N’Gai and I don’t lie. We said a week ago that we’d conclude our grand debate about “Grand Theft Auto IV” by addressing some of your comments. N’Gai’s picked three great comments from his blog. I’ve picked three great — well, two great and one ridiculous one — from mine. And we’ve each had our say on them.

Who made the cut? And how’d you readers push us in new and interesting directions? Read on. Just don’t think we’d actually give you the very last word. That’s not our style.

(As with all the other ‘Vs. Modes’ - spoilers abound.)

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In the second round of Stephen Totilo’s and N’Gai Croal’s Vs. Mode, the pair continues to wage their war of words over “Grand Theft Auto IV.”

Totilo explains why he liked “San Andreas” better for its player liberation; meanwhile, Croal responds by hailing how Rockstar has married emotion to gameplay in “GTA IV.” Who do you agree with?

If you missed Part One, check it out here. As always, these exchanges are mirrored on Croal’s Level Up blog.

(And beware — spoilers abound.)

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It’s been a while since Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and I have disagreed as much as we have in the exchange you can read below. We’re arguing about “Grand Theft Auto IV” for the first installment of an all-new Vs. Mode.

Whose side are you on?

Follow the debate below or on N’Gai’s Level Up blog. Check back Thursday for Round Two. And, yes, there are plot spoilers below.

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This entry comes courtesy of Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and kicks off a new round of the most interactive Vs. Mode yet

Whoever said that you can’t improve perfection never met the staffs of Level Up and Multiplayer. For the newest installment of Vs. Mode, in which we spar over “Grand Theft Auto IV,” we’re doing something different. Because as much as we enjoy the clack-clack of our own deep thoughts being typed out for your edification, we like mixing it up in the comments with you, our Dear Readers, even more. So to help make Vs. Mode less dueling monologues and more of an open dialogue, here’s how we’re tweaking the formula.

Rather than just throw you into the deep end of mine and Stephen’s opening exchange, we’re kicking off this series with today’s brief introductory post to both preview our debate of “Grand Theft Auto IV” and solicit some comments and questions from you. Then, on the final day of our debate, Stephen and I will not only engage each other, but we’ll also tackle any statements or questions that you’ve posted on our respective blogs. Today’s topic is “Who Moved My Sandbox?” in which we discuss whether “GTA IV” has gotten too far away from the series’ sandbox roots. Some excerpts of what you’ll see in full on Tuesday:

Stephen Totilo: This new “GTA” was made to be more sophisticated, more grown up, I think. It introduces moral choice. It skips rainbow afros and giant sex-toy weapons for a story that, initially, is a barely violent exploration of the eyes-just-shut start of the American dream. It’s a more mature “GTA.” Yet there’s a guy at work here at MTV who is inconsolable over the exclusion of planes and tanks in “GTA IV.” He wants to wreak mayhem. He sees a “GTA” as the sandbox it was once hyped to be. He wants unhinged “GTA.”

N’Gai Croal: I want Rockstar to take the possibility space that is Liberty City and keep building on it. They can experiment with tone: one expansion pack could be primarily comic; another tragic; another brutal; another frothy. They can set one in the 1970s; another in 2020. I said that Rockstar is showing its maturity by realizing that it doesn’t have to be all things to all gamers, but let me revise that statement: it doesn’t have to be all things to all gamers at all times.

Based on these excerpts, who do you agree with?

Does “GTA IV” need a wilder, richer sandbox, or did Rockstar North get the balance right? Let us know what you think in the comments below. And check back tomorrow for Round 1 of Vs. Mode: GTA.

I started debating the highly-regarded PSP game “Patapon” with Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal early last week.

We thought we’d be done by now.

Today we are.

In our first exchange we both praised the game, but I went off on my feelings about gamer guilt and why so many games make me feel guilty for playing all or even just select parts of them.

In N’Gai’s e-mail below he explains the the three types of video game imperfections, complains about the game’s grind and suggests a few ways to “Patapon” better.

And then I defend grinding in games. Really, I do.

So when we last left off I asked N’Gai: “Do you ever feel any of that gamer guilt?” He answers below…

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Back for your Monday morning procrastinating is a new Vs. Mode, the monthly series of arguments between me and Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal. This time, we tackle PSP rhythm-war game “Patapon.”

Slight problem: we both really liked this game.

Never fear, however. I think we’ve got some stuff in here that will provoke you.

• N’Gai lays out the three things that make the game special for him: The Power of Indirect Control, The Importance of Feel, And The Thrill of Iconic Design. And he wonders what it means that he was obsessed with the game for 21 days in the winter but doesn’t think about it at all anymore.
• I proclaim that “Patapon” is nifty and doesn’t make me feel guilty, stating that “Devil May Cry 4,” “Pursuit Force 2” and most other games I’ve played do make me feel guilt. “Patapon,” sweet “Patapon,” does not.

Did you say you want criticism of video games, something meaty, something that isn’t just a graphics/audio/gameplay review. With Vs. Mode we try to give you that.

Here’s a quote from my letter for everyone to chew on:

How many games do we not have to apologize for when recommending them to others? How often do we have to say not to mind the character design or the dialogue or the music or the controls or something else? How many did we in some way suffer? Is the high tolerance for imperfection not unique to gamers, at least to the extent we have to suck it up and try not to be bothered by the bad parts — or, if you’re like me, feel guilty that we spent time with things so full of bad parts?

What follows is Round One of Vs Mode: “Patapon”… (You can read it below or on N’Gai’s “Level Up” blog. Round two follows late this week)

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N’Gai Croal and I have been trying to discuss “Burnout: Paradise” all week in this very special can’t-stay-on-topic edition of Vs. Mode.

In Round One we did talk about the game: why I went from like to dislike to like for the game, and why N’Gai knew since the day he was born that “BP” would be awesome.

In Round Two we didn’t talk about the game as much. I wound up explaining why I think “Paradise” is a better “Animal Crossing” than “Animal Crossing” and soon stopped talking about the game. But then N’Gai got us even further afield. He even proposed that this game points to some sort of nutty One Game Future.

Except that he didn’t call it nutty. He left it for me to decide if it was, which I do at the top of today’s concluding installment, Round Three. After my letter comes more Mr. Croal, who writes about the possibilities of a “World of Burnout” and a “Little Big Burnout.”

Read on for the final letters. And soak in what may be the final drips of sanity we’re going to ever pour into a Vs. Mode, given the direction these things are going in…

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

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This is “Burnout Paradise” Vs. Mode Round Two and we’re about to go off the rails.

In Round One, I admitted to Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal that I was a tad mistaken about “Burnout Paradise,” which I had loved, kind of loved, kind of loathed and then changed my mind about again.

He pointed out he had been on board all along and sang the virtues of a proper sequel-making.

None of that was too crazy. But now comes Round Two, in which I basically say that “Burnout Paradise” is a better “Animal Crossing” than “Animal Crossing.”

And N’Gai backs me up!

Read on to see how we got to that point. And really, can you disagree?

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

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For the first time in 2008, Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and I are locking horns for one of our Vs. Modes. For the unitiatied, these are unapologetically long debates between me and N’Gai about major video games.

The game up for debate this time is “Burnout Paradise.”

When we signed up for this exchange we had two very different views on the game. As I state in my kick-off to today’s Round One:

Over the last month, you have been identified as N’Gai Croal, champion of “Paradise.” You have been declared as someone who gets it by none other than head “Burnout” developer Alex Ward in a worldwide pre-Christmas address to “Paradise” demo fans and skeptics: “‘OMG The Crash Mode suXXors,” Ward parroted his demo’s critics as saying, before countering, “Hmm, again, none of you have played it yet. N’Gai Croal at Level Up seems to like it.”

I am Stephen Totilo, enemy of “Paradise” …

Reaction to the game has been sharply divided. So not surprisingly, we had some things to hash out. But there’s a big twist in this first round.

Read on to see how this one starts out.

Or just scan down to the very last paragraph to read N’Gai take a shot at me. Round Two will be published later this week.

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

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It is over. Another Vs. Mode. Well, unofficially a Vs. Mode. Throughout the week Slate.com posted an exchange between four gaming reporters, myself included, about the year in video games.

And they posted a 20-minute podcast, which I’m really happy with.

Participants of the 12-part written exchange and the podcast were:

Slate’s Chris Suellentrop:

I hope that “Wii Play” does not become an Important Game that other companies copy. It’s a fun enough little game, but its minigames don’t have the exhilarating “virtual reality” feel of “Wii Sports,” a game in which you actually feel like you’re playing tennis, golf, and bowling. I haven’t touched a Wii title that’s lived up to the promise of “Wii Sports.”

The New York Times‘ Seth Schiesel:

For pure adrenaline, nothing this year compared to my first solo battle against another player in “Eve Online.” So there I was, minding my own business, flying my Rupture-class cruiser in a low-security star system called Klogori. All of a sudden, a Thorax blastership flown by a pilot from the then-powerful RISE alliance appears on my heads-up display. His railguns rip into my shields as I fumble to launch my attack drones and target my autocannons. We circle one another, dodging the asteroids tumbling about, as my ship’s Nosferatu modules relentlessly suck away the energy stored in his ship’s batteries and add it to mine. Soon, he can no longer power his repair systems, and I blow the Thorax to high-tech splinters. And none too soon. A few more seconds and it would have been me waking up in a cloning station.

Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal (who?):

We agreed that it was difficult because of the amount of time that it takes to play a game as compared with watching a movie, not to mention the fact that games also require a certain amount of skill to progress. That’s why the DS and the PSP have been a godsend for us New Yorkers. I would probably never have made it through all but the last level of Rockstar’s disappointing “Manhunt 2“—sheepishly tilting the screen away from underage subway seatmates, of course—if there hadn’t been a PSP version.

And me, Multiplayer’s Stephen Something-or-other:

So, how odd am I for spending 18 hours playing through “BioShock” this year? For going through “Metroid Prime 3” in 15? For spending far more than four hours each finishing “Ratchet & Clank Future,” “God of War II,” “Heavenly Sword,” “Call of Duty 4,” “Lair,” “Super Paper Mario“? How far into the frontier am I? And are the people who got turned on to games this year by quick-play champs such as “Wii Sports,” “Guitar Hero,” and, yes, “Desktop Tower Defense” ever going to get to these hinterlands with me?

All of the above is excerpted from the full Slate exchange. Plus, there’s the podcast, which will auto play at the link or can be downloaded through this one.

Wow, do these guys ever shut up?

Since Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal is altogether incapable of defeating me in our Vs. Mode exchanges, he is now bringing along some friends: Chris Suellentrop of Slate and Seth Schiesel of the New York Times.

Well, kind of.

He and I are taking a month off from Vs. Mode in order to accept the flattering offer to participate in Slate.com’s first-ever end-of-year Gaming Club. Over at Slate you can read the beginnings of a weeklong debate/discussion about the year’s best video games (and “God Hand“). In year’s past they’ve done this for movies, inviting the biggest names of movie reviewing to talk about the year in film. Now they’re doing the same for games.

Suellentrop kicks off, declaring that “BioShock is not just the best game I played in 2007. I think it’s the best game I’ve ever played.” He cites developer Clint Hocking, stating that the game might not be the medium’s Citizen Kane, but at least a good step toward it.

Then there’s me, once again touting the virtues of “Desktop Tower Defense“:

My critics would be right to point out that there isn’t much of a story in “Desktop Tower Defense.” There is no grandeur. And there is no apparent philosophical critique. “Desktop Tower Defense” does nothing to propel the medium toward a video game Citizen Kane. It simply presents sport. Let’s find room to praise games like that. Has the medium produced a Citizen Kane or a Schindler’s List or even a Jaws? Maybe not. Maybe never. But it sure has created its own basketballs, footballs, and baseballs.

Plenty more where that came from, today and throughout the week, over at Slate.

Enjoy! Count the number of references to Jonathan Blow. And cheer for me to win. That’s the point of a critical exchange, right?

Back in October Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal and I waged a four-round debate about “The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.”

This turned out to be an unusual installment of our critically-complimented (it’s true!) Vs. Mode series. It included a transcript of a conversation he and I recorded right after I had him play the big to N64 “Zelda”s for the first time.

The full exchange is below, a veritable mountain of reading for your (possible) Thanksgiving holiday or, if you’re anywhere else in the world, for the remainder of your week.

N’Gai and I had planned this Vs. Mode for a long time. He had never played a “Zelda” game at length before, and I never let him hear the end of it. I was excited to show him what was great about the series.

Surprise, surprise. I wound up expressing some of the most anguished things I’ve ever written or spoken about video games, stuff like this:

I’m the one at the more dire crossroads than you. You simply get a chance to decide whether or not “Zelda” is a blind spot in your gaming career to be embarrassed about or to feel vindicated that you could afford to skip it, but for me I’m at this crossroads where I’m like, “Am I correct in feeling that ‘Zelda,’ that the world has had enough ‘Zelda’ and am I correct in having the hubris to say that I know that Nintendo should move on?” Or am I a victim of my old age and, is it the case that when I say, “Oh, this ‘Phantom Hourglass’ doesn’t have as good dungeons as the ‘Zelda’ in my day,” am I onto something or not? You’ve now played “Phantom Hourglass” dungeons, therefore you’ve played 21st century “Zelda” dungeons and you played 1998 “Zelda” dungeons and the Deku Tree. Were they the same?

So if you’ve ever felt you got too old for some aspect of gaming you used to love… if you’ve ever felt a series has gone too long … if ever you wondered if the problem was you or the people who made the game you struggled to enjoy or something else altogether… then this Vs. Mode is for you.

(These exchanges are mirrored on N’Gai’s “Level Up” bog.)

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