Bill and I had a rare games day yesterday which, as always, started with a ritual gorging on an orgy of food at Denny's, and then graduated into a game of the new Axis & Allies (which I'm hoping Bill will review on his site) before moving into a few rounds of Panzer General: Allied Assault, a game that I received for my birthday last month.

Panzer General is an interesting collaboration between Petroglyph Games and Ubisoft. The World War II strategy title was co-developed for the Xbox 360 (XBLA) and meatspace game market. I only have experience with the physical version of Panzer General, however the Gamers With Jobs discussed the XBLA version shortly after Christmas and seemed to enjoy it.

Gameplay overview
At first glance Panzer General is a dauntingly complex game. When you open the box you are greeted by a huge stack of cards, and an obscene number of cardboard chits. The rulebook only further serves to scare the crap out of new owners: while not as heavy as traditional hex-based wargames, there are so many steps involved in a single turn (combat alone is a 16 step process) that I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. Thankfully, after walking through a couple of turns step-by-step, we were able to set the rule book aside: the game is simple to internalize and becomes very natural in a hurry.

The game, like many modern strategy titles, does not come with a fixed board. Instead, cardboard tiles representing various terrain features (hills, towns, plains, etc) are assembled to create a playing area tailored to specific scenarios. The beginner scenarios are 5x6, however differing sizes and shapes are possible.

Gameplay is completely card-based. You receive an allotment of cards - both actions and units - to begin the game, and are able to replenish your hand at the start of every turn. Unit cards are played onto the map (face down at first, but then exposed when they contact the enemy) while action cards are played when specified (during combat, or as full actions during your turn).


The first thing that you will notice when playing Panzer General is how cramped the board feels compared to other war games. 5x6 is not a lot of room to maneuver, and so battle lines will be drawn in a hurry. Placement of units becomes crucial, because it is almost too easy to box your own units out of important battle, and render them useless. Thus, planning for the end game is necessary from your very first turn.

Combat is extremely intuitive, but also strategically deep. Both units get a chance to inflict damage on the other with the attacker usually going first. Combat is resolved by comparing the innate attack value of the attacking unit with bonuses for terrain, morale, and support against the defense value of the target combined with bonuses for terrain. Action cards can then be played to further modify the outcome, and finally a small random component is applied to the totals . The results are then tallied up, damage is applied, and if it is still alive the target gets a chance to counter-attack.

The key to most battles is support. Any units that is capable of attacking the target can lend its support value to the fight. Usually these consist of tanks or infantry in direct contact with the target as well as artillery at range. It is very important to establish strong support lines, and not over-extend yourself deep into enemy territory where you are exposed to more fire.

One other important game mechanic is 'prestige'. Prestige is the currency of Panzer General, and is gained by holding territory. You spend your prestige in order to play new units, activate action cards, and draw extra cards at the beginning of your turn. Prestige is collected at the end of each of your turns, and that allowance must last you through your opponents turn as well as your subsequent turn. Running out of prestige in often fatal - action cards can heavily influence battles, and being unable to play them when you get attacked (or are attacking) ensures defeat. (Likewise, running out of cards is not recommended.)

Final thoughts
All in all, Panzer General is a nice change of pace from traditional war games that involve manipulating plastic pieces on a battle field. Once you get your head into the proper mindset and start playing the game for what it is (instead of what you think it should be) its a lot of fun. If I had an Xbox I would certainly be picking up an electronic copy to see how it translates as an online experience.

Heavy Rain, the latest offering from Quantic Dream, was released as a PS3 exclusive this week, and has been receiving largely positive reviews from the gaming press. A demo was made available a couple of weeks ago in the Playstation Store, however I only managed to get around to playing it last night, largely because I wanted my wife to experience the game as well and our schedules have been out of sync.

Despite it's enormous budget, Heavy Rain is not your average blockbuster title. Fast paced action, deep strategy, and number crunching are all eschewed in favor of creating interactive entertainment in which the player has some control over the outcome of the murder mystery/thriller that unfolds. The result, if the demo is any indication, is a strange beast that blurs the line between video game and cinema.

Graphically, Heavy Rain is a masterpiece. The artists have taken an incredible amount of care in crafting a world that looks and feels utterly realistic. Character models are fantastic both in how they look and also in how they move. Most games still have a difficult time animating human motion, and while this title has a few glitches (for example, when Shelby uses his asthma puffer) it is far tighter than the competition.

Another nice touch is the way clothing reacts to the environment. Agent Jayden starts out his sequence dry, but quickly appears soaked as he is forced to survey a crime scene. If he falls down while investigating then his clothing is muddied, and falling in different ways convincingly dirties Jayden's pants and jacket. Likewise, the graphical results of losing a fight are incredible - Investigator Shelby looks like hell after his encounter like a thug if you perform poorly.


Game play, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. At its core, Heavy Rain is nothing but a prolonged series of quick time events in which the player may choose to execute a series of gestures to interact with the environment, or in some cases is forced to do so.

If Scott Shelby starts having an asthma attack then you need to push your thumb stick to the right, and then roll to the bottom. If Norman Jayden wants to investigate a scrap of cloth on the ground you need to push down on your stick. If you want to speak to an NPC then you need to push the button corresponding to one of the thought actions that will spiral around a character. If you get in a fight then you will be forced to waltz through a God of War-style series of clicks and stick motions.

While I still dislike quick time events, Heavy Rain's do not annoy me nearly as much as those found in other games. When used as the main game play mechanic, QTEs are not nearly as disjointed and immersion-breaking as when they are wedged into a brawler, and after a while some of the common events even started to feel natural. It also helps that the QTE prompts are unobtrusive white overlays and are positioned near the object or place that a player is meant to interact with; this design choice allows the player to continue to focus on the main portion of the screen, and not constantly divert their attention away from the gorgeous graphics.

Summary
Both my wife and I were suitably impressed with Heavy Rain and we have agreed to rent it one weekend when we have nothing else planned. It should be a nice experience to snuggle up together on the couch and experience a good murder mystery first hand.

Demo parameters: Two scenes (30m of game play)
Release date: Now
Cost: $59.99

Update: The Brainy Gamer shares his thoughts on the full game. I usually agree with about fifty percent of his opinions/gaming tastes, so taking his negativity with a grain of salt is recommended.

We talk about 'games' a lot.. but at the core what is a 'game' really? It turns out that defining 'games' is not an easy thing to do. People have been trying to define the term for (probably) as long as games have been in existence, and the emergence of 'video games' has greatly increased the interest in defining games in general.

Experts from many different disciplines have over the years attempted to define what it takes for something to be a 'game' and to describe the most basic requirements of a 'game', but invariably each definition is different. For example, some definitions try to isolate 'games' from 'puzzles', while others try to isolate 'games' from 'sports', other definitions try to isolate 'single-player' activities from 'multi-player' activities, and still others try to isolate 'cooperative' activities from 'competitive' activities.

Why should we care about a definition?! Well, I believe that how we define games has a significant impact on how we design games, and further that this definition has interesting implications for video games in general and MMOs in particular.

While I don't mean to dismiss or discount the definitions put forward by many notable game designers, or claim that my own list of requirements for an activity to be considered a game is the 'correct' one, I'm going to suggest that there are five basic requirements for an activity to be considered a 'game', and rely on a French Sociologist by the name of Roger Caillois for some of these requirements. His 1958 book, Man, Play, and Games (sometimes translated as Games and Men) is still considered one of the definitive works on games, despite being written long before video games even existed.

Just to preface these requirements.. many of these basic requirements have just as much of a cognitive component (they apply to the mindset of the 'player') as a physical component. I'll explain more in-depth for each requirement, but just keep in mind that some of the requirements to something being a 'game' might have to do with your own outlook on the activity.

Requirement #1: Governed by Rules - the activity has rules that are different from everyday life.

This is the one requirement that essentially everyone agrees on. All games have rules, and operating within and around these rules forms the core of the game experience. Game rules are so critical to the game experience that they can be the source of a lot of conflict and animosity. My own memories of elementary school recess are filled with days when the pick-up soccer, football, wall-ball, four-square, etc. game devolved into a heated argument (sometimes even a physical one) over the rules, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Requirement #2 - Uncertain - the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable.

In any game, there is a fair amount of randomness and unpredictability. In a game of soccer, you don't know what the final score will be before starting the activity, or even if your team will score at all. In a game of Chess, you don't know who will Check Mate the opposing King or how it will happen, or even if it will happen at all (Chess can also end in a draw, either by insufficient material to accomplish a Check Mate or by triple repetition of position).

This requirement eliminates many activities that we would call 'puzzles'. Examples of puzzles includes activities like jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, and Sudoku. In each of these activities, you know up-front precisely how the activity will turn out.

Why is this important?! Well, without getting too much into what motivates a person to play a 'game' (a topic for a future article, hopefully), I'll just mention that what motivates a person to play a game is somewhat different than what motivates a person to do a puzzle. Take the player-vs-environment 'raiding' of many MMOs.. many of the most-vocal critics of PvE activities make the claim that raiding isn't a game at all, but a big puzzle, and whether you agree with that statement or not may help determine if you prefer player-vs-player activities over player-vs-environment ones. This requirement also has interesting implications for video game replay. As the player becomes more familiar with a particular video game (e.g. they've 'beaten' the game), the 'outcome' of that activity becomes more and more certain, and in the mind of the player that 'game' gradually shifts toward being a 'puzzle' instead.

Requirement #3 - Separate - the activity is circumscribed in time and place.

This requirement is about the when, the where, and the how long.. the constraints of the game environment itself. Many games have specific time or score limits, or objectives or circumstances which end the game, the point being that players need to know 'at the end' who wins, and when that 'end' is going to happen.

Why is this important?! This requirement has interesting implications for online and other long-term games, where an official 'end' is effectively nonexistent. At a basic level, this requirement is about giving the player 'benchmarks', moments where they can know that they were successful. MMOs often accomplish this through boss fights, achievements, online character tracking and comparison sites, etc.

Requirement #4 - Controllable - the outcome of the activity can be influenced.

As my favorite video game design commentator Daniel Floyd would say, game design is all about designing 'decisions'. Decisions, whether expressed as 'problems' or 'choices', give the player control over the outcome of the game. How much control a player has typically comes down to the mental, physical, or mechanical rules that govern that game. How well can you hit a baseball with a wooden bat? How well can you count cards or anticipate your opponent's next move? How long have you spent leveling up your character and acquiring better gear?

'Games of Chance' (i.e. gambling) are an interesting example of this requirement, and a good illustration of the cognitive component of games. I'm going to suggest that people who enjoy games of 'pure' (i.e. true random) chance treat these activities as games because they do believe they have some measure of control over the outcome: luck. For the rest of us, we'll either engage in games of chance that are not 'pure' (e.g. Blackjack or Poker) or we won't engage the activity at all because it's not a game to us.

Why is this important?! There are two aspects of this requirement that are especially pertinent to MMOs. First, video games often use a variety of methods for allowing players to influence the outcome of events, for example gear and levels, but one of the more difficult-to-manage methods for allowing players to influence the outcome of events is the 'skill factor'. Game players often want to see a direct correlation between their personal skill level and their level of control over the game events, and some games and activities emphasize or de-emphasize this 'skill factor'. Second, MMOs often require a fair amount of teamwork and working with a group of players. Players interested in personal control over the outcome of game events often dislike having to give up some of their control by being forced to rely on a group.

Requirement #5 - Goal-Directed - the activity has some desired outcome.

Whether it's to defeat the opponent, get the highest score possible, or conquer the world, all games have desired outcomes. For some games, the desired outcome is the same as the 'end' condition (e.g. Check Mate the opposing King), but in a lot of games there are many possible goals a player might work toward. For example, take a game like Baseball. While the overall goal is to score more runs than the opposing team, your personal goal might be to hit a home-run.. or to just get a single.. or to catch that pop fly coming your way.

Why is this important?! Video games in particular are often very good at giving the player lots of potential goals, and this goal-forming process is very important in attracting the player to the game and getting them to keep playing. Helping the player select and pursue goals is a critical aspect of good game design. A player who gets involved in a game without a goal in mind is very unlikely to enjoy the experience, or to stick with it for very long. That activity just isn't fun for that person.. it's not a game to them.

Why does any of this matter?! The really important point to all of this is that if the above requirements are accurate, we can directly alter an activity to become a game (or not become a game anymore) by adjusting a few parameters and helping the player cognitively accept the activity as a game. For example, take the activity of flipping a quarter (i.e. heads or tails). Clearly, this activity is not a game. Let's look at why not:

• The activity is governed by rules, of sorts. We'll be flipping the quarter by hand, and when the coin comes to rest we must accept the results of the flip (we can't decide we don't like the results and turn the coin over, for example).
• The activity is semi-uncertain. While we don't know the exact result of each flip, we do know that in a true random environment the coin will land heads 50% of the time and tails 50% of the time.
• The activity is not circumscribed. We haven't yet established an 'end' point or win condition to the activity.
• The activity is not usually considered controllable. Barring slipping in a fake two-headed coin, most people would say this activity is pretty close to true random.. after all it's used to 'fairly' decide on who goes first in a lot of games.
• The player has no goal in mind for this activity. Most people would probably consider this activity to be mind-numbingly boring.

With that in mind, let's look at how we might adjust the activity to meet all of the five requirements:

• To make the activity circumscribed, we need to give it an 'end' condition. As examples, this could be to only flip the quarter x times, or it could be to flip the quarter until you got heads y times in a row.
• The player actually has more control over this activity than they might realize. For example, you could suggest that the player adjust the position of the coin on their hand before flipping it, or how high in the air or how fast they flip the coin, or how soon they catch the coin. While it's not a lot of control, the key to this activity is convincing the player that they do have some control over the outcome.
• Let's say we want the goal of the activity to be to get the highest ratio of heads to tails. As mentioned above, the important issue here is not that the activity has a goal, but getting the player to want to achieve that goal. How would I get the player to take on this goal? I'd probably use some kind of reward for 'winning'. How does $50.00 for getting the most heads in 50 quarter flips sound? Ready.. set.. go!

Certainly video game design is a lot more complex than the above activity, but examining how effectively video games meet these basic 'game' requirements could be a valuable tool for increasing a game's replay value and enticing a broader spectrum of game players.

A few weeks ago when I was abruptly dragged away from home for a business trip I went looking for a game to play in my hotel room in the evenings. While I received some great feedback from readers, I actually ended up snagging a copy of Retro Game Challenge for the Nintendo DS for $5 at a local Electronics Boutique.

Retro Game Challenge's premise is a somewhat novel one: you have been kidnapped by a strange electronic avatar and time warped back to the 1980's where you must conquer a number of arbitrary gaming challenges in order to return to your present day life. This quirky premise is used brilliantly as the framework for presenting eight "original retro" games. Each game is brand new, but has been made in the style of a typical NES title, right down to the limited controls (D-pad with two buttons).

Initially only a single game is available, however as challenges are completed more and more games are unlocked. Every new game release is more refined and complex, mimicking the manner in which developers become comfortable with a generation of hardware and are able to squeeze better games out of a system late in its life cycle.

The games each come with (electronic) manuals reminiscent of those that you would find in the 80's: terribly overwrought stories, (intentionally) poor translations, and corny hints and tips. In addition, 15-20 page gaming magazines are occasionally released that contain information on upcoming releases, the current hot title, and previous games. Information in the magazines ranges from general analysis, to game play tips, to outright cheat codes. The campy letters from the editor are also amusing.

The games
It is impossible to discuss Retro Game Challenge without a cursory examination of each of the titles that is packed into it. Be warned that some of this information could be considered spoilers, so if you are interested in a pure play through you want to stop reading right now.

Cosmic Gate: As the first of the retro games, Cosmic Gate is one step up from being a Space Invaders clone. The game is broken into 64 waves of enemies which must be defeated into order to save the galaxy. Enemies arrive in simple patterns, line up across the screen, and then start descending. Occasionally a few baddies will break off and attack you directly. As an added twist, every level contains a flashing enemy; if you kill the flasher first then you open a warp gate.

Cheats used to clear the game: Warp to level 64 immediately.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man - A simple little game, RNHM is reminiscent of any number of early one-screen action titles. As Haggle Man you can run, jump, and throw ninja stars at your foes. Each level has a pile of labeled doors which you can enter, and doing so serves three purposes: enemies hit by opening/closing doors are hurt, you cannot be hurt while behind a door, and chaining doors alphabetically can be used to heal yourself or attack your enemies. The object of each level is to locate the boss (either by killing all the enemies on the level or revealing him from behind one of the doors). The game has sixteen levels of increasing difficulty, and by the end you will be burning through lives semi-regularly.

Cheats used to clear the game: Infinite continues.

Rally King - An offroad racing game, this title is one that I loathed. It should be noted that I hated this style of game as a kid, and so the odds of me holding anything but scorn for a modern version of a racer were approximately zero. Still, fans of this sort of game should enjoy the faithful recreation of an 80's racer, complete with fussy controls, and a tough slide-boost mechanic. Each race lasts two laps, and you must finish 6th or higher out of twenty cars in order to advance. As an added bonus you start in 20th, and every other car receives a head start.

Cheats used to clear the game: No enemy cars!

Star Prince -This is a nifty little top-down shmup in the style of Axelay. You control a ship through four levels and are constantly being attacked from flying enemies and ground-based defenses. Along the way you can find a variety of power-ups to collect or, if you shoot them enough, use as bombs. Each level has a mid-boss and an end boss, and the difficulty ramps up substantially as you penetrate deep into the game. Somewhat amusingly, halfway through completing challenges for this game you are given a rapid fire controller, which alleviates the pain of hammering buttons. Does anyone remember owning one of those little gems?

Cheats used to clear the game: Invulnerability. But only after I beat the game the first time, and then screamed in frustration as I had to complete it again (but harder) because "the enemies were just imitations"!

Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2 -An iteration on the first game in the series, RNHM2 adds in a system of power-ups as well as a lot of tougher enemies to fight. The levels also become a lot more vast, which makes the time limit that is imposed on you that much tougher to beat. This game is a faithful example of the early recipe that game companies used when creating most sequels: minimal changes to a winning formula. (Come to think of it, that's not all that different than today's standard.)

Cheats used to clear the game: Infinite continues.

Rally King SP - Hot on the heels of a "good" sequel comes Rally King SP, a sequel that is an almost exact clone of the first game, except that it's sponsored by a fictitious brand of ramen noodles. The only other noticeable change is that the tracks have a new color pallet, and between each level is an additional advertisement for the cup of noodles.

Cheats used to clear the game: No enemy cars!

Guadia Quest - Long delayed, Guadia Quest is the crown jewel of Retro Game challenge, in my opinion. The game is a Dragon Quest-esque roleplaying game that puts you in charge of a party of three generic adventurers on an epic quest.

Game play, predictably, degenerates to an awful lot of clicking 'A' to attack with each party member, but a helpful 'Auto' feature gets you around that if you're willing to wait. This title is by far the longest of the bunch, but if you see it through to the end properly you will be rewarded by an unexpected little twist.

Some encounters are also quite difficult, so prepare to die fairly frequently. Uncharacteristically, you are able to save whenever you want, and retro RPGers will love how much freedom that gives them to take chances.

Cheats used to clear the game: None

Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3 -RNHM3 takes all of the game play elements of its predecessors and throws them out the window. Instead, this title is a Castlevania knock off that does an excellent job of capturing everything that makes that style of game both great and terrible all at once. Combat and exploration are excellent, however excessive backtracking is required, and the screens can be annoying to constantly repeat. The game also can get very grindy if you don't use cheat codes, since it has all sorts of items that you can buy in order to upgrade Haggle Man.

Of special note is the story in RNHM3 - it is so perfectly 80's that the developers must have stolen it from somewhere. A perfect blend of high drama and absolute wackiness.

Cheats used to clear the game: Max gears, infinite lives, warped to bosses 2, 3, and 4.

Summary
Retro Game Challenge is definitely not a game for everyone, but if you're a child of the 1980's and owned a NES then this game has the power to take you back to the glory days of 8-bit gaming in a way that real retro titles simply do not. By creating new games instead of re-purposing classics, Retro Game Challenge ensures that it is not already old before you pop the cartridge into your DS.

In the end, all that it's missing is the necessity to blow out the game before playing it.

Sorry for the deluge of immersion articles this week - it is a topic that I personally find fascinating, and clearly it is a point of contention among gamers. In response to Toskk's brilliant article yesterday, Spinks nails one right out of the park:

If I’m immersed in a story, the absolute last thing I want to do is stop and min-max my character stats (or worse, be forced to go back to a previous save point, redo my gear/stats and play through some of the story I have already seen). If I’m immersed in a game, I don’t want to have to sit through seventeen cut scenes and have to care about which option would give me the best reward. If I’m immersed in exploring an area, I don’t want to have to fight through some scheduled event or be forced to grind out reputation just to be allowed to enter the next zone. And if I’m immersed in a solo resource management game, I don’t want to be forced to group.

Immersion (or we can call it flow) is not only the goal of many gamers, but it is also the problem. Having to switch between a gaming mindset and a storytelling mindset not only kills immersion but also will annoy people who liked one side of the game but not the other.

Figuring out how to neatly merge some of these styles is the big challenge for the next generation of game designers.

This context switching is the source of the problems that I have with both Dragon Age and Mirror's Edge. Whenever the game play changed radically I was torn out of the moment, and reminded extremely thuggishly that I was just playing a game.

In light of the recent 'Many Faces of Immersion' post here, and thanks to a little nudge from Andrew, I decided to dust off and finish up an article on Immersion in MMORPGs that I originally worked on back while I was playing WoW. As the above post and related discussion highlighted, just defining the term 'Immersion' as it applies to video games and game design is a challenge. We all have something a little different in mind when we talk about 'Immersion'. Some people use it primarily to talk about video game graphics, while others take a much broader view of the term.

In my opinion - and the opinion is shared by a number of game designers and authors on the topic - 'Immersion' in video games refers to a specific occurrence: the experience of being 'caught up' in the video game environment. I'm sure it's happened to all of us. You look up at the clock after a gaming session, only to discover that far more time had gone by than you had really planned on, or you were so intent on playing the game that you entirely forgot about eating lunch, or you originally started an MMO to play casually with a few friends, only to discover two years later that you'd accumulated over 200 days played in addition to now spending most of your awake hours thinking about the game. *cough*

It should probably come as no surprise to anyone here that MMOs are typically highly-immersive. In fact, in a survey of players of MMOs, a full 60% of players admitted to having at least once played for 10 hours continuously.

One of the main reasons MMO gameplay is so immersive is that it typically takes advantage of all four commonly-discussed forms of immersion:

Spatial/Sensory Immersion
In discussions of Immersion and 3D games, this is usually the first aspect people think about: how 'real' or photo-realistic the game graphics are. Spatial/Sensory Immersion is the experience of being in a game environment that is “perceptually convincing”.

As the discussion on the 'Many Faces of Immersion' post covered Spatial/Sensory Immersion quite in-depth already, I'll just add one of the key goals behind Spatial/Sensory Immersion is to give the player the sense of being in a 'other' space: a space separate from our everyday reality, but with a clearly-defined set of rules, parameters, boundaries, etc. In short, the 'other' space behaves in predictable and learnable ways. Thus, Spatial/Sensory Immersion is really more about establishing context, consistency, and permanency for the 'other' space than about visually awing the player.

Tactical/Sensory-Motoric Immersion
If you’ve ever felt like shouting “I shall pwn you with my button pressing skillz!!”, or gotten so involved in hammering your attack sequence you forgot to look up in time to get out of a shadow fissure, you know the experience of Tactical/Sensory-Motoric Immersion (Note: if it’s the first one, you don’t have to admit it).

This form of Immersion is present in games requiring fast reactions, precise hand-eye coordination, and technical perfection, and it isn't limited to video games, either. In physical sports and activities, Tactical/Sensory-Motoric Immersion is the often described as the feeling of being in “the zone”, of playing beyond your everyday ability level without much conscious thought.

Strategic/Cognitive Immersion
Typically associated with a “mental challenge”, this form of Immersion is most commonly talked about with games like Chess. The player gets immersed in the process of mentally calculating out all the different possible moves, responses, strategies, tactics, etc.

Interestingly, Strategic/Cognitive Immersion can be long-lasting, and has the potential to occupy the attention of the player even outside of the game itself. Take Chess, for example. For those interested in Chess, a lot of their time spent on the game takes place outside of the game itself, studying openings or famous games, or analyzing patterns like the one below:


Narrative/Emotional Immersion
I already described this one more in-depth in a recent post here, so I'll keep it brief. Narrative/Emotional Immersion can be exemplified as the experience of not wanting to put the book down, the desire to keep reading to find out what happens next, the emotions you feel when things happen to the characters you’re reading about.

Without delving too much into theories about humans as social/emotional creatures, I think all of us can recall times we've been emotionally affected while watching or reading a narrative unfold, and often these feelings can persist even after finishing the book, movie, or game.

Did I just make these terms up?
No, the four types of immersion defined above were coined by Ernest Adams, Staffan Björk, and other notable experts on video game design. I do believe there is, however, one type of Immersion that these experts have missed:

Character/Role Immersion
This form of Immersion is about the unique interaction between player and character, when your own goals, desires, and motivations get caught up in your goals, desires, and motivations for your character. I suspect that most MMO players can tell stories about all of the tedious, boring, or outright mind-numbing game activities they've engaged in to get their character that title, pet, or mount they want them to have. I felt that the experience of Character/Role Immersion was captured perfectly in the following comic:

The last MMO that I played for myself was Dungeons and Dragons Online back in early November. (I still try to play Wizard 101 weekly with my godson, but that's different.) Since then I've found myself unable to care very much about MMOs, and completely unable to play them. The sense of "been there, done that" is just too strong in all of the titles that people are raving about - frankly, the entire space just feels stale and lifeless.

It is no surprise that during my self-imposed hiatus I managed to completely miss the announcement that the Mortal Online open beta had finally gone live. I had signed up for a closed beta account half a year ago, but was never accepted.

Mortal Online intrigues me in a way that no other game besides EVE Online does. It is a pure sandbox world that does not coddle players, and in fact seems intentionally obtuse in many cases. In a way the game is a throw back to the old way of making MMOs. In theory, thinking, planning, skillful play, and cooperation will be rewarded in a manner than very few games are willing to try these days. In theory.

It may be that Mass Effect (and then the sequel) keeps me from ever logging in to Mortal Online.... but it has to mean something that the game has actually interested me to the point where I was willing to download the beta, and install it on my system. No other MMO has gotten that far in recent months.

As much as I look down on the "games" that all of my Facebook friends keep spamming me with - tripe like Farmville, Restaurant City, and Mafia Wars - it is getting awfully difficult to ignore the service as a viable gaming platform, especially with the recent big names that have flocked to the platform.

Consider these news items:

- First there was the announcement that EA purchased Playfish for $400 million.
- Next came Sid Meier's declaration that the next Civilization game would be on Facebook.
- And now Richard Garriott - Ultima veteran - has founded a new Facebook-centric company.

It's enough to make a doubter like myself think twice, and reexamine my innate biases.

While I don't think that Facebook game will supplant traditional AAA gaming, neither do I think that they are just a passing fad.

The truth is, Facebook games have more in common with the old BBS door games than they do with big budget titles. Asynchronous by their very nature, these titles could be a great way to fill a few minute a day provided that they start to develop more sophisticated game play. In fact, a game like the venerable Legend of the Red Dragon would be wonderfully suited for the Facebook generation. Likewise, some of the older browser-based strategy games that were popular a decade ago - Utopia, Monachy/Canon, and Dominion - would be good fits for this type of platform.

I will have to do some exploration of the Facebook gaming scene and see if I can dig up a few titles with meaningful game play; expect a follow-up report in a week or two.

In the past couple of weeks both Evizaer and Wolfshead have featured articles on the topic of immersion in video games, however neither writer's definition of the phenomenon rang particularly true to me. As a term, "immersion" is bandied around by gaming pundits when discussing games to describe a mash-up of factors that range anywhere from a "realistic game world" to an "extremely engrossing gaming experience". The two aforementioned articles illustrate these usages wonderfully:

Immersion is a state when the player or spectator (in the case of plays and motion pictures) temporarily suspends their disbelief and willingly transports themselves into the realized world of the creator. The difference between films and virtual worlds is that the players are not mere bystanders — they are active participants with a purpose.

True immersion is really a holistic mindset or philosophy of art, design and user interface that when combined should influence all aspects of a virtual world rather than just a few features in isolation.

And:

But gamers want to take the concept of immersion farther. Now immersive games have to be games where the world is more real. This doesn’t mean that the world has to be more superficially like ours (though that’s what many developers seem to want it to mean)—it means a world that has a similar level of detail to our world, at least as far as the player would naturally examine the world. Players think immersion requires that the game include small details of the real world that have no mechanical reason to be in-game.

While these definitions sound reasonable on the surface, both rely heavily on aesthetics without delving into any of the other aspects of video game design that go into forming an immersive experience.

To further explore this issue, consider three separate games that are immersive for entirely different reasons.

Case one: Mirror's Edge
Mirror's Edge is a realistic-looking first person action game that puts you in the shoes of a "runner" (a near future courier who traverses city rooftops while avoiding the law). Graphically the game is stunning and contains all sorts of incidental details that bring the game world to life; birds roost on ledges and startle when you come near, planes cut lazily across the skyline, pedestrians go about their business oblivious to the player on the streets below, and so on.


While these details may help players ease into the virtual world, they are not the primary reason that Mirror's Edge is so engrossing.

The game grabs you by the throat and hauls you in by virtue of the sense of immediacy, panic, and danger that is created from the very first moments of the opening mission. As you dash across the rooftops you are being chased by officers - often unseen - who are shooting to kill, and since you have no weapons at your disposal your only option is to run as fast as you can. The cityscape unfolds before your eyes as you leap huge gaps, slide through tight spaces, and hurdle obstacles. As a player, my heart was pounding during the most intense sequences, and I caught my breath in sheer terror on many occasions when I missed a jump. This is immersion in its purest form: when I am running I feel like I am there, and I physically respond to the on screen stimuli as if I were the one falling to my death.

Mirror's Edge also provides an excellent example of how to break immersion. Dying in the game sets you back to the last check point that you passed, and they are never very far apart. During particularly challenging sequences you will die - a lot - and thus constantly reload to repeat a mechanical challenge. This destroys the fluidity of the game, and strips away all sense of immersion revealing the core of the experience to be somehow more hollow then it felt mere moments before.

Case two: Dragon Age
Bioware's fantasy epic, Dragon Age: Origins, is a role-playing game that is played primarily using an overhead camera. The graphics, while pretty, are not nearly as realistic as many modern titles and the world is extremely artificial and gamey. As much as the artists went out of their way to make Ferelden look lived in, the developers hem the player in at every turn and tightly control movement.


Despite the aforementioned constraints, Dragon Age is an incredibly immersive game. Instead of realistic freedom of movement and game play, character development and plot-based interactions are used to make the player feel like they are a part of the world.

From the very beginning a Dragon Age player is encouraged to meld with their on screen avatar; the very first task in the game is to customize a character's appearance and background. Every little tweak that is made will be rendered on screen, and for sixty-plus hours the player will get to watch their creation live out a grand adventure.

More important to the immersive experience than character customization is the dialog system that forms the core story-telling mechanism in the game. Dragon Age is full of conversations: from banal merchant greetings, to diplomatic brinksmanship, to intimate relationship building. Each of these interactions takes place using a dialog tree in which you listen to an NPC speak and then select from a menu of possible responses. Crucially, your chosen response is not voiced; instead Bioware has left it up to the player to speak their character's words in their own mind. This simple choice has enormous implications for immersive roleplaying - not only does the player have full control over their character's looks, but also their voice.

The types of choices that players are asked to make, and the rewards (or lack thereof) for making them, also aid immersion. Dragon Age's morality system is one of the most well-realized and realistic that I have had the pleasure of experiencing to date. By removing most of the rewards from the system the player is allowed to respond to a situation in a more realistic manner. In Dragon Age it becomes possible to mentally justify a course of action beyond "I need X more evil points for my next level, so I'd better kill that kitten".

Unfortunately, like Mirror's Edge, Dragon Age: Origins is not a completely immersive experience. The moment a player enters a battle the illusion dissipates, and the core game mechanics are revealed for what they are.

Case three: Sid Meier's Civilization
Released in 1991, Civilization is by no means a realistic looking game, and yet it is easily one of the most immersive games of all time. The graphics are designed with a function-first mentality, and while they looked good enough in their day they were certainly not cutting edge.


Civilization is an empire building game than incorporates nearly all of the aspects of modern members of its genre: exploration, diplomacy, commerce, and warfare. A player becomes the leader of a fledgling nation, and struggles to game prominence on the world stage, and eventually achieve dominance.

Game play takes the form of managing the actions of all units and settlements on a turn by turn basis, which can be done with a keyboard or point and click with a mouse. The business of being a world leader is completely engrossing, and most players quickly slip into a trance-like state and they are drawn in the simply-drawn yet intricately complex world. Time literally melts away as a game of Civilization wears on, and hours can disappear at a time.

This total immersion is not unique to the original Civilization game, but is shared by all of the best members of the turn-based strategy genre. Key to keeping a player's focus are intuitive controls, a streamlined user interface, and constant feedback from the game world.

Putting it all together
All three titles discussed above contain extremely immersive sections of game play that have the ability to snare a player's attention, and make them feel a part of the game world. From the graphics and intensity in Mirror's Edge, to the strong personal connection to a character in Dragon Age, to the deep strategic mechanics of Civilization, each game demonstrates a different form of immersion.

It is this diversity of experiences that makes the term so difficult to pin down.

Video game immersion is not as simple as realistic graphics, it is the ability to draw players into the experience, and make them forget that they are playing a game. An immersive game does not feel like a game; it is just as natural as breathing.

If a player is forced to stop and think about what they should be doing, then the illusion will be shattered. When Mirror's Edge forces you to repeat a section a dozen times it is impossible to think that you're actually a runner leaping over rooftops. When Dragon Age turns from a brilliant exploration of morality and character into a tactical combat simulator then its magic spell is broken.

All of the graphical details and high fidelity renderings of people and places are moot if game mechanics obstruct the core package. Sometimes a game just needs to know how to get itself out of the player's way, and let them at the meat of the experience. Immersion is truly difficult to create, which is why it is so highly priced when it finally turns up in a surprise hit game.

A Boy and His Blob, by WayForward Technologies, is a modern re-imagining of a classic 1989 NES game. I have fond memories of renting the original game on multiple occasions during my hardcore 8-bit days, but never managed to beat it. Not even close.

While the original game was tough as nails, the Wii installment is much more forgiving and approachable; a fact that makes it a wonderful choice for gaming couples. My wife and I played through WayForward's masterpiece together over the course of a couple of months, and had a blast doing so.

For those who are not familiar with the title, A Boy and His Blob is a puzzle platformer that puts you in the shoes of a young lad who, somewhat mysteriously, is in possession of an endless supply of jellybeans. Accompanying our pint-sized hero is a white blob that can transform into a variety of useful forms when fed different flavors of jellybeans. For example, a white bean transforms Blobert into a ball the boy can throw, a black jelly bean allows him to take the form of a ladder, and a red jellybean transforms him into a hole in the ground.

The game is broken up into four maps, each of which contains ten levels (more or less). In addition to these forty storyline levels, each area you explore has three treasure chests hidden within it, and finding all three chests unlocks a challenge level for you to test your skills on.

As the player you are in control of the boy, who is, for all intents and purposes, a wuss. Boy can't run very fast, can barely jump, and dies if he touches an enemy; in fact the only thing the hapless squirt has going for him is his interstellar buddy and a sack full of jelly beans!

Solving the game's environmental puzzles consists of utilizing the beans that you have been given for a level (which is never the full set) to overcome all of the obstacles in your way and reach the golden jelly bean at the end. At first the levels are trivial, but the difficulty ramps up quickly, and by the end of the game you will be forced to solve some tricky maps that involve good thinking and excellent timing. Challenge levels, on the other hand, are almost always tough and the level of perfection that is demanded could be frustrating for players who don't like to fail often. The rewards for completing challenges are worth it though: most levels unlock concept art that was used when designing the game.

Mechanically, A Boy and His Blob has a fairly simple control scheme that is both intuitive and crisp. It should be noted that WayForward decided not to include any sort of waggle in the controls, which was appreciated. Like any puzzle platformer, jumping precision is a required skill and you should expect to die quite often during some of the tougher sequences. In the normal levels death is punished by moving you back to the nearest invisible checkpoint (which is never far off), whereas in the challenge areas dying sets you back to the start of the level.


The artwork in this game is simple yet beautiful. The hand drawn characters and backgrounds convey a distinct style that helps wordlessly tell the story of the boy and his adventure. Each block of levels has a distinct theme that ties it together and adds variety to the journey.

What is most impressive is how WayForward managed to take a shapeless blob and imbue it with a strong personality. The blob is usually white and fairly sedate, but he starts darkening when forced to approach an enemy, and his movements become more agitated. Likewise, when separated from the boy, blob will often turn slightly red and hop around frantically, but when the pair are again reunited he settles back down. This totally irrelevant game mechanic is actually a powerful tool in making the player feel attached to blob. It is reinforced by an equally useless "hug" command, which allows the boy to hug blob. My wife was very fond of making sure the little guy got hugs whenever he helped get the boy across an obstacle.

A Boy and his Blob is probably not for everybody, but if you like a good puzzle platformer then I highly recommend picking up a copy and playing it through. It is a great little game to turn on and curl up on a couch with your significant other to play, and the cute interactions between the boy and his interstellar friend are almost guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

Bonus content:
- Gamasutra recently ran an article on the way user feedback shaped the game
- Retronauts podcast #79 contained an interview with WayForward's Marc Gomez and Sean Velasco in which the NES and Wii games were discussed in detail.

Released last February by DICE, Mirror's Edge is a first person game of speed, precision, and path-finding that takes place (primarily) on the rooftops of a future city. In the game you play as Faith, a 'runner' who find herself embroiled in a political murder mystery that hits a little too close to home. Using her wits and athletic ability, Faith sets out to resolve the mess that has been precipitated by unknown antagonists.

The first thing that you will notice when you fire up Mirror's Edge is that the graphics are superb. DICE has gone the extra mile in creating a cityscape worthy of a vibrant future surveillance society; the environments that you traverse range from clean and polished business suites to gritty construction sites, each of which feels convincing.

The character models are top notch. Faith, when you do catch a glimpse of her, is exotically beautiful and her twin sister Kate likewise shines. Merc and Celeste are equally well rendered and even the faceless blues (police) are a pleasure to look at.

Mirror's Edge tells its story through a combination of traditional dialog-drive narrative and environmental cues. The immediate plot is conveyed to the player using direct character conversations; everything you learn about where you need to go and what you need to do is stated plainly by Merc or another character. In contrast, the majority of Faith's back story and the history of events that led the city to become a totalitarian regime are conveyed through the environment in a manner very similar to a Valve game. Posters, electronic billboards, and graffiti all weave together to create a sense of history and cohesion in the game world.


There are three major types of game play within Mirror's Edge: running, puzzle solving, and combat.

The majority of the game is spent running across rooftops, through buildings, and around obstacles. At the beginning of each segment you are given a destination, and you must try to negotiate the environment to reach your goal in a timely fashion. Mirror's Edge excels during these sequences. As you sprint through the city scape certain objects will be highlighted in red to signify that they are of special interest. (For example, a pipe you need to climb, a board that you should jump off, etc.) The entire experience feels very organic; after getting used to the controls the entire world seems to open up for you and you will find yourself madly dashing over, under, and through your surroundings, Faith's footfalls ringing in your ears.

The game gets intense when the blues - government police - show up. Faith is usually unarmed, and often the correct response to seeing an officer of the law is to run fast and hard. Careening over rooftops with bullets impacting all around you is an utter rush, and your survival instinct will be kicked into high gear. More than once I caught myself letting out a gasp in sync with Faith, so perfect was the game's simulation.

Of course, Mirror's Edge is more than just running.; some levels require you to solve an environmental puzzle to reach a specific location in order to advance the plot forward. Your ultimate destination is almost always obvious, however for the times when you do not know where to go you can press the ALT key to force Faith to look in the direction that you're aiming for. The puzzles in the game are fifty percent finding a path through your surroundings and fifty percent executing some precise acrobatic moves. Thankfully, if you're solving a puzzle you are never under attack, and it is rare that a puzzle room will kill you outright.


The biggest knock that I have heard against Mirror's Edge is that the combat system is frustrating. Sometimes you are forced into a fight, and cannot run. Faith is unarmed, which is a problem since your assailants always carry at least a pistol, if not something more deadly. To take out a blue you need to combine your basic attacks (punch, flying kick, sliding kick) with well-timed disarm maneuvers. Once a cop is down you can take his weapon, however your ammo is limited and will rarely last you more than two additional kills. After dispatching the enemies it is usually in your best interest to discard your weapon and carry forward unarmed - Faith is far less quick and agile while encumbered.

There is no mistaking it - Mirror's Edge has some difficult sequences and you should expect to die frequently when learning the levels. Thankfully, DICE saw fit to place frequent hidden check points throughout each level, and so you will rarely have to repeat more than a minute of content when you inevitably get yourself killed.

In summary, Mirror's Edge is a stylish game that represents a thrilling departure from standard FPS fare. Running through the city scape at breakneck speed is intense, and feels unbelievably fluid and organic. While there are a few frustratingly tough sections in the game, they are not frequent enough to tarnish an otherwise fantastic experience. Best of all, the game routinely goes on sale at the digital download sites - I picked my copy up for $5 on Direct2Drive. If you enjoy FPS games then you owe it to yourself to try this unique title.

Dante's Inferno, released this week by Visceral Games, has been ruffling feathers among members of the gaming media for nearly a year. Between a promise of ultra-violent, ultra-explicit game play and a purposefully obnoxious sustained media blitz, the title has been a source of controversy from the first moment that I caught wind of it. A demo has been available on the PS3 for a couple of months and I finally managed to set aside a half hour to try it out last night.

It has been said that Dante's Inferno is a God of War clone, however since I have never played any titles in the series I cannot vouch for that fact. What I do know is that the game, at least as showed off by the demo, is an arena-based brawler. The player is shuttled from set piece to set piece and forced to battle a scripted batch of enemies in each location.

Combat consists of mashing one of three possible attack buttons (light, heavy, holy), jumping, blocking, and dodging. Attacks can be chained together into small combos, which run up a counter the more hits you successfully land. Periodically during certain fights you will be prompted to press a specific attack button, which initiates a "quick time event"; these usually lead to devastating killing blows, assuming that you mash the appropriate symbols in the allotted time.

As a game mechanic, quick time events feel both cheap and annoying. There is nothing more immersion breaking than to be suddenly prompted to halt your fluid attack sequence and press a specific button. Once you get the hang of these your attention is constantly split between actually watching your avatar fight and the empty space where an symbol might appear - ugh. What's even worse, some enemies can only be killed by successfully negotiating a quick time event and - at least in the demo - failing just forces you to try again (and again and again).


The first "epic" boss battle that Dante's Inferno throws at you is a fight against the Grim Reaper as your character tries to prevent himself from being tossed into the pits of hell. Ignoring the pair of lame quick time events that conclude the encounter, the entire fight is a boring sequence of blocking Grim's triple attack and then counter attacking. If it weren't for the fact that the Reaper teleports around the area periodically the fight would probably be simple to complete blindfolded. The second boss is not much better; while it is important to be mobile (and run away from its attacks since they break through your guard), spamming holy attacks from a distance makes quick work of your adversary.

But enough with the negativity. If Dante's Inferno does one thing right it is to set up a gothic world, and then pile on enough dark atmosphere to smother a kitten. This is not a bad thing: the world is gritty and nasty, and the enemies truly want to reap your soul. The graphics are great, the music is brooding, and the small bit of dialog that the demo contains is well scripted and voiced.

One of the more talked-about aspects of Dante's Inferno is the nudity. Within five minutes of firing up the demo you will have a naked breast taking up a quarter of your television. Seconds later there will be a pair, and throughout my demo play through I never went more than five minutes without a naked woman making an appearance. As far as things go, the breast-shots never feel overly vulgar, however they do seemed forced on occasion. Vulgarity, for those searching it out, is apparently a staple once you reach the Lust level.

Summary
If I sound down on Dante's Inferno's game play, it's because I am. After dabbling with the brilliant Bayonetta, another game with ties to God of War, I was expecting something fun and engaging. Instead what I got was a pedantic button-masher with less finesse than my favorite hair-witch has in her pinkie finger. Truth be told, whereas Bayonetta comes off as a skillful and elegant dance, by comparison Dante's Inferno is a brutish slog that tries to pretty itself up with gratuitous boob shots every once and a while.

Demo parameters: one and a half levels (30 minutes game play)
Release date: Now
Cost: $59.99

If you are reading this blog then the chances are excellent that you have more than a passing interest in video games. That's well and good, and serves as common ground for a conversation, but sometimes it becomes a little too easy to see a blogger or guest as a one dimensional creature, driven by gaming and not much else. That conception, however, is far from the truth in most cases.

So, a question for you: Do you have a hobby that trumps video gaming? Is there an activity that you engage in that makes you set everything aside, including your games, when the time is right?

If not, feel free to chime in with the hobby that places second behind gaming. Don't be shy!

My addiction
It would be unfair to pose this question without fessing up myself. Personally, my main addiction in life is ultimate frisbee, and I will literally rearrange my entire schedule in order to make my weekly games and attend tournaments. I play all three seasons (summer, fall, winter indoors) multiple nights a week (right now twice).

Now, most people who have heard of ultimate think that it's a hippie sport, but these days that couldn't be farther from the truth. Ultimate is a game of constant sprinting, hard directional changes, precise throwing, and often times some acrobatic catches. A spaced out hippie would have a tough time competing in a modern game.

My first time on the field I nearly died - I couldn't believe the pace of the game, and thought my heart would explode. These days I can handle tournaments of six games spread over two days without too much hardship, although the second morning always comes as a shock.

During my three years playing World of Warcraft my raiding schedule was strictly dictated by the evenings that I played ultimate. If I had a game scheduled, I wouldn't sign up for a raid - it was simply no contest. The rush I get from laying out and catching a poorly thrown piece of plastic eclipses even my most memorable raid take-downs. Vashj has nothing on a hard-fought game that ends on universe point.

Since ditching WoW I haven't had to make any real sacrifices for ultimate: my wife is happy enough to let me run out my aggression, and I think she even enjoys the hours of guilt free T.V. that my scheduled absences afford her. Of course, when the children finally arrive, all bets are off.

It is somewhat fashionable amongst players of MMORPGs to lash out at a game's quality assurance team whenever a bug or exploit manages to make its way into the live code. I ran across a couple of particularly galling demonstrations of this attitude in the comments section of the Blessing of Kings blog. In response to an article about an elite raid guild being temporarily banned for using an exploit, a few ignorant individuals decided to spout off:

[S]ome measure of responsibility should fall on Blizzard as well, who needs to examine either 1)their internal testing methodology, or 2) their internal testing personnel.

When was the last "final boss" of a raid instance (thus, no beta on PTR) that wasn't bugged? Been a while, hasn't it...

And:

i fully blame blizzard on everything involved in this mess. instead of fully testing the encounter and making sure the pinnacle boss of the expansion would not have such a huge flaw. they spent time trying to band aid the train wreck that is wotlk pvp.

the thing is the bombs did seige dmg to the frozen throne which caused the platform pieces to be rebuilt. the unintended here is that something that shouldn't have taken dmg did and blizzard didn't catch it because they didn't test fully.

The exploit in question involved using a specific item to magically regenerate parts of a structure; certainly not expected behavior. Although I have already responded to these two comments on Blessing of Kings, I felt that the topic deserved a bit more attention here.

Let's face it, the vast majority of MMO players are neither software developers nor testers, and thus they have absolutely no insight into the challenges faced by these professionals. Yet despite this wide spread ignorance, there are forums literally filled to overflowing with vitriol aimed at the hard-working individuals that create our video games and provide us with a lifetime of entertainment.

MMOs cannot be exhaustively tested
MMOs are enormous beasts, far larger in scope than all but the most ambitious single player games. The feature set for a simple MMO fresh to market is huge, and in a game like World of Warcraft the list of moving parts is exponentially larger still. If this wasn't enough, massively multiplayer online roleplaying games exhibit many of the traits of a complex adaptive system (due to their unique evolutionary nature). On screen results are often a result of a complicated web of player interactions, and the results are often more emergent than mechanical.

The scope and nature of MMOs make them impossible to test comprehensively. Verifying that every skill of every class with every possible item combination and customization behave one hundred percent as expected for a single raid encounter would take months of labour. Exhaustively validating that all of those skills and items interact flawlessly with each other plus all of the unique encounter mechanics and set pieces would take far longer still.

With players constantly clambering for more content, major MMO developers are faced with a stark choice: test to a reasonable degree and hope that all bugs are found in a smoke test, or else delay new content for months while all possible scenarios are meticulously iterated by quality assurance. This is a lose-lose proposition, but financially-speaking the only choice that companies can logically make is the one that will placate the most angry players: release content that is known to be not completely tested and hope that all major bugs and exploits were found prior to the patch going live.

Unfortunately, like in every piece of complex business software ever written, bugs happen. The thing is, in the case of a top notch development studio like Blizzard, bugs happen far less often than with most gaming studios.

Instead of constantly bitching and moaning every time an exploit slips through QA, World of Warcraft players should be thanking their lucky stars that Blizzard devotes as much time, money, and energy to testing that they do. Those testers have often thankless jobs, and they deserve praise and admiration for a job well done, not scorn and insults.

I'm back from my business trip and am hopefully done with travel for a few weeks. I ended up rescheduling my flight to late Thursday night to avoid getting snowed into my hotel - if I'd waited until Friday as planned it was not going to be pretty.

Despite the great responses that I got to my plea for hotel-friendly games, I ended up tripping over a copy of Retro Game Challenge for $5, which is an amazing deal for a year old game; I had been looking for a copy of the title for quite some time.

Adding a new game to my list of in-progress titles was perhaps not the best idea in the world. As shown on my side bar, I'm already part of the way into Mirror's Edge, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Demon's Souls, Shiren the Wanderer, and A Boy and his Blob. I've also committed to playing the original Mass Effect on this month's Gamers With Jobs' "pile" thread. Focus, it seems, it not my strong suit.

Blog updates
I've created a new "spouse gaming" tag and categorized a number of posts under it. Playing video games together is one of the few hobbies that my wife and I share and I mention our exploits on a fairly frequent basis. I've been thinking about tagging posts where I mention her for a while now, and finally just decided to go ahead and do it.

I also took a bit of time to spruce up my blog and podcast listings again to reflect my current reading/listening list. Here are the new additions:

Blog: The Grind - A blog focused on roleplaying games that is maintained by a a few members of the 1Up staff. The articles are often long and detailed, with a strong focus on up and coming titles.

Blog: Insult Swordfighting - With a name that refers to the ancient Secret of Monkey Island game, this blog is a treasure trove of great articles.

Blog: Killed in a Smiling Accident - A group blog that is equal parts snark and insight, I can't believe that I didn't subscribe to this one sooner.

Blog: Sexy Videogameland - Leigh Alexander's personal blog. I subscribed to this one based on the strength of Leigh's articles in other gaming publications.

Podcast: Some Other Castle - Ever since Idle Thumbs went dark I have been missing my weekly dose of humorous video game chatter. No longer! The gals at Some Other Castle are laugh-out-loud funny at least once every five minutes, and yet still manage to weave a lot of good information into their craziness. The best damned Internet Radio Podcast Show (IRPS) on the web.

Podcast: The Digital Cowboys - A topic-based show that eschews the traditional "what we've been playing" and "news" segments in order to focus on a single topic every week. They nearly always have a top notch guest along to discuss the issue of the day.

At the bottom of a recent article about the lost art of roleplay in roleplaying games, Bill tossed out a great theory:

My last, and most controversial point I suspect, is that as games develop further into communities working towards common goals there is no need to roleplay. I don't have to roleplay a character fighting a war with thousands of allies against thousands of enemies in a battle to control resources and living space because I AM fighting a war with thousands of allies against thousands of enemies in a battle to control resources and living space. Eve is interesting in the same way a sport is interesting to participate in; you have competition, camaraderie, glorious victory, ignominious defeat, and at the end of the day everyone goes home to have a beer and go to bed.

I think the same could be said about progression raiding in World of Warcraft, and perhaps a lot of aspects of other games. Go stop by Bill's site and chime in on the discussion.

As I listened to last week's episode of The Digital Cowboys podcast (episode 140 to be exact), I came to the realization that the real triumph of Dragon Age was not that the game had a brilliant combat system, a deep dialog tree, a gorgeously realized world, or wonderful customization.

No, while all of these individual features were excellent in their own right, it was the emergent illusion of control that transcended simple game mechanics and story that made Dragon Age: Origins the masterpiece that it is. Despite having an overarching plot that is as linear as any Final Fantasy game, most players who spent any time losing themselves in Dragon Age came away feeling like they had control over their character, their adventures, and ultimately the world that they embraced.

As best as I can tell, the illusion of control is instilled into Dragon Age primarily by the nature of the moral choices that players are forced to make at regular intervals as they play.

Most games that explicitly tie their morality systems to in-game rewards or powers. For example, you cannot obtain the best powers in Mass Effect, Infamous, or KoTOR without veering your dialog choices to one extreme or the other. Since gamers are astute at min-maxing, the morality system just becomes another game mechanic to understand and exploit; ethical thought need not apply.

In stark contrast, there are almost no moral choices in Dragon Age: Origins that grant you a substantial reward or impose a harsh penalty. At best you will gain an ally, and at worst you will lose one; neither case tips the balance of the game in a drastic fashion. By untangling morality from rewards, the player is liberated to actually think about their own character, and how they would react when presented with ambiguous situations. Extremes, while possible, are no longer the only valuable choices, and instead the mushy middle ground becomes fertile territory. This only makes sense: how many people are pure evil or angelic good? The majority of us are some shade of grey, and this game finally allows us to portray those characters accurately without feeling like we are cheating ourselves.

In summary, Dragon Age is a masterful role playing game that has truly set the bar high for its successors. While the level of freedom the game grants players is barely more remarkable than a linear JRPG, the illusion of control and the sense of freedom is absolutely perfect.