China’s Mysterious Beauty and Four Other Things to Click On

1. Chinese media are abuzz over the “mysterious beauty in black” seen behind President Obama during his visit to Shanghai. It turns out her name is Wang Zifei and she is a graduate student at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University.

2. Another cool China link: artist Liu Bolin becomes invisible by painting himself exactly like the background.

3. Finalists in National Geographic’s International Photography Contest. My favorite is the one of the New Zealand farmer.

4. Crispy Gamer’s Ten No-Bullshit Rules for buying video games for kids. Crispy Gamer is increasingly becoming one of my favorite gaming sites. These guys can write.

5. Lev Grossman picks the six greatest fantasy novels of all time.

Five Things

1. Want to learn to taunt your enemies like a reclusive megalomaniac dictactor with bad hair? It’s the North Korea insult generator.

2. What kind of political system is suitable for colonists on an interstellar journey? Sci-fi author Charles Stross flags some interesting issues.

3. Think movie acting can be bad? Try the 50 Worst Video Game Voice Acting clips.

4.  ”Sometimes his loose-limbed shuffle and sibilant drawl suggest Jimmy Stewart as a crackhead.” That’s The New York Times reviewing Nicholas Cage in his new movie, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”.

5. Crack that whip! Pearl Jam does Devo.

Five Things That Caught My Eye Today

1. Granite Falls, a small mining town near Seattle, has elected a Muslim mayor. It probably helps that he runs a popular bar in town.

2. CageWatch: Nicholas Cage stars in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”. Warner Herzog directed, so this has a shot at being decent, or at least fairly entertaining.

3. Remember the U.S. container ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates a few months ago, with a standoff that ended with SEAL snipers taking out the pirates? Well, pirates attacked it again. Only this time, the ship was ready, as a professional security crew repelled the assault with small arms and, awesomely, a sonic blaster.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 raked in $550 million in its first week, topping the previous record-holder, Grand Theft Auto IV, by $50 million.

5. Malcolm Gladwell responds, partially, to Steven Pinker’s recent criticism in the New York Times Book Review.

Five Things That Caught My Eye Today

1. Electronic Arts is rumored to be closing Pandemic Studios. Yes, this is the same Pandemic that, along with BioWare, EA paid more than $800 million for two years ago. Although Pandemic was behind Full Spectrum Warrior, one of my favorite games of all time, its recent efforts, like last year’s Mercenaries 2, were met with lukewarm critical reviews.

2. Stunning photograph of a crescent Earth shot by Rosetta, the European comet-chasing spacecraft. Oh yeah, and irregularities in Rosetta’s flight path may lead to a re-writing of the known laws of physics.

3. Fascinating profile of Jon Huntsman, Jr., Obama’s new (Republican) man in China. In an awesome historical twist, Huntsman as a child handed Henry Kissinger his briefcase as he departed with Nixon on the famous secret trip to China in 1971.

4. Intel’s Itanium chip finally turns a profit. After a decade. And billions of dollars of investment and promotion.

5. And from The Onion video files: Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks.

Are Games Approaching Virtual Murder?

Gamasutra is one of the more interesting and professional video-game sites out there. Their writers consistently produce thoughtful, analytical pieces about the industry. So when one of them pens a column saying he is genuinely worried that games are evolving towards true murder simulators, you know you’re going to get a well-written, even-handed take on the issue.

However, the article ultimately shares something with every hysterical op-ed decrying video games as an amoral medium helping to twist a generation of kids into super-predators. And that is simply that the author stumbled across a game that disturbed him. For many parents and anti-game crusaders, that game was one of the Grand Theft Auto series. Or Manhunt. Or Counter-Strike. I don’t know why Bioshock did it for this particular author. Many of us who played the game all the way through didn’t find the enemies disturbingly realistic, though the game itself is disturbing (and excellent) due to its overall atmosphere and story rather than the realism of its character. In fact, the most disturbing part of the game for many players lies precisely in the moral choice you make, about whether to harm the innocent for personal profit (and pay the consequences later), or do the right thing now at the expense of short-term difficulty.

Personally, I have found scenes in the recent entries in the Call of Duty series more disturbing. Sometimes when you shoot an enemy soldier, he starts dragging himself across the ground, trying to get away. You have to walk up and finish him off. Otherwise, he will pull out a pistol or grenade and try to do you. Call of Duty 4 also had a segment, titled “Death from Above”, where you’re in an AC-130 gunship and you use that greyscale thermal targeting system to just grind up guerrilla fighters. The gunship’s crew talks to you in this matter-of-fact tone, like you’re taking out the trash instead of killing actual humans.

But to the article’s point, he got the willies and fears that we’re reaching a point where we all start sliding down a slippery slope towards callousness and inhumanity. Yet, there’s no evidence that the huge advances in realism we’ve seen so far have led to increased violence or disregard for human life. In fact, despite the hand-wringing of politicians and moralizers everywhere, youth violence has hit its lowest level in 40 years, even as “murder simulator” games like Grand Theft Auto IV, Bioshock, and Call of Duty sell tens of millions of copies.

Of course, it’s possible that we just haven’t reached the “tipping point” for this phenomenon. Perhaps there will come a time when games are so real and the act of playing them so visceral that it fires the right set of neural pathways that will turn our youth into cold-blooded killers. Based on the evidence so far, however, I’d say that’s unlikely. The simplest reason is that the vast majority of people, believe it or not, are actually capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality. People know when they are playing a game, and they know that bludgeoning someone with a wrench or lighting them up with a molotov is not socially acceptable behavior, and that they will suffer extremely unpleasant consequences for doing so.

For all their realism, video games really pale in comparison to the ultra-realistic violence portrayed in films. I remember being appalled and sickened by the brutality in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Now, of course, I love those movies as classics. Look at The Departed or the Saw series. Those are 10 times more graphic than anything you’ll see in a video game. Part of this is that the industry self-polices (or self censorships, depending on how you look at it) pretty well. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board has pretty exacting standards for the kind of violence that can be depicted and still get an M rating (equivalent to an R). Moreover, the console makers — Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo — won’t let unrated or AO (Adults Only) games get published on their systems.

Finally, video-game developers are actually pretty thoughtful about using realism judiciously. You get the few teams that push the edge, like Rockstar with the Manhunt series, but there aren’t many games that actually set out to disturb you with their realism or that make you torture characters or revel in the pain you cause. And here’s my prognostication: when the day comes when games are basically indistinguishable from film, virtually no one will make games that actually simulate murder and death in all its bloody, painful mess. The reason? That shit isn’t fun. It’s the reason Transformers makes hundreds of millions of dollars while Saw makes tens of millions.

Furthermore, I’d argue that the key to making things disturbing isn’t the photorealism. After all, the author of the Gamasutra piece admits to being disturbed by the original Wolfenstein, hardly what we would call a realistic experience today. Clearly, graphical fidelity isn’t everything. Things like the writing, dialogue, voice acting, and AI are much more essential to creating a desired emtional reaction. Having a victim crawl away from you, crying, and then beg for his life in a realistic manner will be much more effective at recreating a life-like scenario than having a photo-realistic victim who stands there passively while you hack him to bits.

And the upside is that as technology improves, so does the scope for making games into a more impactful art form. Think about a military game that actually puts you in the moral dilemma of having to decide whether the guy on his knees begging for his life is really an innocent civilian or an insurgent desperately trying to get out of a jam so he can continue planting roadside bombs. Think about having an AI partner, girlfriend or pet that responds to your choices and actions. I get excited thinking about this stuff, and think it’s much more likely than Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation suddenly turning generations of kids into killers, something that would completely defy the last 40 years of video-game evolution.

Finally! Best games of 2008 (Part 5)

Biggest Gaping Hole in My Library: LittleBigPlanet

It was hard for the hype to be any bigger for Media Molecule’s impossibly cute platformer. Although the adventures of the game’s knitted hero, Sackboy, didn’t get Sony back in the console race, LittleBigPlanet was unquestionably one of the most original — did I mention cute? — titles in 2008.

LittleBigPlanet’s hyper-realistic environments differed from other A-list titles in one dramatic fashion: instead of lush forests or gritty urban landscapes, the game is set among structures built from every day materials such as cardboard, cloth and paper. Resembling nothing so much as a grade-school art project, the game nonetheless sported sophisticated level design that challenges and rewards.

I almost can’t believe I haven’t picked this one up yet. It’s simply because I still (still!) haven’t finished games like Fallout 3 or Dead Space, so how can I justify dropping another $60 on this? I did see, however, that Amazon had LBP on sale for about $46. A great bargain for consumers, but probably a blow to Sony’s expectations that they could maintain premium pricing for longer.

Best Game That I Will Almost Certainly Never Finish: Grand Theft Auto IV

I have a problem finishing games. Most games I will top out at about 20 hours before moving on to other diversions. Games like Halo 3, Gears of War, Fable 2, Call of Duty 4 and Mirror’s Edge all fall comfortably within that range. I prefer quality over quantity. Give me 10 amazing hours and I will consider my money better spent than if you give me 30 or 40 good hours. The biggest exception to this rule was Oblivion, which I played for more than 40 hours and still didn’t finish.

So right away, the sheer size of Grand Theft Auto IV, which is said to take about 40 hours to complete the main storyline, stacks the odds against me ever completing the game. But apart from that, GTA IV has one flaw that is crippling for modestly talented gamers like me. That flaw is the lack of a mid-mission save system.

You see, some of the missions in GTA IV are quite long, requiring significant set up and travel before you get to the action parts. If you’re not completely prepared, pretty skilled, and a bit lucky, you will die. And when you die, you start that mission all over again. I’ve recently picked up the game again and completed a couple missions that had vexed me months ago, but if I was bent on completing it, I wouldn’t play anything else for months.

Best Game of 2008

And here it is. The moment you’ve been waiting two months for. What was the best game of 2008? Was it Fallout 3, with its deep character-building system infused with a Road Warrior vibe? Was it Fable 2, with its open-armed world that combined an expansive fantasy world with the charming social nuances of The Sims? Was it LittleBigPlanet, with all its cuteness and inventiveness and creative tools for users? All of these are worthy titles, to be sure. But one game stood above everything else, wowing everyone with its breathtaking detail, sparkling writing and sheer variety. That game, of course, was Grand Theft Auto IV.

Despite its flaws, and there are several, Grand Theft Auto IV represented the best of gaming. The stunning visuals took the soul of New York and reincarnated it in the body of Liberty City. Even now, almost a year later, one of my favorite things to do in the game is stop and watch the sun set. In keeping with its noir inspiration, the character of Niko Bellic at once fascinates and repulses. We revel in his aptitude for violence while sympathizing with his desire to find more in life. You see this in a hundred little moments and contrasts throughout the game. One moment you’ll be making shy chit-chat with a potential girlfriend or e-mailing mom back in the old country, the next you’ll be pushing some poor guy off a ledge or helping a junkie score her next hit.

Here was what I wrote about the game when it launched last April:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Video gamers geared up on Monday for the midnight launch of “Grand Theft Auto 4,” as early reviews hailed the criminal action title as a brutal and satirical “masterpiece” equal to films like “The Godfather.”

For a time, Grand Theft Auto IV was the only game to score a perfect 100 on Metacritic. Even today, it boasts an incredible 98, the highest-rated game since The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time came out in 1998 and received a 99.

The GTA series has of course been the target of serious controversy. But audiences have longed lived the criminal life vicariously through movies like novels like The Godfather, movies like The Killing, and now games like GTA. As I read somewhere recently, books let us imagine the impossible, movies let us see the impossible, games let us do the impossible. Few of can imagine doing the dirty deeds committed by Niko and his associates. The success of the GTA series has hinged on letting people break the rules. You can’t believe this game is letting you get away with this stuff! GTA IV took that simple idea and slathered on a rich layer of storytelling, wit, and social commentary. It’s an artistic achievement that was unrivaled in the industry last year, and it’s why Grand Theft Auto IV was game of the year.  

Best games of 2008 (Part 4)

Favorite Xbox Exclusive: Fable 2

Although Gears of War 2was a strong contender in this space, ultimately it was Peter Molyneux’s redemptive masterpiece that offered a fresh, unique experience on Microsoft’s machine.

No, Fable 2 doesn’t have the best graphics or the best story, but it does offer an incredibly fun experience that genuinely gets richer and more rewarding the more you invest in it.

Fable 2 is a game that really does give you the leeway to play however you want, and doesn’t punish you for making “bad” choices. Want to play the morally upright hero? Go ahead, that’s what I did. But terrorizing the population with wanton killing and banditry is an equally valid way to play, though you can expect the world to have a markedly different feel should you turn to the dark side.

Fable 2 also offers a wealth of secondary activities. Buy a fish stall and get a steady income that lets you buy more properties, all the way up to a massive castle. Hammer away as a blacksmith, pull drinks at the local pub, or chop wood in the countryside to earn a few extra coins. Woo a local woman (or two, or three), or go nuts with prostitutes in the seedier hamlets. Buy a home and upgrade the furnishings. Win the town’s adulation with displays of heroism, or turn them off with fart jokes.

Fable 2 is an approachable, deep, and quite funny twist on the fantasy role-playing game. Its numerous innovations make it my favorite Xbox 360 exclusive ahead of more graphically rich and intense fare like Gears of War 2.

Reality check: Oddly, for a game that asks, “Who do you want to be?”, Fable 2 doesn’t give you much leeway with character creation. You can choose to be a boy or a girl at the start, and that’s about it. To be sure, your choice of diet influences your physique, and you can pay for hair styles, clothes and tattoos throughout. I also recommend reading up on how to use your repertoire of facial expressions and gestures, and, just as importantly, how to quickly gain new ones. These are essential to enjoying the in-game socializing and I only gained proficiency as I neared the end of the main quest.

 

Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing: Dead Space

EA’s creative resurgence continues with this critically acclaimedtake on the survival horror genre, with sci-fi spin. You play a mechanic sent to an orbital mining station that has lost communications, only to find that something has wiped out the thousand-strong crew.

Several things make Dead Space noteworthy. The exquisite pacing keeps you on the edge of the couch waiting for the next horrific moment to spring. Your character is just an engineer trying to defend himself with tools and objects, not some buff space marine bristling with high-tech weaponry. There’s also a great implementation of the HUD-less display. There’s no health bar, weapon icon showing how much ammo you have left, and no map screen that pauses the action. All the information you need as a player is visible right there as part of the environment.

I also look forward to what I hear is brilliantly implemented zero-G combat and a clever way to convey sound in the hard vacuum of space.

Dead Space reminds me of nothing more than Doom 3, and I say that as someone who loved Doom 3 and its creepily lit hallways, disturbingly twisted monsters, and captivating storyline that you uncovered through recordings and e-mails as you explored.

Reality check: One colleague complained to me that his biggest issue with Dead Space was that “You’re always just the engineer.” Meaning, I guess, that you don’t evolve much or grow more capable as the game progresses. I’m also half-expecting that the horror aspect of the game will translate into slow progress as I play it in easily digested chunks.

Best Unfinished Game: Fallout 3

Considered a Game of the Year contender by many outlets, Fallout 3 is in many ways “Oblivionwith guns”, a reskinning of Bethesda’s excellent fantasy-themed role-playing game from 2005. Oblivionis still one of my favorite Xbox 360 games and still ranks as one of the most evocative gaming experiences I’ve enjoyed.

Indeed, the basic Fallout 3 mechanics will be instantly familiar to Oblivion fans: the sense of movement, the placement of objects in the world, the basics of the inventory system have all essentially been carried over.

Fallout 3 makes two huge strides forward.

The first is the area of gameplay with the introduction of the VATS targeting system that lets you single out specific parts of an enemy’s body when attacking. It’s an immensely satisfying feature that never grows old.

The second improvement is in narrative. Oblivion, for all its considerable charm and intriguing side-quests, suffered mightily from a main story that forced players to go on cookie-cutter missions that quickly lost their appeal. That is the reason I never finished Oblivion despite falling in love with the broader world it took place in.

So far, and I would guess I am halfway through the main storyline, the Fallout 3 narrative has suffered no such missteps. Every quest is unique and there appear to be multiple ways to complete them. For instance, it is possible to obliterate the first town you come across with an atomic blast. I opted to save the town, figuring correctly it would be an important home base for resting, healing and restocking of supplies. But the choice was mine to destroy it, and I can only imagine the impact it would have made on the story arc.

Reality check: Fallout 3 offers up more of the grey and brown color palate that has so imbued recent games. It requires constant inventory management — repair of gear, making sure you’re not over your weight limit, switching weapons, and taking medicine to ensure you survive your next fight and the radioactive environment itself.

Tomorrow: Favorite Xbox Exclusive, Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing, and Best Unfinished Game!)

Best games of 2008 (Part 3)

Biggest Game That Failed to Capture My Imagination: Metal Gear Solid 4

Perhaps the last of the great third-party exclusives, this PlayStation 3 epic was a serious contender at many outlets for game of the year. I’d never played a Metal Gear game prior to this, so I tried to prepare by reading up on the back-story. It was a lot to digest, but when I played the game what really turned me off was just the weird control scheme.

For Xbox fans, the Splinter Cell series has really defined stealth-action, and the controls in that series were generally so well thought-out that Metal Gear Solid 4’s scheme is just clunky and odd in comparison. The game also does a horrible job of bringing you up to speed on the mechanics. Normally, tutorial levels step you through increasingly intricate moves until they’ve covered the basics you need to strike out on your own. But MGS4 gave you incredibly brief sequences where, say, you move around a vehicle, and then you get thrown in another lengthy cut scene until the next short sequence, which, in terms of teaching you how to play the game, bears little relation to the previous sequences.

Reality check: Given the accolades heaped on this game, creator Hideo Kojima obviously did something right. Just today, a coworker said MGS4 had some absolutely epic moments in it that are worth suffering through the crummy bits. This may be one to revisit later in 2009 during the midyear lull.

Favorite Downloadable Game: Braid

An evocatively melancholy story about lost love, Braid was one of the most critically acclaimed and innovative games of the year. Mechanically, it’s an homage to Super Mario Bros., but with the added element of time manipulation. Braid’s unique visuals are rendered as gorgeous Impressionist-style paintings, and the slow, cello-heavy soundtrack heightens the doleful mood. Each level is a polished gem of design, and your time-bending abilities get more intricate as the game progresses.

Reality check: Braid can be wickedly hard. In fact, it’s probably the hardest game I played last year. Of course you can go online if you need help, but the satori-like revelation that comes with cracking the puzzles unaided is its own reward.

 

 

 

Favorite Unsung Masterpiece: Mirror’s Edge

This was hands down one of the most original games of the year. Essentially a first-person 3D platformer, Mirror’s Edge is set in an authoritarian city-state of the near future that blends atmospheric and architectural elements of Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, LA and London. You play as a “runner”, or underground courier of illicit information, who eludes police by running, leaping and sliding through urban landscapes.

The first thing you’ll notice about Mirror’s Edge is the vibrant aesthetic. Absent are the grays and browns of (excellent) games like Gears of War 2, Fallout 3 and Call of Duty. From the sparkling blue sky to the bold primaries of many of the buildings you run on and through, Mirror’s Edge presents a world blossoming with color.

Of course you’ll also notice the unique perspective as a player. There’s nothing new about first-person games, but here, you’re not brandishing a gun and you frequently see your hands and feet. Mirror’s Edge is basically a parkour simulator, and the first-person viewpoint allows for some truly vertiginous moments, especially if you ignore your mother’s old advice and sit (or stand, which is even more immersive) too close to your television. One thing I loved is that you are encouraged to finish the game without firing a single shot at a human being. You can certainly obtain guns by disarming police that stand in your way, but I found it more believable and interesting to eschew weapons entirely and rely on speed and smarts to get me out of trouble.

The story in Mirror’s Edge deserves special mention as well. It’s not perfect, but this marked one of the few games that made me care about the main character. Electronic Arts’ DICE studio crafted a believable and sympathetic person in the character of Faith, and I found myself eager to see how the next chapter played out. There are some decent if clichéd twists, and although the ending is somewhat unsatisfactory in the sense that it doesn’t tie off all the loose ends, there is enough of a payoff emotionally and game-play-wise to deliver a sense of closure.

Reality check: There are a few really nasty difficulty spikes in the game that require you to pull off a series of complex moves with little or no margin for error. Expect a four to five places where you will die 20 to 40 times trying to execute one of these intricate sequences. I normally hate games that are so demanding, but in this case was so intrigued by the story and visuals that I kept plugging at it.

(Tomorrow: Favorite Xbox Exclusive, Best Game I’m Most Eager to Play Once I Finish What I’m Currently Playing, and Best Unfinished Game!)

Best games of 2008 (Part 2)

Favorite Driving Game: Burnout Paradise

Why it’s a winner: Open world. Dozens of sweet cars. Spectacular crashes. Hundreds of challenges. Seamlessly integrated online play. Sure, Burnout Paradise isn’t the most realistic racer around, but when you’re smashing through a billboard 50 feet up in the air at 120 mph, who cares?

This is also a game I could pick up and play for just 15 minutes, or for hours on end. It’s also one I could share with Harlan. A benefit of the open-world, menu-less design is that it encourages exploration and lets you just cruise around checking stuff out. Perfect for a 7-year-old who doesn’t have the fine motor skills required to thread a speeding muscle car down a narrow alley or nudge an opponent just enough to send them careening into a concrete pillar without dooming yourself to the same fate.

Not only is there an incredibly variety of stuff to do in this game, but impressively, Electronic Arts and Criterion are keeping things fresh with new downloadable content such as new cars, new game modes, and even plans for an entire island that will be one giant playground for pulling outrageous stunts.

Reality check: If you like more authenticity and the chance to try out real-world cars and tracks, then driving simulators like Forza 2 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue are probably more up your alley.

Favorite Online Game: Left 4 Dead

Less a shooter than your own personalized zombie survival movie, Left 4 Dead attains its fullest brilliance when you play online with three other people. Sure, there are only four levels, but each time it feels fresh due to the different strategies you and your cohorts come up with. In the weeks after Left 4 Dead came out, the halls at work each morning were filled with conversation about the previous night’s exploits. It’s one of those games that will have you asking in disbelief: “Did you see that?”

Left 4 Dead has delivered the most polished co-op experience to date. If you do not work with your teammates, you will die, and they will die, and the story will end. Yet you don’t have to rely on the goodwill of your friends, incentives to help out are built right into the game. Tight and taut, with the perfect mix of jump-out-of-your skin horror and campy humor, Left 4 Dead is a fresh and compelling online experience.

Reality check: Left 4 Dead might prove to be too limited, given that there are only four missions, only five firearms, and the same four characters to choose from. It remains to be seen how much staying power it has, but there are certainly hours of zombie-blasting fun to be had here nonetheless.

Biggest Time-Suck: Rock Band 2/Guitar Hero World Tour

It was clear more than a year ago that these competing franchises aimed to evolve into platforms offering a whole new way to enjoy your favorite music.While most people seem to gravitate to one or the other, I find my playing time split pretty evenly between them. Between Rock Band and Guitar Hero series, I’ve logged hundreds of hours of playing time, saving me the hassle and expense of constructing a real life or learning an actual instrument.

Rock Band 2 has so far shaped up as the critics’ choice as Harmonix and MTV fixed almost everything that was wrong with the already excellent first installment. The game does a great job of paying homage to rock music while not taking itself too seriously. Rock Band also offers the best selection of downloadable songs, with literally hundreds of tracks spanning classic rock, punk, country and metal.

Yet the wildly popular Guitar Hero has proven to be the sales king, and World Tour cuts into Rock Band’s turf in a big way by offering a new drum set and redesigned guitar that are best-in-class. Developer Neversoft also came up with a character creation tool that is superior to Rock Band’s. While their downloadable content isn’t as robust as their rival’s, they have some key acts like Jimi Hendrix, and they are doing cool things with bands like Aerosmith and Metallica.

Either way, whether it’s picking up an axe to relax by jamming through a few songs at the end of a long day, or breaking out the whole band kit for social fun when company is over, these music games deliver massive amounts of playing time and more than justify their expense.

Reality check: Selling at nearly $200 for the full band kits, these games cost almost as much as the console you play them on. While you’re sure to find many songs that please you, there will be quite a few that you hate but still have to slog through to proceed in career mode (yeah, I’m looking at you, PDA by Interpol). Getting four people up and playing is also still a bit of a chore.

(Tomorrow: Favorite Downloadable Game, Best Game That Failed to Capture My Imagination, Favorite Unsung Work of Art)

EA’s warning: What does it mean?

Yesterday, Electronic Arts warned that revenue and profit for the holiday quarter would fall short of its earlier estimates, also jeopardizing its financial targets for its entire fiscal year. Quoth EA CFO Eric Brown:

“[T]he majority of our portfolio is underperforming our sell-through projections. This fact, combined with the observation that some retailers are planning to end the calendar year with fewer weeks of inventory on hand, indicates that we will not have sufficient reorder activity in December to meet our Q3 expectations.”

The conventional wisdom is that the video-game industry is fairly resistent to recessions in the broader economy, so it’s fun to throw stuff like this at the CW and see if it shatters.

Sure enough, there are tons of news and blog reports wondering just how recession proof the industry is. A great example is the story in The Los Angeles Times that said the warning showed the industry “is starting to show signs of strain”.

Well, take a look at this chart of some key players in the video-game industry. One of these things is not like the other. Can you tell which one?

If you picked “ERTS”, congratulations. Electronic Arts fell 12 percent today, the day after its warning. Yet its biggest competitor, Activision, was down only 1.2 percent. A few gaming companies were even up.

That tells me that the market reckons the problems EA is seeing are pretty specific to EA, and not to the industry as a whole.

In other words, retailers may be cutting back on restocking video games, but they are especially cutting back on video games made by EA.

We’ll get a better picture tomorrow when the latest monthly sales figures from NPD are released, but there are already many positive signs that business is holidng up:

• Nintendo said it sold 800,000 consoles in the U.S. in just one week.
• Two Microsoft executives, Entertainment and Devices CFO Mindy Mount and Interactive Entertainment VP of Strategy Shane Kim, both said in recent interviews that they are cautiously optimistic about the industry holidng up.
• Xbox 360 had a strong Black Friday showing with sales up about 25 percent from last year.

Interestingly, video game stocks have been getting hammered since mid-year. EA and THQ are both down nearly 63 percent since the start of September while Activision and Take-Two are both down about 42 percent.

That’s worse than the Nasdaq, which is down 30 percent, and worse than manufacturing and retail behemoths like GE (36 percent), Boeing (32 percent), Intel (30 percent), and Wal-Mart (11 percent).

The pessimistic view might be that the warning from EA is just among the first early signs of a disaster the market saw coming months ago.

The optimist might say that EA is just a blip, that gaming shares have been unfairly tarnished amidst the broader economic troubles, that holiday sales will turn out fine for most companies, and that the stocks will rebound once the relative health of the industry is borne out by strong data.

What do you think?

Don’t bother me, I’m Sporing…

I picked up Will Wright’s latest game, Spore, yesterday. Wright created SimCity, one of my favorite PC games of all time, and The Sims, the best-selling game of all time with approximately 100 jillion copies sold. This is one story that I really wish I had remained a reporter long enough to cover. The reason is that Wright is supposed to be a brilliant guy, even a genius. He’s one of the gaming industry’s true deep thinkers and intellectual lodestones. He not only has an unsatiable appetite for knowledge, but he processes that knowledge in weird and wonderful ways. His creations are Miyamoto-like in their ability to extract something fun from the mundane.

In Spore, you start out as a microscopic organism and eat and discover your way up the evolutionary ladder, moving onto land, forming tribes, creating a civilization and finally conquering the galaxy. Not surprisingly, the game has been getting a lot of attention from the science press, who see a good cross-over story when they see it.

One of the best articles has come from Seed, which asks, “If this is the ultimate evolution simulator, why does it feel so much like intelligent design?” The answer, of course, is that while the game is inspired by science, it is in the end a game that is supposed to be fun. (Though not directly addressed in the article, I would add that publisher Electronic Arts, which delayed the game a couple times, really needs it to be a hit, so making the game as approachable as possible makes good business sense. Wright himself alluded to that in this Q&Awith MTV Multiplayer.)

I really liked this bit about people designing genitalia-inspired creatures:

For game designer Frank Lantz, it’s this evolving ecosystem that is the perfect example of the game’s ability to be science rather than teach science. Initially, it was living, bouncing models of the human reproductive organs that proved wildly popular — a trend quickly dubbed “Spornography.”

“Here’s a game — supposedly about evolution — in which sexual reproduction is tastefully absent,” says Lantz. “And then as soon as the editor comes out, there’s this enormous Cambrian Explosion, a Burgess Shale of digital erotica. And then those images were really good at reproducing themselves as players sent links and images around to each other. So, it turns out that sex is good at reproducing itself. How funny and ironic is that?”

The kicker line is great, too:

This isn’t a game for re-educating the intelligent design proponents of the present; it’s a game for inspiring the intelligent designers of the future. Because, of course, if you zoom back one more level from Spore and the computer screen which hosts it, what do you see? Yourself.

One other interesting twist to the buzz around the game is the reaction it is getting on Amazon, where reviewers pissed off over the draconian copy-protection have driven the game’s rating down to a single, solitary star.

I was going to break it down but why tell when you can show?

 

 

 

 

 

The bizarre twist on this is that EA was once on the other side of a similar campaign last holiday when the sci-fi epic role-playing game Mass Effectcame out. (The game was published by Microsoft but EA ended up buying the studio that made it and thus ended up being on the frontline of this particular crapstorm.)

What happened was that Fox News did a totally irresponsible and scurrilous segment about the game, which featured a brief, PG-rated love scene of the main character bedding an alien woman. One Fox commentator said the game was like “Star Wars meets Debbie Does Dallas“. Fox had an author named Cooper Lawrence on the show to criticize the game for its shallow depiction of women, but when asked by the pro-game commentator Geoff Keighley, she admitted she hadn’t played the game.

What happened next was that hundreds of outraged gamers flocked to Amazon and drove down the rating of Lawrence’s book. She ended up issuing an apology (though Fox never apologized for its blatant and willful misreporting that would have been the cause of an embarrassing correction and probable probation for the reporter if it had occurred at Reuters) and the whole saga was chronicled by The New York Times. In one of those fish-that-got-away stories, I actually had a story primed and ready to go a full day before The Times, but a miscommunication with editors meant it was overlooked. Oh well.

Anyway, it looks like the mob has turned against EA. Amazon ended up deleting the bulk of the negative reviews for Lawrence (though it looks like many have returned over time), so it will be interesting to see how they’ll handle this. On the one hand, it seems to be a legitimate gripe with the product. On the other, it’s clear many of the “reviewers” haven’t bought the game but are just parroting details they read elsewhere.

Game reviews

Dubious Quality has some thoughts on whether game reviews are disproportionately favorable. He gathered some data on review scores from major sites like 1UP and GameSpot and finds that 50-60 percent were positive. He questions whether the games are really that good, with the subtext being that game review sites are under pressure to deliver positive reviews because they rely heavily on advertising from game companies. There’s no question that business concerns sometimes influence coverage, and industry insiders have gone on record many times confirming instances where that has happened.

However, there might be an additional factor that skews the results of such analysis. That is simply that the sample of games reviewed is probably not representative of all games out there. Take film. Ebert and most major newspapers don’t review all movies, they just review the handful their readers are most likely to be interested in this week.

By the same token, gaming sites review titles that that their readers are most likely to consider playing. Ebert doesn’t review direct-to-video “Little Mermaid 16: Ariel’s Facelift”, and most game sites don’t review “Lawnmower Tycoon” or “Diaper-changing Madness!”.
 
For example, there are supposed to be 1,000 games (retail and downloadable) out on Xbox 360 by the end of this year. If you figure that 200 games have yet to hit this year, there should be about 800 already out. Yet Metacritic only shows 449 reviews. Here’s the breakdown:
 
100-90: 14 games
89-80: 91 games
79-70: 123 games
69-60: 95 games
below 60: 122 games
 
If you take anything below 70 as unacceptable, then 48 percent of the game reviewed fall into that category. If you count 80 and above as where your gaming dollar is best spent, then 23 percent of games are worthy of your consideration. That suggests that as a whole, the industry-wide curve is more of what you’d expect — a very few GREAT games, a good selection of GOOD ones, a big band of MEDIOCRE ones, and a whole buttload of BAD ones.
 
Finally, I’d point out the obvious point that, as much as reviewers try to quantify their thinking with scores, it’s still an inherently subjective art. There are games I enjoyed immensely that only scored in the mid-70s on Metacritic, and there are some that won universal praise and high scores that I just didn’t get. Same with movies.
 
In the end, I wonder if we’ll see some sort of shakeout in the review industry where a handful of guys and gals elevate to become the Roger Eberts of the medium. I don’t agree with everything Ebert says, but he’s a consistent enough personality that you can read his reviews and decide for yourself whether or not you’d like a movie, regardless of the direction his thumb is pointing.

A few new games

I clocked some quality gaming time over the weekend, only I wasn’t spending it playing blockbuster retail games. Instead, I grew obsessed with two recent downloadable Xbox arcade games: Castle Crashers and Braid.

Plenty has been written in the past couple weeks about these two games, since Castle Crashers was one of the most anticipated arcade games to be released this year while Braid ended up being the best-reviewed arcade game of all time (Metacritic has it at 93, just a point below Halo 3 and a point above Guitar Hero 2).

A friend asked me to pick which of those games he should download. I told him that’s a Sophie’s Choice and I wouldn’t make it. He needed to knuckle down and buy both of them as they are both immensely rewarding in vastly different ways.

Castle Crashers is a button-masher in the tradition of great side-scrolling arcade brawlers like Golden Axe. But it is infused with a Sunday comic-strip aesthetic, a basic but rewarding leveling-up and skills system, deep co-op play, and fantastic tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s so far provided hours of thumb-blistering fun for me and Harlan.

My only complaint would be that some boss battles are pretty tough, and losing them means going back to the start of the level. Also, there are quite a few cool items for sale at the various stores sprinkled throughout the world, but I find I’m always blowing by hard-won gold coin on health potions, and thus am never able to earn enough capital to invest in any of the high-end goodies.

It’s hard to imagine a more different game than Braid. That’s not much of a statement as nothing is really at all like Braid.

At first blush, it’s easy to mistake Braid for a simple side-scroller, like some broody Mario who wandered into a Degas painting. Like a Mario game, the controls are dead simple: left control stick to move and the A button to jump. Only here there are no double-jumps, no wall-climbing, no special moves. Oh, there is one twist, and that is that you use the X button to rewind time. Rewind one second or the entire level, it doesn’t matter.

It’s really easy to imagine this game mechanic incorporated into something like a Mario game. Super Mario Time Traveler or something. Wiggle the Wii remote and send Mario back in time! Braid avoids this cutesy setting in favor of a moody, wistful story about a boy named Tim who wishes he could undo a mistake that cost him the love of a princess. It’s a story that is completely at one with the distinguishing game mechanic of rewinding time.

Instead of just having the player make Tim traverse each level, avoiding obstacles and dispatching enemies, each level in Braid has one or more puzzles that require manipulating time in increasingly subtle and complex ways. There are no tricks or cheats or shortcuts. Just Tim, you, and that X button.

Braid has won widespread praise and is being held up as the latest evidence that, hey, games are too an art form! The unity of Braid’s story and gameplay nicely support the idea that the art of video games lies in the aspect of “agency“, or decision-making and being in control.

Still, I can’t help but think that Braid wouldn’t be getting nearly the accolades it has if it didn’t boast one of the most evocative visual and audio aesthetics of any recent game. If you’ve played Braid, imagine the game re-skinned with a “typical” garish arcade-game palette and accompanied by electronica or thumping techno. Throw away the tragic-romantic story and replace it with a generic one about a space commando using his time-warp cannon to navigate alien landscapes and find all the pieces to the Morgatron 3000 ray that will save his planet.

It might still be a fun and cool game but I bet it would score at least 10 points lower and quickly get lost in the shuffle. Instead, every element of the game stands out — the gameplay, the graphics, the story and the music, and it’s Braid’s polished whole that adds up to an amazing experience.

Hey, where did everyone go?

Just over two months ago, I wrote that I was taking a job with Microsoft’s Xbox division. The ensuing 5 weeks ended up being one of the busiest periods of my life. In fact, I think we must have set some sort of record for doing a complete interstate move.

My last day with Reuters was June 20. By June 26, me, my wife and 6-year-old son had packed up and hit the road on the 900-mile drive to Seattle.

I received my Microsoft badge on June 30, just two weeks before the E3 expo in Los Angeles that is the video game industry’s most important show of the year (and which, incidentally, we won hands-down).

We closed on a new house on July 31 and were fully moved in by the evening of August 2.

It really was one of those moves in which everything comes together, A-Team-like. It was about time, since we’d had enough practice. Here is a brief history of our wanderings since the mid-90s:

• April, 1996: Take full-time job with Reuters in Beijing.
• January, 1999: Take job with Reuters in Los Angeles
• February, 2000: Take job with Reuters in Seattle
• May, 2002: Take job with Reuters in Beijing
• October, 2005: Take job with Reuters in San Francisco
• June, 2008: Take job with Microsoft in Seattle

That’s five major moves in less than 10 years. I guess all that practice paid off since pretty much everything went off without a hitch this time.

In a corporate move like this, there are so many moving parts: moving company (and a separate company to move one of our cars), corporate HR for both Reuters and Microsoft, the temp housing company, the real estate agent, the mortgage lender, the home seller, etc. In every case, each party totally went to bat for us to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. It was amazing.

I don’t have much to report right now. Scratch that, I have tons to report, but I’m not going to do it right at this moment. This is sort of the re-launching of Command-K, and I just needed to log in and get the ball rolling again.

In the coming weeks I’ll be writing about the new job, my evolving perspective on the games industry from the inside and other random thoughts.

Well, that went pretty well

On Friday, my 12-year career with Reuters came to an end. In a little more than one week, I’ll be starting a new job with Microsoft as executive speechwriter for the Xbox division. I can’t wait to finally crack open the Big Book of Xbox Secrets and find out what’s coming down the pipe.

The past year that I’ve been covering the gaming industry has been about the most fun I’ve had as a reporter since I started in 1996. It was sometimes hard to focus on other aspects of my job.

My other main responsibility was covering Apple. Apple’s a great story in every sense. The stock has doubled in the past year, giving it a great financial angle. The products are used and salivated over by tens of millions of people, giving it a great consumer and general news angle. The passion and quirks of Steve Jobs are the stuff of Silicon Valley legend, giving it a fantastic human angle.

The problem is that Apple is notoriously tight-lipped. They don’t talk about anything they are not ready to announce themselves. They don’t make executives or managers available for interviews. They don’t host events or give presentations for the benefit of reporters or analysts to get to know the company better. And because the company is so high profile these days, most analysts who cover it closely are stingy with their time and often don’t respond to press inquiries. That leaves a small handful of Wall Street analysts and consultant types that are contacted for many stories.

In the gaming industry, on the other hand, everyone wants to talk. PR plans on games are drawn up many months in advance, and companies are only too happy to have an outlet like Reuters highlight one of their titles. The industry analysts, too, are probably the friendliest and most open I’ve ever encountered. That means it’s never hard to find a fresh angle or a quick comment, and you don’t have to pester the same few guys day in and day out.

I’d be a bit more wistful about leaving Reuters and the great colleagues I left behind, but I don’t have time. After originally telling us that they couldn’t get to us until June 30 at the earliest, the movers called today and said they’ll come pack up our stuff on Monday and load it up on Tuesday. We’ll roll out of Albany for good on Wednesday morning.

Lots to do. 

“Wii Fit” glitch

I had a small glitch pop up in Wii Fit. The balance board is supposed to be a pretty accurate digital scale, but the readings I had for the first few days were about 10 pounds lower than what I got on our bathroom scale and the gym scale. Then suddenly two days ago it came up with the accurate weight. The only annoying thing is that on my Wii Fit weight chart, it looks like I gained 11 pounds in one day. I’d also set a goal of losing 10 pounds in 6 weeks, but Wii Fit thinks I need to lose 21 pounds since it is comparing my current weight to my target weight. I hope I don’t get any more fluctuations, like the program thinking I’ve lost that 11 pounds again, only to gain it back a few days later. Anybody else have this problem?

Speaking of scales, according to interviews with the game’s creator, Nintendo actually approached several makers of digital scales to sound out possible partnerships for the hardware side of this. The scale companies were interested, but all of them figured such a product was too risky since it had never been done before. To be fair, this was probably before the Wii had been launched, at a time when even the gaming industry was skeptical that this underpowered console with the funny name and weird controls could be a viable competitor. 

Still, think about it: what scale brands can you think of? I don’t know any. These guys had the opportunity to hitch their companies to one of the most powerful consumer brands in the world. The company name could have been on all those millions of copies ofWii Fit, and it would almost certainly have established them overnight as the cool, fitness-oriented scale company. One of the great “what could have been” stories of the year. 

I guess people really like “Guitar Hero”

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Activision Inc is adding drums, bass guitar, and microphone to its popular “Guitar Hero” video game, a move aimed at winning away fans of MTV’s rival musical title “Rock Band”.

“Guitar Hero World Tour” will include the ability for two groups of four people each to compete online, as well as let players compose and play their own music, Activision said on Thursday.

The game will feature songs from bands such as Van Halen, The Eagles, Linkin Park and Sublime, with every song being an original master track, unlike past games where many of the songs were cover versions.

Due out in the fall, the game will mark a new direction for the “Guitar Hero” franchise, in which players push colored buttons on a plastic guitar-shaped controller to match notes on the screen.

“I certainly think it takes the edge off ‘Rock Band’,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst with Janco Partners. “What’s ‘Rock Band’ going to do now, add a flute and banjo?”

Activision’s money-spinning franchise got its first real competition last November when Viacom’s MTV unit launched “Rock Band”, which featured drumming and singing in addition to guitar playing.

The “Guitar Hero” series has raked in more than a billion dollars for Activision and has helped drive a 72 percent rise in the company’s stock over the past 12 months.

That compares to virtually flat performance in the shares of Activision’s top rival Electronic Arts Inc, which distributes “Rock Band” for MTV.

Shares in Activision were up 19 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $32.82 in late morning trading on Nasdaq.

Activision did not say how much the new game will cost. Last year’s “Guitar Hero 3″, which came with one wireless guitar controller, sold for about $90. “Rock Band”, which came with one guitar, a drum kit, and a microphone, sold for $170.

“World Tour” will be the third “Guitar Hero” game coming out this year.

Next month will see the launch of “Guitar Hero Aerosmith” focusing on the best-selling American rock group, as well as a portable version called “On Tour” for Nintendo Co Ltd’s popular DS handheld device.

“Guitar Hero World Tour” will come out in versions for Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii, and Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 consoles.

Alternate takes on “Wii Fit”

My arms are still aching from my Wii Fit workout routines this week, but that’s not stopping me from bringing you the latest news and views on Nintendo’s new workout game.

Game review site GameSpot found that Wii Fit fell short as a game and as an exercise product. They criticize it for not offering a multiplayer component, for not letting you create custom workouts and dispensing shallow fitness advice.

Former ninja turned tech blogger Brian Lam says it’s better for building “fitness consciousness” and building you up to a base level of fitness that will let you graduate to more strenuous exercises.

Quick notes from my Day 6 workout yesterday: I started with 10 minutes of jogging in place, which got the heart pumping a little and gave me a light sheen of perspiration.

That turned into full-bore torrents of sweat once I did the push-ups with the torso-twisting “plank” maneuver.

The yoga activities actually got a little easier.

I’m still unlocking new activities, so there’s been something new to try every day.

Anybody read anything else interesting about Wii Fit?

Hands — and feet — on with “Wii Fit”

A few days ago I received a review copy of Wii Fit, the new exercise game for Nintendo’s video game console. The kit consisted of the game disc and a surprisingly heavy “balance board” about two feet by one foot and some three to four inches thick.

Some quick background for those unfamiliar with the product: Wii Fitis probably the biggest mass-market game from Nintendo since the introduction of the Wii itself. In fact, “game” is probably too narrow a word for it. “Entertainment product” is closer. ”Exertainment” – which is somehow both more concise and clunky — is even closer.

The Wii Fitbalance board is essentially a fancy digital scale with a wireless link to the Wii. The game disc contains more than 40 activities in the following categories: aerobics, strength training, yoga, and balancing. You stand on the board and follow the on-screen instructor through the activities. The Wii keeps track of your progress, charts your BMI and makes suggestions. Think of it as Jane Fonda for digital generation.

I’d seen demos of the product and had expected it to bear about as much resemblance to actual exercise as Wii Sports (in which a flick of the wrist translates into a full tennis swing) bore to actual athletics.

Boy, I was wrong. 

Now, I’m not the picture of perfect health or anything, but I like to think I’m reasonably fit for my 37 years. I run several times a week and pump a bit of iron at the gym when I can. So I was expecting my first “Wiikout” to more or less be a cakewalk.

I had set up my profile the night before, inputing age, height, etc., and being run through a short series of tests to check my balance and determine my “Wii Fit age”. The balance board is supposed to be a pretty accurate scale, but it puts me at about 10 pounds below what our home scale and the scale in my gym say. It did get Harlan’s weight within a pound or two, though.

The next night I decided to try a fairly complete workout, sampling two activities from each of the four categories.

I started with an aerobic warmup to get the blood flowing. The first one was a Hula Hoop (the things are trademarked by Wham-O, hence the caps) exercise in which you stand on the board and rotate your hips in a circle. On screen, my Mii (the personal cartoon avatar you set up when you first get your Wii console) started working the hoop while a counter tracked how many rotations I pulled off. Every once in a while, other Mii a short distance away would toss additional hoops my way, requiring me to lean to the side to catch them with my Mii’s body.

The second activity was a short run. In this one, you step off the balance board and put the motion-sensitive Wii remote in your pocket or just hold it in your hand. As you run in place, it senses your cadence and propels your Mii forward. According to the Wii Fit manual, there is a whole island to explore on your runs, though your Mii only runs on set courses that are unlocked the more you run.

As I mentioned before, I run often and don’t have a problem cranking through a 5-miler. So as I felt my heart rate rise and the sweat start to bead, it dawned on me that there might be something to this after all. You definitely use different muscles running in place — I bounced on the balls of my feet, and the next day my soles felt a little tender from the uncustomary stretching.

Definitely warmed up at this point, I switched over to strength training and selected push-ups for the first exercise. I was little prepared for the butt-kicking about to be delivered to me. There were two things about this that made it extra challenging.

First, I’m 6′2 with a moderately large frame and my normal push-up stance is about a foot wider than the balance board. That meant I had to place each hand about 6 inches farther in than I’m used to, which works the pecs and triceps in a different way.

Second, the Wii Fit push-up includes a rotation move where, when you finish the actual push-up, you place one foot on top of the other, lift the arm on that side off the board and twist your torso so you’re now pointing at the sky. Then you hold it for a couple seconds. Although you start out only doing this six times, by the time I was done my arms were shaking and sweat was pouring off my face.

Time for some leg lunges. This involves standing on the board, extending one leg behind you and then dipping your hips down and bending the leg still on the board. On screen, you try to keep a red dot inside a yellow rectangle as a way of tracking your balance and staying in the proper position. You are then scored on how well you are able to keep that red dot steady. I did pretty good on this one, but was still happy to move on to the less-strenuous balancing activities.

These are some of the funnest exercises in the whole thing, because Nintendo’s turned them into mini-games with your whole body acting as the controller. The starting selection includes heading soccer balls, a ski slalom, a ski jump, and rolling giant marbles into holes. The soccer one is pretty hard. The balls come a pretty good clip, and it’s challenging to get your Mii to react just right. You also have to dodge shoes and other objects that deliver a head-rocking smack if you don’t. Harlan derived much amusement from watching his dad repeatedly take cleats in the face. The ski jump exercise is fun, but brief. You have to squat as your Mii skis down the ramp, shifting your balance to keep a red dot hovering over a blue dot to gain maximum speed. Then you forcefully stand up at the end of the ramp to pull off the jump.

I wrapped up my workout with yoga, figuring this would be an easy, relaxing way to finish off. It was my last mistake of the night. I did the “warrior stance” and “half moon”. I read somewhere that pain often blocks your memory of some events, which must explain why I can’t recall exactly what the warrior stance was about. It consists of standing sideways, stretching your stance out and leaning in the direction of the board while extending your arms and keeping your weight evenly distributed on your two legs. The half moon looked deceptively easy, but it quickly had my arms screaming in agony. You stretch your arms over your head and clasp your hands. Then, stretching skyward, tilt to one side and hold, hold, hold; then do the other side.

I tell you, I have a new respect for yoga. Underneath that soul-calming, body-limbering, Enya-soundtracked philosophy is a vicious, muscle-burning, ass-kickingly tough set of exercises that would lead any masochist to swear off the cat ‘o nine tails and nipple clamps for life. Today I was feeling a strange pain in my thighs and finally figured out that it had to be from working groups of neglected muscles.

I also have a new respect for Wii Fit. It remains to be seen if it will have staying power or if it will soon be collecting dust next to all those exercycles, Bowflexes and ab machines. An article I wrote on Firday (incidentally the top result when you search Google News for “wii fit”) touches on some of these issues and also gives some background on the game’s designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s resident creative genius and the guy who came up with Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda and Nintendogs.

I plan on doing about 20 minutes a night with Wii Fit and see where I end up. The return of long days and warm weather means I’ll be doing more actual running and swimming as well, so it will be hard to tell what the exact contribution of Wii Fit is, but I’m hoping it will at least engender a continued awareness of fitness at home. I can see coming home from work exhausted after a long day and doing 20 minutes of quick exercises to bring the spirits back up.

Hopefully I’ll at least notice those yoga routines getting easier.

(Recommended additional reading forWii Fit: New York Times article here, Time hands-on here. Hit the jump below to read my article from Friday,or clink the link above)

“GTA4″: “awful” and “garbage”

The activist and writer Susan Estrich penned a column about Grand Theft Auto 4. Let’s take a look at what she thinks:

“I write for a living and still have difficulty finding the words to describe it. Awful doesn’t begin…

“Imagine gratuitous violence. Then imagine people with more imagination than you or I making it more graphic and awful than we could ever dream…

“It’s the genius that is being distorted into creating more and worse violence. There’s no question that great minds are behind these games, in terms of creative and technological skill. But think of what else they could be doing. And aren’t…

“It’s a shame and a waste, and it portends a generation going down the tubes. “Rockstar” my you-know-what. Shame on you. You owe the kids who worship you — and line your coffers — better than this garbage.”

It’s hard to imagine someone of Estrich’s sophistication writing something like this about Martin Scorsese or David Chase. Right away she falls into the trap of pigeonholing all games as designed only for kids.

I’ve played about 7 hours of Grand Theft Auto 4’s story so far and I can tell you the violence isn’t nearly as graphic as recent horror movies like Saw, or even The Passion of the Christ. Probably by an order of magnitude.

What disturbs Estrich and many other critics is the aspect of agency in video games. You are an active participant, tasked with carrying out these horrific actions. Watching a movie at least gives you some detachment or distance from the on-screen action, but in GTA you pull the trigger yourself.

But look at any thoughtful review of GTA4. The choices, often between two equally bad evils, are creating lots of discomfited gamers. Watching movies like Good Fellas or Colors, we’ve all probably thought about what we would if placed in those situations. Well, GTA4 gives you that opportunity. I’m just really surprised that Estrich, who has watched enough of the game to see key turning points that provide context for these choices, hasn’t picked up on this.

There are two half-points, however, on which I sort of agree with her.

“But think of what else they could be doing. And aren’t…”

Let me pre-emptively say that I realize a huge part of the attraction for GTA is that it lets you try out the criminal lifestyle with no real-world consequence. Rockstar thrives on pushing the bounds of taste. It’s a key part of what has made the series so popular. So what follows is just some brainstorming, and is not in any way meant to say, “GTA would have been better if…”

But anyway, a few days ago I was wondering if there would have been any way to make GTA more socially acceptable. Or something that would retain the edginess without casting you, the player, as an actual criminal. What if the game cast you as a police officer caught between trying to clean up both the city and your own department? That could allow for equally gritty and disturbing scenarios: go take down such and such drug dealer, only to find that one of your superior officers is in on the deal. Go undercover and be forced to choose between proving your loyalty to the mafia by killing a fellow cop, or following your conscience. It could still retain the total freedom to beat up passers-by and pick up hookers, only this time you’d be a Harvey Keitel-style Bad Lieutenant.

The other half-point for Estrich is that she at least refrains from calling for legislation to ban games like GTA. She has the common-sense attitude that personal responsibility matters. Despite her reservations, she lets her son play because she knows he’s a good kid with a low risk of picking up any bad behavior that could be potentially imparted by the game.

While I happen to disagree with Estrich’s main points, I can accept her column as reasonable criticism of the game’s themes, or of Rockstar’s objectives in general. Just because Rockstar has the right to make any game they want doesn’t mean they can’t be called out for doing so. I can understand the argument that even though something is allowed to happen doesn’t mean it should happen. We employ that reasoning every day in hundreds of little choices. I could smoke, but I don’t. A friend of mine could eat meat but she doesn’t. Those kind of choices are the way a free society is supposed to work.

Oh, I do have one last bone to pick with Estrich. Rockstar doesn’t just make GTA games. They have also made the biting school satire Bully, Western adventure Red Dead Revolver and the Midnight Run street racing games. Oh, and Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis, known far and wide as the most realistic ping-pong simulator ever created. So there.

Latest column: “Grand Theft Childhood”

My latest weekly column is up, and I finally managed to run my piece on Grand Theft Childhood. I actually interviewed the authors about a month ago but a combination of a busy news cycle and writer’s block stymied my efforts to get this piece out earlier.

Some people get writer’s block when they don’t have anything to say. I get it when I have too much to say. This book is so interesting and well-written that it’s almost impossible to sum up in a 600-word article. Almost every page has something interesting. On top of that, I spoke to the authors for more than an hour, giving me even more material to work with.

So I’m a bit frustrated with the piece I produced, mainly because it had to leave so much out. There is also so much rich social and political context to this debate that I was only able to touch on briefly. I do urge anyone curious about video games and kids to pick up a copy. It’s a fascinating, informed and thoughtful look at the issue.

Read on, or hit the link:

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO, May 8 (Reuters Life!) – Playing video games does not turn children into deranged, blood-thirsty super-killers, according to a new book by a pair of Harvard researchers.

Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, a husband-and-wife team at Harvard Medical School, detail their views in “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do”, which came out last month and promises to reshape the debate on the effects of video games on kids.

“What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence,” Kutner told Reuters.

The week in review

Wow. What a busy week. I’m going to just do sort of a link dump here, with additional comment exclusive to you Command-K subscribers. Premium stuff, and worth every penny you pay for it. This should also mark the resumption of regular blogging, now that I have a couple days to breathe and collect my thoughts.

There is this little companythat makes these cute little digital music players. And computers. And something called the iPhone. Everyone was wondering how they had held up amid the worsening economy. Pretty well, as it turns out.

Oh, and in the meantime, they boughta microchip design firm. That sort of threw everyone for a loop. The initial reaction was along the lines of “WTF does Apple want with a semi design shop?” Some of the speculation was that P.A. Semi’s low-power microprocessors could be modified for the iPhone or iPod. As it happens, I was briefed by these guys more than two years ago in my former life as semiconductor beat reporter. Ironically, their chips are based on IBM’s Power architecture, which Apple dumped from the Macs a while back in favor of Intel’s x86 chips. P.A. Semi’s products are aimed at hi-po computing: servers and supercomputers and the like. Not too likely that those will end up in an iPhone any time soon. But apparently, Apple does employ a number of chip designers who work with partners to tweak features to meet certain capabilities Apple’s product engineers have in mind. Still, it’s a curious play since if they wanted a bunch of chip designers, why not just hire them from the job market. Why pay a couple million per headcount to buy a whole company?

As if Apple wasn’t enough to handle, there’s a little game coming out next week that might just be, oh, only the biggest single entertainment property of the year. The Halo 3 launch last year opened the eyes of many reporters and editors to how big A-list video-game properties can be. Not only is Grand Theft Auto IV big business, it’s a game that has as much cultural relevance as The Matrix or Harry Potter.

My main preview story of the game is posted below, but before I get to that, I want to highlight two other pieces.

First is my Gameworld column on Sony’s Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It’s a gorgeously realistic driving title, but only a fraction of what is promised when the full game comes out next year. Racing fans will love it, but I’m sure many consumers will see the $40 price tag as too high. 

What really interested me about my interview with Taku Imasaki, the U.S. producer on the game, was the vision that the title would become a platform for all things automotive: a driving game at the core, but augmented with videos of races and information about cars. 

Sony plans to add more features and pipe a steady stream of video content into “Prologue” in hopes that gamers’ interest will be redlining by the time the full game is released.

“Our goal is to become another medium for car companies, like magazines and TVs. We’re the perfect game for that and ideally we could become the MySpace or Facebook for auto enthusiasts,” Imasaki said.

Along with Rock Band and possibly Guitar Hero, it’s an example of how these connected consoles with gobs of processing power and storage are enabling games to become destinations/portals/aggregators for certain topics. Rock Band and GH do it for music, GT5 is doing it for cars. I’m sure there are other areas where it makes sense. Sports comes to mind. Take Madden football as an example. They already have a scrolling sports news ticker in Madden, why not buff that up to include highlights of the week’s games, interviews with athletes, and tutorials that show you how to use the video game to enhance your appreciation of the actual sport (I would love, for example, some breakdown of defensive schemes, which I only dimly understand).

The second piece I’ll highlight is an analysis of GTA4. Everybody knows this game is going to sell a buttload. The only question is it going to be serious buttload or just a regular buttload? Estimates from several Wall Street analysts range from 9 million to 12.5 million units by the end of this year, with most looking at about 10 million units. At that scale, analyzing the game’s sales is a little like speculating on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Let’s just call it “a lot” and leave it at that.

What I found more interesting was the question of what effect the game will have on console sales, and which console stands to benefit more, the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3? My expectation was that most people would say the Xbox 360. After all, Microsoft having locked in the exclusive downloadable content for later this year, combined with the superior implementation of online capabilities in Xbox Live, makes a pretty compelling argument for the machine.

It turns out that most people, from Wall Street analysts to industry observers who know far more about this stuff than me, figure the PS3 will get the biggest hardware sales boost. It basically boils down to two reasons: the hardcore gamers who dig GTA4probably already have an Xbox; those who aren’t hardcore gamers but love the GTA series probably got into it on the PlayStation 2, and are likely to stay loyal to Sony.

If you’ve made it this far, bless you. Hopefully it’s been worth it. I’ll leave you with my preview of Grand Theft Auto IV. Hit the link or go below the fold for the whole thing. It was a fun story to research and write.

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25 (Reuters) – Beatings, carjackings, drive-by shootings, drunk driving and hookers. For video game fans, it can only mean one thing: “Grand Theft Auto 4″ is here, arrving with all the subtlety of a shotgun blast.

The latest chapter in the wildly popular and controversial criminal action franchise from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc is poised to be the biggest entertainment product of the year, with expected first-week sales of up to $400 million — dwarfing Hollywood’s biggest box-office openings.

The handiwork of Take-Two’s Rockstar game studio headed by British brothers Sam and Dan Houser, “Grand Theft Auto 4,” which will be launched next Tuesday, promises to crank up the thuggish drama that made previous installments the equivalent of “The Godfather” for Generation PlayStation.

“We also felt over the last few years there hadn’t been a great standout gangster movie. Maybe we could do something ourselves that would live alongside that stuff,” Rockstar’s Dan Houser told Variety magazine in a recent interview.

EA: The repentent Borg?

As the drama over Electronic Arts’ play for Take-Two drags on, one question is whether EA, should it be successful in its bid, would end up ruining “Grand Theft Auto”, cranking out yearly updates with an ever-lengthening list of ill-conceived features and steadily declining quality.

A year ago, the answer could easily have been yes. Today, though, there is convincing evidence to show that CEO John Riccitiello is out to rehabilitate EA’s reputation in the eyes of gamers. Two weeks ago, I wrote an analysis laying out the issues. Read on to see what EA has in common with ancient Greek politics, alien menaces, and whether shareholders will smile on his efforts.

   By Scott Hillis
    SAN FRANCISCO, April 4 (Reuters) – As it pursues its $2 billion offer for Take-Two Interactive Software Inc, Electronic Arts Inc is trying hard to prove it won’t drive the “Grand Theft Auto” video game series to mediocrity, a fate that has befallen some of its other acquired franchises.
    It’s an important theme in EA’s current takeover drama with Take-Two, home to some of the industry’s leading lights, including Rockstar, the crown jewel studio behind the upcoming “Grand Theft Auto 4.”
    The company has a spotty history in getting hard-won talent to stick around. Its 1990s acquisition of well-regarded studios such as Bullfrog, Westwood and Origin led to mass defections and the marring of once-proud franchises with ho-hum games.
    Chief Executive John Riccitiello, who rejoined EA a year ago after heading private equity firm Elevation Partners, acknowledged as much at an industry conference in February.
    “I would state simply that we at EA blew it, and I was involved so I can say I blew it,” Riccitiello said of past acquisitions that ended badly. “The command and conquer model, the command and direct model, doesn’t work.” 

Back

Today was the first day back at work after a long, sunny week of Spring Break. In other words, it was not a happy day.

It does mean that regular blogging should resume over the next couple days as I get back in the routine. Funny how when my day is filled with work, I somehow find time to blog, but when I have all this time off, writing never seems to get done.

It was a good vacation. Forests were hiked, beaches were walked, new bands were discovered, and beach parties were had.

Not five minutes ago, I finished Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and all I can say is, wow. It’s the first PS3 game I’ve played all the way through, and it was amazing. Think Indiana Jones meets Tomb Raider meets Far Cry. Uncharted is simply an eloquent refutation of the idea that video games can’t compete with movies for story-telling, or that game writing isn’t important. 

I’ll probably write more later about Uncharted as it was, for me anyway, a pretty ground-breaking experience. Most importantly, it was just a hell of a lot of fun and captivated me for about four nights running (much to the chagrin of Tala and the delight of Harlan).

The best MMORPG

There was a blog post making the rounds today reviewing the outdoors as if it were a massively multiplayer role-playing game. Some clever bits:

The physics system is note-perfect (often at the expense of playability), the graphics are beyond comparison, the rendering of objects is absolutely beautiful at any distance, and the player’s ability to interact with objects is really limited only by other players’ tolerance. The real fundamental problem with the game is that there is nothing to do.

In terms of game play the game sets few, if any, goals: the major one is merely “survive”. What goals a player sets, are often astonishingly tedious to actually achieve, and power-ups and gear upgrades, let alone extra weapons, are few and far between. Some players choose accumulation of money, one of the many point systems in the game, as a goal, but distribution of this is often randomized and it can be hard to tell what activities will lead to gaining points in advance, and what the risks will be.

 This instantly reminded me of one of my favorite piece of gaming journalism, a GameSpot article reviewing real life as if it were a game. I believe the GameSpot piece is from 2003 or so and is the earliest example I’ve seen of this sort of satire. It’s almost too good to excerpt, but here are a couple samples:

This example is evidence of some of the amazing depth offered by real life–there are so many different options and viable decisions for a character to make that it’s just about impossible for any one character to see everything and visit all the colorful and sometimes dangerous locations. Unlike in other MMORPGs, combat actually isn’t a major factor for most players in real life, though players are bound to engage in a few skirmishes early in their lives. Interestingly, though, real life does offer an amazingly intricate combat system, featuring complex hand-to-hand and ranged combat options that a character may learn and even specialize in.

And:

you’d think more players would be drawn to combat in real life, and in some territories, they are. However, the PVE (player vs. environment) aspect of real life is relatively unpopular, and the PVP (player vs. player) portion, while interesting, is far too risky for most of the population. That’s on account of the game’s very strict death penalty and punitive system–you may freely attempt to harm or kill any other player at any time, but you will then likely be heavily punished by the game’s player-run authorities. The punitive system has loopholes and other problems, allowing certain players to elude punishment and continue to engage in various player-killing activities.

GameSpot scored the game a 9.6.

Latest column: Ben Heck

Here’s my Gameworld column that ran today. It’s about one Mr. Benjamin Heckendorn, known to many gamers simply as Ben Heck. He takes gaming consoles — old or new — and does things to them that are downright, well, unnatural. Unnatural, and very, very cool.

He’s been on my radar for a few years now. Every few months, one of the gaming or tech blogs would link to his latest project. Finally I said wait a minute, I don’t think any mainstream media outlet has written about this guy yet, who is essentially a one-man Pimp My Ride for game consoles. For the record, he was an incredibly nice dude, totally keen to talk, quick with a witty remark, and full of interesting ideas.

For a while this morning the story was the most-recommended article on Yahoo News (it’s currently No. 6) and even got a little love from BoingBoing.

Read on or hit the link to learn more about this remarkable modder:

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO, March 27 (Reuters) – If you ever thought it would be cool to have an Xbox laptop, or wished those old Atari games in your attic could be reborn on a retro handheld device, you might want to talk to Benjamin Heckendorn.

Better known as Ben Heck, the 32-year-old Wisconsin native has attained legendary status among “modders”, hobbyists who tinker with video-game hardware to make it do things the original designers never intended.

Technology Web sites enthusiastically track Heckendorn’s latest projects, which are marked by workmanship that makes the finished products look they rolled off a factory line instead of a basement workbench.

“That’s the American way, right? Start in your basement, garage, or whatever. You’re supposed to get out of it someday, but I still have to listen to my clothes drier sometimes,” Heckendorn said in an interview.

A nod to a blogger, and to “Super Mario Galaxy”

Dubious Quality has quickly become one of my must-read blogs. Written by a fellow in Austin named Bill Harris, his interests and views eerily match mine, as evidenced by this post about why he liked Super Mario Galaxy so much. If someone were to ask me what I liked about the game, this is pretty much exactly what I would have written, even down to the bits about playing it with my 6-year-old son.

Like Bill, I’ve never been a Mario guy. As I wrote in my post about Smash Bros., the whole Nintendo phenom passed me by. I was an Atari gamer as a kid, a PC gamer in high school, and then when I hit college, I dropped games completely for the next decade, the very decade that Nintendo rose as a home gaming powerhouse.

Super Mario Galaxy was a major revelation, to me anyway, as to what a game could be. The game just oozes joy from every pixel. The graphics are low fidelity compared to stuff like Call of Duty 4 or BioShock, but the vibrant color palate and simplicity of the overall art design render the game simply gorgeous. The characters are cute, yet tinged with just enough melancholy to grant them depth and feeling.

And oh, the music! The orchestral soundtrack is as good as that of any movie, and I would consider buying it on CD were it to be made available. There is some fascinating reading on how the music was selected. Here is a nice overview from Wikipedia, and here is a link to a Nintendo pagewhere the company president, Satoru Iwata, interviews the guys who did the game’s audio. It’s incredible the lengths they went through to obtain live orchestral recordings that would not only evoke different atmospheres but that could also be synchronized with Mario’s movements as a player guided him through the game.

For me, it was really the music that unified all the game’s elements and propelled it to that legendary ”next level” sought by so many but achieved by so few. At one point it struck me that what I was experiencing was what someone in 1940 probably felt when they saw Disney’s Fantasia for the first time. Galaxy’s wildly varied levels, challenges, and bosses are an updated version of the different styles, stories and music that made Fantasia such a memorable experience.

Old Walt may have ruled animation on the Silver Screen, but Galaxyproves that Miyamoto is a Grand Master of the ascendant medium of interactive entertainment.

Latest column: “Super Smash Bros. Brawl”

Here’s my column from last week, about Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I’ve been thinking of it as the Kill Billof video games. Just as Tarantino paid homage to all his cinema favorites in that movie, Nintendo has crammed this game full of references to its past titles and franchises.

Sadly, most of these insider  lost on me since the Golden Age of Nintendo (I mean, prior to this current one) coincided with my decade-long video game interregnum.

So hit the link above or the jump below to get the full skinny on the game.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Do you have childhood memories of having G.I. Joe fight Luke Skywalker, or throwing Superman into battle against the Bionic Man?

Nintendo is giving its fans a similar feeling this week with “Super Smash Bros. Brawl”, a fighting game for its Wii console that pits dozens of its cherished characters against each other in frenetic free-for-alls.

Fans have waited more than six years for “Brawl”, the third in the “Smash Bros.” series that began in 1999 and has been the only place where Mario can lay down the hurt on Pikachu.

“This game is the only time Nintendo worlds are allowed to collide,” said Nate Bihldorff, a localization producer for the U.S. version of the game.

Financial data as a game?

Or at least a virtual world. That’s what my boss (many times up the chain of command), Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, has to say over at his blog. Tom tells a nice anecdote about grokking from his kids that in-game achievements can sometimes be as significant as real-world ones.

Tom has earned a reputation as the most technologically savvy CEO our venerable British newswire has yet had. He is fascinated in new technologies and what they mean for journalism and financial data, the twin engines of the Reuters ship. He famously opened a Reuters bureau in the Second Life virtual world and has embraced official Reuters blogs.

In this new post, he gives a glimpse into why he thinks this stuff is important for the future of Reuters. First, a bit of background: I mentioned above that journalism and data are the key businesses for Reuters. In fact, as much as we journalists like to believe we’re the heart of the company, the data and trading side of things accounts for the lion’s share of profits. Financial clients use Reuters terminals not only to read news reports, but to obtain data feeds of all sorts, and to chart, graph and analyze that data in useful ways.

One of the reasons I thought such experimentation would benefit the company was that the generation of gamers today would expect far more participatory graphics environments when they came of age professionally.  So for example, I imagine that the current generation of teenagers reared on World of Warcraft, the Sims and Second Life, would find 2D financial graphics pretty lame.  What I overlooked was the wonderful focus group growing up in my own house.

Just in the way that some military systems have been designed to resemble the video-game controls that young recruits are familiar with, Tom seems to suggest that its possible that future financial analysts will find it easier working with 3D models of data rather than Flatlandish spreadsheets and charts.

Personally I think it would be awesome if Reuters partnered with a game developer to make a financial MMO. Towns and geographical areas would be named for and tied to real-world financial instruments — the Options Ocean, or Fort Forex. You’d gain experience and, of course gold, by making real-world profits. Traders could take the roles of rangers or rogues depending on their trading style. Technical traders could be magic-users. Automatic trading systems would be NPCs, or the equivalent of procedurally-generated opponents. Regulators could ride around as paladins, or even assassins. Analysts could be monks (Sling of Downgrading, anyone?) and journalists could be bards.

It’s a scenario rich in possibilities, at least for a science-fiction story if not an actual business product.

Grateful for new Dead tunes in “Rock Band”

Last week, Rock Band offered a six-pack of Grateful Dead songs for download. I’ve never been a Deadhead. They never really grabbed me. Sure, I like the oft-played stuff like ”Truckin” and “Uncle John’s Band”. I also understand that those radio-friendly numbers are not really reflective of the band’s versatility and talent. Sort of like judging the Allman Brothers Band based just on “Ramblin’ Man”.

When I worked in Beijing in the late ’90s, I drove a company car that was an ’80s-model grey Peugeot made in Guangzhou. I inherited a pile of cassette tapes left by my predecessors. One of them was a Dead mix tape. It was good stuff. I remember it being one of the only tapes I listened to, though part of that was because even at that point I’d converted completely to CDs and no longer had any way of making or listening to tapes at home. Like I said, the Dead tape was good stuff, but I can’t for the life of me remember a single song on it. None of it stuck.

A couple years later, back in the States, I bought a double-CD of Dead hits, based mainly on the fact that I at least recognized a couple of the tracks. I’ve had it for years now and still have no idea what other songs are on it. It just wasn’t memorable stuff.

So Rock Band, which has a deal to offer a total of 18 Dead songs, put the first tranche up for download last week. I downloaded it right away but only got the chance to play the songs tonight. Of course, they rocked. This is what is so great about Rock Band creator Harmonix — they have an absolute knack for picking great songs. Not necessarily popular songs, best-selling songs, or well-known songs, but great songs.

I downloaded five of the six songs on iTunes right after playing. The sixth was “Truckin”, which I already had. This just continues a pattern of these games being a conduit to discover new music. It’s better than radio these days, that’s for sure. Turn on classic rock radio and there’s very little you haven’t heard before. Part of the genius of Rock Band and Guitar Hero is that not only do they pick great songs from a wide variety of bands, but their ability to let you pseudo-play the songs forces you to pay attention and appreciate the intricacies of the music in a way you wouldn’t get by just passively listening.

Now, if I could only get an Allman download pack…  

Latest column: “Frontlines: Fuel of War”

Here is my latest Gameworld column. This one feels a bit different because it’s about a game that is expected to do only moderately well. But it’s one of those titles that becomes more interesting the more you learn about it, or the more you play it.

First, the cool backstory. In 2002, Electronic Arts released Battlefield 1942, a World War II-era multiplayer shooter for the PC. It was wildly successful because it allowed for huge battles involving up to 64 players fighting at a time. Not only that, but it gave players the option of picking a “class” such as medic, engineer, etc. Each class had special abilities that were needed for a team to be successful. Moreover, BF1942let players drive tanks and fly airplanes. It was a radical shift away from the run-and-gun deathmatch, every-man-for-himself style that had been standard fare for multiplayer shooters. Instead, the game encouraged teams to work together and utilize a range of skills in order to win.

One other thing the game allowed was for people to create modified versions, or “mods”. One group of guys spent weekends and evenings fooling around and retooling BF1942 with modern weapons and set in the Middle East. The game basically still played the same but instead of Browning machine guns and B-17 bombers, players were handling M-16s and AC-130 gunships.

This “Desert Combat” mod proved wildly popular, a fact not lost on Digital Illusions CE, the studio behind the original game. They worked with the Desert Combat guys, by then organized as Trauma Studios, on the next Battlefield game, Battlefield 2, which not surprisingly was set in the modern era in fictional Middle East locales. Soon, DICE, which was partly owned by EA, bought Trauma. But the match was short-lived and DICE ended up shutting down Trauma in 2005. The fellow I interviewed for my piece said the issue was that they wanted the Trauma team to move to Sweden, where DICE was located.

Whatever the reason, the former Trauma guys didn’t have to wait long for their next gig. Within months, they were hired by THQ and renamed themselves Kaos Studios. THQ was and is a company known mainly for its licensed games based on properties like WWE, Nickelodeon shows, and Pixar movies. It has been trying, with mixed success, to come up with more original games and the evergreen popularity of shooters probably seemed like a safe bet.

Two years later, Frontlines: Fuel of War is out. My impression, having played the multiplayer for a few hours this week, is that it’s the closest thing yet to Battlefield 2 on a console. The weapons variety is good and the soldier classes are varied enough that it’s a different experience playing with each one. My favorite trick is play as the drone expert and fly remote controlled drones to take out unsuspecting enemies. I was surprised, however, at how quickly the opposing team could spot my drone and take it down.

Read on or click through to Reuters to get the details:

Frontlines aims to break out of shooter pack

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – At first blush, THQ’s Frontlines: Fuel of Warseems like just another entrant in a recent string of military-themed shooter video games. But a few tricks could set it apart enough to turn it into a sorely needed success for THQ, which struggled last year with lackluster reviews and poor sales.

The game is set in 2024, and a “peak oil” energy crisis has sparked a global war over resources with Russia and China in one corner and the United States and Europe in the other.

“We started researching it and we were blown away by how real these theories could be and how dependent our modern society is on that affordable, cheap oil,” David Votypka, the game’s design director, said in an interview.

The single-player portion of the game drops the player in a combat zone with a constantly updated list of missions. Where many games, like last year’s hit Call of Duty 4, have players follow a set path, Frontlines chose an “open-world” model.

Anyone got a Scroll of Resurrection? Now would be a good time to use it

It’s a sad day for geeks everywhere: Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died at age 69 of an abdominal aneurysm. As my friend Joetold me via IM: “I sensed a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of geeks in their parents’ basements cried out in mourning…” That strikes the perfect balance of respect and geeky homage this event calls for. It’s probably than joking about running out of hit points or failing a saving throw.

I certainly knew my way around a 20-sided diewhen I was a kid and remember clearly my first in-depth contact with the game. I remember sitting in on some dungeon-crawling sessions in early early grade school when the D&D phenomenon first broke in the mid-late ’70s. But it wasn’t until 6th grade that I rolled my first character, thanks to my social studies teacher Mr. Schuster (not his real name).

Thinking back on it, it was pretty edgy for him to start an extracurricular D&D club at a Catholic school where nuns still strolled the halls and the game was in the headlines for turning kids into devil-worshipping slackers. I distinctly remember rolling a pretty crappy character. I think his highest attribute was 13 or 14, and his lowest was 3 or 4. Mr. Schuster advised me to assign the low score to charisma, then made him a half-orc to explain how he got walloped with the business end of the ugly stick. To make me feel better about having an unattractive and weak character, Mr. Schuster made him an assassin and told me to keep that secret from the rest of the players. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to see my hatchet-faced killer in action because, a couple weeks later, Mr. Schuster was fired. It was nothing to do with D&D. The rumor was that he threw chalk at a student and cursed him with obscene language.

But I kept my fascination for D&D through grade school and part of high school. The weird thing is that I never actually played it that much. Few of my friends were into it, so I mostly just spent hours poring over the rules laid forth in The Dungeon Master’s Guide and The Player’s Handbook, dreaming up new characters, and absorbing the mythology of the Monster Manual andDieties and Demigods. Thanks to D&D, I had sterling instruction in fantasy taxonomy long before I read Tolkien. I learned the defining characteristics of elves, dwarves and halflings, and got schooled in the mundane nuisances of bugbears and hobgoblins. D&D introduced me to the more exotic menaces of ocre jellies, undead liches and floating, wide-eyed beholders, and taught me the names of powerful ancient evils like Asmodeus, Beelzebub, and Tiamat.

Eventually, cars, girls and stereos took over my spare time. Probably more than a decade passed before I encountered D&D again, in 1999, and this time it had been thoroughly updated for the computer age in the form of role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate IIthat featured epic 40-hour-long stories, rich characters and lush, cutting-edge graphics. Amazingly, Gygax’s 6-attribute character creation system, turn-based combat and byzantine system of bonuses and penalties affecting almost every action could be ported perfectly to computers. Given that I had been a kid who often had to play D&D — the ultimate geek social network of its day — by myself, this ability to play through a detailed campaign alone was instantly appealing.

It’s amazing the D&D still thrives today through dice, pencils and lead figurines despite the wild popularity of video games and how easy, compelling and accessible they made fantasy worlds. Gygax and his crew hit upon a magical formula that fired the imagination of generations of geeks and, along with Tolkien, is pretty much entirely responsible for the state of fantasy role-playing games today.

Kite is game

You know something? Kites rock. The past few weekends, Tala and I have taken Harlan to kite heaven, otherwise known as Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley marina.

The park is perfectly sited for flying kites. Check it out on Google Maps. Not only does it jut out into the bay for maximum wind exposure, but if you zoom out on the map, you’ll see that there’s only about a 2-mile finger of terra firma that lays between it and the entire Pacific Ocean. The wind today was rather mild but even so it had flags and banners snapping. Moreover, the park has several gentle hills and valleys, all carpeted in lush, shin-high green grass.

It really is a delight to walk, and we’ve gone over on several weekends to admire the squadrons of kites that always seem to be patrolling the park’s airspace. The place has such ideal conditions that it’s the site of the annual Berkeley Kite Festival, which features some amazing kites. So last weekend, Costco had a deal on big kites spanning 6′. We picked up one that looks like a dragon and today was our first chance to try it out. There’s Harlan, above, performing some corrective action.

At one point, Tala and Harlan had wandered off, leaving me in sole custody of the dragon. As I stood there, back to the setting sun, letting string out or taking it in, and occasionally jerking my hands from side to side, it struck me what a similar sensation it was to playing a video game. Gripped in my two hands, the kite reel felt not unlike a game controller of some sort (Wii kite peripheral, anyone?), and my mental state seemed similar to what I feel sometimes while playing — a sort of detached focus on the objective at hand, with hands and eyes working together sort of quasi-automatically while a portion of my brain thinks about other stuff.

In a way it’s not really surprising because both activities are a form of play. I’m sure there are many other pastimes have similar effects on people, but I’ve never before felt such a close association between two pretty different activities. I found kite-flying sort of hypnotically addictive, and Tala mentioned that maybe it’s what draws people to fishing as well. I can definitely see getting into kites, especially with this world-class proving ground just two miles down the highway from us.

My latest column: Patapon and Professor Layton

My latest video game column is out. Usually, console games suck up all my reporting energy but two new portable titles — Patapon for the PSP and Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the DS — made me think it’s time I turned my attention to handhelds for once.

I’ve been playing both of them over the past few days. Pataponis actually quite challenging because it’s up to you to explore the Patapon world and find the things you need to advance. Professor Layton is cute. But I’ve worked through about 1/5 of the puzzles and have yet to feel really challenged. There have only been one or two that have required me to use all three hints. Believe me, this is not attributable to me being some sort of brainiac. I just think so far the puzzles have been pretty easy.

I picked these games to write about because they are bizarre mash-ups of different gaming genres. They aren’t without their flaws, but they definitely deliver unique experiences and are worth checking out.

You can click here to see the article on the Reuters Web site, or read on below:

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Bizarre little creatures that look like walking eyeballs and a puzzle-cracking professor may not seem to have much in common at first glance.

But they are the stars of two new vastly different hand-held video games that are winning praise for the ways they combine different genres to produce quirky new experiences.

“Patapon”, out this week for Sony’s PSP, is being hailed as one of the system’s best games. It is perhaps best characterized as a rhythm-based, side-scrolling real-time strategy game.

Confused? Here’s how it works.

Why Metacritic is the Roger Ebert of video games

Yesterday I posted my recent article about Metacritic, the entertainment scoring Web site. It’s just so interesting how it very quickly evolved into such an important metric for the video game industry, far more so than it has for movies and music.

A major reason for that has to be that the game review business has no equivalent to a Roger Ebert. There’s no single authoritative name — or handful of names — that people turn to when they want to see how a game rates.

This is due to the nature of the medium. It’s possible for one guy, be he Roger Ebert or Gene Shalit or whoever, to watch several movies a week and then tape a half hour show or write a couple thousand words on them. A movie is watched in two hours yet many games can take 20 hours or more to complete. That makes it tough to comprehensively review even just one game a week, whereas you could (theoretically) review 10 movies in that time.

Also, a movie reviewer isn’t as beholden to the subject matter of the movie to render a competent opinion. Ebert can review “The Natural”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “300″ and “The Fast and the Furious” and the same critical techniques generally apply. It would be weird if Ebert was known as the “war movie reviewer” while Leonard Maltin was the “sports movie guy” and Gene Shalit was the “comedy movie guy”.

But you kind of have to have that specialization that with games. Yes, there’s always the standard of “Is this fun?” but you can’t take what makes a good first-person shooter and use that to judge a role-playing game, or judge a driving title based on mechanics found in a football simulation. The experiences are just too different. In that way, video games seem more like real-world sports where commentators focus narrowly on baseball or football but rarely are able to have encyclopedic knowledge of every sport. Game reviewers definitely gravitate towards their couple of favorite genres in a way movie reviewers don’t.

The sheer number of gamesreleased, and the variety of platforms, also comes into play. An Xbox 360 experience is going to be different from a Wii experience, which is in turn different from a PSP experience. It’s as if Ebert not only had to review movies but also TV shows and comic books.

I think that naturally led to gaming sites and magazinestaking the role that individual reviewers have played in the movie industry. Readers end up feeling that GameSpy, or GameSpot, or EGM, or whatever, generally has reviews that match most closely with their experiences. Yes, some of the more devoted readers may latch on to individual reviewers. For instance, GameSpy’s Sal “Sluggo” Accardo is one of the top “Guitar Hero” players in the world and he used to be a professional musician. Therefore, I always seek out his reviews on music-themed games. But in general you say, “Oh, this game got 4 stars from GameSpy“.

A final thought is simply that it somehow became an established part of game reviewing to use a fine-grained scale such as 10 points, 20 points or even 100 points. That compares to the 4- or 5-star scales, or letter grades assigned by most movie reviewers. I’m not sure how that evolved, but I’m guessing it might be an outgrowth of gamers’ tendency to break down criticism of titles into categories such as “graphics”, “sound”, “story”, “multiplayer”, etc and then adding up the various sub-scores to reach a final number.

In the end, the urge for the quick take from an authoritative source is still present and powerful. Sometimes you just want a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” take on a movie without delving into details of the cinematography or whatever. It can be the same for games, and Metacritic steps into that role with a nutshell number that delivers that instant gratification.

A look at Metacritic

In addition to frequent blather, I am hopefully also going to use this site to showcase a bit of my work at Reuters and to expand on it in a totally these-views-do-not-represent-Reuters-and-are-solely-those-of-the-author kind of manner.

Here’s an easy way to kick things off. 

My Gameworld column last week focused on Metacritic and how its scores have become so influentual in the U.S. video game industry.  It’s certainly a topic that has been covered before, much to the surprise and delight of the site’s original founding trio. The peg for my story, however, was EA’s recent analyst day. It was fascinating to hear the CEO and other executives of the industry’s biggest comapny obsess over how their products scored on Metacritic.

I intend to follow this up with some additional thoughts on why Metacritic has emerged as such a force. But that will have to wait until tomorrow, as I have 6 hours, 49 minutes and counting until I have to get up.

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – John Riccitiello, head of Electronic Arts, is showing a chart to Wall Street analysts and he is not happy.

This chart, Riccitiello grouses, shows the one metric that has most frustrated him since he took over the world’s largest video game publisher nearly a year ago.

It doesn’t show the company’s falling operating profit or sliding market share. Instead, it shows the average score for EA’s video games on Metacritic.org, a Web site that distills a pool of reviews for a given game down to a single number.