Marc Normandin: The original Perfect Dark was a hit with gamers and critics alike when it released nearly 10 years ago on the Nintendo 64. First-person shooters have come a long way since then, as far as level-design and immersion goes: everyone has their own opinion on this, but let’s hear why you think the design is timeless enough to work for gamers today, in 2010.

Nick Ferguson: Perfect Dark plays very differently to recent shooters like Call of Duty and Halo. Whereas COD is a tightly scripted rollercoaster ride, Perfect Dark gives players a huge amount of freedom in how they choose to navigate the levels and complete mission objectives. The visuals may not be as spectacular, but the mission design is very smart and the system of level objectives that change based on difficulty has never been bettered.

Halo introduced the concept of limiting players to use of two highly focused weapons at a time and built great, strategic gameplay decisions around that. Perfect Dark works at the opposite end of the spectrum – players can start levels with access to an incredible toolkit of weapons and equipment, including a gun that can fire through walls (Farsight), a laptop that doubles up as both a machine gun and remote sentry post (Laptop Gun) and a weapon that turns enemy characters into allies (Psychosis Gun).

Like both Halo and Call of Duty, Perfect Dark on Xbox LIVE Arcade also has a deep and engrossing multiplayer mode that rolls all the great content from the single player into competitive online play!

MN: Obviously the Xbox 360 controller is a different beast than the N64 pad, and not just because it doesn’t resemble a Star Wars space fighter. How will the game control, two generations later? Has anything significant been added or subtracted from the controls in order to make this work (or work more effectively?)

NF: We’ve worked really hard to preserve the original “feel” of Perfect Dark on a twin-stick controller, and we’re really happy with the results. The original game made ingenious use of the N64 controller, but there was a lot of advanced functionality that required buttons to double-up for actions like cycling weapons backwards or even reloading. We’ve put those functions on their own buttons on Xbox 360.

We’ve adapted the feel of Perfect Dark onto the dual analog layout that modern gamers are familiar with so if you never played shooters on N64, you’ll be able to pick up and play Perfect Dark with ease. We’ve even included control schemes based on Halo (“Spartan”) and Call of Duty (“Duty Calls”) so players familiar with those titles can dive right in. Having said all that, if you played Perfect Dark on N64 for hours and hours back in the day I think you’ll find the new controls will fit you like a glove.

MN: One of the things that kept people playing Perfect Dark for countless hours, even before online play, were the various game modes. There was a single-player campaign, a co-op campaign, a wealth of multiplayer modes and options, a shooting gallery, as well as challenge levels that were worthy of their name. Is all of this being retained? Has it been modified? Has anything else been added to this for the XBLA release?

NF: Everything players remember from the original game has been retained in Perfect Dark for XBLA. This includes the Firing Range and Device Training in the Carrington Institute to the use of bots (Simulants) in multiplayer. The biggest change that drags Perfect Dark roaring into 2010 is the fact we’ve plumbed LIVE functionality into every aspect of the game – from Co-op and Counter-Op modes which can be played online, to the Combat Simulator multiplayer modes which now support 8 players over Xbox LIVE.

Players who remember the glory days of couch multiplayer will be pleased to hear we’re retained all the split-screen game functionality from the original, too! In fact, players can even compete via split screen over Xbox LIVE. On top of LIVE multiplayer, we’ve added all the things players have come to expect from their XBLA games including Leaderboards, Achievements and a ton of unlockable content including Avatar Awards and an exclusive free Premium Theme.

MN: What tech benefits will we see by switching from our dusty cartridge to a download-title in 2010? The framerate in the original, for instance, was notoriously poor in multiplayer.

NF: Xbox 360 lets us run Perfect Dark at full 1080p HD resolutions at a solid 60 frames per second. The game has never looked better, and that silky smooth framerate also applies to the multiplayer mode – even when we’re running in 4-player split screen. We’ve updated every texture and remodeled all the characters and weapons to make them look great in HD. Locations have all had a lick of paint, from new skyboxes to updated geometry and level objects. Pipes that used to be flat polygons on N64 are now fully-rounded 3D objects. Finally, the game makes great use of 5.1 surround sound and original master recordings have been used to update the soundtrack without compression!

MN: Perfect Dark is known for its weaponry. Confession time: what is your favorite gun, and why? Favorite secondary function?

NF: love the Laptop Gun, not just because of the awesome sentry gun secondary function but because of the way it kicks off the action on Carrington Villa’s Perfect Agent difficulty setting. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I won’t spoil the surprise! A close second would be the Psychosis Gun. A weapon that turns your enemies into allies – what more can you possibly want!?

MN: Finally, not everyone has played Perfect Dark, so why don’t you tell the readers why they need to own this updated classic. The floor is yours.

NF: Perfect Dark is an incredible game that just got the tune-up of the decade. Some classic games don’t age well, and even when they do it can be hard to look past blurry graphics, outdated controls and a sluggish framerate without a healthy dose of nostalgia for the original release. We’re incredibly proud and privileged to be bringing a top-notch update of a legendary game design – one that was years ahead of its time – to Xbox LIVE Arcade in 2010 where a new generation of players will get to discover its unique charms all over again.

Perfect Dark comes to the Xbox Live Arcade March 17.

Women are starting to beat men at video games.

It’s not something you hear very often, but it is now a rising fact in the video game industry. Women have been rising in the “extreme gamer” category by 5 percent over each of the last two years.

Walk into any GameStop of EB Games and you will see more women on the demo’s than guys lately, and men are not sure what to think.

“Its surprising to see a girl rock out on games as good as guys can,” said video game player Nick, who declined to give his last name. “But damn, they’re getting really good!”

As an avid gamer, and a woman, I took on gamer Nick at a fighting game. We were evenly matched, and Nick gained a greater respect for women in the gaming world.

“I have to giver her props, man,” he said. “thought girls only liked to play those model games and fashion games.”

Well that is far from the truth. Other ladies in the store listed their favorite games. We’ve got: Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 4, Final Fantasy 7 and 8, Legend of Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, and many, many more. So don’t be alarmed when you here a woman request God of War or another hack-n-slasher. We girls got game.

BLAST: Could you start by introducing yourself and ijji in general?

WOOK KIM: My name is Wook Kim, I’m the project manager for AVA (Alliance of Valiant Arms), our game portal is ijji.com, and our company is NHN USA, a subsidiary of NHN, which is the largest game portal in Korea. We’re a free game portal where you can play several free-to-play games, all you need to do is register a free account.

BLAST: Could you give us a quick rundown about what AVA is all about?

WK: AVA is a free-to-play first person shooter game. The storyline of the game is set in Europe in an urban environment there is a fictional war between the European Union and the NRF (Neo-Russian Federation). There is a struggle for power in the region. It’s multiplayer (up to 16 players) and offers various game modes like Demolition, Domination, Escort, and we also have a co-op mode called prisonbreak. So you can team up with your buddies or other players that you meet in the game and clear your missions and fight against zombies.

BLAST: Could you explain the game modes in greater detail?

WK: Yeah, demolition is similar to other games’ “search and destroy” mode, it’s where one team sets up a bomb to blow up an objective, and the opposing team needs to either eliminate the other team, or once the bomb is set, they need to diffuse it.

Then we have an escort mode where one team needs to escort a tank to the opposite side of the map while the opposing team uses rocket launchers to shoot at the tank to stop it from achieving its goal to get to the other side of the map. While you’re doing that, you can either rush ahead or stay back and camp with the RPG’s. Basically, it’s a very strategic gameplay mode where everyone has their roles. It’s better if you communicate with your team and set certain roles and determine who’s moving the tank and who’s escorting the tank, because you need to be within a certain radius of the tank to keep it moving if you’re on the escorting side, and once it’s taken out by the rocket launchers you need to repair the tank to keep it moving. It’s a lot of back-and-forth actions, very exciting.

Domination mode is something new, we just added it last month. Basically it’s like a king-of-the-hill style game mode. The objective of the map is to hold the middle of the map called the “holding area”. Both teams start at opposite ends of the map, and the team which holds the center of the map for the longest time will win the game. In this map, you can call an airstrike where your buddies in a helicopter will come and eliminate members of the opposing team. There are also trains going across the map, and you’ll have to watch out for that, of you’ll get run over.

BLAST: We do remember that!

WK: (laughs) We have other game modes too, such as annihilation. This mode is a team deathmatch which pits one team against another, whoever scores up to 100 kills will win. Depending on the host’s decisions, the kill count can be increased up to 250 kills.

BLAST: Here are a lot of first-person-shooters on the market, I was wondering what in particular sets AVA apart from the others. Obviously there’s a leveling up system which is pretty well fleshed out, but is there anything in particular that you can point out that would make people want to play the game?

WK: In the free-to-play FPS genre, I believe AVA is the best, highest quality game. Right away you can tell by the difference of the game graphics. With the Unreal 3 engine, no other free-to-play game compares to it.

There is a three-character-class system, with the pointman, the rifleman, and the sniper which you can switch between during the game. There’s also an achievement system whereby achieving certain goals, you can gain skills. For example, let’s say you complete a few achievements, you can increase your running speed, throw your grenades a different way, etc. Not only can you level up, but you can also increase your “game perks”, similarly to Call of Duty 4. There’s the escort mode, which is my favorite mode, and there’s really nothing like it on the market.

BLAST: I really appreciated the level of balance in the game, it seems like even if you are a skilled player, you can perform well even in the lower levels.

WK: Yeah, you know, the classes are balanced, the weapons are balanced, and the weapons allow for a high level of customization. In AVA, you can add custom parts or modifications to your weapon depending upon the weapon itself. By adding parts to your loadout, you can increase your damage, your range by changing the stock or barrel. There are a lot of cool things about AVA which users have never really seen in a free-to-play game.

BLAST: Do you have any plans for future content in the game?

WK: Yeah, so on the 25th we’re having an update which will add a new Escort map which is called Storm Blitz. Also near the end of March we will be adding a free-for-all mode. So in this mode it’s every man for himself. Do it will definitely help new users learn the maps and get to know the game without the stress and competitiveness of a team-played match.

BLAST: OK so what kind of replayability does this game offer? Once a player reaches the highest rank, what kind of things do they have to strive for to maintain interest?

WK: Well, there are the achievements, and we’re looking to farther enhance our achievement system. Right now there are so many achievements that nobody has actually completed all of them, but, we believe that once users get to higher levels, they will complete all of their achievements. We’re hoping to constantly update our achievement system to keep players coming back for more. We also host competitions; so far we’ve had an international tournament, which was hosted last year in November. We had a US national tournament and flew the winning five clan members to an international tournament in Korea. It was an all-expenses paid trip and they had a great time! We have three more tournaments planned for 2010, with the last tournament’s victors coming for our second international tournament with China also involved.

BLAST: We noticed that free-to-play games are very popular in Korea. How have you seen these games’ popularity sprouting in the United States?

WK: For us it was a struggle at first, but we started in 2006 and four years in we have about 10 million users. Four years ago there were not many free-to-play portals, but right now they are almost countless! The field is definitely growing, and there is room for this free-to-play microtransaction system in the US market.

BLAST: So you’re actually seeing players latching on and buying certain items in the games?

WK: Yes, the microtransaction system definitely works. Users are free to play whatever games they want, but if they choose to add G-Coins to their account they are free to do so!

BLAST: Okay, that about sums up everything! Can you tell us any future ijji releases other than AVA releases before we wrap this up?

WK: I can’t tell you the exact game titles or specifics, but we’re definitely working on some great new, high quality games, so look forward to that!

BLAST: All right, thank you for your time, and we look forward to seeing what ijji has to offer in the future!

WK: Thanks a lot!

Expect a full review of AVA in the coming days.

Early on, survival horror games were almost like a horror fiction novel, much like Infogrames 1992 title, Alone in the Dark, where you assume the role of an investigator looking into the suspicious death of the novelist, Jeremy Hartwood. The game introduced a hybrid style of limited combat and puzzle-solving as your character explores the haunted mansion of the dearly departed. Spawning several sequels, many consider Alone in the Dark to be the unofficial starting point of the survival horror genre. Since then, survival horror has evolved with each gaming generation. In what I like to call ‘the Playstation era’, survival horror found new and exciting ways to use new technology to create better atmosphere, creepier enemies, and just plain fun ways to scare the pants off gamers.

One of the most famous series in the genre is none other than Capcom’s Resident Evil. With its first game released in 1996, Resident Evil set the standard for future games of its nature, and officially coined the ‘survival horror’ title. Resident Evil had the player taking on a mansion set on the outskirts of Raccoon City full of mutated, zombie-like creatures as a member of a special law enforcement task force, either Chris Redfield or the infamous Jill Valentine. The first Resident Evil also gave the player seven multiple endings, depending on choices the player makes throughout the game. The success of the series was phenomenal, and since its release, numerous titles have attempted to recreate the formula Capcom used to develop even creepier games, including Konami’s acclaimed Silent Hill series, Tecmo’s Fatal Frame series, and Human Entertainment’s Clock Tower series, all of which redefined Resident Evil’s gaming style into something much more psychological and artsy. Japanese developers truly embraced the genre, using the Resident Evil formula they had modified to create an incredibly overwhelming and helpless atmosphere within their games. However, like any other genre out there, survival horror was quickly becoming too set in its ways, and needed desperately to evolve with the coming generation of next-gen consoles. Survival horror decided to make its way west.

It can be said of survival horror games on the next-gen consoles that they are truly hybrids of very specific genres. Player craved something more in-depth than what survival horror had been giving them, and beginning with Capcom’s Resident Evil 4, the genre was ready to begin changing the original formula that had worked so well. Released in 2005, Resident Evil 4 focused not only on the scare tactics that the genre is known for, but also on more of a shooter-type style of play, allowing the player to use precision and aiming to fight off the hordes of creatures that were being thrown at them; thus began a beautiful relationships between survival horror and shooters.  Combat, action and gore (all which are associated with Western developed games) began to be a standard in the new formula, moving the player away from puzzle-solving and a sense of helplessness to a new gun-slinger attitude. “Hey, they’re throwing all these horrible creature my way… so let’s fight back. Let’s slice some limbs off!”

Although survival horror games are significantly farther between, some quality pieces have been developed for the next-gen consoles including EA’s Dead Space, Monolith Productions F.E.A.R, and naturally Capcom’s Resident Evil 5, which went as far as to add a 2-player storyline. Although it can be associated more closely with the shooter genre, Valve’s Left 4 Dead series also added a multiplayer aspect to the genre, allowing players to take on hordes of flesh-eating zombies with three other players. There have already been sequels to mark the success of the next-gen horror games (F.E.A.R and Left 4 Dead, for example) and there are few signs of the trend slowing down. Also, it’s noteworthy that Tecmo’s Fatal Frame 4 released on the Wii mid-2008 in Japan, and although a western-release hasn’t been announced (and unfortunately probably won’t be) there is still an English translation patch that players can use to experience the game. Fatal Frame 4 stays true to its formula while taking advantage of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to control the camera and the flashlight.

There are still games out there that cling to the older style of survival horror games, and are surprisingly made by western developers. Deep Silver’s 2009 Cursed Mountain takes a page out of Fatal Frame’s formula, and combat mostly involves freeing the souls of cursed monks and climbers trapped in an in between world called Bardo. Cursed Mountain was actually released on the Wii, using the console’s motion sensor remote to bring a different approach, getting the player more physically involved. Also released on the Wii earlier this year was the newest installment of the Silent Hill series, Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Unlike previous games, Shattered Memories takes a severe psychological approach with its gameplay. The choices the player makes affects how the town and monsters look, attitudes of the NPC characters, and even clothing and gender.

There are definitely some innovative and different approaches to the genre that are emerging in the next-gen era, and the combination of western and eastern influences are most certainly what makes the genre so much fun to play. Recognizing survival horror’s colorful past and anticipating what gamers will want from the genre in the future is difficult, but so far the genre is evolving and changing with the trends rather nicely.

Anticipating a winter 2010 or spring 2011 release, Dead Space 2 looks just as creepy as the first, although the developers have claimed that the original was “too scary” for some gamers. Also in production is Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake, an almost novel like thriller featuring a struggling novelist whose work begins to mirror that of reality. Alan Wake is set for release in May 2010.

The future looks bright for survival horror, and the need for change from the old-style gameplay has been recognized and dealt with by developers. Essentially, to survive, survival horror has begun to combine its style with the gameplay of other genres, and mutate into a more face-paced, action-packed but still creepy genre. Some games still hold true to the ‘Playstation era’ formula, like Fatal Frame 4 and Cursed Mountain, but for the most part, the genre has taking a noticeable turn toward a more Western style of play.

Where does a game come from? Some people just toss a disk in a tray and go from there, loving the time they spend with it, but unaware of the work that goes into making that experience happen. Unfortunately, many gamers don’t know who develops and publishes the games that frequent their gaming systems. But as video games continue to gain popularity in every day society, it is important to know the who, what, and when of your games to continue to make educated choices on other games you might enjoy, or if only to enjoy the rich history of a publisher or developer.

One of my favorite publishers, 2K, has in the last six months released some of the biggest hits of 2009 and 2010, including Borderlands and the long-awaited Bioshock 2. 2K continues to publish quality games in a wide variety of genres, including first-person shooters, role-playing, and sports. 2K is divided into three divisions, 2K Games, 2K Sports, and 2K Play. Taking a look back at their roots and where they began, it is impressive to see how far the company has come in the gaming community, and hopefully will continue to improve and grow as that community expands and changes. It’s also cool to see how connected publishers and developers are to each other and what other games 2K has produced that you may not have even thought of.

2K is a subsidiary company of Take-Two Interactive, owner of Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto series. The company was founded in 2005 and has quickly become one of the largest publishing companies in the gaming world. 2K has released games for almost every platform imaginable, and since day one has strived to publish quality games. Based out of Novato, California, most people know 2K from one of their divisions, 2K Sports, which develops the critically acclaimed 2K Sports series including MLB, NHL, NBA, and The Bigs. In just two years, 2K released the 2007 game of the year, Bioshock, continued developing and publishing the award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization series, and rose to number one with NBA 2K9. Bioshock alone won the company over fifty awards and sold nearly 3 million units, giving 2K a great start and a hard act to follow.

As if that weren’t enough, early on in their career, 2K published Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006, a ground-breaking RPG which completely changed how many players looked at open-world roaming and side-quests. Oblivion spawned two expansions, The Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles, and continues to be one of the most popular games in its genre. With an impressive arsenal of quality games under their belt, 2K moved almost seamlessly into the next-gen console era, currently hosting a wide variety of studios including Cat Daddy Games, Firaxis Games, Irrational Games and Visual Concepts.

More recently, 2K released two amazingly complex and exciting titles, 2009’s Borderlands and 2010’s Bioshock 2. Released for the PC,PS3 and Xbox 360, “The first-person shooter and RPG made a baby.”, hypes Borderlands promotional trailer, which is surprisingly accurate. Armed with qualities that make both of these genres great, Borderlands supplied gamers with a looting, shooting, questing, leveling, exploding extravaganza, fun both by yourself or with three other friends alongside you. Having already sold 1.11 millions units according to the NPD, the game had some of the largest multi-player sales of 2009. With two expansions released and a third in the works, Borderlands quickly became a fan-favorite, selling out throughout the holidays.

Earlier this month, Bioshock 2 made a grand entrance to shelves, releasing on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. In the first game, we were introduced to Rapture, a man-made underwater city filled with new things to explore, and horribly mutated splicers and over-powered, drill-wielding ‘Big Daddies’ to fight. Set ten years after the first game, 2K brings us back to that city in the sequel, letting the player take control of one of those powerful Big Daddies, in a fight to decide the more powerful; the self-worth of man or the unity that binds man together. Bioshock 2 also provides the player with a all-new multi-player mode in which players can go head to head in a variety of games, including “Capture the Little Sister” and the classic brawl style fight-to-the-death.

2K has announced two more games set for release in 2010, Mafia 2, a mob-inspired sequel, and Spec Ops: The Line, a third-person military shooter. Rumored of course are whispers of Bioshock 3 and a Borderlands sequel, but 2K has yet to confirm or deny the development of either of these. Fortunately, 2K has developed a standard to which their games are held, and attempts to deviate as little from that standard as possible. There is much promise in the games that 2K has published, and hopefully the quality that gamers have come to expect from the company will only continue to grow in the future.

When the match starts, both players are on equal playing ground, the first of many similarities between Tennis and fighting video games.  Choosing Mitsurugi or Voldo or Ryu or Yoshimitsu is just like picking a tennis player.  They all have individual strengths and weaknesses, they all train year round, and they all use the court and all of the tools involved as weapons to defeat their opponents.  Very similar to any video game is the sense of equality on the court.  Everyone has the same amount of health, and the ability to learn everything there is to know about the game.  Equality is important to judge any specific players skill level.  In the past, numerous wild card tennis players, players who are ranked much lower than number 1 but who luck out and get the draw to compete in a world wide tournament, have put up impressive battles in the final matches against some of the greatest players of all time because of how equal the playing field is in Tennis.  Some of them win, much like picking a character you are unfamiliar with and winning.

Another universal similarity is that the entire match involves only two people, unless you’re watching a doubles match, but either way Tennis matches are intimate duels with people on a global scale.  This represents not only the player, but the people behind whichever player they relate to and like to watch.  If I like Roger Federer (1) more than Andy Murray (4), I’ll be sitting sideline in my apartment with the flag of Switzerland draped over my legs watching Federer move with finesse and grace around the court like a dancer.  What fighting video game characters make the fighting look easy?  Rafael?  Astaroth?  Ryu?  Dan?

Scoring is similar in that players win points for each successful move and eventually add up their winnings until they’ve one best out of 3 or 5.  The first game of a tennis match normally has the players performing at their peek.  In the case of Federer vs. Murray, the final match of the 2010 Australian Open, Murray struggled to keep up with Federer in his first two games, but by the third game he was putting everything he had in it.  Some players, like Marcos Baghdatis (36) or Jo-Wilfreid Tsonga (10) or Murray might need the energy the audience projects to get them playing at the top of their game.  Some players.  Others like Federer or Rafael Nadal (3) are consistently good at the game.  No matter how your room of gamers or the stadium of fans explodes with emotion at the match; the playing is still the same for the best of the contestants in both fields.  Daigo, a world-renown Street Fighter champion, plays his game much like Federer plays his.  If it were only that easy.

Each player is unique in both games.  Some like the French tennis player Gael Monfils (12) play the game so uniquely and with so much energy that it’s hard to read and understand the moves he’s throwing at his opponent.  Ever wonder how Dhalsim just teleported from one side of the map to the other, while floating, to end up shooting fireballs at you when you first fought him?  You’d wonder the same thing if you knew as much about Tennis when Monfils flies across the court and snaps his knees back and forth like invincible rubber bands set on giving his fans some physical poetry to watch as well as confuse his opponent.  But, these uniqueness’s also have their drawbacks.

Dhalsim is slow, he has range, and uses voodoo, but a competent player of Ryu or Ken or anyone for that matter can see his faults and compromise on them.  Dhalsim can do the same for a consistent Hadouken Ryu, but either way the sport of tennis and of fighting video games utilizes the same plus/minus affair.  Any duel does for that matter.  In the case of Monfils, his “invincible,” knees only appear that way causing his major drawback to winning a world championship to be because of knee surgeries and fatigue.  While I can compare Tennis to Soul Caliber and Street Fighter, I could also say the same about Fencing or Boxing but those are much more traditional and easier to draw the connection between the two.  In Tennis, no one is punching or trying to poke the other person.  It’s all about skill and sportsmanship with a racquet and a neon ball.

Essentially the world of competitive Tennis and competitive fighting video games are similar.  Where one player sits on the couch and taps directions and buttons, the other spends the whole year training on a court to revel in the victory they may have over some of the best players in the world.  One may be in much better physical shape, but other than that, the psychological elements of the two easily permeate with the adrenaline junky inside of me.  The luxury of sitting on the couch and playing alone is only a luxury when it’s not held in comparison to standing in the middle of a brilliant tennis court in front of the Prince of England to accept one of the many trophies you rightfully deserve.  But, at least the basics are the same.  Down ->Forward + Punch?  Say hello to the slice.

The Sims is the most successful PC gaming franchise of all time, generating more than $2.5 billion in revenue. The first game in the series was released February 4, 2000. Since its initial release, EA has provided a plethora of new content, including seven expansion packs, and two sequels. The original Sims won numerous awards including Gamespot’s “Game of the Year” award for 2000. EA’s most recent addition, The Sims 3 launched in June of 2009 and sold more than 1.4 million copies within the first week, and 4.5 million since its release. Winning more than 100 game critic awards and achieving mass-media attention, The Sims continues to delight gamers around the world, even attracting popular musicians who re-record some of their songs into Simlish, the language the characters speak in game. Some artists include The Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry, Depeche Mode, and The Pussycat Dolls.

The newest expansion for The Sims 3, World Adventures, takes the player to new and exciting places, such as Paris, France and Egypt. Released in November of 2009, your sim can hunt for treasure, gain new skills and personality traits, and engage in different cultural activities, including snake-charming and martial arts. EA has also announced a new package for The Sims 3, the High-End Loft Stuff pack. This will allow the player to access the latest in electronics, sleek, cutting-edge furniture, and a few fan-favorites from previous Sims games, including the vibrating bed, electric guitar, and the aquarium.

The Sims has attracted a diverse global audience over the past decade, and continues to attract new generations of gamers. The game delights players young and old, and improves itself with each new game released. With a solid past and bright future, The Sims franchise has conquered the PC and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

There are huge differences between Football and Call of Duty, obviously.  The audience for Football sits passively on the couch living in the moment on screen.  CoD is different in that the audience for the game participates in the content.  Apart from not using the body, the gamer uses an incredibly rich repertoire of strategies and skills in their mind within the context of the game causing a huge separation between the best and the worst, much like any other sport.  But, where it’s more difficult to exploit a physical sport, it’s very easy to exploit a virtual one.

Look at Gears of War.  A game pumped up by it’s religious following and dedication to a gritty, blocky, world of grey and blood created by Cliff Blezinski and touted for it’s awesome multi-player, a mode the developers didn’t even think to spend a boat load of time on for the first installment, is the perfect example of exploitation.  Initially, the online world for GoW was new and fresh and everyone was trying to use the skills they’d learned while playing through the campaign in an online mode of a few maps and game types.  But, as the community grew to encompass more people, it also allowed itself to become exploited to the extent that I can’t even turn the game on and have any desire to play it.

People always act like the things that take place in a video game don’t have anything to do with real life events and don’t do anything but make gamers zombies hungry for virtual blood.  Contrarily, a few months into my dedicated run with GoW, I began to lose my drive to play and compete with like-minded individuals and it thoroughly affected my motivation to play any shooter.  Whenever the gamer feels cheated, they honestly feel cheated.  They aren’t hiding their emotion because they’re afraid of becoming embarrassed nor are they living in a dream world where they don’t understand the definition of the word cheated.  I feel the same amount of pain when someone molests a game I enjoy as much as I feel the same amount of pain when someone cuts my change short or has me pick up the tab without knowing it.

The exploitation in GoW goes like this:  4v4, primary weapon Lancer, secondary weapon Shotgun.  Four players spawn and everyone sprints for the best weapons on the map, or the best place to find combat.  One (or all four) player(s) on one team decides that a more effective way to battle their opponents is to hold A, sprint across the map, and run directly into the enemy while they post up on walls and try to strategize.  The enemy, unknowingly because in a real battle no ballsy individual is going to run through an open battlefield with their head down and legitimately expect to survive, is immediately blasted into pieces with the quick flick of the right trigger from the sprinting player and then they repeat the same formula.  Sprint directly at them, R-trigger, sprint towards the next enemy.  Repeat.  It sets the match up so that no matter what weapon you use, you won’t be able to do anything good unless you use the same strategy or if you and your team use explosives and play from a bunker.

Why is this exploitation?  If you can’t tell from my description, the player is using a move in the game but taking the move out of context and bastardizing it so that they achieve the most amount of kills next to their name so that they can win.  They aren’t playing to have fun, they are playing to win.  These same people are the people who never swallow their pride and accept that someone has gotten the best of them.  They look for an out so that they can never accept defeat, but these people live in a fictional world where they get everything they want or everything they can out of something without considering any other option other than self gain.  The fact that this exists within the context of a video game means that it probably transcends into the gamers actual life.  The factors that contribute to this could be many, but the overall point is that physiological habits exhibit themselves through video games which help illuminate the type of player playing the game, as well as how a virtual world can be taken advantage of.  These same people are everywhere, and with video games, they are destroying communities that could flourish as a form of entertainment, communication, and expression.

These issues should be fixed by the development team within the lifespan of the game.  X-box live is a treat for any developer dealing with exploitation and complaints from its community.  However, with GoW 2, I still find the same amount of exploitation.  Not to say that the gamer using a bulldog shotgun technique is necessarily a bad thing, it becomes exploitation when the most effective combat move has a tough time being pulled off due to the utilization of one technique over and over by an enemy player.  It eliminates strategy, and forces gamers to refrain from public games due to the simple yet effective tactics on repeat.  It’s like listening to the Jonas Brothers.  Simple, yet effective.  Exploitation.  Should something like this be perpetuated?

Argument for yes:  Money.  Make a game where people will buy it without looking at anything else and it prints money.  Argument for no:  Considering video games are an outlet of self expression and represent the thought patterns of the gamer, taking advantage of a seemingly untouchable medium fragments the population of people playing the game from those who A.) Fight fire with fire or B.) Only play when they know who they’re playing with or C.) Stop playing completely due to many other games that have eradicated this problem or D.) Abandon video games and focus on more productive hobbies like model airplane construction.

If we can notice the differences between a game printed for money and a game printed for something else, gamers can hopefully take control of their content by opting not to buy a game with a history of exploitation without evolution.  They can instead buy games made for gamers, by gamers.  People who understand that balance and fairness are key to propelling a competitive video game into greatness are the development teams worth keeping an eye out for.  The money will follow if the product can prove itself as balanced and fair.  You probably aren’t surprised that I only play one First-person shooter on a regular basis.  But I’m not an exception to the rule; I find the game I like and the game that doesn’t have problems like blatant exploitation, and put money and energy into it, like everyone should.  Examples:  Call of Duty, (1,2,MW, MW2), Blizzard (WC,SC,WoW,Diablo).

If I turn my X-box 360 on today and want to play the most current, most interesting game I can think of, I’m not going to be playing Halo.  In 2001, I would be playing Halo, but its 2010 and it has changed.  I can’t pick up my copy of Fight Club and expect for the content within the book to be different nine years later but with a video game I can.  Downloadable maps, patches, and game modes make playing even the oldest game somewhat fresh.  Halo was an amazing game during its initial release and subsequent years, but it also represents how video games evolve and adapt to what we want.  It is unavoidable.

In a movie theatre I can shut my eyes and fall to sleep, or watch intently and feel like I’m in every scene, but at the end of the two hours I stand up and walk away feeling like I watched something, and didn’t do anything, to the form of entertainment I was experiencing.  I can also opt to tune out the whole experience at the movie theatre all-together whereas with a video game I have to pay attention the whole time in order to experience it.  A video game shares some of the main features of film and music and literature, but combines it all with an even more innovative way to entertain a society geared towards instant gratification.

The gamer has complete control of the world they experience.  In a First Person Shooter, the gamer controls every move the character makes from the virtual characters own eye level, causing the whole experience to require complete immersion or else someone else in the game, immersed in the world more fully will capitalize on the lack of dedication and commitment to the world.  This type of entertainment/ art genre, where the audience is given complete control of their experience, aside from stylistic limitations, represents what society wants of their escapism.  Because of so many other contributing factors out in the world that cause us as humans to generally feel without control, the strongest way to mediate this would be to develop some form of coping with this emotion, this drive to control something completely.

This is the case for most video games, apart from their legitimate story-telling ability, their flawless graphics and game play mechanics, their cheesy soundtrack and voice acting.  Aside from all of that, video games create complete control.  This is why there are so many people shelling out $60 every time the next Call of Duty comes out or the next WoW expansion.  So many people feel taken advantage of that modern video games garner towards safety and justice.  Look at the difficulty of a normal campaign of Call of Duty MW 2 and you’ll see that while the whole experience is intense and dramatic and overwhelming, it is still relatively easy to control the action on screen.  CoD: MW2 is an exception in most other cases with the constant story changes, but the gameplay mechanics all play towards a sense of control and security.

Although I could make the case using Halo, I want to look at a more current and more direct game that isn’t showing any signs of exhaustion even though it’s been around since 2004.  World of Warcraft  is responsible for bringing the world of casual and hardcore gaming together in a persistent online world, filled with rich lore and quests and upgrades that have the gamer feeling completely immersed in the world, sometimes without realizing it.  Where World of Warcraft succeeds in regards to other games is in its ability to remain current (partly due to the monthly fee).  My extensive history with MMORPGs has led me to conclude one thing about all of them until I played World of Warcraft.  They eventually lose their fun because there is nothing left to do in the game after a certain point that wouldn’t substantially cut into my daily routine (most MMORPGS feel more like work after awhile).  Innovation is key to quelling this, because other games in the genre like Everquest or FFXI or even the old Dreamcast hit PSO eventually grow old from the lack of new quests to do, new areas to explore, new items to achieve, new everything.  World of Warcraft saw this and capitalized on it with periodic expansions and updates to the world that keep even the most dedicated and addicted (if you call it that) gamers still signing in day in and day out just to see what else the game has in store.

Blizzard would not have noticed this if they themselves weren’t gamers and if their fans didn’t give them feedback.  By giving players the opportunity to make a character and exist in a fictional world where they invest time and effort to achieve virtual gains, the response to the content is so direct and honest that it’s hard not to listen to the voice of a gamer.This speaks volumes in favor of video games as a new and emergent way to tell a story and entertain the audience.  People need things to communicate through.  Language, like English, puts words into our heads and mouths and into the air to help us relate to the world around us.  The way a gamer plays their video game is another form of language.  Each gamer plays differently or the same, but either way, it represents the way they think.  In WoW, it is incredibly easy to notice the differences in the way each player plays just by the way they name their character, by the way they have them look, and by the weapons and areas they spend most of their time in.  The gamer controls all of this.  The gamer communicates in WoW by deliberately picking and choosing how their characters look as well as through a headset or by typing on a keyboard.  This causes the players around the gamer to have an experience with the world that is eerily similar to walking down to the mall or the nearest Wal-Mart to buy groceries.

Another exception to the general claim that video games are just about expressing complete control over something is with the numerous updates and expansions of MMORPGs like WoW.  These updates and expansions exist in a game built around a false sense of accomplishment.  The gamer in most MMOs doesn’t have complete control of their environment.  Almost never is the game necessarily easy.  The monsters and quests given to players put up an equal fight, reestablishing a sense that the gamer in an MMO is not in complete control.  They may be able to make their character unique, much like the real world, but they do not shape and dominate the world around them.  Not completely at least, not as much as a FPS or an RTS.  With most MMOS there is PVP and an auction house, which could have the most entrepreneur hungry players at the top of the list.  Guilds and advertisements populate the virtual worlds too.  This perpetuates a parallel fictional universe where players don’t feel the physical and real pain of existing, and instead plant themselves in Loch Modan slaying polar bears and building up their own story and virtual accomplishments.

Not that playing any game is a complete waste of time.  If you are a gamer, you know the energy and dedication you put towards the game; the thought processes, the amount of micro-managing or macro-managing, maintaining a social life within the context of the game, putting in the time and effort to achieve something.  These are all beneficial practices.  If you take all of that effort and energy out of the game and supplant it in the real world, you’ll find that both approaches are very similar.  These thought practices are reinforced in video games and when applied to real world situations have the potential to be effective.  I commend games for this, because without it, people might get rusty just playing a mindless game over and over.  Before people pass judgment on the next person playing a video game, they need to realize that that person could be sharpening a knife in their head.

Like any new art form (Heavy Metal, Jazz, etc.) video games have had mountains of critics.  People who criticize without empathy, people who criticize for the sake of their children, and it’s about time those people realize that their comments and squabbles are unfounded, and that video games are a staple of modern technology, art, and entertainment.  You could watch the same movie a million times and all of the parts stay the same but video games have endless possibilities thanks to online play and a dedicated online service.  Video games are constantly evolving just like any genre of art, just like us.

First, not everyone seems to be in agreement about what number constitutes a good or bad grade. That goes for both readers and writers, as we all have our own personal idea or cutoff for what means what, even with a specific system in place. Second, how do you consistently determine why one game is 0.3 better or worse than another game? Does it actually matter? The text of a review should be your true guide for a game’s worth, but it’s also nice to have a score there so you can put it into some context. Some people enjoy that very much, and it may mean a lot to more than others, so we didn’t want to do away with scoring entirely.

Letters work better than numbers, in our minds. We will end up using the entire scale now, instead of focusing more on the 5-10 range, which seemed to happen pretty often. I think this will better serve both our writers and you, our readers, as there will be more consistency in our grades. You all went to school, you know what the differences between A, B, C, D and F are, even when we throw in plus and minus options.

Just in case though, we’ll spell it out. A’s are obviously the cream of the crop–these are some of the best games you’ll play all year. Those who are in the A+ range are more likely, in our minds, to matter outside of the year of their release–these are your most memorable titles, and your most likely game of the year candidates.

B’s are games that you should definitely own, because you’ll enjoy them, but they are more easily forgettable than A’s, and may not be the same thrilling or unique (and well-done) experience. Maybe they are lacking in polish, or are a new entry to a series that needs some work but has a lot of promise.

C’s are closer to your average games. These are not must own like most B’s and A’s, but are something gamers should experience if they have the time, money, or desire. They are definitely playable, but lacking in some area or another in a way that keeps them from being higher rated.

D’s are games where there may be some good ideas tucked away, or an interesting concept or mechanic that’s worth checking out, but you’re not going to want to touch them until they hit the bargain bin or your local video game rental store. This is the kind of game that you either avoid, or pick up only when you have exhausted all other resources and need to play a game. Playable, but not necessarily what we would call a good time. Many, many gamers, unless they go through a few games a month, are never going to play these games, and should focus their money and attention on better titles.

F’s are broken, or devoid of interesting ideas or worthwhile gameplay. These are titles to avoid. There’s not much to say about them other than that if you play them, and it’s not for reviewing purposes, then you’re probably a masochist.

We’ll be rolling out reviews this afternoon with the new scoring system in place–it’s part of the reason we’ve been quiet during the holidays, as we wanted to get it up and running for you and figure out what improvements we can make.

First on the list is an app that I just found out about called Turf Wars.  This GPS-focused gangster game allows players to not only enjoy the excitement of running their own mob, but to take over their local turf as well.  Nick Baicoianu, CEO of MeanFreePath LLC, was kind enough to take a few minutes during this very busy time of year and talk to me about his creation, Turf Wars.

BLAST: Can you give us a brief description of Turf Wars?

Nick Baicoianu: Turf Wars is a GPS-based Mafia game where the core aspect of the game is to control real world territory AKA “turf” from your iPhone or iPod Touch.  The gameplay is very similar to that of other games in the Mafia genre but the GPS adds several enhancements, not just with the idea that you’re taking over real world turf, but it also leads to a more enhanced economy and adds more to the social gameplay aspect as well.

BLAST: What was the inspiration for Turf Wars?

Nick Baicoianu: I got my iPhone in Feburary of this year and I noticed that there weren’t too many games that took advantage of the GPS feature.  As you know, the GPS feature has been on smartphones for many many years now, especially with the Blackberry and iPhone who’ve done a good job making that available for developers, but there just weren’t many games that took steps beyond just using it for navigation and Google Maps.  So, I thought it would be kind of fun to create an app that incorporates the fun with your GPS location.

BLAST: Incorporating standard features, such as GPS to iPhone games is an interesting way to get the most out of this platform.  Is this something you feel adds significant value to apps and games for the iPhone?

NB: Well, I think the first thing the players say when they compare Turf Wars with other games in the genre is that they love the location-based aspect; they love the idea of controlling their neighborhood, their favorite bar, favorite restaurant and kind of competing with people for that element.  So, yes I do think adding things like GPS does add a lot of value to games of this genre and I’m looking forward to, as this game gains traction, how the general public takes to it as well.

One thing that GPS adds to the game – or one of the side effects of having it, which turns into a pretty interesting gameplay benefit – is that you can have this sort of fake economy where you can own like 300 sports stadiums and only interact with players who are at a certain level, but you can do that with almost all games within the Mafia genre because everyone is playing in one giant universe, whereas with the turf and the GPS aspect, players have to see each other on the map.  So, there’s the whole scarcity of land, scarcity of money and things like that which isn’t available in those other Mafia games.  I found that I typically get bored with those types of games when I’ve made so much money and there’s nothing I can do but buy more stuff that will make me even more money, so I think the GPS feature adds a much deeper dimension to a game of this genre.

BLAST: The stylization of the game is interesting in that it’s fairly basic with the black and off-white colors; almost like a newspaper.  What made you and the developers pursue that route?

NB: The core style that I was going for when we were first storyboarding the app was to aim for a gritty, street-level feel rather than a sort of Godfather-like style.  You can imagine guys like the characters from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fighting over a local block but you can’t imagine Sonny Corleone running down the street to claim the nearby restaurant.  We thought that a sort of grittier feel would reflect those who are playing the game and just getting started in their illustrious crime careers, so to speak.

BLAST: Version 1.1 was released a little over a month and a half ago.  What issues were resolved and features added with this update?

NB: Well, the core features that we added were primarily map related.  We improved the maps so that if there were turfs that were really small, as in they were just built, they would show up as pins; things like that which would make turf easier to locate on a map, as well as a couple of navigation improvements.  We also more tightly integrated the map with the other parts of the app, so if you were on somebody’s turf you could click over to the map and see that turf and where it was in context to the broader map.

BLAST: Are there any features you’re looking to add in the future?

NB: Well, we get a lot of feedback from our users and they’ve got a lot of good ideas, so we’ve got a few ideas in the pipeline.  Some of the more important ones would be like adding some more social features and were even considering an alliance feature where players can team up and get more involved and add a bit more depth to the game in terms of the combat and social intrigue.  For instance, two guys who wouldn’t be able to beat the local capo very easily could team up and try and take him out.  I’m really excited about the features because this is something that hasn’t been done in any of the Mafia genre games to date.  I think they’re going to add a lot to the game.

BLAST: The forums are a nice approach to get direct feedback from your customers and patrons.  Have you found this to be an effective way to communicate with the Turf Wars community?

NB: I would say that the forums have been very helpful.  The forums were actually a feature that was requested a lot by users in the beginning.  We liked it because it gives us a way of communicating directly with the community by making important announcements.  It also gives players a sort of way to interact with each other in order to put a face to a name, so to speak.  They can recruit for their mob, take down a local guy and offer each other tips and help on certain aspects of the game.  So, overall I think it’s been a very successful feature for us so far.

BLAST: What about MeanFreePath, the company that has designed Turf Wars?  Can you tell me a little about your firm?

NB: We’re a relatively new firm; we basically started when we released Turf Wars, which is our first release on the iPhone platform.  Our firm is basically me and a couple young guys – a developer and a designer – and we’re basically focusing on the iPhone platform as well as other smartphone platforms in the GPS aspect.  I think, in general, I think this genre is in its infancy and there are a lot of interesting ideas that have been thrown around that could lead to a long series of games.

BLAST: How does MeanFreePath feel about the potential of the iPhone as a platform?  Do you see it as a legitimate gaming device?

NB: Absolutely.  I think that it’s a platform that is very much in its infancy.  Although there are a lot of developers for portable devices such as the PSP, there is going to be a learning curve to get familiar with Objective C and other things like that.  But, I think that as you get more developers who are more familiar with the platform, I think you’re going to see an increase in not just the number but the production value of the games.  I also believe that the GPS capabilities are one major advantage that the iPhone and iPod Touch have over the existing portable platforms.

Even though GPS-focused games are still very rare, you’re already seeing a lot of gaming websites that focus on local leaderboards that are dealing with games that have nothing to do with GPS.  So, I think with all of that attention, I feel that GPS for the iPhone, the Android and smartphones will become a more valuable feature for the gaming aspect.

BLAST: Are there are any new or upcoming developments or projects you guys are working on or excited about?

NB: I don’t think we can talk too much about upcoming projects, but I do feel that the feature I mentioned earlier – the alliance feature – is something I’m very excited about.  I think that it’s something that hasn’t been done before in this Mafia genre and I can’t wait to see how it pans out.  I think it will be a very positive development.

1. Assassin’s Creed 2 (multi)–Taking the grand original and expanding on it in every direction, Assassin’s Creed 2 is the epitome of a sequel done right. It trumps the original in every way without taking away from the groundwork laid by Altair’s fascinating adventures. Moving the location to renaissance Italy enables an amazing juxtaposition of fact and fiction, allowing for a truly enthralling plot and remarkably engaging characters. The game is so filled with things to do and see that getting bored is simply not an issue, and while the free-running and climbing mechanics are still a little sticky at times, the overall gameplay is brilliant. There’s very little that Assassin’s Creed 2 doesn’t get right and it’s proof-positive that even a monster company like Ubisoft is capable of listening to criticism and actually doing something about it.

2. Batman: Arkham Asylum (multi)–There’s little more to be said about the only truly great Batman game. Beautiful, expansive, polished, and simply a joy to play, this game has set the bar for super hero games and it’s hard to imagine too many other developers coming close to what was accomplished in Arkham Asylum.

3. inFamous (PS3)–The other great super hero game of the year, this new IP for the PS3 is dramatic, intense, and addictive take on the now overdone open world game genre. Visually stunning, with a mix of free-running, melee, and shooter gameplay, inFamous gave gamers a huge urban sprawl to conquer full of places to explore and secrets to find. It’s easily one of the best games on the system.

4. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)–Nintendo made the right move bringing Mario back to 2D, and in grand form. For fans of true Mario gameplay and hardcore gamers in general, this is one of the few good reasons to own Nintendo’s otherwise casual, shovelware-addled system. The multiplayer is almost completely extraneous, but the solid, familiar gameplay is full of endless joy and charm.

5. Killzone 2 (PS3)–Killzone 2 started the year out with a bang for the PS3 and now that the year is over, there still wasn’t a first-person shooter released that could match it for it’s intense, sci-fi war torn experience. While the end boss was insanely aggravating, this was an otherwise thoroughly well-rounded shooter, and should have been a system seller for Sony.

6. DragonAge: Origins (multi)–Bioware seldom disappoints and while DragonAge isn’t a graphic wonder, it’s the most enthralling and deep fantasy RPG on the market. Providing far better characterizations and personality than Bethesda’s games, this epic adventure is a virtual world all its own. Taking familiar fantasy cliches and using them to great effect, any lover of true role-playing should own this one.

7. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (multi)–While SNK’s move to HD with their last King of Fighters was lackluster at best, Aksys Games gave old-school fighting fans a genuine love note with BlazBlue. The spiritual successor to their brilliantly bizarre Guilty Gear series, this is without a doubt the most impressive 2D fighter in years. The high-def hand-drawn characters are gorgeous, the backdrops creative and alive, and the controls are amazingly refined. BlazBlue reigns supreme for a fantastic presentation and wonderfully quirky gameplay.

8. Fight Night Round 4 (multi)–Already in the budget bins, EA Sports knockout punch outshined the already great Fight Night Round 3 in every way. Stunning visuals, strategic controls, and a shocking amount of depth make this the absolute, undisputed king of boxing.

9. Forza Motorsports 3 (360)–Neck and neck with Dirt 2, Forza wins out as the overall finest racing sim ever put on a console. While the Gran Turismo series has seen fit to rest on its aging laurels, Microsoft has made sure every iteration of Forza saw massive improvements, and the third time is a resounding success. Fast, gorgeous, playable, and just plain awesome, no racing fan should let Forza 3 pass them by.

10. Cryostasis: the Sleep of Reason (PC)–The one PC game on the list is also the most obscure. This moody first-person exploration of isolation and horror aboard an ice breaker ship trapped in the arctic might not be perfect, but its high points more than make up for any imperfections. Few games manage to convey such a sense of tension and outright loneliness as you struggle to figure out what kind of nightmare you’ve been trapped in. Clever use of flashbacks to solve puzzle and bizarre story elements add greatly to the chilling atmosphere, and for fans of slower-paced ambient thrillers, this is an easy recommendation.

The Crystal Bearers aims to be even more of an experiment for Square Enix than the previous games in the Crystal Chronicles series, as it doesn’t rest on familiar concepts and play styles, but does so within the confines of a full retail game rather than a downloadable release. We had the opportunity to speak to Akitoshi Kazawu, who worked on The Crystal Bearers, about the series itself and what we can expect from the last big game of 2009.

BLAST: The whole Crystal Chronicles series is different from the more traditional Final Fantasy games, though they both use a similar universe. How did the series come about in the last console generation? What prompted making the series a Nintendo exclusive?

Akitoshi Kawazu: Over the years, FINAL FANTASY has transitioned from SNES to PlayStation platforms, and the top quality visuals best represented in the in-game movies have become a staple feature of the series. While this quality has been embraced by core gamers, it seems to have distanced beginners and younger players from the FINAL FANTASY brand.  In the earlier days, Nintendo’s then president, Mr. Yamauchi, had asked us to create a FINAL FANTASY game that could be enjoyed by any player, no matter what age or gender; the resulting project was the first FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES game for GameCube. We have followed up since with several titles for Nintendo platforms, but feel that we haven’t been able to develop a game that fulfills Mr. Yamauchi’s request 100 percent. We’re going to stick with Nintendo platforms until we have achieved this. I think it’s a really “Japanese way” of thought, so hopefully this explanation makes sense.

BLAST: While the first few games were all similar, in that they were multiplayer offerings that focused on exploration and item collection, the series has taken a different turn on the Wii. First there was My Life As A King, and then this year’s My Life As A Darklord—each of which is one of our favorite WiiWare titles for different reasons. Where did these ideas come from, and how did they develop into games? Do you see this same sort of genre-bending experimentation in the future of the Crystal Chronicles series, either on WiiWare or as full retail games?

AK: In my mind, WiiWare is a platform of its own, different from packaged software both in terms of technology and business-model. In the beginning, the idea was to make an RTS game for WiiWare utilizing the graphic resources of the GameCube version, to shorten the length of development.  We were successfully able to incorporate the FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES world into the resulting game system, and FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a King turned out to be a great game. FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a Darklord was a sequel that was always part of the plan. At first we had planned for the two games to have the same systems, but wanted to change things up a bit, and transitioned to a tower defense oriented system instead. Moving forward, I would like to create more games for WiiWare with systems that would be difficult to realize with a packaged title.

BLAST: The Crystal Bearers takes that evolving genres cue a step further, as it’s a single-player game with a deeper story and a focus on adventure. What prompted the switch to more of an epic quest, rather than a Wii-exclusive multiplayer offering?

AK: Development for this title began around the same time as FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: Ring of Fates for DS.  The DS title got the multiplayer focus, as we felt the platform was more suitable for multiplayer action, and for FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: THE CRYSTAL BEARERS, we put more emphasis on the single player experience that Wii is known for.  With the GameCube version, we faced challenges in revolving a multiplayer action game around a single screen, so that was also one of the reasons why we chose this direction.

BLAST: Tell us a bit about the background of the game’s story, and what kind of adventure we are in store for this December.

AK: Annihilated in the Great War that took place ages ago, the Yuke tribe had completely disappeared, even from people’s memories. However, members of this supposedly extinct tribe appear and attack the passenger airship Alexis. Layle, the main character of this game, is hired as an escort to defend this airship. In this adventure you will play as Layle, discovering why the Yuke tribe is back, and what exactly it is that they want.

BLAST: The protagonist is very different from the create-a-hero setup in the other Crystal Chronicles titles, but he even comes off as more experienced than many heroes in the flagship Final Fantasy series. In a genre dominated by teenagers, children and inexperienced heroes, how did Layle come to be?

AK: FINAL FANTASY stories have always been about growth. The main character’s problems, struggles, joys, sense of accomplishment or sense of loss are all expressed throughout the course of the game. However, if the plot is set up with the same formula every time, we won’t be able to expand the breadth of storytelling. With this game, we wanted players to enjoy an entirely different type of story and main character. This hero is extremely “hero-like” in his actions. Layle is a hero that is constantly one step ahead of his enemies, and offers players an exhilarating experience.

BLAST: Gameplay wise, what’s different in the Crystal Bearers from past Crystal Chronicles titles? What stands out in The Crystal Bearers as your favorite addition to the series?

AK: The element that differs most from past titles is that players can interact with the game’s environment. Objects, people and creatures, among other things, are all part of this “touchable” environment. Everything will come back at you with a variety of reactions when you come into contact with them.

AK: Link with Force powers! That’s actually not too off-base. However, Layle is far more confident than Link, and is not as polite. Layle uses his powers instead of swords or bows and arrows, essentially to show off that he doesn’t need to rely on weapons. Layle’s powers bring about a huge variety of reactions. This is because you can use his powers on anyone, ranging from town’s people to guardsmen. These are things that Link couldn’t do, right?

BLAST: Did you run into any problems developing for a system with the Wii’s control system? Was there anything you wanted to work into the game that did not make it in due to these difficulties?

AK: There are certain aspects that we cut intentionally, but nothing that we were unable to achieve because of technical difficulties. For example, in the early stages of development Layle used to wield a sword, but because we were able to integrate Wii controls so well in the game, we decided not to include that feature. This way, Layle’s powers could be emphasized.

BLAST: Is there a possibility that The Crystal Bearers will develop into its own side series, as it differs so much from the traditional Crystal Chronicles and takes place so far ahead in the universe’s timeline? Is this something you would like to see happen?

AK: FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES is known for its multiplayer function and miniature character designs, and even though FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: THE CRYSTAL BEARERS shares the same world, it is a completely different gaming experience. We would like to continue with expanding the CRYSTAL CHRONICLES series, while also looking into a sequel specific to FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: THE CRYSTAL BEARERS.

BLAST: Lastly, tell our readers the one thing about The Crystal Bearers that they may not know to convince them to pick it up the day after Christmas.

AK: Step into the shoes of a daring hero, use his ability to control gravity at will, and interact with everything within the game world, from objects and people to creatures. That sums up FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: THE CRYSTAL BEARERS. Don’t miss out on this experience!

This is our first year with one of these, and it’s pretty comprehensive. We’ve broken the guide into multiple categories: Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, Xbox 360, and then multiplatform titles. There’s a solid number of titles on each list, though the PS3 and 360 lists are somewhat shorter due to the long multiplatform page–don’t miss that page, since there’s a lot to it. Exclusives are the only thing you will find on the system pages. There’s also a Kids and Family guide, with a few of the games we reviewed for the younger crowd that we actually enjoyed.

As of right now, games we have reviewed (or games that in the review pipeline) are on the list–a few more holiday titles may be added assuming they stand up to our scrutiny. There may also be a few that we have not reviewed, but one of our writers at one point or another played through it and vouched for its awesomeness, so we decided to pass their opinion on to you through this guide.

Nintendo Wii Gift Guide

Nintendo DS Gift Guide

Playstation 3 Gift Guide

Playstation Portable Gift Guide

Xbox 360 Gift Guide

Multiplatform Gift Guide

Kids & Family Gift Guide

Between friends’ houses and arcades, I played everything growing up, but what I had at my house was different. I owned an NES, but a Genesis instead of SNES. I owned a Dreamcast and a PlayStation but an Xbox instead of PlayStation 2. Now I focus on PlayStation 3 instead of 360, but occasionally play Wii.

Though I admit I mostly play Wii for Virtual Console lately. And I recently bought the retro video game player on Think Geek.

And all along, I always loved PC games. It was a victory to figure out the perfect Autoexec.bat and Config.sys file so that I could get most of the games to run on my old 486SX PC that ran Windows 3.1 — it came with 4MB of RAM, but we upgraded it to a whopping 8MB and added a CD-ROM drive.

One thing I did miss out on: I didn’t play the Final Fantasy series growing up.

There have been some amazing games made lately, but nothing has ever sucked me into a virtual world like some of the games I played when I was young. Even with the realistic sounds and graphics of today’s games, it was the nuances of childhood games that stuck.

Here is my list of the 10 games I played the most.

10. The “Strike” franchise (Genesis)

Jungle Strike, Urban Strike and Desert Strike. Three buttons, three weapons. You move, shoot, reload and hope for an armor crate eventually.

The games are the purest example of simplicity. There’s some story mixed in, but really these are arcade games. They’re fun, challenging, addictive, and satisfying.

9. Contra (NES)

Up up, down down, left right, left right, B-A-B-A, Start. That got you 30 lives, instead of the impossible three that you started with.

Though, I beat the game on 4 lives on the Think Geek retro player recently. It’s like riding a bike. Just get that first “Spread” weapon and never lose it.

Contra is a shooting-based platformer with sequels that range from impossibly difficult to absurdly bad. But the original stands as one of the best games ever made, and it was one of the first multiplayer action games that felt rewarding enough to repeat.

Because everyone wants to relive that ride home in a helicopter.

8. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

Do I really need to explain much here? The platformer genre never got any better after this. The Mario Bros. were in their golden age here.

Mushroom houses, whistles, hammer brothers, sand, water, fire and floating gunships combine to send you on a trip you’ll not soon forget.

This was also a big game to hit with Game Genie codes, especially in — I think it was — World 4 with all the sky levels.

7. Shining Force II (Genesis)

Shining Force will make the list twice. Remember, this is a list of games I dedicated the most time to. Shining Force II was a lot harder than the original Shining Force. It wasn’t as intuitive, and though I played the original a lot more often, it was the sequel that eluded me for a long time, especially after the Sega Channel dropped the game from its list.

For the longest time, I couldn’t get past a certain point where I had to interact with a hollow oak tree to obtain an ancient caravan that would let me progress further in the game. It was a shock when I finally figured it out.

6. Fighters Anthology (PC/DOS)

The entire PC combat flight simulation genre came to an apex here. Jane’s and Electronic Arts had success with both Navy Fighters and Advanced Tactical Fighter. So when they combined the games into one title and added several more campaigns, the result was a three-inch thick box with an (unnecessary) novel-sized manual and two CD-ROMs.

The game was sick. You could spend days flying around Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, China and even Cuba. You career spanned some 50 years, from F-4’s in Nam to F-14s in a 1998 Russian invasion of Ukraine to F-22’s and X-31’s in Egypt in the early 21st century.

The game also had a rich following from third parties who developed an assortment of modifications, including new plans, weapons, buildings and even nukes.

5. Shining Force (Genesis)

This game, too, disappeared from Sega Channel. It disappeared before I could beat it. Years later, I would trade in some then worthless Dreamcast games for the Shining Force cartridge.

It was actually emotional to beat this game. The strategy, the sacrifice. The game told a story and forced the imagination into overdrive.

4. Doom and Doom 2(PC/DOS)

I still play these next four games whenever I can. Doom started it all for me. It was the first game I ever installed from a CD-ROM.

I played the shareware first episode of Doom for months. It was only nine levels (I forget if the bonus level was in the shareware), but there was something about shooting imps and shotgun-toting former human sergeants that’s still addicting.

We didn’t get The Ultimate Doom, which included the three original Doom episodes and a fourth called “Thy Flesh Consumed,” until years after we bought Doom 2.

Enter Doom 2. Now there’s 32 levels.

The levels were better, the enemies were more plentiful and there were two new weapons. I’d brag — I have gone through the entire game without cheats on Nightmare. I probably can’t do it anymore.

The only way we ever improved on Doom 2 was by playing Doom 2 for Windows 95 over our home network, without lag.

Be thankful kids, Doom’s deathmatch paved a blood-stained road that leads right to your Slayer matches in Halo 3.

3. Phantasy Star IV

There’s a healthy mix of action and RPG in this mix of games, but nothing (except maybe the next title) can possibly match the depth I found in Phantasy Star IV.

Not only was the game a graphical wonder with depth of character development and attack technique, but it was a wicked long game to beat. The game goes on forever, and you can’t just skip through it. You have to fight every battle and gain every character level to even have a chance at taking on the final boss.

Phantasy Star IV is also in this sort of cyberpunk post-modern fantasy world with remnants of ancient, advanced technology despite the primitive, agrarian lifestyle of the characters. That makes more sense if you played Phantasy Star I-III, but the fourth installment was the best.

It was such a perfectly made game. It was stylized but not over the top. It had dialog you could understand. It had character development. I dare you not to shed a tear when Alys dies.

2. Shadowrun (Genesis)

Karma is something you earn.

I still wish there was a 16-bit sequel to Shadowrun. I didn’t like the popular SNES Shadowrun RPG. It was the totally different Genesis game that owned me.

It’s all about depth. Character development, conversations and interactions, weapons, magic, guns, computers, dragons, elves, trolls and evil mega corporations in 21st century Seattle result in one of my favorite games and #2 on my most played list. You could even ignore the plot and become a mercenary or freelance computer hacker.

This was Shadowrun. There was as much reading as there was shooting. Don’t even talk to me about the newer Xbox 360/PC game that happens to be called Shadowrun. It’s a disgrace. It’s pitiful. It’s sacrilegious.

1. Tie Fighter Collector’s Edition (PC/DOS)

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and a fight or flight response triggered the first time Admiral Harkov betrayed me to die in a Rebel minefield while flying Tie Interceptor Alpha 1.

I was doomed. The Victory Class Star Destroyer Protector was firing on me and a Rebel cruiser dropped out of hyperspace to back up the traitors. I, a loyal Imperial naval aviator, was singled out for a creative extermination.

Then the cavalry came. The Modified Frigate Osprey, carrying shielded Tie Interceptors from Theta group arrived to pick me up from the clutches of certain death.

I was born after the original Star Wars trilogy and way before Episodes I-III. I didn’t read the books growing up. It was this game, which still ranks as one of the best computer games ever released, that gave me my Star Wars education and left me rooting for the Empire from then onward.

Tie Fighter Collector’s CD puts you in the cockpit of the Empire and immerses the player in a world of intrigue, open war and piracy. The full voice acting (one of the first games to do it) and sound effects are forever burned into my mind. And when the throngs of dementia take me later in life and I end up spouting off “Die Rebel Scum” and “Peace between the Dimok and Ripoblus!” in my nursing home, you’ll know why.

Star Fox

Star Fox was an impressive achievement when it first released for the Super Nintendo back in 1993. It utilized the Super FX chip, designed by Argonaut Games, in order to achieve Star Fox’s 3D style gameplay, and helped pave the way for future 3D titles thanks to its success. This chip was a microprocessor that could do things with 3D that the Super Nintendo could not–remember, the SNES was known for its ability to fake 3D with its Mode 7 capabilities, but true 3D was out of its initial abilities. Argonaut and Nintendo simply installed the chip in the Star Fox cartridge so that the SNES could handle the 3D held inside.

Even in caption form, Slippy is annoying.

In addition to its technical pioneer status, Star Fox also established yet another Nintendo franchise that would see sequels, spinoffs and appearances in games like Super Smash Bros. Though it is not utilized as often as Mario or Zelda, or as critically acclaimed as Metroid, it’s still one of the big boys from the Big N. Star Fox 64 is available on the Virtual Console, which may be why the original is not available; it’s still a fun game to play, but its sequel enhanced every facet of the game, and is the more famous one for a few reasons (Do a barrel roll!)

As for the gameplay, it’s an on-rails space shooter, though you can control your speed with thrusters and fly around to avoid objects and collect items. It has a very arcade feel to it, which makes it different than most Nintendo franchises. I also find it kind of funny that they have more 3D space shooters than old-school 2D shoot-em-ups, especially given how far back the company’s history and game development goes. Most of the games in the series have been this way–the exception is Rare’s entry in the series, the GameCube’s Star Fox Adventures. That’s a game people love or hate (or love to hate) thanks to its departures from the series norms, which you can’t blame people for given how strong those roots are. (Then again, a lot of the people that complained about Star Fox Adventures are probably the same people that complained that Namco’s GameCube entry was too similar to the Nintendo 64 game).

Pilotwings

Mode 7 was very impressive for its time, and helped show off the power of the SNES

This is a series that is screaming for a Wii sequel, especially given how neat the flying mechanic in Wii Sports Resort (Motion Plus!) is. The original was a launch title–you had this, Super Mario World and Sim City, three titles that still hold up today and are considered classics by many. Pilotwings did not utilize 3D like Star Fox did for its flying–this was a few years before the advent of the Super FX chip–but it was capable of rendering what appeared to be 3D thanks to Mode 7–when flying, objects on the ground appeared to be popping out of it naturally in three dimensions, but when you would land or come very close to the ground you could see that they were flat and on top of the ground–if you’ve ever watched the camera pan closer to the landscape in an SNES title utilizing Mode 7, you can picture what I’m talking about.

There’s a lot more to do in Pilotwings than just fly planes, as you can also use a hang glider, a rocket belt, or a helicopter, and you can also go skydiving (again, Wii Sports Resort makes me feel like Pilotwings Wii is necessary). Though the Nintendo 64 entry (also a launch title) may be the better game, the original is a lot of fun, and neither of them are on the VC. It’s been over 18 years since the original released and 13 since its sequel hit–it’s time to put them back on a Nintendo console, first Virtually, then maybe with a proper sequel.

Pogo.com wasn’t always known for its casual offerings—before it was even Pogo, it was Total Entertainment Network (TEN), and that outlet focused more on the hardcore in this pre-online console world. “The site focused on connecting hardcore gamers to each other online. We had games like Quake and Command & Conquer. Then companies started to include online functionality in their games and we were in a situation where we knew we’d be obsolete eventually” says Mike Riccio, the current VP and chief technology officer of Pogo.com. Riccio has been there since the beginning, so he’s seen all of the changes and why they were necessary.

Pogo's homepage has come a long way in 10 years

Before they were knocked out of the picture by the online improvements to home consoles, Riccio and co. switched TEN to Pogo.com, and became an outlet for casual gaming. “Web portals were driving revenue through advertising, and online games were one way for them to engage consumers. We built a new team to develop casual online games, partnered with portals to provide them with gaming content, changed our name to Pogo.com, and launched our own destination site. ” There was no other site on the Internet that gave itself over completely to casual online gaming at this point, so Pogo was taking a chance with the switch, but as Riccio stated, it was a necessary one to ensure the company lived on as the rest of the gaming world improved.

As stated, the industry today is much different than it was 10 years ago. Whereas today you cannot avoid seeing the call to the casuals everywhere—from free-to-play games to other websites that have followed in Pogo’s footsteps to home consoles that have made both hardware and software killings this generation due to their ever-increasing casual user base—when Pogo began, they were filling a hole in the market. “Yahoo and MSN had some basic online games” says Riccio, but thanks to Pogo and its ilk “Today millions of people are playing games on sites that have hundreds of games that you can play online or download.” It’s gotten to the point where the terms “core” and “casual” are thrown around constantly by gamers and journalists alike, many times in a derogatory fashion. Regardless of the complaints, you have to admit that casual games have helped keep the industry afloat in the same way that established, “core” franchises have. Riccio tells us that “casual games are being taken seriously and are seen as a viable business.” While this has been true online for a bit, it’s a more recent development with the home console market; Nintendo’s “blue ocean” strategy fits in with Riccio’s point snugly.

It’s not just the games that have brought Pogo success, though titles like Poppit, Word Whomp (Riccio’s personal favorite) and First-Class Solitaire have been and remain some of the most popular online games around, helping keep Pogo.com in its place as the stickiest website around.  It’s the community aspect of Pogo that makes people come back to play again. Riccio says that Pogo has a saying, “People come for the games and stay for the community. We make games that can be fun in five minutes if you need a quick break or five hours if you’re meeting up with your friends to chat and play.” While the community is mainly a great way for friends to catch up, there have been other benefits found. For instance, there have been over 250 marriages that came about due to a couple meeting at Pogo.com. While maybe that’s not enough to start working it in to Pogo’s company slogan, it’s an indication of just how addicting some of these games can be, and how Pogo makes it easy for people to keep in touch and play together.

Pogo was purchased by EA back in 2001, and has since then filled much more than just an online niche. Besides being the stickiest destination on the web, Pogo has expanded into downloadable titles and the mobile sector. Pogo To Go allows users to play these previously online only titles offline, and the mobile versions of games are self-explanatory. The site continues to grow as well—whereas in 2001, at the time of the EA acquisition, Pogo had 17 millions different users, it now claims to have 15 million active users. There’s a big difference between total users and active ones, and 15 million active is a big deal, especially with all of the other choices that are available to the consumer today compared to 2001 or when the site launched.

Advertising still powers the Pogo.com machine, but like many other in the industry, micro transactions are the future. They have existed on Pogo since 2006, and as many free-to-play games across the industry have proven, they are a great way to pull in revenue and keep your most casual and more “core” casual gamer interested and coming back for more. EA has even utilized some of what has been learned through the casual space in their more hardcore offerings, with games like BattleForge moving to free-to-play but with downloadable, paid for in-game items.

Riccio and Pogo are still looking for new ways to bring gamers to the games, or, as Riccio puts it when asked about the future of Pogo, “the games will come to the players be it online, on their cell phone or any other way that hasn’t been discovered yet.” With 10 years behind them, based on how Pogo.com has adjusted to the market and continued to grow during that time, it should be no surprise that they are thinking about how to position themselves for success for the next 10 years.

Nintendo Wii

Muramasa: The Demon Blade: There has not been a better looking game on the Wii this year, and it’s also one of the better playing titles on the system in 2009. Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a must-have for any gamer, as the game’s easier settings allow even those not accustomed to action games to enjoy the story, gameplay and gorgeous graphics, while those looking for a challenge are sure to find it on the two more difficult modes. Highly recommended.

Playstation 3

The Beatles: Rock Band: In the end, the love you’ll take is equal to your affection for the music you’ll fake, so you might be wise to steer clear of Beatles Rock Band if you’ve already proven resistant to the band’s charms. However, the multiple generations of would-be Apple scruffs who have come to cherish the music of those four lads from Liverpool should greet the game with nothing less than the love with which Harmonix clearly labored. Best played with a bandmate or five, Beatles Rock Band is perfect for parties, but it’s also an ideal solution when you’re craving a more interactive alternative to yet another listen. Now, just wake me when I can mangle the medley.

Xbox 360

Halo 3: ODST: Halo 3: ODST is more than an expansion to Halo 3. Updated graphics, innovative storytelling, a fresh multiplayer experience in FireFight, all 24 Halo 3 multiplayer maps and a stellar soundtrack make ODST a serious contender in the FPS genre heading into the fall and holiday season. The campaign is short; only about 6-7 hours, but the combination of FireFight and the now definitive and complete Halo 3 multiplayer component, sends the game’s replay value through the roof.

Nintendo DS

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story: If you liked either the original GBA title or the last DS entry, Partners in Time, you are going to love Bowser’s Inside Story. It’s the class of the series, and there’s one giant, spiked and shelled reason for that. AlphaDream finally made a DS RPG that feels like it belongs on the DS, and with the writing as witty and sharp as it is, it not only plays better than the others, but is also funnier to play, too. This is one of the better games in the DS’ entire library, and you are missing out if you don’t pick it up.

Playstation Portable

Dissidia: Final Fantasy: This game helps unite all the Final Fantasy games in one spectacular game.  The pinnacle is definitely the head to head fighting between each game’s hero and villain. Those battles alone are the realization of the final battles from each and every Final Fantasy game and beautifully remind diehards why they fell in love with the games in the first place (and continuously email Square Enix to remake certain chapters for the new consoles – *cough* Final Fantasy VII *cough*). This is a fantastic game and definitely one PSP owners should have. For a compelling story and an excellent fighting experience, check out Final Fantasy Dissidia. You’ll spend hours exploring this game fully and won’t want it to end. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go play some more.

Downloadable

You, Me and the Cubes: You, Me and the Cubes is a fascinating puzzler, given its physics-based gameplay and its very human puzzle “pieces”, the Fallos. The single-player alone would have made this a fun title, but the addition of multiplayer that forces you to work in concert in order to advance makes this one of the better WiiWare releases from 2009. If you’re into puzzle titles and quirkiness, then You, Me and the Cubes is a great place to invest your $10.

While the VC has been great and is loaded with more titles than most gamers know what to do with, it could always use more. When I heard that Zombies Ate My Neighbors was rated in Australia for potential release, I thought about what other titles I was looking forward to seeing on the service. Now, this is not a “Best games not on the Virtual Console” list. This is more of a “Marc wants to play these games, so put them on now, k thanks”. I’m going to focus on the Super Nintendo here, as it is easily my favorite classic system from my childhood. There’s a few obvious ones here, but maybe I have a few surprises for you as well. One thing: I’m not mentioning the Final Fantasy titles here, as Square Enix has already confirmed they are on the way. We have other things to bug Square about anyways, as you will see.

Today we’ll take a look at five of the 10, with the other portion coming tomorrow.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

I know that tentacle from somewhere...

LucasArts developed a bunch of great SNES titles, and this was one of the non-Star Wars persuasion, and probably my favorite of the entire set. The Konami published title had you taking out zombies, monsters and ghouls with anything you could find, from squirt guns to alien weaponry, all in the name of saving your neighbors and other oblivious people from the hordes of the hungry. The game was hilarious for many reasons, like the giant babies that served as bosses on occasion, killing the powerful werewolves by throwing kitchen utensils at them (silverware! Ah ha!), the campy look and feel to everything–it had a very old-school sci-fi theme going on, with swirling red circles for hypnotic effect as well as cheesy, cliche enemy types–and the unintended consequences that arise from you and your pal playing co-op, fighting over the game’s limited resources, weapons and items that help you achieve the highest score.

The SNES has one drawback, if you’re one of those people that hates Mortal Kombat on the SNES anyways. There’s no blood, though everything has been replaced by goo. When you die, purple goo drips down the screen. It fits in with the 1950’s sci-fi, B-movie vibe, so it’s not a huge difference or anything. Don’t worry, we won’t say you aren’t hardcore if you admit you don’t mind the goo. As a bonus, you get a flamethrower in one of the levels that isn’t available in the Genesis version. Who doesn’t love flamethrowers?

While many of Virtual Console’s best titles have been single-player adventures, Zombies Ate My Neighbors was one of the best multiplayer experiences on the system, and it’s a shame it has not been released yet. LucasArts has been releasing a ton of their stuff on the service lately though, so maybe we’ll be able to open Pandora’s Box and hide from the chainsaw maniacs again soon.

BLAST: A Boy and His Blob is a property that has not seen the light of day in years–it hasn’t even been released on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console. How did the idea of a re-imagining of the franchise come about, and what appealed to you about working with it?

Sean Velasco: It was actually quite random. A Boy and his Blob has been one of those games that I would play occasionally due to the bizarre factor. On top of that, it has always been a great concept for a game, but the original is just not that fun to play. I talked about it among my peers at WayForward and got the go-ahead to develop a pitch. We wanted to retain the transforming alien toolkit and weird world of the original game, and pair it with modern design and technology. Once our Art Director Marc Gomez created the soft look of the characters, we knew we had the beginnings of something special.

BLAST: For those who have never played the original NES title, let’s hear a bit about the premise and the how the game plays. What similarities and differences are there between the two, just from a gameplay perspective?

SV: Well, let’s start with the similarities. Both of the games have a similar premise; playing as the boy, you feed your alien blob friend jellybeans, which turns him into useful objects. Each jellybean flavor yields a different transformation; tangerine trampoline, root beer rocket, licorice ladder, etc. You use these transformations to navigate the world, solving environmental puzzles and collecting treasure.
As far as differences go, there are many. The new game is split up into levels, whereas the original was an open world. This helps us focus the experience and change the jellybean loadout for each stage. Our game is also much more user friendly than the original; the player has totally redesigned control, infinite beans, and infinite lives. However, this has opened up our level designers to be more fiendish than the original game. Many puzzles require fast reflexes, quick thinking, and multiple transformations in order to solve. Finally, there is a layer of sweet visual polish and a beautiful soundtrack.

BLAST: There are forty standard levels and forty challenge levels in Blob. How are these different from the main levels, and do they exhibit the same kind of difficulty we are used to seeing from Wayforward?

SV: The challenge levels are shorter and more focused on single transformations than the regular levels. And they get hard! The purpose was to let us use the transformations in ways that might be too weird or too hard in the regular levels. Also, the challenge levels must be done in one run without checkpoints. Kudos to whoever can finish every challenge level; it’s quite an accomplishment!

BLAST: The art style is eye-catching, and on its own has gained attention even without knowing how the game plays. What influenced the art direction, and how did you decide this was what a Blob reboot should look like?

SV: We wanted to make the game look like an animated film. Since WayForward is all about great characters and animation, it was an easy decision to take it in this direction. The character designs are all soft, friendly, and hand painted and animated. The background art is also lushly hand-drawn. On top of that, there are many programmatic effects like advanced lighting and moving trees. We wanted to echo the look of Miyazaki or Disney; to create a timeless aesthetic that is instantly appealing.

BLAST: The original A Boy and His Blob was difficult, but not in an intentional way–it came off as frustrating because of some of the game designs, like running out of jelly beans. What would you like to say to those without fond memories of the original, in regards to why they should give the series a second chance?

SV: This game aims to give you everything you remember fondly about the original without the sour bits. There is so much to love; it’s a very complete package. A Boy and his Blob for Wii is a totally new experience, so please check it out!

Blast got a chance to chat with one of the performers (testers) about the newly designed Ocarinas that range from exact replicas of in-game instruments fans of the Zelda series surely get excited about, to well-crafted stand-alone musical instruments.  Not only are the Ocarinas developed at the website polished and perfected as instruments, but they also serve as memorabilia to an iconic franchise in the video game industry.  Meet Heather Scott.

BLAST: What is your background with music?  First instrument?  Favorite instrument?

Heather Scott: My background in music goes back to the womb!  My father was a grade school and middle school band director, so I have been going to his concerts since I was born.  All three of my older siblings played in the band in school so I always knew that I wanted to join the band as well.  Once old enough to join my father’s band I chose my first instrument, the flute!  I continue to play flute now and have a Bachelor’s degree in music performance from Illinois State University.  Currently I am working on my Master’s in flute performance from Webster University in St. Louis.  Besides the flute and ocarina, which I LOVE, my other favorite instrument (although I regretfully do not play) is the cello.

BLAST: What is your background with video games?  First system?  Favorite game?

H.S.I have always found video games to be a great way to relax and unwind after a busy day.  The first system I ever owned was a Nintendo.  The year Nintendo came out my siblings and I pooled our allowances to buy one.  We played ALL the time.  Later we got a Game Boy for Christmas.  I played that all the time because my favorite game was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.

BLAST: Are you a big fan of the Zelda series?

H.S. Yes.  The Legend of Zelda was one of the first video games I ever played, so I think I will always be a fan of the series.  I love how the series involves a mixture of action and puzzle solving skills.

BLAST: Has the popularity of the Zelda themed Ocarina helped business?

H.S. Definitely!  Thanks to the Ocarina of Time, many gamers have become interested in the instrument.  They are always pleased to discover that it is a real instrument after all!  Our Zelda ocarina is one of our best sellers.  We just came out with a new Zelda ocarina that features the Triforce as well as new Rupee ocarinas!

BLAST: What kind of tests do you run on the Ocarina’s you’re producing?

H.S. After the ocarina has been carefully designed, we run a series of tests to make sure it looks and sounds good.  We test that it’s in tune first.  That’s really important! Then we have testers play on the ocarina for a period of time to discover any inconsistencies.  Only when we feel the ocarina is truly ready do we put it on the market.

BLAST: Have there been any large orders of Ocarina’s, or any strange orders from super Zelda fans?

H.S. We have partnered with anime, cosplay, and music shops all over the world to bring the ocarinas to a larger audience.  These shops tend to order a lot of ocarinas from us!

BLAST: Have you ever thought about making other video game themed instruments?

H.S. We’re kicking around a few ideas….Keep an eye on our website!

BLAST: What do you see for the future of stlocarina.com?

H.S. I hope to see the company continue to grow and spread the art of ocarina playing!  We have come so far in such a short amount of time!  We are all dedicated to education, so when you buy an ocarina from us you are also gaining a support system to help you learn how to play the ocarina.  We are also excited about our ocarina trio and are hoping to be touring very soon.  This group aspires to promote the ocarina as well as world music.

BLAST: What kind of competition do you have, if any?

H.S. This year we will be holding our second annual International Ocarina Star Search Competition.  We had a lot of great entries last year and hope to have even more this year.  Contestants play one piece, chosen by STL, and one piece of their choice.  The winners get lots of great prizes including, ocarinas and the opportunity to perform and even record with us!

BLAST: What are you playing right now?

H.S. Currently I am working on a HEAP of Celtic music that the STL Ocarina Trio will be performing very soon.  I am also working on a few pieces for the triple ocarina including a piece called Farewell to Ireland.  I just finished recording Gerudo Valley from Ocarina of Time which can be heard on my YouTube channel.

BLAST: Are there any new instruments you are working on?

H.S. At the moment, we’re working on an exciting new model of plastic ocarina which should be available in October.  The great thing about this ocarina is that it’ll have a large range of notes and yet be very durable and affordable.

BLAST: What do you think is the reason for the ocarina’s popularity as an instrument?  Easy to play?  Easy to learn?

H.S. I think a large portion of the ocarina community is drawn to the instrument through the Zelda series.  However, those customers that begin by ordering a Zelda ocarina inevitably come back and order more and more ocarinas.  Collecting them is an enjoyment in itself.  Ocarinas have a very unique and beautiful sound that is different from any other instrument.  It is also fairly easy to learn.  Anyone could pick one up and be playing a song within minutes.  Ocarinas are great because you don’t have to know anything about music to get started.  You can also play lots of different types of music on ocarinas including classical, folk songs, Celtic, video game or movie music, and music from virtually any culture!  They also come in many different varieties, shapes, sizes and colors so there is always more than one perfect ocarina out there for everyone!

Besides the Legend of Zelda, I also enjoy playing music from many different video games as well as anime music.  I have a youtube channel where I record some of my favorites.  Please visit my Youtube page to check it out.

Byline: Heather is a flutist currently earning her master’s degree in flute performance. She is also a masterful performer of the ocarina. The pocket-sized wind instrument with ancient roots is gaining popularity thanks to its connection with the video game, “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.” Heather, 23 and recently engaged, is a native of St. Louis. Her father was a band teacher and encouraged her interest in music. Her hobbies include swimming, kneeboarding and water skiing and playing the flute and ocarina.

League of Legends isn’t out yet, but the closed beta is running, which means you need yourself a beta code if you want to get in to the game. (read our preview here). Here’s the good news then, for those of you who did not attend the Penny Arcade Expo: Riot Games gave us a bunch of beta codes that we will now give to you. In the interest of fairness, we’ll hand them out to the first wave of people that follows these easy directions:

1) Answer this question: What’s the highest rated game we have reviewed in the past month (from August 16 to September 16)? Figure out both the title and the score, and then…

2) Send a message on Twitter to @Marc_Normandin (hey, that’s me!) with your answer and your e-mail address, and I’ll send you a beta code as a reply.

See? That’s easy. I’ll even give you a hint: the answer is a Wii game.

BLAST: One of the most interesting things about Dragon Age: Origins are the changes to the story—even major characters can be killed off or you can fail to recruit them, for example. How big are the changes you see in the story when this kind of thing occurs?

Dr. Greg Zeschuk: One of the interesting things in Dragon Age is that the characters have their own motivations. What we watch during the game is not whether you are good or are you bad, but instead how are the characters reacting to you. There are impactful things you can do, as well as your everyday choices. The range of things the characters can do is pretty stunning—I remember one time, I had one really impatient guy. One cool thing is that the characters will talk to you, just as you are walking along, saying things like, “What are we doing?” and “We’re going the wrong way”. So this guy kept complaining, and eventually he said, “That’s it”, so I turned around and he attacked me. I literally had this full battle while the other guys just stood back and watched it—and he was actually a really tough character in my group, so I had to try and figure out a way to beat him before he could kill me. That’s an extreme example; other examples are you could meet a new character, but they have an instant dislike for you, or you could have a character say, “If they are joining you, then I’m leaving”. It really depends on the way you play your game; if you’re really evil or brutal, some characters may leave you, attack you, or they will split up and have a big battle with each other. It feels like a very realistic situation, where your friends like you so they will do what you tell better. I think that’s one of the key things in the game, so when you’re making decisions, you’re always thinking, “Okay, what will they think of it?” You can also build the group you’re traveling with based on their orientation.

BLAST: Because of all of these changes with the characters and your party, length of the game and replayability are a big factor. How many hours do you think you can squeeze out of Dragon Age: Origins?

DGZ: I would say the minimum you’ll get out of a single-player game is probably about 40 hours. The actual amount of content is amazing—there are some quests that, unless you built up your character a certain way or picked a certain origin, they won’t even open up. I’ve heard of people doing a single playthrough with over 100 hours, so it’s probably more than that. It’s giant. One of the really interesting things about it though, is that you can play in a very bite-sized way, it’s not just one long level where you save and load. I can see playing single player for six months, playing a half-hour per night, clearing out a dungeon or finishing a quest. In these financial times, it’s a critical value. It’s almost like an MMO, where you can play it and play it and play it and always find new things. Even here, I was talking to some guys from Mythic and telling them about a character, and they were saying, “Oh, I have to play it again!” All of these things make it very personal and unique.

BLAST: Tell us a little about the skill tree that you use to customize the characters.

DGZ: There are a couple of different ways—there are Talents, which are a combat ability you can use, there are also some skills outside of battle, like for potions and poisons and traps, those kinds of things. Every character, like the rogue, warrior and mage, come with a certain set of base rules; there are quite a few of them. And within them, there are different sub-trees, like a rogue could be a two weapon wielding backstabber and an archer. What you unlock as you play are these specializations, which come from quests you do and items you find; those give you a whole other set of powers. You can also customize your character to a very narrow line, depending on what it is you want to do. What that allows is for everyone’s character to be completely unique—you won’t be able to get all the Talents in a single playthrough—but what’s great is that it’s not just your own character, you can customize your entire party. You can decide how you’re going to build your party, decide how you’re going to customize them. There’s another side to that too, where there are recommended choices, so people don’t have to be overwhelmed it. It’s a game where it’s very hard to make a bad choice—you can’t pick a Talent that sucks, they are all pretty good, you just have to figure out how to use them.

BLAST: So you can customize your party and try out all different kinds of characters and abilities?

DGZ: You could get three mages, customize them, and every one of those mages could be completely different. One could be using curses and entropy, one could be healing, and one could be primal, like fire and lightning spells. Beyond that, you can further customize in the specializations and other stuff, so there are probably seven or eight different kinds of mages you could make; it’s the same with warriors and rogues. There’s a lot of choice! We anticipate people will replay it, and say things like, “Well this is the best warrior I’ve found” and compare with each other. That’s kind of one of the things you can do on the community website; it allows you to share, which kind of goes by achievements by letting you show what you did and how you did it. So people can look at each other’s progress and see, “Oh, this is how you did that!” and compare and contrast their experiences.

BLAST: The game is multiplatform, as its on both consoles and on PC—are there any major differences between PC and console?

DGZ: It’s interesting, but the PC version, which we developed a little bit earlier, is radically different. We redid the entire interface for the console version; we had all of these incredible Talents and powers on the PC version, and we wanted to make sure console players didn’t feel like we were stripping away any of the power. You also had to make sure they had everything at their fingertips, and that was a huge, huge undertaking. Trying to give console players the opportunity to switch between 20 different spells at any time is how we got the ring structure, which, after playing with it on a console, feels very natural. Another thing on consoles that is very interesting, after playing around with balancing and the creatures, is that it’s actually much more of an action game, whereas on the PC its more natural to pull back, look at the whole battlefield, and have kind of a chess game feel to it. On the console, I think people are just going to jump right in there—everyone here is playing console today, and when you go in there, there’s a very action-oriented feel, and that really plays well to each audience. Console guys want to get right in there, while PC guys want to be more strategic.

The Sega Saturn was not doing very well in North America, as both the Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64 were overpowering it at retail. Sure, the original Playstation helped usher in an age of cheaper games with its CD-based titles, and it also sported one of the deepest libraries of any console to that point, but the Nintendo 64 was able to hold on thanks quality over quantity; this was a system with a few titles that are still, to this day, considered some of the greatest and most innovative of all-time, and that sort of thing helps you stick around even with something as powerful as the Playstation leading the pack. The Saturn, on the other hand, failed to recapture the glory Sega knew during the Genesis/Mega Drive’s heyday, and instead turned into an import machine with a large portion of the best titles releasing overseas and never in North America.That’s not to say it wasn’t a quality system, but it just couldn’t keep up with the other two.

Once you got used to the shape of the controller, it worked pretty well. It also looks to have inspired Microsoft's first console controller, as well.

The lifespan of the Saturn was short, as Sega moved in to create a system much more powerful and more unique than what was available on the market. The Dreamcast would release in 1998 in Japan, and on September 9, 1999 in North America. The system had a funky but memorable controller, memory cards that doubled as portable mini-game systems, and one thing that no other home console had to that point: a working, viable, and entertaining online infrastructure. In fact, the success of the Dreamcast’ online play was one of the reasons the rest of the consoles of that generation implemented online features, though the Dreamcast was the first to ship with a built-in modem that ran at 56 kbit/s. It didn’t seem slow at the time, okay?

The launch of the system was very successful in North America; just four days after launch, the system had sold 372,000 units. A strong launch lineup was part of the reason for this–you had Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur and Power Stone, at least two of which people still obsess over to this day, and when you look back, Sonic Adventure wasn’t so bad either, at least for a 3D Sonic title. While EA Sports did not support the system, Sega Sports titles, made by the team that would eventually become 2K Games, helped to fill that void, so the Japanese-based system was able to maintain a strong foothold overseas with the North American, sports-loving audience.

Just like the GameCube was for Nintendo, the Dreamcast was Sega’s system during some of the most creative moments in the company’s history. Titles like Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Samba de Amigo, House of the Dead, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, Skies of Arcadia, Chu Chu Rocket and Space Channel 5 were all Sega published or developed, and many of them have found sequels or remakes on other consoles due to their excellent gameplay and appeal. A few of them–namely, Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue–have large cult followings that demand additional sequels in order to flesh out the universe they created way back when, or to give the series some much needed closure. Third-party support was also excellent: you had the aforementioned Power Stone and Soul Calibur, from Capcom and Namco respectively, but you also had Resident Evil, Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom from Capcom, cult-classics like MDK2 from BioWare, and niche titles like Bangai-O from Treasure. Games like Bomberman Online utilized the online features of the Dreamcast to put a new spin on an old franchise, and in some instances, such as with Quake III, online play continues to this day on the system, though not on any servers run by either id or Sega.

The creation of Space Channel 5 also meant Ulala cosplay was created, and for that, we are thankful.

These beloved series are part of the reason the gaming community holds the Dreamcast in such high esteem now. The system, despite its strengths, was killed off by the Playstation 2, which released shortly after the Dreamcast. The PS2 had plenty of original Playstation owners hungry for the next big thing from Sony, and when word got out that the console would include a DVD player–something that was very expensive 10 years ago–people went nuts, and many decided to hold off to pick up a PS2 when it released. The Dreamcast may have been able to survive if it was just facing off against the PS2, but in 2001 both the Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft’s first dip into the console market, the Xbox, were slated to release. With that uphill battle on the horizon, Sega of America announced on January 31, 2001–in a decision made by Sega of Japan, according to former Sega and current EA Sports head Peter Moore–that production of the Dreamcast hardware would stop, though the titles that were still in production would still see the light of day.

While the Dreamcast continued to see development of titles in Japan, where the Xbox was not as much of a threat, licensed production in North America ceased. While homebrew titles were and are still a big deal on the Dreamcast thanks to free development kit software, legitimate, retail support of the system ended with the last generation, and Sega called it quits on the hardware market, instead turning their attention to becoming a third-party software giant. While it at first seemed odd to see Sonic on a Nintendo console, now we have games where Sonic and Mario compete against and each, and sometimes even *gasp* work together.

BLAST: Tell us a bit about Dead Space: Extraction and how it fits into what we know about the ever-growing Dead Space universe.

SMP:  Extraction is the official prequel to Dead Space.  The game kicks off from the moment the Red Marker is extracted and follows a group of four people as they attempt to escape Aegis VII and see sanctuary on the USG Ishimura.

BLAST: Rather than port over the original Dead Space to the Wii, the focus for Visceral Studios was instead to create an original property that expanded on the Dead Space universe. What drove you in that direction, rather than the one that many Wii owners are accustomed to seeing?

SMP:  As gamers we wanted to create a unique Dead Space experience from the ground up for the Nintendo Wii.  The Wii is a very unique console with its innovate motion controls and we wanted to embrace the challenge of building a Wii game and that meant starting from the ground up.

BLAST: There are mature games on the Wii, but they have hit retail with varying levels of success. What, in your mind, separates Dead Space: Extraction from those mature Wii games already on the market, as well as those that are still on the way?

SMP:  With Extraction we are hoping to deliver a unique and new Dead Space experience for Wii gamers.  One of our main areas of focus with Extraction was nailing the atmosphere the first game had.  Compared to some of the other mature games on the Wii we feel our visuals and gameplay will really stand apart and hopefully interest a wide range of gamers.

BLAST: From what I have played, even in a room full of other people, this game has you jumping and feeling antsy just like the original did. Since the game is a guided experience though, was it challenging to recreate that creepy atmosphere in this format? How was it accomplished?

SMP:  Going with the Guided Experience approach has really opened a lot of doors for us as it relates to setting up tension and scares.  With this new perspective we have been able to approach the game in ways familiar to film makers.  Since the majority of the time we know where the camera will be looking we can leverage that knowledge and create some good set ups that we were not able to do on the original game.

BLAST: Part of the problem with the Wii is perception; many gamers that consider themselves “hardcore” have ignored the Wii in favor of its other console cousins. What do you think Dead Space: Extraction can do about changing the mindset of those gamers by convincing them that it’s okay to own and even like a Wii?

SMP:  Personally as a gamer I think it’s great to have options when it comes to the game systems I play on.  I enjoy playing games on all of the various console and handhelds.

I hope people enjoy Extraction and view it as one of the must have games on the Wii.  I think gamers are open minded and as long as a game is fun will give it a shot regardless of the platform it is on.  Hopefully they feel that way about Extraction.

BLAST: Tell us a little bit about Deep Silver.

Hannes Seifert: Deep Silver is the games brand of Koch Media group. We run Deep Silver Vienna, and our job is to create games that interest a broad, international audience.  Right now we’re working on expanding internationally and opening an American office and working on games that we hope interest an American audience, and one of the key parts of that is our role as producers in Vienna’s studio.

BLAST: Cursed Mountain takes a different environment for survival horror than we are used to seeing. How did the idea of the Himalayas as the background for a survival horror game come together?

HS: At Deep Silver Vienna we have a very specific approach to new IP and new games. It’s very setting-driven; we are looking for settings that feel fresh and haven’t been overused, and Cursed Mountain’s was one of those. The first idea was to use something well known, like Katmandu, which is the capital of Nepal. So what we were looking for is something that stands out and still provides an environment where you can play with imagination, hallucination, and horror that’s potentially based on real religious beliefs, which makes it very plausible. That came altogether then, and in the end became Cursed Mountain.

The decision for a platform was also, perhaps, an unusual one. When we were doing the research regarding Tibetan Buddhism and the story and everything, we discovered that a lot of the defeating and protecting against ghosts in real life was done through mantras, prayer gestures and chanting. The prayer gestures are the link back to the Wii. When we had been working on games before that, people would use the controller to protect their bodies from the screen, and what appealed to me when we were pitching the concept of how to fight was that you would need to open your body and perform these gestures. And that was back then only possible on the Wii, and that was how we made the decision for the platform.

BLAST: Cursed Mountain has a creepy aesthetic and there are a lot of supernatural elements, despite having an everyman lead character—he’s a famous mountain climber, but he’s still pretty much a regular guy. What were inspirations for both the supernatural elements as well as the main character, Eric Simmons?

HS: There’s a lot of inspiration coming from the famous mountaineers. They all had that near-death experience where they wrote about it or talked about it, and when you combine that with the hallucinations and the very hostile environment you’ve already provided that creepy background. And all of them seem to be guy, whether it’s Hillary or Bishop or whoever. The decision to make Eric a Scotsman, well, all of the famous mountaineers are either Swiss or Austrian or British, and you can’t have a Swiss or Austrian character in English because they instantly sound like the bad guy because of their accents, so we decided to go for a Scottish character which made him pretty appealing and stand out.

The inspiration for the enemies, the ghosts and the demons, that was very heavily influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. A big part of that is based on this Buddhist text called the Trip, which is not as peaceful as is normally conveyed in the west. Each religion has its peaceful and brutal aspects, and what we tried to do, we went through and researched—we spent 10 months on this in the pre-production phase—researched Trip and studying that. We didn’t copy one-to-one what we found, but we were heavily inspired by it so that we didn’t upset the believers but still use things that are powerful and as close to the truth and research as possible, and we think the combination worked out pretty nicely.

The main inspiration, the source as you could say, was the experience of climbers, especially in the 70s and 80s, before chopper rescues up high and GPS systems. The other thing was the Tibetan Buddhism, with the architecture connected to it, and the demons and the ghosts and the goddesses. It’s a very, very rich thing to be inspired by.

BLAST: You can see the entire game world from any level in Cursed Mountain. How did you approach accomplish this goal—it’s not the kind of thing we’re used to seeing in games.

HS: The basic thing we wanted to add as you climb the mountain is the summit ahead of you—it looks so unbelievably remote, but it’s always there. When you look back, you see where you came from, and this is something else we wanted to achieve. Of course there are parts of the game that are indoors that you won’t see, but in principal if you can see it in the game you can see it. We started out with a real mountain, because Chomolonzo in the game is a fictional mountain. We used Ama Dablam’s satellite data, and with that we created a valley that we modified for game purposes. Having this valley as a backdrop for geometry was a very good start because it’s a natural environment, and everything fits together when you work like that. Then we placed the city, and the villages, and all the experiences up to the summit. So the levels themselves are also based on that, and the backdrop is as well, so my favorite part of the game fits together with the backdrop, and this is why you can see everything from any position. We avoided things like fog, because we wanted to show this off in the game. We also made the landscapes pretty versatile, they go from cities to fields, it’s not all just mountains. We set out to set enough memory aside for a streaming engine that allows us to have the geometry we want in the game for the player to walk around but also lets you see the backdrop from everywhere.

BLAST: There were a lot of hands worldwide working on Cursed Mountain, as you had multiple development houses working on it. What was that like, working on this project in so many places at the same time?

HS: The short answer is “exhausting”, but we knew that and knew that it was going to be difficult.  We’ve worked like this in the past—we used to be with Rockstar Games, so we worked with other tech teams in San Diego and with Japanese partners and such, so we were used to remote producing. Having that many companies, doing this for the first time for us in that scope, it was quite an experience, and we of course made mistakes. One of the things that might be interesting is that we worked with a lot of different cultures with different expectations and different ways of communicating, which was one challenge. Another thing on the very good side is that it allowed us to take the people we wanted to have work on specific parts of the game. A very good example is the props for the game world and most of the characters. We deliberately were looking for an Asian company to do that, because of the style and having the feeling for the statues and the hundreds of props in the game. Since the game had a Tibetan topic, no Chinese supplier would even touch it or hear a pitch for it for political reasons, so we went with an Indian company, and I think in the end it came out pretty well. That’s one of the strengths of working like that.

Our producing team was on video conference, phone calls or answering e-mails almost 24/7 because, for instance, our motion capture was done in the states, and our offices are here so we worked with them remotely in time shifts starting in the afternoon and working until midnight. Working as a team when you live in different time zones is exhausting, but it’s also very interesting, and it allowed us to produce something in a pretty short amount of time that became a pretty big game.

Blast editor John Guilfoil: Well, we’ve talked to the audio guys already, and the project lead on the game. You had to kind of take the audio and the concept and all the orders from the shareholders and crew and make it look good. What was part of the challenge of doing that?

Dare Matheson: What wasn’t part of the challenge of doing that? Obviously, it’s like you’re taking some of the most iconic popular music, and everybody who likes the Beatles, and who’s listened to the Beatles, has their own sort of connection with it. People listen to the lyrics, and have their own interpretations and visualizations that go along with it.

It’s sort of like, with the historical venues, that’s sort of one thing, and that’s really tied up in our interpretation of the characters and the settings. Maybe I’ll just speak to that really quickly and then go to the dreamscapes, because I think that’s really where things get crazy, and that’s really where the biggest challenge for us in the game was. So, with the characters, we really wanted to get something that felt—you know, there’s a whole range of ways that the band has been depicted in terms of art. Everybody’s familiar with their likenesses and their personalities, and the emotions that they show on their face, so we really wanted to get the emotional side across. They’ve been depicted in, for example, the Yellow Submarine movie, which is a great reductive approach to them that could represent the furthest extreme of what we could’ve done. And we like that style, we like that look. But it felt like that would be too limited for the majority of the experience, for a total experience of the band in this medium. So we kind of looked at that possibility.

What we wanted to do was get something that immediately was familiar as the Beatles, had all of their unique identity and personality that could show through for the four guys, that people could pick up on and really connect with, and have it be a bit stylized. Because on the one extreme would be going too cartoony, and you wouldn’t get enough of the identity and richness of connection — you’ve seen photos and footage and all that, so it could be sort of like you go too far in that direction. The other danger would be to go sort of too realistic, and you know how it is in games where it’s like, you see something where somebody’s trying to make a real person, and it just looks creepy, and it just looks kind of scary and kind of gross, so we wanted to avoid that.

The dreamscapes Matheson helped create add to the Beatles experience in the game.

So that was the key, and that’s the thing that stands true whether you’re talking about the historical venues or the dreamscapes. With the historical venues, we really just looked at a lot of the archival footage, and we really tried to get a sense of the atmosphere, and that’s the thing that we went for, we went for the atmosphere and tried to find, for each one of the five historical venues, that each one of them had a distinctive atmosphere from each other, and it so happened that we did. In some cases, we exaggerated a little bit.

For example, Budokan was — you know, typically in these games we go from a smaller venue setting to a bigger one, showing a sort of career arc there. And in this case, Budokan was a smaller place than Shea Stadium, and Budokan happened afterwards. So in the case of Budokan, we didn’t want it to feel like a letdown, so we exaggerated the verticality of Budokan, and really had it feel like this sort of compressed version of a giant arena. And the stage in Budokan is — I think the real stage was something like 12 or 15 feet, really tall, just this giant blue plan box — so we even exaggerated that a little bit further, and just made everything feel like it was going ‘up.’

From the beginning, with the psychedelic dreamscapes, when we showed an early prototype of a dreamscape — it wasn’t even a prototype, it was just a storyboard, an animatic — to Giles Martin, it was this idea that the band would depart from Abbey Road, and they would change into more psychedelic outfits, and they’d be in a magical land. And Giles was like, ‘Okay, that’s cool. Looks good. I just want to make sure that you guys don’t hold back.’ And he’s like, ‘Make sure this is as psychedelic as you can make it.’ Because, going to a magical land — I think the land in our animatic looked a little bit like the Yellow Submarine movie, and he basically said, ‘Okay, that was psychedelic in the sixties, but what’s psychedelic now? You guys have to bridge the gap, because something that is truly psychedelic is something that is a new experience.’

You're taking some of the most iconic popular music, and everybody who likes the Beatles, and who’s listened to the Beatles, has their own sort of connection with it, Matheson said. (Darcy Hoffman for Blast)

So, that was our big call for ourselves, that in the dreamscapes, and in the style of the game generally, we wanted to find something that — you know, the Beatles’ music, the most amazing music, happened forty years ago. So, we’re trying to find something that will feel authentic and connect clearly and well with that time, for people now, so that people who were there then and saw the Beatles will immediately connect with it, and yet people who have never heard of the Beatles, who see this game and will be able to experience them for the first time, it will feel connective for them, as well.

Blast’s Ben Lindbergh: How much of a help or hindrance was it that the Beatles have this legacy of visual creativity themselves? We didn’t get to see your dreamscape for “I Am the Walrus,” but I’ve read that it sort of mimics the Magical Mystery Tour ethos that they created. Is that something that made you feel constrained by what they had done in that area already, or did that free you to be even more creative?

DM: No, it was awesome. First of all, they set the bar high, and so there’s a ton of rich material there. There’s all the album art, there’s their movies, their crazy clothes, their avant garde look, the music itself. It’s like they shot for the skies, so there’s a ton of rich material to draw from, for one thing. For the second thing, they — Apple Corps, and the shareholders themselves and everybody we worked with — were very encouraging of us to not hold back. So, basically, as opposed to what you might think could happen with sort of a ‘brand’ that is from that far away of an era, there’s a chance that it could have become rigid, and only presented to the world in a certain way that’s comfortable for them. But no, they totally wanted—once we gained their trust, once they saw that we had people that could interpret the Beatles, and they were comfortable with that—they really encouraged us to go nuts. You know, they told us what they thought, we had weekly calls with them, and we worked through everything together, but they were very encouraging of that. So, again, on another level, it was not constraining. And I thought there was a third thing, but, there’s only two.

JG: Building the characters themselves, the four guys on the stages, were there specific things that the shareholders would insist on, or were there things that you really wanted to make sure you captured, like the way someone stood, or the way someone strummed the guitar, or the way Ringo banged the drums? Were there certain things about the Beatles, when building the characters, that you were encouraged not to miss?

DM: Well, first of all, we absolutely set that challenge for ourselves. We knew that we wanted to make the characters look, visually, a little bit reductive — you know, they don’t have skin pores, and we sort of buffed out certain areas of detail to try to find the distilled version of Paul McCartney’s face. But we really wanted the animation to feel very much like them. So we really tried to nail the movements and the little nuances. We tried to pick up everything little nuance. Generally, peoples’ faces are much more expressive than you find in videogames, and much more nuanced. And we tried to get that. Somebody told me recently — maybe it was a cover band or something — got a hold of one of the demos and was like, ‘Oh, this will be the acid test for this game — did they pick up on Paul’s crazy, weird, extra eyebrow motion on one side? They got it, they got it!’ We concentrated on Paul’s eyebrow for like a week straight.

One of Matheson's challenges was capturing the essense of The Beatles without crafting creepy, hyper-realistic computer people.

But in answer to your question, we had our own bar set very high. And we actually got feedback directly from the shareholders. Most intensely, actually, from Olivia and Yoko. I think Paul and Ringo gave us feedback, but they were kind of like, ‘Yeah, I look awesome in that!’ I think Yoko and Olivia have a legacy to maintain that goes beyond their own selves, so we got a lot of direct feedback from both of them, and it was super-helpful, incredibly useful.

A few of us went out to meet with Olivia in Friar Park out in England, and we brought the George model that we had at that point. And she opened up her private photo albums and showed us a bunch of pictures of George. And we earmarked some, and she had her assistant scan it and send it to us. And Yoko visited here, visited the office, and we looked at the game together. And she gave us a lot of detailed feedback on, specifically, ‘Well, there’s something going on here, there’s a way that John is nodding his head that he just doesn’t do that, he wouldn’t do that.’

So somewhere along the way, we may have added in a little of our own thing, or a motion capture actor added in something extra, and that was something that Yoko didn’t find to be authentic, so we stripped that out. We had pages of notes. She was here for about four hours, and we had pages and pages of notes, and we just responded to that feedback. Super, super helpful.

JG: What was it like being that hands-on with the band and the shareholders? Usually you’re dealing with dozens of bands, and you’re never really putting that much detail into what specific members of bands look like, like in Rock Band or Rock Band 2. What was it like having this level of detail, focusing on this one particular band?

DM: For me, it was great. I love it. I mean, I love Rock Band, and it’s sort of a platform, and that’s its purpose. But because of that, you’re automatically, things get more sort of dispersed. So it’s great for me. This game has been my favorite version of this type of game to work on, because the music — there’s something already that roots it and makes it consistent, and that is that it’s based on a real band that had an artistic legacy. And it was such an artistic legacy that, like with your question, it basically, we had the world to go after with this one.

Blast got to play Beatles Rock Band at the Harmonix Studios in Cambridge (Darcy Hofmann for Blast)

BL: Do you feel that some of the customization options that were present in Rock Band or Rock Band 2, do you think that’s something that will be missed? As a fan, I don’t think it would be for me, but if there are players who take a lot of pleasure in dressing up their characters, or making them personalized, putting their stamp on them somehow, do you feel like that’s something that will be lacking here?

DM: Well, I think that the idea of a Beatles dress-up shop would be fun for some people, because obviously they had this very exciting, avant-garde fashion sense. But really, the choices that we made in terms of the design, and what we exposed to the player, we tried to keep everything to the core experience of the Beatles. And I think that that might be a fun novelty, but I don’t think that it would add to the game, and in fact, it kind of would subtract from it. And there are other places that we had to make concessions like that, but I think that with every choice we made, we tried to always go towards advancing this very core, Beatles-centric experience.

BL: Do you feel that in the in-studio portions of the game, does the fact that the band was, at least by modern standards, pretty restrained in terms of their movements and actions on stage — obviously with the dreamscapes, you can kind of get away with it, but with those actual segments in a live setting, was there less for you to focus, less going on on the screen, less action?

DM: Well, the Beatles had a ton of energy on stage. I mean, they weren’t kicking over props or spewing fire or anything, but they had a tremendous amount of live energy. But yeah, in the studio, the great thing about the studio is, so, right, they’re not performing for an audience, they’re not performing for the camera, they’re performing for the audio track. In the studio parts, every time they’re in the studio, and you see that in the game, the song ends up expanding out into a visual dreamscape. So it’s actually really cool, and this is something that we haven’t seen in these games before, where it’s a much more intimate feeling. So rather than having it be about, ‘I’m performing to a million people,’ or whatever, it’s more about, you really do feel like you’re sitting there watching John Lennon close his eyes and rock his head back and just sing into the microphone, and you get this much more emotional thing that just sort of bravado and antics. Which is fine, too, but this is something a little bit nice to have in a Beatles game.

BL: How much research did you do even before you put anything on paper?

DM: Well, I’ve been researching this band since I was six years old. As a team, we did a ton of research, and in addition to other planning meetings and design meetings, we had, a couple times a week, we would spend an hour or two together. We spent, probably, several hours a week, just as a whole team, watching the Anthology, watching the movies, watching whatever we could get our hands on that would expand our knowledge. We were sending around emails with links to anything we could find. It was crucial. On the team, it goes from people who have been mega-Beatles fans since they were born because of their parents’ record collections, to people who, it’s newer for them and they’re learning a lot about it. But it’s crucial for everybody to be experts, Beatles experts, so that’s what we went for.

BL: Have you gotten a chance to see in person any of Paul’s recent concerts, where he had the footage playing behind him? Because for me, certainly, that would be pretty awesome.

DM: Yeah, I did, actually. It was cool, yeah. It was great. I saw him at Fenway Park a couple weeks ago, and yeah, he had two songs where he played footage from the game. One song he had dreamscape footage, and another one, he used some of the Passion Pictures intro footage. Yeah, it was great. He talked about the game on stage, and it was really, really cool.

John M. Guilfoil and Marc Normandin of the Blast staff and Blast correspondents Steve Bagley and Darcy Hofmann contributed to this report.

We talked to Eric about crossing Abbey Road, the fleeting nature of fame and the tyranny of two-track recordings.

Blast’s Ben Lindbergh: When you sat down to select the songs initially — I don’t know exactly who was involved in that — how much weight was assigned to the popularity of the song of the song or the success of the song, versus how much fun you thought it would be to play, or how easy it would be to represent with the notes?

Eric Brosius: We definitely considered both of those things, like we always do. Actually, that’s pretty much what we do in all of Rock Band, there’s always this balance between playability and how popular it is, and some songs are in there for different reasons. But yeah, we wanted to find—pretty much all the Beatles songs are famous, outside of just a few. They’re one of the rare bands where like 80 percent of the catalog is completely famous, and 20 percent is lesser known. So, it was pretty easy to find songs that we thought everyone would just love playing, but that were also giant hits.

But we definitely looked at that, for sure. We also looked out for — you know, we wanted to grab songs from their entire career. From the beginning, and have roughly an equal number of songs from the different periods, just to make sure we hit all of their major albums and all of the time periods, and stuff like that. So it was just balancing those things together. There were some tricky things in the early songs, because some early songs were maybe harder to get, just because of the limited number of tracks that they had. So, we were always balancing that, and then we were talking to Giles Martin, who did all the actual mixing for us, because he knew the track layouts for every single song they’ve ever done, and he would always go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s problematic because of this, but this one I think we could do instead, because there’s some an extra tape of other stuff on here that we can use to make the song work.’

BL: So he had some sort of software that would be able to pick out the instruments individually when there was only a two-track recording, and then separate them somehow?

Harmonix Music Systems audio lead Eric Brosius makes his living playing with the soundtrack to your life, and he’s never had more fun than with Beatles Rock Band. (Darcy Hofmann for Blast)

EB: Yeah. And sometimes with a two-track recording, it also depends on even what was on the tracks, because some things are easier to separate, and some things are not, just depending on how it was mixed. If it’s a two-track recording, and they had some things panned to one side, that’s easy to separate from stuff that’s in the middle or on the other side. If it was a two-track recording where the whole thing was a stereo wash right down the center, that makes it a lot harder. So he kind of knew, not just the number of tracks of each song, but kind of where things were, and whether we would have an easier time separating them. Because yes, you can separate stuff, but it’s not a perfect solution. Some songs are kind of easy to get nice, clean separation, and some songs are harder, so we used all of that knowledge together.

BL: So then he would do all the work in Abbey Road, with some assistants, and then someone would come over here with a briefcase chained to his arm?

Sometimes with a two-track recording, it also depends on even what was on the tracks, because some things are easier to separate, and some things are not

EB: Well, he knew all about the Beatles stuff and mixing, so he and his guy, Paul Hicks, were in charge of actually recreating the mixes. Because the first step is just to like bring up the tapes, transfer them to digital, and then recreate the mix. Because what’s on the raw tape doesn’t usually sound like the raw mix in music. So, they spent a lot of time doing that, just making sure it came out, and they can recreate all the effects if there weren’t effects. Because sometimes effects weren’t printed to tape, right, they were this old gear, so they spent a lot of time doing that. And then we would usually fly over there and spend like five days there when we were going to pick up a batch of songs, and where they would bring up the mixes they had, and we would do some further editing, deciding which parts are going to be our playable guitar part, and which parts are not.

And then while we were at the studio, we’d bounce out the actual stems we needed for the game, and then we’d encode them into the final version that the game ships with right there, which was encrypted and high-security and all that kind of stuff. So we did everything there, and then we just brought the finished game assets back with us, because they were pretty keen on leaving all the original assets at Abbey Road, because they’re somewhat protective, as they should be.

BL: Was the fact that the remasters were being developed simultaneously, was there any work that was able to be saved or shared there, or was it just two separate processes?

EB: It was pretty much two separate processes, because on things that we’re doing, we’re going back to the multi-tracks. I’m not sure what was done in the mastering process, but usually remasterings are just, you go back to the two-track mixes, and then you use modern mastering techniques. So it was kind of separate, what they were doing was totally separate. I mean, it’s nice that they’re going to release them at the same time, which kind of shows how enthusiastic Apple and the Beatles are, which is cool, but it was really two separate processes.

Blast editor John Guilfoil: Can you kind of run our readers through the process of taking a song and putting it into Rock Band?

EB: Sure. So, for old songs like this, a lot of them are stored on magnetic tape. So the first thing to do is to transfer them to a digital format like Pro Tools, which is the standard that everyone uses. So you digitize all the tracks, and then the next step would be to take those and remix the song so it sounds like the original. Once the song is sounding good, with all the effects and levels balanced, then we bounce out stems, according to our specific needs, the ones we need in the game. Because we have one guitar player in the game, so if there are several guitars playing, at every given moment through the song, we decide which one is going to be the part you’re going to play. And that ends up being a composite of, maybe a little of John’s guitar here, maybe a little of George’s here, and that kind of thing.

And we bounce out the stems that we actually need for the game, then we basically encrypt them, interleave them into a single file that our game reads. So we have that, and that’s the audio part of it, it’s fairly straightforward. And then we have a team of people here that kind of transcribe all the music, putting down all the gems that you see, laying down all the tracks and putting the lyrics in. And that’s basically kind of like transcription using MIDI files, basically.

BL: So for someone who grew up listening to the ’80s pressings of the CDs, or compressed .mp3 versions of the songs and hasn’t heard the remasters yet, would this be the cleanest and the best they’ve ever heard the Beatles, even though it’s meant for playing as well as listening, and so there are compromises that have to be made there?

Blast spent the day at Harmonix learning about the game and its development. (Darcy Hofmann for Blast)

EB: I think so. And the thing that’s going to — yes, because part of the thing with Rock Band is, we’ll sometimes make some changes to the mixes. Sometimes, if there was a guitar part that was pretty buried in the original mix, but we want that to be the playable one, sometimes we’ll boost it a little bit so you can hear it more, because you want to hear the notes that you’re actually playing. So we always try to walk this line between — we don’t want to change history or anything like that, but with Giles’ approval, we would sometimes alter things. You know, ‘Let’s bring that up a little bit, because that’s going to be the playable part.’ So there are some things like that.

And the other really cool thing about the game is that, because most of our game is kind of featured around live stuff, most of the songs, we don’t have fadeouts in them, usually. And many times they went back to the way they actually played it in the studio, that usually had a proper ending. Because they’ll usually do the fade-out later, right in the mix. So in our game, a lot of times you get to hear the proper endings, which is really cool. So it’s like a little bit of extra material in most songs. And probably the biggest one is in ‘Helter Skelter,’ we don’t do the big fade back in, so you get to hear the way they played it through, which is pretty cool, and I think Beatles fanatics will love that stuff.

BL: Did you sit down initially and say, ‘We know we’re going to have forty-five songs,’ and then get a list of the catalog and cross things out, or did you start with a blank page, and say, ‘We have to have this one, and we have to have that one?’

EB: Well, we knew that we were going to have roughly forty to fifty songs, but we didn’t know exactly until the whole deal was worked out. So basically, everyone wrote down sixty or seventy of their favorite songs, and it was a bunch of the higher-ups at Harmonix, and the people at Apple, and Giles, and everyone, and we all kind of got together and came up with about forty-five, and then once in a while Giles would say, ‘Oh, I know this one can’t work, because this was actually just recorded on one track,’ and we would just kind of work it out.

And then there would be a little bit of back-and-forth, of course, about, ‘Let’s make sure that we have a good balance of Paul and John songs, so that we don’t just by accident have too many John songs and too many Paul songs,’ and ‘Make sure that we include the important George songs,’ and all this balancing. Same thing we do when we select songs for Rock Band. You balance out a bunch of things—we want to have songs from different decades, different styles, different things, so the same kind of process went through. And then we presented what we thought was our song list to the shareholders, who were Yoko and Paul and Ringo and Olivia Harrison, and they would give us their two cents on it, and we would make some adjustments. The song list was fairly easy to do.

BL: So they weren’t dictating anything, like ‘This song has to be in there, this one’s off-limits.’

EB: No. And the good thing is that Giles has worked with them before. He did the “Love” show, which is the big Cirque du Soleil thing in Las Vegas, he’s already kind of gone through this process with them, and he knows them very well, and they trust him. So that was one of the best things. Because we could kind of make all of our musical decisions, and if we got them blessed by Giles, then we were pretty confident that he could get them blessed by the important people. So, it made things very smooth.

Three-part vocal harmony is part of what makes Beatles Rock Band different from all other music games

BL: Were there any specific challenges that you faced as a result of the Beatles’ experimentation in the studio, or using somewhat exotic instruments that might not conform to the four-instrument mold? I know you have songs like ‘Because’ or ‘She’s Leaving Home’ coming out soon—how do you face those challenges, or how do you conform to this set-up?

EB: Well, in some songs—in the Beatles game, one of the cool things is we’re doing the harmonies, so that’s a big thing, because there’s so much importance on that. On other things where they had, maybe not a prominent guitar, but they had different instruments, we would probably swap them around, which we do in Rock Band once in a while. Like in, I think in ‘Strawberry Fields,’ you might end up playing the string parts a little bit on the guitar. And in a song like ‘Because,’ which has no drums, right, that would be a song where the drummer just kind of sits out and relaxes for a while. We’re not going to add anything to it, because we don’t want to change the song.

BL: I know you wanted to span the whole career and represent each part accurately—was there any thought that maybe the early Beatles or the late Beatles would appeal or connect to the modern audience more? Your first three downloadable albums coming out are from the middle-to-late period—is there any consideration given to emphasizing that period?

EB: We didn’t really think about that too much. I think that we wanted to—different fans have their different favorites, of course. So we really just wanted to tell the whole story of their career, so we wanted to just do that. As far as the downloads go, we know that technically we have an easier time with the later albums, because they tend to be cleaner, on four-track, where it’s easier, and harder times on the earlier albums. So it would be difficult to do Please Please Me as a full album, because while we could probably do a lot of the songs, it might be difficult, there might be some there that we’re just like, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to get the separation.’

But that being said, if we choose to do more albums, I’m sure we’ll do some early ones too, because we want to do as much as we can. It just also happened that I think the first three albums that we picked are three of the pretty big, iconic ones—Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper’s. And we were going back and forth between Rubber Soul and Revolver, because we wanted something from that period, but we were debating back and forth.

BL: Would most of the team working on the game have described themselves as Beatles fans coming into it, or just sort of passionate music fans who came to appreciate the Beatles more during the process?

EB: Well, everyone’s a passionate music fan. I don’t think we had everyone was a passionate Beatles fan — certainly a fan in some ways — but we have a few people who were just obsessive. And so we set those guys on all the research. They’re the ones who spent hours poring over things, and making sure that the right person was playing the right guitar part, and they would look up, ‘Okay, is John playing this lick, or is George playing this lick?’ And they would try to figure it out to make sure the animations looked right, because we can kind of control that. So we had at least a half a dozen Beatles fanatics, which was really good.

John M. Guilfoil and Marc Normandin of the Blast staff and Blast correspondents Steve Bagley and Darcy Hofmann contributed to this report.

Industry Gamer presents some theories, but doesn’t get into too much detail. One point asks if Wii reviewers are grading on a curve–they dismiss the notion to avoid getting yelled at, but I can see their point. While you want your review scores to come off as objective as possible, it doesn’t always happen–that’s just the nature of a number system picked by a human. It’s something we as reviewers do our best to avoid, to push aside any biases we may have in order to review a product for what it is subjectively, but since it is opinion-based, even when it comes from fact, it’s not an infallible system. I know how hard it is to come up with a score for a game though, so I wouldn’t point any fingers either, just like Industry Gamers avoids doing.

We can take a look through our own catalog of reviews to see just how well the Wii has been doing this year, at least critically. Here’s every game that scored at least an 8.0 (sorry, The Conduit; you just miss out):

Retail

Deadly Creatures – 8.5

House of Dead: Overkill – 9.0

New Play Control! Pikmin – 8.0

MadWorld - 9.0

Trivial Pursuit - 8.0

Excitebots: Trick Racing – 8.8

New Play Control! Donkey Kong Jungle Beat – 8.5

Punch-Out!!! - 8.8

MySims Racing - 8.0

Boom Blox Bash Party – 9.0

Ghostbusters: The Video Game – 8.5

Grand Slam Tennis – 8.0

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 – 9.0

Wii Sports Resort – 8.3

Madden NFL 10 - 8.3

Metroid Prime Trilogy – 9.7

WiiWare

Lit - 8.0

Swords & Soldiers - 9.0

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years – 7.5*

*This one gets included, solely because of the claim that the DLC could make this a much better experience, and it did. When you take the whole package into perspective, it’s much better than this score indicates.

Bit.Trip CORE – 8.3

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord – 8.2

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits – 8.7

I think the main difference has been that there is a lot more successful third party support on the Wii–for every disaster like Ready 2 Rumble Revolution, you now have a MadWorld or a Little King’s Story or what have you to counter it, rather than just waiting on Nintendo to deliver the goods in the form of Mario, Metroid, Zelda and the like. There are games we haven’t reviewed this year that have been great on the system as well, like Rune Factory Frontier and the aforementioned Little King’s Story, which is one of the best games on the system (a review is coming eventually, promise–a perfect storm of conflicting events got in the way of that happening for a bit.) The games may still be hard to find in stores due to the shelves of shovelware (I’m looking at you, Gamestop) but they do exist for those willing to find them. WiiWare has also helped, and has had a pretty strong year as well. With Motion Plus now available, and more third-party support on the way, do you think review scores will climb even higher in 2010?

Nintendo has supported the system with lesser-known properties like Punch-Out!!! and Excitetrucks this year, but with new Zelda, Mario, and Metroid on the way, along with potential hits like Red Steel 2 in the works, it’s certainly possible. There’s plenty left to look forward to in 2009 though, with Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Spyborgs and Dead Space: Extraction releasing this month as well as the mass of pre-holiday and holiday releases from both Nintendo and third party developers and publishers like Konami, Capcom, Wayforward, and XSeed around. Chances are good that, this far into the console life cycle, developers know what needs to be done to make a quality Wii title, and they are doing it, and doing it often.

Phantasy Star: The Original

While Nintendo did not own Square or Enix back in the 1980s, the system of choice for those company’s RPGs was the Nintendo Entertainment System. Both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior, as it was known in North America at that time) got their start on the NES, and both were set in a fantasy world of swords, armor and magic. When Sega released the Master System, they had their own RPG to counter Nintendo’s two-headed RPG beast in the form of Phantasy Star. While looking at it now, you may see a visually dated game, the first title in the Phantasy Star series arrived late in 1987 and wowed people with its graphical prowess, story and very difficult gameplay. In fact, it was one of the first story-driven RPGs in North America, with its storyboard anime cutscenes, pre-named characters and loads of NPCs to talk to that worked to enhance the story. The game also used a dungeon setup that was not returned to in later games, with a first-person, 3D-looking perspective that made each level into somewhat of a maze.

Story-driven in part thanks to storyboards, the original Phantasy Star was unlike anything seen in RPGs at the time.

You play as Alis, who has just seen her brother killed by the guards of Lassic, a tyrannical king who is causing problems on Palma, one of the three planets of the Algol solar system. You eventually recruit the warrior Odin, the Musk Cat Myau, and the Esper Noah (who in the Japanese version–and subsequent releases in which he is referenced–is known as Lutz) to your cause, and seek to put an end to Lassic’s reign. Lassic is, of course, not the source of the problem in the Algol system, as that role belongs to (is it still a spoiler when the game is 22 years old and counting?) Dark Force. Dark Force is one of the unifying themes that ties the Phantasy Star series together, as this incarnation of evil appears in each title in the original series–hell, the last boss in Phantasy Star Universe’s single-player story mode wasn’t Dark Force, but stylistically, that was the basis for it.

The game itself is famous due to the cartridge used and the price–the suggested retail was $69.99, but some places sold it for as much as $80. When the Master System II hardware released and was given a price reduction relative to the original, it cost just $10 more than this one game. While it seems like nothing now, the game used 512KB of ROM, while most Sega Master System titles used 128KB. The cartridge was also capable of holding five saves at once thanks to the battery-backed RAM chip. With this Virtual Console release, you can get the same sound quality that the original Japanese release had–North American and PAL hardware lacked a sound chip found in the Japanese Master System, but the Wii can emulate that just fine with the hardware it has, giving you the option for either version.

BLAST: How about you tell our readers a bit about ChAIR?

Donald Mustard: We formed ChAIR a little over four years ago, with the intent to create really awesome games and really cool intellectual properties to create and control to set those games in. Our first game was Undertow for the Xbox 360, and just next week we’re coming out with Shadow Complex, which we’re very excited about.

About a year ago, we were purchased by Epic Games. We are now a subsidiary, part of the Epic family. That is so awesome for us, because Epic came in, and gave us all of the time and resources and expertise that we needed to create a really powerful game. The awesome part about being part of Epic is that we get access to the Unreal Engine 3, which is, in our opinion, the very best game technology that’s ever been created. We love using it, and that’s a huge advantage to being part of the Epic family.

BLAST: Shadow Complex has a deeper story than many sidescrollers and other games in the genre, which makes sense given you have Peter David working on it. Tell us a little about how you get Peter to work on it, and on the story itself.

DM: The story of Shadow Complex takes place in our Empire universe. About two years ago, we released a novel called Empire by Orson Scott Card. The novel is about a second civil war breaking out in the United States in the near future, and the ramifications of what that would entail. The story of Shadow Complex runs parallel to the events of that novel and sets up a lot of the events to the sequel to that novel, Hidden Empire, which will come out this December.

Shadow Complex is reminiscent of some of our favorite games from the past, like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, games that are all about exploration and this environment that you’re placed into. One of the challenges that we wanted to take on in Shadow Complex was to layer in more story than we have seen in those games in the past. We thought it would be awesome to partner with something who understood quick, concise dialogue, and we thought “Who better to do that then a comic book writer” They really have to marry their words with a strong visual style, similar to games in many ways.

We don’t see any reason not to set our sights high, so we made a list of our favorite comic book writers of all time, and Peter David was at the very top of that list. We were able to get in contact with his agent, and through that we got his phone number and we called him up. We talked to him about what we were thinking about Shadow Complex, and what the ideas were, and he really loved the idea of it so we were able to somehow convince him to come and partner with us in writing the story and script. We think the end result is just awesome, he did an amazing job of creating a compelling narrative with cool characters, but still allowed for so much of that open-world freedom that we kind of needed in the game.

BLAST: I see a bit of Metroid Fusion in this title as well, since that game had more story and you have the voices coming in over the walkie and such, in a similar way. How did you prepare for that game, as the play style—even though it does its own things as well—it mirrors them [Super Metroid & Metroid Fusion]; did you do anything special to prepare for that?

DM: For us, for everyone at the company, Metroid, Super Metroid, Zero Mission, and Metroid Fusion are some of our favorite games of all time. And we just saw this hole in the genre. I’ve been waiting almost 15 years for someone to make a new console version of these exploratory sidescrollers. Imagine if no one made a first-person shooter for 15 years, how weird that would be. Then 15 years later, Call of Duty 10 comes out; after 15 years, how fresh do you think that would feel? We decided that no one is making these games, even though they are so awesome, so when we finished Undertow we decided it was a great opportunity to take a stab at creating this type of game. That’s what we set out to do. So at the very beginning of the development process, we looked at the Metroid games to see what they did right, and what we thought they did wrong, and how to bring them back with a re-design and modernize it with everything we’ve learned in the last 15-20 years about game design about pacing and narrative flow, and then fuse that with the very best game technology that we have. The Unreal Engine, bringing in all the graphics and AI and all the things we can do now in modern games. We’re pretty happy with the result, but it remains to be see–you can answer this question better than we can—were we able to take the old and create something that was fresh and new for gamers today?

Geremy Mustard: One of our goals along those lines was—well those types of games are still out on handhelds, like the Game Boy—but that’s a pretty niche market, for the kinds of people that remember those types of games, and we wanted to really bring it to the next generation and bring it to the new generation that has been weaned on Halo and the modern first-person shooters, and we wanted to make that type of game accessible to those kinds of players as well. Hopefully that will be the case.

BLAST: Do you have any kind of insight or idea as to why this type of game disappeared from consoles for 15 years?

DM: Super Metroid came out in 1994, and then in ‘95, the Playstation came out, and then everything was 3D, 3D, 3D. The idea that a sidescroller, no matter what the design was, could be successful, went away. Now, as games have become more mature, and the technology has become more mature, the platforms have matured; look at what Microsoft is doing with Xbox Live Arcade. It creates opportunities for all kinds of games being developed, regardless of the design. There is really an opportunity now for any kind of game to be developed on these next-gen systems regardless of where you set the camera.

BLAST: One thing I noticed while playing is that Shadow Complex looks like it’s set up for speed runs, which is kind of interesting given that speed runs seem to be one of those things where you exploit the design. You even have an achievement for completing a speed run.

DM: We do! One of those things we have fond memories of was the ability to do speed runs in games and sequence break them. While I will always believe in my heart that while I was speed running Metroid and sequence breaking Metroid that no game designer ever intended for that to happen…I think they intended for that to happen, and they made the game support it. So we thought, “Of course we have to support that.” Of course we have to allow the technology to even consider that someone out there will think of ways to break things that we never even thought of, and so we wanted to make sure that we could support it and allow them to complete their game however they want to figure it out. So because we decided to support that, it allowed for some really awesome stuff to happen, and as we ran through the testing process of the game we started to see all the cool ways to speed run the game and sequence break the game, and we allowed that to stay in. So yeah, you can absolutely speed run the game really, really fast if you know where everything is and you’ve played it several times and leveled up your character even enough to unlock some of the really cool secrets and abilities we have to assist you in speed running. A lot of that is built in.

GM: Honestly we see that as one of the coolest forms of replayability that we have in our game, and that these types of games have. Even though you’re kind of playing through the same experience, it’s quite different as you try to play in different ways. Obviously you can see from the older games, people continue to play Super Metroid to try to do speed runs and sequence breaking, there are all kinds of videos on YouTube and stuff about that. We know it’s a very valid form of replayability to get value out of the game, so we wanted to support that as well as we could.

DM: Geremy’s right; playing the game in new ways almost creates an entirely new game experience. Some of these people, after they beat the game a few times, will be able to reach the foam earlier in the game, and will be able to beat the game with just their foam and the pistol. That is a completely different gameplay experience than any other way of playing the game, it’s almost like a new game at that point. There’s some really cool stuff for players that are more interested in finding new stuff to discover and interact with in the game in new and unique ways, it can really extend the life of the game.

BLAST: So the game comes out Wednesday, if it’s successful do you see yourself doing anything else like this in the future? Any other style of throwback, or more in the Metroid/Shadow Complex style of game?

DM: The short answer is we would love to. We love the challenge of making this kind of game, and through the creative process we learned so much about how to create these kind of non-linear, exploratory games. If a game like this can take off, not only would we love the opportunity to create more games like this, but what I really hope is that other people would make games like this. The one problem with Shadow Complex is that Geremy and I already know where everything is! We don’t ever get to play it and enjoy a fresh, new Metroidvania style next-gen game. I hope someone else will make it so that I get to play. Uh, not another Shadow Complex though [laughter]. You know what I mean.

At the end of the day, we are beholden to what gamers want. If they want it, we’ll make more.

GM: We have some sweet ideas for a sequel to Shadow Complex, so if your readers want it, tell them to go buy the game. [laughter] [Editor's Note: Go buy the game.]

Shadow Complex releases Wednesday, August 19 for XBLA at 1200 Microsoft Points. You can read our review here.

BLAST: Where did the idea for Battlefield 1943 originate from?

Gordon Van Dyke: The original idea came from the Frostbite engine reaching this mature state, where we could now do what they wanted to do back for Battlefield 1942. They wanted all of these bells and whistles that we have now, like destruction, as the biggest example. We also kind of wanted to experiment; World War II is a really good era—I hate to say that without context—but it’s a really good era for gameplay. It really works well with the planes, the dogfighting, the tanks, the projectiles—you can kind of put an arc on them to do some clever things, like getting it over the ridge of a hill. The soldiers and weapons too, you know what’s there, you know what’s available. It kind of just worked for a very small project, with a small team, and it worked for creating something unique that wasn’t risky process wise or design wise.

BLAST: What were you and your team’s goals for 1943?

GVD: The main goal was to have an accessible game that we could deliver in a unique way, and that was when we decided to go digitally, over Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network, and then on PC with things like Steam and Direct 2 Drive. We wanted it to be a game that was easy to jump into, kind of quick, and that kind of removes the idea of a disc. That was the main goal, to create an accessible Battlefield on top of that. Accessibility was our mantra.

BLAST: The race to 43 million kills was pretty ingenious; it was a good way to reward gamers for playing. Is there more of this thing coming, either with 1943 or with future Battlefield titles?

GVD: It really came out of an accident. We have this designer, and he and I love to fly the planes. Coral Sea came out in an update for Battlefield 1942, so we kind of wanted to do that again. We really wanted to do that map. But it was outside of our project’s scope, it was outside of our resources, so he just went and made it. By himself. So he was just like, “Hey we should try this out, I made it already, what’s the big deal?” So we got in there, and thought it was so much fun, but realized it wasn’t going to work for everyone. It was a constant, “Should we even release this?”, because it’s not going to be something that everyone wants to play, then it became, “How should we release this?” Do we charge for it? Someone always wants to monetize—it is a business—but I’m a big advocate for trying to make sure we give back to the consumer, give back to our fans,  give back to the people who really love the game.

We started playing around with ideas on how to deliver this after we got it approved, and we knew we didn’t want to charge for it, and we wanted it in-game, not as DLC. One of our first ideas was to give it to the top 70,000 pilots first, on a leader board with pilot rankings. Then we sat down with PR and marketing, and marketing came added to the idea by saying, “Well, what if we do something to unlock it for everyone?” Everyone’s first thought then was total kills. We can track total kills, so we can do that. It kind of came towards the end, so we really scrambled to get it in the system so we could see who got the 43^rd million kill. We got it working, we just needed to do some parsing with the data. Lots of things came together at the last second, and it came out of randomness, but the goal was the community, and I think that being our primary objective, always in this game and going forward with future Battlefield games, it just came out of that.

BLAST: I had a lot of fun participating, even if I only had so many kills during it.

GVD: When we first announced it, we saw people posting this on forums and on Twitter, that even if they didn’t get many kills, at least their deaths would count for something. That’s a really good point, I didn’t even think about that! But that was the main goal, because everyone can participate. Even if you’re not the most elite player, your kills count for something and even your deaths count for something. It’s kind of win-win. Some of it was kind of accidental, but a lot of it had to do with the objective of the community.

BLAST: Is the PC version of 1943 going to have any differences from the console versions?

GVD: We’re still working on that, but some things will definitely be different, since it’s not a console ripped port or anything. A lot of that sometimes goes visually. If someone looks at a game, even if there’s a lot of difference, if it has the same menus on console and PC, then they may think that it is a port, so there’s a lot of little things you need to tweak and consider. It is a lot different in the guts, but some changes can visually be updated. We’re looking at the desires of a PC gamer too, as it is different. We’re looking at some of the things we had for 2142 and looking at what we can improve, like inviting your friends, things of that nature.

BLAST: Since 1943 is such a success-I saw earlier that it set sales records for both XBLA and PSN—does this mean that there may be more Battlefield 1943, like another standalone, or some kind of addition, like an African campaign?

GVD: It’s definitely a possibility, I don’t think we’re closing our doors off to any ideas, but we’re coming down off of this, and right now our focus is that we iron out any issues, like we did with the servers. Every time we added a block of servers, it filled up immediately. I was up for 43 hours after launch, talking to the team in the States as well as my team in Sweden, so I just had no margin for sleep for a few days.

That was the most gut-wrenching thing, I know people were really frustrated, and from their perspective they don’t really know what’s going on in the background. It was gut-wrenching for us too, for the team, for myself, because we want people to play. That’s the main thing when you’re a producer, a designer, a developer, making games, you want people to play games, and you want them to enjoy it. As much as those people were frustrated, we were just as frustrated too behind the scenes.

Thanks to Gordon for speaking with us. Battlefield 1943 is available on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network for 1200 Microsoft Points or $15, and a PC version is forthcoming.

Wii

Wii Sports Resort: “Even with the few mini-games, Wii Sports Resort packs enough quality into the title to make it a must-own Wii title. It makes great use of the new Wii MotionPlus accessory, and shows us what is possible now that Nintendo has the motion controls we initially believed would be included with the system in place. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is just a simple cash-in using the well-known Wii Sports name though, as Resort is a more than worthy successor, the far superior title, and one that should stay in your collection for both its single and multiplayer qualities.”

Playstation 3 & Xbox 360

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger: “There’s very little to find fault with in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Sure, the story is nearly incomprehensible, but beyond that this is simply a great fighting game. There’s tons of replayability, amazingly diverse characters, smooth and refined controls, and gorgeous graphics. If you like fighting games at all, BlazBlue is a must buy.”

Nintendo DS/DSi

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor: Devil Survivor is yet another near-mandatory RPG for the DS.  While the story’s tone and characters aren’t for everybody, if you liked any of the previous SMT games, then this really is mandatory.

Downloadable

Battlefield 1943: Battlefield 1943 is a great experiment by EA, as it tries to blend classic features from one of their top series along with some of the newer innovations and advancements it has seen. For just $15, you get a first-person shooter with excellent controls, wonderful environments, and tons of variety and depth despite its bite-sized nature. DICE wanted to create a game you can go back to in between all of your larger game purchases, and with Battlefield 1943, it’s safe to say they succeeded with their goal.

For those who loved Battlefield 1943 or are on the fence about buying it, we will soon have an interview with DICE’s Gordon Van Dyke available.

Though Blast is very much aware of these famous aspects of Comic-Con, Boston’s most interesting online magazine is also a fan of the event’s lesser known entertainment factors, namely cosplay.  Blast did their best to snap pictures of some of Comic-Con’s sexiest and most impressive costumes.

Check out what we would like to consider “The Best of Comic-Con” in the photo gallery.  Let us know what your favorites are!

BLAST: In the past, Madden on Wii was visually behind its hi-def console cousins. What prompted the complete overhaul of the look and style?

Tim Spangler: One thing we wanted to do with the Madden product coming back to [EA] Tiburon was to create a unique visual style that would stand out among all of the other Madden’s out there. As soon as you pop in our disc, you’ll notice a lot of changes from a visual standpoint. You’ve got all new character designs, all new stadiums, all new fields, all new interface presentation, and all of it specifically designed to make the most of the Wii hardware.

BLAST: It looks kind of arcade-y to me, but in a good way. You have this realistic game attached to an arcade look. What inspired you to go down that road?

TS: In terms of visuals, there was a Coke commercial that came out around the time of the Olympics, and it had LeBron James and Yao Ming on it. They went into this festival thing that was all about the matchups, and basketball, and the Olympics, and it was this comic book looking, stylized characters, and we looked at that, and at the same time…it’s not right when Team Fortress did it, but Team Fortress was getting huge around that time. We looked at that, and our goals were to differentiate. Team Fortress had very similar challenges, being a stylized first-person shooter in a genre that’s known for a lot of realistic gameplay. So, we look at those two as our two main inspiration points. We also looked at toys, graphic novels, films, stuff like that.

BLAST: With Grand Slam Tennis, EA showed a willingness to go with style over realism. Now that a flagship title like Madden has been altered in the same way, can we expect this to be the norm on Wii in sports games?

TS: I can’t really speak for EA Sports as a label, but I know in general we’re trying to make a real strong presence on the Wii console. I would say that if titles like Grand Slam Tennis and Madden do well, and people enjoy them, then we will make more products like them.

BLAST: Let’s hear some details about specific changes, like the player’s bodies. What are they like now?

TS: In years past, you couldn’t really tell the difference between Brian Urlacher and Peyton Manning from the silhouettes, they looked the same. In our game, we tried to say, across the board, what types of body types would you need to excel at certain positions.  So what we did is we studied that frame at pre-play, and then we said, “Okay, we need wide receivers and defensive backs.” With those guys, we wanted a tall, thin, think of a Randy Moss. He’s the prototype kind of guy that plays the position. Then inject some personality into them, like big hands, colorful gloves, big feet. Then you’ve got your quarterback, he’s kind of your broad shouldered, classic pocket-passer, the leader of the team. You’ve got your linebacker, he’s the muscular guy that will knock your block off. You can tell as soon as you see him that he wants to knock your head off. You’ve got your linemen, they look like a hulking mass. They are your blockers, and they are guys you don’t want to get hit by either. And also, with the running backs, we wanted to have a guy you could look at and say, “Hey his legs are kind of big.” Someone like LaDainian Tomlinson, Michael Turner type guys. They are still kind of big, but at the same time they are fast and elusive and low to the ground. So we took that philosophy, and tried to emphasize that in the art with the curves and an overall design that would emphasize those characteristics.

From there, we built our environments around those characters. So we can inject that same personality into the stadium. You can see the Broncos stadium here, they took that same horse and then stylized it so it felt like a natural extension of the overall look.

BLAST: Tell me a bit more about the stadiums.

TS: All of the stadiums were built from the ground up. Every stadium has some type of design element…the Broncos have the horse that sits up there and the mountains that surround it. So we took those, and stylized the mountains, stylized the horse. The Bucs have that pirate ship, we took that, injected a bit of personality into that, increased the scale so it dominates that end of the field, did a little play on the palm trees, stuff like that. So we really tried to find those points where the architects had design elements, bring those elements into our world and make them a natural extension of what we’re doing with the players.

BLAST: The stadiums look huge, they just have this big open space and it looks like there are 200,000 people sitting in the stands. Let’s talk about the menus a bit. That’s the team select screen… do all of the menus and interfaces look different like that now?

TS: Yup. So for all our new modes for this year, we’ve gone with a big, bold, polished look that’s pointer-friendly, very colorful, and easy to interact with. We took that approach when designing the interface for this game.

BLAST: With a revamping of the visual style, it’s clear the hope is to attract more people to the Wii version of the game. What do you think will resonate with gamers new to the series, as well as veterans?

TS: For new people, we tried to make it easy to pick up and play. There’s not a huge, steep learning curve here, but at the same time there’s enough depth where we have our different play modes and different levels of difficulty that veterans can enjoy it too. One thing we did for passing, where in years past it was a lot of complicated gestures that you would have to memorize, we tried to simplify that down. With point-and-pass this year, you press A to hike the ball, point at a receiver to lock onto him, and tap A to lob it or press it and hold real fast for a bullet pass right to him. It’s pretty easy to pick up and play. Also, for the new people on the franchise, we’ve got a co-op mode called Huddle Up. There, that’s like a father/son game. They don’t need to know much about football, they can pick up and play without worrying about complexity. Their kid can jump in and knock down pursuers with the IR. It’s the same thing on defense, you can knock down defenders to take them off of their route, knock blockers out of the way.

Also in new game modes we have Road to the Superbowl. It’s similar to a season, it’s all about getting to the Superbowl, but you can customize how you want to play. You can play that standard 11 on 11, or you can play 5 on 5. You can play half a season, a whole season, or start right in the playoffs. We give you those opportunities as well. We also have Showdown mode, to see who is King of the Couch, see who is the best player in the room. And there we have game changers, which are different ways to play the game: fumbleitis, always turbo, it’s alive, different ways to customize the game for how you want to play.

BLAST: So you have got an arcade product with realistic properties we’re used to from Madden in the same package. That gives people with access to more than one platform reason to pick up both or just the Wii one.

TS: Yes, exactly.

Thanks to Tim Spangler for answering our questions. We will have a preview of Madden NFL Wii for you in the near future. Look for our review of the title around launch as well.

BLAST: We want to know about Over the Top Games. Tell us who you are and what you are about.

Roberto Alvarez de Lara Sieder: We are a team of young developers with a lot of passion for the game industry! We have been making games for some time for other companies, and one year ago we decided to create our own studio to work on our own game designs.

BLAST: What kind of games do you play when you aren’t making them?

RADLS: In my case I like to play all kind of games. I’m a big fan of games like Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colussus and those that stand out for some reason. I’m a big fan of FPS like Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament.

In our office there are people that love RPGs and that are fans of Nintendo franchises like Super Mario Bros, Metroid and Capcom’s Mega Man. As you can see we are all players!

BLAST: We can see in the trailer and from screenshots that NyxQuest is a platformer. Tell us a little about the gameplay that you may not be able to glean from the media available.

RADLS: From the start we wanted to create a platformer that used the Wii Remote in original ways. The main concept was “a character that needs help from gods to advance in his adventure”. From there we chose to base everything in the myth of Icarus and Greek Mythology, because it was a nice mix.

BLAST: Visually, NyxQuest looks fantastic. The backgrounds give the game an epic look, as you control your relatively small character through the levels. What inspired Over the Top Games to implement this art style?

RADLS: We wanted the environment to feel epic. The adventure of Nyx is an enormous task. She leaves her realm to find her dearest friend, Icarus, and she finds herself in a hostile world. We wanted the sceneries to transmit that to the player.

Sources of inspiration are Dali and Giorgio de Chirico. They have awesome paintings that transmit just what we wanted.

BLAST: How does co-op gameplay work in NyxQuest?

RADLS: Co-op is big fun, because one of the players controls Nyx, the main character, and the other controls the powers from the gods. It requires a lot of synchronization! But it makes for fun gameplay and the best part is that it allows you to change positions for a different experience. We always laugh when we play the parts with big columns that one needs to grab for the main player to advance.

BLAST: When do you think the game will release in North America? Europe seems to having a great time with it, and we’re all jealous.

RADLS: We are sorry for that! My sources tell me you won’t have to wait a lot!

BLAST: Do you have any other projects you would like to tell us about? Is there anything else you want our readers to click away from this interview knowing about NyxQuest that we didn’t cover?

RADLS: We are now working on some new ideas for new games.  We are discussing where to go next and for what platform.

I hope everyone has a good time playing NyxQuest and enjoys the game as much as we enjoyed creating it. We placed a lot of ‘love’ into that game

Be prepared to come back often for a slew of Q&A’s as well as hands-on impressions with folks from EA, Capcom, Epic, Microsoft, Ubisoft and many others. Hopefully we’ll produce enough for you that you feel like you were there–and you won’t even have to run around the crowded aisles with the masses to do it.

BLAST:  Tell us a bit about your promotion.

Aaron Rasmussen: If you buy a real-world Mana Potion with a code on it, you can go to Lunia on ijji.com and redeem it for a virtual Mana item. If you buy a big pack of virtual Mana in Lunia, we’ll actually ship out real-world Mana to you. We may have torn the very fabric of reality, and we think that’s awesome.

We’re fairly positive this is the first time anybody’s done something like this.

BLAST: Does your Mana Potion promotion rival the pure stealth and deadliness of Solid Snake? Can I make a better convoluted and cheesy gaming reference?

AR: Nothing rivals the stealth and deadliness of Solid Snake. Nothing! It’s heresy to even ask that question.

Calvin Yang: The promotion is nothing like the pure stealth or deadliness of Solid Snake. Besides, Solid Snake is too grumpy and self-centered for the comparison, not to mention he smokes too much. Lunia is a much friendlier and livelier environment. I suggest a comparison to Mario instead — kid-friendly, yet surprisingly deep and involved. When boosted with power-ups, Mario is invincible. With our collaboration with Harcos, we give power to the gamers both in-game and in real life.

BLAST: On a scale of 1 to 10, do Harcos potions rank a Spinal Tap-ian 11?

CY: Have you ever tried Harcos potions? They’re off the charts!

AR: This promotion ranks a sqrt(2) * e^2. Close, very close.

BLAST: Are they better than the Ragnarok of Final Fantasy 6?

AR: As a sword or as an esper? This promotion is more akin to the esper version of Ragnorak. I would say yes, it is better, because drinking it doesn’t convert you to an item.

CY: Oh… I like this old school reference you’re throwing out here. Our promotion is nowhere near as difficult to get as the Ragnarok though and you don’t need a secret key to unlock it, luckily. You can pick up the promotional potions at your local retail stores or buy the 100 pack in-game with a mere 200 Gcoins.

[Editor's Note: Go with the esper. It's useful in the Tower of Fanatics, after all.]

BLAST: Although “Mana Energy Potion” denotes a sort of role-playing game experience, does the drink still work if you’re playing a first-person shooter?

CY: I guess it all depends on the setting. I’d imagine that in a traditional first-person shooter, drinking a Mana Potion could cause serious advantages and imbalance in the game. The gamer would have super accurate aim and inhuman response times. The in-game character would recover 100% of his energy instantly, causing other players to suspect cheating. In Lunia though, use of Harcos Mana Potion is all fair game!

AR: Yes! I’m a huge CounterStrike and FPS fan, and while you might expect the energy effect from the potion to be totally neutralized by the inability to level, it works just as well!

BLAST: Regarding the other tie-in to this promotion, why should gamers be interested in Lunia?  Is it the peanut butter to the Mana Energy Potion’s jelly, or is Lunia more like the jelly?

CY: I would say Lunia is more like the bread. Lunia is the foundation that enables gamers to enjoy the boost of energy with this promotion.

AR: Lunia is a refreshing departure from what you’d usually expect in an MMO. It’s an action role-playing game, so it combines fun arcade button mashing with RPG leveling. And we’re definitely the jelly in this one, ‘cause we’re blue.

BLAST: Will drinking Mana Energy Potion give me special powers? Also, if you had the choice between shooting a fireball out of your hands, Ryu and Ken-style from Street Fighter 2, or telekinesis, like Jean Grey, which would you choose and why?

AR: After much discussion around the office, we have decided on Jean Grey’s telekinesis powers. You could always light something on fire and use your telekinesis to throw it. Last time we lit a bowling ball on fire, we had to build the giant RoboPult to throw it. It would be much easier if we could just use our minds. It’s not quite as cool as a Hadoken, but you could spend a lot of time just messing with people if you had telekinesis. You can only light so many people on fire before it becomes a problem and you have to stop.

CY: If you have the time, I definitely recommend you to schedule an appointment and visit ijji’s or Harcos’ offices. We have people flying around shooting laser beams all the time. We each have our own special powers. In fact, I’m not using my keyboard to type these answers right now. I think it, and the words just appear.

BLAST:  What are some of the favorite games of the Mana Energy Potion and Lunia staff? How about some favorite old school systems?

AR: At Mana Energy Potion, we have an original Donkey Kong arcade machine from the early 80’s. Eli’s scored 146,000 and I’ve hit 118,000; both are past the 3^rd elevators. As for other games, we all love the Final Fantasy series, anything with Star Wars on it, Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines, CounterStrike, and of course Left 4 Dead.

Here are some oldies but goodies that we all voted on (we had this discussion recently).

1. Tetris – Multiple Consoles (as “Addictus” on my old ColecoVision)

2. Super Mario Land — Game Boy

3. EarthBound — NES

4. Rescue Raiders — Apple 2

5. Altered Beast — Sega MegaDrive/Genesis

6. Chrono Trigger — SNES

7. Contra — NES

CY: My all time favorite game has to be the Quest for Glory series by Sierra. I must have played through each one of those games at least four or five times. As a little kid, the wonders of trying different word combinations to open a box or start a fire… and when it actually worked, it was like magic. A close second would be Taiko no Tatsujin, the Drum Master series. This was the rhythm game that took away years of my life.

BLAST: Where can gamers purchase Mana Energy Potion and your other energy drink, Health Energy Potion?

AY: We keep an up-to-date list of all our outlets at Manapotions.com. There’s also a store locator so you can see who carries it around you.

BLAST: If gamers are interested in Lunia, where can they sign up and play?

CY: Easy! Just visit http://lunia.ijji.com

BLAST:  Thank you guys for taking the time to answer my somewhat snarky questions!

HARCOS:  Thanks for taking the time to ask them and putting up with our answers!

Square has put out three new episodes out, at 300 points a piece, in addition to Rydia’s sidestory, which debuted along with the main game. Yang, Palom, and Edge are now all playable in their own sidestories, which, based on Rydia and my playtime withYang’s quest, appear to be about three hours a piece. Pretty good for $3, especially since the data and statistics are saved once you complete a chapter for use in other ones.

While Rydia’s story let you play as a fully-grown Luca, Yang’s story lets you play with not only his amazing facial hair, but also his daughter, Ursula. She’s trying to establish herself as a worthwhile monk, despite being a princess; this is part of the storyline, but it fits very well. You’ll visit some locations that fans of the original will recognize, but also some new ones, and you’ll also get to fight with some of Fabul’s fabled monks–they will last in battle for more than 3.5 seconds, for the first time in Fabul’s recorded history!

I haven’t played through Edge or Palom’s quest yet, but I plan on going through both of them soon. I think these sidequests are helping me to warm up to a game I already liked quite a bit, so by the time the complete story ends, maybe we’ll see a higher score to reflect that on the game as a whole. Let’s hope Square and Matrix Software keep putting out quality chapters for us to enjoy.

This also shouldn’t be a surprise, given how much playtime this new downloadable only title is getting, as Eddie pointed us towards earlier today. Wait, why are you still reading? Grab a rifle and a camera and unlock us that map, soldier!

[UPDATE] And it’s over folks.