All this week in Multiplayer, I present my list of 2006's 10 greatest gaming moments, in the order I discovered them, a pair at a time. These moments don't make the games that contain them the best of the year, but they each provide enough of a thrill that I recommend you try to experience them yourselves.

Multiplayer: Greatest Gaming Moments Of 2006, Part Five
'Wii Sports' rocks even harder with elbow room, and you won't believe what Ecko's game will have you saying.

12.15.06

The 66-pin Strike: "Wii Sports" (Nintendo Wii)

For a full year the Wii offered the promise of controllable mayhem. Nintendo's new console would finally harness the arm swings and controllers hoists of old into practical game-controlling motion.

Like so many others, I enjoyed swinging the Wii remote like a tennis racket in "Wii Sports" tennis. And I found the "Zelda" sword swings viscerally satisfying in the game's rare moments of horse-mounted combat: my left hand using the Wii nunchuck to steadily guide the horse while my right hand flailed away in an attempt to slash colliding enemy riders. All that felt good.

"Wii Sports" bowling felt good too. I could hold the remote in my left hand, vertically at first, then swing back as my on-screen character rushed the lane. As I would swing forward, he'd bowl the ball. Occasionally that would result in a 10-pin strike. That all felt good too.

But then I found something really special. "Wii Sports" features training modes, including a bowling game called "Power Moves." In it, the player has to bowl for 10 frames, knocking down more pins each time. First you need to knock down 10, then 15, then 21 and so on. I tried this at my parent's house over Thanksgiving, where there was room to stand back from the TV and really swing hard. I kept hitting spares all the way up to frame eight at which point the Wii set up a triangle of 66 pins. I would feel it in my shoulder later, so I know I did this: I reared back and swung with more force than I have ever bowled a ball in my life. My digital bowler struck the lead pin of the 66, and all came tumbling down.

That felt like what the Wii is supposed to be. It felt great.

Bomb the Bridge: Marc Ecko's Getting Up (PS2)

Marc Ecko always said his first video game would be about graffiti culture. He always said it would teach the controversial artform's true values. Early in the game, however, the lead character you control, Trane, is just what's called a toy. You barely know the controls and he barely knows how to write on walls. He does small pieces, mostly self-indulgent.

But then, as you're learning new moves, Trane gets an earful from older graf writer who tells him that if he really wants to write, then first he needs to learn how to read. Trane learns some new pieces and gets political, tagging walls with warnings about police states and suppression of speech, all painted by your pressing of the controller's buttons. It's at that point that a game marred with some clunky controls and an old-school obsession with unnecessary and intrusive fistfights also becomes a rare piece of interactive entertainment: One where the words you trigger matter as much as the fists you throw.

And so, what starts off feeling crass and maybe not as smooth to play as it should be turns into an adventure of Public Enemy-type fight-the-power righteousness.

Late in the game you find yourself atop a bridge leading into the game's thinly veiled version of New York City. It's night time. You have really fought your way, brawling, leaping and screaming at the controller to get to the top. And when you're at the highest point, you hook a grappling point and rappel down the side. A helicopter's blades beat in the background; a spotlight tries to find you. You start dropping down the side of the bridge's massive tower, spray-painting the biggest wakeup call the city has ever seen in bright orange letters. If the spotlight finds you, the helicopter sprays machine-gun bullets. Meanwhile, Pharoahe Monch's voice booms out on the game's soundtrack. He raps political, shouting "And you know I'm the mother-f----n' fire-starta/ Piss on the Constitution and burn the Magna Carta!" And you might think: "Nas said hip-hop is dead. But here's its spirit — right here."

It may not be your politics, but it's undoubtedly powerful. The game has something to say, and it got you to say it.

— Stephen Totilo

Multiplayer: Greatest Gaming Moments Of 2006, Part Four
Toilet paper, gold bricks graduate 'Bully' and 'Lego Star Wars II' to list.

12.14.06

The toilet-paper toss: "Bully" (PS2)

The yearlong media firestorm about "Bully" implied the game would focus on school violence. As developer Rockstar Games revealed more details, the informed coverage indicated that the game would be a little closer to a high school comedy, something like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" or "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Then came the game previews and reviews, when it was discovered that "Bully" offers the chance to get in fistfights and food fights, to go to class, and to goof off racing bicycles and tripping people with bags of marbles. And you can make the hero, Jimmy Hopkins, kiss with girls. After the game was released, people discovered he can smooch some boys too.

None of that, however, intrigued me as much as a moment I experienced in the game's third chapter. I had taken a break from helping one of the greaser kids get over his cheating girlfriend. I'd gone to school and agreed to throw a firecracker in the men's bathroom toilet, and was walking away from the restroom triumphantly when a voice called out. It was a guy. He was asking for "T.P." It was coming from a closed stall. He wanted me to sneak into the janitor's closet and grab him a roll of paper. I did and returned. I switched to first-person view, and — instead of using that famous camera angle for shooting someone — I lobbed the toilet paper over the door. Mission complete.

I'd never done that before in a video game, and I can't say I even wondered if I ever would. Leave it to "Bully," a game designed at the edge of social acceptability, to join "24: The Game" this year in stretching the range of actions that can be fun to play.

The 60-brick bonus: "Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy" (PS2, GameCube, Xbox 360)

You watch a movie. You love it. Some day you watch it again, and all you need to enjoy it that second time is for it to hold up.

Gamers have long demanded more because games have long offered more. The original "Zelda" gave players remixed dungeons when played a second time through. The "Metal Gear Solid" games offered extra outfits. The "Ratchet and Clank"s gave you new weapons.

I was never terribly excited about these incentives. They didn't feel like sufficient reason to trek through a several-hour adventure all over again. So revisiting the levels of "Lego Star Wars II" offered a pleasant surprise. While blasting through them I discovered that certain feats could earn me gold Lego bricks. Finding 60 of the game's 99 total bricks would grant me some sort of surprise. Eventually I got the 60. By that time, I had logged more than 20 hours in the game and explored most of the game's nooks and crannies. And that's when I suspected that no game so thoroughly explored could possibly offer a sufficient reward for that effort. After all, I'd fought through "GoldenEye" years ago on the hardest setting and gotten an entire new level for my troubles, and that hadn't been worth it. I was skeptical.

I was also wrong. The 60-brick bonus, a new non-"Star Wars" level that I hesitate to fully spoil, presented not just an entire new area in the game but one where the fundamental balance of "Lego Star Wars" was tweaked for maximum reward. Hard work brought the bonus, and the bonus delivered the easiest, yet most chaotic and jam-packed of levels in which to play. Certainly that was better than getting a new set of clothes. It's the only late-game bonus I've ever recommended people bother to obtain.

— Stephen Totilo

Multiplayer: Greatest Gaming Moments Of 2006, Part Three
'Sound Voyager,' 'Defcon' provide two more of this year's most memorable moments.

12.13.06

The sound of victory: "Sound Voyager" (Game Boy Advance)

In the summer, I imported an experimental Game Boy Advance game called "Sound Voyager," which I'd heard wasn't even designed for gamers to look at while playing. Rumored to be one of the only audio video games ever made, I had to investigate.

The day I got it, I ran it in my Game Boy Micro with headphones plugged in. The game's main mode requires the player to listen for really short, looping musical riffs. One sound at a time plays in your ears, off to the left or right. Players need to tap a corresponding button on the GBA to align themselves with the sound. As they attempt that, the sound gets louder, which means it's getting closer, like a truck heading toward the intersection you're standing in. The goal is to be in that sound's lane and not let it pass by. Intercepting the sound catches it, makes it loop at its full volume and causes the next faint riff to sound off in the distance. Ultimately, you want to catch enough riffs to build a full song. Bear in mind that none of that involves looking at the GBA's screen, which just displays a blinking field of lights. You play this game by ear.

I still remember the first time I made a song in "Sound Voyager." I did it with my eyes closed. I beat a video game level without looking at it. Forget the Wii; that's the wildest experience I've had with a game all year.

The video game blues: "Defcon" (PC)

There are great sad paintings, great sad songs and great sad movies. But until I played Introversion's nuclear war strategy game "Defcon" this year, I had never played a game that — in a good way — bummed me out (see
"GameFile: Crying Over 'Elite Beat Agents'; Wii, PS3 Not Quite Ready & More").

"Defcon" lets you play general in some unnamed government bunker, in charge of your country and allies' warheads and an unwinnable nuclear war. The game is illustrated primarily in dark blue; its sounds are soft; its sound effects hauntingly spare (a cough here, some typing there). The detonation of each city triggers a soft rumbling noise, a momentary disc of light and a cold display of type tallying the millions more dead.

If a game's fun can be measured by the desire to play it again, "Defcon" measures up. The strategy involved in the war is truly engaging. And yet your first nuclear strike, if it's anything like the one experienced by myself or other players I've talked to about the game, will be a moment of sadness. That was a stirring surprise in an age of games that have supposedly desensitized all but the most rabid emotions.

Once a week Multiplayer provides 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: 208 (several games given to charity or co-workers)
» Last three games that arrived: "Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops" (PSP), "Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin" (Nintendo DS), "Fight Night Round 3" (PS3)
» Last system to arrive: PS3
» Last swag: "Castlevania" timeline poster (confirming that "Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance" took place in 1748 and "Castlevania II: Simon's Quest" in 1698, among other pertinent details)

— Stephen Totilo

Multiplayer: Greatest Gaming Moments Of 2006, Part Two
'24,' 'Half-Life 2: Episode One' provide two more of this year's most memorable moments.

12.12.06

Jack Bauer goes on tour: "24: The Game" (PS2)

Before TV's "24" premiered five years ago, most programs that needed to show action just cut to the car chase — or fistfight or other combustible moment. The creators of "24" didn't have the luxury: Their show had to eke excitement out of every waking minute of an entire day. Early into the development of the "24" video game, the designers at Sony's Cambridge Studio realized they weren't going to follow that same strict real-time clock, but they still took influence from the show's ability to make drama out of dreariness.

That led to Jack Bauer going on tour in a whole new way. "24: The Game" includes the driving and shooting missions you would expect, but it also includes an episode that requires Jack to join a tour group getting a look at a government agency building. The mission begins with Jack joining the group and continues with Jack following along. When the guide stops and begins to describe a sight, Jack can duck away and do some plot-required snooping. But then he has to join the tour again. It's all start-and-stop, stroll-along-and-duck-away. It's also one of the most ordinary activities offered in a video game this year, yet a refreshingly original gameplay experience. Maybe more games, to feel more extraordinary, will similarly tap into the ordinary.

Dog throws the car: "Half-Life 2: Episode One" (PC)

Gaming snobs have a mantra: It's the gameplay, not the graphics. In other words, it's what you do, not what you see. I agree with this, but "Half-Life 2: Episode One" presented a noninteractive moment that provides an exception to that rule.

Early in the first-person shooter — within minutes of starting it — players will encounter a seemingly unsurpassable chasm that they need to pass. The player-controlled hero Gordon Freeman can't fly or jump very far. His companion, Alyx, can do no better. But their robot ally, a gorilla-shaped behemoth called Dog, gestures that he has an idea. You're expected to walk your way into the driver's seat of a dilapidated car. Alyx gets in the other front seat, while Dog picks up the car and throws you to the other side.

You have no control of the throw, you can't escape the car when Dog's toss goes awry, and you start plummeting. But you can look around the whole time. That's because, since the first "Half-Life" game, developer Valve decided that players should be free to swivel their view even during otherwise noninteractive set pieces. So consider Dog's toss as a quick roller-coaster ride. You can gaze back. You can gawk. You just can't put on the brakes. It's an early thrill and a fun thing not to be in control of.

The in-game developer's commentary reveals that the whole moment wasn't even supposed to make it into the game. But it was too much fun to leave out. It's the most exciting nonplayable moment I experienced in a game all year.

— Stephen Totilo

Multiplayer: The 10 Greatest Gaming Moments Of 2006, Part One
List begins with exhilarating discoveries in 'Chibi-Robo,' 'Pursuit Force.'

12.11.06

Tea Time With Mrs. Sanderson: "Chibi-Robo" (GameCube)

During the first few months of 2006, the Nintendo GameCube stumbled into the twilight, offering a few awkward goodbyes. One was a forgettable military pinball game called "Odama," the other the odd "Chibi-Robo," the adventures of an action-figure-size household helper robot with an electrical cord as a tail. I expected "Chibi-Robo" to be light and quirky, maybe fun. The game's main draw seemed to be cleaning and exploring the relatively giant house of his owners, the Sanderson family, as if it were a "Zelda"-style dungeon full of puzzles and lurking enemies.

But what wound up drawing me in was the Sanderson family drama. Dad lost his job. Mom was struggling to pay the bills and ready to force her husband to sleep on the couch. Their daughter now refused to speak to anyone, and lost herself in coloring books and frog toys.

The Sandersons were giants compared to little Chibi-Robo. Their problems — as mundane as they were — were even harder to engage. I knew how to kill giant dragons in games, but I had no idea how I could help the Sandersons. A few hours into the game, Mrs. Sanderson plopped herself down at the kitchen table, utterly despondent. Chibi-Robo could use a toothbrush to clean dirty paw prints off the linoleum floor and had a blaster to zap away encroaching spiders, but to help Mrs. Sanderson I had to climb the robot to the top of the table and traverse a pile of unpaid bills. I heaved a sugar cube into Mrs. Sanderson's tea, hauled a spoon to her so she could stir. This made her a little happier. I got some points. And on I went, prouder than if I had just slew a rampaging beast.

"Mario" Meets "Spy Hunter" With One Giant Leap: "Pursuit Force" (PSP)

In 1992, Nintendo's designers combined the spirit of "Mario" games with the mechanics of racing games and came up with the combative driving classic "Super Mario Kart." But what if instead of invincibility stars and turtle-shell kicks they had imported Mario's signature move: jumping?

It took 14 years for that question to be answered with "Pursuit Force," a rare, wholly original game from Sony for the PSP. The game pits the player as a super-cop in repeated hot pursuit of colorful, comical criminal gangs. The main gimmick is that your super-cop can get in a high-speed car chase, then climb out of his seat and leap onto any other vehicle on the road with a Mario-size hop. And he can do something Mario would never do: open fire — mid-jump — on the car and driver he's leaping to via slow-mo "Matrix"-style.

The "Pursuit Force" high-speed jump is one of the wildest and most exhilarating actions available in a game this year. It was fun too when it showed up again closer to the year's end in an Xbox 360 game called "Just Cause."

To read about last year's top 10 gaming moments, check out "The Year In Video Games: 2005's Greatest Gaming Moments."

— 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.

Multiplayer: How Many Games Did You Finish This Year?
Our games reporter conquered 21.

12.8.06

Thankfully, with gaming, it is socially acceptable to start what you can't finish. But I still take pride in conquering a game. It means that I found one worth completing and was able to shift my schedule to get through it.

Games are long, and most of them get so repetitive. I'll try anything, but I'm usually happy to stop with plenty left on my plate. Since I don't review games as part of my job, I don't really need to finish any. Nevertheless, in 2005 I finished 22 games, including "Shadow of the Colossus," "Trauma Center: Under the Knife" and "Resident Evil 4." I know this because I made a list of the games I started playing — all 75 of them — and ticked off the ones I finished.

Let me clarify what I mean by "finished." I once had a publicist tell me that "Metal Gear Solid 3" wasn't really finished until it was beaten on the European Extreme difficulty level and all alternate outfits were unlocked. I disagree. If you get to the end of the game's story line, if you see the fate of the character Boss, then you've done it. "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" is done after the city burns due to a riot and you run the last story line mission, even if you haven't found all the hidden oysters or finished the truck-driving side games. Also, puzzle games can't be finished, so they don't count.

On Thursday, I made my 2006 list. On my own, outside of game-company-sponsored press events, I started 102 games this past year (mostly provided for free because of my job). I finished 18 of them. I also finished three games that I started last year, for a total of 21. And with a couple of weeks to go, I'll probably add to that. I think I'll knock off "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" Friday night (December 7) and "Gears of War" next week. Throughout the year I brought a number of other games close to completion, but I just might not be good enough a gamer to knock through the last challenges of "Pursuit Force" and I may run out of time on "Bully."

Fellow gaming journalists and professionals tell me my numbers are high. Many of them don't finish even that many games. Gamers I talk to don't finish that many either. That makes me wonder how much care developers should even put into long games and whether enough people have seen a game ending to form an opinion on how a game should or shouldn't wrap up. Should games be shorter? And how can it be that so many games can be so beloved without people feeling that they need to or can complete them? Is finishing really important? Or is all well whether it ends or not?

For your consideration, here are the 21 titles I conquered in 2006:

· "24: The Game" (PS2)
· "Black" (PS2)
· "Chibi Robo" (GameCube)
· "Donkey Kong Jungle Beat" (GameCube) [started in 2005]
· "Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime" (DS)
· "Elite Beat Agents" (DS) [one song away from clearing its hardest setting]
· "Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance" (GameCube) [started in 2005]
· "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter" (Xbox 360)
· "Half-Life 2" (PC)
· "Half-Life 2: Episode One" (PC)
· "Lego Star Wars" (PS2)
· "Lego Star Wars II" (PS2) [my most thoroughly completed game of 2006; achieved 100 percent status]
· "Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure" (PS2)
· "Metal Gear Solid 2" (PS2)
· "Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence" (PS2)[cleared normal difficulty, not European Extreme]
· "Metroid Prime: Hunters" (DS)
· "New Super Mario Bros." (DS)
· "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan" (DS -- from Japan) [started in 2005; cleared 3 of 4 difficulty levels]
· "Sin and Punishment: Successor to the Earth" (Nintendo 64 -- from Japan)
· "Star Fox Command" (DS) [reached four of the game's nine endings].
· "Suikoden V" (PS2) [longest game completed: 64 hours, 51 minutes, 29 seconds]

— Stephen Totilo

Multiplayer: Gaming Underground — Literally
Bulk of gaming on New York subways done with cell phones, iPods.

12.7.06

I was playing the final mission at the hardest difficulty level in the musical-adventure game "Elite Beat Agents," tapping and scribbling away on my Nintendo DS Lite while I was standing on a New York subway platform. But my awareness of where I stood was displaced by two DS screens of cheerleading agents, a plague of music-hating aliens and the sounds of a Rolling Stones cover that blasted from the game into my headphones.

A guy walked up to me and asked me for directions. I paused. I was already losing anyway. Did I know if the R train stopped at 8th Street? I did. He could take the W as well, just not the N. He walked away. I resumed playing. And then he came back. Was it OK to take the N?

I used to do most of my portable gaming at home, reclining on the couch with a Game Boy Advance, DS or PlayStation Portable. But a year and a half ago I started playing during my 40-minute subway commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

I noticed several things about gaming on the subway:

· Back then — and even now — when I take out a DS to play, I'm the only one. The DS wasn't hot then; today it outsells the PSP, but I've yet to see another person with a DS on any of my daily subway commutes. The PSP, however, is a daily sight, though usually there is just one per car. The GBA and GBA SP used to be daily sights as well, but that has died down over the last few months — even if they still show up more than the PSP. Most of the gaming I see on the subway is done on cell phones. And then there's the iPod. At least half the people squashed on a two-train car with me have one on any given day.

· Not everyone cares about game music or whether you can hear it. With apologies to the impressive, recently concluded Game Boy Blip Festival (BlipFestival.org), most GBA gamers don't seem to care about music. I've seen hundreds of GBAs in use on the subway, but I don't remember ever seeing someone using headphones. The DS and PSP can play more advanced music. Still, I've never seen a DS played with headphones either, even though I do every time. The PSP gets the headphones, though that's also the system I most often hear played without headphones — and with the volume blaring. Some PSP gamers, apparently, don't mind breaking the silence of a subway, even though radio playing is clearly prohibited. At least it's clear that the PSP is the only portable system my fellow subway gamers consider worth listening to.

· People don't go crazy playing games on the subway. I played last year's "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney" primarily on the subway. Most of the game was originally programmed for a GBA. But it was on the game's final case that I discovered the game supported the DS's microphone — which can be used to blow for fingerprints. On a packed subway, with a game telling me to huff at the screen, what was I to do? I pretended I was blowing lint off my screen. Then the game told me to do it again. It makes you wonder if the developers factor public embarrassment while designing portable games. These days, "Elite Beat Agents" occasionally requires me to draw circles with the stylus as fast as possible. I can only imagine what my face looks like while I'm doing it. I keep looking up, but I haven't caught anyone doing the same or getting weirded out. And it sure hasn't kept people from asking me for directions.

— Stephen Totilo

Multiplayer: We Found Big Poppa, And Other Updates
Has 'Death Jr.' plant's fate been keeping you up at night? Here's the latest on that and other mysteries.

12.6.06

We didn't know Big Poppa after all.

Last week I wrote an entry for Multiplayer wondering who was responsible for all of the strange Mii avatars appearing on the MTV News Nintendo Wii (see "Multiplayer: Do Wii Know You? Lost In Our Crowd Of Nintendo Miis"). I had exchanged Wii passwords only with friends and had therefore only expected friends' Miis to show up on the system. So which friend was behind this Big Poppa guy?

This week I got the answer via e-mail: "To Stephen Totilo, I'm Big Poppa," wrote Phillip Kisubika. He's a junior at the University of Georgia and works at the school's newspaper, The Red and Black. "I write for the sports desk," he wrote, "so I guess we have something in common. But otherwise, Stephen, Big Poppa doesn't know you."

Phillip connected the dots, explaining that he created Big Poppa on his roommate Ross Miller's Wii. Miller writes for Joystiq.com and had linked his machine to Joystiq editor Chris Grant, who in turn had linked to the MTV system. Grant reports back that a Mii my father made on the MTV Wii has shown up in his system, so my own poppa should be heading to Phillip Kisubika soon enough. Now if only Nintendo modified the Miis to include information about where they came from, mysteries like this wouldn't be so hard to crack.

In other Multiplayer news, the Konami "Death Jr." plant is beginning to wilt (see "Multiplayer: Counting Our Games — And Watering Plants"). MTV News reporter Chris Harris continues to water it every three days, but some yellowing has set in and a new bud has spent a week not blossoming. The plant hasn't died yet, but it's not looking good.

And what of producer C.J. Smith, stuck in "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" last week and contemplating whether he should cheat (see "Multiplayer: When The Going Gets Tough ... Cheat?")? He went back to the game and figured out the solution on his own.

Briefly I passed him without cheating either. Since then, he reached the end of the game and said that, on Tuesday night, he reached a final battle, struggled, considered cheating, decided it would be bad to break down right at the end and managed to persevere. He completed the game in about 44 hours, a bit shorter than the 60-hour completion time Nintendo estimated in the press.

Once a week Multiplayer provides 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: 217
» Last three games arrived: "Kirby Squeak Squad" (Nintendo DS), "Online Chess Kingdoms" (PSP), "Xiaolin Showdown DS" (Nintendo DS)
» Last system to arrive: PS3
» Last swag: Inch-tall rubber "Kirby Squeak Squad" characters — pink Kirby and green Kirby (both made in China)

— Stephen Totilo

12.5.06

Multiplayer: Saying 'No Thanks' To The Classics
New attempts to enjoy older games on Wii don't yield greatest results.

I admit it. I've long had a problem with old games. I liked a lot of them when they weren't old games. But then new stuff came out, and I ditched my old loves for the hot new things, without an ounce of regret. But I do like the idea that I might fall for one of the oldies again the way someone might discover a great black-and-white film, a classic album or a former high school flame. So I keep trying.

Last week, I downloaded a couple of old games from the Wii's Virtual Console. The service lets system owners download games originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16. Many people are using the service to download the alleged classics, like the NES's "Legend of Zelda" and the N64's "Super Mario 64." I didn't download either.

Every other form of entertainment has material that stands the test of time, no matter how much technology has progressed. But I just haven't enjoyed that NES "Zelda" the few times I've tried to play it in the last 10 years. Newer "Zelda" games are richer in character, more creative in design and just more fun to play. I think my entire list of games that I played before 1995 that I still enjoy are "Donkey Kong," "Ms. Pac-Man" and "Tetris."

I assumed that Nintendo would make sure its Virtual Console service launched with some gems. And if I hadn't heard of some of these games, those might prove to be the most exciting discoveries. So I downloaded the 1990 TurboGrafx spaceship shoot-em-up, "Super Star Soldier," and the 1994 NES "Tetris"-with-a-twist "Wario's Woods." The TurboGrafx game was fun, though I kept thinking that 2001 spaceship shoot-em-up "Ikaruga" did everything it was doing better. And then I reached the end of a level, died fighting a boss and was restarted all the way back at the beginning of the level. That's the kind of old-school game design I can't be nostalgic for. So I quit the game, probably never to return. And "Wario's Woods"? I'd rather have been playing "Tetris," I guess.

Covering games full time, I'm constantly sent collections of retro games, and I just don't enjoy them. Covering games full time and still being a gaming nut, I like making lists of my favorite games of all time, and the old games on my list keep getting knocked out. (Goodbye, 1994's "Super Metroid" — you had an all-time great final hour, but otherwise I like newer "Metroid" games better.)

I want to believe oldies can be goodies. But I'm just not having fun with them. I'll keep trying. Can anyone recommend some classics that actually stand up?

(Lest anyone out there thinks my trouble with the classics will taint MTV News' coverage of old games, have no fear. Later this week I'll file a report on people who might love old games more than anyone else. )

— Stephen Totilo

12.04.06

Multiplayer: The Little Things
These small details might not make or break a game, but they factor into its enjoyment.

Sometimes it's the big things in a game that are worth talking about.

Should they have really set an entire "Zelda" on the ocean or made "Halo 2" so short? Would "Final Fantasy X" have been better with a hero who whined less?

Such grand talk is the stuff that sways review scores and directs conversation about a game. But a video game is more than the sum of its biggest parts. The little things that help fill the lengthiest of popular forms of entertainment also matter.

On the Wii I played "Rayman Raving Rabbids," "Zelda: Twilight Princess," "ExciteTruck," "Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam" and "Need for Speed: Carbon." On the PS3 I think I passed the halfway point of "Resistance: Fall of Man." I kept noticing the little things:

» Playing to distraction: "Rayman" throws a series of mini-games at players, some cow-tossing here and some first-person plunger shooting there. In one mission, all the player is asked to do is flick the Wii's nunchuck controller to make Rayman jump a twirling jump-rope. What literally jumped out to me while playing it was one of the game's Rabbids. A crazed white rabbit kept popping in from any of the four sides of my TV making enough noise and blocking enough of my view to drive me to distraction. He caused me to trip a bunch of times and got me wondering why so few games — I can't think of any others — mess with a player while they're trying to concentrate.

» Pulling the race card: "Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam" lets players pick their racer from an internationally diverse crew of cartoonish, fictional racers. I chose to race down the slopes of San Francisco and Hong Kong as Ammon, a skinny black guy with dreadlocks. At the start of each of the game's many short racing events, a window pops up and plays a documentary-style sound bite from one of the competitors. One skater girl brags about her looks. One guy quips about growing up without his dad. Most intriguing was my guy Ammon who tells the interviewer that he took up skateboarding because he was tired of people assuming that his being black must mean he is a good basketball player. I'm sure I've played more than a hundred games this year, and this is the first that has included any comments about race. It would be a purely welcome inclusion if not for the (hopefully innocent) fact that Ammon has the best jumping stat of any character available in the beginning of the game.

» Pressing the buttons: Every time I powered on the PS3 to play more "Resistance" this weekend, I had to do more with the controller than I wanted to. Ideally you can start at a game's title screen and keep tapping the same button to load a saved game, confirm the load and start in on the action. "Resistance" is one of those games that doesn't work that way. If you spam the main button, you'll wind up starting a brand-new game every time. To continue a saved game, a returning player has to first flick the control stick to the continue option and then tap the main button a few times. This is the littlest of things, but experienced gamers know it's a bother and easily programmed to work the better way.

— 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.

Multiplayer: The First Next-Gen PS3 Surprise?
Pondering whether we recognize the future of video games when we see it.

I think I had my first next-gen moment with the PS3 the other night. But I'm not quite sure.

The next-gen-ness of video games isn't always easy to spot. I didn't have much trouble back in 1996 when I walked into a Toys "R" Us in downtown Manhattan, New York, and dove Mario through three dimensions of water toward a sunken ship in "Super Mario 64." Even a guy I worked with at an after-school job at the time — a guy who just read the Daily News all day and went to lots of strip-clubs at night — came in to the office raving about Mario's swimming. He had found time to go to the toy store.

I thought I found something next-gen for the new era of consoles on the Xbox 360 last spring in "Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter." I'd played the system's launch titles in fall 2005 and didn't experience anything that made a splash like that Mario swim. "Ghost Recon," however, featured two picture-in-picture screens supplementing the main view of the game, an impressive feature that I wrote about (see
"New 'Ghost Recon' Title Gives Xbox Users A True 360 View"). Then somebody on gaming blog Kotaku went and posted that the computer game "SWAT 4" did picture-in-picture a year earlier.

In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said of obscenity, "I know it when I see it." Well, Justice Potter is lucky that he didn't have to decide whether a game is next-gen or not, because, personally, I'm not sure if I know it when I see it.

I might have seen it on the PS3 that other night while I was playing "Resistance: Fall of Man." I had played about a dozen chapters of the game and hadn't encountered anything that felt awfully next-gen. Then I walked my "Resistance" soldier down an alley in alien-infested 1940s Manchester, England. Things were proverbially too quiet. A turn of the corner proved why. In the distance I spotted an alien enemy armed with the same shoots-through-walls super-gun that I had recently found. I think he saw me.

I quickly backed into that alley. And I ran — for some reason — backward. My backpedaling gave me a (maybe?) next-gen sight. The brick wall of the alley lit up with an energy burst, and a beat later a beam crackled through. The now-unseen alien was shooting at me through the walls. As I backed up another step, another beam, this one closer than the last, zapped through. This happened at least five more times as I retreated the length of the alley, each shot tracking my movement.

That whole experience probably last five seconds. In that moment, I got a sense of a game world that felt grander and smarter than the ones I'm used to playing in. Usually, as a player, I only worry about how the characters I can see on my TV screen are reacting to me or attacking me. If there are enemy aliens on the other side of a building or in the next cave, I don't sweat them until they show themselves — not when they're shooting me from the spot, in the real world, where I put a potted plant. Maybe this kind of grander, more alert game world is evidence of next-gen.

Then again, if memory serves, there was a gun that let you shoot through walls back in 2000's "Perfect Dark."

— Stephen Totilo

11.30.06

Multiplayer: When The Going Gets Tough ... Cheat?
The case of the colleague stuck in 'Zelda,' contemplating bringing in the outside pros.

I started playing "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" more than a week before MTV News producer C.J. Smith did, but C.J. passed my 30-hour mark a couple of days ago. And for his efforts, he got himself stuck.

Yesterday C.J. gave me a status report: He was trapped in dungeon number five, wandering the same four rooms for three hours. He doesn't know what to do next. He knows he's not at a dead end. He knows he's missing something. And now he's wondering if he should cheat.

C.J. is at a crossroads that many gamers reach during tricky adventure games. When do you stop playing the game — your wits vs. its puzzles — and call in outside help? When do you break down, give up on yourself and crack open a 40,000-word-and-counting online walkthrough of a game and cheat your way to victory? Temptation abounds. People out there provide that stuff for free if you want it (see "Meet The Man Who'll Make You A Smooth Criminal In San Andreas").

The new "Zelda" isn't that hard a game, but it had stopped me once as well, in an underwater dungeon I explored during the mid-teen hours of my adventure. I was left scratching the walls of two rooms, testing for weaknesses, trying every item of my inventory, repeatedly falling short of a leap that may have freed me of my briar patch.

An hour of that and I buckled, went online and read the solution. Then I smacked my head. Of course. Use that item there in that other, third room. Naturally.

Just earlier I had counseled a friend through his own "Zelda" quagmire, gently hinting at where he needed to go next. I was keeping his conscience a bit more clear than mine. He was no "Zelda" cheater. At least, not as much as I was.

Now it's C.J.'s turn to call for help or just keep struggling with the restraints. He's losing faith in his ability to figure it out. He's thinking that maybe he should leave the dungeon and explore the many square miles of the game, hunting some elusive tool that might loosen his bind. Except "Zelda" games don't work that way. If you can get into a dungeon in any game in that series, then you should be able to get through it. It's been that way for 20 years. Will he break?

I've rationalized my own cheating ways. Looking back, the solution to the water dungeon was a curious artifact that I had noticed right before going to bed one night and clearly forgotten when I resumed the game the next day. Had I played through the dungeon all at once, I wouldn't have had to cheat. This is what I've told myself. If C.J. goes and cheats, how will he cleanse his conscience?

When do you cheat in a game, and when don't you? And, C.J., I'm about to explore dungeon number five myself. You'll help me, won't you? Don't make me do it again.

— Stephen Totilo

11.29.06

Multiplayer: A Warning For 'Star Wars' Gamers
Playing sequels at the same time can yield some unusual results.

Don't play a Wii game without a wrist strap. Don't play games if you suffer from seizures. Don't try to re-create the moves featured in games in real life.

These are the warnings that accompany many popular video games.

And here's one that has yet to hit TV screens, even if it should: Don't play this game at the same time as its sequel.

A little over a month ago, I lost myself in "Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy" on the PS2. That would be "lost" in a good way, en route to logging more than 30 hours and unlocking 100 percent of the game. About 10 hours in, I discovered that I could transport any characters I unlocked in the first "Lego Star Wars" (Episodes I to III) into the second, meaning I could enlist Jar Jar Binks or Darth Maul to help blow up Death Stars. I needed an old save file to transfer the characters to the new game, but I didn't have one — I discovered I didn't even have the old game. At some point I'd sold it back to a game shop. Soon enough I was back at a game shop, dropping $8 on a used copy of that first game.

By this point the absurdity of what I planned dawned on me. Jar Jar tangling with Jabba the Hutt might be ridiculous, but swapping discs of two "Lego Star Wars" games released just 12 months apart, level after level, jumping from Episode IV to I to V and so on? It's not wise.

But what it turned out to be is fascinating. Playing the two games on top of each other revealed just how much a development team can improve an idea in a year. Levels in "II" are several times larger than those in the first game. The bonus collectibles are hidden in fun ways in the second — tucked inside a movie theater in a back lot of Tatooine, or in Darth Vader's plant room, for example — instead of hovering over the middle of a road in the first game. One of the most striking improvements is that while both games are made to be funny, only the second actually made me laugh. Though I had started "II" first, I wound up finishing it last. The first "Lego Star Wars" was just a tiny game.

There are many lessons here, and almost all defy the common complaints of "sequelitis" usually leveled at game makers. Yes, these were two games released in rapid succession, each squeezing more out of two well-milked licenses, with the second not really introducing any concepts that weren't in the first. But the second game is, well, better. It's bigger, funnier, less hampered by dull moments. It takes the original's concepts and polishes them so quickly that it nearly makes a game made just last year obsolete.

So next time you're tempted to knock gaming for having too many sequels, try playing these two games back to back. Expect a dizzying experience. You've been warned.

Once a week Multiplayer provides 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: 200
» Last three games to arrive: "Need for Speed Carbon" (Wii), "Blitz: The League" (Xbox 360), "Superman Returns" (Xbox 360)
» Last system to arrive: PS3
» Last swag to arrive: Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops North End soft-shell jacket ($80 retail, now en route to charity)

— Stephen Totilo

11.28.06

Multiplayer: Do Wii Know You? Lost In Our Crowd Of Nintendo Miis
A few days of Nintendo-style socialization has filled our plaza with unidentifiable avatars.

If you're reading this, you might be able to help me out. Just answer me one question: Are you Big Poppa? If not, are you Smokey? Karla? Are you a gray-bearded man who calls himself Tommy Boy?

I set up the Wii at MTV News 18 days ago and immediately roped fellow staff into creating their own Wii avatars, called Miis. The Miis hang out in a plaza that loads from the Wii's main menu. They looked lonely. So I took a Wii controller over to the team at MTV Games, grabbed their Miis from their system and zapped them into our plaza. Then I started exchanging the 16-digit password linked to the MTV News Wii with friends' and colleagues' Wiis. We hooked our consoles onto a WiFi signal, registered each others' passwords and, in theory, any Miis set to "mingle" in their plaza or mine started traveling from machine to machine.

That's when the mysteries began. My Miis were antisocial. Chris Grant from gaming blog Joystiq.com zapped his tall, skinny Chris Mii right over to me. But my crooked-smile Stephen Mii didn't show. He didn't show the first day or the second. Neither did another Mii. It took them both about a week. But Chris did get a Mii called Big Poppa right away and wanted to know if that was mine. No.

People who use IM programs probably have a few mysterious alter egos in their buddy list (who are you, "regdatedbspears," and why don't you log on anymore?). Now Wii owners have their own version of that: Big Poppa came walking into my Wii over the weekend and I don't know who he is either. Did I exchange codes with him? The Miis don't arrive with a whole lot of defining information, just a name, no home address. I've asked around about a plaza-crashing Mii girl named Johnnie who wears sunglasses and a green dress. No one has vouched for her yet either.

The MTV News Mii Plaza currently has 24 Miis milling around, eight women and 16 guys. All are theoretically designed to look like their owners, which reveals a few facts about who we consort with: five wear glasses; the most popular "favorite color," worn on nine dresses and shirts, is dark blue; none of them are overweight. Or so they say.

The Wii is designed to bring people together, Nintendo advertises. At this point I'm not sure if I truly know more about my friends or less. Hey Big Poppa, are you my friend?

— Stephen Totilo

11.27.06

Multiplayer: Four Tests To Make Or Break Our PS3
Does the new system travel well? Make old TVs look brand new? We investigated.

The PS3 commands hundreds of dollars in stores and thousands on eBay, and inspires muggings, heists and panicked purchases of compatible high-end TVs. It is surely a system for the rich and the robbers. But I wanted to believe it could be enjoyed by the everyman. Just before Thanksgiving, I got this 21st-century treasure and submitted it to four key tests.

The first challenge was Suitcase Stuffability. The curved bulk of the 11-pound PS3 and the certain fragility of its high-tech components didn't add up to a device built for transport. In its original box, the machine didn't fit in my Thanksgiving vacation suitcase, a suitcase that tightly squeezes into most airplanes' overhead bins. Out of its box, the shiny-cheeked PS3 nestled comfortably into folded clothes. It survived train and car rides, a few bumps down subway-station stairs and functioned fine. But unlike the Wii and PS2, the PS3, I've concluded, is best suited for a permanent home.

The second tribulation was Console Consolidation. The PS3 plays PS2 games, and a used PS2 can fetch $50 as a GameStop trade-in. So I readied my PS2 for its ditching. Then I discovered that my old PS2 memory cards won't fit the PS3 without the purchase of a $20 adapter. Either you pick that up or you have to start all your old PS2 games from scratch, saving them anew on the PS3 hard drive. I can consolidate, but not as smoothly as hoped.

Test three was unexpected even to me, a spur-of-the-moment Internet Interception investigation. One of the key differences between the $500 and $600 models is that that latter includes WiFi. I have a $600 model, but I also have a wireless router that doesn't seem to agree with my PS3. Thankfully, my neighbor's works better. My PS3 sniffed his or her signal out and my online issues (if not my conscience) were cleared up.

The final trial for my PS3 was the most crucial: an attempt to avoid Old TV Awfulness. The PS3 plays Blu-Ray discs, a new movie format for TVs that can display higher-quality images than what a DVD can hold. It plays games at sky-high definition. I can't deal with any of that. My TV is old and oh-so-standard definition and not getting replaced soon. Would I be able to see the beauty of a PS3 game? I tried the high-def, downloadable PS3 game "Blast Factor" and the marquee first-person shooter "Resistance: Fall of Man." Both look high-end on my five-year-old set, but more of a one small step toward greatness than one giant leap. Then I tried a downloadable demo of the bikes-and-trucks-desert-racing game "MotorStorm." Even on an aged TV, the game's painted desert looks photorealistic, the trucks look showroom sharp down to the detailed chassis. There was the leap. My old TV felt new. Where I thought it would most fail, the PS3 passed.

Someone here at MTV News also suggested testing if the PS3 would float — in water. We'll skip that test. The system's proved itself.

— 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.

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.

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.