The release of Rare’s Viva Piñata was a wonderful, beautiful fluke. The 360 is a fantastic console, don’t get me wrong, but the purpose of the system is pretty clear. It’s ideally suited for playing console FPS titles, hardcore action games, and other M-rated novelties. The non-sporting E-rated games on Microsoft’s console can be counted with one hand – and most of them are just not very good.

Enter Viva Piñata, a colorful and unique flower against the 360’s dark-grey FPS backdrop. It spoke to both kids and parents, easily winning them over. The parental enthusiasm is understandable: A game their kid could actually play? On the incredibly expensive console they’d just bought?

The game is more than just a digital pacifier, though. Gaming parents, reviewers, and even some trash-talking Halo fanatics all awoke to the realization that the game was good. Really good. Now, with a sequel due out later this year, it worthwhile to consider why the original Viva Piñata is as good as it is and why it was the unheeded harbinger of a gaming revolution.

Hard as it may be to swallow, this generation of gaming is entering middle-age. With the Xbox 360 turning three years old later this year, it may be worth remembering that the system was released on only the fifth anniversary of the original Xbox. That probably puts us somewhere close to the dead-center of the 360’s lifespan, and it means that just as the phrase next-gen has stopped describing the 360 or PS3 we should begin to expect the first titillating hints of the next-next-gen in the coming months.

You’ll be forgiven for feeling as though the generational cycle is too short. After all the PS2 remains a semi-viable system, and even now doesn’t feel nearly as dated as the PS1 did at this point in the previous cycle. The laws of diminishing returns seem to be catching up with the videogame console cycle, as it seems increasingly hard to fathom exactly what demands a next-gen round of system could concoct to meet. And yet, I have no doubt that in closed door meetings the question of what do we do next isn’t just being asked, but answered.

Along with all the features we expect from a next-gen system, including technical improvements and our favorite franchises revisited, what else should next-next-gen deliver, and what has it learned from this-next-gen. Here are a few thoughts.

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." -- Doctor Who

It's a typical evening, not long before bedtime. I'm at my desk trying to get some work done and the whole gang is in the living room giving the new Mario Kart Wii a run.

I manage to block out the sprightly music and stay focused on my malfunctioning stored procedure until my daughter's dulcet tones cut through the music coming through my headphones with an indignant, "You little pink B*TCH!" Princess Peach threw a painfully timed blue shell, and after the inevitable spin out she'd come in fourth. I pop around the corner with an admonishment about the language and she retorts that I should try this for myself.

Next thing I know I'm halfway through the Luigi Cup.

You can't escape the contrast with the other things going on in the gaming world. I don’t know why Nintendo released this game in the shadow of one of gaming’s biggest megillahs this year. Maybe they didn’t think there was much overlap between the two audiences. Going from a world where you are seriously discussing whether or not the 10 Second Rule applies to picking up and eating the hot dog a freshly murdered NPC just bought from a vendor to this cute and sparkly world is jarring at best. But I didn't come here as a refuge; I came here to RACE!

Take a few laps with me.

This week Soren Johnson joins us to talk about the state of the strategy genre, working with gaming legends and what we should be looking out for in the future. Julian reveals his mail gaming roots and Shawn finds a way to compare Boom Blox and Sins of a Solar Empire. Check out the comments section for an easy link to Rat Boy's epic GTA IV audio email!

For most of the last few years my gaming has been in challenge-mode. I've sat at my desk, with its countless plastic chits and an endlessly revolving series of mice (ever searching for the perfect one), playing Sins of a Solar Empire, Chess, Team Fortress 2, Bioshock, WoW and all the rest of the greatness that’s been heaped upon gamers in this nascent second-golden-age of gaming. But they've been focused, intellectual experiences. Even in games like Bioshock, where the story and emotional context have been center stage, I've felt very much present. The burning-away of the flesh hasn't been happening.

I blame my chair.

This week's Act Casual pick is Chronotron, a puzzle game in which you help a time-bending robot navigate his way through a series of rooms. Each room contains a circuit board, typically tucked away in an impossible-to-reach location, that acts as a sort of exit key. Reaching the circuit board involves repeatedly rewinding time to create a happy little army of robots who can press switches, stack boxes, and the like to clear a path.

Chronotron is a great game built around a clever concept. It's definitely worth checking out, especially if you liked Cursor*10. If any of Chronotron's 40 levels leave you stumped, you can find walkthroughs over at creator Joe Rheaume's website, Scarybug Games.

Thanks to the reader who suggested Chronotron. If you'd like to suggest a browser-based game for Act Casual, send a link and description to contact@gamerswithjobs.com.

Instead of talking about this week's tepid release list, I feel compelled to instead take this opportunity to complain about the film The Mist which I watched last night. Yes, this week's release list is that bad. If you'd prefer to remain The Mist spoiler free, then give this a pass, because I'm going to talk about the abomination that is the film's ending. Now, I'm as forgiving as anyone about the necessity of making changes to a story to adapt it to the screen, and largely I can recognize that a film adaptation is in many ways a new telling of a familiar story. And through 97% of The Mist I was enthralled as writer/director Frank Darabont, whose work I mostly respect, caught the sharp tension of the novella and eventually was able to capably make the horror that erupts inside a Maine supermarket more terrifying than the tentacled creatures looming in the fog outside. I mean, it's a hard sell to convince a viewer that leaving safe haven and striking off into the uncertain and monster filled titular Mist is a good idea, but he pulled it off. I was amazed.

And, then the bastard completely botched the entire point of the story. Last chance to leave before spoilers! In King's novella our heroes strike off in their vehicle away from the terror of the supermarket, latching their hopes onto one word heard briefly over the radio "Hartford", and there we are left with their fates unresolved but hopeful. Darabont, instead decides to have the five refugees eventually run out of gas, whereupon in the throes of absolute hopelessness the protagonist uses the last four bullets in the gun to kill his companions including his own son. BUT THEN! Shock of shocks, twist of twists! Moments later, the fog lifts and the army comes along, and oh how our hero wails and gnashes his teeth. If only he had waited, oh let's say nineteen seconds, after running out of gas to plug his son whom he's protected vigorously against all odds for two days, they would have all been saved. Not only is this a cliche so predictable that it makes a sunrise look like an iffy proposition, but after two hours of taut suspense it completely torpedoes the entire story and is an absolute disservice to the careful pacing of the entire film. Abominable.

Oh, and the game of the week is some schlocky movie tie-in for Prince Caspian. Please don't take it as some endorsement of the game, but it's so pervasive this week that I feel like I must be under some kind of obligation to name it GotW.

This week's DVD releases aren't much better. Untraceable starring Diane Lane and some new Indiana Jones special editions. More here.

I like Niko Bellic, and I'm not sure what that says about me. Grand Theft Auto IV's protagonist is kind of a dick, no two ways about it. While he stumbles into a situation far removed from what he was expecting, the demands placed on him soon balloon far beyond a rationale person's tolerance. Not five hours into the game's main storyline you're killing people in cold blood for not much more than a verbal insult.

Still, despite it all, I like Niko. I enjoy his tale in a way that I haven't enjoyed the story in any other GTA title, and that makes me profoundly uncomfortable. GTA is fundamentally about 3 things, and they're all uncomfortable: violence, race, and sex. That these things speak to me is troubling and intriguing, tapping into the basest elements of humanity. It feels like there are three monkeys on my back. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil ... it's so archetypal it's almost silly.

Ready for a peek into my subconscious? Me neither.

On Tuesday I accepted a position as a copywriter at a NYSE listed corporation, a salaried cubicle job with a cushy benefits package, free Starbucks in the break room and fancy flat-screen monitors in the lobby; ending in a single phone call three-years worth of toil and sweat as a private entrepreneur. In the aftermath of that decision, what I feel above all else is a sense of relief. Having spent 33% of a decade as a self-made man, living and dying, so to speak, on the fruits of my own labor, the prospect of a traditional nine-to-five seems like a breath of HEPA-filtered fresh air.

Ruminating – in the sense of reflecting and not cud chewing – on the past three years, I am both extraordinarily glad to have swum in the deep waters, and equally glad that it is coming to what appears to be a tidy and perhaps surprisingly untragic end. It is the dream of many an office-jockey to suddenly pull up the stakes and work in a bathrobe from the downstairs office, and let’s be honest, any work environment is improved when you enjoy it in the comfort of Terry Cloth. That said, the magnitude of work, funding, planning and support needed to start a home business is simply inconceivable until you’ve attempted it, particularly when you’re stewing under fluorescent lights at the office feeling decidedly underappreciated. Just as parents-to-be are laughably naïve when pondering how easy it’s going to be for them to raise their children, so too the talented but under-informed might later compare entrepreneurship to being hit in the face with a small moon.

Michael Zenke joins us for our in-depth impressions of Grand Theft Auto IV. Does Sean still hate it? Will the vein on Rob's forehead burst? Can Michael inject some sanity into the conversation?!