For years, gamers have laughed about video games that include a huge overarching plot of critical importance and then let players run around exploring rather than attending to the matter at hand. The realm is being attacked by demons from Oblivion and our hero spends days picking flowers. The Collectors are ravaging civilizations and the Normandy travels the universe scanning every last planet. A murder scene is growing cold, and the detective chases down a purse-snatcher on foot. Despite everything the game would have you believe, there is no urgency. As gamers, we’ve learned to accept this.

When a developer gives the player an entire world to explore, the player should be able to spend time exploring it. This leaves no room for plots involving any urgency. Many times in the past I’d thought to write about this phenomenon, but I never had anything truly interesting to say about it, and so I’d blown off the article. But last night on my commute home, I got to thinking – how would one solve this problem?

Water Chips and Servomotors

 One of the best examples of an enforced time limit is the water chip quest in Fallout. You had a set number of days to return to valut 13 with a water chip, or else the vault’s population – everyone you’ve ever known – would all die. The game gave you plenty of time and plenty of warnings, but in the end if you took too long you stood a good chance of having to restart the game. This is a very old school approach, and Fallout was a fantastic game, but such an approach would never hold up in today’s video game culture.

The truth is that if there’s a single long-term goal that comprises such a large portion of the game, it’s difficult to predict how long it might take someone in an open world to accomplish that task. The game’s designers are effectively punishing the player for spending time exploring the world they’ve created.

This is similar to another problem that used to exist in old school games. In many games I’d played on my Commodore 64, I was able to save the game in a state where it was impossible to progress. Saving the game in a fail state should never be allowed. But what about a state in which success is incredibly unlikely? What if the player has only ten minutes to cross the northern wasteland, battling snarks and grumkins? It may be possible, but it’s prohibitively difficult. Any time your game includes time limits, these problems crop up. What if I was playing Fallout and saved the game with only 2 days remaining to return the water chip, but I was 5 days away from the vault?

Stages of Urgency

Any storyline worth its weight in bantha pudu has ebb and flow. There will be moments of intensity and there will be lulls. One solution is to allow for exploring during the lulls and enforce time limits during the more intense moments. This approach isn’t without flaws, but for example, let’s take a look at a theoretical open-world game – we’ll call it Neo Uber Tales. In Neo Uber Tales, there’s a huge open world and a player can explore it at his leisure. But partway through the game, the villainous Baron McMoustache captures the player’s uncle Kennist and ties him to some train tracks. Uncle Kennist is on the other side of the mountains, and the only way to get there in time is to travel through the Mines of Schmoria. The player has only an hour to get there before the train arrives, and as the game’s designers, we want to make sure that he doesn’t save the game because he could easily save it in a state where nothing but failure is possible. That’s an hour of gameplay during which no saving is possible, although we could allow a quicksave that would function much like an extended pause. The primary flaw to this method is that if the player dawdles in the Mines of Schmoria, he can potentially lose an hour of gameplay when his uncle is killed and we return him to the checkpoint at the beginning of the mines.

This approach only allows for a way to deal with shorter time limits. If we wanted to impart a sense of urgency in a longer term scenario, such as that with the water chip, we’d need a different approach. Barring time travel of the sort we saw in Majora’s Mask, I can think of only one way to deal with the problem: allow the failure. In Fallout, if too much time passed and you hadn’t retrieved the water chip, you’d see the people at Vault 13 dying and you’d receive a game over screen. But it needn’t be that way. I’m looking to Heavy Rain for inspiration here, since that game allowed the story to continue even when a main character died. Heavy Rain had no fail state, which is one reason I absolutely loved the game. In our Neo Uber Tales example, if you arrive at the railroad tracks and more than an hour has passed, you find Uncle Kennist splattered and have to deal with the repercussions.

The “hurry up and wait” issue has been an issue in many games over the past few years, and I’ll be interested to see how developers tackle the issue in the future.

Until the current console generation, I’d not gotten into the Zelda games. But when I tried out Twilight Princess, I fell in love. You’ll notice that when I listed my top five favorite games, Twilight Princess was number five. “So!”, I said, “This is what all the fuss is about. Zelda games are awesome! I needs to try me some more! That Ocarina game seems to be one that everybody loves; I’ll try that.” I downloaded Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console, played for about an hour, and got bored. Or maybe I got distracted. What else was I playing back then? No More Heroes? Oblivion? Elite Beat Agents? Not sure. But just recently, I started playing Wind Waker based on a friend’s recommendation. He said that Wind Waker was his favorite Zelda game. I finished the game yesterday and I really did enjoy it. But did I enjoy Wind Waker more than Twilight Princess?

Wind Waker had a number of things going for it. The cel-shaded art style was a big one, although I felt that the cel-shaded graphics in Okami were way better. Wind Waker’s music was also stellar. The music in Wind Waker was even integrated into the combat, with musical hits coinciding with Link’s sword strikes. The “Mini Boss” battle music is fun, “Graaandma” is a very simple piece with a lot of heart, and I particularly enjoyed the music for the battle against Gohdan. The various themes for the island towns are all good. The sole advantage that Twilight Princess had in its music was the fact that it was performed by an actual orchestra, whereas Wind Waker’s music was synthesized. Nonetheless, I preferred the songs in Wind Waker. The ocean travel music was amongst the best bits of the Wind Waker soundtrack, which was good given that you do so damn much travelling in the game.

And that was one of my main complaints about Wind Waker – the monotonous ocean travel. Whereas Twilight Princess had scenic views, forests, and fields with landmarks, Wind Waker had just… water. I suppose it was a cheap way to make the game world big, but I much prefer Twilight Princess’s Hyrule over the vast “fishless oceans” in Wind Waker. And on that note, I really hated the sea battles. Whenever possible, I avoided them. Fleeing was so much easier than spending five minutes trying to hit some swimming enemy with a cannonball, getting knocked off of my boat four times, and ending up at half health all for no reward at the end. Those Gyorg were the worst. They’d pursue me for fifteen minutes straight while I sailed from one corner of the world to another. Often I’d set down the controller for five minutes and surf the web while travelling from place to place since it was so boring, but those damn Gyorg would force me to spend the time dodging instead. Once I got the Song of Winds this was less of an issue, but still a pain.

Looking back now on my original review of Twilight Princess, I remember many of the things I’d forgotten about Twilight Princess. It did so many different things, and it did them all so well. I’ve discussed gameplay variety a number of times before, and Twilight Princess accomplished that variety better than any other game I can think of. In Twilight Princess you snowboard, herd goats, go fishing, hang-glide from a chicken, sumo wrestle, and a number of other things I’m sure I’m forgetting. And Twilight Princess’s dungeons were the most creative I’ve ever seen. The water temple with its waterway-related puzzles was a standout, but Twilight Princess’s other dungeons had you swinging from ropes, swimming underwater, walking on walls, and hook-shotting on a floating island. I’ve heard people speak of the game’s muted colors, and I guess that I can see them if I really look, but to me the pros far outweigh the cons. Wind Waker had a bit of stealth gameplay at the very beginning which I really liked, but not nearly the variety of Twilight Princess.

All this talk really makes me want to replay Twilight Princess, but it was such a long game, and I’m wary of Zelda burnout given the upcoming Skyward Sword game, to which I’m very much looking forward.

Dungeon’s Master does a monthly series called “RPG Blog Carnival”, and although I generally don’t write about D&D stuff, this month’s topic intrigued me, and I felt compelled to participate.

The article asks blog authors to look at a real-life person, living or dead, and re-imagine him or her as a character in an RPG. I’d briefly considered George Plimpton, and a friend had suggested Pat Morita as a good candidate, but in the end I chose Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla and made them into villains.

In reality, their “The War of the Currents” is well known, deciding whether alternating current or direct current would prevail as the dominant means of electrical delivery. Tesla was a brilliant scientific mind with poor business sense, and Edison was a brute force inventor with many unscrupulous practices. Whereas their main scientific forays in reality were electricity, in a fantasy setting they can be made into magical innovators.

Edison the Villain

To make Thomas Edison a true villain, he has to be guilty of more than simply burdening his rivals with expensive lawsuits and monopolizing the fledgeling movie industry. So my version of Edison is more akin to a mob boss – a classical Lawful Evil villain. My Thomas Edison is a vampire.

Edison has been infected with the vampire’s curse for only twelve years, but in that time, he’s accomplished quite a lot. Before being infected, he’d already made a name for himself as a wizard of no small power. He devised rituals that gained him the attention of archmages throughout the realm and pioneered the first permanent teleportation chamber, although it was rumored that many of his assistants were killed in the chamber’s earliest tests. Today, he’s used a combination of charm magic, vampiric domination, and vampire spawn minions to take control of the city of Menlo Park.

Edison keeps slaves largely for magical experimentation, and although slavery is not technically legal, Edison has never been called to answer for his crimes. This is partially due to his secrecy, and partially due to his influence in Menlo Park. The slaves double as a discreet means for Edison to feed. Unlike many vampires, Edison is not discriminating in his victims, and is careful not to create vampire spawn that would betray his true nature.

Menlo Park is a marvel of magical progress. An intricate underground sewer system excavated by enslaved earth elementals and powered by enslaved water elementals channels away the city’s waste, and solid waste is collected at a central point where enslaved fire elementals burn it away. Travelers visit frequently to purchase the strange and wonderful magical goods for sale here, but only the wealthy can afford them. Competitors who would create the items at a lower price have suffered strange disasters, and some have mysteriously disappeared.

Edison has been careful to conceal his nature and the fact that he holds as much power as he does in Menlo Park. Many of the citizens regard him as a great man who has turned the once mediocre city into a wonder of modern magic. But there are those who suspect, and there are some few who know.

Tesla the Villain

Nikola Tesla is a githzerai born in the elemental chaos. His parents fled some unknown power, settling in the secluded mountains west of Menlo Park. Young Nikola spent his youth studying and learning magic.

Tesla was already creating his own magic items when well-established wizard Thomas Edison invited him to Menlo Park. Tesla would be one of the wizards working directly under Edison, creating magic items in Edison’s laboratory. Tesla’s work ethic was second only to his magical ingenuity. He’d spent many years curating new magical concepts that he finally now had the resources to develop. After his first month of employment, Tesla had created a number of items whose power and creativity startled Edison himself. An argument about payment ensued, and quickly escalated to a magic duel. The workers took the side of their employer, and Tesla found himself outnumbered and forced to flee the city.

Following Tesla’s departure, Edison co-opted his ideas and began reproducing Tesla’s inventions. A bitter Nikola Tesla cloistered himself away in the mountains of his youth, conducting his own research into greater, more powerful, and more dangerous forms of magic. He began summoning demons regularly, and experimenting with infernal energy and psychic enslavement. He later aquired two illithid slaves, using them to carry out his plots.

His research has culminated in an artifact of his own creation: The Tesla Teleportation Coil. This massive device is based on Edison’s teleportation chamber, but does not require source and destination chambers. Located in his remote mountain lair, Tesla’s Teleportation Coil can transport many creatures from itself to any location within hundreds of miles instantly. Those teleported arrive on a bolt of lightning which strikes from the sky, laying waste to anything in the immediate area. This makes it the perfect tool for a surprise attack.

But research of this scope does not come inexpensively. Tesla has long been using his teleportation coil to transport his demonic servants and illithid slaves all over the realm to obtain the materials he needs for his research, often leaving towns and villages devastated. Recently, Tesla has taken to singling out Edison’s supply trains and Menlo Park’s magical exports. This has led to a proxy duel between the two powerful wizards, with Edison’s well-supplied guard forces fighting off ambushes by Tesla’s demons. More than once, these battles have taken place in populated areas, and have had terrible collateral damage.

Encounters

Caught in the Crossfire
After repeated attacks on his supply trains, Edison is eager to find out where Tesla’s base of operations is located. To this end, he’s having Tesla’s demonic raiders trailed. Players happen across a seemingly random encounter with demons in the wilderness. Oddly, the demons all seem to be carrying chests and sacks. Midway through the battle, a group of wizards join the fight. They’ve been following the demons and are upset that the players attacked, because now they can’t follow the demons back to Tesla’s base. A three-way battle is always pleasantly hectic.

Caravan Ambush
Players travelling between towns as part of a small wagon caravan are suprised when the wagons in front of them are destroyed by a giant bolt of lightning which leaves behind attacking demons! The larger demons target the people on the wagons, while smaller imps focus on stealing supplies and fleeing. Players’ reward varies on how many people and supplies they’re able to save. If they bother to dig, PCs can find that the supply wagons were carrying magical items produced in Menlo Park.

A Daring Rescue
While visiting Menlo Park, a child falls into an open gutter down into the city’s deep sewer system. The dirty waterslide quickly turns into a swift current propelled by water elementals. PCs who choose to save the child must navigate a skill challenge in which they navigate the waterways and save the child before he’s swept into the city center to be incinerated by fire elementals. Failure at this skill challenge leads to the child’s death and a battle with fire elementals. Should PCs kill the fire elementals, they’ll have an angry township to contend with.

Unraveling Edison’s Mystery
PCs are hired to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy merchant’s daughter. Oddly, they find that her location has been magically obfuscated and scrying will not work. Only old-fashioned sleuthing can do the trick. Clues eventually lead to an old warehouse which is unusually well-guarded by wizards and vampire spawn. Within are dozens of slaves, including the merchant’s daughter.

I’ve just had a thought. An idea. I have an idea. This site has been langushing for some time. My own writings have been entirely uninspired over the past year, and I’ve often considered shutting this site down. The main reason I haven’t is because I really like the site’s design, the random header and footer images, and the custom gamercard and upcoming games list plugins I wrote. I’m proud of the design and of the code in the plugins.

But the most important thing about any site is the content. Sadly, this site’s content has been atrophying. And while my idea may do little to alleviate that condition, it can’t hurt.

So I guess I should get on with it and share the idea, eh? Well, here goes. I’d thought about starting up a blog at which I could write about tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons, but given the number of blogs I have, I dismissed the idea. I seem to average one or two posts per month at most of my blogs. But what if I just expanded the scope of this site to include not only video games, but also roleplaying games and board games? I’ve recently found some amazing board games, and I’d love to write about how damned cool they are.

Okay, so this isn’t going to magically give me more time to write stuff for Lungfishopolis. But maybe expanding the scope of this site will be a good thing. It can’t hurt.

So I’ve been reviewing the “Playstation Customer Appreciation Program”, which is really just a giant apology to everyone with a PSN account. We’re sorry we let somebody steal your credit card info from us; here, have a really old game. Everything’s okay now, right? I’ve got a whole bunch of thoughts on this, but let’s start by looking at what PSN is really giving people.

Free Month of Playstation Plus

Is there anyone who actually had a subscription to Playstation Plus? I mean anyone who’s not a games journalist. I understand that people who wanted to report about what the service actually does subscribed just to let the rest of us know what the heck the service was actually good for. Strange that I haven’t heard much.

Looking it up now, it seems that you get early access to demos and some betas, a free subscription to Qore (the PSN thing that nobody subscribed to before Qriocity was around for nobody to subscribe to) and discounts on some PSN content. You also get limited play time on certain selected games. So basically, Playstation Plus was created as a clearing ground for PSN games that don’t sell. You pay Sony every month, and they’ll let you play the worst of the worst, but only a little.

Movie Rentals for One Weekend

I’d forgotten that “renting” movies from PSN was even an option. One time they made Godzilla 2000 available for free for a few days, and I downloaded that, but the movie was so bad that we didn’t make it halfway through. I expect that most of the PSN offerings that they’ll make free are of the same quality. Besides, I’ve got Netflix and Hulu. Will PSN actually make anything available for free that I can’t already get through either of those channels?

Free Playstation Home items

I tried Playstation Home once. It was terrible, slow, and frankly kind of boring. Does anyone still use it?

A Free Game

So here’s the only thing on the list in which anyone will have any interest. Let’s take a look at the five games on their list.

• Dead Nation
  I’ll be honest. I’d never have been interested in this game if it wasn’t free. But if I’m able to get two of these games then I’ll likely pick up Dead Nation. It allows for online multiplayer, which I’ve only ever done before with HOARD. So maybe I’ll contact my brother for some co-op zombie hunting.
• inFAMOUS
  I played inFAMOUS about a year ago, and it’s not a bad game. But it seems obvious that this game was included primarily to sell the uncoming sequel. I won’t be choosing inFAMOUS since I already own it, but it’s not a bad choice for someone who hasn’t yet played.
• LittleBigPlanet
  Similarly to inFAMOUS, LittleBigPlanet has a sequel, and I’m sure that they just really want to sell copies of LittleBigPlanet 2. Still, not a bad choice. The two games are so similar that (to me) there’s not much of a difference.
• WipEout HD + Fury
  I had to look this one up. Turns out that it’s a racing game, which explains why I’d never bothered to learn anything about it. I’ve got no interest in racing games that aren’t named Audiosurf or MarioKart, so I won’t be downloading WipEout HD.
• Super Stardust HD
  When I first got my playstation, I downloaded the Super Stardust HD demo, and it struck me as a very well done bullethell shooter. I’m not very good at games like this, and I figured I wouldn’t get much further in the full game than I had in the demo, so I eventually uninstalled it. But now that it’s a free game on a list of slim pickins, I’ll probably download it.

In addition to the above Playstation titles, those who own PSPs can choose from the four games below.

• LittleBigPlanet
  The PSP version of LittleBigPlanet isn’t going to be as good as the primary PS3 version, and so it might be better to select another game from this list. And as much as my wife and daughter love LittleBigPlanet, I’m not a fan.
• ModNation Racers
  I tried the PS3 demo, and my opinions of this racer are pretty much the same as my opinions of most racers. Pass.
• Pursuit Force
  After reading about Pursuit Force, I’m marginally interested. Since they’re allowing two free games and I’m not interested in LittleBigPlanet PSP or Modnation Racers, I guess I’ll be trying it out.
• Killzone Liberation
  I’ve heard marginally good things about Killzone Liberation. I’m not a fan of shooters on handhelds, but it’s free, so I’ll be trying it. Can’t be worse than that PSP Tenchu game.

Looking at the PS3 game list, we can see that only two of the five games were ever full-priced retail releases. And those two both have sequels. I suspect that many people are in the same boat as me, owning both of those. Many people may also own the other less expensive downloadable titles. So for many, this customer appreciation program is even more of a sham. I’m not going to pretend that Sony’s outage ruined my life, and I’m not going to claim that they were grossly negligent in their security. But it was inconvenient for me even though I don’t play games online, since I couldn’t stream Hulu, and Netflix was incredibly spotty. If they want to issue an apology by awarding people games, at least they should compile a decent list of choices. I certainly didn’t expect them to give us Beyond Good and Evil HD for free, although that would have been awesome. Let’s look at some of the games they might have offered.

• Assassins Creed
  With three sequels, Assassins Creed is now an officially old game, in the same league as inFAMOUS. It seems natural for them to have included it. But I guess that Ubisoft is too DRM crazy to allow anybody to have anything for free ever. It’s too close to piracy. If Ubisoft had let us have Assassins Creed, they’d have had to phone us every 5 minutes while we were playing just to make sure that we weren’t lending the controller to a visiting friend.
• Borderlands
  It’s not a new game, so why not? Gearbox has already earned the bulk of their money on this game. It’s already downloadable on PSN, and including it would have exposed a lot of people to Borderlands who may not have already tried it.
• Dead Space: Extraction
  This would be a great way to try to get more people to use Playstation: Move. If more games used Move, I might be interested in dropping the substantial cash on the 3-part controller you need to use Move.
• God of War Collection
  Of all the downloadable games on PSN, this would be the one I’d most likely choose if it were free. I’ve already played the games on my PS2, and I’d be unlikely ever to revisit them, but the addition of trophies might make it worth going back and replaying.
• Hoard
  One of the three PSN games that I will likely never uninstall. I’m working my way through Hoard’s “medals”, which are like sub-trophies. Get enough medals and you get a trophy. The game is a lot of fun.
• Pixeljunk
  I know there are plenty: Racers, Monsters, Eden, Shooter, Shooter 2. Although I’ve got a huge affinity for Monsters, these are all good games.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time HD
  I tried the game in its PC incarnation years ago and hated it. But even the HD version is no longer new, and would make a good option for a freebie like this.
• Prototype
  I actually think I liked Prototype a bit better than inFAMOUS. To be honest, they’re basically the same game. But Prototype had better gliding mechanics and I preferred running up walls to slowly climbing them.
• Trine
  One of my favorite PSN games, and my only platinum trophy. It would be a gem of a freebie, and a good promo for the forthcoming sequel.

Too Little Too Late?

It’s easy to scoff at the offer, but I suppose that Sony wasn’t really required to do anything here. They’re not going to lose any money by giving this stuff away, so it’s ultimately just a PR move. Hardcore gamers will likely already have these games. Those who aren’t might not ever realize that there was any freebie to be had.

This idea has been germinating in my mind since I got my first portable: The DS Lite. When I got my Android phone, I decided to write this article, but never got around to it. Now I have a PSP as well, and I feel like I’ve got a fairly well rounded take on the portable gaming scene despite never having owned an iOS device. Yeah, yeah – this is a filler article. Another list. But it’s been a while since I posted anything, and this is what I’ve got right now.

So many Android games just don’t work. Graphics-intensive games like Dungeon Defenders chug on a Droid X’s 1gHz processor. But there’s a huge wealth of games from older systems that would run beautifully on an Android phone. Here’s my wishlist for Android game ports from other systems.

Dungeon Keeper
I’ve replayed Dungeon Keeper a number of times, and despite the antiquated graphics, the game is still a lot of fun. Given the low-res graphics, I’m sure that it would translate wonderfully to a mobile platform. Selecting squares for imps to dig would be easy, as would picking up monsters. And zooming in and out could be accomplished via multi-touch gestures. Although it might be best to do away with the bottom menu for more screen space, the side menus could remain, with the option of collapsing them. Dungeon Keeper would be a kick-ass phone game.

Starcraft
I recently heard that Blizzard released iPhone and Android versions of World of Warcraft. If they can do that, why not the original Starcraft? The immediate reason that comes to mind is that they couldn’t charge for mobile Starcraft on a monthly basis like they do with WoW. Still, I think Starcraft portable would be fantastic, especially in Korea.

7th Guest
The 7th Guest was one of my favorite PC games back in the days when CD-ROM was new and cutting edge. A point-and-click adventure game with many puzzles that were loosely tied to the story, lots and lots of poorly-acted FMV, and horribly annoying voice-overs that would repeat ad nauseum as you worked on the puzzles. There’s already an iOS version of the game. Why not an Android version too?

Wasteland
You may have never heard of Fallout’s progenitor. Back in the days of the Commodore 64, Wasteland took the top-down gameplay of the Ultima series and the enemy portraits and scrolling text battles of the Bards Tale series and combined them into a gameplay experience that managed to perfectly blend the two, resulting in a gameplay experience better than either. And on top of that, it allowed you to split your party so that the melee characters could rush forward while your machine gunners could stay in place and spray lead into the enemies. If Android had a native version of Wasteland, or at least a DOS emulator, I’d definitely give the game another playthrough.

2D Zelda Titles
Ocarina of Time is on my list of shame. People talk about how it was the bestest game evar, but I’ve never played. And I started playing Link to the Past once as well, but never got far. I actually own Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console. I think I’d be much more likely to play these games if I had them with me at all times on my phone. Nintendo isn’t very likely to release their first-party franchises on a non-Nintendo handheld, but I can always dream.

Popcap Games
Popcap just released Chuzzle for the Android platform, and Plants versus Zombies is due out in a matter of days. When will we see Peggle? Why not Word Worm? And a Zuma release would kill the second-rate clones out there on the Android marketplace.

Elite Beat Agents
And here’s my number one pick. It’s likely to never happen, but Elite Beat Agents could be absolutely huge on a mobile platform if the right people got ahold of the license. It could be the Rock Band of phones. The Nintendo DS original title was one of my favorite DS games. The licensed music was great and very catchy, and the little stories that accompanied each were a lot of fun. You’d tap small circles and draw along lines in time with musical cues from the song. At each stage – usually one per verse – you’d see the story’s character succeed or fail at a sub-task along the way depending on how well you’d done. Fail too many and you fail the song. The DS game had Canned Heat, Sk8er Boi, Y.M.C.A., and Let’s Dance. An Android Elite Beat Agents game could sell individual songs like Rock Band does, and I’d eat them up.

Listening to Episode 64 of Jumping the Shark recently, I got to thinking about the move away from physical game media and towards the digital distribution of content. It seems that read-only hard copies of media are edging towards obsolescence. I tend not to buy DVDs and BluRays that I can get from Netflix on a couple days’ notice, I store all my music on a home media server while the actual CDs collect dust in the attic, and I bought Portal 2 through Steam and ended up with a playable game on my PC while friends were still waiting for their Amazon pre-orders to arrive.

The obvious big players in this realm are Steam, XBox Live Arcade, The Playstation Network, Direct2Drive, and Impulse which was just purchased by Gamestop from Stardock.

XBLA and PSN are obviously tied to their respective consoles, as is the red-headed stepchild of console download services: WiiWare. While each has some excellent games, (Shadow Complex, Pixeljunk Monsters, LostWinds) we’re still in the infancy of digital distribution in that these services are currently used primarily for inexpensive games. And while download-only games like Costume Quest and Hoard can only improve the popularity of these services, it’s probable that in the next generation of consoles, there will be no physical media aside from optional flash cards or external drives.

Steam is the behemoth of digital distribution. It’s tied to Valve, which in my mind stands alongside Blizzard and Bioware as the best of the best in terms of game production. Steam has an amazing feature-rich client complete with achievements and a well-integrated friends list. And best of all, Steam games work. Always. I’ve had $10 of credit on Direct2Drive for nearly a year now after a refund following purchase of Cold Fear,  which flat-out wouldn’t launch on my PC. Cold Fear and Dark Athena are the extent of my experience with Direct2Drive, and I believe I bought Galactic Civilizations 2 from Impulse following the announcement that the game would be launched with no DRM. I bought that game mainly to support DRM-free software. Didn’t like the game so much, but Impulse functioned well. I think I also bought the first Penny Arcade Adventures game from Greenhouse.

The move away from physical media has many implications. First off, it murders the used games market. This explains why Gamestop, whose primary market is used games, was so eager to jump on the digital distribution wagon. And speaking as someone who gets a lot of his games used from Amazon and EBay, my overwhelming instinct is to flinch and yell “BAAD!” at this inevitibility. But then I look at Steam Deals. I’ve gotten a lot of the games I have in my Steam collection on the cheap. Bioshock 2 for $5. Beyond Good and Evil for $5. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom for $2.50. I don’t remember how much I paid for New Vegas and Metro 2033, but they were cheap too. Digital Distribution doesn’t have to mean that games never drop in price, although it may mean that. It all depends on the distributors.

I’ll leave you with one final thought here. Please never say “Digital Download”. That term bugs the crap out of me. It’s redundant. All downloads are digital. Thank you, and goodnight.

I could list a number of reasons why I just bought a PSP. I could say that it has to do with the announcement of the NGP. The PSP is never likely to get cheaper than it is now, and there is never likely to be an iteration of the handheld beyond the PSP-3000. I could say that it’s because my DS has been broken for long enough, and that I need a replacement handheld, as my phone is still limited in terms of Android gaming. I could also go on to list the huge number of PSP games that I’ve been missing out on over the past half-decade. Heck – it’s April – I could even cite a tax refund.

Yes, I could name any of those as plausible reasons why I just went out and bought a PSP. But the truth is that I bought a PSP because I’ve finally one-hundred-percented Pixeljunk Monsters after having played the game consistently for three or four years, and I need a new version of the game. So when I bought my PSP, guess which game I picked up with it? My copy of Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe cost me five dollars. W00t!

In general, I’ve found the PSP port of Pixeljunk Monsters to be the same game as on the PS3, but harder. They’ve eliminated (or at least locked away) the fire tower, which was absolutely essential to rainbow many of the game’s levels. With a shielded monster, your only option becomes the Tesla tower, which in the PS3 version had a range of about 4 pixels. They’ve now made the Tesla and ice towers more effective, which is nice. That ice tower was damned useless in the PS3 version, but after about 15 attempts to rainbow the medium-difficulty level “smile”, I’m beginning to feel that three or four ice towers may be my only chance to stop those damn spiders. They haunt my dreams. Okay, no. Not really.

Although I currently only own the one game for the system, I’ve done a bit of research, and I’m going to lay down the other PSP games that I’d like to try at some point. It’ll be hard in my mind for the PSP games to compare with such amazing DS fare as Phantom Hourglass, The World Ends With You, Elite Beat Agents, and the Professor Layton games, but I’ll give it a go.

God of War: Chains of Olympus

I’ve played the first two God of War games on my PS2, and although the second wasn’t nearly as good as the first, I did enjoy both. This PSP title is on my list when it comes to PSP gaming, but not at the top. What? Oh yeah – I guess it is at the top, but I’d kind of put together this list as a best-last thing, you know? Smartass.

Patapon 2

Until I installed the demo on my PSP, I’d had no exposure to Patapon. It was a rhythm adventure game, and the third game in the series just came out, which means that some people must like it. I gave it a brief try, and was surprised to find that the demo allowed me to save my game, which I have done. It’s intriguing, and I’ll go back to finish the demo at some point, at which time I’ll decide whether it’s a game I’d like to buy.

Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony

I loved the original Dungeon Siege, but could never get into the second title in the series. Still, I’m interested in this portable version. I just really enjoy the whole improve-skills-as-you-use-them approach to leveling. I haven’t read reviews or watched gameplay videos yet though, and I’ll need to do the research before I decide to buy it.

ClaDun: This is an RPG!

I’ve heard glowing praise for CalDun: This is an RPG!, but before I pick up the game, I may have to wait until I’m in the right mindset to spend hours wandering in circles and stabbing boars. From what I read in Kotaku’s review, ClaDun has a very intricate “magic circle” party system, and very quick two-minute dungeons. Color me intrigued. Hmm… intrigued must be one of those new colors in the Crayola 256-pack, alongside Sunburnt Cyclops and Booger Buster.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

The reviews I’ve read make this game sound almost like more of an interactive movie than a game. Apparently, there’s no combat. Zero. None. Still, running away from enemies can make for good gameplay. I actually quit Penumbra: Overture because I was forced to fight enemies rather than running. Shattered Memories is rated higher than a lot of the other games in the series, and the primary criticism seems to be that it sticks too closely to the formula established in previous Silent Hill games. Well, guess what? I’ve never played all the way through a Silent Hill game! I started the original title back in my PS1 days, but never progressed far. All I really remember is running around in the fog and listening to static on a radio. So maybe this is a good entry point for me.

Half Minute Hero

I remember Frank talking about Half-Minute Hero years ago, and I remember being quite jealous. After reading about the game’s various modes on Wikipedia, I’m really interested. It’s an RPG, it’s an RTS, and it’s a shoot-em-up. I might give this one a try sooner than I’d originally intended.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins

I’m interested in Tenchu despite its poor ratings, mainly because I loved the original PS1 game. I found it cheap online and have already ordered the game. Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck.

Dungeons and Dragons Tactics

D&D Tactics really sounds like a cult game. People love it or hate it. In reading about it, one person wrote that it was much like Temple of Elemental Evil. Say no more; I’m sold. Create chararacters using the D&D 3.5 ruleset and conduct strategic battles? Yes, please. I’ll have my spiked-chain wielding fighter with whirlwind attack and my multiclass sorcerer/monk up and running in no time. There are some sanity-challenged vendors on Amazon selling this game for $70, but I found a copy online for less than twenty. Expect a report soon.

I recently found myself with an entire weekend to myself. No spouse, no children, no chores. It’s a rarity. So what immediately sprang to mind? Video games. And as I reviewed the titles I might pick up, I realized that what I really wanted was a Zelda game. In the end, I bypassed Dead Space 2 and Assassins Creed 2 and ended up picking up copies of Metal Gear Solid 4, Metroid Prime for GameCube, 3D Dot Game Heroes, and Clive Barker’s Jericho. I never ended up starting MGS4 or Metroid Prime; they’re still on my shelf at home. I played a bunch of Jericho and decided that I don’t love it. But I spent a good amount of time with 3D Dot Game Heroes.

3D Dot Game Heroes is an unabashed clone of the original NES Legend of Zelda. It knows what it is and revels in it. It’s got a boomerang, bow and arrow, bombs, and clones of many of Zelda’s monsters. It uses apples instead of hearts and orbs instead of triforce fragments. It also includes overt references to other old school games. I even met Princess Alena, Brey, and Kiryl from Dragon Warrior 4.

The basic game is good fun, and layered on top of it are a number of new elements. Your first sword is ridiculously huge when you’re at full hearts, and can be upgraded at a smithy to be longer, wider, and pierce through obstacles. Amazingly, this doesn’t make the game too easy. There’s also a way to “book” monsters, listing them in a manual for reference. Hilariously, this is done by physically smacking the monster with your copy of the book until its listing shows up in the book. Yeah – the game has some good humor. There are also a number of other minigames, including arkanoid and tower defense clones. I haven’t found all the minigames yet.

I played a bunch of 3D Dot Game Heroes over the weekend, and got midway through the third temple. But the game wasn’t scratching the Zelda itch, so I restarted a new game of Twilight Princess, and finished the Forest Temple before the weekend was over.

I’d been chatting with a friend at a bar just before the weekend and he’d mentioned Wind Waker, which I’d never played. He’s a huge fan of Zelda to the point where he has a Triforce tattoo, and he says that Wind Waker is his most favoritest Zelda game evar. So I ordered the game online. For the past few days, I’ve been spending all my video game time on my Wii with Wind Waker. Finally, a game that’s scratching the Zelda itch.

Aside from the original NES Zelda and the side-scrolling NES sequel, Twilight Princess was my first Zelda game. I loved it. After that, I played Phantom Hourglass on the DS and enjoyed that a lot too. And while Wind Waker is seeming much more akin to Phantom Hourglass than to Twilight Princess, I’m enjoying it. I prefer Twilight Princess’s open fields to the open seas of Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, but I’m only just approaching the second temple in Wind Waker, so I’m likely too early in the game to judge its merits. I’m sure that I’ll end up taking a sizable Portal 2 break before I even get to that temple, but I’ll report back at some point with my take on Wind Waker.

Over at No High Scores, Bill Abner wrote this weekend about the games that make us who we are, and referred to the collection as a Gaming Tree, even going so far as to map his out.

The idea was so fascinating to me that I went ahead and drew up my own gaming tree in MS Paint. It’s not pretty, but hopefully it’s legible.

Click for full size version