Weekly Update 8/10/09

At long last, the new layout is finally complete! I'd like to thank PaddSolutions.com for the wonderful Mahusay template, as well as Btemplates.com for its adaptation of Mahusay for use with Blogger. I'd also like to blame Call of Duty: World at War for delaying the move to the new template - it's always so hard to get anything done when there are n00bs to be fragged.

I've been meaning to write a post about tomorrow's Xbox Live update, but I feel that there simply isn't enough to devote an entire post to. Unlike the New Xbox Experience (NXE) of last year, the summer update feels like just what it is: an update of existing functionality and features as opposed to NXE's complete restructuring of the Xbox 360's user interface and capabilities. This isn't a bad thing at all, but I feel that the advertisement behind tomorrow's update paints it in an entirely different light, and people should know what to expect.

Many of the update's changes are "under-the-hood," such as improvements to the party system and solutions to existing connection problems, and I feel that your time would be better spent experiencing these firsthand tomorrow than reading about them from me. However, the update does bring three new changes to 360 experience that I feel are compelling enough to talk about.

Firstly, 360 gamers will now be able to access new clothing and props for their avatars via the Avatar Marketplace and Avatar Trophies. While Microsoft periodically releases new - and free - avatar clothing, the Marketplace and Avatar Trophies system finally makes available game- and brand-specific avatar swag. While I found the Marketplace a bit overpriced, I do find a bit of joy in having my avatar tricked out in Halo 3 gear, and I'm looking forward to unlocking additional swag in Halo 3: ODST and other future titles.

Secondly, the Netflix interface has finally received a much-needed update, allowing users to browse Netflix's online catalog using a number of genre-specific lists. This is an overdue feature addition that has already helped me discover a number of titles that would have probably remained buried in Netflix's inelegant online catalog. Additionally, users will now be able to see what movie or tv show their friends are watching, further allowing users to discover new titles that may interest them.

Lastly, Microsoft has introduced its new Games On Demand program, offering complete downloads of Xbox 360 titles straight from the dashboard. While Microsoft has been offering full Xbox title downloads for over a year now, this is the first time that Xbox 360 titles have been available for digital download. The lineup is actually quite impressive, featuring a number of blockbusters including Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Oblivion, Call of Duty 2, and Burnout Paradise, and prices seem to be competitive with current new and used prices at Gamestop and Amazon.com. I haven't tried downloading a title from this list, and I'm curious to see if these titles will suffer from many of the same technical issues that the Xbox Originals suffered from, but I'm hopeful that this is the first true steps towards the direction of a fully digital game distribution model for consoles.

In other news, I've been playing the IL-2 Sturmikov: Birds of Prey demo released on Xbox Live last week. So far, I'm impressed that IL-2 has kept its promise of delivering a true flight simulation to the Xbox 360. While the game does scale difficulty back to give more casual players an arcade-like experience, it is clear that the arcade settings are but training wheels for the true bread-and-butter of the title: simulated combat aviation. I only fear that the title won't garner the market penetration it deserves. I've always considered combat flight sims as candy for the masochistic - gamers who enjoy logging hours just to learn a particular plane and maneuvers, stalling because they took a sharper turn than their aircraft could handle, or spending 5 minutes hurdling to earth in an unrecoverable spin because the plane's steering column had been shot. I am, in fact, one of these gamers, but I fear that I'm rather niche.

Gluttons for punishment unite!

-- Mike





Banner image courtesy of 505 Games and www.il2game.com.

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Impressions: Point Lookout

Point Lookout is the fourth of Bethesda's expansions for Fallout 3, and their third non-Wasteland expansion for the title. While similar in length to the Pitt, Point Lookout stands out due to its emphasis on open-ended exploration, preserving Fallout 3's spirit while showcasing Bethesda's storytelling strengths.

Like the expansions before it, Point Lookout gives the player an opportunity to leave D.C. to explore other locations in nuclear war-ravaged United States - this time the marshlands of the real-life Point Lookout State Park in Maryland. While I've never visited Point Lookout, Bethesda did a great job in translating the Park's natural beauty into the Fallout universe. In stark contrast to the windswept brown barrens and urban rubble of the Capital Wasteland, Point Lookout features foggy, deep-green swamps ringing with insects and other sounds of life, broken only by the occasional isolated shack or detritus. This creates a truly unique identity for the location, and gives the expansion a visual style very distinct from the main game.

Point Lookout's true aesthetic strength, however, is the influence of the expansion's chthonic themes in its scenery and presentation. In a preview with IGN, Bethesda developers revealed the influences of H.P. Lovecraft's literature on the expansion, which emphasized the presence of terrible evil and dark deities dwelling just beyond the veil of normalcy and perception. Point Lookout does a wonderful job in translating these themes not only into the expansion's story, but also into its visual style. Point Lookout's dense, fog-filled foliage and natural hills, cliffs, and sinkholes present the player with a very limited visual range compared to the barrens of D.C., and I often found myself stumbling upon smugglers, swamplurks, and ferals alike. The result is a fairly tense experience that left me wondering what, exactly, I would find past the next tree.

Point Lookout's explorative gameplay is a welcome return to Fallout 3's signature open-ended wanderings, and allows the expansion to truly capture the feel of Lovecraftian horror. Lovecraft's protagonists often stumble upon the supernatural entities and circumstances they encounter, and Bethesda's mastery of weaving stories through artifacts and self-motivated exploration is a natural fit for this style of storytelling. I often found myself stumbling upon not only unexplained fetishes and ritual grounds, but also several named and unnamed side-quests that explored the location's back story, Chinese espionage, and even an homage to the Lovecraftian Necronomicon. This open-ended gameplay allowed Point Lookout to capture the essence of Fallout 3 - the creation of a world where every debris-filled corner and ruined building seemed to have a story of its own.

Despite my praise, I feel that Point Lookout could be improved in a few areas. First, I was disappointed with the small number of uninspired new items presented in the expansion. Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt both did a great job of creating atmosphere through items, allowing players to bring distinct aspects of both settings back to the Capital Wastelands. Point Lookout, however, only gave me access to a handful of new items, all of which I found rather bland. In contrast to the Gauss Rifle or the Auto Axe, I returned to the Capital Wastes with a double-barreled shotgun and a lever action rifle, which was identical in look to Lincoln's Repeater! Given the isolationist nature of Point Lookout's inhabitants, I can understand Bethesda's reluctance to add outlandish new weaponry and items to the expansion, but given the supernatural entities and rituals referenced, it's reasonable to expect to leave with a more interesting weapon than an axe or a shovel.

Second, I felt that Bethesda could have done more to explore Point Lookout's real-life preternatural events. For those of you unfamiliar with Point Lookout State Park, it served as a Union prison camp during the Civil War. It saw the deaths of over 4,000 Confederate P.O.W.'s and is considered by many to be haunted by the ghosts of these dead soldiers. I would have liked to see Bethesda do more to explore and integrate the Park's real-life supernatural phenomenon and reputation into the expansion.

Ultimately, my biggest protest is that I had to eventually return to the Capital Wasteland. Like the Shivering Isles expansion for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Point Lookout created a vibrant and engrossing setting that could easily accommodate a full-length title. While I can't speak to Broken Steel, I find Point Lookout to be the strongest of the non-Wasteland expansions (including Mothership Zeta, which I will talk about in the coming week) and a definite must-buy for any fan of Fallout 3 or H.P. Lovecraft.

-- Mike





Image courtesy of IGN.com.

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Penny Arcade's Tycho and Gabe on 1 vs. 100 this Friday

Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade will be guests on 1 vs. 100 this Friday on Xbox Live. If, like me, you have yet to try 1 vs. 100, this will prove to be a great opportunity to give it a go while enjoying commentary and banter by two of the games industry's biggest celebrities.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/08/05/1-vs-100/

-- Mike





Banner image courtesy of IGN.com.

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We're Back!

After an extended hiatus, I’m happy to announce that Untitled Thoughts is back, and will be featuring three new blog post series:

The Backlog will cover titles that have previously slipped from Matt and my attention. While we don’t have any hard-and-fast criteria of what games will be covered in this, this series will focus primarily on games released in 2008 or earlier and titles that have fallen by the wayside or been forgotten in the wake of high-profile releases.

Budget Gamers will be an advice column on how to get the most out of your gaming budget. As a recently unemployed gamer, I’ve been exploring ways to get the most out of my Microsoft Points and gaming dollars, and will post guides on how to game in this rough economy.

Lastly, I’ll be posting Weekly Updates covering everything from what we’re currently gaming, news stories on the week, or anything worth saying that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

And, as usual, we’ll be posting our usual opinion, impressions, and discussions on our gaming experiences.

As you’ve probably noticed, Untitled Thoughts is also undergoing a few cosmetic changes, including a change to a new layout. Everything should be up and running within a few days. Thank you for bearing with us and staying tuned!

-- Mike





Banner image of 1 vs. 100 on Xbox Live. Image courtesy of IGN.com.

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Games as Art: Why Should We Care?

The question of whether or not video games can be considered art is one that has occupied online messageboards, blogs, and even newspapers over the past several years. Yet recently, Matt posed a seemingly simple question that has thus far left me stumped: Why should we care? At first, I didn't really have an answer. For a gamer like myself, who willingly whiles away hours and even days in the warm glow of digital explosions, the question of "why should I care?" had never really come to mind. Even though I've yet to reach a conclusion as to whether or not games are art, the worth of questioning if games can or ever could come to be described as "art" had always been a given for me. Yet, when asked why, I could do nothing but sit dumbfounded in my chair. The question still stands: Why should we care?

To be honest, I really can't give a reason why Matt or anyone else should care, but perhaps I can speak to why I care. I love games because they have a profound ability to illicit a complex range of emotions and reactions in me that simply are not present in any other medium, ranging from empowerment to terror, empathy, conflict, and guilt. To be fair, mediums such as cinema, literature, music, and the visual arts have evoked strong responses from viewers and listeners for decades, if not centuries. Works such as the Sistine Chapel, the Mosque at Cordoba, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, and Saving Private Ryan have all enjoyed profound success in invoking the terrors of battle or the awe of the divine in both ancient and modern peoples alike. Yet, I feel that video games have the potential to match and perhaps surpass the poignancy of more traditional media by inviting the player to actively participate in the work of art the developers have created. By making the viewer an active participant in the work of art, instead of simply a passive observer, a game can more directly and effectively engage the viewer with the issues it is trying to tackle and the points it is trying to get across.

Does this mean, then, that I advocate that games are a legitimate form of art? Not at all. Games, as they stand, face a number of different challenges that complicate their evolution into an established art form, and titles that advance the legitimacy of games as art are few and far between. Yet, I care about the question of whether games can be considered art because I perceive a profound and tangible potential for games to utilize the evocative and immersive properties that keep me in my living room each weekend to engage players in the societal, cultural, and existential issues that more traditional mediums currently address. Ultimately, I care about it because I care about gaming, and because I want to see this passtime grow out of the turbulent adolescence that it currently finds itself in and grow into something more worthy of the potential that all-too-often goes unseen. As Tony Huynh, Senior Game Designer at Day 1 Studios, stated in his blog, LimitlessUnits.com, "video games have boundless possibilities and are uniquely suited to surpass any other mediums that currently exist because there is a level of connectivity through open-ended and collaborative interactivity that no other media can hope to match." I hope that others come to see this, too.

-- Mike





Banner image of Prince of Persia by Ubisoft. Image courtesy of IGN.com

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By the Will of the Prophets - Matt On Halo Wars

When I first saw the teaser video for Halo Wars I remember thinking, "Fuck Yes," which I've heard was a pretty common response. Playing the pre-release demo, however, I noticed the cons of RTS being particularly prevalent in the game. Limited tech trees, Unalterable base locations, and an extremely limited faction selection all suggested one thought - why would I want to play this for more than one or two games? Sure, it's fun to watch a defenseless Warthog transform into a mobile Gauss Cannon/Rocket platform, but the novelty lost its appeal once you upgraded everyone to their max potential.

With these thoughts in mind, I passed on the game's purchase (even the promise of additional Halo 3 maps couldn't allow me to ignore our current economic state). I did, however end up renting it - in part to allow Mike to accurately gauge the multiplayer, and partially because I felt the Halo universe deserved at lease four of my precious dollars, if not the full $60 retail.

I ended up keeping the game an extra week (won't be going back to that Blockbuster any time soon) and becoming frustrated when Mike moved on to a different game - it had that kind of pull. The weaknesses on the demo hadn't been patched, but they'd become their own strengths - I never had to worry about the other person pumping out something completely off my radar, I took comfort in the knowledge of base location and Halo Wars' expansionist strategies, and I much preferred the impeccable attention given to the UNSC and Covenant over five or six incredibly bland faction selections.

I also found the storyline and cutscenes to be amazing (God, the cutscenes!) and a number of the single-player missions to be quite creative (Scraping Flood off the ship was never something I'd expected myself to be doing in an RTS), but the co-op campaign was a mess.

Giving two people - any two people - control over everything is like giving them control over nothing. Neither person ends up being able to utilize a cohesive strategy - I need more supplies for my Vultures, but my buddy just grabbed the last chunk I've been saving up to pump out another Rhino. Even with good communication and self-assigned areas of influence, Mike and I kept bumping heads on resource allocation, troop deployment, defensive strategy, and mission objectives. Unlike Halo the FPS, where a human teammate with human eyes is a blessing in sighting pesky alternative targets, having two humans in a "god" position is next to impossible. You're both working in a confined space with limited resources, and with no manual labor to do yourself, we're both relegated to management positions. And what good is a multi-person management structure except for the exchange of ideas? In an RTS where time is of the essence, there is no room to banter about what to do and why - there's only action and reaction.

I agree with Mike about most of the other aspects of the game's presentation - especially in that Halo Wars is a good RTS. It's not groundbreaking or incredible, but nor is it terrible and unplayable. It succeeds at what it set out to do, and only fails when people give it expectations they usually reserve for Halo in the FPS realm.

Bottom line? It's a great rental - incredible if you're a Halo afficionado - but I've still got my PC for RTS' and Halo 3 for my Halo-related gaming urges.

-- Matt

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On Halo Wars

I love Halo Wars. I've spent the past two weeks trying to decide what to say about this game, and this is simply all that I could come up with. I f***ing love Halo Wars.

When talking about Halo Wars, it is easy to become preoccupied with discussions about its status as the first truly successful RTS on consoles. Many enthusiasts, myself included, have a tendency to take Halo Wars as a proof-of-concept, as evidence that the RTS genre can find a home on a platform other than the PC. PC enthusiasts, in turn, seem to enjoy rebutting this statement by pointing out Halo Wars' relative lack of depth and still sub-par controls when compared to contemporary PC-exclusive RTS titles. Yet, this back-and-forth detracts from Ensemble's true accomplishment in Halo Wars - making a f***ing enjoyable game.

The reason I'm stressing this point so much is because, at its core, Halo Wars is a flawed game that manages to deliver tons of fun due to sheer gameplay and personality. Though the game's relatively shallow tech and unit trees are often brought up as a flaw, they actually work as a strength, as they make the game more easily accessible to new gamers and allow matches to play out over an hour as opposed to half a day. Even more significant, however, is the fact that the subtle nuances of base-building, resource harvesting, and tech leveling are simply not the main focus of the game. Bungie created a universe with dynamic characters that were interesting to watch and fight. Indeed, part of the allure of playing Halo's campaign was the sheer variance of behaviors and movements of each enemy and vehicle, from the Grunts' hobbled run to the arching arm of the frenzied Hunter to the fish-tail of a Warthog taking a turn at full speed. Bungie populated Halo with characters that were as fun to watch as they were to kill, and by simplifying or eliminating much of the micromanagement traditionally involved with real-time strategy, Halo Wars allows the players to savor every small skirmish.

This is where the game truly shines. For Halo enthusiasts like myself and Matt, the banter of UNSC marines or the combat actions of a sword-wielding Elite Honor Guard are treats to behold, and Ensemble provides plenty Halo eye and ear candy. Indeed, I can't help but be impressed at the level of detail Ensemble was able to attain. Grunts' methane tanks occasionally rupture when they're killed, sending the unfortunate creature zipping through the air like a deflating balloon. Hunter pairs form into a two-man phalanx before engaging, creating a wall of energy beams and armor just like in Halo's campaign. The game even features special fatality animations, allowing the player to savor a Spartan kill by having the Elite throw the super soldier off-balance with a series of sword swipes before impaling the Spartan on his energy sword and discarding the broken corpse into the snow. Indeed, when Matt and I can hop into match in Halo 3 and notice that the Guardian turrets on Snowbound are the same as those found in Halo Wars, you know that Ensemble has done something right with the game. Halo is all about savoring the thirty seconds of combat that comprise its core gameplay, and Halo Wars' simplified gameplay allows players to savor Halo's combat every time their armies clash.

Ultimately, this is all the game truly has. Does the game manage to solve all the control problems that have plagued console RTS's? No. Ensemble's control scheme is merely the latest iteration of an evolving series of control scheme refinements dating as far back as EA's Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2. It exists as a mere refinement, albeit a particularly elegant and effective one, that is still far from perfection. Is the game our long-awaited proof that the RTS genre is viable for console platforms? No. The game's particularly elegant and still flawed controls come at the expense of the deep level of strategy that have become par for PC strategy games, and with the long-term success of this one game still uncertain, it is impossible to use Halo Wars to prove the viability of strategy games on consoles. What Ensemble accomplishes through Halo Wars is simply to give its players a great experience that stays true to Bungie's vision of Halo, and I can't wait to jump into my next skirmish.

-- Mike

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Reverse Viral Marketing Shuryuken!

I am constantly amazed at just how susceptible I am to word-of-mouth advertising. Having never grown up playing Street Fighter, I barely gave notice when the game's latest iteration released last week. But with Adam cooing over every hi-res hadoken, I find myself lusting after it. It's like McDonalds: you know you'll be in pain after that double cheeseburger, but you can't help but want it anyway.

To be fair, Street Figher IV is a game I should enjoy. I've lost days playing Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur, and Street Fighter IV contains a surface game that I can really see myself sinking my teeth into. But as I found with Disgaea DS, there is a such thing as a game that is too deep, and I fear the beasts and creatures that lurk below the surface game. Street Fighter is an amazingly layered game, and while it is possible to play - and enjoy - its topmost epidermis, those who plunge into the game's core emerge a transcended being. I fear that to be competitive online will involve my inevitable journey to the center of Street Fighter IV, and it is a journey I hesitate to embark on. Yet, I doubt I will be content playing the game without at least attempting this odyssey.

Still, I've managed to stay competitive in both Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World at War, two titles notoriously difficult to get into as a novice. Perhaps there is hope for me in Street Fighter IV...

Damn you, viral marketing.

-- Mike

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Kanbei, I wish I could quit you...

There's a magic to the Nintendo DS that I've only just become reacquainted with, one that is fundamentally ineffable but undeniably palpatable. I can't help but feel satisfied when I sit back and fire the system up. Granted, part of this may be that I've been incredibly selective with the games I've purchased for it, cherry-picking only the most acclaimed games that I'm sure will interest me and avolding the shovelware that publishers seem to excrete into the system's library. Believe me, those titles are legion. But even while playing a title that fails to live up to my expectations, I still can't deny the simple happiness the system brings me. There's a quality to the system that transcends gameplay. Everything from the weight and feel of the DS Lite to the system's interface just seems right. In an age where the most competitive hardcore gaming system has a lifespan of less than a year, there is something to be said about the quality of the DS. It has become a name that promises satisfaction no matter what game you're playing. I'm almost glad that my 360 died to rekindle my love affair with this handheld.

I happened to chance upon a copy of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and I can only wonder why I've let this title sit on my backlog for so long. I've been a huge fan of the Advance Wars series since the original landed on the Game Boy Advance, and Days of Ruin has reminded me of why I love the series. It is a game whose balance is nearly unquestionable, turning each battle into a precise chess game of deployment and strategy. To be fair, there's little variation to the main game equation. Each battle is essentially a war of attrition, the winner ultimately decided by the number of cities each player controls. Control more cities and you control more resources, which means you can bring more and bigger guns to the fray. Yet, the game avoids simply becoming a question of numbers, or even unit quality, as even an army of mighty War Tanks outmaneuvered by players (or AI) clever enough to sneak a weak but mobile infantry unit into the enemy HQ, or deadly artillery and rocket batteries rendered inoperable due to cut off supply lines. Too bad I'm usually on the receiving end of this.

My only qualm is the decidedly generic turn the franchise seems to be making. Advance Wars has always been over-the-top, its characters charicatures of real-life cultures and figures, from Stalin Soviet Russia to Imperial Japan. The modern-day fighter jets of Red Star would face off against the WWII-style prop planes of Yellow Comet, while a cartoonish stereotype of a Japanese commander squeed over the victory of his somehow still-competitive airforce. However, the distinct character that the franchise launched with seems to have eroded in each iteration.

As the art style and story became increasingly generic, so has the commanding officers and factions. One of the great things about earlier Advance Wars games was the variation that came with using different commanding officers. These commanding officers would have specialties, such as proficiencies in certain types of weather or with certain types of units, that would allow players to approach missions from completely different styles of play. One of my fondest memories from Advance Wars: Dual Strike was using Sonja's superior transports and infantry troops to wage a guerilla war against what might be described as a relatively modern tank army. CO proficiencies make a return in Days of Ruin, but in the form of an area of influence that radiates from a command vehicle that ferries your commander, making any portion of your army outside of this area a relatively generic army no different from the enemy. Luckily, Days of Ruin is so well-balanced that almost any strategy is possible if executed correctly. Still, I miss watching imperial troops with comically antiquated vehicles and technology beat back fighter jets and tanks that look like they belong in Battlefield: Bad Company. It's come to the point where I don't even care who I'm playing as anymore. All I know is that I'm red, and there's some blue guys over there, and I should probably blow them up in the most proficient way possible.

Still, Halo's proven that well-done red versus blue can deliver an outstanding game, and Days of Ruin follows in that tradition. It's a great game overall, and one that's sucked up much of my free time this week. I just miss my Kanbei. I wish I could quit him...

-- Mike

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I lose myself in your sword...

Predictably, I've fallen out of love with Disgaea DS. As I stated in my previous post, the game is simply deep to a fault. It is a min-maxer's playground, rife with opportunities to tweak characters in pursuit of optimal performance, from re-creating characters with better starting stats and stat growths to dungeon crawling in order to level a sword. It's a great concept, but one whose depth I find repulsing.

To be fair, one does not need to delve too deep into the game's cavernous character development system. In fact, one NPC in the game's main lobby area exists for the sole purpose of reminding the player that game may be completed with a minimal amount of understanding about what exactly is going on. Yet, aside from Disgaea's cute anime-style story, I simply don't find the game engaging enough to heed that lowly NPC's warning. I hope that doesn't cause him to have an existential crisis.

The main issue here is the combat system. Disgaea DS introduces some very interesting concepts that help to keep combat interesting. The most notable of these are Geo symbols - power ups or debuffs that affect the units standing on the particular colored tile the symbol happens to be resting upon. These symbols are far from static, capable of being moved to another color to affect different tiles or destroyed to unleash devastation unto units unfortunate enough to be standing on the symbol's spaces. While many of the campaign's battlegrounds have made minimal use of Geo symbols, item dungeons often introduce extremely complex levels that force the player to develop strategies to adapt to these power-ups, and even include levels with enemies only able to be defeated using a chain reaction of destroyed Geo symbols. This allows the player to approach each battle as an open-ended puzzle game, creating multiple possible strategies and a truly mind-boggling level of replay-value.

Yet, this level of understanding takes a large amount of time and devotion, and the game offers little to those unwilling to make such an investment. Without the use of Geo symbols, the game's core combat mechanics are bland, with relatively uninteresting level designs and little space for character customization off of the battlefield. One of the joys of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance series was the development of truly unique characters through inventive combinations of job skills. With weapons governing most of the skills available to each character, there is little difference between my Samurai and my Centurion or my Ninja and my Battler aside from stat growth and aesthetics. This leaves me relatively uninvested in the characters and teams I bring to each battle. In a game that seems to demand constant combat for the sake of grinding, I find this to be a deal-breaker.

Disgaea's interesting narrative and over-the-top, anime-style presentation will most probably be enough to motivate me to complete the game. But that won't be for awhile. For now, I miss my all-purpose Gladiator-Dragoon and stealthy Sniper-Fencer waiting for me on my Final Fantasy Tactics A2 cartridge.

-- Mike

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Common Sword is the new Dungeon. Bring your Dragon.

Earlier this week, my Xbox 360 succumbed to the Red Rings of Death. It now sits lifeless in my room, awaiting valkyries astride UPS trucks to carry it to Microsoft Valhalla - which is apparently in Texas. Having three 360s fail to make it to their first birthday, I thought I would be more upset about this. Instead, I feel a calm resignation, accompanied with a slight apprehension on how long it will take for my repaired 360 to return to me. Apple offers overnight shipping for their repair services. I guess Microsoft's valkyries have to walk it. Just as well. Judging from Windows Vista and the 360's reliability, they'd probably just crash.

It is remarkable that so few people are outraged by the 360's abysmal rate of failure. To be fair, Microsoft's free 3-year retroactive $1 billion warranty did help cushion the blow. Still, I feel that the 360 is just so damn lovable that people just want to get back to playing it. It's like a puppy that chews up your shoes. You want to be mad, until it turns those cute brown eyes on you. Just replace those brown eyes with green and white X's.

With my Xbox officially out of commission, I've finally found the time to discover why IGN's Daemon Hatfield deemed Disgaea DS the deepest strategy RPG on the market. To say that Disgaea DS is deep is to say that the Pacific Ocean is deep. There are depths to this game which I can only begin to fathom. Indeed, it may even be deep to a fault, as its game mechanics still remain unfathomed one third of the way through the game. It makes me wonder if I will be able to come to understand them by the time I complete the game, or if I will come to the end of this story still relying on the haphazard party development and battle strategies that have miraculously delivered me victory thus far.

Yet, for all my confusion, I cannot help but admire the ambition of the developers at NIS. They created a game in which the most mundane and basic of items contains a multi-tiered dungeon capable of improving the stats and quality of the item - a dungeon for which ten challenging floors requiring an advanced understanding of the game's battle system represents a mere glimpse of the dungeon's true scope. One can only wonder what power lays buried deep within the common sword you started the game with. Perhaps it's possible to transform the most basic of weapons into an Excalibur-like blade, capable of serving the player to the very end of the game. Such an ability to upgrade and develop one's weapon, instead of simply trading it in for more advanced blades, resonates particularly well with me, and opens up an entirely new avenue for character development that I feel motivated to explore.

Still, with many Disgaea DS's core mechanics still incomprehensible, it remains to be seen if my character will ever pursue that fabled "Common Excalibur" or if he'll simply beat up the Netherworld Assembly until they commission the castle store to carry better items. Oh the decisions a demon prince must make...

- Mike

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STFU: Why Gamers Have Such A Short Fuse

I'm not a fan of Charles Dickens.

Sure, the guy has good story ideas, and has, on occasion, drawn me in to one narrative or another - but on the whole I find him overly verbose, plodding, and dare I say it, boring. You, on the other hand, may enjoy Dickens' work, but I somehow doubt I'll find a flurry of angry, pseudo-English slurs questioning my mother's heritage and nightly activities in the comment box.

On the other hand, were I to bash Fallout 3, Call of Duty: World at War, and Halo 3 on a site frequented by gamers, I'm pretty sure more than one person would take serious umbrage with my words and subsequently take me to task over it. (In order to avoid angry comments here, I've chosen three games that I own and enjoy. Granted, now that means someone may take issue with me enjoying these games...) Why are gamers such a reactionary bunch when it comes to their choices for entertainment? Certainly my hours spent on Fallout don't prevent you from playing Gears of War 2. So what gives?

When I think about the possible reasoning behind this "over-enthusiasm," a few potential factors come to mind. Let's explore them.

Age of the Gamer: While the patience required to sit through Tale of Two Cities (Sorry, I'll stop bashing Charlie now) is limited to either the young and bright or the old and tempered, video games pride themselves on accessibility to a wide and varied range of people. Many a time have I read a post on a forum waxing poetic about how "my mom iz a bich cuz shez a11 'git of the game' n im lik stfu bich," I can only hope a sentence like that originates from a preteen who has no business being on the forum anyway...rather than a sad commentary on our state of secondary education and communicative skills...but I digress. The point is online, in-game, and offline, you can find many preteens and young teens who are definitely "gamers" and who have their own opinions. The same, however, can be said of music, movies, and television shows, however - so age can't be the only reason.

Age of the Medium: Gaming is "new." Obviously, video games have existed for decades, sure, so new is a relative term. But when you look at the age of literature, music, and image appreciation (moving or not), gaming is the new guy on the scene. Are these arguments the "growing pangs" of gaming's awkward adolescence?

Nature of Interaction: Unlike the previously mentioned forms of entertainment, gaming offers participants a way to actively engage with the medium. Instead of passively viewing or listening, gaming requires the gamer be a part - indeed, the catalyst - for its success. This requisite interaction may form a different sort of relationship with the gamer than they might have with other media, causing them to feel the need to "participate" even outside of the game.

Nature of Competition: Like interaction, competition is really an experience limited to gaming and not many other entertainment venues. Even if you're playing a single player game, you are competing against the computer or yourself - besting a time, killing an enemy, finding armor, advancing the story, hitting the faux drumset - and you either persevere or don't play. Of course, add multiplayer components to the mix and you're trying to beat other living people at a certain objective. Does the competitive drive that underlies most of our gaming experience also subconsciously drive our need to tell each other how much their favorite game suX0rz? Perhaps.

Forums of Communication: As if the internet hasn't been blamed for enough, it's partially responsible here as well. The wonderful thing about the internet is that it allows anyone to speak their mind about any chosen topic under the sun. (See: This Entire Site) The downside of the internet is that it allows anyone to speak their mind about any chosen topic under the sun. Users of the internet are encouraged to let their voices be heard, and certainly gamers are no exception. Where such arguments were once reserved for the "Letters to the Editor" of your gaming mag, you can now find a topic, post, argue, and call someone a whore in less than ten seconds flat.

I guess when you really get down to it, it's not one simple over-arching reason - more like a clusterf*ck of too much dynamite and not enough fuse. And I haven't even mentioned pressure from the gaming media, gaming companies attempts to foster platform/game wars, and peer pressure...

Oh, and by the way: Final Fantasy VII bored the crap out of me.

-- Matt

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Rebel FM

As a true testament to the spirit that made 1UP Yours and the 1UP Show my favorite podcasts, the former employees of 1UP have come together to create two great new internet broadcasts: the Rebel FM podcast and the Area 5 YouTube video series.

I'm simply at a loss for words for how impressed and humbled I am to see these guys carry on the 1UP Yours and 1UP Show's legacies using spare and scrounged equipment not even a day after being laid off. So all I will say is to check out the Rebel FM podcast on iTunes and support the Area 5 video series on YouTube. Leave these guys some love, because I can't think of anyone in the games industry more deserving of it right now than them.

--Mike

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Of Walls and Blowing Holes In Them

Though I was able to procure - through purchase and other means - several of the hot releases for this holiday season, I've been the most satisfied by the titles I've managed to score at various sales and out-of-business clearances. While none of the titles I've picked up are by any means bad, it is also becoming evident to me why these titles have failed to stand out amidst the torrent of triple-A calibur titles that flooded the market these past two months. I'm convinced that this satisfaction stems from something intrinsic to me. Perhaps, in another life, I was a carrion bird, contentedly picking at flesh of creatures too weak to defend themselves. It is sad that in this analogy, video games parallel my source of sustenance.

I've been playing a bit of Battlefield: Bad Company, and I'm surprised that it is competing so well with Call of Duty: World at War for my attention. I guess that it shouldn't surprise me this much, as it appears to be the very antithesis of the Call of Duty franchise. While CoD does a very good job at evoking the visceral nature of warfare, it is something one experiences on tracks. It is reminiscent of a carnival horror-house, where one sits on a cart while shit jumps out at you. It's effective, and it's damn entertaining, but it's something you see from a passenger's seat. There is never a doubt that the game, and not you, is driving.

Bad Company, on the other hand, presents the player with a veritable sandbox to decimate. While one isn't free to roam on the scale of Mercenaries 2, one is never limited to a single approach or solution to a problem. Tired of hoofing it? Jump into a tank. Anti-armor got you down? Gank that gunboat. Tired of the high seas? Evade tank shells in a golf cart. The gameplay variety isn't limited to the level design and vehicle options, however. Anyone who remembers the hype over the game last June should remember the high destructibility of the environment. To say that everything can be blown up is a bit deceiving. The game doesn't aim at a fully destructible world. One can't level every building. Indeed, bathrooms and internal structures seem miraculously invulnerable to all forms of conventional weaponry, like some form of low-tech panic room standard for wartorn Eastern Europe. What the game does aim at - and succeed at - is revolutionizing the micro-encounters that characterize the FPS experience. For all of CoD's production values and emphasis on cinematography, they have yet to match the sheer thrill of cowering in a house from a tank only to have the wall blown apart from behind you. The number of strategic and experiential possibilities such a seemingly simple addition brings to the game is profound.

It's an odd day when blowing a new entry way into a house, right next to the front door, becomes profound.

--Mike

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A Moment of Silence for 1UP

Wow.

For those of you who haven't heard the news yet, 1UP.com has been purchased by UGO, and have seen half their staff slashed and their podcasts terminated. Electronic Gaming Monthly, the publication out of which 1UP.com grew, was not part of the purchase, and will publish its last magazine this month.

I'm not one who is easily perturbed by things like company closings, mergers, and hostile takeovers. When electronic retailing titans Radio Shack and Sharper Image, and more recently CompUSA, disappeared from malls and shopping districts, I barely batted an eye. The absence of the massive and bustling CompUSA at 42nd Street seemed jarring at first, but the shock (if it could even be called that) dissipated over the course of two days, and I can no longer even point to where the store once stood. Even the closing of Lehman Brothers, and the bloody bankruptcy of Iceland, did not seem to startle me any more than the constant stream of negative headlines flooding the media during the early weeks of the current economic crisis. From my perspective, life is proceeding as usual, and so I've had little cause for true alarm.

However, I am in a genuine state of shock over the sale of 1UP and the termination of EGM, to the point where I can barely think of what to type in response to this news. 1UP has always stood out as one of the pillars of video game journalism, offering well-respected opinions on recent and upcoming releases and the industry as a whole, and enjoying a rapport much on par with international gaming network IGN. While I've never been a follower of EGM, I vividly remember my friends excitedly referencing their articles and features as far back as grade school. That a publishing house with such a long history of successful coverage of the video game industry could be bought up and downsized so quickly is, quite frankly, jarring at the least.

What strikes me the hardest, however, is the knowledge that I may never spend an afternoon's commute listening to the banter of 1UP's editors and writers. While the closing of a print magazine as old as EGM is a somber thought, only so much can be conveyed through articles and the written word. An article does not convey the individual behind the writing as well as the mediums of audio and video, and while one can get a good sense of the author's preferences and tastes through editorials and features, one never comes to know the author. Admittedly, I've never met Shane Bettenhausen or Garnet Lee or any of the 1UP staff. I can no more claim to know them than claim to know Obama. Yet, the 1UP Yours and The 1UP Show podcasts at least allowed me to sit in on their rants and to revel in their enthusiastic arguments on everything gaming related. It was an opportunity to see why they loved gaming, what they loved about gaming, and why each of them chose to enter and pursue a career in games journalism. It was their unfettered enjoyment of games and the industry that inspired me to start this blog with Matt, and to at least dream of being a games journalist. While I will still be able to listen to the hysterical antics of the IGN staff or the opinions of some great independent podcasters on the Gamers With Jobs Conference Call and Cheap Ass Gamer, I find the absence of their voices a weighty quiet. The announcement of the purchase of 1UP and EGM on UncleGamer Radio resounded like a death knell in my earbuds during my commute home today, Parris' loss of words to comment on the event an unofficial and disquieting moment of silence.

I wish the best of luck to the staff of 1UP and EGM, both those who must now seek new employment in a turbulent and inhospitable economic climate and those who must deal with the loss of much beloved colleagues.

--Mike

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