Busy Gamer Nation

How The Hunger Games could work as a multiplayer game, and still be game-changing art

2012-04-05T03:59:24Z

The Hunger Games as a shooter.

I've been thinking about The Hunger Games as a videogame, off and on, for about six months now. The idea came to me last October that such a game would need to be both multiplayer and not glamorize violence.

Impossible, you say? Yeah, that was my second thought. But the longer I've dwelled on it, the more I've come to embrace the concept.

Let's explore the idea a bit and see whether you think it could work.

First, you may have to rethink videogames from pure entertainment to art. Yeah, I don't really care what Roger Ebert says. He's been a movie guy far too long. I've been both a film buff and a game fanatic for most of my life. And games often (though not always) rise above commerce and conflict to enter the art space.

"The game should recap for all players the final moments of battle followed by a short video eulogy and the reaction from the home district. It needs to be poignant."

Art, in my mind, seeks to challenge, to influence. It may change someone's mind, or at least alter his or her outlook. It can cause a strong and sudden burst of emotion. It can awaken new ideas and even make you a better person.

The Hunger Games videogame would need to do this, and do it well. Otherwise, it would glamorize what the source material sought to vilify: a society that accepts violence against its children for political ends. The book was an allegory for war and the draft system that wrecked the author's father Haymitch-style (and many other families whose children did not make it out of the battle arena) to help the government control its constituents.

In my mind, the game would need to mostly do away with backstory. We would NOT have to pass through a training tutorial with Katniss hunting squirrels in the woods outside District 12. She would NOT return to the Hob and make trades using a complex speech challenge engine. There would be NOT be a dramatic moment in the town square where the names are drawn (except, perhaps, as an intro element for each arena battle or in touching flashback upon a tribute's demise - but more on that later).

If you played it out beat for beat, Suzanne Collins' remarkable novel would feel insanely cramped if it were crammed into the interactive gaming space. It would either become a cut scene-fest or a role-playing game that abruptly transitions from one storyline to another as we're whisked away to the Capitol and then forced up a claustrophobic tube into the Arena.

No, a Hunger Games game needs to be all about what happens in the arena, and what that represents in very real terms. It needs to support up to 24-player online gaming (with bots taking over for any tribute spots not filled by human players) and it needs to be poignant.

The Hunger Games would need to inspire strong reactions in its players.

When a tribute falls in the book (and, remarkably, in the film), we are made to feel loss. Even the "career" players that we come to fear and perhaps hate are someone's child, and we ultimately should mourn their loss even as we feel a sense of relief that our own tribute (and any that we might build an alliance with) is one step closer to closure. Unlike in the source material (where deaths are announced once a day with no detail on how it happened), the game should recap for all players the final moments of battle followed by a short video eulogy and the reaction from the home district. It should not look the same every time, so players who experience the same arena battles multiple times are not easily inured to the moment upon repeated viewing.

One of the amazing things about the movie is how neatly it has opened up. It went from being a very personal tale, where the fallout of Katniss' actions isn't fully realized until Book 2, to a shared experience with very powerful shockwaves and repercussions emanating from the action in the arena. We see the reactions of the commentators, the people in the districts, and even the resulting political fallout. The game could take it a step further, really communicating the range of reactions to each in-game slaying so that we feel empathy or at least mixed emotions.

"During an emotional scene about two-thirds of the way in to the movie, one guy said, 'Dude, are you crying?' His buddy replied without hesitation: 'No shame, bro.' If the game reaches even a few dudebros, it would be worth it."

When we saw The Hunger Games in the theater, there were a couple of guys sitting next to GrrlGotGame. During an emotional scene about two-thirds of the way in (you know the one, right?), one of the guys said, "Dude, are you crying?" His buddy replied without hesitation: "No shame, bro."

If it reaches even a few dudebros, it would be worth it.

To work, every battle would have to be winnable by all characters. There would have to be games where Katniss is picked off early, and Cato takes home the prize. What would this mean for the winning district? What are the consequences for the families, friends and homes of the losers? How does the injustice make you feel, as the player controlling Cato and those who fell before him.

The Hunger Games as a strategy game.

This raises an interesting quandary: What to do with the early fallen in a long match? Sure, they could watch as spectators. But why not put them randomly in the role of gamemakers and the district mentors, so they could take an active role in influencing the outcome by adding challenges in the arena and providing gifts. Their allegiance to their own fallen persona stripped away, they can take a hand with the power to either give or take away. This mechanic would need a lot of work to balance, but it could be the best part of the game. There could even be a mode where all players take on the roles of gamemakers and mentors, and then battle for control of the arena to achieve a specific outcome without actually playing as a tribute. It would be a real-time strategy game like no other (well, maybe shades of Peter Molyneux's Black & White).

In terms of scope, there could be up to 75 arenas, but that's awfully ambitious for a retail game. I would imagine there would be a respectable number including the 74th with Katniss and Peeta, Haymitch's year, and a few others that could be entirely fictionalized since they were never covered in the books. Additional years, including the intricate island arena from Catching Fire, could be added as DLC down the road if the game takes off and proves worthy of continued development. For battles without established Tributes, the player should be able to create their own - which would deepen their investment in their characters.

So, what do you think? Is a multiplayer Hunger Games something you would like to play? Do you think such an approach could alter how people think about games and, perhaps, the world in general?

New Features - Forums, profiles, user pictures and more

2012-01-04T08:31:47Z

When we took down Busy Gamer News late last year, we vowed to come back and re-invent it as a community hub. The first piece of this new beginning is here: Community Forums, user profiles, profile pictures, and the option to follow fellow members and view their recent activity on the site.

This just the beginning. We plan to start community-sourcing articles. What this means is that we want you to contribute the news that interests you, and we'll post the most helpful and interesting entries to the main news feed with full attribution. This way, with your help, we hope to provide more regular updates even when our work projects go into overdrive. This will also greatly expand the base of news and feature article topics to support a wider range of gaming interests.

It makes sense: Busy gamers helping busy gamers. Despite our hectic schedules and personal obligations, we all have stuff that we track to the degree possible. Alone, it doesn't amount to much. Even when you work at it as hard as we do, the past 8 years of Busy Gamer News coverage is a patchwork of things that we stumbled across and thought enough to share with our fellow gamers. Together, we can assemble a much bigger patchwork, perhaps something never seen before, and maybe even influence game design in a positive way.

To start things off, we have a News that Matters to You section where you can post whatever news tidbits you find interesting enough to share. There are also platform specific forums, a Tips and Tricks section where we'll compile everyone's favorite techniques in games such as Skyrim and Skylanders. The best collections of tips will ideally become comprehensive articles, and we'll gladly credit your contributions.

The forums are still in beta as we're still figuring out how to configure them and integrate them into the site. As of now, anyone who registers as a member should be able to create a topic, though it will still need to be moderated before it appears. You should be able to comment on an existing topic and see the response post right away.

We're still working the kinks out, so if you see any issues or have any suggestions on how to improve things, please let us know! Here's to hoping we can all make a difference in the lives of our fellow busy gamers!

A BGN Original - Our "Click to Play" game industry TV script

2012-01-02T02:39:58Z

Once in awhile, we find the time to do something extra special. A few years back, I made a video satirizing the contextual responses of non-player characters in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - and it's just recently broken 160,000 views on YouTube.

Back in the late '90s before we even conceived of Busy Gamer News, GrrlGotGame and I wrote a TV pilot set in the wild and woolly world of Internet startups. We were inspired by both our own experiences and deep ensemble comedies like The Larry Sanders Show to write something with more weight than your classic joke-a-minute sitcom. We envisioned cameos in each episode by famous (at least to geeks like us) folks in the technology scene. Mainly, we wanted to see people like us reflected in the pop culture - which, even today, happens rarely and then usually warped far beyond reality.

Alas, before we could shop our story around, the Internet bubble popped and we realized it would be a futile endeavor to try to get it made.

Fast-forward about a dozen years. A chance comment from a colleague convinced us to dust off the script and update it to take place in the videogame industry, where we've worked off and on for many years now. The situations had to be adapted a little, but the characters fit remarkably well - truth be told, a bit better than in the original! We put some work into tieing the threads together so they really meshed, registered the copyright with the Library of Congress and then entered the contest. If by some miracle it wins, we might actually get the show produced - but that seems a long shot (we should hear in February one way or the other).

But rather than just file it away again, we thought: Why not share it? Some of our friends have published novels, essays and even plays on Amazon's Kindle store. Perhaps others will connect with the story and, even if it never gets made into a TV show, they can experience the concept and perhaps inspire us to write more of the series. We have a lot of ideas on where this could go, if you're interested enough to coax it out of us.

We priced Click to Play at the cheapest Amazon offers - $1. We even enrolled it in the lending library program, so if you have an actual Kindle device (sorry, mobile apps won't work) plus Amazon Prime, you can read it all for free for the first 90 days (and we'll get a little money for that too). We don't anticipate we'll make much off of our screenplay, certainly not enough to cover all of our time invested in researching, writing, updating and formatting for Kindle (that last part was actually much harder than you'd expect!). But if we entertain you with our take on modern geek culture and what it feels like to work in the game industry (sometimes), it will be worth it.

If we see enough positive and constructive feedback, we'll see if we can bring Episode 2 to life. So at least read the first two sample scenes and, if you like what you see - let us know!

Update: A new focus for Busy Gamer News in 2012

2011-12-23T19:54:45Z

It's been the craziest year of our careers. We've been helping a major game company as consultants, and their big launch took up most of our late fall. We're still recovering, actually, and it's made us re-evaluate how we cull and present content after eight years of news, reviews and advocacy for this underappreciated group of gamers.

It's always seemed to make sense to generate content for the site through the busy gamer filter, and we hope to continue to do that. But we've also built quite the community of busy gamers, and - while we know you already have a lot on your plate - we hope you can contribute from time to time on the topics that you are most passionate about. If enough people pitch in, we could achieve something truly useful and - who knows - maybe even amazing.

That's the vision. Over the next few weeks, we plan to upgrade the site and build it into a place where you can contribute and discuss the gaming news that's most important to you. We'll pick up the cream of the crop, both from the site and via Twitter, and post it to the news feed with added context when needed.

If you have ideas about what Busy Gamer News should become, feel free to contribute! We want this to be something you'd want to visit briefly every day and contribute to as often as you can, say once or twice a week. Would Facebook login intergration help? We can't promise we can deliver this Day 1, but we're thinking it would be a real time saver so it's probably worth investigating.

What are your favorite site content features? We think we'll have to retire the downloadable content roundups. As much as we liked staying on top of the various DLC releases, all three of the console makers have made it near impossible to keep up with. They deliver spotty announcements and create console feeds that are time-consuming to track. And while we did add value by correcting their mistakes whenever we found them (which was shockingly often!), this type of news just doesn't get the kind of traffic that justifies the amount of work it requires.

Anyway, let us know what you want from Busy Gamer News, and we'll do our best to deliver.

We can't talk too much about our work projects, but one of the things that's sucked away the time is freelance writing. MSN hired us to do a series of slideshows and articles for the holidays and their end-of-year roundups. The one that's probably the most interesting to you is the The Guide to Gaming With Your Kids. Sure, you probably know all of this stuff - but it's a good resource to share with the non-gaming moms and dads in your social circles. So many parents still miss the opportunity to bond with their kids over videogames, and you could be the one to help them down this path. I'm really proud of how it came out (just don't blame me for the goofy pictures!). I really hope it helps a lot of parents find common ground with their kids and, potentially, enjoy games for themselves.

Happy holidays - we hope to see you back here in early 2012!

Going Dark

2011-11-16T07:48:00Z

Busy Gamer News is written by busy gamers, and we've gotten too busy to continue for the short-term. Our consulting business is consuming all of our time as we work to take our client to a successful launch. It's something in the gaming space that you might have heard of or may even be participating in, but we're not at liberty to share details.

So, after 8 years of nearly constant coverage, we're taking a couple of weeks off. First for work projects, and then for us. Like an overused gaming portable that hasn't been plugged in for some time, we need to recharge our batteries.

Expect us back around the end of November, and you can watch our tweets (Gamewatcher and GrrlGotGame) for news in the meantime. We'll post what we can when we're not too exhausted! If we don't respond right away, don't take it personally - we're working, sleeping or, heck, we might even play a game or two before resuming our Busy Gamer reviews and reporting duties.

If you find value in what we do, here are a few things you might consider while we're dark:

Post a comment. Any show of support or even interaction on this site helps keep us going. Say what you think about what we're doing, add your thoughts to a review or article, or just introduce yourself! We'll watch for comments and approve them as quickly as we can. If you miss a favorite feature (like how we try to track and make sense of all of the various console DLC), say so. Your encouragement keeps us going.
Listen to our podcasts. We work hard on the Busy Gamer Podcast, and many segments in our 'Best of' feed are timeless and entertaining. Give them a try and share them with friends who might be interested.
Donate. We've only received a handful of contributions, and none in the past several months. We've never been profitable, and that's not why we do what we do. But it means a lot when our community steps up even a little. It shows you place value on all of the hard work that we do. There's a link right there on our home page - give it a click and show your love for a niche gaming community that's growing and we hope will someday have a voice alongside the core gamers, who dominate our hobby and often attempt to drown out or downplay our interest in it.

Most of all, continue to have fun gaming! Don't be discouraged from your passion and let us know what you're enjoying...

A Busy Gamer Manifesto

2011-08-10T22:07:28Z

I sometimes get asked what exactly the "Busy Gamer Movement" is. We don't mention it much on the Busy Gamer News site, but it's referenced in my Twitter profile. It's not a constant crusade, though it does underscore everything we do here. So I can see why you might be curious.

It seems a (fittingly) brief Busy Gamer Manifesto is in order.

A brief history

Busy Gamer News was founded in 2003 as Gamestay and later renamed to better reflect the primary mission of the site. At the time, it was a creative outlet for me as I tried to keep my finger on the pulse of the game industry, which I have since joined in various roles: product manager, community manager, copywriter and now consultant (aka "gun for hire").

"Punishing games for people with fast reflexes who live in the land of liquid time and disposable income? There's a seemingly endless supply of those."

The common denominator in all these roles has been customer focus. I find that seeing things through the customers' eyes leads to more "win-win" solutions. You (the customer) get what you want or need while the business achieves its goals - but with an added bonus: customer satisfaction and the potential for real long-term loyalty.

But back to 2003. Even then in the frontier days of gaming journalism, there were lots of sites that tracked seemingly crushing quantities of gaming minutiae. And most of it bored me to tears. Screenshots don't say much about how fun a game will be to play. Videos only give a little taste and so often deliver prerendered non-gameplay visuals, NOT what you'll get if you buy it (hint: if it lacks health bars and/or a HUD, it's probably promotional). And news such as miniscule game delays and backend partner deals affected my day-to-day life as a gamer very little.

Who has time for all of that noise? I just wanted the stuff I could use right now, plus enough interesting buzz to be able to contribute at the watercooler.

But I'd wade through it anyway, and figured I'd share any news that I found actually useful or at least compelling with anyone else who wanted to keep up with thus stuff. Rather than just quote back what others had reported, I put my daily newspaper journalism training to work: researching the details that were absent from the press release and deciphering any complex and confusing instructions to make them as complete and clear as possible.

Along the way, GrrlGotGame joined the party. We actually met on a newspaper, married and have an 8-year-old son ("Pikachu Fan"; you can hear him occasionally in our Busy Gamer Podcast). We realized that busy gamers like us were being mostly ignored by the game industry, so we started advocating for this not-so-vocal majority.

Punishing games for people with fast reflexes who live in the land of liquid time and disposable income? There's a seemingly endless supply of those. But how many games take into account the needs of the working stiffs with limited gaming budgets and increasingly constrained time to play? Not nearly enough for our taste. You could say we usually get the fuzzy end of the lollipop after core gamers have had their way with the sweet, flavorful part.

"We believe games are good for you. They offer benefits such as mental acuity, stress relief and skill development."

Busy gamers are...

We're not casual gamers, though we play casual games. More and more, we're playing games on our phones though we're not strictly mobile gamers either. We enjoy games on consoles, PCs, Macs and portables when there's time - though family, work and life often limit our opportunity here.

We believe games are good for you. They offer a variety of benefits such as mental acuity, stress relief and even real-world skill development. GrrlGotGame credits videogames with giving her a sense of direction. She had a hard time with directions and maps until she started running missions for the Mob in Grand Theft Auto 3. Now she rarely gets lost even when driving without a GPS.

Busy gamers need...

We don't want to be pests, but we’d greatly appreciate it if the game industry recognizes our point of view when developing games and game systems. We don't want games to be dumbed down or lowest common denominator, just accessible to us as an audience.

Here are a few areas where game designers can help accommodate busy gamers:

Save points. The best save system is "save anywhere." When the baby wakes up from nap or you hit that middle of the night exhaustion wall and need to be at work early and refreshed, you don't want to have to ditch your hard-earned progress. Life's too short to have to replay boss battles or tricky timed jumping puzzles just because the designer thought you should have the mad skillz to go 30 minutes and 10 difficult encounters between save points. If save anywhere won't work for some reason (such aqs technical limits or game balance), at least offer frequent checkpoints. Game designers are starting to segment in intelligent ways with innovations such as limited save slots only at higher difficulties. That's a great solution: Increased challenge for those who want it, but it's optional.

Portable game designers may think they get a pass since you can typically shut the lid or flip a switch to suspend your game, but we don't want to be locked into keeping your game in the device for days or weeks on end as we struggle to finish it. And, yeah, we sometimes forget to plug our portable in. Many mobile game designers have learned to save anywhere to accommodate unplanned interruptions such as incoming phone calls. Peggle for iOS can resume your game midshot! Why can't all games move to this?

Consistent, easy-to-pick up controls. Every time we need to learn a new control scheme, it adds to the learning curve. And if we can't learn a game quickly (or jump back in after a taking a break for a few weeks or even months), we're probably going to ditch your game. At least let us remap the keys/buttons so we can select a control layout that works for us. And include full control details and help in the game so we don't have to root around in the dark for the manual when trying to remember how to play (I'm looking at you, Dead Space!). Bonus points if you let us optionally re-enable the in-game tutorial prompts!

Limited updates. I know that jailbreaking mobile devices and homebrew on consoles and portables is a big deal to companies like Apple and Sony (especially Apple and Sony, it seems, though everyone seems to be playing a variation of this game now). But, on the whole, everyday gamers could care less. All we know is that every time we go to buy a game or watch a movie on Netflix, it seems we have to download another patch or accept a new Terms of Service. We frankly don't have time for this sort of thing, so please limit these forced activities to truly critical updates - not just something someone in your Legal department thought was a good idea to cover their behinds.

Also, play through the customer experience before launching a patch. Is there a way to streamline things so we don't have to, say, wade through 15 screens before watching a movie? The customer you save may be your own. I recently had a terrible experience trying to recover my HBO Go profile, and now I don't even want to look at the app. I'm sure I'll just lose my watchlist and movie/show progress yet again. Why bother going through it when Netflix has more instant play content and fewer problems?

Multiple profiles/save slots. Just assume that the whole family wants to play every game you make, or at least 2-3 members of it. Games that lack profiles or have only a single save slot limit your game's appeal. The same is true for co-op games that don't offer a splitscreen option. There are very few games that we'll buy multiple copies of. Yours probably isn't one of them. You certainly shouldn't base your marketing plan on this idea. Instead, make us feel like we get good value out of your games. Then we'll not only be more inclined to buy that second copy if we really want it, we'll watch out for your next game.

"We want games and consoles and portables and phones that do amazing things, and when the price is right and we're feeling good about the product, we'll buy it."

Don't market to us, sell to us. It's amazing how many people fall into the 99 cent trap. $9.99 is closer to $10 but I see people frequently round down to $9. That's 99 times the one penny it would take to round up. The way this age-old scam works is that the mind tricks you into believing something really is a dollar or sometimes $10 or $100 less, which is why we always round up in our news reports.

I recently got into an argument with someone who said, "It's only a $1, does it really make that much difference?" By that logic, all 99-cent items are essentially free, no matter how many of them you buy. Those dollars really do add up. Look at it this way: Are you rich enough that you'd pass by a dollar lying on the ground, or would you pick it up? Thought so.

The fact is: We want games and consoles and portables and phones that do amazing things, and when the price is right and we're feeling good about the product, we'll buy it. All game designers and marketers need to do is make sure we're clear on the cost, the benefits and that we'll have a good time playing, whether it's for 8+ hours or only 15 minutes per gaming session.

We'll evaluate the deal on its real merits and, if everything checks out, we'll buy it. Don't try to trick us or conceal the true cost through points or credits. That just makes us have to do extra math in our head, and if we get confused or feel like we're being tricked or scammed, we'll walk away.

The busy gamer bottom line

For whatever reason we play, we're gamers. We want to try your game. We want to have a great, life-altering experience with it. But if it becomes too much work, we're out of there. We already have jobs. We have families that need us. And we do need to sleep a bit more than we used to.

Oh, we'll still play games - with or without you. So why not include us in your plans. We think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement: You make a hit game, and we'll help make it a hit.

Do Some Good - Child's Play Charity Auction: Year 7

2010-12-08T08:44:40Z

If you've followed Busy Gamer News for a year or more, you know we're big boosters of Child's Play Charity. It's an effort to raise money for Children's Hospitals around the world and show the media, politicians and morality police that gamers are - on the whole - kind, generous souls who just happen to like to sometimes shoot stuff on their TVs and computers for stress relief and social fun.

We've attended every one of the Child's Play charity auction events (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) and this year was no different. As with most of these auctions since about 2006, only the folks with money to burn won in the live auction. Still, despite two lots rising above the $10,000 mark, the evening netted $183,000 - which is less than last year. Still, with the $750,000 or so raised by Child's Play efforts this season including the main gift-giving campaign, this brings the tally to about $1.1 million (confirmed!) with the overall $1.2 million goal in sight.

Personally, we went in hoping to win another PopCap Games pack (it would have been our third!), but both packs from the makers of some of our favorite games went for more than we had budgeted - including a lot that went for $3000 with Plants vs. Zombies concept art and an invitation to the company holiday party.

We did win two silent auction items: an Andrew Ryan BioShock figurine (complete with glue to attach his disembodied arm) and a collection of console controller shaped Christmas ornaments. We briefly considered bidding on a pre-release Rock Band 3 Fender Squier guitar (the one with real strings due out next year), but last we checked it was $600 - twice the retail value. It may have gone even higher since the winner is promised to get it before the final launch.

The live auction opened with a Legend of Zelda quilt made by Jerry Holkins (Tycho)'s mom. which netted nearly $1200. The first oohs and aahs of the night were inspired by the high-rolling bids for a claw machine used to decide the victor of this year's PAX Prime Omegathon competition. The OmegaClaw went to PopCap for $15,000 and was the highest bid on a single item all evening. The only other item to come close was a life-size replica of the Portal gun (pictured at top), which inched up from the initial $5,000 asking price to finish at $14,500. Another impressive prize, a Han Solo encased in carbonite sculpture also donated by Harmonix, was practically a steal at $4000.

BGN Announces - Partnership with Ramberg Media

2010-02-17T16:51:45Z

Busy Gamer News has partnered with Ramberg Media to syndicate our site content. All this means is that we might be seeing some additional traffic from their gaming news section. No, we're not compensated, though if we eventually get our traffic up we might be able to sell some decent ads and, dare we dream, break even on our hosting bills.

This year will mark our 7th year of providing gaming news for people too busy for gaming news. (For those who are new, we used to be called Gamestay but updated to a more descriptive name in 2006.) Hopefully, this will help us keep on the path to 10 years and beyond!

You can see our feed in the Ramberg Media games section. Right now, we're the only active feed in this section...

Gamewatcher - Child's Play Charity Auction, Year 6

2009-12-09T07:11:27Z

Mario quilt at Child's Play 2009 auction (more and bigger pix)

Another year, another Child's Play charity auction. We've attended every one to date (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) because it's a cause we truly support and believe in. This year we felt the economic pinch and expected to walk away empty handed.

Apparently we weren't the only ones - overall bidding seemed low with no $10,000+ items. As a result, we actually won some goodies in the silent auction (our first bids got away, but we did finally prevail with the PopCap and Ubisoft game and goody bundles. This marks the second time we've won Peggle at an auction (the first was in 2007), and now we're swimming in games, Chuzzles and other surprises that we'll share in future Free Stuff Friday giveaways.

8-bit Resident Evil art - the one that got away!

But back to the auction. Big hits were a Super Mario quilt ("An opportunity to wrap yourself in your own childhood," quipped co-founder Jerry Holkins) that went for $4000 and a $6,000 seat at the Penny Arcade guys D&D game ("Anybody want to be murdered, by me?" taunted Mike Krahulik.)

A fully loaded Xbox 360 with every Rock Band song released so far, plus all of the Rock Band games sold for $1700, and another 360 that includes every Xbox Live Arcade game to date landed $1900.

PopCap pack - one of two prizes we won at silent auction!

Some lucky winner with a spare $2000 gets to be an honorary member of the Xbox Live Enforcement Crew during a 6-hour tour of Xbox HQ. Mike noted, "You can spend the day there ruining people's lives."

The cheapest live auction item was a $400 custom decorated Ragnaros Noob from Blizzard. A Bungie Studio tour to preview Halo: Reach netted $2700, a skeeball machine was worth $4600 to someone with a lot of free space, a $2000 Mystery Box proved to be a 52-inch TV and the annual PA strip appearance was had at the bargain price of $6900 - down from $10K last year and $20K in 2005. Finally, a $6500 song written by the PA crew with Harmonix musicians will be immortalized in Rock Band and proceeds from its eventual sale via the soon-to-launch Rock Band Network will benefit NEXT year's Child's Play. Awesome!

The total evening's take was only $191,000 - a bit less than the $200K+ raised at past year's dinners. Seems like the high rollers and big corporate sponsors stayed away, or made their donations and called it a day. The bigger news was that the overall campaign broke $1 million BEFORE the auction started, which is a welcome first! Grassroots efforts seem to be really making a difference. Last year, the auction pushed the total just above the $900K mark (they ultimately broke their $1 million goal by year's end).

Still, a good night for a good cause. It was fun, and they finished early (before 9:30 p.m).

Break Time - A few surprises still to come!

2009-08-14T22:37:32Z

As we alluded in our Free Stuff Friday entry, we are taking some much needed "us" time this coming week. But we will try to post some worthwhile surprises (including GrrlGotGame's first Busy Gamer Review!) so you might not even notice except that a few of the regular features may be incomplete or delayed until we can catch them all up. Many news items may only appear via Twitter, so follow me if you want to keep up. Also, the giveaway will run an extra week to give us some time to recover from a summer truly gone mad...

Gamewatcher - Facing defeat

2009-04-24T19:44:06Z

We don't normally blog about our six-year-old son, apart from the occasional mention here and there when it's relevant to a gaming story or review. But this is too good not to share.

One of the deals we make with Xander is that we don't talk about killing enemies in games. (We also don't permit him to play with toy guns any bigger than a Lego weapon.) Instead, we say, your enemies are "defeated." Whenever he says "kill" to refer to a battle in one of his DS games, we quickly correct him.

This morning while GrrlGotGame was taking Xander to school, he waxed a little philosophical about the age difference between himself and his friend. "Madison will always be three years younger than me," Xander noted. GrrlGotGame agreed. "So that means that I'll die first," he added.

"Well, maybe," GrrlGotGame replied, "but there are lots of different factors and you really don't need to worry about that right now." Xan thought about it and then corrected himself:

"Oh, right, I'll be defeated first."

GrrlGotGame - A Busy Gamer guide to kids and adult games, or 'When Will I Be Old Enough To Play Fallout 3, Mommy?'

2009-01-14T22:23:32Z

“When will I be old enough to play Fallout 3?”

That’s the question recently posed to me by my sweet little 5-year-old son. Oh, to be fair, he’s almost 6 – hence the pressing question. He figures with such a major milestone looming, he’s bound to be able to play something new soon.

Now, consider for a moment the very idea that a kid is asking about Fallout. It doesn’t surprise me that he knows the name. He’s heard extensive conversations about it between Gamewatcher and me in the car, albeit with at least meager attempts to mask some of the game's more unsavory elements (murder, theft, slavery, drug addiction, cannibalism). Plus Gamewatcher took him on a “quest” to get Mommy the super-deluxe game guide for Christmas, lest she continue bitching about a particular mission that was driving her crazy. Seeing the words in 2 billion point type on the book, currently parked in the living room, has also sparked his curiosity.

And yet the idea that he’s asking me about it kind of freaked me out. As Gamewatcher likes to point out, my approach to the game is... rather homicidal. “My wife is a total psycho!” has come up more than once in conversations with game store employees. Not to mention my rather blunt discussion about Clover, the nice lady Mommy, er, bought who won’t shut up. Or, as Gamewatcher put it the other night, “I’m surprised that relationship has lasted this long. You tend to have an itchy trigger finger.”

I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before my son’s kindergarten teacher calls to ask why his mommy has been debating whether or not blowing up a city would be a good move.

My answer regarding Fallout 3 is the same as Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and who knows how many more games he’ll ask about in coming years: "When you’re 30." Or, more realistically: "When you’re 16 or so, we can talk." In the meantime, the boy has his parents’ hunger for gaming, which is being satisfied with heavily monitored and time-limited gaming opportunities. Yes, there are decent games out there for kids. But that’s another column.

Today, it’s all about the adults and how we can score some daytime gaming while there’s a small kid around. In many cases, he’s even been able to get involved.
]]> Black Hole Son
One thing we’ve noticed recently is that our son wants to play what WE play – whether it’s what he sees us doing, or hears us talk about. Sure, he has his own games – but it’s been a while since the Cars disk has left the case. (To be fair, that game kind of sucks on its own.) Bee Movie? Be gone. He wants to do what the big kids are doing—and we’ve found some ways to integrate him into our games. Not only does it give him a sense of playing the “grown up” games, but it’s given us some fun family time during a rather dreadful winter.

Here are some tried and true favorites:

Rock Band: Most kids love music – ours is obsessed. From an early age, his favorite toy was a microphone. That has been replaced by the Rock Band microphone, which – sacre bleu! – is attached to the speakers. He’s the official energy activator when Mommy sings, and even takes over for the occasional solo. Remember how you never could tell what the grunge acts were singing? Well, neither can our kid – but he still managed to score a very respectable 80 percent on a Nirvana song by just tra-la-la’ing along with Kurt. He also loves to duet on Black Hole Sun.

Rock Band 2 deserves a special shout-out for adding the “No Fail” option, which opens up the entire song list to us. Our son has even taken to pounding on the drums, although his tendency to go into AN-I-MAL mode has resulted in limited access to the skins.
Puzzle Arcade: It’s the perfect puzzle game for a household with kids: 100+ piece puzzles without any pieces to lose. (Although it has been eating some saved games). There’s no profanity, no violent images and it has a nice variety of puzzle sizes. Gamewatcher spent a decent portion of December parked in front of puzzles with our son at his side calling out “Daddy! There’s a piece of the SKY!” and pointing excitedly. He also loves watching Gamewatcher play Braid, which I don’t get. Maybe it’s a guy thing. On the other hand, he’s been quite useful with...
Zuma: Not only is it something he can watch, it turned out to be vaguely educational. In addition to reinforcing colors and numbers (he’s caught on to the Match 3 thing), he also figured out what most of the special balls do. He’s decided his gig is to yell colors and identifiers (“Shoot the blue one, it explodes!”) as necessary to help Mommy in her never-ending quest to beat the last level of Zuma. On the downside, Mommy has a bit of a mouth on her, and censorship is not always top of mind after losing for the 10,983rd time. I’m just sayin’.
Mario: Pick a Mario, any Mario. Our son has kicked it old school with Super Mario 64 (yes, we still have an N64, though the game is also available for Wii Virtual Console and Nintendo DS), and he got pretty far before starting the “Mommy, can you beat this level for me?” requests. Of course, he encountered the same frustrations we all did when it came out – camera angles, anyone? – but also appreciated the same things. This is a kid who has a PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 at his disposal. Good gameplay trumps dated graphics.

But as I said, Mario is Mario. He has also dabbled in Super Mario Galaxy with his Daddy, perfectly content to be in charge of “catching stars” even if he misses most of them.
LittleBigPlanet: Our son was enamored with Sack Boy and his kin from the beginning. Cool music, dress up (he loves the masks and costumes) and solid platformer fun... until it wasn't. Just a few hours in, he hit a ridiculous difficulty level that he couldn't easily pass - and nor could we. We also enjoyed exploring many of the community levels... and then Sony started pulling anything with licensed characters. Yes, he enjoyed many of the non-license violating levels, but really wanted to play with Batman and other recognizable characters. Between the frustrations with the main game and the loss of many beloved levels, this one quickly dropped out of heavy rotation. But who knows - maybe we'll pick it up again soon. But for now his gaming interest has been replaced by...
Lego Star Wars: How do five-year-olds know so much about the Star Wars universe? We finally broke down and let our son watch the first two movies, original undoctored cuts of Star Wars (Yes, "Han shot first" and we even talked about why) and The Empire Strikes Back. And he loves Legos, so it was natural that his big ask for Santa last year was Lego Star Wars. The only downside is that there are no checkpoint saves, so you need to devote 20-40 minutes per level, particularly when your Jedi companion is wandering off the other way to explore when you're trying to open the gate to the next section. It is teaching him good co-op gaming skills, so it's not just an idle distraction.
Racing Games: Our son LOVES cars (both the movie and the vehicle), so racing games were a no brainer. We got the Cars (as in Pixar) game for him, but it proved a bit frustrating. (Quick, how do you save? Uh-huh. Exactly.) He picked up Forza Motorsport 2 and, with a few settings tweaks, enjoyed virtual driving. OK, let’s clarify that statement: He figured out how to drive into the barrier, backwards and the wrong direction, generally wreaking havoc. But even without any set goals (or perhaps because of this), it's provided hours of amusement and engagement. And the beautiful city images sparked an interest in geography and other cities that we had not anticipated. Score one for games! Speaking of which, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Holy Grail of gaming for our son...
Pokémon. Yes, he was granted the keys to a shiny new DS for Christmas, along with a much lusted after copy of Pokémon. Which one? Um, I dunno. It’s got a poke-dude on it. Not Pikachu. I totally know Pikachu: He’s stuffed and sleeps in my son’s bed each night. Some other poke-dude. Anyway, doesn’t matter. He’s enchanted with it, and he wants to learn everything he can about each one: their name, what they do, how they evolve... and it’s done exactly what we hoped it would:

Make him work harder at reading.

That’s right, anti-gamers: My son is busting his butt trying to learn to read so he can figure who Raichu is without asking Mom or Dad. Partly because he knows if he wakes us up on weekend mornings (prime DS time!) to ask, he’ll lose the DS. But also because he truly wants to absorb, learn and figure out things for himself. He’s learning to read in leaps in bounds. Which reminds me – I should probably hide that Fallout 3 guide.

At least until he’s 30.

-=GrrlGotGame

Gamewatcher - iPhone 3G is ultimate device for busy gamers – but beware!

2009-01-05T19:53:08Z

I've been a gamer, gadget freak and electronics early adopter my whole life. As a kid I had the original Pong home machine and later the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 (M.U.L.E. for the win!), and as an adult I was one of the first on my block with an Iomega Zip Drive (anyone remember when 100MB was a lot of storage?) and various other time- and sanity-saving devices over the years.

I've also invested in many gizmos that I tried and abandoned for one reason or another. The Information Superhighway, as they called it back in the day, is littered with the molded plastic scraps of digital roadkill.

Perfect example: I've resisted the urge to carry a PDA or Smartphone for years, despite working on the marketing of those sorts of devices for a spell in the '90s. My biggest complaint is that they tend to take too much time to configure and manipulate versus the time you save using them. The pattern, for me, is that I'd spend a week or so loading my entire life up into a gadget and then never touch it again because I'd have to constantly plug the thing into a computer to sync or find it's just faster to fall back on traditional methods (e.g., paper). It's sort of like the economics of clean fuel: Once it becomes cheaper and easier to use than oil, we'll quit the dinosaur juice and never look back.

That's how it is with the iPhone 3G for me. The thing is so well designed and easy to pick up and use, I finally have a portable device that's faster than backsliding to old habits. And it does so much more than I expected.
]]> I ignored the first generation iPhones since they were scarce, overpriced and – by most accounts – didn't work very well. I held off on the 3G model for awhile too, mostly because I was too busy to backup and clear my old phone. Turns out I needn't have bothered; the AT&T Store rep transferred all of my contacts from the SIM card (though I did still need to recover my old cameraphone photos).

Configuration and usage is very simple. It really does control as smoothly as you see in the ads! Also, you can download free and purchased apps directly to the phone and sync them to iTunes later, so you're no longer tethered to your PC or Mac except to backup your data every day or so and download new playlists if you use the iPod functionality.

Best of all, most apps remember your login/settings and so you just tap to access mail, contacts and even social networking tools such as Facebook, Linked In and Twitter. It is pricey: You get "all-you-can-eat" data for $30 a month ($45 if you want access to an Exchange account), but at least you're not counting kilobytes. So if you can afford the price of entry, you're free to go wild, watch videos from YouTube and Joost, stream audio from Pandora, whatever you want.

I honestly don't receive a ton of calls, though as a consultant it's important for me to be reachable most of the time. Now I have a number of great uses for my phone when I'm not talking on it. From productivity to entertainment, the phone almost never leaves my hand now except when it needs charging.

Some sample uses:

	Exchange mail and calendar. Now I can keep up with projects even when I'm out running errands, doing chores, whatever. This means I'm not tethered to my computer while waiting for important mails. This feature costs an extra $15 a month, but it's worth every penny for me. And if you just need POP, IMAP or Gmail there's no extra charge. And you can load up at least half a dozen mail accounts (that's as much as I've done so far). The only downside is that it only proactively checks your primary account, which is fine by me.

	iPod. I already have an iPod, but this app is so well integrated that I've made this my de facto player even though the iPhone can only hold a fraction of my music collection. The great thing is that it pauses when I receive a call and picks up where it left off afterwards, which is great when driving. Best of all, music just sounds better on the iPhone than my Classic. A few peeves: It is a little frustrating that you can't use the software keyboard and tap interface to create more than a single on-the-go playlist, and rating songs is hidden and doesn't seem to sync properly anyway. But still, overall, it's an improvement on the standalone iPod.

	1337pwn Xbox Live friend tracker. There are a couple of Xbox Live friend trackers (none of which will easily import your friends lists), but this one works more reliably for me than iNXES (which supports full avatars but is laggy and less intuitive). The good news is that many iPhone apps are updated frequently, usually for free, so this may change by the time you read this. Try 'em both and, while you're at it, get the free Add Friend app for slightly more convenient access to the Xbox.com add friends page.

	Twinkle. This is a free Twitter client that's so much more. The addictive part is that you can see what other iPhone users nearby are doing, including any pictures they attach (which you can save!). Many of these are shots of beverages and unappealing meals people in your neighborhood are about to consume. But during Seattle Snowpocalypse '08 (the atypical blizzard we just had), there were some great shots of everything going on – from sledding to crashed vehicles with the word "fail" written into the snow on them, and even the big crash that left two buses overhanging a busy freeway (no one was hurt).

	Open Table. GrrlGotGame and I had to cancel a December date when we all came down with colds, and while it sucked to have to bag on our getaway, it was so nice to be able to cancel our dinner reservations and rebook for January with just a few taps.

	Clock. This built-in app is more useful than you'd think, particularly for me since one of my clients has me managing relationships in Europe and Asia. Now I can quickly tell what time it is in London and Tokyo. There's also a hidden sleep timer in here, which will turn off your iPhone if, like me, you listen to music while drifting off at night.

	Safari. As a devoted PC user, I haven't used this browser since v1.0 when I still used Macs. But on the iPhone it works brilliantly. Tap links, zoom text by dragging two fingers together and tilt for landscape reading. Not every site will be readable or offer full functionality, but it's surprising how many do. Best of all, Movable Type has a free iPhone plug-in so I won't have to shell out for one of the pricey apps unless I want to enter more than short, picture-less posts. And those I'd do on the computer anyway.

	PhoneFlix. Reorganize and add to your Netflix queue. It doesn't support Instant Queue at this writing, but it was free and works well. i.TV adds the Instant Queue feature but won't let you browse movies to add beyond some recommendations, but makes up for this by providing movie theater and local TV listings. So both together are a good combination.

	Pandora. This free Internet radio app lets you choose artists as the basis for custom radio stations. It limits your skips and only works via WiFi, so you can't listen while roaming in your car. But that's what the iPod is for.

	ICanHasCheezeburger. Instant LOLcats. You can even save your favorites to the photo gallery. I never used to be a fan of these, but they're fun to pull up when you need a quick smile and they amuse our 5-year-old to no end. No day is complete without a visit!

	Facebook. Last year I became hooked on Facebook, but during the work day I often can't access it while logged into a remote network. Now I can keep up with all of the posts, update my status and respond to friends during downtime! If only I could access my Mousehunt game with it. Fortunately, there are plenty of other things to play on an iPhone...

Games
There are thousands of games available, so the danger is you'll spend a lot of time wading through all of the junk in search of the good ones. Fortunately, Apple recently added a feature so you can see the most popular in both paid and free categories, and there's a free app called AppVee that reviews apps and includes a video so you can preview them before you buy. Many apps also offer free or lite versions. I haven't bought any of the more expensive games yet such as I Love Katamari or Super Monkey Ball; if I do, I'll try to post some impressions.

Here are some of my faves:

	Poker Quest. This game is just fun to watch. Shake the phone to roll the dice and watch the pretty animation as you try to make the best poker hand. Plenty of unlockables and achievements. There's a free version that gives a taste of the full game, so you can try before you buy.

	Tap Tap Revenge. This free rhythm game that's reminiscent of Guitar Hero doesn't have a ton of songs, but they've been known to offer tracks from Weezer which makes it alright with me. There are for-pay versions with more features and tracks, including a Nine Inch Nails edition and Weezer holiday album.

	Solebon. This solitaire game has one of the best tap interfaces and in-depth scoring and play statistics, blowing away the competition. If all you want to do is play Klondike, Demon, Baker's Game or Spiderette, get Sol Free – it's not hobbled except for the limited game selection. The full version has 25 more games, though alas no Tripeaks.

	Frotz. This is the interactive fiction reader, it's free and it includes Zork! You can play a dozen or so included games, or download more.

	Tangram Puzzle Pro. Rotate the shapes to fill in the puzzle. There are several games in this category, but I've found this one has the best interface to move and rotate pieces. It was free when I got it, and now it's $1 – still worth it. At this writing there was a free holiday edition, and they'll probably post a trial version eventually.

	iBowl. This free app lets you swing your iPhone like a bowling ball. It's actually pretty easy to pick up and fun to play, just don't let go of your phone!

Sounds great, right? Alas, the iPhone 3G is not perfect. Here are a few of my gripes:

The battery isn't user replaceable. So you can't have a backup battery charged and ready to swap out for those long trips. And when it fails (as it will in 1-2 years of heavy usage), you'll have to pay Apple to replace it.
Older accessories won't work. Is it really too much to ask that my old iPod charging cables, which fit the iPhone, can also charge it? I have a dozen of these lying around that are useless. And at least one accessory says it won't work (a wireless remote I use to pause and skip songs in the car) does work, but I always have to dismiss an irrelevant warning that says it won't and asks me if I want to switch to Airplane mode.
Camera is mediocre. It has medium resolution at 2.0 megapixels, but lacks a flash or zoom. Basically it does well in bright situations where you can get in close: Decent though not great. The SteadyCam app (free version available) helps by snapping only after you stop moving for a second or two to reduce blur, but greatly slows down how quickly you can take pictures. You often miss the shot you wanted waiting for the camera to detect adequate stillness and snap!
Apps crash – a lot. iPhone apps frequently become unstable and require you to reboot the phone. Many apps will suggest you reboot after installing. It's hard to tell if this is because the apps are poorly written but Apple released them anyway, or if iPhone memory management is just poor. I suspect a little of both. Amazingly, this is only rarely frustrating.
Bluetooth toggle is buried. I really wish I could tap an app button to turn Bluetooth on and off, rather than having to dig two layers into the Settings app for it. I often rundown my battery because I forget to turn it off, or find myself driving and unable to make a call.
Ringtones are pricey. It seems ridiculous to have to spend $1 per ringtone when you already have the full song on your phone. The good news is that there's a free alternative (iRinger for Windows, several others I can't vouch for on Mac), which works great on tracks you DON'T buy from iTunes. (There's a workaround, but to quote Seth Green in Idle Hands: "Too far.") So now when I buy a song from iTunes, I consider whether I might want to make it a ringtone and, if so, pick up the CD instead.
Rearranging icons is a pain. The iPhone supports up to nine screens of 16 icons (aka 144), and I've already mostly filled these after a few weeks. Once you have more than a couple of screens filled, moving around all of your app and bookmark buttons becomes very cumbersome. The best tip I can suggest is to leave 1-2 spaces open on each screen after the first one, so when you drag icons and they inevitably drop onto the screen, you don't keep breaking up your carefully arranged sets and have to drag them back.

All in all, it's still a great gadget and one that has quickly become indispensible in my daily life. It is pricey, requires AT&T wireless service and could become a potential time suck. The biggest casualty for me is the DS, which has been lying mostly untouched for several weeks. But the iPhone does many things it can't: boost my productivity, untether me from my desk during the week and deliver access to movie listings, restaurant suggestions and hundreds of other resources and entertaining time fillers.

So the iPhone 3G is recommended, if you can afford it. Just don't spend all of your time watching the new releases on the App Store. Like I do.

-=Gamewatcher

For larger resolution images of the iPhone interface and apps as well as some Seattle Snowpocalypse '08 pictures referenced in the article, visit the Busy Gamers group on Facebook.

Join Busy Gamers on Facebook

2009-01-05T07:23:43Z

Are you on Facebook? Then this link's for you.

If you're not on Facebook, there's not time like the present to connect with friends, colleagues, former classmates and like-minded gamers...

GrrlGotGame - Regrets, I've had a few...

2009-01-02T02:52:53Z

I’ve never understood the appeal of New Year's resolutions. First off, they’re predictable. We all want to lose that last 10 pounds/quit smoking/leave Scientology at the beginning of the year. But by the middle of the year – say, January 4 – we’re all off the diet/smoking like a chimney/getting our thetans cleansed.

Me? I made a resolution 10 years ago never to make another resolution. I’ve yet to break it.

So in lieu of resolutions this year, I propose we announce our regrets. In my case, I’ve compiled a simple list of things that game developers do that kill players... sometimes literally. Developers, there is a goldmine of original resolutions you might consider here: Find your sin and promise not to do it again. Actually, just don’t do it. I don’t really care if you promise or not.

I regret that many game developers still refuse to let me save anywhere.
Seriously, it’s not game balancing – it’s just lazy game design. (I’m looking at you, Silent Hill.) There are plenty of ways to screw with me without making me leave the Xbox on all night because my kid got out of bed, and doesn’t need to see Pyramid Head... well, you know, do that voodoo that he does. Hell, I don’t think I needed to see that. And I’m not 5 years old.
I regret timed missions.
Another mortal enemy of the busy gamer. Not only do you have the basic nuisance of beating the clock, but you have to have enough real-life time to practice and get good enough to actually beat the timed mission. Plus, I bet there’s not a parent out there who hasn’t had a child awaken from a nap during a timed mission. Sure, you can pause – but once you get the momentum going, it’s kind of hard to go take care of junior’s needs and then come back six hours later to save the squad. Speaking of which...

]]>

I regret every escort mission I’ve ever had... especially in Portal.
Ah, the much-maligned escort mission. This should really be number one, as I can’t think of one that I didn’t dread and regret. (And yes, Gamewatcher, that includes a certain someone I “bought” in Fallout 3. She’s a pain in the ass.) So why isn’t it number one with a bullet? Because these are never going away. It’s simply too easy – dare I say, “cop out?” – to throw a brain-dead character at you to drag from point A to point B. As for that Portal companion... well, it broke my heart.

I regret that Mario games still have some of the worst camera angles in the world.
Sure, there are plenty of candidates in this category. But I’m calling out the Italian plumber himself because he’s driven my aforementioned 5-year-old to tears of frustration. On a related note, I regret that I often have to pick up my son’s game to play him out of bad spots. It’s not like the camera angles are any easier for me.

I regret Wii accessories.
Nothing says “tendonitis” like trying to wrap already shot hands around a Popsicle-stick Wiimote. And where the hell are the buttons on this thing? But on the plus side, at least the Wiimote doesn’t call me obese. I knew better than to plug my real height/weight into that damn Wii scale, but I did it anyway. And it turned me into a giant purple blueberry. That pretty much sums up what I’d like to do to a certain part of the designer’s body. And I’m NOT the only one who has had this experience. Wii Fit called me fat? I ain’t down with that.

I regret the many final boss battles I never completed.
I know, I know... the world’s smallest violin. But there are numerous games that I’ve never finished because the final boss battles were just too damn hard. I spent four weeks of fairly intense, daily head-banging trying to finish the final battle in Condemned before cheating. I then spent another two weeks knowing EXACTLY what to do before finally giving up and cheating to find out what happened. (OK, bad example. From what I read, I’m kinda glad I didn’t see it.)

I regret that writing is still an afterthought at many studios.
Two words: Story matters. Five years ago, this would have been at the top of my list, having suffered through some truly horrible plot developments. Or worse, game adaptations of licensed material that somehow lose the magic of the original property. Harry Potter games, anyone?

This is one area where progress has been made, however. Resident Evil 4 presented a nice twist on canon, while Dead Rising had some pretty decent story twists, if you could deal with the aforementioned timed issues. Grand Theft Auto IV, Half-Life 2 and Fallout 3 are all stellar examples of great game writing. And bonus points for hiring people who could actually act. Hell, even the more recent entries in the Dead or Alive series showed signs of… well, not brilliance. But a plausible storyline. And when a T&A fighter can take five minutes to bring gravitas to the “she-kicks-high” action, you know story is at least on developer’s minds. I could go on and on, but I regret that it’s late and my son has just gone to bed. Time to begin the most important boss battle of the evening: going head-to-head with Gamewatcher over control of the big TV.

To quote the invisible referee... FIGHT!

-=GrrlGotGame