Now that your hands aren't at ten and six due to gas prices, food prices, and the pay cut you take every year from inflation, you owe it to yourself to get your hands on something to make your commute enjoyable. The underrated PSP is now as low as $170 and the bargain bin at GameStop is your friend. Since I deal with gameplay at GameSpot, I thought I'd go back and dig up a game or two that we loved but previously didn't have footage for. Also, if you haven't played God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP), that should be your first stop.

First Game

Chili Con Carnage is a shooter focused on one thing, slow motion blasting fools. The action is spicy and so is the south of the border humor. The targeting system is elegant for the PSP, right bumper plus trigger kills people, left bumper plus trigger kills objects. There are a number of highly entertaining special moves that do anything from stacking your hands with guns like a Looney tunes character, to giving you machine gun guitar cases much like Desperado, to a bull attack that lets you run around at high speed smashing dudes. The music goes in tune with your killing streak so by the tenth body you'll be feeling it. Watch me tornado some fools.

Next I'm playing Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron (PSP)

I was talking with some friends today about the most important games this generation. They don't have to be the best games, or the best-selling ones, just the most important ones for shaping the medium of games for years to come. And much like Time Magazine's Man of the Year, this isn't necessarily an accolade; it's just a list of the games I think we'll look back on and say, "For better or worse, that's what I associate with the industry at that time."

5. Geometry Wars

The Xbox 360 launch sucked. Perfect Dark Zero was not a system-selling launch title. Call of Duty 2 sold a truckload and showed off the hardware, but PC gamers had been playing the same game for about a month when it came out. Nothing else from the launch lineup really stood out, save for Geometry Wars, a $5 downloadable game that showed the potential of Xbox Live Arcade and gave gamers a reason to care about a unified online structure that let them compare high scores with everyone on their friends lists. Digital distribution and leaderboards had been done before, true, but Geometry Wars was the game that made it all "click" for people. I think in many ways, it also paved the way for downloadable projects like Braid and Everyday Shooter to push the medium forward, and helped spur the current indie gaming boom.

4. BioShock

As much as I hate self-promotional d-bags in all walks of life, I strongly believe the gaming industry needs to make celebrities out of its creative developers. We need artists with the name recognition and the leverage over their publishers to push through controversial and risky game designs if we want to see what games are really capable of. Although I believe he compromised on his original vision nearly every step of the way, Ken Levine managed to make a game where players have to choose between the lives of little girls and the power they need to stop a madman. While they may already be a staple in gripping cinema like The Dark Knight, ethical dilemmas have not been explored with any depth in games that I've played. BioShock introduced the idea that choices are more difficult than simply weighing risk versus reward. There should be greater concerns at play in any life, and so it should be with players' virtual counterparts. Now that BioShock has flirted with the edge of what can be done in games and made a financial hit out of it, it should be easier for Ken Levine—and any developer that can win the faith of a financial backer--to make his next game with fewer compromises and more daring design decisions.

3. Brain Age

My mom plays video games now. She has a DS. When I showed her Brain Age and its Sudoku mode, she loved it, but she told me it didn't count as a video game because there was no blood and nothing blowing up. Brain Age (and Wii Sports, and every other Nintendo product that appeals to the great non-gaming masses) is going a long way to legitimize our hobby in the wider world. It's not necessarily making Mortal Kombat a family fun time activity, but it's a foot in the door for games of all stripes in the future. And the Sudoku mode is pretty great all on its own.

2. Braid

I just finished Jonathan Blow's opus last night, and if I were the GameSpot reviewer, I would have given it a 10 in a heartbeat. Braid is an absolutely amazing game from start to finish. But then the ending sequence is just so brilliant. For me it was like the gaming equivalent of watching Shawshank Redemption and loving every second of it, but then there's a Fight Club-style twist that reshapes everything before it, and I only loved it more. Some people might not even consider it a twist in the traditional sense, but it's so heart-breakingly beautiful I wanted to smile and cry at the same time. There are lots of games that people throw about as examples of art, but few of them are as open to diverse interpretations as Braid. Everyone involved in the industry needs to play this game. They need to study it, to pick it apart, to write master's theses about it. They need to point to this like film history classes point to The Great Train Robbery or Birth of a Nation.

EDIT: Replaced Citizen Kane with Shawshank Redemption because on second reading, I realized CK already had a twist that reshaped the entire movie before it, thus making my analogy really, really dumb. The moral of the story is, "Don't blog when you're desperately tired."

1. Guitar Hero

It would be difficult to ignore the impact Guitar Hero has had on the gaming industry. You may think Wii Sports or some other Nintendo title may belong here, but Guitar Hero (which I know technically originated with last generation's PS2 a few months before the Xbox 360 arrived on shelves) has really reshaped the gaming landscape. Guitar Hero started a genre that appeals to both casual and hardcore gamers. It has a difficulty curve that excludes only the absolute clumsiest and bores only a handful of the most dexterous freaks of nature. It embraces music, one of the most widely appreciated media in the world, something that can transcend boundaries of geography, age, and culture.

Guitar Hero (and Rock Band) represents everything great about gaming. Even without a story worth telling or a heart-rending twist at the finale, Guitar Hero makes people happy. It makes many, many people happy. In June, Guitar Hero III was named the second-best-selling game of all time in the US. With San Andreas essentially dead and buried at this point, Legends of Rock may eventually overtake Take-Two's cash cow as no. 1. Just like pretty much everyone saw Titanic or Star Wars: Episode One, Guitar Hero represents the latest big step the gaming industry has made with a cultural touchstone that absolutely everybody has played. Everyone knew about Super Mario Bros., or Grand Theft Auto, but Guitar Hero is the game everyone has played. A decade or more from now, I believe it will go down as the tipping point in gaming's acceptance into culture at large.

As has become a mid-August tradition, Electronic Arts released Madden NFL 09 in stores this week. And as happens every year, gridiron gamers across the nation disappeared into rumpus rooms and basements, intent on mastering the game's nuances.

Similarly absent from sight are the game's Entertainment Software Rating Board content descriptors. Like all previous ESRB-assessed installments of the series, Madden NFL 09 is rated E for Everyone, and carries no warnings of possibly objectionable content. I don't really have a problem with the game getting an E for Everyone, but I'm mystified by the ESRB's refusal to slap even a simple "Mild Violence" descriptor on the game.

Football is an inherently violent game, and as EA once so proudly proclaimed, "If it's in the game, it's in the game." Take a look at this highlight reel of Madden 09 tackles. There are plenty of wince-inducing collisions in there that should qualify as violent, even if they are bloodless.

Another baffling realization is that the Madden packaging--like that of many E-rated games--doesn't even tell you that the game is free from content descriptors. Where you would normally find those warnings, you instead see a referral to the ESRB Web site for more information.

All I can see that doing is irritating parents who are in the store, making their purchasing decisions, and need to know what's in the game at a glance. Since there's no explicit indication that such a game is free from descriptors, the referral to the Web site just invites suspicions that notification of unsavory elements had been hidden away online instead of clearly posted on every box. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it's a bit more intentional, a way for the ESRB to perhaps avoid wailing and gnashing of teeth from parents who notice something they find objectionable (like bone-crunching tackle animations, let's say), in a game that the ESRB gave its biggest seal of approval.

I suppose it's a good sign that there aren't a bunch of larger problems with the ESRB for me to rail against, but every little thing they do that carries with it the feel of PR, spin, or deceit is exponentially more damaging to their reputation in my mind than the same actions would be for a publisher. After all, I expect the worst of them, since those are private, for-profit companies. But at least they're up-front about it, and everybody should know the score going in.

But the ESRB represents the entire industry. In the eyes of a lot of people, it even represents gamers. And that's what makes every one of their mistakes, foibles, or lies of omission that much more regrettable.

Madden 09 is a great game, but with 22 players on the field at once, you're going to see some bizarre things The most interesting one (and most frustrating, since I was the victim of the quirk) that I experienced during my time reviewing the game came courtesy of Vernon Davis (controlled by Tom Mc Shea).

As you can see in the video below (It's not the ideal angle, but you're only able to choose from a few preset options when saving a highlight), Davis caught a pass on the eight-yard line. As soon as he catches the ball, and as he's heading out of bounds he leaps into the air, putting his hand behind his helmet like Deion Sanders. But Davis doesn't go out of bounds. No sir, he has bigger plans. In mid-air, he turns back towards the field as if he's being pulled inbounds by some sort of magnet. After landing in stride, he scampers to the endzone where he's tackled by three no doubt bewildered Chicago Bears.

The booth actually reviewed the play to see if Davis stepped out of bounds, but since he was floating on air, technically he never went out of play. Regardless of how much I yelled at Tom and the 360, nobody seemed to care that he was tackled just shy of the endzone, either. I know people say Vernon Davis is an amazing athlete, but I didn't believe it until I saw him, not only fly, but celebrate a touchdown he hadn't yet scored midflight.

In this brand new edition of Start/Select, me and Alex put the new Nintendo Cooking Guide through its paces, and we head over to EA to speak to the developers of Red Alert 3 and Crysis Warhead.We love getting feedback about the show, so head over to the Start/Select homepage to tell us what you think.

So yesterday I went skimming through the US Patent and Trademark Office's online database just blindly skimming for possible stories. It's not something that produces much in the way of stories, but it does yield a few interesting tidbits every now and again. This time I didn't see much worth writing a story about, but I saw a few things that just made me a little bit peeved.

Sometimes, trademarks can provide a snapshot of a company's mindset. A couple years ago when Activision trademarked Guitar Villain, Drum Villain, Keyboard Hero, Band Hero, and DJ Hero, you didn't need to be clairvoyant to figure out the publisher was going to exploit its latest franchise like a five-year-old in a sneaker factory. Granted, none of those possible products have come to pass just yet, but Activision spent a considerable amount of time and resources to trademark them all.

So when I checked up on Activision's more recent patent filings, I found a couple more marks that might have tipped the publisher's hand on its future plans. On July 3, Activision filed for trademarks on "Math Papa" and "Science Papa" for use in video games. Never mind the titular similarity to Cooking Mama, or the reinforcement of outdated gender roles. What bugs me most about the Papa marks is that they suggest Activision could soon be making a big play for the non-traditional market, something along the lines of Ubisoft's Games For Everyone brand, which includes such shelf space-hogging chum as Petz, Imagine, My Coach, and the forthcoming ENER-G. (It's worth noting that brand was responsible for one-third of Ubi's revenues last quarter.)

I don't want to come off as a reactionary gamer jealous that the publishers in my chosen hobby are giving all their attention to courting softcore "Johnny-come-lately"s who wouldn't give them the time of day while I was saving my allowance to buy $80 fighting games on the SNES. That said, I am jealous like that.

Every dollar spent on more traditional (and more expensive) game development is one less dollar that could go into Licensed Pony Game for 'Tween Girls or Generic Puzzle Game Hoping To Be Confused With Brain Age. Yes, many of these projects are inexpensive to produce and provide a better return on the investment than a AAA game with a budget in the tens of millions. But there's less incentive to put that money back into development for the core gaming market when casual products provide a much better return on the investment.

As great as it is that people like my retired mother are starting to "get" gaming thanks to the best of these casual titles, I'm angry that they're receiving so many shoddy, substandard products. I'm also sad they aren't demanding anything better.

Another trademark that bugged me is a bit older, but still in danger of being used. Last year, Sony Computer Entertainment America filed a trademark for the term "Advertar." I'm not sure if they've uttered this word in connection with the hype for PlayStation Home yet, or exactly what they plan to use that word for, but the very thought of it makes me scowl.

Tangent: Another scowl-inducing thing I've seen this week is the Soulcalibur IV TV ad campaign, which bandies about a ton of meaty themes like retribution, redemption, hope, vengeance, determination, and so on, even though the game's story explores none of them on anything more than the most superficial of levels. I feel bad for anybody who saw the ads and purchased the game expecting it to deal with any of those themes in a substantial way.

On the bright side, Braid came out this week and is an excellent game that I expect will be noted as a landmark in the evolution of game design.