Monthly Archives: March 2005

There and back again…

So I made it back from the Popular Culture Association in sunny San Diego. There were 6 videogame panels in two days and although I missed a couple, the 4 I caught were great. If you’re looking for a nice conference to go to you could do worse than the PCA.
The flight back was a nightmare, however. I had a flight from San Diego that left at 10pm pacific time back to Indianapolis.. …via Newark! I had a 3 hour layover in Newark and didn’t get back to Indy until 11:30am the next day. A 6ft4 guy in the back of the plane ain’t a god time.
While I was waiting in Newark I also had a unique experience. I’ve got friends from all over the world so I think I’ve gotten pretty good at understanding non-native speakers of english. The woman working at the airport stumped me though. She had a Mexican accent, which, again, I like to think I can do a pretty good job of understanding. However, on top of that, she had a New Jersey accent! That threw me for a loop.
Waiting for me when I got back home was my newest addiction: DDR! I played it at the Game On exhibit in Chicago and realized that I am horribly out of shape, so now I am on the DDR exercise routine! The fat is just melting away!

g4m3rs 4 gØd part II: l33t 4 teh lØrd

Those with a good memory may remember that back in September I saw a flyer for a Halo party put on by a religious organization. I guess these guys were ahead of the curve. Over at Water Cooler Games, I saw a link to a story about The Saga of the XBox – ”How To Witness Using Halo 2” that talked about a couple of ministries using Halo 2 as a way of reaching people. The original article, How to Witness Using ‘Halo 2’ gives more details on it, as well as an interesting interpretation of the Halo story. As someone who once wrote an article comparing Doom to working in a corporation, I can appreciate interesting interpretations.

However, I wonder if they wouldn’t be better off using Painkiller which is about fighting demons anyway? Still, it is an interesting phenomenon. I wonder how they feel about the laws attempting to ban the sale of games like Halo 2 to minors?

Game over man! Game over!

I went to the Game On exhibit in Chicago last Monday and I give it thumbs up. I had heard that they used emulators, but almost all the machines there actually were on original hardware. They did have one MAME machine connected to a big screen but the rest were actual arcade machines and consoles. I finally got to play an Atari Jaguar and have to agree that it does have a very odd controller. It seems like it your fingers should go up in the front but it doesn’t have trigger or shoulder buttons.
There were some omissions, of course. Computer games were under-represented. There was no Doom, or Quake or even Ultima or Diablo. There was, however, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Other omission were online games of all kinds and fighting games (there was a copy of one of the street fighters). In fact, the only FPS game was Metroid Prime which people claim isn’t really a FPS at all.
Despite these holes, the exhibit was rather complete with everything from Space Invaders to DDR, from Donkey Kong to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. We spend three hours in there playing games. All in all, it was worth the trip. Check it out if you can!

A “Far Cry” from how it used to be…

A long time ago I wrote:

Dear Game Developers,
Stop pissing me off. Let me use both of my cd drives when I install your games.
Thank You.

Well, yesterday I saw Far Cry on sale for $19.99 and so I bought it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the DVD version, but the 5 CD version. I got home and began to install it. I put disk one in my main cd drive (which is of course a dvd drive…) and put disk 2 in my other cd drive (which, of course, is also a dvd drive… see a pattern here?). I had anticipated on trying to switch the drive letter when it asked for disk 2. However, imagine my surprise when it asked for disk 3! It automatically knew that I had disk 2 in the other drive and didn’t even ask me for it. Sweet! I applaud Crytek or ubisoft or whoever it was that made the installer smart enough to know I have two disk drives!

However, as far as the game itself goes… All of you people that gave it 90% and higher. Where can I get some of that crack you’re smoking? I mean, I’m only an hour into it or so, but the game seems really blaa and unremarkable. Sure it is all outside, but that’s more or less the only remarkable feature I’ve seen so far. Of course I have barely gotten into it, so I won’t judge it too harshly, yet. It might get more awesomness-ativity later on.

In other news, I’m heading up to Chicago Monday to take in the Game On exhibit. I’ve been waiting for this to get stateside since I got the book and wrote a review of it (thank goodness for Archive.org! even though Joystick101 is back online, the archives seem to be missing and I can’t find my original copy of the review). I’ll be sure to give my rundown of the exhibit when I get back in town. Check out some other people’s comments over at slashdot.

60 minutes …for me to poop on!

Oh you just know I got something to say about our friend Jack Thompson’s appearance on 60 Minutes last week in a story about how evil Grand Theft Auto is. Although Cathode Tan has done a far more complete job of dissection the (il)logic of Jack Thompson Postmodern Attorney.

I just expect Jack Thompson to say that videogames are evil. What I don’t expect is for 60 Minutes, allegedly one of the most respected new programs on the American airwaves, to do a story on videogame violence without any real opposing side being presented or without seeming to stop and question the legitimacy of Thompson who has had a long history of harassing Janet Reno as well as a Miami DJ who finally had to take out a restraining order against him. If only 60 Minutes could have spent some time doing research. I know that typing lawyer “Jack Thompson” into google is really tough, but I’m sure they could get an intern to do it or something.

Then there is also the fact that Ed Bradley, he with the hip earring, didn’t seem to bother playing Grand Theft Auto, but just watched someone play it. So does that mean I can just read the screenplay of a film and say that is the same as having seen the film? Once again, if only 60 Minutes could get some interns to take an hour or so to teach Ed Bradley how to play a game.

Now I don’t want to say that 60 Minutes is for old people who like to say things like, “Those damn kids these days!” but it certainly seems like the only purpose of this story is just to scare people. No fact checking seems to have been done. No verification of the authority of the accusations. The only person they talked to was from the ESA and didn’t do much to defend himself.

If 60 Minutes is one of the most respected television news programs, then television news is nothing more than a bunch of sloppy fear mongers who are out of touch with reality. Maybe that’s the real story 60 Minutes was running last week…