My apathy may be due to my preoccupation with Valve this week. I usually think about Valve and Steam a lot anyway, and not always good thoughts. Sometimes I envision a future where Valve goes public and starts making Actiavellian decisions, such as developing Counter-Strike 2 as an Xbox 360 lead, charging $10 for the Engineer update, or releasing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 as three separate games. All of these belong to a future I don’t want to live in.

But this week Valve updated Portal with a cryptic achievement and change log that prompted a community investigation. After doing a bunch of things which I won’t pretend to understand, the forum sleuths uncovered a bunch of other things which I also don’t understand. Morse code, a BBS — ASCII art of turrets and Gabe Newell? I decided to just assume it was leading to a Portal 2 announcement.

And then Valve updated Portal to change the ending. I read the headlines and my heart skipped a beat. Back from the E.R. and to the article, I found yet more that I didn’t understand. But it seemed that an Episode 3 announcement was near.

We already knew Episode 3 and Portal 2 were on the way, though. Why are we so excited? Because it isn’t hollow; it’s not just a press release. Valve’s pre-announcement takes advantage of the one thing we gamers are sure to appreciate: interactivity. And although Valve makes games out of the same stuff everyone else does, only they could have put on such a performance, prodding that part of our psyche from which zealous devotion and unthinking admiration flows. The performance took not only creative marketing ideas and the will to take a risk, but autonomy — something Valve has spent the better part of a decade building for themselves in Steam. This week, they reaped the benefits. This week, everyone who makes games wishes they were Valve. Again.

Also Valve announced Steam for Mac OS X.

My suggestion: Allow users to create and name groups in the My Games and Friends lists.

What they did: Half of this suggestion was implemented; we can now create and add games to “categories” in our games library. It works like a tag system on a blog in that games can belong to multiple categories.

Follow-up: Allow users to filter by “installed” and “uninstalled” regardless of which category they’re viewing. Also add an extra context menu item with a sub-menu where users can add games to existing categories.

What they did: This was added, though because of how Valve has changed the games library overall, it’s slightly different from how I imagined it. The games library now has a “details view” where, when a game is selected on the games list, a page is populated with game information, news, related links, and how many friends own the game in addition to their avatars and links to their profiles.

Follow-up: Nothing. This is just what I wanted.

My suggestion: Make the Community Blotter more sigificant.

What they did: The Store page now uses part of the Blotter by showing the last few games purchased by friends. Each game’s store page also now shows which of a user’s friends already own the game.

Follow-up: I’d still like to see the Blotter extended to Steam notifications.

My suggestion: Expand instant messaging features.

What they did: Nothing yet. We can’t access other services, and we don’t have tabbed chat containers. But we do have hope; Valve opened a section on the Steam forums for beta feedback, and therein is a thread where many people are asking for tabbed conversations.

Follow-up: Listen to the community.

My suggestion: Expand Steam Cloud

What they did: They did it. Favorite servers now synchronize across computers through Steam Cloud, and an icon now appears next to games which support it when in “list view.” This was the most practical and important part of my suggestion.

Follow-up: Nothing; the Steam Cloud feature is finally beginning to realize its potential.

My suggestion: Abandon Internet Explorer for WebKit.

What they did: They did this, too, and it’s probably the most significant change. Using WebKit instead of IE opens non-Windows platforms to Steam. We aren’t far from having Mac and Linux versions of Steam.

Follow-up: It’s done. The browser could be improved further by allowing custom home pages or bookmarks, but it may also be best to just keep it simple.

Valve has added or changed much more than what I imagined last month. The store page has been redesigned with purpose to make games easier to find; the games library was changed to provide more viewing options; and the overlay has been revamped both speed-wise and clockwise. What’s more, this beta may not be feature-complete yet. The Friends system and Community site are almost unchanged. If Valve’s out of ideas, the Steam community has many.

I resolved that, when I played Mass Effect on PC, I would play as female Shepard, and I’d also play as a Renegade. So I created Sarah Shepard; I expected playing her to be fun, but not superior fun. I also expected to hate her. I didn’t like myself as a Dark Jedi in KoTOR. Force Lightning was fun, but I was a selfish asshole. I didn’t save the galaxy, I took it. My choices on Mass Effect’s Renegade path didn’t all result in such extremes, though; I could save the galaxy without having to mollycoddle everyone. I’d do it efficiently, and by my own rules. Playing Paragon or Renegade is analogous to playing as Superman or Batman would — that is, if either approved of killing.

I began Mass Effect 2 the day it released, mere weeks after completing my second run through Mass Effect. I found that Sarah Shepard had changed, and so had Mass Effect. But my Shepard was still a hard-ass who demanded respect, and who had a galaxy to save. I proceeded to oblige, this time with a new ship, new team, and most importantly, no inventory. The very facet of Mass Effect that most bothered me hadn’t just been changed, it had been discarded. Direct sequels usually just bring about new gimmicks, not fundamental design changes. The Mako was removed, and with it, so was planet exploration, which abetted making each assignment unique and meaningful, when before they were generic and menial. The Mako’s absence also changed the way we gather resources. Now we gather them as any sensible future person would — with probes, from the comfort of orbit. These refinements, additions, and omissions coalesced to form the best sequel I’ve played since Half-Life 2. It’s going to be very hard for there to be a better game this year.

Almost as soon as I finished playing like Batman in Mass Effect 2, I moved to playing as Batman in Batman: Arkham Asylum. Everyone was right: that game is good. It was all I could think about for a few days. I finished with just under 15 hours played and all Riddler challenges complete. Partway through playing, I began considering that I may not enjoy the game as much if I weren’t playing as Batman. I decided that I wouldn’t have. I also decided that I can’t count that against the game. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed Mass Effect 2 as much, either, if it had been built around lesser fiction. Arkham Asylum played well enough to make me feel like as though I was Batman, the baddest ass mortal in American fiction — that’s no small feat.

Neither is following those two games with a third — nothing I have in my game queue can compare. While coming down from this video game high, I’ve been dabbling. The Bad Company 2 Beta has been fun, though it keeps making old man jokes about my computer. And despite an epileptic episode, I’ve played a lot of Lumines. I’ve tried to get into a Total War game again (Medieval II), but I think I play those games incorrectly. I also started Yakuza for Playstation 2; that game has style. Still, I feel as though I’m just killing time until Final Fantasy 13 releases in a few weeks. I’ve never bounced between games this much.

Maybe I’ll make a male Paragon.

I sympathize with those CS 1.5 players who refused to accept change; Steam had earned a reputation for being buggy, ugly, and for being a drain on system resources. These sentiments were so strong that their echoes can still be heard in backwater message boards today. But Valve, like Microsoft, believed in their service; they forced upon their customers a necessary change — they insisted on progress. That’s to be commended. Unlike Microsoft, however, Valve brought about change without forcing players to buy a new system or to buy a new game.

I also sympathize with those Xbox Live players who don’t get to continue playing Halo 2, a game for which anyone playing today (in addition to service fees) would have bought several map packs. They — just as the 40,000+ people playing CS 1.6 instead of CS: Source as I write — still play Halo 2 either because they love it, or because they can’t afford a new system that runs the newer games.

Closed multiplayer systems are why I and so many other PC gamers are apprehensive when we hear StarCraft 2 won’t have LAN or Direct IP support, or that Modern Warfare 2 won’t support dedicated servers. Whether we have the resolve to not buy these games is irrelevant: our apprehension is valid. These games — despite our service payments, our buying DLC, and our loyalty — can and will be taken from us, and they won’t all have a “WON2.”

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“Hold on,” the candy-colored cues decree, “I’ve got this — just give me a nudge.”

If I obey the cue, I leap, and I dodge. If I disobey the cue, I fall, and I’m crushed. So I obey; I leap, and I dodge. Did I have control? No, I merely had influence. That’s because the Quick Time Event is an anti-player design device; it interrupts, it distracts, and it controls.

XXYABYX

I’ve never heard of anyone who enjoys Quick Time Events, so what’s to blame for their ubiquity? Perhaps developers use the QTE as a compromise, something between a non-interactive cut scene, and a playable contrivance. I see no reason for compromise, though, especially after playing 2008′s Prince of Persia.

There, unprompted and properly timed, I make the Prince and Elika perform an elaborate attack combination with complex animations. To start, the Prince slashes the enemy twice with his scimitar (X, X), and Elika blasts it with magic (Y). The Prince then flips over the enemy’s head (A) and throws it into the air (B) where Elika is waiting: she blasts it up farther (Y). Finally, the Prince leaps up and slashes downward at the enemy, surrendering it to gravity (X).

Such maneuvers are possible in other games, and they require similar button presses, but they come wrapped in QTEs. They require little timing, merely reaction. They’re imposing, rather than gratifying.

John McClane Wannabes

We can also attribute the Quick Time Event’s prevalence to developers chasing the “cinematic experience,” their goal to make us feel as if we’re heroes in an action movie. But I’m typically unimpressed by my character doing something which I don’t have direct control over. I want to leap the chasm, and to dodge the boulder. I want to fail, but not because I responded incorrectly to a prompt.

If your choice as a designer is either to limit control or to deny control, deny it; at least then I can relax and enjoy a cut scene without anticipating orders. Better still would be to keep me playing: do within the medium what’s possible without forgetting or betraying the medium. Even when I’m “in control,” I’m at the mercy of your design — make me think otherwise.

What’s (Probably) Coming Out

Battlefield 1943 (DICE, EA): I’ve been trying to play this on Xbox 360 since buying it on sale over the holiday, but I experience weird lag in most matches. It seems to be a problem with keeping players in sync — I call it undo lag: I take three steps forward, then I take two steps back. But that’s fine — I only wanted to take the one step anyway. Later, I shoot a rocket at a tank, then it turns out I didn’t. That’s fine, too. I get to try again. But it’s a real bummer when I actually wanted to do the thing that I tried to do. Still, when it works, and even though it’s a shooter on a console, Battlefield 1943 is fun. I’m excited to play the PC version, provided the networking issues don’t come with it.

To Be Announced In 2010

Lost Odyssey 2 (Mistwalker, Microsoft): I’ve decided that Lost Odyssey is the best turn-based JRPG I’ve ever played. I want the series to continue; the characters are immortal, it only makes sense.