Nintendo claims the Wii will appeal to inexperienced gamers, and so far, all their actions seem to indicate they still firmly believe that. However, it's a fairly basic idea that the most skilled players will win in pretty much any game (except in some cases of bad luck). I then started to wonder whether there are any existing games where even a relatively unskilled player can do well, assuming their skilled opponents are not godly in comparison, that is. I decided to examine various multiplayer games I've played/have seen played often to see if a newbie (to games in general)…

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Sound In Games

With the new generation of consoles coming out, it seems like there is a big debate about new technology, blue ray capability, processing power, etc. But who is pushing the audio envelope? How many people can tell you if their favorite game can support 5.1 surround or more? Can most games even do more than stereo? The only game in recent memory that I remember talking about audio in an interview was Doom III. In the article the interviewee mentioned how you could hear things sneaking up on you in the game. My basic point is…

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I've recently picked up two of the most wildly popular 3-D action-adventure titles in recent years. One is Sony's Greek epic God of War, and the other is Ubisoft's sequel to a classic Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Experiencing these games one after the other has prompted me to think about state of the 3-D action-adventure genre, and the importance of titles like these to future generations of 3-D action games. Just what is it that makes these games so different from other games in this and other genres? What game, if any, provides promising innovation fit to inspire…

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(So you know this is going to be about Pokemon and you're still reading? Bravo.)

We all know how the Pokemon games took the world by storm about 10 years ago, but not many people know (or care) how the franchise is doing nowadays. The surprising thing is that while the series' popularity has dropped, the games continue to sell extremely well. In fact, the worst selling Pokemon game, Emerald version for GBA, still sells as well as the worst selling Mario games, and it sells better than the majority of Final Fantasy and Zelda games. So how has…

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What makes a game good? Depending on who you ask that question to, you could get very different responses. A business executive could have one idea of what a good game is. A person that lives and breathes games could have a completely different idea of what makes a good game. A person that plays games casually could have still another idea. This article is an attempt to document the different viewpoints of what makes a "good" game.

The first type is the Well-Marketed game. The standard of success for these games is the number of sales, and is about…

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