It was Gamer's Week here at MTV. Here are all the highlights from Multiplayer all this week:

IS MARIO TOO SEXY FOR HIS OVERALLS?

* Watch our own Stephen Totilo and Tim Kash debate with journalists N'Gai Croal and Heather Chaplin on the sexiness of Mario, the randomness of "Resident Evil" and the intense sub-culture of... "Defender"? All in the Meta Game.

* With "Super Mario Galaxy" in stores this week, Totilo demonstrated the multiplayer gameplay as well as some wild moments in the early part of the game.

* Multiplayer contributor and Mario obsessive Jason Cipriano gave us his top-ten list of best Mario games, pre-"Galaxy." (His 2D slant caused some controversy.)

THE CAKE IS A LIE:

* In the latest edition of Vs. Mode, Totilo and Croal discuss the first-person-shooter puzzle game "Portal." Guess which one wishes Jay-Z made an entire album about the game...

GAMER OR POSER?

* In our first-ever photo quiz, we have readers decide from faces alone whether people are actually playing games, or just faking it. Once you've taken the quiz, check out the answers to see if you're right.

ASSASSIN'S CLICHE:

* In his interview with "Assassin's Creed" creative director Patrice Desilets, Totilo found that Desilets justified every cliche in the game -- even those darn collectibles.
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Warning: I've done my best to not reveal an "Assassin's Creed" spoiler here, but it's not entirely avoidable.

Over at MTVNews.com, we're running an interview with Patrice Desilets, creative director behind Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed."

We had a great chat about many things, the most surprising of which, to me, was Desilets' drive to "justify" every video game cliche.

Why are video games broken into levels? "Assassin's Creed" has a reason for it.

Why are characters controlled by buttons? "Assassin's Creed" explains that too.

And so on...

Desilets said he last toyed with this concept in "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time," which explains why a game character might have multiple lives and the ability to resume his adventure after the player kills him.

But the concept only goes so far. What almost made it fall apart for Desilets? Collectibles.

From my article:

The justification concept could only go so far, and Desilets found himself on the losing side of an argument that almost broke it all apart. Throughout the game, there are collectible flags. Players can find them in nooks and crannies throughout the game's massive cities, gaining 100 of one type or 60 of another. The game tracks them. But do they really make sense? "They have nothing to do with Altair," Desilets admitted. He suggested he could have done without them but said others on his team thought players would enjoy gathering them.

... "I managed to justify them," Desilets said. "I tried to do it in the instruction booklet and say that [Altair] had a thing with flags." In fact, the booklet states that planting flags in the 12th-century land of the game "was a popular way to lay claim to an area, but in the assassin's mind, these were false claims." Removing the flags is a way for the assassin to voice his disapproval.

Such was Desilets' manner of masking an impurity in his game. Note that there are no rewards for gamers who collect all the flags other than pride. "It's almost a statement for gamers," he said. "It's a statement about the futility of collecting things."

What do you think? Are you into Desilets' experiment? Should more games explain the things that make them games? Why are item-boxes floating all over "Metal Gear" levels, anyway?

For more on "Assassin's" check out my piece at MTVNews.com.

Not sure what to do at lunch time today? We've got something good for you to watch, though a bit unusual and not without controversy. And of all the things I've worked on for Gamer's Week, it's my favorite. Here's the tease...

What if you could win points for it in a game about arguing about video games?That's what 'The Metagame' is about.I saw one performed at GDC earlier this year and have been wanting to show a session to MTV viewers ever since. I participated in a running of the game hosted by its creators Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz two weeks ago and had a great time.So did Tim Kash and I pull out a win?

Scroll on down for the rest of the segments, including everyone's favorite -- the third round arguments about which games are sexier than the others. Do you agree that "Virtua Fighter" is sexier than "Super Mario 64."

(For extra reading and debating, a full list of the gaming opinions that we debated can be found here).

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On Friday, November 2, I joined MTV News' Tim Kash in a face-off of video arguments against Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and author Heather Chaplin.

We played "The Metagame," a game show created by game designers Eric Zimmerman, co-founder of Gamelab, and Frank Lantz, co-founder of Area/Code.

The game lasted 70 minutes and was among the most fun things I've done on the beat all year. We've presented 20 minutes of highlights on video here.

This post lists every argument we had to make in the game. Any time an opinion was challenged, the audience had to decide the winner.

Here are three samples. Read on for the rest... and you decide where justice was served and where my team (Team MTV) or Chaplin/Croal (Team Brooklyn) were robbed.

Opinion: "Tetris" has more randomness than "Resident Evil"

Argument: Team MTV said it does. Team Brooklyn challenged.
Verdict: Overruled -- The audience agreed with Team Brooklyn.

Opinion: "Virtua Fighter" is sexier than "Super Mario 64"

Argument: Team Brooklyn said it was. Team MTV said it wasn’t.
Verdict: Upheld -- The audience sided with Team Brooklyn.

Opinion: "Adventure" for the Atari 2600 makes better use of writing than "Street Fighter II"

Argument: Team MTV said it did.
Verdict: Uncontested -- Team Brooklyn sided with team MTV.

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You stared. You played. You answered. You took the Multiplayer photo quiz.

And now it is late Tuesday and you're getting the answers.

Who was really playing and who was the faker? I can't tell you about the woman in that Target ad. But I can tell you about the 10 photos in the quiz.

Some people thought this quiz was about which people are real gamers. Nope. It was just about whether you can tell what someone playing games looks like. We tried to fool you in a few; we played it straight in others. Almost no one got #4 wrong. Many people were tripped up by #2. The most controversial was #5.

Regular readers of the Multiplayer blog had a leg up. Photos 1, 5, 7 and 10 were all taken from earlier posts featuring, respectively, Shigeru Miyamoto, MTV's James Montomgery, MTV's Gerald Flannory, and me.

Of the people who posted answers on Multiplayer or on Joystiq,the worst (though funniest) showing was Brendan's 30% correct ballot. And the winner? That goes to the near-psychic 90%-accurate Sneakypants. Take a bow, Sneaky.

And to those who thought this was a trick... that everyone pictured was either playing or faking? That's not my style.

Click through to find the truth behind all 10 photos, to discover what these folks were really doing. Each photo now links to a bigger image that explains all.

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What happens to you when a new game comes out?

You probably don't go crazy. You probably don't cut off all family and friends.

But in many little ways you probably change, even if just for a short time. For the past couple of months MTV News checked in on one "Halo 3" fan Kris Henderson to see what affects that game had on him.

We aired the results on Monday to kick off Gamer's Week. Today on Multiplayer we have that segment for you right here -- and it's followed by a few video diaries Kris made during his first weeks of "Halo"-playing.

Do you see a little of Kris in yourself or someone you know?
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In case you haven't noticed, it's Gamer's Week here at MTV.

That means MTV.com/games is hosting a batch of exclusive Gamer's Week content, including exclusive trailers ("Kane & Lynch," "Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus," and "Tomb Raider Anniversary") and silly on-air parodies of games ("Assassin's Creed," "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" and "Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games").

We've also got character playlists, like one from Nathan Drake, the treasure-seeking hero of "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune."

Make the jump to see Nathan's picks and check out the rest on the MTV Gamer's Week site.

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I am tired of saving other people's reputations while letting my good name get dragged through the mud. Or at least get mispronounced.

No more! For MTV Gamer's Week, I decided to do something special...

There are plenty of other Pronunciation Guides to check out. But, really, do you think any of them top this one?

(Update: Answers to this quiz are now online at this link.)

Is the woman in the billboard to the left really playing PlayStation 3?

Or is she faking?

Up until last week I looked at that woman every work day, wondering exactly that. She was plastered on a six-story billboard, selling something for Target, something that required the innate sense of fun that emanates from anyone holding a Sixaxis PS3 controller.

But I think she was faking.

We here at the Multiplayer blog have used that photo for inspiration. We've heard the jokes, the comments, and the complaints from friends, family and significant others about gamers who are hypnotized in front of their gaming console, staring blankly, not answering questions.

So we've wondered: Can you really spot the face of a gamer? Does playing video games really instill a telltale facial expression like nothing else?

What follows are 10 photos of people either playing or fake-playing a video game. Today we're showing you the 10 people. You tell us: Who is really playing? Who is faking?

Tomorrow, we will provide the answers.

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