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Showing posts from November, 2009

Modern Warfare 2 - Here Comes The Press!

I called it...the gaming industry doesn't need this kind of attention. It's unfortunate because Modern Warfare 2 is really a great game. But for non-gamers, they can easily misinterpret that one level, and then if another violent attack occurs in the United States or elsewhere, this game is going to be the scapegoat. Regardless of what you think about Fox News' reporting and whether you agree with it, they're out there, and they're influencing minds. Activision/Infinity Ward should really have done the level in a different way to avoid all that negative publicity.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - Unnecessary Violence

I've never thought I'd say this, but the violence in the Airport level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 easily aims for controversy and is totally unnecessary. They could have just portrayed the same scene with a non-interactive cutscene, or they could have put you in the moment as a different character. It's something else completely when they put you in there as a terrorist, mowing down innocent civilians as you please. If Columbine or all those other 'gunman gone amok' scenarios never happened in the United States and other countries, I would never think this way about it. The fact is, if another student or psychologically distressed person goes crazy and blames this CODMW2 level for his insanity, video games will take the blame for real-world violence once again.

Interesting Picture from Forza Site

I saw this picture on the Turn 10 Studios blog: That's Dan Greenawalt (left) from Turn 10 Studios (Forza Motorsport 3), posing with Kazunori Yamauchi (right), CEO of Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo 5). Here's the blog post where I found the picture: http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/blogs/post.aspx?App=turn_10s_forza_motorsport_blog&y=2009&m=11&d=06&PostName=forza-motorsport-3-week-in-review-11-6 So to the console-exclusivity fanboys, yes, apparently it is possible to respect your competition. Kudos to both developers for making the best racing games ever made.

Complacency: Microsoft's Curse

It’s been around 4 years since the initial launch of the XBOX 360 and at that time, I felt that Microsoft was the underdog in the console race. Everyone was prattling about how ‘awwwwzommmm!!’ the Sony Playstation 3 was and laughing that Nintendo named their console after a male appendage. When the XBOX 360 came out, I believed that Microsoft hit jackpot. They had the right vision, they had the right games and I was fully on board. But the last 4 years of the XBOX 360 was marred by the horrendous 3 red lights of death and Microsoft’s insistent denial that they had absolutely nothing to do with it; like Pilate washing his hands clean. But the truth eventually came out and Microsoft really did rush the console to market in order to beat the PS3. While that strategy may have worked for the last 3 years since they gained a good portion of the North American market share, the stigma of faulty hardware plagues Microsoft to this day. Sure the Jasper doesn’t break as much as the