G-pinions

I have to admit that, upon hearing about the push to change GTA from a Mature rating to the rarely used retail death sentence of Adults Only, I was all for it. My feelings about how much fun the franchise is aside, I honestly thought it would better for the industry as a whole to make one of the most violent games out more elusive to underage gamers. I may not be a huge fan of violent games in general, but I recognize that many people do like playing them. The only way to ensure companies can continue making whatever games they see fit is to get the media off their back. By making sure extremely violent games are AO, which means no one under 18 is allowed to buy them, I was hopeful that news reports chronicling the dementia of children caused by games would finally stop.

Of course, I was quite wrong. You give the dog a slice and they want the whole damn cake.

Now this crackpot lawyer out of Miami, one Jack Thompson, is shifting his sights to The Sims 2. He is pushing to make the ESRB change the rating of this game from Teens to Adults Only. When I first heard about this earlier today I laughed out loud. The Sims is the definitive casual gamer franchise right now. No one who's a gamer even plays these life simulations - they're too busy navigating box puzzles in Half Life 2. The Sims is so popular because it appeals to real gamer's moms and sisters. The idea that anything offensive could be found within a family friendly EA title was both shocking and surreal. Would EA really stoop as low as Rockstar to gain publicity and garner a few more sales?

Turns out that Jack Thompson was regurgitating what he saw on another website rather than play the game himself and do some actual research. As The Sims is supposed to represent every mundane activity one encounters during the course of a lifetime, there are a few occasions where you can view your Sim sans-clothing. How else would one change clothes or go to the bathroom? EA obviously knows how uptight Americans are about nudity, though, and made sure to affix a big blur right over any offensive areas. Using an easily accessible cheat, however, gamers can actually remove the blur to reveal an ultra sexy smooth surface, just like you'll find on a naked Barbie doll. Hot!

Jack Thompson doesn't believe this, though. Since this is an open-ended PC game that allows users to create their own content, Mr. Thompson found a site that offered a nude skin for your Sim. By combining the anti-blurring code with the nude skin you have some tiny polygonal penises and boobies. For shame, EA.

I can't wait until EA's lawyers get their hands on this case. Jack Thompson is clearly slandering EA. He is lying about their product in an attempt to hurt them. You would think that, seeing as he's a lawyer, he would know the laws of our country. He's going to find out the hard way what it means to make up stuff, though.

Trying to regulate user made content is not only ignorant it is unconstitutional. One of the main appeals for PC titles is the ability to create your own levels and skins. It's a chance to do a little programming of your own and alter the game to make it as enjoyable as possible for yourself. By trying to say The Sims 2 can warp children because they can make their own skins is completely absurd. I am sure that Jack Thompson didn't even realize what a user created skin was before he brought this issue up, but he'll learn soon enough that EA had nothing to do with naked Sims in their game. This is probably the only time I will ever root for EA, but I would love to see them use their corporate clout and lawyers to crush this stupid man and, hopefully, educate the general public a little about video games. I am sick of alarmist trying to pin all of the problems of today's youth on a form of entertainment. Make more games AO and make retailers actually enforce the age restrictions, but don't try to stir up controversy where there shouldn't be any.

Sweet merciful crap. I was all set to write in last night's post about how the announcement of Resident Evil 5 yesterday was an inevitable bore (we made arguably the best game of all time - let's just stop there...right), but then they go and show a TRAILER at Sony's Japanese press conference this morning. Looks similar to 4, but I dig running zombies and assuming it's all real-time (which it most certainly is), it's looking pretty gorgeous. So yeah, there's that - it was a bit of a shock to me.

They showed quite a few other new things, some of which I'll link to when I don't have work in 45 minutes. Well, just one, From Software's PS3 mech project, which looks sweet and has fully destructible environments. They also showed a super-sexy white PSP and announced that a web browser is coming out tomorrow in Japan (and no doubt shortly after that here), but the firmware update that it brings with it ruins all of the homebrew emulation usability, which is the systems main selling point at this stage (and for the forseeable future). Weak. Anyhow, RE5!

First, to the news at hand. Basically, GTA: San Andreas has just received an AO rating, based on a softcore sex scene hidden within the code that can be exposed with a cheat device. If you haven't been following the story, that is. So all current copies will get the new rating slapped on them, current printings will now have it, and future versions will be M again once the offending content has been removed. It would be easy to say 'fuck the ESRB', but it's even easier to say 'fuck this stupid country'. All the violence imaginable is fine for a seventeen year-old, but two people having consensual, mundane sex is too much for their innocent minds to handle? It makes my mind reel with the myriad social implications. When my dad attempted to break the news story to me a couple of days ago, he started to tell me how you can unlock some sort of rape feature in the game - I was infuriated not only that this ludicrous over-exaggeration had made it's way into my home, but poisoned the mind of someone usually quite wise and not easily influenced. I'm sure that every out-of-touch soccer mom in the country is licking her chops right now with the spoils of victory and a false sense of justice served, but no moron of any degree, including them, could watch the offending content and say it's worse than any R-rated movie they've ever seen. It's nowhere near, in fact, even if you consider sex exponentially more offensive than violence (and then what kind of twisted individual are you?). It frustrates me to an incredible degree just how much controversy and faux-offense comes out of such a pithy, throwaway scene. If these were times of photorealism and the game showed so much as a testicle we could start up meaningful conversation, but until that point it's just bureaucratic bullshit. Argh. Oh, best of all, Take-Two has lowered it's third quarter and fiscal year guidance to "reflect the expected NEGATIVE impact on the title's retail performance." Are they insane!?

What was I going to talk about anyways, before all this jazz? Ah, right! GUN! I've been waiting ages for Neversoft to do something other than Tony Hawk, as they do it so damn well, and cowboys is certainly a fine way to go about it. The first couple of screenshots released were laming is up pretty good, but this new trailer kicked my ass pretty entirely. It actually reminds me a bit of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, with even higher production values (though not as high art) - great third-person exploration (+ a horse) with awesome first-person combat. The movement of everything looks amazing, especially in first person, and the battles look epic. The physics and the gore look great, it's free roaming, and you can hunt, gamble and defend stagecoaches. Red Dead Revolver was a decent reminder of a long-ignored setting, but GUN is looking spectacular in every area, regardless of theme (though it does help, A LOT). It's definitely a big blip on my radar now, if not in the top ten for the rest of the year. Good for Neversoft, and hooray for something besides skateboarding.

Lastly, if you didn't already think King Kong (the game) is looking downright phenomenal, please read this article. Ancel is a genius, quite simply - and I want his game, BAD.

E3 gave me a small taste of the greatness to come of We Love Katamari, but I got to sink my teeth in a bit further yesterday when I spent some solid hands-on time with the import version. I didn't want to see too much, as the King's brilliant dialogue is half the fun and I didn't want the no doubt epic story too spoiled for me; but then again, I'm only human, and it's another Katamari game. First off, it should be known that this isn't an evolution in gameplay design in any regard - outside of the much more varied level design and experimentation, the core mechanics of rolling up junk are exactly the same. The goals are definitely more interesting, but again, it plays the same. An indoor house level which I played felt identical to the opening level of the first game, in fact. That's fine though, as the gameplay was brilliant to begin with - the new levels, such as the zoo and underwater areas that I played, are where the sequel shines. The zoo level has you rolling up all sorts of critters, nearly any animal imaginable. Flamingos try frantically to fly away from your rolling, twitching mass of creatures while tigers roar with futility as they're consumed. And, as promised, the background song is comprised of animals singing a medley of tunes from the first game. The underwater stage gives the Katamari slightly different physics, allowing you to careen gently past schools of piranha while searching for that elusive cuttlefish.



Everything is as charming and compelling as it's ever been, even in Japanese. The new intro and menu screen are great as well (the originals are ever so slightly more memorable), and the music is just as catchy once you get into it. And what of multiplayer? Well, co-op is a hair disappointing, even if it succeeds nobly at it's purpose - two players control the Katamari at once, basically forcing cooperation and communication to get anything accomplished. It's not as hard as it sounds (it's perhaps a little too easy actually), and feels almost the same as playing by yourself. Versus is fantastic now though, as the levels are much more full and you can actually be strategic about your paths, not just get the most stuff as quickly as possible. So overall, it's more of the same, but that's not such a bad thing - now I'm just waiting for a photo-realistic Katamari3 on the PS3. How creepy and terrifying would that be?

I somehow missed Genji at E3, probably because it didn't look much different or any better than Onimusha 4. I played a level or two in the same import-happy session as WLK, and they were fairly enjoyable. The combat seems somewhat simplistic, but the environments are stunningly lush and it seems to have a good story and setting going for it, even if it was hard to bear an untranslatable cutscene every thirty seconds. I guess Sony saw something extra-special in it since they're publishing it (at least they did in Japan, I'm too lazy/indifferent to look up the publisher here right now), and I can definitely see some potential in it. Hopefully everything gets tied together well when it comes over here.

Ha! Almost forgot I played Rumble Roses. It's one of those games you just have to play if it's available, just out of the sheer absurdity of it. I mean, I'm all for games like that existing - it might be incredibly specific and somewhat offensive, but hey, it's something different. Why can't games have the variance of the movie industry? Anyhow, the gameplay and control and all that is a bit sloppy, but the ladies are luscious and it very much accomplishes it's purpose. Beating your pal's foxy broad about the face with your foxy broad is a feat of entertainment I think everyone can appreciate.

Finally, Data and I began a potentially lifelong quest to finish Aquaman on Xbox. We played through the first three or four missions, and hilarity did indeed ensue. Crapshaith from to back, from the inexplicably horrid cutscenes made of comic pages using still real-time character models (which are awful in themselves) instead of drawings, to the now-famous "press the left trigger to impale your enemy with a dolphin, shark or hammerhead shark' move, to the mission where you grabs bombs off of underwater buildings, only to be able to throw them right back to explode on said building without repercussion. Anyhow, it was bad, but fun bad. I look forward to more, kind of like that one cheese that I like that smells like socks and tastes like socks but keeps me coming back for more.