Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game that you need to play and the one game that you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. This week with 100% more winners!

Listen to mankind’s greatest radio segment, Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week

Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game that you need to play and the one game that you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week? It’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 vs. Kencha Bancho: Badass Rumble!

Listen to Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week

You play as rookie detective Matt Simmons as he tries to piece together the strange events of a double murder involving a former police detective and his wife. The gameplay consists of exploring crime scenes, collecting evidence and questioning witnesses. What sets crime scene apart from other games in the crime adventure game genre, such as Phoenix Wright, is its realistic portrayal of crime scenes, more serious tone and its mature subject matter.

Did a former detective really murder his wife and then commit suicide, or is there some foul play going on here? They say this detective was a happy guy… It’s up to you to find the truth.

Tapping the DS stylus on the screen lets you investigate important elements of the crime scene. Once you find something significant, like a blood splatter on the wall, you can collect evidence with a variety of interactive tools, such as a blood collecting cotton swab, fingerprint powder and tongs for dislodging bullets.  Dusting for fingerprints and all the other evidence gathering mini games require a steady stylus hand.  Make a mistake, like I did often, and you’ll lose some of your credibility gauge and look like the rookie that you are. Lose enough credibility and say goodbye to that gold detective badge, it’s game over for you.

Once you’ve collected evidence, it’s time to take it back to the lab and test it, where your results will reveal even more clues for your case.  Do the finger prints on the gun match up with the fingerprints on the table?  Does the blood on the victim match the blood on the ground?  Putting the blood samples under a microscope will tell you. The lab mini games were the most enjoyable of the bunch, although I don’t know if zapping bad cells in a blood sample with a laser beam is really how they find DNA in real life investigations.  But what doesn’t get better when you add lasers?

Crime scene looks good, especially if you’re fan of CSI and the other 1000 crime based tv shows on network television or if you’re into the Phoenix Wright series, but crave something a little less cutesy anime and little more Dashiell Hammett.  Hopefully, when it launches in February we’ll have another great mystery title, and one that doesn’t pull any punches.

Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game you need to play and the one you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week? Dragon Age: Origins? Band Hero? Five Minutes to Kill Yourself?

Listen to Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week

Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game you need to play and the one you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week?  Grand Theft Auto, DJ Hero, Forza 3? Click to find out!

Listen to Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week: 10/25 – 10/31

Wedding Dash tries to capture all the stress, creative thinking and excitement of being a wedding planner, which is, if the game is an indicator, a challenging and rewarding job. It starts off by letting you choose the location of the wedding reception, which functions as a level select screen. You can have the reception in a banquet hall, on a ship or on the beach among other locations.

Next, you’re presented with facts about the couple getting married, which you must pay careful attention to, because the couple’s personalities factor into what you to feed them and where you send them on their honeymoon. If Jeff and Katie are vegetarians and nature lovers, then serving them bloody rare steaks and honeymooning them in New York City would make you a really bad wedding planner.  Choosing salads and Yellowstone National Park will earn you some valuable points at the start the game.

From here, Wedding Dash plays much like Diner Dash, with guests arriving to the wedding, you finding them tables, serving them an appetizer, a main course, a dessert and then getting them out to the dance floor so you can seat more guests. Even though it seems like not having enough seats for all the guests would be a great way to get fired as a wedding planner, the fact that you need to turn tables is what brings the frenzied, stressful pace to the gameplay. If you make anyone wait too long for anything people are going to get angry and you’ll be losing points and possibly your check.

Sharp thought bubbles above a person’s head indicates that they’re getting impatient.

To add some challenge, Wedding Dash’s guests have particular desires about where they sit at the wedding. For example, many people won’t want to sit next to Aunt Fran, so you’ll gain extra points by sitting them at least one seat away from her. Other guests will want to sit at a particular table or by a particular person.

You’ll also have to avert wedding catastrophes. During one of my weddings, I thought I was doing great, serving everyone’s food fast and getting them out on the dance floor, when I realized that the sound system had shorted out and all the people on the dance floor were upset. All it would have taken to was one touch of the stylus to solve the problem, but since I was so busy serving food, it must have gone on for half of the wedding and the bride was livid. Wedding Dash does such a good job of making you juggle tasks and concentrate on a couple key areas of the screen that you won’t even notice the wedding apocalypse happening right in the corner.

Wedding Dash seems to be shaping up to be an enjoyable game.  The hectic pace coupled with the satisfaction of a successful wedding makes this one game that could appeal to both those who see wedding planning as a dream job and those (like me) that just want a fun, quick, challenging game to play.

Every week, I research all the best new video game releases to find the one game you need to play and the one you need to stay away from: my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week. Who will win this week? Kingdom Hearts, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge?

Click Here to listen to Video Game Winners and Losers

By now you’ve probably heard of Scribblenauts, but if you haven’t you should know that it’s being hailed as the Savior of All Organic Life, a.k.a. one spot lower in a gamer’s mind than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Scribblenauts allows you to write any noun on the DS screen and that word will appear in the game. Ridiculous, I know. Click to listen to me drop the awesome bomb on 3 unsuspecting radio show hosts in my Video Game Winners and Losers of the Week segment. Were they as impressed as gamers are?

Scribblenauts Wins My Winner of the Week

Gamer unseats The Happening as the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disgusting, abrasive movie made by someone who doesn’t understand or appreciate games and can only see the negative in the youth and culture that surround them.

Most gamers weren’t interested in seeing Gamer.  It’s because Gamer’s premise doesn’t appeal to gamers to begin with.  In the future teenagers won’t be playing Halo 3, they’ll be playing Slayers, a multiplayer shooter where they control real people, death row convicts (because there’s always so many hanging around) via engineered cells injected into their brains.  So in short, it’s a movie about a kid playing a soldier.  What the producers trying to cash in on the gaming craze didn’t realize is that when gamers play games, we are the kid playing the soldier, and Gamer is a movie where we sit and watch a kid play a soldier.  The film reduces gamers to passively experience what they already interactively enjoy.  Why watch Gamer when you could just play a game?  Watching Gamer is like having an older brother who wont pass the controller for an hour and a half.

The action in Gamer is supposed to feel like video game action, with all the supposed earmarks of the medium like flashing lights, quick camera movement and big explosions.  The accumulative effect is jarring and hard to watch.  It feels more like what someone might see if they’re not used to playing games and can’t understand the pacing and the context of the action that’s happening on screen.  It would look frenetic to them, almost incomprehensible.

The attempt at video game action reminded me of the awkwardness produced when Ang Lee tried to nail why comics are appealing in Hulk by using a split screen camera technique to mimic comic book panels.  Didn’t Lee understand that progressing through the panels of a comic produces the same effect as simple film editing?   Two uneducated attempts to appeal to audiences who love mediums they don’t understand.  Their efforts to make comic book movies “comic booky” or video game movies “video gamey”  just become trivializations of the mediums themselves.  I’ve never purchased a comic for its panels and I wouldn’t be a gamer if the action in video games was as painful to watch as the action in Gamer.

Most prevalent and intolerable of all, Gamer hates gamers.  The movie is strewn with negative, loathsome amoral gamer stereotypes.  They’re stomach turning, profane bastards wallowing in a movie obsessed with putridity.  The youth is demonized ; new media is demonized.  Are there any humans in this movie?  None of the characters deaths have any emotional weight and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a movie so devoid of a sense of place. This is not how a feel when I play games, this is not how I feel when I talk with gamers.  Much like its protagonist in his proudest moment, Gamer is a loud, wandering, barfing mess that marginalizes the audience it’s supposed to appeal to.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Sumo Sultan at first. It’s a monstrously large luxury “bean bag chair” that has a removable, washable micro suede cover, and claims to be the ultimate gaming throne. But it’s actually filled with a super sculptable furniture foam, not beans of any sort, and so right off the bat, I felt the Sumo Sultan had lied to me about its true nature, and I could see my other furniture was intimidated by its Brock Lesnarian size.

However, I began to notice how my guests reacted to the Sumo Sultan as opposed to my other furniture pieces. Where I saw apathy to my rustic leather couch and awkwardness and fear to my seven foot wooden Indian carving, I saw enthusiasm to the Sumo Sultan.

It was when my hot-as-fire Asian girlfriend curled up on it and said “This thing is awesome” that I began to realize that this thing is awesome. Not only my Princess of the South Asian Seas, but every guest that visited seemed to be attracted to the Sumo Sultan’s voluptuous promises of comfort. It made my staunchly masculine room more casual, more approachable, more endearing.

In moments when I and the Sumo Sultan were alone, we bonded when I discovered the Sumo Sultan could withstand an elbow drop from the top of my couch, something my coffee table couldn’t even boast. But it was the night I fell asleep inside the Sultan’s loving folds after playing Oblivion that I realized I had started to care less what my friends thought of my Sumo Sultan and more what my Sumo Sultan thought of my friends.

I will say that the Sumo Sultan, like any person, has its shortcomings. As a gaming chair it lacks neck support unless you use a pillow, especially if your TV is mounted high, like mine is. And yes, you could sculpt yourself some neck support from the Sultan’s copious amounts of foam, but doing so is harder than it sounds, mainly from the Sumo Sultan’s tremendous weight and girth. That same awkward weight makes moving Sultan model around quite a Herculean endeavor. They don’t call it Sumo for nothing.

But even though the Sumo Sultan and I don’t agree on everything, it’s still a great, throw anywhere, conversation piece addition to my living room and a pleasure to sit in. The Sultan model is good for game rooms but I would recommend a smaller Sumo model for studio apartments and tighter spaces, lest the Sultan dominate your room with its size and charisma.

Final Word: The Sumo Sultan is a throne that deserves a throne.

Verdict: Ripten Recommended

Get one here: Sumo Bean Bag Chairs

Devoloper Yuke’s demonstrate a keen understanding of the sport by breaking down the complex fighting into 6 distinct martial arts:  Boxing, Kickboxing and Muay Thai for striking and Wrestling, Jui-jitsu and Judo for grappling.  Each discipline feels right too.  Finding your striking range as a kickboxer and punishing your opponents legs with kicks only to set him up for a knockout high kick, or using wrestling to slam and push your opponent up against the cage both feel like authentically gratifying experiences a real UFC competitor would have.

The damage system created for UFC Undisputed makes me never want to see a health bar ever again.  Each body part takes damage individually.  Take enough damage to any part and you could get knocked into a “rocked,” dazed state where your opponent could finish you off for an easy TKO.  Guard your head, especially, because UFC Unleashed is the first game where flash, one hit ko’s can happen and feel completely organic.  Guard your head too much and your arms will take a beating, making your punches weaker.  It’s all very deep and realistic to the sport.

UFC Undisputed’s authenticity has drawbacks, however, and most of them surface in it’s baffling ground fighting.  Not only is the ground game, where wrestlers pound their opponents and jiu-jitsu players look for submissions, extremely foreign to casual game or fight fans, but navigating the ground game with Undisputed’s controls feels like guesswork.  I can foresee so many annoyed questions from new players:  “How do I advance my position, how do I even know which position is best and most frequently, how do I get this guy off of me?”  I’m not a controller thrower but being checkmated on the ground is the closest I’ve ever been to hurling plastic, especially because it feels like there’s nothing you can do.  I’m sure having Brock Lesnar on top of you is even more frustrating and scary, but as a wrestler myself, I felt that some of these moves seem to be easier to pull off in real life.

The game roster depth sets a new high standard, and most of the character models look incredible, although I did notice a slight preference to the UFC’s current stars, both in stats and look.  It’s certaintly understandable, but I had to laugh when I saw a scarily photo realistic Frank Mir go up against Mark Coleman, who looked like he’d been dropped into a vat of tan makeup.  Anderson Silva and GSP look perfect, Rampage Jackson looks idealized and poor Mac Danzig, who’s lost his last three, looks like a bobble head.

The Career mode is a refreshing look into the life and training schedule of an up and coming UFC prospect, complete with angry letters from Dana White and assigning workouts to the eight or so weeks given to you before a fight, with the emphasis on balancing training with rest so you don’t go into a fight completely beat.  Visiting the various real life fight camps to learn techniques from masters like Anderson Silva was a high point, but it’s a bit disapointing that Xtreme Couture was changed to Xtreme MMA and Team Militch to Team Militant.

Future versions of the game should clean up minor issues like the labyrinthine menus that make create a figher and designing shorts a chore.  Additionally, a UFC game should really offer the option of unlocking UFC legends like Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock.  And I wonder if fan favorite Clay Guida was excluded just because they couldn’t  simulate his flowing mane of hair correctly.

Final Word:

UFC Undisputed, like the sport it simulates, offers action found no where else in the world of sports and gaming but suffers from a somewhat bewildering ground game . Even so, UFC Unleashed is the start of of something great and a solid nomination for Sports Game of the Year.

<!– adman –>

Deadliest Warrior is one of Spike’s top new shows, with ratings averaging 1.7 million viewers per episode, and one of the most downloaded TV shows on Xbox Live. And how could it not be? Each show answers the questions that burn deep within the heart of every man, such as, “who would win in a fight, a ninja or a Spartan?”

Max Geiger is part of the team that determines who wins the title of deadliest warrior for each show by collecting data from tests done on the warriors weapons and inserting it into a program which simulates the fight between the two combatants and determines a winner. Max took some time to tell us about some of his most exhilarating and horrifying moments while filming the show and gave us some clues on how the program chooses its winner.

Jonathan Zungre: What’s up man, how are you?

Max Geiger: Hey, I’m doing alright, man, how about yourself?

JZ: I’m doing really good dude. Hey, thanks a lot for agreeing to do this interview.

MG: Hey dude, it’s really not a problem at this point. I mean, it’s out there, I want the show to do well, so I like talking about it.

JZ: Awesome man, awesome. Hey, well, my first question is, dude, how do you feel about being part of one of the most awesome, manliest shows on television. I mean, what did it feel like when you first got this job?

MG: [Laughing] To be entirely honest, this is kind of blind dumb luck, how I sort of stumbled into this job. And so while we were actually shooting the thing it was awesome. It’s probably the most, like, fun job I’ve ever had. It was getting to wake up and go to Willy Wonka’s magical murder factory.

JZ: [Laughing] That’s awesome.

JZ: One of my favorite things about the show is how you get these guys on there that represent the different warrior types and they are passionate about their ancestry and they will talk smack on each other, like hardcore.

MG: [Laughing]

JZ: Honestly, bro, I’ve always wondered, has it ever gotten to the point where you’re like, “Oh man, this dude’s sincerely mad, something’s about to go down here. There’s going to be a fight.”

MG: Well you know the thing is, it’s kind of like how boxers work. You know where, like in the run up to the fight and in all the promotion for the fight, two boxers will give this gigantic impression that they hate each other, right? That they would like, eat each other’s children? That they have nothing more than this seething [loathing] for each other right?
But when we’re actually there doing the tests everybody’s professional and the off-camera stuff is all super professional. Because the thing is, the guys are actually former military or martial artists who’ve spent a lot of time working on their discipline. They have a professional respect for one another. In the moment of a test, because, yes, results are on the line, yeah, emotions can flare a little bit but everyone is still super professional and there’s actually a lot of mutual respect that goes around.

JZ: Oh that’s cool. Do you have any personal favorite characters that have gone on the show? I personally really liked the Mafia guys.

MG: I can’t really say like, “yeah this guy is a favorite of mine,” because I have to be as impartial as possible, but the viking vs. samurai was a totally awesome match up in my opinion and I would totally love to redo it with different weapons and more tests in maybe the second season.

JZ: Why was that, because you liked the guys demonstrating the weapons or you liked the weapons themselves?

MG: I’m just an enormous fan of both warrior cultures that get seen there. You know, it’s a little history nerdish but, you know, Japan had that whole thing where they were staring down the mongol invasion right? And it was only because of a Divine Wind that they avoided that, and in my head it’s not too hard to replace mongol boats in that fantasy with long ships that did make it. [laughs] That image right there, you know, long ships amassing on the shores Honshu would be just an amazing thing that I’d love to see in a movie.

JZ: What about the different weapons you’ve seen throughout the show? Have there been any that really surprised you, that really blew you away, or ones that you were just underwhelmed by?
MG: The thing that has startled me most about weapons is, you really don’t get the impression of it onscreen, but anything that spins. So, something like the morning star or, actually, [in the Shaolin Monk vs. Maori Warrior] episode, the twin hooks the Shaolin monk has, anything that uses rotational force or rotational momentum, you know angular momentum, is just very difficult to control and it’s also very difficult to observe and watch as a human being from a battlefield, tactical perspective.

So, because it’s bringing in all this power and it’s generating all this power but it’s difficult to control and difficult to avoid, those things are just the most dangerous things and I cringe every time on set one of them starts getting spun up because I’m like, oh man, we’ve got shields and everybody’s at a safe distance but, you know, this could still go wrong.

JZ: I saw that clip of the Shaolin monk’s twin hooks swords where he linked them together and did that ballet type move and slit the dummy’s stomach right open and I was like, “There’s no way that should work, but it does.”

MG: No, it’s horrifying and those things are sharp. You know, that makes sense to hold as a sword but when you’re putting them together and that’s not even a closed link, you know, it’s just like each hook is there and they’re not beaten together like a chain, it’s just like, “oh man, ah.” [laughs] It was a nerve racking moment.

JZ: As I’ve been watching the show, I’ve been seeing that you’ve been cutting up a lot of pigs lately. [laughs]

MG: [Laughs]

JZ: The Deadliest Warrior always says that a pig carcass is the best way to simulate what a human body is like, but I wondered, are you getting any heat from PETA from this?

MG: No.

JZ: No phone calls?

MG: I don’t see any of that, the producers would see any of that and they haven’t mentioned it to us. A rule of thumb on this, when it came to how many pigs we could destroy was there was an episode of Mythbusters where they shot a cannonball through like, four pigs, or something like that.

JZ: [Laughs]

MG: So our producers were basically comfortable with any level of carnage up to that.

JZ: [Laughs] The Mythbusters quotient.

MG: Right, right, exactly. So we do owe sort of a debt to the work that they’ve carved out and the path they’ve forged on ahead down this trail for us. Even though, it’s Spike and you know, we don’t like to talk about Discovery shows.

JZ: When you talk about Mythbusters, they’re very scientific in their approach. Sometimes on Deadliest Warrior, when you’re testing two different weapons in the same catagory, why doesn’t it seem like they get the same test? The test isn’t uniform. Like in the case with the hand grenade from the Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz episode…

MG: Yeah, yeah, everyone has been on about that test.

JZ: I mean, I thought the test was awesome, I thought it was super entertaining, but I was wondering…

MG: [Laughs]

JZ: I mean, hey, what can I say? But if the test isn’t uniform, can you really claim that it’s a true test?

MG: The thing is that there is about a week of testing that we do and there are four cameras rolling on that constantly. That all gets cut down [because] we have a huge shooting ratio, right. Part of that is that we just have so many weapons that not everything can make it into the show. And then, combined with the fact that the reality side of it, the testing, the labs, the dojo and out on the range is only part of it and then recreation [of the fight between the two warriors] is the other part of it, there’s not just enough time to show everything.

Unfortunately, one of the things that doesn’t make it into the show as much as it should, in my opinion, is the science. In the case of the grenade test, specifically, this is actually pretty interesting, those grenades both have a known quantity of explosive within them. In the case of the M67, it’s something like, I can’t remember off the top of my head how many grams it is, but it’s composition B, which is a combination of RDX and TNT, I believe. But when it comes to explosives, the industry standard is to relate everything back to TNT, I mean, like even nuclear bombs were thought of as, “well, it’s the equivalent of 10 megatons, which is ten million tons, of Trinitrotoluene [TNT].”

And so, this is more on Geoff’s end of it because he handles the hard science more directly, but Geoff actually has a calculator based on his biomechanics work and his injury and trauma mechanics, because he’s done a lot of IED testing, that will calculate the actual effect of the blast wave based on the quantity and type of explosive.

With those tests, what we’re actually looking at is more the effective range of shrapnel distribution and just, sort of, blowing something up in order to see the pieces that would come out of that, as opposed to looking at the direct effect of the blast wave because that’s a known quantity.

JZ: Now, you’re mostly in charge of the computer program that decides the result. That’s your area of expertise?

MG: Yeah, I am its keeper. [laughs]

JZ: [Laughs] I always see you press that button on every episode and then it goes into the computer, sci-fi sounds and then it brings up the fight at the end.

MG: [Laughs] They’re like, “Alright Max, we need a definitive strike on the enter key,” and I was like, “Are you serious guys, are we seriously doing this?” And so I was like, “Alright, I’ll do my best press on the return key.”

JZ: [Laughs] You, like, miss it sometimes.

MG: [Laughs] I wish I could press buttons that definitively in real life and other cool stuff would happen.

JZ: So the program is what really decides who wins the title of “Deadliest Warrior” for each episode. In your words, how exactly does it work?

MG: We’re taking something that was originally developed to simulate army on army combat and my job is to pull it down to an individual level. It was actually really funny because when we shot the pilot, I spent, like, three days sweating balls on how to get the graphics side of their engine to show two dudes actually fighting each other in the middle of a field and have it be accurate and load the right weapons in based on what they wanted. And so I show that to the producers and they’re like, “We’re just going to do a recreation for all that, you don’t have to worry about any of the graphics stuff.” And I was like, “What?”

So at that point I could just strip all that out, just basically ignore that, and look at the underlying functions and modules that determine the actual battle and get my hands dirty with that. And so everybody’s been like, “Oh my God, your advanced simulation software is just an Excel spreadsheet.” And I’m just like, “Ah, no dude, no see, the Excel is a really good tool, well it’s actually Open Office Calc, but Calc is a really good tool for managing large amounts of data, even the raw scientific data from the sensors that Geoff is pulling in, that’s getting stored in the spreadsheet format.”

So what we’re doing is taking that data and then crunching it so that so it can be packaged and then used by the sim. And then the sim goes ahead and gives us its output. So it’s all doing things in the raw, numbers way, so there’s not really a visual component to it.

JZ: Yeah, I remember some of the early advertisements said something about a CGI fight, or something like that…

MG: [That was] a misnomer on a PR person’s part somewhere. They’re just like, “Yeah, it’s going to be CGI because it’s computer technology!”

Unfortunately, in the TV world, there’s this understanding that “computers are magic!” And it’s like, “No they’re not but they can do this very well but not these things very well.” It’s like, “please, this is not Felix the Cat and his magic bag.”

JZ: [Laughs] In the case of the Ninja vs. the Spartan, I remember I absolutely fell in love with the ninja egg, remember this glass egg, you put the glass in the egg…

MG: The black egg.

JZ: When you showed the test with the ninja throwing it at the Spartan’s face it looked like it completely covered his eyes in glass. And I remember thinking to myself, that seems like it could be the decider of a lot of the fights, because I would feel that if your eyes got coated with glass, that would be something that would incapacitate you so that you could be killed very easily. The glass egg got zero kills in that episode, but I wondered if the program took into account…

MG: The kills for each weapon are the definitive, like “this weapon went into his body and then he fell over and stopped moving.” Like “this was the thing that put the critical leak in his circulatory system and then all of his blood came out.” So the glass egg isn’t, you know, you can get glass in your eyes and your not going to be able to see, but it’s not going to kill you out right. But the glass egg in the sim result contributed to basically every kill that the ninja did get.

JZ: Oh, ok, so that was going to be my question: Does the program take into account incapacitating damage?

MG: Yeah, so when you see the very end, when we’re in at the closest ranges, often times the guys are wounded, you know, they’re not doing well. And that’s when, at close range, things come out to really finish the other guy off.

JZ: Does the program take into account the abilities of the warrior himself, such as a ninja’s stealthy ability or the fact that the Spetsnaz knows all that crazy rolling around technique [laughs]?

MG: [Laughs] Well, ok, this is sort of a tricky row to hoe, as it were, because when we’re doing a test it would be very easy for us to say we’re testing our experts and we’re basing everything off of them but that’s not entirely accurate because as awesome as our modern ninjas were, they’re not the ninjas of legend. And as awesome as our modern Spetznatz and Green Berets are, the former Spetznatz have been out of active duty for 15 years.

And in the same way there’s also the historical consideration that modern people are bigger and healthier than ancient people in a lot of ways. This is kind of an interesting thing, a lot of people thought that the gladiator was this huge big tank and that’s the way they played it, but ancient Romans were actually pretty short, 5’4”, 5’6”. You compare that with the Apache and the Apache would have likely been bigger in many cases.

JZ: Oh, wow.

MG: When Europeans actually arrived in North America they were shocked at the height and over all health of native Americans. So there is that consideration to take into account, we’re actually looking at the ancient warrior not the expert and that’s part of the reason we do so much of the testing on the weapons, because once we know the weapons we can, sort of, put that into the hands of what we think that ancient warrior would be.

So, the warriors, in terms of skill or any sort of special tactic or training that we’re looking at, are good warriors. They’re not, you know, the once in a lifetime, legendary Miyamoto Musashi but then they’re not your average fighting man running grunt whose going to go get killed. They’re good at what they do.

When it comes to something like the ninja’s stealth skills, we’re looking at that in the context of terrain, for the most part and decreasing the accuracy of the Spartan’s weapons. So, yes, things like that are a factor.

JZ: So terrain, where the two warriors fight is also factored into the program?

MG: We look at cover, basically, and we give cover equivalent to different areas. For Yakuza vs. Mafia it was cover equivalent to the interiors and exteriors of a city block.

JZ: I remember in the Yakuza vs. Mafia matchup, the bat got the edge over the numbchuks. Was that just based on the damage the bat can do rather than the technique that the Yakuza member would have wielded the nunchucks with? I guess you already answered that question when you say, “We’re talking about good warriors.”

MG: Yes. And to speak to that test specifically, part of that is that the bat has a greater reach than the nunchucks. It’s able to get in there and strike further, but at the same time it does have its disadvantages, there’s a lot of lead on the shot, you can see a guy winding up to do it.

JZ: So overall, a lot of the matchup is decided on the damage and the power of the weapons but you also try to factor in what the skill sets of the actual warriors themselves would be.

MG: Right, right and the skill that’s required to use the weapon and the ability and the need to use it accurately. So things like the sling are inherently inaccurate weapons and we look at that.
We try to look at skill as much as possible, the problem is that once you get into a, sort of, skill pissing match it just comes down to, “well if you would have done this, he would have done this” and all objectivity gets thrown out the window. So we try to keep everything as testable as possible.

JZ: And you really have to go with the representatives that you have in the building at the time as part of that too, because the rest of it is just throwing out objectivity.

MG: Yeah, I mean it’s the core of a hypothesis, it has to be falsifiable. It can either be proved right or wrong. If it can’t be proved wrong, if there’s no falsifiability in the condition, then it’s a subjective bit of data.

JZ: You’ve got a controversial “Taliban vs. IRA” episode coming up. How are you feeling about that?

MG: [Laughs] Personally, I’m scared shitless.

JZ: [Laughs]

MG: It was actually a really difficult episode to film. Thankfully, the experts that we got in on it, and this is where things get a little bit trickier and we have to nuance the show a little bit more, so in the case of Spetsnaz vs. Green Beret we could get former operators, right, guys who had actually done it. In this case, it’s people who were close to the world of the IRA or the Taliban. One of our experts on the Taliban, for instance, is an FBI anti-terrorism agent. So he’s very familiar with that world and he knows how they would operate.

At the same time we have to be very clear and we took great pains to make sure that it’s clear these guys are not actual IRA or Taliban operatives, former or currently active. They’re experts on the subject material and that’s something that we’re trying to get across.

And then the other thing, which was a bit of a sticky wicket, was that we’re looking at guys who are killing people that, you know, exist today. We can’t hide behind history on this one, and that was an uncomfortable thing. I mean, we were looking at weapons like land mines and IEDs and people have lost people to land mines and IEDs. Land mines are currently a huge problem all over the world, places like Cambodia, Afghanistan, so on and so forth. So, actually, what we decided to do, because this is such a modern problem, we decided that one of the things we could do with the episode is use it to raise awareness about the effects of these weapons on civilian population in a lot of places around the world.

So the cast and crew got together and we all made a donation to landmines.org, which is the United Nation’s humanitarian fund, which goes and directly clears mine fields. They’re the adopt a minefield program.

Even though we’re looking at two of the most reviled people in modern history, or two of the most reviled factions in modern history, we’re hoping that some good can come out of this episode, so that we can get people to actually go to landmines.org and make a contribution and help to clear minefields in the developing world.

JZ: Well, great. What about any rumors of a second season? Are you hopeful?

MG: I am not privy to any of that. This is the period of time where Spike and MorningStar do the delicate dance of “is there going to be a second season, what’s that going to look like?” Everything becomes complicated as soon as money gets involved, you know, it’s Hollywood. So I’m going to be hopeful that there’s going to be a second season. I’ve been thrilled with the response online and I haven’t seen the cable tv ratings directly but I hear that we’ve been doing really well there. So I would love to come back and do a second season but, you know, at the same time I’m very much aware of the fact that this is television, this is luck as far as I’m concerned. It could all dry up in a moment.

JZ: What about possible match ups for the second season that you personally would like to see?

MG: Oh my God, dude, don’t even get me started, I’ve been thinking about this since day one. [Laughs]

JZ: [Laughs] Well you said something about the Mongols. The Mongols haven’t been tested yet, have they?

MG: Dude, ok, so Mongol vs. Polish Winged Hussar, like Golden Horde era Mongol vs. Winged Hussar is one of the fights I want to see most. It’s probably #2 on my list, right. #1 is both the Roman Empire and the Chinese, this was the Han empire at that point in time, you know, warring stage, romance of the three kingdoms period, both were aware of each other’s existence and actually made successful contact back and forth. But what I would actually love to see is a confrontation between a Roman Legionary vs. a Han Chinese foot soldier in the middle of the Parthian dessert, with the empire right in between the two of them and what that would look like if two of the ancient worlds greatest empires ever squared off.

JZ: Wow, sounds great, sounds fantastic. I’d tune in [laughs].

MG: You know, if we get the money, the other thing that I would love to see is a battle of World War II era frogmen. So the UDT, the underwater demolitions team, the Allied group, sort of the American military group that would go on to become the Navy SEALs, I’d love to see them against a Nazi frogman and just try and see what that battle would be like underwater because the stakes are much higher there, you know, you lose your air, you lose your life and just see what that would look like.

JZ: That sounds great man. Hey, thanks so much for the interview, Max.

MG: Hey, no problem.

Cross your fingers for a second season for Max and don’t forget to watch the “Taliban vs. IRA” season finale on Spike tv, your 360 or your PS3 and donate to Landmines.org.

Fight Night Round 4 is the first game in over 21 years to feature Mike Tyson, and let me answer your first question right now: No, you can’t bite someone’s ear off.  EA goes to great lengths to capture the devastating power of the late 80’s-early 90’s Tyson rather than the hot mess that was ear-biting, post-prison Tyson.  The roster of over 40 boxers is also the first in 17 years to feature “Big” George Foreman, again, not the smiley grill salesman but the cinderblock-fisted monster who almost ended Joe Frazier’s career in the 70’s. I recently got my hands on the newest entry in EA’s successful franchise to see exactly how the skull busting will be going down. 

The last Fight Night game, much like Oscar De La Hoya, while technically solid, garnered most of its attention from how good it looked as one of the first Xbox 360 titles.  Fight Night Round 4 looks like it’s shaping up to be more like Floyd Mayweather Jr.: just as pretty and with better boxing.  From the glimmer of Ali’s satin robe to Ricky Hatton’s creepy arched eyebrows, all the fighters look, act, and, most importantly, box like their real life counterparts. 

The new AI, dubbed R.E.A.L. (Record, Evaluate, Adapt, Learn), dictates that each fighter will fight as they do in real life but will also attempt new tactics if their strategy is failing.  That means if you’re fighting Muhammad Ali, he may come out cocky, ready to back you up, throwing lead crosses, but if you start beating on him, he may try to go on the defensive, let you tire yourself out and then turn up the heat in the later rounds to take the fight from you.

Playing to your fighter’s strengths will give you the advantage in the ring, such as pumping Ali’s piston-like jab and using Tyson, whose jab looks weak in comparison, to duck and weave into close range to throw absolutely demonic hooks and uppercuts.

But it’s Legacy mode that has everyone excited, Fight Night Round 4’s revamped career mode, where you’re not out just to become a champion but to cement your legacy as the greatest of all time.  You’ll start out as a lowly club fighter and by managing your Legacy Meter, you’ll work your way up the ranks, earning titles such as contender, champion and if you’re good enough, you’ll surpass Ali as the Greatest of All Time.

Your Legacy Meter is made up of two things, your Popularity and your Pound for Pound rating.  Your Popularity is based on how exciting your boxer is to watch:  Does he knock people out, does he have 12 round wars?  Your popularity can go up even if you lose, as long as you’re exciting.  Your Pound for Pound rating is entirely different.  It measures your technical proficiency.  Do you waste punches?  How’s your accuracy?  Can you counter effectively?  That 12 round slugfest you lost probably did wonders for your Popularity, but it won’t be helping your Pound for Pound rating, and you need both to become the greatest.

You’ll also be fighting against father time.  Many boxers are way past their prime once they hit their late 30’s and the game will reflect that.  As your fighter ages, doing the training exercises that once improved your stats will only sustain them, and eventually will only manage their decline.  The good thing about Legacy mode is that what you must do to become the Greatest of All Time will be fairly clear. For example, at the end of your career you’ll be able to see that if you beat two more top contenders, you will be known as the greatest, but it won’t be easy because those fighters are deadly and if you lose to them you could be knocked out into retirement and obscurity.

20 years after losing the title, George Foreman returned at age 45 to become heavyweight champion.

The deep create a boxer feature is back and now has Xbox Live Vision support if you want to add your own mugshot to your boxer’s body.  Aging won’t show on your boxers face, but if you take a bunch of beatings, you could have some lasting visible effects.  And, thankfully, you won’t be getting strange bonuses from the equipment you use, like getting +10 to punching strength from Everlast boxing gloves.  Were they lined with lead or hiding brass knuckles?  This time the only way to improve your stats is to train.

The new physics engine makes the game more organic and unpredictable. No punch ever seems to land the same way.  Even during the tutorial, when the boxers aren’t moving around the ring, my jab would land on my opponents face differently every time I threw it.  Fighting on the inside produced realistic, natural moments, such as Manny Pacquiao resting his glove on Ricky Hatton’s arm for a second and the boxers arms getting briefly entangled when they threw a punch at the same time.  The important thing to remember is none of this is scripted.  It’s not that the fighters arms will always become entangled when you throw punches at the same time, it’s something that just happened to occur in that one moment because of the game’s physics, and may not happen again for the entire fight.

Knockdowns are also more organic and unpredictable.  Flash, one punch knockouts are based on the strength of the puncher, the angle the punch lands and the physics of how it hits.  Blocking can be punched though and the scripted punch swatting and parry system that existed in the past two Fight Nights, which allowed you to bat punches out of the air and capitalize on the stunned fighter, has been almost completely scrapped.  Parrying punches still exists but will be based on more realistic timing and blocking is as simple as high or low.

The biggest improvements over the last Fight Night will probably be the streamlining of the controls.  The team found that the motion for haymakers made them too hard to throw, especially the right hook and uppercut haymakers.   The Right bumper now functions as the haymaker modifier.  Just hold down the right bumper and throw a hook or an upper cut and you’ll be winding up like Joe Frazier himself.

From my time with the game, the “KO Moment,” the groggy slowness right before a knockdown that was throughout the last Fight Night game, seems to have been removed along with the game mechanic of clinching to prevent a knockdown and gain yourself some magic health.  Clinching and pushing are still a big part of the game, but serve more realistic purposes, such as when the developer used Tyson to push me into the corner in order to pummel me.  If your fighter takes too many big shots in a row his health bar will flash, indicating that he is dazed and each new punch he takes does sizable damage.  I can see KO artists being able to capitalize on these moments for some first round knock outs that are unnaturally rare in other Fight Night games.

The cut man game in between rounds is gone, replaced with a RPG-like points spending system.  Based on how well you boxed in the previous round, you’ll earn points to spend to improve things like your health or stamina for the next round.  When I asked if this would produce an even bigger hole for losing boxers to get out of, I was told that points are distributed for a variety of reasons, one of which is accuracy.  Boxers that are flurrying, going for the knockout, rarely have good accuracy, limiting them from earning points in that area, therefore enabling losing boxer to gain some leverage to turn the fight around.

Fight Night looks good, and especially good when the people playing the game know how to play.  However, new players at the demo managed to make the game look some what like a frenzied catfight, which worries me a bit, but I’ll put myself to rest by remembering that those newbies were having a great time and overall EA has built a deep, realistic game with a fair learning curve in which those novice, frantic players will probably be put on the ground by veteran players faster than Ali put down Liston.

Warrior Epic is the first RPG to reward players for letting their created characters die.  Having your created character bite the dust brings one of two benefits: you can either infuse the dead character’s soul into a weapon or one of your living characters can carry their spirit and use it as a powerful spell.  You don’t have to find your body and you don’t lose experience or progress.  It’s Warrior Epic’s way to turn a negative into a positive.  

Another negative that they turn into a positive has to do with money.  Your money.  Warrior Epic is a MMORPG that’s (almost) entirely free.  No fee to download, no monthly fee to keep playing.  The only things you’ll be paying real live money for are new outfits and cosmetic items for your characters, new stuff to pimp out your castle and health potions.  That last one’s a downer, I know, but as of when we did this preview, they were only supposed to be around 5 cents for a bunch.

To offset that cost, Warror Epic is giving every player a castle with two main areas to use, the stable and the Sanctuary.  The Stable is where you create not one but multiple characters, any of which you can take out on missions.  The Sanctuary is where the spirits of your characters go after they die in battle.  Did you lose your sweet level 20 pit fighter in that last quest?  Don’t worry you can revive him to land of the living for a fee (not real money).  But if you don’t want that sucky level 1 mage anymore then put that loser’s spirit into your pit fighters sword.  The after death options are quite a neat innovation.

The Castle can be stylized and modified to fit your liking.  You can change the pillars, the lamps, the walls, add new rooms like a pitfighters arena and even buy little pets.  These all cost real money but the options are very much available and attractive if you want to spend the funds.

Warrior Epic is an MMORPG that was created for the gamer that has a lot of time on their hands but not a lot of money, so the price range of purchasable items, costumes and castle decorations will be around 5 cents up to 3 dollars. With all the interesting options it brings to the table, and the fact that it should run on almost any PC, Warrior Epic looks like it could be worth the precious dollars of your monthly allowance or the precious hours after your commute home.  Check it out in the closed beta now.

Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao and Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton are set to clash tonight on pay per view, but Fight Night Round 4 already knows who’s going to win.  EA’s hyper-realistic boxing franchise predicts Ring Magazine’s 2 time Fighter of Year Manny Pacquiao to knock out the tough as nails Englishman in the 11th round.

Here’s how its going down:

According to the simulation, an aggressive attempt by Hatton to limit Pacquiao’s movement early on was unsuccessful. Pacquiao’s used his speed and control of the ring to take advantage of Hatton’s aggression, picking his punches and keeping out of range. The tide turned in Hatton’s favor in Round 4 when he found some success trapping Pacquiao in the corner. With little room to work with, Pacquiao was forced to trade blows on Hatton’s terms. This relentless exchange proved to be too much for Pacquiao who went down to a powerful left hook at the end of Round 6.  The later rounds saw the revival of the quick moving Pacquiao, who outpaced and out boxed Hatton yet again. Lightning fast left jabs wreaked havoc on Hatton through Rounds 7, 8 and 9 before a commanding right hand brought him to the mat in Round 10. Badly hurt and looking sluggish, Hatton was unable to beat the count after falling to another deadly right hook from Pacquiao in Round 11.

Wow, good fight. I hope the real thing’s just as good. The simulation was done with Fight Night Round 4’s new AI, dubbed R.E.A.L. (Record, Evaluate, Adapt, Learn) which determines that each fighter will fight as their real life counterpart but may switch tactics mid-fight based on their success or failure. That means that fighters like Mike Tyson are going to close the distance and throw big hooks and uppercuts and Muhammad Ali’s going to keep his distance and snap that jab, but if their strategies aren’t working they’ll try to think up some other way to beat you. Look for the demo in late May, the game in late June and the Pacquiao v. Hatton fight tonight!

We just previewed Madden 10 and it seems like the team has been hard at work scrapping elements that haven’t worked for the series and creating new features in order to produce the most realistic feeling hard-nosed Sunday football game to date.  Let’s blitz through the top ten changes Madden 10 makes to famed Madden formula.

1.  Madden 10 lets players “Feel The Pressure” in the pocket and avoid It.  Since the beginning of time, Madden players have played passing offense the same way:  Running 20 yards or more into the backfield, away from the pocket, and firing a huge bomb to a downfield receiver.  They either complete that miracle pass or they’re sacked for an absurd loss.  Real NFL quarterbacks don’t do this, by the way, they stay protected in the pocket created by the offensive line.  The developers of Madden 10 found that when players were looking downfield for a receiver, the pocket didn’t feel safe because they couldn’t sense when the defense was rushing them, hence the running into the backfield.

One of Madden 10’s goals is to make the pocket feel safe again.  When looking downfield for a receiver to pass to, the controller will rumble when the quarterback is under pressure.  A quick flick of the right stick lets the quarterback execute an avoidance move to shrug away a potential sack and give the player an extra moment to complete a pass.  The avoidance moves will work better with elusive quaterbacks, like Big Ben, but even then they won’t work all the time.

Ben Roethlisberger, one of the larger quarterbacks, eluding a defender with an avoidance move.

2.  Quarterbacks have more guts.  Ok, that’s not a direct quote from Madden 10, but it’s the best way to describe the quarterback’s new ability to complete passes while being sacked.  Last year, Madden 09’s sack animation would overide the quarterback’s passing animation, causing him to tuck the ball instead of releasing it, resulting in some unfair feeling sacks.  “I pressed the throw button!”  Now the top part of a quarterbacks body can still make a pass even though he’s being sacked, which may result in a much needed completion, or a floating pass that could be easily intercepted.  Either way, if you want to make that risky play, now you can.

3.  Nine man gang tackles.  Madden 10’s mantra is “Fight For Every Yard.”  With Madden 10’s new Pro Tak feature you can bring the four on one ownage to some poor running back like the picture below.  The gang tackles generated by Pro Tak can also be used offensively.  If your running back gets some help from some big guys behind him, they may just push him right into the endzone, or help him break out of the tackle animation altogether.  Hopefully Pro Tak’s gang tackles can bring the more organic raw feeling of live football to the game.

3. Fight for the ball at the bottom of the pile.  Players will now experience the lawlessness of the game’s most gritty battle, the wrestling match at the bottom of the pile for the ball after a fumble.  Who knows what happens at the bottom of the pile?  Scratching, finger bending, biting?

Madden 10 handles this tooth and nail battle with an intense quicktime button pressing minigame.  Hit the right button as it flashes on the screen and you’ll tip the possession scale in your favor and probably end up with the ball once the ref’s pulls all the bodies off of the pile.

4. Holding the A button moves your defensive back into position for you to make big plays:  I’ve always had trouble playing defense in Madden, especially in the secondary.  Thankfully, the Madden 10 team found that many players also had the same trouble, and they’ve created Defensive Assist.  Holding down the A button will cause your defender to move into position and play defense, but it will not, however, make big plays like swats and interceptions for you.  It only gets you into position so you can make these big game changing plays yourself.

5. Many of last year’s Iterations have been scrapped, tweaked or downplayed.  The not so successful Madden IQ feature that was so prevalent last year is returning and you’ll still take the test at the beginning of the game, but the Madden 10 team asserts that the feature is going to be changed and be much more in the background.  Weapons, the new feature from a couple Madden’s ago have been completely scrapped and Rewind, Madden’s version of a “do over” is turned off at default.   Chris Collinsworth and Tom Hammond return, but between you and me and what the developers implied, Tom Hammond is going to be more interesting this time around.

7.  Photorealistic Depth of Field.  The reason why the screen shot above looks like it was pulled from the real Superbowl last February is that the Madden 10 engine accurately displays depth of field, blurring that which you’re not focused on.  Look at how the referee in the foreground and the sideline in the background are accurately out of focus.  One of Madden 10’s goals is to make games feel more like a televised broadcast and establishing depth of field is a great step into building that realistic look and feel from a real NFL game.

8.  Passes to the flat are no longer broken.  After catching a pass out to the flat, no longer will receivers fail to slow down and negotiate where the out of bounds line is. No longer will they sprint towards the sideline like Forrest Gump running home to Jenny.  This was a game breaker for many gamers who played Madden 09, so it’s exciting to see that the Madden 10 team is fixing this important play.

This ref should really have a “hit me” sign on his back, because that’s what we all want to do…

9.  You can knock over refs and run into the chain gang. Yep, you can knock those pin striped losers onto the ground during a play and doing so will never impede you or slow down your movement in any way.  That means a ref will never get in the way of pass or trip you up so you don’t make it into the end zone.   Also, Madden 10 wants to replicate the suspense of watching live football by having the chain gang run out and measure for the first down.  This may also increase the number of controller throwing moments.

10. Some players stats have been dropped as much as 20 points! The Madden 10 team saw that the stats have been slowly creeping upwards over the years and that average players were only a few points different from the NFL’s future Hall of Famers.  This would effect teams as well.  Playing the Lions didn’t feel like playing the Lions, it felt like playing the Cowboys or any other good team.  In order to distinguish the average players from the superstars, many player’s ratings had to be lowered.  If you rate everybody as great, then no one is.  Maybe some game websites should adopt this mindset in for review scores.  You didn’t hear it here!

Madden looks like its ready for another monster year of sales and hopefully ready to deliver the most true to life football experience thus far.  Even more Madden 10 features are going to to be revealed at E3 so get your Troy Polumalu jersey ready and check back later!

They’re not calling themselves a “Halo Killer” but it seems that many of the main features in Section 8 were created in response to what annoyed them, and probably annoy you, about established FPS franchises like Halo and Battlefield.

Let’s go through 3 problems even the best first person shooters have and the ways Section 8 provides a solution.

Problem 1: Spawning Then Immediately Dying

If you spawn near a camping sniper, or in the trajectory of a rocket, or just die within seconds of spawning, it sucks. You probably feel a little cheated by the game, which, I’m pretty sure, is never one of the developer’s goals.

Solution: Let the Player Choose his Spawn Point and Make the Act of Spawning Awesome.

Section 8’s eliminates the annoyance of cheap deaths via their most impressive feature: “Burning in.” Every time you die, you’re taken to an orbital drop ship. You choose the point on the map you want to “burn in” to and the ship torpedoes you screaming through the atmosphere headfirst, in first person view, until you slam into the ground with thunderous force.

There’s a strategy to where you choose to burn in, as well. You can burn in right on the inside of an opponents base, but if your teammates haven’t disabled their anti-air guns, you may not make it to the ground in one piece.  Or you could just try to aim your burn in to land on some poor sucker’s head and score the game’s only one hit kill.

No one wants to ride passenger in a real life Warthog either…

Problem 2:  Feeling Lame Riding in the Passenger Side of a Vehicle

OK, how many times have you been playing Halo 3 and got stuck shooting the machine gun of the Scorpion or the Wraith while your buddy gets to drive and shoot the cannon? It sucks.  It sucks so much that many players will just go on foot rather than rolling like that.

Solution: Vehicles Where Everyone Gets to Do Something Cool:

In Section 8, when you drive a tank everyone gets to do something awesome. So if you’re not driving and shooting the cannon, you’re launching a cluster bomb reminiscent of Gear’s of War 2’s mortar, or you’re shooting the huge caliber bullets of the anti-air gun.  Whoever gets in has a job and has fun.  There are no back of the Mongoose experiences here.

Problem 3: Trekking across a Huge Map to Get to the Battle

When you’re dealing with the absolutely huge maps of Battlefield or similar franchises, you are often left with a tedious trek across a huge landscape unless you find a vehicle. Even in games without huge maps, the relatively slow pace of your characters movement can be a chore.

Solution: Make Each Player as Fast as a Speeding Vehicle.

Section 8 lets you become the vehicle. If you’ve got a long expanse to traverse, you have the ability to trigger your Overdrive, which shifts the camera to a third person perspective and lets you sprint at ridiculous speeds. This coupled with the built in jet pack for jumping lets you bound across large portions the game map like the Incredible Hulk.

If you want to be able to sprint for longer, put more points into your Overdrive before you spawn and you’ll never again have to experience Master Chief’s slow trot.

Section 8 seems to be made by developers that feel your pain as a FPS fan and want to give you a game that takes the weaknesses of current FPSs and turns them into strengths.  They’re a long way off from release but these features look promising.

Hey, my ugly mug is back and ready to tell you about why Dragon Age: Origins is looking better than ever. All the videos are (almost) under two minutes and I brought a basket full of screenshots this time! Yowza!

The Approval system is the evolution of the Good or Bad character alignment system that you see in most modern, western RPG’s including Fable 2, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect.

Read the interview with the founders of BioWare here.

The secret spell combos that show up in the game are kind of like mini in game achievements…

Screens!

Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk

Emily Balistrieri and I had the rare opportunity to interview the founders of BioWare, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, the minds behind Baldur’s Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire and Mass Effect about BioWare’s upcoming titles, as well as experience the almost tangible passion and curiosity that they have for making games, discussing the future of narrative and even their opinions on characters that break the fourth wall such as Psycho Manits.  It’s a unique look into the thought process of two visionaries, so if you’re into BioWare or ever want to create a game yourself, please read and enjoy.

Emily Balistrieri: So tell us something that you didn’t tell anyone else.

Ray Muzyka: At this stage it’s hard to remember what you told anyone.

EB: Yeah, it’s true. It’s been all day.

RM: We could just start talking randomly…

Greg Zeschuk: That’s a dangerous question because sometimes we say random and crazy things.

EB: Hey, random and crazy works.

Jonathan Zungre: So yeah, what are you guys excited for in the future of BioWare?

RM: I think our best work is still ahead of us. I really believe that. Like, I think all our games are very different. I’m really happy with our portfolio because it’s quite diverse. Like, you look at Dragon Age — it’s a different kind of fantasy; it’s dark heroic fantasy. It’s going to be very differentiated from all the other kinds of fantasy that you’ve seen before, especially from us. It’s a more mature, gritty kind of world, choices with consequences, and we’re not pulling any punches, basically.

And then Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2, it’s a refinement of everything we did in the past on Mass Effect, but we’re really taking on all the challenges that we wanted to solve based on feedback after the original game. So we’re really addressing the shooter aspects of the game and amping the intensity moment to moment in terms of the action. Also tightening the exploration and making that a much more important part of the game; even though it’s optional still, it’ll actually enhance your main story experience and we’re making it feel very intense. You can grab control of the action more, even in conversations, things like that. I think people are going to see Mass Effect 2 as a real revolution compared to the first one, which got a lot of acclaim, but the second one I think is that much better again.

The Old Republic is something again very different — it’s an MMO in the Star Wars universe, and we’re very excited about that. And then beyond that we have a couple things that — a couple few things actually — that aren’t announced yet that we’re excited about too that are actually different from any of these products, different in the setting, target audience, business model, the genre, the gameplay, some are more of those different aspects. So I’m just very excited about all those things because I think they’re all cool in different ways. I love playing them all. They’re all unified by the story, by the vision of emotional engagement, but beyond that they’re all quite diverse and different.

JZ: Expand on that emotional engagement concept, because I’m a big BioWare fan, and I feel that you guys do story and character interactions very well, perhaps because of that emotional engagement. If you could, tell me a little more about that.

GZ: Yeah absolutely, that’s really our ultimate goal. As a company, we sort of describe ourselves as building story-driven entertainment, but there’s a reason behind that, and the reason is to try and emotionally engage the player. We sit back and go, “Imagine a world’ where technology is a commodity, so no longer are we competing on, “Hey, who’s got the best engine and the most characters on the screen?” What are you going to compete on? Well, grabbing the player and getting their attention. And our feeling in a lot of ways is that story is one of the best tools for that. I mean, action can do that sometimes, but story is the area we’ve decided to really focus on.

RM: And the broader definition of that, maybe, is narrative. Story is one form of narrative, but there are other kinds, too.

GZ: And I think, well if you’d like to talk about that..

JZ: Yeah, what do you mean by that?

GZ: Yeah, talk about narrative. You can do your narrative discussion.

RM: Ok, sure. I’m kinda passionate about narrative.

PR: He can go on for a half an hour, just so you know. ;D

All: Ha!

RM: *unclear* But I think there are different kinds of narratives in games, and story and voice over and dialogue are one form of narrative but they’re by no means the only or the best, necessarily. They’re one of the things we pursue — and we certainly made it a focus for BioWare — but there are other equally valid ways to express story.

You can look at a pure action or sports game, and there’s a narrative there based on the choices you make and the moment to moment responses of the other team, the other player, or whatever. If it’s a boxing game, it could be the narrative of combat or boxing moment to moment in a three minute round, or whatever. You look at the back and forth of the engagement: ducks, you know, punches, and so on. There’s a narrative in that, too.

There’s a narrative of an explorer, too. Like in a game like Dragon Age or Mass Effect or The Old Republic, where you’re going from world to world or area to area and you’re unlocking new events or areas in the game, and you feel like you’re an explorer. So you get that sense of discovery and awe that you’re the first person in the world or the universe to be there representing humanity, or representing your Grey Wardens in Dragon Age, or whichever group.

And there’s a social narrative outside games which is also compelling. You see people playing the Wii — they’re interacting with the game, but they’re also interacting with each other as a social narrative like three to four people playing together. And there’s a narrative in a game like Dragon Age where we have community. People are making content with user generated content tools, sharing content amongst themselves, downloading content from us, interacting on the forums, interacting on other sites, and that’s a form of narrative, too, but it’s sort of a narrative outside the game.

And the whole narrative, moment to moment what you do: do you do exploration or combat, progression, or story? And what order you do them and where you go — there’s a narrative there so it’s almost like your life journey is a narrative, too, as your character or your characters.

GZ: And to add a point to the discussion *unclear* It’s interesting because we chose to make multidimensional games, and what I mean by that is our games support these different types of narratives, flipping between them rapidly so your actual overall player narrative for the whole experience is quite varied. In a lot of games — in a driving game, which is just driving, it’s narrow right? The emotional engagement you’ll receive from a driving game is much less than one where you’re able to do a lot more stuff and experience a lot more things so there’s a complexity that goes up, but there are also benefits. Like you look at GTA and GTA did a lot of stuff.

RM: They’re approaching the problem from a different direction, but it’s the same endpoint, or a similar end point.

GZ: And they wanted you to be emotionally engaged in the character. They do so much stuff that it’s easy to get distracted and drive off the story path, but we try to keep the player focused on that, and very goal oriented, but allowing them to do a lot of stuff, and keeping them engaged and excited about what their next thing is.

JZ: What narrative are you guys most passionate about? Are you most passionate about the main story line or the different quests, trying to direct the narrative? Or are you more passionate about letting the player almost create their own based upon where they go or how they explore?

RM: The last thing you said feels to me like the most–

GZ: Yeah, the non-linear storytelling.

RM: Because the story is certainly part of that, but even that’s not linear. Then of course bigger narrative is moment to moment like Greg said, you can kinda weave your way through the world and do some combat, go back to that area that you couldn’t get past before and keep butting your head against it until you finally break through or go to progress your character for a bit first and then go back and take on that tough enemy. Or explore the world and see if you can find some items to give you more capabilities, or try to drive the story forward a bit more and get some more quests so you can find more stuff to do that’s cool.

We call these things activity chains, going back and forth between different activity types, but that’s the meta-narrative that really is the essence of our game. Even if story and character interaction is one of the parts we’re known best for — it’s the easiest one probably, just to see, “Oh, BioWare makes games with characters that we find compelling, emotionally engaging, who you want to travel the world with,” but our games are more than that. They’re the story of the explorer, the story of combatants, or conflict, and the story of progression and customization of your character, too — making the character that you want to actually have with you on your journey.

JZ: Why do you guys do so many RPGs? What is it about an RPG that’s really compelling for you guys? IS it that progression?

GZ: It’s because you can mix all the ingredients in. It’s not limited. It’s funny because when you get a whole bunch of game developers together, they’ll often naturally fall into — like when they say, “Oh, I’d love to make this game,” they almost always describe an RPG. When it’s sports: “Oh, I’d love to make a football game where you’re a high school football player, where you have to live at the school, interact with people there, progress your career,” well, you just described an RPG. We’re not trying to say, “Well, they’re the absolute best,” but it’s just when you really want to create one of those experiences that just grabs you and never let’s you go, it seems like…

RM: I think they’re the broadest in terms of potentiality or possibility space.

EB: Well, it’s like meeting a goal that’s further than just grabbing the flag at the end of the level in a platformer, or something. You want to have more emotional impact than that.

RM: Yeah, and do more things or have different dimension of growth. It’s almost the journey is more important than the endpoint. And our games are all about the journey; they’re about the heroic journey, or the conflicted journey. There are different journeys you can take as a character, but RPGs are more about the journey, and the narrative is the journey, your personal narrative. You travel through the world, you travel your character progression, you go through different battles, and try different tactics — some succeed some don’t, or social narrative.

GZ: The journey of becoming a professional football player. It’s funny because it still is a journey.

In “Football RPG” Troy Palomalu appears as a Level 70 Warrior.

RM: Yeah, that could be an RPG. And it probably would have to have playing football as part of that, and that’s the combat analog, right? But then you have to progress your character or level them up, whatever way you want to describe that that makes sense contextually.

EB: Prom king!

GZ: There you go.

RM: And you’d have to have cheerleaders, and prom –sure you’d have to have all that there too.

JZ: The rival…

EB: Are you guys making a football RPG? ;D

RM: No no, but it would be cool.

EB: It would be cool. You could do it!

RM: But I would argue almost any lifetstyle, any journey you can imagine, or any heroic attribute you’d want to aspire to — it’s aspirational fantasy. Any role you can aspire to, basically, you could make into an RPG. That might actually be kind of a fun panel to be on, where you have a bunch of people who make games to kinda like–

GZ: Make this into an RPG.

RM: Yeah.

GZ: The Dance Dance Revolution RPG.

RM: Yeah, Blizzard, Bethesda, BioWare, Square — get some guys that make RPGs together and kinda…

GZ: Theorize.

EB: So you just mentioned Bethesda. I saw a guy from Bethesda today talking, and he was saying that even though they make RPGs that are really text heavy, he’s really interested in the possibilities of expressing really emotionally engaging narrative without so much text, and I’m wondering — everyone loves your writing and stuff– but I’m wondering if you think about that, too, and how to do that.

RM: Well, you look at a game like BioShock as an example of another group I respect a lot, and we were talking earlier how their narrative is as much how the world interacts with you or reflects your actions.

GZ: The world itself, how you perceive it.

RM: And that’s a form of narrative too, sort of an explorer’s journey, but really showing your actions reflected in the world. And not as much dialogue in that game. There’s some you know, because you’re interacting with people, and it’s how you communicate with other people.

EB: Yeah, you need some dialogue.

RM: To the extent it feels natural and appropriate, it’s good, but you don’t want to have too much.

GZ: It’s hard…To create that emotional engagement, you have to communicate some way, whether it’s some sort of picture or pictographs.

EB: Well, and then you have some of the indie developers who are talking about creating really engaging emotional experiences with barely any narrative at all, and almost using mechanics themselves as the feeling.

GZ: And are they succeeding, though, really?

EB: There…are some examples.

GZ: I know what you mean.

EB: You know, the art games. It’s an interesting space. It’s not the same thing at all, but–

GZ: No, I totally agree. I think that’s the thing, is that’s actually a neat place to aspire to. When you pull it back, though, the interesting thing is, I think Portal (this is last year’s story winning game [Ed. note: Actually, Portal won Best Game in 2008, among other things. BioShock won for Writing.]) when you think about it there are actually like…the computer’s talking to you, there’s writing and information, so communication has to happen for story to occur. Whether the communication is physical, structural, auditory — it has to have some level of communication. And that’s the interesting thing, because I guess that’s where the mechanics might never really accomplish it, because if the mechanics can’t in some way communicate something like purpose or goals, then it’s hard to achieve it.

RM: You have to substantiate the feelings in some way and then ultimately you have to convey them.

GZ: But it’s theoretically possible. And we look at it, we look at it from the perspective of–the Half Life stuff is another example. They did certain things that sort of create story in a very limited way. And then Portal was interesting because clearly there was something going on. The way they told it made you suspicious and then you started watching for story. It’s kind of funny because you can kind of tune the user to to certain behaviors and once you do that, they then react. That’s part of the fun of making games.

EB: It’s interesting to see how just much you can strip out and still have the narrative.

RM: It’s a good exercise, isn’t it? I mean, when you can always, before you implement it, consider alternative forms of narrative. Almost like, what’s your other option? And then you get a nice balanced experience that will never feel overweighed in one category of communication.

JZ: What about relationships? Mass Effect had a big relationship part of it. Where do you guys feel like you’re going with that?

RM: That’s a good way to characterize it, because it’s not about having a sex scene or, you know, like Fox and some of the groups characterized it –actually that was taken out of context. It was more about– again, that’s a journey as well, where you have characters that you start to care about, and you want to invest the time to actually try and–just like in real life — you want to have a friend, and maybe that blossoms into a romance or something.

But you know we tried to do it in a way that was appropriate, and we’ve never shied away from it. It’s been in every Bioware game to date– people may not realize that. We’ve had romances in every BioWare game pretty much since Baldur’s Gate.

GZ: Except for Shattered Steel and MDK2.

RM: Well, Shattered Steel was before and MDK2, yeah, there aren’t enough characters…but Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, KotOR, Jade, Mass Effect…

GZ: And I think the interesting thing is that other characters make your existence worthwhile in games, on some level. It’s actually those interactions which are really rewarding and interesting. You guys saw the demo, yet?

JZ: Yeah.

GZ: So you’ve seen the approval system. We’ve tried to personalize [it]–we’ve always sort of measured the characters’ behavior, and instead of creating a general metaphysical scale, it’s now, what does everyone think of you?

RM: Individually, because that’s the way it works in real life, where people have opinions and you can influence those opinions. And sometimes changing one character’s opinion might change another character’s opinion, so, you know, it isn’t always as simple as it might seem. But that’s the way real life works, too.

JZ: As opposed to dark side/light side.

RM: Yeah. It’s a more nuanced form of approval.

The progression of character alignment in BioWare games from KOTOR to Mass Effect.

GZ: And we’re always trying to play around in different ways in the space. It’s always fun to try these different things. We haven’t quite done this approval system so overtly — this is the most overt we’ve done it. But again, back in Baldur’s Gate we used to do that.

But I was going to add another point about the relationships and the romances and all those things. It’s funny because in a lot of ways that’s become a very dominant part of what people are concerned about when they play our games. They’re always making sure that, “Ok, what am I doing? Am I covering my romance bases?” or whatever and we actually always ask gamers, “Is this important?” and they, “No no no,” but if you would track their behavior, you would see that actually, no, they’re spending considerable effort and time to support that, just because it’s a meta-game, right?

RM: We make it feel like its appropriate — it’s never gratuitous. It’s there to actually recognize the time you’ve invested in developing relationships. There’s an endpoint. It’s worthwhile. You’ve made something that endures.

JZ: Very cool. Now, you guys have gone to space a couple times, and you’re doing Dragon Age, but is there a place or something that you guys really like? Where are we going next? What’s the next setting? Just generally speaking, what really turns you guys on?

GZ: I think a celebrity dance show. Apparently those are very popular now. The kids just love those.

JZ: You can make a narrative from anything!

RM: Actually it sounds like a football RPG is where we should go…

JZ: Or boxing, I like what you said about boxing.

GZ: Again, they all work, right? It’s a little scary. I hate to say it, but that dancing thing could easily be done. Like you know, a Dance Dance Revolution mechanic with, you know, “Are you going to make it to ‘Dancing with the Stars?’”

RM: We’re NOT doing those.

GZ: For the record…

RM: But some of the things we haven’t announced yet are different settings, totally different than Dragon Age or Mass Effect.

GZ: And it’s not the circus either.

JZ: That’s cool, as well. And after this conversation I feel like we could do it anywhere.

RM: We could.

GZ: The beard, the progression of the bearded lady.

JZ: Where does your love for narrative come from? What did you guys grow up with? What books did you read? What shows did you watch? What games did you play?

RM: I read everything. I would go to the library as a little kid (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, probably) and I would go home with a stack of books from down here all the way to the top of my head, twenty books kinda thing. I would go home carrying these books, and the librarians never believed I would read them all, but I was like, “Yeah, I read every one.” I don’t know, I just liked reading a lot. So for me, it came from science fiction., fantasy, sort of the classics. I still have a weakness for the classics of science fiction/fantasy, so now I’m collecting them all kinda one by one, trying to get first editions or signed copies. Got a lot of my favorites, so…

GZ: Well it’s funny because on the games side–well, I did the same thing, tons and tons of books…

RM: And then after that came the games.

GZ: Yeah, I’ll flip it to the game side. The the game side’s funny because we go back all the way to the early 80s, even the late 70s, which is scary, but games like Wizardry — and Ray’ll know exactly when I say this phrase, “The wizard is in.”

RM: Beep beep beep!

GZ: Yeah it’s very exciting like *gasp*

RM: I have that game on my PDA, by the way.

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981)

GZ: [Unclear] So what was interesting is that these were games that were RPGs that were so story-light, like there were like 3-4 written lines in the entire–so one of them was a “Monster allocation center” just written on a sign.

RM: Or there was that line of text–your warning to the dark area as well. You have this text and the smoke and the fire and it teleports you away, remember?

GZ: So there’s literally like 5-8 lines of text in this entire game and you would hang on them. Like, “What does that mean? Who’s that guy? Why did he teleport me? What’s gong on?”

RM: And I got so frustrated about that. They never did explain that.

GZ: No, it’s just random probably…but you don’t realize how much of a grip these things can have on you. So you don’t have to have a really in your face kind of experience.

RM: That game actually was a great example of something — like you believed you were in this dungeon that had very little story in it, and you actually believed the mad wizard of the proving grounds of Trebor was your nemesis and you had to go down all these levels of dungeons to defeat him.

EB: And it’s really all just in your head.

GZ: Yeah, it actually was all in your head.

RM: It was player fiction. And an example of that player fiction outside of games, is what we’ve done recently with Mass Effect 2. We released that trailer, right, where we created a lot of interesting buzz and controversy. “But what does this mean? Is Shepard dead?” Well, I mean, everything we showed in the trailer there was absolutely true; everything we said before was true as well, in terms of you have to keep your save games, and we have plans for a trilogy, continuity — everything we said in both of those is true. So what’s in the middle? It’s a surprise, it’s a tease for the fans. But that’s an example of player fiction, too.

JZ: One more question? I wanted to know what you guys thought about a game breaking the fourth wall — between the game and the player? Much like some of the Metal Gear Solid games did where they tell you to turn off the controller–

Literally everyone in the room: Psycho mantis!

JZ: Is there any value in that for you, where you connect the actual player sitting in his room with his controller to another type of narrative?

GZ: Hmm, that almost breaks it, though.

RM: Works better in contemporary science fiction types of things.

GZ: Another one is kind of Eternal Darkness.

JZ: The bugs and the blood, yeah.

RM: I remember that I was really low on ammo one time and I got one of those, what do you call them?

GZ: Events? Crazy events?

RM: No, but they had a name for it in Eternal Darkness. Anyway, there was a room full of bullets, like bullets everywhere. I was kinda running around like in the Simpsons, “Bullets! Ahhh! Bullets!” picking up bullets. Then you run out of the room and it’s like, “Haha!”

GZ: See I don’t know if we would do that. Because I don’t think we want to create this incredibly intricate world and all this stuff, and then just destroy that linkage.

EB: But it’s almost sometimes, like with Psycho Mantis — it’s the example…

[Unclear]: It’s the classic example.

EB: But when you realize what’s going on you feel this crazy like–you’re REALLY connected.

RM: Well, you feel emotion. LIke, you messed with me.

JZ: You feel violated almost–

EB: Well no, it’s exciting. Wow, a game, I didn’t expect that.

JZ: But not necessarily negatively. It KNOWS I’m sitting here.

RM: Well if a movie character turned to the screen and said, you know, “What do you think of that?” and the audience realized he’s talking to them– It’s a technique.

EB: LIke Groucho Marx. He’ll talk to the screen at you.

GZ: It’s a tough one. I don’t know if we would do it. I mean, it’s…

RM: Well you’d have to do it carefully.

GZ: In the right game, at the right time.

RM: Like, I don’t think there are many other examples in Metal Gear Solid where that occurred — I think that was one of the few — but it was really cool when they did it because it was so unique and different.

GZ: I almost wonder, like — it’s more philosophical, but isn’t stuff like Guitar Hero doing that on a continuous basis?

JZ: Yeah kind of.

GZ: LIke it’s continually feeding you information. I was thinking first back to Parappa, “Ok everyone: Chop chop kick!” It’s telling you what to do, and you’re doing it, right? And it’s sort of almost like the wall is completely broken, but in that case you really feel like you’re playing a game.

EB: Or like have you ever played Seaman? Where you’re talking?

GZ: That’s the craziest game ever.

RM: That game’s not even a game.

GZ: Sure it is!

RM: It’s more of a simulator…

EB: A therapist for some people, I’ve heard…

RM: …of a virtual creature who insulted you at every turn.

GZ: Yoot Saito was trying to do another game on iPhone, but they wouldn’t let him, where you have this monkey.

EB: Really? Wow.

GZ: Oh, it’s hilarious. If you search– it’s like this primate guy that you would kinda… [Unclear] sent those links around? It’s on Kotaku. Search Yoo Saito on Kotaku.

RM: It’s like a real monkey that you can make do all kinds of…

GZ: Yeah, it’s odd.

RM: Very strange things…

GZ: There’s also a Seaman for the iPhone, but Apple said, “No way in hell.”

RM: Did they?

GZ: Apparently they did.

RM: That’d be a pretty cool iPhone game.

TIME

JZ: All right, guys. Thanks a lot! :D

EB: Thanks!

Ok, do you see this picture? You see how I’m holding this print out in front of my webcam? Do the same on the Assassin’s Creed 2 Teaser website and something pretty sweet will happen. After the video, get the print out by clicking on the symbol in the center of the page and get to the video section by clicking on the triangle icon on the left of the screen.

Do it! It’s a pretty neat Easter egg.

Every week, on CD 101 Columbus, Ohio’s premier Alternative Rock station, I pick which new game release people should buy, and which one they should stay the heck away from.

Guitar Hero Metallica is on the show today, but is it the Winner of the Week or the Loser? Click the link to find out if Metal heads will be eternally pissed off at me

Click here for Winners and Losers of the Week

Black20 is known for making great movie trailer spoofs for games like Tetris and Contra by pointing out film cliche’s that we all know and love. Their newest romantic comedy based on Killzone 2 is hilarious and oddly…heartwarming?

Chuck Liddell makes an appearance on Spike TV’s newest show, Deadliest Warrior, which uses a scientific approach to determine who the deadliest warriors of all time were. Each Show pits one warrior type against another and ends with CGI simulated fight with match ups including:

Pirate vs. Knight, Taliban vs. IRA, Yakuza vs. Mafia, Viking vs. Samurai, Green Beret vs. Spetznaz, Maori vs. Shaolin Monks, William Wallace vs. Shaka Zulu and Ninja vs. Spartan.

In this clip, the show tries to find modern day equivalents of ancient warriors in order to collect data on how each would fight. Former UFC champ Chuck Liddell drops by to represent modern day gladiators and there’s an especially cool trash talking bit between him and the Apache Warrior’s representative at the end of the clip. Click to enjoy, fighters.

Check out more warriors and clips here.

These videos may help explain why I’m interested in Majesty 2. Who wants to be a wandering hero collecting meager amounts of gold for bounties when you can be the King who has all the gold and can pay heroes whatever you want to do the bounties you assign?

Next, a quirky video that demonstrates why paying a low amount of money for bounties equals attracting only crappy heroes, like this Level 1, BLIND archer.

And of course, the game play trailer. You can’t really see the bounty assigning mechanic at work here though, but trust me, it’s legit. The best part is that while your building your city, the heroes you usually employ will be going around, buying themselves health potions and taking care of their own stuff while you attend to more pressing matters.

Hey, Jonathan Zungre here, reporting to you (not so) Live from GDC 09 and I’ve got two games that you may not know about but you really should. Mount and Blade and Majesty 2 are two games that really need to be on your gaming radar. Listen to my video preview so I can tell you why giving quests may be cooler than going on them.

Game: League of Legends: Clash of Fates

Why you should care: Riot Games has come up with a tremendously quirky fun and varied cast of Champions for you to do battle with. You can choose from a tormented Minotaur that still wears the chains of his enslavement, a happy little girl that can turn her teddy into a ferocious shadow bear, and a little grinch-like person who throws snowballs at range and rides a yeti for strong melee attacks.

Character: Annie

Story:  At the age of two she miraculously enchanted a shadow bear – a ferocious denizen of the forest – turning it into her pet. Still to this day she keeps “Tibbers,” as she calls him, by her side, often transforming him into a stuffed doll to be carried like a regular child’s toy.

In the courtyards that dot the landscape inside the Institute of War, Annie is all sweetness and light, living the carefree life of an imaginative, playful child. She giggles and plays dress up like other girls her age, but don’t let that fool you. Champions who have met her in battle speak of a different Annie. No sweetness, only the fury of a grey witch and the power of the cabal.

Character: Alistar

Story: The last remaining survivor of his clan, Alistar was taken prisoner defending his home from a vast invading army. He became a slave, forced to turn a huge pulley that would raise and lower miners into the coal shaft.

His only relief from this constant agony came once a week when a slave girl by the name of Yessinia arrived to dress and care for his wounds. But one day, Yessinia was sold to a traveling merchant caravan, and she stopped coming to the mine. When Alistar heard the news, the Minotaur flew into a rage, breaking his chains and killing the overseers with his bare hands.

Character:  Nunu

Story: Valoran’s easternmost pole is bitterly cold and covered in ice. During the long winter months the inhabitants play a strange game. They agitate a family of hibernating yeti, and then take turns jumping on their backs to see who can ride the longest.

The previous record was two minutes and seventeen seconds. That is, until Nunu tried.

Crouching down on the edge of the cave, Nunu waited for the biggest yeti she had ever seen to come slumbering out. With a leap and a howl, she came down on his back and held on tight. The yeti, for his part, took off at a gallop and disappeared into a swirling snow storm. Nunu and her yeti have never been seen separated since.

Check out all the Legends here.

Gameplay: It’s a competitive team deathmatch game, so if you want to beat your human opponents you have to work together with your team, especially since each champion has its own focus in range, melee, magic etc. But you also need to work with your constant stream of groups of little minion guys that fight along side of you, because if you get too gung-ho you could get whooped. Let them absorb the damage while you snipe from behind them and cast spells. Also, your champions level-up quite quickly and distributing skill points on the fly is crucial.

The Kicker: You don’t really play as any of the champions, you play as a summoner, which you will have a persistent avatar for, who calls the champions to fight for him. As you play and win matches your summoner will go up in rank and level-up, earning himself skills, clothing and spells that he can use in future matches. It’s a little RPG-flavor to keep you coming back.

If you, like me, have ever caught yourself thinking that you may prefer eating Doritos and drinking an ice cold Mountain Dew: Code Red to a nicely grilled Fillet Mignon and glass of wine, you need to watch this video.

Not since Triumph The Insult Comic Dog lampooned Star Wars fans for the Conan O’Brien show has anyone so affectionately poked fun at nerds as The Middle Show’s David Price has in this clip. Enjoy!

Fanboys, they approach leisure activities with religious zeal and defend their console of choice with dogmatic ferocity.  Fanboys have had “gentlemanly discussions” with some of the writers here at Ripten, more or less, but no one fought it out with them like X-play’s Adam Sessler. I caught up with Adam to discuss Killzone 2, gaming journalism, and the fanboy plague that corrupts message boards and comment sections like The Flood.  Oops, Halo reference, here they come…

When X-play gave Killzone 2 a sterling five out of five, Xbox 360 fanboys and, inexplicably, PS3 fanboys complained.  The Xbox faithful said it could never be that good and the PS3 faithful somehow accused Sessler of everything from giving out the high score begrudgingly to attributing Killzone 2’s high score to Microsoft payoffs (wha?).  Sessler responded by picking out individual posters and verbally grounding them into paste in his Sessler Soapbox.  If you haven’t seen the video yet, please, clear the children from the room and check out his Samuel L. Jackson-scale rant.

Zungre:  Hey, what’s up Adam, thanks for taking the time to talk to us, man.

Sessler:  No problem at all.

Zungre:  I really enjoy your Sessler’s Soapboxes, especially the recent ones about Killzone 2 and I just wanted to ask you, in your time in game journalism, has fanboy hostility ever been this bad?  Is it really at an all time high?

Sessler:  Oh, I would actually say it’s at an all time high.  I mean, there was always some stuff like that back in the old days, but it seemed to be at least incorporated into a grounded discussion about the merit of the consoles or the games that were exclusive to those consoles.  Where as now it seems to be fully disassociated from that, and it’s kind of, “I bought this and I need to justify it to myself”.  I mean, obviously, all the comments themselves are incredibly obnoxious, but it’s more that how much space it takes up on our message boards and other people’s message boards, that, you know, people who would like to maybe use it to foster an interesting discussion and enlighten themselves really can’t get in there because these people just pop in constantly.

Zungre:  So, it’s almost ruining entire message boards.

Sessler:  Yeah, I mean, I’ve always joked that the Internet serves only to give voice to those I didn’t want to hear from [laughs].  I mean, it’s supposed to be an area where you can have interesting discussions of ideas on topics and you don’t have to use the mainstream media, but unfortunately it does allow for too many voices to get in there and it’s just, so juvenile [laughs].

Sessler opening a can of verbal whoop ass.

Zungre:  I wonder why is it that in most message boards and a lot of comments that you see on youtube, that everything seems so middle school?  Why does that voice or that vibe seem to be dominating instead of logical, normal discussion?

Sessler:  Obviously, there’s the role of anonymity, but I like how you said middle school because what we all don’t know is what age these people are.  I would like to think that they’re ten years old given the lack of intelligence that’s demonstrated.  I think it’s a mixture of young people who think that’s how you voice an argument or they’re not able to carefully construct one and other people who just, you know, I think there’s a lot of people out there that I think are just spoilers.  And I think there’s also some, and they’re definitely on our message boards, who are just borderline pathological.  There’s one guy on our boards who continually posts this conspiracy theory about who owns us, especially from back in the Paul Allen Tech TV days, and somehow that means we’re owned by Microsoft.

And it’s not so much that he states that, but that he states that continually and just reposts the exact same thing to the point where it’s a little disconcerting for me because this guy clearly doesn’t have much of life outside of that and seems so fixated on people and things he has no control over and has decided they’re his mortal enemy.

Zungre:  Yeah, in your video response to the Killzone 2 comments, you seemed to be most serious about those posts that, like you said, were trying to impugn your integrity as a journalist.

Sessler:  Why I use the “do you fuck your mother” line is because, obviously we, and I’m talking about myself and my colleagues on various sites, you yourself, we do pride ourselves in taking our job seriously and respecting the necessary objectivity in reporting and the lack of, obviously, taking money when we do these reviews, that to charge that from someone, and from the same position of anonymity I wanted to put it in the context of, that’s a very, very serious statement to make.  And I know they’re doing it whimsically, and they probably don’t understand that, whimsy or not, that’s an absolutely inappropriate thing to say, just as much as, you know, implying that you have familiar relations with your own mother.

Ripten, alone, burns thousands of surplus dollars from Microsoft payoffs every month. We call it the “Rip Ten Thousand” because we’ve got so much money, we can make jokes like that in a recession.

Zungre:  Right, right.  Hey, I wanted to ask you about one thing.  I saw your most recent Soapbox and you talked about how multiplayer sometimes takes away from assets for developing a good single player game, which i completely agree with.  I mean, I played Stranglehold multiplayer online and it was the saddest day of my life.

Sessler:  Yeah [laughs].

Zungre:  But, you know, I wanted to ask you about that because in the review of Killzone 2 you guys said that Killzone 2 could have really used some co-op.  And I wanted to know how you felt about that and give you the opportunity to justify that comment.

Sessler:  Yeah, just so you know, I was not the one who personally reviewed Killzone 2, it was Mr. Sark, Scott Robinson on our staff, and I don’t think he was wrong in doing that [laughs].  More or less, what he was trying to say is that, obviously the game got a 5 out of 5, [and] the game by its nature would be perfect for co-op.  And that some of the weaknesses that were in the single player game, which I personally do see, which is not the best pacing that kind of makes all the set pieces so memorable, could have been bolstered by allowing also for co-op, because the combat of the game is so much fun.  And I think that we all know that when you’re playing with someone else in a single player game, story kind of takes a back seat.  Sometimes in reviews you’re talking to the audience, sometimes you’re kind of talking to the developer as well, as in “be aware of this.”

I’m happy you brought that one up because what precipitated in some of the rant about the Killzone 2 review, and the postings on it, is that it was very evident that people went to our site, they saw the score and they looked at the pros and cons, yet didn’t read the body.  So, in the Cons it said “could use Co-op” or “No Co-op” as if somehow that was a really serious point that we were trying to make and no, if you read the body of the text it’s far more a nuanced statement that’s made with regard to co-op in the game.

You have to fight the spider-Nazi looking Hellghast alone, soldier.

Zungre:  Right, right.  And you know what, I’m so glad you talked about that because I remember one of the comments you really made fun of was the guy who said that Gears 2 got a 9.5 and Killzone 2 got a 9.4.  And it just made me remember, I think it was, “Innovation vs. Innumeration“, your soapbox where you talked about just this thing about numbered scores and about how you don’t like them.  I’d like you to talk about that a little bit, and where can we move as journalists to get away from numbered scores?  Because personally, I don’t like the 10 point scale, I don’t think it’s good at what it does.

Sessler:  No, and to be clear, I don’t think numbered scores period are good.  I would even say that on the show.  If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t have numbered scores because that would force you to pay attention to the either video or the written review we have available.  [laughs] I mean, people work hard to put those things together and I can’t stand the fact that no one pays attention until they hear that number.  Obviously, I prefer the five point scale as opposed to the ten point scale, because I think anything below a five just reads as a crappy game, so it’s kind of, you know, pointless.

Zungre:  Oh, totally agree.

Sessler:  If I had to do a numbered score and, once again could have my druthers, I would probably do a four point scale because i don’t like the 3 [laughs].

Zungre:  Oh really?

Sessler:  Yeah.  But the fact is, the reason why we still have the scale the way that we do, obviously we’ve had the five point scale for a while and to make a change like that is a very, very difficult thing to do, because you’ve trained your readership or your viewership on that scale.  I also think that for all websites, we can’t move away from the numbers because, unfortunately, we are still businesses, and we would hurt ourselves if we didn’t have that easy access evaluation of a game, because as I said earlier, so many people won’t read it.  We’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Almost anyone out there would just as soon not have the numbered scores, but until the population is willing to educate itself and actually look at these reviews as something that’s more an evaluation and discussion about the game rather than some sort of consumer product, good or bad evaluation, I don’t think it’s going to change.  More or less, we need smarter readers [laughs].

Zungre:  [Laughs]  You know what, I really do get upset about some of the comments that pop up on Ripten and some of the other gaming sites that I see.  You talked about this thing called the “Cult of Exceptionalism,” and Adam, I have to say, I absolutely love that term, and I had never heard it before you said it.

Sessler:  I made it up. [laughs]

Zungre: [Laughs] No but it seriously is fantastic because it gave me a term for something I had been seeing and it’s just the thing that happens on the Internet so much where either a game is the most amazing thing that ever happened and it fathered your children or it completely sucks and it’s completely devoid of any worth.  So why do you think this happens, why do you think people are caught up in this idea?

Sessler:  I think it has a lot to do with the media and I think if you wanted to see where you really see that practiced would be in national politics.  When you see bills or politicians.  I mean just look at the Stimulus Bill, that while there is actual cooperation on what’s happening between the Republicans and the Democrats right now, the statements that are being made are, “This bill is completely evil, it’s bad, it’s bad, it’s bad.” And what really happens on that political sphere really does infiltrate other areas of discourse.

And just the media itself.  It’s not able to convey news in a nuanced style because they’re afraid they’re not going to be able to hold your attention.  So it’s either “this is the worst thing that’s ever happened” or “this is the best thing that’s ever happened.” Or “this is going to kill you” or “this is going to save your life,” and when it comes down to evaluations of cultural products it’s only “this is the best thing ever” or “this is the worst” and there can’t be a middle ground that also justifies that this is still worth your attention and your interest.

Zungre: Right, and I see a lot of games that are really good games, maybe not the best games, that are swept up in that undertow of that Cult of Exceptionalism, like you said.  And they don’t even get noticed.

Sessler:  We’re saying “this is really worth your time, it’s just not the best.”  That’s all [laughs].

Oh, Legendary, I know you weren’t as bad as everyone said…

Zungre:  And we’re so obsessed with the best, I think, in America, so it’s just very sad.  But hey, really quick before we finish up here, I just wanted to ask you some questions, journalist to journalist.  You’ve been doing this for how many years?  About ten years now?

Sessler:  About ten and a half.  Yeah, it will be eleven in July.

Zungre:  Ok, now what’s something that you’re really excited for?  In the arc of the gaming industry that you’ve seen, what’s something that your really excited for in the future of gaming?  Where do you see us going?

Sessler:  That’s a good question.  Two of the games that really stand out to me from last year are Fable 2 and Fallout 3.  Because they’re deep, rich, articulated worlds.  There’s such a sense of, who was designing this, they know so much more about the world than even what’s present in the game.  And that, you really feel that you’re in somebody else’s imagination.  And I’m seeing more and more of that.  I don’t know, to me that’s an absolute thrill and I think that those two games are the beginning of a sense of really getting in somebody else’s imaginative playground, where you just literally lose yourself.

Even when I was reviewing Fable 2…  Usually when you do a review you have an eye towards “I gotta get this done because I need to get it up by the time the embargo lifts.”  But in [Fable 2] I kept on catching myself just dithering around just enjoying all the small details.  The same thing is happening in Fallout 3, which luckily, I chose not to review because I wanted to indulge myself as much as possible in that one [laughs].

Zungre: Very cool.  What’s something you’re glad we’ve left behind?

Sessler:  Well we haven’t completely left swimming levels behind, but that’s one thing [laughs].

One thing which we are leaving behind is the abject sadism that was in a lot of video games. I’m obviously a big defender for violence in video games, in the fact that it is an adult medium, but I also think that just justifying the fact that there should be violence in video games isn’t the right thing.  Still, there needs to be utilization.  I look to a game like Soldier of Fortune, which I found to be just abhorrent in every stretch of the imagination.  It almost encouraged you to do horrible things to other human beings.  There is much less of that.  There’s still very violent games, but it seems to work within the context and rationale of the world that has been presented inside of the game.

This is one of the only gaming images that instantly makes me feel anxious and confused.

Zungre: Right, ok.  Hey Adam thank you so much for the interview.

Sessler:  No problem at all, thank you very much, I really appreciate how you pay attention to the recent soapboxes that I worked on [laughs].  Good luck with the website.

If you’d like to see more of Adam check out X-Play and the rest of the always insightful Sessler’s Soapbox.

Adam Sessler gets his prophet on in this weeks 2009 Prediction edition of Sessler’s Soapbox. As per usual, Sessler has an El Dorado’s worth of insight at the center of a jungle of rant and quirkiness. Click the jump for the synopsis and video.

Sessler points out that 2009 looks strong for Sony as the PS3 is loaded with five triple A titles that we know about:

1. God of War 3
2. Infamous
3. Killzone 2
4. Hard Rain (Sessler loves this game’s hotness, as do I.)
5. Uncharted 2

He’s not counting the Batman-sneaky Xbox 360 out in the new year, though, mentioning Halo: ODST and predicting that Bioshock 2 may release this year exclusively for the ‘Box. And Nintendo, well, they’re busy getting credit card swipes from the casual and the elderly so don’t expect any Zelda or Mario this year (but hey, you’re an adult, go play some Fallout 3).

Here’s the video:

High Voltage is the game developer behind The Conduit, the first person shooter many are hailing as the Wii’s salvation for hardcore gamers.  But before they shock Wii users out of low graphical standards and poor first person shooter controls, they’re going to revolutionize they way people look at WiiWare with Evasive Space, releasing in January.

Evasive Space looks and feels in some ways very much like Asteroids, but with one big difference, the goal is not to shoot things but to evade things, as the game’s title suggests.  In most levels, your goal is to barrel through tight underground caverns or zip around fireballs from the surface of the sun as quickly as possible, picking up time boosts and ship upgrades.

Controlling the direction of your ship with the Wii controller’s cursor is challenging at first but quite gratifying once you start zipping past underground drills or careening asteroids. The 20 different levels also offer up to 4 person local multiplayer.

Some other interesting space bits:

- Your spaceship computer will sometimes chime in to tell you that you have 10 seconds to complete a level, to which your character Konki will respond, “I’m aware of that, computer.”  Hopefully their bantering can get even more entertaining as the game progresses.

- Each hit your ship sustains from an obstacle drains your health, but more importantly, slows you down in completing your time-based mission.

- The game’s basics, at least in the tight maze levels, are reminiscent the wood labyrinth puzzle games where you move a marble around holes in a maze by tilting the game board.

- You can upload your best times on Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Online leaderboards.