The paper has kicked off the past three years with an annual Game of the Year feature, that the Rocky decided to name the Golden Crecentes. It's a chance for me to not only name some of the big titles, the triple-A games of the previous year, but also to sneak in a couple of more subtle categories like Best Indie, Best Downloadable, and this year, Best iPhone Game.

The latest Golden Crecentes ran this morning in the paper, and I suspect it might be the last with the Rocky seemingly heading toward closure. I could be wrong. I actually didn't think the article would see the light of day.

Here's my editor's wonderful intro for the awards:

Even during this economic apocalypse, the winners of the Third Annual Golden Crecentes should resist the urge to melt down these valuable awards for the bullion within. Because these babies are worth more than their weight in gold. They say, "We are the absolute best games of the year, the dazzling pinnacle of technical and artistic achievement."

Besides, the Golden Crecentes are really figurative honors. There are no actual statuettes - just the priceless glory that comes prepackaged with year-end accolades bestowed by gaming guru Brian D. Crecente.

Yes, I picked Grand Theft Auto IV as game of the year again, but I bet you don't know what other games made the cut.

Golden Crecentes honor year's best video games [Rocky Mountain News]

If you're interested in joining in on the conversation head on over to the link at noon.

Chat with me [Rocky Mountain News]

The embargo for our official review and other hands-ons, impressions, comparisons, stories and whatnots doesn't lift until Sunday (10 a.m. Crecentral), but the package of stories I wrote for the Rocky Mountain News ran this morning. The story for the paper is geared for a much more mainstream audience, so I'm not sure how much you all will get out of it, but here's how it wraps up.

In Grand Theft Auto IV the story isn't just an amalgam of cut scenes and cleverly written dialogue, it's the experiences I create, too. It's now, watching Niko stand, his shoulders slumped, that the depth of this game finally hits me.

Niko's journey, the one crafted by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am creating have just begun.

If you're looking for something to pass your time that is, I believe, free of any major story spoilers, than hit up the link.

I was happy to see that the story not only took over the entire front page of the feature's section, but even got a mention on the front page of the paper. Too bad they went with a headline that sorta highlights the violence of the game. I suppose they would have done the same thing for blow-out coverage of a movie like Once Upon a Time in America.

Grand Theft Auto: A Brutal New World and What the developer of Grand Theft Auto IV champions [Rocky Mountain News]

First a thing about the name: I didn't pick it. I think it's hilarious, but I'd never name an award after myself, it's obnoxious... and quite funny. Which is what I think the Rocky was going for. There are quite a few closet smart-asses over there. :)

So my annual pick for best video game ran in the Rocky Mountain News today and I picked Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as the overall winner. The game beat out The Orange Box, Bioshock, Super Mario Galaxy and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

Here's why I decided to pick a war-time first-person shooter sequel over the splendor of a dystopian society, amazing character interaction of Uncharted and innovative design of Galaxy and Orange Box:

This solid first-person shooter for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 may not be as innovative as The Orange Box and Super Mario Galaxy. It may not deliver an awe-inspiring glimpse at an eschewed philosophy like BioShock or create the sort of sizzling character interaction found in Uncharted, but, hands down, it is the most thoroughly entertaining video game of the past year.

The single-player story is captivating, set in a present-day Middle East and parts of Russia and comes at the player in a mix of sweeping cinematic set pieces and smart pacing that can easily glue the audience to the game for the entire six- to eight-hour experience.

It's a game that has the sorts of moments usually found only in film, hiding these startling revelations in gamers' blind spots. People you come to care about die. You die, and not in the sort of plastic, ephemeral death found in video games. These deaths are permanent and, at times, evocative.

A deep, seemingly limitless online multiplayer experience also adds quite a bit of life to the title. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare may seem like more of the same, but this title is the realization of a rewarding franchise meeting its complete potential.

Hit the link to check out my winners for the rest of the categories, including a selection of "hot flashes" I managed to sneak into the awards. Feel free to bash me here for not choosing (your selection here) for best (your category here).

Ps. I didn't write the awards' intro, that's one of those smart-asses I was talking about.
Game Gold

FIVE WAYS HALO HAS REDEFINED GAMING - [The Rocky Mountain News]

The parents group's request to ban video game ads and only video games isn't about constitutionality, it's about hypocrisy.

Had the editorial board bothered to call up and talk to the National Grassroots Director for the Parents Television Council or read my feature about the issue here on Kotaku they would have probably noticed something far more interesting than the somewhat tangential, and off-base, issue of constitutionality.

In the story Gavin McKiernan tells us that the real issue wasn't about adult content, it was about the fact that those advertisements were for video games not movies.

In fact, Gavin told me he wouldn't try and stop advertising for R-rated movies, the issue was about the medium, not the content. Something, I think, that could have made for a much more interesting discussion in the editorial section of a major newspaper. Brian Crecente

The freedom to say 'no' [Rocky Mountain News]

Yes, it made the newspaper because I put it there and no, it's not game related, not really. But I thought perhaps you'd still want to read it, that and I mentioned it last night in my Night Note.

So hit up the Rocky Mountain News and read my pro-pirate stance and then vote to your heart's content. And remember what else they call silent but deadly. ;) Brian Crecente

Crecente: Pirate-vs.-ninja debate rages [Crecente: Pirate-vs.-ninja debate rages]

Today I gave notice at the Rocky Mountain News. April will be the first month I haven't worked full-time at a daily newspaper in nearly one and a half decades, it feels kinda weird.

Earlier this week the publisher of the newspaper called me into his office to tell me that due to the current economic state of journalism in general and newspapers specifically, the Rocky Mountain News would be shifting a group of feature writers over to the news side to help fill in gaps left by people who had quit over the past year.

I was among the group. My option was to either work once more as a full-time police reporter, something the news editors very much wanted me to do, and freelance my gaming coverage to the newspaper in my own time or quit outright and concentrate on gaming coverage through freelance with the Rocky and my current job at Kotaku.

I thought long and hard about the discussion I had with the publisher. It was, as you can imagine, a very difficult decision for me.

The Rocky Mountain News has been very supportive of my gaming coverage and I think it speaks volumes that during a time when few papers had the insight to invest a full-time beat in the coverage of the culture and business of video gaming, they saw that it was an growing and important part of both pop culture and artistic expression.

As I've spent time working this beat I've come to realize that not only is it something I enjoy doing, it is something that I think needs to be done.

This is a new and exciting medium and in so many ways shapes not only pop culture, but the way people see the world around them.

While I understand the dire nature of current journalism economics and the state that the newspaper is in, I just can't see myself going back to covering news.

I will truly miss working with the great reporters, writers, editors and managers that work daily to make the Rocky what it is, but I came to the conclusion today that I need to concentrate on my work covering the video game industry and the culture surrounding it.

While I am saddened at the paper's necessary decision to cut the full-time beat at the paper, I was very happy to learn that the paper was eagerly, perhaps anxiously, waiting to hear if I would be willing to continue covering the gaming beat for them in a freelance basis. Something I whole-heartedly plan to do.

It was nice to hear from so many people at the paper, from top editors to reporters, that they now consider video game coverage an important part of the newspaper and that my coverage was a small part of why they feel that way.

I can leave full-time employment at the newspaper knowing that if nothing else, I at least convinced the people who work at the Rocky that gaming isn't always just about games. Brian Crecente

The BBC has an interesting story up on the furor surrounding the release of Christian video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces. An alliance of liberal groups is trying to get Wal-Mart, among other retailers, to stop selling the game.

The story includes quotes Talk2Action, the Left Behind folks and me. I managed to stay above the finger-pointing, or at least tried to, and concentrated on pointing out that this is proof that games can deal with meaningful messages without trivializing them.

Mr Crecente, the games writer, has not seen Quest for Bush (also known as Night of Bush Hunting, the literal translation of its Arabic title).

But he says both it and Left Behind: Eternal Forces are part of an effort in the gaming world to deal with important issues.

"Whenever games take on something important, they are accused of trivialising the subject," he says.

"This shows that video games have gotten past the birthing pains. They are no longer just about amusing people, but about trying to send a message."

It's a short, though interesting read, if you have a second. Brian Crecente

Christian video game draws anger [BBC]

He seems like a pretty nice, straightforward guy, though he did get a little cagey when I started pressing for launch numbers and pressing him on the cost of the console and its controllers.

There's been so much hitting the net since the event that it's hard to tell if any of what I got from him was really news, but the quotes are just great.

If nothing else, it shows that Nintendo isn't about to go into this latest console war looking for second place.

They know about the Wii60 and they want no part of it, instead they'd rather you just forgo the 360 or PS3 and spend all of your money on Nintendo products like the Wii and the DS.

"The consumer is going to do what they are going to do," Fils-Aime said. "The Wii represents fantastic innovation and fantastic value.

"I'm friendly with Peter Moore and I know he's talked up the Wii60. Don't take this the wrong way, but if the consumer wants other experiences, let them buy a Nintendo DS.

"I'm a greedy individual."

Some other choice bits of information:

The Wii Opera browser will be free for a limited time in Japan, but Nintendo hasn't decided how to handle it in the Americas.

Virtual Console games can be redownloaded for free.

Although Nintendo hasn't officially announced it yet, it looks like the dreaded Friend Code may be returning to the Wii. Brian Crecente

A Conversation With Nintendo's President [Freeplay]

I know it's a total knock-off, but I can't help it, I liked Field Commander. It's a fun Playstation Portable RTS and it has some amazing online multiplayer support. Here's the run down of what everyone else thought. Brian Crecente

Rocky Mountain News

First it was the fidgeting; I couldn't seem to sit still. But my wife put up with it, quietly typing away on her novel in bed next to me with just a few sighs.

Then I started to giggle — and it was evil giggling.

"Brian, what are you doing?"

What was I doing? What was I doing?

I was leading my men, the Butchers, to mighty victory. I was decimating my enemy. I was making some hapless, faceless gamer, who knows where, do his own little fidgety dance — only his was spurred by desperation, not anticipation.

I was playing the turn-based military strategy game Field Commander on my PlayStation Portable, taking on a stranger via a wireless Internet connection, and by God, I was playing it well.

The Mercury News

I didn't have this game on my radar, but now that it has dropped in, it's devouring my time. Haven't gotten to the mission creator mode yet — there are pre-made maps — but that could be another way to maximize my sleep deprivation.

"Field Commander'' is $40 or lower and rated Teen (13 and older). On a four-star scale, this is easily a three-star game, and I'd go as high as three and a half if you have an affinity for the genre. Strongly recommended.

Deeko

Ultimately, Field Commander proves to be a nicely presented and intuitive strategy game that is simplistic enough to lure in the unsuspecting, but thorough enough to satisfy the expecting. A bulky single player and some of the system's best multiplayer facilitate the extended playtime of the fun gameplay engine, and it's all done with a flash and flair that isn't often met. Chalk this one up to surprise on my part, but SOE has managed to pump out a great game worthy of a comfy and warm home inside your PSP.

Game Revolution

What I'm getting at is that Field Commander has no personality in any of its effects, so while many are fine from a technical standpoint, none of them, aural or visual, will make you smile or wince.

That's because Field Commander is a soulless clone of a good game. It puts almost all of the pieces together, but the two that it misses, intelligence and personality, are what make a game likable and engaging. If you can find a friend to provide a surrogate soul, this game is a halfway decent approximation of Advance Wars, but played alone it's little more than a spent shell casing.

Slashdot beat me to the punch this morning and has an interesting three-pronged look at the naming of Nintendo's Revolution. The article cites the story I wrote for the Rocky Mountain News in which I spoke to a branding expert about the name. It also includes Chris Kohler's defense of Wii over on Wired and Games.Net's piece on the strangeness of the name.

From the Rocky article:

"Graphically, the distinctive 'ii' spelling symbolizes both the two unique controllers and the human form. An unusual name sets us apart from the crowd, just as our distinctive machine is completely different from what our competitors are offering," (said Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing and corporate affairs.)

But (branding expert) Steve Manning says that Wii doesn't really convey any of those things, adding that anytime a company starts explaining their brand name, it's a bad sign.

"The biggest key to figuring out it's a bad name is when they explain it," he said. "You don't have to explain a good name, you have to explain a bad name."

He goes on to talk about why Nintendo probably didn't stick with Revolution.

Both Sides of Wii [Slashdot]

My Rocky Mountain News feature on Brain Age ran today with the coolest art. Actually, the above art was the whole cover of the feature section.

The story is about the creation of Brain Age, something Satoru Iwata talked at the Game Developers Conference; the difficulties of localizing the game and how it's being marketed in the U.S.

Gaming for the Brain [Rocky Mountain News]

I had a chance to speak with Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski recently about the theory behind brain games.

Zelinski is a professor of gerontology and psychology, and dean of the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. She also serves as a spokeswoman for Nintendo on brain games.

She deftly dodged my attempts at trying to get her to talk about what, if any, actual benefit playing Brain Age might have. She also talks a bit about the principles behind the game and how a person's brain age compares to their IQ.

Dr. Z on Brain Games [Rocky Mountain News]

I've spent the week working on a feature package about Auto Assault for the Rocky Mountain News. I'm spending most of the day in the beta of the game checking out the other factions (I've been playing a human), player-versus-player and the game's crafting system.

Man, reviewing a massively multiplayer game is so very time consuming and no matter how much time you spend with it, it's rarely possible to encapsulate your experience in one article.

I interviewed Jon M. Gibson, the man behind the I am 8-bit art show and recently released video game art book, for the Rocky Mountain News.

The story touches on why Gibson decided to put on the show, how it was viewed by the art crowd and its success so far.

The show opened April 19 to a crowd comprised of equal parts art connoisseurs and game aficionados, Gibson said.

"We didn't really know until the opening night what was really going to happen," he said. "I'd say about half of the people were people who had never stepped foot in an art gallery, let alone buy something in an art gallery - something that's going to look great on their wall so they can finally take down that Spiderman poster.

"The other half was very snooty, very judgmental."

Despite the oil-and-water mix of attendees, that show was a huge hit, with 70 to 80 percent of the pieces selling for $50 to $3,000.

Art Imitates Game [Rocky Mountain News]

Here are the links and ledes:

Rocky Mountain News
PlayStation 3's followers tire of the waiting game: Sony's announcement of a delayed street date for its PlayStation 3 may be too little, too late.

Mercury News
Sony's PS 3 delay likely means tumultuous year for video game industry: Sony's decision to delay the PlayStation 3 video game console — although not unexpected — will likely make 2006 a rocky year for the video game industry.

Wall Street Journal
Sony Delays PlayStation 3 to Fall: TOKYO — Sony Corp. said it will delay the launch of its next-generation video game console until November from the spring, even as competition is intensifying with advanced devices from rivals.

New York Times
Gamers Voice Some Annoyance With Sony: Those who invest or work in the video game industry expressed little surprise yesterday at Sony's announcement that it would delay its next PlayStation console until November. The shock appeared limited to the industry's customers: everyday gamers. And the beneficiary seemed to be Microsoft.

Associated Press
Sony does the expected and delays PlayStation 3 release: SAN JOSE, Calif. - When Sony Corp. hiccups, everyone else in the video game industry feels it.

In about an hour (10 a.m. Mountain)I'll be doing a live chat on the Rocky Mountain News site to discuss the new gaming coverage I'll be doing for the newspaper.

The print version of Freeplay kicks off on Friday, but the website portion went live last week.

Hop over to Freeplay to see how you can get in on the chat and ask questions about the paper's coverage.

Freeplay [Freeplay]

I mentioned last week that I interviewed Leland Yee for a story I was working on. The story, about gaming laws, ran today in the Rocky.

While most of it is a summation of where things currently stand, it's probably still worth reading for a few interesting tidbits.

Yee estimates that if his bill remained a law it would currently only have an impact on four or five of the games out there. He also says, though this didn't make the final cut of the story, that he doesn't think a similar law should be passed for movies. His argument is that they aren't as interactive and therefore not as harmful.

The other interesting thing is the current status of the three bills passed into law around the country. You'll notice that Michigan has basically given up, allowing the ESA to request the injuction to be made permanent. Illinois has decided to drop the violence part of its law and instead just try and keep the obscenity part, meaning the law would only restrict games that are obscene. And California is going full-on to protect its law.

I spoke with the Attorney General's office in California, and they sounded very adamant about defending the law. They even think this could be one that perhaps makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anyway, check it out to get all of the details and read what a First Amendment lawyer thinks about the whole thing, and then comment away.

Fighting Game [Rocky Mountain News]

I'm a talker. I know it and everyone I know, knows it. And now the guy from Revogaming knows it. Anthony Sarni intereviewed me for a podcast on his site earlier this week. The resulting 45 minute podcast covers everything from video games as art to how I landed my job at Kotaku and life at the Rocky Mountain News. Like I said, I'm a talker.

Podcast: Interview with Brian D. Crecente, Editor of Kotaku [Revogaming]