Ubisoft is taking a non-traditional route in its marketing of this fall’s “Assassin’s Creed 2”. The company previously announced plans to create a series of short films revolving around the game. Now it’s divulging details.

The first of three episodes will debut on Oct. 27 on YouTube. Each will revolve around Giovanni Auditore da Firenze, the father of the game’s main character. And each will give background on the title’s story and universe, as well as introduce some of the side characters – both friend and foe – that players will encounter in the game.

The films were developed by Ubisoft’s Hybride Technologies – the visual effects studio behind the films “300” and “Sin City”. (Ubisoft bought the company last July.) They’ll blend live action with CGI, one of the Hybride’s specialties.

It’s part of an ongoing movement by the publisher to expand its franchises into new mediums. That makes sense when you consider “Assassin’s Creed 2” has cost the company over $30 million to create.

At E3 earlier this year, Ubisoft CEO Yved Guillemot said as production costs continue to rise on new games, Ubisoft will focus on ways to amortize those expenses by reusing animations and graphics in multiple mediums. Video has been an increasingly important priority for the company.

Financial advantages aside, this could be a good way to whip up interest in new titles and build good viral campaigns for new games. It might not work so well with, say, the “Raving Rabbids” franchise, but imagine the fun Hybride could have with Sam Fisher as “Splinter Cell: Conviction” get closer to launch. 

The exodus of high-profile games from the holiday season is getting longer – and more painful.

Ubisoft today announced it will delay “Splinter Cell: Conviction” and “Red Steel II” until its fourth fiscal quarter. In the real world calendar, that means we won’t see the games until sometime between January and March 2010.

Meanwhile, “Ghost Recon” and “I am Alive” – which were slated for early next year – have been moved back to unspecified dates in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, making them both candidates for holiday 2010 releases.

Major title delays are the ‘in’ thing with publishers lately. Take Two pushed back “BioShock 2” earlier this month. Sony has delayed “Heavy Rain” until early next year. And Activision bumped “Singularity”. 

Add on rumors that “Starcraft II” and “MAG” may not make their release dates.

For other industries, such as film and television, that have seen their audiences affected by busy gamers, this could be an opportunity to steal back the eyeballs, even if it’s only for a brief period of time. 

Ubisoft has added another pair of Hollywood heavyweights to its partner list.

The company, which is currently working with director James Cameron on the gaming tie-in with “Avatar,” announced today it would be working with Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy of the upcoming “Tintin”. The publisher also will re-team with Peter Jackson, who it worked together with on 2005’s “King Kong”.

“We can create good games, but we are still very junior at creating movies, so why not join forces with the best of the best to make our visions come to life?,” said Yves Guillemot, president and CEO of Ubisoft.

Ubisoft has been beefing up its Hollywood presence significantly in recent years. The company acquired special effects house Hybride Technologies last year. The company also owns a computer animation studio in Montreal called Ubisoft Digital Arts.

"Wheelman" has had a long and not-so-smooth history, to say the least. It started production at Midway's Australia studio, only to moved to Newcastle in the UK, where it was then re-started a third time when the publisher decided to do all its development in Unreal Engine.

Then there's the film tie-in. Three years ago, I wrote an article in Variety about Midway's deal with Paramount's MTV Films label to simultaneously develop a "Wheelman" film. The plan back then was to release the game and film, both of which would star Vin Diesel, simultaneously in late 2007. MTV was going to produce the game's soundtrack, sell in-game advertising, and provide significant marketing support.

Three years, numerous delays, and one bankruptcy later, "Wheelman" is finally out. MTV has nothing to do with the project anymore and Midway has handed off publishing rights to Ubisoft in exchange for some badly needed cash.

After all that, perhaps it's no surprise that "Wheelman" feels, well, a couple of years too late. As I wrote in my review, "What might have seemed like competent copying a couple of years ago pales next to 2008's 'Burnout: Paradise' and 'Grand Theft Auto IV.' 'Wheelman' offers a few spectacular racing mechanics, but otherwise fails to meet the mark of those top-shelf inspirations."

Put even more simply, if you're going to so blatantly be influenced by rip off other games, you've got to be at least as good as them.    

That being said, some of the driving action is really fun. Bashing nearby cars with a flick of the right thumbstick; slowing down time to shoot everyone around you (the racing equivalent of bullet time); and even "airjacking" a nearby vehicle by jumping from roof to roof. It all works and it's all good fun, especially when the developers mix things up a bit by putting Diesel's character in a semi truck or sending the race into a narrow pedestrian walkway or through a building.

If the game were limited to its dozens of side missions in which players engage in various types of races to earn badges, it would at least be a consistent, smooth ride. Add in multi-player with all those features and it might have been great.

But perhaps because of the presence of a movie star with his name above the title -- when was the last time that happened in a video game? -- there's a confusing, half-assed, cliched story involving an undercover cop, gangs, and other "GTA" wanna-be material.

"The result of attempting both," I wrote in my review, "is extreme tonal conflict. It's difficult to take anything Milo says or does seriously when he's been jumping from roof to roof in cars speeding more than 100 miles per hour."

Full review: Wheelman

This evening at the Game Developers Conference, Ubisoft hosted a small roundtable discussion (moderated by former Newsweek reporter N'Gai Croal) for press with three of its top creators from Montreal, along with the studio's CEO Yannis Mallat. The game creators who spoke were "Far Cry 2" creative director Clint Hocking, "Prince of Persia" producer Ben Mattes, and "EndWar" creative director Michael De Plater.

It's a rare and cool thing to see a video game publisher put people involved in creating their games -- and not executives (well, only one) -- front and center. In an industry that doesn't promote its creative talent enough, especially in casual forums where ideas can flow and journalists can have casual discussions with artists, Ubisoft did something I'd love to see others do more.

Hocking had some particularly interesting comments about what what video game creators don't need to learn from Hollywood. Mallat, on the other hand, expressed his strong belief that movie and video games production are merging -- Although his specific points about Ubisoft Montreal's work on the "Avatar" game were the same talking points you hear about any movie-based game. Mattes, perhaps tellingly, ended up talking almost exclusively about the role of A.I. partner Elika in his game (to me, she was the most interesting part of the game, in how she worked and how she failed).

Transcribing the entire roundtable -- let along the very long post-panel small group discussions -- is a bit beyond my capabilities. But I did write down some of the most interesting quotes from the evening for Cut Scene readers to enjoy:

Yannis Mallat

Michael De Plater

Clint Hocking

Ben Mattes

Before we gave ["Prince of Persia" partner character] Elika personality, she was a mechanic. She was what keeps you from dying.

The one thing I would beat my chest about is that we succeeded in creating an A.I. character [Elika] that you don't hate.

I find it interesting that some people say the game is too easy, but they don't point the finger at Elika.

[Talking about why there's no "dying" in "Prince of Persia"] The second you see [Elika's] hand grasping, you know you failed. You can make of that what you will.

There have to be ways to not punish players while making sure the guys on NeoGAF have enough to sink their teeth into.

[Talking about how the Prince and Elika grasp hands to swing past each other when hanging onto a pole in the game] That was an animation that was done to solve some bug we had the week before E3. It become one of the game's most touching moments.

If I were to do it again... I'd say we should take the mannerisms that make these people interesting and break them down into interactivity.

Most video game professionals will tell you that switching a game from one developer to another mid-production is a costly and difficult move that rarely makes sense artistically or financially. You have to transfer assets and get an entire new team trained not only on the technology modified for the game, but creatively in the mindset that has gone into its world, characters, and mechanics. It's really hard to justify.

And yet... It sure seems to be happening this year. First came "Splatterhouse," which Namco Bandai took away from BottleRocket in February. The publisher is currently, according to my sources, considering what new developer it will assign the game to (I hear the internal team that made "Afro Samurai" is a candidate but not a sure thing). On Friday, Ubisoft confirmed that it took "I am Alive" away from independent developer DarkWorks and is giving the game to its internal studio in Shanghai to complete.

And of course there's Sega's two "Aliens" games, previously in development at Gearbox and Obsidian, both of which have been taken away from their respective independent developers while the publisher figures out what to do with them. According to my sources, the games were put on hold purely for budgetary reasons. Sega is suffering from the recession and its own business problems and can't justify spending the millions it would take to finish producing them, especially since they might not have even come out this fiscal year.

That leaves Sega with two games it would still like to complete, as I've previously reported. But doing so will probably require, yes, handing them over to new developers.

I'd hardly call it a major trend. But it is clear that publishers seem willing to do what the convention wisdom tells us they shouldn't, which indicates something is changing in the economics of the industry, or the incentives publishers are encountering during a recession, to make taking games away from outside developers mid-production seem more logical.

Ubisoft's number 2 publishing executive in North America, Jay Cohen, has left the building.

The French publisher's senior VP of publishing has resigned, several sources indicated and a Ubisoft spokesperson confirmed.

One of a small number of executives who reported to Ubisoft North America president Laurent Detoc, Cohen oversaw content acquisition, strategic planning, partnerships, financial planning, and the company's Canadian and Mexican operations.

Basically, he's one of the relatively small number of executives in the American video game biz who plays a key role in deciding what gets made and what gets bought at a major publisher. Which is why people notice when he leaves and word is starting to get out.

It's not clear known what he left to do, though I have heard he coming to down here in L.A., and not to work at one of the big publishers like Activision Blizzard. Which could mean he's going to one of  the many entertainment companies here that are getting into video games.

Meanwhile, Ubisoft isn't replacing Cohen. Instead the remaining top executives, like North America president Laurent Detoc and senior VP sales and marketing Tony Key, are taking over his role. Given all the cutbacks we've seen in the past year, that's probably not a sign that there isn't plenty of talent on the market, but rather Ubisoft being conservative in a recession.

One more Brash game has found a new home.

The Wii version of "Six Flags Fun Park," the mini-game collection from 7 Studios that got a Six Flags license slapped on at the last minute, will be published by Ubisoft next month, as this website and this Amazon page indicate.

The DS version was the very last game that Brash shipped before its demise in November..

Posting will be light today and tomorrow as I'm in Park City, Utah,  at the Sundance Film Festival to moderate a panel on storytelling in videogames (basic info here). It looks like a great panel and I'm told that it is being filmed and that it should be digitized so hopeuflly I'll be able to post it here for you all to cringe at watch next week.

Here's the panelists. FYI, it's sponsored by Activision Blizzard, which is why you'll find three out of the four of them do or have worked for the company. Still a very good group, though, I think:

Meanwhile, there is news today and unfortunately I don't have time to lend much analysis. So I recommend checking out Gamasutra for solid write ups of disappointing earnings and layoffs at Microsoft and Sony, as well at slightly better news at Ubisoft, including a solid launch for "Far Cry 2," a more disappointing debut for "Prince of Persia" (perhaps because it came later in the year and deeper in the recession) and the official if unsurprising announcement that "Assassin's Creed 2" is coming by next March (and probably this holiday season).

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

Drumroll, please, as we present our picks for the #1 best game released in 2008. A first-person shooter, an RPG, a casual family game and a stealth actioner with 30 minute-plus cutscenes. An original, a "2," a "3," and a "4." Two American games, a French Canadian game and a Japanese game. A PS3 exclusive, a Wii exclusive, and two multi-platformers. Two unqualified hits and two moderate sellers. I'd say this is a pretty diverse and interesting set of choices...

Tom Chick

Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal)

Of all the places I went this year without leaving my house, "Far Cry 2's" lush African countryside was my favorite, and not just because these are currently the best graphics I've ever seen. Here is a game that breathes without breathing down my neck. It's not afraid to let me roam without making the gameplay equivalent of idle chit-chat. With its emphasis on an interface-free interface, it does a tremendous job getting out of my way (in this respect, it is the anti-"Fallout 3") and letting me just be here. If Terence Malick were to make a videogame, it would be "Far Cry 2." And when things happen, they happen dramatically and dynamically. There's a glorious sense of spontaneity in the way the shooting erupts, unfolds, progresses. I almost never feel that these firefights were built by the developers. In fact, I almost never feel that about any of the moments in "Far Cry 2." These moments are mine. Some games unfold. Others are revealed. Some are like thrill rides. Others are like  playgrounds. But "Far Cry 2" is a beautiful place where amazing things simply happen. 

Chris Dahlen

Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks / Bethesda)

I could go on about each of the core elements the game got right – that it was so much more than "Oblivion" with shotguns, that even the escort missions were fun, and that the sight of the Chinese army invading a ‘50s "Leave it to Beaver" cul-de-sac will stay with me for years to come. But the single reason I loved "Fallout 3" was that I never knew what was around the next corner.

Ben Fritz

Boom Blox (EA / EA Casual)

The first great game for the Wii that would only work for the Wii is also the most surprisingly deep, universally accessible, and  unyieldingly enjoyable videogame of 2008. Using the Wii-mote to play with blocks seems like the most obvious concept in the world (no offense, Mr. Spielberg), but the development team at EALA crafted an experience so rich that I’ve enjoyed it with non-gamers, with hardcore gamer friends, with kids, and by myself late into the night. The diverse array of challenges and huge number of levels stands as proof that “casual” and “core” are not mutually exclusive. “Boom Blox” is the videogame that demonstrates, truly, we all can play together.

Leigh Alexander

Metal Gear Solid 4 (Konami / Kojima Prods.)

Simultaneously one of the highest-rated and most controversial titles of the year, it polarized its audience. Sure, there were those who loved the game's uncontested technical polish and the most sophisticated implementation yet seen of the franchise's stealth mechanics -- but much of the discussion revolved around the merit (or lack thereof) of Hideo Kojima's self-indulgent directorial style and the game's long periods of non-interactivity badly in need of an editor.
 
But a brilliant director who's overambitious is essential to a medium long constrained by narrative status quo, risk aversion and repetition. Look closely at the subtleties of "Metal Gear Solid 4's" brilliant postmodernism -- underneath the overt sprawl lies an exercise in stunning elegance whose largest failing was that it imposed itself on an audience that prefers a different format.

And that's a wrap. I'll provide a convenient summary of all four of our top ten lists in a post later today. Don't forget to cast your votes for the top games of the year here.

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

Tom Chick

Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks / Bethesda)

I didn't do this intentionally, but once I'd arranged my list I realized that my top four games of 2008 are all powerfully imagined and skillfully created open worlds, with rock-solid infrastructures of good gameplay and an unwavering emphasis on freedom. Here are almost unprecedented juxtapositions of developer creativity and player freedom ("Grand Theft Auto IV" would have belonged among this rare company if Rockstar had either written a better story or designed a better game). "Fallout 3" is the most contrived of the four, proceeding apace along the usual RPG trappings like dialogue trees, fussy interface muckery, and occasionally clunky world building. But it's an unforgettably bleak and epic experience, brave enough to be barren and gray, but crammed with stories, vignettes, characters, and sights. Some fans of the "Fallout" series were worried that it would be "Oblivion" with guns. "Oblivion" should be so lucky.

Chris Dahlen

Left 4 Dead (Valve and EA / Valve)

The brilliance of "Left 4 Dead’s" co-operative play lies in the way that even strangers learn to work as a team, knowing their survival is at stake.  And if you play with friends, you get a rare chance to see their true character come through. I never get sick of reading about people's experiences in the game – Daniel Purvis’ tale of cowardice under pressure is my favorite - because the same few elements can afflict you in so many ways. Sort of like browsing old chess games, with a much, much scarier queen. 

Ben Fritz

Braid (Number None)

If nothing else, “Braid” entranced me with a quality I never knew videogames could possess: relaxation. Spending hours pondering, experimenting, and rewinding time while figuring out brain-bending puzzles to the tune of a wistful cello solo and the sight of swirling watercolors was a wholly unique and utterly invigorating experience. Themes of loss, regret, and forgiveness are subtly woven and then masterfully brought home, even if the epilogue is unbearably pretentious.

Leigh Alexander

No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)

It's shamelessly bizarre, heavy-handed, clunky and incisively brilliant from beginning to end, a loving send-up of the very gamer culture that eats up the deprecating self-references with glee. Little moments of genius abound: the actually joyous use of the Wii's controls, the necessity of playing an entire stage hanging upside down from one's couch, and the population of villains who, given only brief cameos, seem more exciting and fully-realized than all of the grave animated robots we've been fed all year.

Coming tomorrow morning: The third best videogame(s) of 2008.

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

Chris Dahlen

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo / Level 5)

I love solving puzzles. I love being patted on the head when I get one right. And I love a game that will give me little, helpful hints but never hand me the answer, no matter how much I beg.

Ben Fritz

de Blob (THQ / Blue Tongue)

This unlikely translation of a Dutch student project into a AAA American release is the most unjustly overlooked videogame of the year, both critically and commercially. Its embrace of color and music over gray monotony may be simple, but it’s the infusion of those aesthetics into the gameplay, so that the visual and aural richness of the world grows along with the player’s progress, that makes “de Blob” so impressive and infectious.

Leigh Alexander

PixelJunk Eden (Sony / Q Games)

Quickly glance at its undulating colors, ambient techno and iconic floral design (which I wholly believe is ripped off in the graphic design for some current Sears ads) and it's easy to dismiss "PixelJunk Eden" as an "art" game. In fact, it's deceptively accessible in its simplicity, sometimes deliciously frustrating, and often luminously trance-inducing. Its taut design subtly graduates the player into ever more expansive challenges and provides a real sense of growth and unfurling along the way.

Tom Chick

EndWar (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Shanghai)

Okay, I'm going to get wonky here. "EndWar" is not your normal real time strategy game, and not just because it finally cracks the code for how to play an RTS on a console system (The key? Voice commands!). "EndWar" is a gamble. In fact, I think it misreads the appeal of the genre. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this turned out to be a commercial fiasco for Ubisoft. But that's what you risk when you cannily rework how real time strategy games play. "EndWar" is about moving pieces on a board and psyching out your opponent. It's about knowing when to push and when to give. It's about carefully upgrading your units over the course of a perhaps too dynamic campaign. This is one of the most subversive game designs of the year for how it takes the fussy action movie motif of a typical RTS and recasts it as an elegant European board game. If Reiner Knizia made RTSs, this is the one he'd make. See, I told you I was going to get wonky.

Coming this afternoon: The fourth best videogame(s) of 2008.

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

"Most disappointing" does not necessarily mean the worst (after all, we don't want to shower Brash with too many prizes). Rather, these are the games that Variety's critics believe fell the furthest short of our expectations and their potential.

Ben Fritz

Wii Music (Nintendo / Nintendo)

Finally, an accessible social videogame that uses peripherals to let anyone play music. Oh wait, I’m thinking of “Guitar Hero. And “Rock Band.” And even “Ultimate Band.” "Wii Music" is an unnecessary, cacophonous mess of a game (if it even is one, not that it matters) in which most attempts at making music sound worse than an elementary school orchestra. Though I can’t say I’ll ever forget the David Lynch-esque experience of watching a cheerleader, a sitar player, and a man in a dog suit performing “Daydream Believer.”

Wall-E (THQ / Heavy Iron)

To a certain extent, this choice is a stand-in for the many lame licensed titles (“Lost: Via Domus,” “Iron Man,” everything from Brash, and on and on) that show Hollywood and game publishers still don’t really have their act together. But “Wall-E” was the most disappointing of them all because it took source material overflowing with romantic spirit and devolved it into a product so unimaginative and formulaic (Wall-E shooting a gun? Really?) it could have come straight from the film’s corporate overlords at Buy n Large.

Spore (EA / Maxis)

Perhaps I didn’t read the marketing materials right, but wasn’t "Spore" supposed to be about evolution? Nothing in this awkward mash-up of “flow,” “Civilization,” and a space rpg resembles real physical or cultural evolution, in which inherited traits and competition inescapably define a species’ fate. The irony is that the “creature creator,” which EA released for free a few months early to whet gamers’ appetite, is far and away the best part of this disappointing package.

Leigh Alexander

Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal)

So gorgeous, so technically excellent, so intriguing at first -- which makes it especially crushing that under all that richly-realized Africa is yet another first-person shooter, and endless litanies of the same ambush mission over and over.

Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar / Rockstar North)

In many ways, it's the wildest and most poignant video game ever made -- but in most ways, it's over-weighted, illogical and emotionally manipulative, so that its ploddingly earnest storyline, its precious character tropes and its over-pretension nearly suffocate its fun and sharp cleverness

Tom Chick

Too Human (Microsoft / Silicon Knights)

Although it's an action RPG that misses the point of action RPGs, it's one of the year's only games about cyber-Vikings.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts / LucasArts)

Great story. Shame about the game. 

Haze (Ubisoft / Free Radical)

The guys who made "Goldeneye" and "Timesplitters" have come to this?

Chris Dahlen

Spore (EA / Maxis)

Like everybody, I read all the advance hype for the game. And I don’t think my disappointment in the final release stems from backlash, so much as confusion: playing through one full campaign and a couple restarts, I never felt like I saw the point, never had an intuitive understanding of any of the decisions I was making, never felt the urge to go back and try a different path, and never believed that the three key parts of the game - play, create, and share - worked together in any but the most simplistic ways. Instead of revolutionizing user generated content, it trivialized it: Yes, your hermaphrodite alligator man has very spiky eyebrows, but if they don’t impact gameplay, who cares?

Mirror's Edge (EA / Dice)

" Mirror’s Edge" frustrated and annoyed a lot of players. Its soothing aesthetic didn’t match its difficulty: imagine trying to play a game of "Rock Band," except the song stops cold every time you miss a note. Combat should’ve been truly optional, and the cheapest deaths should’ve been caught in playtesting. And yet in spite of it all, I keep coming back to it – for the almost sensual pleasures of sliding down a sheer glass wall or riding the top of a subway train, or feeling the “oomph” as Faith slings herself over yet another ledge. 

Fracture (LucasArts / Day 1 Studios)

...and a dozen other shooters with high production values, elaborate cinematics, ample headshots, and nothing else to offer. I slogged through a lot of these this year, but "Fracture" saw the biggest boost from LucasArts and the most hype for its supposedly innovative “make a pile of dirt almost anywhere you want” mechanic. So I’ll honor it as one of the year’s highest-profile duds.

Coming Monday morning: The fifth best videogame(s) of 2008

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

Tom Chick

Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Rockstar / Rockstar San Diego)

It's not a good year for videogaming without an almost perfect racing title lighting up the room. "Midnight Club: Los Angeles" is this year's belle of the ball, with its crowded and evocative Los Angeles-a-like serving as a shrewdly crafted rumpus room for the same great driving physics that graced "Grand Theft Auto IV," but this time with better AI in the other cars. No one does traffic like Rockstar, bless their city-building hearts. But this next-gen "Midnight Club" will really ruin other racing games for you once you see how well it plays by actually looking at the world instead of a minimap. Not since "Forza" invented a color-coded gravity indicator (really!) has a driving game so successfully put you in the driver's seat instead of behind a TV screen.

Chris Dahlen

No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)

Probably the roughest and least accessible game on my list, "No More Heroes" succeeds because of the way its story explores one of pop culture’s best lies - namely, that an average schmuck can become a winner through doggedness and hard labor, whether it’s pumping gas and cleaning trash, or spending half an hour wearing down a lolita with a lethal baseball bat. And the fact that after all that, Travis Touchdown remains a schmuck, is the perfect kicker. 

Ben Fritz

No More Heroes (Marvelous and Ubisoft / Grasshopper Manufacture)

The first action game to successfully embrace the Wii from the ground up, rather than jamming in something that works 100 times better on a PS3 or 360. The swordplay and wrestling are a bloody good time and the villians are over-the-top awesome. But “No More Heroes” really stands out for the way it overflows with style tailor-made for its audience, giving gamers the ultra-violent, retro, bombastic, hilarious fantasy life they never knew they wanted. It’s “The Last Starfighter” for otaku.

Leigh Alexander

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (Konami / Konami)

Though "Castlevania" creator Koji Igarashi persists, in the face of fan pleas to the contrary, in pursuing the franchise in 3D and on next-gen consoles, the long-running series continues to shine on the DS. There, its jaw-droppingly complex and artful 2D sprites can take center stage, while the stylus controls make for intuitive mechanics that don't try to overhaul the basics. Previous DS "Castlevania" titles have excelled, but "Order of Ecclesia" combines a lovely heroine, environments as variegated as they are visually captivating, and the smashing new "Glyph" game system for what feels like the series' richest and most challenging entry since the classic "Symphony of the Night."

Coming tomorrow morning: The sixth best videogame(s) of 2008

Here's a way to help increase respect for videogames in mainstream culture: Celebrate a release with the lamest collection of Hollywood c-list reality stars imaginable.

That's what Ubisoft is bringing us tonight with a launch party for "Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party." I've seen my share of lame videogame launch parties here in Hollywood, but this one really takes the cake in terms of the lamest group of people who almost certainly know little to nothing about the game.

Is associating videogames with the caliber of celebs listed below really good for the industry and the art form? I'd venture not. Though I guess the nicest thing we could say is that "Raving Rabbids" is aimed at a very casual audience full of Moms who probably watch and read the E!/Access Hollywood/AOL  type of shows and websites that would cover this.

Ubisoft presents RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS® TV PARTY VIDEO GAME LAUNCH PARTY

WHAT:             In celebration of Ubisoft’s newest video game, Rayman Raving Rabbids® TV Party, celebrities and LA’s hottest VIPs will come together to show off their gaming skills at the private launch event hosted by Kim Kardashian. Exclusive to Nintendo, Rayman Raving Rabbids® TV Party is taking full advantage of the Wii Balance Board™ accessory by being the very first game that gamers can play with their butts!  In this installment of the hit game series, the Rabbids take control of Rayman’s TV station and monopolize the transmissions for a week, with each day containing a different set of mini-games based on films, fitness programs, gardening programs, etc. Guests will get a chance to preview the new game and snack on TV favorites such as popcorn and hotdogs. DJ Spider will provide the tunes for the night.

WHEN:             Tuesday, December 9, 2008 // 8pm-12am

 Press Check-In to begin @ 7pm

                       Celebrity Arrivals start @ 8pm

WHERE:          Apple Lounge

 665 N Robertson   Blvd // West Hollywood, CA

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Ubisoft's new "Prince of Persia" introduces a metaphysical question we don't think about very often: What does it mean to die in a videogame?

"Prince of Persia" is the rare action/adventure videogame in which the main character simply can't die (maybe the first that doesn't involve time control or "experience points" that can be lost?). Nobody really dies in most videogames in the strictest sense of the word, since they always re-appear a few seconds later (or a few minutes in the case of "Too Human," but I digress). But by the rules of the in-game narrative, they have died, and then essentially time re-starts at the last checkpoint.

In "Prince of Persia," the rules are different. The eponymous hero has a partner, Elika, a princess who's essentially a bohemian hipster with magic powers (I imagine that if she wasn't a princess, she'd sell handmade jewelry in an open-air market, volunteer at a community garden, and organize Kucinich phone banks). Every time the Prince makes a potentially fatal mistake by falling, or getting his ass kicked in a fight, she saves him, essentially doing everything we're used to in a checkpoint system except rewinding time and interrupting the narrative.

Some critics think this makes the game too easy. "Prince of Persia is one of the least frustrating games ever, because you can't die," Chris Kohler wrote in Wired. "[The designers] have eliminated the lows, but also the highs. It is free of frustration, but it is also free of joy."

As others have noted, though, Elika is really just a new reset mechanic. And the fact that it's easy (I agree with Kohler about that, but it didn't really bother me, for reasons explained in my review) is not inherent to the mechanic. There's no reason Elika couldn't drop the Prince off at a smaller number of checkpoints, spaced further apart, than the most recent spot where he stood still. In fights, she could easily restore more health to the enemy when saving the Prince from his imminent doom.

Narratively speaking, Elika solves a major problem inherent to most videogames: They don't explain how characters come back to life after dying. Why is it that Master Chief and Marcus and Nathan Hale are reborn, and time rewinds, after they die? When I was playing "Left 4 Dead" last night, how is it that I re-appeared in a closet a few minutes after getting clawed to death by zombies? Is there some kind of Hindu reincarnation thing going on? Perhaps Tim from "Braid" has been secretly controlling time in every videogame?

We don't ask, because we accept that the gameplay convenience is more important than narrative consistency. When the "Gears of War" movie comes out, I doubt we'll see any characters die and then the plot re-start at a checkpoint a few minutes earlier in the film. We wouldn't accept that because, of course, narrative consistency is of paramount importance in that medium (unless Michael Bay is directing).

"Prince of Persia" takes videogames pushes the art form by confronting this issue and presenting an elegant solution. But in doing so, it introduces a new problem: In order for Elika to be able to save the Prince from situations where he can't save himself, she needs to be more powerful than him. Which forces players to ask two questions: If she can do all this stuff, why is the Prince -- and I, as the person controlling him -- bothering to try so hard? And why does Elika even need him in the first place?

Most of "Prince of Persia" is spent running, swinging, jumping, etc. through environments to collect "light seeds" and/or get to the boss character. But if Elika can fly anywhere at anytime (go ahead and die 20 times in a row; she doesn't even get winded), it seems like she could just fly him there and save the us all the headache of running along walls and shimmying up and down those poles.

Combat is a bit more problematic. The implications in the game seems to be that Elika needs the Prince to help fight the baddies. But that's hard to buy. Many of the Prince's most powerful moves involve Elika jumping in with some magic. And, just as with him falling, she never seems to run out of power to push the enemy off the Prince and restore his health when he's about to get the whipping that, as anyone who has listened to his lame quips knows, he kinda deserves. I have a feeling that with a little more confidence, Elika could have handled every challenge in "Prince of Persia" on her own.

Of course then the game would have been called "Elika," not "Prince of Persia," and I doubt Ubisoft would have given it the greenlight.

But it leaves me asking: Is it possible to have a "dying" mechanic in a videogame that doesn't introduce as many narrative problems as it solves?

Can a videogame be compelling even if it's not challenging?

I come down on the "yes" side of things with my review of Ubisoft's new revamp of "Prince of Persia." It's not like there's a shortage of challenging games out there, after all. "Prince of Persia" offers something different: drop dead gorgeous visuals, an absolutely perfect camera, spare but engrossing sound design, and a wide variety of easily implemented acrobatic moves, all of which combine for a relaxing, meditative experience. As I wrote in my review:

Normally, a shortage of player control is a debilitating flaw in an interactive medium, but when the experience is as drop-dead gorgeous and consistently exhilarating as Ubisoft's revamp of the 20-year-old "Prince of Persia" franchise, it's easy to overlook. One of the most visually stunning videogames ever made, it melds a hand-painted look with spare sound design and haunting music to create an aesthetically consistent work that's meditative but rarely boring.

While the combat is too non-strategic and repetitive and the relationship between the Prince and his partner Elika is downright annoying (the writers seem to be going for a Hepburn and Tracy dynamic, but the result is more Heidi and Spencer). But the entire experience was worth it to me purely just to drool at what's on screen. We've seen cel shading before, but never with design with such realistic and detailed designs, not to mention top-notch hi-def renderings. The Prince's acrobatic moves are impressive enough, but the vistas revealed when walking to the edge of a tower, or simply swinging around a corner, are truly stunning. "Particularly breathtaking," I noted in the review, "are a battle against a flame-engulfed monster who provides the only light in the room, as well as a final boss fight shot with an ultra-wide lens in black-and-white."

I was also engrossed, much to my surprise, in the game's epilogue. After a fairly generic story (king unleashes an evil god who takes over the land; princess has to set things right), the emotional depth expands infinitely by "tying together the narrative, aesthetics and gameplay in an epilogue that gives the completed experience a new level of meaning."

Other elements are intriguing, particularly the role that Elika plays in the game (more on her in an upcoming post). But my most important fact is that I was almost never bored, even when I was just pushing a button every two or three seconds to keep the prince moving through a long acrobatic sequence, or watching him and Elika soar through the air off a "power plate."

There's one question I'm glad I don't have to answer though: Is this breathtaking, meditative but short experience worth $60? That's a tough one. "Prince of Persia" is great in so many ways, but it's really not that much game for players with a budget.

Full review: Prince of Persia

So now Ubisoft has bought former Vivendi Games development studio Massive and its RTS property World in Conflict. Which means the only significant property from Sierra (Vivendi's main gaming label) not yet bought by somebody else is "Brutal Legend." Well, there's also "Leisure Suit Larry," but as I told the one fan who wrote and asked about that, I think it's unlikely any other publishers are interested.

It's kind of ironic, since "Brutal Legend" probably had the most outspoken and excited fan base of any of the former Sierra titles. But devoted fans do not a mass market hit make. So it still remains to be seen whether another publisher will take a chance on Double Fine's next project. The word has been quiet since MTV dropped out in August. Here's an updated list of the rest of the Sierra properties and their new publishers:

-Ghostbusters: Atari
-Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena: Atari
-50 Cent: Blood on the Sand: THQ
-World in Conflict: Ubisoft

There are also a few licenses formerly at Sierra that Activision Blizzard didn't pick up, most notably "Scarface" and the Robert Ludlum estate (primarily the Jason Bourne books) that have reverted back to their owners and are looking for new homes. Though I understand at least one of them may already have a deal done. I just don't know with who.

Given the show's premise, a "Heroes" videogame is kind of a no brainer.

But given the weak critical and, as far as I can tell, commercial performance of the "Lost" videogame, not to mention the falling ratings and critical problems of the show the past two seasons, giving up on the game right now also makes a lot of sense.

Which is why it's perhaps not shocking that, as MTV Multiplayer reported, Ubisoft has cancelled its "Heroes" game, a story we broke here in Variety last year, and returned the rights to NBC Universal.

It goes to show the problem with trying to turn a hot TV show into a videogame. By the time a game is even close to coming out, the series might no longer be popular.

Between those two titles and last year's crappy "Battlestar Galactica" and "Office" casual games, TV-based videogames aren't doing too well. Except of course for "The Simpsons Game." I guess if the show has been on more than 10 years, it might be safe bet for a game. Which also gives me hope for the "South Park" game coming to Xbox Live.

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.

The train wreck appeal of Fox's "Hell's Kitchen" is seeing a bunch of total incompetents fail and fail and fail some more and get cursed out by a belligerent British celebrity chef.

That wouldn't quite work in a videogame, since nobody wants to live a train wreck. But Ubisoft and developer Ludia seems to have found a decent way to make it work in the "Hell's Kitchen" videogame, which our reviewer Leigh Alexander calls "an unoriginal but competent restaurant management simulator that's crazier and more fun than it has any right to be."

Leigh finds that the restaurant simulation stuff -- keep your ingredients cooking, your guests happy, etc. -- all work fine, with the added bonus of having to keep Chef Ramsay from exploding in anger. Since it's a videogame and you want to win, though, Leigh notes that this is "a moderately gentler Ramsay who's much more willing to dish out the praise." Though when you screw up, he starts uttering plenty of words that have to be bleeped in a T-rated game.

In the world of generally crappy TV-to-videogame adaptations (remember Ubisoft's "Lost: Via Domus?" If not, I envy you), this one sounds like it's simple, but fairly authentic and perfectly playable for even a casual gamer.

You can read Leigh's entire review right here.

It was just a year ago that Ubisoft announced it was expanding its Montreal development studio and adding the capability to do CGI animation.

At the time, the plan was to start with a short based on "Assassin's Creed." But CEO Yve Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz that the studio has started work on an animated TV series. I would assume that's based on a Ubisoft property based on the plans Guillemot has previously discussed, which means "Prince of Persia" or "Assassin's Creed" is probably a safe bet (I don't think any of the Clancy brands would translate well to a cartoon).

Guillemot wasn't very modest about how successful the studio could become, stating "Our goal is to create a studio that will be very high quality, our goal is to try to get to the level of quality of Peter Jackson's Weta studio." Now that's what I like to hear -- some good old-fashioned corporate boasting.

Separately, Guillemot told French newspaper Les Echos (via GameDaily) that Ubisoft has about $1.2 billion (or 780 million Euros) to spend on acquisitions. While that's not enough to buy another mid-sized publisher (only a small one like Midway or Atari if it was interested), it's certainly a good amount to buy some more development studios and/or intellectual properties in order to stay competitive with ever growing behomeths like EA and Activision Blizzard.

(Chart on the right is from Les Echos. It lists total franchise sales in millions of units, in case that's not obvious.)

Variety's review of "Haze" is online and it's one of the harshest we have run in a while. Our critic Matt Peckham calls it a "dull, dimwitted experience filled with stale stretches punctuated by underused innovations and utilitarian visuals."

It's a real shame, since based on what I saw at E3 last year, I was really excited. It seemed like a solid shooter hat integrated a cool gameplay mechanic -- the "nectar" that soldiers can inject themselves with for a rush that increases power and blurs out anything unpleasant about battle -- with a story that hits on heavy issues about pharmaceutical and military power.

Turns out, not so much. As Matt wrote: 

"Haze" dunks its half-baked allegory about pharmaceutical/military depravity in a tub of shoot-em-up blandness that doesn't stand a chance against better alternatives in a saturated genre.

Matt did have a few nice things to say about the atmosphere and sounds, but not much. This is the graf that really clinched it for me as a reader and potential player:

Levels are an amateur compilation of mission cliches like "drive through a minefield," "defeat a gunship," "escort a vehicle," and "blow up a bridge." Choice never factors, so whatever moral complexity the game teases at the outset ends up compromised by a fatal inflexibility for the player. When the endgame arrives after less than 10 hours, it's an anticlimactic groaner that feels like the designers just shrugged and threw in the towel.

You can read the whole review here.

A few months ago, I heard from a very good source in a position to know that Ubisoft's videogame based on the upcoming James Cameron pic "Avatar" is being made in 3-D. The idea being that the game will ship with 3-D glasses so gamers can experience something akin to the digital 3-D experience that Cameron is presenting on the screen.

However, the source who told me this did so very off the record and I haven't been able to find someone else to confirm it, which is what I would need to actually run with the story.

As CNET News reported today, though, Cameron himself confirmed that Ubisoft already has a stereostopic version of the game running with 3-D glasses.

GameSpot prints this under its "rumor patrol" and says it "remains to be seen" if it's true. And of course Ubisoft hasn't confirmed anything and the game won't come out until Christmas 2009 (along with the film), so lots can change. But based on my source and what Cameron said, I can comfortably report with certainty that the "Avatar" game will indeed be 3-D.

Now how will that work -- the type of glasses used in theaters for digital 3-D are way too expensive to ship with every videogame, I'd presume -- and how good will it look? We'll probably be waiting a long while to find out.

Still have to sort through this all, but here's the raw data that NPD just provided for March video game sales in the U.S. First take: "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" had a HUGE month and Wii sales benefitted as well. PS3 finally got back ahead of the 360, but just barely. And both "Rainbow Six Vegas 2" and "Army of Two" had decent debuts.

Missing from the top 10 chart? Meaning they didn't debut too well: "Lost: Via Domus," "Condemned 2: Bloodshot," "Dark Sector."

                                               March 2007                  March 2008             Change

Total Video Games                    $1.1 B                          $1.7 B                     57%

Hardware                                  $377.9M                      $551.3M                  46%

Software                                   $579.1M                      $945.6M                  63%

Accessories                               $139.5M                      $220M                     58%

Hardware                       Units sold in March 2008            Units sold lifetime-to-date

PlayStation 3                          257,000                                    4.1M

PlayStation Portable                297,000                                   11.2M

Xbox 360                                262,000                                    9.9M

DS                                          697,000                                   19.2M

Wii                                         721,000                                   8.8M

PlayStation 2                          216,000                                     n/a

Top 10 video games                    Platform          Publisher                  Units sold in March

Super Smash Bros. Brawl              Wii                 Nintendo                    2.7M

Rainbow Six Vegas 2                    360                 Ubisoft                      752.3K

Army of Two                               360                 Electronic Arts            606.1K

Wii Play w/Remote                      Wii                 Nintendo                   409.8K

God of War: Chains of Olympus   PSP                 Sony                          340.5K

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII       PSP                 Square Enix                301.6K

Guitar Hero III                           Wii                  Activision                   264.1K

MLB 2K8                                     360                 Take 2                       237.1K

Call of Duty 4                             360                  Activision                   237K

Army of Two                              PS3                 Electronic Arts             224.9K

(Note: all figures are U.S. only. The lifetime-to-date figures are calculated by me with a bunch of annoying addition, since NPD doesn't provide it anymore.)

My friend Justin astutely pointed out that "Rainbow 6 Vegas 2" is one of the most unfriendly-to-non-gamers titles we've ever seen. What the hell is an average person supposed to make of that? How would the uninitiated understand that the first number refers to the name of the squad, but the second number refers to the game's place in the franchise? It sounds more like the final score of a baseball game than a videogame title.

As I pointed out in my review today, "Rainbow Six Vegas 2" barely even qualifies as a new game. It's basically an expansion pack to the first "Rainbow Six Vegas," with all of the original's many great qualities and its few basic flaws.

According to reports, the game has already shipped over 1 million units, so a solid expansion pack is apparently worth $60 to a lot of gamers. It's also possible that plenty of people who didn't buy the first one will start with the second, since it's essentially the same game anyway.

One change I found interesting is how this franchise went from stats heavy in the first game to stats obsessed in the second. There are literally four different stats: marksman, close quarters, assault and experience points (plus, for those playing on Xbox 360, achievement points). Literally every kill gets you points in at least one category. The screen is constantly popping up "+3" or "+5" messages. And you can't go more than 10 minutes, max, without finding you leveled up or ranked up or something in one of the categories.

It's weird, since of course the basic concept of "scores" in games has pretty much gone out the window (save for "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band"). But now instead of "scores" we have "stats," which is somehow more meaningful, I suppose. I guess it's great for those who like to get constant validation. Every time you play "Rainbow Six Vegas Two," you're sure to get an ego boost for "achieving" something or other.

(The screen above, for instance, shows the player simultaneously getting "kill using explosive" points and "experience points" for taking down an enemy.)

Here's an excerpt from my review:

At its basest formulation, a videogame franchise with annual sequels is a lot like a car with a new model every fall. So it is with “Rainbow Six Vegas 2,” which takes last year’s hit squad-based shooter, makes a few minor improvements, and offers essentially a big expansion pack of what was a tightly designed game with a few notable flaws. As such, it should enjoy solid sales amongst hard core fans of the original eager for more and some new fans who want to start with the souped up version, but won’t turn as many heads as its predecessor.

And you can read the whole thing here.

My story about Ubisoft buying the Tom Clancy license in perpetuity for videogames, as well as any other media based on those videogame properties, is already online, so I recommend getting all the details by reading it.

However, my interview with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot (right) about the deal produced a lot more interesting information than I could fit in the article. So Cut Scene readers get the extended version, with everything of interest Guillemot had to say (and then some):

-[Explaining the deal] We just acquired the name "Tom Clancy" for videogames movies and books and all ancillary products can be done based on those games. This gives us the opportunity to create, at the same time as the game, linear entertainment for it that can be launched at the same time time as the game.

-[What does this do for Ubisoft?] It allows us to be more of an entertainment companies. We're not just creating games, we're creating stories, books and characters.

-[When asked for more information about the terms of the deal] We used to just have the videogame rights for Tom Clancy for a certain amount of time. Now we have the game rights in perpetuity, royalty free. We bought them outright. [Guillemot then confirmed that Ubisoft paid a lump sum for the rights, though he wouldn't comment on the cost, though he did note that it's a "substantial" deal for his company.]

-[Explaining the benefits for Ubisoft] We're extending the videogame rights forever and getting complete freedom to complete all other projects. We don't have the rights for a "Rainbow 6" movie, however. Those aren't part of this deal. We do have it for any new properties we create... We'll make products within the limit of our know-how and ability to perform. We will also work with partners [to make licensed products]... That will vary depending on the power of any project. The goal each time is to make sure that the experience comes in many formats.

-[What can we expect to see as a result of this deal] At the moment there is nothing in development... What we have to do now in videogames, because next-gen consoles are more powerful, is create games that will be as well defined and expressive as a CGI movie. All this helps us create better characters, backgrounds, and stories and improve the emotions we have in games... Step by step we have to learn how to give more emotions to our consumers. This will help us get closer and closer to creating movies or Internet products that will entertain... A  year ago we started to create Ubisoft Digital Arts in Montreal so we can have  a group capable of creating animations and movies in the future.

-[What about working with Hollywood on live action movies?] We are open to that because we don't have that kind of know how... In the future we plan to work on them at the same time as games... This is a substantial deal when you look at the power of the brand already in games and books and in past movies. The four [Clancy] movies [grossed] more than $1 billion.

-[How important is this to you?] It's a big event for us. Creating the Clancy name in the videogame industry 10 years ago was a major step for us. We think this is the same thing.

My review of "Lost: Via Domus" is up now, and I'd say I'm in agreement with the other reviews out there: it's not very good. Fundamentally, there's just not much good gameplay. Here's the introduction to my take:

Watching the tense faces of actors carefully carrying dynamite made for several minutes of very exciting television in season one of ``Lost.'' Watching the back of an animated character carrying dynamite as you make him walk through the jungle in slow motion? Not so much. That's the fundamental problem of ``Lost: Via Domus,'' Ubisoft's new adaptation of the ABC series that hews so closely to its source material it never gives players anything remotely interesting to do. The only people bored enough to play through this tedious and poorly conceived videogame would have to be stranded on a remote island.

Of course, I recommend reading the full review for all the details, good and bad. But here are a few items that I couldn't fit in there:

-The gun has a re-loading mechanism and you can buy extra clips from Sawyer. That's actually pretty funny, since it holds 15 bullets and I only fired it five times to finish the entire game. And two of those shots were at the same guy.

-If you haven't taken any standardized tests recently, brush up, because there are a bunch of "IQ" tests from the Hanso foundation you have to take on computers. Most are standard logic ("god is to dog as 394 is to..."), though the final one is a trick question that almost drove me insane before I realized how obvious the answer is.

-Beyond the necessary questions you have to ask Locke or Sayid or Kate or whomever to get information, there are a lot of general questions you can ask them. Sometime it's interesting, but a lot of times they have nothing to say. Which makes you wonder why the developers even bothered writing and recording dialogue. It hardly seems worth it for gems like this... Elliott (the player): "I was attacked." Hurley: "You've got problems."

-Sawyer doesn't seem like a very good businessman when there are water bottles you can  trade him worth $5 sitting on the ground about two feet away from him.

-Most of the characters from the show are voiced by sound-alikes, some of whom (Jack, Kate, Sayid the Others) sound good, but some of whom are way off. Locke sounds like one of the Country Bears and Charlie sounds like one of the kids from "Mary Poppins."

-Those who like the gameplay more than I did -- or can at least stand it -- will find a decent story worthy of at least an average "Lost" episode. And there's a really fascinating twist at the end that will make you think twice about what happened in "Via Domus" and even some of what you've seen on the show.

Also of note: There's a story in the most recent weekly Variety about the poor record of serialized dramas turned into videogames (see: "The Sopranos," "24") and how Ubisoft is aiming to change that with "Lost" (and, next year, "Heroes") both creatively and business-wise.

And if you're looking for a blast from the past, here's the story I wrote when Ubisoft first did its licensing deal with ABC almost two years ago.

I literally just finished writing my review of Ubisoft's "Lost: Via Domus" and will be linking to it, plus providing lots more thoughts and details, when it goes online later today or tomorrow morning.

But one thing I have to get off my chest right away: Remember that hacking mini-game from "Bioshock?" (see left) Some people found it fun, some thought it was tedious, but it was a substantial and somewhat controversial part of the game.

"Lost: Via Domus" rips it off almost entirely. The only difference is that there's no timer and different pieces alter the voltage of the electricity flow in different ways, which is important to the solution. But the basic experience is remarkably similar, right down to some identical sound effects. Coming so soon after "Bioshock," it's downright bizarre.

Of course, the big difference is that in "Bioshock," the hacking mini-game is a break from the awesome, exciting action. In "Lost: Via Domus," it's pretty much the most exciting thing players do in the entire game. But the review's not posted and I'm getting ahead of myself...

I was about to start working on a post about the many release dates that Ubisoft's Haze has gone through before gettings its (probable) final release date of May 2008 announced today. But MTV"s Multi-Player beat me to it, so I'll just cheat off them to create this timeline. I know plenty of other game have been delayed longer, but I'm not sure if any others have had this many release dates in such a short time frame?

-At E3 2006, "Haze" is announced for release sometime in 2007

-Release date narrowed down to March '07

-Release pushed back to Ubisoft's fiscal '08, which spans April '07 to March '08

-Date announced as "second half" of 2007

-Game is dated for Dec. 10, 2007

-Pushed back to Q1 2008, meaning by the end of March

-Pushed back to May of this year

Assuming "Haze" is as good as a game dated 6 different times should be (emphasis on should), May and June could be a great time for PS3 owners with "Metal Gear Solid 4" also announced today for late in Q2.

Ubisoft not coincidentally picked the day after the day after the "Lost" season premiere to debut... the new, likely final trailer for its upcoming video game "Lost: Via Domus." And I'm not gonna lie folks. It looks really good. From the setting to the characters to the eerie music to the mystery, it really feels like you're watching "Lost."

Variety game reviewer and PC World blogger Matt Peckham says he's worried because the game is not an official extension of TV show canon. But I say thank goodness. Making a game that can only be enjoyed by those who have religiously followed the TV show doesn't seem like a great idea. And I highly doubt the TV show writers want to be tied down by whatever decisions the folks at Ubisoft Montreal make in service of the best possible game.

All that being said, there's still plenty of reason to worry. The game looks good. But that doesn't mean it's going to play well. And as someone who has tracked TV-based games religiously for the past few years, I can say that "Lost" is entering a landscape littered with disasters. Anyone play "The Sopranos: Road to Respect"? Or "CSI: Hard Evidence?" Or "24: The Game?" Or the recent "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Office" casual games? They were all mediocre to terrible. The only good video game based on a TV show in recent memory is "The Simpsons Game," which had the advantage of not having to actually be about anything in the show at all. It just had to be funny.

If "Lost: Via Domus" is even relatively good, Ubisoft will have pulled off a minor miracle: the first quality video game based on an ongoing dramatic TV show. Or am I forgetting one?

For the sake of those who read this blog and not Variety.com, and also just for the sake of provoking discussion, I plan to link to and discuss a lot of the reviews and news about videogames from the "actual" paper on here.

So I'm starting with our review of "No More Heroes," by yours truly. I'll be blunt: I think this is the best game yet for the Wii. Period. And I know I'm provoking the fanboys who viciously assaulted me for merely really liking "Super Mario Galaxy" and not loving it. And "No More Heroes" certainly isn't as deep or as slick as that game.

But it's eons more original than anything that has been made for the Wii. A great sense of style, great controls, funky characters. As I wrote in my review, it's "the first great hipster videogame." It's also the first non-shooter to figure out the Wii controls. Swinging the Wii-mote every time you hit an enemy would quickly get annoying and tedious. But saving the motion sensing for kick-ass finishing moves and wrestling throws? That's a sense of satisfaction you can't get on a a 360 or PS3.

The only caveats in noted in the review are the weak soundtrack and the lack of a good physics engine, which makes the fighting imprecise. But there's one other thing too detailed to go into in the review that I wanted to add here. If anyone reading this got to ranking number four in the game, they'll know what I'm talking about: What the hell is up with the magician guy? The basic battle is fine. He has a few good moves and I love how sometimes the camera turns upside down (or are we just on the ceiling).

But towards the end of the fight, "No More Heroes" starts triggering these bizarre little mini-games where Harvey traps Travis in a box and the player has to shake the controller in order to get out. Then it happens again. And again. And again. The last time I fought Harvey, I counted eight times I got stuck in that damn box. I got out every time, but to no purpose. It didn't cause any damage to the boss. And when it's over, you're thrown right back into the fight where you started, which can be very disconcerting.

Whatever it was Grasshopper was trying to do with that particular feature, it totally didn't work.

But still, the game is great. The only question left for me is: Will "No More Heroes" be another under-selling critical darling? Ubisoft's decision to release it in January makes me think that's their appraisal.