Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
R18+ Rating For Computer Games Close
The Gillard Government appears to be ready to embrace the notion of an R18+ rating for adult computer games, after a review found there was little evidence of a strong link between violent computer games and violent crime or aggressive behavior.
The Minister for Home Affairs and Justice, Brendan O'Connor, released the review yesterday.
It comes shortly before a standing committee of attorneys-general from across Australia discuss the issue at a meeting in Canberra on Friday December 10.
Under consideration is a proposal to introduce the R18+ classification, restricting sales and viewing of adult games to people aged 18 and over. At present, since they are refused classification, such games cannot be sold in Australia.
O'Connor appeared to be amenable to the new category in his remarks yesterday.
"We need a classification system that protects young minds from any possible adverse affect, while also ensuring that adults are free to make their own decisions about what they play, within the bounds of the law," he said, adding: "I'm keen to proceed with making this important decision, based on solid and robust evidence."
The Gillard Government appears to be ready to embrace the notion of an R18+ rating for adult computer games, after a review found there was little evidence of a strong link between violent computer games and violent crime or aggressive behavior.
The Minister for Home Affairs and Justice, Brendan O'Connor, released the review yesterday.
It comes shortly before a standing committee of attorneys-general from across Australia discuss the issue at a meeting in Canberra on Friday December 10.
Under consideration is a proposal to introduce the R18+ classification, restricting sales and viewing of adult games to people aged 18 and over. At present, since they are refused classification, such games cannot be sold in Australia.
O'Connor appeared to be amenable to the new category in his remarks yesterday.
"We need a classification system that protects young minds from any possible adverse affect, while also ensuring that adults are free to make their own decisions about what they play, within the bounds of the law," he said, adding: "I'm keen to proceed with making this important decision, based on solid and robust evidence."
Flames of Vengeance
Hamburg/Germany, March 04th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.
Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 questsand about 15 hours of gameplay.
Coming August 2010. Link to Announcement
LSN: (major spoilers for Divinity II)
Can I get a 'thank gawd?' The ending to Divinity II was pitiful - the entire game felt like 1/3 of an awesome game.
An example of this: When you become a Dragon Knight, your previous mentor, a Dragon Slayer, gives you a sword, tells you to kill yourself, and then orders three veteran Slayers to kill you if you can't do this. She leaves, supposedly because watching her previous protégée die is too hard for her. Instead, you kill the three Slayers. Later, she pops up again, furious at your betrayal and blaming her own weakness for the death of her men. You’re in a major city though and the Captain of the garrison orders her sent to a cell. She leaves, but vows she’ll find you again to avenge her fallen comrades.
Compelling stuff… and we never see her again. Divinity II is fun, but it has about a half-dozen plotlines that abruptly end with no closure.
Which leads to a question: Shouldn't this have been in the game to begin with?
I often think that I'm too easy with game companies. The ending to Divinity II made me unhappy. It's remarkable similar to the endings of the first two games in that 1) your hero's efforts are for naught, and 2) there's obviously more to the story. Moreover, the ending was abrupt. In the first two games, I felt like I’d gotten an entire story, abet one that didn’t end as I’d like.
As soon as I saw the ending to Divinity II, I knew that the next game would be a continuation, not a new story. I sat there wondering if the developer’s funding had just run out – and I still suspect that’s exactly what happened.
So, how do I feel about Flames of Vengeance? I want it. I want the closure the first game didn’t give me, but should have. This makes me an idiot. I should in no way, shape, or form encourage developers to rush a game out the door and then finish the story in an expansion. At the same time, I understand. Making a game is not cheap; it’s very expensive and it takes time. I would rather a developer release half a story with the time and money they have, than go into debt and possibly lose their business.
What *actually* bothers me the most about this is that one of the best elements of the game is now gone. I’m speaking about the Dragon Knight Talana who jumps into the PC’s head at the beginning of the game. She was a helpful companion who I never had to check the inventory of, control in combat, or give gifts to in order to increase her loyalty rating. I consider Talana up there with GLADoS in the acerbic running commentary department, but now she’s gone.
I might as well download the 1.03 Patch and play through with another character. I did a two-handed warrior my first play-though and want to explore the magic spells.
Oh, I could even take screen shots and do a review this time if I were so inclined.
From that other blog: A positive review of World War Z.
Hamburg/Germany, March 04th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.
Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 questsand about 15 hours of gameplay.
Coming August 2010. Link to Announcement
LSN: (major spoilers for Divinity II)
Can I get a 'thank gawd?' The ending to Divinity II was pitiful - the entire game felt like 1/3 of an awesome game.
An example of this: When you become a Dragon Knight, your previous mentor, a Dragon Slayer, gives you a sword, tells you to kill yourself, and then orders three veteran Slayers to kill you if you can't do this. She leaves, supposedly because watching her previous protégée die is too hard for her. Instead, you kill the three Slayers. Later, she pops up again, furious at your betrayal and blaming her own weakness for the death of her men. You’re in a major city though and the Captain of the garrison orders her sent to a cell. She leaves, but vows she’ll find you again to avenge her fallen comrades.
Compelling stuff… and we never see her again. Divinity II is fun, but it has about a half-dozen plotlines that abruptly end with no closure.
Which leads to a question: Shouldn't this have been in the game to begin with?
I often think that I'm too easy with game companies. The ending to Divinity II made me unhappy. It's remarkable similar to the endings of the first two games in that 1) your hero's efforts are for naught, and 2) there's obviously more to the story. Moreover, the ending was abrupt. In the first two games, I felt like I’d gotten an entire story, abet one that didn’t end as I’d like.
As soon as I saw the ending to Divinity II, I knew that the next game would be a continuation, not a new story. I sat there wondering if the developer’s funding had just run out – and I still suspect that’s exactly what happened.
So, how do I feel about Flames of Vengeance? I want it. I want the closure the first game didn’t give me, but should have. This makes me an idiot. I should in no way, shape, or form encourage developers to rush a game out the door and then finish the story in an expansion. At the same time, I understand. Making a game is not cheap; it’s very expensive and it takes time. I would rather a developer release half a story with the time and money they have, than go into debt and possibly lose their business.
What *actually* bothers me the most about this is that one of the best elements of the game is now gone. I’m speaking about the Dragon Knight Talana who jumps into the PC’s head at the beginning of the game. She was a helpful companion who I never had to check the inventory of, control in combat, or give gifts to in order to increase her loyalty rating. I consider Talana up there with GLADoS in the acerbic running commentary department, but now she’s gone.
I might as well download the 1.03 Patch and play through with another character. I did a two-handed warrior my first play-though and want to explore the magic spells.
Oh, I could even take screen shots and do a review this time if I were so inclined.
From that other blog: A positive review of World War Z.
A new study led by Dmitri Williams, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, revealed that in some cases every male geek gamer's fantasy may be true -- some girls really are closet gaming freaks.
The study, published in the Journal of Communication, and available here (PDF), examined the gaming habits of females and males playing the popular Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) EverQuest II.
The sample group was quite large, consisting of responses from 7,000 logged in players. There were many surprises in the results. First, the gaming wasn't dominated by kids -- in fact the average age was 31. More interestingly still, older gamers tended to spend more hours on the game per week.
And female gamers spent, on average, far more hours than their male counterparts. Top female players logged 57 hours a week, while top male players only logged 51 hours a week. And on average, girls logged 29 hours a week versus 25 hours for males.
Age isn't the only thing women tend to lie about, according to the survey. More women than men responded that they lied to their friends and loved ones about how much time they played.
Other dark elf slayers/professors and grad students that participated in the study included Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan, and Nick Yee.
Original article
LSN: Not that anyone gives a damn about Everquest. But yah! Women can waste more time than men on the monotonous grinding that is MMORPGs.
Squeenix CEO Calls Out Japanese Gamers on Western Bias
The relationship of Japan and the West when it comes to video games is a strange one, and Square-Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has spoken at length on the subject more than once. Wada clearly admires the Western game industry, mentioning that he wants to see his native Japan follow suit with more games made for adults, and - like many other Japanese developers - has obviously been mulling over how Japanese game makers can market their titles to Western gamers more successfully instead of dealing with a relatively small, insulated market.
But for the moment, Wada isn't concerned with how to market his company's games in the West, but with the exact opposite: In an interview with Japanese TV posted to YouTube, Wada expressed frustration with Japanese gamers' resistance to Western titles, in part due to the country's collective "meh" to Modern Warfare 2, which Activision handed off to Square-Enix to publish in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Specifically, Wada has an issue with the Japanese term youge- (洋ゲー), the word used to refer to titles made in the West as opposed to Japanese-made games, or geimu (ゲーム - yeah, it's just the word "game"). By differentiating between the two, Japanese gamers are essentially saying that Western games aren't actually games, and the Square-Enix boss doesn't like it.
"Even now, there have been people in Japan using the label youge- (Western games) with a terribly discriminatory meaning," said Wada. "I'd like them to try it once. If they play it once, they'd realize how incorrect that label is."
There's no doubt that Wada has a bit of a personal investment in the matter considering that strong sales of MW2 would benefit his company's coffers, but considering his previous statements on the matter it's not hard to believe that the man genuinely wants Japan's gamers and game makers alike to broaden their borders in more ways than one.
The Escapist
LSN: And after this fair-minded and progressive message, the Escapist encourages people to play a Ching Chong Beautiful, a really damn racist browser game for the holidays.
The study, published in the Journal of Communication, and available here (PDF), examined the gaming habits of females and males playing the popular Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) EverQuest II.
The sample group was quite large, consisting of responses from 7,000 logged in players. There were many surprises in the results. First, the gaming wasn't dominated by kids -- in fact the average age was 31. More interestingly still, older gamers tended to spend more hours on the game per week.
And female gamers spent, on average, far more hours than their male counterparts. Top female players logged 57 hours a week, while top male players only logged 51 hours a week. And on average, girls logged 29 hours a week versus 25 hours for males.
Age isn't the only thing women tend to lie about, according to the survey. More women than men responded that they lied to their friends and loved ones about how much time they played.
Other dark elf slayers/professors and grad students that participated in the study included Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan, and Nick Yee.
Original article
LSN: Not that anyone gives a damn about Everquest. But yah! Women can waste more time than men on the monotonous grinding that is MMORPGs.
Squeenix CEO Calls Out Japanese Gamers on Western Bias
The relationship of Japan and the West when it comes to video games is a strange one, and Square-Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has spoken at length on the subject more than once. Wada clearly admires the Western game industry, mentioning that he wants to see his native Japan follow suit with more games made for adults, and - like many other Japanese developers - has obviously been mulling over how Japanese game makers can market their titles to Western gamers more successfully instead of dealing with a relatively small, insulated market.
But for the moment, Wada isn't concerned with how to market his company's games in the West, but with the exact opposite: In an interview with Japanese TV posted to YouTube, Wada expressed frustration with Japanese gamers' resistance to Western titles, in part due to the country's collective "meh" to Modern Warfare 2, which Activision handed off to Square-Enix to publish in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Specifically, Wada has an issue with the Japanese term youge- (洋ゲー), the word used to refer to titles made in the West as opposed to Japanese-made games, or geimu (ゲーム - yeah, it's just the word "game"). By differentiating between the two, Japanese gamers are essentially saying that Western games aren't actually games, and the Square-Enix boss doesn't like it.
"Even now, there have been people in Japan using the label youge- (Western games) with a terribly discriminatory meaning," said Wada. "I'd like them to try it once. If they play it once, they'd realize how incorrect that label is."
There's no doubt that Wada has a bit of a personal investment in the matter considering that strong sales of MW2 would benefit his company's coffers, but considering his previous statements on the matter it's not hard to believe that the man genuinely wants Japan's gamers and game makers alike to broaden their borders in more ways than one.
The Escapist
LSN: And after this fair-minded and progressive message, the Escapist encourages people to play a Ching Chong Beautiful, a really damn racist browser game for the holidays.
Splinter Cell: Conviction. Developer videoThe Video Game Blog has a new video up about Splinter Cell: Conviction (due October 2009) and where Ubisoft plans to take the game.
Splinter Cell is one of my favorite series. Its modern world, spy premise is unique, and I enjoy the complex plots, slick production values, and fun stealth gameplay. I played the first three on my X-Box, and when Double Agent came out, got it on PC. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the level of finesse and control I was used to so I quickly set it aside. By the time Conviction gets here, I hope to have an X-Box 360 and to have finished Double Agent.
At this point, there is little they could do or say that would make me *not* buy this game. Still, some of what they’re saying makes the game sound less appealing.
One of the issues developers have to grapple with in a series is what to keep the same and what to change. There’s no right answer as ‘the fans’ will always complain. Ubisoft appears to be deemphasizing the stealth gameplay in favor of action, as well as simplifying the gun battles. One of the developers asks ‘Why would being seen mean game over? Why not let the action evolve to the next level?’ It’s a good question, but there are reasons for this particular mechanic.
The developer is engaging in a bit of hyperbole here; only a handful of times in the Splinter Cell series does being seen once means game over. Usually, it’s being spotted and identified three times or killing someone. This emphasis on stealth helps set Splinter Cell apart from other games on the market.
Game AI being what it is ‘evolve action to the next level’ can easily turn into ‘slaughter everything in sight while taking minimal damage.’ And while I like Ubisoft, I’ve never found the combat in their games particular complex or difficult. Having a pass/fail condition also makes sense in the game-world: you’re a single, lightly armed man in a building full of people with machine guns. In the real world, being spotted would mean death, capture, and/or a failure in the mission. I have no problem with ditching verisimilitude for fun where appropriate - Wolverine can tear through base of super marines and I won’t blink - but Tom Clancy novels and games attempt to be realistic.
I once read a review of horror films that talked about dread versus terror, and how different films evoked those emotions in the audience. Most run and gun games go for terror; they want your adrenaline to surge and your heart to beat at a mile a minute. At its best, Splinter Cell evokes dread. That sensation that someone’s slowly squeezing your heart as a group of heavily armed guard march through a dark hallway while Sam Fisher crouches inches away. The gnawing knowledge that if you’ve positioned yourself wrong and one of them spots you, it’s FAILURE. No taking them all out and then applying a bandage to make everything better.
One feeling isn’t better than the other: it’s all about what form of emotional masochism you’re in the mood for. I play the Splinter Cell series, and other stealth games, for the dread and I hope in an effort to update the franchise they manage to keep that feeling.
