Smashball takes one giant leap in to the future of social gaming.

Today my article on Steve DeBaun, co-creator of Smashball, a mod based on the Source engine and available on Steam, was published and is in print. If you live in Ventura County, pick up a copy of the VC Reporter today. It is almost always the case that the print version looks far superior to the online version (more pictures!).

Besides reading it because you like me, read it because Steve DeBaun is an interesting fellow with a vision. I have no doubt that one day him and his partner Mike Bott will be recognized for their gaming innovations.

They are, as I put it, the 'open source' developers -- as in, they aren't confined to a cubicle or a large office. Steve makes his office the streets of Ventura. On top of that, their ideas aren't limited to a MMORPG; they want to make what amounts to the "NFL of video games," in which watching is just as fun as playing.

Stay tuned for an in-depth review of "the galaxy's most violent sport" (once I get a hold of The Orange Box!)!

Read the article here!

Tasunoko vs. Capcom playable at Anime Expo this weekend.

Were you looking for another excuse to go to Anime Expo other than, you know, the cosplayers who don't realize that their outfit doesn't work in real life? I'm not complaining, I'm just telling you that she isn't real, it's all of this computer graphic technology. Thanks a lot, Lucas.

Capcom will be allowing the public to demo Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars for the first time.

I was able to get my hands on it at E3, and boy let me tell you -- I really suck at these games. I couldn't tell my power ranger from my dragonball, and I couldn't find Iron Man in the line up. Really irked me.

If any of the two people who read this blog actually end up going to Anime Expo, I'd love to hear your reactions and maybe get some pictures from the event to do a feature.

Read all about it!

In Memorium: A gamer's perspective on digital choices and memories.

An article appearing in the June 6th edition of Newsweek titled The Battle over the Battle of Fallujah exposes the controversy surrounding Atomic Games' Six Days in Fallujah, a first-person shooter recreating the events of the first battle of Fallujah in 2004.

The game's creator, Peter Tamte, had no intention of exploiting the situation. His plan was to make a game that would recreate the events in a respectable manner and to involve the veterans by including personal commentary and opinions in to the game play itself. But how does one recreate an infamous battle, still fresh in the minds of those families and friends who lost loved ones only five years ago, without exposing those traumatized to needless flashbacks?

A little bit of history here: the first operation, codenamed 'Vigilant Resolve,' failed. Twenty-seven US soldiers died including countless civilians and insurgents. The year was 2004, toward the beginning of the Iraq war. The second battle, that which the game is based upon, was called 'Phantom Fury' and proved to be more successful than the first, though still disappointing in the end, with most of the high-profile targets having escaped prior to the taking of the city.

Games about war are nothing new. The Call of Duty franchise, an immensely popular World War 1 through Vietnam simulator has a loyal fan base and sequels in production. Even games with a more personal attitude such as Splinter Cell and Tom Clancy titles deal in current events; the echoes of war and espionage are ever present in our entertainment. They inundate us and desensitize us to the realities we see in the news.

But no game has been made as of yet that simulates a war that is still running its course, and very few if any survivors or relatives of those who died in Vietnam or any of the World Wars lobby against the video game industry. Six Days, however, has drawn a lot of attention and may not be released, after publisher Konami pulled its support of the game a week after it was initially demonstrated.

"After seeing the reaction to the video game in the United States and hearing opinions sent through phone calls and e-mail, we decided several days ago not to sell it," a Konami PR representative told Asahi. "We had intended to convey the reality of the battles to players so that they could feel what it was like to be there."

Which begs the question: how can a game truly convey a real-life experience? Will a game ever be considered a proper medium for memorial? The answer is complicated, though it has been tackled by games with varying degrees of success.

In 2004, Lionhead Studios released Fable, a game that Peter Molyneux pumped-up beyond expectations and, when the game failed to deliver on some key aspects promised, was deemed a slight disappointment. But the most interesting feature was the ability to adjust your 'alignment' by committing acts of good or evil.

Games like Fable, such as Mass Effect or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, use this system to determine the outcome of your character and the world around him/her. This system, however, is deeply flawed and cannot accurately mirror reality.

In Fable, eating tofu allows the character to accumulate 'good' points. Eating living chickens accumulates 'bad' points. In Mass Effect, some of the options seem rather black and white. You can choose to agree with a person or disagree, each with varying outcomes. To add a bit of depth to this system, there is the charm and intimidate features, allowing an interrogator to take it a step further by threatening violence or benevolence. However, the game misses the subtleties and personality associated with having a conversation with a living human being.

Given the option of killing or sparing a thief in Fable will result in the player having to choose one or the other; in reality, these options seem arbitrary and unrealistic. No sane human, given the power over life and death, would be able to choose as quickly as one can in game. In reality there are other options. Take for instance Terminator 2, in which the machine (Arnold) is told not to kill; instead, he disables the enemies by rendering them unable to walk. This combines both options in a sane yet somewhat violent way. In Star Warsor Fable, these human compromises are not only unavailable, they are impossible to imagine in such a binary world. Rendering an enemy immobile would address the situation at hand, but there would (and should) be consequences down the line.

Six Days features cut scenes involving real soldiers who survived Fallujah. These men and women took part in the production of the game helping the Atomic Games team to make Fallujah appear as realistic as possible.

Atomic's sprawling office feels almost like a shrine to Phantom Fury, with photos of the fighting pinned to walls and scattered on desks. Graphic designers, still trying to perfect the game, study the posters to help re-create the precise look of Fallujah: the pockmarked cinder blocks and the sagging electric lines. On a recent day, in a studio attached to the entry hall, an Atomic employee was interviewing Jason Arellano, a former Marine sergeant who had been clearing insurgents in a home when a grenade exploded near him and a bullet struck his groin. "As we pushed further and further into the city, we became aware of a more well-trained or disciplined fighter," he said into the camera for a clip that might be inserted in the game. It's not unusual to hear Atomic employees talking about something as technical as the specific properties of an AT-4 shoulder-fired rocket.

If anything, a game is just a more interactive version of a movie. Whereas movies such as Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan all garner respect for their portrayal of the soldiers and the events that transpired, video games aren't given the same benefit to perform before being labeled. Despite a moral system that appears broken and in need of a revamp, games are just as likely to be true to the source as are movies and should be judged on their merit and honesty rather than by emotional reactions to the mere notion of being a 'game.'

The difference, however, is that unlike a movie, the decisions are in the hands of each individual player. No one person will have the same gaming experience as another in Six Days, though the story appears to be linear. How can a game accurately portray such a disastrous day in American military history without offending a certain segment of the population? It can't, not until games become so smart that moral decisions aren't made at the press of a button, rather they're decided in the player's mind and the actions are performed as chosen. Or, conversely, the game plays more like a movie and each section is decided for the player; in which case it wouldn't be a game at all.

There will be no appeasing everyone. A game is like a painting: each individual will have his or her interpretation that others will disagree with. Making a game based on such a tragic battle is risky, but fortune rewards risk. And, if the veterans of the battle themselves are willing and excited to share their story via this medium, then I'm all for it. I hope Six Days in Fallujah somehow finds the light of day on shelves in Gamestop, Target, etc.; having control over an individual soldier adds personality that might otherwise be ignored. There are no 'first person' movies, for instance, and though Saving Private Ryan was an emotional movie, a viewer could only feel as connected to any character as the person sitting beside him.

On May 26, [Peter Tamte] got on the phone to Tracy Miller, whose son was killed by a sniper in Fallujah, and tried to win her over by arguing that the game honors the Marines. Miller listened politely, but remained skeptical. "By making it something people play for fun, they are trivializing the battle," she told NEWSWEEK.

In a video game, the choices are yours, binary or not. The decisions you make effect the outcome of the game. In the case of Six Days, every decision made will shine a light on the soldiers who fought and gave their lives. What is the difference between a video game that will forever find its place on a gamers shelf and a non-interactive wall covered in the names of the fallen?

Xbox 360 to become your next PC.

With the announcement that Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm would be joining Microsoft on their race to become the true 'next-gen' console, it's hard to imagine how one would differ the machine from a PC. Most of these applications, Netflix included, have been strictly computer based longer than the 360, PS3, or Wii have been around, requiring an internet connection to handle. But, with the introduction of web browsing capabilities and social networking via Live and Home, is it any wonder that users of these services would want more?

Kotaku has an interesting article up, "When Will It Be Wrong To Call The Xbox 360 a Game Console?"

My personal opinion is that the 360 should have never been called strictly a 'gaming' console, by Microsoft or fans. It's a multi-media capable entertainment system that delivers movies, games, music, and social networking in a way that the Wii or PS3 cannot (at least not yet).

And if Microsoft continues to blur the line between console gaming and PC browsing, is that such a bad thing? How often have you found yourself sitting at a computer desk wishing to be elsewhere? Be honest -- how bogged down is your computer? Can it play a top-of-the-line game as well as a 360 can?

Let's start a discussion.

I have codes for the game Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent to give away for those of you who pique my interest!

Official Neo Steam Game: Free Downloads/Media Screenshots

Fairytale Fights is a bit misleading.

My first meeting at E3 took place with Playlogic, creators of Obscure and and Age of Pirates (both of which I've never played). I had planned to see Obscure: The Aftermath, but instead was ushered in to a room where I was greeted with Fairtale Fights, a "hack and slash platform adventure."

The game, played from the perspective of one of four heroines from well-known fairy tales (we previewed little red riding hood and snow white), takes place in a world in which you (as the character) have lost your fame and want it back, real bad. Bad enough to hurt someone. Bad enough to kill.

I'm not quite sure how to describe this game other than by calling it a side-scrolling, gory rendition of what fairy tales would be like if they existed in a world in which people split in half and/or their heads rolled off at the flick of a wrist.

We were given a demonstration of the first level, in which you fight loggers who are upset with you for stealing their gold or something equally as magically tragic. The loggers, all equipped with logging axes and logging fists, pummel the ever-loving crap out of you until you take an axe to their face. This is where the 'fun' begins -- for you see, when you finish off a character, a small split screen appears, and in this screen the enemy is splayed in two depending on which way you swing the axe.

They call this 'salami violence' (alright) and describe it as having "control over how and when to slice and dice [your] enemies." In other words, if you swing the axe diagonally your enemy will slide off of his body in a diagonal fashion. The 'volumetric liquid system,' another Playlogic innovation, is described as "allowing blood and other liquids to seamlessly blend together." Our demonstrator showed us the detailed system by having red riding hood slide around in a pool of blood as if she were wearing skates.

It's an incredibly violent game, and there's nothing wrong with that, though it doesn't seem to really make any sense. I was kind of hoping to be able to play as the Big Bad Wolf and maul Grandma or the Easter Bunny.

We saw a few different levels, ranging from the logging forest to a candy castle, in which little children followed you around licking the walls until they grew fat and ended up being chopped to pieces in some sort of whirring dirvish. Fabulous.

There's an online or offline co-op mode, in which you can aide or hinder your friends. This seemed like the most promising part of the game.

But, for a game coming out on the 360 and the PS3, it looks a little dinky. Before blood started pouring out of the enemies, I mistook it for a game meant for a younger audience. It seems to be stuck between being adult-anger vs. cartoon-animation. Not sure how I feel about that.

Also, why didn't I know about burlesque video game show during E3?! Why didn't I know? ... Why?

Hands-on with The Conduit

Talk about a flashback. For a moment there, standing at the High Voltage booth during E3, waiting for my appointment to see Brink at the Bethesda booth, I thought I was playing some Nintendo 64 with my fellow pre-pubescent friends, eating Air Heads directly out of the bulk bag, waiting for Star Trek Voyager to come on.

This is because The Conduit, in all of it's promises, looks and feels like a title for... the Nintendo 64! I'm not blaming the developers here because it's far too often lately that a title for the Wii appears to have been ported from the N64. But I digress... the way a game looks says little about the way a game plays (let's you and me talk about Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles later).

The Conduit, from SEGA and High Voltage, is a game in which humanity has lost a war of some sort with some aliens of some sort. The trailer makes it look more like a Hollywood action movie than a game. I appreciated that, because otherwise it would look like a generic shooter.

I was able to play multi-player with a few others, early morning. Some luckier media folk other than myself got a chance to do just that earlier. I took up the Wiimote and felt immediately at home. Unlike other Wii titles, this doesn't feel like it's guiding you. Rather, you're guiding it. Is that strange to say? We played in a decimated Washington D.C. map, with random weapons lying about, some of alien origin controlled by a rotating, glowing ball, and grenades that were flung by flinging the nunchuk attachment towards the screen.

If you are a fan of Quake or Team Fortress, you're going to enjoy this. The problem I have with it is that it doesn't bring anything new to multi-player. The object is to kill, or steal the flag, or hold an area for as long as possible, and frankly it's getting a little old.

The Conduit promises a deep single-player story, however, and for my money it feels worth it for that alone. But if you're looking for a new multi-player experience, you might want to keep looking -- towards The New Super Mario Bros., for instance.

The final countdown (is very long indeed)

Consider this the bookend to my E3 updates. Hundreds of games were demonstrated at E3 this year, from the very small independent publishers to the very large, all consuming massive corporate developers such as EA. Only a few really caught my attention, however, and thus we begin:

Mass Effect 2

Considered by many to be one of those 'invisible' titles, having slipped mostly under the radar at E3 due to a lack of floor presence, it's buzz is kicking in to high gear in the week following. On Thursday the 4th, I was lucky enough to be ushered in to the private meeting room at the EA booth where the widely available trailer was played, followed by an in-game demo.

The first thing you'll notice about the new Mass Effect is that you don't have to pause to use biotics ('magic'). This new freeflow combat system (which seems to be the buzz word (see Batman)) makes the fighting experience intense and personal; no more pausing for a brief moment before that missile kicks you square in the goonies.

But I had seen this before -- the day before, actually, when I snuck in to the Bioware room to preview The Saboteur -- and was surprised to see the game being played as if it were a casual party and I was cool enough to be invited (I'm never cool enough).

I'll say this -- it's a beautiful game. As Shepherd (Yeah, he's not dead) looked out over the city, you could see the Blade Runner/Minority Report influence as flying cars zipped by.

The most shocking moment of the demo came when we were told that we would be given a spoiler (That should be your cue that thar be spoilers here): Someone was going to be dying in the following clip.

Spooooillllerrrrrrrrrrr warrrrrnnninnnng. Don't read if you want to be absolutely, positively virginal upon buying the game.

We are thrust aboard the Normandy in pitiful condition. Joker (still voiced by Seth Green) is struggling valiantly to keep the wailing vessel alive, but an attack by a much more powerful enemy has rendered it useless. Shepherd demands everyone to evacuate, but Joker won't. So he goes after him and drags his crippled ass to an evac pod, where he tosses him in and then is promptly blown out of the ship through the open roof and sent hurling in to space.

Yeah. For a moment I thought, "So, Shepherd's going to cling on to some debris and be rescued, right?" But the following scene showed a weightless Shepherd clutching on to his leaking space suit as the oxygen is sucked out of him and he goes limp.

This is a game in which you are not expected to survive. I'm not just saying that; Casey Hudson, the project director is. "In Mass Effect 2, you're not expected to survive." For this very reason, the game will focus on building a strong, trustworthy team who can see to it that you actually do survive to carry over in to Mass Effect 3. This should be a must-have for any gamer, and if you haven't played the first, play it! Your save will carry over in to this installment, and the decisions you've made -- whether they be important or trivial -- will effect your game play experience.

Heavy Rain

Like Mass Effect 2, there was little effort by EA to promote Heavy Rain during E3. However, that hasn't stopped a growing community of fans from following it.

Heavy Rain is a game that looks more like a psychological thriller movie, set in a bleak world where the villain, the Origami Killer, has murdered several people and plans on murdering more, leaving an origami bird next to each victim. The game, played out over 60+ chapters, isn't meant to be played in a linear fashion. Instead, you jump between characters (four of them) and your decisions affect the story as it progresses. If a character dies, he or she stays dead. I'm also adding Alan Wake to this category, though it looks and feels more like Silent Hill than the movie Se7en.

These three titles make up a trifecta of immersive game play experiences coming out this year and the next that should keep fans of the genre busy, from science fiction to supernatural horror.

But there's always room for...

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Oh look a new Mario game from the creators of Mario from the land of Mario. I'm just going to show you what it looks like and you're going to tell me that you'll play it, because face it, you're going to.

In blog related news, this blog will be changing formats to a strictly news and opinion format starting with the next update. Consider Bioschlock! to be your #1 source of video game news outside of every other video game related site. Now back to your regularly scheduled program, Glee! The TV show about being unpopular in high school.