My most vivid experience as a Boy Scout/Cub Scout is a weekend somewhere in Brazoria County, Texas sometime in the late '80s. It was one of the most awful weekends of my childhood, and it was made all the worse by a scorchingly hot sun and bouts of heavy rain and killer mosquitoes and treks through alligator infested swamps. In Southeast Texas, these conditions are about as common as hydrogen elsewhere in the universe, but combine them with bratty punk kids and an inept scoutmaster and I believe you'll have a more realistic understanding of hell than what we encountered in Dante's Inferno last year.

All my research for my merit badges was stolen by one kid and passed off as his own; another kid stole my new harmonica, ripped it into three or more pieces with a screwdriver, and tossed it into the muddy Brazos River; and I found a rattlesnake inside my tent bag when I was preparing to leave. I had to hold my own in fist fights, I had to deal with the poison ivy rashes I inevitably got, and I had to check the latrines for black widows every time I used them. Each night, while the rain hammered on my tent, I would pull out the flashlight and look with anger at the cheerful smiles of the boys in my handbook as they marched through paradisal Montana forests. Every night of the trip, I cursed that I was born in such a natural nightmare.

As you can imagine, my aging heart was filled with envy when I learned that, twenty or more years later (God, am I that old?), the Cub Scouts would now be awarding belt loops and pins for achievements dealing with video games. Finally, children in Southeast Texas would no longer need to be subjected to conditions that inspire evangelists to create charity programs when they're found in other countries. Yet Outraged Citizens all across America posted their concerns (while they played Farmville in another window) that somehow this was one of the reasons why America's children are obese, why children aren't as drawn to the outdoors, and why North Korea wants to nuke us. Or something like that.

In order to earn the achievement *cough* belt loop, Cub Scouts must:

1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.
2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.
3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

Scary stuff, right? Truth be told, I think organizations like the Cub Scouts have been needing something like this for some time. As dedicated readers already know, a week or so ago I wrote a book on the reasons why the Supreme Court should rule against California's law imposing fines on those who would sell video games to minors. I won't recap all that I said here, but this move by the Boy Scouts is a good way to get the parents involved when it comes to dealing with Mature video games instead of thinking every problem can be solved with a fine. It also addresses a medium that has become a staple of modern society, and the interactivity of video games ensures that it will never quite become a mindless zombie maker like television. On a personal level, I also find that it demonstrates that the Boy Scouts are still relevant, and measures such as this show that they're not just stuck on an outworn ideal of the "good old days."

All in all, I believe the belt loop requirements cover all the issues surrounding Mature-rated games. Most importantly, they teach the importance of working video games into your life and not letting them become your life.

Provided the belt loop is earned (and the lessons actually heeded), I really see no issue with the pin. To get the pin, a Cub Scout must:

1. With your parents, create a plan to buy a video game that is right for your age group.
2. Compare two game systems (for example, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and so on). Explain some of the differences between the two. List good reasons to purchase or use a game system.
3. Play a video game with family members in a family tournament.
4. Teach an adult or a friend how to play a video game.
5. List at least five tips that would help someone who was learning how to play your favorite video game.
6. Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.
7. Play a video game that will help you practice your math, spelling, or another skill that helps you in your schoolwork.
8. Choose a game you might like to purchase. Compare the price for this game at three different stores. Decide which store has the best deal. In your decision, be sure to consider things like the store return policy and manufacturer's warranty.
9. With an adult's supervision, install a gaming system.

At first, these seem like criteria that can be followed by the most slovenly couch potato, but most are worth mentioning. Number 1 makes purchasing a game a family decision, ensuring that choices made in the home are for items that everyone can enjoy. Number 3 actively gets siblings and parents to participate in video games, creating a common experience for those in the household. Number 4 ensures that the older generation (who's getting really old at this point) understands video games and doesn't come off sounding unqualified to speak about them like President Obama did this weekend. Number 6 allows kids to focus on fun age-appropriate games and Number 7, while unlikely, ensures that kids are using their hobby to learn. Number 8 teaches some much needed financial responsibility. Number 9 brings installing video games systems almost to the level of creating a car for the pinewood derby and ensures that kids know just as much about the hardware as they do the software. Number 2 has the potential to spawn FanBoy Scouts, but if all the rest of the criteria are followed, then I think the young scout would be on the right path.

Video games are no longer the cult novelty that they were when I was growing up. In many cases, they rival the movie industry in income, quality, and relevance. Taking a photo of the Clark and Lake El station in downtown Chicago yesterday, I was struck by how dominant the posters for Red Dead Redemption were. If they're not already art, Mr. Ebert, they're well on their way to being accepted as such. These achievements acknowledge that most of today's kids live in urban or suburban areas, and that jaunts with your hatchet into the wood can't always be a daily occurrence for most kids. They instead address an everyday experience and reality, and they teach responsibility when it comes to our hobbies. By adding belt loops and pins such as these, the Boy Scouts are staying true to their goal to create all-around honorable individuals and not just nature buffs who can track well and correctly identify trees.

A couple of days ago I walked into the GameStop over in Elmwood Park within five minutes of closing, wanting to trade in Assassin's Creed for something without an annoying buzzer every time I enter combat . I first looked at Dirt 2--which I've heard many good things about--and then over at Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which I thought would help me out with my Kratos withdrawal. Knowing my time was running out quickly, I asked the guy behind the counter: "I know they're two entirely different games, but which do you recommend--Dirt 2 or Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2?" He looked at the boxes and said, "Well, man, ninjas are always more cool than a bunch of stupid cars, right?"

And that was that. One weekend later, I'm done with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. I think there was a story, but I'm not quite sure what it was. Good conquered evil, I'm sure. I'm not entirely sure, however, that I can write a review of the game since my main questions revolve around the wonder that women that are as, er, well-endowed as those found in NGS2 can fight so well.

To celebrate my victory over evil or somesuch, my wife and I went to the Osaka Japanese Gardens here in Chicago. Despite having lived a quick jog away for several years, I'd never been to this beautiful, peaceful part of the city. Originally built in 1893 as a part of the World's Columbian Exhibition, the garden and part of the surrounding island served as the location for the Japanese pavilion. Over the years, it slightly changed location and was later named for Osaka, one of Chicago's sister cities. While exquisitely landscaped, the small garden is not without reminders that you're on the South Side. On the large lantern beside the entrance, for instance, you can find some inscriptions spraypainted in Thuggish by the locals, ever happy to demonstrate their unique interpretation of kanji. Before leaving, I made sure to get my own version of the spot's most over-photographed view, which you can find below.

How fitting. Just two weeks ago, I was helping Kratos rip off the head of Helios and batter Poseidon into a pulp, and last night I was busy slashing the throats of guards in Assassin's Creed. That doesn't even count the hordes of zombies I slaughtered in Borderlands shortly before going to bed. All told, I'm fairly certain I killed a number comparable to the population of Wyoming during the last fourteen days. And then yesterday I learned that the topic of violence in video games is once again in the news, and this time it's going all the way to the Supreme Court. Also fittingly, this debate is relevant to fellow Chicagoan Roger Ebert's unpopular claim last week that video games can never be art.

For those of you who don't know, the basic story is that in 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger (of all people) signed into law a California bill that aims to keep excessively violent games out of kids' hands. I think that's a goal we all shoot for, but California took it a step further. It is expressly against the law there for a store to sell a video game to a minor (defined as anyone under the age of 18 ), and anyone who's caught doing so is subject to a $1,000 fine. Specifically, the law states that games that feature the "killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" or games that cater to "deviant or morbid interests" or those without "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" must be deemed off-limits to those under 18.

On a certain level, I get this. As a 30-year-old man, I'm a staunch supporter of the "M" rating for games as I believe they serve as a guidepost for parents who may not be into the whole gaming thing and thus out of the loop. I admit to feeling rather horrified recently upon learning that a 10-year-old cousin of mine had played the God of War games, and I thoroughly believe that Kratos should be an adults-only character.

But on the other hand, making such restrictions an actual law simply leaves too many gates open, and I believe the Supreme Court will realize the same. The main reason why I think this law will be overturned is that the video game industry itself does a remarkable job of regulating itself, chiefly through the ratings that are given to each game upon release. To my knowledge, every major console currently on the market—the XBOX, the PS3, and the Wii—has age restrictions measures built in so parents can keep certain games off-limits to their children. And that should be the end of the story. This is similar to the restrictions that are already in place on several satellite programs to keep kids from watching R-rated films. At the minimum, though, this law raises the question of what violence in video games consists of in their eyes. Is Little Big Planet to be attacked by this law because the Cutest Video Game Character Ever detonated a cute bomb that knocked the bad guy off a platform?

What's particularly bad about this law is that it treats video games on the same level as porn, cigarettes, and alcohol. Granted, 7-11 has recently started keeping video games behind the counter, but I don't think that's how they mean for us to see it. Video games today are a surprisingly social pastime and hobby despite the outdated myths, particularly in this day and age in which you can play with anyone around the world through the console networks, to say nothing of what you encounter in MMOs. I myself have met most of my best friends through video games. That, and console games in particular are almost always played in the living room of the gamer's home, where they are in full sight of their roommates, their significant others, their friends, their children, and, yes, their parents. This openness of the gaming world within the home ensures that gamers are always under the watchful eye of a loved one, and anyone with authority could stop little Johnny from playing. This is in direct contrast to activities such as looking at porn, smoking, or drinking alcohol, which minors usually do (at least in the neck of the woods where I grew up) either in utter privacy or back behind a building somewhere away from their parents. Already we see that there are plenty of opportunities to keep these games out of kids' hands if these Concerned Parents see fit.

Another indirect prohibitive measure is the cost of the games themselves. To begin with, consoles cost around $300 at the bare minimum these days, and most new releases cost a minimum of $50. This in itself keeps kids from buying the games themselves, as I don't know of a single kid under 15 that makes enough money to support a hobby like that. If they do—and presumably they're making this money from a job—then I say more power to them. If they've already proven that they're responsible enough to hold a job while supporting this hobby, then they're responsible enough to buy a game. And if they made it that far? Most game retailers that I know of have enough sense to ask for IDs when selling a Mature-rated game.

Finally, video games are currently in a type of golden age. Games that were created only three years ago already seem out-of-date and rough around the edges. Much like their audience, which numbers a very hefty chunk of full-grown adults, video games are growing. Every year a game or three comes out with a new way of heightening the interactive experience, and with every year video game stories come close to outdoing movies—and in many cases, they have. While it is undoubtedly violent, one would be hard pressed to say that Bioshock, for instance, is devoid of "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."In short, we are witnessing a field in that great age that surrounds the early years of all new media in which it marches triumphantly onto the scene, experimenting, evolving, and striving ever closer, Mr. Ebert, towards art. If anything, I believe we need more new minds to join in.

But all this is beside the point. The fact remains that game sales have been exploding by the millions, and in that time our national crime rate has been dropping. I don't believe there's a true connection between video game and violence at all: three games of God of War have not made me start slashing away at the idiots at the subway stations who try to push me aside as I'm trying to exit the train. I certainly don't want our country to become like New Zealand, which once seriously proposed that parents who let their kids play age-restricted games be fined $10,000 NZD (roughly $5,000).I'd like to think that we still have a bit more freedom than that.

In closing, I'd like to point out that the effect of this law probably wouldn't amount to much other than putting a few GameStops out of business. For the last several months I have bought all of my games online, and I can't imagine that the rest of the country is much different, particularly for people who don't live in a gigantic metropolis like I do. And not only do we buy our games online, but it's well known that millions of people play Internet-based games that require no download and often no purchase. The video game industry is rapidly moving away from its brick-and-mortar origins and into a digital world that—one might say—almost developed around it. This law, while well-intentioned, is vastly out of date and has no place in a modern society. You'd think California of all places would know that.

And now, if you don't mind, I'm off to kill some more zombies.

Click here for the reference from God of War III (mild spoilers).

That's basically it, aside from the rather laughable fate of story's main antagonist (although upon researching into the matter further, it apparently isn't as implausible as I thought it was—and I admit to getting squeamish after the fact). With that brief description, one would almost have thought that I was describing a drama as opposed to a horror film that was originally meant to rival the other traditional horror films that were coming out at the time.

But it certainly had the effect of a horror film for its original audience. In the extras, we learn that supposedly a woman had a miscarriage while watching the film and yet another woman ran screaming from the theater during its first screening in San Diego. There's some speculation that these were publicity stunts, but as one of the interviewees stated, a miscarriage is major step for a publicity stunt. The film was a failure at its launch because people were so disturbed by the subject matter. The film went on to be banned in many theaters and in many states. Apparently in some places these issues still come up.

In two of the central roles we have Harry and Daisy Earles (as Hans and Frieda), a well-known brother-and-sister duo of little people who look uncannily like children in the film. Harry in particular had an extensive career, and he is far from the oddest of the cast. Other wonders include Prince Randian, who in one scene rolls and lights a cigarette despite having no arms or legs; Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins whose situation creates a number of interesting complications; Johnny Eck, the "human torso" who lacked a visible lower body due to sacral agenesis; Frances O'Connor as the "Armless Girl"; Schlitzie, a famed microcephalic who toured with Barnum and Bailey, and others such as Jane Barnell as the requisite bearded lady.

And as for the basis for this horror? For one, we have the constant and frank depiction of the "freaks" in their everyday lives. Here we see them talk about love and life, we see them joke, and we see them comfortable. As opposed to being horrifying, the majority of the film is rather eye-opening and insightful in its portrayal of how easily people can live despite having such obvious differences. Above all, we learn that these people are humans.

I suppose we were meant to find Cleopatra's (Olga Baclanova) feigned romance with Hans horrifying because, as the tagline asks us, "Can a Full Grown Woman Truly Love a Midget?" There is also a scene at Hans and Cleopatra's wedding in which the entire "freak" casts starts chanting "One of us! We accept her! One us us! Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble!" in honor of the "normal" bride while a loving cup is shared around the table. Cleopatra is horrified by this and hilarity ensues, although it really is no different than any other wedding party save for the nature of the attendees. And then finally we have the hunt scene in the rain, which actually feels much like any scene featuring Wyatt Earp in another film in which he seeks personal justice for a wrong.

About three quarters through the film, I realized that none of this had any adverse affect on me at all, save for a dislike of the main "normal" characters (and even a slight sense of guilt). I realized that, without meaning to, as I was seeing this as an expose of the problems of society surrounding acceptance. And that led me to believe that one of the reasons that I felt no revulsion like the original viewers may be precisely because I have—in a very good way—become desensitized to such portrayals.

Let's face it—desensitization gets a lot of bad press these days. Time and time again we're reminded about how bad constant bombardment by media such as movies and video games (not to mention graphic photographs and music) is for our perception of the world, yet I have come across very little saying that this same bombardment may in some cases be good for us. While I have little doubt that there are still people who are profoundly disturbed by frank portrayals such as this, many of us through perusing articles in popular scientific publications, reading magazines such as National Geographic, watching documentaries or even simple newscasts on television, watching movies that today place oddities before us in living color and occasionally even celebrate them, have learned that people such as those presented in Freaks, while rare, are very much people like us. While they may catch our attention at the train station or somesuch, many of us—because of this bombardment—do not view them as horrors.

At the very least, if people are still not to the point where they can just pass such people in the street without even a glance (which I believe will never happen), desensitization has at least brought us a long way from miscarriages in dark movie theaters as a result of seeing someone born differently than we were.

My adventures with Assassin's Creed II have finally come to an end. This weekend, after largely giving up on one of the feathers for the In Memory of Petruccio achievement, I took a shot at it again and got it. The most difficult feather for me turned out to be the one on the very top of the Duomo in Florence, which I had neglected to get during the playthrough when I exited the window of the assassin's tomb. Assassin's Creed II is so beautifully realistic that the heights had a real effect on me, and by the time I crawled out of that window the first time I simply wanted to get back down on terra firma.

I tried to redo the level through the DNA, but once I crawled out the window, it transported me back to the present day. And then I tried to scale the side of the dome, but it seemed like I was just out of reach. Apparently this has caused some problems for some other players as well, so I'll put what I did here in the hopes that some Internet search will pick it up: keep looking. The developers obviously intended to trick you here, as there are a couple of sides with handholds that lead nowhere. If you're like me, you'll likely get stuck on one side thinking that there's no reason why they would have made those handholds if there weren't a way to climb up to the top with them. On one side, though, you'll find some scaffolding at the top that you can easily climb.

So that makes my second platinum, and now I'm ready to start playing the first Assassin's Creed. I genuinely hope I won't be disappointed.

Also, I finished Borderlands. Much to my surprise, I genuinely loved this game, and I made my first PSN friends ever after a couple of random co-op sessions. (By this I mean people who added me as a friend after playing with me.) I enjoyed playing Borderlands both in co-op mode and in single player, and I'm looking forward to some of the downloadable content. I don't think a Borderlands platinum is out of the question, but I honestly hate that you have to buy all of the downloadable content in order to get it.

That said, the final boss was a joke. I literally just sat there in one place and emptied about five clips into it. Even if the boss had to be a pushover for some reason, they could have at least made the cinematic at the end a little more drawn out. Oh, and I promptly vendored the crappy green gun that dropped after the credits.

For those of you who don't know, I used to be in one of the world's best raiding guilds for a couple of years (Risen on Alleria), and it took a lot out of me and eventually I burned out. At the time, I was even working on my Ph.D., so my days were devoted to study and my nights were devoted to raiding, although we would call each other up early in the morning if the world dragons were up to ensure that we had a monopoly on their loot. Believe it or not, much of my time in WoW raiding started as an excuse to do something during the Chicago winters, which I was not accustomed to as a native of the Sun Belt. It was also a way to be sociable in a school environment that is famous in academia for being (perhaps) overly rigorous and competitive and depressing. ("Where fun comes to die.")

At a time when there were no achievements, we did many wonderful things. We completed the first Atiesh, we were the very first guild to figureout Heigan's dance, we were the first guild to figure out how to defeat Vek'lor and Vek'nilash (quite the nub-stopper at the time), we were the first U.S. guild to kill Kel'Thuzad (world second), and many other things. I myself was probably the first person to complete the Netherwind set (or if not, dang close), among some other things. This is not to brag, but it just goes to show that yes, we got that high over being the best and first at everything we could, but after two years, it seemed to me like it would never end. Best of all, we started out as a guild who was just made of good Allerians, and even now I think it's amazing that we did so well before server transfers. My /played time got frighteningly high, so I left. 

I distinctly remember that I hit 70 (about three days behind the rest of my guildmates, all of whom got there in about three days), and I realized that I didn't want to do it anymore. I'd already been lagging behind a bit because I had met my future wife, among other things, and I knew I just didn't want to keep playing for something that, as was said, can't be won, and I CERTAINLY wasn't going to miss a date with this incredible woman so I could make a raid. (As an aside, Risen never really broke up--they just all went inactive and went to Final Fantasy or something. The one character that seems still active in the guild jokes (or not) that they'll be back come expansion, they'll nab all the server firsts, and then they'll quit again. Basically, they believed the game had become too easy.)

I left for an entire year and didn't miss it. There was a weak point when I played on a private server to see what I had missed during a brief period while I was looking for a job, but it didn't last long. (Private servers are GREAT for burning you out of WoW quickly since leveling, acquiring gear, and gaining rep goes much faster.) WoW, I realized had eaten up much of my life since I moved to Chicago. (FYI, I didn't quit my Ph.D. because of WoW--lol.) I found time for my calligraphy and photography again. I started exploring the city again. I realized that here I was in one of the world's great cities, surrounded by areas of stunning natural beauty (up north, anyway), and I started taking advantage of it. I realized that all of this was actually costing me more than WoW did (lol), but I was having a great time. And, of course, I got married. It was such a switch from 2006, which, for many reasons, was largely a severely depressing year for me. Rightly or wrongly, I threw WoW into that mix.

The truth is, though, many of my best friends have come from WoW. I was recently a groomsman for a guy whom I first met in Open Beta. I have a very close friend from Germany (who now lives in London) who used to be a warlock in Risen's rival guild Surreal (now known as Premonition). We'll be staying with him for a day when we go to Europe in June. There are people who I've never met in person that I write very often and keep in touch with on Facebook.  

I came back to WoW because Northrend was the type of landscape I'd always wanted in the game, what with Dalaran, Vikings and all (my real name is Leif, btw), and because I liked the changes to mages. I felt a much better connection with the expansion than I had with TBC. Unfortunately, though, if not at all on the same hardcore level, I found myself almost in the same trap again.

After all these years of playing WoW, I've realized that I like the sense of accomplishment from a game that actually has an ending. After Thanksgiving I bought myself a PS3, and have started to play all these games I've heard about but never got a chance to play. While they do end, yes, there seems to be some excitement that I never get anymore from WoW because each is such a different world and experience. These other games give me a reason to stop playing--there's no "call" after I'm done like there is in WoW. I also like the cinematic aspect of many modern games.

I recently reached one of those burnout periods again after realizing that I'd have to begin gearing up again (and then it will all be worthless again come expansion), and now I'm truly tempted to uninstall it and not come back. That, and I realized that I was sick of some of the pettiness I find in PUGs, especially now that we're open to normal servers for groups. I was sick of so much of the game seeming like a chore at times (although a kind of fun one). This sounds bad, but I also hated feeling obligated at times to a game. I could play one of the PS3 games whenever. Then there is the guilty part of me that says I should be reading more, studying more, photographing more, and making myself a more visible part of Chicago's art scene. But for all that, I love the game--it truly is a world I can escape into. But I think it's time to move on.

If that wall of text didn't crit you hard enough, here's my original emo post from 2006.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

About halfway through God of War III (or so I assume, as I'm still playing it), Kratos enters Poseidon's Chambers to encounter Poseidon's Princess (link NSFW), who is chained to the floor and apparently serving as a type of love slave for the god Poseidon. To say that Hecuba Maneros (as Playboy apparently called her) is scantily clad is a vast understatement: she wears a blue garment that utterly exposes her huge breasts and one almost pities her for the position she's in. Hecuba is utterly terrified of Kratos, however, which is quite understandable since he's already done many unspeakable things to other mere mortals who were simply in his way.

Throughout the following scenes, as Kratos pushes her into each successive room--both protecting her and violently shoving her--any seasoned player of the God of War games begins to wonder if Hecuba will be the latest subject of the series' infamous sex mini games. I bring this up since this thought is disturbing in many ways, chiefly because Hecuba--in contrast to every other person Kratos has slept with--would be an unwilling participant. She clearly fears Kratos deeply, but every now and then Kratos sneaks a glance at her that reveals that the thought may indeed be on his mind. Here, in the midst of heads and eyes getting ripped out, entrails being pulled out, and innocent, frightened men getting their heads bashed into a wall, it appears that we may also see a rape. Or a "normal" sex scene, if she eventually proves grateful and is willing, but something will still seem wrong about it.

Yet this never happens.

Kratos accords Hecuba the same dignity that he extends to everyone: he safely sees the princess to the end of the corridor, whereupon he ties her to a heavy wheel that he has just finished turning all the way, forcing her to hold it up while he gets through the gate. Kratos then slips through the gate and behind him you hear the sound of the princess' strengthgiving out as she's crushed by the weight of the wheel out of sight.

Business as usual, right? Perhaps not so much. Just the other day a friend mentioned a story surrounding the sex mini-game of the first God of War (amusingly, he lacked the skill to finish it). After telling a nephew of his that he was playing it, the nephew apparently said "But there's sex in that game," as though that were more horrible than all the endless crimes against humanity, the animal kingdom, and the gods that we encounter in the series. Heads may get graphically ripped off, innocent people may be killed, but heaven forbid we have sex in the same game.

I think the folks at Santa Monica Studios are playing off of this strange conflict of ideas in this scene. In the end, shockingly, it almost comes as a relief that Kratos "just" killed her. "Why, he's not such a bad guy after all," we're seemingly supposed to think. In fact, the trophy that pops up after this scene is called "I Didn't Do It… But I Wish I Did." Kratos does eventually get his moment in bed with a very willing participant, but I think the Poseidon's Princess incident is meant to be a brutal satire on the conflicting views toward sex and violence in video games. It's OK to kill hordes of people, but sex of any kind is still very taboo.

I realize that I am opening a Pandora's Box of my own in asking this, but what are your thoughts on this? Is this truly a satire? If it's not satire, is it a demonstration that rape should be considered much worse than straight, in-your-face violence? Am I wrong in thinking that rape was even possible? I'd like to know what you think.

In a month and a half I'll be going to Paris for a week thanks to a trip that my wife won at last year's company Christmas party, and we'll be staying in a hotel that's apparently almost in the shadow of Notre Dame. As a former graduate student in European history with about three years of dedicated French under my belt (not to mention a partly Cajun background), I would seem like the perfect person to take along on this trip. I aced the University of Chicago's French qualification exam for Ph.D. studies, and I have read entire books in French, such as Voltaire's Candide.

Granted, I'm out of practice since I've been out of school for about three years, but what worries me is that my knowledge of French has always been textual--that is, I've had virtually zero spoken immersion. And for me, spoken French often sounds like people are talking with their mouths full of éclairs. How, I asked myself, can I fix this?

Surprisingly, I hoped the answer could come from gaming, and from one of my favorite games at that. There's a little-known option in Assassin's Creed II to play the game with the spoken dialogue completely in French, Spanish, or Italian (save for the splashes of Italian that you get in the English version as well). Since I'm currently just running down the last feathers I need for my platinum trophy, I figured I'd switch it over for French in the process as an attempt at immersion since I knew that the guards and town criers were always speaking.

Alas, at first all this did was prove how far I had to go. Listening to the guards shouting around me, I could barely make out a word. Occasionally I heard expressions and words like "avec vous," "lâche," "échapper," or "soigner," but by and large I realized that although my French vocabulary might technically be sizable, I have a long way to go before I can understand the language in quickly spoken sentences. Years of articles and books had not prepared me for this. (Ironically, having spent two months in Italy, I can understand most of the Italian rather easily.)

Fortunately, all those years of French aren't completely down the drain: I found that by restarting the game I could mostly understand the first conversations between Lucy, Shaun, Desmond, and the rest of the Scooby gang, probably because these are spoken using normal rhythms and without the noises of a large and crowded environment. This was doubly helped by the English subtitles, as it helped me know what I was hearing. In addition, it helped me learn (or relearn) idiomatic expressions. I may decide to replay the game using only the French dialogue before heading off my our trip, or play the first one in French if the option's available.

Unfortunately, this method of immersion in another language through video games requires an already deep knowledge of a certain language's vocabulary. In short, you can only use this method to brush up what you already know. The D.N.A. sequences, however, are quite useful forreviewing or repeating what the characters have said without restarting the game.

It's a small thing, and I know the inclusion of other spoken languages is really an attempt to make this game more easily accessible to our Canadian and Mexican friends (along with the Italian aficionados), but there are a lot of possibilities here for providing immersion in commonly spoken world languages for we Americans who have few opportunities to be among entire cultures who speak a certain language. It is, in other words, a rare opportunity to be genuinely entertained and learn in the process. Best of all, this can merely be an option and not something that's forced on the player as it is in so many games that seek to educate the player. (Assassin's Creed II excels intentionally in this regard in other areas as well, which I plan to discuss in a future post.)

Off the top of my head, I can think of few other games that provide this feature, but I'd like to know: has anyone else here ever tried something similar? At the very least, are there other modern games that can be played in a different language (obviously without localization)?