Video Gaming Blog

Submitted by videogame2play

With rumors of Nintendo making a revision to their popular DS handheld there has been many concept designs floating around the internets. Check out this collection of Nintendo DS revision ideas.

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Submitted by videogame2play

Check out this first look at Gears of War 2 gameplay.

Coming to the Xbox 360 this November this video features lead designer Cliffy B introducing us to a preview of actual gameplay from the campaign portion of the game.

Judge for yourself, but I think this game looks awesome with tons of enemies and a new cover system that looks well implemented.

If you enjoyed the first Gears of War you won’t want to miss this!

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Submitted by videogame2play

The recent Sony Gamer’s Day in London, England offered a fresh glimpse of Killzone 2 from Guerrilla Games. Check out the latest gameplay footage and 4 new screenshots - unfortunately there was also news of yet another delay, this one pushing Killzone 2 into February 2009.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

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Submitted by videogame2play

News about the forthcoming Champions Online, to Codemasters expanding their business, to how the LEGO Universe economy will function. Hopefully well, we all know how unstable those LEGO financial institutions are. One swift kick from your older brother and the entire infrastructure comes tumbling down, and I’d rather not have to deal with bailing out LEGO Bear Stearns.

So check the numbers, look to the future, and admit you’ve lost (you know who you are). This is…

The MMO Report

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Time now for a special post all about the Fatal Fury series, the second most popular fighting series in its time to Street Fighter, which provided some of the ideas for how to design this game. Let’s start with the first game, released in late 1991, over here in 2 parts:

And watch here for the endings for all 3 players.

This was how it began, with this story-based game in which you have three protagonists, two brothers and one friend, Terry and Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi, who are seeking to avenge their father’s death at the hands of South Town’s crime boss, the aikido-trained fighter Geese Howard. The opponents here are certainly tough, and Raiden, who later became Big Bear, is probably the second hardest next to Geese.

The game even had a sly sense of humor in how, when you first play with Terry and Geese learns who he is, he says, “I didn’t know Bogard had a son!” and then, when you play with Andy, Geese says, “did Bogard have two sons?” Boy, that was certainly amusing.

Interestingly enough, one of the designers of the first Street Fighter from 1987, who later went to work for SNK, may have worked on this game as well. It became so popular that, just like Street Fighter, there came a few anime productions based on it as well. And the following year, that’s when it really took off as a franchise, with Fatal Fury 2, seen in the next recording (SNES version):

And watch here for the endings to all the characters.

With this, we had 8 characters to choose from. Joining the first three legends, aka the Lone Wolves, were Cheng Sinzan, Kim Kaphwan, Jubei Yamada, Big Bear, the former Raiden who now took up a new name and costume, and also, one of the hottest chicks in video games, Mai Shiranui! She’s since become SNK’s most popular lady combatant, appearing mainly in the long-running King of Fighters series. I remember thinking about Mai years ago that she had a very “bouncy” figure, and then discovering that there were plenty of people who agreed with me! Plus, her bionic bosom was surely the first to really bounce in video games, when she did her super-cute victory pose and exclamation with her eyes twinkling. This was a few years before Tecmo’s Dead or Alive came along and really worked on this idea. Mai is also the girlfriend of Andy Bogard.

Not only did SNK know how to cash in on the craze Street Fighter 2 started, what made the Fatal Fury series stand out well in all the crop was that it had a style and interface all its own, with two planes to fight on. In the first game, this could usually only be reached when knocked onto it by an opponent, or when the opponent jumped there themselves. In the sequel, with the help pressing two buttons, you could jump there any time during the fight. Interesting thing about 3 out of four of the bosses was that they otherwise had only one plane, sort of like 3 or 4 stages in the first game, but this time with objects in the background that could injure if knocked onto them. And the final boss, Wolfgang Krauser, while I hadn’t initially known at the time, appears to be Geese’s half-brother, also a very menacing fighter. Look out! That projectile of his is dangerous! The endings are simple, but to view them, you need to complete the game on one credit.

As mentioned before, this became a huge hit, and led to plenty of merchandise, anime productions, etc. Then, the next year after this came Fatal Fury Special:

And click here to watch the endings for all the characters.

In this installment, not only are the four bosses now selectable, but 3 players from the first game make their return: Tung Fu Rue, Duck King, and also Geese Howard! Those reports of his demise in the hospital clearly were exaggerated, weren’t they?

Mai has at least two new abilities to use to her advantage as well: a diving attack, and, if she didn’t have it in her debut, she now has the ideal ability to catch her opponents in the air and press them firmly to the floor.

And the most interesting surprise available in this game is inclusion of Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting! If you can complete every stage without losing a round, you’ll be facing him as an opponent. There’s a way to unlock him as a fighter, but I have no idea how at this point.

Two years after this, SNK made Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory, which expanded upon the double-plane concept slightly - there’s now three of them! When beginning, you usually start in the middle one. And here’s a little recording of that here:

And click here to see the endings for the characters. With this, we have still more newcomers, those being Blue-Mary (full name is Mary Ryan), the pretty blonde chick, a kickboxer named Franco Bash, Bob Wilson, a capoeira expert who may be a disciple of Richard Meyer at the Pao Pao Cafe, Sokaku Mochizuki, whose face cannot be seen, Yamazaki, a gangster with a score to settle with Geese, and also Jin Chonshu and Chonrei, the two official bosses here. And the plot involves the search for a bunch of valuble scrolls, though I don’t think you really see any of them here. Some of the special skills have been changed too (Joe Higashi no longer has his rapid punch).

And there’s be some more, with Real Bout becoming the title, which I’ll write about in a followup post.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

In five recordings:

You play a knight going round the title tower and battling all the assorted monsters within. It’s got some very grand music.

Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Here’s an article about Guitar Hero’s financial success for Activision:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Activision Inc posted a quarterly profit on Thursday that blew past expectations as demand for its “Guitar Hero 3″ and “Call of Duty 4″ video games made up for a complete lack of new releases.

The two games, released late last year, drove Activision to a profit, excluding stock-based compensation costs, of just under $55 million, or 17 cents per share, more than triple the average expectation of 5 cents among Wall Street analysts on Reuters Estimates.

Revenue was $602.5 million, towering 93 percent above a year ago and burying the average estimate of $373.6 million.

“It’s the ongoing popularity of ‘Guitar Hero’ and ‘Call of Duty’. It just shows what can happen in terms of performance when you have blockbuster hit titles,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

Shares of Activision rose 3.9 percent to $28.78 in extended trade from a close of $27.70 on Nasdaq, where they had gained less than 1 percent in the regular session.

Activision’s results were the latest piece of evidence that the video game industry is shrugging off the concerns about the broader economy weighing on other sectors.

“The video-game market fundamentals have never been stronger. There’s no evidence that this growth will slow,” Chief Executive Bobby Kotick told a conference call.

Activision’s results came the day after rival Take-Two Interactive Software Inc said its criminal action game “Grand Theft Auto 4″ had pulled in $500 million in revenue in its first week, making it one of the biggest entertainment launches ever.

I think that’s the only really disgusting news here, that Take-Two would find success with that monstrosity of theirs.

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Submitted by videogame2play

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Ha ha, it’s the umpteenth time I’m doing something absurd with the letter K. Take a look:

A funny game where you manuever a taxicab around a city, trying to get passergers to various locations while avoiding vehicles that can really smash into you and cause you to lose a turn. Interesting production.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

First, here’s a tape of the first two stages:

And here’s a tape of the ending part:

A fun shooter that may have been inspired by Zaxxon, if you note the isometric graphics here, with plenty of great ideas to find. Those slinky-like weapons are amazing, as are the fish-like beings on the second stage.

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Submitted by videogame2play

This week, Sessler talks about the game that is so addictive, it made him put down GTA IV. That’s right; it’s Boom Blox for the Wii.

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Submitted by Law of the Game

After reading about the latest Congressional attempt to go after the game industry, and given my legal background, I’ve decided to put together a list of the elements necessary to create a video game law that works. I’m sure you might be thinking, “Why, Mark, Why? Why would you do such a thing to your fellow gamers? You’re just helping them.” It’s fairly simple: I’m not opposed to keeping things out of the hands of kids that their parents don’t want them to have. On the other hand, I’m also not opposed to letting the parents make the choices. About the only thing I am opposed to is letting the government decide what I or my eventual kids can play. I am an adult, and I can make those decisions for myself and for my children when I become a parent.

The Ten Points for a Successful Video Game Regulation:

1. Forget the idea that you’re only regulating games.
If you want a regulation to stick, targeting one media without credible proof of the difference between that media and all of the other things kids are exposed to isn’t going to fly. So, if you want to regulate games, the bill needs to also regulate movies, maybe music, and potentially even books. It needs to be a universal approach to put parents in control. Don’t forget the TV shows, which should probably also have their ratings appear on the DVD box sets. Whether the TV-MA is equal to an R rating would likely be the subject of some discussion. Based on the latest statistics from the Federal Trade Commission, M rated games are actually sold to minors less often than R rated movies, both as DVDs and movie tickets, and ‘Parental Advisory’ music. If anything, video games should be the least of your concerns if you are trying to protect the children.

2. Use the industry’s rating systems.
The respective industries each have their own rating system, and each system is pretty well adapted for that industry. Not to say these systems are perfect, but they do the job they are intended for. The only real catch is ‘Unrated’ movies, which may have to default to an ‘R’ rating. The only industry without a rating system is the print industry (books, graphic novels, etc.), and I’m not sure any legislator is as worried about them as books, movies, or TV. Requiring in-store information about each rating system is probably reasonable as the systems do differ between products.

3. Forget ‘banning’ anything.
There are plenty of people out there who seem to favor the ability for games to be banned, as they are in other countries. This is the United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have a Constitutional right to free speech. You will never succeed in imposing a ban on the kind of content we see in M rated games, so it would be in your best interest to move on to something that is a realistic goal.

4. Forget basing this on obscenity or harm to children. Use commerce.
If this regulation is going to pass, the idea of ‘obscenity’ won’t do it. In fact, trying to base this on anything other than regulating the instrumentalities and channels of commerce pursuant to the commerce clause will likely fail. In fact, I’m not entirely sure even this bill would succeed based on commerce, but a broad based attempt to just prevent the sale of something rated by the industry as for ‘adults’ to people under 17 seems more realistic than trying to base it on inconclusive studies or other such justifications.

5. Forget the ‘AO’ rating for games.
The argument is often made that some games should be rated ‘AO.’ Forget it. An ‘AO’ rating is basically banning the game from sale, or classifying it with the most hardcore pornography. Unless the game is some sort of sexual simulation, it shouldn’t garner an ‘AO’ rating. In general, the sexual content in an ‘M’ game falls short of what is in many R rated movies or even what is on television. Arguing that a game like GTAIV should be AO is just an effort in futility.

6. Enforce it only on products that have to be sold to those over 17.
There’s a simple reason that this can only be applied to games rated M or movies rated R: most people under 15 or 16 do not have any sort of ID. If you had to get ID from a 13 year old to buy a T game or PG-13 movie, nothing would ever sell because they don’t have ID. What we’re mostly concerned about is adults buying content that is suitable for adults, correct? Then that’s the limitation that should be in place.

7. Enforce it only on sales to those who can’t present ID or present fake ID.
This is pretty simple: The goal is to put parents in control. If a parent decides their 16 year old can have an M rated game and buys it for the teenager, it is not the government’s place to tell them otherwise. This is a point of sale or retail resale control only. The government has no place invading the living rooms of every family in America in order to override the judgment of parents on what media their child is allowed to consume.

9. This should be a fine only offense, and only a fine against the store.
It is the requirement of the store to perform their due diligence on each sale. Keeping that in mind, this isn’t injecting heroin into the veins of children. The idea that it should be a criminal offense is just silly, and the idea that individual cashiers should be punished is equally inane. If a store has a problematic cashier, then the store should be held accountable and be allowed to deal with the cashier as they see fit.

10. Once it’s done, leave it alone.
This isn’t a “get one foot in the door so we can ban things later” idea. This is the end all, be all solution. As a legislator, you’re passing your ‘protect the children’ bill that will give you some good publicity. It’s the Constitution that won’t let you go farther based on an objective look at the facts.

In a nutshell, that is a blueprint for a video game regulation that could actually work. Why hasn’t anyone tried this yet? Most of the anti-game zealots are too interested in draconian punishments, outright bans, or overly complex and involved systems to actually explore what could practically work and withstand a legal challenge. Granted, it is a compromise between those who are on either extreme, but it is likely a solution that would allow game retailers and developers to stay in business, allow gamers to keep gaming, and allow many in the anti-game crowd to feel like they’ve protected the children.

I would just assume leave the system be, given that in a gaming context it’s actually working pretty well. But as it seems that the issue will never go away, I see having to show ID a pretty small price to pay for leaving the bulk of the rest of the system in place.

Any post that is marked “Submitted by Law of the Game” and any content that appears on this blog is not legal advice. It only constitutes commentary on legal issues, and is for educational and informational purposes only. Reading this blog, replying to its posts, or any other interaction on this site does not create an attorney-client privilege between you and the author. The opinions expressed on this site are not the opinions of Vernon Goodrich, LLP. As with any legal issue that may confront you in a particular situation, you should always consult a qualified attorney familiar with the laws in your State.

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Submitted by Law of the Game

Interested in what a copyright protects in the game you just released? Read on.

Any post that is marked “Submitted by Law of the Game” and any content that appears on this blog is not legal advice. It only constitutes commentary on legal issues, and is for educational and informational purposes only. Reading this blog, replying to its posts, or any other interaction on this site does not create an attorney-client privilege between you and the author. The opinions expressed on this site are not the opinions of Vernon Goodrich, LLP. As with any legal issue that may confront you in a particular situation, you should always consult a qualified attorney familiar with the laws in your State.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Wow, this is really cool. Click on over to take a look.

An adorable combination of an action and puzzle game where you’ve got a couple protagonists and their mascots from different ends of a magical kingdom competing to see who can rake in the best score and beat the other opponent in order to pass each level. The mascots can serve for special attacks.

This was Alpha Denshi/ADK’s last official game, but it was one of their best, with some excellent humorous elements.

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Submitted by videogame2play

DICE presented their latest project Mirror’s Edge which will be available on PC, PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 by years end.

“At this time, we are not revealing anything more than the fact that we are changing the way that players are able to move in first person,” said a representative for DICE.

“No more restrictions, no more being blocked by simple barriers such as walls and fences. We want to enable the player to move like a real person, with the ability to run, jump, vault and slide in a way that has never been seen before in a first-person game.”

“This is a game currently in development at DICE. EA has not formally announced the game but we are excited by the innovation being demonstrated by the team and are looking forward to seeing a real evolution in the first-person genre,” said Electronic Arts.

“[It] gives an indication of the kind of high quality development that is being nurtured by EA not only in Sweden but across the globe.”

[source]

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

This was the first in a now legendary series of games that may have graduated to the kind of first-person perspective used in Doom. Here’s the recording:

You play a soldier of fortune running through enemy military facilities on a special search. It’s pretty complicated, but with some practice, it can be done.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

This is the latest project of Electronic Arts:

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Video-game publisher Electronic Arts Inc unveiled two initiatives on Tuesday to breathe new life into its sports business by making games that are easier to play and customized for Nintendo Co Ltd’s popular Wii console.

Key games such as “Madden” football, “NBA Live” and “FIFA” soccer will come out in special versions for the Wii, which has become the best-selling game system by drawing in older and female players with friendly graphics and simple motion-sensing controls.

EA is also starting a sub-brand dubbed Freestyle that will be home to a new set of games not tied to any existing league and therefore free of expensive licensing rights. The first game will be “Facebreaker,” a cartoonish and whimsical boxing game due out in September.

“We can’t be blind to the fact that different consumers are coming into games now and shame on us if we can’t evolve and develop something for that crowd,” Peter Moore, head of EA Sports, told Reuters.

EA expects to have sold about $1.3 billion worth of sports games in its fiscal year just ended in March, accounting for more than a third of total revenue.

Known for their sharp graphics and attention to detail, EA’s sports games are among the industry’s best-selling titles each year. But many gamers have criticized them for including few groundbreaking new features and increasingly complex controls that make them tough to play.

Showing off this year’s lineup of sports titles at a new conference in EA’s Vancouver studio, Moore said the company had not forgotten about its core fans who want the most realistic experience.

“While we have no intention whatsoever of dumbing down the experience that we all love and that drives this multibillion

dollar business … we need to make sports games more approachable,” Moore said.

Caught off guard by the Wii’s success following its launch in late 2006, EA tried to adapt its sports games to the Wii, an effort Moore admitted amounted to basically tacking on the motion controls without changing the core game.

Moore, who joined EA from Microsoft Corp’s games division to head up the sports business last September, said the new approach to the Wii marked a dramatic rethinking of what those players wanted from a game.

The model was “Wii Sports,” a title from Nintendo included with every Wii that took bowling, baseball, golf, tennis and boxing and reduced them to a handful of simple motions.

“We learned some hard lessons. That was the type of sports experience they were looking for and we saw that and decided we needed to redefine what our sports games were about,” Moore said. This year, EA’s top sports games for the Wii will have “All-Play” added to their titles.

While versions for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3 will be similar to previous years, the “All-Play” titles will have options to use simpler controls and quicker games.

“It’s like how swimming pools have a deep end and a shallow end. EA Sports has really only built a swimming pool with a deep end. It’s intimidating for a lot of people to jump right in the deep end. With All-Play, we’re building a shallow end,” Moore added.

I do agree that the Wii’s joystick-type control is probably the best thing to the advantage of their sports games, certainly if it’s golf.

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Submitted by videogame2play

Mayur Gandhi over at NZGamer reports that Armageddon in Wellington, New Zealand this year featured the WETA warthog that was built for Peter Jackson, Neill Blomkamp’s live-action Halo shorts. Check out these detailed photos from the event.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Here’s a review that was written about 3 new games in Square’s Final Fantasy series:

In the late 1990s, the Japanese publisher Square could do no wrong. Back in the era of the original PlayStation, Square released one gem after another: blockbusters like “Final Fantasy VII” and “Chrono Cross,” lesser-known masterpieces like “Vagrant Story” and “Brave Fencer Musashi,” and one of my all-time favorites, the mind-blowing “Xenogears.”

Square hasn’t been quite as infallible this decade, thanks largely to the 2001 departure of “Final Fantasy” mastermind Hironobu Sakaguchi. The company never releases a bad game, but since its merger with Enix Corp. in 2003, it’s become a little too dependent on spinoffs and remakes of its core franchises, “Final Fantasy” and “Dragon Quest.” So when Square Enix releases something entirely original, it’s an event that brings joy to the hearts of old Square fanboys like me.

_”The World Ends With You” (Square Enix, for the Nintendo DS, $39.99): One look at this game, starting with the great title, should tell you that you’re not in a typical Square fantasyland. With highly stylized, thoroughly modern graphics, “The World” drops you in the middle of Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya district. Monsters called “Noise” are wreaking havoc throughout the area, even though most citizens can’t see them.

A punk named Neku has been chosen by a shadowy organization called the Reapers to play a game: Accomplish a series of missions within seven days or he’ll be “erased.” Since only Neku and his fellow players can see the Noise, fighting them seems like a logical place to start.

Battles use both screens of the DS: You use the stylus to control Neku on the bottom, and the directional pad to control a partner on the top. It’s confusing at first, but you quickly learn when to switch between characters. It’s an ingenious use of the DS technology, and a new skill (like controlling other people’s thoughts) seems to pop up in every mission. “The World Ends With You” is one of the freshest games in a long time, and most of its innovations work beautifully. Three-and-a-half stars out of four.

_”Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII” (Square Enix, for the PlayStation Portable, $39.99): Like 2006’s “Dirge of Cerberus,” “Crisis Core” fills out the back story of one of the supporting characters in the classic “Final Fantasy VII.” This time it’s Zack Fair, an old pal of “FFVII” hero Cloud Strife, although some other memorable figures from that game also return.

Zack is part of an elite corporate army called SOLDIER, so he gets into plenty of fights. You press the X button on the PSP to attack, and use the triggers to switch between other options, like healing or offensive spells. Occasionally, a slot machinelike device called the Digital Mind Wave pops up; it can give you more powerful attacks, but it’s far too random to rely on.

Zack and his partners, Angeal and Sephiroth, are sent on a mission to find out why a number of other SOLDIER operatives have deserted. The mystery provides interesting insight into the events of “FFVII,” but you don’t need to know that game’s plot to enjoy this one. Indeed, “Crisis Core” turns out to have a compelling story all its own, and it’s presented with all the visual and aural flair we’ve come to expect from Square Enix. Three stars.

_”Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates” (Square Enix, for the Nintendo DS, $39.99): “Ring of Fates” has a more familiar “FF” plot, with two very young kids fighting the spread of an ancient evil across a quasi-medieval kingdom. But even if that story makes you yawn, the game packs in enough action to satisfy any fan of role-playing games.

At its core, it’s a dungeon crawl, which means exploring mazes and killing lots of monsters. The protagonists fight mainly with swords, while supporting characters excel at long-range combat, magic and, um, summoning urns. (It’s more useful than it sounds.) Most of the time, you use the buttons on the DS to control the action on the top screen — but if you switch to the bottom screen, you can unleash more powerful attacks with the stylus.

You’ll need to master all your characters’ talents to make it through the more complicated dungeons, which are very cleverly designed. “Ring of Fates” is more challenging than you’d expect from a game that looks so cute, but that makes it all the more satisfying. Three stars.

This is great. Glad to see this series continuing.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Click over to see.

A combination of battle and race set in the future, where you drive a sports car that needs to shoot at certain enemy vehicles on the road and obtain special red and green fuel spheres to maintain a sufficient tank of gas in order to complete the rounds. You can also try to get a special auxiliary weapon dropped from an airship flying overhead. It’s one of Atari’s best efforts from the time.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Click ahead to see.

This was probably the first game to feature ninjas. It may also have a boss, but I’m not sure. It certainly does have a bonus stage though.

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

Yeah, I know, I’m trying to be funny with the letter K, aren’t I? Oh well, here’s the tape:

This is an early beat-em-up with a quasi-isometric viewpoint where you’re making your way through a haunted house battling everything from street thugs to vampires while rescuing what look like little kids stuck in glass cells by hitting pictures, of all things. A very odd game indeed.

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Submitted by videogame2play

From Gamespot:

While Lego Batman is being released on a multitude of platforms, Traveller’s Tales claims that this is the first Lego game that they’ve built specifically for next-gen platforms such as Xbox 360 and PS3. The environments are more detailed than those of Lego Star Wars, and they feature nice incidental effects, such as rats running around, and smoke rising from the grates. The game can also be played in two-player co-op across Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, while both versions will support 720p and 1080p resolution output. It’s also still hitting PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable with all the same content, while they’re currently experimenting with motion-sensitive batarang controls for the Wii.

With Lego Batman, Traveller’s Tales look set to replicate the same sly humour and solid co-op play that they pioneered with the Lego Star Wars series. It’s clear that the game isn’t trying to break major new ground, but rather take the fundamentals of the previous games and transport them to an entirely different comic book universe. With this and Lego Indiana Jones in the pipeline, it will be a busy year for the British developer, but we hold hope that the game will still make its planned Q4 2008 release date. With plenty of time before now and then, expect to see more on Lego Batman in the coming months.

[source]

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Submitted by Law of the Game

The following letter has been e-mailed to Mr. Beck directly, and is being re-posted on Law of the Game for my readers to enjoy.

Glenn,

First, let me say I am a fan, and listen to your radio show every day during my commute. However, over the weekend I caught your show from Thursday with the magic of TiVo, and I have to say the ‘Grand Theft Morality’ segment was a real disservice to the public at large. First, your panel was exceedingly one sided and biased. It was the equivalent of discussing global warming with Al Gore and Ted Turner. Given that you have had the authors of ‘Grand Theft Childhood’ on the show, I would have expected a more balanced guest list. Second, it is irresponsible for anyone to bring Jack Thompson on the air anymore. He has been sanctioned in Alabama and Florida and is facing disbarment in Florida for his courtroom shenanigans against the video game industry, which includes attaching homosexual pornography to court filings (which are available to anyone at any age in the general public). Most importantly, with no one there to even speak to the other side of the issue, it was a complete disservice to your viewers. Mr. Thompson makes many allegations which have been disproven, and he presents them as though they are still fact. Most notably, the complete myth that the Virginia Tech shooter was an avid gamer was not only invented by Mr. Thompson, but repeatedly disproven.

Here are some undisputed facts:

1. There is NO LINK between factual statistics on ‘cop killing’ and the release of Grand Theft Auto games. (http://gamepolitics.com/2008/04/29/fbi-stats-dont-support-claims-of-gta-series-as-cop-killing-simulation/)

2. There is no link between the violent crime rate and video game violence. (http://gamepolitics.com/2008/04/12/comparing-violent-crime-to-violent-game-releases/)

3. There are many studies showing that games don’t have the impact on behavior that people like Mr. Thompson espouse as fact. (http://gamepolitics.com/2008/04/02/new-study-game-violence-makes-players-less-angry/ and http://content.apa.org/journals/emo/8/1/114, among others)

4. In fact, studies show that it is a dysfunctional family that generally creates violence. (http://gamepolitics.com/2008/03/25/study-games-dont-spark-violence-but-dysfunctional-families-do/)

I have actually played Grand Theft Auto IV, which I assume neither you nor your guests have. For the first nearly full hour of the game, you quite literally drive people around, go on a date to a bowling alley (no sex in the entire sequence), and then get into a schoolyard fist fight with some thugs who are beating up your cousin. In terms of the actual storyline, it’s no more violent or sexual than a Martin Scorsese movie. All of the worst things you cite as part of the ‘experience’ are completely optional. Those films garner an ‘R’ rating, and this game has similarly garnered an ‘M’ rating, the game equivalent to ‘R.’

I find it troubling that someone like you would be perfectly fine with Jack Thompson’s government-imposed controls on content while decrying government interference and the ‘nanny-state’ on so many other fronts. No other packaged media (books, DVDs, CDs, etc.) in America has any government-controlled content restriction for the level of content that exists in these games. They are not pornography, and stating otherwise is a gross misrepresentation of fact. The ‘AO’ rating referenced in the segment is generally reserved for games whose content falls into what would be a film rating of ‘XXX.’ Most importantly, a number of states have passed laws similar to the one written by Mr. Thompson, imposing government regulation on games, and all of those laws have been struck down by the courts, many on First Amendment grounds. As someone who has repeatedly denounced the ‘fairness doctrine’ based on its chilling effect on free speech, I would hope your view would extend to other media in addition to your own.

Glenn, we’re not talking about placing this game deliberately in the hands of kids. Many stores do actually require ID to purchase games and movies that are rated M and R respectively. Ultimately, though, it should be the responsibility of the parents to monitor their child’s media consumption. The rating systems on TV, movies, and games make it much easier for a parent to do so, and if the point of your piece was simply to make parents aware, then your method of doing so was exceptionally overbroad. Telling your viewers to be careful if their husbands are playing this game was just absurdity. I have been playing video games for decades. I haven’t murdered anyone yet, and I have no plans to murder anyone in the immediate future. When any new form of media has been released, the public has always been quick to blame all of society’s ills on it until, eventually, people realize that it is not the media causing the problem, rather some other aspect of society. Putting on segments that only serve to increase the fear and unfounded hate of not only the games but those who play them has no benefit to the public at large. I hope that future segments dealing with the issue of video games would at a minimum include more credible anti-gaming guests, if not guests on both sides of the issue.

Thanks,
Mark Methenitis

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Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits

In two recordings:

A great action game where you control mutant fighters battling all sorts of other bad mutants who’ve overrun a cityscape. The powers available are awesome. I just wish this weren’t a cheat-mode taping. If I can ever find a better recording of this, I’ll make sure to post it here.

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