The new logo for Suda 51′s Grasshopper Manufacture is a mixmash coat of arms, which clearly reads across the bottom “Punk’s Not Dead” and it would seem that No More Heroes is Suda 51′s very real effort to prove that fact. The game is loud and garish and completely over the top, from the cutscene dialogue right down to the half motorcycle, half tank that protagonist Travis Touchdown drives. No More Heroes is about breaking the rules.

But not just in the obvious ways. The game breaks a lot of design rules as well. Unfortunately, one of those rules is, “In the year 2008, it is completely fucking unacceptable for objects and scenery to ‘pop’ into existence at a walkable distance.” Luckily, that rule only gets broken in non-combat areas. But that’s really a technical issue, and I mention it first as a personal irritant. There are many more important rules that No More Heroes breaks, such as the ubiquitous need that games have lately to try to disguise the fact that they are games. It started, I think, as 3D graphics began making serious advances. When characters’ hands had actual fingers instead of being blunted trapazoids with lines on them. When skin suddenly had texture. When clothing moved like actual cloth instead of plates of cardboard.

Studios were spending all of this money trying to make their games look more realistic. They still are, obviously, and with the advent of real physics engines in games, that’s going to continue to escalate. But somewhere along the line, it became common wisdom that the graphics were a function of the realism, and that realism was the goal. So the gaming industry began cramming all sorts of ridiculous tropes into games that they didn’t need in order to keep them realistic (where the term realistic can encompass worlds where aliens invade, zombies walk the earth, and World War II never bloody ends). The idea is that you can increase the realism if you prevent people from remembering they are playing a game.

And in certain genres, that’s a good thing. Part of what made Resident Evil 4 such a success was that despite thinking about aiming mechanics and ammo collection, there were plenty of moments where a enemy leaped out at you and it scared you pissless. A game like RE4 had to strive for realism in order to achieve its mood and feel. But now it seems that every game is doing this, many to the point of either hiding the user interface or else trying to make it part of the scenery. The new Ghostbusters game, for example, will not have a UI at all, but rather all of your relevant statistics will be indicated by the lights on the back of your proton pack. And don’t get me wrong, that’s cool as hell. But for every game that does integration brilliantly, there are another ten that do it like crap. And then you still remember you are playing a game, because you are struggling with the UI. So the realism is lost, and on top of that, you’re annoyed at the developers.

No More Heroes doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you remember it’s a game. In fact, it goes out of its way to remind you that you’re playing a game. All of the on-screen indicators, from waggle information to locations on the map, are indicated with huge, square, three dimensional pixels. The UI is this insane compilation of a digital watch minimap, a rolling slot machine, a battery life indicator, a large, beating pixel-based heart, and a lounging 8-bit tiger. Even as you progress through the ranks in the game, that progress is tracked via a “High Scores” list that looks like it was pulled from a 1980′s Galaga clone arcade machine. The mini-missions and side quests are designed to both be non-realistic and poke fun at the arbitrary side quests that are accepted as gaming convention. I mean, you’re an assassin with a laser sword, but you earn cash on the side pumping gas, cutting lawns, and even picking up litter with over-the-top animations and arbitrary time limits. It’s all Suda 51′s way of telling you, “Hey, asshole. You’re playing a game. Remember?” He leaves the fourth wall just barely in tact.

But he goes beyond simply making the game-ness of No More Heroes obvious. In a lot of ways, what Suda 51 has created is a living embodiment of the idea of a modern video game. It’s the caricature that people accusingly point their finger at when ridiculing games. It’s unrealistic, the violence is so gratuitous that you can’t even take it seriously (you can slice people clean in half, and they literally erupt in blood and coins like you just blasted open a very bloody, wealthy fire hydrant). All of the female characters are exceptionally hot, wear almost no clothing, and flirt with Travis (even the one who’s missing a leg). Though Suda 51 paints Travis as such an out of touch geek that nothing ever comes from it, and actually manages to work some character development into that otherwise obvious internet cliche.

When irate pundits on Fox And Friends decide they need something to be outraged about, and begin talking about the violence orgies that all video games clearly are, those of us who play just shake our heads and sigh. No More Heroes stops and asks the question, “Well, what would happen if you did get extra points for cutting peoples’ heads off and breaking their spines?” The first answer is that it would be hilarious. The second, less obvious answer is that it would actually make the violence itself much less realistic. It removes the hightened sense emotional charge from combat that you get in a game like Resident Evil 4, while still keeping the combat fun, satisfying, and completely over the top. That is the other way in which No More Heroes retains its punk lineage. It says to the world, “This is what video games are, eh? Well be careful what you ask for, bitches, you just might get it.”

And just a note on the combat – yes, if you walk around randomly mashing the “A” button, you can probably slog through most of the normal enemies on easy mode. But that’s true of most games. Most enemies in Twilight Princess could have been killed by rushing up to them and flailing the Wiimote like an idiot. But the combat system can be a game of finesse and style if you want it to be. Certainly, on larger packs of enemies and bosses it quite literally has to be if you want to progress. The inclusion of the “killing blow” mechanic, where you get an arrow telling you which way to perform your kill strike, and you must swipe the Wiimote accordingly, gives me just enough sword swinging action to keep me satisfied without making my arm tired after a few hours of progression.

As for the graphics, which I know I’ve already criticized? They are what they are. Sometimes, they look very cool. Other times, you’re running around a large mansion thinking, “Oh, there’s that ugly ass texture again.” Honestly, I think the first stage where the tutorial takes place was a very poor choice because it’s probably one of the least interesting looking stages in the game (until you reach the boss). The style is like a very updated version Killer 7, in that it’s both textured and cell shaded, and the characters are slightly cartoony while retaining mostly realistic animations. It is supposed to look like an underground comic book, and in that sense it finds success. And the special effects themselves, the combat lighting and the explosions, look very sharp. In other words, it’s not going to be Bioshock. But thankfully, it’s not Daikatana, either.

A lot of people have been writing that if you liked Killer 7 (and in that case, welcome to my very small minority), then this game is for you. But I’d expand that, because even I can admit there was a lot not to like about the brilliantly flawed Killer 7. Instead, I think it’s fair to say that if you wanted to like Killer 7, then you will like No More Heroes. Not because they are the same game – far from it. But because No More Heroes does a lot of the things that Killer 7 wanted to or should have done, but was simply unable to accomplish. It fulfills the promise of the early Killer 7 previews, while managing to remain light hearted and amusing. And for sheer stress relief, I don’t know if I’ll ever find a game where hacking through a pack of baddies with a great big laser sword will be quite as satisfying.

The game does take some adjustment. I first played it for an hour or so, beat the initial mission, then put it down to do some other things. I enjoyed it, but the compulsion to continue playing wasn’t quite there yet. Then I picked it back up about an hour and a half later and played it for almost half of a day straight. Maybe I needed that time to process what I’d just played. Who can say? Being only half-way through the game, it’s possible that my final verdict will be different (and I certainly will have a completion post and review). But for those of you wondering if No More Heroes is worth your $50? Well, that probably depends. If you want to play Grand Theft Lightsaber, don’t bother buying No More Heroes. If you refused to play Wind Waker because it didn’t use reflection maps on Link’s sword, skip out on Suda 51′s latest. But if you like games, and have an actual sense of humor? I’m officially making No More Heroes your next mandatory purchase.

So, when talking about video games, and especially online type games, there is always the eight hundred pound gorilla known as World of Warcraft lumbering in the backdrop of the conversation. I don’t think anyone could have predicted how popular of a game WoW became – Blizzard certainly didn’t when they launched it with a fraction of their current server backbone. But even their frantic upgrading couldn’t have anticipated the seven to nine million players they currently collect monthly fees from.

I won’t belabor the WoW popularity discussion, as it has been done to death. Blizzard released a high quality product with a very thoroughly populated world that was easy to play and difficult to master. And more than anything else, they were able to largely hide the grind of the classic MMO behind the dressings of quests and instance runs. And when the grind couldn’t be completely hidden, it was at least directed and partitioned off into little bit sized chunks – no matter how you feel about having to collect eight lizard scrotums so that Dorko the Chef can make you his famous Lizard Dangle Crumbcakes, it’s no where near the monotonous dread of say, killing nothing but blue crabs for several real-time days worth of your life in Final Fantasy XI.

There are all sorts of reasons, though the sliding scale of involvement is clearly one of them. I know people who play just to tinker with alts, and that’s a reasonable way to play. I know people who play only together, slowly picking away at pairs or groups of characters to get them up to level 70. And I know people that take an alt from creation to outlands in a surge of grindgasmic power leveling. The game supports all of these play styles. It tells casual players that there is plenty for them to do, and it tells hardcore players that endgame content will (for various reasons) be their exclusive playground. And while both of those decisions pinch the players in the middle, it’s a full enough world to support them.

In short, World of Warcraft is a huge success. Too huge, for some people’s tastes. Especially other MMO developers. Because so far, no one has been able to make even a slight dent in Blizzard’s insanely large player base and market share. Sure, the numbers fluctuate, but it’s hard to attach those numbers to the rise of an alternate MMO. Part of the problem is that the gaming industry has an in-built fear of innovation. Of trying something different. A brief tour of your local GameStop will confirm that fact. For example, as Yahtzee recently pointed out over at Zero Punctuation, the Medal of Honor series has been going on longer than the actual second World War.

So when companies try to take on the MMO market (which means taking on Warcraft) their primary method of attack is to examine what is already on the market and try to make small improvements to it. In theory, that should work, since it’s how World of Warcraft was originally designed. Blizzard freely admitted that they were sifting everything good from the MMO market and dropping everything bad. The idea was to make WoW a highlight reel for the genre, and in that respect they largely succeeded. Of course, they’ve moved beyond that concept now, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t work again since the MMO market – and even Warcraft itself – has changed so much since the fall of 2004.

The problem is that it’s not working. Now, some of the blame lies on developers who have neither the time nor the budget to polish their offerings the way Warcraft has been polished. And many of the titles that come out are just not as good as Warcraft is, even when you consider the title’s faults and shortcomings. I was very ramped up for Tabula Rasa, and when I started playing it, I compared it to all of the other MMOs I’ve played. That it’s UI reeked of Star Wars Galaxies didn’t help, but in the end I found that most of its originality was just a crappier window dressing on the same old grind. Even the chat channels in Tabula Rasa were over-run with Warcraft discussions.

Here’s the thing. Even if you had the budget and the capacity to produce a game that was everything Warcraft currently is, but also 15% “more” Warcrafty, your product would still be a mediocre success by comparison. I heard endless hype that Lord of the Rings was going to bounce Blizzard’s cash machine on its head, and no such thing happened. I heard that story told before Tabula Rasa launched, and the game is a piecemeal slog at best. I am hearing the same thing about the new Conan MMO, and expect equally unimpressive returns. There are things that game developers just don’t seem to understand about Warcraft, so it’s up to me and my huge, huge ego to explain it to them.

1) The majority of World of Warcraft players are not deciding between Warcraft or another MMO. They are deciding between Warcraft or SportsCenter. Or Warcraft or drinking. Or Warcraft or watching a movie. Simply put, the vast majority of the game’s player base isn’t comprised of enthusiast gamers. That was the unexpected factor in WoW’s original success. These players will never be lured away from Warcraft to another similar MMO because there is no return on that investment for them. I’m willing to bet that better than 75% of Warcraft’s player base has never played another MMO, perhaps doesn’t even know of any other MMOs currently out on the market.

2) The gaming market does not need another shoddy remake of World of Warcraft. Please stop making them. Part of that problem is the fantasy setting (which has been done to death, and which is probably the only reason I gave Tabula Rasa the time of day). Part of that problem is the formula. And part of that problem is the pacing of the game – FFXI players who have tried Warcraft know what I mean here. Take a look at your MMO and, without employing any of the phrases used by your PR department, try to explain to a casual gamer why they should quit Warcraft, give up their army of alts and their progression (to say nothing of the group they play with) to play your MMO instead. Can’t do it? Then don’t make that game.

3) The next MMO to have a major impact on the gaming market will be decidedly different from Warcraft. And I don’t just mean setting it in space or forcing PvP or just some other lame re-hash of the current MMO parameters. It’s not as though Warcraft is free of faults and problems – it has plenty. But no MMO seems interested in capitalizing on them. In fact, most other designers seem unable to understand them at all. Yet Warcraft has enormous, troublesome issues that never get properly addressed by Blizzard because the rest of the game design prevents them from being so addressed. And by looking at these issues, our theoretical “next MMO” starts to materialize.

First off, Warcraft has been out for over three years now, and the character classes are in a constant state of flux. So much so that Blizzard seems to have given up trying to balance them, and instead chooses to purposefully overpower them rotation-style, so that every class spends part of the year overpowered and part of the year gimped by comparison. What started as a one-time “class review” to fix these issues has turned into a constant swing of buffs and nerfs, to the point where reading the next set of patch notes either elicits cries of joy or torrents of profanity from most players. Blizzard has turned this problem into a way to keep the classes feeling new and fresh, but in the end, it’s maddenly frustrating for many players.

Most of the WoW players I know long for more stability in their characters – especially those players that are more engaged than casual gamers and yet not hardcore raiders. This is a group of players that comprises a huge portion of the total player base, and is the target audience that any future MMO needs to entice. A brief scan of the WoWJutsu main page shows that less than 5% of the players in the game have seen the inside of Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, and an even smaller percentage have actually completed those instances. Even the previous tier of raids, Serpentshrine and The Eye, have been completely beaten by only 7% and 5% of the total player base. And ing the next patch a new Sunwell instance is being released that will come after Mount Hyjal in the progression.

So what we have in World of Warcraft is a game where well over 80% of the player base – doesn’t get to the end of the game. In fact, they don’t even make it near the end. Admittedly, some of them just don’t have the skill required (we’ve all been in parties like that), but many of them lack either the blockable time or the sheer manpower necessary to seriously get into the raiding portion of the game. And for many players, joining a serious raiding guild simply drains the fun out of the game to the point where it becomes more stressful and less rewarding than their actual job – you know, the one they get paid for?

For some reason, Blizzard can see the difference between their casual and hardcore players, but they are utterly unable to see the players in between. Again, as WoWJutsu shows us, over 90% of the scanned 70′s have at least entered Karazhan, the first 10 man raid in the game, and better than 60% of them have beaten the entire raid. And while the “serious” raiders may scoff, that still requires coordination and teamwork for a group of players with no raid gear and probably little raid experience. I know firsthand that working in a small to medium sized guild, juggling players, schedules and real life attentions, many of those players are probably capable of much more, but simply don’t all have the time, or the matching hours, or in some cases the sheer number of best-case-scenario players to go after the larger content. But they are also uninterested in leaving their own guild to grind through someone else’s DKP system.

So even if you take that 60% of the player base that has completely cleared Karazhan, and remove from it the 15% that has made any serious dent in Serpentshrine or The Eye, you’re still left with almost half of the World of Warcraft player base that is likely interested in more actual game, but is kept from that content by the structure of the game itself. The players that are neither casual nor hardcore. The people who can’t spend Tuesday through Sunday raiding, but also yearn for more than welfare epics. So if you woud permit me a second list in a single posting, here’s what the next breakthrough MMO needs to feature in order to compete, on any serious level, with World of Warcraft.

1) First off, it needs to figure out how to deal with the grind, and in terms I can understand that means hiding it. Warcraft was able to disguise the grind with a lot of content, and no MMO that hands out randomly generated “kill this” quests (SWG) or, worse yet, has no questing system and expects XP parties to form and wander around killing the same three monsters for hours at a time (FFXI) is going to attain significance. Basically, the new product can’t be worse than Warcraft in any way – although it could easily be harder, since the middleground player demographic doesn’t need their XP spoon-fed to them. It just needs to be fun to attain. And while the Bind on Pickup and Instancing systems for loot helped WoW avoid much of the economic ruin that other MMOs have suffered, the randomness needs to be scaled back somewhat. Nothing kills the thrill of victory like the realization that no one present can use the loot, and as soon as that sort of group content becomes a grind in and of itself, it also becomes a failure.

2) Secondly, obviously, the mechanics and the UI need to work well. Warcraft opened the MMO market up to the modding community, and most of what works about the Warcraft UI was originally tacked on by the player base themselves. It’s a brilliant way to develop a UI (literally allowing players to decide what they want on their screens, letting them build it, and then just copying that design). But beyond the interface, obviously, the game content needs to be there. Again, this all falls under the major topic of “at least as good as WoW”, and is practically assumed over the course of this discussion. I’m looking at you, [insert Sony Online Entertainment product name here]!

3) Classes needs stability. Warcraft’s skills and talent points are an expansion from Diablo II’s talent trees, and that’s a fine source to draw on. However, Warcraft so badly mismanaged hybrid classes that it took an expansion and the planned obsolescence of all pre-expansion content to fix them, and anyone who plays the game can tell you they are not truly fixed. I know my hybrid started as a nuker, finished the old world as a healer, and is currently a tank, all according to the random whims of how Blizzard decided to shift the classes (and often their misleading descriptions). Compare the classes in World of Warcraft to the much more single-serving classes in Final Fantasy XI, and the difference is clear. And while I think FFXI has far too many DPS classes compared to its tanks and healers, those classes all perform their tasks in their own interesting ways and with their own unique styles.

4) There also has to be some way to make tanking and healing more rewarding tasks, a problem that no MMO has truly resolved yet. Bluntly put, tanks and healers have more difficult jobs than other classes in any MMO on the market, and yet they get the crappiest rewards in terms of gear and progression. About the only thing going for those roles is that they are in demand – because so few people enjoy performing them. When is the last time in any MMO that, when asked to join a group, you checked first to make sure they had enough DPS? In WoW, that is laughable. In FFXI, that’s tooth grindingly obnoxious to even read. And the truth is that I don’t know how to solve this problem. You can’t give tanks and healers the same damage output as DPS classes, at least not at the same time. Maybe role shifting mechanics need to be part of tanking and healing. But if you don’t give them damage capabilities, they will always be seen as less desirable roles. Even in non-MMO games, tanking and healing roles are seen as being less fun (join a Team Fortress 2 game at random – the team that wins always has Medics, but you never see people knocking each other over to play the class). The closest I’ve ever seen an MMO come to this was City of Heroes, but even that title had a long way to go.

5) Endgame content has to be accessible to smaller groups. Not under-geared groups, and not groups short on skill, either. But I contend that the number one reason for middleground players not reaching endgame content is the player requirement, plain and simple. If you want to raid big, Warcraft will always be your game. And yes, there are some encounters that were only engaging and possible because of the size of the raid. But again, there’s already a game that fields those encounters, and it is called World of Warcraft. A game that allows smaller groups of players to enjoy endgame content at their own pace, on their own schedule, and without recruiting a stable of random strangers will attract the many middlegrounders that are tired of gearing up newer players or grinding alts out of boredom. And it’s not as though there is no model for this style of play. Heroic Dungeons in WoW hinted at this concept, but didn’t go nearly as far as they could have. But that was by design.

Now, some people would accuse these ideas of taking the “Massive” out of “Massively Multiplayer Online”. Well, accuse away, because the idea doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I know the best times I’ve had in any MMO I’ve ever played were cutting through instanced content with my closest group of gaming buds and leveling up small clusters of characters in static parties. To be honest, the best time I’ve ever had with any MMO was taking my first character up from 30 to 60 at the same time as a friend of mine. Then, of course, we reached the outer whispers of endgame content, he specced Prot, I specced Resto, and we more or less had to travel in different circles to see the next stage of the game. At which point we both largely stopped playing.

But that’s my point. I think most players, and certainly all of the middlegrounders I know, would rather play with the five to ten people they like the most than with the twenty-five to forty people who are online the same nights they are. What separates MMOs from other genres of gaming is the concept of cooperative play towards a greater persistent goal. The current way most MMOs are organized deters or otherwise prevents many players from reaching those goals without sacrificing at least some of the aspects of the game that they value most. Remove the brick wall from between your player base and the game you’ve so lovingly crafted, and players will thank you for it – to the tune of $15 per month each.

So, I’ve had the Child’s Play banner up on the site pretty much from when Penny Arcade started up the project again this year, and I just thought I’d drop a little line about it here. As a gamer, I feel like it’s my duty to take part in Child’s Play. But it’s a duty I am both proud and happy to perform. I usually take part in a few different toy drives anyway around this time of year. But there is none I am so pleased to contribute to as Child’s Play.

It’s Gabe and Tycho’s creation, but it belongs to all of us. It is unique in that it is a charity drive supported almost entirely by the gaming community. And on some level, yes, it is our statement that despite being scapegoats for every whackjob that brings a gun to church or a bomb to school, that stereotype neither represents nor defines us. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a triumph of generosity and spontaneity and the incredible good that can be done when so many individuals rise to the occasion.

But more than any of that, it’s about the kids. Now, if you read my site, you know that I discredit just about anyone that uses “Think of the children!” as an excuse for their own personal motivations. But that’s because so many people hide so much false charity and concern behind that empty slogan. What’s great about Child’s Play is that they have almost no overhead. The toys and the money (which then gets translated into more toys) all wind up in the hands of kids who got dealt a lousy hand. The Child’s Play website has an entire page full of letters and testimonials they have received – and if you haven’t donated yet, a few of those letters will definitely put you over the edge.

Plus, you know, there’s the fact that Child’s Play has a very legitimate shot at breaking $1 million in donations this year. The mind reels. The heart swells. And the mouse clicks.

Okay, so I just want to get something out of the way right now. However silly you look playing a normal Wii game, it is necessary to multiply that by a factor of at least twenty when playing Guitar Hero. I don’t care what sorts of decals you have on your controller, or how awesome your stereo is, or whether you are wearing your tightest leather pants at the time. Every one of us looks like a sugar-rushed three year old plunking away on a Fisher Price noisemaker, and that’s before we get excited about the game and start gyrating along with the song itself.

With that out of the way, Guitar Hero III is quite outstanding. And while I wish more bands would give up their master tracks to be included in the game (I’m looking at you, KISS), the ones that are present are exceptional – I will admit that I performed all of the afore-mentioned visual atrocities while playing the actual version of Paint It Black. I haven’t yet unlocked The Devil Went Down To Georgia (hey, a guy has a raid schedule to maintain), but I am looking foward to losing a vast number of hours to that one song alone. The one complaint I really do have about it is that it works better as Guitar Hero than Guitar Hero III. If taken compared to its predecessors, it doesn’t offer a terrible lot of “new” aside from online play. But the quality of what it does offer is first rate.

I’m also happy to report no Wii-related problems (at least with the offline version of the game, I haven’t gone online yet). The Wiimote fits nicely into the guitar, though I suggest socketing it in before you start the game up. I had the guitar face-down on the floor to install the Wiimote and it threw off the calibration of the whammy bar until I reset the game. You can also leave your Wiimote socketed inside the guitar between sessions, as the buttons themselves work fine from inside the housing and the thumb pad on the guitar face allows you to move the Wii menu pointer when you first start up the system. I’ll admit I was a bit worried that the Wii version would be a rush job and a short shaft, but so far it’s played just like I’d expect any version of Guitar Hero to play.

So what is it about a game like Guitar Hero that makes it so compelling? I’ve been asking myself that question for three titles and several expansion packs now, and I’m still not sure I have an answer that fully satisfies. Obviously, the hardware is part of it. The game just wouldn’t be quite as much fun if you were holding down frets with your right thumb and strumming with a trigger. Why we allow ourselves to feel like rock stars while doing something so very uncool is a bit of a mystery. And again, make no mistake about it. Clicking away on a plastic toy while watching notes little circles move across a guitar neck is about as far away from being a rock star as one can get. Yet it really grabs people.

Maybe it’s the immediacy of music. And it’s probably somewhat a matter of favoritism (we all perform better on the songs we know by heart already). I originally expected Guitar Hero to be a sideshow affair for the musically deficient, but that’s not the case. In fact, most of the people I know that play Guitar Hero the the most are actual musicians that can make actual music with actual instruments, and have no need for placebo style interfaces like Guitar Hero. Yet they seem to take even more pleasure from the game than I do.

And it’s not like Guitar Hero is the only concept based game out on the market. It uses the same principles as the Donkey Konga games, or even a variety of smaller games such as Boom Boom Rocket on X-Box Arcade. And yet none of them have really caught on in the same way that Guitar Hero has. So why does a simple timing and rhythm game that makes you look like a tool while you play it latch on to people so completely? Is it really just that we’re craving a different experience, and this happens to be one of those rare examples of difference and great intersecting? Or is Guitar Hero just Dance Dance Revolution for lazy motherfuckers?

Personally, I think it speaks to the fact that so many gamers are getting burned out on the same game over and over again. There is a vast amount of recycled content out there, to say nothing of recycled design. It should be no surprise that upstart companies and, in some cases, homebrew projects are garnering so much attention. Way back in the day, Counter-Strike was nothing more than a modification for Half-Life, as was its WWII brother Day of Defeat. These were simple, defined, rule-oriented games built with someone else’s tools, and yet Half-Life hardly even needs a multi-player component because of their popularity. And even as I type, there are probably hundreds of new player-made Portal levels in the works (and I’ll be joining those ranks once the SDK has proper Portal support – I’m just too much of a lazy motherfucker to rig it to work right now on my own).

Even Nintendo is getting in on the act, including a level editor for Smash Brothers Brawl. Players will be able to design their own level concepts, trade them with friends, and submit them to Nintendo, which will publish the best of those submissions as downloadable freebies. Now, a cynic might say that Nintendo is just cashing in on the hard work of the gaming community. But when the community is so eager to produce its own content, why should they be denied the tools to do so? And using the CS and DoD models, it can potentially open the door for designers and artists who have the creative capacity to make great games, but simply lack the toolset or the engine or, in some cases, the coding staff.

Now sure, there are limits to what a mod team can accomplish. Some of those are imposed by the engine they use, and others are imposed by reality – after all Guitar Hero wouldn’t exist without the controller, and you can’t exactly fabricate that out of thin air via a download. But if these cheap-as-free mods cause the gaming industry to realize that gamers are interested in variation and novelty (so long as that novelty has playable value attached to it), then really that’s good for everyone.

After all, gaming executives don’t always know what is good for them or their product. The president of Epic Games had originally wanted to kill the Mad World trailer for Gears of War. Now, I have a unique experience with this very odd game trailer which features no sound effects and no overabundance of heavy guitar, but rather a short clip of Marcus running through a ruined cityscape. Specifically, the first time I saw it, I was in a bar. It was playing on a television monitor with the sound turned all the way down, and there were no subtitles. So all I saw was the video. Over and over and over again. I must have seen that commercial about twenty times before I left. And the one unique feature of the commercial was lost on me, since there was no audio to be had.

And a few days later, when I heard everyone talking about the ad spot, I didn’t understand why it was any good. Because in my mind, I imagined the typical “thrashing guitar” soundtrack generally associated with action games (think Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but with less tact). So it was a genuine surprise when I finally YouTubed the thing and watched it play out to a very soft, sad soundtrack as opposed to the thundering thrash of metal and bass. The commercial is brilliant, and highlights the fact that you can convey emotion with something as culturally dismissable as a video game.

But the spot almost got nixed. And why? Because the song was from Donnie Darko, and it wasn’t a new movie. So even though the match of the video and the audio was clever and almost touching, the song was from a soundtrack that was a whole five years old. And since gamers only have an attention span of seventeen seconds, none of us would understand the commercial. It wasn’t even an issue of relevancy so much as of cross-branding. What was on the screen wasn’t even assumed to exist in its own context, nor was it assumed that gamers could appreciate what was being shown to them. No, everything marketed to our subculture has to have the desperate rebellion of a G4 television spot or else it will be too highbrow for us to understand.

What far too much of the gaming industry doesn’t understand is that, yes, we are all dorks standing in our living rooms playing other people’s songs on a fake guitar. But we’re also the vehicle for the medium that they are producing in. It’s the geek subculture (at least as much as the porn subculture) that has pushed the internet forward. And yes, we’re the idiots posting things like l2pkthxbye in response to otherwise grammatically correct communication. But we’re also the people who create and explore in this medium. We’re the poets and the bards of the gaming niche. Most of us turned to gaming because traditional entertainment either underwhelms or underestimates us. And when games begin to do the same thing, we will either find yet another alternative or we will once again create our own.

You know, about a month ago I turned to a good friend of mine and said, “You know what franchise they need to bring back in a major way? Bionic Commando.” Of course, when I said that, I was envisioning some Wii-tastic bionic arm whipping, probably in an attempt to purge the still repugnant odors of Spider-Man 3 from my travel-via-extendable-latching-device palette. But really, I’ll take the return of Bionic Commando on whatever platform it’s available. Even if they fail to include a fat, balding Hitler! The one fear I do have is that they will disregard everything but the concept, which I think would be a mistake. While I don’t want to be named Radd, and I don’t necessarily have the urge to fight Badds and Gereralissimo Killt, I don’t see any reason to drop the whole New World Nazi theme from the game entirely. If there’s one thing we’ve all learned from George Lucas, it’s that everyone likes killing Nazis.

On the other hand, the original Bionic Commando, whether in Nazi-killing Japanese mode or watered-down American mode,  has plenty of problems in terms of modern day requirements on plot and believability. It would be an incredibly delicate balance to take the original source material of Bionic Commando and draw that into the modern franchise. Though it’s been done before. The original stories for Metal Gear and Metroid were equally absurd and campy, yet Metal Gear Solid and Metroid Prime are two of the most beloved modern action game franchises today. Though that success more a result of purely brilliant talent (thanks, Hideo Kojima and/or Retro Studios) than it is of hokey nostalgia. So either way, Bionic Commando still has me psyched.

As for titles that are coming to the Wii, we’ve got a double header of PS2 ports in Rygar and Okami. I’m excited about these titles because despite being exceptional, neither of them found a good home on the PS2. It could be because they came out at odd times in the system’s life cycle, or because they simply got lost in the avalanche of other games for that system (hey, regardless of how I feel about Sony, the PS2 did have an insane number of great games, many of them exclusives). Okami looks to be a straight port of the PS2 title, where the designers are calling that choice “faithful” instead of “lazy”. I was hoping the straight port days were done, and only forgave Capcom because they started pricing those sorts of titles below $30. Still, Okami is such an exceptional title, and the Wii is so dry in terms of adult friendly games, it’ll probably do well regardless.

And then there’s Rygar. While Okami got in right under the PS2′s relevancy buzzer, Rygar is a much older title, and the PS2 version shows that age. Thankfully, it’s getting a full revamp as opposed to just a new control scheme, and so far it looks like one of the darker, prettier games coming out on the Wii. It sounds like it’s going to be a sort of “re-imagined” version of the original, in much the same way that Resident Evil 1 and Metal Gear Solid got re-imagined on the Gamecube. The genesis of bringing Rygar to the Wii came from the design team toying with the Wiimote and literally thinking, “This would have been perfect for Rygar!” and that fills me with hope. Too often Wii games are just normal games that make you shake the remote like an idiot. Hopefully Rygar’s control scheme will have more depth than that, and the design team in question isn’t completely new to the Wii, which also helps.

No More Heroes. My morbid fascination with this title continues, largely because of my equally morbid fascination with Killer 7. Suda 51 is probably the weirdest, craziest, and potentially the most artistic game designer you’re going to come across – especially on this side of the Pacific. And if you think Killer 7 isn’t enough street cred to make No More Heroes seem interesting, it’s worth pointing out that he’s apparently good buddies with the aforementioned Hideo Kojima. Heroes looks like lanky pulp anime on the wrong side of an acid bender, and might just be the first game to strike the proper balance when flailing the Wiimote around like an idiot during sword fights.

So, let’s pretend that you’re an executive in an industry that, despite making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, isn’t making quite as many hundreds of millions as you used to be. And let’s also pretend for a moment than 95% of your product is crap straight from an infected mule’s ass. And you’re pissed, see, because it turns out that some people have been wandering over to the mule with their own buckets. So in order to convince your customers to buy from you and not tap the mule directly, your brilliant new idea is to charge more money for the same amount of crap. Yeah, so. . . honestly, I forget where this metaphor was going, but the music industry is still run by idiots.

Because coming soon from Universal Music is the USB Single. You see, it’s like a conventional CD Single (which is already too expensive, because all you get is one good song and two shite songs, neither of which you want), except it’s going to be on a tiny little USB thumbdrive. And, if I know the industry, it will be loaded with enough Digital Rights Management as to make the fucking song unplayable. But the real kicker is that this little USB Single is going to cost almost twice as much as a CD Single. So you’re paying double the overcharge for one song, because it happens to come on a small plastic stick instead of a flat plastic disc.

Are you with me so far? Universal thinks this will be a big hit because, um, of the internets? And, you know, like, the web or something. You see, because people are pirating music not because it’s crap, or because it’s overpriced, but because of, uh, computers? So if they overcharge people for crap music, but do it on a little plastic thing that plugs into a computer it suddenly becomes cool again. Supposedly, the little USB sticks will come with movie files or pictures – nothing you couldn’t just include on a CD of course – and cost more because of it. The reality is that they cost more because USB sticks cost more than blank fucking CDs, and this is a dogshit stupid idea. But if there’s one thing the music industry knows, it’s dogshit stupid.

And this is exactly why public opinion is so squarely turned against them. It’s why, yes, people pirate music, and no, no one feels even remotely bad about it. Because the industry response to “You sell donkey crap and it costs too much money!” is “How much more would you pay for that donkey crap if it came in a small silver box?”

And while I am on the subject of public loathing for the music industry, I’d just like to take a moment to shoot to hell the notion that was recently offered by an RIAA lawyer that when you purchase a song, what you are actually buying is a license to listen to that song. And that if you want multiple copies of that song (for your car, your mp3 player, your home stereo, your computer and so on), you really ought to buy multiple copies of it. What they are talking about here is licensing. And I know licensing.

The model they are using is the software industry, where what you are buying isn’t the physical CD with the software on it, but they serial number and the license key (essentially “permission” to run the software). If you’ve ever had to enter in a serial number or product code after buying software (this is especially common with online games), you have purchased a product license. If you work in an office, all of your office software has a license associated with it. So you could own five hundred copies of the CD, but if you only own one license, you only legally can have the software installed and working on one machine. Hell, very often you can download the software and not own a physical copy at all. Valve distributes virtually all of their games this way via Steam. And every one of those games is associated with your account, which purchases the right to install and run those games.

Which is fine. But there’s a funny thing about all of that software. It’s mine. And I can prove it’s mine, because I have a fucking license for it. If my computer gets wiped out, and I want to re-install Half-Life 2, I can just hop online and re-acquire it. If I want to install Sam & Max on a dozen computers I can, provided I only play one at a time. And if I lose my copy of Windows XP, but I have my serial number, Microsoft will send me a new fucking copy of the CD in the mail. You try calling up a music label and request a new batch of CDs that you legally own the license to. Let me know how that turns out for you.

The music industry never sold their product as a licensed commodity, and still doesn’t until this day. They want all of the protections and extortions of licensed software without providing any of the advantages or support that comes with it. And without actually, you know, handing out license keys so that there is a concept of ownership outside of the physical copy of the CD. The music industry does not sell licenses. They sell products. Physical, material products. If they want to shift over to selling permission to experience content, that’s fine. I’d actually welcome that. But it’s going to require more than shady lawyering on their end to make that happen.

There’s a truism in virtually any market that if you have to tell people why they need a product after you show it to them, your product is a dud. A product can do one of two things. It can address a pre-existing need that the consumer is already aware of. Food, for example. You don’t need to tell people why they need food in your advertisement you just need to tell them what kind of food you are selling. Or, a product can manufacture a need and then try to fill it on the spot. Restless leg syndrome is a good example of this, because up until that commercial came out, that condition was called “being a jittery bitch”. Hallitocis (a ten dollar word for bad breath) is actually a classic example of creating a need while advertising the product to fill it. Dandruff is a milder version of this scenario – more than twice as many people use a dandruff shampoo as actually have dandruff.

But USB Singles? No one has a need for that. It reeks of the hopefully already failed Ringle – a recent proposal where a consumer would purchase a music single along with the crappy, low-fidelity ringtone version for (here it comes again) twice as much money. Do you see a pattern forming here? Specifically, one where the industry keeps trying to sell its consumers products it doesn’t want at a higher price? Yes? Congratulations. That’s what separates you from a Universal Music executive.

It’s a funny thing when something that everyone already knows is officially announced. Such was the case when Nintendo told the world that Sonic the Hedgehog would, in fact, be a playable character in Smash Brothers Brawl. Hurray! I knew that already. From the moment I saw how much of an improvement Sonic and the Secret Rings was over those “other” new Sonic games, I figured on it. When Mario & Sonic at the Olympics started previewing, it was a forgone conclusion. And once we saw Solid Snake skulking around the Brawl scene, we knew that just about any character was on the table.

One thing I would not like to see is all of the Sonic extended characters in Brawl. There are far too many to list here, but you all know what I am talking about. I’d be okay with, maybe, one of them. Tails or Knuckles, perhaps. Even Shadow (who is black and has a gun, in case you hadn’t heard). But that’s going to be my upper cap on Sonic spin-off characters – at least until games like F-Zero or Star Fox get their own sidekicks as playable brawlers. I’m pretty sure I could knock most players off the screen just by spamming “Do A Barrel Roll!” come to think of it.

As someone who remembers the bitter rivalry between Mario and Sonic (or, at least, between their parent companies) this is really quite enjoyable. It was Sega who first realized that “Nintendo is for kids!” could be a marketing weapon. I remember commercials featuring “blast processing” which was the very clever technique of compiling source code properly (as best I could tell). And I remember reading the pure technical specs of the Genesis and the Super Nintendo, comparing numbers I scarcely understood and noting that Nintendo had two, perhaps even three megahertz over Sega’s competing product. Mode 7 was the altar on whose bloody surface the original F-Zero was worshiped into existence. Genesis did what Nintendidnt. And the Super-FX chip introduced console gamers to these things called “polygons”.

And now that’s all changed. Console wars now aren’t about characters or even games anymore, they are about ideas and the way that entertainment is evoked. Sure, Mario is still a Nintendo mascot, and in many ways he still represents the company. But it was Link that launched the Wii, and it’s been Samus that has revitalized interest in it from a serious gaming perspective. About the closest thing to a rivalry that exists, from a mascot standpoint, has always been Metroid and Halo. But even that comparison is fanboy infantilism at best, and does not exist in even the mainstream of gaming.

Now the console wars are about the how and not the what. Xbox does it online. Wii does it with your hands. And PS3 does it, um, I don’t know, to your wallet? I guess that’s always been Sony’s problem with the PS3. Other than it looking pretty, it didn’t have a real grab feature. And people who are willing to pay $600 to look pretty have probably already paid $2000 to look pretty on their computers. But it’s all different now. We’re never going to see Master Chief and Samus Aran duke it out in Super FPS Brothers (coming soon to the Wii60 Extreme, July of 2014). Link is never going to lock blades with the weird little kid from Ico. It’s not just a different type market. It’s a different type of product.

As for the future of Brawl, though, things look bright. Online Versus and Co-op is confirmed (and crappy friend codes are present. . . Nintendo really needs to allow an option to turn them off even if that is done via parental controls), so the biggest fear, partly realized by the lack of multiplayer in Prime 3, has been laid to rest. There are going to be at least four different control schemes, and it will be interesting to see how Nintendo resolves that properly. Just about the only reveal left for the game are the other hidden characters. Personally, my money is still on Pac-Man. Yeah, you heard me. Pac-Man. Though if I could build up my dream roster, I’d throw the Prince of Persia and Sam Fisher in there (finally, Fisher vs. Snake could be resolved). Though if Raiden shows up. . . I am out.

First of all, I recognize that there may be some people amongst my readership that have never seen Duck Amuck. This is a travesty. Nothing short of an absolute injustice to humor and all things animated. Thus, I must demand that you drop whatever you are doing (yes, even reading my scribble) and go watch Duck Amuck immediately. In terms of animation, it’s a genuinely clever and inventive clip that plays with the whole idea of animation and character. It introduced surrealism on a level that no one had ever imagined existing in a 1951, aimed-at-children short. And it successfully broke the fourth wall in a way that endless years of drama student productions have never even approached.

All of that crammed into a six and a half minute Daffy Duck cartoon? Really? Yes, really. And rarely has a pre-existing piece of media (in this case, a cartoon character being harassed by the pencil of a sadistic animator) been such fertile ground for a Nintendo DS game. The interface for the hardware literally is the animation concept. Of course, this is a Looney Tunes gaming license, so there are still all kinds of things that can go wrong here. I mean, when is the last time you remember playing a good Looney Tunes video game? But the preview I saw over on 1up.com sounded very positive – and honestly I was expecting this thing to get destroyed by the gaming media.

Coming from a publisher that almost guarantees mediocrity (Warner Brothers’ in house company) and coming from a developer that is very hit and miss (Wayforward Studios), there was plenty to be apprehensive about. And it sounds, largely, like it’s going to be a mini-game based title rather than some epic journey through blank white paper. Admittedly, the latter could have been well done, but would have been less in line with the original concept of Duck Amuck, which is largely centered around pissing Daffy off. If what I’m getting is Wario Ware with a Looney Tunes faceplate on it, I’m actually fine with that. And if titles like Duck Amuck stretch the definition of what a game is while still remaining enjoyable, I’m excited about that.

In the absence of direct combat, gaming tropes like health bars, weaponry, power ups, special attacks and so forth lose their meaning. A game like The Sims lacks most of these concepts, but not all. You still have character bars, but instead of measuring health they measure things like bladder control. And while you don’t acquire weapons in the classical sense, you can power up your character, your character’s home and its belongings through various game mechanics. So a game like The Sims took the combat mechanic out of the classical game structure by adapting the normal mechanics to fit a lifestyle simulator rather than, say, a flight simulator.

Duck Amuck sounds like it will abstract that idea of what a game is on an additional layer, there being no bars or indicators of any kind. Just you, a stylus, and a really pissed off duck. Which isn’t as dirty as it sounds. But just might be genuinely fun to play.

Here’s the thing about Metroid Prime 3. It needed to be more difficult. Way more difficult. Quite frankly the first Hunter boss and the first Seed boss are the only significant challenges I faced, and that was mostly due to control unfamiliarity and a lack of significant power-ups. I haven’t tried it on Hyper Difficulty mode yet, quite honestly, because after tracking down my 100% and beating the game, I just don’t have time. I have all of the other games I put on hold to catch up on, plus a raiding schedule to maintain. I’m drowning in entertainment, I am.

So, Bioshock. Yeah, I am checking in late. I don’t especially care, as I’ve always played my games according to my own timetable, and only in the case of a game like Prime 3 does the release date factor into it. And the truth is that I don’t think I am enjoying Bioshock quite as much as I am supposed to be. I was psyched when this game first game out, make no doubts about it. But as I play through it, I get the sensation that what I am playing is a very narrow game pained across a very wide landscape. Rapture doesn’t feel like a world to me, it feels like a sound stage. Or, more precisely, it feels like the artifice that so commonly exists before amusement park rides. The fake cityscape, the phony “dank interiors” that are presented as context for the theme of the ride itself. It is so meticulously broken and run down, I sometimes have trouble not seeing the intention behind its decay.

Which isn’t to say I’m not enjoying the game, because I am. But small things about it bother me. Bioshock wants to lead me along a general path, but also wants the whole game to be open and explorable. One thing that always breaks that immersion for me are staged or scripted sequences. Especially if they are designed to limit or provide access to a given area once you have touched a certain item or triggered a key cutscene. In a way, this is the exact opposite of the Metroid system of advancement, where game content is accessed through your power-ups. Of course, Prime 3 abandoned this to a point by doling out ship coordinates based on a “now beat this boss” advancement system. A concession to people who don’t like backtracking that hamstrings the game for people that like sidetracking, sadly, but one that did not significantly mar the final product – at least not on the first run through.

Of course, all of my Bioshock reservations fade into the background as I prepare to take down a Big Daddy. And for those of you that have never had the pleasure, I have to say that pitting two Big Daddies against each other (thank you, Enrage Plasmid) might be one of the most awesomely brutal spectators of AI gladiator goodness I have ever beheld. Though I find myself not using the Vita-Chambers yet, preferring to reload my quicksave if I should die. The resurrection ability just feels too much like cheating to me, and I often refuse to die in a game until I have expended all of my panic buttons, which leaves me revived but virtually unarmed anyway. I can see the magnificence and cleverness of the game, I am just not sure that I have fully grasped its scope yet – perhaps because the first thing I did was accidentally gaze outside of those boundaries.

I also fired up Phantom Hourglass last night, just to give it a brief spin. I am one of those people that originally liked the look of Wind Waker, so going back to that particular frame for Zelda excites me rather than bothers me. And cell shading is a perfect fit for the admittedly limited 3D capacities of the DS, because the graphics accentuate what the DS does well (fluid motion) and minimize what the DS does poorly (texturing). As for the controls? Honestly? They are brilliant. Not perfect, because I so far have trouble crossing short distances quickly (which I think is a controlling concept I just have to wrap my brain around).

I’m not far enough into Hourglass to make a definitive statement about its success or failure yet, though everything that I’ve played before has smacked heavily of “win”. And all of the uses of the stylus thus far are excellent. I especially like being able to make little notes and markings right on the game map, something that would have saved me hundreds of backtracks in hundreds of adventure games. It’s perfect for every time I pass by an area and say to myself, “I need to remember to come back here once I have my bomb bag!” and then promptly forget twenty minutes later because I’ve passed by seven identical areas since then.

On a fundamental level, though, Nintendo is addressing a very odd question with the DS and the Wii. It’s a question that is so much a part of gaming culture that we don’t recognize it as a question anymore. “Why do we control our games the way we do?” The gamepad (itself a Nintendo concept) has become shorthand for gaming itself, and yet all it really is is a crude interface for representing motion and movement and, at its core, action on the screen. The simple truth is that we’ve been stuck with these odd, thumb-intensive devices for so long that we’ve gotten really good at using them. We have adjusted to their awkwardness to the point that we now think of the interface as being natural.

That understanding is expended on the PC, where our interface devices are largely whatever inputs already existed. Sure, you can hook a gamepad or a joystick up to a computer, but almost any PC game has to be able to work with a keyboard and mouse combination, because that’s what’s there. We’ve all accepted the WASD keys as an interface for basic movement not because WASD is a good way to move a character, but simply because it’s the best configuration on a device that was clearly designed for typing and not gaming. The mouse is a bit more intuitive for games (and will always be infinitely superior to aiming with a thumb-stick, sorry console boys), but having been a die-hard FPS computer player, I have to say that the simple controls of the Wii leave mouse aiming in the dust. If only the Wii had a few more buttons on it, it really would be the perfect interface.

But the point is that for the first time ever in gaming (with the possible exception of the roller ball from Centipede, which was a perfect fit for the motions needed to play the game), the hardware inputs match the function of the hardware and the action of the game. When D-pads ceased to provide enough nuance, analog pads emerged victorious. But now that mantle is going to be passed on, from simulated analog controls (as a thumb stick is really just a D-pad on a roller ball that breaks your movements down into increments) to the real thing. The DS Stylus is exactly your movements. The Wiimote aims exactly where you point it.

The era of game challenge coming from awkward controls or imprecise target acquisition is over. Right now, that shift has made games easier. Once developers learn how to harness these tools, it will allow games to be harder because designers will be able to present you with challenges that could never have been met via a classic interface. Waggle is a cheap trick welded onto the ass end of a mediocre game to qualify it as a Wii title. It does not impress me. It is gesture controls that will drive the next age of gaming, and so far Phantom Hourglass is to gesture what Goldeneye was to the thumb stick or Mario was to the D-pad. It’s the very moment of “I Get It” saturation.

Everything is going to change.

It’s a question that, to most gamers, seems obvious. What is hardcore? Who are the “real” gamers? And where does the distinction lie between what we think of as hardcore gamers and the new wave of casual gamers that is slowly eeking away from word-wrangling flash games on the internet and taking a sudden interest in these “gaming console things”?

Really looking at that question, I first thought of the most obvious distinction. That hardcore gamers prefer larger, more complex games. And, as a rule, more difficult games. That hardcore gamers are the types of people who crank a new game up to maximum difficulty before even loading the opening cinema sequence. And they’re usually the people complaining that modern games are too easy and too short (especially if the new buy price is going to be $60 a pop). And that begs another question – an important one – about difficulty. Are games getting easier? Or, as Tim Rogers of insert-creidt.com suggests, are we simply getting better? Is hardcore defined by a learning curve, or by natural ability?

Or is it merely enthusiasm? I know a few gamers that would consider themselves hardcore, but suck at a wide variety of games. I myself know that, despite infinite amounts of playtime, my best use in Counter-Strike is as a human shield for more skilled players to rush in and mow down my killers. And yet, take the same basic game engine and call it Day of Defeat, and I am a one-man Ally busting machine (hey, it’s not my fault I like the German guns more). Does my inability to adapt to certain game styles or archetypes disqualify me as a hardcore gamer? Does the fact that most people haven’t beaten Super Metroid with a 17% collection rate disqualify anyone else?

These are questions that have been floating around in the back of my mind with the release of the Wii, but I don’t think they solidified until Tycho uttered words that were prophetic and insightful even for him – “The game is not challenging, it’s difficult to play, and it’s taken many years but I’m ready to begin making this distinction.” There was a time in gaming history when the two things were so very similar as to be indistinguishable. Was anyone really ever “good” at a game like, say, Burger Time? Or had they just memorized enough patterns and learned to control the awkward meanderings of their character enough to do what normal people could not?

The game I always think of in this regard is Castlevania – well, the first three anyhow. Everything about your character in the original NES games was slow, cumbersome and even downright frustrating. Simon and Trevor Belmont jumped a very methodical way. Once you pressed the jump button you were committed to that jump in a way that was completely unlike any other popular side-scrolling game (though admittedly, more realistic). Mario, Mega-Man, Kid Icarus, Samus Aran, and scores of other lesser gaming avatars could change course mid-jump, could double back, could define the length and height of their jump with the release of the A button. The Belmonts (whom I am told by my instruction booklet texts were very athletic) jumped in even plops. And they likewise whipped in strong, slow, definite strokes.

Modern incarnations of Castlevania have done away with that control concept in exchange for a much more Metroid-y movement style (as well as a Metroid-y everything else). But the question is whether or not that new control scheme was simply to conform to the new style of play or if it was an admission that the old Castlevanias were clunkier than they could have been. And likewise, were the older titles balanced against the control scheme in terms of difficulty? Were there fewer demands on the protagonists’ agility (evil fucking flying Medusa heads aside) because the scheme limited that agility? Would giving Simon and Trevor the mobility and speed of Samus Aran have broken the challenge of those old games (in much the same way that the Wiimote broke Resident Evil 4′s difficulty)?

Of course, this isn’t the question Tycho is referencing. What he is saying, very plainly, is that Lair expects players to be able to perform airborne acrobatics that are beyond the reasonable scope of the interface. That it is technically possible to execute them is irrelevant. Because that technicality has reduced the challenge of the game to simply grasping basic controls. Would Ocarina of Time have been a good game if it took you thirty game hours to figure out how to swing the sword properly? And balanced against this example are fighting games, where precise and often unlisted button inputs are the different between a Super Shoryuken and performing a right jab while you get Sonic Boomed in the face. And what about a game like StarCraft, where the interface is a contextual GUI of menu-drive commands? Or World of Warcraft, where the interface can be completely stripped away and replaced by user-created content?

Though maybe the truth is in the telling. There were (and probably still are) vast numbers of players that can play fighting games with great skill and precision. And there are armies of Korean gamers that could crush either you or I in a round of StarCraft that makes even the most vulgar internet vernacular seem timid and kind by comparison. As for Warcraft, well. . . I have over 80+ inputs on my Warlock’s screen and I’m always looking for ways to add more. Yet none of these games are limited by their interfaces, and while some of them require the gamer to learn the interface, that learning tree is not the game itself. If a game goes from being mind-numbingly impossible to being breathtakingly easy once the clunky interface has been learned, then the game is the clunky interface. Period.

So when Sony sent out a guide on how to review Lair to the gaming media it really gave me pause. What they were essentially saying to a group of people that play games all day long, even play them for a living, is that they universally didn’t know how to play Lair. And that if only they would learn how to play Lair, everything would be alright again and Sony’s new flagship title wouldn’t sink like a stone. It begs the question of whether any game that needs a huge, full-color picture book to explain the control scheme should even be able to qualify as a good game. I think it could, possibly, if such a thing were intended as part of the gaming package. Certainly I’ve seen flight sims with manuals that long. But Factor 5 intentionally doesn’t make fight sims (they cranked out Rogue Squadrons, not X-Wing vs TIE Fighters). The general gaming public certainly isn’t going to get a glossy full page player’s guide to show them how to perform basic maneuvers.

Lair is, by definition, a hardcore game. It’s on a hardcore platform – seeing as how the PS3 has the lowest buy rate and the highest price, it’s fair to say that the PS3 is limited almost exclusively to the hardcore gamer. And yet the gaming community, the gaming industry, and even the idols of gaming themselves have smote Lair – despite having previously heralded it as a reason to break down and buy a PS3 in the first place. So is Lair hardcore because it’s on the grown-up console? Because it has cinema-quality graphics? Because it’s matured rated and for a reason? It certainly isn’t casual. And maybe it’s just plain crap. But the question of What Is Hardcore speaks to so many qualifications and in many cases personal preference. In the end, identifying hardcore gaming may wind up following the same statute that the Supreme Court uses for sifting porn from art. I may not be able to define it, but I’ll know it when I see it.