As I wrote on Wednesday, I have found Microsoft's updated version of Xbox Live to be a mixed bag navigation-wise. And I haven't used a few key features like parties or Netflix yet.

But there's one feature I'm using that is undeniably awesome: Saving games to the hard drive. As soon as I got the NXE (new Xbox experience) beta test, I immediately saved "Fable 2" to the hard drive, mainly because the game is constantly accessing data from the disc and it is loud, even by Xbox 360 standards. I was hoping I would no longer be distracted by the noise of a disc spinning with such fury it could fly out of the machine and behead me and I was right. The 8 minutes or so it took to transfer the game to my hard drive was well worth it, because the 360 is now virtually silent while I play.

But there was one extra, unexpected benefit: "Fable 2" looks noticeably better. The graphics are sharper and brighter. So much so that it's like the game, or my graphics processor, has gotten an upgrade. Perhaps someone more familiar with programming can tell me why, but I assume it has to do with the fact that it's easier for the console to access and process all the requisite data, so it has to make fewer compromises to deliver me graphics in real time.

Nobody at Microsoft (or anywhere else) has talked about this benefit that I've seen I can't say whether it will happen with every title. But presuming so, it really makes transferring games to the hard drive a no-brainer, so long as you've got the space. Who doesn't want their videogames to look as sharp as possible?

(In terms of hard drive management, I imagine I'll be regularly transferring and deleting different games based on how much space I have and what games I'm playing the most at the moment.)

One other important detail from our story about MTV's new Beatles game that I forgot to include in yesterday's post: The game will get 45 songs from the band's 1962-69 tenure with label EMI.

That of course covers almost everything the band did, as far as I can tell. The only people left unhappy might be thsoe who are really into 1970's "Let it Be." Though of course now the big question will be which 45 songs? We'll probably be waiting a long while to find out.

(Thanks to Joystiq for noticing something I didn't in Variety's own story. Yesterday was a very long day.)

Variety  film reporter Michael Fleming and I are reporting in tomorrow's paper that four major studios -- Paramount, Universal, MGM and New Regency -- are bidding for the film rights to Electronic Arts' game "Dante's Inferno."

Never heard of "Dante's Inferno?" That's because EA hasn't announced it yet. But now that there's a bidding war going on, Michael got wind of the project and I helped him track down the details. Turns out that "Inferno" (the likely, but not yet definite title) is, as one would expect, a modern interpretation of the epic poem and will have players fighting their way through the depths of hell (maybe there will even be nine levels?). It's currently scheduled to be released late next year. (EA trademarked the name "Dante's Inferno" back in February for videogame, film and TV purposes)

We already know about a lot of the sequels coming up on EA's schedule ("Army of Too," "Dead Space 2," "Mercenaries 3," "Spore" expansions), but this is the first post-"Dead Space" and "Mirror's Edge" original property we've got details on, even though EA has been heavily touting its strategy of investing in new franchises.

The company has also been very aggressive this year in licensing its titles to Hollywood. "Army of Two" was just set up at Universal, "The Sims" is at Fox, producer Avi Arad optioned "Mass Effect," and there are even more in the works, if my sources are right.

As for "Inferno," hopefully I'll have further details soon when one of those studios wins the movie rights.

Update: A good source tells me the game is being developed at EA Redwood Shores.

Full story: Studios battle for EA game rights

You probably all know that EA just reported dismal earnings, announcing it will lay off six percent of its staff in the face of rising costs and the economic slowdown. CEO John Riccitiello cited a "slow down at retail in October" and CFO Eric Brown said "retail traffic is down in general." All signs are that while the videogame biz continues to grow strongly and is recession resistant, it's definitely not recession proof. Which is bad news for those who thought videogames are a totally safe place to ride out the economic storm.

For all the details on EA's disappointing earnings, which sent shares tumbling 14% in after-hours trading, check out my story here.

One interesting footnote came in the list of EA's rising expenses. Marketing costs were up 20% last quarter from a year ago and R&D shot up 44%. But there was also $21 million worth of spending in a category that didn't even exist last year: "Certain abandoned acquisition-related costs."

Translation: EA spent a bunch of money on lawyers and financial advisors in its failed pursuit of Take-Two Interactive. Remember when Riccitiello said that the seven month process of trying and failing and trying and failing to buy "Grand Theft Auto" publisher Take-Two was "a waste of ink?" Apparently it was a waste of something else too.

That's probably not a surprise, but Variety's crack music reporter Phil Gallo got details on just how MTV managed to get the much sought after rights to translate the most popular band of all time into a videogame. Here's the relevant excerpt from his story:

Sony/ATV handles the music publishing of the vast majority of songs written by Lennon and McCartney.

The music publisher was the last to sign the [Beatles videogame] deal, and while no financial figures were released, [CEO Martin] Bandier said Sony/ATV asked for as much as possible.

"There have been mutterings from artists and songwriters that they are not being offered their fair share in videogames, but the gamemakers have the leverage," he said. "In the world of rock, there are thousands of tracks that will work, but when you get into the world of unique artists, that leverage shifts, tremendously, to the artists and songwriters.

"We signed a deal that would be considered very rich by the videogame company but fair for the artists. It will have online implications that will be enormous."

With the Beatles inking a deal for a videogame, it leaves one key holdout from the classic rock era, Led Zeppelin. The British hard rock quartet, rumored to be reforming without lead singer Robert Plant, was one of the first acts approached when "Guitar Hero" was in prototype form. Then, and now, they have rejected uses of their songs in games.

The Rolling Stones moved their post-1970 catalog to Universal Music Group earlier this year, and the music conglom said digital was a priority, suggesting a dedicated game is likely.

Given that Universal Music Group and Activision are both part of the same happy Vivendi family, how much do you want to bet that means we'll be seeing "Guitar Hero: Rolling Stones" in the not too distant future?

Which brings up one interesting question: Why are the Beatles getting their own unique game and not "Rock Band: Beatles Edition?" One possibility is that the Beatles are so (self?) important that they demand/deserve their own game in which their music doesn't mix with other artists.

The other possibility is that, since Activision surely went after these rights hard, Apple Corp. (administrator of the Beatles catalog) decided it didn't want to be accused of taking sides in the "Rock Band" - "Guitar Hero" war, so it just sidestepped the whole mess.

Full story: MTV cues up Beatles videogame

Sorry for the lack of posting. Between the Beatles and EA layoffs and a major story that I hope we'll be posting tonight, it's been another day of total insanity. But meanwhile, check out our two most revent reviews:

-"When the team behind "Fallout 3" created a vision of Washington, D.C., following nuclear holocaust, it didn't just wreck the buildings, it twisted the American Dream itself," writes Variety critic Chris Dahlen, who says it's likely to be one of the year's biggest hits. "This long-awaited new installment in the cult franchise from publisher-developer Bethesda Softworks continues in the spirit of its predecessors by giving players a massive post-apocalyptic world to explore, exploit and try to save, while shrewdly integrating classic themes like patriotism, tribalism and mankind's capacity to destroy itself...

"In 'Fallout 3, the American Dream is a charred blueprint survivors are struggling to follow. But hope never dies, and the final stretch of the story includes a Strangelovian display of national power that's spectacular, ironic and heartfelt. The player leaves thinking America might just survive this war, right in time to start some new ones."

To give you an idea of how passionate Chris's review is, even our non-videogame playing copy editor told me that reading this made him want to get a console. Read Chris's entire review right here.

-Given how similar the two games are, the only real question about "Guitar Hero: World Tour" is, "Is it better than Rock Band?" It's pretty much a draw, according to my review: "While 'World Tour' beats 'Rock Band' with an innovative music creation and sharing system and a more realistic drum kit, it lags behind in subpar animation and the racket those drums make...

"'Guitar Hero: World Tour's' major innovation is that it brings the rock experience into a studio. The game has a powerful and well-designed music-creation mode where players can compose their own songs by jamming or by using a software program called GHMix to alter tunes note by note. Just as in the real world, jamming is more fun, particularly with the huge variety of effects and instrument types built in. Producing anything worth sharing with the world, of course, is quite hard and GHMix, while useful, is awkward compared with computer programs like Garage Band.

"Players can share their compositions with others via the GHTunes community, through which songs can be uploaded, downloaded, and rated. It's a fantastic idea, though the popular tracks have thus far leaned more toward remixes of the 'Super Mario' and 'Legend of Zelda' theme songs than anything original. Truly talented composers will inevitably be spending their time with real instruments and mixing software."

Hopefully "World Tour" composers will do better than Nintendo theme songs. But for now, that's what's topping the charts. And seriously, those drums are loud. If I want to play "World Tour" at night without waking my wife, I've got to use the "Rock Band 2" drums. Though it is cool how "World Tour" automatically adjusts to a drum set with four pads instead of five.

You can read the whole review here.

As noted in my previous post, it seems almost every near complete Sierra game that Activision Blizzard decided not to publish has a new home. Except one: Brutal Legend.

While doing my reporting on "Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena" and "Ghostbusters" (info here), I checked in on everyone's favorite heavy metal action game starring Jack Black and, well, the news isn't great.

Sources close to the process confirmed that "Brutal Legend" hasn't been set up at a new publisher since, as I reported back in August, negotiations with MTV fell through.

Whatever the exact reasons, it seems that tensions are running high between Double Fine and Activision Blizzard as they try to make a deal with a new publisher.

I spoke to some sources on the Double Fine side and they said the problem isn't that other publishers aren't interested. They say it's that Activision Blizzard has been "an impediment" and that they're "blocking the process."

Now of course everyone has their own agenda in a negotiation and I'm sure Activision Blizzard, which declined to comment, has a very different perspective. But when one side is willing to bad mouth the other, you can be certain of at least one thing: talks are not going well and people are pissed. If they were close to a deal, everyone would keep their mouths shut to keep the process going smoothly.

So, whatever the exact details, it seems that the Double Fine side feels that Activision Blizzard is intentiontally trying to make setting up "Brutal Legend" at a new publisher difficult, if not impossible. Which means things won't be sorted out anytime soon and we probably won't be hearing an announcement about the game's fate, let alone playing it, for a while.

Another former Sierra game dropped by Activision Blizzard has found a home. In tomorrow's Daily Variety, I'm reporting that "Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena" will be published by Atari in the spring (click here for all the details). I'm also confirmed through sources -- though the publisher won't yet confirm -- that "Ghostbusters" will indeed be published by Atari, as Dan Aykroyd previously let slip. Expect it to be released early next summer, timed to the film's 25th anniversary.

Fans might also be interested in more details on "Athena" (for starters, that's a new screenshot on the right). We already knew that developer Starbreeze was remaking the critically acclaimed (though only so-so selling) "Escape from Butcher Bay" for current gen systems along with multi-player. But Atari also confirmed that the game will have an entire new campaign. I spoke with Bill Kispert, head of interactive for Universal, which owns the "Riddick" rights, and he promised even those of us who have played "Butcher Bay" will get our money's worth from "Athena's" new campaign and multi-player.

"Originally it was just a remake, but we started thinking more and felt that wasn't super compelling," he explained. "the new campaign is robust, it's not an extra mission or two. It has a storyline, new characters, new locations, new weapons."

He added that he's really excited about the multi-player too and promises it will give fans "something a little different" than what they're used to in multi-player.

It's my understanding that Infogrames (which essentially is Atari now) president Phil Harrison was particularly excited about "Riddick," knew how great the original game was, and saw the potential in doing a follow-up. And Atari is hoping for more. Along with buying the "Dark Athena" game from Activision Blizzard, it also has licensing rights from Universal for "Riddick" that will let it publish more sequels going forward if this one does well.

It's my understanding Atari has a similar long term deal with Sony Pictures for "Ghostbusters," though I couldn't confirm that.

In both cases, sources told me that Atari paid a flat fee to Activision Blizzard to compensate it for some, but not all, of the development money Sierra spent on the games.

This is a pretty big deal for the reconstituted Atari and it's new management team. They've talked a lot about online gaming, utilizing their library, and distributing games for partners, but these are the first AAA titles they've picked up. Though they hardly have a full sized slate, it shows they're still a player.

So what other former Sierra titles are left? "50 Cent: Blood on the Sand" went to THQ. Early work on "Scarface 2" was scrapped and now rights to the franchise have reverted back to Universal, which is looking for a new licensor. Ditto the Bourne games and the Robert Ludlum estate.

What about "Brutal Legend?" I'll have more on that in a minute.

Full story: Atari gets "Riddick," "Ghostbusters"

MTV and Apple Corps, administrator of the Beatles catalog, are going to be announcing an "unprecedented global music project" tomorrow. What are the odds that MTV would embark on a global music project these days that doesn't include a "Rock Band" component? Pretty low, I'd say. More details as we uncover them, of course, but I'd say "Rock Band: Beatles Edition" is looking like a distinct possibility.

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports that it's happening, though it's not clear whether it's a few downloadable tracks, a new game, or what. I'm looking into it.

After five days with a beta version of the "New Xbox Experience" -- the upgraded guide you see when you turn on the console -- I'm still not in a position to fairly review it, since I haven't used close to all the features. I still haven't formed a "party" to play online, since none of my friends i play with are on the beta, nor have I done any extensive online shopping and downloading. What can I say so far?

-Having not gone into a party so far, my avatar feels pretty pointless. He's just kinda standing around on the "my profile" box on screen.
-The options for creating my avatar were disappointingly limited. Since this isn't a realistic 3-D world like Sony's "Home," I would prefer to make my guy look really crazy and dress him up in gear from my favorite games. Reportedly an "avatar store" is coming in the spring, but for now the craziest thing I could do is give him a monocle and Vulcan ears. Also, while the avatars don't look exactly like Mii's, the sound effects while creating and using them are disturbingly Wii-like.
-Finding information about a game and it's available downloadable content is much easier. You can get everything about a game in one place, instead of having to find it in separate categories for videos, DLC, pics, etc.
-Microsoft is able to feature more content, be it DLC, online events, or new features, since the number of "items" in each category scrolls pretty far horizontally. But you can't see as much, since each content box is bigger and most of it is stacked to the right off screen. This is especially true if you have more than a few friends online at once.
-Ads are more intrusive now, inserted into horizontal rows of content with just as much prominence as the actual Xbox Live features.
-The new "Xbox Guide" is the best friend of experienced gamers. Just click that big X button and you get a simplified, purely text version of the old "blades" with everything that used to be on the launch screen. And you can get it while still in the middle of the game. If you know what you're looking for, it's much simpler than navigating through the 3-D graphics of the NXE.

For a much fuller exploration of NXE, check out Joystiq's video tour.

Also, while I haven't gotten to try Netflix on Xbox 360 yet, I was surprised and impressed to read that we'll be able to stream HD content. There's only 300 titles so far, according to Engadget, but that's still 300 more than Microsoft had said would be possible as of E3. A very promising development.

[Big introductory note: This post is about the one part of "Fable 2" that troubled me. But keep in mind it's still one of my top picks for game of the year. If you haven't read my review yet, please do so and keep it mind as you read this.]

It's kind of ironic that my interview with Peter Molyneux a few weeks ago focused on the one part of "Fable 2" about which I ended up having significant complaints: the story.

In his typically charming but none-too-modest manner, here's what Molyneux (creative director of "Fable" developer Lionhead) said about his goals for upping the game's dramatic stakes: "I said we've got to try and make the greatest story ever told."

Now, obviously the chances of the folks at Lionhead surpassing Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky and Dickens and Marquez and a few thousand of our other greatest writers were pretty low. But in the end, the story in "Fable 2" wast just, well, standard videogame fluff, as I wrote in my review:

[T]he main story... is "Fable 2's" weakest link. Though it presents a few awesome battles, it's a fairly bland and derivative tale about stopping a dastardly villain who wrongs the hero early in the game and goes on to try and take over the world. The plot's few emotional beats are mostly on-the-nose moral choices, and the entire thing ends with a disappointing whimper.

The script isn't terrible, but it just doesn't match the depth and characterization of something like "The Force Unleashed," nor the emotional resonance of a game like "Shadow of the Colossus." The two moments that really tried to go beyond videogame cliches, the years in the spire and the idyllic childhood flashback at the end (those who have played will know what I mean), are clumsily executed and unearned.

It kind of makes me curious about the creative process leading to the final narrative, since Molyneux described something fairly sophisticated for a videogame. Apparently before programming and game design had even begun, Lionhead started working with scriptwriters and then had professional actors perform the script, under an experienced film and TV director, on a stage. Molyneux claims doing this, and doing it early, was really important: "The reason game stories end up being so complex they lose people or else tedious and boring is because it's so late in the development process that you even get to see the story."

Molyneux was also focused on the fact that there are no cut scenes -- You can always do something while the computer controlled characters are talking. "I didn't want players to put down the controller," he said. "In 'Metal Gear Solid' and 'GTA,' my finger is hovering over the skip button." Walking around and having access to a small number of expressions during some dialogue scenes is just not that compelling, however, if the story isn't good.

Ultimately, my discussion with Molyneux about narrative seemed focused on process -- having actors perform the story, making sure players don't put down the controller, etc. But all that doesn't seem to have impacted the end result, which is average at best. Sure, the cut scenes in "Metal Gear Solid IV" and "GTA IV" can get tedious because they're passive. But the most important thing is that they're (arguably) well written. In my mind, it's better for a game's story to be interesting but passive than cliched and slightly interactive.

The frustrating thing is that I felt so much more when I wasn't stuck in the narrative Lionhead gave me. I got mad when my first wife (and husband!) divorced me. I felt proud when I bought my first house. I enjoyed the renown I garnered from successful quests. I liked stealing money when I needed cash, but tried to do it when nobody was looking so it wouldn't hurt my public perception too much. And I really came to care about that damned dog after all we went through together.

Writing a plot for a game that's primarily an emergent world in which the player's choices define who he or she is and how people regard them is extremely difficult. After all, the building block of any good story is character, and in "Fable 2," the main character varies wildly depending on what the player does. Which means Lionhead had to either come up with a story that could be deep and compelling while still integrating into an ever changing world, or create a light hearted story that doesn't attempt an emotional resonance it can't achieve. The awkward middle ground just didn't work and, frankly, was never as interesting as the story that "Fable 2" lets players create themselves.

I don't think I can remember ever hearing about casting for a videogame that didn't strike me as a boring and/or very obvious choice of an easily available B-lister (e.g. Malcolm McDowell in "Fallout 3," Ron Perlman in almost everything). When was the last time somebody you have heard of was cast as the voice in a videogame and the choice was so inspiring it actually made you more interested in the game?

D3 has finally achieved that by getting Will Arnett, best known to us all as Gob in "Arrested Development," as the the title character in "Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard." Nobody does clueless pompous jackasses better than Arnett, so casting him as a pompous '80s action videogame hero is inspired and makes me both hopeful he'll bring an added layer of humor to the character and more confident that D3 and developer Vicious Cycle really care about making the game as clever as the initial marketing.

Ditto Neil Patrick Harris, who plays a non-clueless pompous jackass on "How I Met Your Mother" really well and also showed great comedy chops in the "Harold and Kumar" movies and the underrated "Undercover Brother." He's the (presumably) evil CEO of the mega game publisher that's trying to finally kill of Hazard.

Comedic videogames are rare, of course, and truly funny comic videogames are even rarer, so who knows if the makers of "Matt Hazard," which comes out in the winter, will succeed. But at least they're recognizing that casting can go a long way toward making good comedy. Well produced action movies/TV shows/videogames can usually get away with bad casting choice. But it's hard to save a comedy if the actors suck.

Update: Joystiq got a preview and says that the gameplay mechanics are "uninspired and mediocre," which is a major problem no matter who's doing the voices.

Usually I like to write an individual post linking to and expounding upon every videogame review we run in Variety. But this week has just been too exhausting. I've had to finish playing three very substantial games and write reviews of them, edit five other game reviews, report and write two big and one small-ish piece news stories, report and write a feature piece for weekly variety and start work on a news story that's coming next week, and on and on with details you don't care about. I've also had to deal with the logistic of and reaction to Variety's videogame reviews getting added to Metacritic, which is a nice accomplishment for us, I think.

The point being, this is the craziest week of the year if you are a journalist who covers videogames (or a fan who loves playing them), which is why overall posting here has been light and I haven't been able to expound on all of our reviews. So for now, with the week over (but more work left for me to do), I'll just leave you with a brief summary of all of our reviews from this week, in reverse chronological order (I posted a few of these earlier this week, loyal readers will notice):

-High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance: Leigh Alexander (who gets kudos for being an adult and not only playing this game, but reviewing it with an open mind), says the core gameplay mechanic isn't dancing so much as flailing the Wii-mote and occassionally smacking yourself with the cord that connects it to the nunchuk. But she says kids will like mixing and matching "HSM" characters to perform songs in combinations that never existed in the films, plus the ability to creat their own Wildcat who they can insert in the game. (Leigh sees a lot of 12 year-old girls having virtual versions of themselves performing love duets with Zac Efron)

-Spider-Man: Web of Shadows: The latest annual web slinger game from Activision has "sharper graphics, improved combat and a decidedly darker tone," says Tom Chick, but also "a shaky story and poorly implemented moral choice system."

-Wii Music: I thought everybody was supposed to be able to have fun expressing themselves musically in this game. But when I played "Wii Music" with three friends (all with at least some gaming experience), all we created was a cacophonous racket and a strong desire to start playing "Mario Kart." There is some decent single player training, but it's not nearly as fun as "Guitar Hero," "Rock Band," or, ummm, real life music lessons. I also should give a shout out to my friend Geoff Berkshire, the film editor at Metromix LA, for giving me the inspiration for this line in the review: "Playing the Monkees' 'Daydream Believer' to the sounds of a dog barking, cheerleader screaming and a sitar strumming makes 'Wii Music' feel like something out of a David Lynch movie."

-Far Cry 2: Chris Dahlen, in his first review for Variety, calls this action sequel "stunningly beautiful and morrally harrowing," but "plodding in its execution."

Fable 2: "No interactive world has ever felt quite so alive," says I. "Deep, accessible and endlessly adaptive, it's a boundary-pushing experience." That's a fancy way of saying that I had a blast saving the world while handling a wife and two kids in one town, a husband in another, visiting prostitutes in a third, handling a blackmail attempt from someone who found out about my bisexual bigamy, notching two divorces but moving on with my life, killing shopkeepers in dark alleys when I wanted to buy out their stores cheap, and being the best dog owner who ever lived in the land of Albion. Now I can't wait to have some time to go back and save enough to buy that castle.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles: "Detailed beyond most players' interests," writes Leigh, "the game still manages to be broadly accessible thanks to simple controls, a smooth mission structure, and jaw-droppingly stunning graphics." Apparently the multi-player is good too. Capture-the-flag in a racing game sounds pretty cool.

Rock Revolution: "Overly complex where it should be simple and soulless where it should be rich," says Leigh. Specifically, all the new stuff in the interface is kind of confusing, the soundstrack is weak, and "the too-small drum pads are difficult to hit, and players are more likely to whack themselves and the pads' plastic edges more often than they hit the note." Ouch.

LittleBigPlanet: I describe it as "an exercise is anti-immersion, attracting even the most casual player to its irresistibly adorable cartoon world, then slowly pulling back the facade until they're left with a blank canvas." This is the one review I did manage to post about, so if you're interested in my thoughts on how the old fashioned videogame business model isn't a good fit for "LittleBigPlanet," click here.

Are you a Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo freak? Love everything Blizzard? Then you'll probably want in on this.

I'm giving away the entire bag of goodies I got at BlizzCon 2008 (minus a very small number of items I gave to friends) to one reader. Here's a list of everything in the bag. Then I'll describe how you can win. (Some of these will only make sense to hardcore Blizzard fans)

-A "Pandaren Brewmaster" beer mug insulator

-A 15% off coupon on Logitech PC gaming gear

-A paper mask of a 'Forsaken" from WoW

-A bookmark from Brady games with a weird quest on the back (I think related to something one could do at BlizzCon)

-A Jinx-branded "Lich King" sticker

-A little necklace of some kind of symbol (sorry I can't tell what) from WoW

-A "special edition" BlizzCon  authenticator that generates a password so nobody can break into your WoW account

-A preview of the WoW comic book from WildStorm

-Some pieces from "Starcraft: the Board Game"

-A blank notebook that says "BlizzCon" on the front and has an ad for a TokyoPop WoW book on the back

-A WoW trading card game "Heroes of Azeroth" starter deck

-A Frostmourne inflatable sword

-A BlizzCon keychain

-BlizzCon-branded hand sanitizer (in hindsight, I probably should have used that)

-A "Pandaren" bottle opener

-A keychain that looks like some kind of mace, I assume from WoW

-Diablo III "sinamints" (get it?)

-A BlizzCon-branded box of tissues (could I make that up?)

-Starcraft II "zerg creep" (looks like purple goo)

-A character to use in Upper Deck's upcoming WoW miniatures game

-A WoW pin

-A WoW pen

-A Diablo III red bouncy ball

-A Lich King postcard

-The BlizzCon plastic pag it all came in

Phew, that's a long list. One of the requirements to win is that you just read the damned thing. But I imagine there will be more than one of you who do that. How do you win? Well, I want to give it to the person who's most passionate about Blizzard games, so the way to win is to prove it. Leave a comment in which you describe why you love Blizzard overall or WoW, Starcraft, or Diablo in particular. Pretend you are trying to influence someone who has spent minimal or no time playing Blizzard games (like, say, me). Your goal is to convince someone like me that they must play whatever game you are writing about, or Blizzard games overall. And you have to do it in 250 words or less.

The writer of the comment I find most compelling will win. The deadline is 12 AM Tuesday morning / Monday night. I'll pick the winner during the day on Tuesday.

Eligibility requirements:

-I can't know you

-You can't have won another Cut Scene schwag giveaway this year.

-Not that I can really check, but please be at least 13, since "Warcraft" is rated T. (Though if a 12 year-old can write well enough to win this, I will be very impressed and find something else awesome and age appropriate to give him or her)

Update: Thanks to those of you who entered. It was a tough choice, but we have a winner.

In tomorrow's Daily Variety, I'm reporting that Legendary Pictures is in talks to acquire Epic Games. You can read the whole story here.

Of course, there have been rumors before that Microsoft and EA were interested in buying Epic. But those were, as far as I can tell, vaguely sourced speculation. I can assure you based on my reporting that there are serious talks going on. That doesn't mean the deal is a sure thing. Acquisition negotiations like this fall apart sometimes, with the most frequent reason being, of course, price (I don't have enough information to report what the price of this deal would be, except to say that it's a very big number). But I am sure based on my reporting that Legendary Pictures and its chairman, Thomas Tull, are very interested in Epic. For its part, Epic is certainly open to the idea.

Tull, of course, recently quit the board of the troubled Hollywood license-focused videogame publisher Brash Entertainment, which he co-founded last year. The fact that he's now gunning for Epic show that he remains very interested in games; he probably just thinks Brash did not turn into the kind of videogame company with which he wants to be involved. It's pretty clear that he likes Epic's work, since Legendary has signed on to co-finance New Line's "Gears of War" movie. That is undoubtedly how the two companies got to know each other and started these discussions.

It's hard to imagine why anybody passionate about videogames wouldn't want to be involved with Epic, assuming they can figure out a fair price. It's got one of the most successful videogame franchises in "Gears" (the original sold over 5 million units and next month's sequel will surely sell even more) and, more importantly, one of the most widely used pieces of videogame technology in Unreal Engine. The latter point is key, since that means Epic has a source of regular income from UE licensing and isn't completely hit dependent, which makes it a much less risky acquisition than a typical videogame developer. Of course that also makes it a more expensive acquisition.

From the Hollywood perspective, it's worth noting how unusual a Legendary purchase of Epic would be. Several studios (Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, Universal) are spending their own money on videogames. But Legendary is a private equity-backed film financier. While billions of dollars of private equity funds have flowed into Hollywood in the past few years and gone into film, TV, and online production, none of it has touched videogames. This would be the first time. And it would be a very substantial start.

The folks at Legendary declined to comment, while Epic gave me this very friendly quote that, while not saying whether they're really going to get acquired or not, indicates they wouldn't be averse to Legendary and Thomas Tull being the ones to do so:

We have publicly announced that Epic and Legendary ae partnering on the "Gears of War" movie. We’re very excited about that project and have the highest regard for Thomas Tull and his organization.

Army of Two is the latest videogame heading to the big screen.

As Variety reporter Michael Fleming and I are reporting in tomorrow's paper (read the story here), EA has licensed the rights to Universal, which has set Scott Z. Burns ("The Bourne Ultimatum") to write the script.

In an interesting twist, EA is actually attached as a producer on the film (along with Scott Stuber, who was previously attached to produce the "Halo" movie, amongst many other projects). As I was writing yesterday, EA is getting very active in film licensing recently and being attached as a producer gives it a whole higher level of involvement in how the end product turns out.

It was only last month that EA licensed "Mass Effect" to producer Avi Arad (it's not set up at a studio yet). And of course there's "The Sims" movie at Fox, the initial pitch for which got less than stellar reviews from gamers. I wouldn't be surprised to see more in the near future.

Universal has also been getting pretty active in adapting videogames. It's the studio that's doing the "Bioshock" movie and it was previously involved in the doomed "Halo" film.

My colleague Michael Fleming talked to Burns and got this interesting quote about his take on "Army of Two" as a movie:

The ambiguity of these private military corporations lends weight to an intelligent thriller with relevance to what's going on in the world right now. You have contractors with their own agendas, and two guys whose friendship supersedes all the politics. I told EA right off the bat I wasn't a gamer, and that appealed to them because they didn't want to simply replicate the game.'

Given how "Army of Two's" story was received, that's probably a good thing. On the other hand, as I just reported, "Army of Two 2" (working title, I'll assume) is in the works and it's a safe bet that whatever EA has got cooking for the follow-up will influence the movie and possibly vice-versa.

Personally, I just hope the main characters have at least as many awkwardly gay moments in the film as they did in the game. Preferrably in those awesome skeletor masks.

As anyone who has read my "LittleBigPlanet" review knows, I'm particularly intrigued by how the community will develop. This game is ultimately a platform and it's going to live and die by the quality of the content people upload and how well it's shared and popularized. Yes the graphics are jaw dropping and the pre-made levels in the story mode are pretty good, but anybody who buys the game just for that will end up disappointed. "LittleBigPlanet's" future lies in the community and, just as with most content communities, the vast majority of people will primarily be consumers, not providers.

The obvious model is YouTube, of course. It's a hugely successful platform on which the vast majority of people are consumers, a relatively small number are producers, and a very small minority produce videos that become remotely popular (let's ignore all the pirated stuff). And just as with LittleBigPlanet, YouTube is dependent on tags, user ratings, and sharing mechanisms. Way more people watch YouTube videos because they're e-mailed by a friend or linked/embedded on a blog than go to youtube.com and just browse.

However there's a huge difference between "LittleBigPlanet" and YouTube -- to experience "LittleBigPlanet," you have to buy in. That means purchasing the $60 game, even if you won't be extensively using the level building tools that go into that cost and, if you don't already have one, spending $400 on a Playstation 3. It's kind of the equivalent of saying that if you want to watch a YouTube video, you have to own a Gateway computer and video editing software. Now mind you, this isn't a criticism of Sony (contrary to what some people who read my review thought). It's in the business of selling games and consoles, not enabling people to share content and then trying to figure out how to monetize it later.

The end result, though, is that people have to really want to be a part of the "LittleBigPlanet" community. I would wager many active YouTube producers and consumers initially found the site because they checked out a single video. The barriers to doing so are zilch, so why the hell not?

But if you want to try out an awesome "LittleBigPlanet" level that everyone's talking about? Well, you have to own the game and a PS3. Which means most people won't be able to check it out. Which means it's much, much harder for the "LBP" community to grow organically than YouTube did.

I'm not saying this means "LittleBigPlanet" will be a failure. Not by a long shot. But it has a big barrier to overcome. Of course, there are steps Sony can take to try and ameliorate the problem. An easy one would be to regularly make interesting "LBP" levels available for free via the Playstation Network to tempt every PS3 owner into getting the game. A much harder one technically, I assume, would be to find some way to distribute "LittleBigPlanet" levels via the Web. Maybe translating them into Flash? I can't imagine it would be easy, or cheap, but it's the only way to make "LittleBigPlanet" levels viral the way that popular YouTube videos are.

Right now, Sony has a powerful user-generated platform on its hands, but is stuck with the business model of an old-fashioned videogame. It's not a great match.

Here's IDG's statement on the future of E for All now that the new E3 has been announced:

We want to thank all of our E for All partners for their support, and we encourage E for All exhibitors to participate in the E3 new event, which we believe will meet their needs as well as those of the industry at large. IDG World Expo is very pleased to be partnering with the ESA on E3 and continuing to play a central role in that important industry event. We look forward to furthering our contribution to the success of the video game community.

Of course, E for All was a public event and E3, though much bigger in 2009, is for invited industry professionals and media only. So it's not exactly a comparable alternative for exhibitors.

I'm sure the few companies that exhibited at E for All will be happy to keep spending their money at PAX (all of them were there, as far as I could tell) and just save the money they spent at E for All. After all, PAX had nearly 60,000 attendees in August. E for All had 15,000.

Sorry that I'm not posting as much as I should -- trust me, it's not for lack of ideas.

But I'm currently working on two really big stories that I am sure Cut Scene readers will find really interesting. One is definitely in tomorrow's paper, meaning it goes online in a few hours, and the other will probably go up at the same time. If not, then it'll be in Monday's paper and online by Sunday. So check back in a few hours.

I have a story in the most recent weekly Variety tied to the release of "Dead Space" about Electronic Arts' approach to developing new intellectual property. Specifically: Why are they making so much of it now? How do they make sure it's good? And why are they so actively licensing it to other media?

I recommend reading the article, of course. But there was a lot more in my interviews with EA Games label president Frank Gibeau and EA Redwood Shores (soon to be re-named) studio GM and "Dead Space" executive producer Glenn Schofield that didn't make the article. Which is exactly why the Cut Scene exists.

So here you go. Rather than a Q-and-A, I'm excerpting some of their most interesting quotes under topic headers, so you can skim and see what interests you.

Some of you may just want to find out if there's any hot news, so here are the things revealed in these interviews that you might not already know, though honestly, I don't think any of this is actually surprising:

-Gibeau says there is a "sequel idea planned" for "Army of Two" and also for "Battlefield: Bad Company." Which is as close to saying there will indeed be an "Army of Two 2" ("Army of Three?" "Army of Two Squared?") and "Bad Company 2" as we'll probably get until the sequels are officially announced.

-Schofield confirms that EA is "talking to movie studios right now" about a "Dead Space" film. Of course, as I'm always preaching in here, most new videogames are talked about in Hollywood as movies. The question is whether a deal gets done. Variety is looking into that right now, rest assured.

-He also says that EA and a publishing partner are "talking about ['Dead Space'] novels" and that they're also looking into the possibility of "Dead Space" toys. (The perfect gift to mess up your favorite 5 year-old's mind this Christmas!)

-Schofield were pretty casual about mentioning that a "Dead Space" sequel is already in the works (though it could of course be cancelled in the unlikely event that the game bombs).

Creating new IP

Gibeau: We found a few years ago that we had a set of problems where EA's reputation became one of just doing sports games, sequels and licenses and the market was reacting to newer properties like "Grand Theft Auto" and "Halo." We were serializing and overiterating. Also, internally, a lot of creative teams wanted to do their own stuff. They were fed up with following somebody else's rules.

That confluence of factors came into play and we said we need to methodically add new IPS every year and start to change the balance of the portfolio away from being overweighted on sports and movie licenses and toward things like "The Sims..."

Schofield: The focus the whole time [on "Dead Space"] has been on quality. It really has. When you're making a new IP, you're paranoid the whole time. You're not "Madden" You're not a license they just spent $20 million on. You are your own thing. If it's not good, you will be cut.

How new IP gets greenlit

Gibeau: I particularly look for what original core innovations are planned to bring to market. At greenlight, I only have a few rules. Typically, I like to look at ideas that work globally. I don’t like ideas that will only sell in

Europe

Ultimately, you look at the creative team. Are they proven? Do you have confidence in them? The decision  is ultimately based on, "Do you have confidence in those people to deliver or not? Business is the last piece. We typically look at R&D against forecast sales and competitive windows... We also bring into the process early on our global pub organization to get their commitment to get behind titles, so the sales guys don’t say, "I never saw this, I don’t believe in it."

[Who makes the final decision?] Ultimately it’s me and I bring our CEO into the process before the greenlight just to kind of get his ideas on the IP. We've got great feedback from him. Ultimately I make the call on whether to proceed. It's based on collaborating with the studio GM. Sometimes we say it's not time to put it in turnaround but it's not quite the right time [to greenlight]. Maybe the team’s missing key components. So you keep four guys on it to iterate a while longer and see where it goes from there.

Is all this new IP intentded to turn into franchises? Can new games compete commercially with big sequels?

Gibeau: If look at the year "Gears of War" shipped the first time, it was one of the best sellers. "Bad Company" has come out and done very well. "Army of Two" sold very well. We've got sequel ideas planned for those. I feel pretty good about that mix right now. "Assassin's Creed," while it was "Prince of Persia" in a different guise and re-imagined, busted into the charts as an original. In any given year we do have sequels. At one point in time those were originals.

Licensing to other media

Schofield: A lot of times you talk to an executive producer and they say "I'm not going to do that." I’m the complete opposite. I said from the start that if that stuff came up, I’d be for it. It's a way to tell more of your story...

We didn’t even put the EA logo on the comics because we wanted them to stand alone. We got some of the best writers and artists. We didn't approach it as a  marketing tool. This is a comic book. It stood alone, which is the same thing we did with the animated feature. We felt all along if they were not going to do game justice, were not the same quality, we were not going to do it.

With Starz [maker of the animated DVD movie "Dead Space: Downfall"], the first meetings were about doing a documentary on the making of a brand new IP. We knew we had one-and-a-half or two years to go and thought it would be cool to do a "making of." But with the cameras around we couldn't get the best out of our people.

So we said what about an animated feature? That would fit in perfectly and they have their Film Roman division...

There was a lot of coordination between the three products -- a lot of talking, a lot of meetings to get it all right. They had bright people writing. They asked questions I wouldn’t have normally had to answer making the game. But because they asked, because it was important to their media, it made our game better. One guy was like, "When they're cutting the planet, how wide and deep is it? How much does that planet weigh?" Some of that information is now sprinkled into the game. It adds more depth to the game.

The story is better because of the influence of the comics and movie. We have sprinkled details for those who see both.

We're talking right now about novels. We don’t have a toy deal yet, but we're but looking into that.

We're talking with movie studios right now. We have been all along. The difference with this is we need to go in and say, "This is not a $10 million movie." Sure somebody could make it, but that's not what we are looking for. It's an expensive movie. By doing this now, we could have a movie that bridges the gap between the two games.

[Asked how much involvement he would have in a movie]

What we’re doing, say, with movie producers is handpicking our producer. We get approval on the scriptwriter, director and those sorts of things. If we get a AAA director and writer, I'm not going to tell them exactly what to do.

Gibeau: Culturally, prior to [CEO] John [Riccitiello] coming back, extensions of our IP into vehicles such as film or books or TV was frowned upon. People thought it was a distraction to making great games and wedon’t engage in that. It's not something people were thinking about because of that bias. Riccitiello flipped that cultural issue on its side and said, "Look, we’re creating world class IPs here. Our fan base would love to experience or learn more about them in linear forms." And he set it up in such a way that everyone thought it would be additive or exciting as opposed to distracting.

Details on E3 2009 are here. It's no longer a "summit." It's officiall an "expo" again. It's bigger -- almost as big as it was back in 2006 -- but still no public allowed in (so this prediction was wrong). However, ESA president Mike Gallgher tells me the booths won't be quite as big as they used to be and they're keeping the suites for press and investors to do private meetings, which were perhaps the one good part of E3 2008.

Apparently it was very important to the ESA to make clear that the people who didn't like this year's downsized and dour E3 are pleased about the changes:

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello in July: "I hate E3 like this."
John Riccitiello in the ESA's press release announcing the new E3: "The E3 Expo will be the pre-eminent North American gaming show next year. The new, larger event is better for industry leaders and for serious gamers."

Ubisoft North America President Laurent Detoc in July: "E3 this year is terrible. The world used to come to E3. Now it's like a pipe-fitters show in the basement."
Laurent Detoc in the ESA's press release announcing the new E3: "The video game business will be twice as big in 2009 as it was in 2006 when we had the last real E3 Expo - so get ready for some fireworks! The changes made will ensure that the 2009 E3 Expo conveys the best of what makes us proud as entertainment leaders."

Still remaining to be seen: Will the publishers that dropped out of the ESA this past year, including Activision Blizzard and LucasArts, be part of E3 next year? Gallagher took pains to make clear that non-members are invited to participate.

Apologies for my absence since early last week. Many of you probably know that this is one of, it not the, busiest weeks of the year for videogame reviews, so I've been absolutely buried with writing and editing reviews, as well a tracking down a big story that I think you'll all find really interesting when it's done in a few days, plus other assorted things.

I have a few really good (I think) forthcoming posts that I hope to start writing by tomorrow. Meanwhile, rather than fall endlessly behind, here are links and very short summaries to some of our recent reviews in Variety. I'd call particular attention to "Fable 2," which has a very good shot to be my favorite game of 2008:

Fable 2: "No interactive world has ever felt quite so alive," says Variety's pretentious twit of a videogame blogger. "Deep, accessible and endlessly adaptive, it's a boundary-pushing experience."

Far Cry 2: Chris Dahlen, in his first review for Variety, calls this action sequel "stunningly beautiful and morrally harrowing," but "plodding in its execution."

Midnight Club: Los Angeles: "Detailed beyond most players' interests," writes Leigh Alexander, "the game still manages to be broadly accessible thanks to simple controls, a smooth mission structure, and jaw-droppingly stunning graphics."

LittleBigPlanet: Above referenced pretentious twit describes it as "[A]n exercise is anti-immersion, attracting even the most casual player to its irresistibly adorable cartoon world, then slowly pulling back the facade until they're left with a blank canvas."

Rock Revolution: "Overly complex where it should be simple and soulless where it should be rich," says Leigh.

It's been a short and unfortunately none-too-successful run for GameCock, the brash/abrasive independent game publisher that will probably be remembered more for its obnoxious publicity stunts for the disastrous "Hail to the Chimp" than the games it managed to put out (basically just "Chimp," "Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball," and "Dementium: the Ward," the latter of which wasn't too bad).

Any independent company counting on a small release slate of original titles  performing well is in a very precarious position financially. The company was primarily funded by one wealthy private investor, CEO Mike Wilson told me, though he would never admit who it was. That's one more ingredient in a formula that probably fell apart after "Chimp," which GameCock promoted the crap out of, got terrible reviews and bombed.

So now GameCock has been bought by small publisher SouthPeak, in a deal that includes literally no up front money. I delved into SouthPeak's most recent SEC filing to find out just what SouthPeak had to pay to buy Gamecock and found out there are two payouts:

-7% of the revenue from the sales of GameCock games in development that Southpeak releases

-a warrant to purchase 700,000 shares of Southpeak stock

So basically SouthPeak releases whichever GameCock games it wants (it is already committed to "Legendary" and "Mushroom Men," which are set to come out in the next couple of months) and only has to give up 7% of the revenue. If they don't sell well, it doesn't have to pay GameCock's current owners very much. It's almost all upside.

As for the stock options, I checked with a SouthPeak rep the exact value is a very complex formula that has to do with how and whether SouthPeak stock rises in the future, presumably in part thanks to GameCock if everything goes well. SouthPeak stock is currently trading at $2.35, so even if it goes up soon and the formula is calculated to benefit GameCock, it's hard to see how those warrants could be worth much more than a few million dollars. After all, SouthPeak's entire market cap is only $4.5 million. It doesn't have that much equity to give away.

A deal this risky indicates that GameCock must have been in pretty desperate straits and basically just needed someone to take over distribution of its games ASAP.

MTV has an interview with SouthPeak CEO Melanie Mroz in which she indicates she's not clear whether she'll keep the GameCock brand or whether Wilson will be joining her company.

Two big entertainment properties had strong Septembers in the videogame world, as "The Force Unleashed" hit no. 1 on the U.S. sales charts with 1.43 million units (across all consoles), while "Lego Batman" sold a solid 544,000 units, despite only being available for the last week of the year.

"Rock Band 2" also had a decent launch, selling 363,000 units as an Xbox 360 exclusive. That's just a little less than the original "Rock Band" sold on 360 and PS3 combined when it debuted last November.

Also noteworthy: In its fifth month on sale, "Wii Fit" was the no. 2 best selling game of the month, with 518,000 units. That's really remarkable and yet another sign of just how successful Nintendo is at selling non-traditional games to non-traditional players.

Overall industry sales were down 7% from last September, but that's mostly due to how well "Halo 3" did last year, rather than a dour sign about 2008. Also, Microsoft unsurprisingly got a health sales boost for the 360 thanks to the price but, though it's still far behind Nintendo's Wii.

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in Sept.
Force Unleashed        360           LucasArts       610,000
Wii Fit                      Wii           Nintendo        518,000

Rock Band 2              360           MTV/EA         363,000
Mario Kart                 Wii           Nintendo        353,000
Force Unleashed        PS3           LucasArts       325,000
Mercenaries 2            360          EA                  297,000
Wii Play                    Wii           Nintendo         174,000
Madden NFL '09         360          EA                  224,000
Force Unleashed        Wii          LucasArts        223,000
Madden NFL '09         PS2          EA                  158,000

Console       Sept. unit sales      Lifetime-to-date
Wii              687,000                    12.7 million
DS               537,000                    22.5 million
360             347,000                    11.3 million
PSP             238,000                    12.6 million
PS3             232,000                    5.5 million

Category            Sept. revenue   Change  Year-to-date revenue  Change
Total industry     $1.27 billion        -7%       $11.82 billion             26%
Hardware           $498 million        -9%        $4.22 billion              16%
Software            $616 million        -6%       $6.07 billion               36%
Accessories        $153 million        -3%       $1.53 billion               21%

Variety film critic Justin Chang calls the new "Max Payne" movie starring Mark Wahlberg "Stylishly made, armed to the teeth and ludicrous in the extreme." Justin, who's not a gamer but is very sympathetic to geek culture (he wrote my absolute favorite review anywhere of "The Dark Knight" this summer), describes the movie's implementation of the game's signature bullet time as "a hail of bullets that whoosh across the screen in delirious slow-motion," though he later adds, "needless to say, it’s not nearly as much fun as actually playing the game."

The plot? Justin describes it as an "increasingly risible story involving tattooed corpses, Norse mythology, demonic hallucinations and perhaps the weirdest cinematic reference yet to the 'war on terror." That doesn't mean he hates it though: "Before it derails with a climax that seems to have borrowed a few scenes from the 'The Incredible Hulk,' 'Max Payne' strives valiantly to imbue its hoary vigilante-thriller cliches and police-procedural tropes with authentic grit and emotion."

Justin's not too impressed with Mark Wahlberg's portrayal of one of gamers' favorite anti-heroes, saying that the man formerly known as Marky Mark gives a "guarded performance, which (somewhat surprisingly, given the subtle shadings of personality the actor displayed in “Shooter”) fails to make Max Payne the character much of an improvement on Max Payne the avatar."

The entire review's right here.

Starz Entertainment gave me three copies of "Dead Space: Downfall," the animated DVD tie-in to EA's new sci-fi/horror game, to give away to Cut Scene readers. If you don't know too much about it, or want to see what one of Variety's film critics think about it, you can read our review here.

I was trying to think of a way to give them away that requires some effort, but isn't some crazy over the top event involving you guys doing elaborate stunts just to get a DVD. So I figured, why not encourage some intelligent discussion? If you want to win, leave a comment making the case for the best ever videoggame tie-in. Maybe it's a "Resident Evil" movie, a "Halo" book, or even the old after school "Super Mario Bros." show. Or maybe you already know a lot about "Dead Space: Downfall" and are sure that this will be it. There's no right answer. You just have to make an intelligent, compelling argument. On Monday morning I'll read all the entries and pick the ones I found most convincing. Bonus points for brevity.

Just a few simple rules:

-If I know you, you're not eligible

-If you've previously won another giveaway on this blog, you're not eligible

-The movie's unrated and kind of gory, so please be 18 or older. I really don't have a way to check, but I don't want to end up pissing off some 12 year-old's parents

"Glitch in the System" dismisses "Spore," "The Force Unleashed," and "Rock Band 2" to bring viewers its pick for game of the month: "Brazy Ponyz 2." Also, Jacob get on Darth Vader's bad side and finds out more about why Germans don't like "Warhammer Online" at Penny Arcade Expo.

Produced, as always, by me.

Nintendo has yet to announce the full song list for Wii Music, even though it comes out next week, but I  just got my copy and, conveniently, there's a list of credits in the instructions for all 14 of the the licensed songs. Not exactly competition for the track lists in "Rock Band 2" or "Guitar Hero: World Tour," but it's not meant to be.

The company previously said there are around 50 songs in "Wii Music," so we can assume all the rest are either public domain tunes or Nintendo's own theme songs. Unsurprisingly for a game that's meant to have such broad appeal, the licensed tracks are all really well known songs that have been around for a while and everyone can enjoy, if not exactly love. "Jingle Bell Rock" is about as edgy as it gets. And of course since there's no singing in "Wii Music," they're are well known melodies that you can recognize without the lyrics.

Interestingly, since the point of "Wii Music" is "playing" the song yourself, there's no issue with master recordings. So the instruction book only credits the composers and publishing companies, not the recording artists.

Take a look and see what you think:

"Chariots of Fire" theme song by Vangelis

"Daydream Believer" by John Stewart (made famous by The Monkees)

"Every Breath You Take" by Sting

"I'll be There," originally performed by The Jackson 5

"I've Never Been to Me," the classic Motown hit by Charlene

"Material Girl," which was made famous by a nice young lady named Madonna

"Please Mr. Postman," the debut single from the Marvellettes from way back in the early '60s

"September," from Earth, Wind and Fire

"Suriyaki," a Japanese song popular in the '60s performed by Kyu Sakamoto (OK, I've never heard of that one)

"The Loco-Motion," another 60s pop song that tortured young adults my age when we were kids

John Lennon's "Woman"

"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by the illustrious George Michael

"Jingle Bell Rock." We all know this one.

"Do-Re-Mi" by Rogers and Hammerstein from "The Sound of Music." (No, not the last song that Kurt Cobain wrote.)

"Dead Space" is one of those games that make me glad we don't score our reviews at Variety (for those who want to skip ahead, my review is here). On the one hand, it's remarkably well made: There are no poorly designed levels or technical glitches; the combat is solid; the audio design is brilliant; the graphics are good; the zero-g sequences are spectacular. On the other hand, the game is frustratingly unoriginal, drawing so heavily on other sci-fi/horror/action influences (especially, of course, "Aliens") and repeating itself over and over through busywork tasks that there's just not much there there. From the story to the characters to the action to the creatures, you've seen almost all of it before or in the first hour of the game.

It's an admirable attempt by EA to start a new franchise and enter a new genre, but it's a somewhat disappointingly conservative attempt. There's very little in the way of a bold creative vision from developer EA Redwood Shores. It feels more like... well, a big publisher that's trying to move into a new genre and boot up fresh IP while taking as few risks as possible.

Of course, ripping off "Aliens" and sprinkling in everything from "Half-Life 2" to "Bioshock" to "Metroid" is hardly a bad thing. Those are great sources to draw on. "Dead Space" does it well, which is why I can hardly say it's a bad game.

The problem is that it's a horror game and I was scared very infrequently, especially after I played for a couple of hours and figured out the obvious pattern for exactly when an enemy would show up (when you enter a big open room, turn a corner, or solve a puzzle and can see an exit in the distance, for instance).
To the extent I was scared, it was more because of the excellent audio design than the dimly lit corridors and the dozen or so H.R. Giger-esque creature designs that repeat over and over.

There's also something weirdly contradictory about a protagonist whose face you never see and who never talks in a carefully written story (imagine "Aliens" if Ripley was a bland nobody). Good drama starts with good characters and Isaac Clarke is, essentially, a cipher. It may help immerse players in the horror, but it's bizarre and sometimes flatly ridiculous in moments that are supposed to be terrifying or emotional when Isaac just stands there, silent, as if he's a robot.

So, if you're looking for an easy answer as to whether you should buy it, I'm not your guy (and Variety, in general, is probably not your publication). But if you're looking for a good analysis of the game and an argument for what works and what doesn't, hopefully my review provides some value. Here's an excerpt:

If James Cameron had a dollar for every "Aliens" reference in a videogame over the past 20 years, he could have bought a new Prius. Now, after "Dead Space," he'll be able to cover the budget of "Avatar." Electronic Arts' new sci-fi/horror/action game mixes huge helpings of the genre-defining 1986 movie with ingredients from games like "Bioshock," "Half-Life 2" and "Metroid" into a mix that often impresses but rarely surprises. More gory than frightening, more technically adept than substantive, "Dead Space" will find a healthy crossover aud between gamers and horror fans, but won't leave them with a single new idea to ponder besides the release date of the inevitable sequel.

And you can read the whole thing here.

Also of interest to Dead Space fans: Here's Variety's review of "Dead Space: Downfall," the tie-in animated DVD movie.

Update: Win a copy of "Dead Space: Downfall." Info here.

As promised yesterday, we've got a pair of "Dead Space" reviews for Variety readers, starting with the animated direct-to-DVD movie "Dead Space: Downfall," from Anchor Bay. It's essentially an introductory story to the game, telling the tale of the Ishimura up to the moment Isaac Clarke arrives (for true "Dead Space" fanatics, it actually bridges the comic books and game).

I asked one of Variety's film critics, Peter Debruge, to review the movie. He's not a gamer, though he's also not averse to games. His take? It's an all-out gorefest that fans of horror movie and the game might enjoy, but there's not much for anyone else to latch onto:

From the technique side, "Downfall" ain't half bad as small-screen animation goes, with the Film Roman team applying a macho "Venture Bros." style to the futuristic material. That said, it's hard to imagine non-gamers finding much to enjoy in watching the systematic wipeout of the Ishimura crew, which ends precisely when the game starts. Instead of treating this depressing no-one-left-standing story with the heroic-sacrifice bombast of "300" or "The Alamo," director Chuck Patton seems to have made "Downfall" if only to highlight all the ghastly ways humans can die.

Then again, this is a videogame tie-in. And while it's disconcertingly gory, Peter also says it's a step above many of its competitors, even ones with much bigger budgets and a theatrical release:

There's something fundamentally upsetting about a toon that expects audiences to cheer each time one of its human characters meets a grisly fate, although you've got to hand it to the "Downfall" team for the sheer variety of nasty ends they imagine. Likewise, the team deserves credit for the level of detail they've spent defining this world, making for an infinitely more satisfying experience than such retro-fitted vidgame adaptations as "Alone in the Dark" or "Doom."

You can read the entire review right here. And my review of the videogame is here.

Jamil Modelina, who ran the Game Developers Conference for five years and helped turn it into a major event that arguably matched, if not surpassed, E3, has landed a new gig at Electronic Arts. He's now outreach director, business development for EA Partners, the unit that distributes and markets games like "Rock Band," "Crysis," and "Orange Box" for outside developers and publishers. Given Jamil's background, you can bet he's not the guy negotiating with MTV or Valve. Instead he's looking for cool new developers with cool new games and, just as he used to convince them to speak at his conferences, convince them to distribute their games through EA.

Jamil left GDC's parent company CMP in August under somewhat mysterious circumstances.

Brash Entertainment CEO Mitch Davis has responded to my recent reporting about executive shake-ups at his company, including the departure of co-founder Thomas Tull and Chief Creative Officer Larry Shapiro, following on President Nicholas Longano in the spring.

But he didn't respond to me. I guess not everyone likes me. He did a Q-and-A with GameDailyBiz that basically addresses most of the points I brought up. The key details:

-Davis says that Tull resigned "due to a conflict of interest." No indication on what the conflict is. It would have to be more than just the fact that Brash is licensing IP from Legendary, since it has been doing that since its founding. However, the sources I interviewed last week indicated that Tull had disagreements with others on the board, including, one would assume, Davis, and was dissatisfied with the way Brash was being run and its products. So I believe it's a more complex story.

-He grants that the first few games haven't exactly been up to snuff and that the company has had to make changes. "Good games take time, and it's fair to say that we were overly ambitious in putting out three games in our first year of business. We certainly took our lumps on those titles....  After our first few games did not meet expectation we decided that we needed to upgrade our staff and realign our business." Later on, he says even more artfully, "We have systems in place, and feedback on what has and hasn't worked. We're making changes to refine our business so that we can meet our goals."

-Toward that end, Davis says the company "is putting an end to short-cycle games." That probably means no more titles like "Alvin," "Jumper" (right) and "Space Chimps" that were made in under a year, with quality that shows it. "Many of these games are already in production with development cycles of up to three years," he notes. "That's an unusually generous schedule for a movie based game, and can be seen as an indication of quality as we will be able to spend more time in pre-production and concepting, more time developing technology and more time testing—really just giving ourselves time to get it right." That's obviously a change in philosophy for the company.

-Lori Plager, who used to be senior director of brand development and licensing for Activision, has been hired as senior VP of intellctual property. Davis says she is taking the role formerly held by Shapiro.

I'm sure lots of you are very interested in reading and talking about Dead Space and thinking about buying it this week. You probably also know that EA is doing a multi-media assault for the game that includes comic books, Webisodes, and a direct-to-DVD movie.

As such, Variety will be taking a multi-pronged approach to our review. Tomorrow we'll feature my review of the game and film critic Peter Debruge's review of the movie, "Dead Space: Downfall," which tells the story right up to the moment the game starts.

I think it's a cool approach to take. Hopefull you'll all find it interesting. Look for the pair tomorrow. I'll link and expand upon my thoughts here on the blog, of course.

I spent all day Saturday at BlizzCon on Saturday doing reporting and such. I didn't think you guys needed news updates, since there are other better sites to find out about the new classes in "Diablo 3" and such. I'll have a much bigger feature story that involves Blizzard coming up next month.

For now, though, I have a bag FULl of Blizzard related schwag to give away: Postcards, notebooks, trading cards, miniature characters, inflatable balls, even (and I'm not making this up) tissues.

As always, my schwag is Cut Scene readers' gain. But my question is: How do you guys think I should give it away? In the past, I've made it first come first serve for individual items. It occurs to me I could give away the entire bag of goodies as one big prize. Would you guys rather I do that, or give away items individually?

In either case, any thoughts on how I should do it? Should it continue to just be the first person who responds? Or is there some reasonable kind of contest for people who really want the schwag to prove it by doing something? If the latter, how should we do it? Anything you guys would be excited to do? It's your schwag (or it's about to be), so I want to find the best and fairest way to distribute it.

Last year's "Spectrobes" was the first attempt by the burgeoning Disney Interactive Studios to create an original intellectual proprerty. It was pretty clearly a "Pokemon" rip-off, but it still came out well and shipped (not sold) over 1 million units, which is good for a DS-only title.

Inevitably, any publisher looking to establish new IP will greenlight a sequel to a game unless it flat out bombs. Thus we have "Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals," which Variety reviewer Tom Chick says "improves the original game considerably by adding better combat, sharper graphics and deeper online features."

This is a game primarily for kids who love collecting and trading and such, but Tom says the the improved RPG combat, which emphasizes direct control of the creatures, is a complex enough system that it will even appeal to some RPG fans. He also notes that the game emphasizes feeding and taking care of the Spectrobes, giving a game aimed primarily at boys "an almost maternal aspect."

Just as interesting beyond the gameplay, though, is how tightly it's integrated with the new DGamer system, which is essentially a mix of Facebook and Xbox Live that connects Disney kids' videogames and Disney.com. You create an avatar, show off trophies, make friends, etc. There's no real social network for gamers under 12 and Disney, which already has a big chunk of kids' media online, wants to take hold of it and connect everyone playing "Spectrobes" and "Prince Caspian" and "Club Penguin" and "Fairies Online" into one big happy and advertised-to family.

Here's an excerpt from Tom's review

Battles in the first “Spectrobes” were a clunky process of scooting Rallen around an enemy flanked by two of his revived creatures and hoping for the best. But fights here are split into two types, each emphasizing more direct control. During exploration, Rallen uses weapons to take out monsters spit out by tornadoes. Once inside the tornados, the spectrobes take over in pairs, which gives the creatures more personality. Some are toe-to-toe bruisers, some are nimble and some are stand-off ranged attackers. It’s a much more exciting way of playing out combat, and it gives the various spectrobes plenty of character. It’s also a complex enough battle system that “Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals” will appeal to some adult RPG fans.

And you can read the whole thing right here.

According to GamesIndustry, based on an Australian ratings board filing, it looks like THQ has picked up "50 Cent: Blood in the Sand" from Activision Blizzard. It was one of numerous Sierra titles that Activision execs chose not to publish after merging with Vivendi Games.

Assuming it's true, that would make it the first rejected Sierra game to officially find a home. I haven't gotten a definite answer yet, but given that THQ is on the hunt for more adult-oriented titles, loves licenses, and this fits pretty nicely with its "Saints Row" franchise, it wouldn't be too surprising.

Other titles that were kicked to the curb by ActiBlizzard but were far enough along in development that they could easily come out if a new publisher works out a deal include:

-"Ghostbusters." Sony Pictures has said it plans to put it out with a new publisher sometimes in 2009. But no word on who it will be.

-"Brutal Legend." There were rumors it would be picked up by MTV, but I shot those down in August. Now, despite indications a deal would get done quickly, we're still waiting.

-"Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena," Starbreeze's quasi-sequel to 2005's well received "Escape from Butcher Bay." From what I hear, license holder Universal is still working with Activision Blizzard to find a new publisher.

I just wrote about co-founder and board member Thomas Tull leaving Brash. As I noted, president and co-founder Nicholas Longano split in May. But I just found out that I actually missed out on another high profile departure.

Turns out that Larry Shapiro, who left his position as co-head of CAA's videogame department last year to become Brash's Chief Creative Officer, left the company in July. That's three high profile departures in the span of five months during only the company's second year of existence. You know how I said below that Tull leaving is not a good sign? Now it turns out it's an even worse sign than I had thought. Brash is, pretty undeniably, a company in turmoil.

It's usually not a good sign when a co-founder and board member of a company, one who played a key role in raising its capital, resigns after less than two years because he's disappointed with its products and direction.

But that's what's happening at Brash Entertainment, where Thomas Tull -- who's also the chairman of Legendary Pictures -- has left the board. Full details are in this article in tomorrow's Daily Variety.

I should note up high that I couldn't get a comment out of Tull, so this is all based on what I heard from industry sources. But what I heard won't really surprise anyone who's been following the company. As I wrote in tomorrow's article, "Tull is believed to have been disappointed with the quality of Brash's games, as well as the company's strategic direction." Gamers know that means titles like "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Jumper," and "Space Chimps," all of which got largely negative reviews (including in Variety, as the links will tell you). "Alvin" did sell decently, perhaps not a surprise given how successful the movie was. The other two, not so much.

He also must not have been optimistic that Brash's upcoming slate is going to turn things around. That includes announced games like "Six Flags," "The Tale of Despereaux" and "Saw," as well as unannounced titles we've gotten wind of like "300," "Where the Wild Things Are," "Clash of the Titans" and "Night at the Museum 2." Maybe overall it was the general idea of just doing licensed games, which so far has resulted in titles developed quickly to meet movie release dates.

There were already signs Brash was having problems in the spring when president Nicholas Longano ankled (Variety's term for the nebulous nethworld between quitting and getting fired). But Tull is a bigger deal. As well as running the company that co-financed huge movies like "300" and "The Dark Knight," he's very into videogames, as evidenced by Legendary's involvement in the "Gears of War" and "Warcraft" films. Brash was his vehicle to get into the business and he helped to build it on the same private equity model, including one of the same financiers, that he used for Legendary.

So what's next for Brash? They've certainly got lots of high profile licenses to work on. I've seen the DS version of "Despereaux" and it's not half bad. Perhaps they hunker down and keep doing what they're doing, but try to do it better. Or perhaps Tull's departure augurs a larger shake-up and a re-thinking of how to use what remains of the $400 million the company raised just last year.

A Brash rep declined to comment.

Update: Contrary to my article, it turns out Chief Creative Officer and former CAA videogame department co-head Larry Shapiro left in July. Apparently I can't even keep track of all the high level departures at Brash. More details in the next post.

Am I the only person who feels like I can't click on a single website the last few days without seeing an ad for "Fable 2?" I'm talking gaming sites, newspaper websites, political blogs, entertainment sites. It's almost like Microsoft has bought out the World Wide Web (insert joke about them already having done that here). The one below is from the Washington Post.

It's gotta be some kind of milestone in running a videogame blog when one of your posts makes its way through the zeitgeist and turns into a Penny Arcade comic.

Given the their frequent cross-over into sci-fi fandom, I'm sure many gamers will be interested in the news in today's Daily Variety that Warner Bros. is developing a new version of the '80s TV mini-series V for ABC (lizard invade in a Nazi/holcaust allegory -- it's cheesy now but was creepy then).

Perhaps even more interesting to gamers, however, is that Jason Hall is attached as an executive producer. Formerly the head of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (and before that, Monolith, developer of "F.E.A.R." and "the Matrix Online"), Hall is now a producer and also an online personality as host of "The Jace Hall Show" on Crackle.com.

The article by my colleague Michael Schneider doesn't say much about Hall's involvement besides that he might extend "V" into other platforms, including gaming. We can only speculate exactly what Jason will do, since he wasn't available to talk, but his company HD Films has been focused on cross-media content ("The Jace Hall Show," machinima series "Chadam" for Warner, the "Brothers in Arms" movie in development), so his involvement indicates ABC and Warner are thinking bigger than just a few nights of TV for "V."

Hard to say exactly what that means -- an ARG? a virtual world? extensions of the story via gaming or online? All of the above? The only thing clear right now is that involving someone with Hall's background means the new "V" team is probably aiming to do interactive stuff that's developed from early on a cohesive part of the property's re-launch, instead of just licensing out a crappy mobile game at the last minute.

It's also a sign that Hall, who exited his post atop Warner Bros' videogame division with the kind of "production deal" that's often's nothing more than a face-saving way for executives to be shown the door, is making a real go of it as a producer. As far as I know, he's the first former videogame executive to do that.

In July, I reported that Universal was the latest studio to get into the videogame biz. Its first project was a videogame version of the movie "Wanted." That project is still on track and will be released sometime next year. But as it turns out, it won't be Universal's first videogame.

As I'm reporting in tomorrow's Daily Variety, that's "The Tale of Despereaux," or at least the DS version anyway. I know, the typical Cut Scene reader is probably not frothing at the mouth for a videogame adaptation of the upcoming animated film about a heroic mouse performing acts of derring-do in a fairy tale land. Both the game and movie come out in December.

But Cut Scene readers are also smart enough to know that kids games, if done well, can be big business. Especially on the DS. So as Universal cautiously steps into the videogame business, it's a smart step to take. Given what a big bet "Wanted" is -- an M-rated AAA action title that probably costs $20 million-plus to make and is based on a movie that has already come and gone from theaters -- a low cost kids game on the most popular platform coming out day-and-date with the film is probably a good balance for Universal's very small slate.

Universal's top videogame exec Bill Kispert confirmed as much when we talked today. "We made two bets that are very differen types of content which make sense in their own place," he explained.

I also got a look at the game recently in a meeting with the developer Fizz Factor (owned by Foundation 9). It's a pretty sharp looking platformer that seems capture the look of the film well and provide all sorts of amusing settings, weapons and constumes in a mouse-sized world, though it only makes minimal use of the touch screen. (Then again, so did "New Super Mario Bros." and that came out pretty well.)

Universal doesn't have the capacity yet to market and distribute its own games, so it's partnering with Brash, which makes sense since the film-focused videogame publisher already has the license for "Despereaux" on other platforms and is releasing SKUs for PC, PS2, Wii and 360.

One good thing that came out of all the fussing and feuding between Microsoft and Bungie during E3: the Xbox 360 maker had the biggest news to announce at Tokyo Game Show by far.

"Halo 3: Recon" (info here; trailer here) is, of course, the game that Bungie was going to announce at E3 back in July. But Microsoft didn't like that Bungie planned to handle press for its franchise and not only did it force Bungie to cancel the announcement, but it left out all mentions of "Halo" from its press conferene, including the Ensemble-developed "Halo Wars," which was on display at the show. (relive the fun here)

How did that work in terms of press strategy? For Microsoft, pretty well. It had plenty of significant news at E3, from the Xbox Live re-design to "Final Fantasy XIII" coming to Xbox 360 to the Netflix partnership to "Lips." Now at Tokyo Game Show, it easily overshadowed competition by having a new "Halo" game to announce, along with "Tekken 6" coming to 360 and some other RPG stuff. Sure Japan is the market least interested in "Halo," but still, news is news.

Bungie, however, lost out on the opportunity to establish its new independent identity since splitting from Microsoft last year by making its own announcement, or even "co-announcing" by coming out on stage with its "partner" Microsoft for the news. Even though Microsoft owns the "Halo" franchise, it's not all that unreasonable for Bungie to stake a claim to the news, since the deal to produce  "Recon" was struck well after the divestment, a Bungie rep confirmed to me. Despite their previous relationship, these are now two separate and significant companies working together. But the way the announcement played out (and I'm not in Tokyo, so I'm speaking broadly) didn't seem much different than how it would have gone if Microsoft still owned Bungie.

Of course, the big news will come when Bungie is finally ready to talk about the original IP it's developing that's still on the DL. Even if Microsoft's publishing it (which is likely, but not definite), I'd bet Bungie wants to play a big role in how that news comes out.

All that being said, my favorite news from Tokyo Game Show is that there's already a sequel coming to one of my favorite games of the year. I'm not sure about the name "Desperate Struggle," but a new "No More Heroes?" Hellz yea.

Just back from a demo of Playstation Home with Jack Buser, director of the service for Sony Computer Entertainment America.

As most of you probably know, Home is the "Second Life" 3-D world Sony is developing to help its members socialize, discover new content and services, and, of course, trump Microsoft's currently superior online gaming platform Xbox Live.

Sony hasn't announced a launch date for Home, which is in private beta. Buser would only say it will be this fall. But then as we were checking out the new space in "Home" devoted to Sony's game "Uncharted" we noticed that the code to get in one of the locked doors is "1024." And Buser added that the number comes from the front of the apartment buildings where Home users have their "personal space." "But who knows what it means?" he added (I'm paraphrasing).

Gee, what could the number 1024 mean in an online service that doesn't have a launch date beyond "fall?" Let's think really hard about this one...

As someone who's not in the beta (I don't have a retail PS3 and just got my debug unit a few weeks ago literally) I hadn't seen much of Home before and I'd say I was pretty impressed. It certainly looks better than any virtual worlds on PCs that I have seen and it appears to be very easy to navigate. There's a fair amount of stuff to do, from playing casual games to watching trailers to getting in dance contests, all of which are centered on the idea of making and maintaining social connections. That's something that isn't really possible on Xbox Live (unless your idea of making friends is trading variations on the N-word while playing "Halo 3").

Of course, I and many other gamers mostly use XBL and PSN to play with friends we already know. Do we really want to spend the time poking around a virtual world and meeting new people? I don't right now, but maybe I will when it's easy and fun. That's the open question about Home, I suppose.

I also personally liked the fact that the avatars are realistic looking humans, rather than cartoonish caricatures like on the Wii and, it appears, the soon-to-launch update for Xbox Live. Buser said you can deck out your avatar in costumes from your favorite games, which seems like a good way to express yourself but not look like a kids' cartoon character. (Personally I want the ability to dress like the prince from Katamari and roll up other users into a giant ball, but I doubt that will be possible.)

If Home takes off at all, the possibilities for traditional entertainment companies seem substantial. Xbox gamer are already spending money just to get some jpgs of "South Park" or "Family Guy" characters to use for backgrounds and their gamer pic. Imagine how much more excited they would get to deck out a whole virtual apartment in "South Park" gear or dress their avatar like Kenny. Not to mention the possibility to show trailers for upcoming movies, set up a "space" with all sorts of information about the "Dark Knight" DVD release, etc. etc. And of course you could even pay to download and watch a movie in Home with a bunch of virtual friends. In the battle to give Hollywood a platform to deliver content and advertising to the elusive gamer aud, Sony may be getting a leg up.

Update: Joystiq reports from the Tokyo Game Show that Sony indicated Home will go into public beta (rather than the private beta it is currently in) "later this month" in Japan. And presumably the same here in other territories. Which could be what the 1024 means (public beta launch on Oct. 24) instead of a full blown debut.

Not to minimize the importance of a huge company like Google doing pretty much anything, but it's worth remembering amidst all the hype today that the search giant is getting into in-game ads that really it's just going from test phase to beta launch.

As the invaluable PaidContent notes, Google started running ads next to and in online videogames back in November, working with a single partner Bunchball Games and using technology from AdScape, which it bought last February. Now it's working with "select game developers and publishers" like Konami, Playfish, and Demand Media, as well as a few "beta advertisers" like Sprint and Sony Pictures. In other words, Google has been doing ads in Web videogames, it's now doing more of them, and it'll probably keep expanding to more and more advertisers and partners going forward. What we basically know is that the test with Bunchball apparently worked pretty well.

CNET News has a very thorough rundown, as well as an interview with competing company DoubleFusion's CEO Jonathan Epstein, who unsurprisingly thinks the move confirms the potential of the space and doesn't mean more competition. Given how tiny the market is right now and how big it could get, that's not too unfair an assessment though, I think. After all, Google has yet to make a big impact in radio and TV and print ads, despite its efforts in the area recently.

Still, DoubleFusion and others can probably be glad that Google isn't getting into advertising in non-casual games... yet.

If you've read much about "Fracture" or played the demo, it's not hard to see what the game's major fault is: It bassicaly has one great idea -- weapons that can raise or lower the terrain -- and nothing else. It's an uninspired, derivative sci-fi shooter that doesn't do anything wrong technically speaking, but doesn't have anything you haven't seen before in the gameplay. You shoot hundreds of anonymous, kinda stupid enemies in bland settings over and over and over until you're done. It would have been a better experience to offer "Fracture's" entrencher weapon as DLC for "Gears of War" or "Halo." Which is exactly the fear I and, I'm guessing, many others had in seeing a game marketed so heavily on a single concept.

There is one thing that surprised me, though. I didn't expect great writing, but "Fracture's" script is truly godawful. It's a terribly hacky, underdeveloped, and cliched sci-fi morality (and I use the word generously) tale. The United States splits in two and one side believes in cybernetics and the other genetic engineering -- it's the kind of sci-fi story a high schooler might come up with. Actually, my more exact thought as a member of the entertainment industry is it's the kind of idea that would end up on the defunct Query Letters I Love blog for terrible ideas sent unsolicited to producers.

Not to belabor the point, but really, what can you say about a game in which the protagonist is named "Jet Brody?" Even by the standards of LucasFilm, the company that brought us Jar Jar Binks and atomic bomb-proof refrigerators, that's bad. (On the other hand, LucasArts just brought us the best written videogame of the year in "The Force Unleashed," so we know they can do better.)

And the dialogue? It's full of zingers like "Is this a bad time to request a transfer?" and "So he's a genius with advanced weapon systems and a grudge. This'll end well." However the real howler (minor spoiler alert) comes at the end of act 2 when Jet finally rescues the mysterious woman who has been begging him telepathically to rescue her (very original idea; nothing like that in "Halo" at all).

"You're telepathic?" he asks her. "Don't be silly, nobody is telepathic," she replies. "Some animals like dolphins or bats can communicate sub-sonically. The Pacificans have been conducting experiments to do the same thing with humans."

(Quotes aren't exact since I had to take notes quickly.)

Regular readers know I'm a big proponent of improved storytelling that's better integrated with gameplay. But scripts like "Fracture" make me think that some games would be better off just going without a plot and trying to make some good levels.

But other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Not all that bad. Terrain deformation is compelling for a while before you get used to it. Technically, "Fracture" works and looks great. If you skip all the cut scenes and ignore your character's name, you'll find a competent shooter with level design that's mostly average and only occasionally bad.

Here's an excerpt from my review that is running in today's Daily Variety:

"Fracture" is a feature in search of a videogame. LucasFilm division LucasArts’ latest attempt to establish a new intellectual property beyond Star Wars and Indiana Jones takes one compelling innovation -- weapons that can raise or lower the terrain -- and plugs it into a standard "Halo-esque" sci-fi shooter with no other original ideas. Add an embarrassing script that feels like it was pulled from the bottom of a studio's slush pile and the result is a game that’s merely competent -- and has little chance of succeeding against the holiday season’s big action games or establishing the franchise LucasArts desires.

And you can read the whole thing here.

We all know that E3 didn't go too well this summer. We all know that E for All was far from a mob scene.  We know that IDG runs both E3 and E for All. We know that Kotaku has reported that the ESA is considering opening up E3 to the public next year. Asked about the future of E for All, an IDG rep said that the company would have announcements about future events soon.

Given all that, it seems entirely logical to me that IDG and the ESA will be announcing they are merging the two events in some way next summer. Maybe they'll say it's E3 for the industry for a day or two and then open it up to the public and call it E for All for a few days. Maybe it'll be E for All in one public section and E3 in a separate private section. Either way, it's essentially killing off the unsuccessful E for All expo and improving the troubled E3 by making it a Tokyo Game Show or Leipzig-like partially public event. But it sounds nicer by saying they're merging, doesn't it?

Of course, maybe I'm totally wrong. This is just an educated guess.

As noted below, Variety critic Leigh Alexander has an interesting post on her SexyVideogameLand blog that uses her uniquely positive review of "Silent Hill: Homecoming" as a jumping off point to rant (her word, not mine) about reviews in general. I wanted to comment on it, so first, here's the important part I'm responding to:

I feel that we -- both reviewers and audiences -- get so hung up on certain minor debates with important titles that we miss their accomplishments. Most of the discussion around Metal Gear Solid 4, for example, hinged on criticizing Hideo Kojima's aggrandizing, overburdened directorial style. And it's a fair criticism, but wouldn't it be also fair to note that the late-game "microwave hallway" scene and the visceral, psychological impact it evokes deserves to be one of the most memorable moments of the year, or that the all-female, emotionally traumatized Beauty & Beast unit is one of the most interesting slates of villains we've seen in the comparatively short history of our medium?

Stuff like that is all there in any game if you want to look -- and it saddens me when I see that what we most want to do is to nitpick, make self-referential comparisons, and grab quick and easy answers on whether something is "good" or "bad," or "better than" or "worse than" what we're used to. Especially when we were all too happy to criticize "what we're used to" in the days when it was still new.

Critics should be critical; I'm not suggesting people should stop raising complaints when something doesn't strike them right. But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over. And the discussion and debate that's taken place here at SVGL in the last week just about genre definitions and combat design mechanics demonstrates, I think, that there is not always a "right answer," there is not some universal standard-meter that starts at one hundred percent and just keeps dropping for every flaw we find.

Basically, I think Leigh is right. Game critics (broadly speaking) do attribute too much to minor details, especially ones that are already present in games they love, and fail to give credit to bigger picture advances in storytelling and gameplay.

On the other hand, this sentence strikes me as very wrong: "But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over." If this were true, one would expect videogame reviews to be consistently negative. And that's obviously not the case, right? On the contrary, I would argue that videogame reviews are by and large too positive. I didn't see many critics deliberately searching for things to dislike in "Grand Theft Auto IV" or "Halo 3" or "Mass Effect" or "Super Mario Galaxy" or "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." On the contrary, these AAA, heavily marketed franchises (mostly sequels) with gameplay very similar to what the hardcore audience has seen and loved before got overwhelmingly positive reviews. Sure, many admitted, the story in "Halo 3" was inpenetrable and the the combat in "Mass Effect" was wonky and "Brawl" is barely an advance over the last installment and has major problems with online play, but those were largely brushed aside as minor considerations.

What I think (and this is of course my interpretation; I'm not trying to put words in Leigh's mouth) is that in the case of games that are different in some way (like a new IP, or a sequel from a new developer as in the case of "Silent Hill: Homecoming"), a lot of videogame critics obsess about the small stuff because they don't like the big picture. Here's my best example: "The Simpsons Game." Yes, it had some camera problems and yes the gameplay wasn't too fresh. But it was a parody of videogame and gamer culture and it was (at least as far as most videogames go) flat out hilarious. The gameplay wasn't supposed to original since it was, of course, a satire. People were meant to buy that game to laugh, not to enjoy the innovative controls. And what happened? By and large, critics faulted the game heavily for its camera problems and unoriginal gameplay and didn't give much credit to the humor, the rare attempt to use a videogame to satirize other videogames, or the even rarer successful infusion of the spirit of a popular Hollywood property into its videogame adaptation.

Another example: "Grand Theft Auto IV." Don't get me wrong, I liked this game. And unlike "The Simpsons Game," my positive review was largely in line with most other critics' assessments. But consider what some people said about it. IGN called it an "Oscar-caliber drama." Game Informer wrote, "Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t just raise the bar for the storied franchise; it completely changes the landscape of gaming. Once you play it, you won’t look at video games the same way again." I'm not saying these guys are wrong. But "GTA IV" had faults, many people now agree. The story gets more ridiculous as it goes on. There's a huge disconnect between the things you can make Nico do and the way he acts and is perceived in the story. If a new game, or a sequel to a less respected franchise, had the same faults and qualities as "GTA IV," do you think most critics would have gone as craz for it? I don't.

We rave about "Gears of War" (great game; love it; play it online all the time) even though it has major wall-sticking issues and come down hard on "Kane and Lynch," which has the same problem. Sure, "Gears" does many things better, but the latter pushes videogame into a darker world of moral consequences than anything else I've seen recently, particularly in its finale. Where's the credit for that?

Basically, I think another way of saying what Leigh's getting at is that many game critics, particularly those who write for avid fans, can obsess over controls or menu design problems in titles that are doing something innovative in tone or theme, but downplay the same types of faults in games that are essentially improvements on the ones they already love.

The result is that we don't value innovation or attempts to do something big and new, like make a funny game that's thematically consistent with an all-time great TV show or create psychological impact through artful storytelling integrated with gameplay, because we obsess on the mechanical problems or the length of the cutscenes. Not that those things don't matter. But they don't matter that much, especially for an artistically immature medium in desperate need of innovation and freshness.

If we re-arranged our priorities, I think we'd have more critics "championing" certain games or developers. In the end, that's what I'm calling for and I think that's what Leigh's implying. In the film world, there were critics who championed the then-radical filmmakers of the '70s who transformed the world of cinema. Wouldn't it be great if there were more videogame critics who championed certain titles or artists, while acknowledging their imperfections, the way Leigh does "Silent Hill: Homecoming" and Hideo Kojima?

Sure it happens, like with "Braid" or the original "Guitar Hero," but even then it's a bizarrely universal championing. Where are the wildly divergent opinons? The champions and haters hashing it out over a controversial developer's new work? The innovative games that get a bunch of 20's and a bunch of 90's on Metacritic?

Of course there will always be those who just want a rundown of gameplay elements and analyses of how good they are compared to what's come before. But it's also wonderful to see critics with completely different orientations as to what matters and what doesn't when reviewing a game. If in the process they pick some fights, get a lot of hate mail, or are even (gasp!) way off of the average Metacritic score, all the better, I say. The videogame audience is maturing, and the result is that there are gamers who want to be challenged by critics to think about what they're playing, or should be playing, in a new way. The more critics who are championing what's new, challenging what we think is good, and engaging with each other and the audiences, the better off the art form of videogames will be.

(PS I very much welcome discussion of this in the comments. But if you end up ranting about how much "Kane and Lynch" sucked or why "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" is pure perfection, you have missed the point and should read the post again instead of commenting.)

One of the advantages of being part of a major media conglomerate is the ability to put on a huge marketing push in multiple media with relative ease.

That's what Warner Bros. has done for "Lego Batman," as Variety reporter Marc Graser details in this story. There's a tie-in to an animated "Justice League" DVD, a DC Comic, ads on Cartoon Network and KidsWB.com, trailers on Warner  Bros. DVDs, and even a toy tie-in at McDonalds.

Warner Bros. of course has a good relationship with McDonalds for Happy Meal toys. But when was the last time you saw a videogame company score a tie-in with McDonalds? I don't remember one.

"There are tentpole films and we're trying to create tentpole games," Warner Bros. Interactive president Martin Tremblay told Marc.

As more and more traditional media congloms get into videogames (Warner Bros. and Disney have big operations, Universal and Paramount are just getting started), these multi-media promotional blitzes are a big advantage they have over traditional publishers, which do videogames and not much else.

Consider, for example, the partnerships EA has had to make just to get a "Dead Space" comic and animated direct-to-DVD movie. That's the kind of thing Warner Bros. or Disney can do with ease.

Of course, it's a bit easy to do this with "Lego Batman," since the caped crusader is a known quantity in every corner of the Time Warner world. It'll be really interesting to see if Warner Bros. Interactive can produce equal excitement with its corporate siblings for a more hardcore title like February's "F.E.A.R. 2."

You can get all the details on the "Lego Batman" marketing assault in Marc's story here.

Related: Lego Batman review

Late October is turning out to be an incredibly rich few weeks in the videogame world. I now have in my possession review copies of (what look to be) three of the most exciting games of the year: "LittleBigPlanet," "Dead Space" and "Fable II."(Not to mention "Fallout 3," which I haven't received yet.)

Like most such review copies, all three came with information about the game, tips for reviewers to make sure they don't get stuck and see all the best stuff, etc. But "Fable II" comes with something more unusual -- A letter from Peter Molyneux with a specific request for reviewers:

I have a favour to ask you -- we build this game not only to appeal to gamers like yourself, but to appeal to anybody. So please, please, please, please, pleae find somebody who doesn't play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it's only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through.

It's a good suggestion. Then again, I think it's a good suggestion for most games, at least if you're writing for a publication like Variety where a good number of our readers are not avid gamers. On the other hand, I think reviewers (at least for non-core publications) should be able to analyze how a more casual player would experience the game. It's kind of part of the job. And while I sometimes do and probably will in the case of "Fable II" get a casual player to try it out, I can't realistically ask them to play it for 10 or 20 hours in order to "see how their world turns out."

Molyneux also devotes two paragraphs to explaining how great online co-op is going to be, but how we won't be able to review that until after the game comes out, perhaps in the first week, via the promised Xbox Live update. Which brings up an interesting question: Should reviewers wait until online co-op is enabled to run their reviews? Or run a review with the caveat that an important feature isn't yet working? I'm actually not sure of the answer. On the one hand, it seems like readers would be well served by a review that includes an analysis of one of the game's key features. On the other hand, reviews (at least online) can be updated just like games and wouldn't readers be well served by a review that's available when the game comes out, perhaps with an update when that feature is added, rather than having to wait a week or even longer to get a review?

On a related note, I've played most of the campaign of "Fracture" and am ready to review it, but I'm going to wait to see if I can find anybody online to play with tomorrow in multi-player. I haven't been able to find any of my fellow reviewers (or anyone else who has the game) so far. Not to give too much away, but the multi-player would really have to wow me for "Fracture" to get more than an "enhhh" after what I've seen of the campaign.

Update: There's some confusion in the comments here and elsewhere, so let me be clear: Molyneux did not ask anyone to hold their review until after online co-op is added. He just explained that online co-op would be launching via an update soon after launch. I asked the question whether we should wait for that to write a review. The request that he made of reviewers is that we watch a non-experienced gamer play "Fable 2."