I should preface the coming diatribe by saying that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of my favorite games of all time. I’ve played nearly the whole canon: Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard (Voodoo graphics only!) and Morrowind (+expansions).

As good as those games are (well, Battlespire not so much) there comes a point when playing, once you’ve mastered the mechanics and methods of achievement, that eventually there are no more surprises. You know exactly how every NPC is going to react, you realize how wooden they all are. You’ve seen the gamut of loot containers - crates, barrels, etc. The underlying gameplay structure has become transparent, so you start screwing around, killing everyone, stealing everything just to see what happens. Then boredom sets in - except for the bastion of players who, despite the ungodly repetition, are determined to complete all quests and explore every nook and cranny of the game world. That’s not me. I’m obviously of the former ilk; once the true suprise has faded I usually shelve the game. Right now I’m facing this dilemma with Fallout 3, the latest exceptional RPG from Bethesda.

It’s been mentioned - ad nauseum - that Fallout 3 is almost exactly the same game as Oblivion - of course with a newly-designed game world and ever-so-slightly modified combat mechanics. Any fan of Oblivion will notice the similarity instantly.

It’s not without improvements: The textures look considerably better than those in Oblivion - although everything from cracked pavement to piles of rubble looks as if it has been liberally shellacked. And the new V.A.T.S. targeting system is a godsend for me, since I’m terrible with frenetic firefights.

But back to my gripes with Bethesda’s RPGs. I’m hoping that if I get some of these out of my system I’ll be able to play Fallout 3 for just a little bit longer than I would normally.

First off: containers. Now, I understand that with a game world so enormous it would be nearly impossible to litter the game with a ton of absolutely unique objects. Endless load times and horrible frame rates would be unavoidable.

But how can you hope for a true sense of immersion if every NPC in the world owns the same exact barrels, crates (ugh, can we quit with the crates already?), desks, and foot lockers? Does everyone shop at the same medieval Crate and Barrel?

I can almost forgive Oblivion, since a barrel is a barrel pretty much no matter where you go. But shame, shame on Fallout 3.

Fallout 3’s post-apocalyptic (I’m really sick of that phrase) world is a horribly fractured, decimated place in which people are scarce, spread out and living in small, unique enclaves. Yet, every single location - houses, bars, subways, anywhere - is filled with exactly the same containers. The metal box seems most popular, followed closely by crappy, bent-up lockers, desks, first-aid kits (in the most unlikely places), toolboxes and lunchboxes.

And let’s talk about the contents of those containers. Atually, Oblivion takes the cake in this area. For instance, you come across a couple of huge crates - in one of them is solitary spoon, and in the other you’ll find just a broom, or an hourglass. There must be hundreds of unused hourglasses in the land of Cyrodiil! Not to mention the inkwells, folded cloth, quills, tongs, calipers, hand scythes and yarn - there’s a helluva lot of yarn in good old Cyrodill.

From Megaton to Rivet City to Raiders’ hideouts, every blasted place contains the same crap. I mean, Shopping carts are perfectly fine in and around the Super Mart, but on a wrecked boat in the river? in the bowels of an aircraft carrier? How about all those identical cameras, hammers, and all that damned scrap metal?

And what’s with all the firehose nozzles? Also, judging from the heaps of identical, rusted cars everywhere, it appears that just prior to the apocalypse there were only two models of automobiles in circulation. And why is it that every woman in the game has a pencil moustache?

One last gripe before I wipe my brow and relax. The world of Fallout 3 has been praised for its wide open environment but let me tell you, the game has plenty of dreaded invisi-walls to foil your ambulation. For instance, you’ll see lots of huge piles of rubble between buildings. These piles are not so high that you couldn’t climb them easily and hop over to the next street. But just try to take that shortcut and you’ll come face to face with the invisible forcefield of death. I can’t tell you how pissed off I get when I encounter that. My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.

And though it’s technically correct, the dichotomy of CapitAl Wasteland vs. CapitOl Preservation Society sticks in my craw. I can’t help it.

I feel a little better now. I just arrived at Rivet City.

Really, it was only a matter of time. In fact, I’m surprised it’s taken so long for one of these to surface. I’ve been joking about the possibility for a while now, and now that it’s here I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.

What I’m talking about is “Kaboom: The Suicide Bombing Game“, the first game I’ve discovered that puts you in the shoes of a suicide bomber.

The point of the game is obviously satire. It’s a Flash game in which identical, cartoon-ish men, women and children march back and forth along a sidewalk and you control an Arab-looking man wearing a big coat. The goal, of course, is to injure and kill as many people as possible with a single explosion. Crude animations depict body parts flying up into the air briefly before settling into a streak of blood on the ground.

Shocking? Maybe. But what about those hilarious Adult Swim Flash games? Fans of that adult-themed, late-night animation revue are certainly familiar with the roster of borderline-offensive games offered on AdultSwim.com. In Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself), it’s another day at the office and you’re given the task of committing suicide as quickly as possible using objects and people around you. Jam scissors into your stomach, slap a stapler on your face, cram your head into a paper shredder - just a few of the bloody ways to off yourself. Does the game promote suicide? I guess it depends on whom you ask.

How about Bible Fight, which pits Jesus, Mary, Noah, Satan and other biblical figures against each other in a fighting game? Jesus is a formidable opponent - he can make a pile of fish fall out of the sky to flatten you, and in his signature attack move he summons a huge wooden cross and smashes you to a pulp. Poor Mary is hampered by having to tote around baby Jesus while sparring. That’s sure to offend lots of people.

The Adult Swim games are undeniably designed to evoke a reaction by purposely crossing the line of propriety and good taste. But the intended audience is unlikely to be offended - by and large the games are hilarious. Anyone likely to be upset by their content is also unlikely to have ever heard of them in the first place.

Were it not based on such a controversial topic the suicide bombing game “Kaboom” would surely be forgotten. Its simplistic design is no match for the high-quality games from Adult Swim. Any replayability “Kaboom” may have lies solely in its ability to shock - it’s good fun to show your friends - but after that, nada.

Outrage? Well, so far the Israeli Embassy in London has “complained”. The game is definitely in bad taste, but is it bad enough to elicit a widespread affront to decency? I seriously doubt it.

The game’s anonymous author writes, “I’m not Jewish, I’m not an Arab and I’m not a terrorist. I just think people who blow themselves up are stupid. That’s all this game is.”

He’s right, that’s all it is. Suicide bombing is stupid, the game itself is pretty stupid, too, so I suppose the author has succeeded on some level. I laughed a bit and forwarded it to some friends, who also laughed a bit and probably forwarded it to more friends. And now I’m forwarding it to you.

Send it to folks who might be offended, have a good laugh at the reactions you get. Then forget about it, you know you will. I’m still waiting for the *really* offensive suicide bomber game that might actually be worth writing about.

What do you think of this horrible, outrageous insult to humanity?

WoW. Wow? Not so much. I realize that I’m in the minority, the tiny minority of gamers who are not impressed with World of Warcraft.

I’ll admit I have a low threshold for repetition; as any devoted WoW-er knows, in order to get to the point where you can team up with parties and go questing you need to level up your character Which means you have to grind, grind, grind, killing hundreds upon hundreds of monsters for untold hours to raise your experience level to the point where you’d be a useful party member.

Did you enjoy that run-on sentence? If I were to write this entire blog entry in one sentence with no punctuation you would have already stopped reading. That’s a good allegory for my experience with WoW. Grinding is so dull that people had to create scripts to make their characters grind automatically with no supervision. That’s fun?

There must be a particular mindset prevalent in die-hard WoW players. Party questing is what most people stick around for, and I didn’t last long enough to qualify for group outings, so I can’t comment on that aspect. Probably if I’d persevered through all the grinding I may have had a lot more fun with WoW.

Maybe not, though. What’s up with the graphics in World of Warcraft? The design of the game was barely passable when it first came out; you’d think that several years later they would have revamped the thing. But no, it’s still the blocky, neon-hued, often poorly-mapped environments, and characters that look like they have a polygon count as low as the Marines in Quake 2. (Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. Quake 3? You know what I mean.) Granted, it’s a fantasy game and it’s not meant to look realistic. But really. (By the way, whatever happened with NURBS? Weren’t we due for an improvement over polygons some time ago? I’m really sick of seeing hexagonal wheels.)

Right around when WoW hit the peak of its popularity we started seeing a whole bunch of free-to-play MMORPGs, most from Asia - with graphics that aped those of WoW. In fact, aside from their decidedly Asian-influenced design, they were practically WoW clones, offering the same kind of grind-and-level gameplay. Given the success of WoW, many of these games garnered immense interest and made prett good money via microtransactions (the sale of in-game items like clothing and weapons).

Now that MMORPGs are huge business, we expect more. There’s really no reason anymore for crappy graphics. The first evidence I’ve seen of a true leap forward in design is Lord of the Rings Online. Right now I’m previewing the new expansion, Mines of Moria, and let me tell you, it’s a world away from the WoW generation.

Next up: More on Mines of Moria.

If you truly want to scare the crap out of yourself on Halloween, what do you do? We’re all so jaded nowadays that nothing scares us anymore.

You could go to a “haunted house” at your local community center and shriek like a pansy when rubber-masked dorks pop out in front of you - total bollocks. Or find a cemetery, sit on a grave with friends and tell ghost stories - bah. Those things are for sissies.

Aside from being pursued by an actual serial killer, what’s the closest you can get to sheer terror? Scary movies. That’s all ya got. You go to a movie theatre, hunker down in your seat and hope that the latest horror movie tripe will startle you with a loud noise or two. Or huddle in front of the TV and plod through all the “Saw” sequels until you pass out. (Please, don’t do that - save a shred of dignity for yourself.) What a freakin’ bore.

Why settle for a night of passive scares and spooks? If you can’t be chased by a real murderer the next best thing is a murder simulator! Jump into the thick of it, put yourself in some tangible peril.

We’ve rounded up a collection of the 9 (10 is so cliche) absolute creepiest games ever to grace a PC - some old, some new - and it just so happens that we have downloadable demos for each one of them! So go ahead and switch off all the lights in the house, crank up the sound, and scare yourself sh*tless.

9. American McGee’s Alice

Okay, American McGee’s Alice probably won’t scare you, but it nevertheless ranks high on the creepiness scale. Think of Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, how whimsical and fun it is. Now, imagine a version in which Alice’s parents die in a fire, Alice attempts suicide and she is imprisoned in a mental institution. The only escape for the poor, psychotic waif is to journey back to Wonderland - an evil, dreadful Wonderland that exists only in Alice’s catatonic mind. You get to control Bizarro Alice as she wields a sharp, bloody knife to fend off crazy walking cards and other disgusting foes. If you’ve a mind for the twisted and you’ll take creepy over scary, Alice is for you. (By the way, a movie adaptation is due in 2009.) Lose your mind in the demo.

8. Pathologic

You know how in a dream everything can seem a little off-kilter and it’s hard to see your surroundings clearly? That’s exactly the feeling I get from Pathologic - and it seriously creeps me out. Pathologic is one of those weird-but-cool games that get released with zero promotion and go under the radar immediately. Like Alice, it’s more creepy than scary, but there are some definite frights to be had here. This is a survival horror game in the vein of Silent Hill - but not quite. There’s a disturbing undercurrent of malevolence to this game, like something ominous and horrible is happening behind the scenes. Russian developers Ice-Pick Lodge create a dreary, depressing environment laced with black rain, stoic denizens wandering aimlessly in a town of stark, iron-barred houses and a defunct railroad. It’s more story than shooter, giving you the opportunity to flex your wit. Make the wrong choice and - well, you should find out for yourself. Start the nightmare, play the demo.

7. F.E.A.R.

This hugely popular shooter almost didn’t make the list because its creepy little girl character is a blatant ripoff of the film “The Ring” (which, by the way, is a good choice if you absolutely must do the movie thing). But I have to admit, for a ripoff it’s a pretty good. F.E.A.R.’s maniac munchkin is terrifying in her own right - people tend to explode in a mist of blood when she’s anywhere near. (So whenever, wherever you see her, don’t think, just GTFO!!) F.E.A.R. is your basic squad-based shooter but with an extra dose of frights - mostly of the shock-and-scream variety, thanks to some fantastic enemy AI that will have them hunting you down and catching you off guard. The levels are claustrophobic and the sound design instills the perfect sense of dread. Face your FEAR in the demo.

6. The Suffering: Ties That Bind

You’re in a dark, foreboding prison. Maniacs are jailed on all sides of you. Suddenly the place is falling apart and the inmates are rioting. You slip out of the cell block only to encounter insane, blade-fisted mutants scurrying up the walls and across the ceiling, bent on killing you. (I’m sorry, but anything that crawls on the ceiling and drops down in front of you is freakin’ scary.) You find a gun but ammo is scarce, doors are locked and those creepies are around every corner. The Suffering: Ties That Bind might not be the most original game, and its graphics aren’t anything to scream about, but play this thing alone in a dark room with the sound cranked up, and then tell me you didn’t almost soil yourself a few times. Make some skid marks, here’s the demo.

5. Doom 3

The creatures in Doom 3 are grotesque to the point of insanity. Get a good, close look at any one of them, I dare you. Sadly, the only time you’ll be close enough to get a gander will be right before you’re ripped from limb to limb. Sure, hardened vets who’ve beat the game twenty times will insist that Doom 3 isn’t scary at all. But for those of you who haven’t tried it, trust me, it will scare you. Creatures burst out unexpectedly time and time again. And just when you think you’ve found a friendly soldier he’ll whip around and charge at you all zombie-like, shotgun blazing. Did I mention it’s really dark in this Mars military complex? Sometimes what you can’t see is what terrifies you the most. Demo some doom.

4. Penumbra: Black Plague

Penumbra: Black Plague is definitely a lights-off experience. It’s a first-person survival-horror adventure, but guess what? You have no weapons. None. You’re stuck in an underground facility of some kind where something unseemly is going on. There are corpses around and a fearsome monster holed up somewhere, and you have to utilize the game’s amazing 3D physics in a realistic manner to make your way through the place. (Think Half-Life 2 physics puzzles.) It’s the overall ambiance that makes this game so creepy. It’s dark, you’re unarmed and vulnerable, and those weird little sounds … are they coming closer? Go ahead, open that door … It’s a ravenous demo!

3. BioShock

Irrational Games took the System Shock license in a different direction with Bioshock, but they managed to keep the same techno-spooky spirit. Set in a fantastical underwater city - abandoned, of course - Bioshock dumps you into an unsettling, zombie-infested (but gorgeous) environment where scary little girls (”Little Sisters”) roam around jamming syringes into corpses, and bloated diving-suit robots (”Big Daddies”) thunder after you if you disturb the little needle-toting creeps. What makes matters worse is that Bioshock has those abominable ceiling-crawlies, too! And if the overall setting isn’t scary enough, just wait till that first Big Daddy chases you. Trust me. Find out who’s your daddy in the demo.

2. Condemned: Criminal Origins

So, I’m playing Condemned: Criminal Origins on Xbox 360 for the first time. I take my own advice and set myself up in a pitch dark room with the volume cranked. Not expecting much, I fire up the game and smugly play the tutorial level. A little later, I’m stepping over piles of garbage in an abandoned building. Out of the corner of my eye something whizzes by, and I hear a piece of metal clank to the floor. I venture a little further forward to get a better look, and CRACK! WRAARRR! A rabid junkie is pummeling me with a two-by-four! Man, let me tell you, I jumped in my seat, my heart had never raced so quickly. (Out of fear, at least.) Need I say more? The demo will bash your head in.

1. Clive Barker’s Undying

Clive Barker is a sick, sick man. Master of the grotesque, deviser of the darkest, most twisted creations known to man. If you ever dreamed of stepping into the pages of a Clive Barker novel, here’s your chance. The 2001-era graphics won’t knock your socks off, but this game’s not about flash. It’s about drawing you into the world of a man haunted by his dead siblings who’ve been reanimated into evil monsters (damn those pesky occult rituals!). You have a roster of spells at your disposal - plus your trusty shotgun to take out some truly spooky-ass ghoulies. To understand why Undying deserves the number one spot, you simply have to experience it … An old, gothic house creaks and moans. A violent thunderstorm roars outside. Unearthly cackling peppers the air. A choir of discordant women’s voices rises and falls. A scream, a howling of pain wafts in from the next room. A specter hangs in mid-air. Gusts of wind rush through the hallways. You see, with Undying, it’s all about the experience. You don’t play to win, you play to get totally creeped out. Barker does it every time. Creep the light fantastic in the demo.

The first multiplayer online role-playing game I ever played was Ultima Online - meaning, paid for a subscription and invested innumerable hours in developing a character. It was a natural move for me; Ultima VI was my introduction into the world of single-player RPGs, and the game fascinated me to no end. The world of Britannia was teeming with citizens, each of whom had his or her own schedule. Merchants would wake up and open their shops at a particular time, then close down and go home. Citizens roamed the streets, often talking to other citizens. Everyone had an agenda, a timetable. I was thrilled to be a part of this already living world - the possibilities seemed endless.

Graphics back then were still pretty crude: EGA was the norm, or basic 16-color VGA if you were lucky enough to have a 16-bit machine like mine: a 386SX/16 with 4mb RAM and a 40mb hard drive - plenty of room to house the game data. Inside the big game box stuffed with manuals and a big cloth map were no less than 12 - count ‘em, 12 - installation disks. The actual floppy ones of yore - huge, bendy floppy disks. I’ll never forget the time I lost installation disk 10 … nevermind.

Years later when I heard that Origin was putting out an online version of Ultima, the slobbering began immediately. I somehow wrested myself into the Beta and behold, there was Ultima in all its 2D isometric, sprite-filled glory. The graphics were a slightly improved version of those in Ultima VII (the last decent SP Ultima title) and the game world seemed huge. And crowded - often there were so many players on screen you couldn’t find your own avatar. I played for several months along with my girlfriend at the time who, mercifully, was also a gamer. Questing with her was a blast.

As with most games, I eventually tired of playing UO and cancelled my subscription (my gf kept playing for a couple of years!). But UO had catalyzed a watershed, and soon we saw games like EverQuest (EverCrack as my buddies called it) and Asheron’s Call take over the online-gaming playing field. I tried both of those and became almost instantly bored. Nevertheless, a new cash cow had been born. I doubt anyone involved had any idea just how enormous the genre would become.

Online gaming took a back seat for me - it was in the trunk, actually - for a number of years. (Writing for CNET left precious little time for frivolous gaming.) Then, out of nowhere, came World of Warcraft. From the Diablo people. Diablo? That isometric dungeon crawler? What the hell could this online thing be?

At the very least, it was the birth of a new acronym: MMORPG.

Next up: WoW, the free-to-play explosion, and Lord of the Rings Online.

Okay, so there’s this free, fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) called MapleStory. Its a 2-dimensional, side-scrolling affair that’s cute as cute can be:

Blue sky, puffy clouds, mushroom-topped house … how could anything go awry in such a world?

Three words: Marriage. Divorce. Death.

As in many fantasy MMOs, you can find a mate and get married in MapleStory. Naturally, since you’re hiding behind an in-game avatar that represents you in the game, you’re more likely to toss aside inhibitions and let loose - seek out and engage in random sexual encounters, get naked, curse like a sailor or kill strangers for kicks - without fear of repercussion. You’re also free to marry anyone you’d like, and of course such a marriage carries no legal weight outside the game.

Enter a Japanese couple who did just that: met and got married in the world of MapleStory. Things went swimmingly for a while - in fact, the two players developed such a close bond that they even traded the login and password information for each others’ MapleStory accounts. If that isn’t love, what is?

Apparently this wasn’t. Details are scarce, but the 43-year-old (IRL) woman’s 33-year-old (IRL) husband decided to cut things off and divorced her without so much as a warning. In the game, that is - we’re not sure whether they’re married in the outside world.

We all know that Hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned: She used her ex’s login information to sign in to his MapleStory account, and promptly murdered his cruel, heartless MapleStory avatar. “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” she was quoted as saying.

And women wonder why men are so commitment-phobic.

Needless to say, her ex wasn’t pleased - in fact he called the police. I wish I were privy to that conversation. Can you report a murder if you’re not really dead?

The woman has been apprehended on suspicion of hacking, a charge which could lead to a prison term of up to five years or a fine as high as $5,000. Luckily for her, there’s been no sign of any real-world plot to have the man killed - so far.

Don’t these people have a sense of humor? It’s all make-believe. Plus, he could have killed her character right back - tit for tat - they already had the codes. (That’s what I would have done, anyway.) This poor couple obviously needs to get out of the house once in a while.

Really, the crime she committed is akin to reading your husband’s email when he’s not around. That’s all we need in this country: another excuse to get all litigious on someone’s ass. Ladies, take heed.

Midway is releasing some of their older games, the full versions, as free downloads. They’re ad-supported, of course, but from what I’ve seen the ads are relatively unobtrusive.

But behind this magnamimosity, I fear, is something far more sinister.

For example, Area 51 - a 2005 game that, surprisingly, holds up extremely well for its age. The graphics are quite acceptable and tha gameplay is a bit like that of F.E.A.R., with strange, alien things going on and squad-based combat.

Aside from all that, Midway may be trying to slip us a clue with the ad they’ve “chosen” to support the game: a video advertisement from the U.S. Air Force of a rocket launching into space. The POV of the video suggests that you are affixed to the side of the ship, and you get to witness a booster section of the rocket jettisoned toward the earth.

Area 51, the supposed top secret airbase connected to the Roswell incident and more, seems like the last sort of video game that the USAF would legitimize by buying an ad. Conspiracy?

With this in mind, I visited PlayWhat’s authority of choice on the UFO phenomenon: AlienZoo, an indispensable resource for information on all things Alien. AlienZoo’s mantra is “Don’t feed the conspiracy”, so I feel a bit sheepish about concocting yet another wild-eyed theory. But here goes.

AlienZoo has a resident Gray, Gunther, who blogs about conspiracies in order to set humans straight, debunking that which must be debunked. I can’t tell you whether this is a real Gray, and if he is, whether he resides on our planet or simply channels his information to the AlienZoo staff. But given my suspicions, I’m not about to dismiss his existence. We’re being surreptitiously prepared for something.

In a recent blog entry - Humans film UFOs over Turkey - Gunther sheds light on recent UFO sightings in Turkey, caught on video. It’s pretty spooky stuff. In one of videos you can see a closeup of a - wait for it - cigar-shaped craft, clearly metallic in appearance, hovering in the distance, at one point directly below the moon. The videographers seem to catch it from several different angles.

In one of these angles, the craft takes on the appearance of a very familiar ship: the Jupiter 2 from the original Lost in Space series. Look at this pic and tell me you don’t see a creepy resemblance:

Maybe (well, certainly) I think too much, but go with me. For decades, extra-terrestrial beings may have been exerting a mild form of mind control over creative people, in particular filmmakers and game designers, to influence the designs of alien spacecraft and alien “monsters” preparing us for, perhaps, a devastating alien invasion to come - in the hopes that we will find a way to stand up for ourselves and defeat them.

In this scenario, I see the Grays as benevolent beings, and why not? Certainly if they had wanted to conquer us they would do a lot more than hover in their ships just far enough away that we can’t see them clearly. Right? Plus, we have Gunther. I’m sure he’d warn us if evil, STS creatures like the Lizzies were anywhere near our planet.

So, back to Area 51. Is it some kind of virtual training module a la America’s Army (or even The Last Starfighter? Chew on that for a minute). In any case, it’s free. It’s the entire game. And despite its obviously linear design, it’s definitely fun to play. I’d suggest that you play it - better safe than sorry.

I guess I fed the conspiracy. Sorry, Gunther.

I’ve been trying to think of something I hate enough to slam it flat, or something I love so much I could just hug it to death. It’s been about a week, and I’m still at a loss. I haven’t played anything long enough for it to breed either contempt or joy. The endless, yammering news coverage of the Bailout and silly ol’ Palin is numbing the reward centers of my brain. I even skipped E for All this year, owing to the nadir of enthusiasm I’m currently experiencing.

Hm. I’m looking forward to a few upcoming games: Fable II (10/21) and LittleBigPlanet (10/21) and Saints Row 2 (10/14) and Fallout 3 (10/28). I’m wondering why certain games should even exist, such as Pure and Fracture and Pro Duck Hunting. That’s what I’m doing.

Here’s something semi-exciting: This weekend Crytek is hosting a free Crysis Wars multiplayer event. If you’ve never heard of Crysis Wars, don’t feel bad - it’s not really a game. Well, it is, but it’s really just the multiplayer part of Crysis Warhead. (Why did it need its own name if there’s not even a separate website for it?) If you like the Crysis stuff, you should register and download the game right away. You can practice via LAN multiplayer until the event starts on Friday.

I loved Far Cry. When I found the original Far Cry I was thrilled at its gorgeous graphics (for the time) - particularly the water - and how well the game ran on a modest system. Plus, the open-world gameplay was fantastic. Now, we have Crysis. I played it for awhile. Yeah, the environments are still good. But I still don’t get all the hubbub. The character models and textures are fair to middling, and all of the characters have canned death animations - not even a hint of ragdoll, even. Ass-backward. With NaturalMotion’s “euphoria” engine out there, there’s absolutely no excuse for death animations anymore. And Crysis feels linear as hell. What on earth is Crysis spending all those CPU cycles on? Man, oh man.

Right now I’m checking out deBlob and Order Up! - don’t mistake that exclamation mark for enthusiasm, it’s part of the title. Order Up! is bringing back memories of when I worked at McDonald’s in my teens. Sadly, I will have to stop playing it soon, or risk severe depression.

You can’t hear it but I just let out a huge sigh - the 12th of the dozen times I’ve sighed while typing this blog entry. Guess it’s time to wrap it up. I just feel badly that I’ve had no excuse to be opinionated lately. It’s ennui, plain and simple. I can’t even be bothered to add an inline image here. I’ll try harder tomorrow. Know that I’m not committing to writing an entry tomorrow, but it could happen.

Although Spore received generally favorable reviews, the game still gets a bad rap in some quadrants (and by “quadrants” I mean “forums”). Players complain that gameplay is too simplistic, nowhere near the “evolution simulator” they expected thanks to the game’s incredible Hype Machine.

Another complaint is that it’s an amalgamation of several existing games - “lite” versions of titles like Flow and Civilization - an almost outright theft of ideas.

Well, Spore is not an evolution simulator, not by a long shot, but it really shouldn’t be judged by that standard. Spore is a whimsical sandbox, an elegantly-designed “build-it-and-see-what-happens” simulator.

And instead of theft, I prefer to think of the Spore’s similarities to other games as “inspired by” rather than stealing, since Spore’s versions are considerably watered-down - in context, though, still fun.

The first time I played through the game I moved quickly, anxious to see what fun things would come next. The result was that I finished the first three sections - amoeba through civilization - in a very short time, failing to enjoy the surprises that did occur by always anticipating the next.

If you want to get maximum enjoyment out of Spore, do not play this way. The true glory of Spore is in the details.

By far, the game’s strong point is its construction module. If you’ve tried the Spore Creature Creator you have a good idea of the strength of this contraption. It offers a slick, drag-and-drop design method that’s complex while still being fun. You can build any kind of malformed creature you want and then make it try to jump and ambulate around. It’s a great playground for wicked sadists like me.

But the creature builder is only the beginning. As you progress through the game you use the same drag-and-drop approach in creating buildings, cities, vehicles and finally, space ships. You could spend days building all sorts of exquisitely detailed objects and not even bother with the “game”.

As a true dork, I of course had no choice but to build a Federation starship for my first venture into space. You may bask in its glory:

Don’t get all bent out of shape, it’s not the Enterprise. It’s the U.S.S. Crustacea, so named due to its two crab-pincher-ish extra warp nacelles (experimental, ssh).

If you can work your way out of the creator, there’s a lot more detail to enjoy. Once you reach the Tribal stage, make it a point to zoom in close to the action regularly - there’s a lot of humorous stuff going on. In particular, the indigenous, non-sentient creatures on each planet are worth examining for their often bizarre design and behavior. It’s a hoot to fly in close with your space ship and scare the crap out of them - make sure to pick up a few and sling them across the surface of the planet. It’s also fun to abduct a species from one planet, place them on a less-hospitable planet and watch them perish in anguish.

Of all the sections, the Space Age is most interesting to me; the preceding parts seem paltry in comparison. In the Space Age you get access to a fairly expansive universe filled with a slew of different species to meet. Some races are cool and want to set up alliances and trade routes with you; others are just plain douchebags who want to kill you for no reason. I hate those guys.

I’ve been spending way too much time negotiating the Space Age. It’s one of those things where once you start playing you get hooked and end up telling yourself, “Okay, just two more missions, then I’ll stop” until 2 in the morning. It’s bad enough that a single galaxy offers so many things to do; once you hit the Space Age for the first time you can start up new Space Age galaxies with brand new species and civilizations. And the aliens are randomized each time, so it takes quite a while for the feeling of repetition to set in.

In defense of the complainers, I will say that I’m anxious to see what Spore 2 will bring. Like them I was sort of hoping that the creature-evolving part of Spore would be a little more complex, more like natural selection, with algorithms that would actively “evolve” a creature based on decisions you’d made - rather than the player having complete control. What we got this time was a sandbox. But according to Mr. Wright there are plenty of changes and add-ons in Spore’s future, so you never know.

Spent a good part of the weekend delving further into “Force Unleashed” and I’m pissed off. Sure, it’s great fun killing a jawa with one swipe of your saber, and the Force powers are terrific - particularly the lifting and hurling people at walls (can’t get enough of that). But why, oh why all the jumping?

Platform jumping is the reason why I never make it very far into Mario games. I hate platform jumping. You know what I mean - tricky little leaping feats, from cliff to cliff, up the side of a wall or across endless platforms - pointless crap you’re required to accomplish in order to proceed to the next part of the game.

In particular, I’m talking about an early level in which you’re supposed to destroy a reactor. You start in this large cylindrical chamber that has various decrepit platforms and cliffs leading up the walls. You need to reach a certain platform way up high where a huge opening has sunbeams pouring through it. (Get it? That’s where you’re supposed to go!)

To be fair, there are several ways you can get up there - you don’t necessarily have to follow a linear path in your ascent. But damn it, no matter which way I went I faced a frustrating bout of trial and error, tumbling to the ground over and over and over again. (Not me, the game character, Whatshisname Force Dude.)

Repetition drives me insane. Something in me snaps right around the 5th or 6th unsuccessful try. In this particular case I actually flew into a rage, pounding the sofa cushion, shouting obscenities - and then the image of my two video-game-nut nephews flashed before me, little guys who sometimes break into tears when faced a similar incident of failure. Ever-wise, I tell them, “Hey, it’s a game. Games are supposed to be fun, right? If it’s not fun, you should stop playing.”

I ruminated on that for a second.

I wasn’t having fun. I didn’t want to stop playing. But could I live by my own words, stop crying and just enjoy myself? (What I really wanted to do was hurt the bastard who decided that a Star Wars game needed a Super Mario element.)

I finally did make it up to that f***king ledge with the sunbeams. I won’t say how many times I tried, but I was sweaty and exhausted by the time I made that final leap and didn’t fall. Since then I haven’t come across any more platformy gameplay, but so help me, if I do … I’ll call my nephews.