She's still at her half-submerged house with a roommate, water, tinned food and a gun for company.

This certainly isn't the saddest of the stories emerging from the chaos caused by Katrina, but it helps to put a very real human face on the problems facing that part of the country.

Just because you didn't die in Katrina doesn't mean you will survive its aftermath. Sure, maybe you won't die. But what about your job, your house, everything you owned? What will those people, and there are hundreds of thousands of them, do?

Here's some choice excerpts from her story, which she calls Ghosts in the Shadows of New Orleans:

I'm running out of fuel, I'm locked away from support, and there are no more supplies in the city. I have enough to stay in this room for a month, which should be more than enough. I've been shot twice in my life, and stabbed as well. I'm what I would consider a very grizzled person, I've lived through monsoons, long winters, and food shortages. This has taken my breath away, this destruction, this mindless hate and anger the people here have adopted to survive. Like I said before, it's like a video game.

I don't know what it was, the flood, the hurricane, or the death that has husked these people of their minds, but the people here have died, it's just that they still walk like humans. There's no place for us here, and they just walk, looking for something. Home, family, pets, someplace cool.. You bump into them, and they say one thing to you, maybe two. But that's it, that's all they can muster. If you say hello, it's like being in an RPG.

'Hello, how're you today? I've got some guns you can look at, open my shop.'
'You again? Well, that's great. I hope you'll buy something this time around.'
'Hello, how're you today? I've got some guns you can look at, open my shop.'
'You again? Well, that's great. I hope you'll buy something this time around.'

They walk around until something prompts them, they react, and continue. No different than in an NPC. They say so little, and everything they do is exactly the same. One of my neighbors down the street sits in his front yard all day. I think he's done the same crossword puzzle six or seven times by now. Sometimes I feel like I should go invite him here, this little oasis in a ruined city. You see, in a city with no power, flood water, and death; my small room, this tiny air conditioned room with a computer and a few days of water and food, I am truly a queen, surrounded by the damned.

This country has been dealt a gut-punch, go read the rest of the article and then volunteer or donate. Everyone needs to do something.

A Gamer's Take on Katrina: Ghosts in the Shadows of New Orleans [RAB]

The Xbox 360 will be sold in two flavours, costing $299 or $399 depending on which you buy, Microsoft announced in Germany today.

The $299 Core System will come with the console and a wired controller. The $399 package will include a 20GB harddrive, wireless controller, headset, Ethernet cable, high-def television cable and wireless remote control.

The release date will be announced in the next month or two at either the Tokyo Game Show or the X05 event in Amsterdam.

Xbox 360 [Eurogamer]

I just broke a story for the Rocky Mountain News about an eyebrow-raising fundraiser being put on for Sen. Hillary Clinton. ESA president Doug Lowenstein and Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music for Electronic Arts, are co-hosting the intimate $1,000-a-plate affair to raise money for the Friends of Hillary Clinton.

Ironically, the Sept. 14 breakfast at a D.C hotel comes two months to the day after Clinton took the video game industry to task for "stealing the innocence of our children" and called for a federal investigation into the discovery of hidden sex in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

It sounds like the industry is finally starting to lobby in a painfully awkward and ham-fisted kinda way.

Video-game execs playing up to Clinton [Rocky Mountain News]

What do you need to attach to your NES to attract your local Metro SWAT unit to your house?

PSP Vault has what seems to be quite a scoop. A forum member got his hands on a Xbox360 dev kit and was able to test out how it interacts with the Playstation Portable.

He reports that he was able to listen to MP3s right off the PSP through the Xbox 360 Music Player (I wonder if he listened to Ebony and Ivory) and view images from the PSP in full screen mode.

He's posted ten screen shots of the interaction on the site. What I'd love to know is if there is anyway to use the 360 to display the Playstation Portable's UMD movies. That would be friggin fantastic.

PSP on Xbox 360 [PSP Vault]

Entertainment Software Association president Doug Lowenstein sent out a brief statement in support of the ESRB this afternoon.

The statement says the outcome of the GTA investigation proves the effectiveness of the video game industry's self regulation and chastises industry critics that Lowenstein says jumped to conclusions.

Check out the whole thing:

The Entertainment Software Association is proud of the industry's commitment to effective and responsible self regulation, accurate ratings, and enforcement, and supports the ESRB in these efforts and its decision related to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The action announced by ESRB today should be seen as a clear reflection of the effectiveness of video game industry self regulation. We hope that in the future industry critics will avoid jumping to conclusions before the ESRB has time to complete its investigations, and will instead choose to use their resources to focus on greater cooperative efforts to ensure that parents make use of ESRB ratings so they can make the right game choices for their unique families.

Take-Two is hinting at taking legal action against the makers of popular console peripheral Action Replay.

Shortly after the announced recall of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Take-Two sent out a statement that in part read that they were exploring taking legal actions against companies that profited from creating and distributing tools for altering the content of their game.

Reading between the lines, this means that the company is pointing out that they aren't the only ones to blame for the Hot Coffee scandal.

The fact is, if you owned a console version of the game you couldn't get any Hot Coffee action without Action Replay or a similar device. By using codes or saves created for the device you could unlock the sex mini-game, and Rockstar and Take-Two don't want anyone to forget that.

What this means for the modding community is anyone's guess, but I can say the happy relationship that modders have long had with many publishers may be on the verge of ending.

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Announces Conclusion of ESRB Investigation [Business Wire]

Of course, the best way to have your opinion heard is to participate in our second poll.

The version will retain the M-rating and should hit shelves by the fourth fiscal quarter.

They also expect to see a pretty major financial hit from the whole Hot Coffee issue.

As a result of the re-rating of the game, Take-Two is lowering guidance for the third fiscal quarter ending July 31, 2005 to $160 to $170 million in net sales and a net loss per share of $(0.40) to $(0.45) to provide reserves for the value of the title's current North American retail inventory. Accordingly, guidance for the fiscal year ending October 31, 2005 is also being lowered to $1.26 to $1.31 billion in net sales and $1.05 to $1.12 in diluted earnings per share.

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Announces Conclusion of ESRB Investigation [Business Wire]

Rumor has it that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may be pulled from some of the nation's largest retailers by the end of the day.

Enormous ma and pa gobbling mega-chain Walmart will mostly likely be the first on the list. Though, ironically, they all sell the Action Replay game hacker that allows gamers to access the in-game sex in the first place.

Do me a favor, while you are out and about the rest of the week keep an eye out for copies of the game. If you have a second, ask around if you don't see any. I'd love to know who's doing what and when in the way of San Andreas.

Holy shit!

In an unprecedented move that could have sweeping effects on the gaming industry as a whole, the Entertainment Software Rating Board Wednesday rescinded Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' rating and advised retailers to stop selling the game.

The lock-down and ratings revocation came after a lengthy investigation by the ESRB, which was spurred by the discovery of an explicit sex mini-game hidden in the free-roaming, genre-shifting uber-hit by Rockstar.

Using a mod for the PC version of the game or an Action Replay device for the console version, gamers were able to unlock the Hot Coffee mini-game which allowed them to use a controller or keyboard to have sex with a girlfriend after a date.

In making the decision, ESRB head Patricia Vance said the existence of Hot Coffee can't help but undermine the credibility of her organization.

After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs of all three platform versions of the game (i.e., PC CD-ROM, Xbox and PS2).

However, the material was programmed by Rockstar to be inaccessible to the player and they have stated that it was never intended to be made accessible.

The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar s permission, which is now freely available on the internet and through console accessories.

Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined.

The news came about 4 p.m. New York time, within minutes of the closing of the stock market, delaying the immediate financial impact on Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two.

Rockstar initially denied creating the content on the disc in a carefully worded statement that read in part:

In violation of the software user agreement, hackers created the hot coffee modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game s source code.

Reached for comment Wednesday, Rockstar spokesman Rodney Walker called the decision a new challenge for the industry and digital entertainment in general.

Rockstar has offered retailers the option of either re-stickering existing inventory with an AO (Adults Only 18+) rating, or exchanging all unsold inventory for new versions of the game that has the hidden content removed and the original M rating intact.

The developer will also be making a downloadable patch available to all consumers who have previously purchased the PC version of the game, which will make the modification that unlocks the material inoperable.

The decision could have a sweeping impact on the industry as a whole. The decision forces the ESRB to consider Easter eggs, hidden content and perhaps even the ability to mod a game in rating future games.

It also could lead to a crack-down by the industry on the modding community, forcing game developers to spend more time making their games mod and crack proof lest they be held responsible for some future modification of their game.

No word yet from the politicians who have been calling for action against Rockstar and an investigation of the industry. I'm sure this could lead to some sort of congressional hearings.

Think of it as video games' own Seduction of the Innocents.

Yay!