My favorite horrormeister speaks out on video game violence legislation

While we don't see much from author Stephen King much in the video game world, he has enlightened the imaginations and nightmares of many of us. Especially if we have been fortunate enough to read the books and not just see the screen adaptations, but that is another story altogether. Turns out his writing expertise is not spent solely on his novels and short stories, he also writes for Entertainment Weekly online regarding items of current pop culture. This week his article is about the legislation currently in the Mass. house (HB 1423) to restrict or outright ban the sale of "violent" video games to those under the age of 18. It is a very good article to read and if anyone reading this is from the state of Massachussettes I would strongly encourage you to contact your local state representative about this bill.
There have been several atempts to do this in other states and they have all failed to pass stating as protected under 1st Amendment rights. Currently there is an attempt going on in the Arizona state senate. As stated on the Video Game Voters Network MySPace blog - "HB 2660 aims to circumvent the Constitution by penalizing video game developers and blaming them for society’s ills. This bill punishes individuals who produce or distribute so called "dangerous" materials. The bill defines these materials as anything an accused individual might claim "drove" them to commit a felony or act of terrorism. "
So if you are in the state of Arizona or know someone who is please have them contact their representative and let them know your feelings on this matter.

Unreal Tournament 3

OK, this game has been out for a while now so I feel that it is a truly fair game to rant against. They have had plenty of time for updates and patches.

My first argument is that Epic had a great game with UT2004. The load screens and times were fair. It was user friendly in many ways and all in all a nice game to play and look at. With the new engine I can understand some changes coming but did you really need to frell up the basics of the game?! What the frak!? Just to get past the basic menu selections are a chore. How many times do I need to say that I want to play a frelling game?
Your server history also only holds so many servers before it just quits showing any more. So if you have met your limit and you get on the great server that you actually love to play on, you are unable to save it to favorites because you can only do that from the server history! You can only access your friends list from the community area which you have to go all the way back to the main menu to get to. The in order to add your friends you have to not only know exactly what their name is and how to spell it correctly but then you have to ask them and they then have to respond and then they have to ask you and then you have to respond top them! WTF?! I miss the simplicity of "right click-add to favorites" and "right click-add to buddies" . Why couldn't that have stayed?
I mean, the game is beautiful and has lots of potential (when you can get pass the frakkin' crashes and .dll errors). When I first put it on my system (which significantly exceeded it min. req's) I had to clean boot my system in order to run the game. No support was given to help me figure out why after multiple posts to forums. There are huge long threads in the Unreal Forums about others having problems with this and no solutions given. Not a single patch has helped and some even made it worse! A change in my OS ended up fixing whatever was wrong before.
This leads also to another issue I have (this is a rant, duh), after spending $50 on this game and finding out that I couldn't get it to run normally on my system I had no choice but to keep it anyway because you cannot return opened computer software to retailers! ARRGGHHH!!! If I am responsible and know my system specs and have run the demo with no problem and decide to buy the full version of the game to take it home , install, and try to run and find out at that time that it doesn't work - I should be able to return said merchandise without grief from the frelling store! I get the whole copying and getting money back thing and whatnot but why should those of us with legitimate issues have to pay the price when the cost of games are so excessively high? I mean if I really wanted to get a game without paying the full price for it I wouldn't bother with buying and returning the game I would get it from one of my many friends around the world who will generously let me have for no cost what so ever. Games I really want I buy and if I am unsatisfied with a product I should be able to return it, period.
Well I think I am tired out now. We can only hope that UT games run the gambit like Star Trek films with every other one being great. I am just pissed that I had to find out the hard way that this is just not what we expected from the pre-release hoopla.

More Final Fantasy Goodness coming to the DS

Like Shawn I also picked up a DS for the classic RPG and strategy game goodness on the system. In addition to Final Fantasy 4 we are gonna be blessed with the US release of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 in June according to www.ign.com. Square Enix is rewarding their fans in this game by allowing you to plug your old GBA game into your DS to unlock bonus items on the sequel, which I happen to think is really cool.

Also if you are into to RPG/Strategy on the DS make sure you check out Atlus games. They tend to do the US versions of lots of interesting games from japan.

Hunter

P.S. Uwe Boll has another box office bomb coming out. The trailer for postal has launched on www.ign.com and I have to say it looks like he was trying to offend the maximum possible number of people with that movie.

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Now playing: Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
via FoxyTunes

Mildly Amusing

I found this mildly amusing. Some gamers who love their IP's have started a petition to stop Uwe Boll from making movies anymore. Apparently the publicity hungry perpetrator caught wind of this and Uwe now promises to retire if the petition garners one million signatures. Yeah right.

You realize you can just not watch these movies right? If you stop watching he goes away.

Stop Dr. Uwe Boll Petition

(Note to self... Dr? What the fuck is the little prick a doctor of? Answer: Literature Maybe he could write for me when he retires.)

Bully Banned in Brazil (Now repeat 5 times fast)

Bully:Scholarship Edition has been banned in Brazil due to a ruling by a local Judge. Apparently a youth group brought the suite against the game.

The reason Bully was banned? Because it is set in the school.

How the hell could this ruling come out of a county like Brazil. Does Portuguese not have a word for Irony?

from Joystiq

FF IV coming for DS

According to Joystiq Final Fantasy IV will be coming out on the DS on July 22. Not only will it bring with the gameplay we love of old but will also feature new content, some voiced cutscenes (the word "some" there makes me a little leery), and of course 3d graphics

I must say I enjoyed the release of FF III on the DS. I bought the system primarily for the old style RPG's and now it seems Nintendo is finally starting to catch up.

Not an April Fool's Gag

Jumping in today for my 'hello world.' I'm Josh, I've known Shawn since back in our high school days, and I've been asked to throw my two cents into the blog. (I also did the English degree too...but mine's a BS. That's right. And yes, I have heard that joke already, don't go thinking you're all creative.) I'll be more than happy to do so, though I'm still waiting to see just what kind of role I'll be able to take here. Should I be the token 'guy in Japan?' The gaijin otaku (foreign geek, just in case anybody here was unaware...it's been 2 years since I've been around people who DIDN'T know what those words mean)? Just another voice weighing in?

Bah, I'll do it as I've always done, wing it and see what goes over best.

But I'll be dropping in on occasion with a little of the 'slice-of-life-in-Japan' that I can offer, especially since my time here ties very closely in to my love of games anyway. My 'expertise' industry-wise begins and ends with the systems I own, and I always seem to be a generation behind. Still, I can talk a little about importing, and a lot about life in Nintendo's (and Sony's and Sega's and SquareEnix's and and and...) homeland.

Anyway, looking forward to sharing what I can. For tonight, I leave you with the following homework (especially those of you who've been wasting the past few weeks/months/years on Rock Band or Guitar Hero): Bemani. Look it up. Learn it. Love it.

Welcome

First I'd like to say I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I was on a business trip for most of the week and then changed shifts at my job (because running the website pays so well. Just ask any of the other authors).

I'm sure all of you have noticed the influx of other authors into this blog. I would like you to welcome them all. I currently have three of my old college buddies (all with English or computer degrees) Robbie, David, and Hunter.

Also Marci, a friend and co-worker of mine has joined. I feel that she will be able to add a lot to the website.

And finally Josh will be joining us. He's an old friend of mine who's currently living in Japan.

All of these people and more in the future will be working and volunteering to make this site the one stop gaming source on the web.

Thanks all.

Yet another Introduction

Well I have been asked if I can occasionally share my point of view on games and the industry, like an idiot I said "Sure!". JK.
Well to start things off I am viewing games from the perspective of a girl gamer. Yeah, I'm a chick! All that aside, I love the first person shooter gametype, along with rpg's, adventure, and trivia/puzzle solving (i.e. Myst, etc.). I started console gaming with the Atari 2600 in my early days and fortunately was able to move onward and upward. Currently I have 5 different consoles in the house (not a single 360 or ps3 though), including the Wii. A large majority of my gaming does happen on my computer though. I have 2 of those, one with XP and one with Vista. Don't ask me why I have Vista it was the hubby's idea. Fortunately it is only on one machine! Well I think that is me in a nutshell (Shawn will testify that a nutshell is fairly accurate too). If you can deal with me rambling as well as ranting you just might actually get something from my posts. Now I just have to think of something decent to write about :)