McCain's Thoughts on Video Games: Questionable

McCain Smash!

If there’s one thing we can be certain about it’s that, at some point, every politician has been asked the question: “What is your stance on video game and media violence.” Personally, I think politicians have bigger fish to fry. But families like hearing that a politician has values that coincide with their own…even if those are momentary views meant to steal votes from a rival politician.

Lori Ingham of ConChrist recently had the opportunity to ask Republican Presidential Candidate Sen. John McCain (Arizona) what he thinks about the issue of video game and media violence:

Question #1: With the current controversy over video game and media violence, what is your stance on allowing parents to make the decisions for their children on what they can see and watch? (This question was rolling around in my head primarily because of the recent posts that I had on Jack Thompson)

McCain's Answer: He felt that parents should be the ones to decide for their kids on a case by case basis (which I was satisfied with). He then did a weird segueway (sic) into the evils of child pornography from there, which kind of had me shaking my head.

While I commend Sen. McCain for stating the obvious: that parents should parent (shocker, right?), I share Lori’s confusion on his segue into child pornography issues. Sure, child pornography is a very important issue, but how does that relate, in any way, to video games? Why even set a precedent of discussing the two in the same breath?

Sadly, Lori only paraphrased his response. It would have been nice to see, word for word, how bad his actual statement was. Perhaps he wasn’t fully prepared to deal with the indicated topic. He’s not a video gamer and probably doesn’t really understand the concept or the industry. Is it even useful to have someone that far out of the loop respond to concerns about video game violence? It makes him look old and ostracizes him from gamers with the power to vote, or not vote, accordingly. In an election year where people are screaming for change, this does not seem smart to me at all.

Via: Gamepolitics and ConChrist

Rock Band Adds Pixies. Sean Loses His Shit.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a fan. Starting June 19th, Activision will give you the chance to mangle the Pixies' fantastic album Doolittle. They'll add it to Rock Band's roster for download on the XBox360 on June 19th, and the 26th for the PS3. If you've never heard Doolittle, go hear Doolittle. Then go download Doolittle. It's your only chance to pretend you're a trailblazing alterna-rocker instead of the guy who all the old broads request as their waiter on Saturdays because you're the only one who gets their order right every time, and they like the way your ass shakes when you walk away. Not that I'm.....that.....guy.......

The Numbers Are In....Aaaaannnnddddd......

GTA IV wins. Again. This should come as a surprise to nobody except for that guy who knocks on my door every Saturday and asks if he can mow my lawn for 5 bucks because "times is hard, dawg". Number below, via Gametab:

May 2008 Software Sales

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (360) -- 871,300
2. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) -- 787,400
3. Wii Fit (Wii) -- 687,700
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3) -- 442,900
5. Wii Play (Wii) -- 294,600
6. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) -- 171,100
7. Iron Man (PS2) -- 130,600
8. Guitar Hero III (Wii) -- 116,800
9. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (DS) -- 107,000
10. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS) -- 102,000

An Introduction, If You Will

Let's get this out of the way now, hmm? Des knows a lot more about gaming than I do. As you can probably tell from my horrifyingly outdated username, my knowledge hasn't stretched too far past 1999 for quite some time now. Sure, I'm one of those suckers who bought Madden every year for the *ahem* "updated rosters", but I'm still pretty much the equivalent of a sassy broad who hasn't had a good spanking since the glory days of disco.

This is where you guys come in. I'm desperate. I'm broke. I'm on the outside looking in. You're all going to teach me. You're going to guide my hand away from the barren wastelands of my groin and back to the heaving cleavage of gaming. I'm the guy who will read most of the comments and probably take them way too seriously. Use it as your opportunity to smack some sense back into me. I need it.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're about to buy a PS3. Hit it.

EA? Antitrust? Nah!

EA…Antitrust…We know not what you’re talking about!?!

I don’t think EA will ever lose the stigma of being the Evil Empire of the gaming industry. And when using kitschy Star Wars references like those, it's hard for me not to compare T2 to the scrappy Rebel Alliance; fighting the good fight in their jerry-rigged x-wings, desperately trying to hit that flippin’ exhaust port and blow the whole damn takeover to smithereens! (OK…Star Wars reference over) And now the Federal Trade Commission has started to say “Hey now…that’s too much!” But something about all of this smells of ‘2’ little ‘2’ late. ('2' Fast '2' Furious...ok, really. I'm done.)

The truth? We live in a world of mega-corporations. When you see an independent film today, don’t be shocked to find out that the independent studio that backed it (even with regard to foreign films) is owned by an arm of a Dreamworks or Warner Brothers and so on. That’s the problem; the FTC will probably see this as the natural course of conglomeration with regard to the video game industry.

Part of me wants to scream when I think about that. But the other part of me has to admit the reality of situation: games (like most things) cost money. In addition, stock holders like money…and money buys loyalty (just ask Niko Bellic).

Another thing that irks me is that Take-Two is doing everything possible to make the FTC not rule in its favor. Take for example the recent request by the FTC to look at files pertinent to EA’s bid for Take-Two and rival sports game designer 2K (owned by Take-Two). Here’s my thought: when the government is willing to take your side, you don’t bitch about turning over files to the people that can save you from “hostile-takeover” land.

As quoted from Gamepolitics, Take-Two feels,

“It should not be burdened with providing the documents since it was EA that inititated (sic) the uninvited takeover attempt.”

And while I would love to tell the cop that gave me a ticket the other day for walking between the subway cars (harassment) to go piss off because I’m disinclined to accept his inflated ticket, I don’t get that option Take-Two. And you guys don’t either.

Even analyst-savant Michael Pachter and ‘Level-Up’ legal correspondent Justin Blankenship are just baffled by the ‘stonewall’ (read: bonehead) tactics being used by Take-Two. Posted on N’Gai Croal’s Newsweek Editorial 'Level Up' on June 12th, Blankenshipship writes,

“I would echo Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter's comments to GamePolitics.com that you wouldn't expect Take-Two to be stonewalling in this situation. You would think that as the unwilling target of EA, it would be in Take-Two's best interests to hand everything over to the FTC as soon as possible with every incriminating quote already highlighted, complete with its own commissioned economic study about how EA would destroy competition in sports videogames, all wrapped up with a pretty red bow.”

Straussy, bubby, make a point of telling your people to do the right thing. Do what the FTC asks you to do. They are doing this because there’s a whiff of dead gaming industry in the air; it’s stale from the lack of competition. I know you would rather eat a newborn child than have T2 fall to the hands of ‘Darth EA’. Just don’t let Jackie-B-Thompson overhear that. Then again, he’s still got the Florida Bar to deal with.

I hate to end on a downer, but after all is said and done I don’t hold much hope for this working out in Take-Two’s favor. When the FTC is in your corner, the play is simple: they say jump, you say 'how high' and 'thank you for the opportunity.' You don't thumb your nose at the guys who are 1-step away from handing you to EA with it's blessing.

The only option Take Two has at this point is to do the right thing and make the guys at EA look like public enemy number one. Treat it like the Mafia trying to silence an informant. Something Puzo-esque. It shouldn’t be that hard. I mean they can start by using the picture at the top of this article as a road map to just how much destruction they leave in their wake.

The (Expletive) Receptacle

Ever get frustrated during an intense game session? Did you feel your blood boil? Was it so bad you felt like you needed to scream bloody murder? Well now you can do just that without having your next door neighbors give you dirty looks the next day (or better yet, your significant other divorcing you). The Sakebi no Tsufu "Shouting Vase", available in Japan for $48USD, is a vase built with baffles to prevent your anger and frustration from being deposited on unsuspecting friends and loved ones. Now I just wish someone would have come up with this device when I was getting my ass handed to me in Ninja Gaiden...would have saved on the rehab and the shock therapy.

Via: Gizmodo

Your Wife is Always Level 70

For any gamer who's in a relationship (dating or married) with a non-gamer, there always comes a time when this bothersome question comes up: "What's so great about (fill in MMO game name here)?" For some people, the issue is far more troublesome. So the team over at FARKtv came up with this documentary to show you how easy it is to re-train your gamer-guy into a real world participant. Just remember, women have boobs, so they are always level 70.

Engage laughter.

Via: GamePolitics.com

There's no Singing in Team Fortress 2!

Tell that to these guys. Copied from an article recently posted on Kotaku, this video is completely and totally, 100%, not news. However, it is by far one of the most disturbing and hilarious things I've ever seen during a match of Team Fortress 2. Believe me when I say the video starts with someone calling out:

Player: I own titanic on VHS. All four fucking tapes

and ends with half the team breaking out into Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On."

warning: make sure you turn your audio down before watching.


TF2 Karaoke: My Heart Will Go On from FLOOR MASTER on Vimeo.


Ladies and Gentleman...humanity has hit rock bottom.

Mirror's Edge - The Debut Trailer Analyzed

Although Metal Gear Solid is the talk of the gaming world right now, there is another game that deserves your attention: Mirror’s Edge. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s probably because DICE hasn’t shown anyone very much of it. DICE, the developers responsible for the Battlefield series, only released the first trailer for the game last month. While the video game press was quick to show it’s enthusiasm for Mirror’s Edge, rightfully so, there hasn’t been a lot of new info to go on since then. Seeing as it’s coming out only a stones throw away from the release of Metal Gear Solid IV (you know that game, I’ll bet), it would seem foolish to keep such a tight lid on it.
For those of you who don’t know, Mirror’s Edge is the first game to be completely built around the modern martial arts of Free-running and Parkour. Free-running, created by Sebastian Foucan, and Parkour, created by David Belle, has been used in movies, tv, and commercials for a few years now. But never before has there been a First-Person action game where combat was not the primary focus. This is DICE’s goal: to put the “First Person” back in First Person Shooter and create something that isn’t just another generic FPS Halo/CoD knockoff (Haze anyone?).
As for the game mechanics, the story, and the world itself, DICE has kept things pretty close to the vest. Aside from a few developer interviews, all we have to go on is the initial trailer. However, Gametrailers recently released a video that analyzes that trailer and points out some gameplay and story mechanics that you (or I for that matter) may not have noticed on the first viewing.

Here are a few things that caught my attention:

- The fact that she has no reflection in the glass is a little puzzling. I would have to assume it’s a bug in the preview code that will be fixed before the game is released…since I’m pretty sure she’s not a vampire.

- I can’t tell what language is above the English letters in the sign that says “Vote Callaghan”. It would seem to be Chinese, but I can’t be sure. I wonder how the how, or if, the presence of both languages on one sign play into the rest of the game.

- I have a feeling, if the Parkour moments are controlled using primarily the analog sticks, that Faith’s balance on the pipe will be controlled directly by the player. What would be cool is if her ability to stay balanced on the pipe was directly related to how well will the player keeps moving Faith forward at a constant pace.

- The one shot of her falling down, what looks to be, an elevator shaft makes me wonder how much punishment Faith will be able to take. Parkour may allow you certain physical liberties, but it certainly doesn’t make you super…ahem…woman.

- I have no idea what the Tiramisu reference is about.

- The small bits of combat we see Faith in suggest that she has more of a stand-up fighting style. Kung Fu mixed with Taekwondo or something like that. Considering the trailer indicates that combat is secondary, it will be interesting to learn what other moves Faith has up her sleeve.

For a game that could, essentially, rewrite the rulebook on what makes a great First-Person action game, I hope that Mirror’s Edge garners more attention from the gaming public as it approach it’s June 15th release date.

'GCB

Late to the Party: Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 FES

I’ll be perfectly frank: I love me some Japanese RPGs. They also drive me insane. A lot of my hostility towards Japanese RPGs originates from my track record with them as a kid. Isn’t it a royal pain to play something that feels like it’s built around the concept of crushing your soul? Nothing is more degrading that spending hours leveling the snot out of your team only to get whupped into submission by a boss that’s eight times your size. So, despite my professed love, I am always hesitant when jumping into a JRPG.
Take Persona 3, for example: I didn’t get my hands on it until this month when it was re-released as Persona 3 FES. But Atlus couldn’t have made my decision to purchase it any easier: new content not seen in the original game, an extra storyline called FES, and a price point of $29.95USD…come to papa. Since loading it up in my PS2 a week ago, it has officially replaced GTA IV as my go to game of the month. That is saying a lot of this little game.

Like a lot of RPGs, the first order of business is to name the protagonist: your voiceless avatar that gets stuck with whatever exotic name you decide to bestow upon him or her. Hindsight being 20/20 I wish I had gone with Iroquois Pliskin (an MGS 2 reference to Solid Snake), but instead I went with Tsunami Sunday (and if you don’t like it…tough).
Having taken Tsunami through the first block of Tartarus, the evil tower your school turns into at night, and defeated the second big boss in the game, I can honestly say: I am hooked. At its core, it’s a pretty standard JRPG. But P3 has several unique design elements that place it above the competition.
For one, combat is quite streamlined. Although you have a three-member team you can only control your character and issue generic orders to your party members. This is quite sufficient for each battle, though, because the personaes do a lot of the work and come ready with spells for both attack and support roles. This makes combat very fast; far shorter than in most RPGs.
Also, ‘training’ usually takes place over a period of 29 in-game days with boss battles occurring during the full moon. In order to keep your explorations in Tartarus fresh your party usually tires out after around 20 or 30 minutes. While that might annoy some, this is actually set up to help you in game. The better rested you and your team is, the better you fight in Tartarus. Your status also effects how you participate in the other half of the game: school.

Although one might be quick judge this part of the game as superfluous, it would be a huge misconception. While you do gain the ability to control higher level personaes through battle, the strength of your personaes are dependent upon stat-trees you can only level during the day.
There is your personal stat tree consisting of Charm, Academics, and Strength. You can level these at any time during the day. Then there is the Soul Link tree. You level this up by interacting with certain characters in your school and around the city. Each Soul Link pertains to a class of Persona. As your relationship with a certain group or person increases, your ability to control personaes of that Soul Link increases. This turns what could have been a chore-like hurdle between you and the combat into an integral part of defeating the shadows.
Lastly, Persona’s fuse and collection system, while not a gaming breakthrough, is no less addicting than it was in Pokemon. Every time you go to Tartarus you have the ability to collect Personas that you can use until you level up enough to fuse them into more powerful personaes. Fusing personaes, like in a chemical reaction, results in the loss of the original personaes used (even if the fusion fails, a rare occurrence). This constant recycling of personaes encourages you to keep heading back into Taratrus. The more personaes you have at your disposal, the greater your tactical options are. Often I find myself going, “just one more trip to Tartarus. I need to get ‘x’ persona for the next boss battle!” This is usually occurs around 3am, of course.

So far, Persona 3 is turning out to be a very worthy experience. It’s no wonder that it has received the accolades it has up to this point. If I had to complain about one thing, it’s the lack of a dedicated inventory screen. I can understand not being able to see my party’s status and inventory when I’m not with them, but if I’m standing with my party members in Tartarus I shouldn’t have to talk to them in order to check their status and inventory. It just adds more windows to navigate through…and I am lazy.

Next time on Late to the Party I plan to be most of the way through “The Journey”. I’ll let you guys know how it went when I get there.

GCB

Canada has no patience for lazy gamers

Canada, your government has a message for you: stop being so damn lazy. Turn off your game consoles and go outside for a change. ParticiPACTION, an organization funded by the Canadian government to help educate people on being active, shares a similar message to that of Presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama. He’s said several times (and I’m paraphrasing) to ‘turn off the game system and go outside.’

Here’s one of ParticiPACTION’s recent ads dealing with inactive, video-game-playing, kids.

My feeling is this: yeah…ok. So video games are making people fat. But people were fat before video games existed. So…maybe video games are the lesser of two (read: bad diets, lazy people, genetics) evils.

Yeah, I impress even myself with my logic sometimes.

Welcome to Eden -- PixelJunk style

The worst thing about getting excited over games with no release date is you have to watch video after video come out with no clue as to when the torture is going to end. Right now, PixelJunk Eden (the newest game from the PJ team) has got my brain so warped around its little ‘grimp’ finger that it hurts…hurts so good, that is.

Sure, PixelJunk Eden is a strange game. In fact, I feel the same pang of self-doubt in referring to it as a game as I did upon playing ‘Flow’ or ‘Everyday Shooter’. It is a game, in the classic sense, as there are goals to achieve in order to progress through it. Even ‘Flow’ had those. But the look, the style, the aesthetic if you will, still makes me stop and stare. Eventually the guy behind me taps me on the shoulder and I’m forced to pick my jaw up off the floor.

At the end of the day, a good game that doesn’t need MGS IV level graphics is a good thing. It means there is still innovation in the games industry even as every company is gobbling up every other company. It means PixelJunk Eden may not be the exception…it may prove to be the rule. You’ve got my attention PixelJunk, now just make sure you deliver on the goods (and please, pretty please give us a release date).

(title image: IGN.com / Videos: gamevideos.com)

Evil is Powerful, But Courage is Solid…What?

Or “How I stopped worrying about Americans making crappy trailers for games they can’t market properly and learned to love MGS IV”

Why is it that American movie trailers all sound the same? I ask this question knowing full well that I am working in the very system that creates this nonsensical trailer-talk. However, what, if I may ask, does that sentence above mean? Can anyone tell me?

It’s like this Mr. Kojima (can I call you Hideo?). You make better games than this trailer is highlighting. We don’t need to hear “Mr. American Movie Trailer Guy’s” voice to think that this game is going to be a hit. We know you can make a hit. So please, give us the 14 minute long meandering trailers you always give us. The ones that highlight things that are so obscure that even after playing all 8 games (it is eight now, right?) that we’d still need a MGS lexicon to figure out what the hell is going on.

We, the gamers, demand it.

As for this trailer: I may never figure out what “Courage is Solid” means, but it sure sounds like the old man needs to go take a “deuce”, which is how EA got in trouble marketing Skate 2.

Will people never learn?

(Video: Machinima.com via Youtube.com)

Game Review: Echocrome - PSP

(This review pertains to the PSP version only)

Forced Perspective, the ability to make things look closer/farther away or larger/smaller than they appear, has been utilized in art and movies for years. If you’ve seen the any of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ films, then you’ve seen the premise at work. But SCEA’s Echochrome is the next step in that equation: manipulate the entire world and use forced perspective at your will to break all known laws of space. And, you know what? It works…kind of.

While it would be easy to call this a stripped down or alternate version of ‘Crush’, a fellow PSP title released in May 2007, to do so would be selling the game very short. First, this game is far less disorienting than Crush. Second, the aesthetic is far more pleasing than ‘Crush’. And third, by going with such a streamlined look to the puzzles, your mind is bended, to be sure, but you’re never caught feeling like the developers are pulling one over on you. Every puzzle can be solved. Best of all, there’s more than one way to solve every puzzle.

Echochrome’s premise is puzzle building 101. You play as the man behind the curtain: a large force above the gaming world who rotates the floating platforms below so that a little faceless mannequin can freely roam from platform to platform and reach ‘echos’ of himself. These echos are strategically placed and show up in the same spot each time you play the level. Direct “Manny” to all of the echos and you beat the stage, thus moving on to the next, crazy, M. C. Escher inspired level.

Keeping with the “bite-sized” gameplay theory of portable game system, Echochrome has three different game modes in which all of the puzzles are unlocked from the start. In ‘Freeform’ the game randomly selects a puzzle according to the difficulty level you wish to play. If the last puzzle was too easy or hard, you can raise/lower the difficulty between puzzles without going back to the main screen (a very handy feature). ‘Atelier’ mode let’s you play buffet-style, allowing you to play any of the 56 puzzles in any order you want. And ‘Canvas’ mode not only lets you build new levels but copy levels from the game and edit them, which seriously increases its replay value. Sadly, you can’t post your PSP creations to the Playstation Network. Just another example of how Sony keeps taking two steps back when dealing with the Playstation 3’s little brother.

What makes this game so fun and, essentially, more mind-numbing that most puzzle games is that you have to reverse-engineer your way through each puzzle. Because the game world has its own set of rules (five rules based on the principles of forced perspective) you have to look at each level and consider not what’s missing, but how the platforms in the level can fit together to become a unbroken path that ‘Manny’ can walk on. And since you can’t actually move him, aside from stopping him while you “think” or making him walk faster, you need to constantly be on the lookout for black holes he might walk over or jump circles that will throw his flailing, wooden little body into the great white oblivion.

Another thing that adds to the aesthetic of the game is the plucky classical score that plays throughout. Consisting primarily of string instruments, it remains very true to the minimalist concept of the game and, despite being only a few tracks long, never gets annoying or repetitive.

Although I’m all smiles about what Echochrome does swimmingly, it’s extremely well-polished exterior can’t hid a couple of annoying quirks in the system. On some levels you’ll see a platform that, although it looks like it’s touching another platform, just won’t line up. Other times, say if you wanted to make a gap between two platforms disappear, you’ll think you have it lined up just right and “Manny” won’t, causing him to fall into the white abyss. This has a tendency to create the “Wait, what?” reaction as the charming yet disembodied female voice in the game gives you a complementary “oops” for your trouble.

Also, the level creator, while powerful, seems a little unwieldy on the PSP. I feel like the biggest issue in regard to building anything in three dimensions on the PSP stems from the controls just not being up to the task. At times I found myself either flying around or zooming in and out of the canvas whilst trying to position the cursor accordingly. Or I’d lose track of where I was building altogether because, thanks to forced perspective again, everything looks like it’s in the right place but there’s no spatial frame of reference to clue you in to that.

Despite these minor gripes, Echochrome is certainly a game that puzzle fans should not miss. While it may not be a graphic-du-jour, big budget title, it certainly stands out for being a fresh take on a genre filled with mediocre games. If you own a PSP and want to try a game that breaks all the rules -- in favor of its own -- grab a copy of Echochrome and prepare to experience the most unique puzzle game of the year.