It's December! The Christmas month sure does seem to sneak up on you out of nowhere, doesn't it? Naturally, those of you aware of your surroundings knew about that a long time ago, but when you're resurfacing after a long stretch of Half-Life 2, it strikes you as a bucket of ice water in the face. And after realising I was late with presents and all other preparations for the great holiday, it struck me that the festivities ought to be felt everywhere, including AceGamez. So, I pitched an idea to everybody for a group feature spanning the days up until Christmas, in which we'd contemplate on whatever we pleased. After receiving no response, editor Geoff encouraged me to start anyway, so that's what I'm doing. I sure hope someone will pick up the thread, or you'll be forced to hear me yak all through December! Anywho, I'll shoot off this series with my take on episodic gaming:

The last 10 years or so, video games have evolved into somewhat of a subdivision of films. Transferring the idea from film to game has become a trivial task for many film studios, often without any real interaction from the creative leader of the project. Of course, this has had two-sided effects, resulting in video games constantly "borrowing" from films, be it specific scenes, stunts, atmospheres or even worlds. And even though the influence has had many positive effects, gamers are on the lookout for new content: we're interested in the streamlined, the fast and easy, rather than huge sagas of gory violence, straight out of a Vin Diesel B-movie. Enter episodic gaming - a new idea set to change the gaming scene.

Of course, episodic gaming is merely the principle of dividing a game into different sections for you to enjoy at your leisure. The concept has been around for ages, as expansion packs for your favourite games (The Sims, anybody?). However, rather than expanding an existing game, the new breed of episodic games will create entirely new adventures, just like reading a 6-issue comic book or following the daily intrigues in a soap opera. This opens up gaming for an entirely new audience - the same audience that downloads another episode of South Park each week.

Valve's Half-Life: Episode 1 and Ritual Entertainment's SiN Episodes series are both trying to establish episodic gaming as a new way of playing games, even though both releases miss the final ingredient - regularly occurring releases. Playing through Mr. Freeman's latest escapade in City 17 is dangerously hampered by the fact that, once through it, you'll have to wait another 6 months for the continuation. This is something that Telltale Games have caught up on with their 2 episodic game series, a game adaptation of Jeff Smith's Bone comics and an episodic revival of LucasArts' classic Sam & Max adventure game, Hit the Road. Both series are released monthly via GameTap's download service, and have generated a quite positive response.

In my opinion, Telltale Games' marketing philosophy is currently the closest to true episodic gaming. Rather than keeping fans drooling 3-4 years while cleaning up bugs and perfecting a full game, you release another episode each month to keep them at bay. However, despite the advantages of releasing games episodically, there is also the disadvantage that each episode must be structured largely story-based, with a beginning, middle and, if only temporary, end. Shooters will generally become too engaging and are more fit for playing long stretches at a time than just a few hours each month. This is why I agree with the skilled folk at Telltale that the media is perfect as a revival for adventure games, something fans of the genre have been praying would come for years.
In all, episodic gaming is an exciting concept, and one we'll have to keep an eye on in the future, especially on consoles. The X-Box Live Marketplace is a perfect place for dealing the episodes and Nintendo have already expressed an interest in releasing the new Sam & Max episodes on the Wii, so it's certainly an exciting new aspect to gaming.