James Agee

$249.99
Nov. 9 release date
Megaton: add-on attachments for playing all your old NES/SNES/N64 carts. That and a Mario-themed GTA knockoff.

Golden Tee.

Every time a new edition of "Tom Clancy's Dickwaving Chestbeaters" is released, everyone's fine with having a new game that glorifis militarism, warfare, and killing foreigners. But when Palestinians want to release their own version of that type of game it's: "OH NOOO TEH EXTREAMISTS!!@" Too funny.

Oh well, back to enriching uranium.

I am not sure I understand why Microsoft chose to make a cartoon and videogame about living Pinatas. A Pinata's sole purpose for existing is to be busted open so that children can get at the goodies inside. It's like making a game and cartoon about wrapping paper or hand grenades.

Maybe in the final episode of Viva Pinata, or at the end of the game, a bunch of blindfolded little kids armed with sticks run in and smash all the characters apart.

Mr. Lee is wrong. Depictions in epic/adventure stories of dark, ugly, savage, cannibalistic enemies predate romanticism by at least a couple of centuries. The idea comes up for example in narratives about the exploits of the Consquistadors, and in early accounts of English settlers' conflicts with Native Americans.

The principal ur-narrative of the gunfight is the American Western, and it is in the themes and ideas laid down in the western that most shooter type games have their roots.

The violent action of the Western falls into two categories, which together comprise the basic action of almost all first- or third- person shooter type games such as Halo or Doom.

The first category involves a lone individual or small group facing down a horde of dark-skinned, cunning, often cannibalistic, ruthless savages. The sort of "cowboys and indians" situation depicted in movies such as Winchester 76 and Stagecoach, and before that in novels and sensationalistic news accounts.

The second category consists of an individual or small group moving through an area, usually a group of buildings or the interior of a building, and shooting it out with enemies who are often firing from behind cover or around corners. Examples can be seen in films such as High Noon, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. This type of shootout was also depicted before the advent of cinema in novels and news accounts.

Of course, both these types of action have their roots further back than the Western genre. The importance of the Western is that it popularized the notion of the gunfight (thanks to the development invention of the repeating rifle and the revolver), and it brought violent action to the center of the narrative.

Also significant is the idea of the "showdown", a forerunner of the "boss battle" perhaps.

So much for shooters. The RPG genre of course descends from the quest narrative, a genre at least as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey, the big influence being of course fantasy literature, which has its roots in the chivalric tales of medieval times.

It worth noting that the enemies in RPGs are often animal-derived (dragons, giant spiders), as opposed to the usually humanoid enemies presented in shooters. Animal-derived monsters are more prevalent in quest narratives since these stories date back to times when it was not uncommon for humans to be menaced by wild beasts.

It is also worth noting that the monsters in RPGs usually attack singly or in small groups, which is the way monsters appear in most classic quest narratives. This as opposed to the "horde of bloodthirsty fiends" approach (cowboys and Indians, remember) of a shooter like Resident Evil 4.

Which is not to say that Romanticism is totally irrelevant to game culture (look at a character like Sephiroth, for example), but it is not a defining influence.

To address the issue of "real people facing real problems", no one is going to buy "Jules and Jim: the Videogame". No one. Games aren't about real people facing real problems. That's what art is for. Games are about excitement and diversion. Hence the zombie-killing, quest-undertaking, alien-shooting situation we have today. Also: what Vorpalmonkey said.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces isn't "just a videogame", it's a training run for the apocalypse. Keep in mind that many people truly believe that the events depicted in the game (or some very similar set of events) are actually going to occur, and soon.

Sound crazy? Well personally, I think all you Americans are dangerously unstable.

Don't believe the lies. *Our side* will win the final battle.

You know, I'd never have guessed the girl in that picture would be a Bryan Adams fan.

If, say, WoW gold were to be considered equivalent of real money (at some exchange rate), couldn't it be argued that WoW is therefore a gambling site, given the chance elements involved in events like combat and items being dropped, and the monthly fee required for participation? Sounds somewhat like a lottery, no?

And if that's the case, then WoW, and games like it, be subject to laws covering gambling sites?

Or not. Still, I wouldn't put anything past the politicos in this day and age.

Vivendi/Universal's annual report for 2005 reports their games division had an operating income of 45 million euros from revenues of something like 640-ish million euros.

They make a lot of money, but the division is not very profitable. Vivendi states in their annual report that increasing their income/revenue ratio is one of their goals for 2006.

So either WoW is very expensive to run, or the other products and companies that comprise Vivendi Games are losing vast amounts of money.