Every so often, my parents will catch the puppies chewing on something very small. On the rare occasions that they can pry the object away from the puppy before it's swallowed, they usually come up with a tooth for their collection.

Now that their baby teeth are gone, the puppies can get some use out of their larger, stronger adult teeth. This means that the holes in my clothes and the tears in my fleah can be that much larger. If there's one thing puppies are good at, it's biting. Nowhere is safe. Not the couch..

Not the outdoors...

Not even the car...

I expect most people try to look fairly presentable when visiting their parents, but I purposefully choose the oldest, dirtiest clothes I have when I go over there. And if by some miracle my clothes don't get bitten, they're still not safe.

That is what my pants look like after being in the house for 5 whole minutes.

I've been playing Dragon Age for about a week. I've put over 14 hours into it and I'm not even close to the end. I couldn't be happier about that. While the length and depth of this game are major selling points, what I'm most excited about is that I'm going to be able to play and enjoy every single bit of the game that's on my disk. With no online multiplayer mode, the entire game can be experienced by me if I choose to dig deep enough.

Dragon Age is the first game in a long time that I've paid full price for, yet it's likely to be the game I get the most value for my money out of in that time. Instead of paying for co-op or competitive multiplayer modes that I'll never use, I got a game that does one thing and does it well; creating a detailed world for the player, singular, to get lost in. There are a few more games like this on the horizon, like Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect 2, but if you're not in to RPGs and like to game by yourself it's slim pickings. Non-RPG single player only games are still trickling out, like Assassin's Creed 2 and God of War 3, but they're the exception when a few short years ago they were the norm.

Starting with this current generation of consoles,it seems no review of a single player game is complete without the words "it would have been nice of there was a multiplayer mode included" in there somewhere. Developers, always eager to increase their reviews scores, have taken that to heart. Uncharted 2 has a competitive multiplayer and a co-op feature. Mario's latest platformer is designed for 4 players. Story driven Bioshock is getting an unnecessary multiplayer mode for its unnecessary sequel. Even the Resident Evil series has sacrificed its survival horror roots on the alter of multiplayer. With so many game genres including a mutiplayer mode why have RPGs been able to stay mainly single player games? I have a theory.

Where the other genres have tried to cram their single player and multiplayer offerings on one disc, the RPG has been a little smarter with multiplayer. They've spun it off into its own genre, the MMO. Originally known as "MMORPGs", online role playing games dropped the RPG from its acronym when the genre began establishing its own identity. Today they're thought of as two separate types of games, even though the online component is still really the only difference.

The upcoming Knights of the Old Republic MMO looks like it plays exactly like the original KOTOR, complete with good and evil dialogue choices, skill trees, and "dice rolls" during combat. The only difference between the two games is you can play with others in one and must play alone in the other. Yet one is called an RPG, the other an MMO. Conversely, Half-Life and Left 4 Dead are both c1assfied as shooters.

This, to me, is the perfect arrangement. I still get my deep RPGs and people who want to show their characters to other people online get to… do whatever it is they do. Neither party is paying for something they don't want. Why can't there be an "online shooter" and "single player shooter" genre? The mutiplayer-centric Left 4 Dead series is a good start, but I'd still like to see some FPS games being developed on the opposite end of the spectrum. Enough splitting games in multiplayer and single player portions. Just decide what kind of game you want to make and make just that kind of game. Watering down both versions in an attempt to please everyone just doesn't cut it.

Until this happens, this single player gamer is going to stick to mainly RPGs for the near future. That genre has the right idea.

It occurs to me that I haven't whined about online multiplayer in several months. I shall remedy this by linking to this storywhere a former Midway producer complains about the company demanding multiplayer in its titles, whether the feature is a good idea or not. While this confirms what I've long feared to be the case, it's always nice to see people complain about this terrible practice. How could taking resources away from your main game to throw together a multiplayer mode do anything but harm the main game?

Want another example of a terrible trend that may eventually lead to my complete disillusionment with video games? How about the not so subtle enticement to purchase Dragon Age DLC as described by Penny Arcade? I just encountered this guy in my game today. He asks you to help him on a quest and if yousay yes the game saves and kicks you out to the marketplace where you can purchase this "premium content". Good DLC adds to an already fully formed game world. Bad DLC makes you feel like you're paying above the retail price of the game to complete that game world. Are you paying attention Bioware?