As with their aforementioned Call of Duty clone, Gameloft's latest shooter borrows from the best; while it's unlikely we'll see Master Chief's shiny green armor splash across the iPhone's slick display anytime soon, N.O.V.A. offers the next best thing.

Loved
Hand-held Halo: Give any of N.O.V.A.'s screenshots even a passing glance, and it's immediately obvious where the developers gleaned their inspiration. From its Brute-like baddies to a sidearm that'd look right at home in Master Chief's holster, this one's busting with Halo call-outs. Dig a bit deeper and you'll discover Warthog-wannabe vehicles and an intel-reporting cyber-hottie that shares more than a passing resemblance with a certain blue-beamed babe from Bungie's franchise. Whether you see these similarities as respectful tributes or blatant ripoffs, you'll be hard pressed to deny their appeal; coupled with amazing audio, visuals, animations and effects-weapon reloads are a highlight-they complement one of the platform's most polished and engrossing experiences.

Lock, Load, Touch: Supporting N.O.V.A.'s excellent presentation are rock solid controls that keep things simple, satisfying, and super intuitive. A responsive virtual pad moves your character, while finger-swiping the screen controls the camera and your cross hairs. Additionally, a well balanced aim-assist ensures you'll plug plenty of alien menaces between the eyes without ever feeling like the game's doing it for you. Tossing grenades, using stasis power (Maybe the devs played some Dead Space, too?), and jumping also feel natural and never frustrating. While the Wii still struggles to find the FPS sweet spot with its unconventional controls, it seems the iPhone has already mastered this challenge.

Hated
Head-shot to Originality: From it's generic name, which stands for Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, to its forgettable sci-fi story, N.O.V.A. feels a bit uninspired. Objectives, such as activating computer terminals and clearing rooms of bad guys before proceeding, are things we've been doing for years. And, despite their stunning visuals, the levels continuously sting with deja vu as you trek across catwalks and ride elevators in familiar-feeling space stations. Although its production values are top notch and its gameplay engaging, N.O.V.A. sometimes feels like it fell off the "sc-fi shooter" assembly line.

While N.O.V.A. benefits by cribbing from some of the best console shooters, it also sticks too closely to many of the genre's growing-stale conventions. Still, its excellent gameplay and polished presentation easily make it the premier FPS on the platform, and even a worthy competitor to the PSP's and DS's best shooters. A 13-chapter solo campaign-complete with three difficulty settings-and 4-player Wi-Fi and local multi-player also make it a steal at around seven space bucks.

N.O.V.A. was developed and published by Gameloft for iPhone on December 17th. Retails for $6.99. A code to download the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Completed the game's campaign on medium, difficulty and participated in several multi-player matches over Wi-Fi.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

pac-man bracelet chomps its way around your wrist on [Technabob]

According to insider info (along with some speculation!), Japanese website PC Watch is reporting that Sony is looking to alternatives to the PS3's Cell architecture, which some developers have found to be challenging. One early alternative include Cell and Intel's Larrabee. Wanting a bit more horsepower, Sony has apparently abandoned this plan. Sony was also apparently considering a modified version of the Synergistic Processor Unit, but is now supposedly working on designs that include a mulit-core CPU.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all believed to be exploring new system architecture. And with the exception of a possible Wii HD, PC Watch Impress states that it takes 24 months to produce new consoles, making 2011 difficult for new hardware and 2012 or even as late as 2013 more possible.

However, PC Watch Impress notes that new handhelds will pre-date new home console hardware — so by that assumption, the PSP2 will be released before the PS4.

【後藤弘茂のWeekly海外ニュース】 揺れるSCEの次世代ゲーム機「PlayStation 4」プラン　[PC Watch Impress]

These types of photos are very much a Japanese internet meme — people showing their Christmas meal and female characters with whom they are eating. They're more a gag than anything else with each photo trying to outdo the others. Not entirely serious! Though, still, slightly bitter sweet.

One of the pictures might be NSFW. Guess which one.

ゲーマー達のクリスマスお祝い画像集 [オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃]

My personal favorite is probably still Bart's Nightmare on the Super Nintendo — because it was the only game that I could beat that my big brother couldn't. His claim to fame is still the old NES game, Bart vs. The Space Mutants. But both of us will always remember The Simpsons Arcade game from Konami as the ultimate Simpsons video game. It was the only one we could get our parents to play with us, and they only one we never ever beat because we always ran out of quarters in the dream world.

What Is It?
The Simpsons Arcade for the iPhone is a beat 'em up, much like the Simpsons Arcade of yore — but other than that, it's a totally different game. Featuring six levels with a boss and mini-boss each, the game stars Homer Simpson at the center of a plot involving Mr. Burns' sinister plan to suck Springfield's resources dry. The control scheme uses a virtual joystick and two virtual buttons that give the appearance of playing the game in an arcade cabinet.

What We Saw
I played the Krustyland level and saw sections demoed at the beginning of the game, at the end of the game and at Channel 6 News where you fight Bumblebee Man as a mini-boss.

How Far Along Is It?
Near final. EA declined to give a specific release date, but all the levels and sounds were in place and everything looked pretty finished.

What Needs Improvement?
A Little Slow On The Combos: Homer can perform punch-kick combos as well as an area-affect shoulder-check or belly flop that you can follow up with a second attack. It's great when it works, but it takes some work to master the timing needed on the virtual buttons. Worse, since you're not getting that physical feedback of pressing a real button, you're not always sure if you messed up the combo because you were late on a button press or because the touch screen didn't pick up on it.

Can't Store Family Members: Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Marge show up in gameplay whenever Homer finds a pickup with a family member's face on it. This triggers a Family Frenzy attack where said family member will show up on screen for a short time and help Homer attack enemies. For tight spot situations, it's not a bad system — but I wonder if it would be more fun to hang on to those family icon pickups until you assemble the whole Simpsons clan for some kind of super attack. It'd definitely reinforce that family feeling I remember having while playing the old arcade game with my parents and brother.

What Should Stay The Same?
Authenticity: EA got a lot of the main cast of the Simpsons (Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer) and a Simpsons writer (Michael Price) to work on the game. The result is a product that not only looks, feels and sounds authentic — but one that can take as many risks as it wants with the story and dialogue. For example, when you're playing through the Channel 6 level, you can hear Kent Brockman making snide news reports on the loud speakers and every menu selection results in Homer yelling "D'oh!" or "Whoo-hoo!" That would get old if these were knock-off voices or the writing was a hollow imitation of a real Simpsons writer — but because it's the real deal, it's actually quite pleasing.

Homages Galore: There are a couple of mini-games in Simpsons Arcade iPhone — and one of them is a direct throwback to the inflatable heads bonus level in the old arcade game. Dedicated Simpsons fans will have a lot of fun picking out all the homages to other Simpsons exploits throughout the game. Also, Binky the Rabbit of Matt Groening's classic Life in Hell comic series appears on all the loading screen. Awesome!

A Complete Gaming Experience: It's nice to have a portable game that's actually paced for portable play. I can easily imagine picking up and putting down this game while waiting in line at the movies or during a long commute. I just might have to resort to using headphones because all the "D'oh!"s are sure to piss off other commuters who easily recognize the Simpsons but can't join in on my fun.

Final Thoughts
Sorry guys, Comic Book Guy isn't in the game. You'll find plenty of other character cameos, but EA felt that Comic Book Guy was way overused.

Zhu Zhu Pets are, apparently, one of the hottest toys of the holiday season, and I should probably count myself fortunate that I was unaware of their existence. These tiny electronic replica hamsters have been flying off the shelves, regularly marked up 200-400% above their $10 retail price as parents struggle to get them under the tree for today's children, who'd off a real hamster in seconds flat if left unattended.

Activision Publishing and GameMill Publishing have entered into an agreement with toy company Cepia, LLC to produce games based on the adorable little androids, with the first Zhu Zhu Pets title coming to the Nintendo DS in spring 2010. I'm sure Ubisoft's Hamsterz team will be monitoring things closely.

"Zhu Zhu Pets(TM) success in 2009 speaks for itself and we're confident it will be even bigger in 2010," said David Oxford at Activision Publishing. Gary Miller, President, GameMill Publishing, stated, "It is our goal to expand this proven franchise in a way that fans of the wildly popular hamster toy line and video gamers alike will embrace and love to play."

I guess I'm just going to have to have children soon, if only to stay on the cutting edge of hamster robotics.

Sure, Japan got them first, but here in North America we get the pink and blue Wii remotes on a day perfect for spreading love through pleasantly colored video game accessories. The two new colors come packaged in Nintendo's unique protective sleeve, which brings to mind intimate toys while also serving as a reminder about safe sex, while the bundled Wii Motion Plus accessory is perfect for reminding your loved one that just swinging it around randomly is only fun until someone loses an eye.

The announcement didn't specifically mention price, but we can assume they'll be in line with the current Wii remote / Motion Plus bundles at $49.99, or $54.99 at GameStop. Where's the love, GameStop?

In an interview with Nikkei, SCE's Masayuki Chatani, from the company's strategy planning department, has revealed that not only were Sony looking at making the Slim even smaller, but that they were looking at some fairly radical solutions to the problems of HDD sizing.

One of those was to use flash memory instead of the conventional HDD the PS3 currently uses, which would have cut down on the size, running costs and even noise levels of the console.

Another was to leave local storage out of the equation altogether, and instead rely on the PlayStation Network to save all of a user's game data, personal files and settings (similar to how Gmail works, for example).

Chatani says Sony "considered both options", but in the end, "felt that the price would be too high for the amount of storage capacity the PS3 needs", so they stuck with a conventional HDD.

He also says, when comparing the Slim with the PS2's redesign - a model that made far more drastic cuts to the dimensions of the console than the Slim has managed - that reducing the size of the PS3 even further was a possibility, but that in order to do so, the machine's power supply would have to have been made external (as it was on the PS2 Slim), which "would have imposed restrictions on transport and use, making it harder to use freely."

PS3, PSP Made Smaller, Lighter to Capture New Customer Segments [Nikkei]

"I hate sports games," Kristen says with a weary laugh, reminding me for about the fifth time this Thursday night "I had to ask someone what a sack was. They said it's when you tackle the quarterback. I said, 'Which one is the quarterback?'"

Only in name are Kristen and I playing Madden NFL Arcade. Instead we are "boosting," - throwing games to each other, more or less, to rack up multiplayer achievements. I've already gotten 50 points the easy way. Now it's her turn.

It is a substantial part of how Kristen, whose last name I'm withholding out of concern for her privacy, has become, according to one leading compilation, the No. 4 ranking woman, worldwide, in Gamerscore. Her tag is CRU x360a - go ahead, look it up. Kristen - CRU or Crubie to some online - is a 24-year-old stay-at-home mom in northwest Indiana. You call her extremely motivated. You can call her obsessed. You can also call her an achievement whore, like she hasn't heard that from every piss-ant with a 5,000 gamerscore in the underground zone.

Bottom line, she's is really effective at piling up her gamerscore. But she's not sure when, or if, she will stop.

A Race to the Top

"It was a friendly race at the time," Kristen says of the beginning, three years ago, when she got serious about her Gamerscore. "It was to 20,000. My buddy was at 15,000 and I was at 13, I was 2,000 behind him. I said, 'OK, this might take years.'

Kristen had bought an Xbox 360 in early 2007 and, like most, it wasn't because it offered achievements. She was a multiplayer gamer on a few titles she enjoyed - shooters mostly. Then she joined a Gamerscore league. And then she got into this side bet.

"Once I found sites that had guides on which were the easy games, I beat (20,000) in like a month and a half," she says. "It got me hooked and it was like a drug. A bad drug. A bad habit."

Soon enough Kristen managed to fall in with some elite players in the achievement grinding world. One, named Smrnov, who is the global No. 10 on MyGamerCard, praises Kristen's team-spirited achievement hunting. "CRU was unselfish in the help she offered our team, and has always been reliable for getting the game time in, which is a very hard trait to find for spanning so many different games, versus a single one," he says.

Stallion83, the global No. 2 on that list, played with Kristen in those early days, and was most recently her boosting partner on Damnation - a terribly received game. ("We managed to have fun talking about The Leprechaun movies," he says. "Party chat has made some of these games less painful.")

"She was just a nice person," Stallion83 recalls,"like one of the dudes. Most girls cause drama and try to get attention. I didn't see that with CRU." Both he and Smrnov heap praise on Kristen's FPS skill. "A great FPS player," says Smrnov. "In addition, she's very good about figuring out the best strategy for completing a game quickly and doing all associated research. She has both gaming skills and gamerscore skills."

But that doesn't keep Kristen from going after the kids' stuff, too. Last week, Spongebob: Truth or Square put her over 165,000. It's a cute detail but it barely scratches the surface of Kristen's performance over the past three years. Nor does the four-game Gamefly subscription, in constant rotation. That's to be expected. And the shelf full of games, many of them years old and still waiting to be played, well, what would you consider impressive? A hundred and sixty?

She bought Jumper: Griffin's Story - one of the worst reviewed games ever in Xbox 360 history. The day Modern Warfare 2 was released, she spent all her time on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. American Idol? She put the microphone in front of a speaker and played songs into it to ace the performances that much faster. It didn't work for Sing It: High School Musical or Hannah Montana, so, she had to belt those out herself.

"They're easy enough songs; It's not bad, there's no one looking at me while I'm playing it," Kristen says, "but my friends (on Xbox Live) see it, and all the guys can't believe I'm playing that game."

Remember that deal a few months back, when a someone tried to round up a 1,000 players to log in to NBA Live 07 and get the 100 gamerscore achievement for 1,000 players being online at the same time? Kristen was a part of that, with two versions of the game, one she had to go out and find for $3 at a game store, and the other playing on her Japanese 360.

Yes, she has an NTSC: J console. Kristen got that to play BioShock's Korean version, which has a separate achievement list. She's gotten 1,000 gamerscore in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. She's gotten 1,000 gamerscore in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand in Japanese. "I haven't even opened the Saint's Row 2 Japanese version, or the Saint's Row 1 for that matter," Kristen says. She's eyeballing a PAL console, but even an Arcade will be close to $300 with shipping and, "Do I really need to play BioShock again?"

Some of the region-locked Japanese games she plays are bought by pooling money with Stallion83, Smrnov and others in the ultra-gamerscore crowd, and the group then trades the discs around by mail. One game, Clannad, was picked for its low-hanging fruit. It's a "visual novel," sometimes called a dating sim, but as the choices are all text-based the gameplay should be pretty easy, right?

"It's a text game, and you have to choose A or B, you only have these text options," Kristen said. "But I'm sitting there on Google Translate trying to translate these strategy guides and match up (Japanese) characters to make my choices. And I'm thinking 'Why the hell did I buy a Japanese Xbox and this game, this is just retarded.' It's so embarrassing trying to match characters to a language I don't even know. I've spent $400 on a game I can't even read."

It makes me wonder. These are called games. And technically, she's playing them. But is this even fun? Is this ever fun?

"I definitely play more games I don't enjoy than games I do," she says. "Like, maybe 65 percent of the games I play I don't enjoy."

Kristen's husband doesn't even know why she sticks with it, if something like CSI: Hard Evidence is so unfulfilling for her to play.

"Sometimes I'll be playing, and he'll ask, 'Did I have to buy that or did someone else buy it?'" Kristen says. "And I'm like, 'Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie to you?' And he walks away, saying 'I can't believe you're playing that.' To me that's more embarrassing than playing Disney: Sing It."

A Mother's Work

Kristen is careful to remind me that she does have a life outside of gaming. "I'm an avid paintball player; I have my own gun, although that's also another expensive hobby," she says. "But yeah, I'd much rather go out to a bar, go bowling, play darts or pool than sit at home and boost games all night. I'm still young."

She's also the mother of a six-year-old girl. You can do the math there, it means Kristen became a mom at age 18. Before then, she was a rather typical kid, if a little tomboyish, and absolutely delighted by video games. Kristen says she's played them since she was five. When she lived with her parents, new games and new consoles were common, especially around the holidays. When she had her daughter and moved out of the home, her original Xbox and her beloved NES - which she still has even though it won't work - stayed behind. The Xbox 360 she bought a little more than three years ago marked her re-entry to games since having her daughter.

Sometimes mother and daughter play - Spongebob was one such example. But Kristen had to load up one of the five other gamertags she keeps on the console for family and friends to play. Boosting games might sound out of bounds to some gamers, but it's entirely within the ultra-gamerscore ethos. What isn't, however, is having anyone get an achievement for you. Even your six-year-old girl.

"She climbed up and said, 'Let me play,' so I said, 'Just a second,' and put her up with another (gamertag) and let her play," Kristen says. "Sometimes she'll say 'Look, Mom, I got an achievement too!' She gets excited."

This isn't something Kristen wants to encourage. "I don't want her to get addicted like I am though," Kristen says. "She doesn't really see me play too much, actually."

Her husband, Jeff, doesn't game much at all himself. He owns a towing business that provides a comfortable lifestyle and accommodates both his interests and Kristen's gaming. He's rather mellow about all the time she spends with games, if not the money, and keeps both in perspective. Some guys have wives who spend a ton of money on clothes, or dislike spending as much time around the house as she does.

"I have some hobbies myself that are fairly pricey and I can't really blame her for that," Jeff says. "However, occasionally a string of new games will come out within a two day span and magically a few hundred dollars will be missing from the bank account. With as much time as she has allotted for video games and the kid I can account for her whereabouts at any given moment so I'm certain that she isn't cheating on me."

Even pressed for a ballpark estimate, Kristen doesn't know how much her obsession with Gamerscore has cost in the preceding three years. "My pro system is $250, my Japanese console cost $400, the hard drive I put on it was $50 - I don't want to see the number, and I'm sure Jeff doesn't want to see it," she says. "But I think it would be cool to know."

There's another number about which she seems even less enthusiastic, though. And that's the next big milestone for her gamerscore.

Calling It a Career

Two hundred thousand. According to MyGamerCard, only one other woman has a total that high (with a second very close to reaching it.) And yet when Kristen brings it up, it's with a tone of voice that ponders what she will do then. It's almost like she doesn't want to get there, for what it will force her to consider.

The simplest answer is by far easier said than done: Just quit. "I keep saying when I get 200,000 gamerscore, I'm going to retire," Kristen says. "There are people who do that. I say it now, but I don't think you can ever actually quit. It's like a drug. It is addicting."

And she uses that word often enough that I figure I should bring up the subject. Carefully. I would never say video game addiction isn't real, knowing that real people do indeed battle it. I also believe it's a topic given to alarmism. And I'm not a psychiatrist, so it's not my place to go diagnosing other people's behavior. But I ask Kristen anyway. Maybe, has she ever considered talking to someone about her gaming?

"I wouldn't say I need to talk to someone," Kristen says after considering the question for a long moment. "I'm not hurting someone by doing this. My family life is not being hurt. Granted, it's like an addiction, but I'm not hurting anyone. Well, I'm getting little sleep sometimes, but that's on me.

"Besides, I saw where someone had gone to be treated at a rehab center for video games, and it was something like $30,000 a year, and I thought, 'Do you know how many Xboxes and games I could buy with this?'" she says, without a trace of irony. "I don't think so."

When Kristen is most at ease with her gamerscore is when it describes how she's good at something. How she's figured out a way to beat the system; or how she's actually put in the time to get the "General" achievement in Call of Duty 3 - getting 40,000 points in ranked matches - to collect a rare 100+ gamerscore achievement.

"It's very much a personal pride thing, being ranked in the top five in the world in something, whether it's gaming or the fact I'm a female gamer," Kristen says. "I'm never going to be in the Olympics, so I'll be a great gamer. It's something I know I'm good at."

But I hope when she breaks 200,000 she can put the controller down. She spent the first three years of her adulthood being a mom. I suggest to Kristen that, maybe, she's spent the last three in front of a console, trying to get some of that lost time back.

Kristen ponders this, and seems to agree. "Maybe," she says.

Maybe then she can call it even.

The rumors were true after all. Update 3.15 will make the PSP mini emulator run on the PlayStation 3, allowing you to play your bite-sized games on a much larger screen...which I suppose you could already do by hooking up your PSP to the television, but it's all about a seamless experience, right?

Having recently purchased a PSPgo myself, I've browsed the minis section quite often, in the same way one might stand in front of a fridge filled with moldy food, wondering if they really are that hungry.

The update also adds PS3 data transfer functionality, giving those upgrading to a newer model the ability to connect two consoles via a LAN cable and swap data, which would have been incredibly handy for me four months ago.

Soooo. Did we mention Yakuza 3?

PS3 System Software Update – 3.15

The patent for an "Expandable Control Device Via Hardware Attachment" touches on a number of control options. According to details from the patent, Sony's motion controller may offer the option to join two motion control units together lengthwise—previously seen in an earlier patent—or in an H-shape.

And as pictured above, a unique, secondary controller attachment may offer a solution to the one DualShock in one hand, one motion controller in the other hand scheme seen at Sony's Tokyo Game Show press conference.

Other potentially interesting add-on possibilities are attachments shaped like a baseball bat, a the business end of a flashlight and a rattle-like sphere that's very maraca like.

Perhaps more interesting is a proposed biometric reader attachment, including a "thumb reader used to validate the identity of the person holding the controller by analyzing the biometric data provided by the attachment."

Additional possibilities included microphone attachments and swappable control faceplates—letting the player customize whether a motion controller has buttons or a d-pad or even a dial.

Of course, this is a patent, not a product announcement. Sony could simply release the motion controller as previously seen, with none of these possibilities becoming actual products. But take a look at some of the drawings in the gallery below and check out the patent to see what Sony may have in mind.

Expandable Control Device Via Hardware Attachment [USPTO.gov]

Beaterator for the iPhone might not be as full-featured as the PlayStation Portable version, but then at $4.99 compared to $39.99, we wouldn't expect it to be. Remix premade tunes or create your own in loop mode using a simple touch screen interface that might actually have a leg-up on its PSP predecessor. It won't make you the next Mozart, of course, but it certainly has the potential to make visits to the bathroom much more musical than they already are.

That didn't sound right.

Beaterator for the iPhone is available now on the Apple iTunes App Store.

In video-gamer vernacular, this is called a "double jump." To a gaming outsider, the concept might not make any sense. It might even be flagrantly ridiculous.

To a gaming outsider, actually, that a game character encounters so many situations wherein he needs to jump in order to proceed might in itself be foreign or bizarre. Before we can properly talk about double jumping, we probably have to talk about jumping.

The fact seems to be that, in games of ancient times, jumping was a chief mechanic because it offered a moment-long variation in what would otherwise be a game about getting from point A to point B.

The ancient game template calls for a hero beginning at an origin, seeking a destination, impeded by obstacles. "Obstacles" can be either dangerous objects or bottomless pits. "Dangerous objects" can either be barrels rolling down ramps in Donkey Kong, bullet-like projectiles of mysterious or known origin, or enemy characters. The player deals with dangerous objects by avoiding them. In a two-dimensional game presented at a side-on angle, this means jumping. In a two-dimensional game presented by a top-down angle, this means walking around it. "Enemy characters" can either be grunts, mini-bosses, or bosses. Grunts are easy to deal with. Mini-bosses are more harrowing experiences, and bosses are occasionally cinematic in the struggle they put the player through.

Super Mario Bros. allows the player to surmount obstacles mostly by jumping. In fact, you don't have to kill a single enemy in Super Mario Bros. You can jump over or otherwise avoid every one of them. Super Mario Bros. is also elegant enough to make the jump function an attack in itself. Most enemies are killed or otherwise dealt with by jumping on top of them. Jump on top of a mushroom-like Goomba, and it flattens and dies. Jump on top of a turtle-like Koopa, and it retracts into its shell. Now you can touch the shell to send it flying in one direction. If it touches other enemies, they die. However, it can ricochet back and hit you, either hurting you or killing you. If you are Little Mario, it kills you. If you are Big Mario, it turns you into Little Mario. If Little Mario eats a mushroom, he turns into Big Mario. If Big Mario touches a Fire Flower, he can throw fireballs, which can kill all enemies on contact, except the black beetle things, which are an exception, because a game like this needs one little exception of every flavor in order to stay spicy. Oh, and there are also the Hammer Brothers, who jump near-randomly and throw hammer projectiles at an eclectic angle. You can kill them by jumping on them, by jumping up at a block they are standing on, thus hitting them from beneath, or by throwing fireballs.

Super Mario Bros. is not the bad guy. In fact, Super Mario Bros. is the ultimate good guy. I might have mentioned it before, though I am adamant in my belief that Super Mario Bros. is a perfect video game design. It is not, however, an inimitable miracle. The problem is that game developers, including Nintendo themselves, have been trying to imitate it in the wrong ways.

What's perfect about Super Mario Bros. is that it teaches you how to play in its opening ten seconds. We have a character on the left side of the screen, facing right. We instinctively know that we have to move to the right. We move to the right. A block with a question mark on it floats in the air above our character's head. Two steps to the right of this block is a series of many blocks, some with flashing question marks, and some of solid, scary-looking brick. Floating above this series of blocks is another question mark block.

Just as we see this buffet of blocks, a mushroom-shaped monster-like thing becomes visible, moving from the right to the left.

This thing is moving, then, in the exact opposite direction of the hero. This subliminally communicates to us that this Other Moving Object is our enemy.

We simultaneously wonder: how do I reach that block? And how do I kill that enemy?

In the old times, we only had two buttons on the controller. We'd have plenty of time to press one of them before the enemy killed and/or ate us. This is how we'd learn that we can jump.

The hero's head bonks into the question mark block. A deliciously crispy ping sound echos as a golden coin pops up and disappears. Where did the coin go? Who knows! At the top of the screen, we see a coin symbol and a number: "01". We realize we should get more of those.

The enemy is drawing nearer. The only thing we know how to do is jump. We press the jump button. We jump just high enough to jump over the enemy, and survive.

Or maybe we land on the enemy's head, and he dies. Points are added to our score. We think, "Cool".

By now, we know that question mark blocks give us good things. What about the ugly brown bricks? We jump at one. It throbs. It doesn't break.

We hit the next question mark block, and a mushroom pops out and begins spontaneously sliding across the ground. Of course, we pick it up, because the last question mark block only gave us good things. Mario grows larger. If we jump at a solid brick again, we find that we can break it.

The player will learn, when he makes contact with an enemy, that being Big Mario means you can survive two hits before dying. If the player doesn't pick up the mushroom and instead touches the first enemy, he will also learn that being Little Mario means you die after touching one enemy.

So what we have here is a game with a strictly limited move set (walk, run, jump) in which two of the three actions (walk, run) serve the short and long-term goals (get from point A to point B), albeit in different capacities (run to move quickly, walk to line yourself up minutely for tricky jumps) and the last of the three actions (jump) is linked to multiple (nearly all) immediate-term goals (avoid enemies, kill enemies, avoid obstacles, obtain items).

In this game, the character's vital status is portrayed entirely through the game graphics: if Little, Mario dies in one hit; if Big, Mario survives two hits. If Big and White, Mario can survive two hits and throw fireballs.

What if the player manages to complete the entire game on his first play-through, without touching a single enemy or even falling into a bottomless pit? Even as a person who has seen or experienced many improbable events, I can't imagine this ever actually happening. Has a human being of such impeccable reflex and intuition ever existed? This is a crucial question, and the answer is "I don't think so". If you or someone you know is this particular human being, plz upload something to YouTube plz. I'd love to see how gracefully you can tie your shoes (winking smiley face) (note to many curious readers who emailed me last month: no, "(winking smiley face)" is not a bizarre copy-editing tick; it's just something I've been doing on the internet for a couple of years).

PIC

Let's go one further, and say that this genius player doesn't even ever pick up the Fire Flower. Let's say he never uses the warp zone, and he isn't particularly bent on picking up every last coin. He takes his time — though not too much time, of course, because his time is somewhat strictly limited. Let's also say that he only kills enemies on accident, or when it feels as though it couldn't be avoided (even though we've established that it can be avoided).

At any rate, if the player is good enough to play the game straight through, without dying or even being injured, on his first time ever playing through the game, would that necessarily make it impossible for him to feel tension, pressure, or event delight at his own success? In a bad game, he could probably get away with not enjoying the experience. In Super Mario Bros., I'm pretty confident that even the virtuoso / jackpotman / idiot savant would enjoy the experience thoroughly. The reason why is so difficult to articulate that even Nintendo has failed to replicate Super Mario Bros. universal success in the (nearly) twenty-five (!) long years since its release.

I am pretty sure that I haven't gone a single column on this website without mentioning Super Mario Bros. and why it's a great game, though for the sake of those who came in late, let's go over it again:

1. It's simple: you can proceed entirely to the end of the game by only walking, running, and jumping

2. It's elegant: it provides the player with a robust, flowing experience that requires him/her to use every imaginable permutation of the small set of player character actions

3. It's "artistically" confident: the game is about a man in overalls who grows to twice his normal size when he eats a mushroom, and it doesn't dare to explain the reasons why

In 2005 — again, I realize I'm repeating myself — Nintendo proclaimed that many gamers had lost touch with the games of today, and that they sought to win those players back. Their proposed solution was to make games that appealed to people who didn't play games. Someone at Nintendo must have said, during an important meeting, that people who didn't play games had played Super Mario Bros. (proof: Super Mario Bros. was a lot of people's first game). Nintendo's knee-jerk reaction to this reality was to release Super Mario Bros., perfectly as-is, as a budget-priced Gameboy Advance cartridge. Okay, that worked a little bit. Eventually, Nintendo began to make games that weren't games, like Brain Training. These sold hugely. In board rooms around Japan, game developers conspired to "think like Nintendo." Instead of interpreting "think like Nintendo" as "think of good ideas that might appeal to people the way Brain Age appeals to people", they instead seemingly interpreted it as "rip off Brain Age".

I guess this mostly brings us to the present. People from outside the gamesphere climb over one another to inform us that games are not art. Maybe they will be, someday, some say, though by and large, at this very moment, they are not.

Gamers get all up in arms whenever someone says games are not art. Roger Ebert got truckloads of hate mail for daring to insinuate that games are not art. I read through a lot of blog posts or comments around the time Roger Ebert said that. Most of the enraged kids were quick to point out how the games industry is making so-and-so many billions of dollars more per year than the film industry, and that was a little weird. Since when does monetary worth translate to art? Whatever happened to artists being starving?

Some say, games don't have an equivalent of "Citizen Kane." I say, games don't have an equivalent of "Ben Hur," either. The problem is consistency, "artistic conscience". Man, I feel like I talk about this all the time. People ask me about this on the street, sometimes. It's weird. Sometimes they say that I only like Super Mario Bros. because I was a kid when I played it. No, I'm immune to the nostalgia thing. Also, I haven't matured emotionally since about age five (I was a mature kid), and I'm not afraid to admit that. Super Mario Bros. had the formula perfect.

What happened, though? Super Mario Bros. took an industry that was basically a fat and ugly infant, and turned it into a toddler with a popsicle addiction. Twenty-five years later, games are making more money than movies. They are not, however, making All The Money In The World. So maybe people could be making better games.

It's not vilification to portray game developers as money-grubbing businessmen. This is, after all, a business. However, it maybe it vilification (in the most awesome way) to insinuate that, in the videogame industry, the games are often being made by the types of general-entertainment "fanboys" that, in the movie industry, would consider it the highest honor to get paid a salary to fetch Steven Spielberg his coffee.

Maybe that sounds meaner than I intended it to. Oh well! Too late! It's all typed out now, and god knows I still haven't found my "delete" key.

I like to mention this interview with Tetsuya Nomura that I read in Weekly Famitsu a couple years ago, on the subject of Kingdom Hearts II. In this one issue of Famitsu, Mr. Nomura, a man who found fans after designing the characters for Final Fantasy VII, is interviewed twice — once on the subject of the upcoming Blu-ray release of a special edition of a film he had "directed" about what happens to the Final Fantasy VII characters after Final Fantasy VII ended, and once on the subject of the Final Mix re-release of Kingdom Hearts II. A few huge things pop out and touch index fingertips to the readers' maybe-moist eyeballs:

In the interview re: "Advent Children" (the Final Fantasy VII movie special edition / re-release), he talks about how the computer graphics will be more detailed, to truly wield the power of a larger storage medium (Blu-ray, in this case). For example, the main character, Cloud, has dirt on his face during one particular scene, to "better illustrate the intensity of his struggle." Mr. Nomura then quips that these are "details that only the true fan will appreciate."

Furthermore, on the subject of "Advent Children", Mr. Nomura explains, when asked if both language tracks (English / Japanese) will be available on the disc, that only English will be available, because of both "storage issues" and the fact that, and I quote, "we estimate that most of the buyers of this special edition will be people who already own the movie on DVD", so they want to give them a language track they haven't heard before.

On the subject of Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix, Mr. Nomura was asked why they made a "Final Mix" after saying, in a Famitsu interview on the subject of the original Kingdom Hearts II, that the goal with Kingdom Hearts II was to make a game that would not need a "Final Mix". Mr. Nomura's answer is that, sadly, without actually releasing something and seeing how the world perceives it, it's nearly impossible to tell what could be improved or added to it; "And, of course", he adds, crucially, "I thought of my own ideas for new content, as well".

The biggest fire alarm rings when Mr. Nomura says, of the joy of developing Kingdom Hearts II, that nearly every interviewee during the team-expansion phase clapped his or her hands with joy, reported that they were huge fans of the first Kingdom Hearts game, and/or (this is crucial), asked Tetsuya Nomura for his autograph.

What I'm saying is, can you trust such people to give an objective opinion during the game development process?

In short, games are made by fans, for fans. The would-be critics are, more often than not, fans. Despite being fans of games in general, game developers often fear the outside world of game fans to a point of near-absolute subservience.

I'm not going to say any more about that. We're going to leave the tip of that iceberg uncovered and do a little bit of stargazing.

(Jerry Seinfeld voice) What's the deal with jumping? I mean, who does that? Who jumps everywhere they go? Have you ever noticed just how much you jump in most video games?

I've been over this before: characters like Nathan Drake and Lara Croft appeal to us because they are realistic human beings with flawed and amusing personalities or wicked pyramidal breasts. They draw us into their real-like-rule-having real-like worlds, and then they do maybe sixty-six explosive pull-ups in the space of three minutes, pulling themselves up so hard that they spring high into the air, grabbing onto the next ledge. We either see this the first time and lol, because we know this can't happen in real life, or we keep playing the game without thinking about it, because we've never tried to do a pull-up in real life, and that if we ever try and fail to do one, we will no doubt attribute our failure to the fact that we don't have breasts like Lara Croft. For the former type of gamer, the games' ridiculousness escalates until we obtain a shrewd enough detachment from the proceedings, at which point we are maybe-sanctimoniously able to "sit back" and "relax" and "enjoy" it because, after all, it's "just a game." In the case of the latter type of gamer, they will grow up to think that this is what games are, this is what happens in games, and if this sort of thing doesn't happen in every single game on earth, the game is stupid and/or for losers.

So, why do action / adventure game characters jump so much?

In short, it's because games since Super Mario Bros. tend to be about moving from point A to point B. Name me one action game where your long-, short-, or immediate-term goals at any given time don't include a Point B. You can't! It's just not possible! (Tower defense games don't count!)

Games are about moving. And not just any moving. No mainstream hit game has managed to perform the feat of being about merely walking or running at one speed along featureless terrain. Games need to give us terrain, obstacles, and opponents, in order to make our journeys interesting. If the journeys aren't interesting, we wouldn't be taking them. Games are entertainment. The journeys they present us are wholly optional activities, in the context of human living.

Games are wallpaper, or ornamentation, for the rooms of our lives. Films, too, are wallpaper for the rooms of our lives. Films contribute to the human maturation process so profoundly that modern philosophers (some of whom aren't dead yet, so it wouldn't be kind to name-drop them) have even taken to acknowledging their influence as vital. The best way to approach this point is to quote a minor character in Edward Yang's film "Yi Yi," who tells a girl, on a date, that his unseen, unnamed uncle says "People live four times longer these days because of movies." How scary, and true.

Do we live longer because of videogames?

Games are wallpaper for bare rooms of our life-chapters. They're a hobby(, though, like all hobbies, they might also be a job). Games are entertainment. Movies play out in front of us. Games do not. Movies are passive entertainment. Games are active entertainment.

You can construct a film entirely out of scenes where characters sit at a table, talking to one another.

You can sit at a table in real life with your friends, talking about whatever. However, it will never be exactly like a scene in a film. Maybe, in the film, every character in a conversation knows something that one other character doesn't know. Maybe someone's life is at stake. Films have taught us how much it sucks when someone's life is at stake.

You can't make a game about people sitting at a table, talking. Buried deep in the psychology of games is this absolute, burning need to see something move. Remember the first time you ever used a television remote to turn a television on, or change channels? You might have been three years old, or you might have been nine. Games speak to the part of your psychology that was ecstatic at that precise moment. The need to move something that isn't yourself, to actively participate in something, is so deeply buried in the psychology of games that no game controller since the Atari 2600 has lacked an input device whose purpose is innately understood as solely to move your main character.

Maybe it's hard to think back this far: When was the first time you realized that the joystick moved Pac-Man, or that the control pad moved Mario? With Pac-Man, it was easy; you might have been in an arcade, and the joystick was the only input device. Well, there was also a start button. Arcade games were easy to understand, because the function of each button was written right there next to the button.

Or maybe you first played Pac-Man on an Atari 2600. The shape of the standard Atari 2600 controller communicated so much to the player. The joystick was this big tall skinny smokestack of a thing, and the only button was this little dime-sized red thing. It was red, a stark contrast against the black plastic of the controller, so as to stand out just enough, and tell you, "Hey, I'm important," though it did not dare approach the monumental majesty of the joystick. And what a word, "joystick"! It's a stick, which brings you joy. What is the joy? The joy is that you are remotely making something inside your television screen move. After all those years of watching news anchors discuss earthquake or fire death tolls, or watching game show contestants flub simple questions and miss out on Brand New Cars, now, you finally had the opportunity to direct the action inside the television screen.

It's obvious that the joystick was the most important part of the controller, just as it was obvious that the button was absolutely essential. In many games, the button served only to start the game. In some games, it allowed you to shoot. So there we had the birth of most modern genres of game, in Space Invaders: You move, and you shoot. You can even take cover under little shields. Wow, Gears of War is such a Space Invaders rip-off (lol).

The Nintendo Famicom / Entertainment System arrived at a point when game designers were so good at making the same old games that the people started revolting at the sameness of them all. They call this the "crash" of the games market. It must have been right around Super Mario Bros. that Nintendo realized it was probably best to not make too many new franchises, to keep the cards close to their chest and only release new games when they were significantly big and ground-breaking enough. Too many games tired people out.

That said, around the time of Super Mario Bros., games were facing an evolve-or-die situation. The public reputation of games in general had fallen through the floor. People needed a really good reason to care again. Super Mario Bros. was that really good reason.

Twenty-five years into the future, we have lots of games, and even more people playing them. I have a friend whose daughter is old enough to play and enjoy Pokemon. We're passing games on as a tradition, a habit, or a traditional habit. Well, hey, traditions are just habits we can share.

The games market is always looking for ways to get More Money. The two methods for getting More Money are:

1. Make people who like games buy more games
2. Make people who don't like games like games

Accomplishing #1 is easy: Make games that people who like games would probably like.

#2, however, is something no one seems to have worked out a perfect formula for.

Meanwhile, twenty-five years in the past, we had Super Mario Bros. After nearly a decade of games where either movement or shooting were the chief joys, we finally had a game where the movement felt amazing (Mario accelerates, he slides to a stop, he squeaks when he turns around, he jumps higher the longer you hold the button), and where the shooting (of fireballs) felt genuinely unique (they bounce at such neat, quirky angles). What we had, in Super Mario Bros., was a game of "artistic conscience."

A year later, we had Castlevania. Oh man. I've been waiting for this part!

I love the Castlevania games; I love them enough to pick them apart viciously. Castlevania games are invariably about a hero on a quest to kill Dracula or someone who is good enough friends with Dracula to be dangerous. Most of the time, the journey leads through Dracula's castle, colloquially referred to by Transylvanian residents as "Castlevania," because it's a landmark and they have to be proud of something.

In the original Castlevania, the hero, Simon Belmont, did a lot of stair-climbing. Staircases were represented graphically as diagonal lines with little individual stairs etched into them. To ascend a staircase, you approach it and press up on the control pad. The hero begins walking up the staircase. He ascends the stairs slowly, "realistically". He can't jump while ascending a staircase. He can, however, swing his whip at monsters who might be flying or jumping in his direction. Some of the most ferocious memories of the original Castlevania aren't of large set-pieces, or even any particular small set-pieces. They are of single repeated moments of dread, of when you're climbing up some stairs and you see a bat flying at you from the right side of the screen. Bats don't fly in a straight line. They kind of wobble up and down a bit. In your brain, you do a quick calculation: If the bat wobbles a little bit down or a little bit up before his flight path intersects the staircase, at your current speed of ascent, you would not be able to move, from your current location, to a position higher or lower than that bat's trajectory. So you are going to have to either

#1 take the hit, or
#2 kill the bat

Now comes brain calculation #2: The business end of your whip is only so-and-so pixels high. The bat is about six times higher than your whip's height. So where do you need to stand, on this staircase, to be able to destroy this bat with the highest probability?

Thankfully, in the original Castlevania, a shrewd player can always kill the bat. No evil variable will ever tumble out of nowhere and render the act impossible. The game is impeccably balanced, though it may seem cruel and unforgiving. The secret is that the bats, though wobbling in flight pseudo-randomly, only spawn from pre-determined parts of the screen. All you need to do is put two and two together, position yourself accordingly, and press the kill button.

The feeling of hesitating just too long on a staircase, performing some unnecessary calculations, thinking way too hard, and then failing to turn around in time, so that the bat whaps you in the back and Simon cringes, hops back, and falls like a sack of potatoes right off the side of the staircase — it's burned into the classic old-school gamer's brain.

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Later years would equip us with such rollicking, frustrating, sticky friction-memories as: Trying to walk up a hill in Super Mario 64, trying to ascend up a hill from a walking speed in any Sonic the Hedgehog game without pressing the jump button, et cetera. In Super Mario 64, it's maddening. In Sonic the Hedgehog, it's like we're trying to make things hard on ourselves. Castlevania planted the seed in us. We want, we need, to feel that friction. And Super Mario Bros. planted the seed in Castlevania: Games aren't just about moving, they are about rubbing against the surface of the world.

Castlevania released to a soon-to-be-devoted cult audience, wearing its flashy quirks on its sleeves and pants and on the back of its shirt. The whip was a weird weapon. Previous games had featured guns that fired projectiles out of a location in the middle of the character's body (ship) in a straight line. Those projectiles generally continued until they hit something. In Castlevania, the whip fires at about the character's chest height, it stretches only so far, and its effective area is only so high and so wide. In order to get anywhere in the game, the player had to master the knowledge of the precise tiny pixel block that represented his avatar's offensive influence. Most crucial to this knowledge was how far said pixel block existed from his character.

Then there were the stairs. And the quirks of all the secondary weapons. And the jumping physics: Simon jumps up in what looks like a crouched position; you can control the length of the jump until a certain precise point, after which he falls straight down like an axe. It's pretty safe to say that Castlevania was made this way on purpose. If they didn't want friction and physics in their game, they would have made something bland and simple. Japanese side-scrolling games had existed for several years without friction, or even without specific quirks. Games like Dragon Buster, where your character floats mouse-cursor-like over a featureless world, swinging a sword at a boring angle. And some side-scrollers had remarkable quirks, like Legend of Kage, where your character can jump two screens straight up, albeit without any really interesting physics. (Also, Legend of Kage scrolls from right to left, instead of from left to right.) Castlevania must have been made the way it was made on purpose: Eschewing huge game-mechanic related gimmicks for general friction.

What was the selling point of Castlevania? Well, it was a game about horror movie monsters. The schlock-smiths at Konami saw fit to craft a game that found a perfect excuse to fit Dracula, werewolves, Frankenstein's Monster, Medusa, and the Grim Reaper into the same story. They figured that this level of instant familiarity would translate to perfect success.

Actually, wait, where did Castlevania really start? Konami seem to have the information under some kind of G-14 classification, so let's make up theories: Maybe it was the music. Maybe the music composer was tooling around with the sound chip and was like, "Whoa, listen to this horror-movie-music shit I have going on right here. It sounds like a pipe organ." Or maybe some game designer went, "Oh, man, this simple character I created has really weird jumping physics and his weapon is quirky as hellllllllll," and some other guy was like, "Okay, let's fit this into something. Hey, that dude over there got something to sound like a pipe organ, and that guy is drawing sprites of werewolves, so let's see what we can do". (Actually, I just looked up the music composer on Wikipedia, and it turns out she was a . . . she. I just added her as a friend on Facebook! I love Facebook friends! If you're reading this, be my Facebook friend (so lonely).)

I'd like to think Castlevania began with the staircases. Simon Belmont is a more old-world, realistic kind of dude than Mario. Something tells me that a game programmer at Konami played Super Mario Bros. and found it funny that Mario jumps all the time. One of the more iconic images of Super Mario Bros. is the staircase at the end of each stage. It's as high as the screen. There's a flagpole on the other side of it. You climb the stairs, and then you jump off, trying to hit the top of the flagpole. Or, well, technically, if you are a kid with an imagination, you try to jump over the flagpole. Hell, twenty-five years later, if you are an adult who was once a child with an imagination, you still try to jump over the flagpole. Traditions are habits that so don't hurt us, we just have to share them.

So, wait, why are the "stairs" on this staircase as high as Little Mario's head? Even Big Mario, who is technically a giant, has to jump to climb each individual stair. Isn't that a little weird? One answer would be that the "staircase" isn't actually a "staircase." "Staircases" are architectural features that facilitate movement between one floor of a building and another. Without stairs, we'd have to learn how to jump. I had a dream just two weeks ago, to be honest, where I got home to find that the landlord had demolished the staircase leading up to my apartment, and informed me that he'd drilled a hole in the middle of my living room floor, and that I would need to learn how to jump three stories straight up. In the dream, I kicked him in the nuts and started crying, though in real life I probably would have just started crying.

The staircases at the end of the stages in Super Mario Bros. are not actually staircases. They're just the rare case of a Rorshach test in which everyone gives the exact same answer (you know, like that one that looks like a dead dog): this arrangement of blocks Looks Like a Staircase. The brain is triggered: Jumping, eventually, comes to feel weird and ridiculous. So maybe some hotshot at Konami goes, "You know, stairs exist in real life as real things. It feels like work to climb a staircase, just like it feels like work to walk or run long distances. Super Mario Bros. made running and walking into fun. Maybe we can make staircases fun?" Maybe this maybe-plan backfired, depending on your perspective. You might have thought the original Castlevania was a bone-crushing, too-difficult experience. You'd also be a rube, unable to wrap his head around simple genius!

Okay, that was mean. Let's say something I don't like about Castlevania: The very beginning of the game. You're outside the castle. The first time you play the game, you don't know who the hell you are, or why the hell you are who the hell you are. You press one button, and you jump. You press another button, and you lash out with your whip. Congratulations, you now know how to play. Now, right in front of you, there's a candle. The candle is glowing, the flame flickering with a brilliant two-frame animation. Okay. Maybe you walk right past it. The game is, if nothing else, atmospheric. That much you can tell already, just standing outside the first level. Hell, you might play Castlevania for ten minutes, performing pretty poorly at the first stage, before your friend comes in and shows you that you can whip the first candle, and a power-up falls out. Touch it, and your character freezes for an instant. Now his whip is, like, twice as long. Wait, why would you give me that right away, before I have even had an occasion to use the whip to kill anything (aside from a candle)? That's weird.

Did you know that, in a Japanese game development environment, the word used to describe "level design," since the Famicom era, has been "haikei," meaning "background" or "scenery". This is very important to understanding the way the Japanese have historically approached making games.

I've personally had the postmodern pleasure of having to explain to a few Japanese game developers that "level design" does not, in the West, mean what the level looks like: It means the things that happen in the level, and how they are laid-out. In Devil May Cry, "level design" is deciding that the first stage is going to look like a church.

Level design in modern Japanese games, by Western standards, is pretty abysmal. In the first stage of Devil May Cry 4, we have a part where the player comes into a circular plaza, which is then surrounded by a glowing red wall. Enemies then appear out of mostly nowhere. The "producers" — the "brains" behind this schlock — have seen fit to solve the puzzle of the moment by deciding that the enemies are demons, and everyone knows that demons have the power to basically materialize out of the ground or thin air. We fight them until they stop appearing. When they are dead, the glowing red wall vanishes. We are now free to move forward into the only path forward.

Eventually, we're inside a building. We walk by a door. We look at it. A message tells us: "It's locked by a mysterious power." We continue down the hallway. There's another door. We look at it. A message tells us: "It's locked. You need a key." Then the camera pulls back, and we see the mysterious-power-locked door slide open. There's a box behind it. We walk back. We open the box. The box has a key in it. We go back into the hallway, unlock the door in front of us. We exit into a circular plaza. A red, glowing wall appears around us. Enemies materialize. We fight them until they die. The wall disappears. We are now free to move forward. Et cetera.

Why are Japanese games able to get away with this? The reasons are simple, and huge:

1. The character designs / setting / story are meticulously researched to appeal to the target demographic

2. Something in the game (in Devil May Cry, combat) is polished / nuanced to a point where players will not complain if anything / everything outside that thing (combat) is bland

What's alarming is that all signs point to Japanese games being made this way entirely on purpose. I once suggested to a Japanese game developer, many years ago, that we try to make the levels interesting, in addition to making the combat fun and the story appealing to the target demographic, and the immediate response was "Why?" The ultimate form of the refusal was, "Devil May Cry doesn't bother, so we won't bother." In Devil May Cry, the tasks between battles really are tiny and asinine. Find an orb in a risk-free environment where the biggest challenge is figuring out where your character is on the screen and then use it to somehow open a door, et cetera. Your reward is more of the combat that you crave.

We can find hints of the Everything Disease in this, again. Many of the players playing these games might not care about the graphics or the character designs, though can you really blame developers for maintaining their conviction that the players all care about everything in the game? Some players merely appreciate the challenges posed by the battles. They may like the feeling that they have achieved a level of super-legitimate competence at the labyrinthine reflex-oriented tasks the game sets before them — revving up a motorcycle-sword while dodging enemy attacks, stringing together hits of a combo, avoiding detection from enemy AI patterns just long enough to execute unanswered strings of button-press-triggered combinations. Good money says that a decent percentage of Street Fighter IV players couldn't care less about the characters or the graphics or the music — they just want to play online, and win, and know that they are doing something better than someone else, someone who exists in the real world. It helps to know that the "something" is difficult. We know something is difficult when we fail at it at least once. We know something is very difficult when we fail three or four times.

In Devil May Cry, the naturally emerging "level design" is basically a commercial break between delicious opportunities for failure. Usually, it's the "scenery" department that slaps these segments together. That's kind of how it was in the old days, though maybe not quite.

Back in the old days, games were smaller. Programmers, level designers, and game designers tended to be the same people as the play-testers. In the case of Castlevania, you've got a guy with a whip, and you've got some stairs, and some enemies coming at him, and he can either climb the stairs, stay and fight, or get hit. The challenge of developing a game like this is laying it out in a reasonable fashion, so that it gets harder as it goes along. You want the hardest bosses to be at the end. You want the hardest platform segments to be later than the segments obviously constructed to help the player learn how to jump.

In the original Castlevania, the team likely sat down once they knew the game was about a big castle full of horror movie monsters, and decided what the motif for each stage would be. Stage one would be a hallway. Stage five would be a clock tower.

Back then, the game design vocabulary was limited. You hear a lot of people talk about how the Nintendo sound chip was so primitive that a composer needed to make a really good track or the music would fall flat. The corollary is that "restriction forces ingenuity".

Ingenuity is . . . probably better than "innovation."

Yes, what I'm saying is that "older games were better" — though mostly by default! Castlevania was such a simple game that, unless all of the obstacles were laid out in a common-sensically escalating manner, people would have freaked the hell out and hated it. Super Mario Bros. was the same way, technically, though Castlevania is more interesting in a modern light because it cutely tried to tell a film-like story, and its stages were home to background art that grew increasingly more portentous of some bombastic finale.

The original Castlevania didn't set the world on fire. It was quirky and well-made, though its horror-movie setting might have put some people off. It carved out a niche, and its developers no doubt felt that they could eat off it for a while. Other game developers saw Castlevania and knew that they couldn't make games about horror movie castles themselves, and that a whip was too obvious a thing to imitate, so they resigned to make their own game in a unique kind of setting.

We ended up with lots of games. Some of them were great. After maybe five years, we had a lot of games with enough unique hooks to populate one really huge, bombastic, great game.

Eventually, what happened, was the Feature Snipers showed up, and nobody ever needed to do anything original ever again. These trained eyes took aim on the whole of game history, and picked out the targets that could be separated neatly from their respective games' settings and never be noticed.

One of the features to be famously and widely sniped was the double jump. Many snipers sniped it from Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, which was in itself a non-numbered Super Famicom sequel to a non-numbered MegaDrive sequel of a Famicom version of an arcade game. The truth is that Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts actually sniped it from someplace else. It might have been Dragon Buster, which I conveniently mentioned earlier in this wall of text.

Why in the flaming hell could you double jump in Dragon Buster? Some old arcade game connoisseur is probably going to lecture me for this. I don't care. The feature is superfluous. You jump, and then you jump again.

In Super Mario Bros. 3, you can land slowly by flapping a raccoon tail as you jump. Okay. That feature probably came out of the same psychological place as mushrooms that make a man instantly grow to twice his size. The feeling of using a raccoon tail to float is not without nuance. You need to press the button repeatedly; the desperation of Mario's situation on the screen translates into the desperation of your fingers, translates into the desperate solution on the screen. The best games play desperation ping-pong with us. In Super Mario World, it's arguably dumbed down: When Mario is wearing a cape, you just hold a button, and he floats slowly down.

In Super Mario World, you can kind of double-jump, by jumping off Yoshi's back. That doesn't count as a true double jump, because you can't do it any time, at will.

No, the first Real Double Jump in games was in Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, in which King Arthur fights zombies and monsters in an effort to rescue a princess who you see in the opening scene, so you don't feel too bad if you give up without ever rescuing her (most people do). In Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, you jump, and then you jump again. You can do this whenever you want. The Japanese instruction manual calls this the "Harrier Jump". The distinction is important. The Harrier Jump only allows you to increase the vertical element of your jump. It's so full of nuance it's almost sick. Before a certain point in your jump trajectory, you can't initiate the Harrier Jump; past a certain point in your jump trajectory, you can't initiate the Harrier Jump. You have a short window. And anytime you do it, all it does is boost you up vertically.

It constitutes a huge risk. You can survive two hits before suffering scary death in this game. Enemies and their projectile spawn litter the screen. You need to master the precise feel of the Harrier Jump in order to use it effectively. "Effectively" means any manner that won't get you killed.

Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts represents an important point in the timeline of action game evolution because the idea of an idiot-savant playing entirely through it on his first try is damn near inconceivable to any self-respecting astropsychologist. Learning to come to grips with the "feel" of the character is even more essential in this game than in the earliest Castlevania titles. You could conceive of someone accidentally understanding all of the necessary skills of the first Castlevania game between the castle door and the first zombie. Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts is too chaotic.

The funny thing is, after Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, people started generally making easier games.

They did not, however, stop making games with double jumps.

I said earlier that even if a savant played through Super Mario Bros. on one life on his first try, he would still understand and maybe appreciate the unsettling feelings of challenge. A psychological Grand Canyon separates Super Mario Bros. from Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts in this regard, and a psychological Pacific Ocean separates Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts from every other game that has sniped the double-jump feature.

Sensing an opportunity to make "more money" on a "new game console", Konami set about making Castlevania: Symphony of the Night "something different." The market research apparently showed that Role-Playing Games were popular, and previous Castlevania games, such as the acclaimed Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse had flirted with non-linearity, multiple playable characters, and development of said characters. So Symphony of the Night emerged as a kind of lumbering RPG / action game chimera.

Symphony of the Night is one of the names that gets thrown around whenever fourteen-year-olds argue about the "best game ever." One of the names it gets thrown against with great vigor is Super Metroid. If you ask me, both of these are very nice games, maybe even great games, though neither of them is the best game ever, because they are deceptive and insincere. You might as well just go ahead and declare The Jam's cover of the "Batman" theme song the "best rock song ever," if you're going to say Symphony of the Night is the "best game ever".

Maybe I confused someone when I said that. I'm sorry. Though my extemporaneous prose style might lead you to believe otherwise, I am actually a proponent of simple, clean, shimmering game mechanics. I like games to be about progress. About moving forward, either by chunking forward, clunking forward, frickting forward, crunching forward, or whatever have you. I don't like when games glide on by, and I don't like it when they throw me against the wall, nor do I like it when they waste my time. I especially don't like when they piss on my lawn and say they're the sprinkler repairman. My favorite game of all-time is Out of This World, which I understand a lot of people pretend to like. I am not pretending.

What's disingenuous about Symphony of the Night? It has a double-jump. The double-jump is something it gives you later in the game. Prior to getting the ability that enables the double jump, you might have come across a wall or obstacle just too high for you to jump over. So the game gives you this supernatural power, tosses off an in-game-world explanation for its existence, and then you're off. You get the double jump ability, you test it out. You sure can jump high! This should help you get somewhere previously unreachable. Maybe you get the double jump ability and turn the game off (unlikely — getting new abilities, market research shows, instantly renews a player's interest in the game). Maybe you leave the game turned off for several weeks. When you turn it back on, you sure as hell can't remember where any previously-too-tall obstacles had been. So you open the map, and check out where the "explored" areas end. You can "solve" the "overlying puzzle" of the game by going to every dead end and seeing if the reason for your previous failure to explore that area had anything to do with not possessing the double jump ability. Eventually, with every little ability the game gives you (the ability to turn into mist, et cetera), you can solve every level-design-centered "puzzle" in the game. It's not so much solving a puzzle as unraveling a sweater. Now, of course, this game has neat little action challenges, too, and monsters to kill. It's just — there are no Castlevania staircases. All the stairs are Super Mario Bros. stairs — you have to jump to get up each stair — or they're bland inclines. The game takes the Castlevania wallpaper and transplants it into a wider-audience-friendly game.

People love this sort of stuff. They love watching numbers go up. Why? I guess I can understand. I have this tape measure that I can operate with one hand. It has a little fastener on it. I can put it around my waist or chest or upper arm, and measure the growth of my muscles. I measure them every Sunday night, to see if my week in the gym paid off, and how. Grinding is part of life. It can be for money or for health. Then it finds its way into our entertainment. People like watching numbers go up in RPGs, they like watching their dudes do more damage. They like getting new items in Zelda so that they can use them to defeat previously invincible enemies, or bridge previously impassable chasms. Symphony of the Night gives players the ability to double jump before giving them the ability to turn into mist, before giving them the ability to fly like a bat, all in the name of making different areas accessible. The player eventually comes to sense his "ownership" of the game environment. This type of lock and key game design, super-commonly called "gating," is all over, and it works on lots of people.

Why doesn't it work on me? I don't know. I'm not pretending, here: It's never worked on me. I also never believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or God. I've never been scared during a horror movie. I guess I'm the target audience for the "Saw" movies.

It's like, when I fight a really hard boss and am then awarded with a double jump ability that allows me to jump over a tall wall way back earlier in the world of the game, all I can think about is how dumb it is that I'm tracking back through the easier segment of the game, only now it's maybe a little easier because I can jump higher. I'm actually fairly confident in saying that the earlier areas of Symphony of the Night aren't any easier because of the double jump, though let's imagine for a second that they were. Now, when you jump over that tall wall and enter the next part of the castle, maybe the enemies in there are harder, meaner, or stronger than the enemies were in previous areas. Usually, they're just stronger. That means, if they hit you, they do more damage. If you've already gotten good at avoiding taking damage, that might not matter so much. Why would you want to make the game easy after a hard part? That's weird. That's like shuffling a deck of cards, asking me to put them in order, and then taking them back when I'm done and immediately shuffling them again as soon as you've confirmed that they are indeed in the right order. It's not sincere. It's mean. If I need a break from the game, I'll pause it. You know what's a good way to handle this sort of thing in an action game? Split the game up into combat-heavy segments and then exploration segments. Uncharted 2 does this fairly well — it's fairly evenly striped: action, exploration, action, exploration.

I said that escalating skill acquisition makes people feel like they "own" a game world or character. It never makes me feel that way. I know the game isn't real. I know I'm just playing a game. When a Zelda game gives you the hookshot and teaches you how to use it over the course of a fairly long dungeon, it feels like something. And then, later in the game, you're in a dungeon, fighting some monsters. There's a spike pit. On the other side of the spike pit is a panel on a wall. You know that this panel is the kind of panel you can hookshot over to. You kill the monsters, open the menu, choose the hookshot, aim it, and pull yourself over. This is what bothers me: There's no risk. There's just a reward. You open the menu, choose the hookshot, and grapple over. The "challenge" is "remember what this thing is?" The "solution" is "open the menu and equip the hookshot". The reward is invariably "Yay Unlocked: You Are Going Where the Game Designers Want You To Go". In Super Mario 64, we have a righteous double jump of justice, its reward being twice the height of a single jump, its risk being that you need enough solid ground in front of you to properly land and use precise timing in order to execute it. Then you have the triple jump. And you have the amazing sliding long jump, and the excellent wall jump, and the delicio-awesome squatting super-high jump: these all have their own little unique physical quirks. They are available to you, the player, from the very start of the game. The game is so confident that just moving the character is fun and can provide for a million great level design situations that it gives you a playground to move around in freely right at the beginning of the game. (Quick aside: why doesn't New Super Mario Bros. feature the sliding long jump? That's the greatest, best, and tastiest jump, damn it!)

Then we have psychological accidents like Banjo-Kazooie, where you have to earn the double-jump, and Donkey Kong 64, where if I'm not mistaken you have to collect a few hundred items simply to unlock the regular jump and attack functions (that's a joke (not a good one)). This is all in the name of "replay value," all in the name of hinting at an illusion of depth. Though I tell you, man, every time a game like Zelda makes me take out the hookshot and use it because, what the hell, the dungeon designer figured that you might not have used it in a while, or the game designer might not want you to be doing the dungeons out of order, every time a so-totally-not-the-game-of-the-decade game like BioShock shows me a guy standing in water and then has a voice-over chew my ear off with hints about how I can equip my lightning ability to electrocute people standing in water, all it does is strip away a layer of the wallpaper, and reveal another layer of wallpaper underneath.

Playing games like these, I always get the impression that it's all wallpaper, and no walls. All reward, no risk. And, most importantly, it's never my choice. Moments like these reveal — to me — a weird little inferiority complex. The games are deadly desperate to mask their existences as merely simulations of making some character move. And you know what? Noticing how flimsy some games are kind of makes me hate all games. Uncharted 2 makes me press the X button just to step up onto any platform higher than the hero's waist. Zelda: Ocarina of Time let me pull myself up just by walking toward such a platform. Why Uncharted 2 makes me press a button is wholly understandable: It makes me feel like I'm doing something. It's great, and it works, though if I'm having a bad day (most days (so lonely)), I might be in a mood to sit there and think that's dumb. It's basically like, you're making me press a button just to move. Isn't that what the analog stick is for? And then, the devil on my left shoulder realizes that there isn't an angel on my right shoulder and decides to say something halfway nice: Would you rather the game's hero be a gray sphere in a world full of other gray spheres? And sometimes I'm feeling in the mood to say "Yes! I would!" And then there are those times in Uncharted when there's a "puzzle", when the character says "Hmm, I bet if we do something here in this room, we could open the way forward", and I'm like, "I'm pretty sure all I have to do is look at the place I'm supposed to go and then scan the walls for hand-holds, and then try to find where the lowest hand-hold is so that I can then jump onto a box or something and start climbing over there." Can't I just have an "I get it" button? Sometimes, as Nathan Drake himself says halfway through Uncharted 2, "I'm so tired of climbing shit." The "I get it" button — listen to me, over here. Before someone tells me I should go watch a movie, or something, I'll tell myself.

(Quick Aside: Hey, why hasn't EA Sports ever made a marathon running game?)

((Quick Aside #2: If Sega approached the next 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game from the jumping-off point of "Hold a button to accelerate", maybe they could get somewhere.))

So here's a big, ugly problem. Gating manifestations such as earned double jump techniques have become, in and of themselves, traditions. In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, you don't actually have to get the blue or red clothes, which increase Link's defensive power. However, in Super Metroid, you do have to get the Varia Suit in order to survive the high temperatures of Norfair. When and why did this shift happen?

A basic law of capitalism is that businesses need to grow every year, or they're not doing it right. I have a friend who makes clothing by hand. Her business is growing steadily in popularity, gaining a larger helping of fame with every passing month due to her devotion to making original clothing by hand with a staff of fewer than ten. The more famous her brand gets, the more the demand grows. The more the demand grows, the more tempted she is to hire more staff and make more clothing. However, she knows she would be spreading herself too thin. World fame means people would be ordering her clothes from around the world, consistently depleting her stock to zero while removing the clothes entirely from the streets of Tokyo, the place where word-of-mouth spawned its original popularity. If her business stays the same size, then imitators, backed by larger companies, will step in to make similar clothes and sell them at lower prices to a wider audience. The decision is to either stick to your guns and keep doing what you do, until eventually someone else does it better, for more people, or "sell out" and grow, possibly alienating your friends and definitely inspiring competition. At the end of the day, it's sheer luck of the draw that something like a fashion brand manages to survive as "the real thing" in a sea of imitators with all its original intentions intact.

Back in 2002, Sega released a followup to their Panzer Dragoon series. Panzer Dragoon Orta was developed by Smilebit, of Jet Set Radio, who were not the original developers of the Panzer Dragoon series. The previous shooting game in the series, Zwei, had been a masterpiece. It was all about shooting — pointing, aiming, shooting, locking on, firing crazy missiles. The challenge ramped up evenly, until eventually the game was coasting up into the stratosphere of sweetness. Depending on your play style, the dragon your avatar rides would change shape and color at the end of every stage. It was neat. The overall game didn't change much: You were still flying, and shooting.

Orta was not nearly as good a game, probably because the new developers figured they had to "add" something to the game, or die. So they added this thing where you had three types of dragons: the big one, the medium one, and the little one. The big one was painfully slow and fired powerful shots and devastating lock-on shots. The medium one could move alright, and fire pretty good shots and normal lock-on shots. The little dragon was really fast, and could only fire weak regular shots. What you do in Panzer Dragoon Orta is you press a button to change the type of dragon you are at any given time. However, there are parts of the game that are literally impossible to pass without taking damage unless you change into the speedy little dragon, just as there are parts where only the big dragon's lock-on fire can hurt a certain type of enemy. This is beyond the game designers saying, "Hey, check out this thing you can do" — it's them saying, "Hey, we made this cool thing for you to do, and now you have to do it or die." Super Mario Bros. never made you throw a fireball, and people loved it!

The train of thought seems to be that games are like businesses. They're not. Games are much more like films than fast food chains. Like, well, the film industry is hooked on remakes, and sequels, too.

You know what is like a business, though? The games industry. You know, all Orta needed to be was Zwei with better graphics and maybe better level design.

Then again, we've established that some video game developers still don't "believe in" level design. This would be like a film studio saying a movie didn't need a script — just put the actors in front of a green screen, tell them they're in the desert and that they're thirsty, and see what they come up with.

Many games show the player something he can't do, only to let him do it later. Zelda games will usually show you doors you can't reach, only to allow you to access them later via use of some item. Lots of the time, in Zelda games, the finally accessed room or cave leads to some optional item, like a piece of a heart container — collect four (or five, these days) to increase your maximum hit points by one. Zelda games manage to be quite thrilling in spite of themselves, sometimes, despite all the weird disconnects running rampant. You might be able to see the entrance to a cave, and just not possess the ability to hookshot over to it. Sometimes, you get the hookshot, swing over, enter the cave, and see a wall that requires a bomb for you to open. Sometimes it feels really good to throw down a bomb and uncover the loot — like a real good experience in the toilet.

However, it strikes me that games, these days, use these weird gating techniques so that they don't have to bother thinking about how their game is laid out, or even what's in their game. Why can't every game have one Really Fun Thing in it, like the Portal Gun in Portal?

Sometimes, though, gating the player beyond his will can still translate into a wonderful game experience. Dragon Quest famously shows players locked doors in the earliest stage of the game that you'll return to every time you get a new key, just to be told that the key doesn't fit. Eventually, when you get the key that fits, it feels like something huge. Dragon Quest games also have characters with personalities and histories. The story moves forward, and time ripens in the world of the game. When the time is right, the key is yours.

Then there are games like Final Fantasy VI. I loved that game. It was about something — a Dickensian, fantasy history opera-thing. It told you a story, and eventually it gave you keys to the world and told you to solve the puzzle. In the second half of the game, all the characters are spread apart. You play as one character bent on killing the despot ruling the world. You can go straight to him and try to kill him if you want. You probably won't be able to. Or you can fly around the world in your big flying boat and try to reunite your party members. If you go for that, that's literally tens of hours of game, right there. They're not side-quests: They're optional game segments.

I'm going to begin to turn this cruise ship back around! Be prepared:

I'm going to copy and paste (and bold the interesting parts of) a paragraph from the Wikipedia page about Symphony of the Night, which is, among other things, longer than the Wikipedia entry about the film "Patton", which was, incidentally, the only film that my father's father, who loathed entertainment in all forms (except those tobacco-related) had ever watched in its entirety (and he watched it twice):

Symphony of the Night has a liberal control scheme compared to its predecessors in the Castlevania franchise. Aside from attacking, jumping, and basic movement, Alucard is inherently able to perform both a downward flying-kick and a back-dash. While the downward kick may never be discovered or employed by a player, the back-dash (activated by a single button press) is an easily employed method of evading enemy attacks. Because it is faster than Alucard's normal walking speed, a player may back-dash as a slightly faster method of travel through the flatter areas of the castle. Yet another use of the back-dash is attack canceling, a technique common in fighting games: by activating the dash just after an attack lands Alucard's attack animation is interrupted, allowing the player to bypass the attack's recovery animation and instead perform another action. Evasive dash moves also appear in later Igarashi-produced Castlevania titles.

Do you find yourself doing things like this in videogames? I find myself doing it all the time. I might have mentioned before that my first priority when playing a new game is to make it look as ridiculous as possible. Usually, all this requires is to twirl the analog stick in circles and marvel at the lack of a cornering animation (which, remarkably, Bayonetta has — maybe that's why Famitsu gave it a 40/40).

I don't make games look dumb because I am a mean person — no, I do it tentatively, like dipping my toe into a swimming pool. I want to know if it's safe to let myself go ahead and be immersed into the experience. I don't want to jump in only to find out later that I can conjure intense silliness out of thin air at a crucial part of the game.

Sometimes, like in Symphony of the Night or Super Mario Sunshine, there's a weird little game mechanic like the back-step or the belly slide that allow you to move through the game at a far breezier speed. This makes the game look ridiculous; however, once you realize just how efficient it is, you will find yourself unable to stop doing it. Of course, the developers don't intend you to do this, though it'd be hard to believe the testers didn't discover it and do it themselves.

This sort of thing has built up to a weird crescendo, of late. Games like Star Ocean 4 give you a run ability partway through the game, and then let you use it all you want. The run ability happens to look ridiculous. If you keep jabbing the button, it looks like your guy is having a seizure at the speed of sound, just floating frictionlessly along the ground. I mean, this thing was programmed in intentionally. You will never be penalized for using it. And it looks ridiculous. Therefore, we must conclude that the developers wanted it to look ridiculous, maybe because ridiculous-looking fast methods of travel existed in popular games like Super Mario Sunshine.

This is getting weird. It's way too weird, now. Why would you want a feature like that? Why would you think that the kids would be enraged if you didn't have a feature like that?

Then we have games like Oblivion, where the player has the option to just open the menu at any time and warp anywhere in the game world at the touch of a button. They call this "quick travel" or "fast travel". It's the video-game-world equivalent of a word processor's "search" function. Hey, consider this, genius game developers: When your game world is so large that fast-traveling within friendly areas is considered a necessary design element, maybe your slow travel sucks and/or your game world carries the tone of a theme park after hours, with you playing the role of a widowed octogenarian with a broom and dustpan.

Games are active forms of entertainment, mainly about movement. Movement is the point of games. It should be fun. Films are static, and can be about anything, really, so long as they have a beginning, a middle, and an end. My favorite game of 2009 might be Canabalt, which is about a guy running from an unseen threat. We never see the threat, though we don't doubt its scary nature, because our guy is running so fast that he literally can't stop. All we do is jump. The presentation is beautiful. Just looking at this game, you can say it's a complete piece of work. You need only glimpse three seconds of it in action to know the full scope. You don't even need to see the character die to know that death is imminent, and that, maybe, this guy's attempt at escape is futile. It tells you a neat little story, and impresses you with a cute little catharsis, in about as much time as it takes you to tap your finger on an iPhone screen.

When you jump through windows, glass shatters with a perfect sound effect; when you land on a roof where white doves are perched, they scatter randomly and flutter away.

Then we've got Kingdom Hearts II, where you have two buttons: Yay and Awesome. Press Yay, and your hero just completely flips the fuck out all over the screen. Keep pressing it and eventually all the enemies will evaporate. Sometimes, a huge triangle appears on the screen. Press the Awesome Button to make Something Awesome happen. Then there's Bayonetta, where, sometimes — it's like a pachinko jackpot, really — you can summon a "torture attack", where you press a button within a somewhat lenient window, causing an iron maiden or guillotine to materialize out of nowhere and destroy an enemy. How does this work? Well, of course, the story deals with supernatural things, so just take the game's word for it — our heroine is a person who can materialize torture devices out of nowhere, just because, why the hell not?

In Shenmue, they called these Quick Timer Events. In the current Japanese games industry, they call them Action Button Events.

ABEs are a cancer in the duodenum of game design. They're all over God of War and, well, anything else, really. Sometimes, even fantastic games like Uncharted 2 wedge these in, only in dull no-risk situations. Like, you have to crank a lever to open a door, and you have to crank it really hard, so you have to press a button a whole bunch of times. Maybe this is to keep players from getting through the door before killing all of the enemies in the area, in which case I guess it's kind of neat, because it adds context to something (having to kill all the enemies in an area before being allowed into the next area) that many games sometimes don't give context for.

Developer Ninja Theory put an ABE about three seconds into their game Heavenly Sword, prompting Ninja Gaiden director Tomonobu Itagaki to call the game a load of bullshit. Itagaki reported that ABEs were a waste of time. Representatives of Ninja Theory said that ABEs are used to make the player feel like he is part of the dynamic cinematics happening on the screen, rather than sit passively as an audience member. Itagaki didn't comment further. He very well could have. I'm no Itagaki-worshipper, though I like to think his games exhibit a stellar sense of being in control of your character, and they manage to let you do all kinds of sweet little things like intuitively run up walls. Then again, Itagaki also once said that Resident Evil 4 sucked because your guy had to stand in place to shoot, and that was "unrealistic"; the man obviously learned the majority of his life lessons from John Woo films and/or Contra III: The Alien Wars, so maybe I'm giving him too much credit. (Just kidding, Itagaki! Call me! (Don't say you don't have my phone number (even though you don't (it's such a boring excuse)).)

Publisher From Software, in the same year that they released the excellent Demon's Souls, put out a misunderstood little ABE-heavy ninja game called Ninja Blade. Don't play it — it sucks. Oh, that was mean. Well, it does some neat things, at least. Early in the game, there's a boss that spits shock waves at you. You have to run down a hallway, dodging the shock waves. Get to the end of the hall, and you can wail on the boss. Eventually, he does the shock wave thing again. Now the camera zooms into your character. He's got his sword against the shock wave. Press the sword button repeatedly to push against the shock wave with your blade. When the camera zooms out, you find that your dude has been pushed down the hall. If you failed to hit the button enough, you might be pushed all the way back to the end of the hall, meaning you'll have to dodge all those shock waves again. This is neat — a progressive ABE.

Then there are moments like in Dead Space, where a monster grabs your leg with some tentacle. After a moment, you realize that despite the cinematic camera angle, you can still aim and shoot your gun. Uncharted 2 does the same thing a couple of times. It always manages to feel kind of neat.

"The ideal game", I guess, would be a sublime mix of rock-solid game mechanics and lots of neat little interactive movie sequences where you're basically doing only things that your character does repeatedly in the game (like shooting).

ABEs are designed to allow the player to "feel" (not "be totally") "in control" of something far more nuanced and dynamic than what goes on in the game. Maybe we'll be seeing a BioWare RPG at some point soon, where dialogue is all ABE-activated. That could be hilarious.

Right now, we have games like Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, games centered on simple though deep play mechanics and an online community element. Though we In The Know know that the makers of Left 4 Dead are also genuine crafters of entertainment masterpieces like Half-Life. Valve is shrewdly using Left 4 Dead to boost their reputation. One day, they'll make a big-scale Half-Life-level event again, and "artistic conscience" will enter the feature snipers' list of "things to watch." Maybe overnight — or maybe over a couple of nights — everything in the games industry will change.

When I was in a hospital recently, I noticed lines of colored tape on the floor. At one junction, the red and purple tape veered off to the left, and the orange and blue tape veered off to the right; the black and green tape pointed the way forward. No doubt these lines of tape point out the way to various departments of the hospital, guaranteeing that those in charge of transporting patients get them to a doctor's care as quickly as possible.

When I was in Shanghai last month, I noticed that every street sign contains a compass, pointing out which direction you are headed, and on which street.

One of the things that originally helped me decide to live in Japan was the feeling of being able to get lost. Tokyo has very few named streets, and everyone navigates by landmarks. I know my way around by now, and I rely on fabricated entertainment to fulfill my desire to get lost in something. Lately, it's the old Russian novels. I read both Anna Karenina and War and Peace while riding trains, planes, taxicabs, or toilets during 2009. Why do games always have to have mini-maps and navigation arrows? Mini-maps are the game equivalent of dozens of dog-eared pages in a thousand-page book. Ten years ago, mini-maps felt like game-y touches; now, in the era of GPS, it makes them feel too real. Games are an escape from a world where jumping is not a mode of transportation; why is movement always something handled in such a businesslike fashion? Why mini-maps? Why fast travel? Fast travel is a quiet admission that the Slow Travel Isn't Always Fun. Why can't the Slow Travel always be fun? Did you ever play Breath of Fire III on the PlayStation? There was a part where you have to navigate through a desert by the stars. Okay, so that part probably infuriated a lot of people — not me, though! These days, we've got great graphics — why not give me big horizon-filling landmarks, and make them be my only guide? Let me figure things out, let me enjoy moving.

Two more things: last year, I was on a subway train that stopped in a tunnel in mid-voyage. Across from me sat a woman who was busy tooling with a Rubik's Cube. She had a knit in the center of her forehead and was biting her bottom lip so hard I was on edge, waiting for blood. She had no idea what she was doing. No rhythm, no reason. She was just clicking that thing around like crazy. At one point, the announcer came on to apologize — apparently someone had committed suicide in front of the train before ours, so we would be held up for a little while. The woman looked up, just then, and saw me looking at her. Instantly, her face turned red. She got up, ran to the next car of the train, in which there were no available seats, and stood with her back to the glass, continuing to click around on the Rubik's Cube.

Then, two nights ago, I stood on the same subway train, going in the opposite of the direction I'd been going a year ago. Seated in a corner was a clearly autistic man, quickly solving and then unsolving a Rubik's Cube using a tried and true method. He might have been a tournament-level Rubik's Cube solver. The thing is, once you know the method, it's just a matter of plugging away. Did you know there are kids who speed-run Portal? That's so weird. I looked at that guy and I thought about the woman in the train roughly a year ago, and I thought about people's grandmothers pretending to like Wii Sports simply because they relished the opportunity to converse with their grandchildren, and I realize that, really, any given one of us, at any given time on any given day, is a mere psychological molecule away from being that guy, repeatedly solving and unsolving a Rubik's Cube on a bus or train.

tim rogers is the editor-in-chief of Action Button Dot Net (stay tuned this month for a big-time Action Button revival! lots of cool stuff coming; bookmark it asap, etc); he lives in tokyo; friend his band on myspace! mail him at 108 (at) actionbutton (dot net) if you have something to say or are a game developer and would like to arrange to send free games.

Illustration by HARVEYJAMES™. Buy prints of this illustration at attractmo.de/!

Jumping video: Performed by Jack Fields and Hannah Miller, Music by Ben Burbank.

FF13のセラの服はしまむらで揃える事が出来るらしい [はちま起稿]

Released in Japan in late November, the Nintendo DSi XL features 4.2 inch screens that are 93 percent larger than the DS Lite's screens. It is also bundled with an extra (and larger) 5 inch touch pen. The redesign comes at the request of customers who said they wanted a larger screen — however, the pixel count is the same. Nintendo claims that the bigger screens make it easier to watch others play.

The DSi XL is available in three colors: Dark Brown, Wine Red and Natural White. While the handheld has been announced for The West, the colors have not yet been announced. The Japanese version is also packed with three DSiWare titles pre-installed: Two brain training games (one for humanities, the other for sciences) and DS Easy Dictionary.

Loved
The Big Screens: Even though Nintendo is touting the DS XL's screen as making it easier to watch others play, the most refreshing about the new, bigger screens is how they breathe life into old titles. While the graphics are the same, old favorites like Mario Kart look wonderful (and not blown out) running on the XL's screens. The extra size both adds to the experience and creates an entirely new experience. The screen size is also well-suited to younger players who often stare over each other's shoulders when watching a friend play. Brain Age also feels surprisingly fresh on the XL — a larger touch screen means a larger space to write. That, certainly, is a welcome addition.

The Big Pen: The XL's new Touch Pen feels like, well, a pen. The DS Stylus, traditionally, has been on the small size — not so great for games that require writing. To overcome this issue, players have, in the past, had to find third party solutions. For those looking for a larger pen that's easier to grip, the XL has that. But if you are happy with the traditional DS Stylus, the portable is bundled with that as well. The smaller stylus slides into the DSi XL's body, while the larger pen does not.

The Buttons: As with the regular DSi, the buttons are clicky — in a good way. They're responsive and certainly don't feel mushy.

The Finish: The top of part of the DSi XL's clamshell has a glossy, smart finish. Looks great. However, the rest of the portable has a matte finish, making it practical. It's easy to hold and isn't a fingerprint magnet. The contrast works well, too.

Hated
Not So Portable: Yes, yes. The DSi XL is big. That's the point! And while it works great playing it at your kitchen table or sitting on the sofa, it's heavy and less great to lug it around outside of the house.

Nintendo, it often seems, makes reiteration after reiteration of its products. The DSi XL might simply be that — the latest iteration until the next one comes along. As customers, it's hard not to feel that we are directly involved in Nintendo R&D process (more so than with other companies), that the company sometimes releases products just to see if they catch on with consumers (ditto). In Japan, the DSi XL does seem to be catching on as the product posted strong initial sales. The extra large DSi could very well be here to stay — which means that this must be one of the first examples in which a Japanese company has released a bigger version of its products to commercial success.

The larger screens are great. If only Nintendo could shave a bit off the DSi XL's thickness, making a slightly slimmer and lighter DSi XL, if only. DSi XL Slim anyone?

The DSi XL was released in Japan on November 22 for ¥20,000 (US$222). It is scheduled to be released abroad in early 2010. A unit was purchased by Kotaku for review.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Yes, it's hard to remember now, but there once was a time, before WipeOut, before Tomb Raider, before PaRappa, that Sony entering the gaming business didn't sound like such a sure bet.

There was a failed attempt at a CD-based system in partnership with Nintendo. There was the fact Sony were an unproven force in a market dominated by Nintendo and Sega. And the PlayStation's approach was all so adult.

Time, of course, has proven any doubts unfounded. The original PlayStation blew people's minds from the moment it launched, and its successor - the PS2 - is still the #1 selling video game console of all time. So it too did OK.

True, things haven't quite been the same for the company since, with both the PSP and PS3 failing to achieve the same level of market dominance. Oh well. There's still plenty of time left for both platforms (well, at least the PS3, which has been coming along in great strides all year), and besides, today isn't a day for nit-picking.

It's a day for clinking glasses. Happy birthday, PlayStation. Think it's safe to say the video game business wouldn't have been the same without you.

(History buffs/Sony fans might want to check out this celebratory site, which is quite neat. It even has the ducks!)

My favorite among the games listed is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which probably isn't surprising. What is yours? Anything we didn't review that you would suggest?

Remember, the games listed aren't all recommendations. Instead we're providing this as a quick reference guide to help you decide if a game is a good gift or not.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Third-person hip-hop shooter
Subject Matter: 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand tells the unintentionally(?) amusing tale of rapper 50 Cent as he struggles to reclaim his diamond encrusted skull from a Middle Eastern bad guy. He's assisted by his G Unit hangers on and some laughably outlandish moments.
Value: An adequately long adventure, made seemingly longer by endlessly looping 50 Cent songs. There are much better games to give this holiday season.
Buy it for: someone as a gag. Or a die hard 50 Cent fan fresh from a six month coma.
Read the Full Review

Assassin's Creed II

Price: $59.99
Rating: M
Genre: Free-running platforming adventure game
Subject Matter: Assassinations and conspiracy spent mostly in 15th century Renaissance Italy.
Value: Lots more content than the first game had, probably lasting gamers at least double the time they spent with the first Assassin's Creed.
Buy it for: People who were let down by the first game, people who like history, beautiful scenery, dynamic platforming, solving mysteries and games that might be the Game of the Year.
Read the Full Review

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Price:$59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Action/Adventure
Subject Matter: Join one of comic books' most iconic heroes on an adventure in Gotham City's insane asylum, where The Joker is on the loose.
Value: With character ability customization, bonus challenge maps and tons of riddles courtesy of The Riddler, Arkham Asylum offers at least three playthroughs' worth of fun.
Buy it for: Batman fans and anybody jonesing for a Mark Hamill voice over fix.
Read the full review

The Beatles: Rock Band
Price: The stand-alone game sells for $59.99, the Limited Edition Premium Bundle sell for $249.99, the Rickenbacker 325 Standalone Guitar and the Gretsch Duo Jet Standalone Guitar sells for $99.99.
Rating: Teen
Genre: Rhythm music game
Subject Matter: The Beatles: Rock Band is a musical journey through the history of one of the world's most popular bands.
Value: For those new to the Rock Band phenomenon and fans of The Beatles, this 45-track game is well worth a purchase because this is the only way you'll play The Beatles music in a Rock Band game. If you're not into the band, give this a pass.
Buy it for: huge Beatles fans.
Read the Full Review

Borderlands

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person shooter RPG
Subject Matter: Borderlands targets the loot-hungry region of the brain, offering four classes with which to stalk the planet Pandora, shoot things and level up, acquiring cool guns, sweet armor and totally rad superpowers. As role-playing games go, it's shallow, but offers a constant stream of junk food gaming.
Value: Seeing all that Borderlands has to offer could take hundreds of hours. But the real value comes in the form of being able to play with friends on PlayStation Network or via splitscreen.
Buy it for: the loot glutton with an itchy trigger finger and a history of playing Diablo.
Read the Full Review

Brutal Legend

Price: $59.99 Rating: Mature
Genre: Action Adventure
Subject Matter: Brutal Legend is a heavy metal-themed action game that combines racing, shooting, real-time strategy, and hack and slash into one slightly disjointed mix.
Value: Brutal Legend is a game from Tim Schafer, one of gaming's greatest comedy minds, and the absurd humor carries the game a long way. It's the story of a roadie who gets transported to a heavy metal world where he must raise an army to free the oppressed inhabitants. There's plenty to do, though the odd mix of genres might be too much for some players.
Buy it for: Anyone with a strong affection for heavy metal music or sa twisted sense of humor.
Read the Full Review

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Price: $59.99 to $149.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person military shooter
Subject Matter: Lead a team of elite commandoes in Modern Warfare 2 as they try to prevent a Russian invasion and global thermonuclear war. Then take the action online, going head to head against other well-armed gamers. It's loud, violent and a hell of a lot of fun to play.
Value: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's single-player storyline may be short, but the package more than makes up for it with ample cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. Near endless replayability will be stoked with future downloadable content.
Buy it for: the Michael Bay action movie fan who likes his shooters bombastic and nearly devoid of a comprehensible story, one who doesn't shy away from ultra-violent fare.
Read the Full Review

Critter Crunch

Price: $6.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Puzzle
Subject Matter: A puzzle game with bug eating, cute critters and sorta cut, sorta gross tecnicolor yarn.
Value: The good puzzle game mechanic is strong and addictive — add to that beautiful graphics, a lengthy adventure mode and super fun multiplayer and you have a good time. With barf.
Buy it for: Gamers with a strong like of puzzle titles and no fear of cute puke.
Read the Full Review

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Price: $39.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person shooter
Subject Matter: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a Civil War era first-person shooter.
Value: With an engaging story, wide open maps and plenty of mulitplayer options, this game will take up quite a bit of your time.
Buy it for: First-person shooter enthusiasts, fans of the Wild West and Civil War buffs.
Read the Full Review

DJ Hero
Price: $119.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Rhythm
Subject Matter: DJ Hero is a rhythm game featuring a replica DJ turntable so players can mix and scratch to the beat of original music mash-ups.
Value: DJ Hero features upwards fo 100 different DJ-driven mash-ups featuring songs from the 70's on up to present-day hits. Unlike the latest Guitar Hero or Rock Band games, however, it's only good for one or two players, so the party element just isn't there. The innovative turntable-based gameplay makes it a breath of fresh air in the currently band-centric music genre, but it certainly isn't as social.
Buy it for: Fans of eclectic music mixes and lonely Guitar Hero fans.
Read the Full Review

Dragon Age: Origins
Price: $49.99
Rating:Mature
Genre: Roleplaying
Subject Matter: An epic action roleplaying game set in a world besieged by evil inside and out.
Value: Dragon Age: Origins packs more than 100 hours of gameplay into this action RPG, with branching story paths that encourage multiple play throughs in order to experience it all. BioWare designed the game so it can be played by RPG gamers of any skill level, but mature content and strong sexual situations mean you might want to keep it in the high teens.
Buy it for: Anyone who has ever conversationally mentioned hit points.
Read the Full Review

EyePet

Price: £20 game only, £35 with PlayStation Eye (game currently only available in PAL territories)
Rating: E
Genre: Virtual Pet Management
Subject Matter: Using the PlayStation Eye, "directly" interact with a digital pet on your TV screen.
Value: Smaller kids won't mind the game lacks any real direction, they'll be happy to play it every few days just to check on their pet.
Buy it for: Kids who think Tamagotchi is so 20th century.
Read the Full Review

Fallout 3: Broken Steel

Price: $10 (Requires a copy of Fallout 3)
Rating: M
Genre: Post-apocalyptic role-playing game
Subject Matter: Fallout 3 expansion involving missions with a high-powered fighting force.
Value: High because it extends the level cap to Fallout 3, changes the game's ending and allows the adventure to be played infinitely once the story has "ended"
Buy it for: Fallout 3 fans who want to play more; essential for anyone getting any Fallout 3 downloadable content
Read the Full Review

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta

Price: $10.00 (Requires a copy of Fallout 3)
Rating: Mature
Genre: Still a post-apocalyptic RPG
Subject Matter: It's Fallout 3 in space!
Value: Mothership Zeta gives the Fallout 3 player an entire spaceship to explore and make their own, some futuristic new weapons, and tacks a good five hours onto the regular campaign, making it a relatively fair value for your money.
Buy it for: Fallout 3 fans.
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Fallout 3: Point Lookout

Price: $10 (Requires a copy of Fallout 3)
Rating: M
Genre: Post-apocalyptic role-playing game
Subject Matter: Fallout 3 in microcosm, set on a spooky island.
Value: Tons of content, and widely seen as the Fallout 3 downloadable content that best shares the strengths of the base game.
Buy it for: Fallout 3 fans.
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Fat Princess

Price: $14.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action
Subject Matter: Capture the flag? No, capture the princess. And feed her cake, so she's fat and hard for enemies to cart her off.
Value: Single player weakness aside, the main draw here is multiplayer. That, and cake. Cake's always a draw. Always.
Buy it for: Gamers with a sweet tooth for multiplayer.
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FIFA Soccer 2010

Price: $49.99
Rating: E
Genre: Round-Ball Football
Subject Matter: The best football game on the market.
Value: Almost endless. There are so many leagues and cups, and such a deep singleplayer experience, that it can be played to death until FIFA 11 is released. And that's before we even get to the 10v10 multiplayer…
Buy it for: Anyone who has even a passing interest in the world game.
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Fight Night Round 4

Price: $59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Boxing
Subject Matter: Boxing
Value: Tons of fighters, good online options and no real competition.
Buy it for: Boxing fans or people looking for a fighting-based game that has longer-lasting fights.
Read the Full Review

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Price: $49.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action
Subject Matter: A arcade-style shooter loosely based on the live-action G.I. Joe movie.
Value: G.I. Joe is a movie tie-in strangely reminiscent of Konami's Contra series. One or two players take control of their favorite Joes from the movie and take on Cobra across multiple levels of run-and-gun action. There are a few unlockables catering to fans of the old cartoon series, but other than that this is strictly a movie-lover's affair.
Buy it for: Really, really big fans of the G.I. Joe live-action movie.
Read the Full Review

Guitar Hero 5

Price: $59.99 for the game, $99.99 with a guitar controller included
Rating: Teen
Genre: Music/Rythym
Subject Matter: It's Guitar Hero. You play a quintet of color-coordinated "notes" as they scroll downscreen to a new selection of music.
Value: Guitar Hero 5 offers a great suite of single and multiplayer modes, the most robust options yet for the series. What it doesn't offer is the series' most attractive soundtrack, despite an 85 song strong line up. Good for the new Guitar Hero gamer, but that money may be better spent on downloadable songs.
Buy it for: for Guitar Hero noobs who have extremely eclectic taste in music.
Read the Full Review

inFamous

Price: $59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Open-world action game
Subject Matter:Gritty adventures of an electricity-based super-hero from the makers of the Sly Cooper series.
Value:Designed to be played through twice to explore two distinct moral paths.
Buy it for: Super-hero fans and folks who like Grand-Theft-Auto style open-world games.
Read the Full Review

Katamari Forever

Price: $49.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Planet-building action
Subject Matter: Katamari Forever offers a greatest hits style package of the Katamari Damacy series' more memorable levels. Players will roll the titular sticky katamari over objects, building bigger and bigger piles of stuff to replace the universe's missing stars and planets and ultimately please the King of All Cosmos.
Value: At $49.99, Katamari Forever is the most expensive entry yet, a high price for a game that's largely rehashed content. But the content is vast and offers plenty to play. Sadly, there's no online component to help extend the experience.
Buy it for: the fan of quirky games who somehow missed every other Katamari Damacy game or the kid that longs to make snowballs in the summer time.
Read the Full Review

Killzone 2

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Single-person shooter
Subject Matter: Killzone 2 takes the fight to the Helghast, with an invading force landing on Helghan.
Value: Even though this game landed back in February, you would be remiss if you forgot to check it out. Next to Uncharted 2, this is one of the top games for the Playstation 3. The chunky single-player experience backed by 32-player multiplayer matches makes this a very good deal as well.
Buy it for: Anyone with a Playstation 3 who some how missed this title when it first hit.
Read the Full Review

The King of Fighters XII

Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighting
Subject Matter: SNK Playmore's latest entry in its King of Fighter series is a return to its roots with 2D fighting and hand-drawn graphics.
Value: The game feels largely unfinished — though, the parts which are done should please the hardcore fans.
Buy it for: Die-hard SNK fighting game fans.
Read the Full Review

Madden NFL 10

Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: The only video game licensed by the NFL, covering the current season.
Value: For the first time on the current console generation, Madden earns its must-own status among sports gamers. The fine-tuned action is slightly slower, creating greater big play potential on both sides of the ball.
Buy it for: Any sports gamer who doesn't yet have it. Madden is a no-brainer gift that any sports fan will enjoy.
Read the Full Review

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action RPG
Subject Matter: Tons of Marvel heroes take on tons of Marvel villains
Value: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 may not quite live up to the thrill of the original, but it is a more cohesive package overall, with a storyline ripped from Marvel's Civil War storyline and a good dozen hours of heroic fun for 1-4 players.
Read the Full Review

Marvel VS. Capcom 2

Price: $15.00
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighting
Subject Matter: Marvel characters. Capcom characters. Fighting.
Value: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 contains one of the largest roster in fighting game history, with 56 Marvel and Capcom characters to choose from. The sheer amount of variety plus online multiplayer makes this one downloadable title well worth the price.
Read the Full Review

Mini Ninjas

Price: $49.99
Rating: E
Genre: Juvenile Bush Disguise/Phantom Removal
Subject Matter: Play as one of a band of adorable child ninjas on a quest to kill a bad guy and free the adorable little forest animals.
Value: A somewhat short singleplayer game, but the ability to play as one of several ninjas means there's plenty of replay value.
Buy it for: Anyone. Everyone. Kids will love the straight-forward combat, adults will find there's a great stealth and combat system lurking under the hood.
Read the Full Review

Modern Warfare 2 Combat Controller Camo

Price: $49.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: N/A
Subject Matter: This wireless controller features programmable buttons, better triggers and a Modern Warfare 2 theme.
Value: It's a bit pricey, but if you're a big fan of the game and like the idea of programmable buttons, it's probably worth the $50.
Buy it for: Fans of Modern Warfare 2.
Read the Full Review

Modern Warfare 2 Combat Controller Camo Faceplate

Price: $14.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: N/A
Subject Matter: This faceplate snaps onto your Playstation 3 controller.
Value: For $15 it's not bad, but not a great deal. Consider it a cheaper alternative to buying a new controller.
Buy it for: HUGE fans of Modern Warfare 2.
Read the Full Review

Modern Warfare 2 Combat Wireless Headset

Price: $39.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: N/A
Subject Matter: This wireless headset gives weak lip-service to Modern Warfare 2.
Value: The painful design and static-filled connection makes this a bad deal.
Buy it for: Someone you hate.
Read the Full Review

NCAA Football 10

Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: The tradition and pageantry of college football's 115 teams, plus any schools you might choose to create.
Value: NCAA Football 10 is the deepest simulation of a sport, on and off the field, of any currently available sports title.
Buy it for: Any sports nut with a serious helping of school pride or leftover nostalgia for college days gone by.
Read the Full Review

NBA 2K10

Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: NBA 2K10 celebrates the 10th anniversary of 2K Sports' best-in-class basketball simulation.
Value: NBA 2K10 offers a much more varied set of gameplay modes, both single- and multiplayer, than its challenger NBA Live 10. Its season simulation lacks the aspect of playing in this year's league but is deeper in all other regards. My Player, in which you create and control one player on his journey from prospect to all-star, is tough but a rewarding experience.
Buy it for: Serious basketball fans with some exposure to the sport in real life, either as a player or a devoted fan.
Read the Full Review

NBA Live 10

Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: NBA Live 10 is EA Sports' current title covering pro basketball's upcoming season.
Value: EA Sports has poured a ton of effort into resurrecting the franchise. New controls enabling you to move players off the ball on offense and defense are easy to learn and a real plus. Dynamic DNA allows you to run your season simulation as if it were taking place among current league events in real life.
Buy it for: Basketball fans who prefer singleplayer sports gaming, want a very accurate league simulation, and an easy-to-comprehend control set.
Read the Full Review

NHL 2K10

Price: $39.99
Rating: Everyone 10+
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: NHL 2K10 is 2K Sports' current title covering professional hockey's latest season.
Value: NHL 2K10 is still a runner-up to EA's NHL 10, but it is not without merit. It features the same robust multiplayer package as its NBA cousin. The action's a little arcadey, but it also is the only NHL title with the league's popular outdoor classic venues.
Buy it for: A casual-to-moderate hockey fan who enjoys lots of scoring action.

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Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Realistic military first-person shooter
Subject Matter: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a relatively open-world tactical shooter that has players trying to take the fictional island of Skira from China.
Value: Plagued with problems this shooter doesn't deliver much for the premium price you pay.
Buy it for: hardcore fans of realistic shooters that offer no chance for mistakes or do-overs.
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Pro Evolution Soccer 2010

Price: $59.99
Rating: E
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: Football title encompassing international and club tournaments, manager modes and online play.
Value: Pro Evo's "Master League", a time-devouring game mode incorporating RPG and strategy elements, is the one area fans remain devoted to this series ahead of its rival, EA Sports' FIFA.
Buy it for: Football fans who like to not only play a good game, but also roll up their sleeves and get lost in a sea of statistics and growth charts.
Read the Full Review

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time
Price: $59.99
Rating: E10+
Genre: Third-person shooter (Ratchet sections); Third-person time-manipulation puzzle-platformer (Clank sections).
Subject Matter: The third PS3 Ratchet is still an action game, but has a stronger than normal narrative, as Ratchet discovers he's not the last of his species, while Clank discovers his origins.
Value: A bombastic single-player campaign full of spectacular cartoon visuals is designed to be replayed, with new content and missions available only after the first play-through is complete.
Buy it for: Jaded Ratchet fans who were waiting for the series to feel special again; fans of cartoon visuals who don't mind their entertainment feeling like a fun all-ages sci-fi adventure.
Read the Full Review

Resident Evil 5

Price: $39.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Survival Horror meets third-person shooter
Subject Matter: The latest iteration in the famed survival horror game ditches a bit of the slow pacing and fear for a bit more of an action feel.
Value: A worthy addition to anyone's library, but perhaps not the sort of game you'll keep around after it's completed.
Buy it for: fans of Resident Evil and those interested in the premise of the franchise but not in the steady pacing of the gameplay.
Read the Full Review

Street Fighter IV

Price: $29.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighter
Subject Matter: The next iteration in the storied and fabulous fighter brings with it a dynamic new look and a death grip on classic mechanics.
Value: Packed with playable characters both old and new and a mechanic that is timeless, the online play and in-room versus mode make this a great deal..
Buy it for: fighting fans, Street Fighter fans.
Read the Full Review

Tekken 6
Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighter
Subject Matter: Once you've mastered the moves of your favorite character, Tekken 6's 3D fights are all about timing and tactics.
Value: With 40 playable characters and a seemingly endless single-player campaign, Tekken 6 is a good deal for fans of the franchise willing to put up with some online issues.
Buy it for: fighting fans, Tekken fans, and maybe as a taste of something different for Street Fighter IV fans.
Read the Full Review

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action adventure third-person shooter.
Subject Matter: A well-crafted story and pithy dialogue is backed by solid third-person shooter action, stunning Himalayan backdrops and a smattering of puzzles to solve and things to climb.
Value: The story-driven campaign will only take up about eight hours of your time, but the plentiful and creative mulitplayer modes are sure to be a lasting time drain.
Buy it for: anyone with a Playstation 3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is destined to be one of the best games of the year.
Read the Full Review

WET
Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Third-person acrobatic shooter.
Subject Matter: Rubi Malone is a leather-pants wearing, wall-running, pole-spinning death machine. She can shoot two shotguns while flipping through the air, slide under tables to hamstring and gut with her sword, and regains health by swigging liquor.
Value: The single-player only game has a sizable campaign, fantastic music and troubled controls and camera work. It's sort of a mixed bag.
Buy it for: fans of Kill Bill and fast-paced action noire games.
Read the Full Review

Wolfenstein

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Subject Matter: World War II First-Person Shooter with Occult Tendencies
Value: While Wolfenstein is an excellent first-person shooter from a technical standpoint, the story is a bit far-fetched and the multiplayer is disappointing, especially in the face of games like Modern Warfare 2.
Buy it for: First-person shooter fans looking for a little something different.
Read the Full Review

WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010
Price: $59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Pro wrestling
Subject Matter: WWE wrestling, with deep customization options allowing players to create and share their own characters, moves and — the big new addition — storylines.
Value: High value for those who will take advantage of the online play and content creation/sharing.
Buy it for: WWE fans, even those who don't like current WWE programming, since those disgruntled fans can create the WWE of their own liking using the game's deep editors.
Read the Full Review

Pick through the list to decide which games to give and get and leave a comment to point out any you would add that we didn't review.

And don't forget, this is more reference material than it is suggestion. Just because it's on the list doesn't mean we're saying you should get it.

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Third-person hip-hop shooter
Subject Matter: 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand tells the unintentionally(?) amusing tale of rapper 50 Cent as he struggles to reclaim his diamond encrusted skull from a Middle Eastern bad guy. He's assisted by his G Unit hangers on and some laughably outlandish moments.
Value: An adequately long adventure, made seemingly longer by endlessly looping 50 Cent songs. There are much better games to give this holiday season.
Buy it for: someone as a gag. Or a die hard 50 Cent fan fresh from a six month coma.
Read the Full Review

Axel & Pixel
Price: 800 Microsoft Points ($10)
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Adventure
Subject Matter: A point and click adventure game about a man and his dog escaping a dream world with small doses of action.
Value: Axel & Pixel is a good couple of hours worth of relaxing adventure gaming, with a few action / racing segments tossed in to keep things interesting. It's very simply, extremely easy, and once you are done there isn't much reason to go back through it.
Buy it for: Adventure game fans and older parents, to show them that consoles have something for them too.
Read the Full Review

Assassin's Creed II

Price: $59.99
Rating: M
Genre: Free-running platforming adventure game
Subject Matter: Assassinations and conspiracy spent mostly in 15th century Renaissance Italy.
Value: Lots more content than the first game had, probably lasting gamers at least double the time they spent with the first Assassin's Creed.
Buy it for: People who were let down by the first game, people who like history, beautiful scenery, dynamic platforming, solving mysteries and games that might be the Game of the Year.
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Batman: Arkham Asylum
Price:$59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Action/Adventure
Subject Matter: Join one of comic books' most iconic heroes on an adventure in Gotham City's insane asylum, where The Joker is on the loose.
Value: With character ability customization, bonus challenge maps and tons of riddles courtesy of The Riddler, Arkham Asylum offers at least three playthroughs' worth of fun.
Buy it for: Batman fans and anybody jonesing for a Mark Hamill voice over fix.
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The Beatles: Rock Band
Price: The stand-alone game sells for $59.99, the Limited Edition Premium Bundle sell for $249.99, the Rickenbacker 325 Standalone Guitar and the Gretsch Duo Jet Standalone Guitar sells for $99.99.
Rating: Teen
Genre: Rhythm music game
Subject Matter: The Beatles: Rock Band is a musical journey through the history of one of the world's most popular bands.
Value: For those new to the Rock Band phenomenon and fans of The Beatles, this 45-track game is well worth a purchase because this is the only way you'll play The Beatles music in a Rock Band game. If you're not into the band, give this a pass.
Buy it for: huge Beatles fans.
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Borderlands

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person shooter RPG
Subject Matter: Borderlands targets the loot-hungry region of the brain, offering four classes with which to stalk the planet Pandora, shoot things and level up, acquiring cool guns, sweet armor and totally rad superpowers. As role-playing games go, it's shallow, but offers a constant stream of junk food gaming.
Value: Seeing all that Borderlands has to offer could take hundreds of hours. But the real value comes in the form of being able to play with friends on Xbox Live or via splitscreen.
Buy it for: the loot glutton with an itchy trigger finger and a history of playing Diablo.
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Brutal Legend
Price: $59.99 Rating: Mature
Genre: Action Adventure
Subject Matter: Brutal Legend is a heavy metal-themed action game that combines racing, shooting, real-time strategy, and hack and slash into one slightly disjointed mix.
Value: Brutal Legend is a game from Tim Schafer, one of gaming's greatest comedy minds, and the absurd humor carries the game a long way. It's the story of a roadie who gets transported to a heavy metal world where he must raise an army to free the oppressed inhabitants. There's plenty to do, though the odd mix of genres might be too much for some players.
Buy it for: Anyone with a strong affection for heavy metal music or sa twisted sense of humor.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Price: $59.99 to $149.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person military shooter
Subject Matter: Lead a team of elite commandoes in Modern Warfare 2 as they try to prevent a Russian invasion and global thermonuclear war. Then take the action online, going head to head against other well-armed gamers. It's loud, violent and a hell of a lot of fun to play.
Value: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's single-player storyline may be short, but the package more than makes up for it with ample cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes. Near endless replayability will be stoked with future downloadable content.
Buy it for: the Michael Bay action movie fan who likes his shooters bombastic and nearly devoid of a comprehensible story, one who doesn't shy away from ultra-violent fare.
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Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Price: $39.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person shooter
Subject Matter: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a Civil War era first-person shooter.
Value: With an engaging story, wide open maps and plenty of mulitplayer options, this game will take up quite a bit of your time.
Buy it for: First-person shooter enthusiasts, fans of the Wild West and Civil War buffs.
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DJ Hero
Price: $119.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Rhythm
Subject Matter: DJ Hero is a rhythm game featuring a replica DJ turntable so players can mix and scratch to the beat of original music mash-ups.
Value: DJ Hero features upwards fo 100 different DJ-driven mash-ups featuring songs from the 70's on up to present-day hits. Unlike the latest Guitar Hero or Rock Band games, however, it's only good for one or two players, so the party element just isn't there. The innovative turntable-based gameplay makes it a breath of fresh air in the currently band-centric music genre, but it certainly isn't as social.
Buy it for: Fans of eclectic music mixes and lonely Guitar Hero fans.
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Dragon Age: Origins
Price: $49.99
Rating:Mature
Genre: Roleplaying
Subject Matter: An epic action roleplaying game set in a world besieged by evil inside and out.
Value: Dragon Age: Origins packs more than 100 hours of gameplay into this action RPG, with branching story paths that encourage multiple play throughs in order to experience it all. BioWare designed the game so it can be played by RPG gamers of any skill level, but mature content and strong sexual situations mean you might want to keep it in the high teens.
Buy it for: Anyone who has ever conversationally mentioned hit points.
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Fairytale Fights

Price: $59.99
Rating: M
Genre: Action
Subject Matter: A quartet of cutesy fairytale characters set out to regain their fame by beating the beejesus out of other cutesy things.
Value: With two-player cooperative play and a four player battle royal mode, you can really let out you violent side in buckets of cartoony blood.
Buy it for: People who need a healthy way to blow off steam after a bad day at work. Just don't be standing next to them if the game happens to crash and they need an immediate alternative.
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Fallout 3: Broken Steel

Price: $10 (Requires a copy of Fallout 3)
Rating: M
Genre: Post-apocalyptic role-playing game
Subject Matter: Fallout 3 expansion involving missions with a high-powered fighting force.
Value: High because it extends the level cap to Fallout 3, changes the game's ending and allows the adventure to be played infinitely once the story has "ended"
Buy it for: Fallout 3 fans who want to play more; essential for anyone getting any Fallout 3 downloadable content
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Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta

Price: $10.00 (Requires a copy of Fallout 3)
Rating: Mature
Genre: Still a post-apocalyptic RPG
Subject Matter: It's Fallout 3 in space!
Value: Mothership Zeta gives the Fallout 3 player an entire spaceship to explore and make their own, some futuristic new weapons, and tacks a good five hours onto the regular campaign, making it a relatively fair value for your money.
Buy it for: Fallout 3 fans.
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Fallout 3: Point Lookout

Price: $10 (Requires a copy of Fallout 3)
Rating: M
Genre: Post-apocalyptic role-playing game
Subject Matter: Fallout 3 in microcosm, set on a spooky island.
Value: Tons of content, and widely seen as the Fallout 3 downloadable content that best shares the strengths of the base game.
Buy it for: Fallout 3 fans.
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FIFA Soccer 2010

Price: $49.99
Rating: E
Genre: Round-Ball Football
Subject Matter: The best football game on the market.
Value: Almost endless. There are so many leagues and cups, and such a deep singleplayer experience, that it can be played to death until FIFA 11 is released. And that's before we even get to the 10v10 multiplayer…
Buy it for: Anyone who has even a passing interest in the world game.
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Fight Night Round 4

Price: $59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Boxing
Subject Matter: Boxing
Value: Tons of fighters, good online options and no real competition.
Buy it for: Boxing fans or people looking for a fighting-based game that has longer-lasting fights.
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Forza Motorsport 3

Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Driving simulation
Subject Matter: Forza Motorsport 3 takes the driving simulation in a new direction, making it easier than ever to get into a car, upgrade it, tune it and take if for a spin. For more advance driving game fans, there's plenty of hardcore driving simulation to enjoy as well.
Value: Hundreds of cars, dozens of tracks, thousands of upgrade possibilities and an increasing amount of user-generated content available via the game's storefront, all purchased with in-game credits, not real money, make Forza Motorsport 3 a great driving value.
Buy it for: the Xbox 360 owner who likes to go fast.
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Gears of War 2: Dark Corners

Price: 1200 Microsoft Points (about $15)
Rating: Mature
Genre: Third-person tactical shooter
Subject Matter: This downloadable add-on for Gears of War 2 lets players run through The Road to Ruin, a campaign level original cut from the game.
Value: With a new single-player level, seven new multiplayer maps and director's commentary, you can't go wrong for $15.
Buy it for: Owners and fans of the original Gears of War 2.
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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Price: $49.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action
Subject Matter: A arcade-style shooter loosely based on the live-action G.I. Joe movie.
Value: G.I. Joe is a movie tie-in strangely reminiscent of Konami's Contra series. One or two players take control of their favorite Joes from the movie and take on Cobra across multiple levels of run-and-gun action. There are a few unlockables catering to fans of the old cartoon series, but other than that this is strictly a movie-lover's affair.
Buy it for: Really, really big fans of the G.I. Joe live-action movie.
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Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Price: $20 if downloaded through Xbox Live Arcade (requires a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV) or $39.95 if purchased as one half of the Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes From Liberty City disc (GTA IV not required; Episodes disc also includes the similarly-sized first GTA IV expansion, Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned.)
Rating: M
Genre: Open world, third-person shooter.
Subject Matter: Over-the-top modern crime drama set in a fictional New York City.
Value: Offers more content per dollar than just about anything else downloadable on the Xbox 360, a 13-hour-plus campaign, numerous side activities and returning multiplayer challenges similar to what was offered with GTA IV.
Buy it for: People who thought GTA IV was too tame and wished their lead character would be asked to parachute off skyscrapers, steal subway cars (with a helicopter), dance in a nightclub and cross paths with the last two protagonists in the GTA IV saga.
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Guitar Hero 5

Price: $59.99 for the game, $99.99 with a guitar controller included
Rating: Teen
Genre: Music/Rythym
Subject Matter: It's Guitar Hero. You play a quintet of color-coordinated "notes" as they scroll downscreen to a new selection of music.
Value: Guitar Hero 5 offers a great suite of single and multiplayer modes, the most robust options yet for the series. What it doesn't offer is the series' most attractive soundtrack, despite an 85 song strong line up. Good for the new Guitar Hero gamer, but that money may be better spent on downloadable songs.
Buy it for: for Guitar Hero noobs who have extremely eclectic taste in music.
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Halo 3: ODST

Price: $59.99
Rating: M
Genre: First-person shooter
Subject Matter: Daytime sci-fi military action interspersed with noir-inspired nighttime sleuthing.
Value: Varies depending on one's Halo experience. A seven-hour campaign and the offline Firefight mode can be played with up to four players and is all-new, but only three of the game's 24 multiplayer maps haven't been sold — and possibly purchased by the prospective ODST consumer — before.
Buy it for: Halo fans who either never bought Halo 3's bonus maps or wouldn't spend $60 of their own for ODST because they did.
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The King of Fighters XII

Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighting
Subject Matter: SNK Playmore's latest entry in its King of Fighter series is a return to its roots with 2D fighting and hand-drawn graphics.
Value: The game feels largely unfinished — though, the parts which are done should please the hardcore fans.
Buy it for: Die-hard SNK fighting game fans.
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Left 4 Dead 2

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-person horror shooter
Subject Matter: Four Survivors fight their way through a gory zombie apocalypse in the Southeastern United States, decapitating, dismembering and generally destroying every walking dead human in their path. Cooperative multiplayer is at the core of the Left 4 Dead 2 experience.
Value: Left 4 Dead 2 is a multiplayer game with a massive amount of replayability, but requires cooperative gameplay and reliable friends to fully enjoy. There's very little here for the lone, single-player gamer, so make sure that Live subscription is all paid up.
Buy it for: the grown-up Xbox Live Gold subscriber who believes there's no "I" in team and may be disappointed with the body count in Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3 ODST.
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Lucidity

Price: 800 Points
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Platform/Puzzle
Subject Matter: Little girl Sofi wanders through her dreams, looking for her lost Nana.
Value: While the puzzle gameplay element is average, the art style is superb.
Buy it for: Tim Burton fans.
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Mad Catz Modern Warfare 2 Throat Communicator

Price: $29.99
Rating: NA
Genre: NA
Subject Matter: This throat communicator is meant to replace the need for a standard Xbox 360 microphone.
Value: The throat communicator does a great job of cutting down on room noise for your friends and feels pretty comfortable. If those things are important to you, you should pick this up.
Buy it for: Modern Warfare 2 enthusiasts, online gamers and friends who play in noisy settings.
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Madden NFL 10
Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: The only video game licensed by the NFL, covering the current season.
Value: For the first time on the current console generation, Madden earns its must-own status among sports gamers. The fine-tuned action is slightly slower, creating greater big play potential on both sides of the ball.
Buy it for: Any sports gamer who doesn't yet have it. Madden is a no-brainer gift that any sports fan will enjoy.
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Marvel VS. Capcom 2

Price: $15.00
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighting
Subject Matter: Marvel characters. Capcom characters. Fighting.
Value: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 contains one of the largest roster in fighting game history, with 56 Marvel and Capcom characters to choose from. The sheer amount of variety plus online multiplayer makes this one downloadable title well worth the price.
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Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action RPG
Subject Matter: Tons of Marvel heroes take on tons of Marvel villains
Value: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 may not quite live up to the thrill of the original, but it is a more cohesive package overall, with a storyline ripped from Marvel's Civil War storyline and a good dozen hours of heroic fun for 1-4 players.
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Mass Effect: Pinnacle Station

Price: $5 (requires a copy of Mass Effect)
Rating: M
Genre: Bonus missions for third-person shooter/role-playing game
Subject Matter: Mass Effect gets a battle simulator to allow goal-based shooting challenges.
Value: High for those looking for something new in the original Mass Effect while awaiting the January sequel; low for people looking for what made the first game popular.
Buy it for: Mass Effect completists, though you'll only be able to buy them download points for this game or give them a small check.
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Mini Ninjas

Price: $49.99
Rating: E
Genre: Juvenile Bush Disguise/Phantom Removal
Subject Matter: Play as one of a band of adorable child ninjas on a quest to kill a bad guy and free the adorable little forest animals.
Value: A somewhat short singleplayer game, but the ability to play as one of several ninjas means there's plenty of replay value.
Buy it for: Anyone. Everyone. Kids will love the straight-forward combat, adults will find there's a great stealth and combat system lurking under the hood.
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Modern Warfare 2 Combat Controller Camo

Price: $49.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: N/A
Subject Matter: This wired controller features programmable buttons, better triggers and a Modern Warfare 2 theme.
Value: It's a bit pricey, but if you're a big fan of the game and like the idea of programmable buttons, it's probably worth the $50.
Buy it for: Fans of Modern Warfare 2.
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NBA 2K10
Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: NBA 2K10 celebrates the 10th anniversary of 2K Sports' best-in-class basketball simulation.
Value: NBA 2K10 offers a much more varied set of gameplay modes, both single- and multiplayer, than its challenger NBA Live 10. Its season simulation lacks the aspect of playing in this year's league but is deeper in all other regards. My Player, in which you create and control one player on his journey from prospect to all-star, is tough but a rewarding experience.
Buy it for: Serious basketball fans with some exposure to the sport in real life, either as a player or a devoted fan.
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NBA Live 10
Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: NBA Live 10 is EA Sports' current title covering pro basketball's upcoming season.
Value: EA Sports has poured a ton of effort into resurrecting the franchise. New controls enabling you to move players off the ball on offense and defense are easy to learn and a real plus. Dynamic DNA allows you to run your season simulation as if it were taking place among current league events in real life.
Buy it for: Basketball fans who prefer singleplayer sports gaming, want a very accurate league simulation, and an easy-to-comprehend control set.
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NCAA Football 10
Price: $59.99
Rating: Everyone
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: The tradition and pageantry of college football's 115 teams, plus any schools you might choose to create.
Value: NCAA Football 10 is the deepest simulation of a sport, on and off the field, of any currently available sports title.
Buy it for: Any sports nut with a serious helping of school pride or leftover nostalgia for college days gone by.
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NHL 2K10
Price: $39.99
Rating: Everyone 10+
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: NHL 2K10 is 2K Sports' current title covering professional hockey's latest season.
Value: NHL 2K10 is still a runner-up to EA's NHL 10, but it is not without merit. It features the same robust multiplayer package as its NBA cousin. The action's a little arcadey, but it also is the only NHL title with the league's popular outdoor classic venues.
Buy it for: A casual-to-moderate hockey fan who enjoys lots of scoring action.
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Pro Evolution Soccer 2010

Price: $59.99
Rating: E
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: Football title encompassing international and club tournaments, manager modes and online play.
Value: Pro Evo's "Master League", a time-devouring game mode incorporating RPG and strategy elements, is the one area fans remain devoted to this series ahead of its rival, EA Sports' FIFA.
Buy it for: Football fans who like to not only play a good game, but also roll up their sleeves and get lost in a sea of statistics and growth charts.
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Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Realistic military first-person shooter
Subject Matter: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a relatively open-world tactical shooter that has players trying to take the fictional island of Skira from China.
Value: Plagued with problems this shooter doesn't deliver much for the premium price you pay.
Buy it for: hardcore fans of realistic shooters that offer no chance for mistakes or do-overs.
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Resident Evil 5

Price: $39.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Survival Horror meets third-person shooter
Subject Matter: The latest iteration in the famed survival horror game ditches a bit of the slow pacing and fear for a bit more of an action feel.
Value: A worthy addition to anyone's library, but perhaps not the sort of game you'll keep around after it's completed.
Buy it for: fans of Resident Evil and those interested in the premise of the franchise but not in the steady pacing of the gameplay.
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South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!

Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Rating: Mature
Genre: Tower Defense
Subject Matter: South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! has the South Park kids big towers to fend off enemies that range from gnomes to old people in an 11 mission campaign.
Buy it for: Fans of South Park, fans of tower defense games, and fans of both.
Value: The game features unlockable characters and challenging maps (especially the later levels), co-op and online. There are also unlockable clips from the show.
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Street Fighter IV

Price: $29.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighter
Subject Matter: The next iteration in the storied and fabulous fighter brings with it a dynamic new look and a death grip on classic mechanics.
Value: Packed with playable characters both old and new and a mechanic that is timeless, the online play and in-room versus mode make this a great deal..
Buy it for: fighting fans, Street Fighter fans.
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Tekken 6
Price: $59.99
Rating: Teen
Genre: Fighter
Subject Matter: Once you've mastered the moves of your favorite character, Tekken 6's 3D fights are all about timing and tactics.
Value: With 40 playable characters and a seemingly endless single-player campaign, Tekken 6 is a good deal for fans of the franchise willing to put up with some online issues.
Buy it for: fighting fans, Tekken fans, and maybe as a taste of something different for Street Fighter IV fans.
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Trials HD

Price: 1200 Points
Rating: Teen
Genre: Racing/Puzzle
Subject Matter: Trials HD is a twist on motorbike racing: Players must navigate trick courses and tricky in-game physics as fast as they can.
Value: The game features over 50 tracks and seemingly simple, yet deep game play — offering replay value as your skills continue to get better and better. A level editor lets players make their own courses. It's the Excite Bike of the 21st Century.
Buy it for: Those who want more from their racing games than speed.
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WET
Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: Third-person acrobatic shooter.
Subject Matter: Rubi Malone is a leather-pants wearing, wall-running, pole-spinning death machine. She can shoot two shotguns while flipping through the air, slide under tables to hamstring and gut with her sword, and regains health by swigging liquor.
Value: The single-player only game has a sizable campaign, fantastic music and troubled controls and camera work. It's sort of a mixed bag.
Buy it for: fans of Kill Bill and fast-paced action noire games.
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Wolfenstein

Price: $59.99
Rating: Mature
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Subject Matter: World War II First-Person Shooter with Occult Tendencies
Value: While Wolfenstein is an excellent first-person shooter from a technical standpoint, the story is a bit far-fetched and the multiplayer is disappointing, especially in the face of games like Modern Warfare 2.
Buy it for: First-person shooter fans looking for a little something different.
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WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010
Price: $59.99
Rating: T
Genre: Pro wrestling
Subject Matter: WWE wrestling, with deep customization options allowing players to create and share their own characters, moves and — the big new addition — storylines.
Value: High value for those who will take advantage of the online play and content creation/sharing.
Buy it for: WWE fans, even those who don't like current WWE programming, since those disgruntled fans can create the WWE of their own liking using the game's deep editors.
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Not only have a slew of new, blockbuster titles come out for the emerging platform, Apple finally realized that maybe they should wake up and start touting the gaming benefits of their smartphone and media player.

This is by no means all of the iPhone and iPod Touch games we reviewed this year, but it's a quick look at some of the more memorable ones. Don't forget, just because they're download only, doesn't mean you can't present a list with the iTunes card you give someone.

Any we missed? Any you would suggest for a friend?

Asphalt 5

Price: $6.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Racing
Subject Matter: Gameloft brings Burnout's adrenaline-amping crashes and Ridge Racer's wind-in-your-hair thrills to the iPhone with Asphalt 5.
Value: A strong competitor to the PSP's racing games, Asphalt 5 offers three modes-quick race, career, local and online multi-player, 33 cars, 12 tracks, vehicle customization, and unlockable stat-boosting babes.
Buy it for: Gamers ready to go vroom.
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Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Price: $9.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Subject Matter: EA brings its over-the-top real-time strategy series to the iPhone, allowing on-the-go gamers to wage war wherever they please.
Value: While things like C&C's cheesy cinematics didn't make the leap to the iPhone, the platform's touch screen display is ideal for RTS style gaming.
Buy it for: RTS players looking for a mobile strategy game.
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Doom Resurrection

Price: $6.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: First-person touchscreen shooter
Subject Matter: Loosely based on Doom 3, Resurrection is an impressive port of the demonic sci-fi FPS that's easily controlled with the iPhone's accelerometer.
Value: As iPhone games go, Doom Resurrection is priced almost right, offering a solid campaign, but not much more.
Buy it for: budding space marines who enjoy killing hellspawn between phone calls.
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Dungeon Hunter

Price: $6.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Diablo-esque action.
Subject Matter: Dungeon Hunter has gamers play as a fallen prince back from the dead to save the kingdom from his evil wife. Plenty of dungeon crawling, loot gathering and virtual button-mashing in this game.
Value: A single play-through of the game can take 25 hours, and there are three character classes to play with. This is probably the best value you'll find on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Buy it for: fans of adventure games like Diablo and light role-playing titles.
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Madden NFL
Price: $9.99
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: EA Sports delivers its bestselling Madden franchise to the iPhone for the first time.
Value: Fully licensed, with all of the teams, players and game modes from the console version of the definitive NFL video game title.
Buy it for: A great stocking stuffer for any football fan with an iPhone or iPod Touch.
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Metal Gear Solid Touch

Price: $0.99 to $9.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Third-person touchscreen shooter
Subject Matter: Metal Gear Solid Touch brings 20 stages lifted from Metal Gear Solid 4 but focuses more on arcade-style touchscreen shooting than the stealth gameplay that Solid Snake is famous for.
Value: Depending on how much you pay (the game was marked down to 99 cents recently) MGS Touch offers a decent amount of replayability and cool items to unlock.
Buy it for: the serious as a heart attack Metal Gear fan who doesn't have access to a PlayStation.
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NBA Live
Price: $9.99
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: The NBA goes mobile in EA Sports' first port of its popular pro basketball simulation.
Value: All teams, all players, plus season, playoffs, and pick-up-and-play modes, with customizable rosters.
Buy it for: Any hoophead with a gadget fixation will love having a full basketball sim in his or her pocket.
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Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition

Price: $6.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Shooter
Subject Matter: Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition is a screen-tapping, stop-and-pop, suspense shooter.
Value: With a dozen settings and two dozen timed stages, this iPhone title is worth the money.
Buy it for: Resident Evil fans, shooter fans, anyone interested in gaming on their phone or Touch.
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Rock Band

Price: $9.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Music
Subject Matter: It's Rock Band. It's on the iPhone. Yeah!
Value: Packed with 20 tracks, Rock Band has a set list that boasts the likes of Foo Fighters, the Pixies and Joan Jett. Players can jam on all four instruments. Multiplayer supports up to four.
Buy it for: Music game lovers on the go.
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Rolando 2

Price: $4.99
Rating: 4+
Genre: A charming side-scrolling puzzler.
Subject Matter: This sequel to last-year's must-have iPhone game, Rolando 2 introduces more story, character development and challenges.
Value: This is the first time Luke has ever played an iPhone that felt truly substantial.
Buy it for: fans of LocoRoco, Rolando or cute, cleverly-crafted puzzle games..
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Space Invaders Infinity Gene

Price: $4.99
Rating: 4+
Genre: Shoot em up
Subject Matter: Space Invaders Infinity Gene is a re-imagining of 70s classic arcade game Space Invaders.
Value: One of the most played games on my iPhone, Space Invaders Infinity Gene offers you 19 levels with a number of interesting new weapons. But almost more importantly, the game can create levels on the fly designed around music played from your iPhone or iPod Touch's music library.
Buy it for: fans of Space Invaders, fans of shoot-em ups, fans of fun.
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Star Defense
Price: $.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Tower defense
Subject Matter: Defend a planet outpost from an amazingly orderly bunch of aliens walking there way along the paths that lead from landing port to your base.
Value: It's just a buck, and it's a ton of fun.
Buy it for: Fans of tower defense and globes.
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Streets of Rage

Price: $4.99
Rating: 12+
Genre: Genesis brawling side-scroller
Subject Matter: This is a straight-up emulation of the Sega classic for the Genesis with chop-socky music and over-the-top tiny graphics.
Value: Not much of a deal here even at $5. It's a straight, troubled port.
Buy it for: With a bad framerate and problematic controls, only hardcore fans of the game and nostalgia freaks should get this.
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Waterways

Price: $.99
Rating: 4+
Genre: Puzzler
Subject Matter: Winner of the 2008 Japan GameGam Competition, Waterways is a puzzle game with cows, ducks and water.
Value: For a penny shy of a dollar you can't go wrong with this portable game.
Buy it for: Puzzle enthusiasts who want a some brain teasing on the go.
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Zenonia

Price: $2.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Adventure role-playing game.
Subject Matter: Zenonia follows a young man named Regret as he searches for answers to the mystery surrounding his birth after the sudden death of the man who raised him.
Value:With about 20 hours worth of play and the ability to choose good and evil paths, this is a no brainer.
Buy it for: fans of The Legend of Zelda.
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