Tim

I work tech support. The DS is sweet ambrosia for escaping the horror of the customer. I beat Phantom Hourglass in 3 days, mostly playing at work.

X3F is the greatest Xbox 360 news site out there. I read you daily, and I will love you forever if you can replace my dead, out-of-warranty LCD screen with such a beautiful TV. I will also hug you and call you "George" if you can net me an Elite!

Sure my chances are slim to nil, but I have always loved the *Shock games, and the demo for Bioshock just has me even more excited. Plus, that faceplate looks a lot better than standard white.

While it's true that many homeschoolers are bigoted, this is the fault of their parents, and it is just as bigoted to make such an horrific overgeneralization as "corn-fed fucktards" or "Billy Bob thinks a DOS is a hippy's hang-out."

There are plenty of homeschoolers who are not bigoted, either because or in spite of their parents' influence, and most homeschoolers take their education very seriously. There is no need to respond to hate speech with more hate speech.

My favorite scene of this gorgeous movie was the oracle scene, actually. Ancient Greece had a very advanced political system, and it was interesting to watch the spiritual leaders being manipulated by the Babylonian army's promises of many fresh new "oracles." It also set up the 300 Spartans nicely for their heroic act, as it prevented Sparta from taking their entire force into battle. With 300 standing again the entire force of Babylon, the poets could create a fantastic song, and the political voices could point to that sacrifice with pride and demand that something be done about it. Sure, it is essentially a setup for gorgeously gratuitous violence, but what a setup!

It's disappointing that John Rhys-Davies is in this film...I've always loved his acting, and now Boll has to screw that up royally.

Speaking as an educator (granted, a literature/writing teacher, not a math/science teacher), a huge part of the problem is the fact that the IMPORTANCE of learning is no longer being stressed to kids. Even five years ago, when my wife graduated high school, there were kids who had been held back in high school (this being the deep south, there was one student in her graduating class who was over 20).

Now, in order to look better for state standards committees, school systems are doing everything in their power to make sure that kids who SHOULD be held back a year instead move on to the next grade, whether that means giving the students tens (or even hundreds) of "free" grades (in the school at which I am currently teaching, a test grade barely carries any more weight than a homework grade), enrolling students in Summer school to ensure they pass the course before the next grade comes up, or just writing the student off as "passing," even though he or she had a failing grade, and simply moving them into a tech-prep class for the next year (my school has a 2 level, a 1 level, and an honors level for each core curriculum grade level).

Schools have tutoring days where students can come in for help. Generally, the only students who come in are the ones who have to make up tests and quizzes or the students whose parents actually care enough to force them into tutoring.

You want to know why a society like Japan has better math and science (well, really EVERYTHING) scores than the US? It's because education is still emphasized as important there. Sure they play games - you would need something interactive to help blow off steam, too, if you worked/studied the same hours they do. They also realize, whether because the parents drill it into the students' heads or simply because there is a higher national consciousness, that you HAVE to have a good education if you want to avoid flipping burgers for the rest of your life. In a society where the 5-day workweek was considered completely alien until recently, the importance of having a good job receives more acknowledgment, but there are problem kids in Japanese schools, just like in American schools.

There are any number of factors to blame in declining test grades ACROSS the curriculum standards (not just math and science by any means), but, while an overzealous pursuit of leisure might play some small role, I would hardly call video games a leading cause of any kind of academic degradation. As always, though, they make a damn good scapegoat.

I work tech support for one of the lesser known high-end gaming PC companies (I won't say which to protect myself), and it really seems as if these things are marketed to two groups:

1. Morons who have never touched a PC before in their life
2. Idiots who really are trying to show off their "e-Penis" (or lack thereof)

It strikes me that no self-respecting geek/gamer would actually buy one of these things, because it's faster, easier, MUCH cheaper, and, honestly, more reliable to build the damn thing yourself.

So let the penis enhancers of the world buy these wastes of silicon while real PC gamers continue to build and tweak their own systems to hell and back!

The problem here is the human desire to appear better than you are. Of course a parent, when polled, will claim to understand the ratings system and feel that it is important. The reality, however, is much different. This is apparently becoming a very real concern in polls (even anonymous polls), because participants past a certain age do not want to admit to their shortcomings. Parents are definitely past that age, and they don't want to be potentially singled out as "bad" parents. The poll is, for all intents, worthless.

People are actually using the wireless controller as a justification for slamming multi-disc games? I'm sorry, but I don't have a lot of money to spare on my gaming, which is why I won't be buying a PS3 until it drops price significantly. Furthermore, if someone can't be bothered to walk 5-20 feet after 10-20 HOURS of gaming, then all the stereotypes about lazy, stupid gamers are true.

At this point, the format war is just beginning. At the end of it, we are going to be left with one (or more) Betamax(es) and (MAYBE) one VHS. Consider that, if Blue-Ray bombs, the discs are going to become more scarce, meaning that the games will actually become MORE expensive, because the media will cost more to procure. The same holds true for HD-DVD.

Enough people are pissed off by this moronic format war that we could easily end up seeing BOTH HD formats failing. Like I said, if either format bombs, you will see a brief "clearance" run as stores try to get rid of their worthless stock, but any "new releases" thereafter would be even more expensive, making $70, $80, or even $100 games a potential reality.

And yet gamers have to complain because they might have to walk over to their console to change discs. Honestly, if you are spoiled enough to complain about this, have your butler change the disc for you, because you obviously have enough money to have nothing better to do.