And through it all, the most enjoyment I’ve managed to glean from my way-too-expensive little blue box has been the alternate reality games, tiny, little experiences that are barely-dressed-up pack-in tech demos. Take a picture of your wife’s face, have it morphed into a sphere, and shoot it as it flies around the room at you, in full 360 degrees. Slap a question block card on the table and watch as it morphs and distorts the piece of furniture into a shooting gallery. Cycle through the various poses of Mario, Link, and Captain Olimar’s Pikmin as they pop out of their own cards so that you might add their virtual likenesses to your three-dimensional photo album.

Cheesy? Sure. Laughable? Probably, although I’ve heard similar sentiments from plenty of others thus far. Gimmicky? Yes… and therein lies the crux of the matter. ARGs – at least, the 3DS’s photographic version – are most certainly a gimmick, along with Steel Diver’s periscope missions and a whole score of other applications seen in the launch library. Hell, the 3D itself, the very heart of Nintendo’s fourth-generation handheld, is nothing but a giant gimmick. But a quick survey of gaming’s finest moments yields surprising results: a goodly number of the most engaging, most enjoyable, and certainly the most unique experiences in videogames’ past come at the hands of some rather questionable methods. Clicking away on the myriad plastic peripherals that Guitar Hero has produced is some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming since I first played Super Mario Bros. in the arcade, with Star Fox 64’s force feedback or Pac-Man Versus’s interconnected GameCube-Game Boy Advance set-up not too far behind.

And then there’s the smaller stuff. Psycho Mantis bidding me to place my Dual Shock on the floor so that he might move it with the power of his mind strikes all three of the 3DS’s trifecta of lame chords – cheesy, laughable, and obviously gimmicky – but it’s also one of the single most clever beats I’ve ever encountered in a game. Playing as your Mii for the first time in Wii Sports never fails to bring a smile to one’s face, no matter how jaded he may be; rolling up everyday, household items in Katamari Damacy grows thin surprisingly quickly, but it never quite loses the hold that it (quite rightly) places on you. The versatility and the depth, the pervasiveness and resilience of the gimmick is nothing short of remarkable, really.

As it should be; for, at the end of the day, videogames are merely the latest extension – and, arguably, the fullest embodiment – of technology, and technology is nothing if not gimmicky. Text messages, GPSes, MP3 players, Blu-ray DVDs, karaoke machines… all are sizzle-in-the-pan deviations and recreations of a culture constantly attempting to titillate and capitalize. The gimmick is the special-edition, one-for-every state coin of the realm – which, just sometimes, can henceforth become the new, de facto standard, the one currency to rule them all forevermore (until, of course, the next new variation on the retired theme comes bouncing along). Sometimes, of course, it doesn’t. Ultimately, however, it doesn’t matter; the fun is in the experiencing, after all.

All of which means that the 3DS’s launch day, whether the ARGs’ novelty fades quickly away or their uniqueness makes them a permanent mainstay, is pure and simple fun.

Carpe diem.

In 2005, a child was born to the videogame world. Its father? The music industry. The little bundle of joy would go on to be christened Guitar Hero. The inspiration of this would-be giant came from peripheral maker RedOctane, who had recently developed a guitar-shaped controller for Konami’s arcade game Guitar Freaks. It would go on to have an unbelievably large effect upon both of its parent industries.

The release of Guitar Hero is one of those events in videogame history that everyone remembers to some degree or another. “Cultural phenomenon” became the phrase to describe it; some journalists even went a step further to call it “one of the most influential products of the first decade of the 21st century.” Sound like a little much? It did to me at first, too – until I took a step back and realized what it had accomplished. Not only had GH single-handedly spawned an entire genre that raked in, literally, billions of dollars worldwide, it had also boosted sales of music globally – and not just new artists, but old ones, as well. As if that weren’t enough, here’s a piece of trivia that may surprise you: researchers at Johns Hopkins University have used Guitar Hero as treatment for amputee patients and those needing new prosthetic limbs. Additionally, the music and dexterity-based controllers are credited for helping stroke patients regain coordination.

And then there’s the franchise’s offspring. RedOctane had teamed with Harmonix Music Systems to make the first GH (which was then distributed by Activision), but RedOctane would go on to be purchased by Activision, and Harmonix – which was acquired by Viacom through its MTV Networks division – would strike out on their own to create Rock Band, a game which took the Guitar Hero concept by the hand and guided it a step further, adding more instruments, such as drums, vocals, and even (later on) keyboard. In this way, the two games are cousins… or step-brothers… or something like that.

The next six years would see Guitar Hero become an incredible success – such a success, in fact, that, by 2008, the market for the newly-dubbed rhythm genre was worth $1.4 billion. Activision would go on to pump out more then 15 different versions, expansions, and spin-offs (such as Band Hero and DJ Hero). All the while, its relative, Rock Band, was doing the same to a lesser degree. Some of the expansions were specific to certain bands, such as The Beatles and Metallica. Other sequels offered new graphics, modes, and other goodies. But things weren’t destined to stay so bright and sunny. In 2009, a new word was being used to describe the games that everyone had clamored to buy four years earlier: over-saturation.

So what did it? Was it Activision in the lounge with the lead pipe? Or perhaps it was recession in the library with the revolver? It’s no secret that Activision had received some criticism for making all the GH games virtually the same; several prominent journalists and analysts in the videogame community pointed out that it would have behooved the publisher to continue to innovate and find new ways to mix gaming and music. Instead, they flooded the market with the same game over and over again. Like any good fad, people continued to purchase the living daylights out of GH – until they caught on to what was happening, and then many turned their focus to Rock Band, which had at least innovated in the form of new instruments. Despite all the indications of impending doom, Activation continued with its blind strategy of pumping out more of the same.

But perhaps the company isn’t all to blame. They had a great concept with Guitar Hero. There’s the old saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – and the series wasn’t broken, per se. And goodness knows that the recession that hit our country in the latter half of the 2000s did its fair share of damage; there were virtually no industries anywhere in the United States that weren’t affected in some way by the sudden tightening of purse strings. There is, in fact, the going theory that, perhaps, if the recession hadn’t happened, Activision would have had more cash to pour into making something more out of GH then just the same old, same old. This is all speculation, of course, but well worth pondering.

Finally – and most sadly of all – maybe people were just over rhythm games. It’s a fact that Rock Band’s sales have also been down, so much so that 15% of Harmonix’s 250-person workforce has been laid off and MTV Games has been completely shut down for good. Not enough bad indicators? Then how about this: Viacom, who was so quick to buy Harmonix at the peak of their popularity for millions of dollars, just recently turned around and sold the company – back to their shareholders, which was the best deal they could find. (On the plus side, though, this transaction effectively makes Harmonix an independent developer again. And since they still hold the intellectual rights to both Rock Band and newly-released Dance Central, there just may be a silver lining in this gloomy cloud.)

With the fad of rhythm games coming to an end, we are left with those few, but faithful, fans that actually loved the genre for what it was, not just for the moment of glory that it had. The only problem here is that these fans aren’t enough to keep the genre going at the pace it was – but, to some of these diehards, that’s actually a good thing. Many people were upset by the previously mentioned lack of innovation, and more then one fan has commented to me, since starting this editorial, that they hope the demise of Guitar Hero would allow Harmonix to step back, reevaluate the situation, and come up with the Next Big Thing. It’s just sad to this writer that the catalyst of this possible change is the death of the entire original series, as well as that of RedOctane, the original brainchild, who was axed one year ago by parent company Activision (yes, they bought the peripheral manufacturer hand-in-hand with GH) when the market started to sour. They were 12-years-old.

So I leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself who killed this once-dominating giant. For one to climb so high and to fall so far is a sad thing to behold, but, more than anything, it should serve as an important lesson to the entire industry that innovation and change are key. One would like to think that Activision will, indeed, take this to heart, but, then again, I’ve often been accused of giving people too much credit. Or perhaps the morale of the story is that fads come and go with the tides. Or maybe – just maybe – the fault lies with the conservatives for causing the Great Recession. Just kidding! (Or am I?)

Whichever school of thought you subscribe to, however, I hope that you’ll give a moment of silence to our fallen comrade, Guitar Hero.

Which is not to say, of course, that I have ignored the PS3’s software – Uncharted is easily one of the best games to arrive this generation, as are the ingenious LittleBigPlanet and the masterpiece Heavy Rain – or ever failed to rave about the big black box’s absolutely stellar downloadable library, which includes the likes of Echochrome, Pain, and Everyday Shooter (if Halo Wars is the game that I literally have not been able to put down this generation, then ES would easily be my wife’s. We have an affliction, I know). I have always, since my youngest days as a gamer, deliberately collected every (major) console to have access to its roster of exclusives, even going so far as to beg, plead, and torture my parents to purchase the Sega CD for the (now-dubious) likes of Sewer Shark and Night Trap; it’s strictly in the confines of multi-system titles that I’ve favored, usually irrevocably so, one of my babies over the other(s), not unlike Jehovah with Cain and Able.

But something strange has been happening over the past year-and-a-half or so, starting slowly at first but now quickening at an almost exponential rate: I am buying the PS3 version of games, when and where applicable, over the 360. For Batman: Arkham Asylum (August 2009), it was the exclusive downloadable content; for Assassin’s Creed II (November ‘09) and Brotherhood (November ‘10), it was the ability to connect to the PSP game and previous console entry, respectively; for Dead Space 2 (January ‘11), it was the inclusion of a better-looking and -playing version of Extraction (September ‘09), a game I already own on the Wii; and for the upcoming Portal 2 (April ’11), it’s unquestionably the Steam support, something that Microsoft could never allow with its current configuration of Xbox Live. At this rate, I have little doubt that at this year’s E3 presser, Sony will provide me with another two or three games I’ll have to scratch off of the Xbox list and hastily scribble in under the PlayStation column.

Despite my parents having always told me, at every available opportunity, that I was a special boy growing up (the last time, in fact, was just last week), I have to imagine that there are scores of gamers out there that are just like me, that, though it would be near-impossible to make them flip their default settings, they can certainly be motivated to deviate from it, and deviate from it quite often. Though it’s still unlikely that the PS3 will be able to out-sell the 360’s install base by generation’s end next year, there is certainly the very real possibility that Sony will be able to steadily and diligently chip away at Microsoft’s lead, eroding its foundation and doing much to level the playing field at the start of the 512-bit cycle of consoles. Then again, maybe not – I am that sick gamer, after all, who just has to buy the collector’s edition of a title whenever it’s available, whether it may contain a statuette of in-game characters or a deluxe art book or just some fancy packaging. (I’m doubly afflicted, I know.)

There’s also the small problem of MS seeing both revenue and gamer chic slipping through their fingers, one digital drop at a time. Announcing that all Call of Duty DLC would be timed-exclusive to the 360 was a significant step in the right direction – of getting the exclusives pendulum that Sony openly mocked at the beginning of this generation and now has fully embraced to swing back in its direction. Although Sony will shortly have the entirely new venue of NGP-PS3/PS4 connectivity available to it, building upon Ubisoft’s AC example (and, of course, Nintendo’s – with the Game Boy and numerous home consoles – before that), it should be battening down the hatches in anticipation of Microsoft’s inevitable counterstrike.

Although this current generation may be (finally) starting to cool down, the larger battle is just warming up.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, the TotalPlayStation staff does own systems other than the PS2, PS3, and PSP (well, in the interests of full disclosure, Marc doesn’t have a PlayStation Portable, but he thinks that’s an eminently understandable decision) – and, what’s more, they actively play and even enjoy quite a few games on them, as well (except for Ryan, that is; he suffers from quite a bad bout of acute Fanboyitis. Yes, our prayers are also with him).

Sharp-eyed readers will notice some fancy new titles for some of us editors. No, they’re not typos; this is all part of refining our editorial structure, which is part of refining TPS, which is part of – ultimately – the grand site redesign that has been in the works for the past several months.

Consider it a little sampling of 2011 while we digest the best of 2010…

Shaun Mason
TPS Mascot
Now that we’re at the end of January, it’s definitely time to take a look back at 2010 and see which games held our attention, kept us up late at night, and constantly amazed us with their awesomeness. However, instead of the traditional formula, let’s not focus on the sweetness of the PlayStation from last year (blasphemy, you say?!). Instead, what non-PlayStation games were at the top of your list? Was Epic Mickey full of awesomesauce? Did Fable III romance and entertain you? Did you max out your vocabulary with Super Scribblenauts?

I’ll kick it off with a game that was so excellent, that PS users will be able to experience it in the first weeks of 2011. Mass Effect 2 was a great game, which took much of the original and improved on many of the gameplay mechanics and storyline to create an engaging adventure in the cold recesses of space. Thankfully, the horrible driving on planets was jettisoned in favor of planet scanning (which again is a questionable feature, but more controllable). But the commander and his ragtag group of soldiers, scientists, and misfits still manage to get the job done in the end, and the option to have many decisions that were made from the first game impact the sequel was fantastic. I’m looking forward to taking on the third chapter this holiday season eagerly.

So, how about it – what games fired you up from last year?

Marc N. Kleinhenz
Features Editor
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first, shall we? I really enjoyed Halo: Reach (as did Dave Clayman, whom I interviewed on the subject), even though I felt some of its narrative components were a bit on the flaccid end of the spectrum.

On the flip side, I thought Alan Wake was a blast in terms of story but predictable in the gameplay department.

Super Meat Boy and Limbo were terrific in fundamentally different ways, GoldenEye – or what little I played of it – was all right, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn was like my first girlfriend: cute and fun but shallow.

Oh – and I can’t seem to put Halo: Wars down no matter what I do…

Aram Lecis
Managing Editor
There was a pair of games on the Xbox 360 that resonated with me this year. Both Deadly Premonition and, as Marc already mentioned, Alan Wake paid homage to one of my favorite television programs of all time, Twin Peaks (especially DP). Both games contained myriad gameplay “quirks,” for lack of a more graceful word (especially DP), but also deep, rich, and – yes – quirky stories (especially DP, naturally). I loved the atmosphere and emotion in the two towns that are central to each game, and if it wasn’t for this pair of offbeat adventures (and Limbo, of course), I might not have turned my Xbox on this year. I know Deadly Premonition had its share of detractors out there, but I can overlook the tepid-at-best combat system for Swery’s smart, witty, and borderline-actionable David Lynch tribute.

Andy Curtiss
Staff Writer
I have to say that my loyalty to PlayStation is pretty solid – so much so, that I don’t always get a chance to play other games for other systems. The consequences of this are that I don’t often “discover” games for other systems until they’ve already been out for a disturbing period of time. That being said, and I know Aram already mentioned it, but Limbo really got my attention. The atmosphere in that game was amazing, which is funny to say because of its understated graphics and simplicity. But despite being black-and-white and 2D, Limbo managed to create enough atmosphere that, at certain points, you really didn’t want to move forward anymore – there was a genuine pang of fear there.

On a more whimsical note, I personally discovered Pokemon at the beginning of last year. Yes… I already hear most of you groaning. But it’s addictive. And that’s, perhaps, the most fascinating part. Think about it: the premise behind the game is flimsy at best, but you can’t help yourself from wanting to catch, train, and breed these cute little monsters. And with the new Pokemon game on its way out (both the Black and White versions), I can’t help but be excited despite my fanboy-esque devotion to PlayStation.

Ryan Green
Reviews/Previews Editor
The only non-Sony game I even got this year that was any good was Halo: Reach. It probably stands out so much because it is the only good Halo game that came out since the original. A Halo game with an (overall) good story? Containing (something close to) character development? Show Spartans as vulnerable people and not super apes? The game runs well and is the best game Bungie has ever released. It is a shame it is wasted on the Xbox community.

But, really, what else came out that was good? Everything else mentioned so far didn’t do it for me, especially Limbo (not to call you out, Andy; I mean to call you out, Marc). Of all of the non-Sony-exclusives, the really good ones were third-party titles, so I can’t really count them. That and I didn’t play too many games on the other platforms.

I guess if I had to pick it, it would be StarCraft II. It turns out I really don’t like StarCraft games anymore, but it was all right. It took too long to get into the story, and the multiplayer is at a level where you have to care to enjoy it (so that is out). Did the iPhone version of CivRev come out in 2010? That game rules all y’all fools.

Sir Gordon Wheelmeier
Gaming Guru
I think that what we’re seeing this year is a bunch of great stuff that didn’t release in 2010 because MS and Sony were so involved in getting the Move and Kinect to market. If that’s true – that is, great non-motion-centric games were scheduled for 2011 early on from a marketing standpoint to leave room for the motion titles, thereby giving them extra development time – then we’d actually owe a bit of 2011‘s awesomeness to last year’s (boring) motion control battles.

Or it could simply be because Sony tends to give its development houses the time they need to make great games rather than rush them to market, and they just all happened to be ready this year.

I’m actually inclined to believe it’s a little bit of both columns…

Dan Hemsath
Features Freelancer
I could go on about the awesome multi-console releases I enjoyed (*cough, cough* Red Dead Redemption, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow *cough, cough*), but in the spirit of non-PS fare, here goes.

Top of my list: Mass Effect 2. This game has the best narrative structure I’ve played in any videogame I can recall (though I look back fondly on MGS3’s). Aside from the game’s many amazing features (near-perfect fusion of quality gameplay/graphics, interactive character development/customization, and rich and multi-faceted story), it is constructed in highly-manageable mission chunks with consistent rising action-climax-descending action – a formula often used for character missions, I noticed – making each sit-down with the game memorable, fun, and exciting. Scanning planets got old, to be fair, but hearing Mordin sing Gilbert and Sullivan ranks among my “best moments of 2010″ – worth the price of admission.

Alan Wake surprised me; it somehow managed to captivate my attention above that of Red Dead Redemption at launch, primarily because of its success at embracing its subject matter in an earnest, multimedia-oriented fashion, which – for lack of a better reference – reminded me of Enter the Matrix. I remember watching the “Bright Falls” viral videos – painfully released only one at a time – hoping, like Twin Peaks, to gain some insight into the mystery of Alan Wake, even before the game came out. And the collector’s edition; frankly, if you didn’t get this, you missed out, for no better reason than the amazing Alan Wake Files work of fiction-within-fiction. This rare work of love is a hardcover book (roughly 144 pages) written in the voice of a fictional author, documenting the last known whereabouts of the titular character, one of his pursuers, and the mystery behind the town of Bright Falls itself. All of these elements merge into one overarching saga that expands beyond the sum of its parts, and – like every great mystery – leaves you desperate for answers you’ll never get.

I would certainly acknowledge Limbo and Super Meat Boy as achievements (no pun intended) for the well-structured gaming service that Xbox Live Arcade is. The games ooze nostalgia but wear it with pride. Limbo brought back to mind that silent protagonists – I think of Gordon Freeman here – can be effective at allowing the player to project his/her emotions into the scene, rather than being JRPG-born, ellipsis-churning mannequins; for a game primarily concerned with creeping you out, it is eerily effective in this capacity. And Super Meat Boy has become my addiction these cold winter nights, its manic levels haunting me, evoking a mantra of “I know I can beat this level!” as it hones my reflexes bit by barely noticeable bit.

Lastly, I would be remiss to neglect a sweet little B-lister that captivated my heart with its unabashedly Japanese sensibilities: Deathsmiles. Aksys games – whom I would consider the second coming of Working Designs, for their love of sweet “omake” – even released the game with its fantastic soundtrack and a (now-defunct) Xbox 360 faceplate, featuring the darling gothic lolis. But even with all the sweet swag packed in, the game is an excellent and challenging shmup, reminiscent of those quarter-gobbling arcade games that made pizza places have to stock up on extra change back in the ‘90s. It’s cute, packed with great music and level design, and just good-natured fun.

Kyle Heimbigner
News Editor
The first big game of 2010 for me was Mass Effect 2. It was a big improvement in every way over the first game, and I am really looking forward to Mass Effect 3. All of the DLC that BioWare created for it was also amazing and added a lot of extra hours to an already long and rich game. I liked the way the character interaction worked, and the more streamlined RPG and combat systems were very well-done; it felt like an improvement over the original while not dumbing it down, which is what a lot of sequels end up doing.

Red Dead Redemption was the second big game of the year for me. The huge, wide-open game world was beautiful – easily one of the best-looking console games to date. And although I had a lot of complaints about the reliability of the multiplayer component, the single player was top notch; it had a very long storyline that covered most of the game world and offered plenty to do in-between, as well. It didn’t at all feel like Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West, which I really appreciated.

StarCraft II was the biggest out of everything this year. This game is absolutely perfect, and Blizzard again proves that they are grandmasters at their craft: stunning graphics, amazing single-player campaign, and multiplayer that doesn’t get any more perfect. It’s a very well-balanced and competitive game. I almost enjoy watching StarCraft II more then I enjoy playing it; the tournaments that take place worldwide are something else to watch. The professionals that have made a living out of playing StarCraft have proven that this is the best real-time strategy game, and nothing else can even come close to matching its complexity and depth.

If I can be different for a minute, I would also like to talk about a game that caused a lot of disappointment, too. I had been waiting over four years for Final Fantasy XIII, and while I put over 90 hours into the game, I still left it feeling very unsatisfied. The incoherent storyline; awful dialogue; simplified, dumbed-down combat system; lackluster upgrade system; pointless grinding; and a terrible balance left this game feeling like it was an experiment gone horribly wrong. It was also the start of a bigger problem, what I feel is the downfall of Square Enix in terms of quality control. They used to release some fantastic games, but, in the last two years or so, they have just continually dropped the ball. FFXIII really failed to please a lot of fans – and let’s not even get into Final Fantasy XIV.

Shaun Mason
TPS Mascot
There were two games that have already been mentioned that also stood out to me – while StarCraft II seemed to take forever to come out, I found it to be worth the wait. Like Kyle, I liked the single-player story a lot, and, like Ryan, I found the multiplayer to be where the majority of my time was spent once the single-player experience was long gone. I also found Super Meat Boy to be lots of fun in a fast-twitch, perfect-timing sort of way.

But that kind of highlights much of my focus this past year – I dove back into PC gaming wholeheartedly. It wasn’t hard to see why, given this past year, either, but I’ll mention a few fun highlights: the release of a new Sid Meier’s Civilization game is practically a holiday for my wife and me, and Civ V was no exception. I probably played it for two weeks straight, creating every strategy that I could imagine to dominate the world.

As much as I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t do it, I also found myself diving into Puzzle Quest 2 once again and getting stuck in the Bejeweled-style gameplay. Then again, I could say the same thing when Bejeweled 3 came out – yeah, yeah, I know, they’ve got casual gameplay that isn’t necessarily as involved as a shooter or strategy game, but considering that one of the RTS games that I had been waiting for was a huge disappointment (C&C4 and EA, I’m talking to you – that was a horrible ending to a great franchise), I’d rather spend the time with a casual game than get let down again.

…

Aside from a “miserable, little pile of secrets” (c’mon, tell me you didn’t chime in there). It’s a legitimate question, even if it does come from a vampire waxing philosophical. Certainly, there are a gamut of answers for this, but I’m going to limit it to the arena of videogames, and how portrayals of men in our favorite hobby contributes to – or is derived from – the zeitgeist, and how this has changed, even over the last few years, from bald space marines to dudes with beards.

So, why is it that when you put in whatever FPS/action game/etc. in your gaming console (or PC), you can expect a majority of the time to find that your “character” is – frequently by default – a male, aged 18-35? The short answer: money. Gaming is, at least these days, a financially fueled entertainment medium, with little room for slack. Publishers spend millions on finding out who’s playing what they’re selling – and, hey, why not cater toward the audience by making that ability to identify with the main character all that easier?

But we all know that’s not universally true. After all, many games have broken the mold, or at least made a decent effort to do so. While the Prince of Persia games feature a male protagonist (kind of goes with the whole “prince” thing), Beyond Good & Evil proved Jade could make it in a man’s world. Nathan Drake of Uncharted fame owes much to the nature of his game to Lara Croft of Tomb Raider — so much so that Uncharted was sometimes referred to as “Man Raider” before it broke onto the gaming scene to critical acclaim of its own merit. Games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age have had tremendous success splitting the difference, allowing for players to choose and customize their genders as they wish.

And yet, who is featured most prominently on the Mass Effect covers? Hint: it’s not “Femshep.” The reality of it is that demographics, market research, and all that other horrible corporate buzz talk we hate when we talk about our favorite games still lurks under the surface of it all, subtly influencing our purchases with depictions of – you guessed it – our projections of ourselves, or at least some facet therein.

Unlike movies, videogames depend on us actively controlling a character in order to proceed. Like Pavlov’s dogs, our achievements and progress in the game are rewarded with more entertainment. How, then, can developers make that connection stronger, yielding – even at the subconscious level – increased entertainment value? Make that character, that situation or scenario, one we can project ourselves into. Virtual reality is an easier pill to swallow when we still have free will. “Everything begins with choice.” (Thanks to Morpheus of The Matrix for the maxim.) Even if that choice is an illusion, it’s frightfully convincing.

So why does the default Commander Shepard of Mass Effect look the way he does? His cover image certainly does fit the bill of the quintessential “bald space marine,” albeit with a slight resemblance to Matthew Fox (from the early episodes of Lost), plus power armor. And why has that archetype become as ubiquitous as to be imitated in numerous other games? I think of Fracture first, with its hilariously named protagonist, Jet Brody (contrary to his name, there are no extreme snowboarding levels in the game). If you squint – and know nothing about games – it would be forgivable to mistake one game’s hero for the other.

Call of Duty occupies a unique place in this dynamic, primarily because starting with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the figure on the cover is more-or-less an obscured silhouette, with the action in the background. Humorously, this “cover philosophy” would go on to “respawn” not only in each consecutive iteration of Activision’s flagship title, but in its competition, such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and, to some extent, Medal of Honor.

Medal of Honor has the additional distinction of being one of many recent additions to the portrayal of masculinity in videogaming: that of a game featuring “dudes with beards.” (So much so, that it is a bonus for leveling up in the game.) Between Dragon Age 2’s default protagonist “Hawke,” and the early screenshots of Dominic Santiago in Gears of War 3, our heroes in 2011 may be more hirsute than before. (Guess they didn’t get that Schick Quattro for Christmas.) Even John Marston sports some healthy trail stubble.

In the end, bald or bearded – or both, if Max Payne 3 is any indication – publishers count on their core audience wanting to play the games they make. If they have to model their “cover boys” after the grooming habits of their focus groups, so be it; it puts food on their tables and lets them keep making games. And it may be cynical to say so, but people are naturally inclined to judge a book by its cover. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but a first impression shouldn’t be the last one.

Mass Effect, for one, was first recommended to me by a young lady who didn’t express any sense of alienation by its portrayal of an 18-35-year-old bald space marine on the cover. Rather, she encouraged me to try the game because of what exciting choices awaited within the game itself. We discussed other games that we enjoyed, such as Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell, both series prominently featuring different portrayals of masculinity on the surface, but rich with rewarding gameplay and thrilling stories bursting from within. Our mutual enthusiasm was that of the content of these games, rather than the image the publishers evoked to hedge their bets in favor of an easy sell.

So as time goes on, how will the covers of our videogames look? Will they be more reminiscent of a GQ magazine, with direct call-outs to its target audience? Or will publishers push the other way, maybe with something impossible to identify with, like abstract Color Field painting – a blue line intersecting a red block for Call of Duty 26? Maybe all of the covers will digitally capture the facial features of whoever is holding the game and render it into the image on the case. (Okay, that would be cool, if a bit creepy.) The future has always been difficult to predict, and as the videogame industry emerges from its “awkward teens,” how it chooses to portray its audience will define how it is perceived at large.

…

But enough talk – have at you!

Except… what does “dominate” mean? Yes, the quantity of Sony’s exclusives roster will more than likely dwarf its rivals’ even after they have been announced (most likely at E3 this summer), and the same undoubtedly goes for its quality, too, but that leaves behind a distinction that holds just as much significance as, say, your buddy’s Gamerscore – pretty impressive within the magical ether that is Xbox Live, but a feat (or is that an achievement?) that dissipates in the wind outside your mom’s basement.

The reality of the situation is that the PS3 is still in dead-last place in America (globally, it fares much better; with a worldwide total of 42 million units, it trails just behind the 360’s 50 million install base – but this is due more to Microsoft’s fundamental inability to penetrate the gaijin-unfriendly waters of the Japanese market than any particular amount of success Sony may have in the other territories), and it’s going to take a lot for the company to crawl out from its perpetual third-place spot. The system has only been the best-selling console for some five months out of its total of 50 on the market; its best-performing titles are routinely outsold by their 360 counterparts. And while Sony has done much in the past few years to close the gap with Microsoft, it is still several million units away just in America – and then it has the juggernaut that is Nintendo to compete with. It’s not an easy road, with or without Uncharted 3 riding shotgun.

Yes, there are a great many expectations for 2011’s undeniably stellar software library to sell some systems and overtake the house that Master Chief built, and some units certainly will be moved, but only up to a very finite point; there were similarly lofty hopes for an explosion in sales surrounding the PS3’s first price drop, from $599 to $499, in July 2007, and following the introduction of the slim model in September 2009. Indeed, in the really real world, outside the influence of Xbox Live or the confines of fanboy forums, having, say, 10 exclusive games rather than four means very little.

The marketing of consoles is avowedly an iterative process – not unlike the art and craft of game development itself, taking one painstaking step after the other ad infinitum – and Sony is, by all indications, just ramping up with the PlayStation 3. But the company will very quickly find itself running out of time well before its strategy pays huge dividends against its competitors: the PS3 has, at best, one-and-a-half years before the next generation of consoles arrives, a launch window that may very well include the arrival of the PlayStation 4… and the starting anew of the battle over sales.

We know. Oh, yes, we know… and that is half the battle.

The other half is a good start.

Oh, yes, it is…

Parjanya Holtz
Senior Editor
Everyone who has been working with and/or for TPS at some point in his or her “career” knows that Marc N. Kleinhenz not only is a hopeless Nintendo fanboy (who sprawls within the realms of a bewildering love/hate relationship with Sony), but he’s also a witch and, henceforth, proud owner of a mysterious crystal ball. To put this into some context, MNK has both successfully predicted that by 2012 California won’t be smart (safe) to live in (which, understandably, is part of the reason why he abhors the idea of living in the Sunshine State so much) and spoiled the next Twilight movie for half the staff. (Except for Aram and Andy, who both had already read the book.)

So, why are we gathering here for yet another group discussion? The answer is simple: Marc likes to see us make fools of ourselves. While he knows what’s going to happen, we speculate wildly on what the new year will have in store for our beloved videogames.

With Sony celebrating the PS3’s fifth – and Microsoft, the 360’s sixth – birthday in 2011, one would think that this hardware generation is about to begin losing its momentum. However, one quick glance at the PS3’s (scheduled) lineup for next year should make every Sony fanboy dance his own name. So what do I predict besides Sony delivering the system’s strongest list of games to date? How about the PSP2 and the PSPhone? Both make absolute sense looking at the most recent developments on the market(s) (the PSPhone will go up against the iPhone, and the PSP2 against the 3DS), plus all the rumors and “leaked” images of both systems popping up on every blog these days pretty much confirm that it won’t be long until we will hear of both. E3 2011. Any doubts?

My other “major” prediction is the surprise unveiling and release of a new independent property that will be exclusive to the PS3. All of Sony’s new IPs have become major successes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt comfortable enough to give a studio like Ready at Dawn a shot at creating an entirely new franchise that’s once again exclusive to the PS3. Actually, thinking about the talk I had with Dana Jan [the God of War: Ghost of Sparta game director], I am pretty convinced that it’ll be them becoming Sony’s next big second-party PS3 developer.

I also predict the unveiling of a Wii HD, which will likely be less of a successor and more of a fully backward compatible “pro” version of the current generation Wii — actually quite similar to Sony’s and Microsoft’s redesigns, but with a few more system-enhancing hardware upgrades. The Wii 2 will probably not be unveiled before E3 2012, alongside the PS4 and Xbox 3.

What do you guys think?

Marc N. Kleinhenz
Features Editor
There will be no Wii HD. Nintendo is following a traditional, old-school philosophy with their systems – just one per generation, thank you very much – and they’ll jump right to the Wii Too (yes, I really do think it’ll be called that). It’s more than likely that Nintendo will “announce” it at next year’s E3, just as they tipped their hand in regards to the Revolution and its Virtual Console at E3 2005, with a full blowout at and release for ‘12. Whether or not the Xbox 720 ships the same year is unknown, although extremely likely.

Another prediction: all three next-gen systems will launch with cameras to complement their packed-in motion controls (and, possibly, their pack-in traditional controls).

One last one: at least a quarter of the 2011 PS3 exclusives, such as The Last Guardian and, just possibly, SOCOM 4, will get delayed until ‘12.

Kyle Heimbigner
Staff Writer
I see The Last Guardian actually finally coming out in 2011. I think we’ll see a lot of it at E3, and then it’ll have a Christmas release. But, yeah, ‘11 is looking to be what ‘10 should have been for Sony. The first half of this year was strong, but Sony’s Christmas has been very disappointing – unless you wanted the PlayStation Move, and even then you are still waiting until 2011 for the good motion games. LittleBigPlanet 2 will be the game everyone talks about next year, too, I think, along with Killzone 3. Most likely, though, LBP2 will get all of the attention – until Uncharted 3 comes out. There is really nothing from Microsoft next year that really makes the 360 stand out like Sony’s lineup of games does.

Aram Lecis
Señor Editor
My first prediction is that there is no way it will be called “Wii Too.” That’s way too clever for Nintendo. It will actually be called SDNES, for Super Duper Nintendo Excrement System.

While I do not think we will even see a reveal of a new console in 2011 (maybe from Microsoft, but even that I sorta doubt), I think Paji is right on with the PSP2 for sure. Maybe there will finally be the PSPhone, but even if such a thing does come to pass, I see it going the way of the Microsoft Kin, and I’d be amazed if it did as well as an N-Gage. Sorry – iPhone has that platform on lockdown, and Droid picks up the slack for those nonconformists that now hate Apple as some big, faceless conglomeration that must be stopped (oh, how the tides have turned).

Game-wise, things look a little grim for 2011 right now. Yes, there is a spate of sequels to highly regarded games, but there is a dearth of new IP, and that makes me a sad gamer. I’m not denying that there can be excellent sequels, but you are still just playing a refinement of an existing game, and as I am an aging product of a society that celebrates short attention spans, it is very hard for a sequel to keep me gripped or get me excited. Still, there are always a few surprises that come out of nowhere to be really good games (like Darksiders in 2010), so I’m betting there is something out there. I am excited about Twisted Metal, which clever readers will point out is another sequel… but when you haven’t put out a full console game in almost 10 years, then a sequel is okay.

My only other thought is that we will probably see a decline in the 3D push by late in 2011 (and perhaps motion controls, too), barring someone coming up with an actual “killer app” that makes 3D (and motion) anything more than a gimmick that adds nothing to the gameplay. I’m probably wrong, but I should be right.

Sam Bishop
Editor-in-chief
Oho, I want to get in on this!

I’ll steer clear of new hardware predictions (though the PSP2 is real and the PSPhone is a PlayStation device only in our clever little naming convention-making minds and is an Android device first with the option to play select downloaded PlayStation titles), but I’ll insist this will be the last full-blown year where everyone’s still fully committed to their home hardware (okay, maybe just MS and Sony). We’ll likely see the best-looking, most refined, and most expanded game concepts of the generation in 2011, with 2012 serving as sort of the swan song for our lovable black brick. There’ll be a price drop to $200 to get hardware sales moving at a pace deserving of easily the most impressive year in terms of sheer software output.

3D has definitely become something of a pratfall for Sony. While I love that games are leading the content charge (seriously, I think there’s, like, 20 times more 3D games than there are TV programming and Blu-rays combined), it’s clear that the tech cannot be bolted onto an existing engine and just left at that. Games need to be made for 3D first, and ideally with Move thrown in there, too, to properly show off an interface that uses all the space in front of the player in more than just waggle ways. I think we may see some interesting experiments in both tech, but until they’re standard in the PS4 and every HDTV out there is also a 3DTV (which will absolutely happen in the next few years), it’s a tough sell for all the performance hit and extra dev time it would take to make a “real” 3D game. I fully expect someone like Kojima to really do it all justice in the next few years, and I can’t wait.

I’d say most of the stuff hitting with definite dates already (like Uncharted 3) will stick to their dates. The Last Guardian is very likely an early 2012 game. I just don’t see it making it this year, but E3 is going to be insane. There’s still a lot of stuff that’s unannounced so far (like Lightbox’s Warhawk follow-up), and there will definitely be a full hardware reveal of the PSP2, so I’m pumped. I don’t mind all the sequels right now; this is the point in every hardware cycle where devs leverage the experience and continued refinements to their engines to make the games rather than the tech, and I think we may see plenty of games with the numeral three after them hitting, but they’ll be hands-down the best of their franchises.

When we start to head into new hardware next year (and that’s 2012, at the earliest), that’s the time for devs to start creating new IPs, and Sony has shown that its first-party studios don’t mind making huge leaps into something new. For now, I’m happy to just enjoy the continued price breaks and advances to familiar gameplay and franchises that the end of a hardware cycle entails.

Aram Lecis
Señor Editor
I WANT MY NEW GAMES YOU SHUT UP!

Sam Bishop
Editor-in-chief
I WANT THEM TOO BUT I ALSO WANT STARHAWK AND G-POLICE AND COLONY WARS AND OH GOD I CAN’T STOP TYPING IN CAPS SOMEONE HEEEEEEELP ME!

(Also, yeah, the PSN has sort of emerged as its own half-platform, and that definitely seems to be the most fruitful germination point for new ideas – and that’s not a bad way to do it, really. Less risk, possibly better rewards.)

Marc N. Kleinhenz
Features Editor
I actually think we’ll see a $199 PS3 (and, of course, Xbox 360) at the end of next year, as opposed to ‘12, but – hey – I was wrong about a price drop for the Wii this year, so who knows.

If we don’t see cheaper systems this coming year… then when will the manufacturers introduce the 512-bit systems? Unless, of course, they all take the PS2 route, with the first several years of the new generation being slightly eaten by a more-productive-for-longer older gen?

Sam Bishop
Editor-in-chief
I’d honestly be surprised if we didn’t see E3 announcements of $200 and permanent bundles for the rest of the gen. Any extensions to current prices could be an attempt to offset R&D costs, but, most of the time, that’s all sunk in the hopes of getting it all back over the course of that gen.

Basically, it’s my guess that if prices hold past the middle of this year, tuck in for at least another full year of the current hardware. And, honestly, as much of a spaz as I am about new hardware reveals, I’m okay with a few more years. Let ‘em work out those motion control kinks to see what works and what doesn’t before we end up just grouping them into the next gen by default.

Daniel Hemsath
Features Freelancer
2011 and the future of gaming… let me peer into my crystal ball… I see… goldfish. Oh, wait… this is a fishbowl.

Seriously, though, I’m sure Nintendo will release an HD system, and I’m inclined to agree that it will be backwards-compatible with Wii games (GameCube, who knows) and feature a camera. It seems a little less “revolutionary” than the Wii was, in light of recent motion-gaming advances, but I suspect that Nintendo will embrace the audience introduced to gaming with the Wii, and still surprise us with a trick up their sleeves. The 3DS is already confirmed for 2011, but I think it’s going to be less successful than the DS was – until the inevitable price drop. It seems like too many “non-gamers” see the DS as a toy, not an interactive media device, like an iPhone. Parents won’t shell out $300 (or even $250) for a device that might make their six-year-old throw up; apparently, they might weigh the consequences if it were cheaper, I guess.

Back when the PS3 dropped in price to $300, I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t figure out how they could afford to do it. I heard they were losing money on every system made. So a drop to $200 sounds crazy – but videogames are a dynamic market. Technological advances come up with memory, production, etc. so fast that I doubt Sony really is losing money on the production of their consoles at this time. So, maybe, it’s not so implausible. For anyone who’s been holding out, $200 is the magic price. Heck, $300’s still a steal.

PlayStation Phone – knowing Sony, it’s guaranteed to release next year. Early reports suggest that it will be modeled after (or crafted from the bodies of) the PSP go, which isn’t surprising. After all, Sony has a way of reusing its technology until it catches on; take UMDs and their progenitor, the MiniDisc. But as for the PlayStation Phone’s audience? With iPhones, Droids, and even the Windows Phone 7, the market’s not just saturated, it’s underwater. Can the PSPhone remain competitive – or even dominant – in its arena?

And as far as the PSP2 goes, I’m sure we’ll see it in 2011, albeit as a holiday release. (Wouldn’t that be something?) I’m interested in seeing what really sets it apart from its competitor, aside from being very pretty, I’m sure. I’m honestly hoping it will push for a sophisticated DLC-oriented library, a la “apps,” or other Media Go-styled content; I believe that this is the future of portable gaming, not cartridges the size of postage stamps you’ll lose in-between the cushions of your couch.

And Microsoft? Sure, there’s Gears 3 and Forza 4 (which I’m sure will be Kinect-enabled and big sellers), but what else is there? Is Microsoft really that confident in Kinect that they feel they can coast on it? I can’t even see any significant Kinect games coming out next year that make this accessory a “must have” for 2011; even Child of Eden (which looks slick) is a bit niche. And while I don’t believe that we’ll hear of an Xbox 3 (or 720, depending on preference) or PS4 next year, I’m sure holiday 2011 will determine Microsoft’s future role in gaming – for better or worse – depending on which audience they embrace and which audience they take for granted.

Sam Bishop
Editor-in-chief
Just to chime in one last time on some of this, the PS3 was still losing just a few bucks per unit sold when the Slim dropped at $300, but this was quickly corrected and Sony has been making a profit on the system more or less since it launched. If they do drop to $200, it’ll likely be because they were able to move to a new fab size and maybe squeeze more into less space. Then again, at this point, they really can’t afford to slip any more. The PS2 is dead. The PSP is dead in the States, and the PS3 is chilling in a distant third here, too. I think any future pricing moves will be reactive rather than proactive, but I do still think we’ll see a $200 system. The software isn’t just there, it’s everywhere, so really the only thing holding back consumers seems to be the relative price difference versus the other systems. As long as that barrier is there, no talk of bundled Move controllers or Blu-ray playback is going to knock it down in consumers’ eyes. Two hundo certainly would.

And again, on the PSPhone (sorry I brought it up again), remember that it’s a Sony Ericsson device, not a Sony Computer Entertainment one. It has PlayStation functionality in limited download form, but it’s not a PSP and likely won’t carry the PlayStation name. Sony needs to keep that as pure as possible leading up to the reveal of the PSP2 around E3. The phone may do well (the Xperia devices have been doing okay, I believe), but it shouldn’t be judged by the same metric as normal PlayStation hardware. It won’t get that push, it won’t get that reveal, and (hopefully, in Sony’s mind, I’m sure) it won’t pull focus from the real PSP successor that’s waiting in the wings.

Parjanya Holtz
Senior Editor
Yeah, I think Sam pretty much has it figured out regarding the PSPhone. They want the PlayStation name out there tied to their Ericssons so those will do better, not the other way around. It’s more a marketing coup than a real noteworthy PlayStation release. (Remember, the old Sony Ericsson phones all used to have the PlayStation controller logo already in there, so the interconnection is not entirely new.) However, if they do it right, Sony Computer Entertainment could actually really profit from this. Minis need a push, and in the end it might actually help sell PSP(2)s.

I still stand by my prediction for 2012 being the big year for new console announcements/releases, not 2011, and I still think the Wii HD might actually happen. Nintendo probably sees the PS2 (and especially its later years) as an indicator of how the casual market can help make a console a tremendous success, which is why they’d be stupid not to keep the Wii around for a few more years (alongside the Wii 2). A redesigned HD version might be the way to go, unless they’re afraid it would take away momentum from the Wii 2. Or is their market dominance too frail to pull off such a Sony-ish move? Either way, all three major corporations have a lot of thinking to do regarding the future of their brands. As Sony painfully had to learn, a good start is half the race.

When chatting with my TPS brethren about the hypnotic effect and soothing quality of cold snow on the ground when wrapped up with a warm controller, they offered a tremendous amount of words, most of them strung together in a coherent fashion and many done so quite insightfully. Alarmed and ashamed at my inability to include all their wonderful quotes in the editorial proper, I have decided to collect and archive them here for the reading pleasure of the world and all its future progeny.

Oh, snow, in their own words…

Rus McLaughlin
Bitmob.com staff writer
For reasons I can’t explain, I always loved Swords on Halo 3’s “Snowbound” map. There’s nothing about “Snowbound” that particularly lends itself to swordfighting – and the snow doesn’t have much impact on the game itself – but that never stopped me from cutting a bitch.

As for atmospherics, I think you’ve got to go with two games: Silent Hill and Max Payne. They just felt colder, grimmer, closer to death for having a steady, silent snowfall coming down… that chill in your bones, that unwilling slide into unconsciousness. These are two very different games, but both have a distinct “waking nightmare” vibe going on, and setting them in the dead of winter (as it were) really feeds into the dreamless, semi-delusional states both Max and Harry Mason find themselves in.

Sir Gordon Wheelmeier
Gaming guru
I remember playing the platformers of old, where every one had at least one ice level, and you’d slip and slide everywhere, making jumps and dealing with enemies much trickier. I always hated seeing them when I’d first get to them, because I always thought they felt sort of cheap after a while (after you’ve done a few, the hook there is just the same thing again and again), but I’d always feel rather accomplished after I would finish them.

Shaun Mason
Consultant/mascot
Personally, I haven’t had a lot of experience with snow, primarily because I grew up in areas that never got cold enough for that kind of weather. So the concept of snow, ice, slush, or whatever is somewhat foreign to me. But maybe that’s one of the reasons why I hate ice levels in countless platformers or action games – I’m not even going to attempt to list all of them, because the guilty parties know who they are. But does this sound familiar? You find your character sliding and skating around, with worthless footing or traction on every surface. Did I mention the bottomless pits or the native snow monsters that are just waiting to attack you in your helpless state, forcing you to start over at some distant checkpoint to repeat this Sisyphean task?

What I have liked are the games that use snow with either an atmospheric sense of building tension or for a legitimate gameplay purpose. For example, Metal Gear Solid, MGS4, and the Syphon Filter games managed to use snow to emphasize and heighten tension during some game sequences, as well as provide a true game mechanic – if you couldn’t see the enemy in the midst of a blizzard, chances were they couldn’t see you, either, unless you drew attention to yourself. The mountaintop level in Modern Warfare that has you sneaking into a heavily guarded base and escaping on snowmobile is truly breathtaking and so well-done, cinematically, that some Hollywood directors could learn some lessons in dramatic tension. But I think that what really defines snow, winter time, and the holidays the best, to me, is the SSX series. Like I said, I don’t really have experience with snow, but that franchise was just awesome and made me feel like I could take on any mountain in the world as long as I had a DJ, a board, and a crowd willing to watch me perform insane tricks just so I could gain bragging rights.

Aram Lecis
Senior editor
There are two games throughout history that leap out at me when I think of snow and videogames. The first is the classic Infocom text adventure The Lurking Horror, which takes place on a snowbound, fictional college campus (really, it was MIT), and the second is Metal Gear Solid.

The first time I played the original MGS on the PSX, it was at a time when I was considering my first move to Alaska. While I thought it was neat that it took place in the state that I was interested in (and knew very little about), I really didn’t pay that much attention to the setting, instead becoming enthralled with the varied gameplay and deep narrative.

Soon after I made the move to the 49th state, a coworker invited me over to his house to play through Metal Gear Solid with him (which we played on an original iMac with Connectix Virtual GameStation) a second time, and now that I was in Alaska and knew the game, I garnered a whole new appreciation for the setting this time around. I don’t think there was any time before or since then when I felt so immersed in an environment. The same cold winds and deep snows that covered the Fox Archipelago could be found right outside the window of my friend’s basement. When I’d leave his house to walk home in the sub-zero temperature, I imagined I could quell the shivering if only I could find some Diazepam lying on the ground. I empathized fully with how physically demanding it must have been for Snake to sneak around outside in these conditions.

Of course, it isn’t just my familiarity with the locale that makes MGS such an outstanding example of using snow in a game. I don’t recall having seen another game at that point where characters would have vapor clouds coming out of their mouths in time with their breathing. The game also modeled your footprints, leaving tracks in the snow, and it wasn’t just a nice cosmetic touch: they could be used to bait enemy soldiers into following them while you hurriedly circled around to sneak up on them from behind and silently snapped their necks. The environment was no longer just a setting and a background – it was now an integral part of the gameplay that added credibility to the rest of the tightly-wound story. Other games have certainly followed suit with making immersive winter environments, but I don’t think any of them will ever resonate with me as well as MGS did.

Contrast this with earlier uses of snow and ice in games, where the main function was to make extra-slippery sections in platformers that caused you to slide into pits or a Goomba and which made you restart the level. I hate the use of snow and ice in those games as much as I deplore the slippery sidewalks outside my house – they never contributed anything tangible to the games they were in and were much more a gimmick than any well-thought-out addition to the gameplay. Thankfully, that is a “feature” that seems to have faded from our collective gaming consciousness. Now we just need a modern, first-person version of The Lurking Horror so I can die happily snowbound!

Sam Bishop
Editor-in-chief
My favorite is definitely Uncharted 2’s various Himalayan areas. Naughty Dog is obviously absolute beasts when it comes to doing textures and complex environments, but what they really nailed was the look of snow drifts on actual physical objects. There’s a lot of that clumpy, bunched-up stuff that you only get in environments where there’s a ton of wind and a ton of snow dumping almost constantly. Seeing various walls in Tenzan’s village, for instance, with all those little tufts of snow just above the ground line, was really, really neat, and of course seeing the blizzard Drake ends up collapsing in was incredible, too. It just made you feel… cold.

Properly doing a snow/ice level is pretty damn huge. Yeah, it’s a pretty well-worn trope of games these days; if a game doesn’t have a fire level, a jungle level, a desert level, and a snow level, somehow people seem to think all the bases aren’t covered. To me, though, stumbling out into the snow is a huge part of changing up the pacing and tone of a game. When done right (Resistance 2 did some really cool particle-based snow, as well), it can make things more plodding and more desperate, and I really like that. Plus, snow levels are simultaneously comforting (who doesn’t love hearing that crunch?) and unnerving (it’s freezing – homeboy or homegirl is gonna die if they don’t get out of the elements), and I really dig that. Done well, they can be a tremendous asset to the immersion and hook of a game.

Andy Curtiss
Staff writer
I love fighting games. I always have. I can honestly say it’s the first genre that ever really hooked me into videogames. You can blame Street Fighter II. I was at the perfect age when it was released in arcades; I was just old enough to be 100% enthralled. And I remember intently watching an older kid play all the way through and getting to Bison before getting his rear-end handed to him.

The love affair with fighting games continued all through my teenage years and into my 20s. I specifically bought an Xbox because of the fighting games that had come out for it. By this time, I was also a huge RPG fan, and, yes, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind had recently come out for the system, but it had been Dead or Alive 3 that caught my eye. Later, other games would release and entertain me quite a bit, as well: Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Tao Feng, and Def Jam: Fight for NY. But like I said, it was Dead or Alive that did me in, and did so in spectacular fashion.

My cousin had purchased an Xbox and badly wanted to come to my parents’ house and hook it up to the “big screen” TV. (This was, of course, eight years ago, when “big screen” meant something else, but I digress.) With their permission, my cousin hooked up the system and promptly popped in DOA3. The next 24 hours flew by in a haze I cannot even begin to describe.

I had fallen in love – completely and totally, head over heels. The game was beautiful, visually. The next generation in gaming had arrived! The characters were bright but realistic, and dear God… they had texture! But even more, the fighting itself was superior to any game I’d played yet. There were no crazy fireballs or hurricane kicks; it was martial arts based on real martial arts (to some degree, at any rate). How clever! And, of course, there were the characters: ninja like Hayabusa and Kasumi, if you preferred the ladies; wrestlers Bass and his daughter, Tina, whose outfits didn’t leave anything to the imagination; even the big, hunky commando Bayman (whom I still have a crush on years later). But, most of all, there was Helena, with the flowing blond hair and graceful style I’d never seen before. She had me completely and instantly.

When I think of snow in videogames, I think of the snowy stream stage in Dead or Alive 3. The wind is blowing and the snow is falling. The sky is grey and visibility passed the fighters is quite low. You find yourself and your opponent fighting on the banks of a small stream or creek. The whole area is absolutely covered in snow. There’s even a tree down nearby, presumably because of the snow. It’s easy to imagine this little forest glade as beautiful in the spring time, but the winter has made it nothing but white. As you and your opponent square off, you find that the snow actually interacts with you as you’d imagine. Where you step, you leave footprints and begin to mash the snow down. When you jump, the powdery white stuff comes up with you in small clouds. Watching Tina body slam someone in a bikini makes me shiver just thinking about it.

There are several other stages that offer a snowy setting, as well – the dojo and the cave, both of which are beautiful, as all the stages in DOA3 were. The cave even offers two “floors” of battling: you actually start outside and above the cave, and, if you manage to knock your opponent down the steep, snow-covered slope, you find yourselves in a cavern with icicles as big as you! But like I said, it’s the snowy stream that makes me think of winter the most – especially if you have selected Kasumi’s Santa outfit!

I couldn’t tell you why, although I’m sure growing up in Cleveland has no small part in it, a place where Christmases truly are – thanks to that most magical of phrases, “lake-effect snow” – winter wonderlands. The silent, majestic beauty of these white landscapes, I’m sure, is another piece of the puzzle, as is the atmosphere and ambiance they generate when snuggled nicely in a warm (and warmly decorated) house. Indeed, despite the stress and the massive disruptions snow can cause, it is one of four absolutely indispensable elements to a holly, jolly holiday.

Another of these four essentials is, of course, videogames – it ain’t much of a Christmas if there isn’t at least one videogame tucked away in a stocking – and here, I’ve only recently noticed, the white fluffy stuff pops up again and again in my personal library of fondest gaming experiences: the race against the penguin in Super Mario 64, sneaking around Shadow Moses Island in Metal Gear Solid, running for my life in Silent Hill, beating the snot out of the Covenant on the “Terminal Moraine” map in Halo Wars (why is it that the snow maps are always the best in RTSes?). And my wife and I playing Animal Crossing, on both the GCN and DS, where the picture-perfect snowflakes on the screen matched the weather outside the frosted windows, still brings a smile to my face, even if the game series stopped doing so long ago.

And it is here, remarking on the simple fact of human existence that there are few phenomena as immediately atmospheric or instantly immersive – particularly in as immersive a medium as videogames – as a flurry of snow, that the thought occurred to me that it is perhaps I, having perhaps inhaled a bit too much salt that would coat everyone’s car after five minutes of driving on an icy Cleveland road, who was on the wrong side of the objective-subjective divide; maybe it was I who had warped reality, very much in an ActRaiser fashion (another solid use of winter-weather-as-atmosphere-builder, incidentally), and had created the Great Self-evident Snow Truth instead of merely observing and recording it. There was only one way to find out: turn to those fellow diehard, obsessive-compulsive gamers whose opinions I intimately and infinitely trusted – or merely grab the first person I came across here at the TPS offices – and ask for his input.

“For reasons I can’t explain,” Rus McLaughlin, a former freelancer with IGN and a current editor at Dan “Shoe” Hsu’s Bitmob.com, says in an eerily similar fashion, “I always loved Swords on Halo 3’s ‘Snowbound’ map. There’s nothing about ‘Snowbound’ that particularly lends itself to swordfighting – and the snow doesn’t have much impact on the game itself – but that never stopped me from cutting a bitch.”

While it was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one with a glacial fixation in the Haloverse, there was something more to it – or, at least, something to be more fully expounded upon. Dear Sam Bishop, ex-Podcast Beyond-er and the once and future king of TotalPlayStation, hit the conscious nail on the head a little more self-consciously. What does it for him, he positively enthused, was Uncharted 2’s Himalayan locales. “Naughty Dog is obviously absolute beasts when it comes to doing textures and complex environments, but what they really nailed was the look of snow drifts on actual physical objects. There’s a lot of that clumpy, bunched-up stuff that you only get in environments where there’s a ton of wind and a ton of snow dumping almost constantly. Seeing various walls in Tenzan’s village, for instance, with all those little tufts of snow just above the ground line, was really, really neat, and of course seeing the blizzard Drake ends up collapsing in was incredible, too. It just made you feel… cold.” It was at this point that his face turned blue and his teeth started to chatter, so I left him to his Snuggie and continued on my merry quest.

“When I think of snow in videogames, I think of the snowy stream stage in Dead or Alive 3. The wind is blowing and the snow is falling. The sky is grey and visibility passed the fighters is quite low,” Andy Curtiss, a news-and-JRPG-review-producing machine, said to me as I passed him in the hall. “You find yourself and your opponent fighting on the banks of a small stream or creek. The whole area is absolutely covered in snow. There’s even a tree down nearby, presumably because of the snow. It’s easy to imagine this little forest glade as beautiful in the spring time, but the winter has made it nothing but white. As you and your opponent square off, you find that the snow actually interacts with you as you’d imagine. Where you step, you leave footprints and begin to mash the snow down. When you jump, the powdery white stuff comes up with you in small clouds. Watching Tina body slam someone in a bikini makes me shiver just thinking about it.”

There truly is a technical aspect of beauty to it – recreating water in all of its states is no small feat, as any developer will easily attest to – and there are few things that tech-heads love to reveal in more than a computational display of mastery such as this. But doesn’t the rabbit hole go deeper than sheer and unadulterated aesthetics?

I rang up Aram Lecis, TPS’s Alaska correspondent (why it was deemed necessary to have a branch office in the 49th state, no one knows – but, then again, no one questions Mr. Bishop’s judgment), thinking that he might not only have a similar appreciation for the Great Snow Truth, but also a likely explanation for its self-evident existence. He immediately zeroed in on Metal Gear Solid as being “an outstanding example of using snow in a game.” He continued, “I don’t recall having seen another game at that point where characters would have vapor clouds coming out of their mouths in time with their breathing. The game also modeled your footprints, leaving tracks in the snow, and it wasn’t just a nice cosmetic touch: they could be used to bait enemy soldiers into following them while you hurriedly circled around to sneak up on them from behind and silently snapped their necks. The snowy environment was no longer just a setting and a background – it was now an integral part of the gameplay that added credibility to the rest of the tightly-wound story. Other games have certainly followed suit with making immersive winter environments, but I don’t think any of them will ever resonate with me as well as MGS did.” I can certainly and heartily agree with that.

But lest he seem to agree too much with his nerd brethren, Lecis-san then went on: “Contrast MGS with earlier uses of snow and ice in games, where the main function was to make extra-slippery sections in platformers that caused you to slide into pits or a Goomba and which made you restart the level. I hate the use of snow and ice in those games as much as I deplore the slippery sidewalks outside my house – they never contributed anything tangible to the games they were in and were much more a gimmick than any well-thought-out addition to the gameplay.”

“Personally, I haven’t had a lot of experience with snow, primarily because I grew up in areas that never got cold enough for that kind of weather. So the concept of snow, ice, slush, or whatever is somewhat foreign to me,” said Shaun Mason, a more-or-less behind-the-scenes guiding light and TotalPlayStation cheerleader here at the offices, when I related Aram’s comments to him. I found both him and Sir Gordon Wheelmeier, so called because of his origin from the very depths of Ye Olde English history, sitting in the so-called cafeteria. “But maybe that’s one of the reasons why I hate ice levels in countless platformers or action games – I’m not even going to attempt to list all of them, because the guilty parties know who they are.”

Sir Gordon couldn’t agree more. “I remember playing the platformers of old, where every one had at least one ice level, and you’d slip and slide everywhere, making jumps and dealing with enemies much trickier. I always hated seeing them when I’d first get to them.”

The three of them were, of course, right – there is a rich vein of frustration permeating the serene wistfulness of a snow-filled night, off-set by roasting chestnuts or not. Whether manifested in slippery gameplay mechanics or treacherous roads, it’s something that cannot be so easily overlooked, even if one has the same pair of frosted-yet-still-rose-tinted sledding goggles as do I.

And yet… not even Lord Wheelmeier can fully turn his back on the cascades of cool night air and strains of Christmas music, for he added, almost under his breath:

“But I’d always feel rather accomplished after I would finish them.”

Bingo.

This is, ultimately, I think, the saccharine-yet-erudite answer, the perfect combination of truism and epiphany. It’s in the contrast that the magic happens, and there is no more pervasive or potent conflict than in winter – staying warm while your avatar is cold; the brightness of the lights on the Christmas Tree that is plunged in the darkest depths of the year; and, of course, the extra challenges of a snow level that give way to a greater sense of connection to the environment and absorption into the world through the bond of gameplay (there is also, in the less-vicarious-and-more-visceral world of the animal kingdom, of course, the tension between hibernating or migrating and perishing). Indeed, this is the very heart of videogames, the give and take of immersion, the push and pull of drama. And this is the quintessential element of existence itself: it is in the contrast – and the division – between ourselves and others around us that we get to know who and what, if not necessarily why, we are (even if we tend to get lost in and subsumed by the multiplicity of these multiplicities), starting with the primal distinction between those who possess life and those, simply, who do not.

All of this is realized within the simple geometric beauty of a snowflake, whether comprised of pixels or constituted by atoms.

Well, at least for me.

Apparently, at the beginning of the modern era of gaming, not much. Console manufacturers, not yet lured by the siren that is the fourth quarter of the year or dominated by the rigors and subtleties of “launch windows,” had an extremely flexible and wide-ranging spectrum of dates. Nintendo released its very first system in October (but only in New York; the rest of the country had to wait throughout the entirety of the following year) and chose July to ship the first iteration of the first Game Boy, while Sega used June as the birth month for its Master System. August, interestingly enough, emerged as the first momentous month for the industry, gaming’s original (and short-lived) November: the Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, and Super NES all hit store shelves within its 31 days. And even the first half of the year saw some action, with the Saturn (sort of) debuting in May.

The tradition of reserving Q4 as the exclusive grounds for system launches didn’t nominally start until Sony entered the arena, ten long and dynamic years later. (Technically, 3DO and Atari beat the Japanese electronics giant to the punch, releasing the 3DO in October and the Jaguar in November of 1993, but their consoles are mere footnotes – literally – in the annals of gaming history.) After the PSX, PS2, and PS3 were shipped in September, October, and November, respectively, manufacturers clung to the merry month of November like vultures to a snowbound carcass: the Xbox saw release on the 15th; the PS3, the 17th; the GameCube and the Game Boy Color, the 18th; the Wii, the 19th; the DS, the 21st; and the Xbox 360, the 22nd. Hell, even non-hardware – or, at least, non-system – launches have favored the eleventh month of the year, with Microsoft in particular leading the charge; it started Xbox Live (on the 15th), debuted Xbox Live Arcade (the 3rd), introduced the New Xbox Experience (the 19th), and, most recently, unleashed Kinect (the 19th once more) all in November.

MARCH
PSP – 03.24.05

JUNE
GBA – 06.11.01

JULY
Game Boy – 07.31.89

AUGUST
Genesis – 08.14.89
Super NES – 08.23.91

SEPTEMBER
PlayStation – 09.09.95
Nintendo 64 – 09.29.96
Dreamcast – 09.09.99

OCTOBER
NES – 10.18.85
PlayStation 2 – 10.26.00

NOVEMBER
Xbox – 11.15.01
PlayStation 3 – 11.17.06
GameCube – 11.18.01
Wii – 11.19.06
DS – 11.21.04
Xbox 360 – 11.22.05

The sole exception to this ad hoc tradition, interestingly enough, comes in the form of handheld systems. Although Nintendo shipped the GBC and DS in the fourth quarter, the Game Boy Advance was in June, while the PSP was, bizarrely, in March. And lest a first-quarter release be seen as being too unusual (or, apparently, unique), the big N has already indicated that the 3DS, its fourth portable, will similarly hit shelves in March of next year.

This latter and latest development may have something to do with the still-burgeoning trend of software publishers treating Q1 as the new Q4, or it may simply be a by-product of end-of-fiscal-year book balancing – or, most mundane yet, the manifestation of assembly-line realities – but it nevertheless sends the same signal: as the videogame industry continues to grow and solidify its presence as a major, not to mention permanent, fixture in the entertainment panorama, it needs to rely less and less on the seasonal, toy-purchasing surge of November, generating instead its own momentums at any arbitrary point in the calendar year.

As the market finishes growing up, in other words, it’s heading back to its adolescent stomping grounds.