Many of you can relate to me when I say that World of Warcraft dominates the landscape of my existence. My life on Earth exists primarily to support my travels—or, rather, those of my Paladin—in Azeroth. Ligeia and I have fused in the sort of way described in Harlequin novels or rhythm and blues ballads. We've become one entity. Things which occur in my plane of existence seem to have parallels in hers. For example, I've noticed that as Ligeia grows in strength, I grow in flab. This could have something to do with the fact that my (relatively) new obsession has precluded any sort of gym activity. My social life has also suffered, and I've attempted to offset this in Azeroth by finding Ligeia a guild of like-minded folk ready to unflinchingly serve the Light. It's been quite a struggle.

I began with the intention of being that pro-active guy to form a GameSpot guild. We had been talking about it for a while, but, with so much of the editorial staff already guilded, the realization of that dream seemed impossible. Ever the luftmensch, I, with a little determination and a lot of payola, managed to accrue the requisite nine signatures, and head to Stormwind to register. Upon my arrival, I noticed that the guild charter had disappeared from my inventory. A GM's response: "Sorry!"

My hopes summarily crushed, I decided to explore the world of preexisting guilds. One such organization snatched me up, just as my resistance was at its lowest. We'll call this guild "Inu Yasha," as it was named for another anime series. I knew to expect some depraved gentlemen with penchants for girls in sailor fuku. What I didn't expect is for the entire guild to be comprised of furries—folks who identify strongly with particular animals, real or mythical, in a sexual context. These people were articulate, considerate, and generally good players. I mightn't have left had it not been such an incredible mismatch, interest-wise. Mostly, I think I just got tired of hearing particularly nice armor being described as "yiffy."

Here's a sample of Inu Yasha's Guild chat:

Guild:<CuddlyG> So, it's interesting that gryphons are so prevalent in this game, as that's what I am—a gryphon. Only I have, like, human breasts. Seventeen of them.

Guild:<Ligeia> I don't know of anything in the animal kingdom that has an odd number of breasts. How did you decide on that number?

Guild:<CuddlyG> Hey, I didn't choose this life, man. It chose me. It chose me.

I couldn't argue with that logic, but I also couldn't spend any more time in Inu Yasha. Amidst little fanfare, I left the guild, and went in search of another social outlet. It didn't take me long to get recruited again, this time by a guild we'll call "Mercenaries." It seemed that Mercenaries was part of a group of feeder guilds for the Stygian Order, which is apparently Azeroth's equivalent of the Somerset Club. Instead of organizing raids and the like, the leaders of Mercenaries acted like prep school headmasters, choosing which members would be "sent over" to SO. They assured me that the alternative was a lengthy application process, including an interview. Characteristically, I chose to do things the hard way.

As promised, being accepted to the Stygian Order without a letter of recommendation was more difficult than getting into the Social Register with a name like "Score." After filling out a four page application (I'll admit I recycled some portions from my college admission essays), I endured a week of anticipation. During this time, my essay and short-answer questions were ostensibly being reviewed, on the www.soguild.com forums, by each of the one hundred four guild members. When I finally received a mail message from the official guild emissary, it simply gave instructions as to when and where my interview would take place.

I was asked for a brief medical history, assurance of the stability of my connection, and if I had ever PKed on a first date. I was asked if I felt comfortable being level thirty-eight in a guild comprised entirely of level sixty characters. My interviewer was apparently sufficiently impressed by my ability to form actual, punctuated sentences, as she welcomed me into the guild. Wiping the sweat from my furrowed brow, I accepted. After signing their Code of Conduct, enduring a timeshare presentation, and being beaten with the official "S.O." paddle, I was in. Of course, at my current level of "Sacrifice," one false move and I'll be ejected and expunged, forced to wander once again amongst the unaffiliated.

I'd be interested to hear your guild stories, and whether you've had a rewarding experience in your institution of choice.

Like any artist, the video game maker benefits from reflection on the successes of all past productions in his field. In Western painting, the "technology" being improved upon was the ability to render perspective, to resolve a rational space. Giotto's oeuvres in egg tempera were once revolutionary for their use of planar space, their subtle but profound progress beyond the brutal frontality of the populist Gothic works that preceded them. Masaccio's Foreshortened Christ continued the neo-classical motive that was a growing theme in the art of the burgeoning Renaissance, and further restored our understanding of how to realize depth on a two-dimensional surface. Brunelleschi's subsequent publication of his Scientific Perspective was a breakthrough akin to the game industry's first use of polygons to show three-dimensionality.

Therefore, when Raphael stood to paint his School of Athens--what the archaic artistic equivalent of GameSpot would have labeled a "Superb" piece—he was privy to some two-hundred years of "technological" development within his field. Unlike Giotto, he had access to the Flemish invention of oil paint, which allowed for much greater expression. He also had seen originals or copies of all the major painted works of the past several generations. These are huge advantages, and his work must have been held to a higher standard as a result.

Certain artistic creations, be they frescoes or games, will always inspire awe. For the former, we have our museums and Roman duomos. For the latter, we have GameSpot's running Greatest Games of All Time feature. For the most part, though, standards rise with the years, and artists are expected to have a knowledge and mastery of the techniques put forth by their forebears.

Another triple-A PC release, another series of cryptic driver conflicts and random crash bugs. Perhaps I'd be able to stomach Half-Life 2's idiosyncratic batch of showstoppers better if they didn't partly stem from Steam, whose Big Brother-like tendencies seem slightly ironic, given Half-Life's Orwellian subject matter. While it'd be an exaggeration to say we're living under the digital equivalent of marshal law, Valve's digital delivery service has been hitting some major bumps and snags.

Steam was presented to the public as a new, more direct means of purchasing a suite of games they were likely already planning to buy. Circumventing brick and mortar resellers (along with Valve's own publishers, with which the company is currently undergoing heavy litigation), Steam sounded like the perfect embodiment of the internet ideal: to empower the individual. Valve's 1998 opus, which has proven to be one of the most influential games of all time, leant Gabe Newell and friends a certain amount of credibility as innovators. So, millions pre-loaded the new Source Engine offerings via www.steampowered.com. After all, Steam would be required to launch the game anyway, so why trouble with five CDs?

Immediately upon the game's launch, Valve's digital delivery revolution was riddled with problems. Users cheerily encountered delays of several hours, as well as some Steam caching and validation bugs, realizing that rarely did a launch of this magnitude go off without a hitch. MMOGs made a convenient comparison, as these seem to always, in their infancies, be plagued by overloaded servers. Furthermore, PC gamers have grown accustomed to buying games that don't work out of the box, even if that "box" comes in the form of downloaded data packets.

Unfortunately, the issues didn't stop there. Steam's singular use of Punkbuster technology caused myriad crashes with Radeon cards—the very hardware that Valve and ATI will breathlessly assure you fosters the best HL2 experience. It's no coincidence that ATI's Catalyst 4.9 drivers were updated twice on Half-Life's launch day, although neither was specifically marked as the driver endorsed by the G-Man, or even the Combine.

Some users' troubles were resolved. Others, like me, have encountered the now-notorious stuttering problem. This issue makes the game's brilliantly-written, well-acted, meticulously-recorded spoken dialogue sound like it's being spun and scratched by Grandmaster Flash. Worse, these stutters would occasionally fulminate into full-blown, inescapable audio loops, capable of taking a whole system down. Valve hastily released a Steam update to solve this problem, which may in part be caused by the way Steam and Half-Life synergistically cache audio. Valve suggested downloading the fix, and revalidating your Half-Life 2 installation.

Of course, although the fix apparently helped a few, I was still out of luck. From the look of Steam's forums backlash, I wasn't alone. That's why, yesterday, I was suddenly overcome by a Hulk-like rage, and descended into glorious madness! When confronted with such overwhelming tsuris, my Jewishness seems to strongly manifest itself, eroding years of association with Beacon Hill shaygets. I was tempted to label Gabe Newell a paskudnyak. "GEVALT! I wait six years and get makhes? What, I should reformat!?" Actually, that's exactly what I tried. I felt naked--stripped of my dignity. I wondered: flanked by the formidable duo of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, both of which remained unfinished, why was I so intent on cajoling this one game into some semblance of operation? Why am I now desperate to head home to see if lowering the game's maximum RAM heapsize will ameliorate any of these issues? Perhaps because this particular game really is as good as we say.

Once again, I am incredibly impressed by forum folk, and how what must be a large percentage of the world's technological brainpower seems to be devoted to getting games to actually work. For example, one steampowered.com forumite is convinced that my vertex buffers aren't locking properly. I'll admit it—I've had vertex buffer problems for years. I guess I've just been too embarrassed to talk about it until now. Safely ensconced within this community of people disenchanted with Steam, taken under the auspices of literally hundreds of angry nerds, I feel I'm finally in a friendly enough cultural climate to discuss these issues. A few more weeks of Half-Life 2 freezes, and I might be finally ready to post such revealing factoids up for public scrutiny as my embarrassingly inadequate CAS latencies.

I still believe that Steam will be really and truly excellent someday, perhaps after years of rampant instability and financially-devastating litigation. The vision it represents is still highly intriguing. The execution just needs to catch up. Until then, I'll be enduring a love-hate relationship with this game, and my brief glances at the beautiful texturing of its scorched cityscapes.

Edit: A patch was released on 11/25/2004 , via Steam, to address the stuttering problem, which is actually the result of three separate bugs. On my own machine, the patch greatly reduced the frequency of the stutter, but did not eliminate it..

Quite a few games inspire the liberal application of superlatives, especially when those games instill one with feelings of nostalgia, or even love (if you've never "loved" a game, you would be interested to see what happens whenever I chance by a Metroid Prime box, or hear someone mention Lucasarts' Loom). Yet, not every title that once sent me into the throes of ecstasy can tempt me to ignore the current influx of quality content; not every game transcends time and technology. Then again, not every game is Let's Go Bowling.

The singular appeal of Let's Go Bowling is not easy to describe. Much of it stems from the arcade cabinet's use of a palm-sized trackball as its primary control mechanism. This adds an organic feel to the experience, as well as a degree of granularity not possible with meter-based bowling titles that simply require timed button-presses. As a guy who does mobile reviews, I play a lot of those games, with somewhat middling enthusiasm. While virtually all mobile bowling games share LGB's use of hook as well as (for better or for worse) its wonky pin physics, they lack its unique interface, which adds equal doses of charm and depth to the aging title.

The motions used to roll the trackball may be pretty divorced from an actual bowling toss, but they vary equally, from player to player. Justin Calvert, the current, undisputed champion, always applies a lot of hook to his shots, and has to really slam on the trackball to compensate. In order to achieve this effect, he will pull the ball sharply back, then quickly switch directions, rocketing his palm and ball onward to glory. Consequently, his shots are powerful enough to overcome the spin he compulsively uses, regardless of its efficacy. Conversely, Bethany Massimilla and I rarely use spin at all, instead relying on a sort of karate-chop method to launch the ball directly at the desired stack of pins. Adam Buchen, described in a recent all-GameSpot meeting as a developer/success story, doesn't seem to have much of a strategy at all, and is usually on very intimate terms with the gutter.

In all honesty, it took me a while to warm up to Let's Go Bowling, as that relic from the '80s didn't seem all that attractive an option when juxtaposed with my beloved Neo Geo MVS, not seven feet away. Although I was initially content to dutifully carry Terry, Chin and Joe to glory in KOF '98, despite dwindling competition on that cabinet, I was eventually intrigued by the cult-like devotion of the ever-expanding Let's Go Bowling team. In our little arcade, Samurai Shodown supremacy has ceased to be so hotly-contested. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 no longer draws crowds. Let's Go Bowling, which has been relegated to the center of the room, beetling heavenward like some proud monolith of gaming.

As soon as we get Let's Go Bowling league shirts, and figure out how to hire the eponymous ska band, we'll surely be hosting a ho-down for the ages. Stay tuned.

After a pair of Buffy games and now a duo of BloodRaynes have received decent reviews and a modicum of success, it's clear the world is primed and ready for the real deal—the final word in gothic actioners. If you guessed that I'm proposing bringing Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter's bizarre brand of humor to games, you guessed right. Although I'm of the Tribe, I'm committed to ensuring that the Lamb makes an appearance on all three current-gen consoles by year's end, and shows everyone just what a Lion He can be. The power of Christ impales you!

For those of you who managed to miss Lee Demarbre's visionary follow-up to his seminal flick Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy, which made appearances on major VCRs the world over, I'm prepared to briefly summarize its firmamental content. With the new millennium looming, Ottawa, Canada is experiencing record lesbian shortages. In the wake of the resulting media frenzy, the holy men of a local church take it upon themselves to investigate these disappearances, including those of their own lesbian Parishioners. It doesn't take long for these noble souls, who count among them the mohawked biker Father Alban, to make a startling discovery. An all-female vampire force is running rampant. These bloodsuckers have forgotten to fear the sun. Fortunately, they will soon learn to fear THE SON OF GOD!

Just as this motley crew of the Lord's servants are just about to have their faith sucked dry, Jesus of Nazareth makes a timely appearance, dispatching the damned assailants using his considerable knowledge of Kung Fu. Jesus goes on to get a makeover, star in various song and dance numbers, hook up with his hometown honey, Mary Magnum, and finally join forces with a legendary Mexican Wrestler.

Some of the daywalking vampires.

Obviously, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is poised to make a brilliant transition to games. As the Messiah, gamers will spend the majority of their time roughing up vampires for the greater glory of God. Of course, Santo Emascarado de Plata will bring his grappling goodness to the mix as a second playable character. I envision the inactive hero providing backup support when not in use, in a manner similar to The King of Fighters' Striker system.

Of course, the musical component of JCVH is part of what made it such as smash success among sociopathic Emerson College students, and certainly can't be overlooked. When the game's title track plays, players will be prompted to plug in their dance pads, shake their moneymakers, and pass around collection plates.
Ivan Freud injects some Old Testament
values into Jesus' tale of heroism.

I've no doubt that, if the proposed game ever makes retail, we'll be looking at a smash success on par with Lowriders. Prepare yourselves for the holy Vampire Hunter's second coming!

Prolonged sessions of the original Street Fighter (not II, or any permutation thereof) typically induce a state of mental torpor. Last night's nauseating exercise in clunky graphics and inadequate control seemed to have the opposite effect, however. I started asking myself dangerous questions, the kind of stuff that can emotionally cripple a man, leaving him in no shape to defeat Sheng-Long, or even his own anxieties. Principal among these was a nagging doubt I've been repressing--essentially since my inception as a human being. Why have I chosen--over all fields of study, eschewing philosophy, spurning mathematics—to pursue video games and video game esoterica as my primary field of expertise? If we accept that the noblest and most natural of human motives is the desire for permanence, the drive to leave a lasting impression on this earth, how does my interest, my hobby turned obsession turned career, help me to achieve this goal?

I write the gospel of video games, and I really do believe in their power as a spiritually-transformative medium. Hell, I'll even believe in them as a spiritually-transformative "Large." Games have, for my entire living memory, spoken to me in ways I can't begin to describe. I am fully aware that I sound incredibly shallow when I say that I have never felt as passionately about anything or anyone in my life. Interestingly enough, the only "people" to whom I've ever felt particularly attached are fictional, non-player characters. I am still having a torrid affair with Grandia II's Millenia, who may just never be unseated as my paramour. Even I am sane enough to realize how unhealthy this is. Yet, if Eve were borne from Adam's rib, why not love a woman who's sprung forth from a man's mind? This kind of thinking is almost enough to make fembots sound appealing.

The source of this recent, more acute ambiguity toward relationships isn't particularly mysterious. Recently, I was trying to explain to my non-gamer girlfriend how Metal Gear games burrow into me, twist up my insides, and send my tear ducts into high-production. Upon hearing me reverentially describe scenes from MG titles, running the gamut from the MSX console to the PS2, she nodded and said, "Yeah, I love Metal Gear."

"You...do?"

"Of course! I started with the NES, and, um, 'worked my way up'!"

"That's...incredible."

Of course, in my characteristic naïveté, coupled with my inability to detect sarcasm that is already famous in the GameSpot offices, I completely believed her. Why did I allow myself to rest upon her tissue of lies? Why does the WB keep attempting to make family-oriented dramas starring underwear models? These are questions best left to the philosophers whose ranks I have opted not to join.

I can't be angry; at least, I can't let on that I'm angry. The problem is one of perception. My girlfriend, along with almost everyone else who knows me, assumes that my love of video games is just a more advanced form of the kind of fondness felt for them by normal people, men and women who are looking for entertainment, and who know that Vice City is "hella sick." Clearly, this is not the case. I know that, when I think of video games, a part of my brain is tapped that is simply not present in 99.9% of the population. I am an enigma, an anomaly. I'm the messianic presence I always knew I could be...or maybe I'm just like every other gamer was, fifteen years ago.

To better illustrate my point, I took a look at the 1992 issue of Electronic Games that kicks around the game room. Archaic gaming journals are incredibly sentimental objects for me, as I used to regard them as scripture, and their purveyors as oracles. I will take this opportunity to honor Bill Donahue, of Game Players fame. Through a combination of his curmudgeonly attitude, his love of Indy rock, and his general reliance on a constant flow of alcohol into his blood stream, Bill captured and perverted my developing mind much more effectively than had even Nintendo Power and their spinoff comics. Anyway, looking at that piece of gaming history, featuring an article on the arcade release of Street Fighter II(!), I noticed a few things:

1. The pages were incredibly thick, almost like those of books from countries with government-subsidized publishing houses. I was holding an historical document meant to stand the test of time.

2. Games from multiple console generations were being reviewed and featured alongside one another. Technological snobbery hadn't yet reached its current boiling point, in which gamers will post their computer specs in their forums signatures. It's sad to think about, but most gamers skipped the 16-bit generation entirely. I know plenty of people who owned a "Nintendo," as they seem to universally term the NES/Famicom, and didn't hop back on the bandwagon until Sony made multimedia an appealing enough prospect to lure them back into the fray. Those intervening years really shaped me as a gamer, and it's strange to think that many weren't privy to the games produced in that era. Regardless, Electronic Games' willingness to support gamers at different investment levels is exemplary of the fact that, at the time, video gaming was a hobbyist activity, as devoid of hardware homogeny as the car enthusiast world. If you wanted to play games, there were several solutions, and the amount they would tax your wallet was variable.

3. Reinforcing my idea that gaming was then a hobbyist's pursuit, (and not a brand of entertainment for mass consumption, like movies), the magazine featured a blurb on a young chessmaster, and her recent tournament coups. The very fact that this information would have been considered interesting and pertinent to the lives of Electronic Games' readership is, to me, baffling and wonderful. Incidentally, I love chess. I guess chess and gaming were once similarly-nerdy pursuits.

All this is leading to a logical conclusion, if you're a fan of logic. The point is that companies like EA have applied crazy production values to games, thereby making them immediately accessible to anyone and everyone equipped with sight, hearing and—to a limited degree—tactile sensation. This doesn't lessen their value to someone like me, for whom they can be truly transformative experiences, but it does make them a cheap date for the disinterested slobs who shell out $50 to play an interactive movie. Fifteen years ago, if you played games, I probably would have gotten along with you, no questions asked. We would have shared interests in related subjects, like cutting-edge technology, AD&D rulesets and being unpopular in school. Now, if I meet someone who professes to like gaming, it's impossible to make any sort of character judgment, solely on that information. It's like searching for a date—finding a sexually-compatible mate isn't enough. I can't assume that if I meet a heterosexual woman, she'll share my interests. I can only assume that she practices a particular activity with a certain type of person.

In short, the face of gaming has fundamentally changed, and I am a relic of a bygone era. It is unclear whether that makes me a precious commodity or an obsolete remnant of a reality that no longer exists. If video games have now eclipsed Hollywood, in terms of profitability, they must be appealing to an incredibly broad audience. I am reminded of Greg's cautionary tale, in a recent journal entry, about feeling "special," or "entitled." For better of for worse, I have chosen to apply my considerable intellect to games, instead of curing cancer or inventing square fruit. Every day, I share my vocation with a greater number of people. Every day, I am less sure that another gamer will find games as gut-wrenchingly moving as I.

When I find someone like that, some sort of explosion should go off it my head. I think it has.

Convergence technology has received a lot of criticism from consumers and the media alike. While it's now safe to assume that a cell phone is useful for more than simple, two-way communication, and that a PDA can do more than just keep track of your appointments, it's unclear where to draw the line on multifunctionality. Certain consumer electronics, like Apple's iPod, have proven that a device with a single function can be a breakout success. Conversely, units like Nokia's N-Gage serve as cautionary tales of what happens when a device tries to be too much to too many. It's no wonder, then, that the Gizmondo has been under such close scrutiny since it was announced, early this year. Boasting gaming features, a built-in camera, GPRS and Bluetooth connectivity, media playback, and even GPS technology, Tiger Telematics' new toy is going to face an uphill battle to avoid being termed the Frankenstein's monster of game decks. Even its name—essentially the equivalent of "thingamajig"--seems consciously self-deprecatory. Yet, with an impressive set of tech specs behind it, and some pretty revolutionary features, such as location-based gaming, the Gizmondo has a chance to find a niche within the handheld gaming market.

The Gizmondo could be likened to virtually any mobile device. Its 400mhz ARM9 CPU and its Windows CE functionality puts it on par with the latest iPAQs. The deck shares the N-Gage's reliance on GPRS signals for multiplayer gaming. It's got a built-in camera, just like many cell phones. The only thing that sets the Gizmondo apart from these other mobile solutions is its unapologetic focus on entertainment. The device wears its lack of conventional usefulness like a badge. As it should—any sort of real telecommunicational functionality would cement the Gizmondo's role, in the minds of gamers, as the next N-Gage.

Even Tiger Telematics itself would not claim that the Gizmondo is going to push polygons around with greater aplomb than a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP; however, the device's recently-announced NVIDIA GoForce 4500 chipset is looking like no slouch. NVIDIA has designed the chip with the needs of mobile devices in mind, and it therefore features acceleration for all of the Gizmondo's multimedia features, not just 3D graphics. With 1280K of 128-bit VRAM and a programmable shader technology that allows six simultaneous textures to be applied to every pixel, the card should open up new technological possibilities. Perhaps most notable is the GoForce's much-touted Early Z technology, which reduces battery consumption and graphics processing loads by up to 60%, by simply identifying non-visible areas of every frame of animation and discarding them. Efficiency is paramount for any mobile device, and NVIDIA seems to have a firm grasp of this fact.

The Gizmondo's most unique feature is, undoubtedly, its GPS functionality, used to provide location information for games. Indie Studios is currently developing a GPS-reliant game, entitled City. The game was not available for a hands-on demo at the UK's recent EGN conference, but Gizmondo's website has some cursory information about the title. Apparently, the game uses the GPS signal to map out a virtual city, based on the one you might actually be inhabiting. Ostensibly, you can use your Gizmondo's digital camera and MMS messaging to interact with other players and elements of this virtual world, although it's not clear what purpose this will serve. In fact, the game's premise seems remarkably flimsy. Any skeptics out there passing off the title as vaporware are probably justified, at least at the moment.

This brings up an important point. It seems unlikely that the Gizmondo will, in time for launch, have many games specifically developed for the platform. Its Windows CE functionality opens up a large, external library to early adopters, but the fledgling console will fail to adequately differentiate itself from PocketPC solutions until it garners a healthy complement of games. At EGN, we only had a chance to play a single game, and it was one that is already available for other platforms. A version of Fathammer's Stunt Car 3D, which comes pre-installed on every Tapwave Zodiac, was running very well on a pre-release Gizmondo. NVIDIA's GoForce technology allows the Gizmondo to run the game using Fathammer's spanking new X-Forge 2 engine, which features polygon counts and lighting effects that put its predecessor, X-Forge 1, to shame. The game ran at a very respectable framerate, and was almost as easy to control with the Gizmondo's 8-way directional pad as it was with the Zodiac's diminutive analog stick.

It is as yet unclear how Gizmondo will position its self-titled handheld within the mobile space. They've made it abundantly clear that they won't be competing with Nokia's N-Gage. They're not trying to court business professionals with PocketPCs. The Gizmondo doesn't feature telephony, so it's no Treo-killer. Gizmondo almost assuredly won't try to pull market share away from the DS and PSP. So, where exactly is this niche in which the device can succeed? If location-based gaming is going to be the area in which this game deck truly makes its mark, more than one nebulous title will have to use the feature. Otherwise, the Gizmondo will become little more than an expensive, GPS-aware media player in interesting form factor.

--Avery out