The Wall Street Journal was the first to expose the Nintendo Wii for what it truly is: a hateful game device hellbent on destroying the health and well-being of overfed vidiots.

Nintendo's head of public relations Perrin Kaplan fired back at the allegations, saying,  "[The Wii] was not meant to be a Jenny Craig supplement. If people are finding themselves sore, they may need to exercise more."

My friend Venessa made this. Fans of Konami's creepy Silent Hill series will recognize it for what it is.

What it is, of course, is My Little Pyramid Head.

(Venessa does not tell, and I am not inclined to ask.)

And here, for those who may have never seen the real thing, is Pyramid Head himself.

Bungie has been tightfisted with Halo 3, but information on the highly anticipated game is beginning to filter out. The game maker has posted three screen shots for Halo 3 along with excruciatingly detailed descriptions of each on its Web site.

This here is a picture of one of the game's new vehicles, The Mongoose. According to the Bungie Web site, The Mongoose "is small and unarmed, but it?s fast."

Multiplayer: 360, One Year Later — What's Up Next?
How will the Xbox 360 fare in the next big year of gaming?

One year ago today (November 22) the "it" system lighting up eBay wasn't a Nintendo or a PlayStation. It was the Xbox 360. "Perfect Dark: Zero" was the next-gen first-person shooter of note. And Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski was promising people his baby, "Gears of War," would arrive in the Xbox 360's launch window, which he defined as lasting one year. Cliffy B made it, with two weeks to spare.

Last year seems distant, a "big year" in gaming that doesn't seem so huge when now there's just one next-gen system in the rearview mirror and two outside the driver's side window. Somehow, though, next year could easily be bigger yet. This year brings a Wii and a PS3. Next year brings the first next-gen "Mario," "Halo" and "Grand Theft Auto" — all safe bets for the fall. Critical overachievers "Metal Gear Solid" and "Metroid Prime" get new chapters next year as well.

Hype always threatens to blow things out of proportion, but the gaming world truly spins swiftly. A year ago, the PSP was America's darling handheld, staving off the chunky Nintendo DS and whatever love people had for "Nintendogs." A year later, game makers publicly (EA) and privately (I can't say, but they're big), grumble at what they see as the PSP's stunted potential. Meanwhile, the DS has been redesigned and now consistently outsells the PSP in America and Japan. That new DS — the ubiquitous Lite — was little more than a faint rumor a year ago. A year ago, Nintendo still called the Wii "The Revolution."

In the next year, the 360's ability to hold off the PS3 will be tested. What will be the value of Microsoft nabbing an exclusive on "BioShock" and the next "Splinter Cell"? Will the 360 benefit from getting "GTA IV" the same October day Sony's system does? Will Microsoft's standard of charging gamers for online multiplayer competition be undone by Sony's PS3 practice — carried over from the PS2 — of letting it be free? And will the 360's new TV- and movie-download service, activated today, get hot enough to make Apple sweat?

If you doubt the difference a year in gaming makes, just rent "Lego Star Wars" and its successor and experience how a game made in 2005 compares to one made in 2006. Or find someone who bought a Dreamcast at launch in 1999 and ask them how they felt come 2000.

The calendar may say that there are six weeks left in the year, but this year's biggest games and systems have launched (well, except for "Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops"). The Xbox 360 has turned one, and now has to share the crib. The next year promises to be full of sibling rivalry. Happy new year, gamers.

Once a week Multiplayer will provide a Stock Report that should give you a sense of what actually is streaming into the office and how companies are trying to grab our attention:

The Stock Report:
» Number of games at MTV HQ: 187
» Last three games to arrive: "Monster Bomber" (DS), "Capcom Classics Collection" (PS2/ Xbox 360), "Smackdown vs. Raw 2007" (PS2/ Xbox 360)
» Last system to arrive: PS3
» Last swag to arrive: "Viva Piñata" miniature piñata

— Stephen Totilo

11.21.06

Multiplayer: The Joy Of Visiting The 'Yoshi' Museum
Finding fun in watching, rather than playing, games.

A game developer once told me that one of the things players like best is to watch two characters they don't control beat each other up.

This was an innovation born of the kind of artificial intelligence that started showing up in games about a decade ago. It was shocking when distant enemy dinosaurs and soldiers in "Turok: Dinosaur Hunter" proved short-tempered enough that they could be tricked into turning on each other instead of trampling toward you.

Since then games such as "The Sims" and "Nintendogs" have made bundles by playing the role of high-tech fishbowl. The games can be interacted with, but they can also be mesmerizing just to watch. What will those Sims do today in the house I built for them? What moves is my Nintendog making in the local park?

Games, of course, are meant to be played. Or so everyone says. Interactivity is key. Controllers matter. There's even a common saying that gameplay matters over graphics. This is all likely true, and it's what sets games apart from TV and the movies. But a few days ago I was playing "Yoshi's Island DS" and found myself having great fun just ... watching.

I had stumbled across the game's "museum" function, the kind of extra feature that doesn't get mentioned in ads. "Yoshi's Island DS" is a side-scrolling platformer, each level dropping Yoshi onto colorful terrain populated with odd little bad guys. The museum is just another piece of landscape, but with fewer bad guys. Instead it has a welcome message — "Come gawk at the strange creatures that are native to Yoshi's Island" — and a bunch of doors. Behind each is a hall split across the DS's two screens. The lower screen hosts a passageway through which Yoshi can trot. Overhead, the top screen shows cages for enemies defeated in the main game. I'm only 13 levels into the game, so most are still empty. But a few have bad guys in them, each character showing off a signature move they would usually use against Yoshi. Monkeys clamber over vines. Piranha flowers snap at each other. Two guys with baseball bats stand at opposite sides of their cage batting a boulder back and forth.

I've toured other games' bonus areas too, gawking at hundreds of statues in the "Super Smash Bros.: Melee" trophy room, walking a museum inside "King Kong" and tossing virtual carrots at creatures captured in the "Pikmin 2" Piklopedia. Through it, I've come to realize that the heat of action isn't always where a game's characters and graphics are best appreciated.

So other people can have their screenshots and movies. I'll take video-game museums. Find one and take a tour. See what you think.

— Stephen Totilo

11.20.06

Multiplayer: The Problem With The New 'Zelda'
How much innovation is required in sequels to a wildly popular game?

There's a problem with Nintendo's new "Zelda" game.

I discovered it this weekend when I wolfed down enough of "The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess" to bulge my play time to 17 hours and nine minutes, taking a break long enough to notice the message board furor that erupted after a reviewer at GameSpot filed the first major review score for the title lower — if just barely — than a nine out of 10. He cited a lack of originality.

I sympathize with the reviewer and have come to a conclusion: The problem with Nintendo's new "Zelda" is that it's a game made for the Xbox 360 and PS3. For more than a year, Nintendo's leaders have castigated their competitors at Sony and Microsoft for suggesting that the future of gaming is simply a graphically richer, more epic, widescreen presentation of what has been in games before. That's not the Nintendo way as far as the wacky Wii is concerned, but it defines the development of "Twilight Princess" to a T.

"The Twilight Princess" is, at least in the first 17 hours I have experienced, a beautifully rendered, tightly programmed, joyfully polished remix of "Zelda" games past. That is the best that can be said and the worst of it.

At a glance this is a whole new "Zelda." After all, Link's never been a wolf before. But Link's wolf sense functions an awful lot like the Lens of Truth did in "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time." Link still needs to nab a slingshot, a bow and a boomerang during his adventure, as he has in so many past "Zelda" games. There's something from everyone in this new "Zelda" game, enough elements analogous to old "Zelda" games that you could make a "Twilight Princess" series of SAT questions.

In fact, "Zelda" fans, try these out once you've played the new one.

» The Skultullas from "Ocarina" are to ______ from "Twilight Princess" as the weapons trainer from "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" is to ______ from "Twilight Princess."

» Ocarina from "Ocarina" = ______ + ______ from "Twilight Princess."

» The flower-cannons from "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" + the Gorons from "Ocarina" = ______ from "Twilight Princess."

Movie sequels get panned if they fail to innovate and simply tread the same territory as the original film. But for two decades, many game sequels got a pass for repeating the old stuff. "Mario" and "Madden" didn't really need to reinvent themselves and scrap their old clichés so long as they were making the most of better graphics, sound and new controllers. Some franchises overhauled themselves regularly anyway, like the convention-defying "Final Fantasy" series. Even "Zelda" flipped the script with the time-pressured adventure of "Majora's Mask" and the sea-based "Wind Waker."

With "Twilight Princess," Nintendo has produced a wonderfully fun game. I even hear that a lot of brand-new stuff kicks in during the back-half of the 60-hour adventure. But let's consider the 17-hour opening bit. Nintendo has preached innovation. Yet their flagship game on their most innovative console instead has demonstrated the potency of renovation: staging an old masterpiece anew with the details just rearranged, like people do with Shakespeare plays.

Is that still the way for game sequels to go? Or is it time for Nintendo, with "Zelda" and the rest of its famous franchises, to abandon familiar ground and start practicing what it's preached?

— Stephen Totilo

About this column: The average gamer doesn't have the time or cash to experience one-tenth of the games that come out every week. Collectively, the MTV News team does — and then some. With games streaming into the office each day, we see a lot, we play a lot and we remember a lot. We want to tell you what we're playing and what's worth caring about it, and we'll do it every day at MTV News: Multiplayer. To follow the column daily, bookmark multiplayer.mtv.com.

Well, maybe you can refuse this: Taco Bell is willing to trade you a near-infinite number of tacos for a PlayStation 3.

According to game Web site Next-gen.biz, Taco Bell and its charitable arm Taco Bell Foundation are offering $12,500 Taco Bell Bucks to the first person generous enough to donate a PlayStation 3.

In other words, give up your PlayStation 3 and make a run for the toilet. Roughly 10,000 times or so.

Read more about the offer at Next-gen.biz here.

Well, this certainly isn't how I wanted this story to end.

Friday morning, while I was out at the gym, embarrassing myself on the elliptical machine, my apartment was robbed.

The thieves stole two Xbox 360s, a PlayStation 2, some controllers, a laptop computer, and the replacement battery for said computer.

The PlayStation 3, which I was too tired to open when I got home, was stolen, too.

And thus ends the adventure.

Multiplayer: We Chucked The Wii
So, can Nintendo's wild controller survive a good toss?

Commercials advertising Nintendo's Wii console show gamers pointing, shaking and twirling the machine's remote-shaped controller. Wii games launch with warning screens that advise players to wield their Wii controller with a wrist-strap attached. Shake it, but don't shake it too much, is Nintendo's message. But what if someone actually lets go?

We weren't trying. But we recently introduced one of MTV News' two Wii controllers to the unforgiving concrete newsroom floor. Here's what happened:

A bunch of us were testing mini-games in "Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz" Thursday. The game is stuffed with small challenges, like Monkey Fencing, Monkeysmith, Monkey Wars and Paper Sumo Fighter. Some are good — some not. We found a winner with Monkey Darts, which turns the TV screen into a dartboard and requires you to hold the Wii remote like it's a dart. You see a dart hovering on-screen, and as you pull back your hand, the end of the dart gets bigger, as if it's moving toward you. You chuck forward, and the dart flies.

Of course, you shouldn't actually let go of the controller during Monkey Darts. But MTV News reporter James Montgomery did, either accidentally, or — yeah, that's it — experimentally. The Wii-turned-dart sailed five feet forward and four feet down to the floor (James was sitting at the time). The battery hatch flew off. Two double-A batteries spilled out. A red disconnect error flashed on the screen. The room went quiet.

Montgomery picked up the pieces and reassembled the unit. He pressed a button and ... it worked!

Legend has it that Game Boy cartridges left in pants pockets still function after a cycle in the washing machine. The TV station G4 once smashed around a PS2, GameCube and Xbox, and only Nintendo's console still worked. Nintendo fans may be split about whether the company really just makes entertainment for kids, but there's no denying the Japanese game maker builds stuff that has the durability of a solid Tonka or Fisher Price.

To be fair, the Wii did crash once this past Saturday while logging out of a game of "Wii Sports." So the machine may still prove to not be the sturdiest. But it has worked fine since then. And now its controller has kissed the floor and lived to be played some more. So go nuts — leave off the wrist straps.

— Stephen Totilo

11.16.06

We're Staying Home On PS3 Launch Day — Even If Luda Shows
We're not camping out Thursday night.

We will stand with the majority of the country: We are not camping out for a PS3 Thursday night (November 16).

I thought I'd have a PS3 already actually, but a short-supplied Sony says I'll have to wait a little longer before it can supply MTV News with a unit. I did play the system a bunch of times throughout the year and had plenty of fun with the system. So it's not that I don't want one. And it's not like I don't need one to do my job.

But camping out isn't the answer. In case the reports in numerous big and small news outlets haven't made it clear, few people will be able to get a PS3 at launch. For days, financial analysts have been casting doubts that Sony can deliver even the 400,000 PS3s executives promised at launch for America this fall.

So if there's little chance of getting a PS3, maybe there'd be a chance to get some news? You never know, but so far it's not looking good. I covered a PSP launch event two years ago. People lined up. Celebrities milled around. A Sony exec sold the first unit to a happy customer. And in further news, the sun rose the next day.

I stopped by the Xbox 360 launch at the Toys "R" Us in New York's Times Square last year. People were lined up. Celebrities might have been milling around. I don't know — I went to eat steak.

This week Sony invited the press here in New York to a midnight launch at the company's Sony Style Store on Manhattan's East Side. Four-hundred first-come first-served fans will be able to buy a PS3, according to a press release that also notes, "Lines could form as early as three days in advance." Ludacris is supposed to be there too. Nintendo reps have invited reporters to that Times Square Toys "R" Us for their own event Saturday night. I'll skip that too.

It's exciting when a new system is launched, doubly exciting when two come over the course of a long weekend. But there's gaming, and then there's gaming hype. The gamer in me wants the new systems, but I've come to peace about waiting for a PS3. The reporter in me wants to cover news, but I think I might find more playing "Zelda" or finding a fellow reporter with a copy of "Resistance" and a PS3 on which to play it.

— Stephen Totilo

11.15.06

Counting Our Games — And Watering Plants
'Okami,' 'Bully,' 'Elite Beat Agents,' 'Gears of War,' keeping us busy.

There aren't many actual problems with owning a bunch of interesting new games, but if anything about that circumstance can be classified as troubling it's figuring out how to play them all at once. It's a bit of an issue this time of year, when a raft of big titles floats to the offices and one major game starts drawing attention away from another, until yet another distracts from that.

Last week I was out of the first town in "Okami," just past Halloween in "Bully," stuck in "Elite Beat Agents," on chapter three of "Gears of War," in the opening stage of "Yoshi's Island DS," riding the learning curve of "Every Extend Extra" and had finished downloading the beta build of "The Burning Crusade." And then the Wii showed up, and I've had no chance to return to any of those games — except the portable ones — since. I haven't even been able to touch the Wii in more than 24 hours.

I'll get back to all these games. For now you can consider this as a grand experiment to see whether games can withstand the distractions of other games, or if their plots are easily lost and confusion about what to do next in them overwhelms whatever makes them fun to play. Is this a criteria to which a game can be held? Should it require complete attention, like a novel? Or should it be able to tolerate a wandering eye and some game-playing infinitely, like an episode of a good TV show?

And on that last point, it is easy to be unfaithful to a game when so many stream into the office. Companies send top titles daily. Often the games are packaged with bonus swag, like the bean promoting the game "Death Jr." that MTV News reporter Chris Harris watered every three days starting two weeks ago and has flourished since. (Click here to see photos of the plant's impressive development.)

Once a week Multiplayer will provide a Stock Report that should give you a sense of what actually is streaming into the office and how companies are trying to grab our attention:

The Stock Report:
» Number of games at MTV HQ: 171 (21 games recently given to charity)
» Last three games to arrive: "NHL 2K7" (PS3), "NBA 2K7" (PS3), "My Frogger Toy Trials" (Nintendo DS)
» Last system to arrive: Nintendo Wii
» Last swag to arrive: "Sopranos" poker set and case

— Stephen Totilo

11.14.06

The Wii's Fight for Elbow Room
Forget wrist pain — controller is rougher on another joint.

The Wii used to make me worry about my wrists. Now I realize I should have been more concerned about my elbows.

I first played the Wii last December when it was called the Revolution (see "First Look: Nintendo Revolution Controller Feels Smooth As Puppet Strings"), and I've gotten my hands on the system a few times since. Each play session was kept brief, and each time I was left wondering if flicking the system's motion-sensitive controller would hurt my wrists, tire them or just become a bother in the long term.

I've probably played the Wii (delivered to MTV News on Friday) for eight hours now and have suffered no wrist problems. On the other hand — or joint — I've found myself repeatedly pressed for space to play. As noted in Monday's post and as I've discovered more since that writing, for this system, elbow room is key.

Those lucky enough to receive a Wii early from Nintendo were set up with two Wii controllers each. On Monday night, I took the two MTV News controllers down to the team at MTV Games, who have their own system and pair of remotes. We synced the controllers. I had saved a pair of Mii avatars I created on my own Wii and dropped them into their machine. That way I could play as my own Mii character on the Games guys' system. With all controllers armed, we tried a four-player game of "Wii Tennis."

The guys down at Games call the room we played in the "game cave." It's long, skinny and dimly lit. At one short end, they have a 40-inch high-def TV. There's enough width to the skinny room for people to grab a chair and a game controllers and battle out a match of "Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter." But four guys on their feet swinging Wii remotes during a tennis match was a problem in the cave. One guy was blocking another guy's view and his beam. No one really had any room to swing big.

We managed, and we had fun. But the geometry of the Wii is clear now. Little more than a couch-width may have been all the space required for four-player gaming in the pre-Wii era. Any Wii consumer's old game-playing real estate is going to need an upgrade.

— Stephen Totilo

11.13.06

Our Weekend With The Wii
Three days of nunchuck fiddling and 'Zelda' exploration with Nintendo's latest creation.

The last three days have been full of Wii. Here's what the system with the wild motion-sensitive remote-shaped controller has wrought:

On Friday, a Nintendo rep delivered a Wii to MTV News. It came in a plain white box and arrived in the back of a movie-prop police car. Regardless, the box sat in the office unopened for a few hours. Then came the unwrapping, followed by the squeals of delight from folks on the floor who felt Christmas had come early.

A crowd of writers, editors and producers gathered for an opening match of "Wii Sports" tennis, played by a couple of office novices who had never touched the system. They liked it. Then came some boxing from two neophytes who managed to exhaust themselves during a nine-minute fight. Then we all had to get back to work.

In the Wii instruction manual, Nintendo recommends that players stand three to eight feet away from their TV. The couch from which I play games at home is only about five feet from the TV. On Saturday, playing tennis with the Wii required me to stand in front of the couch, just three feet from the TV. Technically that works, but in practice, it felt cramped. When Microsoft launched the 360, the company brusquely told gamers that they would need a several-thousand-dollar high-definition to truly enjoy their system. Nintendo's machine seemingly requires rearranging furniture or, for squeezed urbanites, getting a bigger apartment.

Sunday was "Zelda" day. I gave the game a good four hours. "Zelda" uses two-hand controls — the remote in the right and the analog-stick "nunchuck" in the left. Many gamers' big question is how that set-up holds up for a long single-player game. The answer? It works well. For one thing, the three feet of cable that tethers the remote to the nunchuck frees the player's hands from the old confines of classic six-inch-wide controllers. One hand can be on your stomach, the other dangling over the armrest. Or one can be on your knee; the other, with elbow bent, pointing straight up. This is unexpected liberation, a radical departure from the confines of older game controllers. In the early going, the remote doesn't even need to always be pointed at the TV; only when you want to zoom in for a precise shot of the slingshot.

As for how the game plays? Early on, it feels like a remix of "Ocarina of Time," which, for most players, is surely a good thing.

And that's where the weekend ended.

— Stephen Totilo

About this column: The average gamer doesn't have the time or cash to experience one-tenth of the games that come out every week. Collectively, the MTV News team does — and then some. With games streaming into the office each day, we see a lot, we play a lot and we remember a lot. We want to tell you what we're playing and what's worth caring about it, and we'll do it every day at MTV News: Multiplayer. To follow the column daily, bookmark multiplayer.mtv.com.

To its credit, Sony really handled the Metreon launch for the PlayStation 3 really well.

It could have been a colossal mess what with hundreds of people waiting on the streets of San Francisco for extended hours. Sony merged two warring lines into a cohesive whole, kept the peace, and fed the masses. When it rained, it passed out slickers to the people.

During the last supper, three line-goers got a special surprise from Sony. They won free PlayStation 3s. While the rest of us greedily inhaled cheese- and vegetable burgers from Mel's Diner, they were savoring the ticket that proclaimed them as winners.

Now that, in fact, was a spicy meatball.

It's over now, and there's a brand-new PlayStation 3 sitting on my apartment floor.

But Sony didn't make it easy for anyone.

They trotted out rock band Angels and Airwaves to entertain the crowd mere hours before midnight. To say they sucked was an insult to every band that ever sucked and they gleefully embraced the holy triumvirate of sucky band characteristics: a pretentous, yappy singer; an excess of bass; and a drummer whose job it was to crash the cymbals every second he was playing.

To top it off, Miss Annoying got hold of the bullhorn. Again.

"Whoo!" she'd shout, repeatedly to anyone unfortunate enough to walk by. "Take yer shirt off." When she wasn't screaming that, she used the bullhorn to try and shout down the singer.

It was perhaps the highlight of the whole 30-plus hour ordeal when Annoying got her bullhorn taken away and the band stopped playing.

Then we could wait for our PlayStation 3s in glorious, blessed silence.

I have been asked if I intend to sell the PlayStation 3 I am about to purchase.

Frankly, although the temptation is great and the potential for financial reward might be substantial, I have to say the answer is no.

I want a PlayStation 3 not just for my job, but for me. I want it for my sense of whimsy and not my bank account.

But man, I don't want to think I may purchase a lemon that suffers from the all-too-prevalent defects common to the first production run of most consoles?before it dies altogether.