In Round 2 of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo--which is also being posted on his blog MTV News: Multiplayer--things got a little testy. Totilo got in a dig about our failure to grapple with the morally dubious range of actions Manhunt 2 asks its players to undertake. That pushed us to examine the first principles of games, and question whether the problems that many have with videogames are perhaps more fundamental than a little bit of the old ultra-violence. Thankfully, no blood was shed over this disagreement.

Today, in the Final Round of our debate, Totilo comes out swinging, disputing our assertion that activities, and therefore videogames, can't be profound. He also gives Manhunt 2 a thumbs up for its Wii controls before raising the question of whether gestural gaming will make this pastime seem more natural to others--or more bizarre. For our part, we drop a series of thermonuclear thought bombs on everything from how the two Manhunts could be improved to the role of choices and consequences in games. Some excerpts:

Stephen Totilo: But I say, thank goodness they made Manhunt 2 for the Wii, because it provides a new way to think about where games are going. Let me quickly establish that I think the Wii controls in Manhunt 2 are quite effective. They don't force you to imitate exactly what Daniel Lamb does on-screen, but the spirit of the player's and Daniel's actions are the same. A sharp move from one is a sharp move from the other. A powerful swing from me is a powerful swing from whichever hand Daniel is holding his axe. You pointed out that the Wii was not your console of choice and that the reliance on gesture controls made the game feel unnatural But I've played a bunch of Wii games and feel comfortable with the system. As a result, I felt my moves were in sync with the game. Without meditation, I can say I, at times, felt one with it. When Manhunt 2 asks the player to trigger the game's signature stealth kills it slows down the passage of time in the game. This gives players time to do the right move and not worry that what's happening on screen is passing them by. Then, once the gesture is properly done, the action reverts to normal speed and the animations of the stealth kills reach their gruesome climax. In other words, the game finds a way to both ask you to take the time to focus on your own physical actions and then restore your attention to what's happening in the game without missing a beat. The system is smooth.

N'Gai Croal: We'll have to agree to disagree about the added immersiveness of the Wii controller when it comes to Manhunt 2. "They don't force you to imitate exactly what Daniel Lamb does on-screen, but the spirit of the player's and Daniel's actions are the same," you wrote. That's true, but I found myself intently focused on the icons in the upper left corner of the screen so that I could match the Simon Says-like mini-game, rather than the execution kills themselves. And even though that wasn't enough "alleviation or distancing" for the British Board of Film Classification, it was too much for me. I wish that Rockstar had taken a page from the Wii version of Electronic Arts' The Godfather and given me a set of gestural controls that mapped onto real life movements, then let me handle each execution in a free-form, improvised manner. As I said in my last entry, they might have gotten a Seniors Only rating for my version, but why just use the Wii's controls as little more than button presses with the added sensation of gesture without the accompanying freedom that gestures allow? I guess open killing went a bit too far for even the masters of the open world game.

Click on the link below to read the Final Round in its entirety. 

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime

When we got on the phone Tuesday afternoon with Nintendo of America president Reginald Fils-Aime to talk about the company's upcoming WiiWare initiative--downloadable games, from giant publishers and indie developers alike, made specifically for the Wii and sold through the Wii Shop Channel, we kicked things off by asking him where the idea for WiiWare originated. "The vision for WiiWare started back during the development of the Wii itself," said Fils-Aime, citing the statements of his boss, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata. "A couple of GDCs [Game Developers Conferences] ago, Mr. Iwata hinted at downloadable content; that we wanted to help young, promising developers overcome the limitations of small budgets and team sizes to bring their games to the Wii."

Would this mean a price cut for development kits, we inquired? Or would there be a new set of tools and libraries--easier to use, but less fully-featured--aimed at the indie and hobbyist game developer? No. "First, the development tools and SDKs [software development kits] that enable developers to participate are already available," he replied, referring to the standard tools that Nintendo sells to its licensees. "We enable the marketplace where consumers can buy these games using Wii Points. Developers and publishers bring their ideas for games and marketing to entertain and entice consumers." As for a price cut, Fils-Aime insisted that Wii dev kits are already plenty cheap. "All our SDKs and dev tools are already--I don't want to call them inexpensive--they're darn near free to developers. This is unlike our competitors, where you have to spend a lot of money building high-res assets to be competitive. So in that sense, there's almost no cost to developers; the tools are already available at rock-bottom prices. We're providing the venue and light of day for games that might not have gotten attention otherwise."

Given Nintendo's well known control-freak tendencies--the developer of a DS music game told us that Nintendo wouldn't allow gamers' compositions to be transferred to PCs so that they could be shared with friends--we were taken aback when Fils-Aime informed us that his company's oversight of WiiWare titles would be minimal. "Nintendo will not do any screening of ideas," he said. "The games have to pass our bug checking process, but that's the only screening that we're doing." We couldn't let that line of inquiry go just then, not with the controversy over the Adults Only-rated Manhunt 2 still brewing like a cup of cappuccino. Was he saying that WiiWare would be the Wild West of videogames, where anything goes? No, he answered; the Entertainment Software Rating Board still has a role to play. "The developer is responsible for getting an ESRB rating for their game, just as with our current publisher agreements. We don't allow AO-rated games on our systems."

1. RED...vs. Blu wraps after 100th episode
2. CRY...for the E3 of old with Gamecock
3. RED...rings of death for Xbox 360 keep growing
4. RND...We say, wait for version 3.0