Governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman (R), has decided to veto HB 353. The bill proposed to increase fines for video game and movie retailers that did not uphold self-imposed policies that restrict sales of mature content to minors. The Governor had the following to say about the matter:
The industries most affected by this new requirement indicated that rather than risk being held liable under this bill, they would likely choose to no longer issue age appropriate labels on goods and services. Therefore, the unintended consequence of the bill would be that parents and children would have no labels to guide them in determining the age appropriateness of the goods or service, thereby increasing children’s potential exposure to something they or their parents would have otherwise determined was inappropriate under the voluntary labeling system now being recognized and embraced by a significant majority of vendors. (Source: saintless.com)
I applaud Gov. Huntsman for being able to think this all the way through and recognize the possible ramifications of signing this bill. It’s reassuring to see a politician that is able to spot unintended consequences (as previously discussed here) and to then take appropriate action. So, chalk one up for the video game industry and democracy in general. This is a welcome victory, especially coming from such a conservative state as Utah.
Advocate informs me that Gov. Huntsman is reportedly trying to pave his way for a future presidential bid. This led me to quip that if he’s willing to help out the video games industry then he’s got my vote. “Against Obama?” Well, not so much. Settle for a high-five, Mr. Huntsman?
OK, no more being M.I.A. Killing my laptop (literally beaten to death) has limited my options to post since WordPress sites are on the ban list at work. My new computer will be built by the end of this weekend so no more excuses. A lot more writing in the near future. Also, I’m going to sledgehammer my laptop when I get this new rig finished and I promise to take a video of it. It’s going to be very Office Space.
Went to the Cut Copy show Monday night and took part in Indie Dance Party, USA. The show was an absolute blast. Matt & Kim proved that they are quite possibly the perfect opening band: high energy, short songs, gushing enthusiasm. Seriously, I’ve never seen two people so happy to have a stage. Cut Copy brought down the house. Their 1.5 hour set flew by and I was sad to see them go. The entire show was a hip-shaking good time, even for those who struggle to bust a move like myself. If this tour is coming to a city near you I suggest you try to be there.
Valve released an update to Left 4 Dead last night with a host of fixes and changes.
Quick aside: When did developers stop referring to game fixes as patches and start calling them updates? I think this is a bit shady. An update, in my eyes, is new features or content. Making gameplay improvements, fixing mechanics, eliminating exploits, etc. is a patch. PR people probably don’t like the term patch because it has a negative connotation but it doesn’t necessarily have to imply that a game is bug-ridden. This release is a patch, the new content due out soon is an update.
I digress… a sampling of the more crucial changes:
Versus Mode Changes
- Tank melee can now hit multiple Survivors in one swing
- Fixes to ‘Tank parking.’ The tank will now run back and attack the Survivors if he becomes AI due to two players expiring the frustration meter
- The Smoker tongue can now target and grab victims through common infected
- Increased the cone in which a Smoker can grab a target
- Boomers that now explode in mid-air will now hit Survivors directly below them with Bile
- Tanks now have the possibility of spawning in a slightly different position for the first and second teams
- The order that the teams play as Survivors is now determined by which team has the overall higher score. The winning team will play as Survivors first
The last two alterations are really significant in my eyes and make me excited to get back to playing some Versus mode. It was incredibly frustrating that the team who played Infected first in each round would know where and when the Tank would spawn and could gameplan accordingly. Mixing up the location in addition to playing a ‘losers’ style round system should make things much more interesting.
There are a handful of other changes which you can view through the Steam client after updating. For whatever reason, the Steam News post about this only lists a few of the least important changes.
This week two more Big Deal titles are being released which will continue the hot streak the industry has been on to start 2009. Madworld, the uber-violent Running Man meets Sin City game for Wii, was released yesterday. Coming this Friday? A little game you may or may not have heard about called Resident Evil 5. Friday is the 13th; clever marketing, silly gimmick, or strange coincidence?
I really like seeing a higher number of top-tier titles being released in a period outside of the holiday crunch. The only problem is that so many great games have come out recently that I haven’t had time to play them all! The Stack has continued to grow and looks to increase by two again this week. Too many great games to play is definitely a good problem to have.
Also revealed: some people haven’t got a clue. EA Sports asked the masses to choose who would be on the cover of Fight Night Round 4: Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson. Today they announced that “…the final results favored having both legends on the cover.” I just threw up a little in my mouth.
As a huge fan of boxing and the Fight Night series I can’t help but feel that this is a rabbit punch to the sport. Tyson has no business being on the same cover as Ali.
That being said, I completely understand why EAS made this decision but I don’t condone it. This is a brilliant maneuver by EAS because it will certainly move units. Everyone who plays Fight Night wants to answer the question of who would win this fight.
Tyson is far and away the most iconic boxer of my generation. He had incredible power and was terrifying in the ring, however, he was not a truly gifted boxer. ‘Buster’ Douglas proved that if you didn’t back down from him and fought tough then he was not invincible like everyone thought.
His presence has been sorely missing in boxing games since Punch-Out!! and I am glad to know I’ll be able to virtually punch him in the face again. When playing Round 3 I found myself asking, ‘Where’s Tyson?’ I longed to fight against Tyson with the heavyweight greats like Frazier, Marciano, and most definitely, Ali. So, I’m thrilled he’s back.
However, putting him on the cover with Ali is sacrilege. Ali is the greatest boxer of all-time and arguably the greatest athlete in history. If you have any doubts as to whether this is true, go watch his 3 fights with Frazier, his two massacres of Liston, or the greatest display of guile (outside of Street Fighter) and toughness when he took out half-man, all-monster George Foreman. And we’re talking Foreman in his prime, not the 50 year old, reformed, grill selling machine. Think Tyson was a scary dude? Check out Foreman in his hayday.
So, put him in the game; fantastic. Put him on the cover, too, if you like. No argument here. But, please, don’t put him on there with Ali. I don’t care if it’s the first match that every Round 4 owner would play; it’s a disservice to The Greatest.
EAS wants everyone to ask the question ’Ali or Tyson?’ Real boxing fans already know how it will turn out: Ali survives until the third round at which point ‘Iron’ Mike starts kicking and gets DQ’d.
Sony announced today that inFamous is currently scheduled for release in June of this year. They also state that there will be a demo for the PS3 exclusive sometime in the near future. I’m guessing that will be available on PSN sometime before the end of April.
inFamous is from the creators of the Sly Cooper games, Sucker Punch, and places you in control of an electricity wielding messenger named Cole. I’ve scoped out some videos of this game in action and I’m pretty excited to play it. Cole has some impressive electrical abilities that are more creative than your generic bolt and chain-lightning type stuff. inFamous looks to be direct competition for Prototype (if it ever releases) in the third person guy-with-powers ass whooping contest.
Trailer will give you the general idea:
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Newton’s third law was concerned with motion but it is quite often applicable outside the realm of physics. Utah House reps seem to have forgotten this when voting to pass the now infamous Jack Thompson bill that would impose stiffer fines for video game retailers and movie theaters who do not enforce their self-imposed restrictions on selling Mature rated games or R-rated movies to minors.
Kotaku.com has published an open letter from ESRB President Patricia Vance which elaborates on the very realistic consequences of passing this law. This part, quoted from said letter, sums it up best:
On its face such an amendment makes good sense; after all, if a retailer says they’re going to do something, they should do it, right? While the intent of this legislation would be to hold retailers accountable for compliance with their stated policies – presumably in that negligible 6% of instances where they fail to comply – the unfortunate reality is that it would introduce a liability that will likely force many retailers to seriously consider abandoning their voluntary policies and ratings education programs, undoing years of progress made on behalf of parents and their children.
These are ramifications the politicians clearly did not anticipate. This is why it is important to consider the possible outcomes of passing any law. I have no doubt that the Utah legislators believed they were doing a morally Good Thing. Unfortunately, in the real world, even the best intentions can turn out wrong and this appears to be headed in that direction.
I have to question the logic of passing this bill in the first place. Why punish companies more when they are voluntarily providing regulation of mature content sales to minors? The obvious answer to that question, especially in these economic times, is to generate more funds for the state.
Politicians love to label violent games as the cause of society’s problems but, seriously, were these policies being violated enough to warrant this piece of legislation in the first place? According to that letter, not at all. If I was a taxpaying Mormon in Utah I would question how my elected officials are spending their time and my money when this is a top priority.
The beautiful part of this is that a second law will need to be passed to force the retailers to implement the previously voluntary policies that will inevitably be eliminated in this law’s wake. I’m no lawyer but I think that might be a tough one to pass. Until then we can all sit on the sidelines and chuckle.
I am a PSU grad in addition to being a lifelong fan (MaDukes attended State as well). I bleed blue and white. Since 2001, when we made the Sweet 16, our basketball team has been pretty poo-poo. However, following the hiring of Ed DeChellis our team has been getting better each season. This year I’ve been quietly optimistic that we’d make the NCAA tourney as we had some good victories and eclipsed the 20 win mark. All week the talk has been that we are most likely one of the last four teams in.
I nearly shed a tear when I visited ESPN.com and saw my boys on the front page after we won last night when Battle hit a ridiculous shot with 0.3 seconds left. This finished a late 10 point rally to overcome No. 23 Illinois 64-63 and possibly earned us a bid in The Dance. I’m so stoked. It would be really nice to have a reason to watch the tourney other than tracking my brackets this year.
Don’t do us dirty selection committee! Crossing my fingers…
WE ARE!!!
Recap on ESPN.
One of IGN’s latest features is to revisit videogame classics and ask whether or not they are overrated. The most recent game to be discussed (full article) is Square’s epitome of JRPG goodness, Final Fantasy VII (FF7).
See what I did there? I instantly qualified FF7 as the best JRPG ever, the quintessential example of the genre, before even getting started. Levi Buchanan’s article is flawed from the get-go because he places FF7 on the same pedestal.
He presupposes that FF7 is considered to be the best RPG of all-time. The problem with writing an article that starts with that position is that I don’t believe it’s an assessment that most serious RPG gamers would give. I have had the best RPG debate quite a few times and it doesn’t usually come up as a candidate. Some of the usual suspects are Chrono Trigger, Baldur’s Gate (pick one), and Final Fantasy III (I know it’s really FFVI but I played it as III so it will always be III to me). FF3 is my favorite game of all-time so that shows you where I stand.
So, I’m interested to know how he came to the opinion that FF7 is considered the greatest RPG ever. Is this his opinion? Have RPG gamers around the IGN office told him that? Judging from the comments of his coworkers in the article, they appeared split in their opinions of the game. A game this hotly disputed can hardly be called the best ever if there’s not some semblance of agreement as to its status in the first place.
Maybe it’s the best because it has sold better than all others? If that was a valid argument then Wii Play would be one of the greatest sports games in history. What I’m getting at here is that it’s terrible to begin a discussion of whether something is overrated or not by crowning it as the best ever. That issue is really a separate discussion from determining if something is overrated.
Let’s take a real world comparison. Is Johnny Unitas an overrated quarterback? A lot of older folks would say he was the best QB ever. Knowing this, I could easily surmise that he is the best and begin the evaluation from there. However, looking at the facts, Joe Montana had better stats, more championships, playoff wins, etc. Many people would say that Joe is the best QB ever but that’s not really important. What matters is that the point is disputed enough that you can’t definitively say that Unitas is the best ever. Nor Montana. So, if you’re writing an article discussing whether or not Johnny Unitas is overrated and you’re beginning with the opinion that he is considered the best QB ever, then you’re probably going to determine that he’s overrated. I don’t think there is a single person who really knows football that would say Unitas was overrated.
This same line of thought needs to be applied to FF7. If you are starting with the presupposition that it is the best RPG ever then yes, it’s probably overrated. I don’t think it’s right to start from that point when, clearly, a lot of people vehemently disagree. So, the discussion of whether or not FF7 is overrated should begin with the idea that it is great but not the quintessential RPG.
Let’s start from there then. Is FF7 overrated if you are evaluating it as being absolutely awesome but not necessarily the greatest RPG of all time? In my opinion, hell no! FF7 is a fantastic game. It broke new ground with graphics in the genre, had an awesome story that kept you guessing at every turn, featured wonderful characters, a fresh take on magic using Materia, stunning summons, and, most importantly, was downright fun to play. That’s all that really matters. The game was a blast to play. If you didn’t have fun playing FF7 then you aren’t going to have fun playing any RPG. You can argue that many RPG’s have superior stories or better battle systems but you simply cannot say that the game is not fun.
If you consider FF7 to be the best RPG ever then, in that light, it is probably overrated. However, if you consider it to be anything less than that I’d have to say it lives up to the lofty accolades that are placed upon it.
What do you think? Is FF7 actually the greatest RPG ever and I don’t know anything? Does anyone care if it’s overrated if it’s fun to play?
I saw this post over on gamerswithjobs.com a few weeks ago when it first went up but I forgot about it until I was listening to the Conference Call podcast yesterday and it was brought up. Julian “rabbit” Murdoch recounts a recent unnerving experience while playing a video game. I’d tell you more but it would ruin the narrative of the post. Here’s an excerpt:
“Time speeds up. Everything is edges and flat planes. The white walls are supersaturated with the orange glow of the single incandescent bulb illuminating the basement. I stand up, steadying myself against the soft, soft wall.
But that’s not right, I think. Concrete walls. Drywall floors. Ouch. I move for the stairwell.”
The post is very interesting, well written, and only a page long so please head on over and read it. It’s good to be able to comprehend some of what others have to deal with on a regular basis.
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