Christian McCrea

My understanding is that all major players in the games industry give money to the Republican party, as they have much to gain from that party's... umm.... lax media law policy and taxation format. Executives and big designers have been known to make donations to the Democrats or to appear at fundraising dinners, though. Its especially weird considering that most anti-game legislation erupts from the right, etc. Clinton and Liberman, both massive critics of the game industry changed their tunes in 2005. I seem to recall the ESA attending an expensive fundraiser that year?

People are so quick to criticise Elle; it seems so gendered here! If someone criticises Microsoft or Sony there are no issues, but yeah, this page reads like an anthropology excursion into a Counter-Strike LAN cafe.

Elle's main point seemed to be not that FPS games suck, but their culture sucks. A monotony of design and gameplay has completely drained any sense of fun from the genre. At least we used to have a Redneck Rampage.

Cliffy B also comes off like an arrogant marketing jerk in this interview? You want to make "exciting IP"? Go directly to hell. You want to make advertisments, go make them. There needs to be some accountability on the part of programmers to discuss games as at the very least "games", IP sounds like we're discussing engines.

Oh wait, its Epic. We are. Doy.

I teach a game studies class in Australia and this is always the first question students ask; what good does it do for games? Well, frankly, maybe that's a question if the course is on game design or development, but games studies connotes pure study. History, aesthetics, politics - at least in the case of my class.

So I am very sympathetic with the first comment; if people want to get into games, doing a pure study / liberal arts class on games may be an important moment. But really I design the course to be what film studies is for film; allow people to talk intellgently about the things they notice and encourage them to never stop learning about them.

Its only a big deal because Oblivion is a big deal, the first real 360 game and the first PC RPG for a while, so of course its going to have dozens of stupid stories. Remember The Sims? You can simulate the Manson Massarcre! Oh Noes! Look for a lot more focus on it in the coming months until they get bored. Anything open-ended like this will get this sort of focus.

Maybe in future companies will have a gender bias toggle or allow indeterminate character gender. (you know, like most computer programmers?) OH CHEAP SHOT Woo!

(grumble grumble put Planescape Torment on Xbox Live Arcade grumble)

Someone make this a Joystiq post PLEASE;

The XBOX version of Tomb Raider: Legend has no intro movie because it was forgotten on the disc master. Holy crap.

http://www.xboxic.com/news/524

I think gaming lost what little pretense it had towards being a cultural form when Jessica Chobot was given a blog on ign.com. Forget art, I'm just talking about culture. Things like Katamari add credibility, things like Chobot's blog take away from it.

Microsoft in Japan reminds me of the Doc in Indiana Jones. T

he lead-up: "He'll blend in, he'll dissapear, you'll never see him again!"

Cut to: "HELLO??!? DOES ANYONE SPEAK ANY ENGLISH!?"

I actually assume the Ghost Recon pack is an April Fool's joke.

Here in Australia, everybody wants a 360, kids are talking about it on trains.

Why do these corporate jokers who talk about global launches get to keep their jobs? Is upper management at these companies run by cults? Looking at the management crisis over at the Vista team in Microsoft and the entire Sony entertainment division, maybe. These freaks don't seem to know how capitalism and entertainment culture work, making billions by brute force alone.

Actually, I think the Australian gaming community is very interesting and diverse. If you work in a game shop, then of course you're going to get people buying sports games. Real gamer nuts import their games or go to specialty stores out in the burbs. Oz game culture has a lot of hackers, a lot of art-influence game works and game influenced art culture.

Singstar games, Eye Toy, World Championship Poker, Buzz are actually quite a breath of fresh air compared to good but essentially gamer-culture-only games like Resident Evil 4. Games here are big, especially the Xbox because it suits the Oz culture of large appliances that take advantage of big screen set-ups, etc.

A whole lotta 'see you at E3', I have to say. Sony seem to need to work on their presentation skills. Powerpoints with 12-point Arial doesn't seem to quite do it for me. They've obviously changed a bit since last year, and it seems the design isn't done yet if he's using a Ps2 controller. Still, they've never been shy about changing systems after launch. Remember the age before analog sticks?

I mean the ones they ripped off.

ZING

Then by god, by god, by god.. (by god thrice and thrice more)... let them know that people want a metal version, and they want Clutch's "Impetus" and/or "Elephant Riders", Entombed's "Damn Deal Done", and because Metallica will be far too expensive, to go straight back to Megadeth, who are now more credible anyway. We want speed metal, death metal and black metal. Pungent Stench's "Viva La Muetre" or "Why Can The Bodies Fly?" are censorable and very metal-groovy, I'm sure millions will adore a Cradle of Filth song (not me, but hey).

Since they use soundalikes, they should be able to quickly produce these, and I think its far more enjoyable to buy Singstar-style updates to the same game than pay full price for EA-style reworkings once a year.

Stay away from nu-metal or you will find people like me not only shying away from it but tackling the young uns who step up to the counter. It was bad enough they put Blink 182 in Amplitude.

Feel (middle) In (middle) Love (left) With (right) The (left) Girl (middle) At (left) The (middle) Rock (middle) Show (middle.)