Kotaku: Nonsense

Don King Presents: Extreme Fectaculosity

Mike Fahey — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:20:00 MDT

The man actually says "extreme fectaculosity" in this trailer for 2K Sports' Don King Presents: Prizefighter. Now I'm tempted to buy the game just to hear him say more completely made up words. As for the game itself, the rhythm-based training mini-games look pretty damn nifty, and for Wii owners there is always the fact that the game will support the Wii balance board for some of the training exercises, so if anything it gives you something else to do with your plastic rectangle. I'm just concerned that the extreme fectaculosity could increase the possiblization of desensification to violenciferocity in our children, which would be bad-tastical. In other news, my spellcheck just killed itself.

Clip: Transformers - Behind The Game

Mike Fahey — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:20:56 MDT

I know I am setting myself up for heartbreak here, but every new bit of Transformers game and movie footage I catch adds a little bit of hope to this 20+ year fan that they aren't completely cocking this up. The new toys are just hitting shelves, the latest trailers are screening very well, and now Traveller's Tales and Activision have released a behind the scenes look at the folks working on the game, and their passion for the series really shines through.

Plenty of great game footage in there, isn't there? The scene of Bumblebee scanning the Camaro, sprouting new bits and then flip-spinning in midair to transform gave me little geek shivers.

I'm just not going to say anything else about this until the game hits on the 26th. I'll just sit here quietly in the corner and let you folks tear it apart like wild dogs. Michael Fahey

Study: "Violent Games Turn You Into Alcoholic Pot Fiends"

brownlee — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 10:40:00 MDT

More video game vilifying from scientists with political agendas. A University of California researcher is claiming that violent video games increase the likelihood of young men engaging in other risky behavior, like smoking pot and boozing.

100 undergrads between the ages of 18-21 were polled, making this a sample size so small as to indicate almost nothing at all. Half played Grand Theft Auto 3 and used baseball bats to beat up hookers; the other half played Simpsons: Hit and Run.

"The researchers found, young men who had played the violent game were less cooperative and more competitive in completing an assigned task with another person, compared to those who played the Simpsons game. They were also more likely to have permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use." Hey, what undergrad doesn't have permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use?

The article closes with this winning quote: "Brady urges parents to be aware of what sorts of video games their children are playing. And kids themselves, she adds, should understand that violent games can change the way they think."

Just like education, reading, writing, film, travel — a cornucopia of human experiences which expand our horizons and make us think differently about things. It's the old brainwash bogeyman. You may remember it from the way parents reacted to film, jazz, rock and comics, when those forms were nascent.

Violent video games linked to risky behaviors [Reuters]

Behavioral Gender Studies At The GDC

brownlee — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:40:52 MST

We saw this slide presented at the GDC over at Wonderland and simply had to comment on it. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Um... what? What the hell does "eye contact" even mean in reference to MMORPGs? How can you even determine if you're looking another character in the eye? And, even if you were, what the hell would the point be? You maintain eye contact with a human being because their facial expressions give us valuable clues as to what they think or feel. The action is intimate: it creates a bond between two speakers. Looking someone in the eye is meaningless in games without facial expressions, where every thing another person has to say pops up in a cartoon bubble over their head.

We call bullshit. And if our experience having gnomish warlocks wander up behind our World of Warcraft avatars and obsessively dancing and slapping our asses is anything to go by, we're pretty skeptical of the "Male avatars stand further away from each other than female avatars" claim too.

Come to think of it: how can you make any sort of gender distinction in an MMORPG? The most likely gender to play a female character in an MMORPG are guys.

GDC: The Social Dimensions of Digital Gaming [Wonderland]