Thanks entirely to this recent second Christmas of a deal I finally picked up Bioshock and am giving it a play through. Now you, Inconstant Reader, probably expect me to launch into some pseudo-thought-provoking analysis of the moral conundrum involving the Little Sisters, or to give the reigns to my inner philosopher who wants to debate the pros and cons of a Randian worldview. Though it may take all the will I can muster, I shall refrain from doing so. You can find a plethora of views on these subjects out there on the interwebs without my adding to the cacophony. Instead I'm going to discuss what's interesting about coming to the game having already navigated said cacophony.

No real spoilers, but some talk about what spoilers - like honey - don't spoil. Wrap your head around that one.

One thing that I think we all love about our chosen hobby is that the experience of a single game can be drastically different for each person. I don't mean this in the way we mean about other "static" media where we might each interpret what we read/see/hear in unique ways. I mean that though two people may play the exact same game, the cut scenes they view and the boss battles they fight may be completely different. This might be most evident in sandbox games or titles that have a prodigious amount of side quests, but sometimes even the main story can take wildly different paths depending on player input.

Heavy Rain director David Cage has expressed his desire to create a game that allows you to really suffer consequences that affect the story and continue playing, always conscious of your input in the overall plot. We may be entering an era in which we gamers may not only see different stories but have to actually reflect on what the path we choose says about us as well as the story. When my recent play through of Silent Hill: Homecoming was rewarded with a less than satisfying ending I immediately cursed the game's writers for their ineptitude. But looking back I've begun to wonder: am I partially to blame? Are bad endings increasingly becoming the consequence of bad or even inconsistent decisions by players?

Don't worry, the spoilers don't begin for another 300 words.

When Sony touted PS3 as a "ten year" machine, critics and gamers were quick to laugh it off as PR jargon. However, Sony has proven with the PS2 that they're capable of making a ten-year system. Ed Barton, analyst for Screen Digest, reminds gamers that God of War II released seven years into the console life and it "stands up pretty well to a lot of current generation games."

"A hardware transition is a very expensive and traumatic experience for the entire industry and its consumers," he said. "I don't see why people wouldn't like the idea of any of the console manufacturers supporting a platform for ten years." We agree with Barton. Sony's plan for a ten year system truly makes sense, especially in the current economic environment. Current-generation systems still have a long way to go in terms of being affordable to the masses. Game development is already plenty expensive this console cycle -- if the industry rushes too soon into a new generation, how much more expensive will it be?

Console launches can cost "$3-5 billion," and with the economic climate right now, it's unlikely any company -- either Sony or Microsoft -- will want to jump into a new console cycle any time soon. For now, it looks like Sony's ten year plan with the PS3 is a pretty smart one. Kaz Hirai would agree.

Like many of you I've spent the holidays traveling to and visiting with friends and family. Though this afforded me ample free time with which to re-connect with my PSP (and finally get into Jeanne D'Arc), it also meant bidding adieu to my very unportable PS3. For several evenings prior to leaving I milled around in Home, trying to strike up a conversation, channeling my inner Dude, and avoiding the temptation to Quincy. I was genuinely interested in trying to make Home a social platform, a place to meet other people and chat about life, the universe, and maybe - though not necessarily - games.

It didn't work so well.

Home, like many other things on and about the PS3, seems to invoke highly polarized reactions among critics and players. I've seen it on recent end-of-the-year lists as both one of the best applications and biggest disappointments of 2008. As the holidays are one of the few occasions I get to re-connect (and game) with a real-life social network that I've developed over the years I spent some time with them ruminating over why I don't have anything close to this kind of network of friends on the PSN and whether Home could provide it. Basically, before making any judgments about what Home lacks or where it fails to live up to expectations we need to really think about the question: what do we want out of Home?

Variety's Ben Fritz ponders why Sony's PS3 hasn't been able to become more of a mainstream success. Obviously, price comes into play, but he offers another option: it may be "too artsy for its own good."

What does that mean? Fritz looks at a few examples. He looks at LittleBigPlanet, arguably Sony's biggest game of 2008. While it has been successful, it hasn't become the runaway hit that many have hoped. It seems that the game appeals largely to game critics and those that like "quality, 'artsy' games." Fritz also looks at the PlayStation Network. He notes that Sony is "the only one of the big three console makers that's investing its own money on downloadable 'indie' games." Other platforms have downloadable games, but they feature more ports and more "junk."

The PS3's XMB, he describes is "much cleaner and more Google-esque than Xbox Live, filled as it is with ads and other clutter, or the boring grid on the Wii menu." He also notes that the hardware is "smoother, prettier, quieter -- a superior work of art." However, he concludes that these superior features don't add up to a product that appeals to the mainstream. Unfortunately, that's what Sony needs in order to recreate the success of PS2.

I recently sat down to watch Reign Over Me, a drama with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Not a bad movie, a tug-at-your-hearstrings affair about about a man whose wife and daughters died on 9/11 and the friend who, running into him 5 years later, tries to help him cope with the reality he has withdrawn from. Somehow I managed to miss the discussion during the film's release about the role of Shadow of the Colossus in the film, so I was a bit surprised and delighted at what I assumed was a mere cameo. At the same time in the back of my mind I thought this might be another gross misrepresentation of games that further promotes gamism - negatively stereotyped portrayals of video games and video gamers. Doesn't this send the not-so-subtle message that games are escapist tools that players use in a mentally unhealthy way to ignore the reality around them?

Being the upstanding PSFanboy that I am I have been devotedly playing, creating, and (not quite) sharing since I got my grubby, cotton-filled sack paws on a copy of LittleBigPlanet. As we are all well aware this season is particularly pregnant with A-list new releases, but I think it safe to say that Media Molecule's monster is the game to play if you want a uniquely PS3 experience (sorry Bioshock, Fallout, and Dead Space - there will be time for you in the next life I suppose).

We all know the selling points of the game. It's not just a cute, side-scrolling platformer and despite it's graphical style and E for Everyone rating it's not necessarily a targeted "kid's game". The real appeal of Sackland is in creation, making us as much game makers as game players. But here's the rub: how is it feasible that there is market among consumers for something that essentially makes them producers?

Why am I spilling out the sordid details of games I recently deflowered myself on to you? Because in learning how to play all of these games I made an interesting if obscenely obvious discovery - I learned how to play no less than 12 games in a mere 14 days! While that may not sound strange for an avid gamer it sounds odd put in other contexts: learning to play 12 musical instruments in two weeks, learning 12 new sports, learning the ins and outs of a baker's dozen worth of operating systems. Such feats are certainly doable, but rarely does anyone have the drive to add that many new wrinkles to their brain. What is it about games that makes us so willing to learn entirely new systems of play on a regular basis?

This is the second of a two-part column on digital distribution and its effect on the psychology of your average gamer. In part one we discussed the pros and cons of replacing physical discs and game boxes with digital downloads. This week we discuss the way our gaming habits themselves, from the type of games we play to the time we spend playing them, may be affected by digital downloads.

It looks like Sony Japan has finally gotten hip to the idea that when it comes to portable systems digital distribution is the way to go. Heck I've taken plenty of advantage of the UMD Legacy archives for my PSP. After all, there's nothing portable about lugging around a physical library of discs just in case you happen to get the urge to bludgeon an undead abortion in public. There are many arguments in favor of digital distribution for handhelds, particularly as handhelds fit well with the type of "quick-fix" games that most original property digital downloads tend to be. But this column isn't about what makes a good handheld title. It's about what sort of games we want crowing up space on our 80 60 40 20GB hard drives.

With so much user-generated content being placed onto the PlayStation Network through Game 3.0 titles, like SingStar and LittleBigPlanet, it's unsurprising that Sony's terms of use have a clause that allows them to redistribute and use user-generated content without compensation for the original creators. "You authorize and license SCEA a royalty free and perpetual right to use, distribute, copy, modify, display, and publish your User Material for any reason without any restrictions or payments to you or any third parties."

For example, Sony could show off your latest LittleBigPlanet level in a commercial they air. Or, they may show off your amazing drunken SingStar vid in a magazine ad. Maybe they'll make money off ads that run in your private apartment in Home. There are a lot of possibilties.

However, there is one fear, as pointed out by I have the Princess. Could Sony also redistribute user-generated levels from LittleBigPlanet as paid DLC? If so, there's no entitlement for the creators to gain a single penny off of those purchases. We doubt something this drastic will happen. Instead, we still believe LBP creators might, just might, have a chance to get rich off the game.

This is a two-part column on digital distribution and its effect on the psychology of your average gamer. In part one we look at the change from the aesthetic of a well-stocked gaming shelf to a digital software library and what is lost or gained by it. Next week we will look at the they way smaller, quick-fix digital game downloads may change our gaming habits.

Sorry for the brief hiatus, Inconstant Readers, but I was too busy making repeated trips to the store to pick up more Dramamine and an extra Dual Shock 3 after the PSN update last week. Let's just say that what Wipeout HD lacks as an epileptic stimulant it makes up for with motion sickness at 60fps. Mega Man 9 should also carry a warning about possible "controller malfunction" - here's a tip kiddos: the original Sixaxis is slightly lighter than the Dual Shock 3 and thus has a smaller chance of cracking televisions and denting walls when thrown.

Still, I wouldn't have traded this weekend's gaming experiences for anything short of an LBP beta key. Generally after some frantic gaming and letting my house devolve itself into a special level of disarray I rather savor picking up the pieces - smoothing out the crumbled instruction manuals and reinserting them into their cases while finding the perfect organizational spot on the shelf for the box art (alphabetically? by genre? producer?). Imagine my lament when come Monday morning I realized I had nothing but broken controller pieces to pick up. The game's I'd spent my weekend with were all digital downloads!

It's Thursday as I write this, a day that most PS3 owners (and perhaps a small number of well-connected PSP owners) look forward to as PSN update day. I too love Thursdays but not without a small amount of anxiety. I'm a bit of a completist (yea really, a gamer that's a completist. . .) and much like my obsessive drive to own a mint package of every Kool-Aid flavor ever made, each week when new game demos and vids are uploaded I am preternaturally compelled to download them. The videos are no big commitment, generally a quarter hour of passive watching and they're sufficiently digested, but demos are a real time sink. You see, I don't just download the demos of games or genres that interest me. Nor do I spend a few minutes with each demo, just long enough to decide if the game has me hooked and I should commit myself to buying it or not. Ladies and gentlemen, fanboys and fangirls, I present for your toxonomic consideration the newest discovered species of gamer - homo sapeins completus demotaris.

I recently wrote about some of the difficulties beyond realistic rendering that developers face when trying to make us emotionally attached to a character. Human behaviors and emotions are so much more difficult to mimic than those of animals, no matter how abstract. You'd find me silently weeping for the destruction of little Metal Gear Mk. II long before I'd be shedding tears for Solid Snake. Why is it easier to evoke a nurturing and protective instinct in a virtual pet than in a virtual human?

I wrote a few weeks back about the uncanny valley and Hideo Kojima's possibly telling observation that war machines of the future may exploit the creepiness of robotic simulations to instill fear in their prey. I want to turn my attention now to a discussion of the valley as it applies more directly to us as gamers - overcoming the creepiness of computer generated people. Quantic Dream has already boasted of successfully traversing the valley with its upcoming (and secretly acclaimed) PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain. While realistic graphics are one thing (and it's up to interpretation whether they succeeded in the tech demo almost two years ago), is there more to escaping the valley than mere realistic modeling?