Do we really need books?

So, it's that time again. No, not the time where your girlfriend sends you to the store for the dreaded "Feminine Products". It's new RPG book day! A joyous day, when nerds swoop down upon their local hobby shop in their magic flying cars and rainbow-winged unicorns to gather and hopefully walk away with the newest release of their favorite RPG product line. So, you walk into the store, and...
What?
The Mind's Eye Theatre book for Mage: the Awakening isn't here? But where...only being released in .PDF format? [cries]

Well, it looks like you won't be toting THAT one around in your Jansport anytime soon. But is it really such a bad deal? Let's have a look.

For years, there's really only been one way to get new RPG supplements and core books. From the bookstore, right? Well, now you have the option of getting most RPG books in a digital format. DrivethruRPG.com (which is currently down for database maintainance, and could not be accessed to verify any of the following) offers a wide range of publishers from White Wolf to Steve Jackson to FASA to Palladium, as well as an ever-growing collection of indie publishers for the adventurous. The majority of the books were offered in a watermarked .PDF format, with new titles having a slightly reduced cost, and older titles (at least 6 months old, if I remember correctly) at an even lower price. The reduction in cost can be attributed to not having to pay to have the book printed, bound, and shipped. Sounds like a great deal, right? Well, let's hit the pros and cons.

PROS:
No heavy books to lug around.
Let's face it. If you've ever run an RPG session, you know how many books are required to do it. If I want to put together a Vampire: the Requiem one-nighter for my group, I'll at LEAST need the World of Darkness book, the Vampire: the Requiem book, and 2-4 applicable sourcebooks. Now, add in paper, pencils, dice, clipboards, Doritos, and Mountain Dew, and I'm quickly running out of space in my handy messenger bag. But with electronic books, I can throw them on my laptop and rock on out without toting a bunch of dead trees.

No losing pages or damage to books.
Well, I know you've tried to take care of that Monster Manual, but it's been a hard couple of years, and that is your player copy, and it's been handed around the table hundreds of times, and it's really starting to get a little ragged. Oh? We're facing a Blackendrathgra? Well, let's see what that little beastie can...uh, dude? You're missing about 20 pages here.
We love our books, and we treat them with dignity and respect, but they aren't gonna last forever. But no matter how many times you flip through your PDF files, the pages never fall out, and you just can't break the spine on that one. Which is okay, cause you don't need to break the spine just so it will sit open on the table. Nifty!

Own more books than you could ever possibly find shelf space for.
If you've got the hard drive space, you're good to go! No more deciding which books need to go to Half-Price books this week to make room for the new arrivals. Now you just have to decide which folder full of dirty, dirty porn to delete.

Instant access to rare or out-of-print titles.
Many of the big-name publishers have tons of out-of-print titles that gamers would love to get their greedy little hands on, but they're just impossible to locate. Well, not anymore! Any title ever produced, provided there is still a paper or electronic copy existing SOMEWHERE, can be offered up for sale as an electronic book! Can't track down a copy of the Adolescent Radioactive Kung-Fu Hamsters RPG? Just order it online, and download it straight away! And, to rip off fellow RPGXer Shawn Struck, some companies could REALLY benefit from this idea, like broke-ass Keven Siembeda's Palladium. Palladium has a VAST collection of out-of-print books, and bringing them back in this format could net them some serious cash, and fast.

CONS:
Piracy.
If it's electronic, you can steal it from somebody. Or share it on your favorite P2P network. Or copy it and distribute it to your fellow gamers. Which sucks, since the guys who were nice enough to go along with this eBooks idea are now losing print sales AND e-sales.

Loss of print sales.
If people are buying electronic books, will they still buy print books? Maybe they could buy the electronic copy as a backup. Like ROMS! Yeah, probably not. But as far as the industry is concerned, this will likely be a tiny bump in the road. There will be a brief period where print versions will sit on a shelf and collect dust, and then, once we've got it all ironed out as to who is still buying books versus who jumped on the eBooks bandwagon, they'll adjust the number of copies printed, and everyone will be happy. Print demand will go down, but it will be replaced (and then some, I would say) by electronic sales.

Possibility of data loss.
If your hard drive crashes, all your pretty eBooks go bye-bye. This is a big concern, since eBooks, though offered at a reduced cost, still ain't gonna be free. Its' not like you're in trouble if your bookshelf "crashes"...just set it back up and spend the next hour re-alphabetizing your collection. Now, this will only really affect those who are too dense to backup their collection, and those people should probably stick to paper anyway, since it will take them forever to figure out they can't "turn pages" on their monitor.

Difficult to use away from home.
Don't have a laptop for that game away from home? That could make things difficult, unless you own one of the neato gadgets I'll get to shortly. Other options include using a buddies laptop/PC, printing the book at Kinkos (which kinda defeats the purpose, neh?), or breaking down and getting that headware installed so you can just view the eBook on your cybereyes.

But I like books.
I like books. I am a big fan of how pretty they look on my bookshelf. I also like having them there, really there in front of me. I like turning pages, flipping back to the index, feeling the silky pages as they slip between my fingers...uh...yeah, books are neato. And it's understood that, while they may not really be collectible, there is a certain sense of completeness to be found when you look at your bookshelf and see them all lined up and ready to take you on a fantastic journey.

So, now that that's out of the way, which way should you go? Personally, I think that the future is now. The pros outweigh the cons. Especially once you see these babies.

First up is the Amazon Kindle. This little bad boy holds over 200 titles (with an SD expansion slot), and has a 2 day battery life if you leave the wireless turned on (which jumps to almost a week with the wireless shut off). You can automatically download and read several major news publications and magazines, as well as over 250 blogs of note, for $1 per blog or RSS feed. It connects wirelessly to the Amazon Kindle Store, allowing you to download new books anytime, using EVDO, the standard for cell phone data transmission, which means no looking for a WiFi hotspot. Sadly, though it can display your non-Kindle store PDFs, JPEGs, and Word documents, they will have to be emailed to Amazon first, and converted to their proprietary format at a cost of $0.10 per file. It also brings a big new player to the market: electronic paper. EPaper displays work much like LCD screens, except they reflect light "just like paper", and are therefore not backlit, reducing eye strain. They are also clearly viewable from almost any angle, giving them a one-up over standard flat screen displays.

On the other side of the table is the Sony Reader. This beautiful little piece of powerful is totally going on my Christmas list. Let's see how it stacks up against the competition. It holds 80 titles, as compared to 200 with the Kindle, but also comes outfitted with an slot for Media Sticks and SD memory cards. The battery clocks in at 7500 estimated page turns with a full charge. It can display newspapers, magazines, and blogs just like the Kindle (only for free!) with the added functionality of being able to play unencrypted MP3's and AAC podcasts. It lacks any sort of wireless connectivity, but connects to your PC to handle downloading new content. It has no proprietary format restrictions (suck it, DRM!), and will display most PDF and RTF documents without the need to convert them. It also features the happy-happy electronic paper screen.

Personally, I'm gonna have to side with the Sony Reader. And that's saying A LOT, cause I haven't been too buddy-buddy with Sony for quite a while now. But it just seems to be a better product design overall. It looks friendlier, and I like the way it's put together. And no DRM. Hahaha.

So, with all this in mind, it's beginning to look like eBooks have a SERIOUS chance of taking off. So, make your choices quickly, folks, or you may get left behind.

And for the wicked...disbarment?

Controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces the start of an ethics trial this morning which could see him disbarred.

The Florida Bar is pursuing several complaints concerning Thompson’s professional conduct in court cases against the video game industry.

Source

Yippee! Jack Thompson gets it in the pooper! Too bad it's not a criminal trial.

"Hey, geezer. What're ya in fer?"
"Oh, I'm Jack Thompson. I used to be a lawyer who tried to convince everyone video games are bad."
"Hehehe. Ya like games, geezer? Here, try my joystick...it's mouth operated!"

Lions, Tigers, and...Samus? Oh, my!

Cosplay.
According to Wikipedia, it is defined as "a portmanteau of the English words "costume" and "play", [and] is a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, tokusatsu, and video games, and, less commonly, Japanese live action television shows, fantasy movies, Japanese pop music bands, Visual Kei, fantasy music stories (such as stories by the band Sound Horizon), and novels. However, in some circles, "cosplay" has been expanded to mean simply wearing a costume."

Some think it simply strange, and others find it creepy and unnerving. There is sometimes an undertone of sex, but that is usually dependent upon the participants and the venue in question. For the most part, it is usually just a way to have fun with a shared interest.

There are many different types of cosplayers, from all parts of the world. In the USA, widespread cosplay is a more recent phenomenon, at least as most people define the term. However, in a very basic sense, Americans have been participating in this little game for a long time. For decades, Americans have been attending Renaissance fairs, all dolled up in period garb, ranging from the historically accurate to the fantastic styles of elves and dwarves. This is, at it's root, a form of cosplay.



There are also many other Western-centric cosplay norms, such as opening night at movie theatres for films like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings movies, as well as cult classics like Serenity and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The last two, especially, have gained some popularity among cosplayers, as there are not only opportunities for dressing up, but also for a sort of playacting or scenarios that are played out in the theatre while the movie is playing.



From here, it gets a tad more...fantastic. Anything is fair game for players, though there are some strong standards. Anime characters are credited by most for being the first big topic of stitchery. Anime was the preferred standard for many decades in Japan, as the live-action film industry suffered from a lack of budget and viable locations for shooting. Also, the relatively small number of Western-looking actors working in Japan made it nearly impossible to film anything set outside of Japan. With animation, filmmakers were able to bring to life a wide variety of cultures, locations, and characters. All of this contributed to making anime a huge part of the Japanese media culture. Plus, they usually make for really cool costumes.



And then, there were video games. And we all love video games. Who wouldn't want to be Mario or Master Chief for a day? Well, with the right materials and some tricky stitching, you can be. Video game characters are seeing a dramatic rise in popularity at cosplay gatherings, with entire troupes of players selecting a group of characters from the same game or series, in much the same way that troupes would previously choose a group of characters from an anime show or film.





Last, but not least, we have what can be the most involved form of cosplay.
The live action roleplayer.
"A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out some or all of their characters' actions," says Wiki. This can be done with most RPG's, from medieval fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons, to modern-day horror games like White Wolf's Vampire: the Requiem. The players dress up in garb appropriate to their character, then act out the scenario set before them by the Game Master or Storyteller. Many believe that this is a more totally immersive way to role play, as it gets you away from the kitchen table and out into the world.

Girls. Ever heard of them?

This will be a short ramble about the fairer sex. If I'm wrong, then HAHA! IT'S MY BLOG!
Uh, OR you could correct me.
But I'm not wrong. Ever. So don't even try. Just read, and believe.
The truth is in here.

As far as girls relate to gaming of any sort, there are 4 main types of women.
1. The Hater
2. The Invisible Girl
3. The Voyeur
4. The Competition

The Hater is the girl who throws out your issues of Game Informer while you're at work. She's
the one who starts a 1,000,000,000 piece puzzle on your table half an hour before your RPG group shows up. She's the cold-hearted evil machine who threatens to revoke your sex coupons if you don't turn that shit off right now...regardless of how long it's been since you were last able to save your game. The Hater does just what her name implies...she hates games. She's not apathetic, she not simply someone who doesn't play games...it's her mission to kill fun. And she will. She'll find it, wherever it hides, and she will choke the life out of it. Avoid at all costs.

Next is the Invisible Girl. She is a total step in the right direction. The IG couldn't care less about games. She won't wreck your fun though...in the presence of games, the IG simply...disappears. She can usually be found doing something womanly in another part of the dwelling, something like knitting, doing laundry, reading a book, or, if she is a truly wonderful IG, preparing to re-appear briefly with the sandwich she just made for you (note: these cases are extremely rare). On a scale of 1 to Awesome, the Invisible Girl scores a solid "Loves Me From Afar (Which Is Cool, Cause Some of My Buds Smell a Bit Funky)".

Next up, we have the type of girl I have been blessed with. The Voyeur. The Big V isn't gonna scream at you for buying Super Mario's Magic Kingdom of Lollipops and Wishes that Make Dinosaurs Fly. She won't go all Susan Storm on you when she sees polyhedral dice. No, this one is clever. She likes to watch. I'm trying to come up with a synonym for kinky that contains the appropriate level of geek, but there's just not one, so we'll use geenky. The Voyeur girl is geenky. She'll sit and watch you play Doom 3 all evening, cuddled up just like she was watching a top-shelf horror movie. She'll cry with you [ANCIENT SPOILER] when Sephiroth skewers Aeris. If you offer to let her play, she usually responds with something
like, "I'm no good at those games," or, "I like to watch you play them." She is a win/lose situation, because, while she won't hog console time, she's also not one to sit down and play a few rounds of Tekken Tag with you. But I think the good outweighs the bad. Full-on good times with this girl.

Last, but not least, there is the most sought-after and most-dreaded of all women.
The Competition.
This is the gaming girl. Her Elven Necromancer reached the level cap a month ago, she's got more polyhedral dice
than you, and she can beat Ninja Gaiden Black while simultaneously playing Tetris with her toes.
This is totally awesome, because you now have nothing to worry about. You both share a common interest, and you'll never be banished to the couch for playing FFVII straight through a four-day weekend (unless, of course, there were games she wanted to play instead). You no longer have to bribe your friends with beer to get them to come over and play Halo. This wonderous creation, however, has a major flaw.
You must always match her, and never surpass her.
If you play way above her level, she will hate you for perpetuating the male dominance stereotype. On the flip side, if she constantly whips your n00b ass, then she will lose
all respect for you, and ditch you for one of your nerd friends (because nerds can smell a gamer
chick from MILES away, and they'll snap her up in an instant). She's a constant tightrope walk,
but the payoff can be worth the fight. Especially when she rolls over after sex (you know what that is, right?) and whispers in your ear, "I think I just leveled up. Twice."

PS3 Signals the Death of Sony

Mmmmmkay. The great battle. And I haven't even put my two cents in yet. Pardon my newbie-ness if I happen to re-hash old arguements.
Who will win the war? Well, to me, the answer is obvious who SHOULD win the war.
Back in the day, the PS2 got off to a great start. It got to market first, about a year before the Gamecube, the only real competition at the time. Sure, there were other consoles, but who wanted them? It was more expensive than we might have wanted, BUT! it could play DVD's, which had just hit the market around the same time as the PS2! And at $299 it was cheaper than a dedicated DVD player, which at the time of the PS2 launch were mostly retailing for $399 and up. So you got a cheap DVD player with a built in kick-azz game console! Awesome tactic, Sony. And we'll just call the backwards compatibility a bonus. And here is where we see Sony's wonderful new business model. We'll sell a new overpriced console with a new media format, and while we're busy losing money on the hardware, we'll rake in the dough on software sales. Then, once everything really takes off and our new media format becomes the industry standard, everything gets cheaper to make, we start making money on the consoles AND the software, and we all get big fat raises. And how much did they rely on this model? Well, let's take a look at the PS2 launch lineup.

Armored Core 2 (Agetec, Action)
DOA2: Hardcore (Tecmo, Fighting)
Dynasty Warriors 2 (Koei, Action)
ESPN International Track and Field (Konami, Sports)
ESPN X-Games Snowboarding (Konami, Sports)
Eternal Ring (Agetec, RPG)
Evergrace (Agetec, RPG)
FantaVision (SCEI, Puzzle)
Gun Griffon Blaze (Working Designs, Action)
Kessen (EA, Adventure)
Madden NFL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Midnight Club (Rockstar, Racing)
Moto GP (Namco, Racing)
NHL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Orphen (Activision, RPG)
Q-Ball Billiards Master (Take-Two Interactive, Simulation)
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (Midway, Sports)
Ridge Racer V (Namco, Racing)
Silent Scope (Konami, Shooter)
Smuggler's Run (Rockstar, Racing-Adventure)
SSX (EA, Sports)
Street Fighter EX3 (Capcom, Fighting)
Summoner (THQ, RPG)
Swing Away (Paradise Golf in Japan) (EA, Sports)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco, fighting)
TimeSplitters (Eidos, First-Person Shooter)
Unreal Tournament (Infogrames, First-Person Shooter)
Wild Wild Racing (Interplay, Racing)
X-Squad (EA, Action)

Maybe 9 or 10 titles that I can ever actually remember seeing with my own two eyes. Impressive? Hell, no. What a spectacularly dreary lineup. BUT! it can play DVD's! Sony is showing us that it doesn't give a w00t about the titles. It just wants to get DVD's off the ground. And it worked, for the most part. The PS2 dominated the market for most of it's life, and still has a strong following today.

Moving forward, Sony releases the PSP. The PSP continues to have an incredibly weak game library, and UMD movies? Remember those cute little things? Again, we see Sony trying to push a new media format onto the market, and look how well that fared. Not to mention the fact that the PSP had several hardware issues, and just feels retarded in your hands. It puts me in mind of a slimmer Atari Lynx. It's awkward to hold, and the analog sticks (which originally helped put Sony's PSX on the map) are ridiculously unusable. Oops.

And now, we see that Sony is following the same model with it's PS3 release. But this time, it has some serious roadblocks in its path. Let's take a quick look at the PS3 launch library.

PS3 Launch Titles
November 2006

NBA 2K7 - 2K Sports
NHL 2K7 - 2K Sports
Call of Duty 3 - Activision
Tony Hawk’s Project 8 - Activision
MARVEL: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE - Activision
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Bethesda Softworks
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 - Electronic Arts
EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 - Electronic Arts
Need For Speed Carbon - Electronic Arts
Madden NFL 07 - Electronic Arts
RIDGE RACER 7 - NAMCO BANDAI Games
Mobile Suit Gundam: CROSSFIRE - NAMCO BANDAI Games
Sonic the Hedgehog - Sega
Full Auto 2: Battlelines - Sega
Resistance: Fall of Man - Sony
NBA 07 - Sony
Genji: Days of the Blade - Sony
Untold Legends Dark Kingdom - Sony Online Entertainment
Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII - Ubisoft
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas - Ubisoft
F.E.A.R. - Vivendi Universal Games

Respectable? Perhaps. But well over half of the launch lineup is nothing but legacy titles and your latest incarnation of sports titles. Way to ride those coattails, Sony. We don't want original content. We don't want to see new, innovative games. We just want to play drive real fast and play with our balls. Again. BUT! it can play Blu-Ray movies! Here's the problem, though. When the PS2 released with the ability to play DVD's, there was NO high-end competition for DVD format movies. In this case, however, HD-DVD's hit the market about a month before Blu-Ray, killing Blu-Ray's first-to-market advantage. Add to this that the PS3 released a year after the Xbox 360, and was even beaten to market by Nintendo's "My First Game Console". With an extra year to develop their product, Sony manages to gift us with a system that is largely "on par" with the XBox 360 in terms of graphics, but is much more difficult for developers to work with. This means that Sony is going to take a big hit while dealing with third-party developers, as it will take significantly longer to develop new titles, not to mention that the process is much more difficult with Sony's devkit, and will generally cost developers more in the end.
And so, we see that Sony is:
1. late out of the gate
2. launching a "comparable" system
3. at a much higher price point
4. with yet another new media format (also second to market)
5. into a market with HD-DVD, a cheaper competing media format (which DVD's didn't have to worry about)
6. while Blu-Ray pretty much "requires" an HDTV to see any difference in quality
7. not to mention being wholly uninnovative, replacing Live Acheivements with "Entitlements" and stealing the Wii's controller scheme ("Our controller is motion sensitive! Nintendo who?")
8. and without many of it's much-touted "exclusive" content.

So, what does Sony have going for it? Well, there's always backwards-compatibility, which is shaky at best at the moment, and soon to be DISCONTINUED in (I believe) the 60 GB PS3, which will be the main setup moving forward. So, basically, the PS3 has NOTHING going for it. What it USED to have is going down the tubes, along with Sony's hopes, dreams, and Christmas bonuses.

The Keyboard vs. Gamepad

In the years since the first PC gamepads hit the market, one question has had video gamers divided into two separate camps. It's a question of speed and responsiveness. It's a question of comfort and versatility. It's a question of the best way to aim your sniper-rifle for the game-winning one-shot-kill, the most efficient method of controlling your F-16F Desert Falcon on a bombing run across the Iraqi desert with only 30 seconds left on the mission timer. Which is better: a gamepad, or a mouse and keyboard? Let's start by looking at the latter, as they were the first to be developed.

A computer keyboard is a peripheral that was originally derived from typewriter keyboards, and is designed to be used to input text and characters, as well as to control certain functions and operations of the computer. However, as with fabled Rome, the standard keyboard layout was not built in a day. It slowly came to be through the course of three separate IBM keyboard projects, overcoming many initial evolutionary mistakes and pitfalls. A lengthy discussion COULD follow about the specific layouts of these failed IBM keyboards, but we'll just leave the dead undisturbed for now, resting peacefully under piles of 5" floppies and spare SoundBlaster cards, and move on to the keyboard's partner-in-crime, the mouse. Wikipedia states that, "In computing, a mouse (plural mice or mouses) functions as a pointing device by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface." Thanks Wiki. The computer mouse has had thousands of different forms over the years, depending on technology level, manufacturer, and desired functionality, but most users are familiar with the standard two-buttons-and-a-scroll-wheel version. Some other iterations include, but are not limited to: wireless mice, trackballs, optical mice (which are NOT laser mice), laser mice (which are NOT optical mice), mechanical mice, and touchpads, each with anywhere from one to eight or ten buttons. So, to varying degrees of accuracy, versatility, and comfort, your mouse points at stuff, clicks stuff, or otherwise interacts with…stuff.

Now, when used together, the mouse-and-keyboard combination can create a very powerful tool to use in manipulating the little world you see on you computer screen. But how does it stand up to the demands of video games? Actually, it's becoming more and more difficult to choose anything but the keyboard and mouse combo. With the intense demands and multiple configurable options of most new PC games on the market, you almost need 104 different buttons to play the game effectively. The keyboard is as modifiable as you want it to be, and virtually every key can be remapped to perform a programmed function or macro within your game. The mouse is a remarkable tool as well, giving precise control over the pointer or targeting system you are trying to use within the user interface.

On the flip-side of the coin is the PC gamepad. Let's go back to Wikipedia for a quick second, and see what they have to say: "A gamepad, also called joypad or control pad, is a type of game controller held in the hand, where the digits (especially thumbs) are used to provide input. Gamepads generally feature a set of action buttons handled with the right thumb and a direction controller handled with the left. The direction controller has traditionally been a four-way digital cross (D-pad), but most modern controllers additionally (or as a substitute) feature an analog stick." Thank you, oh wise Wiki. All the benefits of a keyboard/mouse combo, with an average of six to ten buttons, as opposed to as many as twenty or thirty keys to wrestle with. Now, while some say the lack of buttons presents a sacrifice of functionality and ease of use, there are many who would argue that the streamlined approach is much easier to grasp (haha), and who wants to try and memorize two or three dozen keybindings anyway? The majority of gamepads on the market today feature two analog joysticks, a design pioneered and popularized by Sony's Dual Shock controller in 1997. The Dual Shock was a slightly-revised version of the Dual Analog controller first announced in November of 1996. Many die-hard game nerds will argue that Nintendo created the analog gamepad in the form of the Nintendo 64 controller, which was unveiled in November of 1995, and hit the shelves less than a year later, getting the jump on Sega Saturn's analog controller, which showed up on the market about a month after the N64 controller . But anyone who has ever held an N64 controller knows that it was a massive, unwieldy hunk of crap, much better suited to throwing at your little brother than to playing video games with, and the Saturn "3-D" analog controller was no better than the N64 controller or its younger cousin, the Dreamcast Big-Funny-Shaped-Box-of-Doom-With-A-Hole-In-It controller.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dual-analog gamepads. This just seems like the best way to go, for someone like me who (admittedly) grew up on console games. All the movement is controlled by the thumbs, not some wacky WASD combo. Forward/backward and strafing with the left thumb, and looking/aiming with the right thumb (for additional gross memories, think back to the way the N64 controller handled aiming with the four "C" buttons on the right side of the controller…uber-nasty). Less buttons means less versatility, but it also means less fumbles and less trying to remember which of the 104 keys you mapped you health packs to in the heat of battle.

But the real deciding factor is what game are you trying to play? You may choose from first-person-shooters (Doom 3, F.E.A.R., Quake 4), racing games, puzzle games (Bejeweled, Snood, Wheel of Fortune), role playing games (Final Fantasy, Neverwinter Nights, Everquest), flight/space simulators, sports games, or strategy games (Starcraft, Warcraft III, Empire Earth). Keyboard/mouse combos work very well over the majority of these genres, thereby making them the most commonly used input method. While it is possible to use a gamepad for Starcraft, there's really no call for it. And vice versa, while one could conceivably use a mouse/keyboard setup to play the latest version of Street Fighter, who in their right mind would want to? There is really only one genre where there is even a clear choice between using a gamepad or a mouse/keyboard combo: the first-person-shooter.

"First-person shooter (FPS) is a genre of video games which is characterized by an on-screen view that simulates the playable characters perspective and a focus on the use of ranged weapons such as guns." Sounds like fun, right? Just trust Wikipedia to suck the like out of everything. FPS's are non-stop, rip-roarin' shoot-em-ups where you, the player, get to cruise around your world (be it a historical killing ground, modern-day warzone, or futuristic sci-fi battlefield) grabbing anything you can find to shoot, blow up, or similarly frag your opponents. The simple version: run around and shoot stuff. But how should you do it? Should you stick with the time-honored tradition of a mouse and your trusty WASD keys? Or should you abandon the 104 programmable keys for the sleek-and-sexy feel of a pair of analog joysticks under your thumbs? Well, it's all a matter of perspective. A mouse and keyboard user has the benefit of multiple programmable keys to access his skills or inventory on the fly, while a gamepad user has an easier time remembering which of his six buttons to press to reload in the middle of an intense firefight. The mouse can be said to offer more precise control than joysticks while aiming a weapon, but many gamepad devotees feel that the mouse does not always respond accurately, either not scrolling far enough, or leaving you spinning in a circle. What it really all comes down to, in my humble opinion, is the way you were raised. Those of us who did the majority of our FPS gaming on a PC will always be more comfortable with a mouse and keyboard setup. Those of us who have more confirmed kills on a Playstation or X-Box will tend to favor the gamepad approach. It's really as simple as that. One is not any better than the other. It's just a matter of opinion.