If you’re reading this site, it’s likely you indulge in the occasional video game. Though you may not want to admit it to your loved ones and friends, you’ve probably at least tried an MMO at some point in your life. It’s OK, we’ve all been there. What’s important to note is that your little antisocial indulgence probably took place on a computer. You’ve got your keyboard, mouse, headphones, microphone, and near limitless access to a bevy of software. Yep, the computer is the perfect environment for your every MMO need. How else could they possibly be played?

Computer games thrive on being highly customizable, from having access to more keys than a console controller to being easily altered by those looking to enhance their experience with modification programs. Still, there’s something to be said for kicking back on the couch with snacks and a drink, controller in hand, blazing a trail of glory across the vibrant world projecting out of your gloriously large HDTV. The problem is, can you even conceive of playing World of Warcraft on your PlayStation 3?

The MMO genre is one that, in general, does not agree with the console environment. Sure, attempts have been made, but you can’t say there have been any huge success stories. Released in early 2003, EverQuest Online Adventures is a PlayStation 2 version of the popular EverQuest franchise that is still up and running. Likewise, Final Fantasy XI’s PlayStation 2 variant is still alive, though it can be assumed that its PC counterpart boasts a larger user base. The more recent Phantasy Star Universe is still around, although not many positive things can be said about it.

The Phantasy Star franchise does deserve credit though, as Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast was one of the genre’s first attempts to break into the console market. Though admittedly a bit light on the “massive” aspect of MMORPG – every stage was instanced and there were a limited number of stages to play through – the game did attract a large following right up until Sega left the hardware business and shut down all related servers. Xbox and GameCube versions did follow, eventually leading to the release of the PC only Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst.

Though EverQuest and Final Fantasy are respectable products, the genre has seen more failures than successes on consoles. Cancellation after cancellation has left gamers wondering if more console MMOs are ever going to happen. True Fantasy Live Online, a game being developed by Level-5 for the original Xbox, was a high profile title until it was ultimately canned. Then there was the announcement and subsequent cancellation of Marvel Universe. And lest we forget, Ensemble Studios was once hard at work on a Halo MMO. Who knows how many other projects were ended prematurely before have any light shed on their existence. Such has been the genre’s console fate. One could argue that a lack a titles is better than 10,000 games with identical gameplay mechanics (I’m looking at you, Korean developers), but something would be nice.

Don’t fret though, as there is still hope. Now that broadband access and internet-ready consoles are becoming ubiquitous, the number of hoops an MMO must jump through to be successful on a console is lessening. Plug a keyboard into the USB port of your PS3, grab a Bluetooth headset and it’s just like being at your computer. Hard drives allow patches and downloadable content to be possible. The technology is in place – all we need are the games.

And they are coming, or so we’re being told. Square Enix announced Final Fantasy XIV Online at E3, which is set to be released in 2010. Out of all upcoming console MMOs, this one is poised to have the most success if done properly. Other projects are shrouded in a bit more secrecy, but we do at least know they exist. Funcom is said to be porting Age of Conan to the Xbox 360, though when we’ll see it remains a mystery. Turbine, creators of Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online, is supposedly working on or investigating the possibility of a console project. Warhammer 40K, not to be confused with Warhammer Online, is rumored to be in development for both PC and Xbox 360 alike, though the only evidence to support this is a job posting.  And let’s not forget Sony’s The Agency, which has actually been shown to the gaming press.

But how many of these games will we even see? As evidenced by the recent E3 press conferences of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, motion sensing devices are all the rage. If we are to believe the hype being dished out, fake bows with fake arrows and invisible steering wheels are the wave of the future. There is much success to be had, but the risk versus reward ratio associated with the development of an MMO is keeping many away. It’s also easier to sell the public on fully interactive games as opposed to ones that many require part-time job hours. From a marketing perspective it’s hard to blame them.

Still, both Sony and Microsoft are committed to 10-year life cycles, so it seems more like a matter of when as opposed to if. Final Fantasy XIV Online seems a safe bet to at least be released, with pretty much every other project in an unpredictable state. Is it a market companies want to tap? Absolutely. Are many going to do it and do it well? No, probably not. But that’s OK. Does your console really need rehashed versions of Mabinogi and FlyFF? For the foreseeable future, the console MMO market will have fewer titles than its PC counterpart, but, from a quality control perspective, that’s probably a good thing. We will wait patiently, controller in hand, for the triple-A titles to start trickling in. One day, not all that far off, we’ll be grinding out low level quests with analog sticks and shoulder buttons and you won’t have it any other way.

Over the past few hours, the apparent demise of EGM, Ziff-Davis Media’s last enthusiast gaming mag, has gone from plausible rumor to utterly confirmed. This was, some would say, an inevitability — print is an expensive, floundering medium for delivering the kind of info that has begun to be released on a minute-by-minute basis. A mag can try offsetting the update-any-second nature of news by working on deeper, more interesting interviews, but when competing mediums offer unlimited page count and the cost of publishing is cents rather than dollars, the incentives to go the “old-fashioned” quickly start to dry up — or at least start becoming less justifiable.

So EGM shutting down wasn’t all that surprising. After all, it would be a little crowded, but at least the 1UP Network offices would now have even more staff to help pump out the kind of features that have made 1UP one of the best places to get, well, magazine-style and -level features.

Instead, it was eventually revealed that not only would EGM be closing up shop, but almost the whole of the 1UP Network (read: 1UP, GameTab, GameVideos and MyCheats) was, effective more or less immediately, being sold off to Hearst Media-owned UGO (remember them from the late ’90s?). Worse still, the video and podcast teams were getting the axe, to say nothing of tons of friends and long-time Ziffers that were full-time editorial staff.

The longer things have gone on and the more various Twitter and blog accounts have been updated, the more it’s become clear this is a full-on gutting, meaning even more people in addition to the recent folks over at C|Net that got canned (among them one of my current roommates) will be joining the pool of job-seeking formerly full-time industry workin’ folk. I’ve been somewhat fortunate in that I have a semi-steady stream of freelance, and I’ve been living off that for going on about five years now in addition to running this site. I’m used to being broke, but with the economy in the shitter, suddenly the so-called “recession-proof” games industry seems a whole lot more prone to reacting to the bucks and fits and starts that the economy has been in the throes of for a while now.

Whenever the inevitable severence packages dry up, if a solid number of well-paying freelance gigs or full-time positions elsewhere haven’t happened, some very good friends are going to be in a very bad way. I pray this doesn’t happen, and I wish every last person affected by the Hearst buyout the best of luck in finding something new — and soon. If for some reason they’d like to blow off some steam by reviewing a shitty game here on this itty bitty site, I’ll be happy to supply it. I won’t be able to supply that much-needed cash, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to just say what you mean without fear that you’ll ruin a relationship with a publisher; you can’t lose what you don’t have!

In all seriousness, though, my prayers and best wishes are with the folks that are likely still reeling from the shock. Something tells me Steff’s is awfully packed right now…

Is it wrong for fans to remake older games?

I thought about this after learning the outcome of the Chrono Resurrection project a few weeks ago. Despite being relatively four years late to that party, I’m admittedly a huge role-playing fan, and I sharpened my teeth on many Square Co. Ltd. classics on both the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II US, Final Fantasy III US, and Chrono Trigger were staples of my early years, so imagine my excitement regarding a re-imagined Chrono Trigger using an updated 3D engine.

That was the essence of the Chrono Trigger Resurrection project. Back in 2004, a talented group of individuals got together and asked “What would Chrono Trigger look like if updated for the modern PC?” With a custom built 3D engine that “…runs on GameCube, Xbox, and PC…,” the Chrono Resurrection group set out to craft one of the finest looking examples of fan remakes ever conceived, taking ten key sequences from Chrono Trigger and updating them for the modern audience.

Chrono Trigger Resurrection was set in a fully 3D world, with lighting, shadows, fantastic camera work, and the same Chrono Trigger charm that fans of the series have come to expect. But with a project this huge, it’s only a matter of time before it began garnering attention from all over the globe. After all, Chrono Trigger was one of the greatest games for Super Nintendo and one of the most cherished RPG experiences the world over. The fact that a “dream team” of developers, artists, and sound composers crafted it is icing on the cake. How could something this massive be kept secret for long?

With that in mind, the Chrono Trigger Ressurection project was fully underway, but little did they know that the dark cloud of Square Enix Co., Ltd was hovering on the horizon. In September 2004, Square Enix Co., Ltd issued a “Cease and Desist” order and the project was shut down soon after. The team scattered to the proverbial winds but not without strewing their work across the ‘net, sharing everything they’d created, aside from playable code. In that way, all of the team’s hard work would live on as one of the greatest achievements in the name of fan remakes.

But was Square Enix Co., Ltd right in asking the team to cease the project? Was the Chrono Trigger Resurrection team wrong for wanting to recreate ten of the most memorable sequences that Chrono Trigger had to offer? Considering it was non-commercial, with only the Gamecube and Xbox ports being internally playable when all was said and done, was it necessary for Square Enix Co., Ltd to step in?

Forgetting the fact that Square Enix Co., Ltd repackages all of its older content and, besides Final Fantasy III and IV for the Nintendo DS, leaves virtually the original experience untouched, what would lead the company to call for the cancellation of Chrono Trigger Resurrection? Would it be that Square Enix Co., Ltd wants to redo Chrono Trigger as a 3D world all their own? That would be nice, but it’s unlikely.

There’s a fair amount of politics surrounding anything Chrono related. The primary developers associated with the project have either left Square Enix Co., Ltd. or work under their own companies in association with Square Enix. You could fill a landfill with the amount of paperwork it would take for a re-imaging to get underway. Even with tidbits dropping once every few years concerning a possible Chrono Trigger sequel (Chrono Cross is widely considered an extension of the universe and not a true sequel to Chrono Trigger), nothing has yet to materialize. The best fans could hope for is an update of the holy grail of all things Chrono.

But it goes beyond Square Enix Co., Ltd. As the industry pushes forward with better technology, it’s becoming more expensive to craft the AAA experiences core gamers require. If a company like Square Enix Co., Ltd wants to re-release a previous franchise, then it’s easier, and less expensive, to re-release it with all previous assets intact than to re-imagine these assets. If Square Enix Co., Ltd. wanted to re-imagine those assets, then they would turn to portable systems. A redone Chrono Trigger, or any other popular franchise that has yet to find life in the latest generation of consoles, would have to be on the PlayStation Portable or Nintendo DS.

That’s assuming that major corporations want to attempt a repackaging. More often than not, companies cancel intellectual properties that don’t succeed. We have only to look at Clover Studios, which was forced to shutdown, and Capcom for an example of that. Though Okami was finally released on the Wii, the idea of a sequel or a higher resolution re-imagining for the PlayStation 3 is virtually out of the question. And what if fans wanted to create a non-commercial remake of it for PC? Capcom would most likely issue a cease and desist order, even though it would be highly unlikely that the release of the non-commercial fan remake would hurt Capcom’s potential sales for a true, developer sponsored canon remake.

Where does that leave us then? It leaves us with IPs that fans create messageboards about, trade valiant tales of victory over, and write fan fiction about that have yet to get either sequels or developer remakes. When fans wish to continue the adventure with characters that they’ve grown to love, where else is there to go?

So are fans at fault for wanting to create remakes of groundbreaking game series? If major corporations won’t do it, and as the physical game machines and physical media of the respective games dwindle in number as time goes by, are we supposed to forget these experiences? Are cease and desist orders really warranted when all fans wish to do is play the games that brought them into the industry to begin with? We’ll never know, honestly, but that still doesn’t stop us from wondering what Crono would look like with a nice splash of normal mapping and the processing power of a quad-core CPU behind him.

When was the last time you stopped to think about the audio side of video gaming? I don’t mean the Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, high speed bit rates, frequencies, or codecs, but the way sound is used as both auditory stimulation and gameplay device. Chances are, aside from the obvious rhythm games and a few revolutionary gems like Rez for PlayStation 2, you haven’t seen or played many.

A discussion came up recently about the role of sound in gaming. It’s no secret that the PlayStation 3 allows developers to reach into Hollywood’s bag of tricks. Rob Bridgett, sound designer for Scarface: The World is Yours, discussed this very idea in an article he wrote for Gamasutra entitled “Designing A Next-Gen Game for Sound.” But designing with cinema in mind is as rewarding as it is limited. Though games such as Grand Theft Auto IV will show how powerful current console systems sound capabilities are, there are restrictions; not necessarily in scope or depth but most certainly in the player’s natural ability to fully interact and control those sounds. In these circumstances, sound does not affect the way a game plays, but only how the player enjoys the experience of the game.

We live in a visual society, where higher resolutions and more on screen effects are the norm, and subtle tricks of the trade largely go unnoticed. More often than not, we turn off the audio tracks in our games, either because of the repetitive nature of the sounds presented to us or because we’re marching to the beat of our own drum. Throw on a CD or an MP3 player and away you go. What happens, though, when audio cues not only affect the way you play the game but they’re the only way you can enjoy the game? How immersive will games become then?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane to a time when the Sega Saturn still sat on store shelves; a time when the original PlayStation had not yet decimated all competition as it most surely would years later. In 1997, a little known game named Enemy Zero, which started life on the PS1 but later moved to Saturn, was released. Starring Laura Lewis, of CGI heavy game “D” fame, it took place on the AKI space station after she awoke from a cryogenic sleep. The story borrowed heavily from the Alien series of movies and featured first person corridor sequences and lots of great CGI scenes.

But what set Enemy Zero apart from everything else on the market wasn’t its 3D graphics, which were mediocre at best, or its FMV, which was surprisingly good, but it’s audio. Only by paying attention to mandatory audio cues could the player make his or her way through the game. Like the game’s title suggests, the enemy was invisible but a special device that Laura acquired in the game gave off a high frequency pitch that fluctuated based on the creatures’ proximity and cardinal direction to the player. When the creatures were further away, the device beeped slower but when they were close it became a frantic scramble to figure out exactly how much time you had before they killed you.

Enemy Zero is only one example of audio used in interesting, gameplay oriented ways. Another such title is The City of Metronome by Tarsier Studios AB, which currently as no definitive release date. Pinned as “a unique third person adventure game where sound is your weapon,” Tarsier hopes to distinguish TCoM from other adventure games through the use of audio interaction. By recording sounds, whether natural or simulated, the player, a young train conductor in the city of Metronome, will use the recordings to solve puzzles, fight, and change the mood of the world’s inhabitants. And if the player can’t find a natural sound to use, he can create his own by throwing rocks through windows, shoving bookcases down stairs, among other things, and recording them for future playback.

The push for high quality visual fidelity has driven the audio part of gaming into a limited cinematic space. Not to say that cinematic audio is wrong, but variety truly is the spice of life.

Whatever the case may be, the power of the current machines on the market leave no room for excuses. Audio-based gameplay has advantages in the current climate that it never had before. Maybe with software like the aforementioned The City of Metronome and Rez, which is experiencing a bit of a rebirth on the Xbox 360 thanks to Rez HD, the possibilities of sound oriented gameplay have never been better. Perhaps then gaming will be as interactive as it should’ve been all along, with players using their fingers, eyes, and ears to manipulate and participate in the action.

The gaming industry is almost always an exciting one, but let’s face it — it ebbs and flows, alternating between superb peaks of seemingly infinite gaming goodness and, well… early 2007. Lucky for us, the pendulum seems to be swinging in the other direction. Sure, the other guys saw a few heavy hitters land on shelves: Halo 3 and Mass Effect pushed units and no doubt provided for a few unplanned days off here and there. For Sony fans, however, the thrills were constantly on the horizon: Grand Theft Auto 4 was delayed, Home was delayed, LittleBigPlanet was delayed, and… well, you get the idea.

Many claimed that 2008 would be the year of the PlayStation — but it’s easy to dismiss such claims as wishful thinking, the delusional mantra of gamers grasping at straws. As we head in to the second quarter of the year, however, it seems as if such a claim may be coming to fruition. Grand Theft Auto 4 is coming out this month. Sure, Rockstar cozied up with Microsoft and the game is no longer a timed exclusive, but who cares? You’re not going to give a damn when you’re desperately looking for a way out of a 16 person firefight in downtown liberty city. You’ll be too busy thinking of things like, “where is the nearest weapon pick up?” and “what’s the easiest way to give my boss my 2 weeks notice (and then skip the ‘2 weeks’ part)?”. Shortly after GTA4 lands, guess what else is in the launch pipeline? I don’t have to tell you, you already know — Metal Gear Solid 4. For those that can’t hack the grueling wait, the Metal Gear Online beta will be going online in just over a week. Hell. Yes.

And what of Home? Okay, I’m not going to lie: no one has any idea what the heck is going on with this beast. One thing is certain though, development seems to be nearing completion as rumors swirl of a public beta “very soon” (cue collective eyerolling), and an increased advertising presence. Make no mistake: Sony wants to get this thing out just as much as we want to get our grubby hands on it. We won’t dare to make any precise predictions, but it’s pretty much guaranteed that we’ll be seeing Home sometime this year. And it doesn’t stop there, oh no. LittleBigPlanet and Killzone 2 both arrive in September. Wipeout HD? We’re told it’s on it’s way sometime this year. If you absolutely need a racing game, albeit one of an entirely different flavor, give Gran Turismo 5: Prologue a try. You can grab a copy on the (soon to be XMB-integrated) store, or pick it up at your retail store of choice later this month.

On the hardware front, European gamers will soon see a PS3/GTA4 bundle, while America and Japan will see a PS3/MGS4/Dual Shock 3 bundle. What’s that you say? The DualShock 3? Yes, indeed. It’s been out in Japan for a while now (isn’t that always the case), but Sony is finally phasing out the SIXAXIS (rest in peace) in favor of its heavier successor with the rumble that we’ve all come to know and love.

Developers continue to pump out titles for the PS2, and although it’s age is starting to show, there’s still over 100 million units sitting in people’s living rooms — that’s a huge chunk of gamers that companies will not be ignoring any time soon.

Things are really heating up this year, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be than stuck in the metaphorical kitchen.