The last time I wrote about E3 I made some bold statements regarding the death of its relevance in the industry. A lot of this has to do with the confusion of what it’s image was, in that what the perception was of what it was trying to be. Originally it was a conference to open up the industry to the gamers. It became a showcase for everything that was coming. People turned it into a money-making event, and the VIP booths and viewings were born.

As in most cases, money became the downfall of the event’s popularity. Like the news became, once the focus transitioned to profits, the core of the event’s integrity dwindled away. Some of the best things in this world only work when the focus isn’t profit. This only works in a fantasy world with unicorns and magic frogs wearing funny hats. As the old saying goes, once magic frogs take over your event there is no turning back.

Hmmm, I may have pushed that metaphor too far. Regardless, this year’s E3 turned out to be a great platform for announcing what is coming in the next year to our beloved consoles. Even though we are not done with the event this year, the point is that it we are still paying attention to it, so the rumours of its death may have been greatly exaggerated (not that I have ever exaggerated anything since the dawn of time).

Speaking of rumours, we got to hear about some of the latest project being worked on. Based on most reactions we are hoping that none of this stuff will remain vaporware. We saw a lot of interesting things for all three major consoles. My goal is not to cover all the announcements or even the most popular ones. Rather, my focus is going to be on what game I think will have the most riding on it.

Before we talk about the main prize I should point out a couple of the other items worth keeping an eye on. The announcement with the most impact was two-fold. Both Sony and Microsoft announced work in the motion controls department. If anyone had doubts about the impact the Wii had on the gaming industry, although with how much the console is still selling that doubt should have been dead and buried over a year ago, they should definitely be gone now.

The evolution of game interaction continues to gain momentum for each party. The Wii finally put this in the forefront, and is now, in my opinion, cemented as the most important change in the industry this generation. I mentioned this before – the seeds were planted with the rhythm games, and Nintendo drove the point home beautifully. How we move forward will be very entertaining, pass or fail.

Finally, there are three games were discussed that I will be paying close attention to. One of these games I cannot speak to why, other than there is still a sense of mysteriousness about it – Alan Wake. The gameplay sounds like it will be GTA-like and have a cohesive story. In essence, this game has several good things in common with BioShock. Ever since Doom 3 I have been suspicious of games that focus on scaring the player and making the combat tense, but this game could deliver something special.

The second game is a sequel to something I have a well-documented addiction to. Commander Shepard is making a return in Mass Effect 2. More work has been done in the combat department, the story is darker, and works information from your original Mass Effect game into its story. Think of KOTOR, only BioWare is now keeping the sequel’s work in-house. In other words, expect another series of articles on my latest gaming addiction by mid-spring next year.

The last of the three games is what I wanted to talk about the most. Somehow I spaced on this sequel’s arrival, but Assassin’s Creed 2 is on its way this fall. The first game was a big project by Ubisoft. In many respects the work paid off, although nobody is going to call the game perfect. Two things that were complained about the most were the repetitiveness and the combat. Most of the missions ended in gigantic and unavoidable bloodbaths, which seemed odd for an assassination-based game.

The presentation and core game mechanics were still quite excellent, and not in a Bill and Ted sort of way. The vehicle for driving the story was interesting as well. This kept the sales high enough to warrant a sequel. I suspect many people who played the first game are not overly ecstatic about this announcement. The first game was repetitive and the combat was slightly clumsy. Sure, it wasn’t hard to fend off guards, but the system could have smoother and battles against half the city’s guards should be avoidable in a game about stealth and assassins.

There are so many good things about what Assassin’s Creed brings to the table. There are seeds of a GTA-type franchise here. Once missions began you have the freedom to do whatever you wanted. You could be as merciless to the townspeople as you wanted. There was a ton of terrain to explore. This is part of what makes GTA such a popular game, and Assassin’s Creed can play in that arena too.

What’s more, I really believe that’s what draws people to Assassin’s Creed. They want it to be that game. It’s GTA crossed with Prince of Persia, and that is an incredibly compelling concept. If the sequel does not deliver on how much promise this experiment has it will be a failure, and it will be something to be bitter about.

It is not as nearly a compelling title, but it’s not like there is any competition now. Konami was able to make headlines recently by walking away from their war game based on the Iraq War. Having known nothing about the game or much about the conflict, largely due to my indifference to war games, this event prompted me to educate myself a little about the development of this former project.

Before I dive in, let me say something about the development of games dealing with a war that is still in progress – good luck. Six Days in Fallujah, you never had a chance. I say this, however, not for the reasons you would think. It comes as no surprise that there was a ton of blowback once people found out about this game. It comes as no surprise Konami received a bunch of complaints. The cancelation of the game was, for all intents and purposes, inevitable.

One of the interesting facts about this former project was that journals and diaries from soldiers involved in the conflict were used as a reference for the game. Other soldiers encouraged Konami to go ahead with the game. Why their voices do not get to be heard is a story for another time. Perhaps.

I bring this up not to start a debate over the war, but instead to get people to see multiple sides of this story. The crux of the problem here is when is it safe to create a social commentary about a war? Until soldiers want stories about their experiences to be told, I firmly believe no for-profit stories should be produced. This includes movies, books, games, or any other media. War has a massive impact on everyone involved, and, like it or not, the discussion afterwards needs to begin with them. If soldiers were contributing to this project I thought this time would have arrived, but this is obviously not the case.

As one should expect, there are plenty of people that had a problem with this game being made. The war is still going on. People are still over there. Also, there appeared to be some contributions on the game from Iraqi citizens and insurgents. You are certainly welcome to react to this however you want. I’m going to let that point be for now and build on it later.

I think a good chunk of the anger goes back to what Roger Ebert said over a year ago about video games – that they are not proper art. A lot of video game pundits, if not every one, laughed off this comment as being misinformed and out of touch. It should not surprise anyone that other people besides this movie critic have this opinion (and, by extension, people will also view as out of touch). You are all welcome to ignore the numerous stories on TV about this war. Ignore all the books published about the war. Ignore all the stories news anchors used to draw people into watching their broadcasts (yes, I have every right to make this criticism in an age where stations view news as entertainment). These are all welcome and it’s not hypocritical to accept those and reject a video game.

The thing is, I have to ask myself if I am ready to openly criticize the aforementioned hypocrisy intertwined in this situation. As I am someone who knows nobody that has been or is overseas in the Iraq war it is a lot more difficult to remain objective when discussing this. Then again, why even bother writing about video games at all if I am afraid of what my opinions mean?

I have no idea why people still struggle with viewing different forms of art objectively. There is art out there with the sole purpose of inflaming the senses. It is probably safe to assume that was not Konami’s intent with this game. What boggles my mind is why many people still see all video games in a constant vein of evil and void of any intrinsic value.

Something I need to be clear on – I do not have any concrete information on how Konami was approaching the story in this game. We’ll get to that in a minute. Remember that art is subjective by its very nature. Disagreeing with a viewpoint should not necessitate its very existence. If you cannot handle something’s existence just because you don’t like it, well, that does not mean the problem lies with the object of your ire.

What I cannot do is claim to be an expert on sensitivity. I am willing to entertain the notion that it is too early to make a game closely representative of the conflict in Iraq. Some soldiers want their story out in the open, as evidenced by the development of this game, but many people still do not. So we shelve the project and wait. That is fine with me. But I have to wonder – what is the appropriate time needed before a game like Six Days in Fallujah can be made? What are the variables? Does the number of deaths, duration, number of nations involved, or overall brutality of the war make a difference? Is anyone qualified to answer this question?

I live by a certain set of rules. One of these rules is to always welcome new information into a discussion. Let people speak their minds. It is always up to the recipients of the information to determine whether they agree with it. After all, it is no fun to call people idiots without hearing their side of the story first. Again noting my detachment from this situation, this is why I have no problem with Iraqi citizens and soldiers contributing to it. I get why this annoys soldiers involved and others as well. Developers were trying to get as much information on the battles as they could. If you are reading more into it than that, fine, but you simply don’t understand the roles and functions of video games.

With all this in mind, it’s time to identify the primary idiots.

Konami, let me be one of many to say thank you for your completely spineless reaction. Thank you for shrinking into the sunset. You are doing the gaming industry absolutely no justice here. Saying “we just wanted to make an entertaining game” is the same lame response any publisher uses for any public backlash. Not wanting to use controversy as a selling point is fine if that’s not the type of attention or reputation you want. I find it hard to believe, however, that you did not see any potential issues when starting this project. Is there any chance we can stop your work on the next DDR abomination if we whine enough?

We saw this response from Capcom when Resident Evil 5′s details starting coming out. Even Bioware didn’t stand up for itself (not really) with the Mass Effect controversy that the media tried to stir up. In terms of corporate PR they probably did the right thing, but I still don’t think they sent the right message to service the industry as a whole. If our industry didn’t have Rockstar I would wonder if anyone in the industry had any backbone at all.

Here is the message publishers and developers need to say when people overreact – “we are not the first ones to make a statement about this topic, we are not even the first ones to make the statement we are making, thus we have no plans to change our direction in making what we think will be a great game.” Tailor this sentiment into any specific situation and we are all set.

If you plan on making a game that you know is going to be controversial on some level, then why would you back off once the… wait for it… controversy begins to take shape? React with however much knee-jerkiness you feel is appropriate (this includes the gamers out there who are sure to whine about this incoherently), but the fact that people were upset that this game was being made should only be a surprise to idiots.

War is a very serious issue. Any work, whether it be a book, film or game, can go about a right and wrong way. The problem is that by and large people hate video games (or anything else they do not understand). We need to get people to see things on a level playing field. Just as I do not see the inherent disrespect in a game about a war, others do not see the valuable reason for the game to exist. Both are valid opinions and I wish people would see that.

There’s nothing quite like a long hiatus for a small, largely unread, gaming column. After a year-long sabbatical for gaming and some relatively major life events now feels like a good a time as any to get back onto the horse. Well, not literally of course. Odds are the equines are probably sick and tired of having random people jump on their backs just because they’re too lazy to do away with a tired cliché.

The strange this is, this is a weird time of the year to pony up (it’s a theme, sorry) and write something interesting again about gaming. There has been a noticeable lack of great games so far in 2009. Sure, Killzone 2 has gotten some buzz. The big budget games this year so far, Guitar Hero: Metallica and Resident Evil 5, just haven’t created the splash that publishers and gamers alike were hoping for. It is not that I haven’t enjoyed either of these games, but neither offered anything different that made people say “Wow!”

A year ago I would tell you that the unprecedented success of the Wii was the cause for this. The predominantly casual nature of the Wii is bring gaming back to the family. Most of the mature and dedicated gamers that exist today probably have fond memories of gaming with the Atari 2600. I would argue both the 2600 and the Wii are very similar to each other, to the point that the Wii can be called the 2600 of the current decade. In terms of development time was there anything back in the 2600 days that could compare with GTA IV?

My point is not to compare consoles this time, but rather to look at what gaming means to people today. America’s first major down-cycle in the economy causes people to take a closer look at budget gaming. We can’t realistically expect an expanding or even steady market for $60 games and $300 consoles with so much less money to spend.

Gaming to me will always be about escaping from the normal world doing something that brings me happiness. Whether a game is the creation of a drug-induced hallucination or a satirical mocking of what I’m trying to get away from the job still gets done. Based on the reports you see of the video game market being somewhat recession-proof and sales numbers still going strong you probably wonder what the point I’m driving at is.

Let me tell you. Sooner or later gamers want something new, something interesting. We’re still in an interesting time for gaming because the initial generation of gamers are still indentured servants of the industry. We are still a long ways a way from being forced off the gaming reservation, but sooner or later you need fresh blood, and it’s difficult to do that with high console prices and an increasing development costs.

Yes, okay, there are plenty of great older games you can get, and some fresh games that are quite cheap. We are on the bleeding edge of an industry that provides opportunities for independent people to download development kits and create their own games. But, still, I have to wonder how much room is there still in the industry for a rash of games in the GTA ilk?

I realize that it is difficult to figure out what demographics will eat up certain games, and that if some game like KOTOR came out in 1986 then I may have never given games like Tecmo Bowl or Tetris a chance. I wonder if such a simple game like Tecmo Bowl could even be created today and have it be a game that so many people reminisce about 10 or more years from now.

Here’s what I do know. In an era where we’re relatively close to having a really high penetration point in HD TV’s that there is a place for the monster-budget game titles. But don’t we need to consider how we rope in the 6 and 7 year old potential gamers? Don’t we need to sell the idea of video games to them with simpler titles than to toss Gran Turismo or Call of Duty in front of them and expect them to enjoy it as much as possible?

I realize that’s pretty much zeroing in on a question that Nintendo has already answered for us, but there were 3 versions of Mario out for the NES, and at least two of them are etched into video game lore. No offense, but Super Mario Galaxy is not going to be enough to hook them for life. Quality titles take time to make and you don’t want to sully a great franchise (that list is gigantic, so let me utter one word, perhaps “Sonic”, and move on), but sooner or later you need to look at what Galaxy was and realize that you just don’t need a game half that big to tantalize a kids’ brain to have them swoon over the next Mario title.

As someone who’s currently neck-deep in an MMO I cannot really tell you about the enormous amount of options out there that could hook the next generation of gamers at a dirt cheap price. One big title from Nintendo a year isn’t going to cut it. Pokemon has more than run its course (three times over). Wii Sports, let’s face it, was never meant to do more than to get the console through the front door. $10 budget titles via DLC are not as widely known of to get mass appeal.

Maybe we’ll get something in the next 2-3 years and maybe we won’t. What I don’t want is to tell someone to download an old game from 5 years ago as a starting point for why people should pick up gaming now. What bothers me is, right now that seems like the best option.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Finding required viewing in the world of video game writing is a rare event. Over the past five years the cornerstone of my gaming bookmarks has been Penny Arcade. I realize that this is a lot like saying people swear by ESPN for sports news, so that statement has far less impact that I would want. I have often found that my style of humor is right in line with their strips, and that is what drew me to make them required reading.

With the many web comics and regular columns devoted to gaming you are probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned any others. There are many interesting and unique reads that people absolutely love. XKCD and Ctrl-Alt-Delete immediately come to mind as solid reads, but for whatever reason they don’t have the pull on me that they probably should.

The only sites I ever bookmark are sites that I see that offer something unique and either informative or entertaining. Based on that criteria there should probably me more sites inside my gaming radar. Still, this article is not about me and my overwhelmingly bad reading practices. This is about something that’s been bothering me about my #2 reading destination.

It wasn’t all that long ago that this second destination was added. Within the past 3 months Zero Punctuation (think about the pun embedded in this week’s title – it’s subtle… and, now that I think about it, not all that funny) has become a Wednesday mainstay. Yahtzee has become the latest gaming culture phenomenon and with good cause. Again, that statement doesn’t have a whole lot of impact. That’s okay – that wasn’t the intent.

If you’ve been reading the Quagmire for with any regularity you have seen my relative apprehension of Nintendo’s success. I never thought about it when I was young, but now that I’ve managed to entire my cranky old man stage early in my gaming critic life (which appears to have happened prematurely) I have a hard time not thinking about the number of times Nintendo added another title to an existing franchise. This is my current favorite double-standard to harp on with respect to gaming, and when this was brought up in ZP the first time I couldn’t have been more delighted.

Please understand that schadenfreude is not a common problem for me. I don’t take delight in flame wars, but sometimes I feel like I need to step up and say something. Super Smash Brothers is going to be the target, so if you have trouble handling any comments that do not involve slobbering all over the franchise you should be prepared for some artillery fire.

Brawl is the first game in the franchise I have owned but not the first one I have played. This game has never had that much appeal to me, but playing this game with three friends has been a good amount of fun. After extended service time with the game I had many negative things to say about it. My biggest problem with this game, and most 1st party titles for the Wii, is that the games are not deep. Okay, the perceived depth of a game is highly subjective, but as a fighter the gameplay in Brawl does not feel any different than its predecessors. I certainly don’t buy the argument that it is a masher, but I don’t see it as the complex fighter so many fans try to make it out to be (if you want a complex fighter I strongly urge you to play a Tekken game).

Not long after I start jotting down all the complaints I have about SSBB, ZP came out and said everything that was in my notes. This made me happy, not because laziness was once again paying off, but because someone that I would consider paying attention to about games can’t stand mediocre gameplay, highlighted characters being complex unlockables, and off-chance random character movement. This still was not my favorite part of the review.

Two weeks later the SSBB review prompted a response to e-mail feedback which took great strides towards proving that people who hated the comments had no idea how to properly respond to the comments made. This response also highlighted, inadvertently perhaps, that the phrase “I am not a fanboi” is a tired cliché that now almost always serves as proof that the writer is, on top of everything else, a hypocrite.

I realize it took a heck of a long time to get there, but it is time for another Public Service Announcement from the Quagmire – please stop using that phrase to begin your arguments. Every single time this phrase is used to make a point, it proves the author is too scared to let their argument stand on its own merit. It is not as if I expect to see witty discussion every time I read through a message board or walk into EB. In fact, more often than not I expect a bunch of idiots making incoherent statements. Certain phrases become overused way too often, and “I am not a fanboi” is now on the list along with “Nintendo just makes fun games”, “I prefer gameplay over graphics”, or “I’m tired of boring old sequels.”

Please understand that fans of any console who feel the need to attempt to validate themselves by shooting down other consoles are all guilty of use of at least one of these comments. Somehow there is this great divide in the community with respect to each console, and I feel like people are searching for catch phrases to make their points. I won’t shoot down anyone for enjoying a Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, Halo, or any other gaming franchise just because I don’t happen to enjoy it. I will, however, rip you apart if you are unable to handle people pointing out flaws they see without babbling on incoherently. In other words, I’m only here to help.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go prepare for another SSBB party.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Promises are promises, and, this amazing revelation aside, I figure if there is a week to talk about GTA this would be the week to do it. There are very few stories in gaming news this week that do not involve this game, and rightfully so. Considering the sales numbers this game is putting up (6 million copies sold in week one) it would be rather silly to ignore this landmark game.

That was far more than just a play on words relating to the number of NYC landmarks in the GTA IV version of Liberty City. This is one of the few games I have ever seen released where every major gaming publication and review site is giving this game near perfect marks. I am not saying this should drive you to your nearest store and pick the game up, but so few games are ever given a high score, let alone from everyone. After taking a week off from work to plow through this game, something which I had planned since the beginning of the year, I find it very difficult to disagree with the notion that this game isn’t as close to perfect as a game can get.

There are many things this game does that its predecessors have done. All the basic gameplay elements that you love (or hate) about the game are back, the satire is still present, the detail in the city environment is amazing, the story is engrossing, and the characters and dialogue are movie-level quality. These are all things I expect from GTA. Games that step up to this level are almost always highly praised, including last year’s icon in this department – BioShock.

Where GTA has stopped before, IV has kept going. Let us start with what is in the forefront – the graphics. The work Rockstar has put into Liberty City has definitely raised the bar in the realm of the free-roaming environment. Combine the graphical power of Crysis with the city detail that went into Assassin’s Creed and what you get is Liberty City. Downtown is littered with gigantic signs that make you feel like you’re on the strip in Vegas. Seeing the city skyline light up at night is just like looking out of a hotel window. Those are the big visuals. The details – like movie posters and other ads inside buildings, the geysers of water that shoot up when you knock out fire hydrants, the debris that gets caught in a cyclone when a helicopter is flying nearby, being able to hear your car radio while outside the car – all of these experiences make you feel like you are inside a real city.

Next to the basic gameplay elements that make GTA what it is, the satire embedded in this game is easily the most enjoyable aspect of this. This is not anything new, but being able to see this in the form of television and the web are brand new experiences. One day I spent hours just watching TV in one of my safehouses. Is there any point in doing this? You don’t get missions or any real information on backstory in the game, but it sure is entertaining.

The only complaint I have is that the character movement is still a ways away from smooth. Running around, moving through crowds of people, breaking into cars or just hopping in them all have very natural movements. Jumping, however, is still atrocious. Trying to get Niko to jump between ledges, onto or off of a boat, or in between rooftops is still an ordeal. Jumping in wide open spaces is not nearly as frustrating as cramped spaces (I got stuck once under a staircase which forced me to reload because crouching and walking wasn’t working right), but jumping in a straight line can be a major ordeal at times. One mission I failed because I tried getting onto a dirtbike from behind it, only to walk in circles for over 10 seconds before my target escaped.

If those problems were not present in the game I would easily be able to state with conviction that this game is perfect. When I say a game is perfect, that means that while the game can still be improved to do things in different ways, there is nothing that I feel the game is lacking. For example, the cover combat system could be a little easier to use for getting in and out of cover or sprinting between cover spots, but it didn’t really cause any problems. The combat system was still much better than anything that has been in GTA games to date, so I cannot state with a straight face that the combat was difficult or frustrating.

There is one thing I should make a special note on. There is a mission that involves a bank job in this game. I thought this was going to be as annoying as the Vice City mission was, but it turned out to be the best mission in any GTA game I have played to date. The tedious parts of the robbery – securing the bank, subduing employees and customers, busting open the vault, were all scripted. The entire mission revolved around the escape from the bank. The adrenaline rush in running through the streets taking out cop after cop, running through the subway, avoiding helicopters, and the final escape back to the house provided more adrenaline and energy than I could ask for. I would need 3 Red Bulls back-to-back to recreate that sensation. This mission was the defining moment for the game.

Coming up with something different to say about this game is tough. You know it all and you’ve probably seen it all. The highlights of this game were the graphics, fighting system, environment detail, voice acting, character animations, story, dialogue, satire, and length. The driving, movement, and missions were good but could all have been improved. The multiplayer was new and fun, but still could be so much more. Every one of the highlights were near perfect if not perfect, which means that GTA IV probably didn’t exceed many people’s expectations, but it matched what most people were expecting from Rockstar. If that doesn’t say something about what the value of the GTA franchise is, then nothing really does.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Pay attention to enough news stories and you can see pattern with the media extolling the negative qualities of the Internet and what they refer to as the gaming subculture. It’s not that I am any different – I do what I can to provide negative comments every week for parts of the industry that are negative influences. Today, however, things are going to be different. Oh yes, they will be different.

Within the past month there was a proud owner of an Xbox 360, laptop, and a few other possessions, who had his house broken into and items stolen. In what feels like nothing more than a transparent attempt to land a spot on America’s Dumbest Criminals, the thief messaged a thread through Xbox Live a ransom demand for the stolen 360. Anyone who has ever watched even one episode of any crime drama, or has an ounce of common sense, can probably guess what happened next.

Only, you probably can’t. The police involved in the case worked more slowly than people on the Internet. After the person who had his possessions stolen was not receiving the desired help from the police he posted his grievance up on the Internet. Many members of the networked gaming community sprung into action, found detailed information on the person who was connected to the account from with the ransom demand was initiated, and soon afterwards property was recovered. The police finally helped out after this happened.

From this there were several interesting responses. Let’s start with the fact that Fox News managed to squeeze in a story covering this saga. I found the timing of this amusing because the first thought that popped into my head was that they felt guilty about their Mass Effect story and thought this was a great opportunity to endear themselves to the gaming community. Sorry, you didn’t sucker me in! In the story the kid who had his stuff stolen was mention to be an aspiring Guitar Hero legend, or something to that effect. I’m saying this kid is going to grow up to be a rocket scientist, but it picking that header for him was funny. It’s almost like a smack in the face. Was that the most notable thing in his life so far? Guitar Hero is the pinnacle achievement to date? Really?

(I do not mean to imply that I have any better things to do than write about or play video games – that would just be insane)

Another miss in this situation was the fact that Microsoft missed this message completely. In my paranoid little world where all digital communication is monitored I seriously expected there to be some built-in monitoring of all communication, or at least the text-based communication, so that when something criminal were sent over the wires, say, for example, a ransom note about stolen property made by Microsoft, that the monitoring software would see it and disable any offending party’s account. I want this to be bad news, but maybe the fact that this did not happen is good news.

While the Big Brother justice system is not quite in place yet on Live, this does make me wonder a little more about the technical proficiency in the standard Law and Order segments of our society. In modern times a controlled Internet account handle is just as good as a mailing address. You would think that if the police were notified of an address in a ransom situation that the case would be solved in a matter of hours. Technically you could throw the term “vigilante justice” around here. How can you just skip over using inflammatory comments in topics related to gaming? The news outlets missed an opportunity here.

Seriously though, this ties in to my main point – that there has been a steady stream of negative stories about video games for a long time. Video games cause obesity in kids, they make people shoot each other, they’re killing simulators, they are too sexually explicit, they have no redeeming qualities, and so on. We’ve been seeing these stories for years. We now have a story about how a community rallied around a theft that was largely being ignored by the police (or, at least, ineptly handled) and the community was able to get the person most, if not all, of his belongings back.

We praise the neighborhood watch for their efforts, do we not? Look, I can’t sit here and claim that perhaps some of this information should not have been obtainable by average citizens (i.e. Xbox Live account info), but this information was used to get stolen property back. I am never one to ignore exceptions to rules. In the scenario dealing with the what the road to hell is paved with, I have no issues with whatever non-physically threatening tactics were used to get the property back (keeping in mind that I am not someone who’s opinion regarding moral tactics you should necessarily listen to).

The lesson in all this, aside from needing to be a smarter individual when attempting to extort money from someone, is that we are still living in a world that predominantly is incapable of understanding technology. Things that seem simple to many people simply do not translate to people in an older demographic. Naturally, this isn’t a new trend. It’s going to happen to us too. A lesson that I took from this, which I feel may benefit many people, is that until a changing of the guard occurs in the media, we are going to have to continue dealing with gaming stories in the media being constantly mishandled. Anyone who is unable to grasp this will eventually go insane when the next Mass Effect controversy hits front and center on the 6 o’clock news.

This week marked a first for me in gaming. It wasn’t anything as groundbreaking as my first perfect song for Guitar Hero on Expert, completing a Mario game without dying, or roasting the CPU in a regulation hockey game by over 200 goals (thank you, NHL ’94). This week marked the first time I participated in obtaining game-related material via digital download. I should point out that this is much more commonly known as DLC thanks to overwhelming pressure to cram every important idea in society into a three letter acronym (TLA, sorry).

While visiting a friend this past week we talked about all the usual stuff – work, women, socio-economic disparities across the heartland, clubbing baby seals – and inevitably our latest technological gadgets. I got to show off my new camera and he got to show off a brand new subwoofer so powerful it could easily be mistaken for a herd of charging rhinocerii. The second game used to showcase the beast was a download from the Playstation Store – Super Stardust HD.

For my first exposure to the store this was not a bad start. This game is over a year old, and I must say I’m disappointed in not having tried it sooner. If you enjoyed the game Asteroids you would like this one too. In fact, if you took Asteroids and poured a six pack of triple espressos down its throat you would get something quite similar. For $10 there a bunch of games like this you can get for a PC or console. If you can remember what games made the original GameBoy so popular (not to date you or make you feel old) that is today’s current Indy gaming market.

I never really thought about it before, but the fact that there is a ton of entertaining arcade games all over the Internet at a dirt cheap price is a good thing. This is a great alternative to the $60 console games and provides to our current crop of young people the sustenance they need to become a lifelong gamer. I realize that I am late to the party on this one (the invitation must have been lost in the mail) and that this is not some groundbreaking discovery. We can’t do that every week here in the Quagmire – that’d be far too predictable.

The other half of the online delivery system that we are integrating into the gaming community comes in the form of obtaining additional content for already released games. As much as I relished downloading GT Prologue that is hardly going to happen often. The most popular notion of adding content onto games comes in the form of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. This is a very welcome addition to anyone who has pined for certain songs to be in the game.

I have to admit that although there have been several great songs in GH3 and Rock Band there have been plenty of songs that I have been dying to get my hands on to play. Imagine my joy when the Still Alive and the Boston pack was released recently for Rock Band. It may sound strange, but one of my current favorite gaming moments of the year now includes cranking my stereo and playing lead on More Than a Feeling. While realizing admitting this makes me look like an even bigger dork, I felt the need to share this because I feel that this is a revolutionary step for the rhythm gaming market.

The only thing that makes me more excited about what the future might hold for these games. In a perfect world there is going to be a way to point a game towards a digitized master of a song and have the game translate it into a song that you can play. Considering the number of fans of current rock monsters (U2, Radiohead, Dave Matthews) and past monsters (Van Halen, Led Zeppelin) you cannot tell me there isn’t a gigantic market for this feature. Whoever gets this working first without requiring the utter destruction of a gamer’s bank account is going to cement themselves in gaming legend.

Long story short – I’ve only gotten my feet wet in the world of digital downloads for gaming and I really love what I see. I’ll be taking more steps into it this weekend and hopefully go for a swim (whether a lifeguard is on duty or not). If the industry as a whole starts to get in on this then not only will obtaining games be a whole lot easier, but Valve will undoubtedly be seen as the pioneer in this area for the more expensive segment of the gaming market.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go locate some more songs to download and get another late night gaming jam session going.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Understanding the role of a game critic has become a rather difficult task. Game critics have many different facets to their job – advertising for games, informing the public, washing hands with publishers, entertaining viewers, and so forth. Knowing how to handle all of these so-called responsibilities can be difficult. Sometimes you get fired just for speaking your mind.

During my early years of writing about games I took it upon myself to write reviews whenever I could about any game in my illustrious library. There is always an uphill battle due to having to front the costs for every game and getting new people to pay attention. Coming up with a system that you are comfortable with and having it mean something to people is always the biggest challenge. There is almost nothing to gain by copying systems that are already in place because regurgitating information is never original or interesting. In fact, regurgitation is often quite disgusting.

It took me a couple of years to realize that writing reviews was largely for my own edification. I did get occasional e-mails from people asking questions about games I had not reviewed yet, which was refreshing, but it was never a fulfilling hobby. Gaming was the primary hobby, so the futile reviewing was put to bed and the endless gaming continued.

Several years later my semi-weekly rants starting to become a norm. I had built up a lot of anger over many years of playing horrible games, listening to idiotic reviews, and seeing idiotic mistakes made with console technology. Eventually these rants started to become relatively coherent. This was a big development considering the number of e-mails I got when writing about things I didn’t really understand. Still, they always served as a highly customized aphrodisiac to calm my nerves.

Today, I find myself wondering what the real role of a game reviewer was in today’s gaming culture. This sounds like an asinine question, but there is a philosophical question at hand. We have so many different reviewing publications and sites that hand out numbers and awards the accolades have almost completely lost all meaning (this is more commonly known as the Jiminy Jillickers Effect). For example, you must find it disturbing how many different video games can become a Game of the Year.

In a sense that sounds like I’m suggesting that only one group should be able to give a game this, or any other title. The Ivory Tower approach is hardly the situation I think we should be in either, but the number of reviewers should be trimmed down. Reading differing opinions on games is always a good thing, provided that there is anecdotal evidence backing up the claims that are made.

A lot of what you read now about games is very comical. I don’t even mean funny comical – I often mean comical with respect to degree of incompetence or integrity. Once we started having visual proof that reviewers were being paid money to say positive things about games the game reviewer in the public eye shifted from honest reviewer to company spokesperson. You cannot take these people seriously. They are paid to write positive things or too scared to write negative things because they won’t get advanced copies of future games (which is the crux of my argument that most video game reviewers are inconsequential).

More to the point, sometimes money was never needed to get reviewers to write positive things about games. Lawsuits, or even the lingering stench thereof, kept certain reviewers from saying what they really wanted to say about a game.

This was part of larger problem that the Jeff Gerstmann firing raised. He wrote a game with a score that was deemed to be too low by his employer, so he was fired. Naturally, this was not the reason GameSpot gave, but you cannot expect a company to ever seriously admit fault no matter how transparent the lie is.

Think about what sources you implicitly trust for honest game reviews. How many different sources are there? If it’s a publication, how many of the reviewers that work there do you trust? What is the lowest score for any game you have seen from them? Which games have received the highest scores? Are they owned by a parent company that also produces games or consoles? Do they provide concrete reasons for why they like or dislike certain games? If you have not thought about these questions before it is time you start doing so.

To me, the mark of consistent reasoning behind reviews is not the most important ideal anymore. I need to see a publication have the testicular fortitude to give bad games bad scores. Find a game that is absolutely terrible on almost every level (e.g. Apex, Driver 3) – did they get a score below 30% (or even 50%)? I need to know that a site is willing to completely bury a game when it is deserved.

If you want to know the worst about games you need to find people that work on the entertainment of how games are described and ignore the professional reviewer. My current hypothesis is that web comics are the most informative game reviews we have going. The weekly Zero Punctuation web comic, one of the funniest and most entertaining running pieces in the known universe, is popular because he is, along with other reasons, willing to completely skewer a game when necessary. The same thing holds true for Penny Arcade.

Look, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a subscription or two to gaming magazines or monitoring several gaming websites to get information. Getting previews and detailed descriptions on games far into the future are very invaluable. All I am saying is that placing your faith in one source for video game reviews, or any other form of information for that matter, is always a bad idea… except for me.

You can always trust me.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

We have all been witnesses to the recent acquisition of Blizzard and the attempted acquisition of Take Two. Both of these companies are rumored to be in the development stages of a new online game, and these speculations have largely revolved around Starcraft and KOTOR. Whether you believe these rumors or not is your decision, but a new rumor popped up recently which has caused me to recall an article I wrote back in 2003 about the very same subject – a GTA MMO.

I went back and re-read my old article and discovered two things. First, my sense of humor in these rants of mine has changed a lot in even as little as two years. Second, the points I attempt to drive home now are a lot more coherent. That’s the price you pay for being a writer who is a lot more raw than polished. There were, however, some interesting points I made four years ago about what a GTA MMO would be like. Now that I have a lot of experience in playing in the genre it’s time for me to spruce up some old ideas and figure out how this game could work.

I know what you are thinking – come on, not another GTA article!? This topic is repeated a lot, but, to be completely honest, it gave me an opportunity to spruce up an old idea that, frankly, needed some polishing. It also allowed me to put a lot less time into putting together a solid article this week. Sometimes being lazy can pay off, and a retrospective on my old musings has been enjoyable (at least, for me it has). At this point let me make a solemn promise not to write anything more about this franchise until the last week of April, when GTA IV hits the ground running.

While I believe that the GTA MMO concept is probably not in development or even in beginning discussion stages, I believe that the primary reason people are drooling over this, aside from an overwhelming love of the MMO genre and GTA, is the very noticeable lack of a multiplayer capability in the franchise since GTA 2. Anyone who played these games on the PC knows how much fun deathmatches, cannonball races, and killing ice cream men can be. Who would be odd enough not to enjoy that type of good-natured fun? The good people at Rockstar North finally figured this out, and now people are salivating over the inclusion of multiplayer in the impending GTA IV release.

And while I do not have a problem with the ice cream man, or Van Halen, I have had a bit of a problem thinking about GTA as an MMO. My initial thought was along the lines of finding the person so I could test out my brand new nightstick, but after a couple seconds I decided I would be remiss to dismiss some idea like this (who knew I had the capacity to put together a hip-hop album?). I put away my nightstick and began thinking about how such an idea could be brought to fruition.

The types of character classes and opposing factions are pretty much the most important aspect of making an online game deeply immersive. Playing as the traditional thug is the obvious choice, but there are other interesting ones too. There should be the ability to play as cops, major and minor gang leaders, business owners, pimps, or other low-level thugs. All of these jobs could build off each other in working to build an impressive – how would Fat Tony put it – mafia crime syndicate.

In terms of what could be done as part of the general level grind I expect a lot of the standard stuff you see in most MMO’s. There would almost certainly have to be some generic NPC gang activity like there was in City of Heroes, but there does need to be a GTA spin on it. I came up with a couple minor things to consider, but I think they begin to set the tone for a larger GTA universe. Imagine holding up a jewelry store only to have the clerk pull out a Colt Python as soon as you turn your back to leave. Imagine an ambulance driver slashing you with a katana when trying to hijack his vehicle. Better still – imagine some psychotic soldier driving around in a Hummer running people over at will.

I also thought about basic skills and professions, and San Andreas started to tap into those ideas. When Rockstar talked about the RPG elements in that game they referred to your stats (swimming, running, muscles, etc.). I don’t see why those couldn’t be basic skills that several classes in a GTA MMO have access to, but there are plenty of ideas there. The professions are what interests me more, and you can have varying weapons specialists, drivers, brawlers, and grenadiers for all fighting classes. Gang leaders could specialize in recruiting, entrepreneurship, and negotiations. It’s all very doable.

Car theft is a major element in the basic game, so I’m betting that cars, along with people, would have to have a pretty good respawn rate. While that part is not that interesting I will state that watching many people get into ugly PvP battles over stealing a single car could be a boatload of fun. Contributing to overall mayhem in battles against cops could also be fantastic.

Using a PvP angle along with building your syndicate’s influence, the battle over various businesses would be great. This is a concept that Mythic Entertainment calls RvR (Realm vs. Realm) battles and has placed this into the core of Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. I would argue that this dynamic would be perfect for an online GTA game. Instead of just businesses, however, you could also control another form of ownable property – the gang hideout. All of these buildings could constantly be fought over by competing factions to shift overall control of a city. Keeping control over these buildings may be trickier than getting someone to laugh while watching A Night at the Roxbury, but it would be very competitive and entertaining PvP.

Going back to four years ago I didn’t think that there was a reasonable way to put together a GTA MMO, but today I am starting to believe that there is something to this idea. While these ideas are a bit scattered and light, they should make any eager readers think that the overall game concept could theoretically work.  Years of experience playing the genre do wonders for being able to put together ideas like this. With enough effort and innovation this could be a very popular game. With all the innovations the franchise has already brought to the table this move might be the last great innovation Rockstar can bring to the table with their primary cash cow. Even if that meant the end of the GTA franchise as we know that would be just fine with me – so long as it was still a lot of fun to play.

One of the great ideas that I have supported for a long time, the Ironic Punishment Division, is something I find myself wanting to write about multiple times per year. While it always felt like a genuinely funny idea, it never felt like a legitimate one until its appearance in Halloween Special IV on the Simpsons. The only time this idea has worked its way into any of these articles to date was when doling out ‘appropriate’ punishments in a lawsuit several years ago during one of the many media-grabbing lawsuits involving video games and a shooting.

There has not been anything recently that has prompted me to want to repeat this type of article, thankfully, but I feel like there have been a lot of strange reports in the gaming industry that makes me believe that writing such an article is the right thing to do. As such, this week’s edition of the Quagmire is an amalgam of recent events and how I perceive them. While they’re not necessarily punishments they are in a similar vein.

(In other words, there isn’t any one topic this week that is remotely grabbing my interest on any deep level)

The Developers Arms Race:

EA purchases BioWare and Pandemic. Activision purchases Blizzard. Now EA is going after Take Two. Correct me if I’m wrong, but God didn’t smile too kindly down on the Tower of Babel, right? There must be a serious inferiority complex in the industry if all these developers are being sucked up by the industry juggernauts. I mean – there does not seem to be anything to stop these two companies from being bitter enemies and swallowing the industry whole. How can this be a good thing?

At what point would either EA or Activision be satisfied with the amount of developers under their respective iron fists? Why do developers like BioWare or Blizzard feel like it is in their best interest to work for these companies? Blizzard has to be, almost literally, swimming in money with World of Warcraft being the success that it is. What can their motivation possibly be?

This trend scares me a lot, as I’m sure it does many people. If over $150 million dollars gross isn’t enough to stay relatively independent then how much trouble is the industry in?

Solution: It is time to implement some Tyler Durden justice here. No no, nothing violent! Every one of these conglomerate developers needs to be leveled back to ground zero and they all need to start over. The gaming industry produced a lot more interesting fruits when everyone was smaller and competing with each other. It’s true that development costs are much higher now, but every company already has development kits and working relationships with the console manufacturers.

In short, you have what you have and everything else goes away. We should do this every one or two console generations to keep the playing field level and to keep companies from becoming unstoppable intergalactic developer black holes.

Jack Thompson and EA:

First he was annoying. After some time he became funny. After having a suspended license, being called out by Penny Arcade, and still shooting his mouth off he was a running joke. Now we’re at the point where the running joke is just annoying and we want it to exist in a small corner (under a blanket, inside a very small box, inside of another box…) of the universe.

Basically, Jack Thompson has followed the path of the Energizer Bunny (too bad it is not a fabled RPG career arc). I am old enough to remember when both of these gags started in the entertainment industry. Anyway, now Jack wants to be a part of EA because they want to buy out Take Two, Jack’s mortal enemy. On top of his other spectacular failures he’s being, rightfully, snubbed in this move. He’s been viral for a long time, but now it looks like all other potential enemies of Rockstar want nothing to do with him (along with the Bar Association).

Solution: There is not a whole lot you can formally do here, but that doesn’t mean satire cannot help. If you have been to ThinkGeek at all and are a fan of Office Space you know about the Initech No Talent Ass Clown Award. We need a website to create a running list of worthy recipients of this award. I don’t think there’s any question Jack should be an award winner (and a potential inaugural lifetime achievement award winner).

Street Fighter IV:

I try to get excited about games that I worshipped as a kid. Fighting games can be a ton of fun, and Capcom struck platinum (it went far beyond striking gold) with Street Fighter II. Approximately 3,420 iterations of the franchise later, maybe 2 of them being mildly interesting, there is noticeable buzz surrounding Street Fighter IV. Why exactly are we supposed to care about this game?

Oh, right – it’s a 3D fighter now! This is innovative for the Street Fighter franchise, but more of a Rip Van Winkle-esque RSVP to the modern console fighter party. The artwork does a decent job of keeping the old Street Fighter II cartoony look while adding some ruggedness to each of the classic characters. Unfortunately, nostalgia alone is not going to make this game work. Perhaps if Capcom stopped going to this well so frequently there might be something left here.

Solution: Here we need to employ the Old Yeller approach. Street Fighter is an old dog now. We had a lot fun with it as kids. It’s run around everywhere and has become old and tired. If I this were 1995 I might be excited about a fresh entry in the franchise, but the reality of the situation is that I’m bored to death of Street Fighter. If this game doesn’t offer anything new then it’s going to be received as well as GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.

Here’s my main point: it’s time to take this franchise out back behind the barn and let it never be heard from again. Don’t cry. Don’t fret. There is no need to weep – there are plenty of solid fighters out there that will make you much happier than this franchise possibly could. It’s time to get a new fighter.