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Sarge vs. 343 Guilty Spark

It's a pun. "W" in German carries a "v" sound.

I seemed to recall the bad guys were mostly Spanish in RE4, and one of the first things you see in the game is a woman with a pitchfork through her face in a shed. Where were the indignant Spaniards?

It's likely and unfortunate that this is a case of a misunderstanding about the nature of these games. Certainly one can't blame those who aren't acquainted with the series, or video games in general, for being at least a little alarmed. People will get over it or they won't, the game will make a truckload of cash, there'll be a lawsuit settled out of court, and the level of racism in the character of any particular gamer won't rise or lower.

My favorite scene's near the beginning of the movie. Leonidas is young still and in a standoff with a wolf in the snow. Tricking him into a narrow space, Leonidas spears him once, and then again through the mouth. Just a wonderful sequence, visually.

You know, it's kind of amusing to see so many people upset about this. Anyone who likes foreign films sees them time and again edited down for R-rated American wide releases at the threat of an NC-17 rating, only to be released on DVD in their original forms. It's just the way any rating system works. It's a little silly, sure--but unfortunately, nobody else is putting forth a better system. But I suppose a knee-jerk emotional response, throwing around the word "censorship" like it's actually going on, accomplishes a great deal more. Nobody's saying they can't release it; Take-Two just won't make as much money on it as they otherwise would. I believe that's the consequence of having "artistic" integrity.

I suppose a person should try to be as classy as one can when giving one's opinion about another's work. Boyle's comments (as they were set down, anyway) don't say anything about Eli Roth being a dick, egotistical, media accident, or whatever. He just said his movies thus far were horrible (meaning horrific, which is true), and that such a quality doesn't make them scary or good. An apt observation. The interviewer may well have asked what he thought about the "exploitation" trend in horror films, and since Eli Roth is a prominent figure in pop horror his name would obviously have been mentioned. Either way, it doesn't really matter--Boyle is entitled to his opinion of Roth's work and Roth will probably respond with his own opinion of Boyle's work. As long as it doesn't descend into that Michael-Bay-versus-the-producers nonsense, this is kind of a non-issue to me. Be careful not to project your opinions of either director into the extremely short quote about Roth. You'd think Boyle had written an essay about how much he hates the guy.

Actually, I'm kind of liking the sparse release list. Finally, a system (and company) that respects the fact that I have things other than video game on my plate. Whatever else the Nintendo release list might be, it certainly isn't hurrying me through the games I have bought and making me feel like a dull boy.

I share #44's frustration, being a student of theology and literature, but it's hard to get angry about being maligned by those who aren't born knowing the complexities of my religion. Similarly, it's difficult, in this setting, to do much to educate others about it without being a knee-jerk comment board preacher, so I try not to let it bother me.

Anyway, back to the topic of this post, it always cracks me up when a religious figure sends children back to fairy tales to save them from the violence found in modern literature. Remember that one about the little girl in a red hood whose grandmother was swallowed whole by an enormous, cross-dressing wolf? And then later a bored hunter cuts him open with an ax and pulls out the half-digested grandmother?

Yeah. For the families.

That not much can be done to "change the fate" of the Gamecube is somewhat obvious. Yet this article focuses on a trend seen elsewhere--e.g., on the Dreamcast--and the popularity of retro gaming in general, be it through emulation of past titles or homebrew, seems to indicate at least the possibility of new, potentially interesting content on a "dead" system. It's good to see that such things are at least possible, even if they don't make much business sense.

Blake, in the future, if you wish to write the plural form of the word "publisher," lose the apostrophe.

This has been written about elsewhere, but it warrants restatement. Sony's flooded the American market with PS3s during the post-holiday hangover period in which few people are interested in spending $500-600 on much of anything that doesn't involve subsistence. I recently browsed the GameStop at the local mall--a madhouse between 24 November and 2 January--and was told, upon expressing surprise at finding ten PS3s in the store, that they were "too expensive" to move and had been there for "days." Wiis were also in stock, but they were "spoken for" (?) and the accessories for which I had entered were yet again out of stock.

I suppose one can readily pounce on Sony for the current situation, but what is the current situation? Holiday (trans.: rabid) attitudes toward trendy, new entertainment products aren't sustained into the following year? Is this really a shock to anybody? Like someone else said, until after New Year's, I barely ever saw a Wii box in a store, or if I did, it was in the process of being purchased. Yet now one can, with a bit of patience, get their hands on one if they so desire. Now, Sony may be in trouble--they've lost a lot of "on the fence" goodwill, and, even if one grants that the price point is reasonable for "what you're getting," it's still a large sum of money, etc.--but it seems a little silly to say, "Look! Not only have they solved their supply problems, but the trinket market has taken the turn it does every year! Must mean they're going under!"