When Shane Bettenhausen, former business development director at UTV Ignition Games, passed me the controller to sample El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron after watching him demo it for a few minutes at a long-ago NYC showcase, I noticed something–or a lack of something–that wasn’t apparent when he played: the protagonist, biblical hero Enoch, didn’t have a health bar.

As I engaged multiple characters in combat, the damage that I received wasn’t represented by a depleting health meter. Instead, Enoch’s armor chipped away until he sustained sufficient blows that led to death. The lack of a health bar kept me caught up in the combat, platforming, and gorgeous environments–the goal of El Shaddai‘s creative team.

“While developing El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, the team at UTV Ignition Games in Tokyo was adamant about how the in-game heads-up display should appear: it shouldn’t,” said Bettenhausen. “The core reason behind this decision stems from our desire for the player to focus on the beautiful, often abstract visuals and otherworldly soundscapes that they’re experiencing, not some combo meter or other onscreen indicator.”

The health bar (or a similar visual vitality indicator) has been the defacto life measurement in videogaming since games emerged that demanded such tracking, but an increasing number of titles eschew it. For example, Fire Pro D, my first foray into Spike!’s 2D wrestling series, was the first game that amazed me for not having no lifebar. Certainly, Pro Wrestling lacked a health bar, but it was from an era where health bars weren’t quite as prevalent. Fire Pro D, however, was made in a lifebar landscape. It was odd. It was wrong.

But after a few minutes of digital grappling, I realized that I preferred it this way. My attention was focused on my character and the in-game action–a slumped body and heavy breathing indicated that I was on the receiving end of a beatdown. I wasn’t glancing away every few seconds to see my character’s status. It was liberating. Besides, with my frequent 4 vs. 4 matches against opponents, 8 onscreen lifebars would’ve been visual clutter.

Retro-style wrestling video games isn’t the only genre where lifebars have bit the dust. Red Dead Redemption, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Platinum Games’ floor-sliding, bullet-spewing third-person shooter, Vanquish either ditched or greatly downplayed the traditional life meter. You knew it was time to cover and replenish health in Vanquish when the screen turned blood red and you power armor began to simmer. In a game with multiple firefights, having one less item to eyeball came as a welcomed relief. Scott Steinberg, CEO of video game consulting firm TechSavvy, explained why more developers are kicking health bars to the curb.

“Despite being one of video gaming’s proudest and most immediately helpful and comprehensible traditions, the humble life bar has taken a backseat in recent years to other, less intrusive ways of indicating a character’s health or working status,” he said. “The reason for this is simple: Like pop-ups or heads-up displays of any sort, it’s an artificial construct that instantly chips away at suspension of disbelief and adds a layer of abstraction between players and the action that’s happening on-screen. As games become more technically capable, and designers develop new bags of tricks for organically conveying changes in one’s condition – flashes of red that indicate damage, shaking screens that mimic reeling from sudden concussions, etc. – all aim to pull us more into the experience by removing additional graphical layers between you and your on-screen alter-ego.”

This is the direction in which games should move, particularly those that strive for a sense of grounded realism. On an annual basis, numbers are released by studios which state that the video game industry matches or out-grosses the movie industry. Gaming is increasingly moving toward a more realistic, cinematic mode, so it only makes sense that health bars/meters/icons fade into obscurity. After all, I didn’t need a depleted on-screen lifebar to indicate that Smith killed Neo in The Matrix.

But that doesn’t mean that developers should do away with lifebars completely. They are vital in fighting games as you can see how much damage a particular blow or combo has done to your character. And, as most fighting games don’t have numerous background elements that may draw your eye (in comparison to action and shooting games), glancing at a health meter is less distracting.

“That’s not to say that all games can, or should, effectively go this route, or will continue to do so going forward (many types of genres and titles will always employ life bars for sake of gameplay or convenience),” added Steinberg. “But in coming years, more will certainly aim to ditch HP gauges, health bars and life meters in favor of what they feel to be a more natural, and less obtrusive, way of getting this information across.”

2011 was an incredible year for gaming, especially for Sony. PlayStation 3 owners suffered battered pockets throughout the year; it was truly a gamepocalyse. Sony hammered gamers with exclusive after exclusive: Uncharted 3, Little Big Planet 2, Kill Zone 3, Infamous 2, Socom 4… the list goes on. And 2012 looks like it will repeat the set trend. Sony’s 2012 line up looks stellar with Starhawk, Sly Cooper, Twisted Metal, The Last of Us, and hopefully The Last Guardian (don’t hold your breath). Rumblings on the internet are hinting toward God of War 4, and the latest issue of PLAY states that a Syphon Filter 4 announcement is coming next month. That’s a lot of PS3 goodness.

Sony has cultivated some of the best studios and has created a system that keeps these studios churning out exclusives. To be exact, there are 15 studios that provide exclusive’s for Sony’s machine, all of which have their share of Triple A titles, and provide original IP (intellectual property) for the console. This in-house policy is the reason for the PlayStation 3’s resurgence (along with a few price drops over the years). Is this a blessing or a curse?

Producing hits since 1989.

This platform exclusive dependence is very similar to Nintendo’s, and although it can be successful, it can also isolate Sony from the rest of the market. Similar to the Wii, Sony’s reliance on exclusives, stem from developers inability to work with the platform. This was especially true during the PlayStation 3’s infancy; three glaring examples are F.E.A.R, Bayonetta, and Splinter Cell Double Agent. Compared to their Xbox 360 counterparts, these ports suffered from lower frame rates, slowdown, and horrible load times. This, sometimes, was the result of developers porting the PlayStation 3 version of their games from the Xbox 360. Recently, we saw the Skyrim debacle, and in a way it shone a light on the correlation between rising first-party exclusives, and the decrease in third-party sales on the console. In fact, Vgchartz clearly shows that third-party titles tend to sell more on the Xbox 360. There are a number of contributing factors for that (including far less 360 exclusives), but PlayStations 3′s reputation with ports cannot be overlooked.

Sony always has a few exclusives games in the works throughout the year. This consistency is exactly what separates the PlayStation 3 from the Wii and Xbox 360. Although  Nintendo follows a similar in-house policy, the Big N hasn’t mastered the output or quality. Last year we saw Zelda: Skyward Sword, Fatal Frame 4: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, and The Last Story–all of which were not that great, minus Skyward Sword. On top of that, Nintendo’s inferior hardware and unique controls hamper the possibility of ports. Look at the lack of Skyrim, Mass Effect, Batman: Arkham City, or Dark Souls. They just aren’t possible on the Wii. Microsoft, on the other hand, relies heavily on the third-party developers. Last year, we only saw Gears of War 3, Forza 4, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary among a number of less than stellar Kinect titles as 360 exclusives. Again, Sony wins here.

Don't be surprised if you see Kratos in the near future.

If there is an official announcement God of War 4 and Syphon Filter 4 next month, it will be to no one’s surprise. First-party exclusive excellence is the standard Sony has set for itself, and it will continue to follow that standard as it has delivered much success. For now Sony is giving us its standard answer, it does not comment on rumor or speculation, but if the news breaks we’ll be there.

Consoles, be gone.

After years of alternating between misjudging and flat-out ignoring the personal computing gaming space, I can now officially state that I am a PC gamer. I have Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony to thank. And the Xbox 720, Wii U, and PS4 won’t coax me back.

Thanksgiving weekend I dropped some cash on a refurbished Asus laptop that houses a mid-range  ATI-powered GPU. My intentions, honestly, weren’t to procure a rig capable of playing games; I simply desired an extremely lightweight portal computer that I could use to edit video shot during the team’s trek to events such as E3 and PAX. My old school Mac Mini, which features a three-year old Intel GPU, processes HD video at a snail’s pace. So, as I went about installing my most vital and cherished programs–Dropbox, Chrome, Jarte, Skype, and a handful of others–it sank in: my laptop has a real GPU that will let me play games more complex than Plants vs. Zombies.

Now, I haven’t hardcore PC gamed since City of Heroes debuted. That prospect of running around a virtual world in a cape and tights so enticed my inner Comic Book Guy that I purchased a Nvidia card and plopped it into my Dell desktop. That was 2004. The reason why I hadn’t gone PC before that  (or after) was all about comfort and familiarity, really. I love controllers and joysticks, fighters and action games. The thought of a mouse and keyboard, RTS and dungeon crawlers did not appeal to me on any level. PC gaming was for the Starcraft-obsessed–you didn’t have any real fun on the platform. Right?

But I’m experiencing increased frustrations with console gaming. The walled gardens disgust me, as does the idea that you pretty much have to keep a stockpile of retro systems in your closet should you have the longing to fire up a game from an older generation. The latter gripe stings more than the former as this console generation proved that you can’t rely on manufacturers to keep their backward compatibility promises or developers to drop 100-percent accurate emulated ports in virtual marketplaces. Freedom of choice beckoned, and PC gaming answered the call.

My first order of action was to ownload Steam. My PC gaming comrades lavished it with much praise. I immediately saw why! The sales, community, sales, achievements, and sales immediately impressed. Humble Indie Bundle 4 debuted in the same time frame, which included the likes of Shank, Super Meat Boy, and Bit.Trip Runner, and other excellent, lightweight 2D games. On the surface, they don’t showcase PC gaming’s graphical prowess, but do demonstrate that you can snatch up several excellent titles for dirt cheap without a middleman serving up a hefty dose of shenanigans. It also proved that I could have a console-like gameplay experience as I popped in my Xbox 360 controller, downloaded the appropriate driver, and went to town.

I also found AAA titles a-plenty ranging from strategy games to hack-and-slash action-RPGs. But I returned to my superhero MMO roots by recreating one of my old City of Heroes characters in Champions Online–a MMO that recently went the free-to-play route. My first adventure saw my creation, Dr. Twilight, BAM!ing and POW!ing his way through an alien-infested metropolis. I had to reacquaint myself with the decidedly clunky keyboard-based control scheme, but I had fun. Lots of it. There are certain limitations in place for free-to-play users when it comes to archetypes and powers, but you can still have a wonderful MMO experience without reaching for the wallet–and there are tons of other quality games using that “pay-for-extras-and-premium-content” business model. How many console games do that?

Plus, PC gaming gives me the opportunity to move onto better hardware at my own pace–with consoles I’m shackled to console manufacturers’ release schedules. Granted, my laptop isn’t as upgrade-friendly as a desktop, but I did add more RAM, replaced the operating system, and added a speedy solid-state drive.  That’s far more flexibility than any console has presented to the gaming public. Have you seen Battlefield 3 on PC? Good, god!

So, yes, I’m done with console gaming. I may miss a few console exclusives, but I think it’s a fair trade-off for the freedom, different types of titles, and non-clutter. And PC has The Old Republic.

Would you do the same?

The 2012 Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in a matter of days, bringing the collective technology world to Las Vegas for a week of nerditry that no other show can duplicate. Although the product showcases held at the Las Vegas Convention Center and adjacent hotels lean heavily toward laptops, TVs, headphones, and other assorted tech toys, there will a small (but satisfying!) amount of gaming wares on display. Gaming wares that you need to know about. Here is what you can expect.

More PlayStation Vita Manhandling
Sony, as usual, will be in the house with a press conference, and I’d be thoroughly surprised if the company’s newest handheld weren’t on display. The PS Vita, after all, launches weeks later on February 22 (on the 15th for those who purchase the Little Deviants pre-order bundle). We gave the portable the thumbs up the first and second time we fondled its sultry curves. We’re looking forward to more groping, and early impressions of the games on tap.

A Ton of Video Game Gear
There shall be no dearth of gaming controllers, accessories, and other quirky devices on display during The Big Show. Ion Audio, MadCatz, Razr, Thrustmaster, Turtlebeach, and other manufacturers will demo and/or preview fight sticks, racing controllers, and PC gaming mice with a sharp MMO slant. The Las Vegas Convention Center’s Gaming Pavilion, if history repeats itself, will have tons of gear on display ranging from music game peripherals to gaming furniture.

Games, Games, and More Games
You can’t have gaming devices without the games themselves. CES is no E3, but there are usually a handful of interesting titles that are worth checking out. Sony is already confirmed to make an appearance (likely with PS Vita games), as will Square. Nvidia Tegra 3-powered tablets that will enable developers to create mobile games that approach the level of quality found in a traditional video game portable systems–expect to see some killer games (or at least killer demos) running on these devices such as SEGA’s recently announced Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2. Nintendo will also be in the house, which leads to….

Wii U Gets Showcased
Nintendo’s Wii successor, Wii U, will be shown behind closed doors. The demo will be identical as the one shown during E3 2011,  but we’re hoping that a few unanswered questions become, well, answered. Will there be a strong online component? Will we see actual gameplay or more shenanigans?

CES is known for its surprises, so these trends/predictions may very well be be the tip of the iceberg. Keep your eyes on the CES gaming prize as the 2D-X crew touches down in the desert next week.

Edit: You can follow the team on Twitter!

2D-X – @2DX
Jeffrey L. Wilson – @jeffreylwilson
Tatjana Vejnovic – @digital_vix3n
Avion Foster-Jarvis – @avion_FJ
Sean-Paul Adams – @digispa
Tim Torres – @pleasedtomeetya
Eric Guzman – @eric2dx

I feel like I’m a teenager again.

Unfortunately, it has nothing do to my physical state of being, which gets a little more challenging to maintain as I approach my 38th year. Instead, the warm fuzzy that I feel comes from reflecting on 2011′s video game releases; releases that transported the industry back to the ’90s.

It was during that time frame when I was introduced to fighting games, and the culture of competition that emerged with them. Street Fighter II and its various updates collected my quarters, as did the original Mortal Kombat and a handful of other titles. Twenty years later, Street Fighter IV has received its own updates, and a most excellent Mortal Kombat reboot surprised both believers and doubters with its quality.

2011 saw Capcom strike fighting gold with the hyper-kinetic Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (and caused many to double dip with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3), but unlike past years, this fighting release won’t be an oddity drifting in a  sea of FPS and sports titles. King of Fighters XIII (SNK’s follow up to the underrated KOF XII) returned SNK Playmore to 2D fighting game glory with its excellent HD sprites and deep, technical gameplay. Hell, I even name it my personal game of the year. Fighting games are officially back. But why did they go away?

As with many questions of this nature, the answer is never cut and dry. Blame it on the constant barrage of Street Fighter II updates that made even diehards question Capcom’s motives. Me-too cookie cutter clones. The death of the arcade. The uneasy shift from 2D to 3D. It’s difficult to discern which, if any, of these occurrences were the primary factor in the fall of fighting games, but by the time Street Fighter III made its debut (at least in my neck of the gaming woods) the rabid fanaticism was gone. Fighting games may not have died, but they certainly took a back seat in many gamers’ minds leaving the genre in the hands of guys like Justin Wong and the most hardcore of the hardcore.

Fast forward to the present and everything old in video gaming in new again. Instead of arcades we have online play. Instead of local in-house tournaments, we have EVO. And developers such as Capcom have simplified complex inputs to make them more mainstream-friendly. The video game industry itself has created an environment conducive for the return of fighting games.

What worked in the past is what works in the present, and in the future: Developers tapping into that reptilian portion of the brain that see us taking deep pleasure in devastating a foe. There’s a pure satisfaction that comes from systematically destroying an opponent in one-on-one combat; it’s the reason why boxing, MMA, and other combat sports rake in millions each year. Many of my finest video game-related memories involve dragon punching enemies out of the air and witnessing a defeated foe’s spine being ripped from its body.

2012 will be another strong year for fighting games, as the 2D-X crew will touch upon soon enough.

Let’s continue to show support.

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as online multiplayer. You blew into a cartridge, jiggled it around until your system read it and played a game until you beat it or hit your frustration limit and saved it for later. Whether it took you 3 hours or 3 days to complete, there was a sense of accomplishment and never a complaint about how long it took.  You beat it… so that was that, right?  Hell no. It may not have been in the days after or the weeks after or even the months after but at some point you remembered how fun it was and decided to play it all over again.

Pretty crazy, huh?

Now, if the single-player mode runs under 10 hours and there’s no multiplayer feature, many will grumble about whether the title lived up to its price tag. “Why spend 60 bucks on a game if I’m just going to blow through it in a day or two?” To that I say: If you’re playing a game just to beat it, then you’re playing it for all the wrong reasons. No one spends 90 bucks to get into Disney World and then complains that it only took 6 hours to walk around it. You’re paying for an experience when you purchase a game. One that hundreds of people worked on to bring together. While it’s completely understandable to dislike a game for its lack of entertainment value, questioning its worth solely on length disrespects all their efforts.

And respect is what I think it boils down to ultimately. Gamers have been so spoiled by online death matches and downloadable content that they no longer respect the value of titles that lack both. Sometimes it’s okay to play a game only once or twice. That doesn’t make it a bad game – it makes it a game you only played once or twice. But when certain magazines have a space in their reviews for replay value, it’s only natural for readers to adopt the same mindset. What hope does the gaming industry have of earning respect when its own fans provide none?

Avion Foster-Jarvis, News Editor
The Final Fantasy sets the bar for RPGs, with Final Fantasy VII standing alone as the series’ groundbreaking masterpiece. Some will argue that FFVII isn’t the best, but without it where would we be? FFVII introduced us to some of the best heroes ever created (Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockheart, Vincent Valentine) and one of the best villains that has ever existed (Sephiroth). Back when multiple discs for a video game was a badge of honor, FFVII came out the door, guns blazing, with three discs.

Clearly, FFVII takes a lot of its mechanics from previous installments, but it improves on them as well. A more streamlined skill system through the use of Materia, a massive amount of summons and the return of “Desperation Attacks” which have been renamed “Limit Breaks.” FFVII was so amazing that its characters made cameos in several other video games (including the ever-popular Kingdom Hearts franchise) and some even went to spawn video games of their own (Vincent in Dirge of Cerebus). In fact, FFVII was so good that Square took the characters from the video game world to the film world with the critically acclaimed movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Final Fantasy VII is hands down the best RPG ever; how could it not be when it’s is known as “the game that sold the PlayStation”?

Neranjan Bisson, Features Editor
My favorite RPG of all time is Final Fantasy Tactics. FF Tactics is a brilliant game that brought even casual gamers into the world of tactical role-playing. FF Tactics plays and feels like a game of chess with its Shakespearean story that involved the church, friendship, class war, and political strife.

One of the things that appealed to me about FF Tactics was its character class system which in a way can actually be utilized as a tool for learning delegation skills in ones real life. Bringing an army of Ninjas and Wizards that you developed on to the battlefield has a great level of satisfaction. FF Tactics is one of the games from the golden era of Square and was Yasumi Matsuno’s first game at the company. The quality game play offered with FF Tactics has lasted till this day and has been one of my favorite games on the go in both its PSP and iOS versions. A brilliant game that led me to my interest in the history of warfare, FF Tactics will forever be my favorite RPG.

Eric Guzman, News Editor
Xenogears is easily one of the most influential RPGs that I’ve ever played. Yeah, I know, its not as acclaimed as Final Fantasy VII or as legendary as Chrono Trigger, but what Xenogears did with its intricate plot, was change the way I looked at science and religion. It raised questions that I would have never thought about asking at such a young age, and did it in a sophisticated fashion.

The battle system was unlike anything at the time. Mixing buttons to create combos during battle was addictive, and discovering new abilities was extremely rewarding. What made this a complete package was the shiny beautifully destructive mechs called Gears (or, as I used to call them, “bootleg Gundams”). The soundtrack is outstanding, as with any composition the main theme (featured on our best video game songs) caused a stir of emotion that is missing from many modern games. I’ll admit that the second disk of the game isn’t the greatest, but you can’t blame the team for the time constraints that were placed on them. Still, Xenogears is one of the greatest RPG’s ever made, hands down.

Alejandro K. Brown, Contributor
My pick for best RPG ever goes to the first RPG I ever beat: Phantasy Star II for the SEGA Genesis. It was not only was the first video game in my house (I had to go to friends’ houses to play the NES), but it was completely different from what I had seen up until that time. Phantasy Star II had faux 3D fields, a mix of static and motion battle sequences, a music score that changed from upbeat action to somber to fit the story, a story line that touches on quite a few social issues, and insane dungeon maps.

Yet, most shockingly for me, it was the the first time I would experience a main party character being killed without any hint, warning or lead-up to the moment. I spent time and equipment on this character. I started to care about them as I did the rest of the team, and not only were they killed off, they decided to heroically sacrifice themselves in a battle to the death to save the rest of the team. To an impressionable kid amazed by video games, this was simultaneously awe-inspiring and devastating.

Tim Torres, Lead Reviewer
Chrono Trigger. Is it such a surprise? It’s the brilliant RPG from the masterminds of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest at the height of their game. It’s got the best character designs Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyama has ever done. It continually pelts you with fresh scenery, new characters, and brilliant compositions from composer Yasunori Mitsuda at every turn. It introduced the New Game + feature that lets you revisit the adventure with all your stats, weapons and items from your first way through.

There are numerous branching paths and choices to make: How you assemble your specialized party members to when you defeat the final boss. Yet it remains an uncomplicated, lighthearted adventure about time travel and you can find everything it offers in just about 30 hours, a fraction of the time most other over-bloated RPGs take to complete. I can rattle off what makes Chrono Trigger great in my sleep. I think I have.

If you want to see what the big deal is I recommend the Virtual Console version on the Wii. It’s a perfect emulation of the original SNES version. The next best bet is the pricier version for the DS though it has superfluous anime cutscenes and an awful extra dungeon with a new ending that needlessly complicates things. Whatever you do, avoid the PSN version — load times and slowdown abounds. It breaks the game. It’s supposed to be breezy and fun. Think it’s too cliche? Well, Chrono Trigger gave birth to a good many of them. It’s one of the first games to get every single thing about it right. And it’s still the best.

Jack the Ripper!

The Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance trailer that debuted during the Spike VGAs is absolutely captivating. What isn’t to like? In it, Raiden tosses a Metal Gear Ray into the sky, leaps into the air to pursue it, and basically dismantles the walking death machine as he runs up its arm. It was a beautiful sight to behold, and the revelation that PlatinumGames is the developer helped solidify the reaction.

Unfortunately, many of my peers had a  negative reaction to that same trailer. Some said that gameplay doesn’t fit the universe; others said this game is a spinoff, thus guaranteeing that it won’t be any good; others have called it nothing more than fan service. But when a developer like PlatinumGames takes on a project you have to take notice. The studio has an amazing track record–Bayonetta, MadWorld, and Vanquish. PlatinumGames shows that it knows how to make games with amazing gameplay. Pair that with Kojima Productions and you should know that we have something potentially special here.

If this isn't badass, then what is?

When I first saw Rising during E3 2010, the game looked visually amazing, but the more I saw the game in motion, the more awkward the controls and animations seemed. This didn’t look like the fast moving Raiden I saw and gushed over while playing Metal Gear Solid 4. Every time Raiden appeared on-screen during MGS4 he demanded attention, and every time he was in action, it reminded me of Devil May Cry‘s frantic action. A prime example of this is armless Raiden cutting foes into shreds with a katana in his mouth. I won’t even get into the Raiden vs Vamp stand-off mid way through the game. That bad ass Raiden is back.

Hmmm Looks familiar.

Then there are the people who are complaining that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is too “cartoony” and unrealistic. Question: When has the Metal Gear universe been anything but silly? There’s a walking, robotic dinosaur that launches nukes (and roars!), cyborg ninjas, clones, and super-soldiers. It’s G.I. Joe, but without the jingoistic trappings. Plus, Kojima has dropped “Solid” from the title, thus denoting that this game will differ from its predecessors.

Truthfully, if the game has an amazing plot it will be stellar title, as it is almost guaranteed to have competent gameplay. In short, lets give PlatinumGames the benefit of the doubt. So sit back, relax, and lets see what it can do with this title. But most of all, pipe down until more details are released.

[Christmas Games is a seasonal retrospective in which we look back at the games that are forever tied with the holiday season. This time out, Jeffrey L. Wilson takes a look back at Ghostbusters for the NES.]

The holiday season is (ideally) the time of year when friends and family come together to celebrate love, the winter solstice, various deities, and arctic-dwelling gift givers. In short, it’s a joyous period that creates merry memories that last a lifetime. So, why is it that my earliest Christmas-related video game memory is tied to trauma?

Mama Wilson purchased her only child Activision’s Ghostbusters as a Christmas gift. The NES version. I thought she loved me.

For those of you who aren’t making the slow roll toward forty as I am, Ghostbusters was a David Crane designed tie-in to the blockbuster supernatural comedy. It was a somewhat competent game when it was released onto ‘80s-era home computers, but the NES port was one part joke, two parts devilish torture.

The goal is to build your extermination franchise by busting ghosts, so you can earn money to buy new gear which will in turn let you bust even  more ghosts with greater efficiently. Gameplay is a mish-mash of Ecto-driving, zapping spirits on city streets, and listening to Ray Parker, Jr’s lyricless theme on an endless loop. Much like Golgo 13, Ghostbusters is a collection of several mini-games in one. And all of them are trash.

Pictured: Trash.

The trashiest of all the trashy elements is the interior ghostbusting levels that see denizens of the afterlife utterly destroy gamers as they led their three-person teams up building staircases. Crane and company made the game artificially difficult; you can’t use your proton packs while indoors. That’s right, you have a mini nuclear reactor on your back that shoots lasers designed to kill ghosts, but you can’t use the god damned things. Instead, you have to distract the ghosts with bait–bait!–and hope that you can shimmy by them. But even that’s broken; the entire screen scrolls up as you climb a flight of stairs, so ghosts that were once positioned beneath you are placed in your path to potentially do damage. It’s absolutely atrocious game design. A disasterpiece this ain’t, folks.

So, now that you have background, put yourself into my 14-year-old shoes. My mother had been carefully listening to my Christmas gift requests, which were, essentially, “I want a Nintendo!” since the first moment that the temperature in Brooklyn dipped below 60 degrees. And she followed through.

I’d like to say that this tale ends on Christmas morning with a teenage Jeffrey L. Wilson sporting a smile that stretched from ear to ear as he enjoyed his new home video game console. It doesn’t. It ends with me sitting on the living room floor, dazed and confused, pondering how such a beloved property could squat, grunt, and drop a load on my heart.

Yes, it’s a bad game, but it is one of my most potent Christmas memories.

Robert McAuley, the man behind Rainwave.

It’s hard to imagine The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past without the familiar overworld music, or Super Mario Bros. without its iconic theme song. You may even have set your ringtone to a tune from your favorite game. What can we say? There’s just something about video game music that plucks at the heartstrings.

That’s where Rainwave steps in. Rainwave is a streaming internet radio station that specializes in video game music. Logged in listeners may request and rate songs and actually vote for the next tune, which is a feature that sets Rainwave apart from other video game radio stations.

“The tagline we sort of jokingly toss around is, ‘Massively Multiplayer Winamp,’” says Robert McAuley. McAuley — a 27-year-old programmer known around the internet as LiquidRain — is the founder of Rainwave. “I hate using the words ‘social networks’ or ‘Web 2.0,’ but it’s democratic radio,” he adds.

The idea for Rainwave came to McAuley eight or nine years ago, back when a similar station called GamingFM was popular. McAuley spent some time combing through the website, trying to figure out what made it tick. He was annoyed that he had no idea when his song request would come on the air, and thought users should be able to pick what came next. He started working on Rainwave, and opened it to the public in 2007.

In 2008, he launched OCR Radio, which broadcasts tunes from OverClocked ReMix, a community for fan-made remixes of video game music. Previously, OCR Radio had been known by the name ormgas and maintained by a man known as Ravon. And most recently, in 2009, V-wave was launched, which plays chiptunes and music from indie video game bands.

Nowadays, during peak hours, upwards of 150 users are listening to Rainwave, OCR Radio and V-wave at any given moment. With 4,262 songs and 390 albums just on Rainwave — totaling about 202 hours of music — listeners have a wide range of options for whatever their gaming-music mood requires. Each song has been “cherry-picked” by either McAuley or music managers Ten19 or Vyzov, so only the best songs from an album are included — another feature that sets Rainwave apart, according to McAuley. And new music is added to Rainwave periodically.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the top 20 highest-rated albums are primarily 2D game soundtracks. Chrono Trigger is “far and away” the number one album on Rainwave, according to McAuley, and Final Fantasy VI, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid, Secret of Mana and several others make up the rest of the list.

“You can pretty much just look at GameFAQs’ character battles and whoever winds up in the top five, take their games and that’s probably going to be the top five to 10 albums on Rainwave,” says McAuley.

Why so many 2D games? There are a few reasons, according to McAuley. “For some reason, we attract a large number of 20 to 30 year olds who all grew up playing Super Nintendo games,” he says. “So we’ve got the right demographic for it, we’ve got all the music on the air, there’s a heap of nostalgia with it and they’re excellently composed soundtracks, so it’s just all been coming together so they’re all at the top.”

McAuley himself is a fan of 2D games. “I was a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. I can’t say I approve of any of his outings in the last decade, but the classic Genesis games were the best. That’s what I grew up on,” he says. “I was a SEGA kid.” The 2.5D title Nights into Dreams… was also a big part of his gaming history.

Recently, McAuley has been playing a lot of games from Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam. “I thoroughly loved Splosion Man,” he says. “N+ as well. That’s the only game that’s killed me over a thousand times, I got an achievement for it, and I still liked the game.” He’s also enjoyed Shatter, the Worms series, the Phoenix Wright series, and the Castlevania series lately.

Not that McAuley spends all of his time gaming. As the founder of Rainwave, McAuley considers himself to be a “community manager” first and foremost. “I’m always looking after the forums, I’m always looking after the chatroom, I’m always looking after new users,” he says. “That’s a constant job.” When he’s not busy with that, he works on developing the next version of Rainwave, which goes by the code name R3, and McAuley hopes to launch it as soon as he works out the kinks. Folks who donate to Rainwave get to see a sneak preview of R3, which will feature improved song rotation and ratings calculation.

So the next time Frog’s theme from Chrono Trigger pops up on your iPod and you start rocking out, don’t feel self-conscious: There’s a whole community of like-minded folk on Rainwave.

“Stop on by,” says McAuley. “We’re friendly!”