If Monster Hunter 3 does come to the states, it’s going to be awhile. I think that decision may be based on how Freedom Unite does when it hits here.

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Story: B-

Vesperia takes place in a world where the population has become dependant on magical stones called blastia left by an ancient civilization, and currently engaged in a power struggle between the Empire and the various Guilds.  Yuri, an ex-Knight of the Empire, encounters princess Estelle as she is trying to escape from the castle to find their mutual friend Flynn as they chase a blastia theft across the lands.  As they gain members, the group comes to realize there is a more sinister plot afoot involving the blastia that could lead to the destruction of the world, and only their group can stop it.

The plot is pretty stereotypical as well as the characters, though there are a few nice elements to it, but it does get convoluted.  Story is told by a lot of voiced and some unvoiced cutscenes as well as skits throughout the game, with a handful of anime shorts.  A major nit with the story is that it leads to a false climax; you’re all geared for a final battle but then the story takes a turn that requires another act to complete; not that this is necessarily bad, but the false finale is so strongly implied that to find there’s more after it feels like a cheap add-on to the game.

Gameplay: A

Vesperia’s core gameplay will come as no surprise to anyone already familar with the series or with JRPGs in general.  As the story progresses, you move between towns, passing through the overworld on foot, by boat, or by airship, and then entering various dungeons to find artifacts and other useful information.  There are, of course, monster encounters but they are all visible, and you can also attempt to link two or more monster encounters for a more difficult fight.   The game features a limited day/night and weather system approach, in that the type of monsters may change depending on these factors, at least in the overworld.

Combat continues the Tales series tradition of a real-time combat system, with a handful more features that start to make this act like a beat-em-up game.  You control one character (though the game seems to push you towards Yuri most of the time), and given the monster you’re aiming for, you can move back and forth in a line with it; however, off the bat, you can also hold down a trigger and run anywhere on the field, allowing you to easily evade certain attacks or position yourself better.  Attacks can be standard melee combat or a variety of “artes”, special attacks or magical spells, which deal more damage but also consume your “mana” tracks as TP points.  While TP regenerates during battle by landing regular hits, you’ll find that wasteful use of artes can lead to some close situations.  In addition, once you’ve learned certain skills, you can block, sidestep attacks, recover while flying in mid-air, and a number of other moves that you’d normally expect to see in a game like Street Fighter, and thus may start to appeal to those that play these types of games.  Of course, it does get repetitive, as is the case with JRPGs, so this is likely not going to tip you all the way.  An Overlimit meter fills up with successful hits from your party, and, once full, you can activate it to string a large number of attacks in a row without pausing for a short while, though your TP will still be consumed.  It’s also possible later in the game to coordinate the Overlimit with party members for a limited time.

Artes come in a number of types, eight of which you can assign to quick thumbstick flips to make their access easier.  Certain artes, once learned enough, will lead you to learning new artes; some also are learned as you gain levels, after certain plot points, or after learning certain skills.  These artes can then be worked into attack combos that lead to you being able to unleash more devesting artes, including each character’s unique “Mystic Arte”.  Fortunately, if you are a terrible button masher like myself, gaining mastery of manipulating artes, attacks, and blocking is not needed to win the game, but only makes it easier to complete.  It does help, however, to know how artes can be learned, which is one of those constants that are part of the series but not well-spelled out in the general documentation.  Most artes also have a special direction of damage that they do (up, to the side, or down).  Pulling off enough artes attack on an enemy with the same damage will cause that enemy to become susceptible to Fatal Strikes; hit the enemy again and for a brief second a special indicator will flash.  While this is up, if you hit the right trigger and the direction indicated, you will immediately finish any non-boss character, while doing damage to boss ones.  Using Fatal Strikes can significantly up the rewards you get from battle.  It took me a while to get use to the Fatal Strike timing, more often then not calling up the in-battle menu instead of the right attack.  However, it does prove to be a useful tactic for later battles.

You aren’t alone in battle; up to 3 of your party will join you. A detailed strategy table can be used to highly customize their actions in battle, as well as having a number of different strategies saved for quick recall as the situation changes.  But, by default, the AI for the characters perform well, though you many need to turn off weaker artes for them as they learn their more powerful artes.  While you can’t switch out during battle, those that don’t participate are still going to be able to gain experience and other benefits from battle.  As each has an area that they can be better at than others (two, for example, are better against aerial enemies, while one is strong with attack magic), you’ll be able to get your party right for the areas you explore.  The only caveat is that they need to be active battle members to learn new artes, but this is not a significant problem to overcome if you swap out and around every so often.

The “twist” in this Tales game is a skill system which works very much like Final Fantasy IX’s abilities.  Each weapon and certain armor has a set of skills that can be learned by characters that can equip it.  You gain that skill with the weapon equiped, but if you use it long enough in battle to earn enough skill points, you’ll be able to learn that skill without equipping the item.  Thus, much of the game’s management is to continually make sure you collect weapons (including via synthesis) and keeping track when each character learns a skill so that you can swap in a new weapon as to get them to develop new skills.  Of course, the number of skills you can get is large, and you only have a limited number of skill points to allocate to these skills (these grow with level, but it is still a limit).  These skills come in a variety of areas; some increase your attributes, some give you new commands while in battle, others can help modify artes, and so on.  These can get difficult to manage, though if you fail to take steps to manage them on the other characters, they usually default to fair settings.  While the system items is not new, it is a good way of adding a bit of extra customizations to the characters.

The usual cooking aspect is here in the; you can learn recipes to restore party health and TP one time after a battle (you can do it either from the battle completion screen or the menus), providing you have the right ingredients.  The game also adds a synthesis element.  All enemies drop loot that can be combined at stores to make basic goods, armor, or help improve your weapons to advanced versions with new skills to be learned.  There’s also special items, some which are more decorative, but others that are quite useful in battle, such as increasing your Overlimit level.  Fortunately, you’re told what materials you need to make each and where they can be found, so that if you’re itching for a particular weapon or item and lack the resources, you’ll have a way of getting them.  That said, there are a lot of synthesized weapons that can be made in the game, and while the game helps to track which skills you’ve extracted weapons from, this only helps when you have your full party; as the game separates you from the others several times, you can’t see what skills they have learned while synthesizing and thus you’ll either have to wait till they rejoin or make your best guesses on what they lack.

From the standpoint of the overall game, it’s decently structured; the first third of the game, you’re pretty much fixed on a linear path with a few small side quests; in the second third you gain a ship and then shortly thereafter an airship, and your freedom to explore the world opens up a lot more sidequests.  Mind you, there is a period in the third third where you are stripped of your airship for a brief while, but the fact you get to taste what it feels like and knowing you’ll get back to it helps.   While this is typical of most JRPGs with the same world structure, the game feels like it opens up earlier than others.  That said, one of the more annoying parts of the game is that there are several points where your party of 7 will be missing one or more members due to the story line.  Normally, not a big problem, but one of these extended periods includes your primary healer; by this point you do have two other characters that can heal via artes, but their effects are not as strong as the healer, and this can make the boss fights during this period rather difficult.  Fortunately, you have the ability to alter the game difficulty before battle for less reward.  However, the number of times characters switched in and out did get a bit frustrating.

Value/Replayability: A-

The game clocked in for me at 45 hours - mostly playing the main story.  My only nit here was that when I was approaching the 40 hr mark with the characters preparing for the “final battle”, there was a twist in the plot that added another 5 hrs of play to it, making it feel like a sluggish ending.  As with most Tales games, throughout the game you earn Grade from battles, and thus when you start a new game after completing one, you have the opportunity to spend Grade prior to the game to unlock “cheats”, such as the ability to retain items, money, skills, artes, etc to the next playthrough, or to earn experience or Grade faster, and several other cheat-like type approaches.  Normally, this can make the next playthrough more interesting, but as the game is intergrated with the Xbox Live, there are now achievements to be earned, some which you get through the normal story line, but most requiring a couple playthroughs to earn.  Of course, as you get more Grade, your playthroughs can start to become incredibly shorter since your characters start more powerful and can wipe out monsters without too much problem.  This seems like a nice combination of the Tales approach and Achievements and thus gives some good replay incentive to the game.

Graphics: A

On the 360, Vesperia’s graphics shine nicely.  The game is given an anime cel-shading approach, similar to Crackdown’s comic book style, and they flow well on the console.  There’s still issues with characters mouths not lip-syncing as well with the text, but we’re getting closer to that.  The background environments are beautifully done, and there’s a grand sense of scale in many areas.  The battle screen is nicely compact to allow you to focus on the battle while still having key HUD elements in view.

Audio: B

Music and voice acting-wise, Vesperia is just fine: the music is of the same mood as past games, maybe not as sweeping as Final Fantasy but still a good element, and all the voice actors are pretty good for their roles (despite the poor lines they’re given).  Skits are finally fully voiced, which helps to make them more interesting to play through.  But, and this is where my grade comes from, a number of in-game conversations are not voiced fully.  Certainly interactions with NPCs are reasonable to not provide this, but there were several scenes, only between the main group of characters, where the previous scene was voiced, the scene following was voiced, but the middle scene, just as important to the plot as either its neighbors, was not.  This inconsistency was rather annoying.  I understand the need to avoid something like Oblivion where having every character voiced ends up making the game seem like only three voice actors are behind it, but Vesperia is nowhere close to this point, and could have used with more fully-voiced scenes.

Overall: A-

Fans of the Tales series will well appreciate the fact that Vesperia is a fine continuation of the series onto the next generation of consoles.  The core elements of the series are still there, with appreciable new gameplay elements to make it still a fresh approach, and the graphical boost from the new hardware helps a lot.  There is a bit of triteness with the stereotypical story and characters, but that’s an aspect to come to expect from the Tales games.  If you haven’t had the opportunity to try one of the games from this series and you lack an aversion to JRPGs, you will do yourself good to pick this title up.

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For better or worse:

Looking over the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, one of the main factors an interested onlooker might consider is how the console manufacturers are handling the show. Both Microsoft and Sony, currently dueling for position in the worldwide market, sought a strong showing at TGS.

Sony needed to convince consumers that its recent loss to the Xbox 360 in the monthly Japanese sales charts was just a one-off. On the other hand, Microsoft needed to convince the assembled masses its momentum in the territory was not a flash in the pan. As for Nintendo -- well, we'll get to them a little later.

On Microsoft's Showing

Let's start with Microsoft. It laid out its agenda in John Schappert's first-day TGS keynote, which we've already covered at some length here on Gamasutra. The Halo 3: Recon announcement was important for the world stage, if not as much for the Japanese market. But on the show floor, its key titles were surprisingly Japan-centric and well-received.

Much of this has to do with Square Enix's high level of support for Microsoft's console, with The Last Remnant and a beautiful-looking Star Ocean: The Last Hope both playable at its large booth. Then there's Final Fantasy XIII, this year confirmed for Microsoft's console but nowhere to be seen. And with Namco Bandai's Tales Of Vesperia the key recent hardware-mover for the company, Xbox 360's Japanese support is becoming wide and surprisingly deep.

Take Capcom's Resident Evil 5, for example, a massively important title, and the first series entry on a Microsoft console. In addition, Koei's Gundam Musou 2 will also be appearing on the Xbox 360, and From Software's Ninja Blade looks particularly promising.

Street Fighter IV also made a high-profile appearance at Microsoft's booth in lush form, and the niche shooter community is starting to become heavily supported thanks to titles such as Raiden IV and Death Smiles.

Relatively few of these titles are guaranteed to be Microsoft-exclusive over time -- most of the larger ones are likely to appear on PlayStation 3 at some point. But as the company has found, getting companies to launch their former Sony-only franchises on Microsoft's console as well is a massive equalizer for consumers -- as demonstrated by Namco's revelation that Tekken 6 will appear on Xbox 360.

And the firm is still producing Xbox 360 exclusives to help differentiate its console further. Some are with niche developers on the otaku end of the chain.

But those that exist higher up the ladder, such as Ninety-Nine Nights II, confirmed at the press conference, may be further reasons for Japanese consumers to get excited about Microsoft's console. The care given to resurrect Japanese retro titles on Xbox Live Arcade is well-appreciated, too.

One probably wouldn't argue that Microsoft is winning the battle in Japan. Rather, the company has muscled its way into a significant install base worldwide -- and now Japanese companies are releasing their expensively-produced titles across multiple platforms out of global necessity. It's definitely getting Microsoft somewhere.

On Sony's Showing

Sony held no press conference to showcase its titles, but its show-floor presence is imposing and impressive, with LittleBigPlanet the key title with which it's hoping to impress the Japanese public this holiday season.

The company's worldwide devotion to the game's Sackboy protagonist is advertised by a massive globe featuring him, as well as a large puppet version of the character interacting with the presenters of the theater show at the TGS Sony booth. Plus, of course, there's a LBP-specific PS3 hardware bundle debuting this holiday season in Japan.

It will be interesting to see if the title resonates with the Japanese, given the paucity of Western experiences that have sold significantly well in the territory. However, if anyone has previously managed to make the transition, it's been Sony. For example, mascot-style platformers such as Ratchet & Clank have sold well in Japan (possibly thanks to extra eyebrows).

Browsing Sony's brochure for the show after visiting its booth, it is notable that Western titles such as Resistance 2, Killzone 2, SOCOM: Confrontation, and MotorStorm's sequel are given high billing, appearing as double-page spreads up front in the brochure ahead of many notable Japanese titles.

Why so? Well, with so many third-parties going multi-platform with major titles, Sony may want to accentuate its exclusives above otherwise great games that are now multiplatform -- even if the exclusives may not be spectacularly suited to the Japanese market.

This is significantly different to the approach taken by Microsoft, which is happy to make noise about projects that are coming to the Xbox 360 for the first time.

Extrapolating on these trends, Sony seems to be building its exclusives much more for the larger world market, in particular the the North American and European territories that share similar tastes to one another, compared to Japan -- which does not.

This observation may be unduly inflated by the fact that there seem to be major Japanese-created exclusive titles that are in development but are simply not yet ready to be revealed, save a few outliers like Level 5's White Knight Chronicles, From Software's Demon's Souls, and the thus-far PS3-exclusive Yakuza 3.

And let's not forget the PSP, which features some strong, quirky first-party titles like LocoRoco 2 and Patapon 2.

Few high-end PS3 third-party titles are showing outside of Sony's booth, but there is a gigantic number of PSP games elsewhere on the show floor, from Dissidia: Final Fantasy to Level 5's new game Ushiro, with the portable system seemingly rivaling the DS in its quantity of high-profile Japan-centric releases.

On Nintendo's Showing?

Nintendo has of course historically chosen not to exhibit its hardware or first-party games at Tokyo Game Show, often preferring to hold its own events (such as the now-defunct SpaceWorld of years past), as it did when announcing the DSi earlier this month.

Nintendo's worldwide hardware sales dominance is not currently in doubt, even with some regional variance (the PSP is performing very well compared to the Nintendo DS in Japan at the moment). The company's lack of presence notwithstanding, there is a plethora of Wii and DS titles on show, notable at this relatively "core gamer"-focused event.

And with announcements such as No More Heroes 2 timed for TGS, Yuji Naka's charming recently-announced Let's Tap for Wii, and Phantasy Star on DS just a few of the show floor standouts, there is plenty of third-party goodness to see here for Nintendo's consoles -- not least of all Monster Hunter 3, which moved from PlayStation 3 to Wii after its initial announcement. Youch.

Plus, for the first time I can recall in recent memory, there are Nintendo characters on the TGS show floor. They may have just been Animal Crossing-, Pikmin-, and Mario-themed plush toys made available for sale by a third party in the merchandising area, but hey -- it's better than nothing, right?

take the tour

Gallery: Microsoft booth tour (TGS 2008)

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By now I’m sure a lot of us have played, screamed at, and ultimately enjoyed Mega Man 9. The game was first released on the Wii, followed by the PS3, and ended its run on the Xbox 360. The only question that remains is whether or not the 360 version is worth the money. The short answer is yes, while the longer answer is yes unless we want to experience Mega Man 9 in the same way we did so many years ago.

Graphically the 360 version is virtually identical to its cross platform counterparts. Some would argue the Wii version represents a more accurate depiction of old school Mega Man graphics. As strange as that sounds, considering we’re talking about 8-bit graphics on supercomputers, that argument does hold some validity. However telling the Wii port apart from the 360 build is virtually impossible unless we look ridiculously hard at both versions. Basically playing Mega Man 9 on the console that the series was originally made for gives the Mega Man 9 on the Wii a psychological edge if nothing else.

Continuing in the vain of psychological superiority is the control scheme of Mega Man 9. The PS3 and Wii directional pads are straight and pointy whereas the 360’s d-pad is rounded. This doesn’t obstruct controlling the game in any major way, but historically Mega Man games have been played on smaller controllers and un-rounded directional pads. The directional pad in relation to the buttons that are are used for jumping and shooting can feel a tad strange on the 360 — probably because they’re not symmetrical. Particularly picky gamers might see this as a deal breaker, but technically the game isn’t any more different on 360 than it is anywhere else.

Downloadable content such as Endless Attack mode and Proto Man are available from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace just as it is on WiiWare and PSN. We don’t need to worry about getting the short end of the stick just because we own a particular console. Capcom has showed no bias towards any system in particular.

All in all, Mega Man 9 on the Xbox 360 is still a must-buy for fans who have been going bananas over reliving the crushing difficulty the original Mega Man games offered. All versions of the game are largely identical. It just comes down to whether Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo will get our $10 investment.

To delve a little deeper into our minds, check out our Wii review here.

• Alexander Sliwinski: Must, must, must finish Infinite Undiscovery this weekend. Also been meaning to try Hinterland.
• Christopher Grant: Still stationed in Japan, far from the upcoming onslaught of major releases and the LittleBigPlanet beta, I'll have to settle for using the Tokyo Game Show as my own personal gaming closet until I return. Looking forward to stumbling my way through Gyakuten Kenji's Japanese menus, trying out some Resident Evil 5 co-op, and eating delicious ramen. Admittedly, eating ramen isn't a game but stumbling my way through ordering it is pretty fun (and challenging!).
• Griffin McElroy: I'll be playing the LittleBigPlanet beta as much as time allows until its untimely end this Sunday, making tweaks to my first ambitous published project (ostentatiously titled "The Blimp and the Birdhouse: A Cautionary Tale on Unsturdy Flora") and playing through some of the classier levels currently available to those lucky enough to procure a beta access code. I imagine I'll fit a bit of Rock Band 2 in as well, as the release of the first ever Harvey Danger DLC was met with much fanfare in my apartment.
• Kevin Kelly: I'll be playing Diablo III at BlizzCon, baby! Also Starcraft II and... archery, apparently.
  
• Kyle Orland: In between campaign volunteering, squeezing in some time for LittleBigPlanet, Mega Man 9 and more Rock Band 2.
• James Ransom-Wiley Let's go Phils!
• Jason Dobson: As a side effect of my recent move, I've begun going through the assortment of old games I've collected throughout the years, deciding what's worth revisiting and what's best left remembering through rose-colored glasses. I've decided this weekend will be devoted to tackling Sir-Tech's Realms of Arkania trilogy, beginning with Blade of Destiny, assuming I can even get the thing to run.
• Justin McElroy: ?????
  
• Ludwig Kietzmann: !!!!!
• Randy Nelson: Now that I know the LittleBigPlanet beta content will carry over to the final release, it's on! You'll be playing my level based on Leonard Part 6 day one! (That is if I don't let my new-found addiction to Galcon on the iPhone or my goal to lose 200 lbs. in one weekend using Wii Fit don't get in the way - I know the anthropomorphic Balance Board says it can't be done, but I'll see it in skinny Hell!)
• Ross Miller is so happy to have contributed to today's GameDaily's HUD (take that ... people who didn't) that he's just going to paste the same WRUP response here: Before this year's Great Explosion of AAA Releases, I'm going back through some of the library and playing through Half-Life 2 and BioShock. It'll be interesting to see how their narrative style and presentation differ from next week's Dead Space. There's also a handful of LittleBigPlanet levels I've been told to check out. Beyond that, I'm a few performances away from Endless Setlist in Rock Band 2, which time permitting I might try to take a stab at on Sunday.

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Above: A gamer plays the latest in theAce Attorney line of lawyer adventure games for Nintendo DS at Tokyo Game Show 2008.

TOKYO -- Here at the Tokyo Game Show, it's the year of the Nintendo DS.

With more than 23 million units sold in Japan alone, and an updated version of the hardwarecalled the DSi on the way next month, there isn't a gamemaker at the show that isn't preparing one or more big-budget games for DS. They're betting that the system's broad popularity will equal big returns on titles for hard-core players and casual gamers alike.

"DS is obviously kicking ass in Japan," says Capcom's Hiroyuki Kobayashi, producer of the Resident Evilseries of games. Kobayashi says that since many Japanese publishers create games only for Japanese consumers, they are naturally gravitating toward the dominant platform. Nintendo says it has sold one DS for every two Japanese households.

The surging popularity of handheld videogame systems like the DS, Sony's PSP and even the iPhone means an expanding market for gamemakers who can cook up addictive diversions for people killing time in a waiting room or on a train. Like Nintendo's superpopular Wii console, the DS and its portable bretheren appeal first and foremost to casual gamers. But there's plenty of red meat for the hard-core, too.

Tokyo Game Show organizers say about 19 percent of the games on the show floor are for Nintendo's portable system, almost double the figure for 2006. All of Japan's major game publishers have elaborate booths in Tokyo's Makuhari Messe convention center for the show, which lets the public get its hands on demos of upcoming games.

Square Enix is bringing its cult classic role-playing game series Valkyrie Profileto Nintendo DS, causing fans to line up for hours around its booth to play it, although they might be surprised by what they find. "The DS version is very different from the earlier versions -- it's a strategy RPG this time," says James Clark, who writes for a website called RPGFanfrom his Tokyo apartment. "It's really a bold choice, because it's going to alienate some of the fans, I think. But it definitely has a very deep story."

As the Nintendo DS market becomes stronger, publishers are taking bigger risks and putting more resources into DS development. Level-5, an independent publisher that shot to prominence in Japan with its Professor Laytonseries of puzzle games, showed a full slate of new brain-twisting titles for DS at its massive show booth in Tokyo. One of the games, Ni no Kuni, is an impressive-looking collaboration with the Oscar-winning animators at Studio Ghibli.

Role-playing games, in particular, are a hot commodity on DS. Square Enix has sold millions of copies of its remakes of classic games in the Final Fantasyand Dragon Questseries, and this year, most gamemakers on the show floor are previewing big RPGs.

The latest entries in the Suikodenand Phantasy Starseries are coming exclusively to DS. Other RPGs are built on more quirky concepts: Riz-Zoawdis a retelling of The Wizard of Oz.

Many of these games will be released in early November, alongside the launch of the updated Nintendo DSi. The $185 version of the system will include two built-in cameras and the ability to download games.

Portable gaming in general is experiencing a renaissance in Japan, says Capcom's Kobayashi. "PSP is doing well, and for the first time, I'm working on a PSP title." Square Enix is also showing strong PSP titles in its Final Fantasyand Kingdom Heartsseries, although the next home console versions of those games are still far away.

After DS and PSP, the next most prevalent platform at TGS is Wii. The most powerful consoles, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, have the fewest games on the floor.

Software engineer Tom Fulp, whose company Behemoth created the recent Xbox Live game Castle Crashers, said his favorite games on the show floor aren't "super mind-blowing, technology-wise."

Instead, Fulp admires Japanese gamemakers' quirky creativity. "They have more fun with their stuff," he says.

Image: Wired.com

See also:

• New Nintendo DSi is Download-Ready
• Hands On: New Ace AttorneyLets You Be the Prosecutor
• Hands On: Let's TapNot Entirely Stupid
• TGS: Awesome Japanese-Style Game Accessories

The Halo 3 sound production team was among those who received top honors at the 24th Annual Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards. The team walked away with the award for Interactive Entertainment Sound Production.

Other teams honored at TEC include sound production for Robert Plant’s Raising Sand, The Police reunion tour and The Foo Fighters for the “The Pretender” as well as Universal Pictures’ The Bourne Ultimatum. it’s good to see videogames are finally being recognized for their excellence. It’s not the first time the industry has received kudos with other forms of entertainment, but it does give me hope that eventually videogames will more commonly be thought of as an art form.

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Jim Crowley, Turbine’s president and CEO, revealed some interesting news this morning at the Tokyo Game Show that should get Lord of the Rings Online players pretty excited. Apparently, the company plans on adding social a networking site to the MMORPG by years end that will be reminiscent of MySpace and Facebook and connected to the online world.

Not only will gamers be able to display full character profiles and upload other gaming data from LOTRO, but they will also have the ability to add friends, view live news feeds, and share videos via a YouTube style feature.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Crowley described the new tool as “a version of Facebook or MySpace that sits directly on top of the gaming world. This is a fully-featured, rich, robust social network. It has every single feature that you would find in the major commercial social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.”

Fully expected to launch by the end of the year, Crowely feels that MMOs are in a position to integrate “web-literate” players into a Web 2.0 network attached to the games, and that Turbine’s other online games Dungeons & Dragons Online and Asheron’s Call will also be able to get in on the networking come late 2008 or during 2009. This would eventually make Turbine more money as well by “extending the lifetime value of the customer and driving “viral customer acquisition” by getting gamers more involved in the online world they are paying a monthly fee for.

“Turbine believes that a closed eco-system will have to become an open eco-system. The MMO needs to learn… to adapt itself to the ‘born digital’ generation. The MMO needs to step out of its shell and start reaching a much broader and deeper audience.”

He went on to elaborate that this is a great opportunity for developers to take advantage of advertising without ruining the games by riddling them with product placements.

“It allows you to inject advertising in a way that’s not in conflict with the game world,” he said. “It’s natural to it, something you see across the web 2.0 space.”

This is great news for players who want to socialize with their Kinships or other online friends in a more in-depth way than just going on grinding missions together. From a personal standpoint, it would be fun to be able to delve deeper into my character and show off some of the cool things I have accomplished that you just cannot see when inspecting an online character; plus it would be nice if you can sign in to the network without signing into the game as well. That way, you can check on your friends’ progress from your mobile without having to be near the computer your game is installed on. Maybe in the future, gaming companies will find a way to integrate all MMOs into one social network so that others can stay up to date on all of your online characters - not just one specific game.

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