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Dear Murderous Cockweasel,

Congratulations! You are an asshole.

You must be enjoying Dark Souls 2, with its exciting new fiction and hearty, vivacious PvP multiplayer. You must be! The exuberance with which you killed me as I stood idle at the Heide’s Tower bonfire proves this. As it proves your worth as a person – yes, you, carrying your ridiculous, giant-ass oh-so-obviously-compensating-for-your-pencil-junk Final Fantasy sword. Because it takes a true player (dare I say, playa) to kill someone WHO ISN’T THERE.

The image above makes me sad.

Here’s the first article in a planned few-parter on shooters. Think of it as a preamble. To keep my ambition in check for this first installment, I’ll just talk about two shooters in particular that have piqued my interest.

Scheduling for my monthly column at the International Game Developers Association has been more than a little spotty of late. I was once pretty Johnny-on-the-Spot with deadlines, but various things influenced that negatively; meanwhile the organization itself is going through various transitions as well. In the interest of getting myself back on a schedule I present my not-yet-published April 2012 edition. Not being a big multiplayer myself some of the conclusions I draw may be shortsighted, but in the end I hope to spark some thought on what that form means in the larger cultural context of gaming. Enjoy!

About a month ago just before the run up to the Eurogamer expo 2011 (which Mat C and myself covered here), Joel Goodwin, a.k.a. Harbour Master of Electron Dance, posted up a discussion the two of us had about our experience with the little miracle that is the Portal 2 co-op campaign entitled Men of Science. Joel without me realising also recorded some of our antics and spliced them together to form a very special …

With all due credit to Penny Arcade for the image that defines not only Gabe, but Steerpike as well. This comes up because Dave Perry, formerly sort of still of Shiny Entertainment, opined at D.I.C.E. that “the days of single player gaming are numbered.” He goes on to say that “without question, our focus is entirely on multiplayer.” Dave, you’re a frickin’ genius… of course, everyone knew that, since you drove Shiny into the ground, …

Word has recently come across the FFC teletype that Phantasy Star Zero, the latest installment in Sega’s long-running series, will be arriving on western shores in convenient Nintendo DS-compatible cartridges in Q2 of this year. Once again we all have a chance to put on thigh high stockings and battle improbable monsters! Wear big blue hairstyles! Sport unnecessarily pointed ears! All the tropes we love from Phantasy Star. The franchise has come a long way …