You may know Arthur Suydam for his brilliant, blood-drenched cover work on the Marvel Zombies comic book series, which featured zombified versions of Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine and other Marvel superheroes. But the A-list artist has also delved into making cover art for another zombie venture — namely the DS rail shooter/survival horror game Touch the Dead. Recently, Arthur took the time to answer some questions about his undead artwork, his favorite zombie flicks, and why he’s just so damn awesome...

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I collect a lot of things — mostly NES games — but a variety of other systems’ games as well, in addition to DVDs, CDs, video game-related toys, some comic books, and so on and so forth. Because of these collections, I have a certain affinity for shelf space. However, as awesome as these DIY Tetris shelves above are, they just aren?t functional enough for today?s modern-day collector. But they’re still pretty cool. Find out how to build them yourself (if you?re into that kind of thing).

On Wednesday, Stephen shared the second part of an e-mail debate he’s been having about “Halo 3” with N’Gai Croal of Newsweek (see “Vs. Mode: Newsweek And MTV News Argue Over ‘Halo 3′ [Round 2]”). They’re publishing the exchange here at MTVNews.com and on the “Level Up” blog on Newsweek’s site. Now it’s time for the final round. Pity a little fly who got in the way …

To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N’Gai Croal
Date: May 29, 2007
Re: A Campaign for Change

“Don’t be such a bunch of pu—–. It’s fine. All you need to do is practice.”
— John Davison, paraphrasing some message board responses to the May 25 1UP Yours podcast about how “Halo 3″ multiplayer could be made more newcomer-friendly

“I mean, listen, we’re sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it’s my last, but we’re talking about practice, man. How silly is that?”
— Allen Iverson at a May 8, 2002, press conference after the 76ers were defeated in the first round of the playoffs

Stephen,

Thanks for indulging me in my desire to tackle the experience of playing “Halo 3.” As for our shared forays into battle, I wish I could say I was grieving when I tagged you with the sniper rifle, but I don’t even remember doing it. As for our team-chat debacle, that’s what we get for not reading the manual — I mean the FAQ.

I kicked off my final entry with the pair of quotes above because I’m sure that after Round 2, the grizzled “Halo” vets among our readership — the ones with the thousand-yard stares, the war stories from long nights spent in the sh– and the astronomical rankings to prove it — are almost certainly wondering, “Why don’t these guys just stop bitching and practice?” And when the completed version of “Halo 3″ ships on September 25, with a broader range of players available for matchmaking than the self-selecting group of hardcores who signed up for the beta, they’ll have a point — up to a point.

Because as you point out in your last e-mail, I am indeed looking for ways to make the individual experience within “Halo 3″ multiplayer more engaging and more inviting, particularly for newcomers. Otherwise, the same fate will befall “Halo 3″ as did its predecessors and fellow multiplayer games: It will calcify into something suited only to the hardcore. None of this, by the way, is meant to suggest that “Halo” is in any way broken for its devotees. It’s not. I’m just trying to figure out how Bungie can increase its appeal to the rest of us — no matter when we decide to Jump In, no matter how weak our skills might be, no matter whether we decide to take a break and then return.

My admittedly limited experience with “Halo 2″ and “Halo 3″ multiplayer has convinced me that matchmaking alone is insufficient to guarantee a rewarding online experience. In single-player mode, games are generally paced in such a way as to teach us how to play the game: They slowly increase the number of weapons, abilities and options; they gradually increase the difficulty; and they also provide a range of difficulty settings. In multiplayer, it often feels as though I’ve been thrown into a game where the difficulty has been set a couple of notches too high, coupled with unpredictable allies and enemies and a slew of options to choose from. Some might find that appealing and dive right in, but I find it as overwhelming as if someone were to hand me the controller halfway through “Ninja Gaiden Black” and say, “Now you play.” If single-player games were designed in this manner, with the game becoming more difficult to play the longer you take to purchase it, a lot fewer people would play games. And over the life span of a shooter, the net effect is polarizing: a large but stagnant group of experts and a much smaller number of novices, with not much of a continuum in between.

It doesn’t have to be this way. But the solutions aren’t exactly cheap. They will require more money, time, manpower and genuinely inventive thinking. And given how successful the “Halo” franchise has been to date, I’d be surprised if the brain trust in Redmond feels that any of the following additions are in order. Still, it can’t hurt to try, and I think that each of my ideas will actually appeal to the hardcore as well as the newbie. Moreover, none of these concepts takes away anything that the core gamer likes; they’re all additive.

The simplest solution to suggest and one of the hardest to implement is bots. By letting gamers practice — whether singly or in teams — against AI-controlled opponents, newcomers can learn the basics of weapons, equipment, geography, jumping and targeting in a more nurturing environment, while teams — newbies and vets alike — can practice their tactics and strategies, all before going online. (For bot matches with just one human player, imagine that this feature were paired with an optional 10-30 second rewind — think “Full Auto” or “Prince of Persia” — so that gamers could un-frag themselves and learn from their mistakes in real time.) The trick is that programming good bots is extremely hard work, which is why most multiplayer games don’t even bother. But the continued absence of bots from many such titles will only perpetuate the alienation of newcomers from these games.

Another solution is for the game to help players understand where to go and what to do once they get there. You and I recently got separate demonstrations of “Enemy Territory: Quake Wars,” and we both agreed that Splash Damage and id Software’s solution to this problem is ingenious. Just press the M key, and the CPU will assign you a mission specific to both your character class and the state of the conflict. An onscreen icon tells you where to go to complete your task while another highlights any allies who’ve accepted the same mission. Complete the mission, and you get not only recognition, but also the satisfaction that your accomplishment has taken your side one step closer to achieving its goal. Because of the clever way in which “Quake Wars” embeds a single-player experience within its objective-based multiplayer gameplay, I felt like a beautiful and unique snowflake (think “Fight Club,” not, uh, “Glory”) with something to offer the cause rather than a maggot with a major malfunction.

Since “Quake Wars” has a more elaborate set of the objectives than does “Halo 3,” it’s unlikely that this solution would entirely fit Bungie’s forthcoming opus. Bungie does, however, give you the option of recording your matches to the hard drive. Shouldn’t “Halo 3″ be able to provide me with a computer-aided analysis of what just went down? Imagine if the game could tell you that you were consistently aiming high and to the right; that you should have switched weapons in the firefight rather than reload; why the battle rifle might have been more useful than the shotgun in a particular situation; or some other contextual advice. This tool, which I’ve long wanted to see in “Madden,” would go a long way towards teaching newbies the ropes, while vets could use it to help eliminate any holes from their techniques.

My most provocative suggestion, however, would involve a change in how Microsoft doles out achievement points on a per-title basis. For titles like “Halo 3,” where multiplayer is half or more of the reason people buy the game, developers should be encouraged to include a multiplayer campaign mode with as many achievement points as single-player, effectively doubling the number of points available from that one game. This new multiplayer campaign mode would be an expansion of the training mode that you suggested, modeled after racing games like “Burnout” (maps and match types would be made available in tiers) and “Gran Turismo” (license tests for maps, weapons, equipment and match types) so that gamers are systematically trained for multiplayer — including team play and clan play — in much the same way that racing games teach us throughout single-player.

As I stated at the outset, all of my suggestions would be additive. So fear not, “Halo” champs: The vast majority of these achievement points would be earnable through regular online play, making the multiplayer campaign entirely optional. And as always, all maps, all weapons, all game types will be available to anyone from the start, so even trainees can duck in and out of the multiplayer campaign. But for newcomers, this new mode would steadily guide them from new recruits to grizzled vets by starting them out with, as you suggested, a limited number of weapons, maps and abilities and increasing them as players complete their in-game tests on sniping, jump-shooting, shield counter-attacking, team ambushes and the like.

At the first stage of the campaign, rookies would start out by being matched against bots to ease their way in. Subsequent stages would give gamers the option to complete some requirements against bots rather than humans, but as the multiplayer campaign continues, the ratio of achievements that can be completed against bots as opposed to humans would keep tipping towards the latter, because the campaign’s ultimate goal is to propel players online, with the confidence and the skills required to make “Halo 3″ a genuinely enjoyable experience. Think of it as “Halo Age: Train Your Trigger Finger in Minutes a Day,” with the disembodied heads of Dr. Frank O’Connor and Dr. Luke Smith encouraging us to stick it out. I’d sign up for that. Wouldn’t you?

Since you seem intent on my revealing what I think about “Halo 3″ ’s graphics, I’ll wrap up my final entry by doing so briefly. They seem just fine to me, and they are definitely an upgrade over “Halo 2.” However, I can see three reasons why a number of journalists and message board posters have said that it looks like an up-rezed version of “Halo 2.” First and foremost, we’re looking at “Halo 3″ multiplayer, not single-player — it would be as if the first time we saw “Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter” we were shown the online game rather than the campaign mode. Take out the netcode and other multiplayer requirements, and there’s enough horsepower left for a 50 percent graphical improvement, according to folks working on the game.

Second, “Halo” was art-directed around the limitations of the first Xbox. That doesn’t give Bungie the same kind of leeway that new IPs have to design their aesthetic from the ground up around today’s more powerful consoles; if they deviate too much from their established guidelines on color and style, it won’t be “Halo.” Finally, the critical acclaim and sales success of “Gears of War” have established a visual benchmark that many games are laboring under. Even though “Halo” is more about wide open battlefields than “Gears” ‘ urban combat, the expectations that “Gears” has set will negatively impact gamers’ reactions to a number of subsequent titles until it is consistently surpassed.

Thanks for sparring once again, and best of luck putting the final touches on your wedding.

Cheers,

N’Gai

To: N’Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: May 29, 2007
Re: Totilo 1, Fly 0

N’Gai,

Are you trying to make enemies with people? Really, are you?

I ask, because, if I read your letter right, you’ve called for Bungie to make future “Halo” games one-third bigger. You want the games to include lengthy multiplayer campaigns in addition to the single-player and competitive multiplayer modes they already typically contain? So either you want those Bungie folks to work harder or you want the games to take even longer to make, thereby enraging “Halo” fans. See that flicker on the horizon? I think I see a Spartan Laser setting you in its sights.

Now how about I be the good friend and step out in front to take the hit? (By the way, has there ever been a multiplayer shooter that rewarded players for the valor of taking one for the team? Make that an achievement!)

I think what you were really trying to say is that poor Bungie is a victim of its own success. Theirs is the rare game series that is beloved for both its single and multiplayer modes. Not many other top franchises can claim that. “Unreal Tournament,” “Street Fighter” and “Mario Kart” are all celebrated far more for their multiplayer than for their solo modes. “Final Fantasy,” “Tetris” and “Splinter Cell” are much more popular as solo games. Only “Call of Duty” and “Pokémon” come to mind as games that are championed as much for what you can enjoy playing them alone as you can competing with other people. We’ve talked about this. You actually noticed this first.

And it’s a great point, one worth bringing back up, because maybe the price Bungie will pay for having to make high-quality solo and competitive multiplayer modes is a lack of time, resources and focus to truly advance either the solo or multiplayer game development. The team will always have to split its collective intentions and never be able to advance either front as much as we’d want without making their game unwieldy in scope. Though imagine, if you will, if the minds at Bungie only had to think about multiplayer “Halo” for the last few years. Imagine what we’d be getting.

I think that’s the point you were trying to make, that Bungie has an unenviable, hard task tending to the “Halo” series. You didn’t mean them ill. But I think I still hear a Warthog rumbling in the background and heading straight for your position. So let me make sure they see that I’ve gotten you off the hook.

You didn’t mention it, but I think you were trying to hint to them that they should look at good old “Perfect Dark” on the Nintendo 64, a game so ahead of its time that when they made a sequel years later, they had to number the new one as a prequel. “Perfect Dark” was cool for many reasons. One was because the developers hid a piece of cheese in each level. Another was because it had one of the great level concepts of all time: Rescue the President on a hijacked Air Force One. And another was because it didn’t just have single-player. It didn’t just have competitive multiplayer. It also had co-op multiplayer, something crazy called counter-op (which looks like it will resurface in a game called “The Crossing”), and — get this — it had a multiplayer-map set of training missions called challenges that lurked within the game’s combat simulator. You played these challenges against — and sometimes with — computer-controlled bots. You could play them by yourself or with friends.

The challenges are what you and I are looking for in “Halo,” I think. You could use the challenges to train yourself in certain multiplayer situations. Objectives included stuff like Hold the Briefcase and your favorite King of the Hill. The bots were called Simulants in “Perfect Dark” and were named after their artificial intelligence routines. The PeaceSim always tried to disarm you. The JudgeSim always attacked the player in the lead. The CowardSim went after the least skilled players.

(A necessary note of praise: Some guy or girl named CyricZ did a bang-up job writing a “Perfect Dark” guide at GameFAQs. He or she not only listed Simulant difficulty levels but provided “real person equivalent[s].” For example, Cyric described EasySims as “your rheumatic grandmother or three-year-old cousin.” NormalSims are the “average person off the street, or your younger sibling of a few years.”)

So I believe what you were trying to mention to Bungie — without naming games and therefore hurting feelings — was that developers have been able to include 30-mission multiplayer training mode with bots in their first-person shooters before. You wanted them to find inspiration. I’m with you, man. I too believe Bungie can fly, N’Gai. I too believe they can touch the sky.

Since I’m defending you so capably, can I tell you about a game I just finished last night? It’s called “God Hand,” the only slapstick single-player brawling game I played last year, possibly because it was the only slapstick single-player brawling game that was made last year. I think you told me you didn’t get far. Well, I played it in easy mode so I could get somewhere on it, and that mode was still almost too tough for me. My guy, toughly named Gene, was killed a lot. He got slapped, punched and kicked in his family jewels. This game pummeled me as bad as the people in the “Halo 3″ beta.

But bit by bit I made progress. Bit by bit I managed to get Gene killed in new, more advanced places in the game’s adventure. (Speaking of getting pummeled by advanced competition, a fly just landed on my keyboard and when I typed the “G” in Gene I accidentally killed it. Sorry, little fly! You were my “Halo” newbie.) “God Hand” kept me playing because I saw a sign of progress: changing scenery. It gave me just enough success for each pile of failures that I wanted to keep playing.

Then I reached the game’s final boss battle and was handily crushed like a fly on the letter G. There was no more new scenery to be seen, just a final brick wall into which I could bash my head. I tried and failed to beat this wretched video game cliché of a boss — he was one of those bosses that consists of a floating head and two big hands; yeah, another one of those — three, four, five times. I died, died and died. I started thinking about my rep as a gaming reporter who finishes lots of games, and, honestly, I started thinking I would list a new category of games I failed at in their 11th hour. But I couldn’t leave that be, and I went back to it again and again. At last, I beat it. I crushed the hands and smacked the big cranium. Game complete. Roll credits.

What kept me striving in “God Hand” when similar failure in a few “Halo 3″ multiplayer maps drives me to the log-off button to end an early night? Besides the scenery-changing stuff, I think the difference is that offline games have long given me the sensation that I’m in control. I make a character move. I input commands. I own an inventory. I take missions. I deal with things. Video games put me in a driver’s seat, or at least create that illusion.

The jarring thing about playing “Halo 3″ and getting aced in it again and again is that it represents the opposite feeling: When I’m getting schooled on the Valhalla map I feel like I have almost no control. The skill disparity between me and my betters is such that I feel like I’ve got no handle on the situation. I’m not dealing with things. And that kind of experience, well, I’ve got enough of that in real life. It’s not an experience I look for in games.

Now does that mean there’s something wrong with the game? Or maybe there actually is something wrong with me. I’m having a hard time adjusting to the “Halo 3″ experience because I expect a sensation of control, not competition. But what are games — “Halo,” checkers, basketball — really about?

I think I’ve got you in the clear. I think you are safe now. But just in case you’re not yet, let me distract them.

Here goes: Hey, did I mention that I’m going to name the tables at my wedding after video game places? I think I’ll name one after that “Halo” mission called the Library. You know that mission? Everyone groans about it. So this wedding table will have to be really boring and tedious, full of people who repeat themselves.

There you go! Now Bungie will be after me instead. Of course, I just insulted some of my wedding guests! Sorry, folks.

-Stephen

On Tuesday, Stephen shared the first part of an e-mail debate he’s been having about “Halo 3” with N’Gai Croal of Newsweek (see “Vs. Mode: Newsweek And MTV News Argue Over ‘Halo 3′ (Round 1)”). They’re publishing the exchange here at MTVNews.com and on the “Level Up” blog on Newsweek’s site. They kept it cordial in the first round. Not anymore …

To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N’Gai Croal
Date: May 23, 2007
Re: Ducking and Covering

Stephen,

As usual, you’ve made some terrific points and posed some excellent questions. And as usual, I’m not going to answer them. Not right away, at least. Instead, I’m going to call you out. Because as terrific as your points and as excellent as your questions may be, I feel as though you’re ducking the elephant in the room (our mutual avoidance of online multiplayer gaming) and covering it up (with useful analogies about what “Halo” multiplayer may or may not be). We’re both newbs here, dammit, and we should fully engage the experience of that newbitude (yes, I’m bringing back my neologism grenades for this Vs. Mode sequel) rather than simply draw parallels between “Halo 3″ multiplayer and single player games, sports and television shows.

The reason I spent an entire post clearing my throat was to explain to our readers Why I Don’t Play “Halo” (Or Any Other Online Multiplayer Games, For That Matter.) Having done that, I promised them that I would jump in, and having done so, here is my report from the front lines. (Borrowing from a conceit I developed for my presently on-hiatus tech blog, The Revolution Will Not Be Digitized, my report will be delivered in the form of a brief playlist; the one I would have put on my limited-edition “Halo 3″ Zune, had I taken it out of its box.)

1. “Loser,” Beck: Anyone who steps into “Halo” multiplayer is going to die the way Chicagoans vote: early and often. To those who play online shooters on a regular basis, this point must seem hardly worth noting. To someone like myself, who tends towards single-player action-adventure games like “Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater” and “God of War II” and arcade-y action games like “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved” and “Every Extend Extra,” it’s extremely dismaying to step into a world that is visually indistinguishable from an action-adventure game, but has the death toll (mine) of an arcade-y action game. There’s something very public about the repeated failure that online shooters ask you to endure, and for me, it’s compounded by the fact that this ritual humiliation (note the small “h,” please, as I don’t want to overstate this) and occasional victory takes place largely around strangers. The social context of LAN parties that I described in my previous entry — all friends and acquaintances, gaming in the same physical location — obviously isn’t present in the grim (dare I say Spartan?), pseudonymous kill-or-be-killed arenas of “Halo 3.” Soy un perdidor, indeed.

2. “All By Myself,” Eric Carmen: Separately, I’ve met up with you and Level Up Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling, but our handful of shared experiences didn’t produce much in the way of coordinated action or in-game camaraderie. The real bonding took place during the after-action reports in the lobbies waiting for the next match to begin. During the games themselves, I felt as though I was pretty much on my own, but crucially and cruelly robbed of the narcissistic godhood around which single-player games are generally based — it wasn’t all about me anymore. In other words, I was spawned into a world where I was fundamentally alone, and the only sure thing was that I was going to die. Clearly, a lot of people take to these games like ducks to water, but as a newcomer, I can’t say that I found it inviting or welcoming. (By the way, Ziff-Davis’ 1UP Yours Podcast has an excellent discussion of what Bungie could do to make “Halo 3″ multiplayer more newb friendly; as newbs ourselves, perhaps we should take up some of those points in our next entries.)

3. “Let Go,” Frou Frou: After the nasty, brutish and short “Halo 2″ multiplayer experience I briefly described in my opening statement, I realized that I was going to need some guidance. That’s where Rolf came in. We partied up — this was still before Microsoft’s “Halo 3″ press event and subsequent release of the beta download — and Rolf offered me the choice of an objective-based mode like Capture the Flag, or something more free-for-all like King of the Hill. Having been thoroughly and repeatedly owned during a CTF match the night before, I opted for the latter.

Best. Decision. Ever.

After the couple of minutes it took me to get my sea legs, I gleefully gave myself over to the Hobbesian ecstasies of King of the Hill. The genius of this match type is its just-the-right-side of barely-controlled chaos: you rush to get to the “hill” as quickly as you can; you hold it for as long as you can; you terminate all of your rivals with extreme prejudice; your final scores is based on the cumulative amount of time you were able to hold the hill.

So if “Halo” single-player is built around the pockets of action that Bungie refers to as “Thirty seconds of fun,” King of the Hill is 15 seconds of fun, washed, rinsed and repeated ad nauseam, mercifully stripped of the various tensions necessary to make the more structured game types work. There’s no need for teamwork, patience, affordance, strategy, thought. Everything tactical is removed, but the presence of the hill gives it a focus — both in terms of the geography and the gameplay — that makes it more memorable and rewarding than a pure dog-kill-dog game of Slayer, a.k.a. deathmatch. Just so we’re clear: As a fan of the “Metal Gear” series, I’m obviously not opposed to tactical games, and I’ve stated some of the action games I like above. But when tactics and action are combined, as they are in multiplayer shooters, then topped with skill and accuracy, we’re starting to blow past the outer limits of my gaming abilities; in other words, those aren’t two great tastes that taste great together as far as my weaksauceness is concerned.

So even though the other night I managed to place third — barely — in a “Halo 3″ Team Slayer match, my achievement felt hollow because I’m really not that good. It was pure blind luck in a game type that seems as though it should be about skill. Meanwhile, I’m still buzzing about my King of the Hill session in “Halo 2″ because of the expert way it scratched my arcade itch. That, then, was my final revelation about King of the Hill: It’s structured in such a way that death doesn’t feel like a failure, or even much of a setback the way it does to me in the other game types. It’s merely a brief this-second-is-a-good-second-to-die interregnum between virtual killing sprees, making it more like arcade-y action games I praised earlier; it felt like “Every Extend Extra” or “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved,” in 3-D, with human opponents. Finally, my narcissistic divinity was restored, even if I was just a minor deity facing off against the petty god-avatars of other human beings. Finally, at long last, I had found a little piece of “Halo” that I could call my own.

4. “Simon Says,” Pharoahe Monch: This final track is here to express my hope that you’ll — pardon my Xbox Live — get the f— up off the sidelines (rhetorically speaking) and join me down here in the rumble pit in trying to grapple with the experience of playing “Halo” multiplayer.

Cheers,

N.

To: N’Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: May 24, 2007
Re: Forget “Halo 3.” Why Don’t They Offer “Halo 101″?

N’Gai,

So the guy who agrees to partner up with me for an exchange about “Halo 3″ — but then decides to not answer any questions I have for him — is shocked about the inability for me and him to cooperate effectively when we’re actually playing the game?

Fancy that.

It reminds me of the time last week when we teamed up for a match in the “Halo 3″ beta and you shot my guy in the head with the sniper rifle. Mistake, right?

The experience I’ve had of playing “Halo” multiplayer as a newbie and failing with death after death is indeed bringing me back. It’s like playing an old arcade game or any of those so-called NES “classics” with the ridiculous jumps. Then and now, I see my character dying a lot. When this happened in the old games I blamed the games’ designers. Or, in less rational moments, I blamed the hardware. “Why’d the developers make that jump so hard?”… or … “I hit the A button! Why didn’t my guy jump?” Playing “Halo 3″ beta and getting smoked again and again is a nostalgia trip, except now I blame other players. They’re too good. They’re hustling me. They’re ranked wrong.

Notice whose fault my failure never is.

It sounds like you’re looking for ways to make the solo-ing in “Halo” more fun. I’m with you. I too feel the sting of frequent defeat and would prefer a more delirious buzz (see “Multiplayer: The Elusive Joy of Losing — A Proposal for ‘Halo 3′ “). I think, however, that I’ve failed to appreciate one nice touch Bungie has already put in the game: the ranking system. When I’m a Level 4 and I’m getting whacked by Level 8 opponents, I can deal. I have been nervous when the matchmaking system makes me the highest-ranked person in a match. Then I feel the responsibility to outshine everyone else. And when I’ve inevitably struggled to do so, I tell myself it’s because everyone else saw my king-size rating and decided to go gunning for me.

Now, I’ll have you know, Mr. Third Place, that in the course of the “Halo 3″ beta I finished a Team Slayer match in second place once. Second place! The brilliant performance was all my doing. I’ve also won some Team Skirmish “Territories” games, though that was mostly because the three other guys on my team were better at grabbing land than a baseball team that wants a site for a new stadium.

I have not played King of the Hill. I have not had a triumphant session as a lone Spartan soldier. I’ve primarily enjoyed the cover of team games. I have tasted the joy of team play and hope to transform myself from jovial bench-warmer to power-player. Like you, however, I have yet to enjoy the serendipity of teamwork in matches. I’ve yet to find a friend on the battlefield, hatch a plan so crazy it just might work and then rocket to the number-one spot on the stats list.

But let’s be completely honest, N’Gai, and admit to the readers that we’re such neophytes that when we played the same maps together we couldn’t even get the Team Chat function working. We weren’t working together because we couldn’t talk to each other. I do recall one map where a player far better than us — so talented that he even knew how to use the Team Chat function! — effectively guided our little band of half-brothers to momentary mid-match success. Then he stopped coaching us, yelling something about desperately needing cover fire, and we went back to losing our match.

That match left me thinking about teamwork in these games and what kind of teamwork is the most fun and even how a game might be designed to emphasize that type of teamwork. I could certainly diverge into a discussion of why co-op story-based multiplayer might therefore be a more appealing feature than competitive arena-combat multiplayer for neophyte players like us. I could explain how that kind of solid contiguous mission structure could diminish our moments of blind flailing. But if I went into any of that you’d scold me for not talking about the “Halo 3″ experience.

So, yeah, I think the experience of team-based multiplayer is tops — like the time I got in the back turret of a Warthog jeep in “Halo 3,” had another player jump in the driver’s seat and proceeded to collaboratively mow through the enemy forces. Oh wait. I’m remembering that wrong. The last time I tried that, I jumped in the jeep, manned the turret, and then waited for someone to get in the driver’s seat. They didn’t. I just stood there.

The question for me is how a newbie can learn good team tactics. Solve that and you’ve solved one of the few problems that “Halo” clearly has. That problem is that the “Halo” virus has limited potency. The series is a fever that’s hard to catch if you didn’t catch it within a few months of when your friends did. I’ve found that if you didn’t, then playing “Halo” with them winds up being a pointless exercise for both sides. The skill gap is just too great. Bridge that gap and “Halo” — and other skill-based video games — could welcome an ever-expanding base of players rather than a large but exclusively skilled set.

How do newbie players get better? Throwing them on the battlefield or expecting them to learn through the single-player mode of the game aren’t the best answers. Need I remind you that I beat “Halo” and that hasn’t helped me a lick on the multiplayer of “Halo 3″?

How about if some players online could lend me a helping hand? Let me share something with you: I’m such an expert gamer that I’m a bona fide level 12 druid in “World of Warcraft” (just about the equivalent of not even having put the quarter in the “Pac-Man” machine yet, if you can’t catch my sarcasm). In my brief time in “WoW” I had one player spot my newbitude (or can we call it “casualosity”?) and did he challenge me to a duel and smite me with a blood spell? No, he offered me help. On the battlefield of “Halo 3″ there is no helping hand. There’s not even a Molly Pitcher. Then again, on the battlefield of “Halo 3″ there’s not a person who likes helping me — rather than blood-spelling me — so much that, the next time I log in, he warps to my spot, turns into bear form, licks my character’s face, and gives me pause to ever log into the game again. But there’s also no help. Not much. It’s, at most, a 16-player game. People need to survive in “Halo,” not give classes.

I do have an idea that would help us neophytes. You know how in single-player games you often learn one ability at a time, gain one new weapon or tool every few minutes but never have everything thrown at you all at once in a situation in which you’re expected to excel? Imagine bringing that kind of pacing to multiplayer. Imagine being able to play multiplayer in training tiers: first maybe a map where jumping is disabled, then a map where jumping is enabled but shooting without both feet on the ground is not, then turn on a couple of extra weapons in the next map, then some heavier weapons in the one after that. Some of that map customization is already in the game, but not all of it. I think that kind of training routine could help a lot of players.

I expect some people might think this would be unpopular. Only newbies would want it, and what good is that? It would be like opening the local gym only to first-timers for a day. Having some trainers around is preferable. How do you get the experienced players — the potential trainers — to participate in the training maps? Simple: Give out 100 Achievement points for any player that puts three hours into the training maps as student or teacher. Those expert gamers do love collecting their Achievement points. Problem solved.

How would you make “Halo” friendlier to new players?

And, oh yeah, is there anything wrong with the graphics?

-Stephen

Every once in a while — meaning every day or two — I get into a lengthy video game debate with my friend and fellow video game reporter N’Gai Croal from Newsweek magazine. After years of clogging each other’s IM windows with witty rejoinders about why “Zelda” is or isn’t superior to “Metal Gear” and about what must be done to restore fighting games to their glory, we’ve decided to take our debates public. What follows here and will unfold over the next few days both here at MTVNews.com and at N’Gai’s “Level Up” blog at Newsweek’s site is our discussion of a game that has stressed us both out quite a bit: “Halo 3.” N’Gai starts this one off pleasantly enough with a trip down memory lane — but this thing heats up, as you’ll see over the next few days …

To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N’Gai Croal
Date: May 9, 2007
Re: I Want To Be Alone

Stephen,

One hour into my “Halo 2″ refresher course — the high-pitched voices of barely pubescent boys coming through loud and clear in my headset — I find myself wondering whose bright idea it was to make the “Halo 3″ multiplayer beta the subject of our second Vs. Mode pairing. (Damn my fellow Canadians at BioWare for their tardiness with “Mass Effect.”) As if it weren’t enough that our first exchange revealed my complete ignorance of the “Zelda” franchise, this one will expose my deep-seated indifference to the online component of action games. That’s why every fiber of my being is screaming, “Let’s scrap our plan and pick something else.” Still, there’s something perversely appealing about being forced to find something interesting to say about an aspect of action games — online multiplayer — that, while I recognize its importance, generally leaves me cold. Besides, isn’t that why they pay me the big bucks? So, once more into the breach.

It’s not you, “Halo 2.” It’s me.

The first online game that I remember playing was back in 1989 or 1990. I don’t remember the name of the game, but it was a top-down tank combat game for DOS PCs, and it had a two-player head-to-head mode that could be played via modem. A classmate of mine had the same game and there was something subtly magical about the way a blazing-fast 2600 baud modem could collapse the 30-minute walking distance between our suburban houses into a you-are-almost-there experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t have two phone lines, so the thrill of trash-talking my friend was limited to pre-game and post-game chatter. That’s why we spent a lot more time playing the decidedly analog tabletop game “Axis & Allies” in my parents’ rec room than we did playing tank vs. tank over the modem; the former offered a much more social experience than the latter.

During my time in college from 1990 to 1994, I didn’t spend much time playing games. My freshman roommate had a PC, and when he wasn’t using it, I alternated between playing two simulation games: an Apache helicopter title and a college hoops coaching game. As for multiplayer gaming, I do remember a number of occasions where myself and four other guys in my freshman dorm would cram into the computer cluster, commandeer all of the Macs and play Risk over the LAN. A good time was had by all, made more fun by the side-by-side game time banter.

When I got out of college in 1994, I went to work at The Washington Post in the wonderfully vague role of content producer for the newspaper’s nascent online service. We worker bees were mostly in our 20s and 30s, and when we weren’t swapping stories about how far we’d gotten in the greatest game ever made — yes, that evolutionary dead end called “Myst” — we were silently counting down the hours, minutes and seconds until quitting time. Because right at 6 p.m., all thoughts of work were obliterated as we fired up “Doom” on our office PCs and gleefully blasted each other to smithereens for the next 90 minutes, the only sounds being those of our playful insults and cheers bouncing off the cubicle walls. Ditto for “Doom II.”

In the spring of 1995, I joined Newsweek and pretty much stopped gaming recreationally. It wasn’t until August of 1999, when, curious about how much game development had evolved since the days of “Myst” and “Doom,” I got my editors to send me on a three-week tour of the industry. Beginning with Bungie in Chicago and ending with Dennis “Thresh” Fong in Berkeley, I also hit id Software, Ion Storm, a slew of Gathering of Developers’ studios, Sony, Sega and Microsoft. Since this was just a few weeks before the launch of the Dreamcast, for which “NFL 2K” was one of the flagship titles, it piqued my interest in online console gaming. But after a few random football matches with strangers, I lost interest. Many more of my multiplayer experiences on the dearly departed Dreamcast were had playing “Soul Calibur,” and later “Virtua Tennis” and “Dead or Alive 2,” with my opponents seated right next to me. (Ditto for PC multiplayer; I’ve pretty much thoroughly avoided playing such games online, but a fellow tech journalist who lives in Manhattan has for years periodically hosted LAN parties that last into the wee hours of the morning. Good, good times.)

My heretofore unexplored lack of interest in online multiplayer didn’t change much with the release of the PlayStation 2 or the Xbox. Apart from playing a handful of games with publicists and fellow journalists at industry events and online hands-on sessions (i.e. “SOCOM,” “Halo 2,” “Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory” and “Doom III”), or dabbling with a few more titles shortly after they shipped (mostly “Madden,” “Burnout” and “NBA Live”), I was pretty much M.I.A., or AWOL, depending on you look at it. And with the exception of a few quick bouts of “Gears of War” and “Resistance: Fall of Man,” the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 simply haven’t forged in me the love of online multiplayer that warms the hearts of so many gamers, like Level Up’s own Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling. But in the interest of Vs. Mode, I’m willing to use the “Halo 3″ multiplayer beta as a springboard to see whether there’s a place for me somewhere in this vast connected arena.

Cheers,
N’Gai

To: N’Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: May 19, 2007
Re: Is Halo 3 Baseball, Basketball or Survivor?

N’Gai,

It’s been 10 days since you wrote me. Like a certain Nintendo-made first-person adventure game, I’m late.

I’ve been busy, as have you. Some of that time was spent playing the “Halo 3″ beta, which went live since you wrote me. A lot of other things have happened in gaming since then. Sega, Square, Sony and Ubisoft showed off their 2007 games lineup in press events in America and Japan. Tecmo announced the return of “Tecmo Bowl.” Blizzard announced a sequel to “StarCraft.” The official release date for “Halo 3″ was announced. And the people who track video game sales in America, the NPD group, reported a shocking disparity in “Pokemon” sales: the series’ 2007 “Pokemon Diamond” outselling the counterpart “Pokemon Pearl” 1,000,000 to 700,000 in the games’ first month. (I’m a “Pearl” man myself.)

Just 10 days brought all of that.

I’d like to say it’s your e-mail that got me thinking about all that can happen during the passage of time. You certainly were in a reflective mood yourself when you kicked off this exchange. You even made me a little nostalgic: in that August of 1999 you cited we were just becoming friends, you were just beginning to find excuses not to play “Zelda,” and your dreadlocks were just beginning, measuring at a couple of feet short of their current J Allard length.

But it wasn’t your e-mail. I’ve always been reflective, nostalgic … and I guess a bit of a sap. As a kid I used to get depressed on New Year’s Eve. With the rest of my family in the living room I would go to my room and sadly remove the last year’s 12-month calendar from my wall, flipping through the pages one last time to glimpse receding memories.

So … “Halo 3.” What does any of this have to do with “Halo 3″? It’s got everything to do with “Halo 3,” because I’m thinking about the passage of time and the amount of stuff that happens during such passages. How much do we expect to have happen in gaming between May 9 and May 19? How much do we expect to have happen from 2004 to 2007? How much can gaming change, and how much should a game series change?

I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how surprisingly similar this multiplayer-only “Halo 3″ beta looks and feels to multiplayer of the first two “Halo” games. I’ve heard a lot of grumbling that those similarities are a problem.

Now you didn’t play “Halo” and “Halo 2″ much. Neither did I. I beat the first game in single-player. I went halfway through the second. I played less than 10 hours of multiplayer of either game. Never mind that. I’ve played enough and you’ve played enough to know what this “Halo 3″ multiplayer beta indicates: they haven’t really changed the game.

Like the first two installments, “Halo 3″ plays out as a quickly-paced first-person shooter that rewards strategic team play. A good offense requires map memorization and a skilled hand at making your character hop and shoot at the same time. A good defense requires management of the series’ signature regenerating-health system. “Halo” experts will scoff that I’m oblivious to some profoundly subtle developments in “Halo,” some key tweak to character turning speeds or Warthog handling.

The introduction of new X-button-triggered gadgets like the bubble shield and the trip mine is the one definitive addition. At best that’s like the NBA’s 1979 introduction of the three-point shot. It may tweak the game, but it’s not overhauling it.

The passage of time just hasn’t changed “Halo” series a lot. Is this a problem?

When last we debated, I railed against repetition in game sequels. My Kratos critique was that “God of War II,” although lots of fun, was too safely cut from the cloth of the first game to impress and impact me the way I hoped it would. Ready to call me a flip-flopper? I’m here today to tell you: I like that “Halo 3″ is playing it safe. I like the lack of radical change.

The difference between “God of War” and “Halo” multiplayer is that one is an adventure of narrative and gameplay. The other is enjoyed as a sport. I crave constant re-invention in the former. I assume perfection and stability is possible in the latter.

Sometimes a sporting formula just works. Take baseball. About a century ago someone figured out that 90 feet was a good distance between home plate and first base. Since then pitchers and batters have gotten stronger. Runners have gotten faster. Baseball strategies have changed. Pitchers’ mounds have been modified. Yet nothing has ruined those 90 feet. It still is just long enough — and just short enough — to make for exciting plays. The dimensions just work.

Is “Halo” baseball? Has Bungie already nailed the 90 feet?

Or maybe “Halo” is basketball back in 1953, just before the introduction of the 24-second shot clock. Before the clock was added basketball was played at a slower pace. The sport was still about tossing a bouncing ball through a hoop, but the shot-clock forced play to be much more swift.

The “Halo” formula might well be baseball already. Then again, it might be basketball before the shot clock was added.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe “Halo” isn’t a sport and maybe it shouldn’t be treated as if it can be as pure as one. Maybe it’s more like “Survivor.” You know the show, right? A bunch of people are sent to a jungle, get forced into all sorts of odd tasks and get to vote each other off, one TV episode at a time? I used to watch it regularly, and back when I did I noticed that the rules changed regularly. Those fundamental voting rules didn’t, but many of the specific day-to-day ones did. Challenges changed. Tribes were shuffled. Monkey wrenches were thrown.

“Halo” multiplayer games have always been full of tribal challenges: Capture the Flag, Slayer deathmatch, King of the Hill. We’ve got VIP mode and Oddball mode. The challenges get mixed every time, even if getting voted off the island consistently involves getting tagging from a hop-and-shoot enemy. If “Halo” isn’t baseball. If “Halo” isn’t basketball. If it’s “Survivor,” then, yes, it could use more of a remix.

Brian Crecente from Kotaku told me that he is disappointed that “Halo” doesn’t allow players to fire from a protected hiding spot behind cover. He believes “Gears of War” popularized that element of shooter action and that “Halo 3″ could use that … or something. On his blog, he wrote:

“I suppose I shouldn’t have been expecting them to reinvent the wheel, but it would have been nice to see some sort of shift in gameplay, something that Halo 3 most certainly doesn’t do.”

He’s looking for a significant change. Me? I’m thinking the “Halo” formula is pretty well locked, more of a “Mario Kart” or “Gran Turismo” than the constantly reinvented multiplayer of “Splinter Cell” or the still up-for-dabbling “Burnout.”

I leave you with this question: what do we need from our multiplayer sequels? Constant change? Consistent execution of a proven formula?

What do you think? And how about you open this up to that other element of the similarities between “Halo 3″ and the previous games: the looks. Should they have overhauled the graphics?

-Stephen

Plus: ‘Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam,’ ‘Infernal,’ ‘FreeStyle Street Basketball.’

Once a week I’ve provided a Stock Report to give you a sense of which games are streaming into the office and how companies are trying to grab our attention. The games arrive at my desk throughout the day, throughout the week, hand-delivered by our men in the mailroom. What I receive and am tallying below are the final store-ready copies of games. If I got it, your local gaming store probably got it this week too. I just don’t think the game stores get the swag. That’s fair. I don’t get the giant cardboard stand-ups of Turok the dinosaur hunter and the dog from “Duck Hunt.”

The Stock Report:

Number of games at MTV HQ: 305
Last three games to arrive: “Mario Party 8 ” (Wii), “Touch the Dead” (DS). “FreeStyle Street Basketball” (PC)
Last system to arrive: Xbox 360 Elite
Last gaming-related item to arrive: “Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators,” photojournalist Robbie Cooper’s coffee-table book showcasing photos of players of massively multiplayer games and their avatars (see “Role-Playing Gamers Let Photographer Behind Their Online Mask”)
Last swag to arrive: A bag of sky-blue cotton candy to help promote “Mario Party 8″

Notes on the games we received this week (and last — because we skipped a week):

“Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam” (PS2 - *SISW)
» This game, like “Rayman Raving Rabbids” from the last Stock Report (see “Multiplayer Stock Report: Lunatic Rabbits And ‘Spider-Man 3′ “), was originally a Wii launch title. At the time, its developers described it as a project tailor-made for the Wii: a downhill skateboarding title that used the motion-sensitive Wii controller for steering and tricking and — with a shake — speeding up (see “For ‘Downhill’ Wii Game, Tony Hawk Put Life On Line So You Don’t Have To”).
» The game joins EA’s “Medal of Honor: Vanguard” and Rockstar’s upcoming “Manhunt 2″ as titles that are appearing on the PS2 and the Wii but not the Xbox 360 and PS3. That marriage of two relatively cheap and similarly powered consoles has the potential to bring new life to Sony’s old machine and added support to Nintendo’s new one.

“Shrek the Third” (Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 - *SISW)
» These games are based on “Shrek the Third.”

“Infernal” (PC - *SISW)
» The box for this M-rated game features a man holding a pistol. His arm is on fire. If that means his arm has special powers, then this game could be grouped with last year’s “God Hand” and the upcoming “Devil May Cry 4″ and “Dark Sector,” which also feature power-limbs.
» The back of the box explains that “Infernal” gamers will play as Ryan Lennox, a renegade angel who is up against “Etherlight, Heaven’s own secret agency.”
» Players are invited to “unleash Hell on Earth!” Among the enticements of the “Infernal” experience are realistic physics, diabolical powers and “balls-out gunplay.”

“Mario Party 8” (Nintendo Wii)
» The eighth “Mario Party” in a little more than eight years, this game was covered earlier this week in Multiplayer (see “Multiplayer: Late To The ‘Mario Party’ “).

“Touch the Dead” (Nintendo DS)
» The “touch” part of the title refers to the way players shoot zombies in this M-rated game: by tapping them with the DS stylus as they creep forward on the system’s touch-screen.
» Will there be a game with better box art this year? That’s uncertain. The cover of this game features an encroaching member of the undead. This zombie has a hole in his head just big enough that a bird can be seen though it, flying through the sky beyond.
» Will there be a game with better box copy this year? In an allusion to Nintendo’s popular “Brain Training” DS games, the “Touch the Dead” box reads: “Some games want to train your brain. We just want to eat it.”

“FreeStyle Street Basketball” (PC)
» This is a three-on-three online basketball game imported from Asia and graphically redone for an American audience.
» The game costs $20 to buy at the store but is free to play online. What publisher Sierra Online is also importing from Asia, though, is a popular practice there to let players buy upgrades for their characters. Some basketball skill improvements and wardrobe changes can be earned through continued and successful play. Other improvements and accessories will cost real money. This model of free basic play and paid enhancements is successful overseas. The American publisher Acclaim is building an entire business around games of this type.

*SISW = still in shrink-wrap (we’ll get to them later!)

Our games reporter isn’t sure the ‘Puzzle Quest’ mash-up is fun, but it definitely works.

There are times in life when one says something that sounds — the moment the words reach the air — like it was spoken by one’s parents. These are the times when one feels old, uncertain … somewhat horrified.

I’ve had a game called “Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords” in my Nintendo DS recently. It has surprised me a few ways. Among the shocks, it sometimes makes me feel like I’m my mom. I didn’t expect that and some other shocks when I started playing my first role-playing-puzzle game.

“Puzzle Quest” is a hybrid game. It is a mash-up of old “Final Fantasy“-style adventuring and the match-three-colored-gems-in-a-row puzzle game “Bejeweled.” Consider it a merger of one kind of game popular with many people under 30 and another game that is a favorite of people on the other side of that age.

In “Puzzle Quest,” I play the heroic knight Osodor. I move him across a map full of castles and taverns and dragon lairs. I accept quests, gain gold coins and get points for my victories and steadily level up my guy’s battle, cunning and fire-mastery stats. That’s the “FF” part. When I have Osodor actually fight dragons and other knight-hating foes, the battles are conducted as “Bejeweled”-style contests. Each combatant has a set number of health points and takes turns trying to move and match gems on an 8-inch-by-8-inch grid. Lining three skulls in a row causes damage of five points to the enemy; a buildup of vital red (fire) magic power can be turned back into a blaze attack in a later turn; three clusters of gold coins yield a cash bonus; and so forth.

My first “Puzzle Quest” surprise was that the mash-up works. I’m not even saying whether it’s fun, just that it works. That alone is an exceptional feat. I could pick two game genres from a hat and claim they can be combined. How about a hybrid of a fighting game crossed with “Sim City“? How about “Guitar Hero” merged with “Ridge Racer“? Could the games be combined in a way that got the best out of both styles? How about a combination of “Tetris” and “Galaga“? I’ve played that last one. It’s called “Invalid Tangram” and it actually works as a game that is equal parts of its inspirations (see “GameFile: Independent Games Festival; ‘Crush’; Lily Allen In Simlish & More”). “Puzzle Quest” proves that a puzzle game can be used to connect elements of an adventure game. The combo works.

My second surprise was that, the more I have played “Puzzle Quest” over the last few days, the more I’ve had the thought pop into my had that I have essentially been playing a glorified version of “Bejeweled.” And that is something I would expect my mom to be doing, not me. What’s next, a match of “Halo” that plays out as a bunch of “Zuma” or “Tetris” games? Would I fall for that too?

Several people I know are playing “Puzzle Quest” obsessively. It has devoured their free time. I’ve gingerly asked them if anything seems wrong with the game, if there’s any aspect that begins to bother them after the first few hours of novelty pass. So far only one has said his opinion of the game has soured “for all kinds of complicated reasons.” That friend is leaving me in suspense, but I wonder if the issue for him is that he also has been made to feel he’s playing a game he shouldn’t be playing. After all, isn’t “Bejeweled” a game for people with simple gaming tastes? Isn’t it a game for moms? Shouldn’t I be playing more complex stuff?

What I sense I’m experiencing is a conflict of my perceived refined gamer self and the reality of a pop-friendly style of game I had previously avoided. It’s kind of like being a music snob and then having a favorite band cover a catchy pop song. Should I resist or accept?

My third surprise from “Puzzle Quest” is where I’ve seen the game. Understand the context when I explain that I now see skulls and colored gems everywhere. When I step on the elevator at work I get excited that two of the illuminated elevator buttons are one combo-making move away from a third. On my computer desktop I notice that sliding one folder into the same row as three others would form a string worthy of a free “Puzzle Quest” turn. I wrote about the experience of seeing a game even after you’ve turned it off before (go here and scroll down to the February 6 entry of Multiplayer to read the piece). I can deal with that phenomenon when I’m seeing buildings to jump over. I’m not sure I can handle the world in front of me suddenly looking like a “Bejeweled” board.

I welcome games that surprise me, even if they make me question my very identity as a gamer. Am I me? Am I becoming my mom? Am I now a combo-stringing obsessive in need or reorganizing my sock drawer?

“Puzzle Quest” is available now on the Nintendo DS and PSP. The game’s publisher, D3, has also promised the title for Xbox Live Arcade later this year.

There have been eight “Mario Party” games. On Tuesday (May 22) I played my first.

A week prior to the game’s official release, Nintendo sent me a copy of “Mario Party 8.” I’ll be honest. I’ve only given the game about 30 minutes, 19 of them Tuesday morning, according to my Wii’s “Today’s Play History” feature. But I wonder: Is it possible to be tired of a game before you’ve ever played it?

I may be a “Mario Party” novice, but the series is probably familiar to a lot of people reading this. There’s been a new “Mario Party” every year since 1999 except for 2006, three on the Nintendo 64 and four on the GameCube. How could you miss them? The games star Mario and his friends, foes and family as figures on a virtual board game. The draw is the collection of dozens of mini-games in each “Mario Party,” competitions that spark up among players between board-game rounds or when special squares on the board are activated. The mini-games can also be played on their own. They’re usually pretty simple: Players put their characters through a quick footrace, a timing challenge, a balloon-popping contest, or a push through a crowd of penguins. Stuff like that.

I’ve always heard that the “Mario Party” games are good. I’ve just never seen one get a blockbuster review score, and no one has ever told me that I just have to play one. So I’ve let them slide. Then a version for the Wii was announced sometime last year, and I figured that a new edition of the franchise stuffed with mini-games designed for the motion-sensitive Wii remote could be a blast.

Something got in the way. Make that 401 somethings. Between the release of the Wii and the delivery of “Mario Party 8” from MTV mailroom guy to my hands, I’ve played “Wii Sports,” “Wii Play,” “Wario Ware: Smooth Moves,” “Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz,” “Sonic and the Secret Rings” and “Rayman: Raving Rabbids.” These games are either genuine mini-game collections or single-player games that include a generous helping (read: more than 40) of mini-games. Combined, these games include 401 mini-games, all designed for the Wii’s motion-sensitive controller. Here are just a few of the things I’ve done via those 401: I’ve bowled, played golf, thrown darts, hang-glided, rolled a ball, danced, hurled cows, played Simon Says and even — in one “WarioWare” mini-game — dropped the controller. I’ve played mini-games that harness the Wii remote like it’s a magic wand; others that are so unresponsive I might as well be trying to run it with a controller from my Xbox 360 or through the power of positive thinking.

I haven’t played all 401, but I’ve played a lot. So when “Mario Party 8″ shuttled into the office with its Nintendo press release promise of “dozens of new mini-games,” I didn’t rush for a sharp object with which to tear off the game’s shrink wrap. It’s not “Mario Party”’s fault — this game could be a gem. Blame Nintendo scheduling.

Heavily supported game genres have wilted before. Seven years ago you could go into a game store and ride a slope’s worth of snowboarding games: “1080,” “Amped,” “Cool Boarders,” “Dark Summit” and “SSX” all vied for attention. Companies just don’t make many snowboarding games. In the last year, however, the only video game snowboarding I’ve come across is a new “SSX” and some snowboarding mini-games in that 401. Did the glut of snowboarding games kill people’s interest? Or was it some other factor?

I don’t know the answer. I can only speak from my experience as a Wii owner who has seen enough of one style of game that I struggle to find the interest to play anymore. I’ve heard from game developers that these mini-game compilations are the result of developers testing ideas with the Wii’s novel controller. They are the tests that can give way to full, more focused games.

I’ve also seen the success of “Wii Play,” one of the runaway video game best-sellers in the first half of the year. The mini-game compilation might be the wave of the future. It could be the ascendant style of game, sort of like the first-person shooter was when “Doom” made them popular in the ’90s, or the open-world game was when “Grand Theft Auto III” popularized that style in 2001. Mini-game grumps like me might just have to deal with it.

Nintendo’s recently announced Wii summer lineup includes a Mario soccer game, a new “Metroid” and a “Battalion Wars” sequel, all of which, I believe, are devoid of mini-games — at least not that I’ve heard of.

They won’t stick any in, will they?

I always thought Lara Croft and Hitman would make a cute couple, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Famed MTV video games journalist Stephen Totilo is in need of a bit of help putting a gaming twist on his upcoming wedding reception. At the suggestion of his future wife, they have decided to name all their tables after locations in video games. Hit the jump for the list as it stands right now, but they need about six more. Any suggestions are completely welcome.

Read more…

SAN DIEGO — At the Game Developers Conference in March, Sony’s PlayStation team stole the show with debuts of two big projects for the PS3: a side-scroller called “LittleBigPlanet,” designed for gamers to create and share levels, and a virtual landscape and social-networking service called “Home.” Last week, the company finally let reporters play early versions of them. Were they as fun as they first appeared?

In my hands, “LittleBigPlanet” lived up to some of the promise of its GDC debut (see “Multiplayer: Is ‘EverQuest’ Sexier Than ‘Street Fighter’?”). At PlayStation Gamers Day in San Diego, in front of a high-definition TV running the GDC level of the game, I took control of a little big-headed character dressed as Evel Knievel. I ran him through a brick-bottom obstacle course littered with oranges, towers of burlap blocks and all sorts of dangling threads and chains from which to swing.

“LBP” is meant to be played in groups. Three other people darted through the course with me, including Brian Crecente from gaming blog Kotaku. He’ll probably be getting a letter from my lawyer any day for “reporting” that he was “repeatedly b—h-slapping” me in the game when he should know full well that I slapped him back plenty of times. Said slaps were triggered with flicks of the PS3 controller’s right analog stick, from a down-left to an up-right position. Looking out to the viewers, the little character would put his hand to his opposite hip and then swat it back. I sent Crecente’s scarf-wearing elf flying a couple of times. I’m sure of it. A Sony producer who was too classy to do any slapping explained that the finished game will be full of context-sensitive actions and emotions: slaps, hugs, smiles and dejected moping.

The game enchants because of its physics. Players can make their characters grab objects and other players’ characters with a tap of a button. Through with slapping and getting slapped, I grabbed another player’s character by the hand and helped him up. I found a chain with a rocket pack attached and put it on. Then I grabbed Crecente’s guy by the hand and rocketed up to the sky. For a moment, he assumed I was helping him reach a high ledge. Then he figured out I was just rocketing him to the top of the board so I could drop him. Then I realized that I had reached the length of my chain and we both went plummeting to the ground. At the demo’s end, three of us jumped our little guys onto a skateboard while the Sony producer pushed us all down a slope. We picked up speed and made a jump. The game was light, airy and as fun as advertised.

We were not allowed to see the other “LittleBigPlanet” levels or mess around with the game’s vaunted character- and level-creation tools. Since those are the elements that are supposed to make “LBP” more than just a multiplayer “Mario” game, it’s really too early to say whether the game is going to be all that the thousands who cheered it at GDC hope it will be.

“LittleBigPlanet” was the product I was most eager to test-run at Sony’s event. “Home” was the second. “Home” also debuted at GDC, though word leaked early via that shady Crecente’s Kotaku blog. It was described by everyone but people from Sony as a “Second Life“-style world (see “Sony Unveils Big PS3 Secret: Gamers Get To Go ‘Home’ “). It gives every PS3 owner an avatar and opens up networked lobbies and apartments in which gamers can congregate. I’ve flown through “Second Life,” which is a grand-scale experience. Not everyone likes it, but few could deny that it feels open and big. “SL” users can create objects, architecture and even new bodies using the online world’s software. The simple ability to fly allows world residents to explore that creativity in three vast virtual dimensions.

It’s with that frame of reference that I experienced “Home,” and I was struck by how small it felt. Small isn’t necessarily a bad thing — it can suggest intimate, convenient, straightforward and cozy.

I started my session of “Home” in a virtual private apartment. I controlled a realistic-looking guy, my avatar. A couple of pictures hung on the apartment wall. A chair and a candlestick were on the floor. A Sony press person showed me how to change the photos on the wall, accessing saved shots on the PS3 hard drive. I walked out into a lobby where a couple of other users’ avatars milled about. I approached them and selected an option to dance. Then I cued up a virtual PSP and teleported to a movie theater. My character was in a big multiplex lobby. One screening room was set to show the “Spider-Man 3″ trailer. I walked my guy into it, and, surprisingly, he disappeared. The view switched to the inside of the screening room. No avatars — not mine, not anyone else’s — were in there. On the virtual big screen, the trailer played.

I produced the virtual PSP again and warped out to an arcade. I sauntered my guy over to a bowling area. Other people had their characters standing in the other lanes. I approached an open one and chose the option to bowl. The view switched to a centered view of the lane I chose. My character disappeared again. I could only see the ball. With a couple of button taps, I bowled two in the gutter. I zapped back out and went to the apartment, which is on the second floor of this virtual space, atop a winding staircase. I figured out how to pick things up. I lifted the candlestick and tossed it down the steps. I logged out.

The “Home” demo was limited. It didn’t allow access to the trophy room that is supposed to house items that attest to a player’s achievements in his or her PS3 games. It didn’t have any truly grand spaces. And, most importantly, it didn’t have that many people. If it had those things, perhaps it would have felt bigger. For now, it’s as tiny as a test tube. It’s an experiment whose progress will be interesting to watch.

A limited version of “LittleBigPlanet” is set for release in the fall with a full release following just after Christmas, according to Sony reps. “Home,” which will be free to all PS3 users, is planned for a fall release.