GameSpotting Nostalgia

GameSpotting is back, and if our knees weren't so bad, we'd chase you damn punks off our lawn. E3 2004 may seem like ancient history to you kids with your short attention spans and your Rocawear and your rap music videos, but we're still nursing our wounds from that orgiastic display of electronic entertainment excess. Aside from reflecting on The Show, we also consider our own mortality and we get emotional over our vast collection of broken arcade machines. So please, enjoy our wares, and if you'd like to put on airs like you're a GameSpot editor, try submitting your own GuestSpotting column.

Hall's Hollywood
Greg Kasavin/Executive Editor
"Bad games can hurt a good franchise, and reparations are necessary in such cases."

Where We're Going, You Don't Need Eyes to See
Jeff Gerstmann/Senior Editor
"Despite the fact that the monitor on the UMK3 machine isn't working, Brad and I have been having some rather heated matches."

The Big 3-0
Jason Ocampo/Associate Editor
"What is 30 supposed to feel like? They don't give you a manual about it, though I do expect my physician to give me the 'you-can't-eat-like-you're-18-anymore' speech soon."

...And then things got weird.
Alex Navarro/Associate Editor
"Foreign developers brought me the crazy at E3 2004 in spades, and I couldn't be happier."

Arcade of Broken Dreams
Brad Shoemaker/Associate Editor
"Boys and girls, there's nothing more pitiful in the world than an arcade machine that doesn't work."

Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles, Part One
Tor Thorsen/Associate Editor, News
"Gonzo dispatches from behind the scenes of the front lines of E3 2004."

What We Know
Andrew Park/Senior Editor
"Things that are bad in massively multiplayer games. Things that are good in massively multiplayer games."

Second-Handed Compliment
Todd Friscia/GuestSpotter
"If you don't support them, they're not going to be around for very long. They need to eat and pay their rent, too; it's as simple as that."

This One Time, at Computer Camp...
Melvin K. Poindexter/A Dork With a Story to Tell
Do you have some hilarious/poignant/touching story involving video games? Well stop being a selfish dork and share it with the world in this very forum! Read our GuestSpotting FAQ for details on submitting your own column.

Hall's Hollywood

You may have read or heard about a very interesting Hollywood Reporter article (written by veteran game journalist and editor Paul Hyman) in which the author revealed that Warner Brothers "has begun charging video game publishers that license its brands a fee that fluctuates according to what reviewers think of their games." And the fee is inversely proportional with the average review score. The lower the score, the higher the fee.

That is to say, if you're a game publisher and you license a Warner Brothers property like, say, The Matrix, and you make a game that reviewers collectively frown upon, then you'll end up paying a higher royalty fee to Warner Brothers for each copy sold as a result. Regardless of how many copies of the game end up selling, you'll make less money from your game than you would have if reviewers liked it more. Warner Brothers, meanwhile, will be charging you a premium and will theoretically be making more money. The logic, according to ex-Monolith CEO Jason Hall, who's now senior vice president of Warner Brothers Interactive Media, is that bad games are damaging to Warner Brothers' intellectual property. Bad games can hurt a good franchise, and reparations are necessary in such cases.

Since this article made its rounds during the past few days, some of my readers and some of my colleagues have asked me what I thought of it all. I was almost surprised at the question. Why, I think what Jason Hall is attempting to do (assuming he's behind all of this) is absolutely great.

Earlier this year, I wrote something that bordered on being a rant against movie-licensed games. The thought occurred to me at the time that I absolutely hated how so many of my favorite movie franchises had been undermined over the years by terrible video game counterparts. So much wasted potential! Now, though, the Hollywood Reporter article has opened my eyes to a new perspective on this issue--namely, Jason Hall's perspective. According to Hall, "The game industry has had its time to exploit movie studios all day long and to get away with producing inferior products... But, with Warner Brothers, no more."

If you've ever seen Jason Hall before, then you know he could kick your ass. With that in mind, he seems entitled to use polemical language, as in the quotation above. But, seriously, exploitation? Them's fightin' words. Them's also fascinating insight into the ancient issue of why practically all games based on movies have to suck so much. Hall is straight-up blaming the game industry. The sadistic game industry's been pulling the wool over the eyes of innocent, impressionable Hollywood.

It's a very interesting perspective coming from someone like Hall, who's long since paid his dues working on the gaming side of things. Hall's company, Monolith, started small and got some attention with its early first-person shooters, like Blood and Shogo. The company then went on to become one of the true greats thanks to games like No One Lives Forever and Aliens vs. Predator 2. Given all this, I'm willing to bet that Jason Hall damn well knows the difference between a good game and a bad game. What surprises me, I suppose, is that he thinks the game reviewers out there know the difference too.

Then again, Hall is setting the barometer in tune with the gaming press's admittedly easygoing standards. According to the article, from now on, any Warner Brothers license-based game that scores an average of below 70 percent will incur an increased royalty fee. So we're talking about games that really aren't particularly good. You hopefully know that a 7.0 rating on GameSpot is indicative of what is a fairly good game. However, from many other publications, it's more like a grade school C-, meaning it's a borderline failure.

At any rate, this is a controversial topic, and at the very heart of it lies the question of what value, really, there is in a game review, let alone in a game review score. Why should the livelihoods of hardworking game designers be dictated by game reviewers, who frankly don't have to put nearly as much time and effort into reviewing a given game than the designers have to put into making it? Also, are meta-review sites such as GameRankings.com (which, as you may know, happens to be owned by CNET Networks, GameSpot's parent company) truly credible in their approaches? Is it valid to aggregate and average hundreds of review scores from around the world to find the one, "true" score that a game deserves? And doesn't this new Warner Brothers policy open the floodgates of possible corruption among the gaming press by possibly encouraging bribery and so on?

These are all loaded questions... Since I happen to think that not all game reviews are created equal, I sometimes frown on the approach of meta-review sites, which can be easily swayed--especially in the early days after a game's release--by statistical outliers from sources that have no real credibility. Scott Bedard, my colleague and founder of GameRankings, perhaps wouldn't disagree. When a certain site gave the widely acclaimed Ninja Gaiden the equivalent of a 70 percent earlier this year, he got hate-mail for days just because the score was listed. Nevertheless, I am a firm believer in the power of statistics and in the notion that the truth is always in the middle. So, over time, I do tend to think that sites like GameRankings become right--at least more right than any individual source. Except maybe in the case of Super Mario Sunshine. And Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. But I digress.

I review a lot of games, and I love it. I've also invested enough time and energy into this activity to the point where I've convinced myself that what I do is tell it like it is rather than merely express my humble opinion. That is to say, I do think there can be real value and real truth in a deliberately constructed game review. And as I've already said, I can say from personal experience that certain movie-licensed games have definitely contributed to my growing dislike of specific movie franchises. So, as far I'm concerned, Jason Hall is right. And the only reason he's relying on sites like GameRankings to draw conclusions about whether Warner-licensed games are good or bad is because he's in no position to be reviewing these games himself.

Where We're Going, You Don't Need Eyes to See

So a funny thing happened while we were out of the office to cover E3. The long-talked-about influx of arcade games into our employee lounge happened. So now we have access to a NeoGeo MVS cabinet, X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. There's only one catch. As of this writing, none of the machines actually work.

I'm going to bet that most of you out there reading this don't have a ton of experience with the insides of arcade machines. I own two machines and a smattering of boards, and I don't have much experience, either. But the one thing I do know is that old arcade machines tend to be temperamental at best. So it's no surprise that, after traveling across the country to get to our offices, machines that were in working order now need a little fixing up. Rest assured, the technician is coming soon.

But "soon" is never soon enough when it comes to playing games. So, despite the fact that the monitor on the UMK3 machine isn't working, Brad and I have been having some rather heated matches. The crazy thing about all this is that by listening to the game and staring at the controllers, we can actually sort of "see" the action. I know when he's teleport punching. He knows when I'm lobbing grenades in his direction. And thanks to our own twisted knowledge of the game, knowing the distances and ranges of various moves helps to fill in the puzzle. From turnaround kicks to catching incoming players with uppercuts, we've pulled off some moves that you shouldn't be able to do without seeing the action.

But enough of my yammering. This video tells the tale.

The Big 3-0

It was inevitable, but the moment I thought wouldn't happen for a long time is all of a sudden going to happen. I'm going to hit 30 next month. Yeah, the big 3-0. It's a terrifying thought. If you're over 30, you know what I mean, but if you're under 30, don't kid yourself, it's a huge milestone to hit. Besides, it's going to happen to you one day, too.

The funny thing is that I don't feel like I'm 30. What is 30 supposed to feel like? They don't give you a manual about it, though I do expect my physician to give me the "you- can't-eat-like-you're-18-anymore" speech soon. I'm over halfway to 50, and I'm knocking on the door to middle age. (And if I feel bad, I can only wonder what my parents feel like.)

So how old is 30? Well, I was born in the waning days of the Nixon administration, which feels like an ice age or two ago. George W. Bush is my seventh president. I can remember when the Intellivision was the cutting edge in video game technology. And all my fondest childhood memories came during a decade that is now being recycled on VH-1.

You give a lot of thought to hitting 30. Everyone does. And you come to a few realizations, the main one being that life is too short. Sure, more and more people are living to 100, but come on, we all know that all of the good years happen in the first half of the century.

So how does this apply to GameSpotting? Well, for one, I recently decided that no game is worth waiting for. You know what I mean. Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Doom 3, heck, even Duke Nukem Forever. I see lots of folks on the forums constantly talking about nothing else other than Half-Life 2 or Halo 2. And it's sad. Because while I'm sure they're going to be great games, they're not worth slavishly waiting for.

There are great games available right now that you should be playing and enjoying, instead of constantly whiling away for a game that's months, or sometimes even years, away. The Half-Lives and Halos of the world will eventually arrive, and if you want to make them the focal point of your entire existence, at least wait until they're out. They'll get here when they get here. But for now, you're not only wasting your own time, but you're also raising the bar of expectations to an unreasonable level.

And, though this may be blasphemy to say this here, there are plenty of other things in this world to enjoy, including books, movies, good conversation with friends, and more. Do I have any regrets for the past 10 years? More than I care to admit. But I'm still going to keep gaming, though I plan to make more room for other things in my life. And I suppose if there's a lesson in this, I would tell you to do the same thing, too.

...And then things got weird.

Amid the endless hype surrounding all the biggest games at E3 (of which there were more than plenty), sometimes smaller, more-bizarre gems get lost in the shuffle. These are the games that I most often try to seek out--the weird diamonds in the rough that look completely insane and often turn out to be pretty cool. E3 2004 had plenty of these strange titles--perhaps more than in recent years past. Interestingly enough, all of the games that really caught my fancy happened to be foreign games that seemed like they would have absolutely no business getting North American releases, yet apparently they will be. Some of these games are already out in their respective regions, and some are still a ways away from any sort of release. Whatever the situation, foreign developers brought me the crazy at E3 2004 in spades, and I couldn't be happier. Here are some of the quirkiest, most bizarre games that stood out to me at this year's E3.

Katamari Damacy
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Namco

Your father is the king of space, but he's also a wicked drunk. At some point during one of his more tumultuous drinking sessions, he manages to lose every star in the sky. Whoops! Now you, as his son (the prince), have to replace all the stars. How do you go about such a task? Simple! By rolling a ball around a metropolitan environment, picking up as many objects as possible--including living creatures--and ultimately trying to make the biggest ball of junk you can. While this could easily be the kind of game where the wildly insane premise could be enough to help it skate by on charm alone, the game is also really fun. It has a strange, quirky look to it, and the music is so bizarrely good that I can't help but hope for some kind of official release for its soundtrack (as far-fetched as that idea may be). This game is totally bananas, and the fact that Namco is bringing it to the US is a completely awesome move. Kudos, Namco.

Dog's Life
Publisher: Hip Games
Developer: Frontier Dev.

Ever had the desire to see the world through the eyes of a dog? Well, now's your chance. Dog's Life is, for all intents and purposes, a pretty standard action adventure game--except you just happen to be a dog. You can do all the typical dog things, like barking, performing tricks, using your extra-special olfactory abilities to scope out different scents via a mode called "smellovision," and marking your territory. In fact, a big part of the gameplay is challenging other dogs, often by trying to mark your territory over theirs. Though less integral to the gameplay but along the same lines, you can actually poop in the game as well. Yes, polygonal pooping. Finally! Dog's Life is already out in Europe, and the game's style of humor and general quirkiness definitely comes across as decisively Euro in nature. Younger audiences especially ought to find this one right up their alleys when it comes out stateside.

Singles: Flirt Up Your Life
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Rotobee

By the time you read this column, we will have already reviewed Singles, and it will already be available for purchase online. However, it was at E3, and it is still completely crazy. Singles is essentially like The Sims, but it's not quite as good. However, it does have full-frontal nudity and sex. More than anything else, this game's clinical approach to sexuality is almost a little too much for my atypical American sensibilities to process correctly. Sure, nudity isn't really that big of a deal, but Singles is so nonchalant about it that you can't help but find it hysterical. Though the game itself isn't really that good, it wins points with me just for being weird.

Yoot Saito's Odama
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Vivarium

Not to be confused with Peter Molyneux's Odama or Larry Hagman's Odama (I am officially the billionth person to make this joke), Yoot Saito's Odama is easily the best Samurai-themed strategy pinball game I've ever seen. You have your own fleet of samurai warriors, and you're up against an opposing army. To clear a path past your enemy's defenses and to give your army access to the opposing warlord, you have to roll a giant, metallic ball, called an odama, to bowl your way through. Why nobody thought of this before, we'll never know. Why anyone did think of this I'm not sure I actually want to know. But, hey, it's from the same guy who brought you SimTower and Seaman, so, really, weird for Yoot Saito is just par for the course.

There were plenty of other utterly strange games at E3 that caught my eye, such as Bandai's frog-golfing game Ribbit King, Digital Spray's ultracreepy and ultra-Russian You Are Empty, and the world's first tango-based rhythm game, XTango: Shuffling Roses (which was buried so deeply within the darklands of Kentia Hall that I'm almost positive it will never come out in the US). Each and every one of these games showed me something different, something cool, or just something flat-out bizarre. It just goes to show that if you don't look past the monolithic franchises that tend to dominate E3, you can miss out on some pretty interesting stuff.

Arcade of Broken Dreams

At some point while we were toiling away in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, Santa Claus made an untimely summer visit to the GameSpot offices. I'm not talking about the portly old gentleman of your storybook childhood, though; this Santa Claus has a real nasty sadistic streak. We got back from LA to find an arcade--an arcade!--in our lounge room. What more could a nostalgic gamer want than to rock a bunch of old arcade machines on free play all day? Well, the nostalgia hit a brick wall when we fired all those games up and none of them worked. The coast-to-coast road trip was clearly not kind to our new friends.

Let me tell you, boys and girls, there's nothing more pitiful in the world than an arcade machine that doesn't work. Don't fret for us, though--a technician is coming Real Soon Now™ to convince those games to play. In the meantime, as an alternate means of enjoyment, since I can't actually use the games, I'm going to show them to you all and talk about how great it will be when we finally get things up and running. Ladies and gents, commence hatred.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

This one's the crown jewel of the bunch. I couldn't count the number of quarters I poured into MKII back in the day, and while I like that game more, MK3 is pretty similar, so I'm chomping at the bit to get this one going. Besides, I already nabbed an MKII board from eBay (for only $50!), so very soon it will be on. The monitor is actually the only thing not working in this cabinet, so Jeff and I got tired of waiting and just started playing the game with no picture. If you think that sounds creepy, well, I guess it is. It's also a lot of fun, though. I swear I can actually sort of see the game happening in my head.

Fun fact: The coin slots on this machine read "5mk, 10mk, 15mk," and there's a sticker that apparently warns of electric shock labeled "Achtung!" Apparently, our Mortal Kombat cabinet did a tour of duty in Germany before it found its way to us. We broke out the keys and took the back panel of the cabinet off and found only a manual and a broken capacitor lying on the bottom... Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that it doesn't work.

NeoGeo MVS

I know a lot of people in the office are way more excited about the NeoGeo than about Mortal Kombat, and with good reason. Our four-slot MVS showed up with King of Fighters '94, Metal Slug, World Heroes, and Samurai Showdown--a nice introductory sampler. But you may not know that MVS carts are far cheaper than their home-system counterparts (the two aren't cross-compatible). I happen to know that multiple iterations of Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown are already en route to our offices, and apparently the "best puzzle game of all time," Money Puzzle Exchanger, will make a noteworthy appearance soon, too. For now, the MVS will power on and display exactly one thin vertical line of video down the middle of the screen. You can actually see colors moving in that line, but you know, it's not doing anybody much good.

The MVS cabinet we got came with all the trimmings, like the memory card slot and even a headphone jack down below the controls. All that stuff works, too--we swung open the control console and noted that the wiring is intact. I never realized how easy it is to swap games in an MVS--it's just like the home system, with a bank of bigger-than-VHS-sized cartridges that you can pull out and swap around to your heart's content. I know I have over the last couple of weeks.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/X-Men

Yep, we've got two--count 'em--Konami-developed, four-player, side-scrolling beat-'em-ups in our arcade. I'm partial to TMNT myself, as it was my favorite arcade game ever until I started playing fighters. Anyway, the possibilities for these are legion--we can always hook up The Simpsons or Turtles in Time to these machines if we want. In fact, we can hook up just about any game to them, as long as it uses the proper number of buttons. Honestly, with two machines that have four joysticks, how long do you think it will be before one of us breaks down and buys a Smash TV board?

The TMNT machine is the only one of the lot that can be played in some real capacity, since you can actually see what's going on. The convergence (or something) is screwed up, though, since you get a weird red-green-blue pattern down the screen. X-Men, on the other hand, is pretty much DOA--you turn it on and all you get is a faint electric whine. Oh the humanity.

NBA Showtime (?!)

I just had to throw this one in there for good measure. Truth is, we already had this game, it already didn't work, and I don't even know where it came from. Apparently, the keys to the cabinet are missing, so cracking it open so we can attempt to fix whatever's wrong with it will be a challenge in itself. I don't think arcade basketball is even an experience I'm interested in having. But hey, it's another machine, and it makes the arcade look bigger! Rock!

So anyway, that's the beginnings of our own little arcade. We're even going to overhaul some of the buttons and joysticks with new parts from Happ Controls, so I won't be able to blame the crappy low kick button when Jeff whips my Kabal with Stryker. But I know he cheats anyway.

If you've got any old arcade hardware kicking around that you want to get rid of cheap, drop me a line.

Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles, Part One

We didn't huff any ether. We didn't threaten any hitchhikers. We didn't crash any DEA conventions on mescaline. But the rest of the GameSpot crew and I did experience some Hunter S Thompson-seque hallucinatory insanity at E3. Or at least, it felt that way inside the Los Angeles Convention Center after a week of sensory overload and next-to-no-sleep.

Most of our collective ordeal can be seen in indie filmmaker Ben Coello's documentary on the upcoming GameSpot To-Go E3 2004 DVD, which comes out in early July. Until then, here's my own personal account of the event, written in my Thompson-meets-James Ellroy, wannabe style.

SUNDAY, MAY 9 1000 Hours: Arrive at GameSpot HQ after 12 hours of melatonin-aided coma. Buy a pack of cigarettes, even though I don't smoke. This is war, after all. Plus, caffeine alone won't keep me awake for five days. Bump into graphics-rustler Jim Redd and the always-pleasant Bethany waiting on Jason, who arrives in one of the biggest SUVs I've ever seen. I ponder its abysmal mileage while sucking down tumor fumes.

1015: Mailbox is overflowing with press releases. As usual, every publisher and its dog has decided until the last minute to announce its E3 lineup. Guess that's the publicity equivalent of a HALO (high-altitude, low-opening) paratrooper jump. Don't let the competition see anything until the last minute. Doesn't make my job any easier, though. I wash down my irritation with the first of many, many Red Bulls.

1100: One of the advance crew calls on the phone. Apparently, the Los Angeles Convention Center is plastered with banners blowing the so-called "Segaton." I shut up and listen. "They're publishing The Matrix Online?!?!"C'est bizarre. Now I know what would happen if David Lynch was ever guest editor of Game Informer. Another call. Orders, this time. "Don't publish the story until after the Sega press conference." Time for another smoke...

1600--0000: Write up story. Place in publishing tool. Repeat. Ergonomic keyboard, my ass.

MONDAY, MAY 10 0000 Hours: Still up to my armpits in embargoed press releases and NDA-bound tips. Blaring a Linus set from undergroundhouse.net as loud as my speakers can handle. One of the CNET security guys pokes his head in to see if I'm throwing a party. The office is empty. Still, he looks at me as though I've stuffed about 40 revelers, a wet bar, some Peachy Puffs, and a DJ under my desk. Not tonight, Charlie.

0345: Red Bull count = 6. However, not all the Taurine in the world can keep my eyes open. Catch about 45 minutes of sleep on the leather couch in the lounge. Dream about Ninja Gaiden. They said Rachel was going to be at E3, didn't they? Nice.

0445: Wearing a black GameSpot sweatshirt and carrying a GameSpot bag, I step onto the first BART train to SFO. Too tired to represent, though. A dozen other zombies are on board, either sleeping or staring at nothing in particular. I join them in the half-sleep of the early morning commuter.

0530: Clear security at SFO and lie down in front of my deserted gate for one last snooze.

0630: I wake up, and the gate is packed. An old lady stands three feet away from me, glaring at me for stretching out over four seats. The word "desiccated" pops into my head. I roll over and go back to sleep.

0645: Get on plane. Must get on plane...

0905: Step onto the LAX boarding ramp, right on time, and hit the ground running. My $42 cab ride comes with a complimentary traffic jam. Grand.

1000: Get out of my cab and bump into a gaggle of GameSpotters, led by Greg and Alex. They don't have any Red Bull on them. Too bad. I'm jonesing. Give the bellhop $5 to take my bag up to my room and squeeze my narrow Norwegian keister into a packed SUV. Everyone seems surprisingly chipper.

1030: Step onto the sidewalk in front of the LACC. The place looks like it's been overrun by carpenter ants, except these ants have beer bellies and carry power drills. Is there such a thing as Teamster ants? It's even worse inside. To save on the electric bills, the powers-that-be have turned the power-that-runs the air conditioning off. As I enter the South Hall, the stench hits: new carpet, paint, sweaty roadie, and sawdust suspended in 90-degree air. The place moves as though it were alive, with brightly colored structures rising almost of their own accord. After taking shape, they get names--Sony, Nintendo, Bandai. All within a stone's throw of the booth. This is going to be fun.

1040: Find the GameSpot booth. Nicknamed "Thunderdome" by some of its denizens, it's easy to spot. Just look for the pimpin' Scion out front. Are we actually going to get to drive that thing? Inside, it's a well-oiled machine. Everyone knows what to do, or at least is doing a magnificent job of faking it. In fact, too many people are working. There's nowhere to sit down. "Don't sit there. That's Dave's space," warns Tim. "If he catches you there, he'll kill you." Thoughts of Dave's wrath stop me in my tracks. The booth crew comes to the rescue, quickly erecting a new wing to accommodate the massing GameSpotters. Greg wasn't lying at the preshow meeting--we're here in force.

1100: Red Bull count = 10. After meeting guest-GameSpot-Live-host Lauren Gonzalez--who has the looks of a TV star but none of the attitude--it's back to work. The Microsoft press conference is in just over eight hours. We're getting a call in advance though, so there's a chance I may be able to actually attend the event, if I can write fast enough. That's hours away, though. Punch those keys and keep clockin.' News doesn't cover itself.

1610: Ten minutes late, the phone call from Microsoft's PR agency arrives--and the signal immediately craps out. The cell net inside the LACC is being overwhelmed by a thousand teamsters yakking. Murphy's Law is in full effect. (Initiating contingency plan.) Grab my palm and keyboard and run to the lobby, where reception was crystal clear when I was arguing on the phone with my girlfriend. Phone starts beeping--two messages from the publicist, one of which she didn't know was being recorded. "This is really annoying," she tells a companion. No kidding. Finally, we get through, and I'm put on with a Microsoft and an Electronic Arts executive. EA is getting on board Xbox Live. No real surprise there. Halo 2 is coming out November 9. Goddamn! About time! Xbox Live is going let people download arcade games? Not sure what to make of that one. Got to write this stuff up pronto. Wait. What? Nothing goes up until the embargo breaks at 8pm? I'm rapidly running out of cigarettes...

1845: The GS Live guys head over to the Microsoft press conference. I wish I could go, if for no other reason than to see if J Allard still looks like a doppelgänger of Ritichie "Plastikman" Hawtin, circa 1999. No dice, though. More news is rolling in, so I need to get the M'soft stuff locked and loaded for the 8pm publish.

2000: Red Bull count = 14. They've rolled in a big cooler shaped like a giant can of the stuff. I think it's trying to talk to me. My head is swimming. The Microsoft stories go up, but I've got a few more releases to get through before calling it a day--er, two days.

2125: The GS Live guys get back with the tape of the Microsoft press conference. To present the Xbox Live videophone feature, which will be tested in Japan first (and for reasons that will never be adequately explained to me), J Allard rolls out the mother of all booth babes, Jenny McCarthy. After about five seconds of her screeching, the reason her career has been reduced to Stuff spreads and hosting the DVD Exclusive Awards becomes clear.

2315: Time to pack it in. Join the first wave going back to the Biltmore Hotel. The lobby has been used in dozens of films, says the brochure. Why, then, can't I remember a single one? There is a bar--which means there is a God. I meet up with my boss and his wife, who looks a little scared of me. Can't say I blame her. I'm jabbering like a maniac, waving my arms around, sucking down bottles of Beck's as fast as the barkeep can hand them to me.

2355: Open door to hotel room. Throw off stinky clothes. Shower. Fall into bed. As I to drift off to sleep, it hits me: E3 hasn't even officially started yet.

What We Know

This year's E3 was an impressive one for a number of reasons: There were many promising games on display; some intriguing new handheld hardware was unveiled; and there were a bunch of massively multiplayer games--many more than you might expect from an industry that has seen numerous cutbacks and cancellations of such games. And they were all being shown by enthusiastic developers who were confident that their upcoming games would remedy the criticisms that were leveled at EverQuest five years ago, even though subsequent games have tried to remedy them. I think at this point, and I'm sure at least some of you will agree, that such games perhaps shouldn't be focusing on fixing common problems as much as they should be focusing on creating a truly new and enjoyable experience. To that end, I'm going to list some of the common issues with online games that I assume have already been checked off most developers' lists as "already taken care of." Please note that while I'm not necessarily going to offer many solutions to these issues (that's for developers to do), my purpose here isn't to fruitlessly complain about things either. I'm just pointing some things out.

Things that are bad in massively multiplayer games. Let's start with the so-called "grind." That is, spending countless hours fighting monsters repeatedly to slowly gain more experience levels, to be able to access higher-level loot and quests, to be able to fight tougher monsters, to be able to slowly gain even more experience levels, and so on. I've heard some critics suggest that recent games have attempted to resolve this issue by "dumbing down" the grind--making levels easy to gain at the beginning, then ramping up the difficulty and time commitment later to end up with the same old grind. In some ways, I can see where they're coming from.

Forcing players to play the game a certain way--the most obvious example being forcing players to find a group to adventure productively. This is a bad thing because finding a group takes a while--so games that make solo play nearly impossible essentially punish people who don't always have many hours to play at a stretch. To remedy this, we've seen some solutions, such as bite-sized, on-demand content suitable for a single character. Funcom was the first to implement this system with randomly generated "missions" in Anarchy Online, and other games have followed suit. It was a step in the right direction, but only a single step--and if solo-oriented gameplay is made too easy, rewarding, or appealing, that can also tip the scales in favor of solo play at the cost of having any kind of grouping or socializing. Most would agree that grouping in these games should be encouraged (these are "massively multiplayer" games, after all), even if it shouldn't necessarily be required.

Downtime, or "I'm not actually playing right now" time. The most common example of downtime is resting up after a fight to recover from your character's wounds. Yes, we know it could be boring in the original EverQuest five years ago, but many new games have since reduced or almost completely eliminated it from their games. Is this an improvement across the board, considering that downtime was often used by players to chat with each other, get to know each other, and join each other's guilds? Also, consider other examples of "I'm not actually playing right now" time, like recovering your characters corpse after your character dies. Death used to carry heavy penalties--every new online game has had a slightly different death penalty system, but no game wants to go back to the extremely punishing systems of yore (in which you would lose all possessions on your corpse and would also pay other penalties, such as a loss of accrued experience points). Some of the most recent games have all but eliminated the death penalty--is this also a sweeping improvement, considering that death used to be a truly fearsome prospect back when you stood to lose all your stuff? Consider so-called "sandwich combat"--the root of basically every single massively multiplayer game's combat system, in which you and your enemies repeatedly swing at each other until one of you falls over. Yes, we know that having a combat system that consists of nothing more than this is a bad thing, so avoiding this system isn't an exciting new feature; it should be a given.

Repetition and lack of content. We can all probably agree that a boring crafting system that requires you to click and drag icons from one side of the screen to another for hours at a stretch (so that you can increase your blacksmithing skill from 51 to 52) is a bad thing, so developing and implementing a crafting system that is exciting should also be a given--developers need to make sure crafting works well and isn't a chore. The same thing applies for lack of in-game content at launch, which appears to be the most common issue in recent games. Developers of many recent games seemingly went overboard trying to make a game that wasn't tedious and forgot to add interesting things to do. Players can and will rush through low-level content, so it's up to developers to make sure that there's more than enough to do at launch to keep players interested. As I've said numerous times myself, a newly launched game is directly competing with more-established games that already have a larger base of content built in. Launching a new game with relatively little content (with vague plans to release content updates "in the coming months") won't cut it when players see all there is to see in the first two weeks, then go back to camping out in that newly implemented dungeon that was added in patch #432 of their highly evolved, mainstay game that they've been playing for the past nine to 12 months.

Things that are good in massively multiplayer games: Addictive hack-and-slash gameplay is the most obvious one--giving players multiple plausible goals, like gaining a level, saving enough money to buy some great items, completing a nontedious quest, and so on. There are probably many, many ways to make an online game addictive and fun, and I'm sure the talented development teams at all massively multiplayer game studios have plenty of ideas. The same goes for character customization, which was really taken up a notch in City of Heroes--a game that lets you create a very, very distinctive-looking character. I have a private theory about how games and other media that don't let you or your characters appear distinctive lead to other problems and criticisms, but maybe I'll save that for another time. For now, I'll say that character-customization options that have appeared in previous games have been largely inadequate. Developers should take a look at City of Heroes to see what options, at the barest minimum, they should include to allow their players to customize their characters' appearance, because they need to add more. Not that the developer of City of Heroes couldn't add more to the game either, because in terms of options that let you customize your avatar in online games, more is definitely better.

This turned out to be much longer than I'd expected, and I don't seem to have touched on every single aspect of current and future massively multiplayer games. These are just some thoughts that crossed my mind on coming back from E3. I'm sure they've crossed the minds of the developers of upcoming games like Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, EverQuest II, Dragon Empires, and Warhammer Online too.

Second-Handed Compliment

You know, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft must have a real love/hate relationship with stores that stock used games alongside their new games--stores like Electronics Boutique or GameStop. It's a pretty amazing concept when you stop to think about it. You can go to any number of these retailers and purchase, say, a used Xbox, used accessories, and used games. You can experience all the joys of the machine just the same as someone who bought it new and spent a few more dollars than you, except that you didn't give Microsoft, the game developers, or the game publishers a thin, red cent. Instead, the retailer is enjoying a nice, fat profit margin, where the markup is in the neighborhood of 200 to 1000 percent. And this is no exaggeration. Check the used retail price of that game you just traded in for $2. I'll bet they're selling it for $17.99--a whopping $2 less than the price you could buy the game for brand new.

Mind you, I'm all about saving money. Who isn't? But a good deal isn't, or at least shouldn't, always be the bottom line, especially when the deal wasn't so good to begin with. Maybe it's the punk rock in me, but I firmly believe that if you're lucky enough to find art or entertainment that you really connect with--be it a music group, a movie, a video game, or whatever--the people responsible for bringing it to you deserve to be compensated for it. It's kind of similar to an underground rock band that you really like. You should feel compelled to go to their shows and buy their material, because you know that they're doing it by the skin of their teeth, you really like their music, and you want them to be able to continue making music. If you don't support them, they're not going to be around for very long. They need to eat and pay their rent, too; it's as simple as that.

If you don't care for the morality of the issue, here are some more selfish reasons for you to swallow. The bottom line is this: Money talks. When you buy a used game, your money isn't going toward sales profits for that game. Beyond Good & Evil is an excellent example to use. Here we have a game that has been well-received by most gaming magazines and online sites, and thoroughly enjoyed by most that have played it. However, it sold like crap. If you go to the store and buy it used, you can play the game in all its glory, however, no one but the retail chain will know you bought it. Buying used is equivalent to the game not selling at all in the eyes of developers and publishers, and when games don't sell, they don't get sequels and excellent concepts and, therefore, opportunities are lost. One could argue that Beyond Good & Evil would've still sold like crap if it hadn't been available used, and that would probably be true, but it exacerbates the problem nonetheless.

I admit that I work at one of these game stores--the name of which will remain anonymous--and I can tell you that we sell a lot of used merchandise. I also must admit that I love Nintendo. I always have, and I always will. And I will never, ever purchase a used piece of anything for my GameCube, nor will I purchase a third-party accessory for it (that's another issue entirely, but it relates here as well). It's no secret that Nintendo is facing some hardships right now--dwindling third-party support, scant new releases, criticism of its focus on connectivity over online gaming, age demographics, and image--and it annoys me to no end when I sell a used GameCube and games to customers who I know will love their Cube and never give Nintendo a cent for it. Rather, my store gets richer and richer--while not even doing much for their employees, I might add. I, for one, want to continue to see Mario and company for decades to come, and I want to see them prosper on a Nintendo platform.

Whether or not you agree with my views on Nintendo is irrelevant. This isn't an article crying out for Nintendo's support. You can apply these views on just about anything you could possibly purchase. The message is this: Be mindful of where your money is going when you spend it. Show the right people your support. Sure, you might save yourself $5 right now (the typical absolute maximum you'll save when buying a used game over a new one), but if said game isn't still around five years later, and you're left thinking to yourself, "Man that was an awesome game, why didn't they keep it going?" don't come complaining to me. 'Cause I'll just beat you up.