PixlBit

:( Sadfaces. I loved Turok Nick lol. I wouldn't try to go back and play them anymore, nor would I recommend anybody do so unless they were really into retro N64 gaming and wanted to give it a shot, but I loved the first two for N64. For gore factor it was like the Gears of War of its time. You could shoot people in the neck and watch blood squirt out as they slowly died. The cerebral bore would drill their brains out and make them explode. Explosives would blast dinos into bits, it was great. There were tons of crazy guns, simulated fog, and tribal drums to go around. It was a little boys dream for me because I loved dinos and I also wanted to shoot things with nuke guns (there really were nuke guns, plural, for people not in the know). I have enough feelings on the franchise from the first 2, up to the 2008 reboot, that I would have to write a blog about it lol.

Julian, lol I foamed at the mouth for a moment, but it was because I know it's entirely possible to earn Rob as a fan and provide him with something he might enjoy. I like Rob. He's great, terribly sharp, plays lots of great games with plenty of variety, and is very honest. It was just a crusher when you asked him about Half Life and all that he mustered out of his mouth was, "I think it's fucking stupid. The whole thing." It would be irrational for any one developer to toss and turn over something a single player says (no game should satisfy just one person), but I know that it's completely possible to make a better Half-Life game and give somebody like Rob the chance to think more of it than what he currently thinks. I think the series needs an overhaul. They should continue with the stories they're trying to tell and keep developing their characters, but the games need a brainstorm when it comes to presentation, mechanics, narrative delivery, and the whole Source engine. Back in 2004 when HL2 came out, Source was pretty bleeding edge and people marveled at things like the animation and physics most of all, and even the actual "graphics", as the kids call it, were pretty good.

Fast forward, it's been 8 years since HL2 and the latest iteration of Source (Portal 2), while being pretty beautiful, is just Half Life 2 with some thin coats of paint. The Portal mechanics and level designs are vastly different, but you're still just shooting from the hip as always, and Chell doesn't move or feel any different than Freeman. You don't need to aim down ironsights or do normal "gun things" in a game like Portal, but Half Life is a friggin shooter, it's all about shooting. You have a supposedly brilliant physicist who is using guerilla warfare against an occupying alien collective. He carries a dozen guns, but he doesn't even aim with them. The things that make the Half Life games feel and look the way they do, just aren't relevant anymore. It's not fun to shoot at the hip, it's not fun to look around and not see your body, it's not okay to purposely design textures to look okay at a medium distance only, etc.

Visually the progress has been way too slow and now 8 years later it's way beyond the time where incremental advancements are good enough. HL2 Episode 1 made advancements to Alyx by improving her character model a great deal, playing with lighting effects, textures, and most of all having her be your companion the whole way. The goal of Ep1 was to focus on making players bond with Alyx more and make her as believable as possible. In Ep2 the advancements were all in things like "cinematic physics" (so it was labeled), and experimenting with larger level designs and open natural environments bigger than any the series has seen.

Valve succeeded very well in both cases and accomplished the design goals for those episodes. I'm not saying they didn't do an amazing job, I'm just saying those incremental episodic improvements aren't going to fly with the next installment in the series and I'm sure they know that. Gabe said in regards to the next installment, "If we can't do it right, we won't do it at all." The series is their flagship and observing their behavior it would seem that they are either going to knock it out of the park or it won't happen. If Ep3 or a HL3 proper came out and was just Ep2 with a new coat of paint, it wouldn't fly. It hurts to say it but I imagine that if they just stay the course and do what they did with Episodes 1 and 2, the whole Half Life series would likely start becoming more of a niche retro thing in the public eye. If the next HL game is just a small improvement over the last, I could already imagine journalists and reviewers putting out articles about how playing HL3 is like seeing how shooters were 10 years ago. Half Life has always been on the bleeding edge of something when it releases, and Valve in general built its reputation on providing a bleeding edge engine and using it to build really innovative games. People love Valve and Valve deserves it, but it's because of the repuation they built and the quality they've consistently put out. As it stands right now Source is no longer bleeding edge, and Half Life is dated. There's a lot of work to do. In my mind all I can hear is myself saying, "It's time to put Valve back on top and defend that reputation they earned."

As for war games I agree with you in every way. I think gaming needs to have a war game that looks into the mature and real consequences of combat, culture, emotions, psychology, sociology, ethics, and actual time. I would love a game that dealt with boot camp. My favorite thing about Full Metal Jacket was the boot camp beginning of the movie and all the time the movie spends there. This is loosely related but I thought the beginning of Fallout 3 was one of my favorites of all time because you progressed from birth to teenager and got to play out experiences in several ages along the way.

People put soldiers up on pedastals too often and foget they're normal people, nothing magical about them. They will cry, feel pain, die, survive, disagree with superiors, commit crimes, fail, suffer psychological damage and stress, be of different sexes, differen sexual orientation, different personalities, and many other things. We normally just see a hardass in camo blasting people away, saving the day, and becoming our modern day equivalent to Hercules and other dramatized heroes we can look up to and write fables about. Too often war games have good guys and bad guys, and don't show all the grey areas, as well as the good and bad sides of both combatants. All the WWII games I played never showed all the experiments our military performed on people, the war crimes we commited, or the bombs we dropped and the people who died from a nuclear blast or the eventual radiation poisoning. We just want to show a hardass with a gun go shoot some baddies, ride off in a helo, and make things as simple and inconsequential as possible. We have plenty of Pearl Habors in gaming, and we definitely need some more Saving Private Ryans, Black Hawk Downs, and Full Metal Jackets. I really loved when you guys talked about visuals in games not showing the true color and variety of life. The real world is a coloful beautiful place, even if horrible things may happen in it. Iwo Jima is a beautiful little island, even if thousands of Americans and Japanese died on it. If you knew nothing about the battles on that island, you would just see the coasts, hills, the mountain that dominates one side of it, the greenery, and marvel at it without guessing the water was full of blood at one point and the island was shelled by a fleet of battleships.

My Street Fighter comparison was pretty bad and I knew it, but I did it anyways lol. It might make sense to somebody who never played the games and just heard the name. However, the same thing you said about Street Fighter, "It doesn't ask any tough questions, nor does it have to." also applies to Call of Duty. Modern Warfare is in a tougher territory though because it actually does go to lengths to use real life military units, weapons, sound design, and lingo, but those are where the realism ends. The stories, characters, and the encounters are designed with blockbuster in mind. It's like an arcade game disguised as a realistic war game. People end up taking it very seriously and noticing how unrealistic it is, instead of realizing how much the "unrealistic" parts of it are so much fun. It's like the uncanny valley, but for mechanics and such lol. People see how realistic and "in the loop" the games try to be with certain elements, but they also can't help but notice how outrageous and dramatic other elements are. It paints two different pictures and mashes them together. A fast stylized combat system, and a realistic setting and presentation.

I was really happy with the MW3 campaign, I thought it was the best in the series, and an inprovement over MW2. But my experience was skewed a bit because my game was a gift, I didn't pay for it, and I had no reason to feel buyer's remorse. I can't comment on the game as a consumer, because I wasn't involved in the consumer process at all seeing as it was a gift, but I can speak about the game from a design point of view. It's better than MW2 in subtle ways and polishes the formula. The levels are better and each one is like an action movie in itself. I really liked MW2, but in that game there were plenty of filler levels and moments of wasted time. MW3 cut out the fat, streamlined it a bit, and executed its own formula better than MW2 did. MW3 doesn't change any fundamentals in any sense, so it's not going to win over people who didn't like the series previously, but it takes the formula and does it better than any other games in the series.

Some people have this sense that the campaigns are just afterthoughts or sloppy things tacked on but when I play the games I see nicely designed encounters, fun spaces, and polish. I can tell for a fact that the people brainstorming and whiteboarding these levels aren't just scrambling, tossing things together wrecklessly, and saying, "Let's get this over with so we can go help the mutliplayer team." It would be easy for many people to see it as only brotastic cheese and nonsense (which it is), but I think there really is vision behind the campaigns. When I played MW2 I asked myself, "When it comes time for them to make the next game, will they just focus on multiplayer, and sacrifice campaign? Cut their losses? Everybody rags on their campaigns, will they just stop trying?" When MW3 came along I realized they actually do care about those campaigns a bit. They could make a profit just selling multiplayer, but they actually put the effort into the campaign and made it pretty solid. Between the 10.5 hours I spent in the campaign, and the unending hours I've been spending in Survival, I think it would be worth the money if I had bought it myself.

In the end I can understand why people like Patrick would think the games are glorifying war and not telling the whole story, because the fact is the games don't tell the whole story and they do make warfare out to be a summer blockbuster, but I think it would be unfair to call it evil or propoganda for those facts. I think people who get that upset about the games are poking around the wrong place. I'm with Patrick, I don't like war, I want peace, and I like to protest no different than he seems to, but I don't see Modern Warfare as doing something wrong. It's a fast, stylized, arcadey game, with a realistic presentation and setting. It's not the bane of civilization. Just because a game becomes the face of gaming and becomes so huge, even if we don't like the game or we find it stupid, doesn't mean it needs to represent game design as a whole or be the thing we all burn at the stake when we get frustrated. CoD never wanted to do that, and it doesn't have to do that. Even though my point about Street Fighter was terrible, I was trying to see if we would be willing to say the same things about other games. If other games were the face of gaming and were making over a billion dollars, would we be requiring them to be anything than what they aim to be? Does Modern Warfare's giant user base and sales numbers require it to start becoming less of a comically dramatized action packed blockbuster and more of a life-lesson-teacher for kids, or an intellectual playground? I just think the hate the series gets isn't really gained on the game's merits. It's more about culture, community, and popularity. You don't get to choose how popular you get, if people make you the face of gaming, or who plays your games and how they think. Gamers choose you. The only thing you have control over is the game design, and the CoD games are pretty good and a lot of fun.

We still need games to explore the realistic territory better and bring out the mature and emotionally complex experiences of life, but we shouldn't rip CoD apart for not being the series to take on the task.

I really liked this one a lot. Mmm shooters, nom nom noms ^_^

Some of my earliest shooter memories were with Goldeneye. I didn't like the multiplayer much and probably because I sucked at it. My cousins and I all played and my older cousins would destroy the rest of us. I liked the single player it was one of the games in my history that cultivated my love for single player games as well as shooters. I thought it was really cool, but Goldeneye didn't get me to love shooters. I also played the first 2 Turok games on the N64, as well as some Medal of Honor games for PS1 and those were awesome especially the Nazi AI. Nazis would grab your grenades and throw them back at you! First time in a game I ever saw that and it blew my mind. Using the cerebral bore to drill the matter out of enemies skulls and make it explode never got old in Turok. I loved dinosaurs as a kid, and Turok was like magic to me. Tribal drums, dinos, nuke guns, assault rifles, bow & arrow, lots of fog, cheat codes, and tons of gore. Good times.

Halo CE got me to love shooters. I just wouldn't be myself if I didn't show up and drop pointless Halo knowledge on you guys. Halo 2 didn't come out in 2005, it came out here on November 9th, 2004. During E3 '04 after Joe Staten and Max Hoberman finished the Zanzibar demo Peter Moore came on stage and showed a tattoo with the release date and everything. Those were the days.

I started with Halo 1 and was blown away by it in every way. When Halo came out it innovated console shooting in many ways, and to me it felt like console shooters practically never happened before Halo came out. The visual and, most importantly of all, mechanical jump between games like Goldeneye and Halo were enormous. Using dual sticks, guns, grenades, vehicles, exploration, and firefights was so fresh in Halo CE and there was nothing like it on consoles. It had everything Goldeneye had, a long engrossing single player, spectacular multiplayer, but it was better in every way. It was the natural progression of shooters, an evolution of what Rare started with 007.

I was becoming a Halo fan the second I got out of the drop pod in the level Halo, started walking around the grassy hills, and saw the ring in the sky. The art was incredible and to this day I've never felt the same awe as I did back then when I looked at the ring on the horizon, or the ocean beside the cliffs, the energy pulses shooting into the sky from forerunner structures, and all the colors of the aliens, vehicles, and weapons, not to mention the music. Outside of the other Halos, the closest I've ever felt to the awe I had with Halo CE were my first experiences with Half Life 2 and Portal 2. In these 3 particular series (halo, portal, half life) the shooting has never been the hook for me. It's always been the environment and characters. In Halo when I came out of the drop pod I didn't want to own noobs (that phrase hadn't even been invented yet, that come later with Halo 2) I just wanted to figure out what was happening with this ring world, these aliens, and these humans. In Half Life 2 the thing that hooked me wasn't the shooting (the mechanics in Half Life games are terrible), what hooked me in Half Life 2 was the environment and characters. The moment I fell in love was when I was scrambling on the rooftops, evading capture, and seeing the plight of citizens in the first level Point Insertion when you get chased through the apartment complex by Combine Overwatch. In Portal 2 you don't shoot and kill anything, and the thing that hooked me was the level design, puzzles, characters, and environment. I always wanted to get on the other side of a wall next to me, escape the test chamber, see what's really happening in here. Where is everybody, what happened, where am I, when am I? Looking back at Portal 1, when I came to the end and realized I could escape the fire pit and explore behind the scenes, the fact that the game didn't end, and it let me do exactly what I was wanting to do this whole time, fucking blew my mind. I could probably add Bioshock into that whole conversation, but it didn't come to mind right away like those other games did. Bioshock was amazing though.

I can't disagree with Rob more, I don't think the Half Life story is "fucking stupid" at all lol. There's plenty I don't like about the designs. I hate the guns, I don't like Freeman, I don't think all the narrative needs to be done through the environment, I don't think the silent model works for him, and I can't stand how stagnant Source has become and how little progress the engine has made. I love the story (at least the tiny bits that have been explored so far), level designs, and characters though. I cried at the end of episode 2. Don't know if anybody has played it, and I don't want to spoil it unless you tell me it's alright, but the event that happens made me tear up and traumatized me for the next few days after I beat the game. The way the narrative gets presented to the player, and the way players experience it needs to evolve and expand, the guns need a complete overhaul from scratch, we need to be able to aim down ironsights, Source needs an overhaul completely, we need Freeman to talk a little, we need to be able to see Freeman's body in frame (he has one of the coolest suits in gaming and you never see it, there aren't even mirrors in HL games!), and we need to explore the connection between Aperture and Black Mesa more. We need to come up with new ideas for the movement mechanics, combat mechanics, and how Freeman interacts with the environment. I've heard some crazy ideas and speculation that people at Valve have had, like sign language among other things, and I'm excited. I have plenty ideas of my own, there's so much potential it makes me crazy. I think about it all the time and in my dreams I'm helping them make the next installment lol. I don't have a seasoned portfolio full of previous works to send in, but one of these days I will. I can't even tell you how much I want to make levels and gameplay for these games because I care about them too much to see them be stuck back in 2004 or left to mediocrity. I know entirely too much about Half Life, Portal, Source, Valve, and anytime people like Mike Ambinder have something to explain on level design and playtesting analysis I eat it up.

All these games are what got me in love with shooters, and I think shooters have been getting better with time. I played Crisis 2 and it's become mechanically my favorite shooter I've ever played, I explained it all to Travis in his review of the game he put out a couple weeks ago. They're all a bit different, they all borrow from eachother, and each has different design goals in mind. I know everybody rides the CoD hate train but I for one love those games for their gameplay. I don't play online, so I don't care about competitive gaming, I just care about the single player and co-op gameplay. CoD is way too much fun. I have MW3 and I had a blast in the campaign, spent 10 hours 45 minutes in my first playthrough, and I had even more fun in Survival Mode. I've spent 23 hours playing survival, I'm a level 49, and it's one of the most addicting things I've played in a long time. The level designs are really fun, the gameplay is great. I love buying and upgrading weapons on the fly, setting up defensive sentries, claymores, bringing in friendly AI squads to cover me, taking on Juggernauts, and fighting off waves of enemies to I inevitably get overwhelmed and killed. It engages and satisfies a variety of shooter, rpg, and strategy itches I have all in one game mode. You three are looking in the wrong place if you want a story, characters, and people to ask questions about war. We have Mass Effect and other games to scratch that itch. Does anybody rail Street Fighter for not asking the tough questions about real street fights? Does Street Fighter trivialize the very real issues of kids bashing each other in the streets after school and posting it on youtube? Does Street Fighter sell real world violence in a kid friendly package and warp their little brains? Is Capcom desensitizing our kids to melee violence? What about UFC games and Fight Night?

MW2 was the first game in the series I played. I didn't like the No Russian mission, not just because it was a bunch of people killing at an airport, but because it wasn't fun. That level was all just for cinematic effect, not gameplay, and it sucked. The story that it told was stupid, and it wasn't fun to play. It came across as just a waste of space on the disc, and on top of that it offended people a great deal by simulating a terrorist act. No Russian sucked as a mission and a story telling method. Onto the rest of the game, once I was done it all just clicked for me. I look at the levels and I know how and why they are setup the way they are, the mechanics click for me, the pace makes sense, and the encounters make sense. It's fast paced, fun, and there's no wasted space or time. It's not mean to give you exploration like Halo does, and that's okay. Linearity isn't always a bad thing, and non-stop action isn't always a bad thing. Plenty of developers go to great lengths to break up pacing, like Valve does, but CoD avoids all those rules and it works for them. It's just non-stop fun, not unlike an arcade game. It's an unrealistic, arcade-like, and comically dramatized version of warfare, but it is fun, and it is a game. It's a fun game. If it weren't so popular I don't think people would have a problem with it. Back when CoD was all about WW2 and it wasn't so huge, I don't remember people hating it so much. I use to hate CoD because I was a Halo fanboy in my teen years, but eventually I got over it, started playing other games, and I became reasonable enough to admit it lol.

The mechanics are great in MW3, the level designs are great, it's a ton of fun, and when I play it I just don't come across the same ideas Pat had about real world war, oil, and politics (I hate politics). I certainly don't think CoD is "evil" or propoganda. If we want to throw CoD under the bus we have to be willing to throw all games under the bus since the beginning of time. Cops and robbers? Cowboys and Indians? Laser tag? Street Fighter, Zelda, Starcraft? I never played MW2 or MW3 and got the feeling I was being influenced by biased violent politics and media. I felt like I was playing a silly, over the top, war game that was a ton of fun. It's a digital version of all the games little boys play anyways. It's gung ho, action packed, and insane. The kind of stuff that happens in a MW3 level is the kind of stuff my best friend and I acted out when we played around the house as kids with pretend guns.

Our American society is fucking stupid and even though I'm very patriotic and nationalistic, I'm not biased enough to be ignorant to our faults. Our culture cares more about nationalism, power, status, and appearance than we do about education, logic, reason, science, philosphy, and ethics. Our parents are stupid, were stupid, our kids are stupid, our schools are terrible, there's plenty going wrong, and when you simply says things like that people are so blind to it and stirred by nationalism they think you're insane for saying it all out loud. But it was like this long before CoD. CoD and the popularity of war games are probably a reflection of our culture. It's what we want to see, it's what we like. Romans liked to see gladiators be torn apart by wild animals for entertainment thousands of years ago, Americans like war simulations for entertainment. Before that there was a WW2 craze where we saw Saving Private Ryan, Medal of Honor, and early CoD games. Several years ago every other game on the market was a WW2 game. Now our culture is in love with modern warfare as opposed to old warfare, and cooincidently we happen to be fighting real life war at the same time. It's in the public eye, people are interested in it, and it shows in our entertainment.

I agree with Rob, we aren't born good, and human nature isn't naturally good. You logically can't generalize everybody, biology and evolution aren't that simple, but the majority of human beings have to be taught to be "good". We are indoctrinated in our respective societies to act certain ways. In America we aren't suppose to beat women, rape people, murder, etc, we have our civilization and we become indoctrinated in it. Other places are completely different. There are places where it's perfectly fine to murder a gay person, give a woman a good beating because you feel she deserves it, leave your unwanted babies alone in a forest to die, etc. There's no permanant code in people's brains that tell them to act a certain way. People have nature versus nurture debates all the time and the fact is that human nature depends on both. You have to nurture and teach people to act certain ways, and over time biologically these things could influence the human brain and nature. People will never automatically be educated at birth, but you can influence human biology in more subtle ways. It's always been both. Bibles, faith, prayer, baptisms, tribal ceremonies, dances, or magic don't make people naturally good. Our definitions of "Good" evolve along with the human species and are different everywhere you go. It's our job to teach the future generations what we believe is right and wrong. Games can tread these territories as well, games can be art after all (I think so) and should be free to push all boundaries, but not all games have to.

Because it's so popular and every kid in the world is playing CoD, it's fair to bring up these issues, but at the end of the day it's just a game and it's not a brainwashing or recruiting tool. You play the game, shoot guns, and kill enemies to save the world, it's fun. I play Zelda, swing a sword, and kill enemies to save the world, it's fun. Zelda isn't any more holy. I'm a liberal athiest by the way, so I don't give a shit about defending republicans or war. I hate real life war, it's not a game, it's not fun, and I thought Iraq and Afghanistan were stupid endevours that have all failed. I also don't support the use of the atomic bomb. I would've rather seen our entire country die with honor than push a button and kill a few soldiers and factories mixed in with hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians. War is sometimes necessary, but it is never righteous, never good, and should only ever be a final option. And when you do fight a war, you shouldn't be willing to abandon all your ethics and rules of engagement. If you have to kill unarmed civies, use chemicals, or WMDs in order to "win", you've already lost the war in my opinion and you've lost all respect. We might be "badass" and have a mighty ground and naval force, but I don't have respect for many of our "accomplishments" in wartime. We deserve to be called out for our poor choices and often pathetic culture. We will never grow and improve if everybody just keeps worshipping our military might and refusing to be skeptical.

This is real life, we ask these questions. In a video game it's great to ask those questions as well, and some games choose to, but why should CoD have to? Does it owe us anything, does it owe us intellectual exercise? It doesn't have to give us that, and more importantly it doesn't try to give us that, so it's not exactly coming up short in any way guys. If you think it's irresponsible for Modern Warfare to present war in such a brotastic, wreckless, dramatic, and unrealistic way, I think you're looking for intellectual exercise in a game that isn't designed to give you any. Real world war is terrible, and our broken culture is a problem, and we have lots of work to do teaching our kids to be more rational and ethical, but CoD isn't exactly turning our kids into anything that they already aren't. Our children have always been disgusting and immoral creatures lol. I'm throwing our whole culture under the bus, adults and kids alike, whether CoD is in the conversation or not lol. We can't just "U-S-A! U-S-A!" our way out of everything and pretend everything is glorious and infallible.

I don't want to make CoD games by any stretch, and I personally don't ever want to adhere to their design choices because I prefer something with a stronger story, broken up pacing and variety,  realistic characters, and I want more stealth like Crysis 2 or Deus Ex, but I'm never gonna get on the all-too-vogue hate train the games garnered. I dislike the online communites and culture as a whole, but everybody needs to realize that online communities and culture aren't the game. The game is amazing. It's just often overshadowed by all the baggage that people associate with it.

In Julian's Mass Effect Pixltalk I talked entirely too much about what I love about ME and why it matters so much to me. I covered everything from gameplay, to the universe, characters, religion, ethics, everything. I haven't played ME3 though so I have no idea what fans are talking about and I know nothing of the ending. I'm trying to avoid everything as much as possible because it'll probably be a while before I play the game. At the moment the #1 game on my to-do list is Deus Ex Human Revolution. I can put Mass Effect 3, Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite, and Far Cry 3 on the back burner for now. So far the only game this year that's a must have for me is Halo 4. I will get Halo 4. I will get a collectors edition if they offer it, and I will pay extra for fast shipping. Even if I have to work the corner and sell my ass, you better believe I will come up with the money for Halo in every way.

I love Mass Effect because of the characters, story, and cinematics. It's the melting pot and combines the things I love about Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo, and other sci fi. In one of my recent blogs I explained my distaste for the gameplay and combat, but Mass Effect is one of those series that keeps me in it despite its flaws and I really adore it for very personal reasons. I like the characters, my Shepard, and how everybody deals with each other. You have to play it and see how everything works to really understand why it's so different. On paper its simple. A sci fi setting, space ships, ancient threat, save the galaxy. Halo anybody? Gears of War clone anybody? But in execution it's different than anything else and becomes something completely fresh. It's all in the details and moments of the game. I can't just tell you, "It's the story and characters Nick, I swear!" because everybody says that about any game they like, we have all heard it before. It's all in the small moments and details that makes ME on top of the world as far as storytelling and character development. The combat mechanics, level design, animation, and engine the games use are all going to be antiquated in the blink of an eye (they kind of already are). A few years from now none of those aspects of the games will hold up, I think they all are lacking, but I will always remember Eden Prime, Legion, Miranda Lawson, Mordin Solus, the Genophage, the Krogan Rebellions, trying to teach Garrus about mercy and patience, trying to get Mordin to see the ethical consequences of his Genophage weapon, getting Ashley to be tolerant of aliens and talking with her about her religion.

It's a really mature setting and the games are like an intellectual exercise, just like Star Trek. It's not special because it's got "super dooper badass graphics bro", or awesome online play. Mass Effect is special because it gives you well wrought characters in a well wrought universe, and lets you choose how it all evolves, interact with it all, and just be there feeling like you're living a second life in this gameworld. My Shepard is mine, nobody elses, I'm meeting incredible people, saving the world, being confronted with issues other games don't touch. The games allow you to explore your own ethics, personality, and emotions the way other games haven't. I think that is the best point I can make.

Playing ME might teach you more about yourself than it will about anything else. If you go into the series just because you want to shoot everything, get achievments, and bang chicks, you're going to miss everything that really matters about it. It has these deep core elements and brings you intellectual exercise, but it's wrapped in a package of accessible, action packed, sexy, epic sci-fi, and spectacle.

I'm not sure if Deadly Premonition needs to be on the list lol. You should play Deadly P, but not for scares. I laughed everytime I played it, but I'm a horror junkie. The enemies make stupid noises, the combat is simple, it's not dark or haunting like Condemned trust me. The characters and story are amazing and silly, the music is absurd. The combat and gameplay is terrible in every way, but I think the story and characters will keep you going. It's just funny and super interesting because of how odd it is.

All the other games are great choices. Fear is the only game I ever had a nightmare about, Alma terrifies me, if you're easily scared than those games will fuck you up. I love being scared and getting the adrenaline rush and terror, and Fear really hit a sweet spot for me. There are scare sequences built into the design and they can be so terrifying that I'd have dreams about the sequences after a playsession. The games have really fun combat sequences, it's a legit shooter, but it breaks up the pacing and gives you scare sequences built in. It's the definition of action horror. The Fear games have incredible sound design, ambience, and atmosphere. It's super creepy.

For combat, Dead Space is one of the most intense games I've ever played. The design is very simple, monsters jump out of closets and in theory it's no different than Doom 3, but Dead Space just accomplished it more than Doom ever did. The stress nearly killed me playing Dead Space the first time.

No joke Esteban I think any Fatal Frame needs to be at the bottom of the list. I've had Fatal Frame 2 since the Xbox days and I haven't beat it. Scariest game I've ever played, I love horror but I can't deal with Fatal Frame, it just taxes my brain and my psyche too much. It's way more intense than any Silent Hill I've ever played. Horror is completely subjective, some people are terrified by ghosts, some people laugh at them. Some people prefer a big dope with a chainsaw, some people think they're stupid. Games like Doom and Resident Evil will be easier for you if you like being able to just grab a gun and blast anything you're scared of. In games like Fear, Silent Hill, and more than anything, Fatal Frame, you won't be able to just shoot your problems away and laugh at them.

Start with Doom, Resident Evil, and maybe Deadly Premonition. And just remember to take breaks often if it stresses you out too much. When I play Fear games I literally only play checkpoint to checkpoint. By the time I get to the next checkpoint I'm already tired and strung out off the scares and action. Some games will tax your brain more than others, for me horror games tax me a great deal so I take them at a slow pace. If you play a level or experience a sequence it just really tears you apart, take a break and do something else, and come back in a few minutes to get a fresh start. Let the adrenaline subside, and let your brain experience the next section in a more fresh and calmed state. There's no shame in taking it really slow. It took me weeks to beat Fear 2.

Amazing stuff Mike, thanks for bringing this out and putting Cousins' presentation up with it. I thought his analysis was really interesting and the conclusions he made are logical. It's really striking how much the companies and platforms have been suffering and hemorraging over the long term. You honestly, and in every sense, wouldn't know that the industry was changing if you just lived normally away from news articles and presentations like this. The industry paints a picture of itself, and the picture leads you to believe consoles, AAA games, and the way things are now, are only getting bigger, better, more lucrative, successful, and stable. You see fancy Sony, Micro, and Nintendo logos, sleek consoles, men in suits, new games like MW3 breaking entertainment records, and you assume, "These guys are on top of the world, they're not going anywhere, things will always be like this, everything is stable, right?"

You would never guess that behind the scenes the truth of the industry is the exact opposite and things couldn't be more conflicted, ever changing, and remenescent of the change from arcade to console. I never looked at mobile devices as disruptive tech till now, but people said the same about consoles. The established incumbent has never taken the disruptive tech seriously. Over the last few years whenever I'd hear people in gaming journalism (especially on G4) talk about mobile devices they'd laugh and write these devices off as if they wouldn't have a chance in hell. We are comfortable with our consoles the way arcades people were comfortable with their cabinets. When the iPad and iPhone started showing up a few years ago, people were tossing around the question, "How will this impact the gaming market? Can this even impact gaming at all, does this platform matter?" and across the board everybody wrote it off and laughed when the topic came up. It's only now that I notice people taking it more seriously, looking at the data, and trying to figure out what's going on. That fact by itself is an indicator that we could be looking at mobile devices as disruptive tech in this situation. It's disruptive enough to finally be getting everybodies attention and make people question, "What's wrong with gaming? What's happening with consoles, discs, downloadables, mobiles, iOS, etc?" Nobody took it serously because it wasn't up to snuff in its inception, and now it's beginning to reach parity with some console expectations.

I agree with the points you made yourself Mike. Things will change, platforms will change, distribution will change, dedicated consoles and software on discs aren't always going to be the hot ticket and most importanlty the only ticket, they will be an option. I've been saying for the last couple years that we need to diversify and explode not only as an industry but as an art as well. I just haven't been sure what will happen, none of us can be sure. If you look at the data the change between arcades and consoles didn't happen overnight, nothing ever happens overnight. It gradually changes like the change from cassette to DVD, from SD to HD, arcade to console, etc. I think you are on the right track Mike when you guess that this next generation won't just change the system immediatly. It will be more of a transition. Gaming divisions, developers, and publishers are trying to stay afloat and be successful in the gaming business, and right now with the current system it's not working so they will be transitioning to try new things out. They won't want to alienate gamers and leave people confused, but they will need to coax people into new ways of gaming, distribution, platform, etc. The industry has to tread new waters, abandon the status quo, and just see what works. Throw science at the wall and see what sticks. In the end the games and content are what matters most.

I for one didn't become a gamer because of a console, controller, cartidge, or disc. I became a gamer because of the content, the company logo and the platform couldn't be more irrelevant. I'm really comfortable with my 360, the controller, and the experience I get, but I'm not complacent enough with it to think it's the only way, or the best way. If some other company like Apple or anybody else presented me with a controller that was fun to play with, great games, and a convienient, affordable system of distribution and everything, I would use it. When I first saw the OnLive setup, the controller, streaming, etc, I thought it was really cool. It's not perfect and has plenty of kinks to work out and it depends on the state of internet speeds among other things, but it's really cool in concept so far. One thing I'm worried about is loosing our state of controllers. The 360 controller is my favorite of all time and not because of the company behind it, but because of the design of it. I'm skeptical of transitions like the Wii U tablet controller because it doesn't look fun to play on or hold. I don't want to game on a tablet, I want joysticks, buttons, the works.

I like my games and controllers, but I couldn't care less about the consoles, and to be honest I'm getting less and less attached to discs as time goes on. I wouldn't have said that a year ago, but recently I realized I don't love them as much as I use to. I've been playing Fable 3 and when I put the disc in the console gets loud, makes stupid noises, the disc didn't read one time, the load screens were ridiculous, I had to worry about scratching the disc, plenty of junk to worry about and the only upside to it was a sense of ownership. I ended up installing the disc on my HD and it was so much more convienient and it performed better. I still need the disc to play the game, but I honestly couldn't give less of a shit about my Fable 3 disc. The content is important to me, and I'm experiencing the content without the need to rely on the disc completely. It's not the best example of my own transition, but it does feel like something is transitioning slowly in my brain.

We need to diversify and expand in everyway. We need to evolve mechanics, animation, storytelling, create new genres, blend everything, and take risks like art should. Creatively we should do whatever we want with our games, and throw the AAA model out the window. Last year on 1UP I was in a talk with Julian about the future of gaming and I was saying that I want to make games, get them to as many people as possible, and see the industry grow in every way. I don't care about Sony stock prices or exclusives, I care about game design, games, and gamers. I want games on any and every platform, all around the world, giving access to as many people as possible. I think we should all share tech, and work together to evolve the art and industry. I don't give a shit about a single companies stock, I care about gaming, and world domination lol. Convienient, high-def, fun, inclusive, innovative, world domination. Some people will see these changes happen and act like the sky is falling, but I for one will keep looking to the horizon and look on the bright side of it. The content is king and to provide the best content you shouldn't follow the status quo. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Activision, and the AAA model (all of these things are apparently the only way to be "successful" these days, they are the status quo) are not the only way to do gaming. They are just one way to do gaming.

@Nick I'm honestly surprised Nick, it's crazy that stuff like this happens. I don't work for Obsidian but this feels like a low-blow, I sympathize with the people that got layed off and the projects they were working on that got set back or cancelled.

I concede it's a fact I'm pretty naiive, I just want to make the best games I can, I have very little business sense, and I'm unrealistically optimistic about things, so I just assume stuff this silly doesn't happen. I really wanted to play the South Park rpg, and I really want Obsidian to just do well and have jobs so they can make games. It's crazy that people can throw a monkey wrench into the whole setup, and into people's lives, over something as lowly-regarded as a Meta score. I speak for myself only, but I don't hold those scores in any regard. It shows great weakness and insecurity if you look at your own games, play your own games, listen to comments from your peers, and at the end of the day the only way you can see if your game has value is from Metacritic scores. When I'm making games one of these days I'm going to know my games inside, out, and I'm going to fucking know whether they're good or not, I don't need a damn Metacritic score to decide my fate and tell me if my games are any good.

Is this for real Angelo? What the hell kind of business is this? Metacritic scores being used a criteria for making business choices? Why don't we just fucking go back to school and pass notes to each other saying "Yes, No, Maybe?" because that would be just meaningful as shit you'd find on Metacritic. So New Vegas sells 6 millions copies, and gets overlooked in favor of a Metacritic score? People really do business like this? This is a thing?

Deus Ex, excellent choice. I really want to play that game too, more than Mass Effect even. Even with all the amazing 2012 games coming out this year, Deus Ex from last year is #1 on my to do list. You're not alone in feeling weird about playing games you don't own. It's hard for me to get into games I don't own. Granted I did borrow Dead Space and Prince of Persia from my best friend, beat them, and gave them back and I had a great experience during those games. But I eventually went to buy both of them. I hate not owning my games. When I rent them or borrow them it just feels too much like a commodity. I like to buy my games, play them on my own time, and have complete control over the whole situation.

I've been downloading lots of demos and stuff lately from the XBL marketplace and Warp was one of the things I played most recently. I really loved it, at least the 20 minutes or so I spent in it. I thought the presentation, sound design (sad there's no music though), and mechanics were really interesting. Except for when you have to wag the stick back and forth to blow things up. The effects look really awesome, but wagging the stick back and forth gets old really fast. In general I don't like mechanics that make players wag the stick back and forth quickly, or tap a button as fast as possible. RE4 is a great game but I hate it when Leon grasps onto a ledge and you have to mash the A button 2 dozen times to make him climb up. Or mash the A button to make him run from Mecha-Salazar in the castle.

The demo for Warp was awesome though even though I know for a fact I'd get tired of some of those mechanics. I'd like to get the full version I think.