For those unfamiliar with the system, the game divides you into one of five tiers: platinum, gold, silver, bronze and copper. You are placed into one of those tiers based on several placement matches, and within each tier there are many 100-player divisions.

Chris claims the lack of global tiers are deceptive. He claims the opacity of the system which promotes or demotes you between tiers is harmful to the game. He also claims the way the game decides whether you’re favored or not compared to another player is confusing.

Flaws with the ladder?

Let’s quickly review the reasons he claims the ladder is flawed.

The first aspect criticized is the lack of global tiers. Let’s just assume that the game sells about as well as the original and there are over 10 million copies sold. Instead of thousands of 100-person divisions making up each of the five tiers, Chris believes there should be global tiers.

Because each division is made up of 100 players, if you’re one of the better players in the silver league you might be ranked 25th in your division out of 100. If there were global tiers, on the other hand, the equivalent position would be 500,000th out of 2 million silver tier players.

Chris claims that the divisions are deceptive because if you’re 1st in your silver division, you’re not really the ‘best player’ in the silver league because there are thousands of other divisions; this artificially inflates the ego of gamers and is wrong.

Here is the Blizzard Starcraft II team in a design meeting (with Jace Hall). This is why the matchmaking system has come apart at the seams; too much drinking

The second criticism of the ladder is the way in which it occasionally matches you with players in different tiers. The point of the ladder according to Chris is to match you up against players of similar skill levels, but what’s the point if it’s going to occasionally match you up with players in the tier above or below?

The final criticism is that the system that promotes or demotes you to the tier above or below is opaque (and intentionally so), and this is harmful for gamers.

Does Chris Beault have a point, or is he trolling for hits?

Now let’s analyze those points and provide a counter-argument. First is the concept that separating out each tier (league) into separate divisions is somehow deceptive.

It’s difficult for players to really appreciate progress either up or down the ladders if there are 2 million players per tier. Let’s say you win a game and go from 40th place to 30th place on your 100 person ladder. That’s real progress. If you move from 550,000th place to 500,000th place though, are you really making progress? Technically, sure, but it probably doesn’t feel like it. There are half a million players in your league superior to you.

Matching you against opponents of a comparable skill level is the most important aspect of the matchmaking system

While Chris Beault says this is artificially inflating the ego of gamers, I’d say that one of the primary purposes of videogames is to offer concrete accomplishments where effort directly translates into reward. Outside of videogames, it’s rarely as concrete.

Is it really deceptive to players to divide them into divisions within each league? Does Chris believe there are players out there who see 5 tiers with 100 people in each tier and jump to the conclusion that every player believes there are only 500 people playing the game?

There is even precedent for this type of separation: World of Warcraft has multiple servers, each of which contain a small fraction of the total player base. While this is partially because of server limitations, it’s also because it’s difficult for players to come to terms with numbers in the millions.

You might not notice man, but your buildings are on fire. Might want to check that out

Chris claims it’s deceptive; I say players can easily deal with 100 player divisions. They understand if they’re 30th in their division out of 100 players, that’s equivalent to a percentile. They’re better than about 70% of the players in their league.

The second criticism is that the leagues hold no purpose because you’re occasionally pitted against players in the league above or below yours. I disagree with this conclusion. When you are approaching the top or bottom echelon of your current league, the game pits you against players in the league above or below yours respectively to see if you should be promoted or demoted.

If you’re in the top 5 in your division of 100 in the silver league, the game is going to pit you against players in the gold league frequently. If you lose most of your games against them, then you probably deserve to stay where you are. If, however, you still win the majority of your games, then eventually you’re going to be promoted to the gold league. The same is true if you’re at the bottom of your league; if you still lose to players in the league below you on a consistent basis, then you’re going to be demoted.

It's kind of unfair that this guy's base is surrounded by lava. Usually people can just run right into mine and kill me

The point of the ladders is to match you with players against whom you will win half the time. The pace of games and the strategies used between leagues are significantly different. Just because you win most of the time in your league doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to cut it in the league above yours, or vice versa.

Chris’ final criticism is that there needs to be more transparency in the system that promotes or demotes you. He also wonders why it’s not based solely on wins; after all isn’t that what’s important?

For those that haven’t played the game, after a match ends there is a scoring summary based on resource usage, units created and destroyed and structures destroyed. The exact breakdown of points isn’t revealed, but generally it lines up with the player who performs the best overall having the highest score. This isn’t always reflective of who is the best player; in some 2v2 games for example, a team with both attack and cripple one ally, reducing his ability to perform for the rest of the game. Even if he’s the best player he probably won’t end up with the highest score.

Placement and promotion / demotion is likely partially determined by this score as well as the win/loss record. This is completely reasonable to me as the game only uses 5 placement matches to put you into a league. What if in every match you barely squeak out a win against potentially terrible players, are you really deserving of a spot in the platinum league? You’ll just be crushed until you’re demoted down to an appropriate level (if you even stick with a game where you constantly lose for that long).

If, on the other hand, you crush all your opponents and end the game with 2-3x their score, then you’re likely a more proficient player. It’s not an exact science, but it’s good enough for me. If Blizzard broke down exactly how the game rated you, then people would start to game the system.

Plug and play

Blizzard is trying something incredible with Starcraft II: perfect matchmaking. The long term viability of their game is going to hinge on its success, but I encourage the attempt whatever the result. Being able to press a button that says ‘find game’ and having it swiftly match you with another player at your skill level is incredible.

What Chris Beault wants is the status quo of a decade ago: gamers would create a server and find players of their own skill level on their own. That’s like installing drivers for your new mouse before it would work, or entering the IP address of the other computers on your network. Everything is plug and play now. You just log on and you’re good to go. Why shouldn’t game matchmaking function in a similar manner?

Gamers criticize Starcraft for being too elitist, or inaccessible, or having regressive design. The game is the highest selling RTS of all time though, and one of the best selling games ever. Whatever Blizzard is doing is resonating with gamers, and the interest across the internet for the sequel is sky high.

Not only is the game still in beta and therefore exempt from criticism, but its level of polish is incredible. The matchmaking system could use minor tweaking but at its foundation it is certainly not a flaw.

Is this really what it has come to? Is social gaming the future of gaming, as many Facebook gamers claim? Is a single player experience in the form of ‘core games’ a brief aberration that will be relegated to the least social of creatures?

Social Domination

The games director for Facebook, Gareth Davis, says that solo gaming is an aberration, and that games have almost always been social and with Farmville and other Facebook games they’re just going back to their roots.

He claims that Facebook is the largest game platform in the world and that more people play Facebook games than on any other platform. While there’s no official metric, with 350 million users vs. 120 million Playstations sold I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Shit yeah ... you're right, that *does* look fun ...

What Davis’ statistics don’t take into consideration is that Facebook games are just awful, and barely qualify as games. Farmville is a monotonous money grab, where millions of players fork over money to Zynga to be able to harvest their raspberries faster.

In addition, Facebook gaming is hardly a social activity. Mafia Wars is considered social because your abilities in the game depend on the number of friends you have on your social network. There’s no interaction in the game between you and somebody else though, other than through a generic ‘X player has attacked you’ message that appears every so often.

Many ’social gamers’ would suggest that they’d rather pay $15 a month to harvest crops with their friends than pay it to monster game designer Blizzard who steals lives through the ungodly juggernaut known as World of Warcraft.

According to them, World of Warcraft players are loners who cry themselves to sleep in the dark, rather than social butterflies who love interacting with guildies and other server denizens but are held back in real life by their most likely terrifying personal appearance and crippled self confidence.

Yeah, you're making 'successories,' that really makes you better

Core gamers, unite

Go to any game convention and you’re going to see people dressed up to celebrate their favorite game characters. Nathan Drake, Master Chief, Gordon Freeman, the Left 4 Dead gang, Final Fantasy characters and Solid Snake are just a few of the icons that have brought so much joy to so many. When was the last time you saw somebody dressed up as a blueberry, or a tractor, to celebrate Farmville?

Farmville takes advantage of a simple human need for easily defined accomplishment, and while many games do the same thing, there are also stories told and experiences shared. I guess you could recant the tale of the last harvest in Farmville, but if the person you’re talking to cares (and has played the game) they likely know exactly what you’re going to say.

I take it back ... plant cosplay is great

Core games are the past and the future of gaming, and while Facebook games are going to exist in their own niche, there’s room for expansion and not exclusion.

Brick breaker on the Blackberry is played by millions of businessmen across the globe. They likely don’t consider themselves gamers. I hesitate to call Farmville players ‘gamers,’ as that term is reserved for a different experience.

Do games really need to be fun, though? Not all books are fun, and critics frequently ridicule ‘fun’ books like John Grisham novels or the Da Vinci Code. Nobody can really argue that The Hurt Locker was more fun than some of the other films released this year, but that doesn’t prevent it from winning the awards? Will games always just be fun?

Is fun exclusive from serious?

Think of the critically well received recent games? Grand Theft Auto IV was regarded as a landmark game due to the storytelling mechanisms, but that was still a ‘fun’ game. Bioshock was regarded as an innovative experience due to its narrative, and yet that game was still ‘fun.’

Games are unique in that you can’t entirely diverge from the fun aspects. At the end of the day, games aren’t that great at merely delivering a message. Instead, they’re only viable as an experience if the player is willing to continue.  Otherwise, it might as well be non-interactive.

Oh this? It's just my giant robot head. Oscar voters love that shit

It would be like if you had an Oscar bait film that had 10 minute Michael Bay interludes every 30 minutes or so just to keep you interested. Sure, there’s a message here, but there are also explosions! While Bioshock wasn’t really about killing the splicers but instead was about spinning a tale, there was a lot of splicer killing in there.

Games cannot survive, or at least nobody has figured out how to accomplish this yet, without being fun. Games don’t start with story. The best game designers generally have a concept but the early stages of game design are spent on finding a fun gameplay mechanic, not creating story.

While I think it would be great if the rest of the entertainment industry came inline with how videogames do things and started giving Best Picture awards to District 9 or Avatar, and literature awards to the most commercially entertaining books, I fear the opposite. As games mature, if they want to receive critical support from the greater community, they’re going to have to move away from fun.

Best Actor? Me? Is it my Cary Grant-esque good looks?

Even if you have a great message, if you wrap it up in a Bruckheimer package, people are going to view it differently from if it’s in a Scorsese package. Fun would seem to be antithetical to serious, and that is a shame.

Shigeru Miyamoto thinks games are all about fun, and that’s a great thing. He’s not going to be around forever, though, and I can only hope that the next generation of great game influence has the same world view.

Let’s talk about sex, baby. Let’s talk about you and me

Yes, this is a videogame sex line. You can choose what woman you want to play with, whether you want the encounter to be ‘flirty’ or ‘dirty,’ and what game you want to play. The current game choices include Halo 3, GTA IV, MW2 and Gears of War 2 as well as Yahoo Game classics such as chess and checkers etc.

This goes beyond the standard Lara Croft or Dead or Alive exploitation in games. This isn’t just a game that focuses on sex; this isn’t Leisure Suit Larry. Finally, somebody is using the communicative abilities of videogames for sex.

Dead or Alive: We thought this was as bad as it would ever get. We were wrong

While some of the women available for an encounter are of questionable quality at best, the reaction from the game community and general mass media community is confusing to me.

Why are most condemning gamers because of this? Sure, there are plenty of ‘oh my god, that’s so pathetic’ comments, but why is that the natural reaction? It’s not like people think the phone is a pathetic piece of technology despite the fact that there are tons of sex chat lines.

It’s not like people think the internet is embarrassing because of the way a number of people choose to use it. People have that reaction to gaming because they innately associate gaming with ‘loser.’

Scam alert! Russian trannies are trying to scam money out of you

Nearly 50% of US households have a videogame console, however. Pretty much everybody plays games in some way. It’s just like using a phone. I think the fact that game machines have finally graduated to ’sex chat hotline conduit’ suggests an increase in legitimacy.

Scam artists and sex fiends from Russia have finally realized that videogames are big, here to stay, and can be abused for money. We have hit the mainstream, ladies and gentlemen. Watch out.

PSN likes to push that it offers greater value because there’s no subscription fee. Is $5/month really that crippling? Is the worse functionality offered by PSN worth the savings? Hardly.

Missing the forest for the trees

Xbox charges a $5/month fee, or various packages if you sign up for longer periods of time such as $40/year, and there are also tiered subscription packages. Sony has long held that their PSN offering is much more valuable because it’s free.

Are you really going to care about paying the equivalent of 2/3 of a game for a better online experience for the year? Most gamers purchase 6-7 games per year for their console, so you’re talking about a required 10% increase in game experience quality on Xbox Live vs. PSN to repay that difference.

The real reason Xbox is better? Ground FX

PSN has come a long way from its early years. The store front is about comparable to Xbox Live. The internet functionality is about the same (although who really cares or uses a console for that?). The friends list is comparable.

PSN falls short in two specific areas: voice chat and developer support.

Nobody has a mic?

Cooperative has come into its own in the past 5 years with the expansion of online console functionality. While it’s possible to execute well in free for all deathmatch without voice chat, and even to do some team deathmatch without voice chat, it’s very difficult to coordinate with other players online without being able to speak to them.

On a computer you can type messages if you’re fast enough. On a console you merely have to sit silently. I was playing Borderlands for the first time online with a friend and we were using Skype to chat back and forth because neither of us had a PS3 mic. It was a revelation. I had given up on Borderlands other than in solo play because it was simply too hard to play with everybody when we were all silent. Being able to speak changed all that.

I know PS3 has their own proprietary mic although functionality is spotty at best and it’s horrifically uncomfortable. In addition, it’s ridiculous to have to listen to either a mic or the game sound. Turtle Beach is a hugely influential gaming headset manufacturer, and until recently they didn’t even offer a unified PS3 voice chat and sound headset. The demand simply wasn’t there, because voice chat functionality on the PS3 is laughable.

I'm jealous of all these Trials HD players. Sure, I can play it on the PC via Steam, but the controls are horse balls

PS3 simply falls short compared to Xbox in the voice chat department, and all the PSN store front changes or improvements in PS1 offerings online aren’t going to close the gap with Xbox Live. This is one of the few areas where I’m jealous of Xbox owners.

Developer support

The other difference where Xbox Live really wins vs. PSN is in developer support. Think back as recently as this past summer where the Summer of Arcade was happening on Xbox Live. Not only were there some great offerings like Trials HD, Splosion Man and even Shadow Complex, one of the most highly regarded games of the year.

I chose a PS3 over an Xbox because  I prefer the exclusives. I like Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Uncharted and InFamous over Gears of War and Halo. That being said, had I known the online functionality gap pre-purchase, I might have changed my mind.

Shadow Complex: Not just online game of the year, but contender for overall game of the year. Sadly Xbox only ...

PSN is making vast improvements, they’re just not in the areas that count. They need to step up their voice support and create some incentives to go into the store beyond Critter Crunch to really close the gap. They claim they have a value offering. Sure, it’s cheaper, but is cheap necessarily representative of value?

You know what’s also cheaper than PS3? Not buying a PS3.

Activision has tasked Sledgehammer games (run by the former developers of Dead Space) with making the Call of Duty game for 2011 which will potentially be in the action-adventure genre. Activision believes they have created a self-sustaining franchise separate from the individual game quality, the same mistake Electronic Arts made with their sports franchises. Call of Duty, meet Madden, the ghost of Christmas future. 

Call of Duty vs. Medal of Honor

The top Infinity Ward brass got their chops in the FPS realm with Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. This was an Electronic Arts franchise which had seen a ton of success and which EA believed was well established with consumers.

While Allied Assault scored in the low 90’s on Metacritic, subsequent games by different developers have scored in the 70s and even 60s, and sales have fallen off a cliff. This is to be expected; gamers will only give a loved franchise benefit of the doubt for a single flop or if lucky, two. After a sustained trend of crap games, FPS fans looked elsewhere for their fix.

MoH: Allied Assault is still regarded as one of the finest WW2 games ever made. Infinity Ward strikes again! Coincidence? Doubtful

Fortunately for them, the Infinity Ward guys were at Activision working feverishly on CoD4: Modern Warfare. This was the first modern Call of Duty game (a decision that Activision management believed to be a mistake). Call of Duty was a successful if not ground breaking franchise for Activision at the time. Modern Warfare changed all that.

It became the fastest selling FPS game of all time and went on to sell nearly 15 million copies worldwide. Call of Duty joined some of the largest game franchises in the world like Final Fantasy and Mario. Infinity Ward became the toast of Activision.

So what went wrong?

Call of Duty is an annual franchise, and yet a game takes more than a year to develop. Activision therefore has two teams making Call of Duty games and they alternate release years, allowing for a 2 year development schedule. The other team is Treyarch, and they are sadly known as the shit team. The ‘Treyarch years’ (2010 for example) is a terrible time and gamers everywhere lament their misfortune that these hacks are allowed to touch the Call of Duty franchise.

World at War's big hook was Nazi Zombies. Treyarch strikes again! Goddamn Treyarch is shit

CoD5: World at War sold well, although not as well as Modern Warfare. That being said, it was still a success because gamers identified the franchise with quality. This was solidified with CoD6: Modern Warfare 2 which came out in November and became the fastest selling videogame of all time and yet another smash hit. It was developed by Infinity Ward.

There was a huge jump in sales from the previous Call of Duty games to Modern Warfare, and that new tier has held up reasonably well. That’s because Modern Warfare was revolutionary and its success flowed through to the subsequent games in the franchise. This isn’t sustainable if the game quality goes from great to shit. Treyarch can’t properly execute a Call of Duty game.

The original Modern Warfare was a groundbreaking title for its multiplayer perks. Infinity Ward strikes again! Coincidence? Doubtful

There’s no reason to believe Sledgehammer games can bring something new to the table. Sure, Dead Space was great, but the shooting mechanics in that weren’t exactly the highlight, and Call of Duty isn’t known for its moody atmosphere. Infinity Ward was the keeper of the flame, and Activision just fired them for what appears to be a disagreement over money.

Infinity Ward is going to go to a new studio and develop what will undoubtedly be a great FPS game. Sure, it won’t have the sales of Call of Duty, at least initially, but eventually it will get that traction. Quality shines through.

Publishers don’t get it

Publishers believe they know how to sell a game. They give gamers CGI trailers and ridiculous promotions. They believe ‘brand management’ is what sells a good game. Gameplay, and real gameplay footage specifically, is what sells a game. Quality and innovation sells a game. Gamers don’t care about the latest CGI commercial, they want to see Quick Looks and behind the scenes videos.

No Ken Levine, no problem? Actually, no Ken Levine = big problem as Bioshock 2 rides the coattails of its predecessor

Publishers believe that because new AAA games have teams of hundreds working on them that no one person can be that important. Why, then, do the same people come out with great games time and again? Why value Sid Meier, or John Carmack, or the team at Rockstar? Why value Ken Levine, or the Blizzard team? Because they’re the best, that’s why. Bioshock 2 didn’t have Ken Levine working on it, and its Metacritic scores dropped 8 points (and will likely drop more) compared to the original. Sales will no doubt follow suit.

Infinity Ward reportedly wanted to go in a different direction from just making Modern Warfare 3, and Activision management balked. They resisted the vision of Infinity Ward during the development of Modern Warfare, but eventually gave in, and look how that turned out? I’m sure the new ideas IW had were the next leap forward in FPS, and fortunately for us gamers we will still see it, just not under the Activision banner.

Their loss.

Heavy Rain is a unique product that pushes games in a direction that few have attempted in the past decade. Where does ‘experience’ end, however, and ‘game’ begin?

What counts as interactivity?

If you’re not familiar with Heavy Rain, take a quick look at this video. The game is essentially a series of conversations and gestural inputs that mimic what the character is doing on-screen.

If your character is brushing their teeth, you have to shake the controller back and forth to mimic the teeth-brushing motion. If you’re punching somebody in the face, you might move the analog stick to match a punching motion. You also choose what dialogue options you take with various characters.

Heavy Rain has ... yes ... rain

All of these inputs combine to tell a story. Although this sounds like most RPG games, there is a critical difference: you don’t have any input on what happens. Sure, you have to perform the teeth-brushing motion for your character to brush their teeth, but either you do it or they’re just going to sit there and wait for you to do it. The closest Heavy Rain comes to being interactive is when it allows you to control in which direction you’re walking.

The problem with all of this is 1) FMV games have been done before (Night Trap) and are largely terrible, and 2) There is no input on the outcome of the game. Sure, there are lots of linear games, but at least you’re allowed to fail. In Heavy Rain even if you are in a fight and you miss every QTE and get punched a billion times, you still succeed (you just end up with a few more bruises).

If you are given the facade of choice, but every time you choose what the game doesn’t want you to do it says ‘you didn’t really mean that right?’ is that really interactivity?

Night Trap: this looks high budget. So bad I didn't even care about horribly cropping the image

To be completely fair, the game hasn’t come out yet and there are situations where you can let a character die, changing the story. I’m sure there is more to it than some have suggested from previews and possibly I’m being unfair.

In addition, there are games like the Lego series that are for children where you’re not allowed to die; death merely slows down your progress, there is no actual failure. It’s difficult to choose what is encompassed in the ‘game’ definition.

Different demographic

I feel like the previous segment is me being hypocritical. I’m a big proponent of mixing genres in games, why not mix across genres? What’s wrong with adding a little interactivity to films?

Potentially there’s an entire audience out there that likes the slight interactive element in games but doesn’t really want to commit to learning a full control scheme. Maybe they just want to watch a fun story and feel like they’re a little bit involved.

This could easily be a situation where I’m not the target demographic. There’s a reason I don’t play Farmville (mostly because I have no Facebook friends) and it has 80 million users.

Farmville: This shit has 80 million users? Seriously? What's wrong with you people

I will be very interested to see the reception that Heavy Rain receives from the gaming public in terms of sales. Is this going to be a critical success (already looking that way) and a commercial flop, like most games from Quantic Dreams, or is this going to resurrect new FMV games?

Night Trap appeared to be the final nail in the coffin, but maybe everybody who played that is old enough now that they’ve died off.

This is a ridiculous notion. Videogames aren’t merely about the story or the gameplay; they’re about the total experience. A big budget film like Avatar can offer a different and equally valuable experience as a small art house film, and a graphically stunning videogame can offer the same. 

Just eye candy?

Gamers like to downplay their fascination with graphics, and yet when each better looking game comes out they fawn over it. While it’s difficult to say exactly what we’re drawn to about these graphics, given that they are still short of the visual experience you’re going to get by looking out the window in terms of realism and fidelity, I believe it’s the interactivity that makes the difference.

It’s no coincidence that ’sandbox’ games have exploded in popularity over the last couple of years, with some merely buying a game like GTA IV or the upcoming  Just Cause 2 to screw around in the world and not even play through the story.

Gamers have vivid imaginations and while it’s interesting to imagine what a stunt or an explosion is going to look like, it’s also fun to create the setup and watch the outcome rendered beautifully.

Unfortunately, nobody can be told the outcome to barrel experiments in Crysis. You need to see them for yourself

While critics of graphics obsession say that graphics are merely a crutch and good gameplay is the only necessity with the rest filled in through imagination, sometimes that’s just not the case.

There are thousands of Crysis barrel tower collapse videos on YouTube because it’s an interesting experiment and something that cannot merely be imagined; the results frequently surprise and the experience would not be the same if every barrel was represented by a black cube, and the nuclear weapon or tornado that the player spawns to collapse the tower replaced by a text prompt. There’s something to be said for graphical fidelity.

Signaling mechanism

Gamers don’t like to waste money. Developing high quality graphics, especially in the current HD console generation, is extremely expensive. Much like incredible special effects in films are only seen in high budget productions, good videogame graphics are usually only seen in AAA titles.

It's going to take a lot of imagination to make this look good

There is a correlation between good graphics and impressive gameplay because it’s the rare studio that’s going to invest a ton of money producing an impressive looking game without also having a team of writers and designers making the rest of the experience just as top notch. Impressive graphics are merely a signaling mechanism to the gaming community that this is a game worth noticing.

Artistic intention

When gamers are asked to draw Samus, different people can come up with hugely different representations. That’s because there’s a lot of leeway in interpreting a pixilated icon into reality. When gamers are asked to draw Nathan Drake, or one of the characters from Heavy Rain, on the other hand, you can be pretty sure they’re all going to end up with the same image.

When everything is fully true to life, there is very little room for interpretation. This translates to environments and set pieces as well. When graphics are impressive, a game director can more accurately recreate his artistic vision. While it is fun sometimes to read a book and fill in most of the gaps with your imagination, it’s also interesting to interact with somebody else’s vision.

While Thane and Frog from Chrono Trigger might look the same, without impressive graphics I'm never going to access the original intention; Frog could be imagined in hundreds of different ways

In addition, without good graphics it’s tough to have great art design. There is a tangible feeling to the world of Mass Effect 2, something that would have been lacking had everybody has a stick figure body and a pixilated sphere for a head.

Graphics aren’t everything, and gameplay is also critical. Writing off graphics in a game as ’superficial’ or ‘overrated,’ however, is equally short sighted as saying gameplay isn’t important. All facets of a game contribute to the experience. They all depend on each other to create a compelling whole.

Will restrictions like these eventually cripple the breadth of choice available in a game like Mass Effect 2? Choose your own adventure novels are frequently crap because it’s hard to develop a compelling multi-thread storyline, after all.

Freedom of choice

Bioware has set the bar pretty high for other developers in terms of freedom in their games. When gamers discuss the end of Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 with their friends, they will find that they had completely different experiences. Sure, the broad strokes of the game are usually the same, but who is in their party, who lived and who died and how the ending was resolved can be diametrically opposed.

This is a clear evolution on the part of Bioware, from their branching ending in KotoR which was essentially binary, to the complicated twists of Mass Effect 2. It is clear that unlike most developers, they are focusing on story and content depth rather than technological proficiency. Dragon Age is a huge, if technically average, game.

KotoR was the first game where your choice seriously impacted the ending. Revolutionary at the time, it now seems binary and dated

Developers currently complain about the labor required to complete a HD game with advanced graphics and massive textures, but will they soon be complaining about how their stories are too involved and complicated? How long until the choices allowed are too numerous to keep track of and contain?

Encouraging the canon?

It seems tempting for Bioware to make their canon choices more attractive. Some of the brilliance of their recent games are how the choices aren’t black and white, and the ‘correct’ decision isn’t always obvious; sometimes there is no correct decision and it’s simply the lesser of all evils or a stylistic choice. Will this change in order to create continuity? Will Bioware try to lead players down the path they’re using for the sequel?

Once branching storylines become complicated enough, players might have the option of ditching their main character, or simply ignoring the main plot and still coming to a satisfying conclusion to a game. How would a sequel progress from such an eventuality?

This guy chose to stick a fork in an outlet. While it's a choice available to him, our panel of choice experts suggest different choices might be preferable

Maybe Shepard wants to retire to a peaceful planet and farm and sell goods, and he lets his companions go to save the world. While this seems ridiculous to today’s gamers, so would the notion that a game could have as many endings as Mass Effect 2 and with such breadth to gamers from the early 1990’s. Who knows what the future holds?

Cinematic vs. Interactive

Any who read my review of Uncharted 2 would know that I found its linearity to be a little disappointing. It was an interactive theme park ride, with various spectacular events along the way to the finish. Nobody who played that game would have had an experience different from mine.

MGS4 was one of the most 'cinematic' games of all time with multiple hours of cutscenes. This design decision sacrificed any semblance of choice. Is there a happy balance?

That is part of the allure of Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2: it is not just a great story, it is my story. Mediums should focus on what they’re best at, and while a great book or film can tell a story, only games can be interactive. It is by focusing on this design element that games will grow into a mature entertainment product.

Hopefully we are not approaching the point at which choice must be sacrificed in the name of story continuity. I don’t believe we’re there yet, and Bioware at least seems to agree.

The term ‘God of War ripoff’ has been thrown around liberally of late with the release of Darksiders, and if any game deserves it, it’s Dante’s Inferno. That being said, why does that make it a bad game? Why does everybody say ‘Just wait for God of War III, that game is going to be awesome!’ Does a game get a free pass on repetitiveness just because it’s part of the franchise which originated its style of gameplay?

God of War III is a God of War Clone

Why is Dante’s Inferno any more of a God of War clone than God of War III? They’re both going to share a ton of game mechanics with the original God of War. Does the third God of War game get a free pass just because it’s part of the franchise which originated those mechanics? It’s not like it’s the grand vision and evolution of the creator; David Jaffe wasn’t even involved in God of War 2.

I could understand if critics of Dante’s Inferno said they expect Dante’s Inferno to merely copy all the mechanics that were included in God of War 2, while God of War III is going to hugely improve upon those tried and true elements. That would at least make sense, despite not being supported by any evidence.

Dante's Inferno brings nothing new to the table? Seriously? What is this shit - I've never seen this thing before. Look at it. LOOK AT IT. Crazy

That’s not what critics say, however. The critics of Dante’s Inferno come in two types: those that think the game itself in concept is an affront to good taste due to the literature upon which it is based and the exploitative elements in its art and ad campaign, and those who think it’s going to be a cheap God of War clone and therefore likely forgettable.

I have no argument with the first type of critic, except to say I don’t really care if EA raped The Divine Comedy. Unlike Star Wars, Dante’s tale was not a stalwart of my childhood. Those who claim Dante’s Inferno can’t bring anything to the table, though, have no basis upon which they make their statements. The game isn’t even released yet, and the early reviews suggest most of the negatives stem from conceptual offences, not gameplay shortcomings. 

If the Destructoid review is anything to go by, there are plenty of new gameplay elements in Dante’s Inferno, and it builds upon the God of War equation effectively. God of War III, on the other hand, is a completely untested product. There was plenty of fighting on massive titans in the second game, and other than the new ‘you tear off the head of Helios’ mechanic we’ve seen from some of the demos, we don’t know what God of War III offers.

Oh look ... Kratos stabbing somebody. I've never seen *that* before

Gamers give God of War III a free pass for being repetitive because it has the God of War title. Reviewers will use a double standard in which an HD version of God of War 2 (if God of War III adds nothing) will receive scores of 9 instead of 7.5 (like Dante’s Inferno) from most publications.

Much like the worst Zelda, Metroid or Final Fantasy game in the world will never be criticized for being derivative and instead will be seen as building upon a successful formula, God of War has been embraced by gamers who expect it to offer the best brawler action merely because it invented the genre.

Remove nostalgia and the franchise name, and God of War III and Dante’s Inferno likely have the same underlying mechanics. Most gamers will probably never give him a chance, but maybe it’s really about our expectations and Dante as a game was going to fail before it even began development.