At one point, it wasn't looking good for "N+" on the PSP and DS. Not in the eyes of the Metanet Software, developers of the original game, anyway.

"Currently it’s not working – it’s not the game we wanted to make," said Metanet's Mare Sheppard to Edge in May. "There are a lot of changes we haven’t been so happy with."

Those changes appear to have been made. "N+" arrives on PSP and DS next week, and Metanet told MTV Multiplayer the handheld versions from Atari have come a long way.

"We're definitely happy they were delayed (to add polish) as long as they were," said Sheppard. "The release versions are about a million times better than they were at the beginning of the year."

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Since my last entry I…

*Played "Metal Gear Online" not very well and got excoriated for it on this here Multiplayer blog. For revenge, I used my magic powers to get the beta delayed.

*Reached the 80-Star count in "Super Mario Galaxy." Are there any good, new power-ups in this otherwise wonderful game? Because most of the ones I've found so far, including the bouncy one (I'm trying not to spoil!) aren't very fun. Well, I do like ice-walking. But that's a side-effect of just one.

*Played through all three missions of "Ghost Squad," the light-gun arcade-shooter ported to the Wii. It's ridiculous and ridiculously short.  Unlocked a ninja mode, which let me hurl throwing stars at ninjas on Air Force One. Fun while it lasted.

*Gave up on the campaign mode of "Universe At War," as I got myself in a bit of a jam halfway through the Hierarchy set of missions. Decided the world conquest mode would be fun, since it lets you play skirmishes on sectors of the globe and then claim that land like it's a game of "Risk."I got crushed in under five minutes in a match for part of South America. In my second,a battle over the American mid-west, my every-shaky Internet failed. So even though I think I'd like playing this game online, my set-up makes that impossible.

*Played one and only one mission of "Army of Two" with Joystiq's Chris Grant. The game looks nice, but the enemy AI is for the birds, as is the melee, the flow of the action and the existence on my screen of Chris' health bar but not mine. This game feels like a very rough draft. Maybe they'll get it right if there's a second one.

*Had a torturous time playing "N+" with Chris. Pro-tip: never play a game's multiplayer before you've played its single-player. I was dragging the man down.

*Grinded a few missions in "Crisis Core."

*Played a few demos on my PSP, but can I hold off confessing about that for one more day?

Next: I will play more "Crisis Core," more "Mario" and hope "The World Ends With You" arrives soon. 

"N+," the game that produced Multiplayer's first Enemy of the Week, was always intended to let players upload custom levels for anyone to download, but Microsoft nixed the feature at the last second.

The decision was so last second, in fact, the version of "N+" available on Partnernet, a test version of Xbox Live that publishers and select media can access, actually includes this feature. We wondered why a small studio like Metanet Software would bother investing in such an ambitious feature if they had any suspicions it wouldn't make the cut.

They told us that up until a few months ago, they had every belief it would. We asked Microsoft to explain the late change, and they released this statement over email:

"We do not discuss our contracts with partners. Game development is a complex business; however, we work closely with developers and publishing partners on solutions for any development issues. Microsoft is committed to bringing the best games to Xbox 360."

The games developers, however, were willing to provide some details. "We were devastated to learn we couldn't include that functionality," said Metanet co-founder (and, thus, co-creator of the original "N") Mare Sheppard to us over e-mail. "It's a huge disappointment, and we had to settle for at least some level-sharing while we wait. We hoped fans could deal with creating and sharing levels only with friends until we get to re-enable the full level sharing functionality, someday."

Custom levels are currently shared by joining a multiplayer session and downloading from the host. There's nothing preventing users from creating an offensive level design (i.e. obligatory genital references, swastikas, etc.), but the current restrictions effectively limits distribution to private games. This presents enormous obstacles for gamers serious about developing new content for "N+," as there's almost no way to release it without relying on word-of-mouth.

Couldn't Microsoft just hire a few moderators to police content? Read on to find out why Metanet discovered it's a little more complicated than that.

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