See, I love music games. I mean, I really love them. This is in part because I love music in an embarrassingly wide variety of genres, and in part because I’m a musician myself (I sing and play bass, guitar, and drums, in case you didn’t know). So these games sort of hit me right in the sweet spot.

Anyway, I’ve been spending the last few months putting this site together. This is a solo project; I’m doing all the writing, design, coding, PR, administration… Suddenly I’m very tired. Where was I? Oh yes: This site is all me. But I’m also hoping it’ll be useful to other fans of music games, who can keep up with the latest news and releases, and find lots of new music in The Vault.

So there it is, my Big Secret Project: Plastic Axe — Music games for music fans. Go have yourself a look around, and let me know what you think in the comments (over there rather than here, please).

Ahem, sorry. Anyway, the reason I called you here today is to let you know that Mac|Life has posted a how-to I put together many months ago, which aims to provide tips for home recording with GarageBand. You Mac owners may enjoy it — and for anyone on Windows machines, I tried to make these tips as general as possible, so many of them can be applied to any recording situation.

So I hope you enjoy them.

This is just to say that Green Pixels recently put up a couple more reviews of mine, for Guitar Hero Smash Hits and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (the Wii version, with the fancy-schmancy new Wii MotionPlus pack-in). They’re both good! Go find out why.

[Update: Fixed link to reflect where the stories are actually posting. Come leave a comment!]

So head on over to Liliputing for early impressions of my brand-spankin’-new Acer Aspire One D250. And I should have a full review up sometime the week after E3.

If you’ve been playing along with the OPM home game (that is, our staggeringly awesome podcast — tune in at radiopm.1up.com today! [Edit: :( ]), you know that a few of us here have been bitten by the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion bug. So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about why this game is so compelling. I mean, sure, it’s enormous, and sure, it’s real purty, but we’ve seen other big, beautiful games that haven’t captivated our interest (and that of millions of other players) like Oblivion has. But I think I figured out what that special something is that keeps people talking about the game: freedom.

Now, “freedom” is a buzzword that’s been thrown around since GTA3 made “sandbox” games the Hip New Thing. But consider what that means in the context of GTA: You can be a bad guy…or you can be a really bad guy. I mean, you can follow along the main story and steal cars and carry out hits and whatnot, or you can do all that plus run down pedestrians and beat grandmothers over the heads with baseball bats. What you can’t do is be a hero. (Well, you can be a goody-goody, law-abiding citizen, but that pretty much entails walking down the sidewalk and looking at architecture. Not exactly the most entertaining experience.)

Of course, that is freedom compared to what you normally find in games, where you’re either a hero or an anti-hero, following a narrow path with few significant choices. But Oblivion offers real freedom: Completing the main story does involve being basically a “good guy,” but if that doesn’t float your boat you can play as a thief or an assassin—and get a game’s worth of play time out of either of those choices. You can be a paragon of virtue of the incarnation of pure evil; the game supports both choices, and everything in between.

Of course, choosing to go down either path has legitimate, logical consequences within the game world. If you decide to play as a villain you will be treated like a villain, forced to tread lightly where honest, law-abiding citizens are concerned.

Morality within a game world is something that’s been tried before; the old Ultima RPGs incorporated the idea heavily, for example. But it’s not something you see too much of these days, and that is, to my mind, a damn shame. As we approach the point of diminishing returns with regard to graphics and size and realism, it’s time for game designers to start turning all that technological prowess toward designing games that have real depth to them, depth that can only be achieved by giving the player legitimate choices within the game world.

When it’s done right, the result is a game that offers a different experience to just about anyone playing. It generates lots of discussion, fierce dedication, and a fervent desire for more games that treat players like adults capable of making significant decisions. This is the final frontier of gaming, the real next generation. Designers, are you up to the challenge?

Thing the First: My weekly column about music games is up over at Green Pixels. We did something a little different this time, reorganizing the column as a collection of links to let you dig into the catalogs of the different artists. I think you’ll find it more useful than previous columns.

And Thing the Second: Don’t worry, fans of office-related destruction, I’m still working on the Ziff-trospective, Part III — I had some things that needed tending to over this past week, but I’m planning to have it up over the weekend or early next week. Thanks for your patience.

1969 – The first ARPANET link is created, building the first strand in what would eventually become the Internet.

1978 - The first multi-user dungeon (MUD) is created. Little more than a customizable chatroom, the MUD is nevertheless the predecessor to today’s MMORPGs.

1985 - Quantum Computer Services launches Quantum Link, an online hub for the Commodore 64, featuring simple multiplayer board games. The service is later renamed America Online.

1991 - Neverwinter Nights, the first MMORPG with graphics, is launched on AOL. It costs $6 an hour to play. Its server capacity: 50 players.

1996 - Quake is released, shortly followed by QuakeWorld, a client for playing the game over the Internet. The era of the online FPS is born.

1997 - Ultima Online is launched. 100,000 subscribers sign up within the first six months, only to be brutally PKed and have their boats stolen.

1998 - The Dreamcast is released in Japan, becoming the first game console to launch with a built-in modem. Also, the last.

1999 - EverQuest and Asheron’s Call are launched, completing (with UO) the unholy triumvirate that has strongly influenced MMORPGs to this day.

2002 - Xbox Live is launched on the original Xbox, setting new standards for communication both in-game (with standardized voice chat) and cross-game (with a unified login and friend list). PS2 and Gamecube also debut online functionality, but neither approaches XBL in popularity.

2003 - EverQuest is ported to PS2 in the form of EverQuest Online Adventures. The gaming world notices, yawns, and goes back to hunting for new Final Fantasy XI screens.

2004 - Halo 2 is released, featuring one of the most popular online components in any console game. Within the next two years over half a billion games of Halo 2 will be played online. Also this year: World of Warcraft launches. You may have heard of it.

2006 - PS3 and Wii are launched. Xbox Live takes note of the systems’ respective online offerings, heaves a sigh of relief, and returns to lounging on its jewel-encrusted throne.

2007 - Halo 3 launches. A crippled Internet limps along under the strain of a few million players all getting online at the same time.

2008 - “Internet2″ is completed, offering researchers and universities 100 Gbps transfer speeds.

2009 - Debut of 100-Gbps streaming porn.

2010 - Most metropolitan areas now offer free Wi-Fi within city limits. All that shared bandwidth makes users nostalgic for the dial-up days.

2029 - The Internet, now self-aware, sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor.

2050 - Humans move to an internet-only existence, uploading their brains to permanently live in the electronic world.

2112 - Attention, all planets of the Solar Federation: We have assumed control.

Hero of Sparta

Warfare Incorporated

Frenzic

Toy Bot Diaries 2 and 3

If you like what you read, please drop a comment on the review, rather than here. Comments closed by way of encouragement.

Testing them a lot.

Anyway, if you’re a Mac user, have a look at the whole list; there’s lots of great stuff in there.

So if you come across any references that strike you as odd, please excuse them.

I am, however, going to leave comments on all these old posts open for awhile, at least, so if you feel like contributing to any of the preceding topics, please do. And please, enjoy.

Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab

WinRemote

Netter’s Anatomy Flashcards

Live Poker 40K

Please feel free to pop over, check them out, and comment. Comments closed here to, y’know, facilitate that.

Oh, but if you do, drop a comment there, not here, if you wouldn’t mind. It makes my editors happy. And I do like to keep my editors happy.

For example, did you know that I was the first person ever to write about the original Guitar Hero? It’s true — I was down at RedOctane doing a completely unrelated story and they asked if I wanted to see the game.

I did. And I got to write about it before anyone else in the world. I still think that’s pretty neat.

Anyway, that’s not what I came here to talk about. I came to talk about my review of Guitar Hero World Tour, which has just gone up at Green Pixels. Head on over and check it out, won’t you?

But what I wanted you to know is that Green Pixels has put up another one of my how-tos, this one about streaming media from a PC to a Wii. Yes, it’s possible! Yes, it’s even fairly easy. But no, it’s not as intuitive as using either a 360 or PS3. And no, I won’t buy you a pony.

I’m not even sure why you’d ask that.