Never Too Old To Play™

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.

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)

What do you get when you combine cutting edge graphics technology, well-designed platform gameplay, production values so high they blur the lines between video game and cinema, and a story line that rivals the most recent big screen adventure of a certain fedora-wearing, whip-wielding archaeologist?

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is easily one of the best games available on the PlayStation 3, rivaled only by its recently released sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. For that matter, it’s one of the best games for any platform – console, handheld and PC – of the past several years. The PlayStation 3 might as well not have existed prior to Uncharted’s November 2007 launch date as the game was the first really solid title for the system, the one that truly declared the arrival of Sony’s console.

In Uncharted, you take on the role of one Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter archaeologist type who is searching for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold, with a diary written by his ancestor Sir Francis Drake, famed sea captain, privateer and pirate. With the help of journalist Elena Fisher, along for the ride to gather notes and film footage for a documentary, and your old friend Victor “Sully” Sullivan, you explore thick jungle, enemy base camps, hidden caves, and ancient ruins all the while fighting off pirates and soldiers on your quest to discover the lost city.

As you can probably surmise from my brief overview of the game, Uncharted offers a mix of shooter and platform gameplay as Drake puts his climbing, jumping, swinging, fighting, and shooting skills to the test against the various obstacles in his way.

In this sense, the game feels like a superior version of the Tomb Raider series of games with Drake navigating along edges, jumping across chasms or pillars, and otherwise exploring beautifully rendered environments.

When combat comes into play, you have the option of taking cover behind whatever objects are in the immediate vicinity. Actually, it’s more a necessity than an option since Drake isn’t a heavily armored, genetically enhanced super soldier in green armor and, when you think about it, even Fenix, Dom, Cole Train and Baird in their heavy armor can’t stand out in the open in the middle of combat for very long – all Drake has is a half tucked-in shirt!

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Uncharted is the exquisite graphics which are more advanced than those of any other console game this generation with the exception of the Uncharted 2. The impressive amount of detail and clarity in the environments, the high-resolution textures plastered across walls and objects, and the layers of animation used to create realistic facial expressions and more fluid motion amount to a veritable bonanza of eye candy like none seen before in any console game.

The high-quality visual experience you get in this game is absolutely mind-blowing and is one of the only real examples of what’s possible when a developer harnesses the potential of the PlayStation 3′s Cell processor. We’re not talking extreme close-ups on a character in a cutscene made possible by diverting resources away from the environments, physics, artificial intelligence, etc. as in a game like Heavenly Sword but organic water effects, natural movement of foliage, and lush and vibrant environments that you’re actually moving around in while you’re playing the game. This is what the PlayStation 3 is all about.

Of course, the best graphics in the world can only take a game so far. Without an entertaining story with well written dialogue and a solid plot, even the best-looking game can fall flat. Thankfully, Uncharted’s story is exactly what we need more of in the video game industry. Granted, it’s not an epic space opera like Mass Effect’s or a sophisticated dystopian tale of the downfall of man like BioShock’s, but it is an action-packed, light-hearted, fun adventure that would have made a better Indiana Jones movie than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (and, incidentally, is being adapted into a film right now by Columbia Pictures under the guidance of Avi Arad, former CEO of Toy Biz and head of Marvel Studios).

Unfortunately, the game is a bit short, leaving players wanting for much more by the time the credits roll. A decent gamer could probably get through the game on the standard difficulty level in seven or eight hours assuming a little time for trial and error as well as taking in the sights. A good gamer could probably burn through the campaign in five or six hours. Add to that the fact that there is very little replay value with no multiplayer modes – subsequent jaunts through the game are really only useful for collecting arbitrary hidden treasures which can unlock alternate costumes, making-of videos and concept art.

Nevertheless, the relatively short time you’ll spend in the South American jungles searching for the riches hidden in El Dorado will be some of the most entertaining you’ll have playing a video game this generation. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is one of the few masterpieces of recent times with all the necessary ingredients for a near-perfect debut of a soon-to-be classic video game franchise.

Final score: 5 out of 5

Parent to parent

The gunplay and a possibly scary development in the last part of the game probably makes this game unsuitable for young children, but there’s really no reason to not let kids who are at least in the tail end of elementary school play this game. Uncharted is essentially a video game version of an Indiana Jones movie with a fun, adventurous vibe.

Experience this for yourself!

• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PlayStation 3 Greatest Hits) (Amazon)
• PlayStation 3 160GB Uncharted Bundle (Amazon)

So you’ve finally decided to take the plunge and buy a new video game console.

Maybe your stack of unfinished PlayStation 2 games has finally dried up. Maybe you’ve discovered the joy of playing games while sitting on your living room couch instead of at your computer desk or decided you don’t want to upgrade your 5-year-old video card to play the latest and greatest PC games.

Or maybe you just want to find out if there’s more to video games than sliding your finger around on your iPhone.

However you came to the decision to join the over 125 million people worldwide who enjoy video games on their Wii, Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, you really couldn’t have picked a better time to do so. All three console manufacturers – Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony – cut their prices in the last few months and, for the first time this generation, the PlayStation 3 is at an accessible price point.

My goal here is to try to help you make the choice of which console to purchase according to your interests and concerns. It can sometimes be a daunting task to look for advice on the web because for every unbiased website there’s a slew of immature, irrational forum posts by raging fanboys who are fiercely and unmovingly loyal to what’s essentially a hunk of plastic that spews pretty lights and sounds at them.

Indeed video game console fanboys (and fangirls) can be some of the craziest, most rabid fans in the world, singing praises at their console of choice and hurling insults at people who disagree with them. Often there’s no rhyme or reason to their rhetoric, which tends to be formed out of ignorance to reality.

Why bother weeding through that jungle of idiocy when it’s so much easier to just look at the facts and make your decision based on which console is more suited to your needs? Hopefully, I’ll help you at least a little bit with that today.

The first thing to consider is the kind of games you like to play. The Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 are aimed at generally older gamers who have a lot of video gaming experience and more sophisticated tastes whereas the Wii is aimed at young kids and the more casual gamer who maybe hasn’t played a video game since the Super Nintendo days or dabbles only in lighter fare like Bejeweled or Diner Dash.

While there are certainly children’s and casual games available to play on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as more mature and complex games on the Wii, you can get a general sense of the style of gaming on the systems based on their marketing. If you like blasting away enemies, going on epic quests with lots of interaction with characters or playing realistic sports or driving simulations, your best bet is to go with the the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

In fact, the software libraries for these two systems are quite similar with the exception of a handful of exclusive games. The Xbox 360 has the better overall library of games with both acclaimed and popular titles like Halo 3, Gears of War and Left 4 Dead (and its sequel), but there are some killer PlayStation 3 exclusives like Final Fantasy XIII and Gran Turismo 5 (both entries in hugely popular series) coming out in the next year.

If you’d rather take a more laid back approach with games that have simpler and more straightforward goals and don’t require you to remember what two control sticks and eight different buttons do, the Wii is probably more up your alley. Another aspect to consider with regards to Wii gaming is that the games available on Nintendo’s system tend to be more geared towards “party play” – they’re not very complex so friends and family of all ages can quickly join in on the fun, no gaming expertise needed.

If you want to play games online with other people, you can do it with all three consoles. The Wii has the most restrictive online gaming functionality in that you can only play with people with whom you’ve exchanged “friend codes.” It’s a relief, in a sense, to parents who don’t necessarily want their children interacting with complete strangers on the Internet. On the other hand, it also means that you have to personally know a decent number of people who own Wiis in order to have some variety and flexibility in your gaming sessions.

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 allow you to send invites to people you already know (by typing in their IDs) or people you’ve played with right from within the gaming session. Even if you don’t have a lot of “real life” friends who own your system, you can still compile a sizeable list of people with whom you enjoy playing.

The Xbox 360′s online network, known as Xbox Live, is the only one that requires a monthly or annual fee (generally $50 per year) in order to play games. This seems like a lot to ask of gamers until you consider that Xbox Live is more mature (Microsoft introduced it in 2002 and has been improving it since then), more robust (there is a lot more content and functionality on Xbox Live than on the PlayStation Network) and more reliable (Microsoft has a lot more servers in a lot more locations for higher performance, greater reliability and more up-time). The online experience is also more consistent on Xbox Live due to Microsoft themselves handling most of the core networking code – developers of PlayStation 3 games need to program this themselves and can do it pretty much any way they want (to sometimes unfavorable results).

Of course, if none of that matters to you and all you want to do is play with some buddies, the PlayStation Network is a fine service indeed and won’t cost you a dime. Just hope that those buddies all have PlayStation 3′s (less likely in North America where there are almost twice as many Xbox 360′s).

On the other hand, the PlayStation 3 has a related advantage over the Xbox 360 in that it includes built-in WiFi, useful for people whose Internet service providers have given them a wireless router (or who have purchased one themselves). You can, of course, use an ethernet cable to connect an Xbox 360 to your network (that’s the same cable you would use to connect your computer if you didn’t have wireless networking), but if you want to get a wireless adapter be prepared to shell out $80 or more.

If you’re interested in doing things other than playing games on your gaming console then you can all but rule out the Wii as there isn’t a whole lot more to do on that little white box. If you have a wireless router at home, you can easily configure the Wii to use that to connect to the Internet in order to read news, check the weather and see what Miis (the little characters that represent you within the Wii’s game “world”) other people have put together. If you leave the Wii in standby mode (i.e. if you don’t unplug it when you turn it off), it will even automatically update itself on a regular basis to get you the latest content.

Disappointingly for some fans, Nintendo once again decided that theirs would be the only console to not play movies in any way, shape or form, despite utilizing discs that are the same physical size as DVDs and Blu-rays. Nintendo wanted to focus on games and target consumers looking for nothing more than a fun gaming system. Their logic was that most everyone has a DVD player these days and that the hardware is so cheap that there was no real advantage to including movie playback functionality. I can understand their viewpoint as easily as I can understand some fans’ frustration.

If you absolutely need to be able to watch movies on your console, you have to choose between the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3 has the obvious edge here in that it can play movies stored on the relatively new Blu-ray disc format (pioneered, unsurprisingly, by Sony). Blu-ray is a technologically superior format that stores high definition video and audio (perfect for all those HDTVs that are dropping in price by the year) and includes evolved versions of many of the extra features found on DVDs.

Whether you would benefit from that superior quality or care about it is an entirely different matter. I don’t want to get into a meaty Blu-ray discussion here but I will suggest you take a quick glance at this chart circulating around the Internet that shows whether you’d even see a difference between Blu-ray and DVD based on the size of your television and how far you sit from it.

If Blu-ray isn’t a priority for you, then you can still watch all of your DVDs on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. They’ll even upscale the image quality to pseudo-HD which looks quite good (comparable to the quality of the HD television broadcasts from most of the national service providers like DirecTV and Comcast).

You don’t even have to use DVDs, either. Both devices are capable of accepting streaming movies, television and music from your home computer. You can even view all of your photos on your nice, big television set. This is a little easier with the Xbox 360 if you own a Windows-based computer since it utilizes the Windows Media Center that’s part of most Windows installations. There are plenty of free software online that will allow you to do the same things on the PlayStation 3. In fact, I use TVersity (compatible with both systems) instead of the Windows Media Center functionality.

Beyond that, you can rent or buy movie and television episode downloads from Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Many of these downloads are high definition with impressive quality despite not being as sharp as a Blu-ray movie. The pricing is skewed a little high, though, at the moment. If that’s a problem for you, join Netflix and you can stream thousands of movies and television episodes free to the system of your choice as part of your membership! The functionality is part of the Xbox 360′s operating system, but you’ll need to request a special disc for the PlayStation 3 which Netflix will send to you for free.

The final, and perhaps most important, thing to consider is the price you’re willing to pay to enter this generation of video game consoles. The Xbox 360 and Wii have the cheapest entry costs with models priced at $200 whereas you need to spend at least $300 for a PlayStation 3.

You technically get a lot more value out of the PlayStation 3 than you do out of the Xbox 360 and the Wii if you want and/or need the added functionality in Sony’s console (significantly, the Blu-ray capabilities). However, if all you want to do is play games, it’s tough to go wrong with any of the three consoles.

In short:

• If you’re a casual gamer who is looking for simple yet entertaining games that you can play with friends and family of all ages, your best bet is the Nintendo Wii.
• If you’re a more experienced gamer who wants a more robust gaming experience without breaking the bank, the Xbox 360 is a fine choice with the best overall video game library.
• If, on the other hand, you want all the bells and whistles and are willing to pay for them, you won’t regret purchasing the PlayStation 3, which will provide you with a solid library of games from which to choose and one of the best Blu-ray players on the market.

Experience it 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 3 120GB Console (Amazon)
• Sony PlayStation 3 250GB Console (Amazon)