliver an "Elite" experience to CoD. Essentially, they're delivering what Bungie.net and Halo Waypoint already deliver.

Except they're charging money for it.

Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to pay once for my games. The logical part of me recognizes that today's games aren't complete until they've been patched, supported with bits of DLC, patched again for balance issues, then finally released in a "Game of the Year" edition.

But, the old curmudgeon in me stubbornly believes that a game, once burned to disc, should be finished. The experience I get from that disc should be worth the $60 purchase price. Thus, Activision's latest money-making scheme makes me seriously consider not purchasing the next Call of Duty.

Granted, the monthly fee hasn't been announced yet. Activision has said, "the price is going to be less than any comparable entertainment or gaming service out there right now." Well, I'm comparing this to Bungie.net and Halo Waypoint. Both are free. So, will Activision pay me to go Elite?

I know I've gone off on the 3DS before, but I feel that I must do it again.

I've been looking for something to play on my new toy, but alas, there's nothing in the stores worth buying. And as I feared, it's not just the games that are lacking. The system itself still lacks the oomph I was hoping to find after playing with it for the past month. When I wrote my last piece about the 3DS, I wanted to do an update after a while. In this update, I wanted to sing the system's praises! This is that update. Note the lack of praise...

Before we get into it, remember that when I saw the 3DS last year at E3 I walked away with the assumption that with this revolutionary new technology, I'd be able to experience revolutionary new gameplay, visuals, and fun! To date, I've only experienced a revolutionary disappointment.

Consider the following:

Nintendo announced that developers aren't allowed to use the 3D effect for actual gameplay because some people may not like to use the 3D features. With that requirement alone, Nintendo sealed the 3DS's fate as another piece of hardware that is little more than a gimmick. Why not require developers to put a note on the product that says something to the effect of "requires 3D for gameplay"? Then the consumer can decide if they want that kind of experience or not.

I love sitting down in one place for a long time and sinking into a really good video game, but I do not love sitting as still as stone while I do that. If you so much as move a micro-muscle while playing the 3DS, the 3D effect is compromised and often causes carsickness as your brain recalibrates. Yes, I understand that glasses-free 3D is fragile, but because of this, I end up turning the 3D off most of the time.

You know what I want on a new console? I want new games. I'll admit, I like Mario as much as the next guy and The Legend of Zelda ain't that bad, but I had to search online for quite some time before finding 5 brand new franchises among the hundred+ releases planned for the system. Resident Evil 3D, Rayman New Dimensions, Donkey Kong Blast, Contra Small...

I know that I'm old, and therefore predisposed to curmudgeonly behavior, but come on. I want to play something new!

I ended up finding Dream Trigger 3D, Nazo Waku Yukata, and Cubic Ninja among the new, and I'll probably pick them up as soon as I can.

Hey! I'm traveling for business in about a month. Maybe I'll play Dream Trigger 3D on the plane... Oh, planes aren't super conducive to complete stillness... Hm...

Maybe I'll just play Dream Trigger 2D instead. Thank goodness for that 3D slider that Nintendo knew we'd need.



*NOTE: Yes, Cannon Fodder, I realize the irony of this editorial, being that we're re-releasing the entire BIT.TRIP series for the platform instead of making something brand new.

Here at Beatenvideogames.net, we're no strangers to Bioware's games. We're fans. They make good -- often great -- games.

But wow. Those games are buggy. I mean, honestly, when was the last time you played a Bioware game and didn't run into some sloppy bug that totally removed you from the comfortable suspension of disbelief we so enjoy?

Knights of the Old Republic, for example, was a wonderful game that allowed me to do what I've always wanted to do in the Star Wars universe. I made light/dark side choices, interacted with interesting and unique characters, played through an epic galaxy-spanning story, and was a bad-ass Jedi by the end.

But along the way, I ran into multiple save-game bugs that had me replaying hours of the game simply because the game couldn't save correctly. And KOTOR crashed on me about once every few hours. It got to the point where I'd look at my watch and think, "It's been an hour since the last crash. I should save before it crashes on me again." But that's okay; this is a Bioware game.

Mass Effect's elevators and slowly streaming levels of detail are infamous. But that game was great as well, so, again, we'll forgive Bioware's shortcomings.

In Dragon Age: Origins, Alistair sacrificed himself in the end game (because there's no way I was going to let my main character become a martyr), but in the Epilogue, I was told that he married the Queen and spent the rest of his years travelling his Kingdom. His immortality was later confirmed when I played Awakening and he greeted me at the start of the game. He was rather lively for a dead guy, but this is a Bioware game, so we'll let that go.

Which leads to my most recent frustrating experience with Bioware: Dragon Age II. I attempted to import my Origins save (with most of the DLC and Awakening completed as well, naturally), but DA2 says that I haven't completed Origins yet. Haven't completed Origins?! So, instead, they imported what information they could and told me they'd fill in the rest.

Later, I learned that my character, The Hero of Ferelden, died fighting off the Blight. No, Bioware! No! That's not what happened. Thus, my opinion of Dragon Age II is already plummeting because one of the features I was really looking forward to (linked save games) doesn't work.

But that's a technical problem, and we're all accustomed to giving Bioware slack when it comes to technical competencies. We're so enamored by their solid writing, their beautiful art direction, and their uncanny ability to fulfill our fan-boy fantasies that we turn a blind eye to their inability to give us a game that actually works.

No Doy, right?

But I mean the greater we. We humans.

We've been playing games since the ancient times. Nine Men's Morris, the Mesoamerican Ballgame, Senet...

Over the ages, humans have been drawn to games of strategy, games of wit, games of physical strength, and on and on. Whether you consider yourself a gamer or not; by virtue of being a human, you are inherently so. Perhaps this is why ARGs are so successful at bridging the gap between gamer and non-gamer. They take place within the real world.

Video games all take place in virtual worlds and sitting in front of a screen with a controller doesn't appeal to everyone. But the same people that find video games insipid might get completely absorbed in real-world ARGs and the like. Geocaching and Easter Egg Hunts come to mind.

Over the course of the past month, the real-world and video game worlds collided as Valve hosted a massive, worldwide ARG in preparation for the launch of Portal 2. If you weren't paying attention to the craziness, you can read about it on my company's website here. Gaijin Games was fortunate enough to be invited to play along with Valve on this endeavor, and what I learned from being involved is that there are so many more gamers out there than we think. We just speak different languages.

As we watched the ARG players decipher our cryptic clues and explore both the virtual worlds of our games as well as the real world, we were encouraged that people could have fun whether they liked playing the video games or not. People were united in two goals--to play the ARG and to have fun doing it. And because of the very nature of ARGs, you don't have to have twitch reflexes to excel. The barrier to entry is so small.

In the end, the players of the ARG managed to get Portal 2 released about 12 hours early by cooperating and overcoming challenges together. You see, even though most games are competitive, they are not meant to drive us apart from one another. Historically, they've been played with at least two players. It wasn't until video games came around that single-player games became the primary way to game. So, as you play your most recent AAA title or indie experiment, remember to talk to people about it. The experiences that video games give us are not for us to experience alone. They are games, and they should be shared.

We are a social species, and we are a species of gamers.

As the video game industry grows more popular, it inevitably inspires authors to write books. Until recently, the only video game books you could find fell into one of three distinctly mundane categories: text books about how to make games, "cheat code" books, or books describing the "history" of video games. Despite their arguable usefulness, no one would mistake these for Nobel Prize worthy efforts.

Lately, however, a few books have bucked this sad trend and offered unique perspectives on the industry we all love. While none of the following books will win any prestigious international awards, each offers a worthy read for anyone interested in video games, the industry that produces them, and the medium's ultimate potential.

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, by Tom Bissell. One part autobiography, one part investigative journalism, and all good. Bissell is an accomplished young writer capable of translating the emotional draws of the best video games into terms that resonate even with non-gamers. His first experience with Resident Evil eerily mirrored my own, and he uses it to examine the survival horror genre -- and, through that game, modern video games -- presenting insightful evidence for why games can involve us in their worlds far more effectively than any mere movie ever could. Bissell obviously loves video games, but refreshingly spends as much time exploring their more soiled traits as he does their redeeming qualities. In between his introspective narratives, he manages to interview some of the industry's leading visionaries, treating the reader to an insider's peek at their processes. If your interest in video games tends to go a bit deeper than trying to get the highest Achievement score on your friends list, give this a read.

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, by Jane McGonigal. By now, you've doubtless heard of this recent publication. Jane has been running through the standard talk shows, promoting her book to anyone who'll stop channel surfing long enough to listen. The key difference is, she actually has something to say. Sure, her book's optimism tends to be a bit too candy-coated for my taste, but it's hard not to get drawn into her enthusiasm. Jane honestly believes video games can fundamentally change the world. And her points are backed by real findings from real research. By the time you finish Reality is Broken, you'll believe video games can -- and should -- make the world a better place. And you'll wonder why it's taking so long.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America, by David Hajdu. While this one isn't specifically about video games, it's uncanny how the Comic-Book industry's birth and adolescence parallels what's happening in today's video game industry. Make no mistake, video games are changing America (though perhaps not as much nor as positively as McGonigal's work would have you believe). The Ten-Cent plague chronicles the maturation of the comic-book industry and offers lessons to this generation's newly developing form of entertainment. In short, Hajdu offers insight into our future by explaining our past.

So, three books to keep you occupied while you're installing your latest game to the HDD. Never let it be said that beatenvideogames.net discourages reading actual books.

I suppose we have Microsoft's Achievements to blame for this. In fact, I'm surprised it took this long for the idea to take its next natural evolutionary step. But, if this is the future of gaming, I may have to take up knitting.

Sure, Kiip's "achievement ads" (for lack of a better term) seem innocent enough. After all, is it so wrong that one should be rewarded (optionally, no less!) with real-world stuff for doing something in a virtual world? The simple answer is no. Go ahead and offer me a coupon for a free Dr. Pepper when I fling 200 Angry Birds. I can either accept the coupon or ignore it and move on with my game, no harm done.

But the problem is in the natural progression of this idea. If this takes hold, people will start playing games for the real-world rewards they may earn, not because the game is fun. That will result in a deluge of bad games; games made popular not because they're intrinsically good, but because they're generous with their rewards.

If you have to bribe gamers to play your game, then your game isn't worth playing. You can already see this to some extent with modern-day Achievements/Trophies. Take Terminator Salvation, for example. It practically gives a Platinum Trophy away. And the sad fact is, I played through the entire game because the Trophies were so easy to get. Had this game not had Trophies, I wouldn't have played beyond the first level.

Now, imagine Kiip's technology (or similar tech) a few years from now. You can either play the newest, greatest game from your favorite developer, or you can play that mediocre game . . . but the mediocre game will earn you real-world cash and prizes!

Before we know it, Barbie's Horse Adventures 3 will be the number 1 best-selling title across all platforms. Halo 7: Powered by Mountain Dew will be the most played game on Xbox LIVE not because the multiplayer is awesome, but because you get coupons for free soda with every 10th headshot!

I do not look forward to this future, but it's inevitable. And when it comes, gaming as we know it will die.

So, usually on launch day I camp out and wait in line with a bunch of other nerds for the latest and greatest game machine that will no doubt change my life.

This year, with the Nintendo 3DS though, I let my nerderey lapse.

For some reason, I didn't care so much. You see, I had a hunch that what I'm about to describe would be made manifest...

I ended up driving to Toys R Us on the Monday after launch day where I picked up one of the infernal devices. They were out of the ONE AND ONLY game I wanted--Pilotwings Resort. So I picked up Tom Clancy's whatever military thingie it is instead.

After playing with the device for about a week, certain attributes about it have been confirmed...

For one, the 3D is so fragile that when I move any muscle in my body while playing, the view goes completely pear-shaped and I get carsick.

Now, that alone wouldn't be so bad, but Nintendo has packaged with the new console these things called "AR Cards". To play the game that comes with these cards, you MUST move around the room while holding the device. And the AR Cards aren't the only thing that Nintendo asks you to use while moving around. There's also Face Raiders.

These products have you walking around, changing your position, and playing 3D games at the same time. But when the game's don't work, they interrupt your experience with some full-screen static, or in other jarring ways. This is not pleasurable (see 'carsick' above). Nor are the games in and of themselves pleasurable.

So my question is this: Where are the killer titles? Where are the Pokemon, Mario, or Zelda games? What about new content, exciting and fresh? No? Oh...

So, as I stand here with my brand new $250 toy and try to get it to work with the tech demos that Nintendo has packaged with it, I wonder how many times am I going to be fooled by new technology?

And I'd love to continue on, but if you'll excuse me, I have to head to Los Gatos to pick up my iPad 2 which finally just arrived.

True to our name (beatenvideogames.net, in case you haven't been paying attention), we only write reviews on games we've beaten. But, we don't beat every game we play. Some games are so bad, so boring, or so frustrating that we never take them to completion. For whatever reason, they're not worth it. Sure, we've beaten our share of horrible games, but we've given up on more. For example:

Scribblenauts. When you first start playing, it's immediately charming and unique. You can type in a word and that thing will appear on the screen! It possesses a fantastic library of junk for you to call upon. But then you get to "level" 3, where the game's inadequacies shine. You realize you're playing a game with crap AI, imprecise controls, and increasingly contrived puzzles that shine a spotlight on the worst aspects of the game. Oh. And you realize that just about any puzzle can be solved with a Pegasus and a rope.

EyePet. If anyone is getting that stupid animal to do what he's supposed to do please e-mail me proof. Because, I don't believe it's possible. The Move controls are constantly incorrectly read by the camera and the pet is just freakish. The game's controls are so bad that EyePet nearly made my six year old cry. She was doing what the game wanted her to do, but the game wasn't providing the results it promised to her. So I took over, thinking my expert gamer skills would whip that pet right into shape. It didn't. The monster still didn't recognize my gestures. We haven't played it since.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. I played it in 4-player co-op mode and got about half way through the game before we all realized how much fun we weren't having. That first level was great, and it was nice to level up my character and unlock new moves, but it all grew stale pretty quickly. The combat was imprecise (it took a while to line yourself up with enemies properly), the secret levels were too similar, and a couple of the bosses were frustrating to the point of not being fun. You could exploit the HP system by killing yourself and having your co-op buddies revive you. And the few jumping puzzles became a study of how often you can respawn before seriously considering gouging your eye out with the business end of your analog stick. After getting a couple game over screens, we asked ourselves if we really wanted to keep playing. The answer was unanimous.

Each of these games earned favorable (if not glowing) reviews from the mainstream videogame media outlets. Their metacritic scores are generally impressive. Which leads me to wonder: did the reviewers actually play these games all the way through? Because, each of these games give a great first impression. I thought Scribblenauts was going to be my new favorite DS game when I first started it. And what's not to like about a co-op game tied into a movie based on a cult comic that draws heavily on videogame culture?

I suspect most reviewers played the first few hours (or less) of each of the above games, decided they had enough experience with the game to write to their required word count, then fired off their glowing reviews. And that's a shame, because if they had stayed the course, they would have seen the mess these games eventually turn into. It's like they went to a movie, watched the first 10 minutes of the film, decided it was awesome, and left to write their review before the opening credits were done.

Now, I could be wrong. The vast majority of reviewers could finish every game they review. They may find no fault with the like of Scribblenauts after getting all the way to the end. If that's true, I don't want to read their reviews anyway. They lack good sense.

Yep. That's an acronym that we actually use and have memorized (yes, Cannon Fodder, I have finally memorized its meaning).

It stands for the Annual Bryan Erck Alex Neuse Birthday Celebration Video Game Weekend Marathon Extravaganza Invitational. I thought we should add "Extreme" to the end, but I was told that would be too silly.

Any way, every year a small group of us video game industry buds get together, lock ourselves in a few small rooms for a long weekend and do nothing but eat unhealthily and play video games. This is to celebrate my birthday, along with Bryan Erck's. It's a darned good excuse to catch up on games and play a lot of multiplayer games with like-minded nerds.

This year, I managed to beat 9 games and clock 38:06:03 of active video game playing time. It was awesome. The others did similarly well, and we'll be posting our progress on our official ABEANBCVGWMEI facebook page sometime soon.

But here's the wonderful thing about this past weekend: I left the Invitational wanting to play MORE games!

And here's the rub. Back in the 90s, you could play every single good game that came out in a year, and I often did. But these days, there are so many games released in a year that it's pretty much impossible to play all the good ones. That's why the ABEANBCVGWMEI is so wonderful. Getting together with other gamers inevitably broadens your horizons.

I got a brief tutorial in Little Big Planet 2 from a buddy, I shared a lot of Xbox Live Indie Games with the folks, and I was forced to play some first-person shooters that I never would have played otherwise.

I walked away so inspired by our industry that without a doubt, this year was a wonderful success (even if I didn't leave with the traveling trophy).

Of course, just coming out of GDC and especially after having won an IGF Award, I'm feeling the need to talk about the importance of the Independent Games Festival as well as the Game Developers Choice Awards.

These are essentially The Oscars of the video game industry.

It's not that I'm excited that BIT.TRIP RUNNER won an award that I write this, but rather that all of us won awards. The games featured in this year's IGF and GDC awards were simply amazing. The Game Developers Conference (GDC), not to be confused with the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDC Awards), is a place where video game craftspeople from all around the world come to exchange ideas, meet one another, and enjoy all the passion that we bring to our industry.

So, this really is a short editorial wherein I'd like to thank every game that made it to GDC, and especially those games that won awards at our industry's equivalent of The Oscars. Hopefully Cannon Fodder and I will be able to play through and beat all your games and write about them here.

As a developer, I love you all. I love meeting you. I love playing your games. I love exploring your ideas. And I love that I am your peer.

So, here's to another successful GDC behind us. May we all come up with something new and wonderful over the next year.

Has anyone ever presented you with a satisfying definition of "fun"? As game developers, it's our job to dig into a concept and wrestle the fun from it. Developers take a core idea and -- through frustratingly inefficient trial and error -- make it into something that you'll enjoy. But, here's the dirty secret few game designers freely offer up: we don't know what fun is. We're guessing. We cannot succinctly define fun any better than you.

So, how can developers make something fun when they can't even define what it is they're trying to make? We can point to examples, but we cannot actually define the essence of fun.

For example, few would disagree that Pac-Man is fun. There's a certain thrill you get when you eat the ghosts and an even better sense of accomplishment when you clear a maze. It's uplifting, empowering, and, well . . . fun. So is eating chocolate. If someone made a game where all you did was eat chocolate, it wouldn't be fun. Nailing that improbable headshot with your favorite sniper rifle is fun, but so is skipping down the sidewalk. More to the point, it's entirely possible that Pac-Man could have been the most forgettable, boring game ever released. And we've all played our share of boring first person shooters that should have been great. What was the essential difference?

What makes the good ones fun? The graphics? The controls? The horrible voice acting? No one really knows; which is understandable when you put things in historical perspective. I mean, the modern notion of video games is only about 25 years old. The industry has only begun to mature. We're still figuring things out, then asking you to pay as much as $60 for our final attempts.

So, fetal concepts are massaged, sculpted, tweaked, and molded often by gut instinct or -- if you're lucky -- by veteran hands until the final result is "fun." It's an experimental process with no scientific formula. Game designers make this stuff up as they go. Some are better than others at it, but no single game designer can call himself an expert of fun. And if they're honest, even the best designers will admit that they're not very good at "finding the fun."

Which is why the Game Developers Conference is such an energizing event for industry professionals. Aside from the conference's business goals (networking to help sell your games, reviewing middleware offerings, etc.) there's no better time for the brightest minds in the business to put their creative heads together to tackle our medium's elusive questions. Whether it be the "Developer's Rant," a tutorial on how to make better normal maps, a lecture on how games can make real life better, or a roundtable about better QA practices, each session is ultimately aimed at figuring out ways to make our games more fun.

Never in human history have so many minds come together in one place to figure out the nature of fun. It's inspiring, when you think about it. If anyone ever pulls together a unifying theory of fun, it'll be at this conference. I hope it happens soon because, when it does, everything will change.

Gamers are generally maligned by the larger population for many reasons. Foremost among them is the notion that gamers "waste" their time playing pointless, childish video games. They do nothing more than whittle away at their attention spans, resulting in a population who'll find it challenging to finish reading this sentence because it has gone on too long.

Indeed, gamers tend to have less patience with the real-world needs for their attention. As a gamer myself, I've found my mind wandering when I should be paying attention to something at work or something my loved one is saying. But does this mean gamers have short attention spans? Or is there another explanation?

I submit the following theory, backed by zero years of psychological research and peer review: There is nothing wrong with my attention span. In fact, my attention span is made more efficient -- more engaged -- by the games I play.

The thing about video games is, they encourage (or sometimes force) you to play with an intense focus. The best puzzle games are a great example of this. Just try to play Tetris without devoting the full measure of your attention to the task. You won't get far because you won't be playing at your best. However, if you fully focus on dropping those pieces in their place; if your attention is aligned towards that singular goal, you'll find that you can play Tetris for hours. Hours! Your attention span is not short by any measure. It is performing at levels far exceeding the norm.

The problem, then, is reality. The real world fails to engage our attention the way our favorite hobby does. It's not that we lack an adequate attention span, it's that reality doesn't engage our attention at levels we've grown accustomed to. Our attention span has grown beyond what reality can provide and finds itself unimpressed when presented with the mundane.

So, our minds wander when a non-interactive television show drones on about the latest murder in Manhattan and reveals the only way to catch the murderer is by performing an unorthodox autopsy. We don't care because it's so passive (not to mention unimaginative). When we daydream on Tuesday afternoon during our boss' latest pep talk -- "the sales forcast is reason to celebrate" -- we yawn and absently wonder when the too-lenthy power point presentation will finally be over. It’s not nearly as engaging as the surgical focus required to earn an "Attack Dogs" killstreak.

So, the next time you're accused of having a short attention span, stand up for yourself! Inform your accuser that you can focus just fine on anything you want . . . if only there was something in the real world worth focusing your highly evolved attention on.

I love you.

I know it's kind of corny, but I have to tell you that you've touched me deeply.

In short, you're my one true love.

I love your versatility; your ambition. I love the way that your graphics keep improving. I LOVE your physics.

At the completion of each mission with you, I wonder how many side-quests I have yet to discover. The more I play you, the deeper you get. It's as if your AI is finding its path straight to my heart.

So, on this Valentine's Day, I choose you. You are the materia which augments my heart. You are the torch that lights my mine. You are my safe room.

I hope I never make it to the end of your critical path.

Love,

CommanderVideo

Being that Cannon Fodder and I are both in the industry, we've worked on several games that have made it to market. Among the games we've worked on, we have also beaten several of them.

And here's the conundrum:

Should we be scoring/reviewing the games that we've had a hand in creating?

Of course, one wants a site like this to be unbiased, and I do believe that creators are often harsher critics of their own works than the general consumer, but still, there's something sort of self-serving in reviewing one's own work.

If you browse through the site, you'll find several games that we are also in the credits of, but most of them are not contemporary games. Gladius, Rogue Squadron III, and Godzilla Unleashed DS are just a few examples.

The primary reason that we started this site was so that we could share our beats with our friends, but as the site grows we realize that we're starting to share it with everyone. And while we know that our friends will understand that our hearts are always in the right place, we aren't so sure about the rest of the anonymous world.

Having a chronicle of games that we've beaten is awesome, but if it can't be complete (for instance, I haven't reviewed any games made by my company, Gaijin Games, all of which I've beaten) isn't it somehow weakened?

A few thoughts we've had is changing all of the beats for games that we've worked on to short postmortems and removing the Game-O-Meter scores. Another thought was to simply note in the review the caveat that we've worked on said game. And another idea all together was to simply mark it as having been beaten, but don't write anything about it or apply any Game-O-Meter score.

We're lazily working on getting a blog/commenting system for the site, but until then, if you have any ideas, feel free to email or tweet and let us know what you think we should do.

By now, you've heard about the NGP (aka PSP2) and the 3DS. Both sytsems promise the next evolution of portable gaming and try to convince you that there's more fun to be had with them than with the competition (including Apple's iPhone/Pad).

The NGP seems to have every feature anyone could ever want in . . . well, anything: front and back touch surfaces, 3G, wifi, dual analog control, motion control, cameras, and more. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony listed "it also does your laundry" as a bullet point on the back of the box.

The 3DS is a bit less ostentatious with its claims, but no less exciting. Glasses-less 3D portable gaming is what it's all about. Provided that Nintendo can find a way around the issue of having to hold the system perfectly still in order for the 3D effect to work, they'll accomplish something unique in the portable scene.

I'm excited about both systems for different reasons, but there's one thing I'm not looking forward to. If their individual launches are anything like what we saw with the DS's initial launch and the PSP's lackluster launch, we're in for a good 6 months of "games" that are little more than tech demos. Remember Pac-Pix? Or Feel the Magic XY/XX?

Now, if they offer me a full-fledged, honest library of games at the start, I'll be a launch day purchaser. For now, though, I'm taking the more conservative wait-and-see strategy with these new portable systems (especially since they'll be crazy expensive when they first launch). And while I wait, I'll play some seriously good games on the still-relevant "last gen" systems.

This is one of my favorite images of all time: MLKJr.

And in the spirit of the day, I'd like to talk about something that occurred to me about good ol' MLKJr. And while I say that it occurred to me, I can't take all the credit. A friend of mine sent a Twitter today that reminded me of the late reverend's message. This friend remembered a man that made "hope outweigh fear". How amazing. How wonderful.

And as Cannon Fodder pointed out in his last editorial, we've been complaining a lot lately. Some of these complaints, I believe, are based on fear. As industry old-timers, witnessing how things are changing in the medium that we love can be scary.

As video games become more casual, and fewer and fewer meaningful, life-changing experiences are to be found in the medium, we tend to panic.

However, this turn towards the casual may be good in the end. It could mean that more people are made aware of the medium, and that the audience may grow. And if this is the case, when games like Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill 2, or Killer 7 come out in the future, they might actually make real-life waves like movies do. And this new way of thinking about the industry's change gives me hope.

And hey, it's not healthy to fear change. Change is inevitable. And it's almost always for the better, if history has taught us anything.

So, as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, I have a Dream... Cast. The games in this weeks feature cite some of the best games on the defunct device. The dream may be dead, but its value lives on.

I've been reading over some of our past posts, and I was distressed to read how many rants CommanderVideo and I drop here. We come off as haters, which really isn't the case (unless we actually hate something), so I thought to give this week's post a more positive spin.

And what could be more positive than a look forward to this year's games?! I've taken a quick look at the games due to release this year and made a short list of games I'm most excited to play. They are, in no particular order:

Batman: Arkham City. The first game disproved the therory that a superhero game must suck. I'm excited to see what Rocksteady does next with the Dark Knight.

Dragon Age 2. I'm glad they're starting us off with another main character and not going the route they went with Mass Effect. With the Blight, political infighting, jump-starting the Grey Wardens again, saving Ferelden, and powering through more DLC than any game has a right to have, my DA1 character deserves a relaxing uneventful retirement.

LittleBigPlanet 2. 4-player side-scroller co-op. 'Nuff said.

Portal 2. Because I liked the first one so much and Valve doesn't make crummy sequels.

The Last Guardian. Team ICO can do no wrong. Their latest adventure looks just as striking as their previous games. These guys blaze new ground with each title released.

Mass Effect 3. With two great games behind it, I'm excited to see how Bioware tops their previous entries in the series.

See a pattern here? I'm really excited for these games, but they're all sequels. Where are the great, exciting NEW games/licenses/experiences? At the risk of turning this post into another rant: WTF gamers? Publishers will publish new ideas only when we support those new ideas with our purchases.

So, here's a New Year's resolution I hope you can get behind. Buy a new game sometime this year: not a sequel, prequel, or any other kind of quel. Give it a chance. Send the message to the publishers and developers that you want to see new ideas as well as great sequels to established properties.

I don't want it.

As of last weekend, I acquired a Kinect. This was the last piece in the puzzle of waggle-enhanced control systems that I needed before formulating a complete opinion on the matter of movement based gameplay.

When considering the Wii controllers, the PlayStation Move, and the Kinect, the Wii is by far the least offensive. And Kinect, by far the worst of the bunch. And let's face it, the PlayStation Move is just a Wii Motion Plus with glowknobs and no good games.

I suppose it could be argued that yes, technically, each of these controllers is functional. So, if that's the case, why oh why don't they work for ME?

Here's the thing. Motion control for games can be just fine. CAN BE. It is not inherently so. In games like Fluidity, Wii Sports, or Metroid Prime 3, the motion controls work well. But in games like Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kinect Adventures, or The Shoot, the games always end up feeling broken. The reason is that waggle controls do not suit split-second actions. I lost so many little Marios in New Super Mario Bros Wii, because I would accidentally jump off of Yoshi over a pit, or because my waggle wasn't detected with precision. Hell, even selecting menu options with the Kinect should earn me experience points, it's such a challenge. Now consider piloting a raft with any amount of precision while the robo-eyes of the Kinect try to see you in your humble little game room.

Which leads me to another issue that's extremely annoying, especially with the Kinect. For Kinect, you need to create so much room to even use the damn thing, let alone to play with it! Sadly, my game room is only big enough if I remove ALL of the furniture from it before playing. I am not exaggerating. And even then, the game won't let me play 2-player because of space constraints. Cannon Fodder, your game room is too small for Kinect period. Do not buy it until you BUY A NEW HOUSE!

To use most of these waggle controls, you have to be standing for them to actually work; or at least to be comfortable. And this just in: I don't want to stand up to enjoy my games--especially if the only games that work well with these controllers are the kind of simplistic garbage that Microsoft, Sony, and to a lesser degree Nintendo are peddling as showcase experiences for their new controllers.

So, come on. Step up to the plate folks. Let's see some games for these controllers that A: work well, and B: aren't awful.

Sadly, that's probably not likely to happen. The Big Three have somehow discovered what the rest of the entertainment industry learned long ago. Awful products sell well, so long as there are bullet points on the box. Innovative motion controls? Check. Family friendly? Check. Similar experiences to our competition? Check. Yawn.

So, waggle? Until someone can figure out how to make good games for it, No.

I don't want it.

December. It's the one month in the year where every news-starved gaming website decides they have the authority and chutzpah (yeah, it's a word . . . google it!) to proclaim the "best" or "top 10" games of the year. Then they spend the month regaling us with lists and re-reviews of games we already know to be quite good.

Oh my God! Call of Duty: Black Ops is one of the best games of 2010?! Who knew!? Thank goodness I have 10 different websites to tell me. Maybe I should run right out and buy it!

I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but come on. You've already reviewed these games, people. You don't need to list them again in a best-of "feature," especially when your "best of" list doesn't result in any trophies for developers to place on their mantles. If people want to look up your best reviewed games, that's what your site's search engine is for.

Which reminds me, this site's search engine doesn't support searching by review scores. Oops.

Anyway, my point is we don't need "best of the year" lists. I like to believe that gamers have a better memory than that, and can remember the most notable games to release in the last 12 months.

So, you won't see us creating a "best of 2010" feature here. Merry Christmas!

What a difference a dollar makes.

When everyone else I know -- and most I don't know -- jumped on the Netflix bandwagon, I avoided it. Sure, streaming movies is a neat idea, but I already have cable and enough "premium" movie channels to fill that need. I didn't need Netflix and I certainly didn't need to spend another $9 a month on entertainment.

Then they lowered the price to $8 and, suddenly, the prospect seemed much more attractive. Now, all my game consoles are Netflix-ified, even though most of them are in the same room hooked up to the same TV.

I even have a Netflix app on my mobile phone. I use it to browse my Instant Queue now and then to, you know, make sure it hasn't changed.

Now -- like so many other Netflix stalwarts -- my family is considering canceling our cable subscription in favor of the instant gratification and financial savings Netflix offers. When I drive to work in the morning, I pass by a brick-and-mortar Blockbuster Video Store. Each time I pass, I pity them. Those guys are as obsolete as the sun dial.

So, what does this have to do with video games? It makes me wonder if that new OnLive game platform has more legs than I originally thought. Until now, I thought OnLive would crash and burn like the Phantom. But now . . . could Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony be next year's Blockbuster in the face of OnLive's video game version of Netflix?

So yeah, I don't have any time to play video games anymore.

Well, that's not entirely true, but the epic, hundred-hour-plus games that I used to devour are definitely not getting my attention these days. That's why this week's feature highlights games in the 60 hour range. I think that's about as long as I'm willing to play any game for anymore.

And that's very sad.

It's not just because my life is changing or anything. My life is roughly the same as it was a year ago. So why is it that I'm unable to care about long games these days?

I think I have an idea. They are all the same game.

I have played enough JRPGs to know what it's like to suffer amnesia only to discover that my best friend has turned into the most powerful weapon ever to exist in the universe and that love alone will save us all.

I've played enough Pokemon games to know that the elite 4 are always going to fall by my hand and that I will never "catch them all".

I've simmed enough cities, I've harvested enough moons, and I've definitely saved enough princesses.

So, this letter goes out to all of you amazing video game developers out there. Please start making some new games. I'm so very tired of playing the same game that I've played since I was 16. Better graphics and new leveling-up systems can only keep a man entertained for so long...

So, when did the console video game industry become so lazy?

I became a console gamer back in the day for many reasons, but one of the big ones was because console games just simply worked. You put the cartridge in the system, and never experienced any technical problems as you fell into a world entirely unique and immersive.

Immersive largely because you weren't being ripped out of it by crashes that jolted you back to reality.

Last night, I was trying to make some progress in Fallout New Vegas, and I think it crashed on me 3 times. Maybe 4. New Vegas isn't the only culprit either; it's just the most recent offender.

I believe, like the PC video game industry, that developers became sloppy once patches became possible. Oh, did I say "patches"? I meant "updates". We wouldn't want to call them patches, because that implies that the game was incomplete or broken. Update sounds much better. You're now getting something new! Something more! When, in fact, you're getting what the developers should have delivered the first time around.

With lazy developers, poor QA, and rushed schedules, it's hard to determine the one problem that could fix this annoyance.

But I think I have a clue. It starts with us gamers. We've come to tolerate faulty products. So they'll keep making 'em for us.

'Tis the season to reflect on what you're thankful for. Given that this is a gaming site, I won't bore you with reflections on family, career, or the state of the economy. Instead, let's look at the current state of gaming. Here's what I'm thankful for:

Achievements -- Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed gaming. And I like change.

Going Wireless -- Finally, controllers are free of the tethers that shackled them. Granted, Nintendo's GameCube did it first with the WaveBird, but that was an optional purchase and it didn't have the rumble feature. These days, all controllers are wireless by default. Now I can throw my controller into the floor and not worry about tripping over the cord as I stomp away in frustration.

Digital Distribution -- XBLA, PSN, and even WiiWare. Each of these services support gems that would never survive on the standard disc-based retail market.

Interactive Credits -- When you make the credits sequence fun and interactive, I smile.

The Return of the Light Gun Game -- Thanks Wii. You breathed life into an old genre.

Online multiplayer with voicechat -- Sure, my faith in modern parenting has diminished since I've heard far too many 8 year olds cursing at me over an M rated game. But, when it works -- when you're communicating with a good team and achieving a difficult goal -- it's an unmatched thing of beauty.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

So, I recently got an iPhone.

Now I'm stupid.

I can't do anything without firing it up and making sure that yes, that vegetarian friendly restaurant hasn't moved at all during the last block that I've walked.

Ooh, the weather is the same on my phone as it is in real life where I'm standing.

Oh and can you even imagine a world where you can't fling angry birds at villainous pigs during commercial breaks?

What has happened to us!?

I used to love epic, involved, deep games on my handhelds. I mean, I clocked 148 hours on Pokemon Red back in the day! I've beaten Final Fantasy game after Final Fantasy game on my DS. But now, because these stupid--er, smart phones have come along, I can't muster the attention span required for those longer, more involved, and often much better games.

Forgive me this rant, but I just got back from traveling for a week and even though I had it with me, I didn't fire up my DS once.

It's like I'm cheating on a girlfriend who's better in every way except she's not as sexy, easy, or as new as this phenomenally gorgeous iPhone 4.

Speaking of which, you should see her retina display...

I had a good plan.

I was going to finish Vanquish, start Super Mario Galaxy 2, maybe play a little Dragon Age: Origins DLC, and, perhaps, see if I can really unleash the Force this time around.

But, I always knew my well laid plans would fall apart as soon as the next Call of Duty dropped. It happened yesterday. Perks are just too enticing! Treyarch -- usually known for making the other COD games on Infinity Ward's off years -- really did something. I haven't played it enough to give it an honest "Beat" review (I haven't even touched single player yet, in fact), but I can say a couple things.

One, Black Ops has that same, "just one more match" feeling that I've lost so much sleep over in the previous two Modern Warfares. I spent countless "just one more matches" last night just trying to earn my Attack Dog perk.

Two, while the perks are good, nothing quite compares to dropping a tactical nuke on the map. Sure, releasing my Attack Dogs onto the opposing team was fun, but it doesn't have that same game-ending final word that made MW2's perk so, well . . . final.

Anyway, once again, COD has derailed my plans. Maybe I'll finish Vanquish in the next few days: right after one more team deathmatch round.

So, the KINECT released today. Personally, I don't know anyone who is interested in that thing . . . but I tend to keep company with folks who like honest video games. KINECT wasn't made for us, and Microsoft doesn't care if we like their new motion-sensing camera or not. It's sad.

KINECT is Microsoft's move to "games" that effectively play themselves and invite you along for the ride. I predict a glut of Wii clones coming from them as quickly as they can rush them through production: each game less challenging than the last, virtually holding your hands through a series of fail-proof scenarios.

Soccer moms and well-meaning grandparents will love it.

As for me, I like sitting on my couch with a controller comfortably in-hand, body relaxed, mind focused on the next fantastic challenge. That's why I'm looking forward to playing Vanquish. Judging by its cover, it looks like the game that our industry seems increasingly disinterested in making. And that's why I feel obligated to try it.

And here we are. Welcome to us.

We're launching this video game review site because we see a need for more games to be critiqued by people who actually take the time to beat them!

Unlike a lot of review sites, we will only ever review games once we've completed them. Because of this, you may notice that a lot of our games score rather high on our Game-O-Meter. Bad games tend not to be beaten.

Furthermore, we will be evaluating games based more on how they make us feel rather than their technical merits, etc. If you want to know what a game does/doesn't do, read the manual. If you want to know if it's worth your while, look it up here.

Now of course, any website launch can't go 100% flawlessly. As you browse through our "Beats," you'll notice several games without full reviews. This is because as we import our data from years of writing reviews, there is formatting and reformatting to be done. We will get to every beat on the site and update them from our archives, rest assured. Meanwhile, if there are missing reviews that you'd rather see sooner than later, drop us a line!

Oh, and lastly, since we've been writing these things for nearly a decade, our older ones tend to be lamer. Like fine wine, we get better with age.

And here we are. Welcome to us.



We're launching this video game review site because we see a need for more games to be critiqued by people who actually take the time to beat them!

Unlike a lot of review sites, we will only ever review games once we've completed them. Because of this, you may notice that a lot of our games score rather high on our Game-O-Meter. Bad games tend not to be beaten.

Furthermore, we will be evaluating games based more on how they make us feel rather than their technical merits, etc. If you want to know what a game does/doesn't do, read the manual. If you want to know if it's worth your while, look it up here.

Now of course, any website launch can't go 100% flawlessly. As you browse through our "Beats", you'll notice several games without full reviews. This is because as we import our data from years of writing reviews, there is formatting and reformatting to be done. We will get to every beat on the site and update them from our archives, rest assured. Also, if there are some reviews that are missing that you'd rather see sooner than later, drop us a line!

Oh, and lastly, since we've been writing these things for nearly a decade, our older ones tend to be lamer. Like fine wine, we get better with age.

And here we are. Welcome to us.

We're launching this video game review site because we see a need for more games to be critiqued by people who actually take the time to beat them!

Unlike a lot of review sites, we will only ever review games once we've completed them. Because of this, you may notice that a lot of our games score rather high on our Game-O-Meter. Bad games tend not to be beaten.

Furthermore, we will be addressing/evaluating games based more on how they make us feel rather than their technical merits, etc. If you want to know what a game does/doesn't do, read the manual. If you want to know if it's worth your while, look it up here.

Now of course, any website launch can't go 100% flawlessly. As you browse through our "Beats", you'll notice several games without full reviews. This is because as we import our data from years of writing reviews, there is formatting and reformatting to be done. We will get to every beat on the site and update them from our archives, rest assured. Also, if there are some reviews that are missing that you'd rather see sooner than later, drop us a line!

Oh, and lastly, since we've been writing these things for nearly a decade, our older ones tend to be lamer. Like fine wine, we get better with age.

Wow.

Being out of commission due to PAX & other travel left me with quite a backlog. However, I did beat a lot of games recently anyway. And here they all are!

Deathsmiles was one I was looking forward to, but that cheated me out of achievements; Omega Five was forgettable, much like The Red Star; Super Metroid was good for another playthrough and astounded me yet again; Puzzle Agent pretty much kicked me right in the awesome glands; and Other M ended up being worth it after a slow and rocky start.

We're hoping to have our new site up and running soon, so I'm going to shift gears and work on that now! And I'll shift my gaming gears to something

more lighthearted like Picross 3D. Who knows if I'll ever beat it. See you soon!