Miller, quoted in the "first printed issue of Gamesauce," says "the next few years should see a strong resurgence in Duke." Shacknews, which spotted the article, says Miller remains sanguine about the prospects of a franchise with one published title since the Clinton administration.

There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year. We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production.

Miller says "almost all" of those projects are unannounced, but, Shacknews points out they likely include:

• Two Duke iPhone games Miller previously announced.

• A Duke Nukem Trilogy for DS and PSP, from Frontline Studios.

• The Xbox Live Arcade port of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project.

• A scrapped project called Duke Begins, alluded to in Take-Two's lawsuit against Miller and Broussard.

And, of course, Miller repeated the obligatory tease that Duke Nukem forever is not dead. "We've never said that Duke Nukem Forever has ceased development. ... Yes, we released the internal team, but that doesn't correlate to the demise of the project."

Sorry, but at this point, games or GTFO.

3D Realms Teases 'Numerous' Duke Nukem Games, 'Looking to Bring Duke into Casual Gaming' [Shacknews]

Harlequin Enterprises, one of the world's leading publishers of women's fiction, and Big Fish Games partnered up in January with plans to create games based on the Harlequin Romance series and novels based on Big Fish's Mystery Case Files games. The first fruit of the endeavor is now available for purchase, cleverly titled Harlequin Presents: Hidden Object of Desire. It's a hidden object game, only with desire. Inspired by Harlequin mini-series The Royal House of Karedes, the game follows reporter Allie as she covers the 30th birthday of the prince of Aristo and uncovers a mystery. Ooooo.

The game is available for purchase for $6.99 at Big Fish Games' website, with an hour-long free trial for those looking to try before they buy. It can't possibly be as entertaining as the dramatic Harlequin Romance novel readings my sister and I used to put on at family gatherings, but it should do in a pinch.

As the Game Over message flashed on the screen they fell back, the glow from the monitor casting a soft blue light on their glistening bodies. She delicately traced the curve of the fireman's bicep with her fingertips, causing him to mumble incoherently and roll over. Soon his violent snoring filled the room. With a disgusted sigh she returned to the computer and started playing again.

SweetRobot is Funcom's newly established subsidiary, focused on the casual and social MMO business, which is a far cry from the sort of games Funcom is used to developing. Age of Conan is a pretty hardcore MMO, and Anarchy Online is so hardcore it requires advanced math to put your equipment on. I'm not kidding.

That having been said, simply slapping the Funcom name on some casual titles would have, quite frankly, confused the hell out of Funcom fans. Instead, the company has launched SweetRobot, which while desperately needing a little Japanese robot mascot still ranks right up there with my favorite studio names of all time.

"SweetRobot will be focusing on publishing games outside the traditional high-end MMO-segment which Funcom has been focusing on the last years," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This will allow us to explore new market opportunities that differ from what we have been doing before while still retaining Funcom's familiar profile. This definitely marks a new and exciting direction for us."

And Funcom isn't the sort of company to found a new subsidiary and then make us wait years before they produce anything. A team of fifteen people have been working on a kid-friendly MMO called Pets vs. Monsters for the past two years, developing a flexible game engine that can be used across multiple projects. Pets vs. Monsters will hit public beta later this month. We'll have more on that later. For now, check out a screen of the game below to get a basic idea of the demographic SweetRobot is aiming for.

Sports sims' increasing complexity and granular game management decisions can be off-putting, even intimidating, to players who just want to wing the ball down the sidelines or blitz the QB. Sometimes even diehards want to play a game without turning it into a film session on Edge NFL Matchup. But stripping a sport down to just its fun parts is risky in its own right. Like, is it still fun?

Loved
Pick Up and Play: Despite its limitations (below) Madden NFL Arcade does a good job of luring you back in for just one more game. The singleplayer games go quickly (although, some multiplayer contests were epic in length), they have all the boring stuff stripped out, and the singleplayer achievements are challenging enough to keep you trying. Even now, I've got 15 minutes to kill before I have to make a phone call and I'm thinking about taking the Patriots out to kick the Browns' ass. Or vice versa. In singleplayer, the ratings are not so overbearing that you can't win with the Lions or Redskins, if they're your favorite teams (and God help you if they are, but that's beside the point.) Online, you'll have to resort to cheese and dirty tricks to win with lesser teams, but that's in real Madden too. Bottom line, Madden NFL Arcade is video game potato chips; even if they aren't my favorite flavor, put a bowl in front of me and I'm a-scarfin'.

Hated
Lack of Variety: Madden NFL Arcade succeeds at delivering a uncomplicated shootout-style football game akin to what you play in the backyard, but doesn't go much further than that. While I don't need a full playbook, two sets of passing routes per play is not enough, and the deep pass fly patterns are too easily defended. The game just begs for hot routes or an audible to a basic run or pass. Just give me one play I can put in at the line of scrimmage. The cartoony players are built on three body types, some looking a little out of character. Colts safety Bob Sanders (5-8, 206) gets a linebacker's tank body but Ravens safety Ed Reed (5-11, 200) looks like Merton Hanks, giraffe-neck and all. The game-changers are a nice touch but two of them, which do nothing more than slow down or speed up the players, are unimaginative, mostly useless, sometimes even helpful to the offense if called by a defense. The rosters, ratings and team attributes are all built on beginning-0f-the-year models from the full Madden title, so Cincinnati, a division leader in real life, is a weak team in the game. Finally, the game begs for stats. Somewhere, even if it's just a boxscore. If this game's supposed to inspire trash talk, stats - beyond your multiplayer win-loss - are necessary.

Game Changers: I wanted to like these, but the gimmick really under-delivers. I won more with playcalling and execution than I did doing things like freezing a defender (or receiver), turning off someone's passing icons or assuring their ballcarrier fumbles when he's hit. The game randomly selects a game-changer cheat for you each play (or gives you nothing), which you may hold over until you really need it (the extra-play for fourth down, for example). You don't get a changer on every down, which is good, but the rotation over-seeds the more useless ones, doesn't bring up bona fide game changers often enough, and the ones that are valuable are useful only in very specific situations (fourth down, or inside the red zone for "make-it take-it.") You can turn the game changers on or off; I would have liked greater control over how many and what quality you get. Sure, against a computer, you don't want to flipflop the score every other down, but among friends, bombing each other with douche moves would add some good-natured spite and revenge to the bragging-rights contest.

Madden NFL Arcade is not boring but it does come off a little bland at times. You've got cartoon players performing the same animations of the real-world sim, for example, and it could really benefit from a little more zaniness, especially in the hitting. For those who want to play some chuck-and-duck football without setting aside time for an hourlong game or learning the finer points of an offense, it'll satisfy your gridiron cravings. Potato chips are a snack; a cupcake is a treat. Madden NFL Arcade is a football snack.

Madden NFL Arcade was developed by EA Sports and published by Electronic Arts for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on Nov. 25. Retails for 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Marketplace, $14.99 on PlayStation Network. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played about three dozen games, single and multiplayer, on varying difficulty settings using multiple NFL teams. Shut out the Patriots with the Lions. OK, that one was on rookie difficulty.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

With more than 60 million active player across all of its Facebook, MySpace, Google, and iPhone games every month, social network game developer Playfish was ripe for the picking. Now they've been picked. As rumored previously, EA has acquired the company for $275 million in cash and $25 million in equity retention agreements, with up to an additional $100 million in variable cash consideration, pending the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31st of 2011.

Playfish will now operate as a part of EA Interactive, a division of the company dedicated to web and wireless games. More than 150 million Playfish titles are installed and played around the world, with titles like Pet Society, of which I am a big fan, generating more than 1 billion play sessions a month.

"Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community, is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space," said Barry Cottle, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA Interactive. "EAi has been successfully leading the charge for EA, and with the addition of proven expertise from Playfish, their broad consumer base and strong game brands, we're moving ahead aggressively in our plans to lead in the category of cross-platform social entertainment."

If there was any doubt that EA was completely serious about the social networking games space, this should get rid of it. This is an aggressive move into the growing industry segment that could only be topped by the acquisition of Mafia Wars creators Zynga, which I am fully expecting some major game company to announce any day now.

Mafia Wars is an addictive little Facebook game that involves building up a Mafia, pulling jobs, shaking down rackets, and taking down rival mobsters in order to achieve fame, fortune, and far less free time than you had when you first started out. Last month the first two episodes of Mafia Wars: Moscow went live, giving players level 70 and above some new people to kill, business to rob, and equipment to acquire, and now episodes 3 and 4 are just around the corner.

According to Games.com, Episode 3 has players taking on the Moscow Financial System as they make their way towards a confrontation with bank president Gregor Belikov. New items in episode 3 include a Taiga Combat Shotgun and an Ex-KGB Bodyguard. Episode 4 pits you against the Russian military led by corrupt General Osipov, with the Orel Armed Helicopter and Razoritel Grenade Launcher at your disposal.

I arrived a bit late to the Mafia Wars game, but I have now tasted power and will not stop until I devour everything you ever loved. See you on Facebook!

Mafia Wars Moscow: Exclusive Sneak Peek at Episodes 3 & 4 [Games.com Blog]

"It was certainly bad judgment for me to play a computer game even for just a few minutes during the final House session on the budget," Rep. Jack Hennessey, of Bridgeport, wrote. "I am embarrassed, and I apologize to each and every person in the North End and to people across the state."

The Associated Press photo, taken Aug. 31, caused a category three foofaraw because, naturally, few things convey such disrespect as to play goddamn Solitaire when the opposition's talking about the budget. Hennessey could have at least played Bejeweled or Peggle or something. Not only that, he's playing the unwinnable Canfield. His colleague to the left, Rep. Barbara Lambert, was absorbed in either Freecell, Forty Thieves or Montana. Hard to tell. Guy back and to the right is reading about Andy Pettite on ESPN.com. What in the hell is the matter with you people!

Rep. Larry Cafero, the dissed House Minority Leader in question, faced off with the state House Speaker on a local public affairs program. "This has made international news because it captures the frustration of the public. While Rome is burning, they're playing solitaire.''

Yes. How dare someone fool around with games, the Internet, whatever, during a super important speech.

Rep. Jack Hennessy Apologizes For Playing Solitaire at State Capitol During Late-Night Budget Debate [Hartford Courant via GamePolitics]

In the game, you're given a series of recent status updates and asked to identify, by multiple choice, who wrote them. Fast answering is key, otherwise a "bomb" goes off. At the end of the game, you get to send "bombs" to others - basically invitations to play - from the stockpile you earn by guessing correctly. "Lifelines" extend the time you have to answer, in case you just have no idea whose status update reads: "Just christened the commode in my new apartment."

Laurent Detoc, the president of Ubisoft North America, said TickTock will be "the first of many applications that we're building for our UbiFriends portal."

It's not on the cliché level of pirates, ninjas, zombies, vampires or throwing sheep at one another. Yet. But its spread still depends on the "so-and-so did something, don't you want to do it, too?" model, and for many, the answer will still be "no."

Ubi to Launch New Games on Facebook [Eurogamer]

According to TouchArcade, the mission of the 'micro-studio' is a departure from Electronic Arts' previous mobile M.O. - which offered mobile adaptations of major IPs, with prices to match. 8 Lb. Gorilla will instead be focused on delivering games at a 99-cent price point, with a fun-to-complexity ratio you'd expect for casual fare.

In other words, something like Zombies & Me (above) - which 8lb Gorilla said play testers could understand in less than 10 seconds. They're hoping simple controls and a zany premise - in which you save grandma's house by herding swarming zombies under falling munitions - will translate to success. Zombies & Me will be released "soon."

Going forward, they're hoping to roll out these kind of popcorn games one-a-month, assuming no delays in the App Store approval process. I'm wondering if, because of EA connections and relationships, that will go smoother than them than for the indie developers whose turf they're pinching.

Exclusive: Introducing EA's Micro-Studio, 8lb Gorilla and 'Zombies & Me' [TouchArcade via Joystiq]

Alexey Pajitnov developed the puzzle game while working at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1985. In 1991, he and Henk Rogers founded the Tetris Company to prolong the life of the casual classic.

"I expected it to be a good game, not worse than anything else," Pajitnov told Kotaku recently. "I never expected this."

His hand in creating not just Tetris but the casual games market has earned him, of not money, than at least a sort of fame.

"People ask me, 'Are you still alive? I think you are a legend,'" Pajitnov said about his experience wandering the halls of E3 this year.

While Pajitnov remains a lifelong Tetris player, he did once try his hand at creating a game that wasn't a puzzler. Ice and Fire was a first-person shoot released in 1994. It was also, as Pajitnov says, a complete failure.

Pajitinov returned to puzzle creations with games like Pandora's Box and Hexic HD, but his greatest success still remains Tetris.

"We don't look at Tetris as being a retro game," said Rogers. "It did more last year than any year it its history. We don't have to market it. Tetris is ten percent of all games sold on mobile phones."

While the classic remains popular, Rogers and Pajitnov continue to iterate Tetris. Their latest version features six people gaming together online using the familiar pieces and also new attack and defense items. It is currently being tested in Korea.

"That's an interesting evolution of Tetris," Rogers said. "The future is a country that has 48 million people living in it and the biggest casual gaming site in the country has 24 million registered users. That country is Korea. That's what's going to happen in the rest of the world."

The next evolution for the game, Rogers hopes, will be turning it into a competitive sport.

"We are going to turn Tetris into the first real virtual sport," Rogers said. "Sports like baseball and football were created at a time when our future was a lifetime of physical activities and physical fitness. But now that's not as important, it's more about mental fitness today."

"Tetris is a virtual sport that exercises the mind. That is the definition of a virtual sport."

With Tetris available on so many things, from phones to consoles, t-shirts to jewelry, I asked Pajitnov what his favorite Tetris spotting was.

"On a sky scraper," he said. "I heard about it and saw the pictures and thought, 'Wow, that's great, that's something.' I would like to have a real competition on that."

The player population of Free Realms continues to grow at a ridiculous rate, hitting the two million player milestone within a month of the game's official launch. According to SOE, the game is a big hit with its target audience, with 75% of its registrants under age 17 and 46% under 13. Female gamers are particularly taken with the title, representing a third of the population. Once again, SOE president John Smedley is beside himself with excitement.

"In less than a month, Free Realms has captivated a core player base of tween and teen gamers, while also strongly resonating with MMO gamers. We wanted to create a game to play with our families and are excited to have hit the mark with our intended audience."

SOE will be distributing a "party pack" of items so players can help the company celebrate this latest achievement. Hopefully it includes a little more Station Cash, as I could really use a ghost kitten to accompany me while I mine for silver. *sigh*

The game follows the adventures of adorable Sorbet, the brother of prolific Final Fantasy XII Moogle Montblanc, as he embarks on a quest to catch a whole mess of fish. Accept missions to dive under the ocean to collect fish and earn gil to upgrade your equipment, but watch out for that pesky air meter. Get caught without air too deep and you'll wind up in bed for several days, and with only 30 game days to become the Hunter Dive Master, you'll need all the time you have. It's a nifty little game, actually, with leaderboards to show you how much you suck at fishing with a Moogle.

MySpace is a rather odd place for a Square Enix game to show up, but Dive II Hunt makes it almost worth digging up your login information and having to deal with that bastard Tom.

Dive II Hunt [MySpace via 1UP]

Go Play Lumberjax is the first in the new Go Play line of games from New Jersey-based developer and publisher Majesco. According to Majesco VP of operations Gui Karyo, The Go Play brand was created to deliver "active, family friendly game experiences" on the Nintendo Wii, with "motion-based fun for everyone" the overarching goal.

Lumberjax itself is a competitive party game in which players chop, saw, and log roll their way to victory, much like real loggers do, only without having do deal with actual trees, which can be be real jerks. I'm not sure why Majesco decided to go with the strange spelling of Lumberjack, so I will just assume it's the way the younger generation of loggers call themselves.

Lumberjax will be launching Majesco's Go Play this spring, followed in the summer by the classic street games of Go Play City Sports, with Go Play Circus Star rounding out the line up in the fall. Each game also features support for the Wii Balance Board, further justifying the glorified bathroom scale's existence.

Now let's fill the comments section with witty suggestions for the next Go Play titles. I'll start! Go Play Doctor and Go Play In Traffic. Okay, your turn.

Wait, casual games? Yes, casual games. Sit down, you're about to learn something. Seems the number of Americans playing games on casual online gaming portals is up from 67 million in 2007 to 86 million in 2008. Besides more people playing, those playing are playing longer, comScore's research also finding that the total time spent is up 42% from 2007.

As for the most popular game portals, I know I said Newgrounds to ground you on the subject at hand, but it didn't make the top 10. Instead, the most popular sites were:

Still awake? Great! Last bit of news from the data is that, as the number of players increased, so too did the advertising presence/spend, with ad views up 29% to 8.6 billion.

OK. You can go now.

Game On! Online Gaming Surges as Gamers Seek Out Free Alternatives in Tight Economy [comScore, via VentureBeat]]

The figures were released by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, so they of course are a bit biased, but the numbers certainly look good. The games industry brought in $1.96 billion Australian in calendar year 2008, increasing 47 percent over the previous year. For the same period, box office revenues were $946 million and movies on disc took in $1.4 billion.

What's the reason behind the jump in gaming? Casual family gaming.

Ron Curry, chief executive officer of the IEAA, said gaming had evolved from "the guy sitting in his bedroom with his PC being anti-social" to a "much more social and a whole family event".

He cited recent research from Bond University showing that 68 per cent of Australians played video games and 88 per cent of houses had a gaming machine.

"We've seen a 137 per cent increase in family games - things like music and dance games, party games, puzzle games, that sort of stuff is really making up the bulk of the dollars," he said.

Another triumph for the casual and social gaming sectors! Once we've got them all hooked we'll slowly begin scooting the towards more traditional genres. Perhaps a 3D first-person game where you pet puppies.

Video games thrash movies and DVDs [The Age]

If you're like me, maybe you get a good feeling when you hit up a game store, a little rush of positive sentiment that goes beyond the familiar aura of shelves stocked with potential adventures still gleaming in their plastic. Especially now, as the Holiday shopping season starts to get underway, these stores are filled with people buying and trading games, just like you. In one shopper's hand you see a favorite title of yours, and the two of you make eye contact and smile, because you just know, you just get it, right?

Maybe not.

I can't remember what I was in to buy just a week or two ago when I happened up to the shelf alongside a customer holding Silent Hill: Homecoming, poring over the back of the box in a decidedly indecisive fashion. He caught me looking, and managed to make conversation.

"Do you know if this is good?" He asked, hesitantly, nearly immobilized by his dense parka.

Well, of course I know. I review games, and I was one of the few reviewers who really, really liked this one. I can barely resist launching into my spiel on all its good points and its flaws — so what I say instead, as a preface, is, "did you read any of the reviews?"

The consumer shakes his head slowly. He looks a little nervous - perhaps it's the fanatical gleam in my eye. But he should understand, right? Like, he's a gamer, right?

"I don't read any reviews, or anything," he says, looking like someone deftly trying to sidestep a Jehovah's Witness. He puts poor Homecoming back on the shelf, and later I see him get in line with SmackDown vs. RAW 2009 for PlayStation 2.

He doesn't read any reviews? Or anything?

Well, you can at least expect your local GameStop employees to be on your wavelength. Everyone's heard the stories about the long-suffering GameStop worker, especially as the holidays approach. They're already busy behind the counter here, and on another recent outing I came in for the second time in a month with a bushel full of trade-ins, and the register-worker recognized me.

"Got a lot of games again, huh?" He says cheerfully, going through the work of scanning my used titles through the system and crediting them toward my new ones. "Yep, you sure get a ton of stuff." He's looking at me curiously, as if wondering why should this gal come and go with so many games?

I begin to wonder if he thinks I'm casing stolen goods, or something, so I quickly find myself saying, "well, games are my job, so I've gotta… you know, keep up."

"You make games?" Asks the employee.

"No, I write about 'em," I reply, cheerfully. And he looks at me like he's waiting for more information, so I add, "like… on Kotaku."

"On what?" The scanner machine continues whirring and flashing as he rings me up.

"Kotaku," I say.

"Is that, like, a website?"

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a world in which people do not know that Kotaku exists. And for the record, the GameStop employee, while he seemed perfectly knowledgeable about the titles in his store, doesn't know what GameSpot, IGN ,Edge or anything else of their ilk are, either.

The Strange Gap

And these incidents kept on happening to me - popping in and out of game stores in order to research this article, I quickly found that most people are unaware of the topics we discuss here every day. They know what Gears 2 is, perhaps, because they had the first one - but they don't know what Mirror's Edge is, they haven't gotten to hear about how awesome Left 4 Dead is, they don't know about the fire in Far Cry 2. They don't know that EA tried to buy Take-Two this year, they don't know that Nintendo is "abandoning the hardcore gamer," they don't see why it's a big deal that Final Fantasy XIII is coming out on Xbox 360.

In your average game store, customers do not read reviews. They do not post on forums, they have never been motivated to leave Amazon feedback just to "send a message," they do not blog. They do not know which publishers have poor reputations and which ones have good ones. They do not know the names of famous Japanese game designers; they might have Mario Kart Wii at home, but they do not know who Miyamoto is.

We often talk about how the life of a gamer is something of a lonely one - how the love of gaming still, even in the purported era of social acceptance, often feels like a personal secret, and how seeing, say, another DS in the crowd can feel like a private high-five. But according to recent NPD data, 13.7 million Americans own Wiis, 11.6 million own Xbox 360s, and 5.7 million own PlayStation 3s. Add those numbers up . Sure, some people might own more than one console, but more don't than do, so you can get even a rough idea of just how many people are playing video games just in the United States.

Now, think about ubiquitous pop sensation Rihanna. Chances are, all summer you heard her smash hit "Umbrella" more times than you wanted to. Lately you've probably heard her earworm "Disturbia" drift by you on the airwaves, piped in over the mall speakers or sung out loud by teens on the bus. Even if you're not into pop music, more likely than not you know of Rihanna's songs and would recognize her cute Bahamian face, even without being aware of it. You can tell it's a cultural sensation, even if it's not your culture, per se. But Rihanna's newest album, "Good Girl Gone Bad," which contains both of the songs I just mentioned, has sold only 6.2 million copies - and that's not just in America, that's around the world.

We're talking about a global smash music success that goes platinum several times - and it's only half as popular as the Wii in the U.S. alone, and only relatively slightly more popular than even the third-place PlayStation 3. So why is it that while everyone's heard of Rihanna, it seems like no one knows what Fallout 3 is when you're not at the computer?

The guy buying Smackdown vs. RAW could not be called a "casual" gamer. Neither can the GameStop employee who doesn't read video game websites. But perhaps what our online culture has taught us to expect from other "gamers" is a little bit skewed.

All of us "on here," within this world of ours, are not just in love with games - we're in love with the culture we've created around games, and that culture, obsessed with information related to our pastime, is only the most vocal minority at the tippy-top of a great big bell curve. Outside in the so-called "real world," away from our regular guildies, the folks with familiar forum handles, and the hundreds of comments spewing angry invective on the latest contentious review, there are millions of gamers in the world. They just aren't "culturalists" (cultists?) like us, and so we fail to recognize them.

Getting Lost

And it's convenient we were on the subject of music, because the difference between the fan and the cultist also appears in the music genre. There's often an assumption among music fans that you either read music mags religiously and talk about bands few people have heard of in terms few people can understand, our you're a Celine Dion-loving, mainstream-embracing plebian with nothing that could be called taste.

In fact, in music as with games, there is a great and broad-ranging middle ground; some music fans can be quite seriously into, say, indie music, without ascribing to all of the telltale tenets of modern-day "hipster" culture. But as with games journalism, writing about music is enormously bipolar - it's either designed to satisfy the most scrutinizing culturalist, or it's glossy MTV-ish pap about artists like, say, Rihanna.

Which is why I don't really read music articles at all, even though I buy several albums a week on iTunes and love to share undiscovered songs with my friends. But recently, I happened to notice that the elite Pitchfork Magazine had reviewed one of my new favorite albums, so out of curiosity, I decided to see what the review said. It called the album "inherently disjointed, very much the product of two distinct, if exceptional, songwriters," immediately compared the album to the two songwriters' prior work as separate acts, and also compared the album to the band's prior one.

I could barely puzzle out what a phrase like this means: "focused on skewing darker, on sounding nastier, more perilous, and less straightforward than its predecessor, with elaborate arrangements and, you know, no singles— translates into a lot of proggy diddling (and, ironically, less theremin). The approach yields predictably mottled results…"

In short, it was a mixed but fairly critical review of an album I love, rooted in comparisons to the artists' other work (which I also love, but supposing I'd never heard of 'em?). If I'd read this review first - well, I would have had to struggle a bit to understand the critic's language - but after that, I might have not wanted to buy the album. So because I neither possess nor relate to the critical vocabulary of a Pitchfork writer, high-end music reviews are fairly useless to me.

It occurred to me that this is how the "average" gamer - you know, the people in line at GameStop, the people who would never in a million years be reading this article - probably feels about game reviews, and the associated culture we've built around game websites. And that's why we don't know them, and they don't know us.

Different Things to Different People

That guy in the parka who wondered whether to buy Silent Hill: Homecoming probably doesn't read game reviews for the same reason I don't read music reviews; they would have told him all about the controls, the environment, the vibe and the themes, would have listed for him a raft of minor criticisms he'd never even notice, but wouldn't have told him anything about whether or not he'd like the game.

He doesn't need the extra facts, the peripheral humor, the sneak peeks we get from our favorite game sites. And he probably doesn't need the sense of community that we get from socializing, networking and sharing content with other elitists online - because he's got about millions of possible pals out there, average gamers just like himself, who are happy to just play with him and enjoy it.

"Oh hey," a shy girl who looks about my age notices that I've got my DS in my hand as I'm on my way out of the store. She's holding the new Tinkerbell DS game, she looks a little lost, and I can tell she's been hoping to ask another female for ideas. "Do you have this one?"

I tell her I don't; I tell her it's a game for kids. And she laughs a little, shrugs, makes a gesture that encompasses the entire store, as if to say, so? These are all just toys, aren't they? To some people, they are.

So yes, our existence is still somewhat a lonely one; we are in the minority, still. But it's not because we're gamers. It's not even because we're hardcore gamers. It's because we're such fanatical culturalists that we forget about the middle ground. Is it a divide we can bridge?

[Leigh Alexander is news director for Gamasutra, reviews games at Variety,and maintains her gaming blog, Sexy Videogameland. Her monthly column at Kotaku deals with cultural issues surrounding games and gamers. She can be reached at leighalexander1 AT gmail DOT com.]

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, the game's producer made it clear that although Starcraft II was intended to please the hardcore audience that still flocks to the original game for its strategic depth, some effort was being made to open the game up to the more casual player.

“We’ve trying to make sure that it’s perfectly balanced for e-sport," said Sigaty, "but look — I’m going to try to get my mom to play this game. I know she can’t [micromanage] at the level that these pro gamers can, so we’re actually experimenting back in the opposite direction… so that even the layman can come in and get a grasp of these cool things in the game.”

Producer: ‘StarCraft II’ To Be Mom-Friendly [MTV Multiplayer]

Stop. You had me at 'steam powered monkeys'.

Gatheryn seems to be pitching itself as a sort of World Of Warcraft for people who hate endless grinding and enjoy casual gaming. The game is set in the aforementioned steam monkey paradise and promises to offer in-engine versions of “the 50 most popular casual games of all time.”

The developers, MindFuse, plan to let players forgo the usual level grinding in favor of just buying equipment and costumes using game currency earned from playing the casual games or just coughing up with a credit card.

A closed PC beta will be available for sign up in December, with an open beta in the new year.

The World Of Gatheryn [MindFuse Games]

This comes minutes after Molyneux explains to me why he asked reviewers to get casual gamers to check out Fable II before writing their review.

I point that out to Molyneux and then say that I agree with him about the dangers of separating the "core" games from the "casual." It's the Wii effect, I say. I don't say this to attack the Wii, but it was from Nintendo that I first started receiving requests to have "casual" gamers check out their games and not hardcore gamers. It was Nintendo that, I think, was first to argue that hardcore gamers didn't "get" their Wii games.

Molyneux seems to agree.

"I wandered around the show floor yesterday and I kind of realized it was like walking back in time a little bit," he said. "I'm sure I saw that ten years ago, that approach to little groups of people, not worrying so much about the animation, but worrying about the mechanics.

"It's a big shock. It's a big worry for me as a designer. I think this industry needs to move forward and make these opuses for a much broader audience not just the casual audience."

Instead Molyneux sees traditionally hardcore games adding things to appease to the casual gamer, something he doesn't think Fable II is doing, exactly.

"Here was the design problem," he said. "You sit down with Fable and there are an awful lot of influences you have. Your publisher is saying one thing, your audience is saying one thing, your team is saying one thing and all of those sort of come together in the mixing pot.

"The thing we realized, we could build that combat function and say that foundation we laid down in Fable one was right or we could ask ourselves what we could do with combat. What we chose to do is to make it much deeper and while making it much deeper, make it much simpler as well."

Instead of making Fable II more casual, Molyneux hopes the Lionhead game expands the genre in a way that doesn't hurt it.

"I think the pigeon hole of RPG is not doing Fable any favors," he said. "We have to persuade people it's not an RPG, this is an experience. Ultimately i think we are hoping to broaden (the genre). I think the way i happens is to get people playing the game.

"The whole of the coop mechanic is actually because we want to get more people to play the game. My theory is you or I are playing Fable and our partners or friends walk in and we have to turn the game off. Wouldn't it be brilliant to just give them the controller and say give it a try. And that's I think is probably going to do more for than casual audience than anything else."

Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures is a Facebook app that lets you create a character, equip them with potions and weapons and them set them off on a (hey!) Tiny Adventure.

Your character will send you regular updates from your chosen quest, and because FB is a Social Networking site you can ask your friends to buff them up by throwing potions and other kit your way. Success in the various game events is determined by dice rolls modified by your initial choices.

The game server is down at the moment due to heavy demand, but should soon rise again, stronger and more powerful than ever.

D&D Tiny Adventures [Facebook via Tor]