Video games are for the birds.

At least this month they are.

In our year-long quest to find the Greatest Animal in the History of Video Games, we listed every bird we could think of (and yes, we know we forgot the “Zelda” chickens, and we’re still not sure if Birdo is a bird).

Thankfully, our readers and judges helped us by picking their favorites.

Here’s our all-star panel of judges for this round:

• Leigh Alexander, Writer at Kotaku and her blog Sexy Videogameland

• Russ Frushtick, Games Editor at UGO

• Morgan Gray, Senior Producer at Crystal Dynamics

• Tofuburger, Co-founder of funny animal picture blog I Can Has Cheezburger

Unlike last time where Ecco the Dolphin won almost unanimously, this time the votes got tangled up in a few ties. Read on to see which bird(s) ultimately won, which ones readers liked best and which judge actually chose the chickens from “Chicken Run” as their top choice… Read more…

This year’s New York Comic Con proved what gamers have known for a long time - video games are a force to be reckoned with.

As the Convention has grown over the last three years, so has the gaming presence. Publishers realize that they can reach their key demographics, at least when that target audience takes a break from sifting through boxes of old comics.

Many game companies were at the Con. There were booths promoting upcoming titles, like “Iron Man,” “Metal Gear Online,” and even “Space Chimps.”

Numerous toy companies showcased their game figure lines for everything from “Kingdom Hearts” to the upcoming “Prototype.”

Sunday boasted a day’s worth of video game panels that offered insight into “Gears of War 2,” as well as the games industry itself.

There were even a very tiny handful of vendors offering games for sale. Basically, there was a little bit of something for everybody.

By no means is Comic Con the next E3, but it was very refreshing to see comics and games mingle for a New York crowd.

Hit the jump for many, many more pics from the floor. Read more…

Horses are great for traveling, but we can’t forget about man’s best friend: the dog.

Last month, we embarked on a year-long quest to find video games’ greatest animal. We started off with finding the best horse, and our all-star panel of judges chose the one fine equine who will represent horses in our end-of-the-year competition.

Now this month, we move on to canines. That includes dogs and wolves, to you non-veterinarians out there.

While dogs (and wolves) have certainly proven to be a gamer’s best friend, they also can be a gamer’s worst enemy. You have played “Resident Evil” haven’t you? From survival-horror to action-adventure to first-person shooters to casual titles, we take a look at all the canines we could think of for our judges’ consideration. And dear readers, feel free to weigh in with your favorite hound and suggest any that we missed.

Then check at the end of the month, when our our judges will select The Greatest Canine In Video Game History.

The leading contenders…

Amaterasu as Shiranui in “Okami”

When legendary monster Orochi is resurrected with an evil curse in tow, it’s up to the wolf-embodied sun god Amaterasu to regain the 13 powers of the Celestial brush and restore peace to the world.

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A horse is a horse, of course, of course…

But not these horses.

Two weeks ago, we announced our year-long quest to find the Greatest Animal In Video Game History. First, we proposed a list of the best virtual horses and asked you, the readers, to tell us if we missed any. Then comes phase two today: the official vote.

Now this is serious business, folks. For our Blue Ribbon Panel, we went to straight to the top:

• A pretty good game creator – Ken Levine, President and Creative Director of 2K Boston and chief creative force behind the 2007 GOTGOTY

• A pretty good artist — Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, illustrator of the “Penny Arcade” webcomic

• A pretty good writer — Leigh Alexander, editor of Worlds in Motion, writer at Gamasutra and her blog Sexy Videogameland

• A pretty knowledgeable person about animals –Tofuburger, co-founder of cultural phenomenon/funny animal picture blog I Can Has Cheezburger

After weighting each judge’s top three choices — many of which, were, uh, shocking — the winner turned out to be…

Epona from the “Legend of Zelda” series. Pokemon’s Rapidash came in at a close second. The horses from “World of Warcraft” tied with Hannah the Horse from “Zoo Race” for third place.

And the Readers’ Choice winner: Agro from “Shadow of the Colossus.” (Epona was a distant second.)

Are the judges out of touch? Or do they know something the rest of us don’t? They are pros, after all. You’ve got to see what they picked and their justifications (provided in words and pictures). So read on.

Take it away, Ken Levine… Read more…

We here at MTV Multiplayer love animals.

Yes, we do. Especially virtual ones (no shedding).

And that’s why we’ll let other video game websites squabble over competitions to name the Greatest Video Game Ever. We’re after something far more grand.

We are now launching a year-long quest to name the Greatest Animal In Video Game History. And we will need your help.

It’s time our video game animal friends got the appreciation they deserve. Whether used for travel, companionship and/or battle, there have been many video game animals that we’ll never forget. So every month we’ll list the nominations for the best beasts from a certain category — dogs, cats, and so on. At the end of the month, our Blue Ribbon panel will choose the winning creature for the species. Then, as 2008 draws to a close, we’ll choose the very best animal across all species.

Throughout this process we will depend on you to remind us of any animals we forgot.

To start this grand effort, we are channeling our inner equestrian to nominate a shortlist of Greatest Horse In Video Game History. (Voting concludes at the end of the month.) From a variety of no-names to unforgettable life-savers, these are the some of the most beloved video game horses we came up with for consideration:

Epona in “The Legend of Zelda” Series

Link’s loyal companion Epona has not only carried him around long distances throughout the series, but she’s also helped him in multiple horseback battles, most recently the final epic fight with Ganondorf in “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.” And — bonus points — she has her own song.

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There really is no better way to spend a Saturday night in the city than dragging my girlfriend around New York’s Lower East Side looking for video game toys.

While she may have gotten little out of the experience, I was able to find this great little collection of “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” action figures. I try my best to stay up on Japanese gaming toys as they are released, at least for import, but I hadn’t seen these come up at all, so I had to make them mine.

My haul included four 4″ posable figures: Link, Princess Zelda, the Usurper King Zant and a Wolf Link/ Midna combo. The set ran me $30 at J1toys.com (the store’s name is actually a web address - it’s so late 90’s). While, they might not the highest quality, they are all really well done. They appear to be officially licensed from Nintendo by Yujin, and are part of the SR Series (the rest of the little booklet that came with the set is in Japanese). As an added bonus, the Link figure can hold his sword and shield in either hand, and you can have the figure represent your preferred version of the game.

They have a high level of detail for all of the characters will look great collecting dust on my shelf with my multitude of other game-related toys and tchotchkes, only to be taken down and played with when I feel like acting out the final GameCube “Zelda” game.

Hit the jump for a full gallery of images of the figures.

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Nintendo announced this morning that “Pokemon Snap” is now available on the Wii’s Virtual Console system. I plan to buy the game. It will be the second — possibly third — time I’ve bought “Pokemon Snap.”

Earlier in the year, when “Sin & Punishment” was released on the Virtual Console, I bought it too — my second time owning that game.

And back when I got the Wii and downloaded “The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time“? Let’s see, how many that was:

1. The Nintendo 64 original
2. The “Ocarina of Time” Master Quest GameCube disc that was a pre-order for “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker“
3. The “Zelda” compilation GameCube disc (though, if memory serves this wasn’t really bought, but traded-in for)
4. The Wii virtual console edition

There you go. I bought that game four times. And it’s not even my favorite game or anything. I just like having an accessible version. (My reason for having multiple “Pokemon Snap”s, however, is that I keep meaning to play it, I keep never getting around to it, and I keep trying to make it easily accessible to myself.)

I’ve bought “Yoshi’s Island” twice, on the SNES and GBA. I bought “Halo” twice, because I lost my first disc — and I’m considering buying it a third time through the new Xbox Live Originals program, just because I like the idea of having lots of games available on my hard drive (which reminds me, I guess I’ve now bought “Psychonauts” twice).

So I’m wondering: which game have you bought the most?

[UPDATE/ CLARIFICATION -- Which game have you bought the most, across any format the game has been released in?]

I bet there are a lot of you out there who keep buying “Super Mario Brothers.” Or “Pac-Man.” Again and again, on your Atari, your cell phone and so on. Admit it.

Back in October Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and I waged a four-round debate about “The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.”

This turned out to be an unusual installment of our critically-complimented (it’s true!) Vs. Mode series. It included a transcript of a conversation he and I recorded right after I had him play the big to N64 “Zelda”s for the first time.

The full exchange is below, a veritable mountain of reading for your (possible) Thanksgiving holiday or, if you’re anywhere else in the world, for the remainder of your week.

N’Gai and I had planned this Vs. Mode for a long time. He had never played a “Zelda” game at length before, and I never let him hear the end of it. I was excited to show him what was great about the series.

Surprise, surprise. I wound up expressing some of the most anguished things I’ve ever written or spoken about video games, stuff like this:

I’m the one at the more dire crossroads than you. You simply get a chance to decide whether or not “Zelda” is a blind spot in your gaming career to be embarrassed about or to feel vindicated that you could afford to skip it, but for me I’m at this crossroads where I’m like, “Am I correct in feeling that ‘Zelda,’ that the world has had enough ‘Zelda’ and am I correct in having the hubris to say that I know that Nintendo should move on?” Or am I a victim of my old age and, is it the case that when I say, “Oh, this ‘Phantom Hourglass’ doesn’t have as good dungeons as the ‘Zelda’ in my day,” am I onto something or not? You’ve now played “Phantom Hourglass” dungeons, therefore you’ve played 21st century “Zelda” dungeons and you played 1998 “Zelda” dungeons and the Deku Tree. Were they the same?

So if you’ve ever felt you got too old for some aspect of gaming you used to love… if you’ve ever felt a series has gone too long … if ever you wondered if the problem was you or the people who made the game you struggled to enjoy or something else altogether… then this Vs. Mode is for you.

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

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Ah, the Wii Zapper — a piece of plastic that comes with a new “Zelda” shooting game.

A piece of plastic that I had a great time using at Nintendo’s media summit in October.

It’s Nintendo’s new $25 light gun for the Wii. And today it and it’s packed-in “Link’s Crossbow Training” are mine.

I received the Zapper today in a large box from Nintendo, a box so large that it has made me question Nintendo’s commitment to the environment. (Why such a large box? To better contain a metal suitcase which contained a lot of foam, a copy of “Medal of Honor: Heroes 2” and the Zapper)

What surprises lurked within? So far, just one…

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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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Here ends the latest Vs. Mode with a new confession from N’Gai and an all-new complaint from me. The pattern stays the same. The content changes.

Why did N’Gai, champion of “The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” in Round 1 turn his back on the game in today’s Round 4?

Why did I, champion of classic (”Zelda”) games in Round 2 and Round 3 take a swipe not just at N’Gai but at four of the world’s best game designers in this final round?

The world’s flipped like a great “Majora’s Mask” dungeon in this final round. Read on for N’Gai’s closing thoughts on the triumph of the game’s sailing system:

Were I Satoru Iwata, I’d hand out the “Phantom Hourglass” code to DS licensees for this very purpose.

And my call for a whole new level of game-sharing.

But enough about what you missed. And enough about why you missed it. Let’s talk about a solution. I remain frustrated that it is so hard to share games. I don’t mean that I have trouble lending you a copy of something. I just want to share, the way someone might want to share part of this Vs. Mode. I want to be able to clip and send …

… I look forward to the day of a gaming DVR-YouTube function that is innate to a console, one that lets me capture anything I just saw or did in any game and send it to my buddies. I don’t want to have to wonder if they own a copy of the game as well or if I don’t have their 16-digit code. I just want to send them cool stuff.

Read on for the full exchange, and thanks to everyone who added their own thoughts to this dialogue. It’s been a fascinating experience, as ever.

(Vs. Mode also appears on N’Gai’s blog)

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Here we go, folks… this is the post I’ve been reluctant to publish.

It is Round 3 of this week’s “Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass” Vs. Mode, a series that has filled my inbox with letters from people who say I’m rejecting a beauty of a game.

In Round 1 Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal praised the game’s controls and described his experience as a “Zelda” neophytye. I then explained why “Phantom Hourglass,” my 12th “Zelda,” wasn’t doing it for me.

In Round 2 N’Gai took me up on an offer to get a crash course in the two wonderful Nintendo 64 “Zelda” games, “The Ocarina of Time” and “Majora’s Mask.” I explained why “Phantom Hourglass,” my 12th “Zelda,” wasn’t doing it for me.

Today, Round 3 continues the previous round’s experimental approach (a transcript of a chat N’Gai and I had after the N64) crash course. I explain why “Phantom Hourglass,” my 12th “Zelda,” wasn’t doing it for me.

I’m being hard on myself. I’m not that much of a broken record, but I really felt stuck in this Vs. Mode. As I say in this round:

It’s kind of weird for me to proselytizing about “Zelda” for so long and then when we finally have a “Zelda” conversation to be the big “Zelda” doubter. Maybe it’s because I’m always going to be contrary about everything, but I think it really is that I got surprised by this crossroads that I found myself walking into.

The more I read what we talked about, the more conscious I am of just how anguished I sound in all of this. I’ve been a big “Zelda” fan for years, and the prospect that the series is either going south or that I have played too many “Zelda”s to appreciate them has unsettled me. I don’t want to be over “Zelda.”

Well, read on and see what you think. N’Gai talks about his issues with the “Zelda” gameplay formula, and how they relate to his feelings on “The Sims,” “GTA,” “Little Big Planet,” “Metal Gear” and “Halo 3“’s Forge.

I play my same sad tune. Here’s one comment from me — slightly rambling — that I wanted to highlight, because it speaks to my developing thoughts about the value of video game remakes as well as my long-time concerns about how hard it is for great game experiences I had in the past to be appreciated by gamers that come after me:

Totilo: … with “Madden” what I view EA as having done and the other football game developers, is they’ve essentially been able to work off of an ideal, which is real football and year after year after year try to come close to that. And really once they’ve reached that ideal and they’ve got football as realistically rendered or as successfully rendered as it needs to be for a video game that at that point there’s no need to make, to remake the engine, remake the graphics or remake anything other than to keep the rosters up to date, keep the uniforms up to date and so on. And you can see a lot of people saying that that’s all they’re seeing from some of the football company game developers anyway.

“Zelda” — it peaked. It’s been great already. It’s like the ideal “Zelda”s exist. They’re already out there. And in other forms of entertainment, once the ideal exists and companies have found a way to make money off of just re-releasing that ideal, finding a way to make that ideal relevant even if it means transferring it from VHS to DVD to downloadable or whatnot. And so, you know, clearly where I’m at is at a spot where I’m just saying, “Look, I’ve played the ideal ‘Zelda.’” I was able to play it in 1998 when, at the time, it was running on technology that blew my mind so my memory of that “Zelda” will always be a bit as an ultimate experience. Your memory of “Ocarina” will probably always be that, “hey this was a really good game.” That was an interesting artifact of history that you played in the year 2007 right after seeing “Ratchet and Clank [Future],” you know, HD quality graphics on my standard definition set. And so you probably actually haven’t experienced the ideal “Zelda” experience.

Read on. And check in later this week for Round 4, which will return to the original format and in which I will finally say some nice things about “Phantom Hourglass.” Hopefully I’ll have beaten the game by then. I’m at the final dungeon.

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

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