Category: Games and Sports

Once again Grand Theft Auto is being blamed for murder. It is likely that the lawsuit will fail otherwise the door will be wide open to "the devil made me do it" defense. So far, to the best of my knowledge, there has not been a single case where a criminal defendent has been able to shift his/her responsibility for their actions to an external non-physiological agent, such as a book, game, movie, or a far rightist Wall Street Journal editorial. But if any of these suits against the video game publishers ever succeeds, then bar the door! If people are given a way to shirk responsibility for their actions, they will seek to do so almost every single time. Yeah, that’s right officer, I was speeding because I watch NASCAR every Sunday. Yeah Jeff Gordon made me do it. Right…

Carl Edwards gave some credit to "those guys who make video games" for his win today at Pocono. This is only Edwards’ second Nextel Cup win and until Friday, he had never even seen the track at Pocono, much less raced on it! He didn’t say which game/games he used to practice, but it would be a good guess that he used EA’s NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup, given their exclusive rights to NASCAR video and computer games.

Most of the publicity video games have been getting recently has been negative because of a few high profile violent titles. It’s nice to see them mentioned in a positive light for a change and Edwards’ comments are a real tribute to the hard work that the game designers, artists, and programmers have put into their craft. So hats off to ya and a big ol’ Carl Edwards backflip!

Okay now maybe this post from a while back doesn’t mean I have a crystal ball or anything, but it sure is fun being right! According to Yahoo! Game News, D3Publisher has signed a contract with Cartoon Network for exclusive rights to publish video games based on Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, the show based on the Japanese pop duo Puffy. The first game release is slated for the Gameboy Advance. I don’t know if they’ll go with a Parappa style music game or not, but one can hope that it won’t suck ass.  Call me biased, but since D3Publisher is a Japanese video game publisher, I would guess that there is a good chance that the game will be good, or at least interesting since Puffy is still relatively popular Japan. On the other hand D3Publisher is primarily known for value titles, which could translate into games that are cheap, shallow, and have little polish. I tend to be optimistic, so I’m going to assume for now that we’re in for a nice treat and I won’t be reading about the game on Sean Baby’s crappy games page in EGM!

In other news, Puffy is coming to Chicago on Saturday, August 27th at the Vic theatre! So I guess I know where I’m going to be that weekend! Uh, if I’m lucky!

Square Enix has announced that my favorite MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI is coming to Xbox 360. I started playing FFXI when the Playstation 2 version had its U.S. launch last spring because at the time it would have cost more and been a big hassle to upgrade my computer to play the game. Since that time various events such as the death of the hard drive in the kid’s computer along with a motherboard problem in WillowBrow’s, gave me the "opportunity" to upgrade my rig to something more potent. Since I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, I decided to go with an Athlon based board. It’s been pretty good, the only problem being that the CPU tends to overheat which (especially since installing FFXI) has forced me to run my PC with the cover off (topless PC…mmmm…).

FFXI runs very well on the PS2, but I started considering running it on the PC for a couple of reasons. One, I can’t always get access to the TV to play when I want to, and two, Square Enix slashed the price of the PC version and expansions to $19.99 each. So I didn’t have to spend a lot to add the convenience of being able to play on my own PC whenever I want to. I also bought a Logitech Dual Action game controller, also $19.99, because the game was designed to be played with a game pad which is how I’m accustomed to playing it. Well after a long installation and update process, the game is up and runs okay. My only complaint is the occasional hiccup in the background music. I was able to load up the game pad default settings and jump right in. The higher resolution on the PC is very welcome because a lot less of the screen is taken up by the menu boxes and everything looks so much better.

I’m still planning to play on my PS2 sometimes, but now I feel better set for the future of the series. Even with an Xbox 360 version coming out, I suspect that the series has a permanent home on the PC which will probably see enhanced features first. I would guess that the PS2 version will be supported until a year or two after the Xbox 360 and the very likely PS3 versions come out. Then I suppose I’ll recycle the PS2 hard drive for use in the kids PC, looks like a standard IDE drive.

Well kudos to Microsoft for working out a deal with Square Enix to get FFXI on Xbox 360. In another story, I read that Square had originally intended to publish FFXI on the first Xbox, but could not come to an agreement with Microsoft to allow them to use PlayOnline to login rather than Xbox Live. Microsoft’s intent to bring the later cancelled True Fantasy Online to Xbox may have had something to do with the trouble as well.

This year’s E3 is rolling! Let the wet dreams begin! If there is any doubt, I think this year is the year of the hardware designer. The success that Apple has had with the iPod and latest Macs with respect to design I think has had a profound influence on the consumer electronics industry. I would even speculate that ultimately, the Japanese culture of kawaii (the very cute) is the source of this.

Anyway, would would have guessed that the new Xbox 360 would have a concave design that appears to fit neatly together with the convex design of the Playstation 3? It’s like Yin to Yang! Is this some cosmic sign of things to come? Who knows? In any case, I think they are both really sweet designs. So while I won’t be buying on day 1, I will be looking, and salivating! 🙂

Xbox 360: Yin?
PS3: Yang?

I’m not at all sure where the Nintendo Revolution fits into this scheme. It looks like the Game Cube successor is just a squashed update of itself. At least Nintendo is getting onboard now with movie and online capabilities. Pretty or not, I expect the Revolution to be a real contender this round. In particular, I’m looking forward to what Nintendo does in the online arena with their plans for free global (or at least ubiquitous) Wi-Fi connectivity to the DS.

Revolution: WTF?

Ooh, so it seems that Microsoft has really been studying hard afterall! They have announced their intention to make Xbox 360 compatible with the current generation of Xbox games. This will be a lot of work for them as the new architechture is quite different from the old which probably means they’ll have to write an emulator to play the old games. Still, backwards compatibility will remove an important psychological barrier to people buying the new Xbox. I still won’t be out there buying an Xbox 360 on launch day, but I’ll certainly be paying attention.

I don’t get to play my video games nearly as much as I’d like to, but then again, who does? I had a fairly long session running about Vana’diel last night trying to find the nomad moogle as part of the latest in game event. I finally found the little bugger right back where I had started. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t there when I started, still I felt like I’d wasted a lot of time on my extended tour. By this time, I was tired and had a bit of motion sickness, so I went to bed. All was well, or so I thought…

Through the night I kept waking up and at one point was awaken by this incredibly painful stiffness in my right wrist. So I guess 2+ hours of gaming was coming back to punish me! It’s okay now, but as gaming becomes more mainstream and more immersive, these kinds of injuries will probably become more common. This RedNova News article entitled "Video Game Victims", may be a good read for anyone who has spent maybe a bit too much time with the controller. Though I don’t think "victim" is the term I would use to describe the people suffering the injuries any more than I would use it to describe people getting injuries while playing any other recreational sport. Heh! We were all willing participants. In fact, I’m going back in right now.

Okay, first of all it’ll be interesting to see how long it is before Sony cooks up a Playstation 3 unveiling event to beat the half hour infomericial for Xbox 2 on MTV May 12. As for the rest, I can’t say I’m really all that excited yet, for me it’s all about the games. The games are what I want to hear about. What is the Xbox 2 going to let me do that I couldn’t do before, and how much will it cost me? Oh, will I watch the MTV special? You bet! But I won’t be one of the first to buy Xbox 2 when it comes out, unless there’s something I really really want to play on it.

Okay, that said, what cool stuff would get me to jump on Xbox 2 (or whatever it is going to be called)? Well right off the bat, i would really like an easy way to hook up my iPod to the home stereo setup. If Xbox 2 can help me with that, and even allow me to synch my pod right on the Xbox itself, that’d get my attention. I’ve also heard rumors about Xbox 2 having wireless controllers standard, another thing I’d like. Finally, the new Xbox needs to be small and cute/cool looking. That way I can sneak it into the house when my wife’s not looking! 😉

Like a hungry man having dim sum, I eagerly await the next cart to roll by my table when I can sate my appetite once more with a taste of Jade Empire…Ugh, that’s a nasty sentence! The point is that like many I am eagerly awaiting the April 14 release of Jade Empire which has just gone gold and ready for manufacturing. But for me the dim sum image is quite appropriate, because as much as I love RPGs and BioWare’s work in particular, it takes me years to finish them! So I get a little taste of one, then before I’m finished another comes out! This isn’t all bad of course, because usually I wait until the greatest hits version comes out which is usually only $20. Oh well, I guess I’m just lucky enough to have so much going on in my real life that my virtual life has to wait. That’s a good thing right? (The correct answer is yessssss!)

Today is the U.S. debut of Sony’s new Playstation Portable or PSP! I get all tingley just thinking about it, but I decided a while back that I would wait and see what happened with the first wave of hardware and software. It’s inevitable that there will be issues with both at the beginning of a launch like this, so I’ll try to be patient. Besides, yesterday I bought the Star Trek Original Series Season One DVD set, so I’m already on another plane of existence! Star Trek was my favorite show growing up and still forms the center of how I tend to look at the world around me. I used to record the episodes on audio tape when I was a kid and was so proud of the fact that the show I liked was deep enough that audio only was enough to convey its quality. Later I recorded and bought VHS tapes, but once DVDs started coming out, I abandoned the tapes and decided to wait until a really good set came out. So far I’m very pleased with the quality of the set and I am having a lot of fun introducing my oldest son to the stuff that makes his daddy tick!

So I guess I can pass on the PSP for now. Still I may wander over to Virgin or Coconuts later just on the off chance…

Now I’ve seen just about everything. Not too long ago I was admonishing my oldest son for refusing to go to the bathroom because he was too wrapped up in his video or computer game. Needless to say, things ended up somewhat wetter than they should have been. Now I see on CNet an article about a Portable Peeing Appliance for the PC-bound. It even has an adapter for female gamers so that my youngest daughter, also an avid gamer, won’t feel left out! Oh well, I guess some things are more important than going to the bathroom! The University of Chicago part of me feels that there are the makings of a good study in here somewhere…

I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with and tweaking my Video Game News Search tool and I found this story with headline Playboy sex game attacked. This is a prime example of a sensationalist story in which no one seems to have actually learned anything about the game itself before making pronouncements on it. The gist of the story seems to be that the game is aimed at teenagers and will turn them into child molesters. Say what? Did I miss something here? Ironically, the story features a picture of the game box which clearly shows the game’s M rating from the ESRB. An M rating means that the game is not intended for play by teens under 17 at all, so parents, don’t buy it for them! Now in all fairness, apparently the powers that be in New Zealand ignored the rating and gave the game a local rating of R16, so the row is primarily about an R18 rating being more appropriate with which I agree. And I’ve seen nothing in the marketing of the game to suggest that teens are the target audience. That said, having been a teen who read Playboy: The Magazine for many years, I know teenage boys will be interested in this game even though it is not a very good one. So there really isn’t much marketing to do anyway. I only saw ads on internet gaming sites and a few in game magazines.

But Society for the Promotion of Community Standards spokesman David Lane’s statement that, "I believe it will breed a new generation of child molesters. It’s absolutely sicko." is absurd. There’s nothing in the game even remotely related to children at all. In fairness to Mr. Lane, I would hope that this statement is something that has been taken totally out of context in this relatively fact free article about a lackluster game.

I know there have been a few times in the past when a particularly long bout of gaming has led to some really interesting dreams. These include all night sessions of Tetris, Civilization, and Shenmue to name three. Now there is a report on Gamasutra about research that suggests that avid gamers are more likely to experience lucid dreams than non-gamers. Lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he/she is dreaming and often has some control of the dream itself. Research done by Jayne Gackenbach, a professor of psychology and sociology at Grant MacEwan College, Canada suggests that gaming may actually change the way the brain works.

Well how about that? All these years of gaming may have rewired my brain! I hope this all means it will last longer! 🙂

Last weekend winter made its reappearance here in Chicago and dumped about two feet of snow on us. Needless to say, most people stayed inside. It was the weekend afterall, so why bother going out into a blizzard? I didn’t mind too much since it gave me a chance to spend some quality time in Vana’diel!

So far my life as a girl is going pretty well. Laureta has reached level 7 without too much trouble and I’m having a lot of fun with the new quests. And there have only been a couple of instances of other players seeming to take more notice than I’m accustomed to. One guy seemed to follow me for a bit and offered some help. Another gave me a link pearl which can be used to connect to his link shell. I’ll try that out later. Right now I’m more interested in blasting through the early quests and the Rank 1 missions of which I’ve completed the first one. If I can get another chunk of time, I’m going to find a party and do some real hackin’ n slashin’.

Ol’ WillowBrow isn’t a big fan of my gaming tastes, but I think she understands my need to have some fun. So last weekend was actually a lot of fun, well until I over did the shovelling at church…But that’s another story.

My head is swimming with possibilities since news leaked out that Sony is planning some PDA-like applications for the Playstation Portable, the PSP. Sony, you’re killin me here! But this is a good thing because it could save me some money and give me more than I had hoped for.

Why? Well my old Palm IIIe is dying a slow death of hardware failure plus the death of software support. So I’ve been left with the choice of foregoing a PDA altogether, or shelling out big bucks to get what I want. There are cheap replacements, but none of these have Wi-Fi support. I want a machine that will let me sit on the couch and surf the web and maybe do some email or messaging. Getting that last bit of networking support is the deal killer, leaving me with choices costing anywhere from $400 to $700. This is way too much money for what I want.

So in comes the PSP, currently slated for a March 2005 release in the U.S. at about $200. The PSP already has Wi-Fi support and now with word that a web browser is included with a coming update nearly closes the deal for me! If they play the convergence game right, the PSP may well become the killer hardware of 2005.