In which N'Gai and Stephen continue their Very Special face-to-face edition of Vs. Mode: N'Gai with his restrained praise of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and Stephen with his crisis of faith over the series' failure to regain its innovative heights.

In Round 1 of our Vs. Mode discussion with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo (also featured on his blog Multiplayer), we offered up a theory--Linear Gamers Vs. Circular Gamers--to explain why even brilliantly-controlling games like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass don't float our boat. Totilo, meanwhile, said that he was being to feel a bit run down by Zelda Fatigue, 12 games into the series. In Round 2, we collectively did what Totilo wished Nintendo would do and switched up our own formula. We met face-to-face in order to a) correct Level Up's own ignorance of the Zelda series with a crash course on Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask; and b) talk about how much the series has progressed, if at all, since those twin high water marks. In today's Round 3, we serve up a wide-ranging discussion about the pros and cons of long-running franchises--for both developers and gamers. An excerpt:

Stephen Totilo: What would you like to see Aonuma and his team do next? Take the controls that they were able to sort of build atop the Zelda foundation and then to go and make a better Zelda? Or would you like them to take the controls that they built atop the Zelda foundation and now move those controls into some brand new game experiences?

N'Gai Croal: Well, again resisting the fiction as I do, selfishly I'd say, "Try your hand at another fiction." But I think the question you're asking is a bit deeper than that, which is what should incredibly talented artists and teams, you know, what does it mean when they either are forced to--we don't know that for a fact--or by choice restrict themselves to working on a single series.

I mean it's interesting to contrast that to the team that did Ico and Shadow of the Colossus because Shadow of the Colossus didn't turn into the game that people thought it was. People loved it anyway, but people thought, when they first saw it--with the horse and the bow and arrow--they thought that this was going to be Zelda for the PS2, And it turned out not to be that. It was a very sort of pure, stripped down ,focused game design, but coming off of Ico--for the, say, 500,000 people worldwide who bought that game and loved it--a lot of us would've been happy with Ico 2, but that team, Ueda-san and his team, they didn't make that game.

Totilo: Right, Nico as it was rumored for a while--

Croal: Exactly. He didn't play that game and so what I'm hearing from you is a desire for Nintendo to rethink how they're doing, dealing with the Zelda franchise and maybe walk away from it for a while, let us miss it, maybe remake some of the other ones, which have exemplary game design and spif it up for a new generation. And then have Eiji Aonuma's team to do something different.

Totilo: Yeah, and I guess to wrap this up I just need to go and ask you one more time to help me figure this out: to what extent do you think that the feeling that I'm having is the byproduct of having played so many more, so many of these games already? And is my fatigue of Zelda and my disappointment with the new ones something that people are going to have when Gran Turismo hits its 15th iteration? Is it a feeling that you suspect Final Fantasy fans might be having at some point soon? Or is this something that you think is unique to Zelda?

To read Round 3 of our exchange in its entirety, click on the link below.

Skateboarder Tony Hawk and graphic designer David Carson

At Newsweek HQ, most of our colleagues are either boomers in name or boomers in spirit, which means there haven't been many serious gamers among our ranks. But from the increasing number of game-related conversations we've had with our office mates, it's clear that this is starting to change. Our de facto Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling, who in his day job is the creative director for Newsweek.com, posted here back in September about getting a new post-Red Ring of Death Xbox 360 just in time for the Halo 3 launch, followed by a postcard showing off his very first kill in Halo 3 multiplayer. In today's entry, Electronic Arts' Skate serves as a jumping off point for his boyhood memories of the birthplace of modern American skateboarding.

I have some news. You might want to sit down--I've been playing a game that isn't Halo 3.

Given my almost exclusive interest in multiplayer FPS chaos, you would have thought I'd barely be able to dress myself and hold down a job after midnight on September 25th (for non-believers, that was the release day for the Master Chief's final chapter). Yes, I have been spending nearly all of the Xbox Live time I can scrape together sticking people with spiked grenades, but EA has managed to divert my attention for an hour or two with a game about plywood, polyurethane and the police: Skate.

Knowing that I grew up north of San Diego in the 70s and 80s--and if you could hear me speak, you'd detect the slight So Cal accent in my voice--you might assume I spent a fair amount of my youth loitering in front of the local 7-Eleven on a skateboard. Truth is, I could barely go twenty feet on the street without wobbling off the board and watching it sail out into the intersection. Yet, however painfully unskilled I was in the actual act, I've never lost an interest in culture and aesthetics of skateboarding; it was part of the air I breathed. Shamelessly, I've even stood in line on opening day for both "Jackass" movies.

1. EGO...trip: William Safire of pronunciation tackles "N'Gai Croal"; kids rejoice
2. EGO...trip: Level Up Must Break You? Yes, says David Jaffe
3. RED...Xbox 360 failure rates prompt Gamestop to halt extended warranties
4. REX...Turok developer gets cold-blooded to reboot franchise
5. RND...Racy Halloween outfits for tween girls give parents agita

In which N'Gai and Stephen resume their epic battle--not in their customary epistolary form of email, but rather in a face-to-face conversation--and compare The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS to its Nintendo 64 predecessors Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

Over the past couple of months, there has been a small but influential handful of voices who have called for a Vs. Mode podcast: a smattering of developers, publishers, fellow journalists, forum posters and readers alike. But as the staff of Level Up and our sparring partner--MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo--explore our multimedia options, we've seized upon the opportunity afforded by our own ignorance of Zelda gameplay to bring you the next best thing: A Very Special Vs. Mode.

Last Saturday, the Level Up team made the trek to Totilo's Brooklyn apartment--not far from where the Notorious B.I.G. grew up--where Totilo guided us through some key moments in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, then handed us the controller to play the first section of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Immediately following the playthrough, we recorded our discussion of the the Zelda series, which we present to you today and tomorrow as Round 2 and Round 3 of our Vs. Mode exchange. An excerpt:

N'Gai Croal: Did Majora's Mask feel like a radically different Zelda when it came out?

Stephen Totilo: It felt like they had put enough aside and done enough that was new that at the time I thought, "Well, this is a worthwhile and different enough experience. We’re going from a game where it’s primarily about explore the territory at age 7 and then age 14, I can sort of see the distinctions." So taking that idea and warping it so that it’s this 72-hour repeated cycle, and then adding the whole mask system in--which was a whole new way to interact with the world--seemed like a significant addition to the formula. At the time there had only been a handful of Zeldas before it. Since that Majora's Mask game there have been two Gamecube Zeldas; a Game Boy Advance Zelda; two Game Boy color Zeldas; and a Wii Zelda so there have been six Zeldas since then and that’s part of where--at the time the world could’ve still used more high quality Zeldas--but they’ve knocked it out of the park enough times that that’s where I’m feeling like, "Maybe they don’t need to make any more."

Croal: Well, it’s an interesting design choice, looking at the mask system and the 72-hour system repeated. Because I wonder if any game developers making games now--you look at this whole thing of shorter games; some people were complaining that Heavenly Hours is just six hours and--

Totilo: Heavenly Sword. Certainly not Heavenly Hours.

Croal: [Laughs.] Heavenly Sword is only six hours and Gears of War is only nine or ten hours. What you get out of designing a game [like Majora's Mask] in that way--and it would be interesting to sort of go back and talk to the people who worked on the game to see if that was something they thought about--is you get density of game play as opposed to scope of gameplay. The world itself doesn’t need to be as massive to give you that rich gameplay experience. You can use a more limited amount of architecture, levels and dungeons, but make it denser because the mask system brings those areas of the world to life in new ways once you've accessed a new mask.

To read Round 2 of our exchange in its entirety, click on the link below.

1. Wii...Super Smash Bros. Brawl forges ahead with new features
2. MTV...News shows off the motion capture for MTV Games' Rock Band
3. RIP...When the music's over: is the indie era of Xbox Live Arcade finished?
4. BAD...to worse: losses in Sony's Playstation division continue to widen
5. RND...A tale of two malcontents: Why Kobe is preferable to A-Rod

  

In which N'Gai reflects on the experience of playing his first Zelda game, and Stephen wonders whether this may be his last.

Heading into the sixth Vs. Mode exchange, it occurs to us that we've never focused an entire Vs. Mode on a Japan-developed game. So what better way to rectify this oversight than by tackling the newest entry in Nintendo's longstanding Zelda franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS? In Round 1 of our exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, we try to articulate why, despite the game's breakthrough control scheme, we aren't having an unreservedly good time playing it. For his part, Totilo scrutinizes Zelda's rich past and diagnoses the series as suffering from a crippling case of sequelitis. Some excerpts:

N'Gai Croal: I've been struggling to figure out why I'm not digging this game more. Allow me to offer up a half-formed theory. There are two types of action-adventure gamers: those who like to move in a straight line, and those who like to move in circles. By that, I mean that when I'm playing an action-adventure game, I like to move from point A to point B. I don't mind exploring--in fact, I rather enjoy it--but generally speaking, I only like exploration if it propels me forward. I don't like to backtrack, as you well know. I don't like fetch quests, but I can tolerate them in small doses. And I don't like venturing out from a central location to which I always return. Hence, the action-adventure games I tend to enjoy the most are games like Devil May Cry, God of War, Metal Gear Solid, Halo and, with a few dispensations, BioShock. Clear, hold, move on, and above all, never look back: that's my motto.

Stephen Totilo: If I may, I would like to blame Nintendo. I would like to blame them for not finding a way to get their wing of the gaming industry in step with the book, music and movie industry. George Lucas doesn't keep making new "Star Wars" movies for me year after year. I haven't seen 12 of them. He made three back in the day and made them well enough. Then he made a few more and even that might have been stretching the concept. After that he just drilled down on selling me new copies of those same movies again and again. I can't begrudge him that. The movies were good enough that they deserve not to be swamped by six more sequels. Nintendo got Zelda just right a few times already. More than a few times. Can't they just keep re-releasing the really good ones, polishing them up for new platforms, and make some newer non-Zelda stuff? I've heard all the arguments about limited development resources, but I'm unconvinced that remaking Ocarina wouldn't net Nintendo more money and do a better job of solidifying what is great about the series than routinely iterating sequels. The era of Zelda-as-rough-draft is past.

To read Round 1 of our exchange in its entirety, click on the link below.

We apologize for our absence from the comments section last week. Rest assured, we do read each and every one of your remarks, but time simply got away from us over the past several days. In today's edition of "It Came From the Comments," we ponder what StolenName said last week in response to our post titled "The Clive Barker Interview, Part III." He wrote:

I'm 22 at the moment and when I read these interviews I actually feel younger than I am, call it lack of experience, but from what I can glean from your interviews with Barker and the media at large, it seems like critics, whether of art, film or novel, are close minded or myopic. Couldn't their rejection of media like games and music be partly because they have no way of understanding the mixed media, as games are a marriage of visual, audio, writing and player interaction, and actually finding a way to understand that within their on learned discourse?

And also, N'Gai, do you believe that as younger gamers grow older and begin to move into the industry (as I'm trying!) and the older critics move on, that the perception of games as art / not art or for adults (as well as children) will shift? Or is there something about games in particular that forces them to remain an under-appreciated artistic medium by the general public?

To which we replied:

StolenName, every critic has assumptions, biases, prejudices, dogmas and blind spots, all of which add up to what some might call myopia and others might call personal taste. The challenge is for we critics to recognize the baggage that we bring to the table and to constantly engage it--publicly, whenever possible--so that our readers can see us working through our thought processes.

As you correctly point out, games present a particular challenge to older critics because while many older media only require the intended audience to have eyes and/or ears, videogames add a mechanical component that necessitates varying degrees of skill. I'm fond of saying that we "see" games with our hands; unfortunately, this means that a number of people who sit in positions of influence and authority over videogames--parents, politicians, protesters, even some publishers--are for all intents and purposes blind to the medium.

As for whether or not demographics alone can solve the art/not art conundrum surrounding videogames, I don't believe that that alone will be sufficient. First, there are many people who make videogames who don't believe that games are art--Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and Konami's Hideo Kojima among them--and the same is true of a lot of people who play games. Second, those of us who do believe that videogames are art are still struggling to understand and articulate the nature of that artistry. If I had to predict, I would say that the process by which videogames may become widely accepted as art will be both long and incremental, and its success is not guaranteed.

Halo 3 multiplayer in action

Does reading Level Up sometimes feel like drinking water from a fire hose? Or surfing a tsunami? Does it ever give you the sensation that you've been buried under an avalanche of words, words, words? Yes, we know that the dizzying length of certain Level Up posts can read more like a manifesto or a jeremiad than a blog entry. For you, we offer the occasional feature "Things You May Have Missed," which will cull compelling excerpts from our more voluminous posts.

It's been a little bit over a month since Halo 3 shipped to generally overwhelming acclaim and record-breaking sales. So it's a good time to look back at what we said in the May 29th-31st edition of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo on the multiplayer beta for Halo 3. Back then, not having played much in the way of competitive or cooperative multiplayer shooters, we bemoaned the lack of a friendly introduction to the various online game modes in the Halo series. Today's excerpt focuses on some of the suggestions we made as to how Bungie could make Halo 3 multiplayer more accessible to newbs like ourselves.

To read our summary, click on the link below.

Clive Barker

Note: This Q&A with writer-director-painter-game creator Clive Barker originally ran on Level Up in four separate installments, from October 22nd-25th 2007. We now present it here in its entirety, under a single permalink, for easier printing, emailing and archival purposes.

1. MGS...Metal Gear theme stolen derived from Russian composer?
2. WOW...Would you consider playing this game?
3. HMM...Is circulation the be-all, end-all of videogame mags?
4. RPG...Like Justice Powell, do you just know it when you see it?
5. Wii...Is it really the only next-generation videogame console?
6. RND...Who will stop the nationwide scourge of the fashion bully?

1. CAP...com defends Wii port of Okami from shovelware charges
2. MOM...Mothers weigh in with their thoughts on videogames
3. HL2...Nasty surprise for Orange Box buyers trying to save a buck?
4. NOA...snags Yahoo! veteran to serve as head of marketing
5. WHO...'s the mack? In Cimmeria, it's Conan the Barbarian
6. RND...Are social networks like Facebook a viable advertising medium?

Clive Barker's Jericho, developed by Mercury Steam and published by Codemasters

In Part III of our Q&A with Clive Barker, whose videogame Jericho is now in stores, we spoke at length about the past, present and future of the horror movie. In today's final entry, Barker explains why he's so optimistic about the future of videogames, and offers some advice--as one cultural outlaw speaking to another--to the folks at Rockstar Games in the wake of the British Board of Film Classification's ban of Manhunt 2.

I'm guessing that most of your peer group doesn't play videogames?

Yes, that's true with this--not proviso, but with this addition: when they do it's always the unlikeliest ones.

Okay. So why were you so drawn to videogames? And why are you so optimistic about where the medium can go in the future?

I think it's a damn fool artist who doesn't walk in all the media that are available to him or her and see whether there's something they can contribute to the process. And for me it's also a way of-[Jericho] would not make a good novel. It's way too complex for a movie, in terms of the intricacies of it: how do you really get five civilizations into a picture? You can't do it. It's out of the question. Though I don't think we're very far off the point when you'll be able to do it. With cinema driven by CGI pushing in one direction and games pushed by a hunger for reality in another, eventually then they're going to meet.

In the next five years it's going to be impossible to tell which is which. It's like the scene at the end of "Animal Farm":  They looked from man to pig and pig to man, and couldn't tell one from the other. It's going to be the same. We are going to be have such visually sophisticated games and movies that are so dependent upon a spectacle that only CGI can supply.

To see a larger version of this image, click here.

To see a larger version of this image, click here.

1. K12...Could Grand Theft Auto be used as a teaching tool? Yes, says author
2. SAD...Midway San Diego evacuates due to fires; ditto Sony San Diego
3. DIS...Capcom's revival of Bionic Commando, eviscerated
4. RND...Level Up's years-in-the-making master plan, revealed

Jericho creator Clive Barker

In Part II of our four-part Q&A with writer-director-painter-game creator Clive Barker, a question about Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2 being censored in the U.K. led to a discussion about Barker's own run-ins with the British Board of Film Classification and the Motion Picture Association of America. In today's Part III, a seemingly innocuous question about which horror games Barker enjoys prompts an extensive, wide-ranging conversation about the past, present and future of horror movies. Read on.

Which horror games from other companies do you like, and what do you see as being the future of horror in videogames?

I don't think you can separate the future of horror from horrorful stuff. And I think something is going to give very soon. I mean, when Fangoria, which is a magazine I've loved for many years now, on the cover--maybe in relation to "Hostel 2," and I'm not sure--has the headline, "Has Horror Gone Too Far?" From Fangoria magazine?

I mean this is--hello. This is outrageous, an outrageous thing for Fangoria to be asking. But I believe it's asking for a legitimate reason because what I'm gonna call horror porn, which is what I think some of these torture pictures are, the "Hostels" for instance--

"Saw."

And "Saw." This is stuff which presents--you're there to see one thing and one thing only, just as you are when you see a porn movie. Don't tell me you're there for the story, mate, 'cause I ain't believing you. [Laughs.]

I saw "Hostel 2" and I've seen the first "Hostel" as well. And there were definitely people in the audience that you could tell from the sounds they were making--not sexual sounds--but you could tell from their response that that was what they were--

What they were there for.

--and possibly not even in a way that the filmmaker intended. Am I wrong?

No.

I'm not saying that--clearly that's part of the response that is intended. But for some of these people it was the sole response. Like getting off in a way on how the people are being killed.

Yeah, but--and I don't know ["Hostel 2" director] Eli Roth either. But back making "Hellraiser" 20 years ago I came in for an incredible beating in England and then here too had terrible fights with [then-president of the Motion Picture Association of America Jack] Valenti to get the material in, because the whole thesis of pain being pleasure was anathema to him. I mean, it was exactly the reverse of what any message you ever want to have sent out, you know?

1. Wii...waggling better than good old buttons and analog sicks? Nay.
2. REW...Blast from the past: the Johnny Mnemonic CD-Rom game
3. DOA...How seriously should videogames treat the subject of death?
4. RND...GOP candidate Romney struggles to distinguish "B" and "S"

Clive Barker's Jericho, developed by Mercury Steam and published by Codemasters

In Part I of our four-part Q&A with quadruple-threat Clive Barker--he writes novels! he directs movies! he paints! he designs videogames!--we discussed the sources of inspiration for his just-released videogame Jericho and the "bigotry" of certain critical attitudes towards the medium. Today, in Part II of our interview, Barker explains which aspects of the horror novel can't make the leap to horror games; recounts his own dealings with the British Board of Film Classification (which recently upheld its ban of Manhunt 2) and the Motion Picture Association of America; and his experiences working in multiple media.

Looking at the medium that you're most known for--the novel, the horror novel--and the values that typify your work in the medium: mood, pacing, you have access to interiority and things like that. You can give the reader a sense of multiple characters. And it's an older medium so there are many more models that you can follow.

Yeah.

How much of that do you find useful to bring across to games, where the nature of interaction, the nature of what the audience of players experiencing is much more direct? They're conditioned to want more action. There are obviously strong horror elements throughout Jericho. But at its base, it's a shooter. So which of those values that you've developed for years in the novel and brought over to other media that are in some ways more like the novel--like comic books and the movies--which of those values transfer over to games and which do you say, "You know what, I have to get rid of that, or translate it into something else entirely?"

Well, the first big thing is the interior life. I mean, it just goes out the window. Again, games don't deal with that yet. Will they? Yes, I think they will. I think we'll find ways to design the screen. It may be that we eventually will end-up playing on three screens simultaneously, but there will be history being played out that is directly related to--who's got a pen in their hands?

Female publicist: I do.

Just--would you just write--

Female publicist: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I just had a good thought. Real good. [Dictating to publicist.] So, yeah...use....game as...history...of characters--I'll know what that means; just make sure I get it.

Female publicist: Okay.

It occurred to me as I was saying that to you that to actually make a game with a strong metaphysical shape or nature like this one, dependent upon an understanding of character's history--which you would then have to sort of jump back in time to understand--would bring you much closer to the state of a novel. And that interior life we were talking of would simply become history.

You could take the members of this squad and next time we do this we spend the first part of the game choosing the squad, so you then spend time dealing with pivotal episodes in each squaddie's life. And then I think we'd be much closer to what we can conventionally think of as the strengths of the novel. It's about people who are doing things in the now, but when we need to know about the then, all the authorial voice has to do is shift a little. It's not quite so easy here, but that isn't to say that it can't be done.

1. EGO...trip: "Flight of the Killer B's" post keeps on buzzing
2. SAD...The day the music died: No online play for Band World Tour in Rock Band
3. BOO...The dreaded See You Next Year virus strikes THQ, Electronic Arts
4. HMM...An ex-Marine reflects on videogames, cultural acceptance and aggresion
5. PS3...If you're confused as to which model to buy, help has arrived
6. OLD...and grumpy: Pong creator calls today's games "pure, unadulterated trash"
7. RND...The face of human compassion, as broadcast by CNN

Author, director painter and game designer Clive Barker

In July, we sat opposite writer-director-painter-game designer Clive Barker in a midtown Manhattan hotel suite for an interview. What began as a discussion of his horror-themed first-person shooter Jericho—developed by Mercury Steam and published by Codemasters for release Tuesday October 23rd on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Windows—quickly evolved into a wide-ranging hour-long conversation about art, censorship, his love of working in multiple media and the current state of horror movies. Today, in Part I of our four-part Q&A with Barker, he talks about the explorer who inspired Jericho, his plans for games in the series, and his thoughts about Roger Ebert's critique of videogames.

Where did the idea for Jericho come from? Where did it begin?

From two sources. A long time ago I found some books by a guy called Wilfred Thesiger, an Englishman, who was the first man—the first white man—to cross the Rub' al Khali [part of the Arabian Desert]. The word means "the Empty Quarter"; the emptiest place on the planet. Thesiger crossed in the '20s and then again in the '30s, and it was thought to be basically impossible. Even the Bedouin, who obviously were very familiar with it—this was their country, their land—went only in extremis. If they really, really had to, they crossed it.

[Aside to another man in the hotel suite.] Thank you, baby. This is my husband, David.

It's a pleasure to meet you, David.

And just a little aside on the Thesiger thing: I decided I wanted to use this image of emptiness and I used it first in a book called "Weaveworld," which I wrote back in the '80s. And maybe five or six years later, I was going through HarperCollins—which has these big, old offices which they've had since the 19th century in London—and I saw this incredibly old man hidden by piles of books, just pulling them down slowly and very, very, very carefully inscribing them. Nobody was with him and I thought, "I know who that guy is—that's Wilfred Thesiger. I swear that's Wilfred Thesiger." I went in and it was, and he signed a book for me and it was great. I had always wanted to go back there. I thought it was a very—it was just deserts, eerie places, and after the success of "Weaveworld," I wanted to go back to that and put something really villainous into the Empty Quarter.

The Halo 3 Steaktacular! Medal

In hindsight, this bet was doomed almost from the beginning. Just one day after we announced our wager with Microsoft games platform strategist Andre "Ozymandias" Vrignaud about whether or not Sony would announce a $399 PS3 SKU before Thanksgiving--he said yes, we said no--we got a call from one of our best non-Sony sources. Our source informed us that the Playstation group had placed an order for a large number of 40 gigabyte hard drives, making it very likely that a $399 SKU would ship in advance of Black Friday. Whoops.

Our gleeful anticipation of that succulent steak dinner--made even more theoretically delicious by the thought of winning yet another bet with a Microsoft employee--was instantly transformed. First into the bitter taste of hubris, then, over the weeks that followed--each bringing with it more and more signs that Vrignaud would ultimately be proven correct--a multi-course meal that we'll refer to as The Five Stages of Grief. Now that we are far enough into the final stage--acceptance--we can finally say publicly and without reservation: Andre, you were right and we were wrong.

Furthermore, there's no need to for you to launch a Steak Watch count-up clock on your blog; having carefully studied the psychology of welching, we'd rather avoid the mental damage that can ensue from proceeding down that path. So at the earliest mutually convenient occasion, we will sit, and tasty cuts of gloriously charred beef will be consumed in honor of both the $399 PS3 and your superior foresight and wisdom. And please, don't even think about reaching for the check. This one's on us.

 

Note: This Q&A with Eat Sleep Play co-founder David Jaffe originally ran on Level Up in three separate installments, from October 16th-18th 2007. We now present it here in its entirety, under a single permalink, for easier printing, emailing and archival purposes.

1. EGO...trip: "Genius" tag freshly applied, Level Up ponders sending resume to Kyoto
2. MMO...deathmatch: World of Warcraft vs. EVE Online. Round 1--fight!
3. CAN...videogames be important, asks the professor? The answer? Maybe?
4. HEH...EA's team of ninja satirists takes aim at videogame blog Kotaku
5. THE...thorny issue of