Level Up

The Man Behind the Royal 'We' Says 'So Long'

2009-03-04T16:00:00Z

knockknock.biz luggage tags. Photo courtesy of justinph.

I guess it's finally time for me to level up.

It was the summer of '99 when I convinced my then editor to send me on a tour of the U.S. videogame industry. When I finally returned three weeks later, my head was still spinning. I felt as though I'd seen the future of entertainment. It was then that I made it my mission to put NEWSWEEK's coverage of this growing medium on the map. I did that in print, with cover stories on the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2 and the spread of online gaming. I did it online, with the debut of the blog N'Gai Croal's Level Up. I did it on television, with appearances on MSNBC and CNN. You all watched me push, prod, praise, scold, discuss and debate videogames across multiple media, both mainstream and enthusiast. That's because my editors were prescient enough to let me apply my talents and establish my reach beyond the magazine, from co-blogging with MTV News to writing a monthly column for Edge and more. For this, I say to them all, thank you.

Having achieved all of this, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I've accomplished what I set out to do ten years ago. And now it's time for me to take that decade’s worth of accumulated knowledge and do something else with it. After Friday March 6th, my passions will take me beyond the world of journalism. I’ll be wearing many hats on this new journey: videogame design consultant, media strategist, consumer technology reporter, columnist, blogger and, as always, provocateur. You’ll be able to keep track of my various adventures at ngaicroal.com, and feel free to reach out to me via email at ncroalbiz@gmail.com. It’s been a pleasure conversing with all of you, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the years to come.

Cheers,

N’Gai ...(read more)

A Symposium On Game Reviews. Topic 1: Review Scores, Part IV

2008-12-29T14:00:26Z

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Photo courtesy of wallyg.

Are reviews primarily a consumer guide, or should they serve another purpose? Do review scores deter intelligent discussion of videogames? Is the presence or absence of a review score the only difference between a reviewer and a critic? What is the role of the reviewer when the Internet is democratizing published opinion? How should reviews and reviewers evolve in light of the emergence and growth of Flash games, small games, indie games and user-generated games?

These questions and more were on the mind of N'Gai Croal, John Davison and Shawn Elliott last summer when they decided to expand their conversation to a number of noted reviewers, writers, bloggers and reporters for a published email symposium on game reviews. (See below for the full list of participants.) The planned list of topics include Review Scores; Review Policy, Practice and Ethics; Reader Backlash; Reviews in the Age of Social media; Reviews in the Mainstream Media; Casual, Indie, and User-Generated Games; Reviews vs. Criticism; and Evolving the Review. The participants are as follows:

Participants

Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra/Sexy Videogameland/Variety
Harry Allen, Media Assassin
Robert Ashley, freelancer
Tom Chick, freelancer
N'Gai Croal, Level Up/Newsweek
John Davison, What They Play
Shawn Elliott, 2K Boston
Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb
Kieron Gillen, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Dan Hsu, Sore Thumbs Blog
Francesca Reyes, Official Xbox Magazine
Stephen Totilo, MTV News

The topic for Round 1, which will be published here in installments over the next several days, is Review Scores. Previously, we published Part I, Part II and Part III; today, we conclude the Review Scores portion of our symposium with Part IV. To read today's section in its entirety, click on the link below.

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Level Up's Top Five Gaming Tidbits for December 29th, 2008

2008-12-29T05:01:14Z

EGO...trip: Our "verbose grandeur" leads to a withering deduction
UMM...a blase defense of game violence; a weak dismissal of Manhunt
ARE...hardcore game reviewers being too hard on noob-friendly PoP?
THE...Outsiders, or, how fresh perspectives can help developers stay gold
RND...Gym locker violation prompts Xmas reveries of two banjos a-duelling

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A Symposium On Game Reviews. Topic 1: Review Scores, Part III

2008-12-22T19:11:46Z

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Photo courtesy of cambiodefractal.

Participants

Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra/Sexy Videogameland/Variety
Harry Allen, Media Assassin
Robert Ashley, freelancer
Tom Chick, freelancer
N'Gai Croal, Level Up/Newsweek
John Davison, What They Play
Shawn Elliott, 2K Boston
Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb
Kieron Gillen, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Dan Hsu, Sore Thumbs Blog
Francesca Reyes, Official Xbox Magazine
Stephen Totilo, MTV News

The topic for Round 1, which will be published here in installments over the next several days, is Review Scores. Last week we published Part I and Part II; now we continue with Part III. To read today's section in its entirety, click on the link below.

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A Symposium On Game Reviews. Topic 1: Review Scores, Part II

2008-12-19T15:14:06Z

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Photo courtesy of caribb.

These questions and more were on the mind of N'Gai Croal, John Davison and Shawn Elliott last summer when they decided to expand their conversation to a number of noted reviewers, writers, bloggers and journalists for a published email symposium on game reviews. (See below for the full list of participants.) The planned list of topics include Review Scores; Review Policy, Practice and Ethics; Reader Backlash; Reviews in the Age of Social media; Reviews in the Mainstream Media; Casual, Indie, and User-Generated Games; Reviews vs. Criticism; and Evolving the Review. The participants are as follows:

Participants

Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra/Sexy Videogameland/Variety
Harry Allen, Media Assassin
Robert Ashley, freelancer
Tom Chick, freelancer
N'Gai Croal, Level Up/Newsweek
John Davison, What They Play
Shawn Elliott, 2K Boston
Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb
Kieron Gillen, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Dan Hsu, Sore Thumbs Blog
Francesca Reyes, Official Xbox Magazine
Stephen Totilo, MTV News

The topic for Round 1, which will be published here in installments over the next several days, is Review Scores. Yesterday we published Part I. Today we continue with Part II; to read this section in its entirety, click on the link below.

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A Symposium On Game Reviews. Topic 1: Review Scores, Part I

2008-12-18T18:00:00Z

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Photo courtesy of tsak_d.

These questions and more were on the mind of N'Gai Croal, John Davison and Shawn Elliott last summer when they decided to expand their conversation to a number of noted reviewers, writers, bloggers and journalists for a published email symposium on game reviews. (See below for the full list of participants.) The planned list of topics include Review Scores; Review Policy, Practice and Ethics; Reader Backlash; Reviews in the Age of Social media; Reviews in the Mainstream Media; Casual, Indie, and User-Generated Games; Reviews vs. Criticism; and Evolving the Review. The participants are as follows:

Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra/Sexy Videogameland/Variety
Harry Allen, Media Assassin
Robert Ashley, freelancer
Tom Chick, freelancer
N'Gai Croal, Level Up/Newsweek
John Davison, What They Play
Shawn Elliott, 2K Boston
Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb
Kieron Gillen, Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Dan Hsu, Sore Thumbs Blog
Francesca Reyes, Official Xbox Magazine
Stephen Totilo, MTV News

The topic for Round 1, which will be published here in installments over the next several days, is Review Scores. To read Part I in its entirety, click on the link below.

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Rockstar's Key Employees Re-Up With Take-Two -- But They're Also Starting an Independent Studio. Analyst Michael Pachter Explains It All For You

2008-12-18T06:00:49Z

Grand Theft Auto IV, developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games

Yesterday, the stock price of Take-Two Interactive fell after the company announced a fourth quarter loss of $15 million (up from a loss off $7.1 million a year ago) even though its revenue of $323 million (up from $293 million a year earlier) was greater than expected. What's interesting is that in early November, according to Bloomberg, Zelnick all but declared Take-Two recession-proof, stating "With entertainment products, if there’s something you must have, typically consumers are going to buy it....So far, we’re not seeing any negative influence of the overall economy on sales of our titles.” Yesterday, however, Zelnick was siging a different tune. "We too are influenced by a very difficult set of economic conditions and the world looks a lot worse than it did just a couple of months ago," he admitted.

The news wasn't all bad, however. For the entire fiscal year, Take-Two is projecting a profit. And the best news of all was that the core staff of the studio that's primarily responsible for those profits--Rockstar Games' Dan Houser, Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and unnamed others--has signed new contracts with Take-Two through the year 2012. More interesting, however, than the fact that the new deal would be "primarily based on a profit sharing agreement," was the following paragraph:

In addition, Take-Two has agreed to fund the future development of certain new intellectual property to be owned by a newly formed company controlled by key Rockstar Games team members and published exclusively by Take-Two.

In other words, the Housers and their inner circle retain creative control of the franchises they've created, including Grand Theft Auto. They received a rich new deal. And they will also be able to create brand-new franchises for a separate company that they control--note that the release doesn't specify who owns the company, so Take-Two could have a stake in it--with those new games being funded and distributed by Take-Two. We were impressed when Bungie got to keep its name upon departing from Microsoft during the Flight of the Killer B's, but this strikes us as a far better and shrewder deal, with the Housers and company having the best of both worlds: they get to strike out on their own without ceding control of the house that they built.

For further analysis, we turned to Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter. Here's what he had to say:

To read our Q&A with Pachter, click on the link below.

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Level Up's Top Six Gaming Tidbits for December 18th, 2008

2008-12-18T05:00:27Z

EGO...trip: you say, "ludonarrative dissonance," we say, that was ludicrous
EGO... Forgive us, but we have so many styles, or, praise for our Twitter
BOY...oh boy, what the heck is Noby Noby Boy? Don't ask its creator
BIO...shocker: Gore Verbinski to direct story of a Second Life gone wrong
PRO...tip for employment seekers: don't cop to playing World of Warcraft
RND...New Word Order: Webster names "overshare" its Word of the Year

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In Which the Vs. Mode Withdrawal Society, aka Slate Gaming Club 2008, Draws to a Close

2008-12-12T07:42:08Z

Yesterday, we posted excerpts from Round 2 of the second annual Slate Gaming Club, featuring four journalists discussing the year in videogames. The lineup consisted of New York Times op-ed page staff editor Chris Suellentrop, MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, New York Times games reporter Seth Schiesel, and the staff of Level Up. Round 1 was cordial, while Round 2 got a bit more testy. How would we describe Round 3? Thoughtful. Heady, even. Some excerpts:

Stephen Totilo, MTV News: To save us the embarrassment of not having deeply discussed 2008's biggest gaming newsmaker, I must add that [Wii Fit] served a number of interesting roles. It presented to average people the idea that playing a game could be good for you, it convinced some gaming executives that fitness gaming is the next trend that must be followed, and it expanded the currently unlabeled category of Self-Help Video Games that Nintendo's brain-workout Brain Age software opened up in 2006 (and which may someday force gaming-sales charters to give self-help games their own list, the way the New York Times had to in 1983).

Chris Suellentrop, New York Times: Stephen is saying that video games are a Fourth Medium, then, something truly new under the sun. (Maybe this is just a different way of saying that games are an Eighth Art Form, as Dennis Dyack says.) I often think that's right. But it also helps explain my long face, as Stephen puts it. Don't I have the right to expect something more from this marvelous new medium? Something more wondrous than beautifully and impeccably crafted worlds filled with enemies for me to kill?

What I want is a game with the elegant gameplay and level design of Gears of War 2 but with the story of The Force Unleashed. But I want it told in a manner like Braid—or even You Have To Burn the Rope—meaning, a telling of the tale that is consistent with the promise and the mechanics of this Fourth Medium (or Eighth Art Form).

I haven't played this game yet. Have any of you?

Seth Schiesel, New York Times: [W]ith every passing year I grow deeper in my conviction that the most interesting and meaningful games are massively multiplayer online games in which you have thousands of people in emergent, persistent communities with their own politics, their own tribes. In a massively multiplayer game, every day is different because people are always different. As I've played through dozens of games this year for my job, it has been so vital to maintain a gaming home base, a center of gravity with a group of people that I can just hang out and play with. I've found that most of this year in Eve Online, the hard-core science-fiction MMO that continues to grow. Eve is the kind of game in which the group of people you play with is the most important part of the experience. These are the people I'm on IRC with even when I'm playing something else, and it is that sense of community, of getting to know people from around the world just a little bit, that is the most valuable thing in gaming for me, and it is something that other media usually fail to provide.

N'Gai Croal, Newsweek: [I]n just 24 months, Nintendo has blown past its rivals and continues to do so even though the 360 is now $50 cheaper than the Wii's suggested retail price. To put this Nintendominance in perspective, for the month of November, Wii (2.04 million) outsold Xbox 360 (836,000), PlayStation Portable (421,000), Playstation 3 (378,000), and PlayStation 2 (206,000) combined....
Yes, the data show that the video-game industry's revenues continue to rise. But how sustainable is that when development budgets are tilted toward 360, PS3, and high-end PCs and away from the market-leading Wii and low-end PCs. If a remake of Resident Evil 4 sold extremely well on the Wii, surely there was an opportunity for Dead Space. The liberating sense of movement in Mirror's Edge could have translated well to the Wiimote and nunchuk. But because EA built those games for the top-of-the-line machines, the Wii wasn't even a possibility. So with Nintendo as top dog, I think it's time for publishers to throw it a much bigger bone by leading development on Wii, then up-porting the games to the more powerful systems, which should result in a larger addressable audience.

Share your thoughts with us in the comments below

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Level Up's Top Six Gaming Tidbits for December 12th, 2008

2008-12-12T06:03:29Z

EGO...trip: having been trolled by Roger Ebert (kidding!) our week is complete.
EGO...trip: Interest in The Serious Games Journalist Network of Pretension grows
EGO...trip: Old tag: "painful erudition." New tag: "earnest," "useful." Britlash subsiding?
GOT...Beef? Soulja Boy Tell 'Em and Karate Kid Write 'Em prep for war
WWV...D: What Would Valve Do, or, Infinity Ward says no new DLC for COD4
RND...Lego Star Wars. Lego Indiana Jones. Lego Batman. Lego Ghostface?

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More Legally Approved Vs. Mode Substitute, Courtesy of the Slate Gaming Club

2008-12-10T22:45:34Z

Earlier today, we posted some excerpts from Round 1 of the second annual Slate Gaming Club, in which four writers discuss the year in videogames. The roster? New York Times op-ed page staff editor Chris Suellentrop, MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, New York Times games reporter Seth Schiesel, and the staff of Level Up. In Round 1, the group was pretty polite, but there are definitely some pointed remarks and glowering stares in this, Round 2, of our email exchange. Some excerpts:

Chris Suellentrop, New York Times: [W]hat to think of Gears of War 2? The game is even more shamelessly derivative than the first one. I picked up allusions to, off the top of my head, Independence Day, Battlestar Galactica (the Ron Moore re-imagining), The Empire Strikes Back, and the speeder-bike chase scene in Return of the Jedi. Mitch Krpata of the Boston Phoenix pointed out on his Insult Swordfighting blog that one of the game's levels is a tribute to, or a rip-off of, the final level of Contra....

[Yet] I think Gears of War 2 was the most fun game I played all year, and the game that most achieved the goals it set for itself. If you want to see what an interactive Sylvester Stallone movie looks like, play Gears. It's everything a big summer blockbuster should be. But this is awards season, right?

Stephen Totilo, MTV News: Gamers abandon games--even games that they like--before finishing them. Gamers get angry at games--even games they like--for being repetitious or derivative or for falling short of being as good as it seems like they could be. That's what you get when you, the gamer, indulge in a creative form that was created to convey satisfying-but-repeatable, controllable bits of action for a quarter per minute. This is the creative form that has somehow evolved into a medium of 25-hour, $60 collections of satisfying-but-repeatable, controllable bits of action without inventing many successful strategies for telling stories, figuring out how to develop characters, or turning into a more interesting way to spend an hour than listening to Beethoven or watching The Wire.

Seth Schiesel, New York Times: Over the course of this year, plowing through game after game, what surprised me most was simply how good most of them were. Though the crop of 2008 has demonstrated its talent in different ways, it seems clear that the overall level of production quality and creative talent is higher now in video games than it has ever been. This is the real golden age of gaming because only now is the audience large enough, variegated enough, and mature enough to support high levels of investment in such a broad portfolio of genres on such a wide range of devices and screens.

The major publishers have finally figured out that schlock is not a business strategy that can compete in the long term with producing a high-quality product. I have played through and reviewed most of the biggest games of the year, with a few formal reviews still to come, and the one word that keeps coming back to me is professionalism.

N'Gai Croal, Newsweek: Your point about professionalism also intrigues me. You're correct that, by and large, the level of craft in the video game industry continues to grow each year, and 2008 was no exception. I wonder if, however, by settling for the professionalism inherent in the acknowledgment that "we are those men, and we had fun with these games," we let games off too easily when they take the easy way out, interactively speaking....

Was Epic's handling of Maria's fate a failure of craft or art? I say it's worth thinking hard about, especially when writing for a mainstream audience like yours in the Times and mine at Newsweek. Because when we avoid such questions, we're gulling our readers into believing that story and gameplay are mutually exclusive--or that games are just like other media.

Feel free join in and take shots at us in the comments below, or just share your thoughts on the best and worst of 2008.

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Going Through Vs. Mode Withdrawal? Slate's 2nd Annual Gaming Club Is Here to Save the Day

2008-12-10T10:53:53Z

Last year, the Web magazine Slate (which, like NEWSWEEK, is owned by The Washington Post) convened its first ever Gaming Club to discuss the year in videogames. Participants included New York Times op-ed page staff editor Chris Suellentrop, MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, New York Times games reporter Seth Schiesel, and the staff of Level Up. We debated and discussed such notable titles as BioShock, Halo 3, Desktop Tower Defense, Portal and more before drawing things to a gentlemanly close. Now don't go calling it a comeback, but we've returned for a second installment of what we all hope will be an annual affair. The epistolary exchange kicked off yesterday with three of the Four Musketeers contributing, while today's round will include the full quartet. Some excerpts:

Chris Suellentrop, New York Times: One thing I've been wondering: Is it a good sign or a bad sign for the medium that this year's crop of games has produced such a wide divergence of opinion? Michael "the Brainy Gamer" Abbott thinks Fable 2 is perhaps "the most seductive game world ever created." Chris Dahlen thinks Fallout 3 "balances—and sometimes betters—the approaches of other videogame masterpieces: the retro immersion of BioShock, the paranoia of Portal, the exploration of Oblivion and the seamless storytelling of Half-Life 2. The pseudonymous "Iroquois Pliskin" says GTA IV is "a classic, and stands head and shoulders above its previous iterations and nearly every other game released this year."

Those are three more of the smartest people writing about games. They each think their Game of the Year is a new addition to the canon. Maybe they're right. Or, more likely, this was a year of just-misses, which is why there's an absence of consensus.

Stephen Totilo, MTV News: Fable II as Game of the Year? Getting warmer. In the reverse order of what happens in GTA IV, this game begins with a poorly defined character in an uninteresting medieval European fantasy world but winds up with you controlling a man or woman who is literally the shape of the choices you've made in the game. All that celery he ate made my guy skinny; his ample scars came because he was a clumsy swordsman; his youthful visage remained, because I chose not to sacrifice his looks when given the alternate option to sacrifice a maiden to the gods instead. Ten years from now, the world will remember Nov. 4, 2008, as the day America elected its first black president. I'll also remember that day, I'm sure, as the day when I was first emotionally affected by a video game. Pausing my DVR just after California was called for Obama, I had to go back to Fable II to make the game's final moral decision, a triple-optioned Sophie's choice involving money, loved ones, and community that would affect characters I'd interacted with for weeks. I'm still haunted by the pick I made. Obama's victory speech later that night distracted me from the unease that my final actions had put in my heart, but as I went to bed, with cheers still echoing down the Brooklyn streets near my apartment, I was haunted by the wonderful emotional pain I finally felt from a video game.

Yeah, that's my frontrunner for Game of the Year.

N'Gai Croal, Newsweek: [Fallout 3 and Braid] aren't the only two games I'm considering for whatever top 10 list I assemble whenever I assemble it; others include Patapon, Grand Theft Auto IV, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, The Last Guy, PixelJunk Eden, Gears of War 2, LittleBigPlanet, Left 4 Dead, and Play Auditorium. But I'll end here by asking each of you to name and discuss the game you've had the hardest time expressing your opinion of. For me, it's Resistance 2, a staggering work of heartbreaking mediocrity from one of the industry's most accomplished studios. Staggering in its we-put-every-dollar-up-on-the-screen production values, in its scope, in its careful borrowing from all the right touchstones of the shooter genre. Heartbreaking in that its overblown scale may have helped do it in, in that it has created a fictional world that over two games has never truly connected with me, in enemy encounters that hit all the notes without ever quite playing the tune. It's not mediocre in the way that most games are mediocre. It's just off, and for the life of me I still can't figure out a succinct way to explain why.

Any games from 2008 make you feel that way?

Consider this an open thread for sharing your opinions on our discussion as well as your favorite games of 2008, and check back later for a post on Round 2.

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Level Up's Top Five Gaming Tidbits for December 10th, 2008

2008-12-10T10:17:24Z

EGO...trip: Shot fired at The Serious Games Journalist Network of Pretension
UGO...in "high-level talks" to buy 1UP, nix EGM? So sayeth the grapevine
THE...Colossus of London consumes MMO developer Cryptic Studios
HAX...x0rs are fooling around with Left 4 Dead 360. Is Valve reloading?
RND...Having saved Gotham City, Christian Bale to take on Skynet

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UPDATED: Rockstar Set to Patch Midnight Club Los Angeles for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3

2008-12-09T08:30:25Z

Midnight Club Los Angeles, developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games

UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION: Rockstar Games has just forwarded us a copy of the email blast they sent out earlier today about the patch being issued simultaneously for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Here's what the email said:

A title update is currently available for both the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 versions of Midnight Club: Los Angeles. The Xbox 360 update adds support for additional leaderboards for tournaments on the Rockstar Games Social Club, broader multiplayer match searching, and upgraded streaming and performance. The update also brings improved AI balance to adjust dynamically to user skill level.

Separately, the folks at Rockstar wanted to clarify that players were never required to play red-level races in the pre-patched version of the game. We regret the confusion.

***

Despite our use of the word "patch," in the headline, let it be known that the fine gentlemen and ladies at Rockstar Games prefer to say "update." We learned this yesterday when we stopped by Rockstar's Manhattan offices to chat with Rockstar vice president of development Jeronimo Barrera about the company's recently released racing title Midnight Club Los Angeles. Apparently, inexperienced gamers were struggling to progress through the game, and just as Rockstar is doing for PC gamers who've complained of problems with Grand Theft Auto IV, console owners of Midnight Club Los Angeles will have their troubles wiped away with a patch, er update that goes up today for Xbox 360 owners and at an as yet unspecified time for PS3 users.

"Obviously, we like to listen to our fans," says Barrera. "We've done a bit of tuning on the dynamic race structure so that early on, it will be easier for novice players to get to the later races." Asked how they achieved this, Barrera says they wanted to keep it feeling natural, so they focused on how and how often the computer-controlled cars screw up on turns and intersections rather than on the rubber-band approach to A.I. that typifies many racing games. The tweaks, we're told, cover roughly the first third of the game.

We remarked to Barrera that every game teaches the player how it should be played from nearly beginning to end. So how would this instructional process be affected by the update?

To read the rest of our post on Midnight Club Los Angeles, click on the link below.

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Level Up's Top Four Gaming Tidbits for December 9th, 2008

2008-12-09T07:25:27Z

EGO...trip: Gearing up for The Serious Games Journalist Network of Pretension
NOT...in the demo, presumably, is why we weren't asked to blurb this book
OHH...you just keep on using me until you use me up/until you use me up
RND...The Atlantic Monthly turns its attention to the sport known as UFC

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