illspirit

"That's a bad stew of emotions for someone who also happens to own an assault rifle."

But, erm, the gun in question isn't even close to being an assault rifle. It would barely even fit into the Brady Campaign's extremely loose definition...

Wow. So Jack comes on to blame video games for turning people into killers, and some gamers reject his argument by blaming another inanimate object for turning people into killers? The irony here is astounding.

A "high powered rifle" and "police-grade assault weapons?!" Erm, what? Dude had a cheap plastic plinker carbine, which fires low velocity handgun ammo, and only holds 10 rounds. A low end deer rifle from Wal-Mart fires cartridges with like 10x the muzzle energy.

I'm seriously starting to think Jack is right after all. Some of you have played too many games and have lost touch with reality...

Ugh. ZaBlanc, pay attention mate. 99% of the anti-game legislation is coming from extreme-left nanny-statist Democrats in blue states. With the exception of Brownback, Stearns, and a few others, most of the house and Senate Republicans could care less about violent games. In fact, Santorum, who you knee-jerk-edly brought up, has stood on stage beside the ESRB promoting parental education on the ratings, not legisaltion. Let alone the fact the "right-wing crazies" are making their own violent games now (See also: Left Behind).

If my old pal Jack Thompson pops up in this topic, even he'd be more than happy to tell you how the industry has bought favor with most on the right...

/Libertarian FTW

Elle, actually, the study really is as bad as TFA makes it out to be. The whole underlying premise in this (and its sibling) study was that the ESRB are publishing misleading ratings. The other study in the set was even worse. For example, it claimed there was hidden/undocumented drug abuse in Metal Gear (tranquilizer darts?) and nudity in GTA:Vice City (people in freakin' bathing suits...).

And, no, this isn't just a problem because blogs and the media picked it up or whatever. She was the star witness for the government at a Congressional hearing into whether they should basically dismantle the ESRB and let the goverment decide what we can play. And this pile of disinformation was used as "unbiased" proof that the ESRB is irreparably broken.

'Tis at least in part because of this study that Representitive Cliff Stearns has introduced HR 5912. Should it pass (and if it somehow survives a court challenge), this bill would effectively freeze the entire industry for years. If not neuter it altogether a la the Comics Code in 1954.

"Writers shouldn't be beholden to what Romero did to zombies-- after all, he just revised what other movies did with the monster and made it his own."

Two problems with that argument.

1: The movie we were talking about following the Romero rules, Land of the Dead, was made by Romero. So of course he's going to follow his own rules. ;)

2: Night of the Living Dead *was* the first (undead) zombie movie. The only zombies in cinema before that were of the living, mind-controlled, Voodoo-based variety. Not saying anyone has to follow his rules, mind you, just saying nobody can tell him he's wrong...

And yes, Danno, Bub was indeed the man (or would that be unman?). No idea what a Midichlorian is though.

"...and land of the dead (zombies shouldn't have intelligence.)"

Err, George Romero wrote the proverbial book on zombies. Arguing with him would be like telling George Lucas he was wrong about Jedis using light sabers...

Erm, this has nothing to do with DirectX 10. 'Tis just shaders and hi-res maps. Like Pete said above, this appears to be running on DX9. And one could do the same thing using OpenGL in Linux. Is Joystiq getting paid to shill Vista or something? :/

Erm, earth to Mr. Spector, the reason for all the "slam-bang, U.S.-centric, urban, hip hop action games" is that the mainstream is into that kind of thing. It's not rocket science. Developers see that 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, etc.. sell a bazillionty records, so they try to make games which cater to that.

I understand why he's sick of the poor GTA clones and all, but they exist because of the mainstream, not despite it. Methinks he has just invented a brand new variation of the Post Hoc fallacy...

A side note to anyone who forgot or wasn't around then: Take Two used to own Bungie and Halo, but sold them to MS in 1999 or 2000. Surely everyone can agree that deal worked out nicely for Bungie and MS. For T2, not so much. :P

"It's a CLOTHED digital man and a nude digital woman" -ZeroCorpse

Actually, the girls aren't naked in the original version either. We had to butcher the code and provide an extra 568KB download on the PC version to load in the naked "base" skins. IIRC, the PS2 version required about 100 lines of AR Max codes to do the same.

So, yea, fully clothed dry-humping.