For the past few years a ton of both major and minor games have been banned for sale in Australia (Left 4 Dead 2 is just the most recent example) simply because the current game ratings do not extend to adults like movies and television do. As a new article on the Australian based site News.com.au reveals, part of the reason is a hold out by just one person.
That person is South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. The ratings system can be changed if all of the country’s attorney generals agree to do so but Atkinson feels things should stay as they are. He feels that games can be a bad influence on certain people, saying, “It certainly does restrict choice to a small degree, but that is the price of keeping this material from children and vulnerable adults. In my view, the small sacrifice is worth it.” Not everyone agrees. Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls feels that the current ratings set-up is “out of touch” with what the rest of the world does.
I’ve told you, Totilo’s told you and McWhertor’s told you: you can’t get through Red Steel 2‘s swordfighting combat by just flicking your wrist once or twice.
But if you’re sick of us telling you that — or you’d just prefer to hear it in the developer’s own words — check out Ubisoft’s new Red Steel 2 Insider video. You not only get the background technical explanation of why MotionPlus is a must, but some actual footage of sword-swinging gameplay.
I know tonight will be a lonely night without the company of our dear Luke Plunkett, preoccupied by premarital errands like visiting the florist and polishing his tuxedo black Nike sweet classics. But you have this day note to keep you company!
Day two of being back in the United States of America, land that I love, has been a bit of a challenge. Staying awake and staying alert with my body on Japan time, even with the help of some Monster energy drink that takes like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, isn’t easy when you have a constitution as delicate as mine. I only hope that I can muster up some energy and remain coherent during tomorrow’s Bonus Round taping at MTV. If not, expect more whining from me tomorrow!
Remember the new firmware update which Nintendo just sent out to do away with all those nasty people who have been running the Homebrew Channel? You know, another one of those feeble attempts to lock something down which the hacking community will have found a workaround to with in a couple of days?
Well, it’s already been worked around for those of you who don’t mind voiding your warranty, but we all knew that was going to happen. Where the actual news comes in is that there have been reports of the update rendering perfectly normal, unmodified Wii consoles inert.
The issue seems to be occurring during the downloading process. Reports on NeoGAF and Nintendo’s technical support forum claim that the download is freezing before completing and then will not reboot. Word is that the changes to one of the programs is causing write errors which prevent the system from starting up.
To their credit, Nintendo has already addressed the issue in a statement on their support forum (who says hackers are the only ones who can work quickly in these situations?). They claim that the issues are predominately occurring on modified consoles but have offered assistance in the form of free repairs to Wii owners who have never — even unwittingly — participated in such shenanigans as doing what they wish with the product they spent their money to own.
Measuring the 500 largest corporations in America, Newsweek found no video game maker in the top 100 and even rated Activision behind environmental bogeyman ExxonMobil.
Newsweek’s methodology draws on ratings in three different categories and, interestingly, Activision is the leader in its sector (“Consumer Products, Cars”) by a scant margin over Electronic Arts, in the “Environmental Impact Score” category. Respectively, Activision and EA rate 65th and 66th overall. The damage done to Activision’s score came in its “Green Policies and Performance (457 of 500) and “Reputation Survey” (358 of 500). That was enough to sink the games publisher to No. 416 overall.
By contrast, ExxonMobil is at No. 395. EA didn’t suffer as much in the other scores, and came out at No. 381. GameStop was the greenest games company, clocking in at No. 228.
Of the three metrics, the “Environmental Impact Score” seems the most empirical, covering data capturing “the total cost of all environmental impacts of a corporations global operations,” according to one firm. The data is then normalized against a company’s revenues to produce a truer metric, whatever the hell that means. “Green Policies” and “Reputation Score” are more built on opinion and analysis by third parties.
Whatever this means, beyond a major newsmagazine bootstrapping its relevance to the top social concern of the hour, you can see for yourself at the link.
The writer of 2006′s Silent Hill movie adaptation will be spending the next year behind bars. Variety reports that Academy Award-winning screenwriter Roger Avary was sentenced to a one year jail term today for a 2008 car crash in California that took the life of a passenger in his car while Avary was driving in 2008.
Avary pleaded guilty last month for gross vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving in the incident. In addition to his year in jail he will have a five year probation period. Just before the car crash Avary was set to both write and direct a movie version of id Software’s Wolfenstein. He’s also attached to write a sequel to the Silent Hill movie.
Last March, I got a look at ngmoco’s upcoming project lineup, which included announcements of more Rolando 2 and a quick look at an iPhone shooter called Eliminate.
Whatever I saw (and at this point, it’s reduced to a hazy recollection), it didn’t look as nifty as this trailer. And it didn’t look half as good as the game itself plays — but I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow when an embargo expires.
For now, get a look at the slick trailer/game tutorial and ask yourself if all iPhone apps shouldn’t require such polish and humor.
Sony is rolling out new firmware—version 6.10 for those keeping track—for the PlayStation Portable any minute now in preparation of the launch of the PSPgo. What’s new? Bluetooth tethering for one.
Tethering may be the most enticing new feature in the imminent PSP firmware update, offering an alternative method for connecting to the internet via a Bluetooth device. And since that’s a Bluetooth feature, we’re guessing that’s for PSPgo owners only, as that device features built-in Bluetooth.
Slightly less enticing is new SensMe music categorization support, a proprietary Sony application that automatically categorizes whatever music PSP owners have transferred to the device. If you’ve ever wanted to listen to some tunes that are “Evening” flavored, SensMe has you covered.
Finally, PlayStation Network Ops director Eric Lempell says that a new PlayStation Store interface for the PSP’s Media Go software will be supported in 6.10. It looks very iTunes-esque from our expert squinting.
Expect the newest firmware update to hit soon. Very soon.
Say hi to Hello Games, creators of the self-announced Joe Danger, a promising looking “stunt-em-up” that looks to give fans of Excitebike style action and blue skies something to get excited about next Spring.
Hello Games—recently formed by folks formerly of studios such as Kuju, Climax, Criterion, EA and elsewhere—also name-checks LittleBigPlanet in its game announcement, even though Excitebike had a level editor too, a feature that the side-scrolling stunt racer Joe Danger will offer gamers. I suppose since that Joe Danger’s is in-game, the LBP comparison is apt.
Whatever downloadable platform the game is coming to hasn’t yet been announced, but we’ll be keeping an eye on Joe. For now, you’ll have to attempt to satisfy your curiosity at the game’s official site.
It’s not exactly a shock, but it does appear that Electronic Arts is moving forward on the sequel to their 2008 sci-fi survival horror game Dead Space. The latest evidence comes in the form of a LinkedIn job listing for EA’s Visceral Games studio, stating that the game “is in the later stages of pre-production, ready for production in the next few months.”
Dead Space apparently sold well enough that EA commissioned two more sequels be made according to a recent Variety article. However they will have to be made without one of the original game’s leaders. Visceral Games’ general manager Glen Schofield jumped ship a few months ago to join Activision.
Measuring the 500 largest corporations in America, Newsweek found no video game maker in the top 100 and even rated Activision behind environmental bogeyman ExxonMobil.
