I didn"t need Lord of the Rings Online to go free-to-play on September 10 to convince me to start poking around Middle-earth again. Turbine"s designed one of the most elegant online games I"ve ever played--more sophisticated and challenging in every aspect than The Other One, and with the sort of reverent (but wisely amalgamated) attention to source material I"ve only seen before in Iron Crown Enterprise"s original pen and paper version, Middle-earth Role Playing, affectionately referred to as "murp".

That"s the last serious pen and paper roleplaying game I played with any conviction, just like Lord of the Rings Online may be the only online roleplaying game that hasn"t eventually bored me silly on the road to stuff like PvP and battlegrounds and eventually rolling through every possible character type and maxing levels for bragging rights (but really because there"s nothing else all that interesting to do).

Lord of the Rings Online feels more like a massively single-player game to me, with its intricate quest instances and tightly interwoven story, unfurling in books that comprise volumes, in turn subsets of an epic, ongoing quest, leading inexorably to the land where the shadows lie.

Come Friday, September 10, slightly more than three weeks from now, anyone can play for nothing. Download the game, sign up for an account, and you"re in--no credit card required. But that doesn"t mean you have access to everything, so I"ve parsed Turbine"s player chart to tell you what free actually adds up to.

Turbine"s basically split its subscriber service into three tiers: VIP, Premium, and Free. If you"re not paying a monthly subscription fee, you"re going to be either Premium or Free. If you purchase Turbine Points from the new LOTRO Store at any point as a Free player, you"re automatically upgraded to Premium status.

Free gives you full access to the original game"s story, the world, all four races, and all the character classes, same as everyone else. The play caps are relatively minor functional things, like the number of character slots you can have per server (one), how many quest packs you start with (three), how many inventory bags you can carry (also three), how much money you can carry (two gold pieces max), and so forth. Free status also dictates whether you"re given server priority at login (you"re not), whether you can play as a monster (you can"t), whether you can partake in community features (nope), and whether you"re afforded customer service (it"s all "self-service" if you sticking with free-to-play).

So what"s Turbine doing? What everyone else is doing: Letting you try--not just a couple outfits on, but pretty much everything in the store--before you buy. You can arguably play the base game through to completion without spending a penny, but (and this is the "but" Turbine"s banking on) if you like what you see, you"re going to look at the money you"re suddenly willing to spend as earned instead of just a lucky bet in hindsight.

It"s as wise and customer-angled an approach as any I"ve encountered: Give players a taste--actually most of the meal--then offer appetizers and extra courses as incentives. Those extras can be purchased in all the currently fashionable ways, from Paypal and credit cards to PayByCash and gift cards. And Turbine says the interface is integrated into the game itself, so no dropping out to buy convenience items or game expansions. (Sure, other games have been pulling off free-to-play for ages, but I"d wager none have been half as a complex as LOTRO.)

What if you"re already a subscriber or paid for the game and were at some point signed up in the past? You"re automatically upgraded to Premium status. And if you"re a lifer, i.e. you paid for a lifetime subscription, you"re automatically upgraded to VIP status, and you"re exempted from the monthly subscription fee. Turbine breaks this and a few dozen other profiles down in its free-to-play beta FAQ. And if you want a cool fan-made content-by-level chart for the free-to-play version, check this out as well.

How much will subscriptions cost if you want to go VIP? Turbine customer support has this post flagged on the free-to-play forums, suggesting it"ll be the standard $15 a month. The basic multi-month rate is about $42, but Turbine occasionally offers multi-month discounts, and I"m guessing that"ll be the case when free-to-play launches in September.

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Sony"s new PS3 Move bundle costs, well, a bundle, weighing in at $400 for one controller, a game, the requisite PlayStation Eye camera, and a king-of-the-mountain 320GB PlayStation 3 to top the whole thing off. The company"s more than happy to take your money for one, and here"s the thing--some of you are going to be more than happy to part with it.

The question is how many. Those of you most likely to buy the Move immediately probably already own a PS3. For you, the Move Starter Bundle beckons. It"s a much more reasonable $100 and comes with the same wand, game, and camera you need to, well, get started.

Some have suggested the pack-in game, unmemorably dubbed Sports Champions, is just a clone of Nintendo"s Wii Sports. I have the game, and can say with some authority that while both are sports-themed, Sports Champions plays very little like Nintendo"s pack-in motion-control hors d"œuvre. It"s much more accurate, for starters, which sounds like a throwaway line at this point, but if you"re really a gamer, you know accuracy--the measure of how faithfully what you"re doing off-screen gets translated on screen--is arguably the most crucial factor in a dossier of design imperatives.

My wife noticed the difference immediately, squaring off wand versus wand in a sand volleyball match. When you screw up, it"s crystal clear you screwed up--not, as is often the case with the Wii, a glitch premised on a motion capture system incapable of consistent 1-to-1 mapping. My experience with Sports Champions so far can be summed up pretty simply: I want to keep playing until I"ve mastered every move. Because I can. Which is something I could never say about this sort of Wii game.

But back to the $400 Move bundle. It"s not entirely clear who Sony"s targeting. Perhaps the Xbox 360 crowd, though it"s a safe bet a lot of them already own PS3s. Maybe it"s Wii gamers Sony"s hoping want to "upgrade," you know, to a "more refined" experience. But the Wii costs $200, possibly less if Nintendo discounts the system this holiday (they probably will, and I"m predicting $150), and can be purchased as a bundle that comes with one controller, the Nunchuk, the MotionPlus snap-on piece (making the controller slightly more accurate), and both Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. That"s a deal for $200. That"d be a steal of a deal for $150.

So no, I have to agree with Technologizer"s Jared Newman, who also sees the $400 bundle targeting a harder-core gaming audience. Sure, it"s a deal if you look at my price comparison chart and consider what you"re getting (and saving) versus a standalone system, but--and I"m sure Sony knows this--most consumers see price tags, not breakout spreadsheets. Thus Microsoft"s ability to pass the at one point ridiculously more expensive Xbox 360 off as less expensive. Because it was, just so long as you bought it barebones, then never upgraded.

Now Kinect"s looking like the cheaper option (accuracy issues notwithstanding--it"s a much looser, inexact experience, like the Wii). Microsoft"s no-controller motion-sensing camera supports up to four players out of the box, because all it has to do is "see" them to do its thing. As I noted yesterday, the equivalent cost on the PS3 could run up to $400 for the controllers alone (four players, two wands each, $50 per wand). And if you want the Move navigation controller, add another $30 per player.

Sony contacted me to clarify a few things concerning this last point:

The company says that "the vast majority" of PS Move games will be playable with one motion controller when playing solo. Some games give you the option to play with one or two motion controllers (Sports Champions is one--the benefit is occasionally more articulate motion control). I can confirm it"s not required--the choice is always yours--and that one controller"s as accurate as two when it comes to gauging precision.

In several games, if you"re playing with friends or family members--say in an augmented reality game like Start the Party--you can share a single motion controller, passing it around between turns. You only need a wand for everyone if the game requires simultaneous play, and then you"re only required to have one per person.

The $30 navigation controller "essentially replicates the left side of the DUALSHOCK 3 controller for familiar and natural control," but it"s not required for any PS Move games. Sony says the DUALSHOCK 3 that comes standard with PS3 will let you do everything the navigation controller does in all PS Move titles.

So is the Move all Sony"s promised? Has it been priced and marketed to the right audience? I"ll answer the first question here, before it ships on September 19. I"ll be watching in the months that follow for you to answer the second.

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The gossip blogs had a field day a few weeks ago, homing in on a patent filing unearthed by GoRumors that implied Microsoft"s Kinect motion-control camera for the Xbox 360 might recognize sign language.

In the patent, an illustration depicts a user spelling words using their hands.

"The user...is making a gesture with his left hand...to signal the character "a" in American Sign Language (ASL)," reads the accompanying text. The patent extends this spelling action to include one hand, both hands, or "some combination of body parts," and mentions the possibility of using a prop, like a baton, to spell words.

"ASL has the advantage of having a large number of people who are already facile in using it," continues the patent. "To that end, a user who is facile in ASL will have an easy time inputting characters to a system that accepts ASL gestures as input."

Microsoft"s response last week to queries about the patent filing (which has since disappeared) was predictably vague.

"We are excited about the potential of Kinect and its potential to impact gaming and entertainment," said the company in a press statement. "Microsoft files lots of patent applications to protect our intellectual property, not all of which are brought to market right away."

And the coup de grace: "Kinect that is shipping this holiday will not support sign language."

But does "will not" equal "can not"? I asked for clarification and (almost) got it.

According to Microsoft, while Kinect won"t support sign language when it launches this holiday, it"s anyone"s guess what it"s actually capable of. While the company won"t comment on speculation about Kinect"s camera resolution, I"m hearing there"s no reason to believe it couldn"t handle ASL recognition "through the magic of software."

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Last month rumors circulated that Microsoft killed cross-platform Xbox 360 and Windows gameplay.

Why? Because, wrote Voodoo PC founder Rahul Sood on his blog, in internal tests pitting console and PC players against each other, "The console players got destroyed every time... So much so that it would be embarrassing to the XBOX team in general had Microsoft launched this initiative."

We ran the question by Kevin Unangst, Microsoft Senior Director of PC and Mobile Gaming, to get his reaction to the surprising allegations.

Game On: So did Microsoft really kill cross-platform play between Windows and the Xbox 360, or was it more a developer-initiated death spiral?

Kevin Unangst: It"s complete fiction--it never died. The LIVE service has and continues to support cross-platform play between Windows and Xbox 360, and remains the only place where this feature is offered. Ultimately the decision to implement resides with the developers, and we expect to see more in the future.

GO: Did Microsoft run internal studies pitting gamepad players against keyboards/mice opponents?

KU: Absolutely. When we developed Shadowrun, cross-platform play was a brand new technology and we tested it at length to find the right balance for each platform. These tests played a strong role in the development of Shadowrun and included testers who were hardcore Counter-Strike players on PC and Halo players on console. The attention and detail that went in to play balancing between mouse/keyboard and controller was also something that informed a white paper on the subject, which we make available to developers as part of our development tools.

GO: Are Rahul Sood"s (of Voodoo PC) comments accurate when he claims the best keyboard/mice players "demolished" the best gamepad players during Microsoft-led play tests?

KU: I can"t speak to where Sood got his information, but having seen our tests it"s not an accurate generalization. Game design choices can balance or tip the scales--much in the same way that a PC game can be built to use a gamepad or keyboard and mouse, and can implement either or both well or poorly. It"s the developer"s job to find the right balance.

GO: Can you walk us through the timeline, from the point at which Shadowrun seemed to promise a viable cross-platform future, to today, where cross-platform play seems nonexistent?

KU: In addition to Shadowrun, we also saw cross-platform titles from our partners at Sega and Capcom in Universe at War: Earth Assault and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition, respectively. These showcase how cross-platform play can be successful in multiple genres, from first-person shooter to real-time strategy.

GO: Will Microsoft promote cross-platform play in the future? What"s ahead for cross-platform play (if anything)?

KU: The definition of "cross platform" is changing rapidly with the rise of social and mobile gaming. We were first to deliver a platform that enabled play between the PC and console, and you can expect us to continue to innovate as the definition evolves.

GO: Thanks Kevin!

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