I bought a bootleg NDS and it was... OK

 The title says it all. I bought a bootleg Nintendo DS and it was surprisingly decent as a game console. Why did I buy it? Several reasons.

First, my previous DS died when the screen stopped responding correctly. Any touch was seen as a series of taps. So touch and hold or drag became impossible.

The DS is no longer sold by Nintendo and new ones are rare as hen's teeth. I have several 3DSes, which can play my  library of DS games. However, I have only one functioning GameBoy Advance (an SP which is one of my all-time favorite devices), and replacement GBAs are harder to find than DSes. So I was looking for a backup in case my SP ever fails and was willing, for a reasonable price, to risk a gray market substitute.

There are plenty of used DSes for sale on sites such as eBay for anything from $40 to $200. Many of which are "refurbished". The DS I bought was listed as refurbished. But since it was coming from China, I assumed there was a high probability it would be of questionable legitimacy. 

And I was right. Sure, it has the standard Nintendo imprimatur and serial number on the back. However, the case itself is made from a cheaper, glossy yet but less reflective, plastic than official Nintendo products. But the real giveaway is the charger and charger port. The charging cable is some mutant USB thing — not a standard USB male plug nor DS plug but something half way between the two attached to a USB charger. Now, it might possibly contain a real, repurposed Nintendo DS motherboard inside. (I'm not interested enough to risk opening it up just for curiosity's sake.) But I suspect the chances of that are low. Especially given the change in power plugs.

But now that I have it, how does it fare? As I say, the construction looks cheaper than official Nintendo goods. On the other hand, I was surprised at how good the touch screen is. Clear, responsive. No discernible difference.

It successfully runs all of the DS and GBA cartridges I've thrown at it, including downloadable games sent from DS cartridges in my 3DS.

The most noticeable flaw in my gray market DS is the buttons. Nintendo hardware and controls are so smooth and well constructed, it is easy to forget how exceptional they are — until you play a generic system such as this. The buttons are "loose" to the point where it is easy to press them, even moderately, and have no response. So you end up playing with a much more heavy-handed style than you are used to or are comfortable with.  

This won't affect play too much except for those games that require very precise button timing. Also, I can't help thinking the need for my pressure on the controls will ultimately impact the longevity of the device as a whole. 

In summary, I am happy with my new device as an emergency replacement. However, it is also a good reminder of how exceptional the design and build on Nintendo products is and makes we want to take extra care with those systems I still have that are no longer being made.

A Year of Games, Week #2: Chibi-Robo

I like Chibi-Robo. He is one of those quirky video game characters Nintendo is known for, along the same lines as Kirby, Olimar from Pikmin,  or any of the characters from Animal Crossing (especially my favorite video character to hate, Mr. Resetti). Besides their undeniable cuteness, they all share one trait: they don't follow the standard rules of video game conduct. Some don't fight. Some can't jump. Some don't do anything but go around cleaning up after themselves and writing each other letters.

Eventually, many of these games do end up as straight up beat-up-bad-guys or collectathons (or both). But the attraction of the game is often based on the uniqueness of the character and their non-gamey-ness.

Chibi-Robo is a robot who likes to help people. In the first game, Chibi-Robo on GameCube, you spend a lot of time cleaning up for a fairly dysfunctional family.  When I first played it years ago, the cleaning up — and the requirement that you sleep at night, which came far too frequently — ultimately interfered with my finishing the game. Similar to, but not nearly as severe as Nintendogs.

But I liked the game because of the character. Besides the oddity of being forced to clean up, his movements exemplified his personality: his movements were all a little loose as if the bolts weren't tightened enough and he blinked a lot. A real lot. A sort of robotic Charlie Chaplin.

Of the three games he has starred in, I actually think the second, Chibi-Robo: Park Ranger on the Nintendo DS is the best. You still have the naive movements, but with a little less work required. And the work is more constructive (you can grow flowers, for example). And the simplicity of the graphics played well into the DS's 3D limitations.

Which is why it is so shocking that the third game, Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash, went completely south. Oh, it is not surprising that the game play is weak. (You can read the reviews to see why it is a sub-par 2D platformer.)

Neither of the previous games were exactly perfect examples of their genres either. But what's really irksome about Zip Lash is they removed any signs of personality from the main character. He runs, he jumps, and his dashes (using his power cord). But most of all, he kills various bits of space junk — over and over again. Gone are any signs of naivety. He doesn't blink, he doesn't wobble. Even his happy dance when he completes a task has turned into some sort of egotistical victory lap.

There is no reason the character is there except for name recognition. He might as well be any  generic robot, a random Disney character, or a hotdog with wings. (Actually, the game might improve if it were that last item.)

Applying Chibi-Robo to a 2D platformer did not necessitate destroying his character. You can tell that by comparing Zip Lash with another recent attempt by Nintendo to capitalize on existing intellectual property. Hey! Pikmin takes characters from another quirky game series (Pikmin and Pikmin 2) and adapts them to a 2D platformer. Hey! Pikmin has its own problems. It is too simple as a game, for one. And no one would say it has the emotional draw that the original games did. (You aren't going to cry over losing your Pikmin in this one.) But they are still Pikmin and the spaceman is still very clearly Olimar.And the gameplay is a simplified version of the originals. But most of all they are recognizably Olimar and Pikmin and, quite frankly, they are fun to play with. Which is often sufficient to cover over many other flaws a game might have.

Update: @chibitrobotweets points out that Chibi-Robo appeared in two other games as well:  Clean Sweep, which was released in Japan for the DS, and Photo Finder on the 3DS. They also say  that Clean Sweep is actually the best of the games in their opinion.

A Year of Games, Week #1: Mobile Madden MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

 What is a year of games?

For those unfamiliar with agile development, minimum viable product (MVP) is where you start by delivering the simplest, most basic yet functional version of a product possible and then build out from there, incrementally improving and extending in "sprints". It's an interesting concept to keep in mind when thinking about some early mobile games. For example, you might consider Flappy Bird the penultimate example of an MVP for mobile games.

But back to my subject, Madden Football. And more specifically Madden on the Nintendo 3DS.

I've played Madden on many game consoles, starting with the N64, through GameCube, Wii, and PS2, 3 and 4. Each iteration getting more complex, more detailed, and more "realistic", graphically. I bought Madden for the 3DS when I first got the handheld (because it was one of the few day one games). However, I never played it at the time and it has sat, still shrink wrapped, on my shelf until recently, when I took it down, opened it and played it.

Considering its age and the limitations and newness of the platform at the time, Madden Football on the 3DS is actually a pretty good football game. Which surprised me.

I've played handheld Madden games before — on both the DS and PSP. But they aren't quite football. Don't get me wrong, they are fun video games. But it is kind of like playing cowboys and Indians using thread spools and clothespins as people. The sprites are clunky and malformed, everyone runs at 90 degree angles (kind of like trying to draw a diagonal line on an Eatch-A-Sketch), and the perspective is pulled back so far you're not really controlling the characters as much as bouncing them off each other in a giant game of pinball.

So if you are looking for a realistic football experience, you'll be disappointed. And frustrated. But if you forget the footballness of it and think of it simply as a type of abstract game dressed in football attire, they can be quite fun. Kind of like Pachinko with passing plays.

[Note: there was also a Game Boy Advanced version of Madden. However, I have never played it so I leave I to the reader's imagination what that might be like...]

Which is where Madden Football on the 3DS differs. It is more like its console kin than its handheld forebearers. The perspective is closer in and the controls are tighter. Mind you, this is not high end graphics in any way. It is just passably into the 3D realm — minimally viable as an actual football game.

Because it was first out on the 3DS, it also provides 3D-ish views. Which is OK, but acceptable because you can turn them off. The one feature that does irk me is that, since it was doing actual 3D polygons, the developers decided to show this off by actively rotating the camera as the play developed. A fancy but useless addition to game play and quite honestly made me a little seasick. Because the camera swings from end-to-end up to three times in a single play (such as a kickoff). This unnecessary feature, that can't be turned off, might be a fatal flaw.

Prelude to a Year of Games

 I am constantly inventing new tasks that I am not capable of completing. Some because I don't have the skill (such as playing music or learning to read Japanese), some because I don't have the time, and most due to a combination of the two. Time is more often than not the deciding factor.

I am particularly susceptible to this sort of excessive planning when I am on vacation and free from thinking about work. This holiday season is no exception.

Years ago I started a project to read a poem by a different poet each day for a month and write about it. This worked for a month or two but by the third month time got away from me and it was abandoned mid-month. I tried to pick it up again, but that too failed.

This year, being overly optimistic as I always am, I thought "maybe I should play a video game for 15 minutes every day for a month and write about that." I have more than enough lying around to fill a month or more and I wouldn't be attempting any sort of serious review — more like a comment on any quirks or minor treats I encounter.

But seriously, this is never going to happen. I barely have the 15 minutes a day to play the game, never mind the time to write down my thoughts. (For example, this prelude itself has been underway for three days now. I am not a fast writer.)

But then I thought, well, if I can't play every day, maybe I should aim to play once a week. So a game every week for a year. That would be only 52 games. I should be able to do that...

Well, we shall see. A year of games? Might end up being only a few weeks or a month or so. But could be fun. Let's try it!

• Week #1: Madden

What I'm Playing: Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild

A lot of ink has been spilled over the latest entry in the Legend of Zelda series, almost all of it highly complimentary. And the praise is well deserved. It is an amazing game. So I won't try to compete with what has already been said.

But I will point out a few things that make it such a treat, from a player's perspective. At least, this player's perspective....

Besides the graphics that are, as might be expected, a serious step up from previous titles, the first thing you notice is that this game skips the lengthy prologue so many Nintendo titles use. In five minutes or less you are out playing the game. And in that five minutes you learn enough to make yourself comfortable with the controls, dressed (yes, dressed), and ready to go adventuring. This fast startup was not only a surprise, but an unalloyed pleasure. I have begun to dread the opening of games because I rarely have the 30-60 minutes needed just to get through  the openings! To be able to turn it on, get right into the mood and get started was a sheer joy.

Second, there are squirrels! And lots of other things. but squirrels! I have no idea whether the squirrels (and other wildlife) play any serious role in the game. In fact, it doesn't matter. Just watching them hop around and then scatter at your approach is delightful — one of the innumerable ways the game draws you in unrelated to the challenges and mechanics of game play. I could spend days just wandering around without taking on any challenges just to revel in that sense of wonder and newness the game aims for.

Which brings me to my last point. None of this is new. The graphics are tremendous. But other games have achieved this level of world-building before. Superfluous animal life appears in other games (the birds and lizards in Shadow of the Colossus come to mind). Other games have cooking (e.g. Monster Hunter). Ditto climbing and limited stamina (again Shadow of the Colossus and Monster Hunter). The same is true for large open worlds (name your favorite: Red Dead Redemption, etc.). So it is not unique play mechanics or game features that make Breath of the Wild stand out. It is the whole; the sum of the parts and how they are used in just the right amounts to make a wholly engrossing, delightful, internally consistent, and surprising world that makes the game the major achievement it is. 

Beautifully Frivolous Technology

I bought a PS Vita so I could play Tearaway. Skipping, for the moment,  the question of whether it was worth it to buy a system just to play one game (hint: once you start playing Tearaway, it doesn't matter), the PS Vita itself is a strange device.

Make no mistake about it, the Vita is a beautiful piece of technology. The screen is gorgeous. The device has a heft and sheen to it that makes it look and feel expensive. Is that superficial? Yes, it is. But that doesn't take away its value to the overall impression the device gives off. And as a gaming device, the two analog sticks work perfectly and provide a unique portable gaming experience.

However, for all of its top-notch features, the PS Vita also comes with some odd, unnecessary, and in several cases cheap and badly designed components.Why?

To start with, the game cartridge slot has a cover — a plastic cover — that is attached by four thin pliable plastic tabs. The first time you open the slot it is clear that these tabs are likely to be the first thing to break. Why is there a cover on the game slot at all? (It just gets in the way of changing games.) But if you need one, why such a shoddy design?

You can almost forgive Sony for thinking that the primary direction for games is digital downloads. But that clearly didn't work with the download-only PSP Go. And even if that is their direction, the audience has not fully transitioned from physical to digital media. So cheap design only makes the device seem unsuited for those interested in playing more  than two or three games. (What can fit on Sony's extraordinarily expensive memory cards.)

And then there is the software user interface. What is going on here? There is plenty of flashy interface to deal with. But why? I bought a device to play games on, but none of the games fit on the first screenful of icons there are so many unnecessary "social" apps pre-installed.

Where are the games?

And the unique "peel" mechanic where you have to pull each screen from the top-left down and to the right to go back, what's with that? It is a pretty animation. But why create a mechanic different from every other mobile device except to say "we're different" and frustrate all of your users?

There are so many decisions (3d quivering buttons, the "peal" mechanic, so many "me too" annoying and irrelevant social apps) that just scream "we don't care what you want, we want to impress you". And when I am paying $200 plus, I am not interested in being impressed. I want to be wowed by the function I want to use — the games I want to play. And on the positive side, the PS Vita supports just that with an outstanding screen, well-designed controls and even a little extra (such as the back touch pad). If only all the rest of the device stopped getting in my way....

What I'm Playing: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors

I am currently playing three puzzle games on the Nintendo DS. They are all different, but playing them together helps clarify what works — and what doesn't work — in each.

The first game I started was 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (affectionately referred to as 999). This is a puzzle/story game, where to progress through the story you need to solve puzzles. It is a pretty well-established genre, similar in nature to the Nancy Drew games, Professor Layton, Myst, etc.

999 is what might be described as a survival-horror puzzler, because the story involves your character, Junpei, being kidnapped and trapped on a sinking ship with eight other people. They must work together to escape before time runs out (the eponymous 9 hours).

Let me just say I expected to like this game. It sounded unusual and got quite good reviews for both its puzzles and its ambiance. But I was seriously disappointed.

The puzzles are fine. In fact, the game starts off well with a locked room puzzle of moderate difficulty. No wasting half an hour on simplistic "training" levels. Unfortunately, the game takes a turn for the worst, in several respects, when story elements are introduced.

For a story-driven puzzler, the story line is grisly and unnecessarily so. Death and mutilation is intended to give you as the player a sense of suspense and tension. But since you have so little control over the action of the game (except tapping the screen to advance the story) the gruesome events are only uncomfortable.

And the discomfort is extenuated by the unrealistic story line. You are trapped with eight other people who look like they just came from a circus (literally) or a Village People tribute concert. Each a unique and comically stereotyped representation of.... something. A belly dancer, a heavy-set laborer, an effete aristocrat... you get the idea.

To make matters worse, the story is presented in a crude 2D pantomime. Static images, with flat images of the cartoony cast (literally, drawn as cartoons) floating in and out of view like shadow puppets. This is suspense? Even viewed as a retro "edgy" presentation style, the clumsy graphics become tedious.

Worse yet, the awkwardness of the presentation carries over to the game play. At one point, you are required to turn a ship's wheel. A relatively simple puzzle device, given you are shifted to a direct front view. And with touch control, you would think it a simple thing to allow the user to touch and drag the wheel to turn it, no?

No. The UI puts up arrows pointing left and right above the wheel which you are forced to click on to make the wheel turn. They almost had to go out of their way to make the interaction so... unnatural.

And finally, the game fails at its own goal of making you feel like it is something more than just a handful of meaningless puzzles. For all of the portents, unnecessary curse words, and grisliness, the game is constantly forcing you to respond to relatively meaningless or obtuse statements and suggestions from the other members of the party. But when it matters, when something is seriously wrong and you — even if you believed the story and wanted to "play" — you are given no control except clicking and clicking and clicking while line after line of text inches past until your bizarrely frozen in place persona is killed...

Yes, I played all the way through to one of the "bad" endings. I was then given the option of replaying the game, with the advantage that I could jump through text and scenes I was already familiar with. No thank you. Once was more than enough.

[To be continued....]

A Small Piece of Gaming History: CHASE-N-COUNTER

While sorting through some boxes I had stored on a shelf in the basement, I came across a box labeled "small games". Inside I found many familiar items I had put away, but I also encountered one I had completely forgotten.

For many years my mother-in-law worked for the game company, Milton Bradley. She knew I liked games and puzzles and so she often gave me the latest games as Christmas and birthday presents. At one point Milton Bradley bought the small electronics firm GCE in an effort to get a foothold in the burgeoning video game market. GCE was developing a gaming machine called the Vectrex. Vectrex was unique in many ways: it used vector graphics rather than a raster display, it was black and white, it was an all-in-one design including a tiny 9" screen, etc.

Within a year, Milton Bradley decided to get out of the video game market and sold off its inventory of Vectrex to its employees at a steep discount. (I still have a complete working Vectrex system, which we bring out every couple of years.)

In addition to Vectrex, GCE created a series of handheld games. I had forgotten that she gave me one of these systems as well and that is what I rediscovered.

The GCE handhelds, such as CHASE-N-COUNTER, were also unique. Not because they used vector graphics (they use very crude LED displays instead), but because they doubled as a calculator. ("N-COUNTER", get it?) A sliding plastic cover switched the handheld from game machine to calculator instantly, hiding its other function. The ultimate "boss screen" in a way.

When I found it, the batteries were dead. But after replacing the batteries it works like new. Well... new, 15 years ago. No one would mistake CHASE-N-COUNTER for a modern video game. The rudimentary shapes (a single dot for your "character" if you could call it that) and the sparse plink-plink of the sound effects, and lurching movement take you back to — let's be truthful — a much more difficult time.

These games are not easy. Timing is everything. It is really you against the computer as you try to time your moves to the precise moment your dot jumps to the next LED and before the crushing "game over" sound indicates you missed it.

So, although the games are simpler, the play is much harder. It takes a lot of practice just to get the basics of the game down. But once you have them down, then it is simply a matter of increasing difficulty, with the same mechanics over and over.

This was true of arcade games at the time as well. Pac-Man is a good example. On your first try you lasted about 30 seconds. But if you kept at it, you could manage to clear several screens without losing a life.

That said, I don't know that I'm going to be playing CHASE-N-COUNTER again any time soon. It was a fun experience at the time, but it is hard to resurrect the interest (or the free time) that kept me at it originally.

But it is nice to see it still works. And just hearing those tinny sounds reminds me of the simple pleasures of concentrating on something entirely meaningless, but mesmerizing.

P.S. After finding CHASE-N-COUNTER, I also found an article written by the game's programmer. A great read if you are interested in the story of how such a game was developed.

The Mechanics of Handling Two Screens

I once read a review that commented on the discontinuity created by the space between the two screens on a Nintendo DS game. The blank space was treated as part of the play area and there was a noticeable delay as the player's avatar passed from one screen to another.

This got me thinking about the other games I'd played and how they handled the two screens, because in many cases I simply had not noticed. But in a few cases, the mechanism stands out as both innovative and a complement or enhancement to the game play.

There are, so far (there's always room for innovation), essentially three or four generic mechanics for handling the two screens that I have seen:

• Separate worlds, separate screens
• Ignore the gap
• The invisible game space: the DMZ
• The invisible game space: playing in the dark
  

Separate Screens, Separate Worlds

In this mode the two screens are handled as separate entities. This is the most common technique for racing games, where the top screen is used for the racer's view and the bottom screen shows a map, statistics, current standings, etc.

Separate screens is also very common for platformers and "educational" titles (such as Brain Training). The advantage of this method is that the gap becomes a non issue. The disadvantage is that if you don't have much additional content, the second screen is essentially wasted. This is very noticeable in some of the early titles such as Ridge Racer and Rayman, where the bottom screen is primarily a very bad replacement for an analog stick.


Ignore the Gap

In this mode the game ignores the physical gap and acts as if the two screens are two adjoining segments of a seamless view. This avoids any issues of what happens "in the gap", but does create a bit of a discontinuity as objects "jump" across the physical gap between the screens.

As a side note, I can't  think of any games that are designed this way. It is possible and even likely that some game has created a partitioned game field ignoring the gap. But in most cases where a game uses both screens for the same "environment", they use one of the following modes to handle the gap.

The Invisible Game Space: The DMZ

In this mode the two screens form a single playing field and the gap between them is treated as part of the field -- an invisible space. However, the game ensures that the player either never enters that space or is "safe" while passing through.

Note that both the player and enemies may pass through this space, but not together since that would risk a collision or attack in the invisible space. Examples of this are Yoshi Touch n Go where the enemies pass through the gap but Yoshi doesn't. Except in the first scene where baby Mario is falling and only after the enemies have cleared the area (as Baby Mario makes the final fall to be caught be Yoshi).


The Invisible Game Space: Playing in the Dark

The last possibility is where the gap is an invisible part of a single playing field, but the games lets interactions occur in the gap! If this were accidental it would be a serious flaw in the game mechanics because the player could get, literally, blindsided. However, done well it adds a new wrinkle to the games.

One of the best examples I have seen of this technique is in Bomberman where "tunnels" lead through the gap from the top screen to the bottom and the player (or enemies) can use the tunnels to hide bombs or to trap opponents with blasts from one screen to the next.

Nintendo 3DS Pricing

OK. So Nintendo has finally announced the release date and pricing for the upcoming Nintendo 3DS handheld (March 27th for $249 US). Let the wailing and lamentation begin.

I shouldn't joke. I have complained about overpriced hardware myself in the past (eg. Dreamcast, PSP, PS3...). But quite frankly, I am over it. There is clearly a price at which electronics overreach their audience. This was true of the 3DO ($699 in 1993), the PS3 (originally priced at $499-$599 in 2006), and certainly true of the PSP Go ($249 in 2009), which is perhaps the poster child of over eager pricing.

So, how can you justify the 3DS at $249 when the PSP Go was "overpriced" at the same price? Because when it comes to price, "too much" is relative.

It is now 2011. The last Nintendo  handheld, DS, started around $149 and rose to $189 for the DSiXL — which is an interesting, but ultimately minor, upgrade on the base unit. So another $60 jump for a major new platform is not unreasonable. Especially when you compare it to the PSP Go which had a new form factor, but no really new functionality.

The real question is what is happening to console prices? All three consoles are now priced starting around $200-$300. So the 3DS will come in pretty much even with a home game console. 3-5 years ago this would have been inconceivable. But the fact is, the age of console gaming is over.

I don't mean consoles are going away; I expect video game consoles and console games to continue. There will always be a place for "serious" gaming. But the era where consoles dominate the industry is over. Smart phones play a part in this. Casual gaming is also involved. But perhaps more importantly, video game consoles have evolved to a point of diminishing returns. The expense of producing the hardware and of developing games to exercise that hardware is barely sustainable.

Nintendo avoided this cycle by moving (no pun intended) in a new direction with the Wii, to great success. But in the five years since Wii debuted, much of the technology involved is now possible in handheld form. Besides its eponymous 3D gaming, the 3DS has cameras, a microphone, accelerometer, wifi, and touch control (as do many smart phones). So as the amount of additional graphic power that can be eked out of consoles shrinks, we get closer to the day where the only thing that separates consoles from handheld gaming is the big screen. (And I expect someone will soon figure out how to link that to a handheld as well...)

But I digress. Is the 3DS worth $249? For a portable "console" that is is backwards compatible (with DS), upgrades the processor significantly, and delivers an entirely new form of play? Sounds like it to me.

Of course, the real question is what will Sony do when it announces its rumored successor to the PSP. They have traditionally been at the high end of both features and pricing. Their new device may make the 3DS look like a toy. But it is unclear (as it was with the original PS3) whether people will be willing to pay the premium for a... toy?

Top Ten Games of 2010

A friend of mine told me that, as a holiday activity, he and his college-age sons were discussing their choices for top music of the year. A sort of top ten for 2010. Knowing that we play a lot, he suggested that I do the same with my sons with regards to video games. It sounded like a good idea, so we tried it.

The first thing we agreed upon was that we didn't have ten top games. In fact, we could only name three. There are several reasons for this:

• I personally don't get a lot of time to play, so when I do play we tend to play games we can play together. Fewer and fewer modern console games support split-screen multi-player. So we tend to play older games.
• A lot of the "big" games this year were sequels (Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Call of Duty I-lost-count, etc.). As good as these games are, they tend to be more of the same. Not really top ten material.
• Most of our time is spent playing games that we've been playing for a year or more. When we think of our favorite games, they are often two or more years old. They may be top ten for our year of gaming, but not valid candidates as recent releases.

So we quickly realized we had not one, but three lists: a short list of top games for 2010, our actual favorite games for playing, and those games we are looking forward to for 2011. So let's start with...

Top Games for 2010

• Red Dead Redemption (PS3/Xbox360)
  
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP)
• Monster Hunter Tri (Wii)

Red Dead Redemption is clearly one of the best games of 2010. Massive, graphically beautiful, and engrossing game play/story line. No, it is not "art" or an interactive novel (despite side quests, the missions are relatively linear). If there are any negatives to the game it would be that once you are through the missions, there isn't much else to do.

I didn't play Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. But my sons did. Obsessively. For two weeks straight. It seems to be the best and most complete example of a 3D action/strategy game on a handheld device. Mind you, probably best played co-op with a friend. (Rumor has it some levels are almost too tough in single-playermode.)

Best and most complete example of a 3D action/strategy game on a handheld device except for Monster Hunter Freedom 2 on the PSP, which we have been playing continuously for over a year now. But this is an example of the games we play and the best of the year not being in sync. Monster Hunter came out more than two years ago. It is probably still the best 3D action/strategy on a handheld device. But for 2010, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker outshines anything else.

Finally, Monster Hunter Tri. Perhaps not quite as good as Freedom 2, but that's splitting hairs. Tri is definitely better as a single player experience and no other game even comes close to it in style of play or game experience on the Wii.

So those are the top three. There were two others we considered adding to the list:

• Little Big Planet (PSP)
• Picross 3D (DS)

We originally thought we had four top games for 2010, because LittleBigPlanet on the PSP is an amazing game. Sure, it is a "downsizing" of Little Big Planet on the PS3. But LBP on the PS3 is such a good game (close to Super Mario 64 and Shadow of the Colossus in terms of best video game ever and reason enough, by itself, to recommend buying a PS3) that a portable version, even without co-op play,  is an amazing game. Problem is, it actually came out at the end of 2009, not the beginning of 2010 as we thought. Sigh.

I also wanted to add Picross 3D. It doesn't have amazing graphics. It doesn't have terribly innovative game play. And, yes, it too is a sequel. But as puzzle games go, it is about as complete an example as you can find; where the music, the game play, the meaningless-though-entertaining animations add up to an addictive experience. But my sons wouldn't agree to adding it to the list. So let's call it a runner up. (While they're not looking!)

That's it for top games of the year. But what are we actually playing?

Favorite Games (What We Actually Play)

Hands down, the games we play the most are LittleBigPlanet on the PS3 and Monster Hunter Freedom 2 on the PSP. As mentioned before, I believe LBP is a candidate for one of the best video games ever. And Monster Hunter is an enthralling, addictive, immersive experience, once you get into it. Mind you, it takes some doing (several hours) before you get hooked. Which might explain why it hasn't caught on in the US yet.

The fact that both games came out more than two years ago (three for Monster Hunter) and we are still playing them gives you some indication of how good we think they are.


After that, comes a slew of games we played and enjoyed: Scribblenauts, Hammerin' Hero, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted 1 and 2, Super Mario Bros. Wii... The list gets longer every time we think about it. But quite frankly, it tends to be an amorphous bundle of fond memories. Each game with its pros and cons, but few that stand out against the few I've already mentioned -- or other spectacular games from the past we haven't played recently (such as Katamari Damacy).

Cheating

I was talking to a friend about video games when he said — by way of explaining why he hacked his son's game to add a few more powerful Pokemon — "everyone cheats".

That could well be true. it certainly seems like there is a lot of cheating going on. But I suspect the world can be divided into two camps: those who believe everyone cheats and those who believe most people cheat.

What's the point? I am not interested in discussing the repercussions on society (which there are plenty of). I am really only thinking of the narrower scope of games.

The distinction is that if everyone cheats, the only way to participate is to cheat as well. Or else you are a chump. If most, but not all, people cheat, there is still a moral question to be answered. And a question of purpose.

What is the purpose of gaming? If it is purely to win, then cheating has no negatives since it more quickly achieves the goal. If, on the other hand, gaming is about playing — about facing a challenge and overcoming it in the safe confines of a virtual world — then cheating defeats the purpose because it eliminates the challenge rather than overcoming it.

This is easy enough to understand when playing single player games. Take solitaire for example. There is no benefit to peeking at the cards that are face down or rearranging the deck — you are only cheating yourself and will quickly tire of the game. Since if you cheat you can always win and then the game has no point.

But the question of cheating becomes more complex when you are playing with or against other players. The incentives become more involved. When playing with others, there are additional incentives: wanting to do better than the other players; wanting not to look stupid or ineffectual; wanting to demonstrate mastery over the game... All of these can play a part, but with differing levels of importance for each player.

Online gaming is replete with its own language of competition and "pwnage", making the challenge of doing well for your own sake a much lesser force than the desire for bragging rights. Even single player games now come with "trophies", "badges", and other awards so you can compare your skills against other players.

Which brings up a special category of cheating: not losing. A number of games have had to modify their leader boards to account for players who "turn off" before a competition is over because they don't want a loss to negatively impact their total score.

This whole discussion sounds very self-righteous. I tend not to play many online multiplayer games, so it is easy for me to be holier-than-thou to those who prefer competitive play. But the fact is, I cheat as well.

Since I don't tend to play multi-player games (except face-to-face with friends) my cheating is of a different nature. That is, I cheat to continue. Or, in other words, the strategy guide cheat.

Games can be hard — they're meant to be challenging. Sometimes the solutions are just too hard or too obscure to figure out alone. For platformers, which tend to be linear in nature, this can be critical: if you can't solve the puzzle or beat the boss, you can't proceed. So your choice is either solve the problem or give up the game.

I don't like cheating. (I'm the kind of person who refuses to look at the box lid when doing a jigsaw puzzle because working off the picture would be "cheating".) But I will cheat for a game I am enjoying if I get stuck. It is a tradeoff I am willing to make under two conditions:

• The game is enjoyable enough that I really want to proceed.
• I have tried enough times to work it out, without success, that I know (or think I know) that I can't figure it out without assistance.

There is a third condition, which is that I only need to "cheat" a few times in a game. Once I have to look up the answer two, three, or more times in a row, I start to feel the game is too hard to be fun any more. (E.g. the original Kingdom Hearts on PS2 felt this way.) When this happens, then you are no longer playing, you are simply working your way through the strategy guide.

No, thank you. I'd rather be playing.

How We Perceive Games and Toys (Redux)

Two years ago I wrote an entry (Welcome to Gameland) bemoaning the way society is portrayed in the marketing of toys and games. My complaint (if you want to call it that) was that in marketing, the target audience for toys and games are portrayed -- to an overwhelming extent -- as children playing by themselves, almost never with adults.

Well, the next holiday season came and went. So I thought it might be interesting to see if the previous year's advertising was an anomaly or not. So I took five catalogs we received over the last Christmas holiday (2009)  and repeated the experiment. Four of the catalogs were dedicated solely to toys for children and one, Sears, had a significant toy section. I counted the number of images of people using the advertised products, determining how many were:

• Children pictured alone
• Children in a group of two or more
• Groups of children and adults together

The catalogs I analyzed were ImagineToys, Met Kids, Sears Wishbook, Target Toys, and Toys R Us. I was surprised -- pleasantly so -- to see a significant change. The number of  pictures depicting children playing together increased from 12% to 21%. The number of pictures of children playing with adults went from zero to 4%.

Not only are there more images of children playing together and with parents, the increase applies almost across the board. Of the catalogs I surveyed, only MetKids predominantly depicted children playing by themselves.

Obviously, showing children by themselves does not necessarily mean you don't think they play with others. Hiring two models is more expensive than hiring one. But it is interesting that there seems to be a shift to re-emphasizing the utility of toys for group interaction.

Of particular note, (although I didn't capture the numbers to prove it, it is just an interesting side note) many of the pictures of groups of children with adults involved outdoor play structures such as swing sets, sand boxes, and outdoor sports equipment.

What I'm Playing: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Last night I finished Professor Layton and the Curious Village, the puzzle/mystery game for the Nintendo DS. I know I'm a little late -- the game's been out for more than a year now and there is a new Professor Layton game that's already been released. But I will not be playing the second game.

Why not? Because the Curious Village is surprisingly boring. You'd think it was right up my alley. It has puzzles (I like puzzles). It has a mystery (I like mysteries). You can save at any time (I have limited free time so being able to play in short bursts -- which this game is ideally suited for -- is essential for me). And when I saw the original trailer, I loved the art style and the animation.

But I didn't enjoy it. To start with... Hey! Where'd the animation go? Except for the opening cinematics (and the final scene) there is almost no animation. The story -- what there is of one -- is told in a slide show of static images and printed text. And there aren't very many of these either, since the village is pretty small. Get ready to see the same places over and over again.

Then there is the mystery, which is really no mystery at all. About a quarter of the way through the game, the primary "mystery" of the village becomes self-evident. At that point, the game becomes an exercise in slogging through the puzzles and waiting for new areas to open up.

Which brings us to the puzzles. I like puzzles, I really do. But the worst problem with Professor Layton is I don't find its puzzles satisfying. These puzzles are not mental exercises, they are more what I would call "trick" puzzles, similar to the "move two match sticks to form a different picture" variety. (In fact, that specific type of puzzle shows up several times.)

Now you might say that these types of puzzles teach out-of-the-box thinking, where you need to look at the question in a new way to recognize the answer. However, in many cases, you either see the trick of your don't. If you don't, then the puzzle is simply a frustration. If you do, you quickly answer it and move on, without learning much or feeling any great sense of achievement. This is especially true the third or fourth time you have to answer the same type of puzzle.

Quite frankly I find the puzzles in the "educational" titles Brain Age and Big Brain Academy far more animated, enlightening, and ultimately more fun than dealing with the professor and his mysterious village.

So why, you might ask, did I finish it? Well, to tell the truth, I wanted to prove that my guess as to the answer to mystery was true (which it was). And, in fact, the last few puzzles in the game really ramped up the difficulty and required some serious brain power to solve -- and they were subsequently more satisfying to master.

But it was far too little too late to make up for the general tedium of the game. It's a shame. I really like puzzle games and was hoping this one would live up to the hype. But I guess I'll have to keep looking...

I am Tired of Killing Things

I love playing video games. I like the technology, I like the imaginative environments, I like the gameplay, the challenges, the characters, and the music. I particularly enjoy the childish glee I get as I conquer some meaningless virtual hurdle, clear a level, earn a star, or whatnot. But I am getting tired of killing things.

This is not a polemic against violence in video games, per se. I enjoy fighting games as much as the next person. From the realistic (Call of Duty) to the cartoonish (Smash Brothers), from the horrifying (Resident Evil) to the hilarious (Ape Escape), from the fantastic (Star Wars) to the funny (Lego Star Wars). But at some point there have to be other modes of play.

What brought on this fit was hearing all the pre-show hype and rumor around this week's E3 exhibition. Oh, there will be plenty of non-violent news and entertainment (the usual passel of racing games and mini game collections aimed at "families") but the big bucks go to the third or fourth iteration of numerable kill-everything-and-save-the-world games. I'm talking about Nier, Assassin's Creed 2, God of War 3, Tekken 6, and Final Fantasy I've Lost Count. At some point I don't need the blood any more realistic or the hits any more spectacular. The game play is the same.

Now, I know half of the people reading this (the gamers) are going to dismiss it as the whining complaints of an ignorant old crank. The other half (non-gamers or ex-gamers) are likely to latch on to it as a global invective against fighting games. It is neither of those. It is simply an expression of frustration at the lack of innovation in game play at the highest levels.

Each fighting game has its nuance, its (hopefully) unique take on the genre. There are the stealth games, the strategy games, the collaborative games, the gruesome and the garish games. But there are ultimately only so many flavors of kill and games become boring when they are repetitive -- no matter how flashy or colorful the explosions.

But, of course, there is hope. And, no, it is not just adding motion detection or making me wear a telekinetic headset. It comes from invention. Titles like last year's Little Big Planet demonstrate that there is plenty of room left to create enthralling games without more killing. This year, Mini Ninjas, even while continuing the fighting model, seems to inject enough humor, story, and imaginative objects into the game to create a uniquely enjoyable experience.

At least from the trailers. And that's all we have to go on so far.

The Business of Casual Games

I recently received mail from a game publisher offering me free access to one of their PC games. The invitation was very nice; they were offering it to me since I talk about video games, obviously looking for a review but not insisting. I was, actually, pleased that they asked.

Yes, of course it is a marketing ploy. They would like me to write a review. But they managed to walk a very delicate balance between gifting and requiring reciprocation. It was an offer, and nothing more. And I appreciated that.

However, I was still left in a bit of a quandary. I am not a professional reviewer. I talk about games I am playing when I think I have something interesting to say about them (either good or bad). I don't review everything I play and I certainly don't have time to review lots of games sent to me out of the blue. (I do have another career, etc.)

But even that wasn't what bothered me. And then it struck me: my problem is that I don't play PC games. It is kind of funny because I work with computers all day (and frequently at night) so have plenty of opportunity. And it is not like I've never played games on computers. (I was very fond of Tetris and various Breakout clones years ago. I even wrote a few games -- toys really -- as programming practice while with one of my previous employers.)

But with a few exceptions (Myst, Riven, The Journeyman Project, and Microsoft Flight Simulator) once we got into game consoles -- and especially handhelds starting with the Gameboy SP -- I have not done any PC gaming.

Why not? Well, there are several reasons:

• Usability: Quite frankly, the keyboard and mouse are seriously under par as a control set for real-time games. They are OK for strategy/board games with a lot of pointing or typing, but otherwise the controls are awkward. Game systems on the other hand are designed specifically for that purpose. (I'll save my comments about bad game console design for another time.)
• Compatibility: why do I need a $3,000 computer to play a $50 game? Or why does a $20 game insist on resetting the color scheme and resolution of my monitor (and not setting it back)? Or why can I play games on one version of an OS and not on another?
  
• Lack of time for "real" PC games: Quite frankly, I no longer have hours to devote to the larger PC games like Myst, Age of Empires, etc.
  
• Lack of patience with "casual" PC games: I just can't get involved in the multitude of what might be called "semi-professional" downloadable games that litter the casual games market for the PC.

It is this last item that got me thinking. I know I don't have time for longer games - whether on the PC or a game console. But casual games would seem to fit right into my vector of needs, interests, and limitations. Quick, fun, no heavy investments...

But they don't attract me. Why? Because I've been burnt before. As, I suspect, have many of you.

Its very simple: there are lots of amateur and semi-pro casual games out there (most with free downloadable demos) and the majority of them stink.

Now, I am not saying there aren't console games that are deplorable (and I've been unfortunate enough to play several). I also don't feel quite comfortable with my previous remark about "the majority" of semi-pro PC games. Despite the high cost of entry for publishing console games, if I were being frank it is unclear whether the ratio of gold to dross is any higher for consoles than for PC games.

However, when you encounter a loser on a console, you simply remove the cartridge and throw it away with no side effects. No uninstall, no danger of virus contamination. No leftover hidden bits and pieces you might not know about. With PC games, there is always the lingering doubt (and plenty of quirky behavior on the part of PC's from whatever source) about its long-term impact.

So, as kind as the offer was, I declined. It is unfortunate, because I would like to give independent artists and developers their due. But ultimately, time and the technology is not on their side. This may be why the market for independent games on smart phones (such as the iPhone) is taking off. It provides both the marketplace -- and a relatively secure hardware platform -- that gives users the confidence to try out less familiar or well-financed options.

What I'm Playing: Persona 4

It seems unlikely, but I am playing Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. Why so improbable? Because, as I've mentioned before:

• I don't like RPGs,
• I don't have time to play long games or games that need extended play between saves,
• And I mostly play portable, not console games
  

Well, Persona 4 is a straight up RPG on the Playstation 2, complete with points system, level ups, turn-based attacks, etc. Game play consists of long story episodes with few saves spots and intermittent battles. Not exactly my usual type of game.

But I am addicted.

It is not the game play; I have hardly got far enough to have even the barest minimum control of the game. Mostly it is an extended animation interspersed with my pressing X to move mechanically forward in the story. Oh, and every once in a while I get to choose my response in discussions with other characters in the story. Only every once in a while.

And there are battles. But what has me itching to keep playing is the story, the environment, and the presentation.

• Story-wise, playing Persona 4 is like reliving high school, complete with the plodding pace, the often inane conversations, and seemingly menial activities. The game captures this perfectly -- including the verbal banter that often masks an intricate social dance of half truths, dares, flaunts, and feints. I don't need to relive high school (I am way past that) and there are many movies and TV shows that, sadly, pretend to. But few actually capture the meaningless intrusion of random external events quite like Persona 4.
  
  
• This is made all the more interesting because the story is acted out in modern Japan. This is not a ploy to create a feeling of alienation. It is an artifact of the game's origin; it was developed in Japan and Atlus unapologetically makes no attempt to Westernize it. The result is a fascinating immersion in the smallest details of Japanese culture: the houses, the streets, the furniture and clothing, even the advertising in the trains, all share a distinctly non-western look.
  
  
• Finally, the game is presented in a curious mix of 2D animation, 3D animated game sequences, audio, and printed text overlaid on top of two colored text boxes set at different angles on the bottom of the screen. The text, besides giving an edge to the presentation, also gives a "staged" appearance to the 3D segments (staged as in presented on a proscenium stage, as opposed to contrived) that helps to fit with the distinctly 2D animation. It is not a big deal, but just enough of a quirky -- partially formal, partially "hip" -- presentation to keep the player going through the story segments leading up to game play.

I know what is coming: a whole lot more fighting, dying and restarting, trial and error as I try to find the right combination of attacks and special powers, etc. Will the story be able to retain its interest through this?

Can't tell yet. But for the time being, I'm thoroughly enjoying the change of pace.

A Small Piece of Gaming History: Welcome to Gameland

I was digging through some old board games we have stored in the attic last weekend. In one box I came across an advertising flier that was a common insert in games during the sixties.

What caught my eye (besides the astonishing fact that whoever originally owned the game had not discarded it and that we had not discarded it either) was the image on the cover. The stereotypical 1950's family -- Mom, Dad, and three smartly dressed children (is the son wearing a bow tie?!) -- walking through gates made from giant board game boxes. The image itself is surreal enough. But when you consider that this was not some post-war hallucinogenic vision but a 1960's retro marketing view of what American families wanted to believe they looked like, it is also weirdly delusional.

Did we really think we looked (and acted) like that? Based on my childhood in Ohio, I would say no. But I think many parents wished their families looked like that and I can only assume the flier was intended for those parents not their children.

And today? I haven't looked inside any modern major board games recently. (I mostly play old ones, several that are listed in the flier pictured above!) But based on advertising fliers in the paper, most games are being sold to be played by children either alone or with their friends, not their parents. I don't remember seeing a lot of adults in the advertising for games and toys recently. (With one exception. More on that later.)

The advertising in the Sunday papers tend to contain product images, not entire scenes, so they are not totally representative. But over the holidays we received a special toy catalog from Target. Of the 57 pictures showing people with the products, 50 depicted children alone, 7 depicted two children playing together, and none contained any adults. Stranger still, the one picture of a child playing a board game (what one might imagine most requires multiple players) she is playing alone!

So have we reached a point where society no longer expects parents to participate in their children's play and games? The predominance of video games (which are often single-player or only multiplayer online) and "licensed" toys and games makes families playing together difficult. It can be hard for an adult to acclimatize themselves to game characters based on pre-teen TV shows such as Hannah Montana or Bakugon. (Although the game play itself is usually very traditional or simplistic.)

I mentioned before that there is an exception. If it wasn't obvious, the exception is Nintendo. The entire design and marketing campaign of the Wii video game console is that games are to be played together, often as a family. The 2008 holiday catalog for Nintendo has 17 pictures of people playing, 8 are pictures of groups playing, and half of those are multi-generational groups.

Nintendo not only defied the accepted wisdom of video game marketing (16-24 year old males playing by themselves), they defied the accepted wisdom of the game and toy industry as a whole. Neither segment has completely recovered from the result, nor learned to accept that they may have been wrong.

We are beginning to see signs that Sony and Microsoft acknowledge this previously "silent majority" market -- the new Xbox 360 avatars are an example. But the toy and game industry still does not seem ready to believe their audience contains anyone over the age of, say, 14...

Nintendo DSi

Yesterday Nintendo announced a new version of the dual screen DS, called the DSi.

There are a number of minor enhancements: slightly larger screen area, slimmer case, a (toy) camera, improved audio.... But the change that appears to be the primary reason for the upgrade is replacing the GBA slot with a standard SD memory slot.

By using a flash card, DSi owners will be able to download and store games on their DS. (Currently downloaded games are only available as long as the system is on and the game is in memory.) This allows for downloadable content ala WiiWare for the DS.

The SD card can also be used to transfer pictures taken on the DS to the Wii. But the DSi camera is such low resolution, this is essentially a waste. (My phone takes better pictures.)

The use of flash memory for downloadable games is so obvious it is a wonder it was not built into the original DS or the DS Lite. But thinking back to when the DS was first introduced, the concept of the dual screen itself was so revolutionary, the use of a GBA slot to provide a level of backwards compatibility was clearly more important to help consumers make the transition. But now the GameBoy market is quiescent; to the point where removing the GBA slot will cause little to no concern in the market.

So, is it worth upgrading your DS when the DSi becomes available? I think that depends on two things:

• How robust the "DSiWare" market is at launch. If Nintendo provides compelling downloadable content, the upgrade will pay for itself. Unfortunately, Nintendo has a checkered history for supporting its own hardware upgrades and add-ons (think: VirtualBoy, Gamecube Bongos, GameBoy Camera...) this is a new system, not an add-on. But it will require games and content to make it useful.
• What other forms of "flash" downloadable content will be supported.

Clearly the enhanced audio capabilities would suggest downloadable mp3 music files are a target. But the real question, for me personally, is will Nintendo support other user-generated content, in particular home-brew games?

Nintendo has a great opportunity here to open up an entirely new market in the video game industry. Only Xbox, thus far, has embraced the hobbyist game developer with its XNA toolkit. But creating a game and being able to share it are two different things and Microsoft has not created a viable marketplace for small developers yet. Providing the ability to load homebrew games onto standard SD cards could dramatically change the indy game marketplace.

Is this a big market? Compared to the casual market the Wii created, no. But compared to the market for listening to MP3s on a DSi which is three times the size (with a fraction of the memory) of an iPod, this could be a real game changer, similar to the Wii.

Clearly there are issues around licensing and security -- there would need to be distinctions between commercial titles that need to protect themselves against copy piracy and simpler downloadables. But compared to the potential for leapfrogging Microsoft and XNA (and the fact that they need to address the piracy issue with rewritable media anyway) I would think this would be almost too good an opportunity to miss.

The only thing standing in the way is Nintendo's past stance against anything unlicensed, which goes back all the way to the original NES. It is unclear whether they have the vision to set a new path. WiiWare is a beginning, but the qualifications to get signed up for that program excludes all but the biggest indy developers.

One possible alternate route is if Nintendo collaborates with the likes of DigiPen or Carnegie-Mellon to develop simplified game development "systems" (essentially a game-making game). This has been tried in the past. But without a distribution mechanism, the results were little more than private fiddling. Using a combination of a "casual" game development system, writable media, an online community, and friend codes (I know everyone hates them, but they do offer protection), Nintendo could once again revolutionize the game industry by creating the equivalent of Flickr or YouTube for games.

What I'm Playing: Monster Hunter Freedom 2

This is not my sort of game. That's not to say I don't like, I do. But I would never have picked it up unsolicited.

What happened is my son played it first and then became insistent we all play it, since it has a multiplayer co-op mode.

Monster Hunter is not my kind of game for several reasons:

• It takes a long time to learn. There are a number of training "quests" as well as a slew of different activities you can be involved in (and need to learn about) in the village before you can effectively play the game. There are even "books" filled with information provided for you within the game to help you understand the game mechanics and environment.
  
• There are innumerable little upgrades and tweaks you can (and must) apply to your character and his weapons to make even moderate progress in the game.
  
• Individual quests can take up to 50 minutes to complete, never mind the 10-15 minutes needed to prepare for the quest.

Be that as it may, my son insisted. I relented. And I am now well on my way to being completely addicted.

It is easy to see why Monster Hunter is so popular in Japan. It is essentially Pokemon for the older set. (Older as in over 15; not older like me necessarily!) The game is not only replete with options and configurable details, it is also graphically gorgeous. The landscapes are rich and evocative. (This is all the more amazing when you examine them carefully because -- despite the power of the PSP hardware -- the real magic is in what simple graphical tricks such as two overlaid moving images are used to create this visually rich canvas.)

There are even details to the game with no (at least apparent to me now) purpose beyond adding to the ambiance. Cats cook for you (with individual names and coloration), pigs follow you around (why? I don't know), and a bird occasionally perches on your bedpost. The cooking matters, but the name and color of the cats has no bearing on your quests. And the pig and the bird are -- as far as I can tell -- purely decorations.

At its most basic the game is just a quest, with collection, upgrades, and incrementally more powerful "boss" monsters. But oh what a quest! I would never have had the patience to get through the initial learning curve if it hadn't been for my son's prompting (and instruction). But having got through it, the game is entirely absorbing. I am losing two to three hours a week battling my way to a higher ranking, learning the ways of the monsters as if they were real world threats, and reveling in my victories -- much to my wife's dismay.

I can't recommend this game if you are short on time -- you need to dedicate at least several hours to get into it. But if you have the time, it is quite a ride.