Al… Most… Finished…

Okami is nearly done. Wow. What an amazing game…

Fortune Cookie Widsom For The Day

There is a great difference between the man who does good and the man who does no evil; one loves justice, while the other may merely fear punishment.

Completely Meaningless Achivement

I am now Monster Hunter Rank 3, which means I can now get my ass kicked three times as badly as before. Whoo.

Press Conference

The highlight of the day was going over to the Uber-Pretentiously named “Red Dot Museum” which used to be the HQ for Singapore traffic cops until they moved somewhere else, and it got taken over by the Media Whores. Basically designers, advertising people and anyone else that tries to use art to make people buy things has taken up residence in the place, so it seemed like the perfect place to hold a press conference announcing that that a government group known as the IAH, or Infocomm Asia Holdings, has managed to acquire the rights to distribute two potentially big online games in Southeast Asia and Australia.

That in itself was spectacularly boring, but the cool part was I got interview Bill Roper, the creator of Hellgate. This may not mean much to most people, even most gamers, but it should when I say he’s also the guy that created Diablo, and broke away from Blizzard because he wanted to make more Diablo games and… well, at the moment, Bilzzard can’t do much of anything outside the monstrously successful World of Warcraft.

Still, it was a kick to talk him and ply his brain with questions about Chinese Gold Farming and how Blizzard has become a victim of its own success in terms of what projects it can now pursue.

More Meetings

Aside from the usual work at the magazine which mostly consists of tormenting the new intern (“BOY! WHERE’S THAT COFFEE?!?”), the only other activity of note was a monstrously long meeting to discuss the video game documentary.

Things are moving along and with any luck this thing will actually wrap up when it’s supposed to, because between this, the regular magazine work, the extra stuff for other magazines like Maxim, and the travel show, I’m an incredibly productive little boy. Who has done NO story-telling whatsoever since the comic book got submitted to Slave Labor Graphics. Speaking of which, I wonder if they have it yet?

How Jack Thompson Believes Video Games Work

If you don’t know who Jack Thompson is, the short version is, he’s a lawyer in America that’s been getting a lot of attention recently for the theatrical way in which he attempts to stamp out the evil influence of video games. He’s sued Rockstar (creators of the Grand Theft Auto series), he’s lobbied for more control of the sales of video games–or better yet, get them banned outright–and he even condemned a Christian video game based on a series of novels about the Rapture because he believed the inclusion of violence ran counter to the Christian credo.

I think the reason for this is simple. Somewhere along the line, he became absolutely convinced that video games are much like Marvel Universe Radiation ™, which has a profound effect on people as a result of exposure.

For example:

Mahatma Gandhi: Boy I sure do love being a vegetarian, comdemning all acts of violence and striving to embrace the notion that truth is God!

Gamer: Hey Gandhi, try this video game, it’s called Pong!

2 hours later…

MG: ALL RIGHT, THIS IS A STICK UP! ANYONE OF YOU MOVES AND I’LL EXECUTE EVERY LAST MOTHERFUCKING ONE OF YA’S!

Student: But… this is a cerebal palsy therapy center!

Gandhi beats the kid to death with a thumb tack.

MG: ANY OTHER OBJECTIONS? NO? THEN SOMEONE GET ME A CHEAP HOOKER AND A HAMBURGER, I’M STARVIN’ HERE!

Why, if games really worked like this, then I guess the only possible explanation for Hitler must be that someone stepped into a time machine and gave him the entire Grand Theft Auto collection, ’cause, as we all know, ONLY games could make someone that twisted. Evil simply didn’t exist before games came along…

Signs That A Game Is Genius

Okami was just picked up yesterday and the game has already clocked close to 14 hours. I run into a game that compels me to play like this maybe once a year. Or every two years.

Good Game In Progress

Picked this up this evening and canNOT put it down, probably one of the best overall games of the year for the PS2, though I know I’ll love Guitar Hero 2 more for the music, I have to say that all-around, taking in longevity, creativity, variety, level design, control and sheer–yes, dammit, I’m gonna’ say it–artistry, this is the most original, well designed and thoughtful titles of the 2006 for the PS2, or almost any system for that matter.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to neglect…

Busy With Stuff

Went to a meeting in the morning to discuss more TV things and now have a bunch of TV stuff that I have to take care of.

It’s official, I was definitely more interesting when I didn’t have so much work.

Getting Picked On By The Government

Thursday ended up taking a turn for the strange when I got a call from the GameAxis editor who is currently IN FREAKIN’ JAPAN, because HE got a call from the MDA, otherwise known as the Media Development Authority of Singapore. In a nutshell, they are the censorship guys and are the ones responsible for making Playboy, Cosmopolitan (At least until 2004), Kill Bill Volume 1, and the Grand Theft Auto video game series illegal in Singapore. To make a long story short, a video game for the Xbox 360 called Saints Row was schedule to go on sale in Singapore because it had an “M-Rating” and then mysteriously failed to show up at retail outlets on the dates that said retailers had promised. When consumers asked why, the retailers told them that the MDA had banned the game. I made a post about this on the GameAxis blog when it seemed we had found a loophole. It seems that this kind of irriated the MDA since what they were telling retailers was not the case at all, and ended up with phone calls to GameAxis to first track down the editor, who then threw the ball at me, since I was the one that wrote the post. After being very logical and asking questions of the MDA rep (who, in all honesty, I think was expecting a cowed and subservient panic-stricken Singaporean, not a Canadian who told him, “okay, so explain this to me, ’cause it doesn’t make ANY sense…”) I was required to make a SECOND BLOG POST in order to make the MDA look better. Unfortunately the information they told me to relay does anything BUT make them look sensible and better.

Sigh… Bureaucrats… They really should expose themselves to reality once in a while then they might actually avoid embarrassing moments like this.