I have selfish reasons for enjoying Borderlands: to me, it’s everything Fallout 3 should have been, allowing me to finally experience the “what could have been” that everyone seemed so content to ignore with Bethesda’s game last year.

I’m aware that there’s much more to Fallout 3 than there is to Borderlands, but it’s all just fluff to make an already overly ambitious game look and feel bigger than it already is without making it any more fun to play. Fallout 3 was pure tedium, forcing numbers down the players throat until they came flying out of his ears. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t find any of it fun.

I didn’t enjoy being weighed down while scavenging for items because I didn’t load up one of my stats as a baby as high as I should have. I didn’t enjoy picking those stats at all when I had yet to actually play the game, not knowing how important they truly were at the time. I didn’t enjoy the transparent conversation trees asking me if I wanted to be a saint, a sinner, or a fickle neutral. And I definitely didn’t enjoy playing an action RPG just pretending to be an FPS.

On the other hand, I enjoyed how the only point allocation in Borderlands pertained to an easy to understand skill tree, and that the points could be easily redistributed if you desired. I enjoyed the game’s eccentric characters, comic book style, and dark, pop culture-referencing humor. And I definitely enjoyed playing an action RPG disguised as an FPS.

I realize there’s a demographic out there that loves manipulating numbers, but I feel many others were swayed on Fallout 3’s (admittedly awesome) presentation alone. Borderlands is stylish but also fun and carefree with nothing to weigh it down, which is more than I can say about Fallout.

There’s a certain appeal to lesser known video games, be it the refreshing lack of hype or the willingness of the developers to prove themselves through the use of innovative gameplay. It would appear no has heard of Ghost Town: Vacant Lives, and to me, that’s a good thing. Without loads of force-fed hype resting in your throat, you can explore the empty streets of Ghost Town and see it for what it really is: a truly innovative and effective video game.

Harry is having a very bad day: he wrecked his car, his daughter is missing, he can’t remember those closest to him, and he’s being chased through frozen hellscapes by fleshy, faceless demons preying upon your deepest insecurities.

That’s right. You, the player, may be guiding Harry through Ghost Town, but Harry and the world around him will change to reflect your own personality. The game manages this through increasingly analytical sessions with an oddly menacing psychologist and through unprecedented levels of interaction and immersion never seen on the Wii or any other platform for that matter.

Very few of the motion controls used in Vacant Lives are unique to the game. Lit’s flashlight mechanic of aiming the beam with the Wii remote and No More Heroes‘ cellphone pantomime making clever use of the remote’s built-in speaker are put to major use throughout Vacant Lives, but here, they’re more than just interesting quirks. The flashlight doesn’t just light Harry’s way but allows you to observe the finer details of the dark corners of Ghost Town, which has been abandoned in the midst of a peculiar snow storm.

Harry isn’t alone on the streets and in the abandoned buildings, though. His camera phone will occasionally pick up static interference from powerful memories still clinging to worldly objects. Taking a photograph of where a deer carcass once rested will suddenly leave a voice mail on Harry’s phone relaying a father’s praise for his son’s first kill, while nearing an animal skull outside will find the father berating his “queer” son’s hesitance for pulling the trigger. Coupled with a plethora of phone numbers that you can find and call throughout the entire game, Harry’s phone serves as a unique and immersive way for the player to interact with the game’s world in intuitive ways, adding to the already moody atmosphere.

The common practice of having players pinch (ie, hold A and B together to manipulate) objects is also used throughout Vacant Lives but only in the first-person perspective when solving puzzles and searching cabinets, boxes, and other containers. Many of these instances are done in search of a key to a locked door and don’t really require any clever solution, but that only adds to the sense that you’re actually interacting in this abandoned world. You’re not at the mercy of a game’s wacky gimmicks. You’re just a guy looking for a key so he can find his daughter.

This all adds up to create an engrossing adventure game, but there’s more to it than just exploration. You see, Harry seems to be going a bit crazy. Things are confusing at first, but some of the occasional acquaintances Harry comes across seem to know him even though he has no idea who they are. Furthermore, they all seem to disappear when he’s not paying attention only to walk back into the picture later on in the story as if nothing happened. It’s very much like the movie Jacob’s Ladder where you’re not quite sure what’s true and what’s a hallucination and neither does the main character.

The mood often shifts from creepy and unsettling to tense and panicked as soon as someone says something Harry doesn’t want to hear. During these moments, known as nightmares, the world begins to freeze and warp around Harry, contorting the already bizarre Ghost Town into a hellish maze occupied by shambling, fleshy creatures.

All Harry can do to survive their incessant groping is to run, crawl, and climb until he finds a way out of the nightmare; he can’t fight back. Faintly glowing blue outlines indicate objects Harry can quickly interact with such as doors, crawlspaces, and ledges, but after the first nightmare, it becomes very easy to get lost. The phone’s GPS feature offers a map of the area, but it’s not detailed (or quick) enough to be of any help. When grabbed, you must thrust both the Wii remote and nunchuk in the direction of the creature to hurl it off you. Your only real defense are the occasional flare, which the creatures shy away from.

These moments can be frustrating if only because the trial and error they begin to require ruins what should be the game’s constant threat of terror. The idea that these nightmares can (and do) occur at any moment should constantly keep the player on edge, fearing the return of the haunting creatures (which grow more and more grotesque as the game discovers more about your personality), but the sequences take you out of the experience when you start dying. You want them to end, not because you’re scared, but because you’re just sick of it.

Still, there’s quite a bit of replay value to be found in that no two playthroughs will turn out the same. The scenes with the psychologist start out offering fairly superficial changes, but it’s the minor actions within Ghost Town, most of which you’re not even aware of, that begin to alter the outcome of the game. Certain characters will appear drastically different and even Harry himself will change based on how you play. What’s so great about how Vacant Lives handles these changes is that you rarely know how or when your actions will be interpreted.

It’s a shame, though, that many players will be turned off by the game’s frustrating action sequences as well as the fact that there is no fighting. Vacant Lives shows that games have the potential to be about more than just killing hundreds of enemies with conveniently places weapons. Even though it doesn’t reach this potential itself, it is perhaps one of the most unsettling and immersive experiences out there.

And then there’s one last thing.

I’m sure many of you who read this far are aware that there is no game called Ghost Town: Vacant Lives, and that this has in fact been a review of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

I’ve personally never played a Silent Hill game other than Shattered Memories, and while I found some serious flaws within the game (and would even venture to say that it’s not as fun to play as it is to experience), I still think it’s one of the most interesting and rewarding games released in years. Many people already appear to be turned off by the fact that “Silent Hill” is in the game’s title. Some reviewers have even formed their (negative) opinions of the game based on those two words, but I think they’re only blinding themselves from seeing the game for what it truly is.

By bringing along all of these preconceived notions of what a Silent Hill game is supposed to be, fans are setting themselves up for disappointment. From what I understand about the other entries in the series, Shattered Memories appears to be closer to the concept the series have been striving to create than any of the other games.

It’s just too bad that Shattered Memories has as many faults as it does considering the departure it represents for the series. The transition could have been a lot smoother for fans if it had been easier to tolerate, but as it is, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is something special that you should experience with an open mind.

Mega Man 10, announced today by Nintendo Power, will be another retro-styled outing for the Blue Bomber on WiiWare. Details are scarce, but it has been confirmed that Mega Man will team up with Proto Man and another unrevealed character to defeat a series of evil robot masters, including the electrifying Sheep Man. People seem excited about a sequel to Mega Man 9, but the popular opinion on Sheep Man appears to be split.

Sure, he looks ridiculous and doesn’t appear to serve a practical purpose (though the delightfully bad Mega Man 10 box art shows he could be a sheep shearer with his scissored hands), but since when has there been a Mega Man game without a ridiculous robot master? And I’m not even talking about the crazy robot-animal hybrids from the X series (most of which I haven’t played) but the retro masters we grew up with.

Let’s take a look shall we?

[Mega Man: Cut Man] Designed to chop down trees, Cut Man launches the giant pair of scissors atop his head like a boomerang to get the job done. Why he had to take on Mega Man in a locked room containing boulders, his major weakness? Probably to illustrate the Rock, Paper, Scissors aspect that the game was built around.

[Runner-up: Oil Man] Technically exclusive to the Powered Up remake, Oil Man sparked controversy as the most racist of the series’ robot masters.

[MegaMan 2: Wood Man] Who builds a robot out of wood? Dr. Wily, the most persistent mad scientist ever. Wood Man pioneered  shield weapons in the series, which would soon become overdone.

[Runner-up: Heat Man] He’s a giant Zippo lighter. I think MM2’s more impractical masters represent Wily’s personality as opposed to Dr. Light’s more useful creations.

[Mega Man 3: Top Man] One the series’ most hated masters, defeating Top Man earns Mega Man the Top Spin attack, a useless close-range maneuver save for one particular master.

[Runner-up: Snake Man] He was designed to navigate narrow spaces, but Wily must have forgot about that when he added a humanoid body to the reptile robot.

[Mega Man 4: Toad Man] He was created to provide water during droughts, but Toad Man is perhaps the easiest master in the series to defeat with the mega buster alone.

[Runner-up: Ring Man] I think he’s designed to marry people like that robot on Futurama.

[Mega Man 5: Charge Man] I’m not sure how Charge Man is any better at the shipment of goods than the trains he’s modeled after. He even fights in a train, so I’m not sure even he knows what his purpose in life is.

[Runner-up: Star Man] When looking at Star Man, it’s easy to see why MM5 is considered the worst.

[Mega Man 6: Centaur Man] This has got to be the lamest excuse for a master in the series. Centaur Man was created for the sole purpose of being a history museum curator. That’s probably where his ability to freeze time comes in handy. [Runner-up: Wind Man] Capcom received hundreds of fan entries for master ideas and chose this Air Man knock off?

[Mega Man 9: Jewel Man] Just because you work in a diamond mine doesn’t mean you need to made of the stuff! This is probably Wily’s most noble creation as it would eliminate the entire blood diamond trade. He might not be such a bad guy after all.

[Runner-up: Galaxy Man] You’d think a master wielding black holes, the most powerful force known to man, wouldn’t be the go-to first boss. You’d be thinking wrong.

So, Sheep Man looks a little silly, but he’ll be joining a cast full of useless, poorly designed machines. I’m sure he’ll fit right in.

For some reason, this isn’t a review of Modern Warfare 2’s single-player campaign. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to take away from the game’s multiplayer, about which I expressed such a positive opinion. Maybe it’s because I don’t really care to discuss the co-operative spec. ops mode. It could just be because I simply cannot make this sound unbiased no matter how hard I try. Whichever it is, what follows is not a review. Call it a (spoiler-filled) rant.

Modern Warfare 2 tricked me into feeling bad about killing innocent people. I say “tricked” because I was lured into the idea that I was doing something disturbing (but for good reason) only to later find I was doing something stupid (for no good reason). I was tricked into thinking Modern Warfare 2 was about something more than killing people.

I knew feared Modern Warfare 2’s campaign wouldn’t be fun before I played it. You see, I suffered through its predecessor, Call of Duty 4, the week before. “Suffered through” has a bad ring to it, but I don’t consider it to be an insult because I enjoyed the points in between. I had never been so immersed in a game before. The opening credits where you observe Middle Eastern chaos in first-person as a former head of state before being assassinated was enough to convince me, but Infinity Ward has to go and drop a bomb on us (literally) by killing off our American persona in a nuclear blast. The ending where your entire team is (supposedly) gunned down, and the bad guys approach victoriously in slow motion just as your dying superior slides you the weapon to exact your revenge…that was just the icing on the cake.

Call of Duty 4 was popular (apart from its phenomenal multiplayer) because it was an interactive first-person Hollywood action movie that affected people in such a way and in such numbers like no game had ever done before. It was cool, it was intense, and it even seemed thoughtful, possibly making observations about American arrogance concerning its presence in the Middle East and the futility of nuclear weapons to keep anybody safe. Of course, in the tradition of the Hollywood action movies it emulated, Modern Warfare would have to become a franchise with a bigger, better, and more badass sequel.

I will admit that I fully supported a sequel. Call of Duty 4 had great multiplayer, and Modern Warfare 2 has great multiplayer, so I’m thankful for what is probably the best online multiplayer FPS there is coming out a few weeks before the Christmas holidays. What I’m not thankful for is “For The Record”, Modern Warfare 2’s attempt at picking up where the original left off. I think a time line of the in-game events will help to illustrate where I’m going:

• A private in the U.S. marines is recruited by general Shepherd to infiltrate the ranks of Russian-terrorist Makarov.
• Meanwhile, Soap (the silent S.A.S. protagonist from COD4) and new recruit Roach retrieve data from a fallen U.S. satellite in a Russian military base.
• The private assists Makarov in murdering thousands of civilians in a Moscow airport with the assurance that he will be saving many more lives in the long run.
• Makarov kills the private before fleeing the airport, leaving the smoking gun that killed thousands of Russians in the hands of an American marine.
• The Russian military blocks American satellites as it uses the incident to justify invading the continental U.S., focusing on Washington D.C.
• Soap and his group attempt to locate Makarov by freeing a knowledgeable prisoner from a heavily guarded facility.
• They locate the prisoner who turns out to be captain Price (the superior from COD4 who is supposed to be dead), and the group escapes.
• Price launches a nuke at Washington D.C. from a nuclear submarine and detonates it above the city, emitting a blast of electro-magnetic pulse, wiping out the Russian military’s air superiority in the area.
• The group splits up to locate Makarov, and Price discovers general Shepherd is behind the Russian invasion, but Roach is killed by the general immediately after.
• Soap and Price hunt down Shepherd and find out he instigated the entire conflict to whip up support for the U.S. military after thousands of his men were killed in the nuclear blast five years earlier (in COD4).
• Soap kills Shepherd, but he and Price are now wanted terrorists, and Makarov is still alive.

In the end, Modern Warfare 2 is a video game based off the ’80s tradition of Rocky IV and Red Dawn (there’s a level titled “Wolverines”), but it’s not the end I’m concerned with. It’s the early controversial mission called “No Russian” where the marine private assists Russian-terrorist Makarov in gunning down civilians in an airport. This is Modern Warfare 2’s equivalent of Call of Duty 4’s nuke scene, and it had much more potential. This is where I was tricked.

I had heard about the scene before the game came out and even heard a firsthand account from my roommate who played through the mission before me. Still, I was affected by the scene in the same way many others were.

I’m armed with a light machine gun and accompanied by Makarov and several of his comrades as I exit an elevator into a crowded terminal. Makarov gives the sign and I open fire, spraying dozens of bullets from the hip into the now screaming crowd. It’s then that I immediately stop. The other gunmen start moving forward, and I decide to stick to my mission, only to find I can manage nothing faster than a slow jog.

As I catch up, I see the others have already gunned down several dozen of the fleeing civilians. A man attempts to drag a loved one from our path, but he is promptly murdered. The wounded struggle to escape. They are the only ones I can bring myself to kill anymore. I pity them.

Suddenly, a security guard rounds a corner wielding a handgun. He’s no match for my light machine gun, and I actually feel relieved to kill him, relieved that this death was at least somewhat justified. I need to finish my mission.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I approach a set of escalators descending into a lobby filled with screams. One of the gunmen has cornered hundreds of civilians and is just finishing off the last of them when I join his side.

Our job almost done, we begin to make our getaway. Special police try to ambush us, but Makarov counted on this. We gun our way through and make it to an ambulance, where I’m promptly murdered as I attempt to hop aboard. Makarov knew who I was. Of course he did, I’m a fucking private in the U.S. marine corps. My Russian can’t be that good.

I didn’t think about that little glossed over plot hole just then. It was around the time, Price, who was supposed to be dead, breaks out of prison only to launch a nuke at Washington D.C. without alerting anyone to his plan that I decided Modern Warfare 2 was ridiculous. The more I thought about it, the more disappointed I became.

A video game made me feel bad about shooting fake bullets at fake people, then asked me to get the stinger missile atop Burger Town to take out a Russian gunship somewhere over Virginia. The final missions were an insult. Not only did Russians invade the United States (did that airport not have any security cameras that spotted the unmasked, well-known Makarov?), but the American general charged with saving the country is insane and was the one who instigated the entire conflict. And he did it “fur Uh-mericuh!“

Betrayal of the player’s trust and emotions aside, this is a problem because it was the plot and the way you interacted with it in Call of Duty 4 that made the game worth playing. With Modern Warfare 2’s campaign amounting to nothing more than 24 meets Red Dawn, there’s no reason to play. Yes, that’s right. Call of Duty campaigns aren’t fun to play.

I omitted Soap and Roach’s foray into Brazil from the time line above because I desperately want to forget all about it save for the multiplayer’s “Favella” map. While searching for a lead on Makarov’s location, you murder hundreds of Brazilians intent of keeping secret the location of the Russian terrorist they supply ammo to. These militia men just keep coming and coming. As Roach, you’re separated from the rest of your team and are tasked with chasing down the militia’s leader. During this period, every single pissed off militia man knows exactly where you are and will wait all day for a chance to shoot you in the face and blow you up.

You will die over and over, but it will always play out the same in the end: Soap gets the guy just as you’re closing in. The entire time, he berates you on the radio about how you need to keep up and not lose the target, but it’s meaningless. You’re not interacting, you just earning the right to see computer controlled characters interact with each other.

During your dramatic escape from the favella, you’re unarmed. You fell…again. You fell earlier in the game, but Soap caught you that time. You fall again in the prison, but Price saves you that time. You also die three times in Modern Warfare 2. Infinity Ward makes the answer clear to the question: How do you top the game-making moment in Call of Duty 4 where you die in a nuclear blast? Easy, you do it three times; twice at the hand of people you somewhat trusted and once in space for good measure. Yes, space! How else do you expect to get a good look at the mid-air nuclear explosion caused by a man who was supposed to be dead and was just freed from a five year stint in a hellish castle of a prison?

Modern Warfare 2 is over-the-top, and I would argue that’s what makes its multiplayer good and Call of Duty 4’s campaign great, but this new campaign is over-the-top in all the wrong ways. I wouldn’t be so worked up if it weren’t for “No Russian”. That experience shows what video games are capable of and what they will be capable of in the future, but what’s it worth when it’s part of something so shallow and so stupid?

It’s worth about sixty dollars U.S. and around 1,700 words of late-night ranting.

Call of Duty 4 is the mom who tells her kids they can run around outside for only ten more minutes, while Modern Warfare 2 is the dad who tells his kids they can run around outside for as long as they want.

You thought you had the coolest mom ever when she was in charge, especially after that time you spent with your weird uncle World at War, but now that it’s dad’s turn, playtime has never been better.

Modern Warfare 2 spoils Call of Duty 4 veterans by allowing them to have their cake and eat it too. Players can now wield an assault rifle and a shotgun or equip C4 and a rocket launcher in the same class without the use of extra perks, fire extra powerful bullets extra fast, and yes, run outside for as long as they want.

Treyarch’s idea of expanding upon the first Modern Warfare was to add a couple of new (useless) perks and tanks to World at War (which would have been better off as glorified DLC), and it sought balance by reducing access to extra grenades. Infinity Ward freed up loads of potential for customization in Modern Warfare 2 by moving around and consolidating existing perks, while incorporating new ones that find actual use.

Common online complaints against “martyrdom pussies” and “juggernaut bitches” have been taken to heart and find both abilities relegated to “death streaks,” bonuses activated only by dying repeatedly without earning a kill. Secondary weapons now include automatic pistols, rocket launchers, and shotguns but don’t require the use of a wasted perk to wield. Guns are easier to use thanks to reduced recoil, improved iron-sights, and a bevy of attachments, some of which take the place of former perks like Double Tap and Deep Impact.

Call of Duty 4 punished players for using grenade launchers by removing access to their blue perk, home to explosives like the rocket launcher and C4. Modern Warfare 2 lets the player attach a grenade launcher and wield another launcher and C4 or a claymore, which are no longer perks but equipment, all at the same time.

Challenges, random tasks worth thousands of points, unlock titles and emblems upon completion. These are used to customize your name so players can instantly know what kind of asshole killed them by reading phrases like “Boom! Headshot” or “My Lil’ Pwny.” Titles and emblems remain after wiping your slate clean to show off with prestige, allowing you to constantly expand your collection with more and more humiliating messages.

Awarding killing sprees with air strikes and gunships added an interesting dynamic to Call of Duty’s traditional multiplayer, but Modern Warfare 2 adds numerous new kill streak rewards and allows you to choose which you enter the battlefield with. Most are variations on the same theme (kill, kill, kill!), but a few have unique properties that change the way people play the game.

The only flaw in Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer worth discussing is the inability to customize kill streaks per class, forcing players to stick to the same arsenal despite their changing kits. It’s a matter of not squeezing every last drop of potential out of the Call of Duty 4 sponge, but it’s not a fatal flaw.

Modern Warfare 2 does most everything it can to give you more and more, abandoning old restrictions to let its children play. It goes so far as to exponentially increase the number of points earned per kill for the sole purpose of assuring you that playtime is longer and better than before. It also has nukes in case you weren’t convinced.

Magic: The Gathering haunts me.

I’ve quit thrice before, but it’s never left me. Aside from the physical box of cards I’d hate to get rid of without some kind of monetary compensation, something reminds me of the addicting mechanics every few months, forcing me to check out what’s new with the game.

I’ll never play paper Magic again, and the money-trap element keeps me away from Magic Online, but I spent several weeks tapping islands and swinging with drakes into early summer mornings nonetheless thanks to Stainless Games’ Duels of the Planeswalkers.

At first, I was content helping my roommate understand the mechanics of the game as he played the demo, but by the time he was done, I was offering to pay for half. It wasn’t just because it was a cheap, legal way to play Magic again. Duels of the Planeswalkers‘ streamlined execution adds a subtle but unique element to the game I loved to hate.

The seemingly endless amount of cards to buy often left me making budget variations of tournament-worthy Standard decks. My refusal to publicly reveal how much of a nerd I am left another roommate as my only opponent aside from the interesting folks at the occasional pre-release tournaments we went to. I longed to compete against quality, expensive decks with some of my own.

Duels of the Planeswalkers was designed from the ground up to be a streamlined version of Magic that anyone could pick up and play. Some reviewers claim this renders the game obsolete for people who are already familiar with the game, but for poor quitters like me, the game is a ten-dollar nostalgia trip that puts everyone on a level playing field by offering a set number of cards with minimal customization.

This lack of customization forces the eight playable decks to revolve around slight variations of the same win condition: creatures. Of course, white has loads of those creatures and green has big ones while red burns, blue counters, and black does a bit of everything, but none of them do it very well, not when compared to real competitive Magic. That’s not a problem as far as I’m concerned, though, since everyone is playing with the same limitations. These limitations are liberating, but the streamlined process is taken a bit too far, leading to the game’s biggest fault.

You earn new cards as you progress and can choose whether or not to add them, but they’re restricted to individual decks. The original sixty cards can’t be customized, so you can only weigh your deck down with extra cards, reducing your chances to draw more reliable cards early on and preventing you from altering your mana base, which can be a bit heavy at times.

DLC has been released since I stopped playing Duels, adding a few more decks and several extra cards for the original decks, but again, I think I’m done with Magic: The Gathering, this time for good. I haven’t checked out what’s new with the game since the day I first drafted this post back in the summer, but I’m content. The ghost is gone for good.

Demoman is a feature in which I make (incredibly harsh) assumptions about upcoming games based upon their (horrible) demos, while making observations about their purpose and importance.

Today’s victims: My Life as a Darklord, World of Goo, and Pokemon Rumble.

These demos are a bit unique. My Life as a Darklord and World of Goo have been out for months but have just received demos on the Wii Shop Channel, making them the first WiiWare demos Nintendo has released, along with NyxQuest and Bit.Trip Beat. They’re also quite good, which is a change from majority of the DS demos lazily thrown onto the Nintendo Channel.

These three demos are also unique in the way they present their gameplay. They each give the player a taste of what it’s actually like to play the game rather than an isolated fragment of a level.

My Life as a Darklord

A spin-off of a spin-off where the bad guys are the heroes, My Life as a Darklord is a strategy game set in Final Fantasy’s Crystal Chronicles universe. Your goal is to protect the dark crystal atop your evil tower from pesky adventurers by building trap-filled floors and filling them with classic Final Fantasy critters.

Most demos would throw a boring tutorial at you explaining the game’s mechanics before leaving you to fend for yourself in a single level. Darklord, however, has its cast acknowledge that you’re playing a demo, but starts off as you would expect the full versions of most higher-end download games to begin.

You’re presented with a world map and the ability to use karma points earned in battle to expand your tower and level up your monsters. There isn’t much to do at first, but as you win battles, you earn access to different floors and monsters and the points to build more and increase their strength.

There’s a point where you would assume the demo should end, but it continues, presenting you with several more levels.

World of Goo

Much like Darklord, the World of Goo demo presents you with access to the world map where you unlock more and more levels, where the goal is to build structures around various obstacles to save as many goo balls as possible. The game’s uniquely-styled cutscenes play in between levels and you can unlock the World of Goo Corporation side game, which challenges you to to build the tallest tower possible with extra goo balls saved in the regular levels. This invites players to return to previous levels to top their high scores so they can have more goo balls to build with. There are also OCD challenges, which task players to beat levels in as few moves as possible.

The demo ends before you can complete the latter half of the first world, but by the time it’s over, you have experienced what it’s like to actually play the full version of World of Goo (one of 2008’s best games) and not just a couple examples of its basic gameplay.

Pokemon Rumble

It screams cheaply thrown together attempt to cash in on Pokemon fans early on, but Pokemon Rumble actually is quite deep for a fifteen dollar download, and its demo allows you to experience that.

Rumble is a beat-em-up featuring wind-up doll versions of pokemon competing in a free-for-all competition. You start off as a lowly rattata, quickly eliminated from the contest, but you’re given access to half a dozen levels to earn new pokemon and gears, which you can use to upgrade their abilities.

The levels are pretty straight forward point A to point B affairs with a themed assortment of pokemon in between. Occasionally a pokemon will topple over after being defeated, allowing you to add it to your party. Your team grows quickly, so you’ll always be using different and progressively stronger monsters.

Rumble doesn’t give off a very good first impression considering the graphics are noticeably toned down, many of the sound effects are taken from the Game Boy games, and the game play consists of relentless button mashing, but once you realize that the demo allows you to play through numerous levels, building and strengthening a team of dozens, you’ll find the gameplay is actually quite addicting.

—

What makes each of these demos work so well is the fact that they offer you a glimpse of what it’s like to play the full game, not just a fraction of one of the gameplay mechanics. My Life as a Darklord’s demo could have easily consisted of a tutorial and a single level. Same for World of Goo and Pokemon Rumble. It’s pretty easy to summarize the mechanics of each, but games are more than just mechanics.

What you do in between levels often defines a game. Combat in most RPGs gets dull and monotonous pretty quickly. It’s the customization of your party where the real decision-making usually comes in, but just allowing a player to go through a few battles without being able to feel what it’s like to grow and improve doesn’t sell a game. Demos should sample a final product, not a gameplay mechanic.

BOLDSTATE– “Even if a year passes, Mario [will still sell],” Shigeru Miyamoto said to Japanese retailers during a demonstration of New Super Mario Bros. Wii last week according to retailer Games Maya.

Miyamoto, game designer and general manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, announced NSMBW would be sold in Japan for ¥5,800 beginning Dec. 3, nearly three weeks after it is released in North America.

—Original Article–

Will New Super Mario Bros. Wii Be A Long Seller?

Kotaku, Brian Ashcraft– Last week, Nintendo held an event for Japanese retailers. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was dated and priced for Japan, apparently. Nintendo’s resident game wizard Shigeru Miyamoto talked and demoed the game as well. But what did he say?

[Jump]

We don’t know. All we know is that the manager of Japanese shop Games Maya quotes Miyamoto as pointing out, “Even if a year passes, Mario is still sells.”

If past Mario titles are anything to go by, Miyamoto isn’t probably right — he is right.

伝わってきました〜♪ [**店長からのメッセージ**]

—AP—

As this is my first AP post, I’ll begin by explaining the goal I’m trying to accomplish by recycling “professional” posts. It’s simple. I’m just re-writing posts from professional video game blogs using a more professional journalistic writing style. It’s my motivation for doing this that requires more background.

It bothers me that several of the most prominent, professional video game blogs spew out undigested bits of information that, in turn, are re-spewed out by many amateur blogs, all of which receive more traffic and commentary than I do here.

I reluctantly visit Kotaku daily as they are well-connected in the video game industry, and visiting often guarantees I won’t have to sift through pages of garbage each and every time. Still, the constant updates regarding rhythm games, lawsuits, scantily clad women, and all you could ever want to know about AAA titles like Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 leave me desensitized, not only to posts in those veins, but majority of posts in general. Something really needs to pop out and grab my attention if I’m going to “make the jump.” And jump I will because making money comes before informing your audience at Kotaku.

If I’ve been correctly informed, bloggers at sites like Kotaku get paid by the click; that is, how many people decide to view the whole post. In order to guarantee the click of any slightly interested reader, Kotaku’s bloggers often tease desired information on the main page, implying the answers are just a “jump” away. This is in direct contrast to the philosophy behind leads in professional journalism. My example here hits on everything that is wrong with Kotaku’s style of “journalism.”

Perhaps Ashcraft’s worst offense here is his horrible misuse of the “jump.” Miyamoto said something to Japanese game retailers last week while demoing NSMBW, and Ashcraft implies he has that information after the jump. What did Miyamoto say? “We don’t know,” Ashcraft writes. He does, however, have a poorly translated quote of a quote from a (literal) no name manager from some retailer we’ve never heard of. The quote? Mario will still sell a year from now. Earth-shattering stuff.

Aside from tricking readers to make the jump with an empty promise and offering no news other than a Japanese price and release date (which he failed to put into context for his primarily North American readership), Ashcraft presents terrible writing in general. The structure and language is all wrong and screams worse than amateur. I seriously wonder if Ashcraft was drunk, high, or just half asleep when he posted this “information.”

I may be stepping on some toes here, but I can’t stand what passes for journalism in my chosen industry. If I’m ever to become a professional, it’s precisely this type of drivel that I hope to do away with.

Hello. My name is Chas, and I’m a video game addict.

It’s been over a month since my last post, but I’ve been playing more games than usual lately: Scribblenauts, Okami, Final Fantasy VI, Modern Warfare, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and I’m about to play through Lost Winds again. I also have a new addiction thanks to Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. It’s not the game, however, that has me obsessed, but the tea brewing mini-game.

An in-game hobby of the professor’s has become a real-world hobby of my own.

I’ve been drinking tea for the last three weeks or so, finally realizing what I had been missing all these years.

When Layton and his apprentice Luke arrive in the gloomy city of Folsense, the professor decides the stressed citizens could use a nice cup of tea, each specified to their liking. This forms the basis for the most interesting, and frustrating, of Diabolical Box’s mini-games.

You begin with three basic ingredients, which you can combine in a teapot to brew a potential winner. Not every combination works, and Layton and Luke will tell you just how awful your concoction tastes when you screw up. Of course, they’ll also rave about how great and unique the flavor is when you get it right.

Each citizen will present you with a different situation, which can only be remedied by a specific brew: one lady is concerned about her skin, a rugged man in an alley way is longing for the specialty of a long gone bar, and a diligent lookout needs something that will put some pep in his step. As you help each person with their favorite cup of tea, they may offer you a new ingredient. Each has a brief description of its taste and effect on the final drink; your clues to what constitutes a desired brew.

I suppose it was the detailed descriptions of the great flavors and uplifting effects that piqued my interest, but I found myself grabbing a a sampler box of various teas while making my grocery bill. A bit of research revealed that a little milk and honey go a long way with herbal teas like my new favorite chamomile. I also tried a sampler of the more popular English teas, which taste great plain with just a little sugar. Earl Gray is my current drink of choice.

This sudden obsession with drinking and learning more about tea had me wondering how video games could be effective tools for motivating this type of behavior in all sorts of ways. The only other game I could recall that affected my real world interests in this way was Okami, which resulted in my purchase of a cheap bottle of sake. I was interested in seeing if I could truly tolerate sipping such a drink, but the incredibly dry white wine flavor didn’t appeal to me at all. Surely, there are more enjoyable, and responsible, behaviors games can inspire.

I can see games easily proving interest in hobbies like cooking, bird-watching, Taekwondo, etc. just by adding layers of detail and portraying the activities in a positive light, but most games revolve around intangible concepts like magic or unreal martial arts. Drawing magic from materia or flying through the air with massive swords as in Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children could inspire the study of mythology (Shiva, Odin, Hades) or lead to an interest in over the top martial arts movies, but they don’t lead to a practical, tangible hobby.

I’ll be on the lookout for more games like Diabolical Box or Okami. Though these effects may be minor, I think they offer a great deal to the argument that video games are a legitimate medium.

My review of Bit.Trip Core is live on Game Positive. The game joins its predecessor and several other games that make me glad Nintendo hasn’t canceled its download services outright. Core consists of only three levels, and it doesn’t take long to complete overall. Of course, it doesn’t cost much either, and the number of times you’ll play through each level (without frustration) will more than guarantee the six dollar purchase.