It seems the Attorney General of South Australia fears his life might be in danger from angry gamers. Australia has become quite famous for its silly policy of banning violent games, but the AG is steadfast against any kind of rating system. He’s also raised the ire of biker gangs but fears the gamers more after getting a threatening note under his door.
Of course an age rating system is the sensible way to handle the issue, but I guess this guy can score more political points by scaremongering about little Johnny being encouraged to kill hookers from playing GTA. Videogames are just today’s easy target: there were big scares in the past about the corrupting power of comic books, then movies, but these have become since become mainstream to the point few western countries would outright ban them for their content (unless it was incitement to hatred or a snuff film or something).
Video games are becoming less and less of a fringe thing, and it would shock me if these kind of policies were still around in 10 years. By then they’ll be scape-goating Holodecks.
On the plus side, its cute that Australians call biker gangs ‘Bikies’!
Like most people, I ploughed through a marathon session of ME2 the weekend I picked it up. Yet come Monday the realities of working life meant Cmdr Shepard’s adventures were cut down to an hour or 2 at a time: Turns out this is a great way to play!
At this point it’s probably not spoiling much to say that the game is neatly divided up in to missions where you recruit team members and missions where you win their loyalty. Each one has a fairly substantial self-contained story that feeds a little in to the main plot and none are overly-long. It reminded me of watching an episode of Star Trek or Babylon 5 back in the day
ME2 DLC should deliver short episodes focusing on particular characters and lasting around 2 hours. A satisfying dose of character-focused content would trump a drawn out shooting mission(lets face it, the plot is the game’s big strength, not the gunplay). Plus, it would be cost effective for Bioware as they would only have to bring back one of the voice actors, plus the male and female Shepards.
The only post-release DLC so far has been a rather underwhelming set of armor and a gun. (see right)
Armor = Poor DLC
Hopefully we’ll get something a little more substantial in the future.
What are you guys and gals hoping for with Mass Effect 2 DLC?
Close to 200 achievements for some avatar headgear. Hmm, why am I even contemplating this?
Halo waypoint seemed like a neat little feature when it launched. Asides from the promise of a daily fix of random Halo content, it had another feature that was, weirdly, more appealing.
I’ve always believed that there is a very primal male instinct to arrange and collect things, and put them in order. One need only think back to the popularity of Pokemon cards, top trumps, or even the simple dorky joy of putting a comic book collection in order. So, for me at least, the ability to arrange and categorize all your Halo achievements and have them add up to medals and things was a cool little novelty.
Of course, it helped more than a little that free avatar awards were tied to certain achievements. I don’t think most people would have given Halo Waypoint a second look if they hadn’t been given that free floating orb just for loading it up. This pleasant surprise made you dig a little deeper to see what else you might find.
Inevitably, novelty wears off. I’m no Halo obsessive, so I didn’t need to come back everyday to get the latest gun stats or info on Brute mating rituals. So it was only after a couple of months away that I returned to discover they had added this monster of an award
Eva Helmet – Get to milestone 50.
Milestone 50 basically means you need to get virtually every single achievement in all three of the current Halo games. Admittedly, I am pretty close to getting the Halo 3 and ODST ones, but Halo Wars? That would take some time. The online achievements require insane scores that aren’t possible without many hours of investment.
So, why am I tempted to try it? Its not that I even particularly want that silly helmet. I put it down to that wierd need to have entire sets of things. It just doesn’t seem right to only have 161/184 achievements. Gah! Its a sickness, I’ll resist... for now.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but until this weekend my copy of Battlefield: Bad Company lay on my shelf, largely unplayed, for about 6 or 7 months. Bought on the cheap along with three or four other games it got lost in shuffle as my “games to play:time to play them” ratio got seriously out of whack. What a waste right?
I had played a bit of the rather pedestrian single player mode a couple of times when I first got it and didn’t really see what the fuss was about. With the sequel coming out in a couple of months I figured I should give multiplayer a shot before everyone jumps ship, if only to rack up a couple of achievements. Silly me for not checking it out sooner!
The huge variety of character classes lends itself to amazing depth to the way you choose to play and the strategies you employ. The great maps and destructible landscape make it all the sweeter. Almost makes me regret putting so much time in to Lego Indy (almost).
Between now and its inevitable demise at the hands of BF:BC 2, I intend to make up for lost time!
Question of the Week: (1) Whats the longest you have left a game to gather dust, largely unplayed? (2) Did you end up sorry you ignored it or sorry you bought it?
19 Comments
Greg Zeschuk, Bioware co-founder has confirmed there will be more games in the Mass Effect Universe after the trilogy concludes. I always figured Mass Effect was a MMORG waiting to happen!
A BBC reporter is challenged to break a supposedly 'unbreakable' phone at the CES convention in Las Vegas. You have to feel for the poor exec, this has to cost them sales!
Nominations are out for the Writers Guild of America Award for video game writing:
Assassin ' s Creed II, Story by Corey May, Script Writers Corey May, Joshua Rubin, Jeffrey Yohalem; Ubisoft Entertainment
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Written by Jesse Stern, Additional Writing Steve Fukuda, Story by Todd Alderman, Steve Fukuda, Mackey McCandlish, Zied Rieke, Jesse Stern, Jason West , Battlechatter Dialogue, Sean Slayback; Activision
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Written by Amy Hennig ; Sony Computer Entertainment
Wet, Written by Duppy Demetrius; Bethesda Softworks
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Script Writer Marc Guggenheim;Activision
Shamefully, I have not played any of this year's nominees. I hope the writing in the Wolverine game was better than the awful film it was based on. Batman: Arkham Asylum should probably have got a mention: the story was a bit video-gamey but the dialogue was very snappy (maybe they didnt put themselves forward?).
Log in to comment