Never Too Old To Play™

Greg Miller, one of the editors over at IGN’s PlayStation 3 channel, posted an editorial about a week ago in which he asserted that the Xbox 360′s highly anticipated exclusive role-playing epic Mass Effect 2, the sequel to a highly decorated sci-fi epic, is inarguably and definitively a better game than the PlayStation 3′s equally anticipated exclusive action platformer Uncharted 2, which happens to be the 2009 Game of the Year of almost every professional gaming publication in the industry, and then proceeds to dedicate two pages to nothing more than explaining why he likes role-playing games better than action games.

He points to the lengthy, complex storyline and well developed characters in Mass Effect 2, and notes that he felt more of a connection to Commander Shepard than to Nathan Drake because he was choosing how Shepard interacted with other characters during the non-action portions of the game. These aspects are all well and good if you like role-playing games, but they’re irrelevant to someone who’s simply interested in all-out action. In fact, for that kind of player, Mass Effect 2 is likely not a great choice because you spend the majority of your time talking, walking and doing mundane tasks like scanning planets for mineral resources.

This is not to say that Mass Effect 2 is a bad experience or even a worse experience than Uncharted 2 but rather to point out the folly in trying to measure the superiority of one over the other based solely on criteria that is not only subjective but may be of complete irrelevance.

Probably the most laughable thing that Mr. Miller implied, though, was that his claim that Mass Effect 2 is hands down the better game somehow had more weight because he’s “the PlayStation guy,” an editor from the PlayStation 3 channel of IGN who says “Trophies are better than Achievements,” and “who bought a PSPgo on day one and doesn’t regret the decision in the least.”

Just like an opinion that Safari is a better web browser than Internet Explorer doesn’t become more valid just because it comes from a Windows user and an opinion that Jon Lester is a better pitcher than A.J. Burnett is no more valid if it’s offered by a Yankees fan, there’s no reason to believe any more that Mass Effect 2 is a better game than Uncharted 2 simply because a PlayStation fan thinks so.

If you want to do a real apples to apples comparison of the two games, you’re pretty much limited to quantitative analysis of things that can be measured, like which game has better graphics technology (Uncharted 2), better performance (Uncharted 2), more gameplay (Mass Effect 2), more replay capability (Mass Effect 2), longer game time (Mass Effect 2), less bugs (Uncharted 2), etc. Yet even these aspects are still subject to relevance analysis – better graphics or more replayability are each not of any significant importance to a large number of gamers.

In the end, the lesson is one that can be applied at a higher level to the whole “which console is better” debate: don’t worry about trying to prove that the Xbox 360 is better than the PlayStation 3 or vice versa because you can’t when there is no single type of gamer that is the sole arbiter of what makes a console or a game better than another. Just enjoy the games you have and leave the bickering and pandering to the fanboys whose lives are validated only by the hunk of electronics they have next to their television.

It’s been a while since console gamers have had a solid Star Wars action game. Xbox owners were treated to the definitive Star Wars role-playing experience in BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (and arguably its sequel) and got to play a pretty good squad-based first-person shooter in Star Wars: Republic Commando. GameCube owners were privileged with awesome arcade-style space combat along with authentic visual design and high production values with Factor 5′s Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, which was preceded by the popular Nintendo 64 game Rogue Squadron.

However, that fun, action-packed game in which players get to slice enemies up with lightsabers and wield the full power of the Force had eluded console gamers until the release of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, developed by LucasArts. PC gamers had long been able to boast about their ability to play the well-written and beautifully designed Jedi Knight games in which lightsaber duels and powers like Force Grip and Force Lightning were a normal part of the gameplay while console gamers had to settle for lame titles like Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi and Star Wars: Obi-Wan.

Force Unleashed takes Star Wars gaming to the next level for both console and PC gamers alike by introducing us to a whole new scale of Force powers. No longer are you just knocking stormtroopers off their feet with your Force Push – in this game, you can send them flying hundreds of yards into a wall or knock them off a platform to fall to their doom (and the game camera will sometimes follow them to their demise almost like an instant replay). Force Lightning can be repurposed into an electrifying force field and used to charge up lightsaber attacks for more damage. And one particularly impressive set piece shows your character doing something with Force Grip that makes Yoda’s little trick with the submerged X-Wing in The Empire Strikes Back look like child’s play.

In fact, by the time you reach the end of the game, your mastery of the Force will have become so awesome that you make all Jedi and Sith that have ever graced the big screen look like chumps.

The game is not without its flaws, though. There’s a certain inconsistency in how you can interact with your environment. If there’s a heavy duty, industrial strength, titanium reinforced door blocking your designated path through a stage, you can pound your way through that thing with your juiced up Force Push ability. However, if you aren’t meant to go through a door, you can hammer it with your magical blasts all day long and it won’t do much more than dent a little bit (if at all). In some stages, you can shatter windows by driving projectiles through them to cause environmental damage to nearby enemies; in others, it’s as if the windows are made of the most shatterproof glass in the galaxy. And while your character can apparently lift up entire AT-STs and crush them into little balls of scrap metal, there are plenty of plants on Felucia that you can’t even yank out of the ground.

Another problem lies with the targeting system, which seems to rely on a bit too much guesswork to determine what you’re looking at. If there are only a couple of objects or enemies within sight it’s not a big deal, but when you’re surrounded by enemies and wreckage it can be frustrating to grab the right thing in the midst of a heated battle. Thankfully, this type of situation does not come up very often as you generally have more than enough space to maneuver around to a better position.

Probably more annoying is the ability of many enemies to keep striking you while you’re down and unable to defend yourself. It’s not uncommon to be shot down by a well-placed rifle blast and then get hit a second or even third time by more well-placed rifle blasts before you have the chance to get up and try to block or dodge. Especially frustrating is when certain stormtroopers armed with shock rifles incapacitate you with an electrical blast and then fire another shot and then another, each further incapacitating you while the other troopers zap away at you with their standard issue laser rifles.

Fortunately, the pros outweigh the cons in Force Unleashed. The writers came up with an interesting storyline that fits right in between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and puts you in control of Darth Vader’s apprentice, a man known only as Starkiller. The great thing about this plot compared to that of games like Knights of the Old Republic and Jedi Knight is that it ties directly into the events you saw unfold in the movies instead of being an unrelated supplementary story involving characters you’ve never heard of. The story is appealing to the super diehard fans who read all the novels and comic books without catering specifically to them.

The team also managed to hire a pretty good cast of voice actors to bring the various characters to life. Sam Witwer, seen in such shows as Battlestar Galactica, Dexter and Smallville, is especially good in the role of the tormented apprentice who finds himself betrayed by everything he has ever known. He received much praise from the Star Wars community for his portrayal of Starkiller, whose physical appearance is modeled after his likeness, and is rumored to be reprising the role in the upcoming live action Star Wars television series. In fact, Witwer’s performance is so good that it could be tough for diehard Star Wars fans to witness another example of a video game surpassing the quality of the films.

It’s a shame that the game couldn’t be a complete success, but the good far outweighs the bad in Force Unleashed, which is a must-have game for diehard Star Wars fans and a compelling purchase for gamers just looking for some fun action gameplay set in the Star Wars universe.

Final score: 4 out of 5

Parent to parent

While the violence depicted in the game isn’t really any more brutal than that shown in the Star Wars films, the player does start off hunting down the good guys for one of the most iconic villains in movie history. As the Starkiller, the player will be responsible for slamming, slicing and shocking hundreds of stormtroopers, Wookies, Jawas, and other life forms before the game is over. Further, the game encourages “creative” uses of the Force to take out enemies. Nevertheless, I feel that the game should be just fine for all but the youngest gamers: players aren’t going to see anything they have already seen in numerous Star Wars movies and cartoons.

Experience this for yourself!

• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PlayStation 2) (Amazon)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Wii) (Amazon)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition (PC) (Amazon)

Saw came out of nowhere in October 2004 to take the movie industry by storm and become the most successful horror franchise in history. The refreshingly different thriller, directed by previously unknown filmmaker James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell who also played one of the supporting characters, was shot for about $1.2 million and went on to gross over $100 million worldwide, later spawning five sequels and now a video game.

Like the film sequels, the game focuses significantly less on the sense of thrill and mystery that made the original movie so great and more on the gore that seems to get more explicit as each year passes (and a new Saw film arrives in theaters) to the delight of today’s shock horror fans. The game isn’t nearly as gory as the more recent sequels – understandable, since Konami took over the project early on (Japanese game companies eschew overly graphic violence) in the hopes they had found a spiritual successor to their dying Silent Hill franchise and no country’s ratings board would approve a game of that nature – but includes enough blood and body parts to give the player a sense of its film origins.

Ultimately, the game is made for fans of the series. Konami hired Wan and Whannell to write a whole new story that ties into the overall Saw legend, and it works very well both as a piece of the overall puzzle and as a standalone arc that continues from the original movie’s plot (in case you didn’t stick with the franchise after the first film). The setting – a long abandoned psychiatric institution in which the staff conducted all sorts of vile experiments on their patients – is exactly the kind of place the Jigsaw Killer (played appropriately by the films’ Tobin Bell) might choose to test his captives. And references to the movies are abundant: newspaper clippings scattered about the hospital tell the backstory about the Jigsaw case, doctor’s notes hint at John Kramer’s psychological evolution into the Jigsaw Killer and various rooms showcase the aftermath of some of Kramer’s tests.

As former detective David Tapp, portrayed in the original film by veteran actor Danny Glover but voiced here by Earl Alexander (who played Louis in Left4Dead), you have to make your way through the dilapidated hospital avoiding instant death traps (doors and tripwires rigged with shotguns that pulverize your head), broken glass strewn on the floor (an ultimately annoying obstacle to deal with that doesn’t really advance or complement the gameplay in any way) and violent thugs who have been trapped here by the Jigsaw Killer and tasked with removing a key stitched into your body.

Following instructions left to you on mini cassette recorders and through the intercom (often accompanied by video footage played on strategically positioned television sets), you must solve a slew of “light” puzzles in order to gather the things you need in order to get to the victims you are meant to save, all of whom have some sort of past relationship with Tapp. For example, one victim is the wife of the late detective Steven Sing, Tapp’s former partner who was killed by a trap when the two of them broke into Jigsaw’s old hideout.

The traps holding each of these victims, and the puzzles you have to solve to beat them, are by far the most interesting part of the game. Whether you’re playing Jigsaw’s demented version of Concentration where each wrong turn results in a steel rod spearing a victim’s body part or his alternative take on Pengo where passing over too many designated spots causes an elaborate iron maiden to swing shut, you’ll rest at ease with some sense of satisfaction after having rescued each inevitably irritable and ungrateful captive.

Unfortunately, you won’t feel quite as good going through all the repetitive gameplay of the vast areas in between each of the major tests. Aside from having to avoid the obstacles listed above, you’ll find yourself at the mercy of sluggish controls and a monotonous combat system reminiscent of the Silent Hill games. Combat is never enjoyable but is thankfully pretty easy for the most part as you only face one real boss character who can be very easily taken out with certain features of the environment – during the rest of the games, you’ll just be facing peons who can’t hack any real pain.

Worse than the combat, though, are the basic puzzles thrown at you when you do things like pick locked doors or open weapon cases. These challenges, if you can call them that, involve fairly mundane and repetitive tasks that get old very quickly; in fact, many of them cycle through a small handful of choices so you start seeing the same puzzles very early on (there’s even one puzzle that is exactly the same every single time you see it). Unfortunately, you have to go through them so often during the game that by the end you’ll be able to solve most of them in your sleep.

On the graphics front, anyone hoping for outstanding visuals should look elsewhere. While the game looks far from horrible, it is definitely a game that could have been done on a previous generation console. It’s surprising the development team didn’t put a whole lot of effort into taking advantage of the powerful Unreal Engine 3 – there’s a painfully conspicuous gap between the quality of graphics in this game and those in Batman: Arkham Asylum, BioShock and Mass Effect. If you’re going to pay for that kind of technology, you might as well leverage its capabilities, especially when it comes to how the characters look: there are only four or five different enemy models, and Tapp and the other central victims don’t look remarkable at all.

The team did seem to put a decent amount of effort into the presentation and overall art style of the game, however. The design of the hospital is formidably creepy although there isn’t a lot of variation in the environment – other than the major testing chambers, you’re basically either in a tiled bathroom, a decrepit hallway, a dirty storage room, a bloody examination room, or a ruined patient’s quarters. The doors all look the same. The floors all look the same.

Like I said earlier, this is a game made specifically for fans, and this is quite obvious during every second of the game. However, only the parts of the game that are closest in spirit to the content of the movies, the puzzles, really work as far as gameplay is concerned with everything in between – the flaky combat in particular – coming off like arbitrary filler created without much thought as to why it should even be in the package.

The story, however, is decent and expands upon what fans already know about several characters in the series so if you’ve seen all of the movies I could certainly recommend this as a rental or a buy if you can find a store selling it at discount.

Final score: 3 out of 5 for fans; 2 out of 5 for non-fans

Parent to parent

This is a game based on the Saw film franchise. If you’ve never seen any of those movies, perhaps you should watch one to see firsthand what the series is all about. If you’re not inclined to do that, I can save you the time by saying, “Don’t buy this game for children.” It shouldn’t be a problem for older teens, though.

Experience this for yourself!

• SAW (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• SAW (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

Halo 3: ODST is hands down the best Halo experience on the Xbox 360. After the massive disappointment that was Halo 3 - in case you haven’t read my take on that game, you can read it here – ODST feels like a breath of fresh air from the reeking stagnation of the Halo franchise, a chance for a development team that was creatively lobotomized by having to slog through a decade of focusing on the same character, the same gameplay style, the same scenario, and the same story under Microsoft’s stinging lash to actually do something new.

Gone is the neanderthal love child of the T-800 and Superman (with just about the emotional range of either) and the “run buck wild into enemy forces and shoot everything that moves” tactics afforded by his “unstoppable force” persona. Gone are the frequent flyer miles racked up from jumping from this planet to that ship to this giant ring to that Flood-infested station. For that matter, gone are the Flood themselves, those clichéd Borg-like (at least in purpose) creatures who long overstayed their welcome (psst – it wasn’t even scary anymore in the second game).

Instead, Halo 3: ODST focuses on one squad of very human soldiers who are dropped into the African city of New Mombasa during the events of Halo 2. The focal character of the game is a new soldier referred to only as “the Rookie” who is separated from the rest of his squad after a mishap during the drop. He awakens many hours later and must make his way through the Covenant-laden streets of the destroyed city, often severely outnumbered. In many instances, the smarter tactic is to try to sneak past patrols, which is a nice change of pace from the constant (and sometimes monotonous) barrage of gunfire experienced in other Halo games.

As the Rookie makes his way through the city following the homing beacons of his squad mates, he slowly begins to piece together what happened to the rest of his team, manifested in the game as levels in which you take control of the various ODST units (voiced by members of the Firefly cast as well as the actor who portrayed the modern day protagonist in Assassin’s Creed). This is a nice vehicle to deliver some notably different gameplay experiences – instead of getting away from the noir theme of the Rookie’s storyline by having him jump into a Scorpion tank, fly one of the Covenant’s Banshees or play sniper tag with enemy troopers, the developers allowed you to do all these things with the members of the team that specialize in those abilities through the sort-of flashbacks. And there’s a sense that you’re part of a team as opposed to a one man superhero show.

Another notable difference between ODST and the proper Halo games is the vastly superior design. While the game still uses the same antiquated engine as its predecessors, the designers had a much more colorful palette afforded them by the “city at night” setting in which most of the game takes place. Instead of strange, unbelievable alien landscapes with bright purples and oranges or drab, boring grey technologically advanced installations, the designers present the destroyed beauty (to steal a phrase from Epic Games) of New Mombasa – at least what’s left of it – at night. Neon lights, burning wreckages, street lamps, and the reflection of all that off the twisted but shiny metal buildings that used to contain bustling human life evokes a more viable immersion and a more personal hook for the player – this is your culture and your world that the Covenant have demolished, not some arbitrary metal ring floating in space. Add to that the incredible score which at times is as haunting and desolate as the scope of the destruction you witness, and you end up with an emotional experience that is far more real than anything Halo 3 delivered.

As a bonus, the game includes a disc dedicated to Halo 3′s multiplayer mode. All of the maps are there including a few new ones to entice online gamers. If you never plan on playing Halo 3′s campaign again and are just holding onto the game for the multiplayer modes, you can get rid of that old disc because everything you need to play online – plus a new mode called “Firefight” which I did not get into and so cannot talk about – is stored on this second disc.

If you’re like me and want to see what else is left for this franchise now that we’ve “finished the fight,” give Halo 3: ODST a try to find out what a more focused, more creative and more human Halo game looks like.

Final score: 4 out of 5

Parent to parent

I don’t think there’s any difference in the recommendation for appropriateness for children I would give to this game versus Halo 3. You don’t see quite as many humans biting the bullet in ODST but the violence aspect is still there. There’s one particular cutscene in which one of the characters you control gets a nice giant ax blade in his chest – probably not a great visual for Junior. Older teens should be able to handle this just fine, though.

Experience this for yourself!

• Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360) (Amazon)

Aren’t you supposed to learn from others’ mistakes? Microsoft seems to be putting a lot of eggs into that shaky basket with the big “Project Natal” sign taped to it.

In case you missed the overly dramatic reveal during Microsoft’s press conference at last year’s E3, Natal is the codename for an upcoming device to be released this holiday season exclusively for the Xbox 360. The device includes a 3D camera and depth sensor that interprets an infrared map of the space in front of it 30 times per second with the ability to simultaneously track and analyze the motion of up to four people (and 48 skeletal points on each of those people) down to movements of individual fingers. In addition, there is a multi-array microphone running proprietary software that allows it to determine the source of any sound and distinguish between “real” noise and ambient sound (and appropriate suppress the latter); this software even includes voice recognition capabilities that can be used in tandem with the facial recognition aspect of the camera’s software for some impressive results.

So with all of this cool technology rolled up into one little black bar of plastic, why do I have such little faith in Natal? The answer is simple: Natal is little more than a glorified Wii.

The primary feature of the technology is the advanced motion sensing functionality that essentially turns the entire gaming space into a controller. Think of it as a Wiimote on crack – instead of just sensing where the controller is like the Wii does, Natal actually sense where every part of the player’s body is and tracks how that body moves. That’s very impressive in concept but unfortunately less interesting in practical application.

Think of all the games you like to play and then try to come up with a way those experiences could be improved through the console’s knowledge of how your entire body is moving. There are a few games where this would be a benefit – Wii Fit would be able to let you know if you’re doing a particular yoga pose incorrectly and a game like Just Dance would be able to evaluate your entire body instead of just an estimation of what your arms are doing based on the motion of the Wiimote – but they’re pretty much all Wii games.

How would “core” games benefit from this technology? What motion sensing functionality could you add to a game like Modern Warfare 2 that would actually improve the gaming experience to a substantial degree? Some have suggested that you could hold a model gun like a real soldier but I can’t see how that would be a more fun gaming experience (think back to all the derision aimed at the commercials for the first Call of Duty Wii game that showed a teenager ducking for cover behind his sofa) and more importantly how developers would handle movement (running in place doesn’t strike me as a particular fun or immersive activity). Others have suggested that you could still play with a standard controller (which is in direct conflict with the marketing slogan that you wouldn’t need a controller to play Natal games) and just use hand signals to command your squad and hand motions to throw grenades – do either of these ideas improve the gaming experience, and would you really want to take your “button hand” off you controller in the heat of battle? Still others offer the idea of using the microphone to dictate commands to your AI teammates – isn’t that something you can technically already do with the Xbox Live headset, and more importantly have any past games that utilize voice command systems actually succeeded with them?

I can anticipate people thinking that it’s unfair I focus only on one genre of games so let me look to others. What about racing games? What bold, new functionality could developers add to a Forza Motorsport or Project Gotham Racing sequel that would make the racing experience more authentic or more realistic? One suggestion I heard was that gamers wouldn’t need to spend money on a specialized wheel controller and could just use something round as a stand-in. That’s a real winner of an idea when gamers are already complaining that the use of the Wiimote, with or without a wheel attachment, in Mario Kart Wii is too light and loose. Let’s not forget the absence of any rumble-based feedback, a problem cited by PlayStation 3 gamers who played Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

Action games? Again, it wouldn’t be practical to keep removing your hand from the controller in order to flail your arm in a hilarious attempt to instruct your onscreen avatar to attack your foes although I suppose that you could just hold the controller in one hand with your thumb on the analog stick and just swing a pretend sword around in your epic battle against monsters that aren’t there. Fighting games? I would love to see people film themselves playing a fighting game with Natal and post those videos up on YouTube: we’d have a whole new generation of Star Wars Kids! Ditto with platformers – can you imagine how hilarious footage of people hopping around their living room would be?

When you really start to look at things, it becomes obvious that Microsoft is trying to do just a bit too much with Natal. Whereas the Nintendo Wii was the gaming technology that nobody knew they actually wanted, Natal will be the gaming technology that nobody actually wants (or they would have already bought into the Wii).

Hardcore gamers have hammered the Wii again and again for being little more than a gimmick that many developers tried to jam into their game concept just so they could say “we have a Wii game” and try to cash in on the Wii craze. There are countless complaints from people who lament the dearth of “core” games on the Wii while countless shovelware titles crowd retail shelves. Does anyone really expect things to be any different with Natal? It’s pretty clear that there’s no viable application of the functionality to the most popular game genres so most Xbox 360 releases will ignore the technology altogether (and those that don’t will surely include a way to play the game using “normal” controls which means the Natal features will just be tacked on gimmicks). The only Natal titles that will come out are the ones that were made specifically to take advantage of the device’s features (in other words, niche games that are only going to sell to the relatively small percentage of gamers who actually go out and buy in).

Of course, there will be a handful of diamonds in the rough like possibly the Milo concept shown in the “impressive” demo I referenced above, but they’ll be radically different gaming experiences that won’t help foster wide mainstream support of the technology like the marquee Wii titles (Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, etc.) did for the Wii.

It seems that Microsoft is simply making the same mistake many companies did in thinking that they could copy Nintendo’s efforts and make tons of money doing it. They’re banking on a scenario in which Natal is a runaway success that will make gamers forget that we’re already over four years into this console generation, a point in time at which the manufacturer traditionally started to drop hints at what the next generation of hardware will be like, or at least make them happy enough to ignore that tradition and give Microsoft some breathing room.

Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, said at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show that “we don’t think we’re halfway through this generation.” Think about when you first turned on your Xbox 360 and tried out Call of Duty 2 (yes, 2). How long has it been since you’ve played Perfect Dark Zero or Kameo? Could you wait that long for the next Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo console? Would something as niche and gimmicky as Natal really tide you over for the next four to six years?

The core gamer in me finds that possibility almost terrifying.

Just about two weeks ago, IGN editor Ryan Geddes wrote a piece for the site’s PlayStation 3 channel titled “Editorial: Why I Bought a PS3 – How Sony (and Microsoft) finally pushed an Xbox gamer back into the PlayStation fold.” The title of the article should have been “Editorial: Why My Inner Sony Fanboy Finally Resurfaced.”

Mr. Geddes starts out by cleverly painting himself as some sort of diehard Xbox 360 gamer so that his “conversion” to the PlayStation 3 has much more impact, as if his buying a PlayStation 3 for himself – a gaming journalist who no doubt has near unlimited access to more than one of them at his workplace – was testament to some sort of dramatic victory for Sony: If even a hardcore Xbox 360 gamer like me jumps ship, the PlayStation 3 must really be the superior console!

Of course, he drops subtle hints at his past life as a PlayStation 2 owner but spends far more time explicitly bashing the Xbox 360 than actually delivering solid arguments as to why the PlayStation 3 is a good system. The best he can do is offer the vague opinion that “it’s cool and Japanese” – with no elaboration on why the console is cool and what being of Japanese design has to do with that – and recycle the tired hardware diatribe while ignoring how much better Microsoft was – and still is – than Sony at dealing with those problems: Microsoft replaced my launch Xbox 360, which lasted just shy of three years of generally heavy gaming usage, for free whereas Sony asked for (but didn’t receive) $150 to repair my 40GB PlayStation 3, whose touted Blu-ray drive died after about sixteen months of infrequent gaming (with the rest of the console following suit a week later).

“It recalls a time when Japan was the center of the hardcore gaming universe, before it ceded that mantle to the West.” Is that like at all like how the Xbox 360 and its predecessor recalled a time when the West was the center of the gaming universe with systems like the Atari 2600, the Intellivision and the ColecoVision before the video game market crash and the emergence of the Nintendo Entertainment System as the new go-to home entertainment device for video games?

Sony’s PlayStation and PlayStation 2 systems ruled their respective generations because the games, and not the systems themselves, were cooler than what was available for the competition, and games are inherently platform-neutral pieces of intellectual property: technically there wasn’t any reason why Super Mario Bros. couldn’t appear on the Sega Master System, Final Fantasy VII couldn’t appear on the Saturn, God of War couldn’t appear on the Xbox, and Halo 3 couldn’t appear on the PlayStation 3. Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 is going to be no “less Final Fantasy” than Final Fantasy XIII on the PlayStation 3 unless you’re one of the few who think that watching hours upon hours of drawn out, self-congratulatory and pretentious pre-rendered cutscenes is an admirable trait of the series.

The Xbox 360 succeeded – and continues to succeed – this generation for the same reason. Microsoft recognized the potential appeal of previously PC-only genres like FPS and “western” (i.e. computer) RPG to console gamers and built the right system for developers to most easily bring games of such genres to the modern console gaming market. If you build it, they will come: Microsoft built it, and gamers came by the millions.

Engrossed in his fanboy-fueled “epiphany,” Mr. Geddes seems to instead think that Microsoft forced the Xbox 360 on gamers by “hijack(ing) the game industry… (and) beat(ing) Sony at its own game” – Microsoft did in 2005 what Sony did a decade earlier so why all the bitterness? What he doesn’t realize is that gamers didn’t buy the Xbox 360 because they had to but because they wanted to. The excitement and fervor surrounding the Xbox 360 was far greater than any shown for the PlayStation 3 a year later for a variety of reasons, including a significant shift in the types of games the majority of the market wanted and a conspicuous ambivalence by most gamers towards the overhyped new technologies Sony wanted them to pay an extra $200 for.

With last year’s PlayStation 3 price cuts, the playing field is more level now yet the consumers still want the Xbox 360 because that’s where the best overall gaming experience is. “Cool” isn’t defined by a glossy black exterior (and all the lovely fingerprints that go with it), high-definition movies (which most people don’t actually care much about) or a Cell processor that nobody cares to work with (unless they’re owned by Sony).

At the same time, “cool” isn’t eroded by a likely niche new technology (anyone who thinks Project Natal has a seriously deluded perception of market reality) or a middle-aged Xbox Live spokesperson whose “insecure awkwardness” only graces the eyes of the few who actually watch Major’s Minute instead of playing Modern Warfare 2.

I wonder if Mr. Geddes sees the irony in attacking the legitimacy of Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb as a viable console cheerleader when it’s because of the demands of gamers the same age as he was when the PlayStation brand first arrived that gave Sony an opportunity in the first place. As far as solid console spokespersons are concerned, I’m interested in hearing who Mr. Geddes thinks is even fit for that role on the PlayStation 3 side. Last I checked, Sony wasn’t even concerned enough about their community to have someone other than aged corporate executives like Jack Tretton, Ken Kutaragi and Kazuo Hirai toot their system’s horn.

And Jessica Chobot, host of IGN Strategize which is front and center on Xbox Live, isn’t too shabby a mouthpiece – just ask the PSP. Sure, she’s not actually an official Xbox 360 or Xbox Live spokesperson, but the average gamer, who doesn’t browse gaming websites or read gaming magazines wouldn’t know that – they just see her plastered on one frame of Xbox Live almost every day. Perception is everything as Sony found out when suddenly the Xbox 360 was the talk of the industry.

Well, everyone except closeted PlayStation 3 fanboys with press passes.

Assassin’s Creed is almost a great game.

Ubisoft started with some innovative concepts such as the fluid motions of Parkour and the idea that the player would be able to reach almost any point they could see and combined them with an interesting story and some “almost there” gameplay mechanics to create a refreshing game that unfortunately is marred by issues like repetitive missions and sometimes frustrating combat. In this sense, Assassin’s Creed is somewhat of a disappointment because there is so much potential for a rock solid new franchise.

Assassin’s Creed was billed as an action adventure game set in the Middle East towards the end of the Third Crusade. The player takes on the role of a member of the Order of the Hashshashin, a specific branch of the Islamic faith from which the term “assassin” is believed to have been derived, named Altair who was recently disgraced and is working towards regaining his honor. However, it is quickly revealed that this is all just part of a virtual reality simulation using technology that is supposed to be able to read the “genetic memory” of the player character’s ancestors from his DNA sequence. The player character is actually a bartender who was kidnapped by a pharmaceutical company in order to learn information known only to his ancestors.

While the concept behind the technology is cool and its inclusion in the game allows for some novel ways to represent certain elements of the game’s design such as the revival of the player’s character after death and the direction of important cutscenes, this inclusion also feels somewhat tacked on, even intrusive to the gaming experience. It’s more than a little jarring to go from the medieval Middle East to a simple metallic room in today’s world with with computers, sliding doors and showers.

The “story within the story” of the Muslim assassins targeting certain ruling figures within the three key cities of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem could have stood alone as an intriguing mystery – as you assassinate each target you learn a little bit more about what connects the people you’re sent to kill and their plans for the future – and a parable about the dangers of blind faith. You should never take for granted that your leaders automatically have society’s best interests at heart and the story writers deliberately made it vague whether it was your character or your enemies who were on the wrong side of the battle.

Nevertheless, even as Altair questions his orders, he continues to follow them, taking out target after target on the road to discovering just what he’s really fighting for. Unfortunately, the game gets rather repetitive when it comes to accomplishing the tasks that earn you the right to go after the target. After entering each city, you first have to find the local bureau leader who will inform you of the parts of the city where valuable information about your target can be acquired. This information is always retrieved in the same manner – you partake in at least three of six available missions in which you might coerce a lackey to reveal your target’s crimes or find clues through pickpocketing or eavesdropping. Occassionally, you’ll be solicited by fellow members of the Hashshashin to assassinate guards or collect flags within a certain time period in exchange for bonus clues that could help in your primary mission.

Once you have enough information to satisfy the bureau leader, you are given leave to take out your target, off to yet another chase through the streets or across the rooftops of the city until your victim-to-be decides to stand and face you (usually once about a dozen guards have caught up). Although you can technically try a more stealthy approach to assassinating your target, there really is no point since the stealth aspects of the game are quite mundane (basically hold the “A” button while walking around to pretend your a monk or scholar) and it’s way too easy to fail, turning the mission into nothing more than a glorified sword fight, which would be okay if the combat system weren’t so tedious.

When fighting opponents, you really only have one of two options: keep hacking away until they stop blocking with their weapons or wait for them to attack so you can counter. The latter is generally the more fun approach as there are some pretty cool cinematics played anytime you counter an attack into a deathblow but unfortunately you more often than not just knock them back with a punch in the face that doesn’t even damage them. Going on the offensive is usually more risky as it exposes your back to the other half dozen enemies involved in the fight, but at least you feel like you’re taking action instead of just waiting for something to happen.

As good as the enemies are at blocking and countering your attacks, maneuvering into better positions and actually attacking you more than one at a time, the guards tend to be quite dumb the rest of the time. You can pickpocket citizens right in front of them, leap around like a member of Cirque du Soleil without drawing much attention from anyone except the passers by and sometimes even trespass right in front of them without much danger. At times, they’ll recognize when you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, in which case you can just toss a knife at them or leap forward to plunge your retractable blade into their necks, but at other times you can be running on top of the parapet they’re guarding and they won’t even notice. And if you happen to catch their attention, you can usually just drop below a ledge or walk behind a column to appease them – out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.

Where Assassin’s Creed does shine is in the world Ubisoft created and the tools they give you to explore every inch of it. The developers poured hundreds of hours into researching the three ancient cities in which the game takes place and the results certainly show the value of such dedication and attention to detail. All of the buildings, from the lowly abodes in the poor shanty town neighborhoods to the magnificent palaces, immense fortresses and towering churches that define each city’s skyline, are full of personality and beautifully rendered with every door, window and displaced brick a possible hand hold for Altair to latch onto. The cities also feel very much alive with plenty of citizens roaming the streets, hawking their wares in busy market stalls, begging for money, and even wondering aloud what mental disease afflicts the white robed man trying to climb the side of a house.

The hard work of the design staff really hits home when you scale some of the taller structures, such as the Citadel of the Holy Cross in Acre, and are treated to breathtaking panoramic sweeps of the city below you. The massive scale of each city is incredible, and it’s amazing how you can travel from one end to another without any noticeable load times. The creation of these cities is one of the most impressive accomplishments of this generation of video games.

It’s just too bad that such a feat is wasted on what boils down to a rather rudimentary action game. While playing Assassin’s Creed, I often wondered why Ubisoft didn’t develop a “next generation” Prince of Persia game around this concept, which is much more aligned with the exploratory nature of those games than with the generally more realistic scenario used in this game. Ubisoft should have instead taken cues from the Hitman and Thief series whose dynamic stealth gameplay is much more appropriate for an assassination game.

All in all, Assassin’s Creed is a good game with an interesting premise and stunning graphics that put most of its peers to shame. Unfortunately, numerous problems with gameplay mechanics and some poor game design decisions keep the game from reaching its potential. Thankfully, reports are that the development team took all of the criticism to heart and created a sequel that may do what its predecessor couldn’t and become one of the best gaming experiences of the generation.

Final score: 3 out of 5

Parent to parent

The game is called Assassin’s Creed. That should raise a red flag before you even turn the box over. The whole point of the game is to stalk and assassinate people either with the swords you wear on your belt or the hidden blade that pops out where your left ring finger used to be. I’d say that’s cause enough to keep little Timmy moving on down the Xbox 360 aisle to other games.

Experience this for yourself!

• Assassin’s Creed Platinum Hits (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Assassin’s Creed Greatest Hits (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)

The IGN family of gaming websites is my general “go to” source for game reviews and game-related news, information and editorials. I’ve been an avid fan since the early 2000′s and visit their various websites on an almost daily basis.

Lately, IGN has been giving me a different reason to love them, though. Earlier this week, Rus McLaughlin told us readers why he doesn’t think Halo 3: ODST is Game of the Year material, citing issues he apparently doesn’t believe apply to the equally unimpressive but far less hyped Halo 3, which prompted me to point out how Halo 3 fails in the same ways. I’m thankful for this as there are only so many reviews one can write in a week.

A couple of days ago, Ryan Geddes opined that Epic Games needs to rip certain pages from Bungie’s Halo playbook in order for their blockbuster Gears of War franchise to thrive in the future. In addition to the rather unbelievable supposition that there’s any chance that future Gears of War games won’t be even more successful than the first two, Mr. Geddes both suggests things that are simply smart game development choices attributable to any number of studios and games and criticizes what he sees as faults with Gears of War that are every bit as applicable to Halo.

One of the most critical issues with both Gears of War and its sequel is the rather lackluster multiplayer experience that is at best a tepid, toned down version of classic PC multiplayer deathmatches with the exception of the second game’s compelling Horde mode (in which up to five players must work together to face increasingly difficult waves of Locust forces with the goal of surviving as long as possible).

One compelling multiplayer mode is not good enough, though. Multiplayer is a very important aspect of games, especially shooters, these days, and gamers need more than just standard deathmatches if a game is to have any longevity. However, improving the flaws in the multiplayer experience is not emulating Halo 3 - there are plenty of action games with great multiplayer components such as the Call of Duty and Left4Dead series – but just following common sense.

In fact, I hope that Epic doesn’t try to make Gears of War’s multiplayer mode a mirror image of Halo 3′s (and, yes, I recognize that Mr. Geddes also stated they shouldn’t) because with Halo 3, the Halo franchise’s multiplayer experience has degenerated into a bunch of ten-year-old kids running out of the gate for the most powerful weapon and then jumping up and down all over the map while spewing vulgarities that would make Eminem cringe. And, yes, I’m hyperbolizing.

It really just seems as if Epic Games has lost some of its identity with its transition to the console world. They really redefined the PC multiplayer gaming experience with their Unreal Tournament series of competitive multiplayer games whose single player campaigns were just the multiplayer mode with bots yet chose to focus on the single-player experience with Gears of War.

They, along with other PC-centric developers like Valve Corporation, also made extraordinary efforts to work with the fan communities for their games with design director Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski often interacting with gamers on the company’s online forums and the company including hardcore fans in public beta tests of upcoming games and modes. Mr. Geddes seems to have forgotten this (or maybe never knew it in the first place) in speaking about Bungie’s multiplayer beta of Halo 3 as if they were the only company that did this.

On the other hand, I don’t think “community building” is really all that central to the success of mainstream blockbuster games these days. The hardcore fans might spend their time posting comments in Bungie, Epic and Valve’s forums, but the more mainstream gamers don’t visit gaming websites or post on message boards.

I assure you those mainstream gamers didn’t contribute to Halo 3′s eight million+ in sales because of what Bungie was doing at some gaming convention or because of cryptic websites, both of which really only matter to the devoted hardcore Halo loyalists. Everyone else? They were just brainwashed by the insane marketing machine Microsoft pushed out there, with images of the Master Chief everywhere from movie screens to bus stops to soda cans.

If Epic can really take anything away from this, it’s that you need to spend over $40 million if you want to sell eight million units of your game. I imagine, though, that they were happy with selling five million based on the strength of the previous game alone.

Mr. Geddes goes on to talk about how deep and expansive the Halo universe, how much more complex and provoking Bungie’s games are, when in reality the Halo and Gears of War worlds really aren’t that different when compared at face value. He states that Bungie is obsessed with expanding the universe “because they love it,” a sentiment that is contradicted by the rather lazy job they did with Halo 3. The rehashed story, recycled set pieces and stagnant gameplay tells the story of a development house that was sick of doing the same thing for a decade and rushed the game out so they could finally announce their split from Microsoft a week or two later. Hardly the behavior of a loving parent, is it?

Especially hilarious, though, are the criticisms Mr. Geddes levels towards Gears of War’s world without realizing that they apply as much, or even more so, to the Halo games. For example, he states that Halo is “about people struggling to survive against overwhelming odds” when a rather prosperous human race living on safe and sound Earth have a genetically engineered super soldier in tank armor who can skydive from one starship to another in orbit around a freakin’ planet to lay waste to the Covenant for them. That’s not to mention the entire army of soldiers with a fleet of spaceships and a seemingly endless amount of combat vehicles backing him up. But I guess the fear that the isolated pockets of emaciated stragglers exhibit anytime a pothole opens up in the ground or the lights go out at night on the planet that they had to bomb with nuclear warheads just to have a chance is all just an act.

He asks why Sera, that devastated planet on which Gears of War takes place, is worth saving. Why is Earth worth saving? It seems pretty obvious that Sera is the equivalent of Earth in the Gears universe considering the game notes at several points that the events unfolding before them are humanity’s last stand. Do we really need to know which specific people built the “towering buildings of lattice and spire,” which I might add look a helluva lot better than anything in Halo 3? Much like the barren wastelands of Fallout 3, the “destroyed beauty” of what remains of those magnificent structures tells a much more powerful story than some recited history lesson soliloquy from a floating metal sphere or blue holographic supermodel.

And while he’s right that we don’t know much about the Locust even after two games, how much did we really know about the Convenant and the Flood at the end of Halo 2? We don’t know where the Covenant or Flood came from whereas we know that the Locust call the subterranean bowels of Sera their home. We don’t really learn much more about the Covenant society than we do about the Locust society: both are actually collections of various species with the same “religious beliefs” – the Covenant believe in the “oracles” (the artificial intelligence maintaining the halo installations) and the Locust worship the riftworms.

We have no idea why the Covenant hate humanity so much whereas we learn through the course of the two Gears games that humanity’s ever-growing need for energy sources led them to dig into the Locusts’ territory, an intrusion the Locust chose to take as an act of war. The ensuing conflict even served a dual purpose for the Locust, who were in the midst of a civil war with Locusts who had been powerfully mutated by overexposure to the same energy source humans tried to harvest.

And the Flood? They don’t even have any real motivation we can gather aside from the – say it with me – cliché desire to assimilate all living creatures in the galaxy. They’re really nothing more than a virus – how many times have we witnessed that metaphor in science fiction works?

Ultimately, though, the real difference between the Gears of War and Halo franchises is the humanity of the former. Despite everything Mr. Geddes claims, Gears is a far more personal, far more emotional experience from the heart-racing, visceral, in-your-face nature of the combat with its focus on teamwork and strategy to the more believable and accessible purpose all the way to the actual characters themselves.

He describes Marcus and Dom as meat puppets which I suppose would make Master Chief a meat puppet in a can since he has virtually no personality and is one of the most underdeveloped characters in gaming history. Master Chief displays nary an emotion through the course of three games – the fate of the galaxy rests in his hands and friends and comrades fall left and right, yet you’d never know it with his calm demeanor and monotone murmurs. He fears no one and nothing, is never relieved at having just made it through a treacherous fight, has no sense of humor, and is never elated or even just happy for his victories.

Marcus Fenix, on the other hand, actually has a personality (even if it’s tough to make out through his gravelly voice). He’s sarcastic; he gets pumped up; he mourns the dead; he fears for his friend Dominic’s stability. Dominic himself is probably the most “real” character in either franchise: he pines for his missing wife, is quick with a witty comment or wry jab at a comrade and understands far more than most people about the cruelty of the world and the necessity for military strength.

And let’s not forget about one of the most colorful characters in video games in a while: Augustus “Cole Train” Cole, who makes even the most grueling combat situations enjoyable with his enthusiastic banter and overconfident trash talk towards the enemy. He loves the thrill and the adrenaline, which is probably the reason why he was a star defensive lineman for the national “thrashball” league before all hell broke loose on Sera, a celebrity status that is reflected in non-player character reaction to and interaction with him (even your squad mates gush when first meeting him in the first game).

All these little details and nuances help make Gears of War feel so much more alive than the rather disconnected and neutered experience of Halo 3. This isn’t to say, however, that Gears of War did everything perfectly. The reason anyone can even claim that the franchise needs some degree of “saving” is because the single-player campaign mode of the second game simply fell flat, ironically because they listened too much to the fans.

To appease gamers who didn’t like the single-minded focus on generally close quarters squad-based tactical ground combat, the team diluted Gears of War 2 with new scenarios that felt tacked on – freeform vehicular sections where the player pilots an armored vehicle with clunky controls through icy caverns and fights giant spiders, tedious battles on top of giant armored transports, a Panzer Dragoon-inspired aerial on-rails level, and an excruciatingly boring and contrived end game where the player rides on the back of a plodding Brumak (a several-stories-tall monstrosity covered in armor and armed with missile launchers and guns).

I agree with Mr. Geddes when he says that Epic needs to bring the Gears of War franchise “back to basics.” It was a mistake to try to “go big” and expand the scale to be a little more like Halo 3. Gears shouldn’t be about Michael Bay-esque set pieces but about dark and gritty combat where the already wasted landscape is left a lot bloodier. It should be about saving the species and the planet, a more realistic, attainable goal that people can better wrap their heads around, rather than trying to stop some intergalactic force from destroying the galaxy with just an assault rifle and a couple of energy grenades – Gears works best as Saving Private Ryan, not the latest James Bond flick, and is a better game for it.

In fact, the Halo series could do well to emulate some aspects of Gears, and actually has already started to do so. Even after the disappointment of Halo 3, I was excited about Halo 3: ODST and later Halo: Reach. The scale of both games is cut back quite a bit.

In ODST, you’re just another soldier in the military rather than John McClane on steroids. You can’t go all gung ho on the Convenant and expect to last long – some degree of rudimentary stealth is inherent in the game.

In Reach, you even know right off the bat, if you paid any attention at all during the three proper Halo games, that you’re not going to save anything: Reach falls no matter what you do. There’s a more prevalent sense of danger in that even though you’re still playing a Spartan like Master Chief, the forces must be threatening indeed as they were able to wipe out an entire platoon of Master Chiefs. No more laughing in the face of danger, hopefully.

However, the thing that needs to change the most is the technology. Halo 3′s game engine, which is a moderately enhanced version of the Halo 2 game engine, itself a moderately enhanced version of the Halo game engine created way back at the turn of the millennium, is showing its age with subpar modeling lacking in intricate detail. Put side-by-side with Gears of War or Sony’s Uncharted, Halo 3 looks like a decidedly last generation effort.

I had hoped when Bungie announced their split from Microsoft that this would open up the possibility of another developer such as Epic to step in and create a truly innovative new game engine that could help usher the franchise into the top echelon of current-generation video games.

It remains to be seen whether Microsoft and Bungie will do the right thing and take a page out of everyone else’s playbook this time.

Experience this for yourself!

• Halo 3 (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Gears of War Platinum Hits Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Gears of War 2 Game of the Year Edition (Xbox 360) (Amazon)

Rus McLaughlin over at IGN’s Xbox 360 site posted a very interesting editorial yesterday that criticized many publications for putting last year’s Halo 3: ODST near the top of their lists of best games of 2009. I agree with Mr. McLaughlin’s sentiments for the most part but point out that most everything he complained about with regards to ODST could be just as easily applied to Halo 3, a game that I have to assume he believes exhibits none of the mentioned “flaws.”

He starts off by saying that “ODST sounded entirely like a retread. A side-story. Unimportant.” I know he was referring to the impression he got from the description of the game before he actually played it, but what he said was actually how I felt as I was playing Halo 3, which was supposed to be “THE EPIC CONCLUSION TO THE EPIC SAGA” but seemed more like a rehash of what I played in the first two Halo games.

Another halo (or in this case a bunch of halos). Another wicked plot by the Covenant to initiate mass destruction. Another mission to stop them. Another encounter with the Flood. Been there, done that.

“Hell, I didn’t even play it until a month post-release, and then mainly because I felt obligated by my games-related vocation.”

That’s kind of eerie because I didn’t play Halo 3 until about a month post-release, got turned off by the disappointing graphics, and then didn’t come back until a month or so later because I felt obligated as a gamer to “finish the fight.” I was entirely convinced, just from the first level of the game, that instead of being the whiz-bang introduction of the revered franchise on the next-generation hardware, Halo 3 was simply a modest retread of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. I unfortunately cannot say that I was pleasantly surprised when playing through the rest of the game like Mr. McLaughlin was in completing ODST.

Halo 3 was by no means anything remotely close to a Game of the Year candidate. As I witnessed reviewer after reviewer buy into the incredible level of hype surrounding Bungie’s meager offering and write that it was a sure-fire Game of the Year candidate if not a shoe-in winner, I was shocked at how easily people put it “on a year-end pedestal it didn’t earn.”

Mr. McLaughlin correctly observes that “the best of the best elevate and innovate. A game that does neither has no place on a best-of list of any kind.” While I can’t say that Halo 3 neither elevated nor innovated, the mostly inconspicuous improvements to the graphics and physics and the new Forge feature, a sideline innovation that really didn’t have much relevance to the core gameplay, were not enough to make the game feel as if it were a truly next generation entry in the series. Halo is Xbox’s flagship franchise and shouldn’t feel as if it could have been accomplished on the original Xbox.

No, Halo 3 more represented “stagnant progress” by failing to surpass almost all expectations gamers deservedly imposed upon Bungie and their product. The studio proved with Halo 2 that they could take an already great game and make it even better by expanding the context of the story, advancing the intriguing plot and improving on both offline and online gameplay. In contrast, Halo 3′s story was a regurgitation of the events from the previous two games, its core gameplay was virtually unchanged from Halo 2 and the graphical improvements were about on par with differences between Halo and Halo 2.

Halo 3 should have been a mind blowing experience – it needed “more than a few cosmetic changes, more than a few new guns to play with and vehicles to drive,” but Bungie failed to deliver. The game certainly left an impression, but it wasn’t one that Bungie intended.

Now, I fully expect Halo and Xbox fanboys to gather up arms against my statements, citing how many reviewers loved it (the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences adored No Country for Old Men enough to award it the Best Picture Oscar even though the movie is excruciatingly boring and little more than a cinematographer’s wet dream) and how popular it was (Independence Day grossed $817 million worldwide but is far from a shining example of filmmaking). Better yet, many will probably rattle off about how this is “just your opinion” as if all the good reviews and praise of the game isn’t someone else’s.

I welcome all of this because I wouldn’t dare begrudge someone else their opinion of a game although ultimately all that really matters to me is that Bungie failed to deliver to expectations.

Interestingly enough, I still had high hopes for ODST and for this year’s Halo: Reach. While Mr. McLaughlin was busy lamenting what he thought ODST would be (and ultimately was in his eyes), I was actually excited about a Halo game that didn’t toss me right back into Master Chief’s well worn battle armor so I could rip through Covenant forces like Superman on Kryptonian steroids as I tried to save the galaxy for the third time. Unfortunately, twenty minutes of gameplay reminded me what didn’t impress me in October 2007, although it still was more interesting than the Chief’s last hurrah. Even now, I hold out some hope that the more promising scenario promised in Reach will make the Halo world appealing to me again even while recognizing that I can no longer count on Bungie to deliver on their promises.

Experience this for yourself!

• Halo 3 (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360) (Amazon)

About a week ago, a fellow poster to the alt.games.video.xbox Usenet group referenced an Engadget article about gadgets they considered to have defined the decade in which the Engadget staff chose Microsoft’s Xbox 360 for the gaming world. Despite being an avid fan of the Xbox 360, I had to laugh at Engadget’s choice considering the two systems they listed as “runners up” had much more impact on the gaming world than my current favorite console.

First of all, the Xbox 360 was only around for half of the decade and didn’t really pick up steam until about a year or so after launch due to the widespread “red ring of death” hardware failures that I suppose do make a case for the Xbox 360 defining the decade in some way. Engadget editor Paul Miller states that “You don’t remember a console for the chips inside or the case design, but the games you played.” I counter that what gamers most remembered about the Xbox 360 from 2005-2007 were four letters: RROD.

Miller goes on to list Gears of War and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as the two games that made the Xbox 360 so very special to him mainly due to the Xbox Live online gaming experiences he had with them. I agree with him that those are two of the top games people can play on the system. I just have a slight issue with him ignoring that Call of Duty is, and has always been, available on the PlayStation 3 with online play made possible by Sony’s PlayStation Network, which is free in contrast to Microsoft’s $50 per year charge for Xbox Live play.

Now, before PlayStation fanboys get all tingly, I’ll point out that I’m not bashing Xbox Live or being critical of the charge – I in fact believe that you get what you pay for with these two services and that Xbox Live is a much more robust network that offers a better experience with that monthly or annual fee gamers pay to use it – but highlighting the folly of basing a claim that the Xbox 360 is the defining gaming system of the decade on its online gaming service (as indicate by “We went with the Xbox 360 for its innovation in online play”).

In choosing the gaming device of the decade, you have to look at a much bigger picture. The PlayStation 2 debuted in 2000, the beginning of the decade, and is still on sale today. Sure, its sales are straggling now and it may very well be on its last legs this year, but it’s been strong for the better part of the decade. In fact, it took the Xbox 360 a year and ten months to outsell the PlayStation 2 at the global level and even longer to really solidify a sales advantage over the then 7-year-old previous generation console.

The PlayStation 2 managed to survive this long on the strength of its games, the most important aspect of any video gaming platform. Like Mr. Miller said, you remember a console for the games you played – the PlayStation 2 has 1,800 of them. Many top franchises got their start on the system. Many of the best entries in beloved franchises called the PlayStation 2 their home. While Sony’s arrogance regarding this generation has cost them exclusivity on third-party video game series like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry, those franchises were available only to console gamers who owned PlayStation 2′s from 2000 to 2009.

And the Xbox 360′s current success is really all due to Sony’s past efforts. Had it not been for Sony’s foresight with the PlayStation 2 – and the PlayStation before it – we’d all still be playing Mario and Kirby games (not that I have any problem with this – I love Nintendo’s games – but I know a lot of “hardcore” gamers who would give up gaming if their only choices were between one cute and cuddly mascot or another). Sony is responsible for making video games cool again, and the bulk of that transformation took place shortly after the launch of the PlayStation 2 with the release of games like Grand Theft Auto III, Final Fantasy X and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs.

Now, I can kind of understand where people might have an easy time forgetting about a previous generation system that debuted almost a decade ago – I myself sometimes feel as if this generation of consoles has been around forever and pine for what amazement the next series of hardware and games will offer. However, that’s still no excuse for choosing the Xbox 360 as the defining gaming device of the decade when one of its contemporaries, the Nintendo Wii, has had a far greater impact on our favorite past time and the industry behind it.

The Wii landed on retail shelves about a year after the Xbox 360 did, but unlike Microsoft’s big white box Nintendo’s little one made an immediate splash, outselling its competitors on a weekly basis right out of the gate and surpassing the Xbox 360′s total sales in less than nine months (at which point the Xbox 360 had been on the market for 21). Even though the Wii’s software library was severely lacking in the traditional “core” games that long-time gamers favored, the console thrived on the strength of its innovative style of user interaction which was much more appealing to casual and non-gamers who had no interest in learning what the eight buttons, two sticks and one directional pad on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3′s controllers did.

The Wii has been a complete game changer for the video game industry. Thanks to Nintendo, the console gamer market expanded by several degrees, a result of their decision to stop engaging in the traditional “red ocean” strategy of beating competitors for existing market space and instead employ a “blue ocean” strategy of using innovation in key areas to create new market space. Millions of people who would never have thought to buy a video game console, whose gaming experience was limited to marathon sessions of Minesweeper, Bejeweled or Diner Dash on their PCs or who abandoned video games after the Nintendo Entertainment System simply because games got too complex to be a recreational vehicle quickly became part of that new market space, and Nintendo hasn’t looked back.

And while we’re talking about the Big N, let’s not forget the current king of the portable gaming space, the Nintendo DS, which also happens to be the king of all video gaming with more systems sold than any other handheld or console this generation. The DS debuted in November 2004, and in the half-decade since then it has become something of a portable gaming phenomenon, consistently outselling all other gaming systems worldwide on a monthly basis. Nintendo is basically printing their own money with this platform, which is so popular that millions of people have actually paid for what amounts to a marginally improved version of the hardware, the Nintendo DSi.

Nintendo’s foray into the blue ocean style of thinking truly started with the DS, which offered features that were innovations in the video gaming space, namely the touch screen interface, the second screen and the wireless connectivity for quick and easy multiplayer gaming, and games that took advantage of the functionality.

Nintendo even expanded the breadth of their library beyond traditional games with titles like Brain Age in which the player engages in brief activities designed to stimulate the mind, Nintendogs in which the player interacts with a virtual pet using the touch screen and microphone, and the Personal Trainer series of titles in which the player trains in various activities like cooking, mathematics and walking (this title comes with pedometers that are wirelessly connected to the DS system).

With the incredible impact the PlayStation 2, Wii and DS have had on the gaming space in the past 10 years, each essentially redefining what gaming was – and is – it’s a little shocking that people who are for all intents and purposes objective journalists could possibly cite the Xbox 360 has having been more important to this decade of video gaming. Of course, I realize that ultimately this is just a matter of opinion, but I believe that when you make such a bold statement you need to back it up with more than Xbox Live and, literally, a couple of games.

Experience this for yourself!

• Nintendo Wii Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Console (Amazon)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 Limited Edition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Bundle (Amazon)
• Sony PlayStation 2 Console (Amazon)
• Nintendo DS Lite System (Amazon)
• Nintendo DSi System (Amazon)
• Nintendogs Dalmatian & Friends (DS) (Amazon)
• Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (DS) (Amazon)
• Personal Trainer: Cooking (DS) (Amazon)
• Personal Trainer: Math (DS) (Amazon)
• Personal Trainer: Walking (DS) (Amazon)
• Gears of War (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) (Amazon)