mikeszekely

In practice, what is the actual difference? The ammount of work the hacker creating the mod has to do. The end result is the same... PC user buys game, installs game, downloads mod, installs mod, and gets to play at sex. The ESRB is supposed to rate the content in the retail version of a game. The ESRB shouldn't rate a game based on content deliberately disabled (because actually going through all the code, removing it, and then going back and making sure everything else still works takes a lot longer and is much more work) that requires a hack or mod to access. That's a step away from rating games based on hacks and mods that add content instead of merely enable disabled content... something that some people are already calling for. From there, games would have to be rated based on potential content from aftermarket modders, which as JB0 already said, would have every game carrying an AO-rating. And that, more than anything Rockstar did, underminds the ESRB's ratings. But do you honestly think that the appropriate action was taken? The ESRB took a game that was already rated M for a number of valid reasons, and re-rated it AO for content deliberately disabled that, in depicting sex acts with clothes on, would probably only get a PG-13 rating in a movie. Sorry, all I see is the ESRB caving to political pressure, and Rockstar suffering as the victim of an anti-gaming lobby. As I already stated, I think re-rating the game based on disabled content undermines the ESRB's effectiveness more than Rockstar having disabled content on the disc and not submitting it for rating because it wouldn't show up normally in the retail version. Oddly enough, I'm in the same boat, JB0. If this was about taking a totally amoral game to task, there is plenty of other legitimate content in the game to work with. I'll be the first one to say that sometimes, with the stuff in GTA and Manhunt, Rockstar shows less artistic integrity and more violence and controversy simply because violence and controversy sell. But focusing on deliberately disabled content as cause for having a game re-rated is a whole other can of worms that has ramifications that go beyond GTA, Rockstar, Take-Two, or the money retailers will lose from selling GTA. I don't agree at all with where the anti-game lobby and the government are going with this, and I'm dissapointed that the ESA lacked the courage and integrity to stand behind what was a proper M-rating.

Coded Arms' biggest problem was that, even if you could get used to the controls, the game still sucked. It was more than akward controls that killed it.

Stroke of genius. But I think the punishment should be more than a pissy fine. I think child endangerment charges should be filed against anyone who buys M-rated games for anyone under 15. 313534[/snapback] And I think it's a parent's responsibilty to judge what is appropriate for their children, not the ESRB's, and certainly not Congress's. If a parent believes that Parasite Eve, Metroid Prime, or Metal Gear Solid 3 is appropriate for their child, then they should be able to buy it for them. PARTICULARLY as the average M-rated video game is far less offensive than the average R-rated movie, which has no such restrictions. 313536[/snapback] I'll disagree... half-heartedly, though. I'm a conservative Republican, so I'm inclined to agree that the less government intervention, the better. And I also do, for the most part, believe in a parent's right to determine what is and isn't appropriate for their children. And I agree 100% that R-rated, and even some PG-13-rated games (Aliens vs. Predator, for example) are actually far worse than many M-rated games. I see that, though, as a failing of both the MPAA and the ESRB... the MPAA is willing to let quite a bit slide, because PG-13 movies sell better than R, and the ESRB doesn't let enough slide. Parents assume that because, say, Halo is okay, and it's rated M, that GTA isn't any worse, because it carries the same rating. However, things like buying alchohol or cigarettes for minors are illegal. I believe so is child negligence, and a certain ammount of that has to be going on for parents to be buying this kind of stuff for their kids. I'll concede that parents may choose to be more lenient about what kind of content their children can and can't have when they're a bit older, which was why I originally suggested 15. But from my time at Gamestop, I'd say probably half the copies of GTA I sold were for children younger than 15. And frankly, I'm tired of lazy parents who can't be bothered to monitor what their children are doing/playing, I'm tired of irresponsible parents who buy games like that for their children, even after being warned that the game really is appropriate, especially when they throw fits upon discovering that the game really wasn't appropriate (usually through the news, mind you, because again they really can't be bothered to have watched their child play the game to see what kind of content was really in the game), and I'm especially tired of this liberal "blame everything but the criminal" attitude that's become so prevalent in society whenever someone, especially a minor, commits a violent crime. And if a few tougher laws will force some of those people to get off their asses and start parenting, I'm for it. In other words, I agree that it's not the government's job to tell you how to parent your kids... but the government does make laws to protect children from other examples of parental negligence. I don't see this one as that much different. Oh, and BTW, Metroid Prime had a T-rating.

147MB.

That was exactly what I paid for FFIII (one of the first games I bought with my own money, and it completely pwned my wallet). It was worth every penny though. At that point, consoles didn't have awesome graphics to rely upon to make up for mediocre stories. JBO, it would appear that we're pretty much in the same age group (I'm 26). Likewise I can recall in hindsight that after paying for my subscriptions to EGM, Gamepro, and Nintendo Power (Until about 1996, I had been a subscriber since it was still the "Nintendo Fun Club" or whatever back in the mid-80s), I could've easily doubled my game library over the course of about 3 years. 313681[/snapback] 23 here. I have a few years' worth of GamePros bought off newsstands, and a pile of Nintendo Powers I subscribed to. Actually wasn't half-bad in the SNES days. I used to play games at Pizza Hut/Inn/Whatever. I remember one. Arkanoid. I remember it because I thought the machine was broken. Years later I realized that the joystick was actually a knob that you rotated. 313735[/snapback] 25 here. But my family was poor, and almost NEVER bought any kind of magazine or anything like that for me. So, I used to stay over at my friend's house in elementary school and middle school. He was a Nintendo Power subscriber since before I'd met him. He was also one of those people who slept late and was nigh impossible to wake up. If I slept over, I'd always wake up first... so I'd read all his magazines until he got up. I didn't actually get a magazine of my own until PSM. They were giving away free subscriptions to new PlayStation owners. As I got older, though, my tastes went more multi-console. I gave up PSM, and currently I subscribe to EGM and Game Informer. Oh, and Popular Science. As for the arcade thing, when I was little, my hometown had a mom-and-pop style pizza shop with a small arcade. I used to love to go there, and play Pole Position, complete with steering wheel, pedals, and the hi/low shifter. Ah, good times...

Action-ADVENTURE. It's got as much RPG in it as Metroid or Megaman X. Which is to say, not one byte. 313528[/snapback] Unless you mean Command Mission. 313531[/snapback] Bah. 313538[/snapback] Second that. 313539[/snapback] Weak. Played it, beat it, AND loved it.

Stroke of genius. But I think the punishment should be more than a pissy fine. I think child endangerment charges should be filed against anyone who buys M-rated games for anyone under 15.

Action-ADVENTURE. It's got as much RPG in it as Metroid or Megaman X. Which is to say, not one byte. 313528[/snapback] Unless you mean Command Mission.

I don't follow the logic either. However, the M-rating is a message to parents that the game is not suitable for children. The AO-rating is to games what an X-rating or NC-17-rating is to movies... a sign that says "This is PORN! EVIL!" reguardless of what the actual definition of those ratings or what the actual content of the game is. And re-rating a game AO because there's disabled content on the disc that's far less racier than what's in most R-rated movies was't necessary. It was just way for the ESRB to pull their ass out of the fire. A decent parent should also be aware of what their kids are playing. Again, all the AO-rating says is "PORN." The original M-rating should have served as that shield. There is a reason that GTA wasn't rated T. I'm sure they do exist. But, to use your earlier choice of words, a decent parent really shouldn't be buying games like GTA for their 10-year old kids, reguardless. It's lazy, irresponsible parenting to say that it's okay for a child to play a game where he buys time with a prostitute, then beats said prostitute to death, but not okay to play a game where you hump a girl with all your clothes on. It's also lazy, irresponsible parenting to buy an M-rated game without knowing what's in it, and lazy, irresponsible parenting to complain that the game should have been rated more severely when you find content in it that you think is objectionable. In other words, as far as I'm concerned, the "odd parent" you described isn't a good one. To be fair, I do think the ESRB is a little at fault. Games like Jak and Rachet and Clank, which were developed with kids in mind, were getting a T-rating for "animated violence," and that was scaring parents off of buying them for their kids. So, they created a new E10+ rating. While they were wasting time with that, they should have been coming up with a rating to seperate games like Halo, Deus Ex, and Jade Empire (all rated M for blood and violence) from truly mature games like God of War and GTA. Admittedly, not a parent. I have two nieces, whom I would deem most of my game collection inappropriate for. I am, though, a retailer, who despite warning of that there was clear nudity that was defiantely "worse than what he'd seen on television," was unable to dissuade a man from buying God of War for his 12-year old grandson. The look on his face showed that he cared more about being the "cool" grandpa than whether or not he was buying a game that was innapropriate, even after being told flat out that the game was innappropriate. And that was just today. I have to deal with this scenario at least once a week.

I got Coded Arms to work fine. I hadn't tried it without a UMD, though. I have Wipeout in my PSP. Did you remember to replace the BOOT.BIN file in the game with the one that came with the loader?

The second one. Anyway, yeah, that was the best puke clip ever. It even topped the puke scene in Team America. Puking is funny, if it's happening to somebody else.

Maybe some of them were. I can't recall, because I was in middle school at the time. They could have been $20 and been out of my price range. I do definitavily remember Final Fantasy III retailing for $60, though.

Waaah!? N64 games were $75? 313354[/snapback] For a time, yeah. I remember paying that much for Perfect Dark and WWF No Mercy.

Except that most discs aren't full. 95% of the PS2 games out there are on DVD-5s. And then there's games like Lego Star Wars, at around 650mb, which was released on CD-ROM for the PS2, but naturally on DVD for Xbox. True... and false. While it is true that optical discs cost nearly nothing it the way of materials, development costs are on the rise. The more advanced the hardware, the more staff is needed to crank out your average game for said hardware to release the game in a timely fashion. Likewise, while I didn't own a Sega CD or a Saturn and can't really comment much on the prices of those games, PlayStation games WERE cheaper. $50 for a PlayStation CD-ROM was less than the $60 SNES and $75 N64 cartridges that were competing for shelf space.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Web browser OR homebrew games. I think I'm going with the updates b/c someone will eventually get around the lockouts. 313105[/snapback] Official browser, or homebrew browser and homebrew games? Screw updates.

I'm sure any reduction in the cost of development will be offset by the fact that Blu-Ray discs are supposed to cost up to $10 more per disc than standard DVD-9s. Seriously, you had to figure there's a reason why Blu-Ray hasn't won out over HD-DVD. Don't forget that initial, "It's a new system and you just gotta get the GAMES!" rush that had $40 DS games and still has $50 PSP games.

I don't know about some of the ultra-violent or WTF asian horror/gore films, but I love the slow, deliberate building of suspense in Hideo Nakata's films (something that I think the original American Ring remake managed, but the new American adaptation of Dark Water completely missed). I also like how you're just screwed in Japanese ghost stories. In American ghost stories, it's always like you solve the mystery behind the ghost's unhappy death, and everyone lives happily ever after (Stir of Echoes), or if you can manage to get out of the house, you're in the clear (The Haunting). The Ring was good for this, because unravelling the mystery of Sadako's death didn't break the curse, only spreading it did. Juon was even better, in some ways, because people who'd only visited the house briefly were as screwed as the people who moved in, and leaving the house didn't stop you from getting it at school later. I think the Ring and Juon are also notable for being the only two series with American versions that I actually liked.

That's more or less my reasoning. Besides, the first Transporter wasn't all that bad. And Statham is one of the few white guys that are honestly entertaining to watch when they're beating the crap out of someone. Thank *your chosen deity here* he hasn't picked up the rights to Megaman yet. ... Uh, I hope Boll isn't trolling the boards...

In my case, my wife would get the black... she likes the NES version of Tetris, and Lumines running from the memory stick... Well, white is still manly, right? Screw that. 1.5 plays mp3 music and mp4 video already. The video side can be a pain, but it's not worth giving up my homebrew for and upgrade.

As I said before... Again, it comes down to lazy parenting. Parents have this idea that M-rated games are rated M for violence, and rather argue with their child, they want to just give in and think the game is okay for their child anyway. When they find out that GTA isn't, even without the Hot Coffee mod, they'd rather blame the ESRB for not giving in an AO rating than admit that they were in the wrong for buying M-rated games for kids. In other news, I don't know if it's been officiall announced yet, but at Gamestop, we pulled ALL copies (PC, PS2, and Xbox, new and used) from our shelves yesterday.

Thirded. The confrontation between the Gundam and the Zeong is just classic. Then again, so Amuro/Char/Lalah/Sayla battle. The way Char just barely avoids killing Sayla, only to lose his arm for it. And then the way Amuro impulsively tries to deal Char the killing blow, only to accidently kill Lalah instead. As I was explaining to my wife, who'd never seen any UC Gundam until recently when I showed her the trilogy, that was one of the defining moments between Amuro and Char, and would still be an issue between them 14 years later in Char's Counterattack.

Let's see... I can upgrade my PSP to have the web browser, and loose the "applications" I have on my memory stick... or I can use the browser hack with Wipeout Pure, and keep my "apps." I'll take the 1.5, thank you much. Well, sooner or later, games will probably require the 2.0 firmware... so maybe I'll buy one of those white PSPs. The whiteness of purity PSP can have the latest firmware and be used for the purposes Sony intendend. Meanwhile, my original obscuring darkness PSP can be used for... well, other things.

So much for sleeping well tonight... 312806[/snapback] Somewhere, a child weeps... ...no wait, that's me. Seriously, what kind of world do we live in where a guy like me winds up working in a Gamestop, while a seriously untalented nitwit like Uwe Boll gets to make movies? While I can't argue that, I'll probably go see the Transporter 2, just to watch him kick someone's ass.

And, not only has the Xbox been consistantly sold at a loss, the entire Xbox division has been operating at a loss... whatever they're taking in on licensing isn't offsetting their operating costs. (Frankly, I suspect that Microsoft probably has the lowest licensing fees of the three, to attract more companies into developing for the Xbox). Don't get me wrong, Wes, I think there's something to what you're saying, and I think that's a big reason why Sony's in the game. Sony is definately making money playing this game. Likewise, even with Nintendo's tiny share of the console market, Nintendo is definately bringing in the dollars, yen, and euros. And, although it certainly hasn't paid off for Microsoft yet, nor will that likely be the case with the 360, they've done a better job establishing themselves than anyone would have dreamed of five years ago. If Microsoft continues to play their cards right, there's a good chance the Xbox division will run in the black eventually.

To an extent, I think racism in Gundam has been dealt with, the same way that X-Men dealt with it... by creating a new race. UC Gundam touched on it briefly with the Newtypes, and SEED really showed the way that Kira was alienated for being a Coordinator.