I always smile a little bit inside when I read the ESRB warning on games that says "Game Experience May Change During Online Play." I smile because I know what it is they're trying to say, even if they're afraid to come right out and say it.

I'm sure the rest of you know exactly what they're trying to say too.

It's something like, "While you may enjoy playing this game in solo mode, in the comfort of your own, be warned that when you open up the magic tubes of the Internet and find your way online, your game experience may suddenly include being smacked around by 12-year-olds who are intent on calling you a bitch, a fucktard, a cockbite, or any other sort of vulgarity they can piece together in their still-developing frontal lobes. Have fun, and be careful out there. Cockbite."

I think it's a fair thing to include on the warning label. I mean, if the game developers designed a game that was intended for Teen audiences, with Teen content, they shouldn't be penalized just because a bunch of teens decide to use 4-letter-words when playing online because it makes them feel, you know, like they have a big penis or something.

In fact -- and this is getting off topic a little -- I sort of though the "Experience May Change" disclaimer should have covered things like the Hot Coffee mod, and the Oblivion nude patch, that forced rating changes for those games a few years back. Sure, in both cases there was existing code in the game that people were able to exploit to suddenly create some exciting (or creepy) pixelated porn in your gaming life, but the developers didn't ever intend for that content to appear in the finished product. Those items were either leftovers from earlier builds of the game, or little jokes that individual developers probably snuck in temporarily to get a giggle from the guy in the next cubicle. It's not Rockstar's fault that some decided to hack their game apart and stumble upon that minute little bit of porn. It's not Bathesda's fault that someone figured out they could run around as a topless warrior with the help of a tiny little patch. They game, as delivered, and as intended by the developers got the rating it did, and the rating should have remained the same, regardless of what anyone was able to hack out of the game.

But I digress.

As much as I think the online game experience should not be something that game developers are held accountable for -- because, really, there's not way they could control that -- I am beginning to think that the online game experience is something that reviewers should be taking into account when writing about games.

And by "online game experience" I'm not talking about its network code, or how efficient it's matchmaking and lobby system are, or whether or not it has too many or too few online-associated achievements. I'm talking about the sorts of people you're going to play against, and specifically, are they a bunch of ass-hats?

Lets be honest with each other. Certain games attract a certain type of online gamer. And, just as an example, something like Halo 3 tends to a pull a lot of the smack-talking, high-pitched, not-quite-through puberty crowd that a fair number of people I know would prefer to avoid.

I'm not really dissing on Halo 3 either. I bought it, and I'm not regretting the purchase. I've put in a good chunk of hours with friends online, have a lot of good times, and getting a lot of good laughs out of it. But my interaction with the public, matchmaking side of it has been limited, because of the sort of gamers you tend to run into.

Now I'm not trying to say that there's anything wrong with those types playing a video game, or playing a video game in the way they want to. They can and they should be able to buy Halo 3, play Halo 3, and call anyone they want to a bitch. All I'm saying is...if that's what the online game experience is going to be like, hey, reviewers, let's tell the public. That way I, as a consumer, can decide if that's a game I want to buy.

The online experience is a pretty major part of most games these days. I think it's more than worth covering every facet of that experience.

Because someone suggested it, and because I should have done it in the first place, I've updated my previous post with a handful of photos, complete with insightful and socially relevant captions. Enjoy.

I'm sort of disappointed that no one felt any need to comment on my zombie-PCXL posting, but not entirely surprised, as I was ranting about the resurrection of a 7-year-old magazine. Although it's worth noting that if PCXL -- in its original incarnation -- were still around today, I imagine it would be enjoyed by a good number of D-toid's readership.

Anyway, moving along to something dear to the hearts of PC Accelerator's former editorial staff (and readership) -- Sex and video games.

Sex in games has been around for about as long as the gaming industry itself, dating back to softporn text adventures (which, I'm sure, would have been the pinnacle of interactive titilation at the time), all the way up to today's often-more-than-mildly-creepy hentai games. But as the debate over whether games can and should be considered "art" rages stronger with each passing week, I can't help but wonder if there might be room for a more tasteful, more respectful, and (as much as I hate to say it) more artistic approach to weaving sex and sexuality into our virtual worlds.

You know when certain Hollywood actresses talk about how they'd be willing to do a nude scene if it was artistically vital to the film's story? Okay, that's often horsecrap, given some of the nude scenes some of these actresses have done, but that idea, that a video game could approach the idea of sex in a mature way, is what I'm going for.



And maybe we're already there, but for the life of me, I can't think of where I've seen it. Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball? A jiggle-fest, to be sure, but a fairly immature one at that. And besides, it's not sex, it's just trying to be sexy. And also sort of creepy. Which it's probably not trying to be, come to think of it. The creepy is more of an unfortunate side-effect.

What about something like Fable? It certainly wanted to *try* dealing with complicated subjects, but its approach to sex were either annoying wife-maintenance moments, or a giggling, innuendo-filled, cross-dressing experience. Again, not the sort of serious, mature, approach to sex that I'm looking for.

Believe it or not, one of the best implemented sex-moments may have been in GTA: San Andreas. Sure, the whole dating, back to her place gimmick was a bit of a pain, but at least it felt like a real moment, that tastefully faded to black at just the right degree of innuendo to make sure you knew what was going down.



Then, of course, the whole "Hot Coffee" mod thing sort of ruined that tastefulness, but turning San Andreas sex into an incredibly unsettling mini-game (speaking of which, whichever developer or developers had a hand in that, you might want to keep it off your resume).

Maybe it's the larger-than-life nature of games and gaming that it difficult to implement sex in this way. Is it possible to create a larger-than-life-virtual sex experience that isn't either so over-the-top that it becomes comedy, or so in your face that it becomes porn? Worse yet, does the looming terror of the dreaded AO rating keep developers from properly exploring this facet of their work? Is sex in games destined to remain as fap-fodder for those bored of streaming porn?

All I know for sure is this -- as much as I loved Bioshock, and as much it's one of the strongest arguments for "games as art" that I've yet seen, I'm glad it was, as far as I could tell, sex-free. Big Daddy getting all intimate is not something I need to see.

Ever.

Here's the problem with bringing things back from the dead -- for the most part, you usually get something that's all rotten and smells bad and wants to eat your brains, even if it was something beautiful and magical and wonderful in the first place. 40 years of film have shown us this simple fact: the living dead are a bad, bad thing.

I encountered the living dead someplace rather unexpected last week -- Seven-Eleven. I had stopped in for a slurpee and was browsing the magazine rack, looking for the current OXM, curious what sort of demos the current issue was sporting, when I saw a magazine branded with four letters I never expected to see on a magazine ever again.

PCXL.

PCXL (or as it was then officially titled, PC Accelerator), for those of you unfamiliar, was, simply put, the very finest magazine that has ever existed. It combined a love of games with a Maxim-Magazine-esque love of half-naked women and sarcastic / cynical snark. It died after only a few years in 2000, because they had a habit of ripping bad games a new one, which didn't sit well with their advertisers. And anyone in the publishing industry knows, it's the advertisers who write your paychecks. Or it's the advertisers who write the checks that go into the bank account where you paychecks are written from.

Seven years later, and here, in Seven-Eleven, was a magazine sporting the shortened form of the name of the best magazine to ever live. And after a quick thumb-through, I realized that this was not just a coincidence. This magazine actually WAS attempting to breath life into the PCXL brand again.

So I bought it. I bought it even though I was pretty sure that it was destined for failure. I bought it because, however slim, there was a possibility that they had managed to recapture the magic of the original.

As it turns out, the possibility was just to slim. PCXL is a shadow of what PC Accelerator was. And as much I expected it, it still sort of breaks my heart.

I'm not sure exactly where to place the blame. It seems obvious that the writers who worked on it were familiar with the original, and were fond enough of the original to include enough loving homages. And it was nice to see a handful of former PC Accelerator writers pop by to discuss that magazine's heritage. But once it moved out of the realm of homage and tried to generate its own, fresh, PCXL-style content, it fell painfully on its twisted, ravaged, zombie-face.

The primary feature -- if it could be said to have one -- which was an interview with the Frag Dolls, was embarassingly bad, with the first two pages made up of the sort-of insulting questions that you'd expect from any other publication. Sure, PC Accelerator loved showing photos of half-naked women, and they would have been all over coverage of the Frag Dolls if they were still around, but no one would have wasted even a single column trying to figure out if chicks really game. Of course they game. Now tell us how we can have sex with you.

Beyond the Frag Dolls feature, PCXL is surprisingly light on content. Big photos with short stories, lists of geek toys, a few single-page blurbs on upcoming games, and before you know it, the whole mess is over.

It's not a terribly bad magazine. It's only problem is that the legacy it's trying to live up to is so much greater that what it could conceivably pull off. And maybe I'm just spoiled, maybe I've been getting too much of my gaming content from the 'Net, where the spirit of PC Accelerator seems to be far stronger. Maybe the print publishing industry has gotten to be so boring and vanilla that PCXL is a fine example of something risky and cutting edge. And if that *is* the case, then it's no wonder they couldn't get more former staff-members to chime in on the new PCXL. Because they'd be embarrassed at the association.

PC Accelerator was a magazine that died far, far too soon. But that doesn't change the fact that it did die. It is dead. And it should remain in the ground. This rotting, fetid corpse that PC Gamer has decided to dig up should be put back in the ground and left there, where we can honour its memory.

With the release of Bioshock only a few days away, and a little glimpse into id Software's new engine / game "Rage" only a week or so behind us, I can't help but reminisce a little about the (arguable) father of the first person shooter, and wonder to myself, "Is id still relevant?"

There was a time, of course, where every little thing they did sent ripples through the gaming industry. Wolfenstein was like a revolution in gaming. Doom took it to the next level. And then Quake -- ah, Quake -- among the first true 3D shooters. The game alone was a reason to upgrade your computer, to get a faster processor, to look at a better video card. And QuakeWorld helped launch the internet gaming frenzy that is still frenzying to this day.

Quake 2 didn't make quite the same impact, technologically, but its online component eventually became even stronger than its predecessor's. Mods by the dozen, by the hundred started to appear. You could have your deathmatch in just about any flavour you liked.

Id went online only with Quake 3, but faced tough competition from Unreal Tournament, which many thought -- myself included -- was a superior product. Around the same time, Half Life came along and, from almost out the blue, upped the ante considerably on what an engaging, first-person shoot could and *should* be.

Attempting to return to their roots, id annouced that they were developing a sequal to their genre-defining hit Doom -- a game that would be even more tense and frightening than the original, thanks to the significant change in technology in the intervening years.

People were excited. People were drooling all over themselves for the game. A NEW DOOM -- A DOOM FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. OH MY TEH GODZ.

And then it was released. And it was...meh. Meanwhile, everyone was humping Half Life 2 -- and it's hard to blame them. It'd be hard to develop a compelling argument that it WASN'T a better game.

And now it's 2007. Id is still alive, still hard at work, this time on something new. Something called RAGE. It looks pretty, to be sure. It's tech is obviously solid. But I still can't shake the feeling that, as much as I *want* to care about it, I just don't. It's been years since id did anything revolutionary with a game (beyond the engine), and as much as I'd like to think RAGE will do something spectacular, so far all we know is that it's got vehicles. Which is, uh...yeah, been there, done that.

I used to experience little gaming orgasms everytime a representative from id opened their mouth, everytime a new screenshot was released. They were gaming gods. But they just...they lost it. Maybe they jumped the shark. Maybe the put the focus on the tech and not the game. Maybe gaming just zigged while they were busy zagging.

I'm not sure exactly what happened. But I'm pretty sure that something did. And while we, as gamers, might be better for it (because we're getting stuff like Bioshock -- fuck yeah!), id is poorer. They haven't become a joke to the industry yet, at least. But they're definitely middle of the road. And far from the industry-defining all-stars they once were.

Sometimes it seems like every day brings a new journalist / blogger / rabid-fan with some new information that 100% PROVES that Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming to the Xbox 360. Of course every time someone in the know gets put on record, the answer comes around to something like, "No, MGS4 is a PS3 exclusive, has always been a PS3 exclusive, and will always be a PS3 exclusive."

"But there was a trailer without the PS3 logo on it!"

"Still exclusive."

"But all the other MGS games have eventually gone multi-platform!"

"Still exclusive."

"But really, really, REALLT want it on the 360? Please? Please? Puh-LEEEEZE?"

"Still exclusive. And stop whining. It makes you look bad."

Okay, let's all face facts. Regardless of evidence in favour of, or on-the-record comments to the contrary, odds are pretty good that, at some point, MGS4 is going to arrive on the Xbox 360. It just makes good business sense. and it's the sort of good-business-sense decision that they've made before.

But more important is this: Until you know for sure, for God's sake, stop talking about it. Nobody cares, and it's not going to change a single thing. If it's coming for the Xbox 360, then it's coming for the Xbox 360, and it'll show up when it's done, and when Kojima Productions decides it's time to milk the industry for a few more dollars. Arguing over whether it's ever going to arrive on the 360 or not is not going to make its arrival any more certain, and is not going to make it arrive any faster. It's just a bunch of hot air taking up space on the 'Net.

And admittedly, there's no shortage of that. But come on, we don't need to add to it, do we?

Mind you, this isn't as far as this problem goes. The whole game of multi-platform release chess is actually a bit of a headache. The game is exclusive, until it's not, but we're not going to tell you it's not until the point that it's most beneficial for our company, like maybe at E3, and if you get some information before then, and you try to leak it, we'll deny it of course, even if we know it's true, because of course we know it's true, but obviously we can't tell you that NOW, because it's not at the most financially beneficial point for our company.

And yet...every time there's a slip, ever time a a company rep says the wrong thing, or says the right thing the wrong way, or whatever, everyone is all over. It's quoted here there and everywhere, even though we all know there'll be a retraction put out within 24 hours. Even though we should all realize by now that no one will officially fess up to the truth until the date that will most benefit their shareholders.

And really, there's nothing wrong with that. It's all part of the business game. It's part of marketing. It's what certain people get paid to do.

And I know it's exciting to "break" a story and all, but it's not really "breaking" unless someone is actually going on the record with it.

And until then...until you have the official word, and can really "BREAK" the story...please, just stop talking about it. Okay? Seriously.

Thanks.