While Game Revolution's Jesus versus Zelda fanboys is a genius idea, (the site reviewed both Twilight Princess and Eternal Forces and then collected the hate mail) it sounds like the Eternal Forces review may have been deliberately over the top.

Still kinda interesting concept.

In rapid succession, I posted my review of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (which I gave a B+), and then donned my Lightning Rod Hat and set out to break the world blaspheming record with my review of Left Behind: Eternal Forces (which I gave an F). I knew I was in for some serious hate mail in both cases. I received fan mail for both as well, but hate mail is what we're here for today, and a selection is, of course, provided.

So, as I see it, only one question remains: Who has the most hardcore zealots for fans: Jesus or Zelda? Let the competition begin....

The collection of emails they get are equally insane and rambly, though I believe, as does the site that this one takes the cake:

And The Winner Is... Subject: Hey, Duke? From: Alex <**********@hotmail.com>

You are a dumbass. Lets look at why you're a dumbass, shail we?

First off, address your attention to gamerankings.com. Now, find the overall review section for Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. You see your review? The one at the bottom? The one that's even lower than the disgrace of a review written by the dick of dicks, Gerstamann? That's why you're a dumbass.

Hey, I don't care whether you have some agenda that Twilight Princess is somehow NOT the greatest game of the year, nie on the greatest game of all time. Maybe you did the cop-out and chose to simply rate it very low to drum up a lot of traffic for your website. Or, maybe you're just completely retarded.

You'll probably get a lot of this, and it's for a good reason: you have no right to rate a game that low when that review actually matters to said games perception on gamerankings.com. You have just joined Gerstmann on a list of people I plan to kick in their balls. I'll probably carve the triforce in your chest and the rating you gave Twilight Princess on your forehead. You'd be surprised how nimble gamers get with a scalpel after playing Trauma Center.

If you value your life and website, let someone do a serious impartial review and not from some dickhead jaded asshole who's too busy felating his Xbox 360 for the most overrated game of the year, Gears of War. Then again, you just might be another Sony whore like many tools out there. You did buy a PS3... so that's probably proof enough right there.

Sincerely Yours

The Internet.

Sorry Jesus, turns out nobody is crazier than Zelda fans. Insults, direct threats of violence and torture, vulgarity and obscene suggestions - this mail has it all. Plus it's from the entire internet.

WINNER: ZELDA!

So there you have it Zelda fans are more hardcore than Jesus fans. Direct all hate mail to Game Revolution.

Jesus versus Zelda [Game Revolution]

I am writing you guys to say how disheartening and disturbing I find your constant cynical and negative coverage of MS/Xbox 360 since in was officially announced at E3 and to this day.

From what another person who wrote you guys to express the same concerns as I am, you responded that you believe MS is only in Japan to "rape the consumers". I am in North America, and as you know the 360 is more expensive here than it is in Japan. Sony has on several occasions insinuated that the Playstation 3 will be more expensive in Japan than it will in North America. If this turns out to be true will Sony get a free pass from you guys since they are a Japanese company? Will it be okay to you guys if Sony "rapes their consumers".

Whatever your reason(s) for your damning MS/360 coverage, you are doing no one any favors. Not Sony, not the gamers, and not the industry.

If you care anything about the gaming industry, the last thing you would want is for MS to fail to win the Japanese game consumers.

Thank you in advance for your time.

You're welcome and Merry Christmas.

Our mailbox is buzzing with theories about what is up with the Microsoft Origen site.

Kotakuite David writes:

You know, that looks like an apple tree on that page, like, say, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis. Genesis being an origin story. Maybe it's a countdown to an announcement of some kind? Though I'd hesitate to speculate on what kind, the Elysium link might tie into a Halo 3 announcement. Just a thought. Oh, there's nothing interesting in the source of the page, it's just a flash movie.

While Alex states:

The only vaguely interesting things the page source tells us is that a) there's a backup for those who don't have Flash installed a nice change from the usual 'please download the Flash player' message and b) that Microsoft seem to be changing the file each week. I tried the logical 'week_5.swf', but to no avail. Oh well.

And narF says:

W3 is not something evil and/or controlled by Microsoft. It's an organisation that try to somehow put some rules in the jungle that is the net so that it can became a better place (like for blind peoples and stuff) hope that this doesn't destroy your fictitious universe full of dreams and evil things...

So, let me get this straight. This is just a regular webpage and clever Microsoft marketing hype? Boy, didn't see that coming.

Green Bunnies Scare the Dutch

Origen Xbox [Official Site]

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=124911&view=rss&microfeed=true I've received quite a few questions about the Micro from you guys. I decided to select a sampling and post them up here with my answeres. Beware the poor grammar and spelling... the reader questions have some too.

Is it comfortable to hold, being so small ?
Yes, I played with it quite a bit last night and it really didn't bother me at all, though the shoulder buttons can be a bit annoying.

Is there a headphone jack ?
Yes, I can't believe they were able to squeeze it in there, but they were.

Curse you, Crecente!!!!
...by which I mean, "Nintendo says that this is their best screen yet.
Could you please compare it to the DS, preferably with screenshots? Thanks"

I tried comparing it with images but my photo skills are sub-par at best. I'd say that Nintendo was dead on with their claim. The Micro's screen is amazingly sharp and offers a much crisper image than on the DS.

Is that a black Micro with a Silver face-plate? It looks... CRAZY AS HELL!
Yes it is and yes it is.

Yeah.
I agree

Hello
Love the site, how you getting on with the micro?
Thanks, and I'm loving the Micro. This is gonna be a must buy, unless something weird happens after you play with it for a week, that I haven't forseen.

I was thinking of getting one on Japanese import but don't know if i will be able to charge the battery in the united kingdom.
Any ideas?
Hmm, not sure. It comes with what appears to be a power charger that is completely different than the one used for the GBASP.

Is it made out of metal?
Yes, though the faceplate is plastic.

Is that why it costs so much?
You know, I've always said that I thought it was a bit too expensive, but every single person I showed this to yesterday thought it wasn't.

Is text readable
Yes, unless you don't like reading tiny text. That is to say that while the text is very crisp, it is also very small. I had no problem reading the text, but my 60-something Dad did.

Does it make your fingers hurt after playing for a while? It looks like you may have to cramp up your fingers to play, leading to Carpal Tunnel, especially with my fat ham-hands...
I haven't had any problems and I often do because of my long fingers. I did notice, while playing with the Micro in bed last night, that using the shoulder buttons started to bother me a bit, but I believe that had more to do with the position I was holding the Micro in.

Oh, and sorry about the ham-hands.

Hey, a reader from Malaysia signing in. A few questions:

1.the unit you got, its a pre-launch unit?

First, shout out to all my peeps in Malaysi, now then, I called it a pre-launch just because it didn't come with any fancy faceplates. The Micro I have is a final, retail-build of the product.

2. Is it possible for you to post up some pictures of in-game play of games with lots of texts, ex. AW, Pokemon, KH: chain of memories, any RPGs? just want to see the text quality.

I tried for far too long last night to do just that, but I couldn't get my camera to focus in on the screen text enough to do it justice. Sorry.

Wow, that's really cool about getting one early. I wish I had one!

Anyway, my question is, how well does the Micro perform in bright sunlight? Can you still see the screen clearly and things?

Thanks man. I'll see what I can do down the line about trying to line-up a Micro give-away.

The screen seems to perform just fine in bright sunlight. I haven't had any problems at all with it. On a side note, one of the cool things about the detachable faceplate is that it include a clear piece of plastic over the screen, so you don't have to worry about damaging that crystal clear display.

Hi, about the recent game boy micro review, I would like to make two questions:

You said the screen was pretty bright and delivered crisp images but, is it really big enough? I mean it seems to be as big as a mobile phone screen and I have serious doubts if it won't become a pain in the eyes to play relatively long sessions on it.

I don't forsee having any problems with the screen. I suppose if there was a game with tons of things going on at the same time it could get a little hard to deal with. Even playing Fire Emblem with it's plethora of tiny maps and such, I had not problem with the screen size.

And for the battery, are you happy with the hours of play it provides?

I just got it yesterday and have been playing it off and on without having to charge it. I don't know the exact battery life, but it certainly isn't anything really short or I would have noticed by now. Funny, about 30 minutes after writing that, the battery died, so I'm giving it its full charge as I type this.
Hello Mr.Editor:
Having known that you tested the GBM, I have some questions. What i concern the most is the screen. How do you find the small-sized screen compared to GBASP's? Is it the smaller the better? Waiting for your reply. thanx.
Hello Mr. Reader. Although much smaller than the GBA SP's (like less than half the size) it doesn't appear to be a problem so far.
Hi! Amazing GBA Micro, pre-release. How are the shoulder buttons, really? They look incredibly hard to use. Please elaborate.
The shoulder buttons are quite responsive, but are designed to be pressed on at the inside ends not the outside ends. In other words, the place you press the buttons is located closer to the center top of the Micro instead of the top corners. This is the only design issue I can think of as potentially causing problems in the long run.
I'm still really on the fence about whether I like or dislike their placement.
I was wondering if you could take a picture of the cartridge bay of the Game Boy Micro. If you could, please take a picture of it with no shadows, so both sides of the inside of the cartridge bay may be seen.
I'm going to put up a post in a bit with tons of pictures of the Micro, including my attempt at this one.

The big question I've had about the Gameboy Micro ever since it was announced: Does it still play GB/GBC games, or is it GBA-only like the DS? I still have some classic GBC games that I'd play more often if it weren't so annoying to take my GBC with me.

Unfortunately, the Micro will only play Game Boy Advance games. It sounds like it's time to put those classics out to pasture.

Just a quick question. I have not read if the micro supports games like 4 Swords and Fanal Fantasy Chronicles on the cube. The DS doesn't. Just curious if the micro doesn't as well, i.e. leaving off the ports or something

Nintendo is checking for me, but it sounds like it won't.

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=122525&view=rss&microfeed=true Jack Thompson's lengthy and insulting letter really needed a lengthy and thoughtful reply. Since that is way beyond my error-prone and rambly prose I decided to post up JKL's lengthy reply. Check it:

Ok, as much as I want to just start raving "idiot, idiot, idiot..." I need to address a few points. The ESA and their related organization, the ESRB, do not make an attempt to control content, quality, distribution or consumption of games. They are merely an advisory board, unlike the MPAA, who have their hands in a multitude of facets of the movie industry. Yes, the ESA is now moving on to the anti-piracy bandwagon, which is perfectly fine, but they understand the industry. They understand the legal and proper uses of a .torrent file, so they don't mess with that aspect. I realize it is quite cliche' to compare the movie and games industry, but it's the closest thing we have to make the argument.

There are awful video games out there that achieve an "M" rating that have a much smaller impact on the general populace and the news media as a whole. The problem arises when a decent selling game which happens to have an M rating hits the streets. The popular culprit for lawmakers to pick on is GTA, as they have here. This game, without the "Hot Coffee" mod/exploit possibly could have earned an Adults-Only rating. From the ESRB's website:

Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

As apposed to the M rating:

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Without the "Hot Coffee" mod/exploit, GTA: San Andreas falls easily into BOTH categories.

The only difference you'll see in these two entries is the "prolonged scenes of intense violence" and the word "nudity" in reference to sexual content. You'll also see that the M rating is given to titles that are for those ages 17+ and the AO is for those that are 18+. I'm not a psychologist, and I know the legal definition (in the U.S.) of an adult is 18, but do we really need these two distinctions if the only difference factor is two words? I realize this is moving towards the standard of having one unified "media rating system"
(tv/movie/game/print/internet/etc...) but why must we incorporate the outdated, fairly pointless parts in the new systems?

Why blame the ESA? Take-Two never came out and said "our mission statement is to peddle a pornographic game to little kiddies!" did they? Rockstar/Take-Two has continued to push the envelope of graphic violence and social commentary since GTA3. (See Manhunt, Red Dead Revolver) Their marketing has never targeted anyone but adults though. You won't see an advertisement for GTA: San Andreas on Nickelodeon, but you will see it on Spike TV. You won't see it during the day on Cartoon Network, but you will see it on Adult Swim.

As I write this, it's still undetermined whether or not the mod that sparked this controversy is an actual exploit mini-game that was hidden in the code or an outside modder's attempt to use the in-game models for some dirty, dirty love. There is no way to access this game outside of some (closed-source) coding wizardry, and it was not disclosed to the ESRB or ESA upon their rating of the software. Does Mr. Thompson think it's suddenly Doug Lowenstein's responsibility to scan every line of code in every piece of media that passes through his hands? The MPAA is required to watch every minute of every movie, but this is not a linear piece of media. The estimated GTA:SA content extends into hundreds of hours.

So where's the liability for them? Mr. Thompson takes pot shots at Take-Two's accounting shortcomings, which is completely out of the realm of the actual issue (which seems to be a Hillary Clinton campaign contribution) of video game maker accountability. Mr. Thompson (or as I like to call him- "Thumper", for no other reason than it makes me laugh) calls Lowenstein a person who demonizes critics who point out criminal fraudulent excesses in his industry yet fails to mention anything other than one non-rating or advising related issue.

Why doesn't Thumper take aim at retailers, for God's sake? God forbid this man take a shot at the overblown retail industry! The ESA does not distribute games. (Does he even realize that?) The ESA cannot prevent a game from being released. The ESA is simply an advisory board trying to help the problems prevalent in the industry. This man just doesn't get it. Lowenstein, though not particularly one of my favorite people, has a perfect understanding of the First Amendment. Maybe not the particular verbiage associated and how it is interpreted, or the result of cases brought to the Supreme Court, but the spirit of the constitution itself.

The ESA and Take-Two are extremely responsible on the level that they are required and expected to be. If Tommy Vercetti showed up killing prostitutes in an E rated game with an exploit that was easily accessible by children, I could see where there would be a problem. In the meantime, Thumper, please get your facts straight. People will do bad things no matter what they're exposed to. It's all a product of their brain chemistry mixed with their environment. Bush is partially right when he says blame the parents. This is NOT the industry's problem, and blaming them to score a political favor with a possible presidential candidate
(echhh...) is unforgivable. I really hope this "open-letter" has scarred any chance of credibility on his part.

Anyone who calls the industry fledgling is silly. It's been around for two decades and impacts a large percent of our population. Come on Thumper. Get real.

Comments?

J-Lew

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=112635&view=rss&microfeed=true

The Screen Actors Guild's national board of directors have sent the video game contract back to union members for yet another vote. Last month, the national executive committee threw out the agreement that their members had voted to accept.

Last week I received an interesting email from someone who's been in the video game voice acting business for more than a decade.

The letter does a lot to shed some light on the growing frustration of the membership over a guild leadership that increasingly fails to represent their members, according to the letter's author. It also shows a keen insight into the inner machinations of the video game production world. Voice actors know their voices aren't what's selling games, but they also know bad acting can hurt a game.
I am leaving off the name of the writer, to shield the person from any possible repercussions in their profession.

The union interactive agreement (for voice actors) was recently signed by AFTRA and rejected by SAG even though SAG was the one proposing the changes in the first place. It was really a stupid first attempt to get residuals off of online subscriptions, game sales etc, and even the new agreement is limiting the number of voices to 3 per actor which is ridiculous. Not practical with so many minor characters in most games.

I am encouraging all union actors to go financial core (they write a letter to their unions declaring that they are doing this effective immediately) and now they are allowed to work both union and non union. They continue to pay dues, but don't vote on union issues, which is pointless anyway as they send out ballots and then don't act on the vote but decide they're going to negotiate on their own.

Anyone can get a union card if they pay a lot of money to join and there are different requirements for SAG than AFTRA, but since a union card does not in ANY WAY guarantee that the cardholder has an ounce of talent, and since the union admits they need "an overhaul" it's time for the game industry to join the agents who have not resigned their SAG franchise contracts (because they are so fed up with the union) and everyone should stop being SAG signatories and bring the union to a reality check or to its knees.

Marketing depts of game companies still think that if they pay over $100,000 to get a "star" to do voices in their game, it will bring them press, which will sell the game better.
But the moment you use one union talent, you have to do the whole project union.

Charleton Heston who used to head the union is financial core, and people like Julia Roberts have totally done away with their agents because of all the BS. Game play is what sells more games. Grand Theft Auto had people talking about how you could beat up prostitutes, not that there were celeb voices in the game.

So I continue to say that, for the most part, gamers don't care about hearing celebrities in the games. They often turn off the sound completely. A lot of stars have bad attitudes, are not the best voice actors and to go union drives up the costs over 50% extra, making it hard for smaller developers to compete.

We've done tons of sound-alikes for the stars and we will continue to give the best acting by actors who are both union and non union, but everyone should know about financial core, because it won't hurt the talent, agents don't care if their talent is fi-core, and even though the union doesn't like the idea, the union is now going after the animation industry for more money etc. So instead of trying to be an easier entity to deal with and help clients and talent, the union is like a starving wild dog, trying to grab whatever it can to stay alive.

There, I've spoken my piece. Thanks for listening.

SAG Eyes Video Game Pact [Backstage]

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I try to reserve the Mail Bag for emails I receive meant for publication, complaints or written by jerk-offs. You figure out which category this one should fit into:

Hi Brian.

We take some exception to this piece:

(Typically snarky Kotaku piece)

We were wondering why you have such an issue with SPOnG, to the point that it clouds you ability to read and comprehend.

"Spong just loves the word exclusive. They're reporting they have exclusive images of the Game Boy Micro. They say they had a chance to * touch * the Micro during their "exclusive" interview with Shigeru Miyamoto (wait, didn't everyone interview him?), but couldn't actually play with it. That makes me sad, I had plenty of time to play with a Micro (apparently, exclusively) during my exclusive interview with exclusive Nintendo Diva Beth "Exclusive" Llewelyn at E3. I also spent 15 minutes or so playing Fire Emblem on it during the VIP booth tour."

The piece mentions that the only time we had chance to look at a unit was during the interview. It was a handy opportunity to plug the interview. And no, everyone didn't get a Miyamoto interview. We are one of the only online outlets to get this opportunity this year aside from IGN and GameSpot. We didn't claim that touching the unit was in anyway exclusive, merely that we are the first people to have taken the thing apart and photographed it.

Perhaps your bitterness stems from the fact that we were interviewing
Miyamoto and Iwata while you were being shuffled around by a PR during your VERY IMPORTANT PERSON tour? It's the only reason for your slant we can some up with here.

Tell you what. I'd really like the opportunity to discuss this with you face to face. Hopefully one day this will be possible.

Best regards,

Stefan Walters.

Does that sound threatish, or is it just me? Let me let the definition of exclusive answer your angry email for me Stefan:

1. A news item initially released to only one publication or broadcaster. 2. An exclusive right or privilege, as to market a product.

One, as in not two or three.

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=109090&view=rss&microfeed=true
There s been quite a strong response to NCsoft s decision to require anti-cheat software Gameguard to run for access to their massively multiplayer online game Lineage II.

I ve been pointed to a number of forum postings, polls and websites that are discussing the issue. Many players there complain about lag and claim that the software doesn t actually stop people from using bots. NCsoft spokesman Mike Crouch has this to say about people finding ways to use bots despite the software:

Our response to that is that there are a lot of clever people out there who will create new hacks that will need to be identified. This is an ongoing effort for NCsoft to remain vigilant, but as we identify new hacks, they will be blocked.

He went on to say that the GameGuard system put in place in Lineage II does not cause security vulnerabilities.

Here s an email from a self-proclaimed "regular Lineage II player" that sort of summarizes the concerns about GameGuard.

I've just went through your article about Lineage 2 and hackers and I've seen a few factual errors in it. Big ones.

1 : Bots don't target players. It is not in their interest, it's dangerous and unproductive. They usually try to stay the more unnoticed as possible. Their goal is to get XP points, experience or money. If they happen to kill a player, they will go red and then become an easy target and expose themselves to lose their gear and experience. Mr Rigby must make a confusion between bots and PKers which are a part of the game as it is open PvP. There are two kinds of bots : the one occasionally used by players to gain time and experience faster and the one used by people "farming" money to be sent on platforms like IGE. These persons usually run several accounts at a time on different computers and check them from time to time.

2 : No one of these bots type will ever be a terminator. The first ones don't have an interest to use bots once they hit say 35-40. The detrimental effect on their image and the places they have to hunt make that really difficult. The second ones usually delevel to get better stats compared to the area they farm so they can't be uber. Moreover, bots AI is quite ridiculous. They can be tricked by a 3 years boy - by a tree (...) In fact, when another player comes and target the mop (machine operated player, the monsters) they are targetting, they usually switch target to avoid trouble. Which is an easy way to spot them. And most log out when someone comes near as it is very easy to heal their mop and have them killed.

3 : As they have to be unnoticed they don't stay on crossroads where they'd be killed in minutes.

4 : At the very moment where the servers were made accessible again I went to see and found the usual botters/farmers in the same spots as usual.

5 : It s about making sure that players are going to run Lineage II without a hacking program running in the background. This quote is almost funny. The real botters don't even use the LineageII client. There is a well know bot/client that represents about 90% in market share if you browse underground sites. It has an interface with all the ingame controls, chat and even a map. It even has a proxy to go through firewalls. I've seen it. I've never used it as I find it more interesting and rewarding to level by myself. I've been playing since closed beta and my character is only lvl 47. That client don't need gameguard to connect. It still works.

So Gameguard is a very strange marketing decision for NA market which can probably explained by the fact that so many Koreans play in internet cafes and that we are mostly only getting a translated version. Adapted to the NA market it is a very questionable choice which led many people to leave the game due to security and privacy concerns. The uproar on the lineage 2 Official Boards led to a major accounts ban and many people lost their forum account because they were protesting against gameguard. One must admit that the official boards are a place with heavy censorship and a major lack of communication. Corporate image and decisions are putting a heavy load on the community.

In fact Gameguard has all the features of a spyware/adware software and it can scan your computer at a very low level with admin rights. It is also probably against the US law as being forced to install a third party software to access a service without the possibility to opt out to access to a service has been said so. Moreover it gathers a lot information on your computer and don't give you the opportunity to review the information nor to decide what to do with it.

As you see there may be more to say than the few quotes you're making. In fact it even is scary to see Mr Rigby so badly informed about Lineage.

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=31463&view=rss&microfeed=true
My piece on why the video game ratings system needs an overhaul elicited only a few e-mails, but what they lacked in quantity they more then made up for in quality.

Here s one from a fellow gaming father:

My son is seven, and just as big of a gamer as I am. In fact, it's a major hobby that we've shared for years. He probably knows the ESRB ratings better than I do. He's known what "T for Teen" has meant since he was about four. And he can tell you which games are rated "M for Mature" quicker than I can. Does this make me a bad parent because I can't recite the ESRB ratings in chronological order? Not in the least.

Because, much like the author of the Why Game Ratings Need Fixing editorial, I can tell you exactly which games he can't play, and specifically why. So my question isn't do game ratings need to be fixed, but do they really matter at all? I'm not saying they aren't a nice reference for parents out there who aren't all that interested in actually playing themselves. Heck, even I give a glance every once in a while if I'm not sure about the content.

My point is, you've got people out there like Joe Lieberman rambling on about how we need to protect our kids from the gratuitous violence of GTA and Halo, so in turn the government feels the gaming industry should slap a few big black letters on game boxes. But are they effective? Not really. Problem fixed? Not even close. Grab a seat on the next school bus you see and ask the kids to recount their latest GTA or Halo stories. I doubt the rest of your commute will be in silence. So, what do I say to parents who are screaming their heads off for a better ratings system? Get involved. Do your homework. See, there's this thing called the internet. They have information there on pretty much every game you can think of. Try it out sometime.

My son has never laid eyes on GTA. He probably won't until he's at least a teenager, at least not in my home. But we play Halo pretty often. "Blood" that looks like raspberry jam splattered on the floor doesn't really affect his mindset all that much. He hasn't expressed any interest in buying a shotgun. My friend and his boys come over and we have a great time together. I think a lot of parents should try that sometime too.

Just my two cents.

keep it real
Chris

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My short item yesterday on Homosexuality and Gaming elicited a mixed bag of responses, mostly positive, but one reader seemed to take quite a lot of offense to my last sentence.

Here s her angry letter in its entirety:

Oh please! Just flippantly saying " Heck, who hasn t played as a character of the opposite sex in at least one video game? " doesn't mean a single thing.

A guy playing Samus in Metroid Prime or Alice in Resident Evil does not feel "feminine" in any way. His actions are not limited. The other characters in the game do not behave differently towards him. At the most he gets a kick out of watching the character's boobs bouce, or the chance shot of underwear when she kicks (Sophitia in Soul Calibur).

A girl playing *any* video game where she takes on a male character doesn't feel more masculine or testosterone driven. She doesn't feel stronger or more physically able. Any in-game "in-character" comments made by the character are not echoed by the one holding the controller or pressing the keys. There's no gender switching going on. It's like saying that someone is reliving their youth if an elderly person were to pick up a Zelda game.

Game like Siren, where you switch between male and female characters - there's no difference in gameplay for who you're playing. They can run equally as fast. Their hand-eye coordination is equally as dextrous.

Even when people swap sexes in MMO's - and actually role play as their avatar - rarely does it go so far. Role playing in most MMOs means fending off the twinked assholes making stupid comments. Sure, someone could be pretending to be a girl - maybe saying what they think a girl would say - but once a personal relationship is made with another character, the truth comes out and their behavoir changes. In all my years playing MMOs, I only know one person who kept their 'real' sex a complete secret (female avatar), and one person who insisted on being treated in all ways like a male despite being a girl in real life (ie, talking about cars & technology & women, and other stereotypically manly subjects).

If we really wanted a gender-swapping game, it'd deal with some of the issues Jess talks about in her rant that Gamasutra picked up a few months ago:

(The site she pointed to seems to be temporarily down.)

Theresa

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My diatribe on fanboy press spurred a few emails about Edge, a game magazine that several Kotaku readers insist is smartly written, geared toward adults and doesn t have a single cartoon bubble. Although Edge manages to survive, a lot of readers are saying that their just isn t a market for smart gaming magazines. What does that say about gamers?

Hey, Just thought I'd drop a line about "Death to the fanboy press". I've interned at a couple of these magazines myself. The journalists are clever, and could well have mentioned the "dystopia" that the author so longingly wishes he could see. These publications do not have a market.

Here in the UK, Future Publishing publishes Edge, a magazine that is exactly what he describes. I personally only read Edge, but Edge doesn't have a readership large enough in order to expand to sister titles.

Each and every child-orientated magazine does just as well, even though the market is entirely saturated with that junk. So that's the rags that get funding, and they're the journos that have to write to their target under-18 audience.

Don't hate the players. Hate the game.

Chris

Edge Online [Edge Magazine]

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G. Turner, who keyed the Silent Hill 4 story I wrote about earlier this week, dropped me a line about the reason why he doesn't consider the story a review "in the strictest sense."

Hello Brian,

I just wanted to send you a short email thanking you for your kind words concerning my article 'Silent Hill 4: My Room'! I'm honestly surprised that it's provoked the sort of reaction from readers that it has, and it certainly has surpassed my initial expectations of feedback, that's for sure.

A brief note about why I don't consider it a 'review' in the strictest sense (at least for publishing purposes): mostly because I never intended for it to be one. My intention for the piece, as pretentious as it may sound, was to try and show that the game evoked first-person perspective fear (the post-gaming experience) through the third-person experiential fear (via the actual game experience). Hopefully that came across on some level to the readers! But still, while the end result may have given the reader a general idea as to the atmosphere of a few moments of the game, it doesn't even begin to address the actual experience of playing the game, nor does it even critique the atmosphere as a whole.

Then again, half the time you aren't playing the Silent Hill franchise - it's playing you!

Nevertheless, the ideas and questions you brought up in your article certainly provide food for thought, and it certainly should be interesting to see how gaming journalism/criticism/analysis progresses as the field matures.

Thanks again, and I hope I didn't take up too much of your time!

G. Turner

Silent Hill 4: My Room [The New Gamer]

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Netjak's Rick Healey took umbrage with my comment that games are overpriced in my item about the possibility of an nextgen game increase.

Here's his take and my short reply:

In regards to your throwaway comment about Xbox 2 rumored game prices
(your quote: "...coming in at $5 to $10 more than the high prices we are already paying."), I think you're a bit off.

Let's look at this purely at advertised prices. What was the price of
The average decent NES title when it was released? Super Mario Bros. 3 retailed between $50-$60, depending on where you shopped (I remember, having gotten it in its first week of release). Tetris was $50 about everywhere you went. Dragon Warrior was $55 when my best friend got it with his birthday money.

Let's fast-forward to the SNES/Genesis days. I got Final Fantasy II for $60. Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past set me back $50. Mortal
Kombat was $55-$60 for both systems. A new Sonic game (and this was the series' heyday) could be found for $40 if you really knew where to look. In the most obscene moment, I spent $65 for a copy of Final Fantasy 3 shortly after it came out.

Stepping ahead a bit more, we hit the PSX/N64 days. Final Fantasy 7 started at $50. Mario 64 was $50, each Resident Evil game launched at $50, and both Zelda games were $50-$55.

And now we get to today. Capcom's RE4 will be $50 when it launches.
The new Prince of Persia game is $40. Mario Party 6 (with a pack-in peripheral) is $50. EA launches their latest sweatshop product at $50 each.

If you compare strictly on dollar value without adjustment, you could easily say that most video game prices are taking a slight dip (if, somehow, Namco made Katamari Damacy during the SNES days and brought it to North America, do you think it would be $20 on release?).

However, if you throw in inflation and rising salaries for workers in the United States today, video game prices have effectively plummeted.
I actually think the industry is overdue for a market correction, drastically hiking the price of games. I've had my concerns about the industry for a while, and I think they've artificially kept prices low to stave off another market collapse, a la 1984. However, if a few more companies succumb to bankruptcy like Acclaim did, we could see an actual price hike in the future.

Sorry for the rant; complaints about prices for games nowadays just get to me.

- Rick "32_Footsteps" Healey
- Executive Staff, Netjak.com
- "For the gamer, by the gamer."

Ed's note: While game prices haven't moved much over the years, the cost of making them has. An old NES cartridge was a lot more expensive to produce, with its tiny circuit board, then today's discs. I still think game prices are a wee bit bloated.

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The producer at Large Animal Games sent me a taunting email today about my jab at their Haiku contest:

Brian, Thanks for your horrendously uninspired review of our haiku contest. No seriously! We actually just received a few new forum registrations recently, and I wanted to thank you and challenge you. I m not too impressed by your haiku, so I want to see what you can come up with for our contest. I would be thrilled to award you the prize for our lil contest IF your stuff is good enough ;) You know the address. Cheers, Coray Seifert Producer Large Animal Games

I was going to write a pithy reply, Haiku-style, which made use of the word bitch in a multisyllabic way, but was threatened with immediate termination. So, just hum the theme song to Hawaii Five-O to yourself for a few minutes to fill the dead space.

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=28107&view=rss&microfeed=true Long-time reader, first-time writer John Spain needed to vent a bit about my piece on World of Warcraft cracking down on item eBaying.

Besides being annoyed that Kotaku doesn t have a regular feature like, say, Mail Bag, he thinks I m being a bit too extreme in my take on this issue.

first I really wish Kotaku had a comments section, or maybe a "letters to the editor"? Having nuggets of dialogue with the world at large but no real way for said world to reply seems slightly off.

second: when you take into account Blizzard's seemingly lax, casual
approach to gaming when compared to Sony's Everquest, I think it only
appropriate they try their hardest to protect people who aren't foaming at the mouth over a new +9 sword of obscene pointiness. The difference between golf clubs and a imaginary clobbering stick is that you can't use otherworldly assets to buy the golf clubs. The other difference is that buying golf clubs isn't guaranteed to quantitatively provide an instant improvement to my game.

I think you brought up some valid points, but I also think the intersection of MMORPG commerce and real world commerce occurs somewhere between buying golf clubs and using an aimbot. While not
necessarily benign and not outright cheating, either way it's probably understandably best to let the guy who runs the course make the rules.

~john spain
~tallahassee FL

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A recent news item I wrote about the death of video game editorials drew an interesting bit of criticism. Rick Healey, who helps run Netjak.com says it falls flat on its face. That, in itself, isn t interesting at all, because most of my comments do that. But Healey says it fails because video game editorials can only decline if they have actually first risen. Good point.
Read on:

It's an interesting assertion, but one that falls flat. Believe it or not, though, I'm not going to assert that the video game editorial, led by yours truly, is a burgeoning art for that is constantly growing. No, the sad truth is that you can't have a decline of the video game editorial because if anything, it's still stuck in the primordial ooze.

Seriously, I'm 25 now, and I've been playing video games since my infancy. I've followed the industry for quite some time. And I don't remember any column or editorial sticking around long. I don't think the columns ever had much meat, and we still don't get that.

What doesn't help is that you can predict what stock items every single editorialist is going to write about. Within the first ten columns, there has to be a complaint about how we are buried in a flood of sequels and see no real innovation. There has to be some complaint about game company mascots. There has to be a column which fawns over a classic game considered to be the epitome of "old-school" (popular choices are M.U.L.E., the original SimCity, Sinistar, and Battletoads). There will be an article about how "gaming grows up," about how women are gaming in greater numbers and yet always underestimated by the males who play, and a tongue bath given either to the incredible graphics found in today's games or the incredible music/sound in today's games. And you can sit and compare 100 of these columns (on the same topic), and you'll find at least 95 of them read the exact same way. And this keeps people from regularly reading columsn; they've already read them somewhere.

Certainly, readership numbers on editorial pieces bear this out. I seriously get less than a quarter of the readership numbers for my editorial pieces compared to my reviews. I've received many fewer comments on my pieces, and very few people seek them out. I can tell you that only four of my non-review pieces have received significant number of hits. Two of them, an elegy for the late Ralph Wiley of ESPN Page 2 and a discussion of when ESPN fired Gregg Easterbrook, only tangentally dealt with video gaming. The other two were my piece on the Playboy video game spread (which I chalk up to having plenty of Google bait) and my piece on Electronic Arts' recent controversy (and that is getting a healthy boost from a link from Salon.com).

I'd love to think that we were once in a Golden Age of video game editorials, and we've seen it end. But sadly, I don't think we've even progressed past the Stone Age of VG editorials. You can give an example of how the artform is fallen, with the laughable complain about mascots.
But I'd ask you to give an example of how the format was ever good in the first place before you say it's on decline.

Rick Healey
32_Footsteps, Executive Staff

Decline of the Video Game Editorial [Kotaku]
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My attack, earlier today, on Nintendo s attempt at localizing their games, elicited an e-mail from a localization expert and fan of the big N.

Read-on for a bit of Brian smack-down. FYI: I still think Nintendo sucks at this.

I am a first-time reader with years of localization experience who wanted to comment on a recent Halo 2 localization article featured on your site.

In the article, you state, "Despite what Nintendo may think, localizing a game for a different country isn t just a matter of smacking some bad subtitles in the cut scenes."

Nintendo has one of the best localization teams in the industry. Nintendo realizes that there is much more to localization than the technical aspect; having text, audio and interface elements translated. The folks at Nintendo's localization teams actually translate the emotion and humor found in the dialog of games better than anyone else.

Recently Electronics Gaming Monthly did an article about the localization found in Paper Mario. Translating the humor found in a game can be challenging since the translator needs to have cultural references for both languages as well as a sense of humor to write funny things in the target language. EGM found that the localization team did an outstanding job on a game with hundreds of thousands of lines of dialog.

While there are companies that do put bad subtitles in their games and call it localization, you will find that Nintendo isn't the culprit.

Scott

G. Scott Taulbee
PANTHEON SOFTWARE

]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=26450&view=rss&microfeed=true Artist John Paul Bichard was none too happy with my criticism of his art exhibit: The White Room.
To be fair, I'm letting him respond to my post, which charged him with copyright infringement.

Bichard on Bichard:

I don t just take screenshots randomly I took a long time to find the right game rejected Doom 3 played MP2 3 times through, spent days in developer mode finding the right locations, then it took literally hours to find and create the scenes many of the screen grabs were discarded. And I take it very seriously the show was with some of the country s leading photographers and I saw it as an opportunity to bring the video game space into a high art context I have always worked hard at getting people to look at games seriously and not just dismiss them as teenage obsessive bullshit.

I m not saying this to *prove* that this is art I make work that is intended to be art you decide whether it is or not I m just surprised at the level of suspicion I m getting from gamers when I am a gamer myself I use games because, for me, the games space is not that far removed from my everyday space and the differences and similarities fascinate me.

The White Room [The House in the Middle]

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