Major Nelson will talk about anything Live-related that you can dream of. Such as: Why is there no Xbox Live Platinum membership? (I'm sure you can do better!)

He follows the Kotaku Talk Radio guest-appearance trail-blazing of Amy Hennig, Ken Levine, Tim Schafer, Cliff Bleszinski, Jeremiah Slaczka, and Randy Pitchford. And that was just 2009.

On Wednesday at 11am Kotaku Time (that's 1pm ET, 10am PT), you will be able to call in and ask Major Nelson anything you want.

Look for a reminder post about the podcast at 10:55 AM mountain time (12:55 ET) on Wednesday. The post will include call-in info so you can ask your questions. The show will be live at 11am MT, 1pm ET. I'll expect to hear you calling our switchboard then.

Kotaku has witnessed the human and Predator sides of the game. Now Aliens.

The Aliens campaign, like those of the human and Predator, can be activated separately by players, though the three narratives intersect to form the game's overall plot. The Aliens' story starts with the character's violent birth. Specimen 6 bursts out of a lab-patient's chest into a glorified test tube. Soon you've grown and soon enough you're out of your shackles, killing people.

All three campaigns are played from a first-person perspective. The Alien stands lower than the human, who stands lower than the Predator. When you make quick turns as an Alien, you see your tail swish by. When you trigger one of the game's gruesome killing animations, your famous mouth-within-a-mouth juts out and fills the screen as it chomps your victim.

Aliens run up walls, onto the ceiling and can leap to the floor. A targeting reticule always points in the direction of the floor so you don't get too dizzy. The Alien is fast and brutal with melee kills. I didn't see it use guns, and one would think it can't. But it can take orders from a momma Alien, who utters its commands via a floating-Alien-head icon in the corner of the screen. The Alien also can smell well, sniffing the outlines of other characters through walls and reading the color of their outlines to determine if that character is hostile and on the attack.

The Alien can do light and heavy attacks, can lock on and can perform stealth kills. I saw all of this and saw the Alien have to climb up into the vents above the lab where it was born. Momma was summoning but the vents were blocked. I had to leave the demo, but was told that the Alien would soon be joining other non-controllable members of its species for more violence.

My glimpse of the Alien section was brief, though two things did stand out. It looked nothing like the Predator mode I'd seen, which involved thermal-vision-assisted high-altitude stalking through jungle trees. The other detail: This game is indeed for gore lovers. The Sega rep showing me the game was quite enthusiastic about how the Alien can chomp at brains and how the Predator's wrist blades can go up a man's throat and be visible down his shouting mouth. Sounds a bit much, but as noted above, these aliens are not diplomats.

Aliens Vs. Predator is set for release on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in February. Developed by Rebellion, published by Sega.

It's two great tastes that taste odd together! The combination of Slipknot and Simon & Garfunkel is very much how I'd imagine a jelly doughnut filled with pickle relish would taste. Luckily you don't have to buy them together. Still, Slipknot's "Duality," "Psychosocial," and "Sulfur" could be just the right counterbalance to the soothing classics "I Am A Rock" and "The Sounds of Silence." It's the sort of odd pairing I don't think anyone has attempted. I'd daresay that if you played all five tracks on random in an MP3 player it might commit suicide.

One of the artists' additions are also playable in LEGO Rock Band. I'll let you figure out which.

Also coming next week is Light Resolve's "Dreaming of Love," which is only appearing on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Rock Band Music Store. Sorry Wii owners. You can go listen to the track on the group's MySpace page if that makes you feel better.

I suppose that was a rather large hint, but I just couldn't keep our readers in suspense. The Dante's Inferno Gates of Hell demo will be hitting the PlayStation Network on December 10th, arriving on Xbox Live two weeks later on the 24th. Announced last month, the demo features the entire opening level of the game, detailing Dante's journey to Hell's gates in order to rescue his murdered love, Beatrice.

"The world of Alighieri's Dante's Inferno is such a rich, detailed, and often alarming universe, that all of us at Visceral Games put our hearts, and dare I say souls, into creating something truly intense and exciting," said executive producer Jonathan Knight. "We hope gamers enjoy this tease of hell, and come away from the experience lusting for more when the game comes out on February 9."

In the spirit of the holidays, I urge PlayStation 3 owners to invite an Xbox 360 owner to their home on December 10th in order to promote console harmony. Call it a kinder, gentler way of saying "go to hell."

Gamers made noise when the sequel to last year's cooperative survival horror title was announced earlier this year, but the quick follow-up doesn't seem to have hurt Left 4 Dead 2's sales figures. More than 2 million copies of the PC and Xbox 360 versions have sold at retail, a figure that doesn't even take Steam purchases into account. That's great news for Valve, who in turn have more great news on the way.

"Left 4 Dead 2 is off to a great start with strong support at retail and great reviews from the press," said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. "Meanwhile the title has already been played by over 1 million Xbox LIVE Gold account holders, and news regarding L4D2 DLC 1 is coming very soon."

I'd urge our readers to keep their eyes on Kotaku for said DLC news, but that's no way to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Possibly the purest Magic: The Gathering experience ever to grace a game console, Wizards of the Coast is keen to bring Duels of the Planeswalkers to the PlayStation 3 and PC audience, while continuing to show love to the Xbox 360 audience with a couple of new expansions. The PC version of Duels is scheduled for release in the Summer of 2010, featuring the same gameplay of the Xbox Live Arcade version with an "extra bonus." I'm guessing the extra bonus is some sort of card marketplace, but don't quote me on that.

The PlayStation Network version of the game won't be hitting until fall of 2010.

Meanwhile, Xbox Live players will enjoy the release of the 2nd and 3rd expansions for the game in Spring and Summer of next year respectively.

I've yet to download the first expansion, what with the fall review season in full swing, but I look forward to sitting down and getting my game on soon. Once a Magic addict; always a Magic addict.

Three shots of Nirvana and a four-pack of Foo Fighters grace the Rock Band Music Store next week, with Joan Jett and the Blackheart's "Fake Friends" this week's sole non Nirvana-related track.

For those of you who prefer Dave Grohl stick to drumming, Nirvana's "About a Girl," "School," and "Blew" will keep him quietly hitting the skins. Those of you wishing for a more pronounced Grohl presence should be pleased with "Best of You," "The Pretender," "Wheels," and "Word Forward" from the Foo Fighters.

If you prefer a more portable Rock Band experience, there's always Bullet For My Valentine's "Waking the Demon" and System of a Down's "Toxicity" for Rock Band Unplugged on the PSP, both of which contain zero Grohl-levels.

Available on Xbox 360 and Wii (Nov. 3) and PlayStation 3 system (Nov. 5):

• Foo Fighters – "Best of You"
• Foo Fighters – "The Pretender"
• Foo Fighters – "Wheels"
• Foo Fighters – "Word Forward"
• Nirvana – "About a Girl"
• Nirvana – "Blew"
• Nirvana – "School"
• Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – "Fake Friends"

Tracks available for Rock Band Unplugged (Nov. 5):

• Bullet For My Valentine – "Waking the Demon"
• System of a Down – "Toxicity"

The Tears of the Hextadon map pack consists of two new maps for Brutal Legend's completely non-real-time strategy online multiplayer mode. The Circle of Tears map is completely surrounded by water, while the Death's Fjord map takes place in an icy mountain path, where players must brave wide open spaces in order to reach the fan geysers needed to generate units.

Double fine's Tim Schafer explains the map names.

"I play Brütal Legend online every night," said Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Productions. "And I need more maps! Circle of Tears is named after the crying of my vanquished foes on the battlefield, and Death's Fjord is obviously a tribute to my Nordic ancestors, and their love of fan geysers and… Well, actually I just thought the name was cool. See you online!"

He doesn't explain, however, why the PlayStation 3 version of the downloadable content is free from the November 5th release until November the 19th, while the Xbox 360 pack costs 400 Microsoft points as soon as it hits Xbox Live on November 3rd. Perhaps EA is trying to drum up more PS3 business? We've contacted EA about the reasoning and will update as soon as we hear back.

LEGO Rock Band's support of Rock Band store purchases is limited to only those songs "identified to be suitable for all ages," according to a press release.

"Those cleared songs are the only tracks that will appear within the LEGO Rock Band store for purchase. The LEGO Rock Band store will continually highlight any new family-friendly tunes that can be played across the Rock Band platform as they are released for Rock Band. "

While I understand why Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and MTV Games might think this is a good idea (and maybe this is a ratings issue), shouldn't they let parents make the decision on which music their children can listen to?

Songs included on LEGO Rock Band can be transfered to your hard drive to play on other Rock Band games for $10 for all but the Wii version.

Here's your full listing of songs for the game due out on the Playstation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 this holiday. I've also listed out the 23 songs included on the DS version of the game.

PS3/Xbox 360 Version
All American Rejects, "Swing, Swing"
The Kooks, "Naïve"
The Automatic, "Monster"
KoRn, "Word Up!"
Blink-182, "Aliens Exist"
KT Tunstall, "Suddenly I See"
Blur, "Song 2"
Lostprophets, "Rooftops"
Bon Jovi, "You Give Love a Bad Name"
P!NK, "So What"
Boys like Girls, "Thunder"
The Police,
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
Bryan Adams, "Summer of 69"
The Primitives, "Crash"
Carl Douglas, "Kung Fu Fighting"
Queen, "We Are The Champions"
The Coral, "Dreaming of You"
Queen, "We Will Rock You"
Counting Crows, "Accidentally in Love"
Rascal Flatts, "Life is a Highway"
David Bowie, "Let's Dance"
Ray Parker Jr., "Ghostbusters"
Elton John, "Crocodile Rock"
Razorlight, "Stumble and Fall"
Europe, "The Final Countdown"
Spin Doctors, "Two Princes"
Everlife, "Real Wild Child"
Spinal Tap, "Short & Sweet"
Foo Fighters, "Breakout"
Steve Harly, "Make Me Smile"
Good Charlotte, "Girls & Boys"
Sum 41, "In Too Deep"
The Hives, "Tick Tick Boom!"
Supergrass, "Grace"
Iggy Pop, "The Passenger"
Tom Petty, "Free Fallin"
Incubus, "Dig"
T-Rex, "Ride a White Swan"
Jackson 5, "I Want You Back"
Vampire Weekend, "A-Punk"
Jimi Hendrix, "Fire"
We the Kings, "Check Yes Juliet"
Kaiser Chiefs, "Ruby"
The Zutons, "Valerie"
Katrina & The Waves, "Walking on Sunshine"

DS Version
All American Rejects, "Swing, Swing"
P!NK, "So What"
The Automatic, "Monster"
The Primitives, "Crash"
Blur, "Song 2"
Queen, "We Are The Champions"
Carl Douglas, "Kung Fu Fighting"
Queen, "We Will Rock You"
Counting Crows, "Accidentally in Love"
Rascal Flatts, "Life is a Highway"
David Bowie, "Let's Dance"
Ray Parker Jr., "Ghostbusters"
Europe, "The Final Countdown"
Spin Doctors, "Two Princes"
Good Charlotte, "Girls & Boys"
Sum 41, "In Too Deep"
Iggy Pop, "The Passenger"
Supergrass, "Grace"
Jackson 5, "I Want You Back"
Tom Petty, "Free Fallin'"
Kaiser Chiefs, "Ruby"
Vampire Weekend, "A-Punk"
Katrina & the Waves, "Walking on Sunshine"
We the Kings, "Check Yes Juliet"
KT Tunstall, "Suddenly I See"

The latest entry in the Wolfenstein series features a sequence in which B.J. battles the supernatural side of the Third Reich inside of a giant zeppelin, one of those giant flying airships that everyone thought was a brilliant idea until the Hindenburg went belly up, caught on fire, and exploded. It looks like a great deal of fun, though I'm used to my airship battles being turn-based, so it might take a little getting used to.

During a demo of the game in New York played on the PlayStation 3 E3 build of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II on Wednesday, Raymond capably flew her new game's hero, Ezio, over the streets of 15th century Venice using Leonard da Vinci's winged flying machine. She swooped him down to murder some bad men. And she managed to simultaneously field every question I could think of about how the new game will compare to the first Assassin's Creed.

Raymond described new hero Ezio as a more "badass" assassin than the first game's Altair. She emphasized this while having Ezio unsheathe blades tucked under his sleeves and simultaneously stab two soldiers, one in front of him to his left and one in front of him to his right, dead. Part of this new viciousness is attributed to a sterner motivation. Ezio's father and brothers have been killed during a power struggle of Italian nobles. His mother and sister are in hiding.

To demonstrate an Assassin's Creed game is to demonstrate new ways to murder. Raymond had Ezio scale a tower and pull a guard from over its ledge to a plummeting death. She had Ezio get up from a bench, kill a man, and then put him on the bench, an exhibition of how the locations that in the first game were just hiding spots are now also places to stash corpses. Later, when she had Ezio swan dive into a wagon of hay, she showed how the sequel's smarter enemies will root through hiding places. Bad move, smarter enemy. Raymond had Ezio kill the man and throw his body into the hay. One limitation: while Ezio can swim, he can't yet kill anyone while underwater. Room for character growth in the sequel?

Raymond promised more assassinations in the new game than in the first. And she said that players will be forced to use more varied strategies. "In Assassin's Creed, people had one strategy, like 'I always run away,' or 'I always stop and fight,'" she said. Not this time. Bigger guards will be tough to stand and fight but will be slower and easier to escape on foot — retreats helped by Ezio climbing more swiftly than Altair did. Smaller guards will be swifter, though even they can be evaded once the player gets out of an area of alarm, denoted, Grand Theft Auto-style, as an unsafe zone on the player's mini-map. Getting out of that zone gets Ezio out of trouble. "There won't be any endless chases," she laughed.

Some new systems will make Assassin's Creed II play differently than its predecessor. A new notoriety system will get Ezio into greater trouble if he's played as a reckless killer. A faction system will enable Ezio to gain alliances. For example, doing missions for thieves would make it possible for thieves to return the favor by pickpocketing guards and causing distractions. Raymond described the flow of the game as more narrative-driven than the previous game. She repeatedly referred to the first game's flow as falling into a "pattern." The player would get their assassination assignment, go to the assassin's guild in a given city, perform a few basic and recurring mission types, progress toward the assassination itself, flee and then repeat. Patterns won't hold in the new game. And instead of just a few recurring mission types, Raymond said the new game will offer 15. She wasn't one to say the first game had problems. "Frustrations," was her word, and they've been recognized and are being addressed.

The sequel has a day-night cycle, which Raymond said will affect how crowded the game's streets are. The first game's hero, Altair, could blend in with monks to avoid the suspicion of law enforcement. In the new game, Ezio can blend in with anyone in a crowd, appearing to be lost in conversation (though, sadly, he isn't going to stand on his head with the clowns who play at a party in Venice, Raymond informed me). A thinner evening crowd will leave the player fewer civilians with whom to blend.

Like the last game, the new one will cover more than one metropolis. Ezio will have a horse and travel across Italy. The regions and his adventures will be stitched together, as one big landmass in the first Assassin's Creed merged Altair's exploits in 12th-century Jersusalem, Acre and elsewhere. Ezio will travel from Venice to Florence to the Tuscan countryside, the connecting terrain being better filled, Raymond said, with gameplay opportunity than the barren hub zone of the first game. Players will be able to fast-travel to locations they've already discovered and utilize other, still-secret methods of transportation.

Former Newsweek reporter N'Gai Croal, dropping in on our interview, stumped Raymond when he asked if Ezio's horse was a descendant of Altair's. She was on surer footing in addressing my question about the return of collectible flags, saying that this time the items that can be collected in the game will unlock things, like new areas to visit.

As with the first game, the sequel will occasionally bring players to the present. In fact, the game will pick up with where modern-era protagonist Desmond left off — right after the cliffhanger conclusion of the last game. Raymond described the modern sections of the game as being "more focused on action sequences," which, compared to the placid locked-room modern moments in the first game, wouldn't be a hard goal to attain. She said that players will go to the present less frequently than they did in the first adventure.

Players of the upcoming PSP Altair-based Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines will be able to transmit money and weapons into Ezio's arsenal for the PS3 game. That's a fun Easter egg, but players of Hideo Kojima's 2008 Metal Gear Solid 4, which included an alternate Altair costume for hero Solid Snake, might imagine a cooler possible Easter egg for Assassin's Creed II. Is Kojima returning the favor and letting his franchise seep into Ubisoft's? Raymond's response was a laugh, a smile and the words: "Maybe… maybe not."

Assassin's Creed II is slated for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 release on November 17.

The addition of Rancid's "Ruby Soho" to Rock Band next week fills a hole in my heart that I didn't realize was there until just now. It's part of the punk band's three-pack, coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 version next week, which also includes "Last One to Die" and "Time Bomb". A lovely selection of songs to help channel a little aggression.

Also making their debut next week is Kings of Leon, bringing a triple-dose of indie with "Crawl", "Molly's Chambers", and "Sex on Fire", which sounds incredibly uncomfortable, though I'm willing to try anything once.

A three-pack of Rise against and a single offering from Lush round out next week's songs for the two more advanced consoles, while the Wii scores a veritable flood of new music. It's getting three from Judas Priest, The Dead Weather, and Big Dipper; two from Naked Brothers; ne from Jethro Tull, and thirteen tracks from No Doubt, which should please any Wii-owning Gwen Stefani fans, of which I suspect there are quite a few.

Check out the full list below for individual track names and such. As always, Wii and 360 Tuesday, PlayStation 3 Thursday. Dismissed.

Tracks available for Xbox 360 (July 21) and PLAYSTATION 3 system (July 23):
Kings of Leon "Crawl"
Kings of Leon "Molly's Chambers"
Kings of Leon "Sex on Fire"
Rancid "Last One to Die"
Rancid "Ruby Soho"
Rancid "Time Bomb"
Rise Against "Prayer of the Refugee"
Rise Against "Re-Education (Through Labor)"
Rise Against "Savior"
Lush "Sweetness & Light"

Additional tracks available for Wii (July 21):
Big Dipper "All Going Out Together" *
Big Dipper "She's Fetching" *
Big Dipper "Younger Bums" *
Judas Priest "Dissident Aggressor (Live)"
Judas Priest "Eat Me Alive (Live)"
Judas Priest "Prophecy (Live)"
The Dead Weather "Hang You From the Heavens"
The Dead Weather "No Hassle Night"
The Dead Weather "Treat Me Like Your Mother"
Jethro Tull "Hymn 43"
Naked Brothers "Body I Occupy"*
Naked Brothers "I Don't Want To Go To School" *
No Doubt "Bathwater"
No Doubt "Don't Speak"
No Doubt "Excuse Me Mr."
No Doubt "Ex-Girlfriend"
No Doubt "Hella Good"
No Doubt "Hey Baby"
No Doubt "It's My Life"
No Doubt "Just a Girl"
No Doubt "Running"
No Doubt "Simple Kind of Life"
No Doubt "Spiderwebs"
No Doubt "Sunday Morning"
No Doubt "Underneath It All"

Developer NinjaBee delivered one of the earliest avatar-supporting Xbox Live Arcade titles in A Kingdom for Keflings, and now they're putting your digital representation in the line of fire in Band of Bugs. Starting July 8th players will have the ability to replace the single-player story mode's main character with themselves, gaining Maal's powers and abilities in the process. Instead of fighting for the pride of your colony, you'll instead by the great human liberator, making the garden safe for innocent bugs everywhere.

Players can also bring their avatar online in the eight-player Spider Hunter mode, fighting with or against other avatars in order to survive waves of insect attackers.

Along with the free avatar support patch comes the Tales of Kaloki DLC. Based on NinjaBee's first Xbox Live Arcade game, Outpost Kaloki, Tales takes the strategy game play from Band of Bugs and moves it into space, replacing bugs with spaceships and magical powers with lasers and rocket launchers.

"We're giving you an entirely new game," said Steve Taylor, president of NinjaBee. "The Tales of Kaloki DLC is Band of Bugs but with long-range combat using lasers, rocket launchers, OO rays and a ton of other sweet weapons to blow attacking space ships to smithereens. It's all the wackiness from Outpost Kaloki X and tactics from Band of Bugs rolled into one, and we're stoked to be releasing it."

A brand new game within a game, and only priced at 240 Microsoft points. It's heartwarming to see a downloadable title released more than two years ago see this level of continuing support, isn't it?

We've heard a million times about how the cultural presence of games is growing exponentially thanks to the watershed of Nintendo's motion control, burgeoning casual audiences and IP that now more neatly spans the world of film, games and books than it has in the past.

At that same E3 event, renowned film director Steven Spielberg referred to the controller as the last hurdle to overcome in the quest to make video games approachable to everyone. With all this talk about new audiences and the tech designed to serve them it's easy to get excited.

It's also easy to feel a little lost in the shuffle. For gamers who've been there since before anyone cared about making games "for everyone," having that object in our hands was more than a way to access the game world – it was half the appeal. Anyone who's ever pulled off a chain of combos in a console fighter can tell you about the joy of expertise and control.

More than that, the controller is a cultural object that has for decades defined a pastime – there are those who know how to use it and those who don't, and being one of the skilled has always been a way for gamers to self-identify. Who would we be without it?

What's So Wrong With Some Barriers?

As creative director and co-founder of New York game development studio Area/Code (best known for Parking Wars), Frank Lantz's work focuses on using social media and connectivity to bring games and game-like entertainment to entirely new audiences. But he still sees the value in keeping some barriers intact.

"Sorry to sound elitist, but I like that not everybody understands how to play games, and I doubt that I'm alone," says Lantz, who's also director of New York University's Game Center. "That games require effort and a particular kind of tricky literacy is one of the things that makes them cool. Would pianos be better if everyone could play them? Would punk rock sound better if your grandparents liked it?"

Gamers may suffer some kind of identity crisis as the familiar markers of their beloved niche evolve – or disappear entirely. The solution to that one's easy: Get over it. Like it or not, it's clear that gaming's not a "niche" anymore, and its shape will change.

The more pressing issue is whether or not controller-less gaming will truly make the medium richer. Making something "more accessible" doesn't necessarily make it better.
"It's not about reinventing the wheel," Spielberg said of Natal at E3. "It's about no wheel at all." But the wheel remains an object essential to mobility no matter how transportation advances – even airplanes have them.

Objects In Hand Can Help Gameplay

Designer and Savannah College of Art and Design professor Brenda Brathwaite's been said to have more continuous years working in the game industry than almost any other developer, and her concept of game design has evolved to encompass both digital and non-digital play. In addition to designing games and teaching others to do the same, Brathwaite works on tabletop and board game projects, where physical game pieces are a crucial component.

For her, it's all part of the same world. "Baseball, the Olympics, Ticket to Ride and Bionic Commando are all games, and they share certain core characteristics, one of which is the ‘controller,' the way in which the players interact with the rules to produce the play," she says.

Her latest project, Train, is aimed at provoking players to think about the Holocaust. Players lead grim, gray boxcars full of little yellow pawns. The draw cards along the way that release some of the figurines or slow the train ride.

Only when the first train reaches the "goal" do players learn that their final destination has been the Auschwitz concentration camp. When Brathwaite unveiled it at this year's Triangle Game Conference, audiences were awed, and some were even moved to tears.

The train's tracks are laid out on glass panes that intentionally recall Krystallnacht, and the game's rules are written on an SS typewriter — the interactions between player and objects are part of what inspire Brathwaite as a designer, and part of what makes Train so impactful to players, she says. Brathwaite meticulously and thoughtfully considered each and every object in Train, and how each could support the game experience.
"We often talk as game developers about creating situations where the player has to make truly meaningful choices," she says. "I wondered: What would happen if I put that much attention into each component of the games themselves?"

Reducing the physical interface, then, might mean less immersion for games.

Is The ‘Invisible Controller' A Fantasy?

The argument in favor of controlling a game with your body is that it'll make the experience more like interacting in a lifelike way – but Lantz suggests this idea might be as much of a fantasy as "total" virtual reality.

"Games are experiences that are stylized, constrained, constructed," says Lantz. "They'll always be some aspect of the interaction that needs to be learned that the player needs to become literate with." For example, the experience of playing Wii Tennis may be just enough like real tennis that the player is more aware they're playing a video game – not less.

The idea of a perfect, "invisible" controller, then, is just as much a fantasy as the "seamless" simulation – and Lantz believes these two fantasies are interrelated, potential components of the same unrealistic goal.

"People associate these two things because of the power of the fantasy of some perfect, seamless, idealized game that's ‘just like life' — as if there could be such a thing, as if it would even be useful if there were," says Lantz. "By the way, something that no one mentions is that one of the reasons that the Wiimote is so intuitive is that people know how to play tennis!"

At some point, a Wii Tennis player must have had someone show them how to hold a real racket, or have had the experience of viewing tennis matches in order to understand the way racket and ball are intended to interact. A tennis racket is already a perfect controller for an existing game – without it, Wii Tennis wouldn't be "intuitive" at all, Lantz says. Does that mean motion controls are limited to only translating things people already have an idea of how to do? If so, that's quite a limitation.

The ‘Immersive Fallacy'

Lantz and a community of professors, veteran designers and authors like Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen have defined this principle as the "immersive fallacy" – it may seem like the logical next step toward immersion to make the controller first more like a real object, and then to make it disappear, but that progression actually restricts games, not expands them.

Maxis' Chris Hecker agrees with the immersive fallacy principle –a game controller as "abstract interface" can act as a proxy for almost any kind of action. "Our brains do an amazing job of mapping the abstract degrees of freedom of the controller to the verbs in the game," Hecker says. "By contrast, if you make a plastic guitar controller, it will only ever be used for guitar games." (Note: Although it is true that non-music applications for guitar peripherals are rare, an exception is 2008 IGF finalist Fret Nice, which was recently picked up for XBLA and PSN by Tecmo and is a 2D platformer playable with a guitar controller.)

With no controller at all, the game designer has two choices: simulate the exact actions, or represent complex verbs through short-cut, symbolic motions that will by nature become complex enough a language that it would have been simpler to use a controller to begin with, says Hecker.

"Would ICO be better if you had to stand up and yell and hold out your arm all the time?" he asks. "Going the other direction… is raise-your-left-hand-and-shake-it any more meaningful or accessible than push-the-triangle-button?"

Lots To Gain

Despite a need to be wary of hype, developers still have good reason to be excited about the possibilities in new control schemes. Lantz hopes that the physical interaction will help the game experience itself come to the forefront, instead of being overshadowed by talk about hardware and devices.

"If you think about the quintessential image of GTA IV, it's basically a screenshot," says Lantz. "But if you think about the quintessential image of Rock Band or Wii Sports, it's an image of people in a room doing something. The real human bodies of the players are part of the game! It's wonderful!"

And new technology always means exciting new ways to look at game design and player behavior. Designers like Brathwaite who value the tangible, like Hecker who's pleased with the possibilities in the abstract, and like Lantz, who loves modern controllers, can enjoy what Lantz calls "new opportunities to solve interesting problems and experiment with new game structures and new kinds of experiences."

That means that, for the moment, a big appeal for developers in controller-less input schemes might be their novelty. Gesture-based gaming, living room peripherals and other non-traditional control developments may have done a great deal to expand the audience and introduce new types of gaming experiences – but perhaps a "novelty" won't supplant our familiar controllers in the end.

After all, the wheel is not in need of reinvention. And if it ain't broke, why fix it – or throw it away?

[Image of Brenda Brathwaite's Train with credit to Geoffrey on Flickr.]

[Leigh Alexander is news director for Gamasutra, author of the Sexy Videogameland blog, and freelances reviews and criticism to a variety of outlets. Her monthly column at Kotaku deals with cultural issues surrounding games and gamers. She can be reached at leighalexander1 AT gmail DOT com.]

Following up on last week's Warped Tour song pack comes Vans Warped Tour 3-Pack, adding Dear and the Headlights' "Sweet Talk", The Devil Wears Prada's "Hey John, What's Your Name Again?", and Thrice's "Image of the Invisible" to this week's 5 song pack.

Counterbalancing next week's Warped content is a trio of songs from classic rock band Foreigner, who bring "Blue Morning Blue Day" , "Headknocker", and next week's song we can't believe wasn't already in Rock Band, "Feels Like The First Time".

Throw in the odd Black Rebel Motorcycle Club track, "Weapon of Choice", and you've got next week's additions to the Rock Band Music Store for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. If they aren't there on the 30th, wait two days, which is also a fun way to tell which console you have, in case you are confused.

One of the best Dreamcast releases comes to the North American Xbox Live Arcade this week in Garou: Mark of the Wolves. The latest title in the Fatal Fury series, Garou oozes with style and technical proficiency, making it one of my favorite entries in the storied series and online play only makes it sweeter.

For those of you who prefer to use your brains over your brawn, Droplitz is a puzzle game developed by Blitz Arcade and published by Atlus, marking the latter's first foray onto Xbox Live Arcade. The goal is simple: get your Droplitz to the end of the pipeline but turning pipes and twisting dials, mastering combos in order to bring multiple Droplitz home at once.

Both games will be available on Wednesday for 800 points apiece, barring any Xbox Live explosions.

A total of three new stages are being added to Space Invaders Extreme with tomorrow's new downloadable content, along with the requisite new enemies and bosses to add that extreme flavor. Perhaps the most exciting news is also the least extreme: two emulators are included in the pack, consisting of both the original black and white Space Invaders and the 8-bit color Space Invaders 2. Sure, you can play those two versions on countless devices using programs readily found on the internet, but that's completely beside the point.

The point is, this is probably as extreme as Space Invaders is likely to get any time soon, and it all happens tomorrow, provided you have 240 Microsoft points to spare.