OnLive, if you're not familiar is a new approach to gaming within the culture. It's a streaming subscription based game service much like Netflix is for movies. It is supposed to offer gamers a chance to play the latest games over the internet on their TV and PCs (both Windows and OSX based systems) with claims that the micro-console, controller and service subscription will be less expensive to the consumer than the cheapest current gen (7th) console.

With handheld devices like Blackberry, Droid, iPhone and other Smartphone / PPCs being a growing aspect of people's daily lives, questions surrounding whether or not OnLive would be available for such devices as well.

Steve Perlman wrote in the OnLive Blog:

"Today, at a Wedbush financial conference in New York I showed OnLive running simultaneously on 2 iPhones, a TV, and a computer. What is really cool is that all 4 devices had access to the full OnLive Game Service, so they could play the same games, spectate on each other’s (and Beta users’) game play, watch Brag Clips, check out Gamer Profiles, etc.

If there was ever an opportunity for Apple to move into the gaming sector, it would be soon and with holding hands, fingers interlocked with OnLive. Currently Apple has cut loose the 16GB iPod touches and implemented 32Gb and 64GB version of both iPhone and iPods that feature enhanced GPUs for smoother 3D graphics and animations. Both devices already feature WiFi connectivity (as do a number of existing SmartPhones and PPCs), so combined with OnLive, Apple Inc. would have to devote very little resources into developing a hand held gaming device in the way that Sony has and Microsoft was rumored to have. Likely first mobile candidates would be the Droid and iPhone / IPod touch, followed by the PSP and DSXL (provided that Nintendo and Sony don't move to embrace and use OnLive as a third party distributor under contract).

Currently however, the blog indicates that the use of mobile devices is geared towards spectating... which is sort of impractical because most people would rather play a game than watch a game. It is an interesting gimmick though, I'll give it that much.

Also, there's been no mention as to how OnLive intends to keep their subscription fees low and whether or not the lower costs of their service will be due in part to streamed advertisements, a growing trend in the video game culture.

No change has been indicated as to the initial "Winter 09" release by anyone officially affiliated with the OnLive device or service, but as "Winter 09" quickly approaches the likelihood of the device being retail ready within the next few weeks in light of this announcement seems non-existent and "Winter 10" starts to feel more opportune and realistic but then again, not only would OnLive be the first "XBOX" of the next generation, they would also be the "XB360" of the next generation - horning in on the profits because gamers will be looking for new consoles at about 2011-12.

This type of service is offering up compatibility with older games, offering new games, and getting more developers to hop the bandwagon, but could easily make OnLive push themselves out of the console crowd because Sony, MS, and Nintendo are already well established with integral first party titles which OnLive will likely never see a license for, possibly prompting a wave of yesteryear console wars to start a new, waged with exclusivity and first part ownership. Nothing helps an economy like a war, eh?

The effect of violence in video games has been a long drawn out debate. From before the days of Wolfenstein 3D to Modern Warfare 2, parents, psychologists, and politicians continue to claim that children exposed to violent video games are more prone to acting out in violence. Is there any merit to these claims and if so, to what extent is the merit? Is it something to be aware of and alarmed about? Should game developers be more conscientious of the audience and the social trends to help keep consumers safe?

I’m of the opinion that violence in anything makes anyone no more violent than Harry Potter books make anyone a heretical mage. A couple of the many findings purported by so called ‘experts’ are as follows:

Meta - pertaining to itself or of itself. Metadata is data about data, but in detail – who collected it, where it came from, and those kinds of things. A Meta-article would be an article on GameInformer about GameInformer. The Site Bug Thread is a meta-thread, just as an example. So in the sense of ‘meta-analyses’, it takes on a sort false knowledge based on the study of other similar kinds of findings - the results are dependent upon the quality and scope of similarly compared datum; sources of bias are not controlled by the method and even a good meta-analyses of badly designed studies will yield bad statistics. At no point do the studies indicate the method or design, only results and if that’s not going to raise a flag about transparency I don’t know what does.

17 years later this argument almost denies the validity of the first argument. Dr. Craig C. Anderson states that there’s no conclusive study to show the number of people affected by the effects of violence in video games – that there’s not enough evidence to show what the effects are or how many people, only that ‘highly aggressive’ people are affected more than nonaggressive people, and even then those findings were inconsistent. He supposes that future studies will be more conclusive and works to lessen the impact of inconclusive findings by stating that there is an equally inconclusive finding on people immune to the effects of violence.

The argument doesn’t indicate anything conclusive other than it effects a large amount of kids. It then goes on to link the numbers to items that cause social alarm in its time (second-hand smoke and lead exposure). Where this link becomes disingenuous is that the report indicated nothing physical other than mass of people yet links it to physical disease and affliction thereby presenting the argument in the context of a disease. This aside from the term ‘violence’ is never defined and left for the reader to suppose as to the definition. Using astronomy as an example of correlation studies is used as an attempt at justifying the methodology without indicating what it was. People respect astronomers, they put men on the moon, mapped Mars, disseminate information from Hubble… yet the argument is closed with terms like ‘plausible’ and ‘alternative’ which mean ‘likely and probable’ and ‘in lieu of’ – far from factual, concrete, and directional. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue if the argument was not a black and white stance: Violence in video games causes violent behaviors in kids. The studies indicate anything but solid answers; not “can cause”, “may cause”, or “could cause”. Anything indicating that the funded studies could be wrong is not found in the phrasing of the argument. They stand firm on the premise that they ‘do’ cause and it is flatly false in the semantics and syntax of the actual findings. Interestingly, Anderson is the primary source for positive reports of the correlation between video game violence and violent behavior but they all might as well say that a city has seen an increase in crime over time without taking the time to relate it to the increase in population over time.

Contradiction in findings are not uncommon and indicate that even alleged experts haven't a clue what video games 'do' to people. Live Science, a web site that reports on scientific news released information on a study that reports violence as not a reason people play games yet the Chicago Tribune reported in March of 2009 that violence warnings on a game made the game more appealing (yet didn't cite who the research was done by or the point of the research).

In the end many of the reports and studies are little more than subjective analyses that have much less persuasive effects when viewed objectively. For example, a study by John P. Murray, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, conducted a very similar experiment in an attempt to find a correlation of video game violence making exposed children prone to violent acts post game, employing the same technology used in Vince Mathews’ 2006 Indiana University study. Murry’s findings are that kids experienced increased emotional arousal when watching short clips from the boxing movie “Rocky IV.” The tests were both run on immature brains and only a small handful of kids – while all children have underdeveloped brains in context to adults the more recent studies have no more or less solidarity than from 20 years ago.

Parents across the country enroll their children into contact sports such as football and martial arts – sports that rely on aggressiveness and will to be more aggressive than the opponent. People get seriously injured participating in such sports, yet parents are encouraged to get their children involved in them because they teach discipline, teamwork, sportsmanship, and promote healthy exercise. The biggest difference between football and Medal of Honor, is that the parent has to be involved and coaches remind the players to show restraint during certain moments but both football and MoH have instances where an aggressive ‘win’ attitude is needed to get the job done and encouraged. Players are told to have strong hits and to take other players down, but with a sense of sportsmanship. The rules are understood before playing.

If nothing else, the saddest part of these studies is twofold:

Researchers are paid to find proof that parents need to pay attention to their children; there needs to be proof that someone should be responsible for the contents of their home. It’s like paying for that oh so obvious ‘safety research’ reports that the site of most accidents happen in the home. Who would have thought that the building people spend a majority of their time in is where they have most accidents... and that stuff gets funding? It takes hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to have some guy in a coat report this? I don't know if I should be disappointed or enraged...

Researchers have not taken their own logic and inverted the situation. If a game depicting violence created a violent pattern of behavior, or could create a violent behavior why have no studies been done on inverted scenarios? If violent games can make non-violent player act violently post game, then non-violent games should be able to suppress violent urges in violent people post game. Given that part of the anti-violent game argument is that risk of behavior is proportional to length and degree of exposure then the opposite should also be true yet the focus is only on negative effects in an attempt to regulate and quell the video game sensation. Further, if players took on the attitudes encouraged by game play, why do we see no increase in video game linked crime?

We do... sort of. Wikipedia has an incomplete list of video game related incidents, but upon investigation many of those instances are where people either try to scapegoat video games or video games are only assumed to be the 'cause'. Perhaps one of the biggest 'sources' of influence is Grand Theft Auto, but criminals in all cases are people who are of an age where they know the difference between right and wrong and no other information about the criminals have been presented such as whether or not these people have a habit of criminal behavior.

Many people on the anti-video game side of the fence champion Jack Thompson... and I cease to understand why. He's a disbarred lawyer. Lawyers don't get disbarred for no reason - Thompson was disbarred for lying, disparaging and humiliating litigants. He fights dirty, which is fine I guess, but it's the lying in tribunals that sort of nags at me.

My personal feelings about violent behavior in kids 'due' to video games is fairly simple:

Watching someones head explode upon impact of a .50 cal round doesn't make me violent anymore than McDonald's makes me fat. My inability to get off of my lazy @$$ makes me fat, and my lack of self control, rational thought and civil morals 'allow' me to kill someone. In the case of children, as parents we're responsible for them and what they take from life experiences. We've an obligation to sit down and explain where babies come from and why taking that Sig Sauer P220 to school isn't acceptable. If we continue to leave these talks to someone else, then in reality we've still no one but ourselves to blame when kids act out in certain ways. It's not the video game, the music, the movies, or other kids... if we have the ability to control or at least direct a situation and fail to do so then the problem lies within us.

Female leads in video games are not new nor is the type of female protagonist. what is new is the abundance of female leads in video games.

The first female protagonist I can recall was Samus Aran from Metroid on NES. Gamers were shocked to learn that Samus was a woman - they were used to seeing men take on the hero role. Also, Lara Croft of Tomb Raider became yet another able bodied female lead, often out finessing and outsmarting her male antagonists. With Lara it was much less of a shock because she wasn't covered by full body armor that gave her an ambiguous form. Samus however was more or less simply assumed to be male because of the mind set that gamers had towards that particular character type until the shocking moment of truth:

The image leaves no question as to the gender of Samus Aran, and has become somewhat of a sex object despite her 6'3" and almost 200lb frame.

Other older games such as Gauntlet, Golden Axe, Resident Evil, Fear Effect, Rival Schools, Soul Edge and Street Fighter feature women in relative positions of equal strength and power to their male counterparts. On the other hand Metroid and Tomb Raider were games that didn't put the female characters in a position to rely on help from a male at any point to succeed. Street Fighter, Rival Schools, and Soul Edge had a story line that indicated the female characters at least needed some kind of moral support from the male characters, but it was done to construct a love story or deep friendship facet to the character interaction - the characters themselves during game play weren't portrayed as outwardly 'weaker' but the end sequences or Game Over screens told a story all their own. Street Fighter even displayed imaged of a woman beaten and bruised:

It's Game Over for Chun-Li. Notice the display of emotional weakness evidenced by the raised curled hand as she cries. No other SF character displays the act of crying.Perhaps this was Capcom's way of showing the feminine side of the characters 'warrior' class.

RPG games have been in on the female actions for a while too. Final Fantasy VI features Terra Branford, the confused and vulnerable half Human half Esper character - which could be argued to be one of the first bi-racial (bi-ethnicity still goes to Samus given that her back story indicates she was born human and raised by Chozo, thus having a multi cultural background) characters in a video game. Terra however is displayed as being emotionally weak but much of that has to do with the situations she's been written into. Later installments of Final Fantasy portray female characters in a wide spectrum of ways such as Aeris as the introverted but compassionate women that Cloud is emotionally compelled to protect, Rikku as the energetic and sporadic youth that often forgets her surroundings, and Fran the generally quiet but skillful foreign warrior. Other instances in RPG games are found in the players ability to create a character that is a female, such as in Diablo, Never Winter Nights, Fallout, and Elder Scrolls. The change with in the RPG genre is long standing but may be due to the fact that RPGs are more or less playable stories and require male and female characters to set in motion a love story.

As time has passed, more and more games are beginning to feature women in an equal role as protagonist or at least give them an equal share of strength and intelligence. Uncharted features Elena as an able bodied, sometimes more practical thinker than her male counterpart, Nathan Drake. Likewise, Resident Evil 5 features not only an equally abled but almost ethnically opposite female lead Sheva Alomar. Still these female equality changes have been gaining prominence in action adventure or in games that males would typically be relied upon. And, females have even been placed in situations where their peril is the purpose of the game (Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda).

Games like Mirror's Edge, Final Fantasy XIII, and WET continue the trend of placing women on par with male protagonists in video game titles while even a few games place the males in situations that with out help from the female characters, they fail (Prince of Persia as an example) and it not only propagates awareness of gender equality, but beings men and women closer together in the gaming experience. In the future, it may not be unrealistic to expect franchises beyond Metroid and Tomb Raider featuring both female leads and majority female cast.

Other games that feature female leads include:

• Perfect Dark
• Parasite Eve
• Silent Hill 4
• Eternal Darkness
• D
• Legend of Dragoon
• Sword of Mana
• Valkyrie Profile
• Okami
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Fatal Frame
• BloodRayne
• Jade Empire
• Bayonetta
• X-Blades
• Heavenly Sword
  

Other games that feature able bodied female playable characters include:

• Eternal Sonata
• Front Mission
• Odin Sphere
• Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (and the subsequent universe spin-offs like Phantom Brave, Disgaea, La Pucelle and Makai Kingdom)
• Chrono Trigger
• Half-Life 2
• KOTOR II
• Suikoden
• Fire Emblem
• Wild Arms
• Devil May Cry
  

There are definitely many more titles out there to be listed, but the fact is that women have had a growing number of roles in popular video games. The question now becomes whether or not the advancement of females in video games has softened the social gender bias and in the games where female leads are sexualized, does that perpetuate stereotypes?

Games that utilize female characters often portray them as either frail and petite or tight and toned, but in both cases they have a certain amount of femininity that sexually charges them. Femininity isn't a negative aspect to being a woman, as it is something many women try and preserve while climbing to an equal status of men. On the other hand, many male leads feature men anywhere from rugged to debonair, but in all instances have a level of visual appeal (some RPGs don't play up physical appearances of men, but will of women). Male villains are usually 'uglier' than male heroes shown to be either scarred, fat, or frail, while female heroines are usually just as attractive of villainesses and interaction is reduced to more or less a 'cat fight'.

With that, there's still some equality issues to be had, but progress is being made and in some way it is possible that the increase in female protagonists in an equal abled role as a traditional male has lead to an increase in female gamers. On the other hand, I also feel that female gamers are not new, but males paying attention to it may be.

Don’t let title fool you, I immensely enjoy the game and am not outright panning it – I am however going to start off by making a point that the game concepts are extremely unoriginal. On the other hand I will attest to its innovation being attributed the intuitive patchwork layout that brought these borrowed concepts to a focal point is central to the overall, great fluid feel of the game that is Borderlands.

Borderlands is a game who’s art style and direction have one of the central, most talked about discussions (aside from the deodeca-billions of weapons). I however, find the argument that the art being original and new to be false. The art is as far from bland as it is original. Borderlands borrow a lot of the artistic concepts from past titles such as XIII, Silverfall, and Crimson Tears. All of those games have varying degrees of cel-shaded artwork, from tonal comic book style to a texture mapped cel with main outlines to define shape instead of detail. Borrowing these artistic concepts isn’t wrong by any means and serves to greatly set apart the apocalyptic backdrop from other apocalyptic, mutant / demon infested scenarios that Fallout3, PainKiller and Hellgate portray. Additionally, the emphasis on exploding parts and messy finishes are reminiscent of Rise of the Triad, No Remorse, and Blood. Borderlands didn’t bring a new concept, but breathed life into something gamers have forgotten and due to the time at which these concepts were initially placed on screen, gamers were focused on things less cartoony and more lifelike and photorealistic. Tables have turned as photorealism is commonplace and gamers tap their nostalgic roots in search of the old ‘new’.

Alternatively, Borderlands uses a vivid approach to the barren post-apocalyptic wasteland. Games like Fallout 3 use gritty subdued colors, effective use of long creeping shadows to extinguish a sense of safety and the high yellow faded and washed out look to present a sense of veritable slow-death traps. Hellgate used muddy colors, twilight settings, and weathered or slimy concrete textures to blend dangerous objects into obscurity. And, Painkiller was all fire and brimstone – high contrast yellows, oranges, red and black – dark brooding, but intense and fevered. With Borderlands, things may appear bright and shiny or happy and colorful, but in actuality things are not what they seem and I believe this to be an intentional message given to player visually – the appearances are initially disarming as players may feel accustomed to the surroundings as giving a warm(er) safe feeling. Yeah… bet on it and die quickly.

Overall the game felt familiar and reminded me very much of the XBOX title Brute Force, and the PC title Hellgate: London. It is almost a direct re-brand of Brute Force in that it contains four characters thrown together each with a specialty, not quite friends, but working together to achieve a common goal. When Brute Force hit shelves it was one of the best selling games – even beating out Halo, but that waned as players noticed unfulfilled promises and a character imbalance. Where Borderlands gets the concept right lies mainly in the balance of character traits and the skill set of each character earned though playing the game. The skill tree and interfaces are very reminiscent of Shadow Watch in that the trees were specific to the character role rather than what is commonly found in single character control games such as Diablo or Fallout in which the skill selection hashes out the class or classes the character becomes and subsequently the types of actions performed. Unfortunately, like Brute Force, there’s enough imbalance in the character roles that players will have a favorite that is not entirely dependent on the role they prefer to play. For example, Mordechai is relatively weak and his skill tree doesn’t help the character much until later stages of advancement. Players can consider this imbalance as a way of choosing a higher difficulty within a high difficulty, but it will be more likely considered poor character design. Other than that character roles and intended style of play are glaringly obvious but there’s no intent to hide or alter them from a design standpoint, so it works for the game.

Borderlands also strongly mimics Hellgate:London in that it has mixed elements of both an RPG and FPS. With Hellgate, players could choose to be a melee type character, brandishing swords and the like – or be a ranged weapon type of character, casting spells and using guns. Experience points were earned to give players the ability to enhance the abilities of the character as well as the incorporation of a role specific skill tree. Also, Hellgate players were given quests by various NPCs that they could choose to accept or decline with certain quests being integral to story advancement.

The quests in the game are the central story with the side-quests being greater in number than the main story quests, though they often feel more like errands than bona fide quests. Again, nothing new to the FPS/RPG (Fallout3 relied heavily on it without making the game 'bad'), style of games but it does allow players to gain a feel of every play through being different. Players may choose to take on different side-quests with different characters each time they play and may have to play each character a few times to really feel as though they gone through everything the game has to offer in single player mode. On top of that Borderlands will have a large amount of DLC to enhance and encourage replay. A nice aspect of the single player mode is that the work a player does in co-op and multi-player – carries over (but are not transferrable between characters), so players aren’t dealing with the cumbersome feel of having to maintain separate character profiles between modes of play; everything is blended together into and intuitive advancement style.

Players who haven’t played the game or are not familiar with randomization might find themselves a bit disappointed. Prior to release the only thing talked about more than the ‘original’ art work was the ’15 million guns’. This should tip players off on two things – randomization and loot emphasis.

Actually, it’s reported that there are 26 million guns, but only a handful of designs. By that, it is meant that between the 8 or so different weapon classes, there are about 3.2 million iterations of each, and around 150 different visual deviations between the 8 weapon classes. One weapon may have fire damage while the other may have a higher level of accuracy and range, but they’re visually the same gun. Normally this wouldn’t be something to be disappointed about, but the pre-release talk by developers and community alike didn’t differentiate between the random item generation kid of ‘different’ (like found in Diablo or Hellgate) and the distinctly visual and actionable kind of ‘different’ weapons (like an MP5 with a tactical scope vs P90). On the other hand Borderlands isn’t that kind of game and if players assumed that there would be 26 or so million distinctly different looking and actionable guns, then they’re probably going to be too hung up on graphics than gameplay, so it is sort of a moot point but worth at least a mention.

What the massive variety brings however is a unique blend of super weaponry – explosive tipped rounds, phasing explosives, defensive items that go out in a ‘blaze of glory’, and a vehicle that serves mainly as a mode of transportation but with a little imagination can be a mobile blender - all to create a bloody, disintegrated or charred pile of God knows what. If that wasn’t enough, emphasis is placed on finding these items instead of building these items. Something that might appeal to some players is the accomplished feeling of finding weapons and ammo caches while other players might find it redundant – either way there’s something different to be found and tried no matter what the player decides to do. While players can tweak the weapons out, there’s a possibility that they’ll be able to at some point remove them from the remains of obliterated foes.

Borderlands works to satisfy players by tapping into their sadistic side. Acid burns, getting the ‘red mist’ from headshots, and enemies that “matryoshka” (divide into smaller more numerous foes) are all part of the satisfaction and intensity that the game brings to player. The intensity level is heightened periodically during missions in that many missions start out relatively uneventful but can turn into a rampant infestation at a moment’s notice or with none at all. Still the challenge to complete the game is only so-so, even solo. Players will be doing a lot of running and backpedalling… and dying, but there’s a pattern in the not so bright AI controlled enemy movement. Enemies mainly just duck and cover, which makes getting those experience rich headshots a bit of a challenge, but if players are familiar with FPS games then they’ll find the difficulty of Borderlands to be on the ‘average’ side and not much harder than Fallout 3. If Players aren’t familiar with this style of play then they’ll find themselves saying “WTF!” repeatedly.

Where a majority of my entertainment is derived is the variety in repetition. Repetition is usually a negative thing but only when it is repetition on top of repetition, or doing the same things the same way again and again, which usually stems from a lack of tools. The repetition of Borderlands however, can be done in various way, largely dependent upon the innumerable tools in which the players find access. In the end, the fun is contingent upon the massive selection of weapons and the encouragement to find and use them. If that’s not your thing – then you probably won’t like Borderlands beyond the first play through, but if you enjoy toying with new ways to kill aging enemies not only are you a sadistic bastard and my kind of person, you’ll immensely enjoy the game a few times over especially with the onset of the already anticipated DLC.

Overall the game is deserving of favor, but not quite rave. There are enough ‘tired’ concepts executed effectively in context to the setting to only bring the game down from 10 to 7 there is enough entertainment value to take it from a 0 to a 6. Therefore a 6.5 is what I’ll give the game and deem it personally ‘slightly better than just okay but can objectively see and understand the value of the title to a certain audience’.

Every so often a game hits shelves that captivates and entrances the audience from start to finish. Uncharted hit shelves two years ago with audiences expecting a good game, but a getting more than they bargained for – a great game. Usually games that accomplish such levels of acclaim have disappointing sequels, and the sequels that don’t disappoint overall disappoint in a few areas that were expected to please. This is what makes Uncharted 2 a near perfect game.

The game begins with a dramatic opening backed by another round of silver screen quality score where players must immediately pull themselves from danger, giving players the dose of adrenalin they’ve waited for these past two years. The main character Nathan Drake finds himself in a dangling train car bleeding from the abdomen, as it’s slowly edging off a cliff on the side a snow covered mountain. As players maneuver Drake to relative safety the audience is given a series of flashbacks revealing how Drake came to be in his current situation. It all started several months earlier when he was approached by an ex-lover and a fellow treasure hunter in search of Kublai Khan’s Lost Fleet, a fleet of ships lead by Marco Polo. Of course no solid adventure story is complete without betrayal and unfortunate events, but spoiling the entire plot is something readers will have to seek elsewhere.

On the graphical side of the game, the first thing players will notice is effective use of depth of field. Objects in the distance and in immediate proximity of the camera are slightly blurred out while focus is kept on Nathan or what it is he’s looking at. This adds a sense of visual depth and tangible space, and Naughty Dog pulled this off very effectively. The lighting in the game is done in a more realistic fashion as well though the use of screen space ambient occlusion, a technique used only in a couple of games to date with the most notable being Crysis. In short, this technique adds to the realism of a 3D object by controlling how light reflects not only from the surface, but from the texture as well – diffusion and refraction also get represented more realistically. Dark or poorly lit areas conceal obstacles and items more effectively (though collectible treasures still shimmer and glint in a tell tale manner) while areas saturated with light give ambient glows and reflect light to other surfaces. About the only thing that could be seen as a negative in the graphics are the eyes. Eyes in the game look a tad glassy, reflecting too intensely off the surface to be taken as anything other than glass marbles fitted into a socket. The eyes are easily overlooked however, when the entire character animations are taken in as a whole. From winces in pain to full on belly laughs, animators carefully captured things like eye direction and squint, the pulling of muscled around the eyes, mouth and nose to the shudders of the shoulders and bending of the knees – and on that note the glassy eyes become something to whine about.

The musical score is something to behold as well. Previously the score was ‘normalized’ compared to this. By that, the volume didn’t change with the events – there were no loud waves of intensity to go along with the action and while the score in Uncharted fit well with the events taking place, Uncharted 2 is backed by a score that drives the emotion behind the actions and events taking place and never get’s drowned completely out by the sound of gun fire or explosions. What’s more is that there’s never truly a moment of silence – either there’s a soft lull of waves or wind, birds chirping or fluttering as they take flight, sticks crunching underfoot or idle chatter of someone in the distance. The sound environment is definitely conducive to the actions.

The meat of the game - what makes the game enjoyable goes beyond the story, how it looks and sounds, or even how it makes the player feel or feels to the player. A game can go from great to horrid by simply having poor execution, awkward controls, or limited actions. Uncharted 2 retained every bit of the control and menu interface so those familiar with the pace and control of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune should be able to pick up Uncharted 2: Among Thieves without having to relearn the game. Added to the already practical game play is the ability to sneak attack – catching a foe off guard and knocking them out and thus allowing Drake to remain relatively hidden. There seems to be more enemies in an area at any given time so being stealthy becomes practical by nature. Of course, players aren’t restricted from opening fire and taking cover as a wave of enemies rush to kill them – some people prefer the run and gun, no guts no glory style of play while others enjoy being a respective ‘ninja’ about it. Still, stealthily dealing with enemies is a welcome practical addition to the game play and it definitely adds to the feel of the game in a positive manner. It is defiantly refreshing to see that developers didn’t implement a new facet of goal oriented game play and then force players to use it exclusively through the entire game.

The multiplayer aspect of Uncharted 2 is something many players have been all a buzz. It offers players the opportunity to play with or against one another. If players choose to play with one another, they’re offered one of three main “good” characters while playing against one another players can choose any of the available character from the game. To add to this, players earn skins, weapons, and various ‘boost’ abilities that can help them gain an edge. People who pre-ordered the game were given an unlock code for the ‘revenge’ boost which… drops a live grenade when you die. As an aside, some players may find that a ‘cheap move’ and the word on the street is that it gives players who pre-ordered an unfair advantage in a multiplayer setting, but let’s face it – the only fair fight is the fight you win, right? Well then, FIRE IN THE HOLE!

Perhaps the coolest part of the newly added multiplayer feature of Uncharted 2 is the ‘Chain Reaction’ setting. Chain Reaction is more or less ‘capture the flag’, but the flags must be captured in a certain order. This removes the frenzy of swarming a number of flags at once and calls into play an ‘order of battle’. Players have to use a bit of strategy outside of sheer numbers or simply being well practiced at perching and pistol packing. Sure, players can still swarm a flag at a time or send teams out to wait at other flags, but there’s still a strategic mix up that needs to happen – it’s not the “same ol’ same ol’” here.

Also, there’s an Elimination mode where players once killed, do not respawn making “revenge” more like it’s name rather than a cheap parlor trick used by players wanting to martyr themselves for a team time advantage (i.e. sending in a player with the revenge attribute to die and hopefully take with them a handful of opponents thus removing defenses around the goal just long enough for another player or players to accomplish the goal prior to the martyr respawning starting the cycle anew). Elimination also applies pressure to the players who excel at removing opponents easily because those players now become targets of interest and find themselves the target of many whereas the usual ‘easy pickings’ can be left for later.

In closing, this game is near perfect and taken into context of what most games on the PS3 offer and titles released just before or to be released just after it’s easy to see and understand way so many critics give this game a rating of ‘perfect’. The execution, ambience, storytelling, and added multiplayer are just as good is not better than the original. This game along with its predecessor should proudly sit on the every gamers “wall of totally effing awesome games”, even if to just collect dust after the first run through. If it doesn’t it needs to… that or people just need to hang their head in respective shame.

Sony, in my opinion has the better console system and has since they introduced the Playstation. Sony however, only has a technological edge over Microsoft and Nintendo which is losing out on a lot of capitol. I would argue that it’s unfair to totally blame Sony though; it takes a certain level of laziness on the part of developers and publishers as well.

Let’s go back to the early 1990’s when a 100MB HDD was colossal and a 333Mhz processor was near light speed. Obviously we no longer live in the Middle Ages of computing, but in those times with limited space and hardware resources programmer s and developers had to find ways around technological bottlenecks (and no, I’ve not lost sight of other factors such as cooling technologies and FSB bottlenecks on the MB either…). As time passed and faster, higher capacity items became available more readily, it seemed as though programmer got lazy, creating games that only looked or performed marginally better yet took twice the space and needed twice the resources – they didn’t ‘need’ to have tighter programming or create better textures to amplify the illusion of reality. No, nowadays they look for easier languages to code in because games can be churned out even faster making a faster profit.

The end result is evidenced in the Sonly PlayStation 3 – rather than teams of developers creating a new game that pushes the limits of what a game should be, it’s become a hot bed for brief titles and failing franchises to show off what a console can do. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but they're few and far between.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I love my PS3. I find the few games that are worth keeping, leaps and bounds better than those on the XB360. On the other hand the XB360 pandered to the current taste of gamers – FPS and MMO. Perhaps is Sony and Microsoft teamed up to make a console we’d have a system that would be the best of both worlds and might push Nintendo to stop making a console doomed to cater to fledgling gamers and romantic nostalgia and put on their ‘big boy pants’.