Editor's Choice

"What's strange about the collecting circuit is some collectors rarely even play the games they covet. 'The backlog is the only major downside to collecting,' says Ryan Underwood, a programmer with over 1,100 games. 'Between new games and the old stuff I hunt down, I don't think I've played a single game, uninterrupted, since I was in grade school.'

"Aaron Linde explores the collection compulsion."

"'The creative industries in America are fucked. Film, books, TV, games, it's all become about marketing. A committee of marketers will sit there and say, "What's the last thing that did well? Do that." And the MMOG thing was like that for a while, but then you have a $20 million project fail, and the marketers say, "It's dead, it's dead." I never got into the MMOG thing because I even have trouble playing poker online. I don't want to deal with some snotty 12-year old from Iowa. There's only a certain percentage of people I like in the first place. It's not like I'm going to go online to this false-reality world and find intelligent people.'"

The Escapist interviews Jane Jensen.

"To further complicate the situation, CD-ROMs are now the primary medium for games. This means game developers have virtually no restriction on the number of screens they can put into a game; often, clicking on one part of a screen yields a close-up shot of the area, and some areas are shot from multiple perspectives. Several screens are purely cosmetic. While this is all quite pretty, it also requires the user to sift through even more irrelevance."

Atul Varma looks at the clash between photo realism and user interface in adventureegames.

"'Looking back on Halo 2,' Jarrard says, 'the most glaring omission was a real, proper ending to the game. When that game began, it was never intended to just stop. We definitely didn't intend to just yank the carpet out.'

'But they did. Oh, did they, and the fans weren't the only ones who noticed."

Russ Pitts speaks to Bungie's Brian Jarrard about Halo 2, Halo 3 and the perils of success.

"For many, the PS2 is 'the SingStar machine,' especially in Europe and Australasia. Anybody who tells you it's not a real game is a liar and possibly a Communist - it just rewards bravery over everything else."

Christian McCrea explores the impact of Singstar.