It’s not hard to imagine that Sony knew Microsoft would choose E3 to make its curtain-call announcement of Final Fantasy XIII for the 360. It’s likewise reasonable to believe they searched their catalog of works under development for the best candidate to generate any buzz. What we got was a mixed bag — the trailer of an incredibly expansive shooter, but it didn’t even have a title. It was just MAG: Massive Action Game. It sounded tempting, but very incomplete.

In fact it was shown to a focus group less than a month before E3. One among that group, after seeing the MAG E3 debut, reached out to me, under a promise of anonymity, to describe what was shown and asked of the group. Put simply, MAG — whatever title it comes out under — will be a mercenary combat MMO. It will more than likely carry SOCOM branding, as Zipper Interactive is behind it. And if so, it could be called SOCOM: Shadow War or SOCOM: Zero.

The Meaning of Ninjy

Game Marathons: Fad, or Going the Distance?

Two weeks ago saw an extraordinarily successful, more-than-72 hour Super Mario Marathon that raised more than $11,000 for a gamers' charity for kids. This week, four Mega Man enthusiasts are finding out how hard of an act that is to follow — as a fund drive anyway. A new web site indicates that game marathons are a mushrooming craze, capitalizing partly on gamers who enjoy watching others fail at classic console titles. The question is, how long will it last?

Ah, the onward march of technology. Though the fiddly arguments over what “next gen” really means are unceasing, the general trend is that games get bigger, slicker, richer and more lifelike with every passing year.

Soulcalibur’s Ivy may be the poster child for this annual augmentation – literally. It seems with each passing year, her endowment multiplies, ushering in each passing technological evolution with more ludicrous, top-heavy jiggle than the era before.

But it’d be unfair to pick on Miss Valentine. After all, unrealistic body types in games are nothing new, a conversation-starter as old as Lara Croft. The fact that “sex sells” and the proliferation of exploitive body types is a cultural pandemic, not simply a video game issue, is the easy way to explain it, but the “easy” way is seldom very enlightening, nor does it help us learn about why we play.

What does it all mean, in an interactive medium where realism, immersion and engagement are the primary goals? Are we seeking idealistic images as avatars for ourselves, to complete the fantasy of power that gaming can provide?

Is this a case where the gaming audience has been misjudged through the ages by marketing teams who assume each and every one of us is a vapidly salivating 15-17 year-old male – until their assumptions have unconsciously shaped our taste?

July is the most anxious month for the independent roster editors devoted to Electronic Arts’ NCAA Football franchise. No matter what the game adds each year, promising an ever richer pageant of college football, it falls to these writers to add in the basic identities of the game’s performers, because NCAA amateurism rules forbid EA from including them. That leaves it to these roster editors and those they employ — some working on devkits in India — to hand-enter more than 8,000 players, across 120 teams. The task requires 20-hour workdays and contrivances to get advance copies of the game, all to complete a labor of love that only the most detail-oriented model railroader could ever hope to understand.

But Brian Kaldenberg, in a way, defies that altruistic mode. He sees NCAA rosters also as a very profitable business, and that makes him one of the most despised figures in a community where reputation and motive have as much currency as the accuracy of one’s work. In message boards and private conversation, Kaldenberg is routinely accused of plagiarism, arrogance, and deceitful practices. But with a combination of thick skin, patience and guile, he has become probably the most successful of anyone who sells NCAA rosters for more than a suggested donation. And Wednesday, sending more shockwaves through a jittery community, he acquired another leading NCAA roster domain, thus unifying the top three URLs returned for a search of “NCAA rosters” on Google.

Industry Apologetics: It's Not Just A Game

In my last column, I defended Grand Theft Auto IV from allegations of sexism, based on my opinion that it treats everyone distastefully. It provides a sandbox experience, I said, that allows players the opportunity to explore the underbelly of humanity and themselves, reflecting their own worst impulses back at them.

I was pleased that the article provoked thoughtful, in-depth discussion about the treatment of race, gender and other social issues in games, but in debunking a single individual's attack on Grand Theft Auto, my intention was not to provide a blanket pass to games that permit (and arguably, in this case, promote) antisocial behavior. So I was more pleased at the commenters who criticized the virulence of my GTA IV defense than I was at those who agreed with me (though, hey, who doesn’t like to be agreed with?).

One of the ways I rationalized what I’d written is by noting that games are scapegoated and crucified at every turn by people who’ve never even played them, and that this unfair public flogging threatens the medium’s potential for mainstream legitimacy.

Why those who make games don’t defend their own craft vigorously is a question for another time, but my position has been that the least we can do is to return these volleys when they’re aimed our way. If we want to see games truly thrive and grow away from stigma, it’s our responsibility, really.

And that’s why the most irresponsible thing we can ever do as gamers is to speak the phrase, “It’s only a game.”

Hard Proof That Tecmo Japan Is Lying? (This Seems Like It)

Things are going from bad to worse for Tecmo. First Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki announced he was leaving and suing Tecmo, while a totally separate lawsuit has been filed against Tecmo by Hiroaki Ozawa and co-plaintiff Tatsuki Tsunoda. Ozawa is the Tecmo Labor Union leader and Ninja Gaiden 2 lead engineer, while Tsunoda is the Ninja Gaiden 2 level design lead. Two key Team Ninja members! That alone does not bode well for Tecmo. But, this isn't just a story of two guys trying to get some overtime, but also apparently of deception, falsified statements and a dead, beloved company president. There's concrete evidence in the plaintiff's claims — so concrete that it could very well be the silver bullet for Tecmo's current upper management.

Ozawa and Tsunoda both filed their suit this past Monday. According to the suit, the workers were illegally placed on a "flexible hours" work scheme where overtime was not paid. Because of this dubious employment structure, overtime for the employees exceeded over 100 hours per month in unpaid overtime. Along with the lawsuit, they provided hard evidence to prove that Tecmo's actions were unethical and illegal.

RZA Keen To Checkmate New Wu-Tang Game

"A game of chess is like a sword fight," says RZA. He’s echoing the exact same kung-fu movie sample on Wu-Tang track “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” from the group’s 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Best known for producing that seminal hip-hop group, composing film soundtracks for Kill Bill and and acting in films like American Gangster, the 38 year-old RZA started playing chess when he was 11 years-old. It wasn't until the last three years he started taking the game seriously after getting his butt kicked in Washington Square Park games. "Other players were talking about chess game theory or books on chess," recalls RZA. "I had no idea there were books on chess." RZA boned up on the game's intricacies and became fascinated with its history. "I learned about all the great players — like Fischer and Kasparov.”

Way back in 1996, two University of Georgia students, Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel, created The Homestar Runner Enters The Strongest Man In The World Contest as a parody of the chidlren's books of that bygone era. Shortly after this the characters introduced in that book - Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, Strong Sad, and Pom Pom - would make their console debut as a cartoon created in the Super Nintendo game Mario Paint. In 1999 Mike Chapman and his younger brother Matt launched Homestarrunner.net ("It's Dot.Com!"), creating what could possibly be the most family-friendly flash humor website available on the internets.

Now some 12 years after the characters' initial video game debut, Strong Bad and friends are set to make their triumpant return to a Nintendo console with Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, collaborating with Sam and Max developers Telltale Games on the episodic adventure title. I recently met with The Brothers Chap at a gourment Atlanta restaurant to discuss the upcoming game, the perils of voice-acting every character on your website, and of course, the finest cuisine available in the United States.

The original Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, first held around 786 B.C., were created as a celebration of human physical achievement, which apparently consisted of watching naked, well-muscled men running foot races.

Luckily for the viewing public, the Olympics have come a long way since their revival in the late 1800's. Now they recognize both non-Greek speaking males and females as humans, they've added a fair bit of clothing, which tends to put the focus back on the actual sports...themselves expanded far beyond the initial foot-racing and wrestling of the original.

Over the past several decades, however, we've seen the emergence of an entirely new type of gaming - video gaming - and while it may not be an official event, the pastime we all know and love is alive and well at the Olympic games.

Let me introduce you to just a few of the gamers that will be representing the United States at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing...if we can pry them away from their consoles long enough.

A pretty blonde mob princess, bound and gagged, is taken kicking and screaming raw-throated curses out of the trunk of the player’s car. Tied to a chair in the hideout of the gangsters who hold her hostage, the player’s asked to snap a photo to send to her Mafia father.

She screams muffled protests through the rag between her lips, the image on the camera phone screen reflecting her tormented, terrified eyes. As the player centers her face in the frame, she offers a desperate moan, a wracked sob.

“Smile for daddy,” the player tells her.

Click.

Is Grand Theft Auto IV an expression of hate towards women? Are those who enjoy it misogynists?

EA continues to release bite-sized snippets of information on Spore, the evolutionary life sim due out this September. First up was the cell phase, and now we've reached the creature phase, which occurs after your little critter takes its first tentative steps onto land.

You'll be exploring a lush new world populated by other players' creations, and how you interact with them determines how you evolve, just as how you performed in cell phase determine which of three powers you get in creature stage.

I'm assuming there will be more of these as we slip into the summer months, EA's way of holding up a boom box playing Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" as Spore enters the home stretch.

Grand Theft Auto: DUI

Which Publishers Can Think Globally, Act Globally?

Games are a global business. After all, how many other industries could I work in where I live in Australia, work for an American-based company and can be read by anyone from Portugal to the Philippines at the push of a button? Not many. So it's a shame that while information about games is truly global, the games themselves are not.

It's a sad fact that most publishers just can't keep up with the 21st century. Consoles, games, console services like Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network are advertised globally, on globally-read sites, and yet their actual distribution is delayed not just by translation, but by 20th-century ideas like staggered market regions and country-specific licensing deals. Which in the end means lots of people gets lots of games a lot later than other people.

It sucks. You hate it, I hate it, we all (especially the Europeans among us) hate it. So I figured it'd be interesting to take a look at the industry's biggest publishers, look at their biggest games from the past two to three years, and see which companies are doing a good job of satisfying global demand for their product, and which ones...aren't.

How To Bring The West to Japan

Fact: There are differences between Western and Japanese games. Intrinsic differences that sometimes make it hard to bring Western games to Japan. The words, the phrases, the idioms — they're familiar to you. It's English, and chances are if you are reading this, the language is either your mother tongue or a second tongue or neither and you've happened on this page by accident. But for a segment of Japanese gamers, Western games are just not playable no thanks to the language barrier. But some of those differences arise from the background of developers.

The vast majority of Japanese devs have an arcade background, and if an arcade game is going to be a hit, it needs to work, it needs to be tight and snap. If you put in a coin in a buggy game that locks up or freaks out, you'll complain to the arcade manager, who will then complain to his boss, who will then complain to his boss, who will complain to that game's publisher. Shit's gotta work. While the arcade scene is very much alive in Japan, it's not in the States, and most developers are coming in with a strong PC gaming background. If shit's broken, patch, patch, patch! "Japanese games have very few collision problems — hands, arms going through walls, etc," says Capcom producer and former localization head Ben Judd. "When western gamers see in-game collision issues, they don't care as long as they're having a good time. That's just not acceptable for the Japanese." Things like A.I. and programming is where Western devs really shine, while Japan picks up the slack on things like textures.

Other things that separate Western and Japanese games, points out Judd, include such seemingly small things like "Japanese player typically don't like controlling two thumbsticks are once — they get sick" and "Japanese players like a strong tutorial." Japanese players, says Judd, prefer that characters are skewed slightly younger and have more anime-style qualities, while Western gamers favor 30 year-old bald men. "RPGs are popular," says Judd. "Players don't typically like the first person point of view and want to see their character. It makes it easier for them to support that character." No wonder Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto has found a welcome audience in Japan.

We talk about innovation in a number of ways in the game industry, some of which are very far off in the grand scheme of things: erudite discussions of game play, biomechanics, tailoring an experience to each individual. We have the less esoteric, more realistic discussions of what can be done with games now, and that sort of 'innovation,' I think, is really more a discussion of games 'growing up' and heading into more mature territory. Perhaps some of these debates are being cast in the wrong terms, or at least, there are multiple avenues of discussion to be explored.

What defines 'maturity'? I think the entertainment industry is somewhat hampered by defining works that include sex or violence or rough language as having 'mature themes': clearly there is an age component ('Should 10 year olds be watching this stuff?'), but it's overly simplistic at best. In my media collections, I have works I consider thematically "mature" in the ratings game sort of way, and the works that are mature in a different way. The ones that play with preconceived notions of the way things are or should be; the ones that deconstruct the traditional, reconstitute it as something new; most importantly, the ones that can be read on a number of levels.

Rumors have abounded regarding an upcoming motion control device for the Xbox 360, purportedly codenamed "Newton" — first, a loquacious anonymous source told MTV that such a controller is in development with support from developer Rare, and next 8bitjoystick pegged patents from Gyration, the same company responsible for Nintendo's Wii remote technology, as the likely tech behind Microsoft's top-secret project.

Gyration, however, unequivocally denied yesterday that it has any such project in development with Microsoft. However, talking to Rare, Microsoft and a company called Motus revealed more items of interest regarding the "Newton" — the picture seen above is Motus' "Darwin" controller.