1. My name is Paul Urbach. Like Bach the composer. It's not that hard people. Call me Ur-back and you're likely to get slapped.

2. I live in Orlando, FL (USA for those not in the know) right near all the attractions. Disney is as fun as expected. Universal gets boring. Sea World is amazingly underrated.

3. I am currently house shopping with my girlfriend, and hoping to find something in the next month in order to get that $8000 tax credit.

4. I have two dogs, yet they can hardly be referred to as such. They look more like rats and act like spoiled, needy children.

5. I've been gaming all my life. The first game I can remember playing is River Raid on my dad's Atari 65XE, which was basically a keyboard and joystick plugged into a disk drive plugged into a TV, but they still called it a computer.

6. I thought RPGs were boring and too complicated until I played Diablo. Then I tried TES: Daggerfall and was hooked. Now its my favorite genre.

7. I helped my friend start the gaming website, gamefury.net, but it doesn't have as much traffic as we would like because four times now he randomly decided he doesn't like the look of it, deletes it, then started over from scratch.

8. I was born in Ohio. We moved to Florida when I was 10 because, well, it was Ohio.

9. I work for the Department of Transportation watching traffic cameras on the interstates and toll roads in the Orlando area.

10. I am currently hooked on Borderlands, after which I will go back to Oblivion and finish it up, then give Fallout 3 another playthrough. I'll be busy for a while.

That's all I got for ya. I'll tag hank 101 since he has been neglecting his blog for the past couple weeks.

Competitive multiplayer seems to be the wave of the future. Most gamers feel that the rush from battling against a real opponent is far more satisfying than fighting a computer controlled one. Though I prefer single player games, I can't argue with this logic. However, multiplayer games appear to ultimately do less for video gaming in the long run.

Is there a way to actually define a good online game? The answers to this seem obvious at first. Well balanced; if the maps favor one team or another, players become frustrated. Plenty of game modes; players want choice, though most still play team deathmatch in every game. Rewards for playing well and ranking up; if players have nothing to look forward to and no goals to shoot for, why play? Each of these things are good points, but only explains how to prevent making a bad game, not how it can rise above others.

I have played a fair share of online games and had the same basic experience in each. A play session of GRAW felt relatively similar to Halo. While bells and whistles are nice, it's ultimately the players that make or break a game. After a while in any game, you will run into the group of players that are amazing and know it. Maybe I'm not a trash talker, so I don't get into these shouting matches that populate the higher ranked sessions in the rare event that I do well. The introduction of clans, unions, and guilds make it harder for player to get into a game. Imagine playing paintball against a S.W.A.T. team and you'll get the idea. Eventually, it breaks down to me getting destroyed, insulted, frustrated, then quitting.

I can see the comments coming now, "Just 'cause you suck at a game doesn't mean it isn't awesome." This basically sums up multiplayer gaming. The better player wins. I remember growing up in the days before online gaming where multiplayer meant a room full of friends crowding around the SNES. In the end, the same person won every time and they were the only ones that really enjoyed themselves, though eventually even the constant winning got old. Although online gaming has expanded the possible pool of players, the same basic rule applies. I don't really have much fun when I start playing a new game against people who have mastered the controls, memorized spawn points, and are simply far better at the game than I am.

Everyone will have differing opinions on what they enjoy, but the bottom line is what's good for the industry. Many developers have taken on the mentality that multiplayer is the only way to keep people playing their game forever. This is a great idea, but only for a big few. Load up Halo 3, Gears of War 2, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, or Mario Kart Wii (note that they are all sequels) and you will find them flooded with players. Unfortunately, play almost any other game a few months after release, especially a new series,and you will be hard-pressed to get enough people for a match. For example, I tried finding a game of Hawx online to get some of the achievements and there wasn't one person playing. This is basically the first jetfighter game in the genre since Ace Combat 6 two years ago, yet no one is playing it.

Take a look at the gamer scores on Xbox 360 of some of the players that destroy you in your next match of Halo 3. In my last match, there was a player that had owned an Xbox for two years and his gamer score was 635 (for the uninitiated, every retail Xbox 360 game has a possible 1000 gamer points possible). This is great for Halo, but bad for Microsoft in general. If a player is stuck on one game, they aren't buying others and the industry as a whole is hurting. There are rare games that are universally panned by the critics yet adamantly defended by hardcore fans that find them enjoyable, such as Shadowrun, but these are few and far between.

It is my hope that we lean away from deathmatch type games, and the rising popularity of co-op games gives me hope. A game that focuses on co-op can be just about equally enjoyed by an online and solo gamer. These games still require a decent plot and plenty of enemy variety, but keep the competition of doing better than your fellow gamers. Even if you aren't as good as your partners, you aren't forced to die constantly and still get the satisfaction of eventually winning. The simple fact that they eventually end will drive player to buy other similar titles instead of playing the same game for years on end. Borderlands is an excellent example of this. The PvP arenas are more of an after though and the main point of the game is to work together toward a common goal. Hell, at this rate, players might accidentally learn a thing or two about teamwork if they aren't careful.

I was sitting at work when my phone beeped with a new email. Opening it up, I was treated to the following message.

Thanks for being the biggest fan of Fallout 3

As a special thanks for purchasing all five Fallout(R) 3 game add-ons,
Xbox 360(R) and Bethesda are happy to present you with this token for
a free, premium Fallout 3 theme. It's our way of saying thanks for
being a huge fan of Fallout 3.

Here's how to collect your reward:
1. Sign in to the Xbox LIVE(R) Marketplace on the Web.
2. Select My Account, then Redeem Code.
3. Enter the token below:
[XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX]

Naturally, I removed the actual code, but you get the idea. I had no idea this message was coming and wasn't even expecting anything from them. Things like this show that a company really cares about their consumers and wants to reward those most loyal to them. It may just be a theme, but it really renews my faith in industry. Bethesda isn't making any profit from this. They just wanted to do something nice for people that bought their product.