This idea first began bubbling in my brain after reading Friday's Penny Arcade strip, which portrays an Activision executive's public relations spin in the Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band debate. Ironically, this blog is not about the epic struggle between these two giant rhythm games, but about the statement "We've finally included online multiplayer, which should have been in Guitar Hero II." There's no question online gaming is big and here to stay (even Nintendo has included it this time around), but I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that just because every game can have online multiplayer doesn't mean that every game should have online multiplayer. Online play is still not perfect at this point, and lag is always present no matter how solid the network code. In most cases, this is an acceptable part of playing online and everyone learns to deal with it. However, the situation with Guitar Hero II is different, because timing needs to be completely perfect for a rhythm game because... it's a rhythm game. You can't play a song correctly in Guitar Hero if the game keeps slowing down and then correcting itself. The fact of the matter is, the goal of the gameplay for Guitar Hero is to keep a big streak going and rack up points while completely rocking out with the music, and you wouldn't be able to do that in an online mode with the current methods. Supposedly, Rock Band has some 'unique solution' to fix this problem with online rhythm games, but I'll believe that when I see it.

In addition, there's been somewhat of an outcry over the lack of online multiplayer (or any multiplayer at all) in Metroid Prime 3 and Bioshock. But again, I would argue that adding multiplayer would go against what these two games are about. Bioshock, like the System Shock games before it, is all about creating an engrossing single-player experience with a compelling narrative and a convincing environment. The entire game is meant to be a sandbox for player choice, both in terms of gameplay, with the multiple methods of approaching obstacles within the gameworld, and in terms of morality, with the primary example being whether to prey upon the 'little sisters' and use the genetic resource that brought down the city of Rapture in order to save yourself. Multiplayer doesn't fit into the goals the designers have with respect to making this game, and I think adding multiplayer would be an unnecessary drain on the development resources anyway. Try to think about how much work would have to go into balancing all of those genetic mutations for a multiplayer mode. Plus, for all we know, the design of the city of Rapture might not lend itself to proper multiplayer maps. Even if they were to avoid all these issues and take out all the genetic factors and design new maps for the multiplayer mode, well then, what does it even have in common with Bioshock at all? It'd be a lot like the multiplayer in The Darkness: so auxillary and slapped together that it only really brings the rest of the game down. Plus, if Irrational Games (or 2K Boston, as they're apparently called now) had to devote some of their team to making a multiplayer mode, the game probably wouldn't look or play as fantastically as it seems to from all of the demos and videos we've seen so far. Just because it falls under the first-person shotoer genre doesn't mean that its only appeal is in the multiplayer arena.

Metroid Prime 3 is a similar case. The gameplay of the Metroid Prime games isn't solely designed around blasting people. Much of the gameplay revolves around learning more about your environment by scanning clues and solving puzzles, and even when you get a chance to smoke some guys, most of the excitement comes from the hulking titanic bosses rather than any other individual human-sized, similarly armed characters (although presumably Metroid Prime 3 will at some point involve a showdown with Dark Samus). Like Bioshock, map design would be an issue with any multiplayer mode in Metroid Prime 3. Like the Castlevania games, the world of Metroid is designed to be gradually explored as you unlock Samus's arsenal of amazing abilities, which isn't exactly conducive to fast-paced multiplayer matches. Sure, they could design new maps, but how do you deal with concepts like weapon drops when theoretically all of the high-powered weapons should already be a part of Samus's suit? I'll admit that multiplayer would be a lot easier to add to Metroid Prime 3 than BioShock, but really, it's not been a focus of this series at any point before, so what's the point in changing it now? I'd rather have the game now with all the features Nintendo and Retro intended it to have than wait another several months for them to splice a multiplayer mode into it, especially when you consider all the countless other shooters that will be out this holiday season that are probably designed specifically for multiplayer, and thus would likely do it much better than Metroid Prime 3. Sure, it'd be the first one on the Wii, and it certainly would be interesting to see how the new control scheme enabled by the Wii works in a multiplayer context, but ultimately I think that anyone who really wants an online shooter probably already has a 360, PS3, or PC anyway.

Another worrisome trend I've noticed is games neglecting every factor of gameplay but multiplayer. The most noticable examples of this are SOCOM: Confrontation and Warhawk, which both went from full-fledged retail releases to downloadable multiplayer-only games. I'm certainly not suggesting that focusing on creating a fun and engaging multiplayer experience is a bad idea. In fact, many games, like Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, and Halo, derive nearly all of their lasting appeal from their great multiplayer action. However, none of these games is completely devoid of another way to play. The sticking point for me for games like Warhawk is the fact that even though they're stripping most of the features other games of its type have, they're still charging about as much money for them as they do for regular retail games. Even as a digital download, Warhawk is going to ring up 40 dollars, and if you want it on a disk then it'll set you back the full 60 bucks. While no pricing has been yet annoucned for SOCOM, every indication is that it will follow similar parameters. Are these games really giving us 40 or 60 dollars of content? Surely the budget can't be as high if they're only making a single mode? A similar point was raised in Alex's review of Motorstorm, a game that essentially had (at the time it was released) an online multiplayer mode and a single player tutorial for the online mode. It seems almost lazy to me that developers would cut a game down to only the bare essentials of what keeps people interested. It's a pattern I hope doesn't get repeated in the future. Basically, the logic should come down to this: if you're putting less content in a game, you should be charging us (as gamers and consumers) less money for it. It's a pretty simple concept. Maybe I'm just out of touch and all anyone really wants out of games anymore is to compete online, or just paranoid about what is just a new fringe of game development that will capture its own market and not threaten other types of games. But I can't help but feel that games are being dumbed down a bit in the face of the growing emphasis on frantic multiplayer action. Feel free to let me know what you think.

There's been plenty of words exchanged about the console wars, but one conflict has been sort of ignored in that shuffle: the portable situation.

I was reading this news story the other day and was struck by two things. One, the analysts still seem convinced that Sony will prevail in the current-generation struggle. I'll avoid that argument, at least for now, beyond noting that analysts have been incorrectly predicting dismal financial years for the industry for seemingly forever, so these reports mean only as much as consumers let them mean, which I'm betting is close to nothing. What struck me more was the quote "The handheld market is no longer a one-horse race." But I really wonder how much good the PSP has done Sony overall.

There's no question that the DS has turned out to be one gamble that paid off fantastically for Nintendo, which is part of the reason many people (myself included) are excited for the prospects of the Wii. The 'mutant handheld that could' sold nearly 27 million systems worldwide as of the end of September, and if early reports are to be believed, the DS had an even more successful holiday season than the consoles. Sony, however, has dodged neatly around naming how many PSPs have sold, giving only units shipped as a figure. As of September, 23 million PSPs were shipped, which is still a fair margin lower than the DS had sold by that point. If one wanted to take a pessimistic viewpoint, as I will do for argument's sake, Sony avoided saying the number sold because their sales figures were even lower than their shipped figures.

One thing that has always confused me about the PSP is the way Sony has mareketed it. For some reason, they're convinced they want the 'street' demographic, and they want it bad. From the squirrel ads to the graffiti art to the newest YouTube viral marketing, Sony seems convinced that convincing consumers that the PSP is what the cool kids are playing is the way to go. However, the last scheme in particular reeks of desperation. From the embarassingly bad attempts at slang on the website to the videos themselves, which practically ticked off the bullet points from the back of the box, the campaign was horribly conceived from square one. I actually looked up the videos after the news about the ads broke, and... well, they could have put a guy up to the camera and had him beg the viewer to buy the PSP and the message would have been more or less the same.

The funny thing is, the DS seems to be far less advertised than the PSP. I mean, I saw a few ads for the DS Lite leading up to its release, and a few ads for Elite Beat Agents after it came out, but really the DS seems to practically sell itself now. Not to mention the PSP is still lagging behind the DS in sales even after shaving a full hundred dollars off the price (which is nearly as much as the DS costs) Maybe if Sony cut their advertising budget and instead maybe made good games for the PSP, people would buy more. The DS has sold primarily on the strength of the first-party lineup, with games like New Super Mario Brothers and the brain training games, but the PSP lacks good games in general, especially ones published by Sony itself. They seem to be getting it right on the PS3 at this point (Heavenly Sword and Warhawk may convince me to cough up the 600 dollars, although it's a slim chance at this point), so why ignore the PSP?

Sony may have destroyed Nintendo's dominance of the console market, but their attempt to break the Big N's hold of the portable market seems to have misfired. Considering the lack of first party games for the PSP, sluggish sales despite a price cut, and the new advertising strategy, I'm betting the PSP isn't turning out nearly as well for Sony as a lot of people seem to believe. I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up being a one-generation experiment for Sony. But who knows? Microsoft lost millions on the first X-Box, but the 360 seems to have really taken off. But the way the momentum is going at this point, it doesn't look like Sony's catching up to the DS anytime soon.

Or: How Economics Class is Infiltrating My Brain

I've got a bit of a confession to make: I don't watch movies. I think that makes me a pretty significant minority among 18-year-olds, and I don't even remember the last time I saw a movie in theaters. I'm probably the only person to ever have played the video game version of The Godfather but not seen the movie. It's not that I have a problem with film as an art form or anything, and I'll still watch a movie if somebody else puts it on or something, but I just don't have motivation to go see one myself. Not to mention working around my schedule of both high school and my part-time job to go see one with my friends is a massive headache.

My reasoning is this: Let's assume that the average movie length is 2 hours. This means, for my ticket fee of 10 dollars, I am getting 2 hours of entertainment. A video game, on the other hand, costs 50 dollars, but let's assume that it provides 10 hours of entertainment. I think that's actually an extremely low estimate, considering even most action-oriented games run at least 20 hours, and RPGs can crack over 50 easily. Regardless, I am still paying a much better premium for my entertainment by buying video games instead of seeing movies, and that's not even including the added benefit of video games being an interactive medium.

I'm not trying to suggest that I am every publisher's dream consumer that would willingly cough up 100 dollars for a game, but more that 10 dollars is way too much for a 2 hour movie, flat out. While it's true that you still have to pay for the console and other things like controllers to play video games, what's a night at the movies without popcorn and soda?

But my logic is starting to work against me, because I am quickly working up a backlog of games that I haven't finished. Every time a new game comes out that looks good, I buy it and start playing it and leaving the previous game to stagnate. Okami and Oblivion are standing by the wayside while I bash my way through Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and Valkyrie Profile 2 has been all but ignored. I can't even imagine how bad my backup will become after I pick up FF12, Bully, and Gears of War. I guess I just need to stop sleeping.

The surrounding uproar over the immensly anticipated upcoming Final Fantasy XII created a very different question in my mind than simply worrying about the quality of the game. The transition of the definitive role-playing series into real-time combat (or at least, pseudo-real time combat) leads me to wonder if the classic turn-based style of RPGs has truly given up the ghost.

Notably, the notoriously vocal guys over at Penny Arcade have been less than enthusiastic about SquareEnix making the switch, and it definitely seems that the majority of opinions that are circulating around are negative. But let's face it: Final Fantasy is one of the best-selling game series of all time. People will buy this game because it is a Final Fantasy game, and the series will continue even if this particular installment turns out to be a clunker. But is this transition necessarily a bad idea, or are people just frightened by a fairly consistent genre of gaming going through such a drastic transition?

Until we actually get our hands on FFXII, there's no way to know for sure. But I can certainly speak from my own experience when I say that the turn-based battle system doesn't really work for me anymore. I need more from a game now than just mashing the 'Fight' command whenever it's my turn, or possibly switching in a fire spell when an ice-based enemy comes on screen, or casting a few buffs while in a particularly nasty boss fight. I've tended to lean more towards RPGs that feature some element of real-time like the Shadow Hearts series and Valkyrie Profile 2 or strategy-RPGs like Disgaea 2 just because the traditional turn-based battle system isn't enough. Newer, more powerful hardware can support systems that are simply more interactive. I'm still fine with the old style on portables; I'll definitely pick up the remake of Final Fantasy III if it turns out well. However, this seems to be mirroring the gradual phasing out of random encounters because developers have just found out how to make systems that players respond to more positively. I think the issue here is not that Square is making a game with a unusual battle system, but the fact that they are sticking the Final Fantasy name on it. There's an element of 'don't-mess-with-a-good-thing' that accompanies all arguments about FFXII.

However, the Final Fantasy series has often experimented with new systems, often ditching them after only one game. Most commonly the Final Fantasy developers have tinkered with levelling systems; FFVII had materia, FFX had the Sphere Grid, and FFXII has the new 'license board'. Personally, I welcome these experiments. I love the aspect of being able to customize your characters to really reflect how you want to fight, and I think too many RPGs just trot out the same old archetypes in game after game (offensive mage, healer, tank, etc.). But instead of having to play turn-based RPGs for this sort of thing, a growing number of action games are featuring this kind of character-building aspect, like God of War, Ninja Gaiden, or even Dead Rising. In fact, BioShock may offer more customization options than a lot of current RPGs, and it's a shooter. Other genres are tapping into the primal satisfaction of building a character up from the bare bones into a one-man killing machine, so roleplaying games need to adapt to provide more satisfactory playing experience in addition to their more immersive and more complete storylines. I mean, we've all sat through our share of lame, generic, or just plain strange RPG storylines in our time.

For all of the excitement of the 'old-school style' of Microsoft's ambitious new developer Mistwalker and its pet projects Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, I find myself hoping that these games turn out less like the early Final Fantasies and more like the developers' other past hit Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger had a more in-depth battle system in 1995 than a lot of RPGs do in this day and age. A new skill combo system similar to Chrono Trigger on modern hardware would undoubtedly look and play fantastically. Additionally, with all 3 next-gen consoles having some form of online play, maybe there will be head-to-head or cooperative play in future RPGs, a concept that probably seems alien to many RPG gamers right now. I don't want to be the 'evolve-or-die' guy, but with all the new developments in the world of video games, it seems to me that the classic turn-based RPG is on its last legs.

Did SquareEnix make the wrong decision by messing with their tried-and-true formula that sold millions upon millions of Final Fantasy games? Is all this backlash just because FFXII's system just a terrible example of where RPGs are inevitably headed? We'll find out on Halloween. But game genres aren't meant to be static, because otherwise people would still be making 2-dimensional platformers. I think these new developments are just a sign that nostalgic RPG gamers are in for a rude awakening.

Well, school starts on Monday, so here's a general reflection on the gaming I've done this summer.

Super Smash Brothers Melee: I was so excited by the announcement of Super Smash Brothers Brawl at E3 that much of June consisted of me playing Melee to vent my frustration at having to wait to play a new Smash Brothers game online. Unfortunately, that's about the only action my Gamecube has gotten since I completed Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Maybe when Super Paper Mario comes out I'll finally have a reason to hook it back up, but so far it's just sitting alone.

Grandia III: Not a particularly deep RPG, but a fun one nonetheless. It was nice to see a RPG pull off a semi-real-time battle system with better results than say, the latest Star Ocean game (which was a severe disappointment for me). I would have preferred more side quests or at least something to make the game less linear, but the combat system was fun and engaging and it was definitely worth the 50 dollars in my opinion. The atmosphere was somewhat different than Grandia II, and I would frankly like to see the series return more of that darker style in the future.

NCAA Football 07: This game is remarkable only in the fact that it more or less has turned me off sports games in the traditional sense. It's definitely not a bad game, and I enjoyed utterly smashing everyone leading Cal to an undefeated season and a national championship while having DeSean Jackson run away with the Heisman, but ultimately it was nothing I hadn't done before. As far as I'm concerned, I'm off sports games until Madden is released for the Wii, just because that appears to be a far different experience than the reliable but repetitive football games that cram the market nowadays.

DS Lite: The DS Lite is remarkable because it is the only game system I have ever bought at launch to date. This was only because I didn't own a DS Fat, and the back catalog of games were brand new to me. I am definitely not regretting the purchase, but there needs to be a new Fire Emblem game for this sucker, and the quicker the better.

New Super Mario Brothers: It's definitely not difficult to see why this game has sold over a million copies in the US alone. Really, it's kind of amazing that it took Nintendo this long to come out with another traditional side-scrolling Mario game, rather than just repackaging the NES and SNES Mario games on their portable systems. Regardless, this game brings back everything we know and love about Mario and adds enough to make it truly remarkable game. Definitely one of my favorites of the year so far.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: Yes, I know this came out a while ago, but I bought it with my DS Lite, so it was new to me. To put it simply, this game was fantastic. The dual-front mechanic and Tag Powers were implemented perfectly into the classic Advance Wars gameplay, where a single organized turn could bring you from the brink of elimination to the top of the heap. The skills system, though it did make the single-player campaign a bit on the easy side, definitely added a new dimension to the strategy and motivation to get experience with every CO. My only regret is that I don't have many friends who own a DS and can play with wirelessly.

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time: I was enjoying this game a lot until I LOST IT. The problem with those tiny catridges is that they're nigh-impossible to find. I'm still mildly upset that I never finished the game, but it was definitely a solid sequel to Superstar Saga that used the dual screens well. I only hope more touch screen controls are implemented in the next game.

And of course, my previously mentioned X-Box 360. Dead Rising is the game I bought the system for and it has not made me regret the decision for a second. I haven't had problems with the save system as much as I have with the survivor AI, which is frankly pretty awful. However, the core gameplay is just plain fun, and the prestige point system adds RPG elements in a way that really encourages the player to complete as many sidequests as possible. My 360 unfortunately scratched the disc when I jostled it accidentally during gameplay, but I'm planning on taking it back for a replacement ASAP (the disc-scratching epidemic was the only reason I bought the damn gameplay guarantees from EB this time around, and this makes me glad I let myself be suckered out of the extra couple of bucks). I also like how Capcom tied some of the game's extra content to unlocking specific achievements, this seems like a great incentive to play the game more completely and I hope more developers do it that way.

Oblivion: If there is only one game that screams 'next-gen' to me, Oblivion is it. Everything about this immersive world feels like the new era of gaming. The most striking part for me is the cave areas. I am not someone who normally is scared by games, even games designed to be horror-centric like Resident Evil, but the pure attention to detail in the subterranean areas of Oblivion really got to me. The dim visibility and eerie silence of the caves did nothing but remind me how I'd really, really like to just grab whatever magic relic I'd been sent to fetch and get the heck out. That gave me an entire new perspective on just how much good design can affect our experience and I am extremely excited to see more developers attempt to create similar worlds. The customization, variety, and sheer size of Oblivion is of course just as important, but it didn't totally floor me in the same manner the sheer detail of the environments did.

Kameo: Elements of Power: Hoo boy, did this bring back fond memories of Banjo-Kazooie. Even the music reminded me of those great, great N64 games and how sad I was when I first learned Rare was acquired by Microsoft. Kameo itself was a lot of fun while it lasted, and I like the fact that a co-operative mode was included (co-op seems to be an extremely neglected feature in modern gaming from my point of view), but it was a little short. Still, it almost felt like a third Banjo-Kazooie game, and it's good to see Rare making great games again after Grabbed by the Ghoulies was apparently a supreme disappointment. I'm looking forward to what they do in the future.

So far, I'm not regretting the purchase of the 360 for a minute, even though I never thought I'd pay as much as 400 dollars for a console. The best part is, as soon as I get a modem with an ethernet port or a router, I can fully join the Live experience and start getting into the Chromehounds online game that seems to have absorbed Greg and Justin so completely. I'm also very impressed by how well the XBox Live Arcade and Marketplace systems have turned out. I can't wait to get games like Uno and Geometry Wars, but I'm also very excited to find out how future old-school and indie titles such as Castle Crashers or Small Arms turn out.

That was a bunch to read, so I'll try to make this next bit shorter. This next week appears to be the real start of the 'gaming season' for me, with Disgaea 2 and Enchanted Arms being the most anticipated new releases. I'm also hoping games like Yakuza and Okami will give me a chance to fire up my neglected PS2 once again.

Yes, after over a year of browsing Gamespot and several months of being a total HotSpot junkie (seriously, I listen to each episode like 4-5 times and am on iTunes Tuesday nights hitting the 'update podcast' button every 10 minutes), I have finally joined the Gamespot Forums. As if I didn't have enough things keeping me from going outside.

One thing about this board? It's HUGE. None of the usernames I usually use were available. So I had to put a bunch of song and album titles in before I finially got this one to come up as being free. It's an Arsis song, and if you are a person who likes Arsis and video games, you are probably my type of person.

Part of the reason I joined this board is because tomorrow morning I am going to finally go out and buy an X-Box 360. It was Dead Rising getting above an 8 that finally put me over the edge. So I'm gonna go drop nearly 600 dollars at my local EB buying a premium system, Oblivion, and Dead Rising at around noon tomorrow. I figure that with their current price status, a holiday price drop isn't likely, and even if it was I have plenty of money saved up so paying 100 dollars extra for 3 months of gameplay doesn't bother me that much. I'm probably going to pick up Chromehounds fairly soon, and maybe GRAW if my friend bugs me into getting it so we can play online, even though I'm not really a shooter person.

So... yeah. Comedy Central commercials get pretty messed up late at night. It's all Girls Gone Wild and phone sex chatlines.

I got nothin'.