A landscape of odd shapes and multicolored blocks litter the area. I hear screams in the background and the sound of flying projectiles hitting the ground. Taking a survey of the carnage that lies before me, only one thought goes through my head; I guess there’s no time for Fallout 3 tonight.

After many long days of work and coming home to my messy two year old, an odd trend has started in my gaming habits. I used to stay in my room for hours playing the latest console RPG never thinking a simple game like Peggle would be my game of choice in the future. Downloadable games have lately become the new trend in gaming, with the iPhone leading the charge and DSi and PSPgo doing their best to keep up. Some people say because of the economy and the low barrier of entry, with cheaper products and cheaper games then their console counterparts; short casual games have become more popular. Others would say that technology has finally caught up to allow for these services. While both of those are definite factors, I think that simple time management is the biggest selling point. Surveys have reported that the average age of gamers is thirty-five. Most thirty-five year olds have a forty plus hour workweek, a house, and a family to take care of. Because of this, it’s hard to find the time to sit down and focus on a sixty-hour RPG or even a ten-hour action-adventure game. Still wanting to satisfy their gaming fix, these gamers have turned to the world of the App Store.

Short casual games have been around as long as Flash has been available on the Internet. And with the advent of Java-enabled phones, these games have steadily become more popular. For years, “hardcore” gamers never gave these games a second thought. Most not even considering them “real” games. But with the arrival of the Playstation Network, the App Store, and most recently DSiWare, shorter “casual” games have started to be embraced by those same jaded gamers. Companies like PopCap and ngmoco are changing what downloadable games are really about. No longer are these games Diner Dash or Bejeweled rip-offs, but they are games with real depth and, dare I say, story. One of the best games on the iPhone currently is ngmoco’s Rolando. At first glance, it looks surprising similar to LocoRoco on the PSP, but the visual style is where the similarities end. Instead of being solely a platform game based around using the shoulder buttons, Rolando is a platform and puzzler game based on different types of creatures called Rolandos. What set this game apart from other games in this genre on the iPhone is the quirky personality that ngmoco is known for (just look at their free app Topple). Not only do each Rolando have distinct abilities that must be used to complete the levels, their personalities are so well implemented that you don’t want to see them fail. Although the story won’t bring home any awards, it’s refreshing to see they took a chance on developing a story to help it stand out from the crowd. Handheld quality titles translate well to the downloadable space and console quality titles can as well. Underworlds is a Diablo clone for the iPhone and one of the best out there. It will only last you a few hours currently, but the developer, Pixel Mine, has promise that more content will be added with free updates. Another great game is Vay, also on the iPhone. This is a remake of the Sega CD JRPG by Working Designs who localized the Lunar series. This may be one of the only traditional turned based RPGs on the platform, but it is a well-made one with dozens of hour of gameplay and quirky humor.

One of the biggest advantages to downloadable games is that developers aren’t afraid to take risks with gameplay ideas. When you tell someone that you are playing a game called Flight Control, images of boring air traffic controllers and heavy simulation gameplay come to mind with most people. Fortunately for developer Firemint, enough people thought to give the game a try and discovered one of the most addicting and fun games on the iPhone. The basic concept of this game is simple. There are three base types of aircraft that have different landing strips: Large, small, and helicopter. When one of the aircrafts come on the screen, you drag a line from the plane to the appropriately colored landing strip (or helipad). It sounds easy until you are maintaining fifteen planes in the air going at different speeds all about to crash into each other. While just trying to get a high score is fun enough, one of the greatest additions to games in the last year are Twitter and Facebook integration. Like most people my age, I don’t have tons of friends with iPhones to brag about my latest Flight Control score, but developers are now allowing gamers to automatically post scores and challenges to friends on their favorite social networks. While it may seem like a small addition, embracing existing and popular social networks is the best way to bring in more gamers.

Downloadable gaming has come a long way in the last two years. These high quality games are cheap to make and sell, have imaginative and original gameplay ideas, and can integrate with existing and popular social networks. Console developers are starting to take notice too, as evidenced by Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference with announcements of Facebook and Twitter integration to Xbox 360. Even though my real life has become more important then my gaming life these days, with the App Store, DSiWare, and PSN, I can still stay apart of the gaming world.

First off, thank you EA for allowing players to use the same Wiimote when playing golf and disc golf. This is a genius move to allow everyone to use Wii Motion Plus without having to trust the consumer to know to buy one.

One of the key features on the Wii motion Plus is that it will give a more 1:1 experience then before. Tiger Woods Golf has been boasting that with the Wii Motion Plus, every flaw in your game will be recreated accurately. Unfortunately for long time golfers, and new time gamers, this is not the case for the entire experience. My father has a very weird golf swing, he deliberately adds alot of draw to his shots and aims to the right to compensate. The game cannot read this action very well, so I tend to have better accuracy then him. He also knows how to read the green and elevation very well, but Tiger Woods Golf does not. My father will frequently over analyze a shot and completed screw it up because the game is not like real golf.

For me, on the other hand, this game is very easy. Like all good golf games, Tiger Woods Golf gives you an abundance of information before you take your swing. Not only will it show you where you are aiming, it will tell you how much power you need, wind speed and direction, how much the surface is restricting your shot, exact elevation. Using all this information, I can tell what the game wants me to do to make a good shot. This is where I think the game fails on bringing in casual gamers.

Tiger Woods Golf relies too much on video game logic and math, instead of actual golf logic. This means that someone who has played games all their life and can do quick math in their head will always beat someone who has only played golf all their life. While this is true in almost every other video game out there, thats not what the marketing of this game would want you to believe.

I’ve only played a few hours so far and I’m really enjoying it. As we play more and more of the game, my father is starting to learn out to play the “video game” version of golf and is getting better too. I’ll post a more in depth review in the future after I have more time with the title.

Unfortunately for me, Bioware announced that for the next Mass Effect game all your choices will be carried over from the first game, including whether you were evil or good. Now given how many important choices you are given in the game with clear cut Paragon (good) and Renegade (evil) choices, you basically had two completed different endings. One ending with an entire alien species wiped out and the Head alien counsel destroyed and taken over by humans, or the opposite of that. Now that poses two very distinct beginnings for the new game and the only way to see the stories will be to have two save games to bring over, one completely good and one completely evil.

So begins my trek through Mass Effect again, but this time with the evil cracked up to 11. I’ll post my progress report here, so you will get to hear my complaints on how much a jerk Shepard can be. I’ll also be posting a complete review on the original Mass Effect before the new game comes out. Wish me luck!

This year at GDC (Game Developer Conference) a new gaming service called OnLive was announced. The service is basically “cloud computing” for gaming. One of the main questions people had about the service is how much bandwidth will be needed to properly use the service. A common solution that game journalists came up with was for OnLive to team up with ISPs such as Comcast.

If services like GameTap and OnLive start teaming with companies like Comcast and Verizon to stabilize bandwidth issues and reach a broader market, this could start to spell the end to console and gaming PC manufacturers. For the regular consumer, why would they spend $400 for the next Xbox or $1500 for a great gaming PC when they only need to pay an extra $20 a month to play all the games they want on their HDTV or 5 year old laptop? I don’t think a situation like that will come about for a few more years and the console makers (Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo) will do everything they can to stop it. Verizon’s announcement does show that ISP companies are thinking of gaming as a viable source of income and something that consumers might want. I will say that if Comcast announces a similar service for Tennessee, I will definitely try to convince the wife to let me try it out.

To read the full article of the Verizon announcement, head over to G4.tv here.