Like a good Tom Waits song...

Remember the first time you listened to a really great slow and emotional song? It was only 3-7 minutes long but it had such a profound impact on you that it made you want to listen to it again and again. I don't care who you are, there are songs out there like this for you that you will play until the day you die.

Poems and short films also come to my mind as being in this short, impactful (is it a word?) and replayable category that I have just created.

The other mediums have it, so why don't videogames?

Like many of you, I discuss my gaming memories with my friends and how I would like to one day go back and experience that story once again. These are the things I say but in reality the probability of it happening are directly related to the industry's ability to saturate the market with an ever increasing amount of games whose sole purpose is to live up to the equation VALUE=LENGTH. Sadly, I feel this equation is being legitimized more and more each day.

But there are exceptions...

I try and play as many new releases as time permits (and I usually have a handsome amount of time) so please, if you will, let this statement carry a little weight, I find myself replaying Gears of War more than any game in recent memory. The game can be played in bite size pieces, or in one long sit-down session. You can be rambo or a bastard child from Winback (and I mean that in a good way of course). If you enjoyed this game, you are going to walk away with stories and experiences that you will want to share with your friends and colleagues, and with this game you can actually share these experiences with relative ease. Even if they are fairly new to videogames.

Fable
Say what you will about it, but Peter Molyneux is on to something. He's been saying that emotional games are a key to attracting new audiences. Fable may not have exactly pulled at the heart strings of the masses, but at least it tried. The entire game may have been completely overrated too short, but it was without a doubt a step in a new and exciting direction.

In defense of Peter, we have been face deep in violent games for years, lets try something new...

The point of entry for non-gamers is still too high, even after the launch of the Nintendo Wii (post Wii world?). I tell my girlfriend and people at my school about the emotional level of Final Fantasy 7, Kingdom Hearts, or Indigo Prophecy (not the ending though) and they are somewhat intrigued, but then they are quickly turned off by the time investment involved.

If you are not a diehard RPG fan but consider yourself a hardcore/dedicated/whatever gamer then ask yourself this, when is the last time you have finished a traditional "long" RPG?

Is the sheer length of a great game too daunting to prevent you to play it?

Would you like to see more emotional and bite-sized yet replayable games? Do you think these types of games could lower the point of entry and potentially attract new audiences to the industry?

I apoligize for how random this may sound but christ, sometimes it just comes out that way.

The gaming puzzle

Now, the concept I present to you may seem a tad deep and high concept, but please bare with me.

While taking a shower tonight I was going over the large variety of games I play and I found that on any given day I will play a puzzle game, an rpg, an fps, and maybe an rts. On some days it will be even more diverse, on others it may be just one or two. This got me thinking even more, these are my tastes, but they are also part of my gaming "puzzle" so to speak. If I go long enough without playing a game from one of these particular genres, I long for them like a crackhead longing for another hit. Ok, maybe that was an exaggeration but you know what I mean. I apologize for drawing a picture analogous to addiction, because it is far from it and I hate to add more fuel to the fire for anti-gaming lobbyists, but it just kind of popped in there and ostensibly it works.

So this "gaming puzzle" of mine is quite large. If we are to stay on the subject of puzzles and draw analogies from there, comparitively with someone who just plays Halo, their puzzle is made up of 8 pieces and features Barbie in the most elegant of dresses (and believe me, what an elegant dress it is) where as mine is a 5000 piece photomosaic printed on super high glossy material showcasing Howard Hughes standing on top of the world with a satisfied look on his face and money peeking out of the pockets of his ten thousand dollar suit. Fancy.

Those small puzzles are completed rather easy with one or titles here and there, and are complete most of the time. But for people like me, the puzzle is never really complete. As soon as one piece is put in place, another one is outdated and needs to be replaced because it no longer fits. It is as though time itself has become some interdimensional creature whose powers are changing the very shape of my personal puzzle pieces. Sometimes I don't want these pieces to be changed. Sometimes I am very happy with the puzzle that I have started to create. Oh sure, this new piece is newer and oh look, it's shinier, but I have to force it into the board to make it work and ya know, it just looks kind of ugly. But yet, if I take this piece out and replace it with the one that was previously there, my puzzle is behind the times. It has become retro.

Sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't. The newest piece of my puzzle will finally replace a piece that was placed a long time ago but recently forgotten, that piece will be of "fighter" orientation, more specifically, it's Virtua Fighter 5.

When it will be placed into its rightful spot in my puzzle is a matter of fundage, a matter I intend to resolve as soon as the powers that be decide to award me for being me buy allowing me to win that lovely little game of chance called the "powerball." Oh you silly powers that be, you have procrastinated too long for my award, can I please have it now? I have school loans to pay off...

So what's my entire videogame puzzle like? It consists of almost every genre out there. Although, the shapes may vary in size and shape, they exist. The largest ones being of the fighting, rpg, fps, and puzzle sort.

Oftentimes, there cannot exist more than one type of piece in my puzzle at a time. No more than one puzzle game, no more than one FPS, and usually no more than one RPG. World of Warcraft is an exception (for me) because there is really no end.

So anyway, what's your gaming puzzle?

On multiplayer...

I have Kingdom Hearts 2 sitting in front of me, as well as Twilight Princess...and what have I done with my time off? I have played Rainbow Six Vegas and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, with a smidgen of World of Warcraft here and there. Why? Why have I set aside a few of the greatest games of 2006 for these two games that are arguably significantly less polished and held in lower regard? It's easy really. They are multiplayer games. I have a hard time justifying even jumping into the world of Hyrule (as scrumptrulescent as it might be) right now when my friends are all on Xbox Live having a good time together.

An industry exec said earlier this year that single player games were like masterbation and multiplayer games were like having sex. In some ways, I can relate to this, in others...what the hell was he smoking? Of course, when you take it to the extremes of each all signs of potential factuality immediately become null, but that happens oh so often, so let us think about it in its most basis of forms. Let's say you have two games of equal quality, for argumentive purposes let's say they are reviewed equally, one multiplayer and the other single player. As a self-described hard-assed videogame critic I like to think that I am beyond such barbaric methods of product evaluation, considering our medium and the differences of product I also like to feel that we are above and beyond the other entertainment mediums but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Anyway, let's also say that not only were these two products (consumerism tells us to call them products but the artist in me says to call them creations or...something) are both in the same genre, let's say they were in the style of elder scrolls and in medieval times. Now, which one do you think would sell more? The single player game or the multiplayer game? Of course there are many factors that are involved here that almost completely negate this argument but like I said earlier, essentially what are people more drawn to? The multiplayer portion. With that in mind, how long will it be until we see these legendary game series incorporate some kind of multiplayer aspect into the campaign mode?

I do not doubt the level of desire the public has for single player experiences, as I proudly claim that I myself partake in these seemingly old-fashioned nigh-neanderthal methods of enjoyment, but how much longer will they hold such a large marketshare?

Thinking even further down the line, if people start to spend more and more time with multiplayer games that require considerable investments of time, how long will it be before the market is considerably one sided, so much to the point that the point of entry for the competition is set to unreachable heights? Also, if the company that is the leader and is constantly evolving their product, can it necessarily be considered bad? I think it goes without saying that the product I speak of here is World of Warcraft.

Anyway, sorry for the deep ramblings.

I'm tired and I have some comics to read.

Goodnight.