Other things I've been up to

Here's some of the stuff I've written at other sites over the past few weeks that may be of interest.

Over at Robot Geek:

Where's Your God Now, Mario?: Religious Censorship in Games- A look back at the golden age of Nintendo of America's Standards and Practices, when naming a spell “Holy” or showing a cross on a coffin was forbidden due to fears that any religious imagery or references could cause offense or controversy. Did I mention that this was happening at the same time that one of the more prominent games on the Nintendo Gameboy was a a rather grim saga in which  the ultimate villain and true power behind all the evil, demonic beings the heroes fight during the story turns out to be God Himself? And that the game climaxes with the heroes kicking His top-hatted ass after discovering His heartless indifference to the suffering of His creations? Because it was.

Feeling like a hero, then and now- How games based on the premise that the protagonist is an elite badass among badasses fulfill that premise in their gameplay, or fail to. I express approval of Crysis and Vanquish but am somewhat less enthusiastic about Silver Surfer on the NES. Also includes a handy visual aid to help you, the player, distinguish between games that actually turn you into a nigh-unstoppable killing machine and those that merely claim to.

Meanwhile, over at Kuribo's Shoes, where I'm not hemmed in by Robot Geek's rigid “don't make up blatant lies” policy:

2K Games apologizes for statements by Duke Nukem Forever PR team, says reviewers will NOT be hunted for sport- Nor will 2K be unleashing the terrifying arsenal of orbital kinetic weaponry,
darksome sorceries, or international organ thieves at their command. Because they don't exist. Really. Just let it drop.

L.A. Noire’s development even more troubled than anyone realized- Long-time readers of this site know I enjoy welding as many utterly inappropriate and unrelated things into a single gruesome mass as possible, so I consider successfully working Motley Crue, the Holy Roman Empire, the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, Blade Runner, Chris Tucker, and the phrases “orbital bombardment” and “consuming the souls of his enemies” into the space of a 600-word article about L.A. Noire a success.

Nintendo announces new voice actor for Mario: Michael Ironside- “The classic Mario gameplay that has delighted gamers for three decades isn’t going anywhere, It’s just that now, instead of a jolly Italian plumber, Mario will sound like a grizzled stone-cold killer.”

Xenoblade: The horrifying truth- This is a long one, since it was one of our special Friday articles, and due to a last-minute technical hiccup the pictures that would have been there to break up the text weren't included. Nevertheless,  I think this article's rigorous accuracy and grounded common sense make it well-worth your time, as well as a decisive refutation of  those naysayers who claim that writing your article about Nintendo of America's treatment of RPGs when you haven't slept in the past 192 hours and have been munching down hallucinogenic mushrooms like trail mix so that the unearthly things in your sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations can be fought off by their slightly less horrifying psilocybin-induced counterparts is somehow incompatible with responsible gaming journalism.

News Roundup, August 10 2009

German company Crytek, developer of the Farcry and Crysis series’, says it may have to move its operations out of the country due to efforts by German politicians to ban the production and sale of violent video games. The company has a second office in Budapest, and Crytek president Cevat Yerli has previously raised the possibility of relocating all of their operations there if German censorship of violent games becomes too restrictive. As a precaution, Crytek has reportedly already shifted the development of their forthcoming Far Cry 2: Mutilated Chunks of Innocent People You’ve Brutally Killed for Absolutely No Reason Splattering Everywhere Special Collector’s Edition to their Budapest office. Crytek is a fine developer, and the Crysis series has received well-earned acclaim from gamers despite the handicap of requiring the National Nuclear Security Administration’s supercomputer at Los Alamos to run at full settings, so I wish them the best.

Blizzard has announced that the long-awaited Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty will be released in the first half of 2010. Blizzard says that they need the time in order to get their online service Battle.net upgraded. While they’re at it, perhaps they could also take a few moments to give the game a better subtitle. Wings of Liberty isn’t a name that says “thrilling saga of epic battles across space for the future of the galaxy,” it’s a name that says “feminine hygiene product for the busy modern woman on the go.”

It’s since been taken down for reasons unknown, but someone on Ebay was trying to sell an Xbox 360 that was supposedly signed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for the low, low price of 1.1 million dollars. Can someone explain to me what the point of having something like this could possibly be? If you like a politician enough to want their autograph, you would think you’d want it on election campaign materials, or something related to their political philosophy, or perhaps, you know, some other object that is at least in some vague way actually connected to them. Consumer electronics don’t really fit the bill. On the other hand, my copy of Frank Sinatra: Live at the Meadowlands signed by Jimmy Carter and the late Ayatollah Khomeini is one of my most prized possessions, so perhaps I shouldn’t judge.