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#speakup
Finally, a place for you to talk amongst yourselves without having to wait for someone to tell you it's OK.
Denver, 11:03 AM
Sat Dec 5
48 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/04/09
#speakup
12/04/09
[sports.yahoo.com]
#tips
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12/04/09
[blogs.zdnet.com]
[www.computerandvideogames.com]
[www.destructoid.com]
[www.mmo-champion.com]
#speakup
12/04/09
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12/04/09
Back when the only console I had was a PSX with, maybe, three games getting a new game was a big deal.
When I saw the Metal Gear Solid video playing on a TV at the mall's Babbages I had to know more. I bought every used magazine I could find that had anything on the game in it. I had a calendar that I'd mark each day off of as the release date got closer. I pre-ordered the special edition version and had to beg my dad to take me down to the mall on the game came out.
As I rode home with my dad I read the game manual and still wasn't done when we were pulling into the driveway.
Metal Gear Solid's game manual is about 60 pages long, that's five times the size of some games hitting shelves now days. The recent Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2's manual isn't even 15 pages. I believe it's about 12 counting the front and back cover.
The eight or so pages that don't contain legal info or credits simply explain the most basic of controls, how to put the game disk into your system, and little else.
There isn't a bio on a single character, there's no story synopsis or background, there is nothing entertaining in Modern Warfare 2's game manual.
Metal Gear Solid 3's game manual isn't even 20 pages. Granted the pages are almost twice the size of the first in the series, but I've noticed that the manuals packed with games these days are quite light, are rarely in color, and typically contain only what is required to get playing.
I wish we still got game manuals in todays games that were interesting to read, something we wanted to read. I guess in the age of laptops and iPhones we can find all the information we could want on just about anything at all. Maybe that's why Infinity Ward didn't put any background story on Soap into their game manual. Whatever I might like to know about Soap can most likely be found with a few keystrokes over at Google.com
But just because with my laptop I can find books worth of information on a game doesn't mean I want my laptop in the bathroom. I miss those days when I could bring a new game home and when nature called I had some new reading material.
#speakup #speakout
12/04/09
They should instead focus on expanding the game world in some way. A document from the game. Maybe a short story or a comic. Or just don't include anything at all.
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12/04/09
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12/04/09
12/04/09
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12/03/09
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12/03/09
I've tried all the standards: restarting, unplugging and replugging, clearing the cache, etc. Anyone have a suggestion besides handing it back over to Microsoft.
EDIT: I leave it on and come back, and VOILA! It works. Wonder how long this will last....
#speakup
12/03/09
some say this is showing a close tie of MS and IW for helping them deal with the problem where as Sony should work on their relations with game devs like IW who are showing preference to XBL (they do get new maps first)
my point is simple
how effective is temp banning people on a network with free registration?
#speakup
12/03/09
I've never been to Japan or Europe so I don't know how different things are overseas compared to here. Yet given what I've seen coming out of both--game and media wise--I'm pretty sure sex is much more accepted there than it is here.
Here in the U.S. I've seen a startlingly scary trend among parents. Here in the prudish states mom is ok with little Billy shooting anyone and anything in the face with a shotgun, but a boob? Not so 'a-okay.'
Having worked at EB Games and now a small independent shop I've seen this happen many times. Even though the EB Games was in Marin Country (San Rafael) which is one of the most liberal places in the U.S. I'd still get parents totally alright with their 10 year old playing something like Soldier of Fortune but not God of War. Why not God of War? Because there are boobs in God of War.
Maybe this comes from the United States Protestant history, much of the reason why we even have a U.S. is due to religion. Actually I'd say that's pretty much the whole reason. I guess these, ah, 'morals' have been so embedded into our country that even today, over 200 years since the birth of our nation, we still have people completely alright with gratuitous violence but not the mention of something quite natural.
I've had parents ask me if game XYZ is ok for their twelve year old son, "It depends. Are you ok with blood and some rather gut wrenching stuff? It's pretty darn violent, I mean there's one level where you kill a whole airport of civilians."
"Oh, well that's ok, he plays shooting games all the time. Are there any... sex scenes or anything though?" The mom or dad will ask the last bit in a lowered voice as if saying the very word 'sex' will impregnate ten virgins.
Already knowing where this is going I say, "No, there's no sex. But it is extremely violent."
The parent nods, "Yeah, that's fine. I just don't want him seeing any boobs."
And a sale is made.
I recently read that our country makes up for 25% of the whole world's crime. I wonder if that would decrease if we started letting children see boobs, play games with sex, and leave the "shooting games" on the shelf.
We're raising our children with a gun in their hands and not a tit in their mouths the way nature intended. No wonder we're so screwed up.
#speakup #speakout
12/03/09
I agree with the parents not wanting their kids to see sex/boobs in video games. Its incredible hard to raise a kid, a male at least, in this society where sex is thrown at them at all times from all different directions causing an unrealistic depiction of women and sex.
Besides, the joy of being a pubescent kid is sneaking and hiding pr0n anyways. These kids these days... Back in my day we had to wait all night for a dirty movie clip to download with no idea of what it actually was outside the generic title XXX HOT WOMAN ZOMG
But yeah, good for the parents keeping their kids from gratuitous sex (God of War sex isnt relevant to anything as opposed to something like Mass Effect for example).
Now if they could just work on teaching (ie smacking them) when they catch them swearing and actin a fool online.
#speakup
12/03/09
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12/03/09
if you wanna show someone what something is, you dont spend your efforts in showing them what it isnt
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12/03/09
What makes more sense? Kids at 12 playing a game with some nipples or even full on simulated sex or killing rampages, limb dismemberment, and blood fountains?
Children would probably be a bit more peaceful if they were being raised without the guns and instead a few boobs.
#speakup
12/03/09
first off you said that they should be allowed to see them so that they could get an idea of whats wrong
considering kids are more peaceful now (in the crime rate sense) since graphic violent video games started to come out in the 90s, Id say boobs wouldnt have much an effect, assuming of course video games had a profound effect (Id argue its effect was small)
point is that in a society of juvenile and adolescence mindsets of many men, the media, etc... leading to a state where the degradation and objectification of women is still fairly acceptable, letting children who lack a full grasp of reasoning, logic, and experience start to experience these things would not be something most parents would not want
kudos to parents who want to draw the line at least somewhere
#speakup
12/03/09
I was by no means saying parents should show their children these "unrealistic depictions" you spoke of. I was saying that if parents were more open about sex than today's kids could see the "unrealistic" for what it is having seen the real.
I'm not talking about just games either. Violence is glorified here in the U.S. while sex is shunned.
#speakup
12/03/09
sex is totally not shunned, go watch TV or a movie
back in the day there used to be police officers who's job it was to measure the lengths of a girls bathing dress to make sure it was far down enough on their legs
now people try to figure out how to use as little fabric as possible
sex is glorified, if you dont think it is then you obviously have your hand up your ass and far away from the pulse
#speakup
12/03/09
I really can't understand America's views when it comes to violence and sex (not to mention acts of gay sex which can earn NC17 ratings in movies like nothing - but there's a whole different discussion to be had for that). Boobs are less harmful than bombs. ;)
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12/03/09
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12/03/09
The Dark Knight plus AC2 for 29.99
[www.shopto.net]
#UKdeals
#Deals
#speakup
12/02/09
Avatar pets, FCKYEAH!
12/02/09
I've really gotten into them to the point that I started to play them while gaming. I think teh music works well in fantasy adventure/exploration type games like Shadow of Colossus, Twilight Princess, Okami, and etc.
I dunno I thought i would share that.
#speakup
12/02/09
[www.giantbomb.com]
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12/02/09
This is something I always have trouble with, when a parent, or other friend or family member, wants to buy a game for a child. If someone comes in that's around my age, a guy, and says he likes "Halo" I'm not going to have a hard time recommending a few games. But with kids I have absolutely no idea.
I don't know what six year olds can do. Can they read? Can they navigate menu screens even if they can't fully understand what's written? What's too hard for a six year old?
Yesterday I was trying to think of games for this man's daughter when the dad pulls out a copy of Tak for the PS2, "This game she can't do, it's too hard." Tak, too hard, really? But that's a kid game, I'd have thought that'd be great for a six year old.
Turns out there's reading in Tak, reading that in order to proceed in the game you need to understand (so the dad tells me.) "She doesn't know what they tell her to do."
"But she can play Baldur's Gate?" I asked.
"Well there isn't all that much reading, just killing monsters. If we go to town to buy new weapons or armor I do that for her, but the rest she loves."
"Huh, so moving around, using magic, mashing a button and killing bad guys..." I started to say.
"Oh yeah, all that she can do just fine."
And that's when I thought there needs to be a game like Grand Theft Auto for children. What I mean is there should be an open world game minus the guns, the hookers, the violence, the overall everything that makes GTA what it is.
I think a girl like this guy's daughter would love something set in the world of, say, Loony Toons or Spongebob. You'd get missions but if there was any talking it'd be super basic, what was displayed in text on screen would also be spoken, and simple to understand. "Hey Patrick, I need some more seaweed!" And then you go hunt for Marty Marlin's seaweed.
There are piles of games on the Wii aimed at children, but how many of those games are what a child wants to play? Do kids really want to raise some Hamsterz or Dogz? I don't know, maybe some do, but some just want to burn monsters with a few fire spells or cut them in two with a big new sword.
So how many games now days are being marketed to children and how many more are aimed at the parents? I'm sure any new mom would be thrilled to see her daughter playing a game that has her grooming a few Catz, but is that what the girl really wants to play?
I think we need more games aimed at children that they want to play. Take the games I play, your GTA's, your Call of Duty's, your God of War's, and Fable's, but make them kid friendly.
#speakup #speakout
12/03/09
They are all cutesy, Castle Crashers is easy. Littlebigplanet is too hard, but she just enjoys grabbing onto people and dressing up sackboy, doing well in the level is secondary.
I know this sounds horrible, but she also loves GTA, I am a bad brother for letting her play it, but she enjoys hurting people and running and just screwing around. I believe small children enjoy just having fun, doing well is secondary. They have little understanding of narrative.
SSBB (or any fighting game) she can just mash buttons and have fun, losing doesnt matter.
Another factor is obviously coop, she likes playing with family that is most of the fun.
and after talking to her about her favorite games she said the most important things are:
1. multilayer
2. Freedom
Sorry for rambling, I hope it helped. I was just trying to translate what she was saying into proper English ;)
#speakout