Ok, this is years back in school. But I do believe there is an ammendment in our constitution stating that "Fines and penalties should be fair and affordable".
Back then they saw the value of using a fine as a means of punishment. The thing is they also saw that you cant issue a fine of $220,000 against a person who makes $30,000 a year. It is unrealistic and unfair.
Though for many politicians making these obscene laws, $220,000 fine to them is like $220 for us everyday people. Their problem is they cant see nor understand what life is like for the vast majority of people in this Earth.
This country needs another Abe Lincoln. A poor man who worked his way up the political ladder. Too bad he'd be filtered out of the system before even starting.
Jack Thompson's "moral crusade" against video games, obscenity, rap and well anything morally devient is due wholely to his own immoral desires. Jack cannot control his porn cravings and his lust for violence. So he goes on a holy crusade to eliminate the corruption of the world as a cover. In reality he is fighting his own internal demons.
Jack Thompson feels that by cleaning the world, his internal struggle will diminish and he will become a normal and productive human in the near future. The fool crusade he runs is selfish and in no way there to benefit humanity as a whole.
There is possibly quite a bit more 100 million video game systems out there. Yet if video games turned people violent, then there's be at least 1-20 million murders a year related to video games, providing that is 1-20% conversion rate. yet the fact is that quite possibly 0.00004% video gamers turn criminally violent.
There are over 17,000,000 registered gun users in the USA alone, yet we dont have murder numbers that even come close to that. 99.99901% of gun crime is done by Illegaly obtained fire arms. I've known many gamers who play violent games and own real guns. Yet somehow they have failed to kill anyone.
Jack plays a numbers game formatted to his own crusade. He wants to win for once, since pretty much every other crusade he has taken up failed in some way.
Jack needs a psychiatrist to help him, not an end to the worlds deviance. Any lawyer who sends his photo ID with batman pasted over it, has some sort of mental ailment that needs professional help.
To JAck, I hope you get well. Just dont bring down the rest of the world because of your war with your inner demons. Just fight youw own internal battle and let us govern ourselves.
Racism is between members of the same species. As far as we know the aliens are a completely different species. You could say the game promotes genocide and specieism if that is even a word.
I loved playing God of WAr, but that game dragged on for me. Quite a few modern games (BioShock) are great, but they start to drag after 10 hours of play. Action, FPS... games should be short, and have tons of replayability to them. Habitually I only play through them once and shelve em after. Loooong story lines should be kept to the RPG settings of epic stories like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga... Then again with the 300hours of Baldur's gate, I only sufered it once, even though it was awesome.
If companies want our cash they should trim the fat on the games they make, focus on higher production value and lower price point. If I could play 10 games a month at ~5 hours a piece and $30-40 price point I would be much happied than $60 for a game draging my life away.
I'm an Adult now and have to balance my love for games with 40hour Job + commute time, cleaning the gutters, lawn work, wife, kids, laundry, hygene, social life... Short games are a dream come true for me. The cost of Heavenly Sword is not so much a dream. Sell it for $30 and you hit the sweet spot of perfection.
It's an ok game. Though I pray there is never a "Bully 2".
Rockstar should stick with thier "murder training" software since well, I'm not really good at killing people yet. I've played GTA since it was 2D. I've played other murder trainers like Quake, Unreal, Doom, Half Life, Counter Strike, Carmageddon and many other of these "muder training" software titles for about 15 years now, and well, I never killed anyone nor really bothered to try.
My guess is the software doesn't work right. Hopefully with GTA 4 Rockstar will make it work as designed. I doubt it.
I even tried Microsoft's Flight Sim game that is supposed to teach you how to crash into buildings, and I still have not managed to do that. I think maybe the software is all bugged.
If you ignore political issues, then the governments can do whatever they want.
If we ignored the DMCA... the Patriot Act... RIAA... MPAA...
If we dont fight for what we believe in simply because it doesn't suit us, we'll loose freedom until such a time we're consumers without righrs. We'd have to repurchase the same song for each device we want to play it on "... and for the right to play on 5 devices you get this amazing ringtone, absolutely free!!!!"
If George Washington didn't cross the frozen Delaware river because he couldn't be bothered to ambush the enemy General because it was too cold or too dark, or that he may die and not enjoy the freedom he fought for, well we'd be a different country today. We had fought for our freedoms in the past, we need to stand up and do it now in the present.
Ninja Gaiden has had a touch too many makeovers. Ninja Gaiden, NG Black, NG Sigma... It's a proverbial cash cow.
I will admit I bought Sigma (PS3), even after playing through Black. It just looked so good. Taking away vibration on the PS3 has reduced some of the game's imersion though. Wit hthe Xbox you'd feel each hit and the feedback was very important to me.
While I have Digressed a bit... It's about time a "real" sequel came out. There is only so much replay a Great game like that can have. Adding in a "side story" to say playing as another character is ok. But the story is getting worn thin. If they offered an "upgrade discount" offer that would have been nice too. Black had alot of things that NG should have had, like a save point right before that last big boss encounter....
A true sequel at least will bring something new to the plate. Being on a 360 is a good/bad thing. The feedback in the controlers will be the biggest boon to game...
My PS2 controlers have lasted 6 years of abuse. They're a little worn for wear but have survived being dropped, stepped on, tossed on the floor after game time is over, and pretty much daily multi hour use.
THe Wii Motes are also very durable, but will they stand the test of time my PS2 controlers have? I hope so because Rayman requires serious shaking.
The overheating red light of a dead 360 is a fact. It happens, alot. It's a waste of time to ship it out and wait for a replacement.
I own a PS3, I play Suduko on it alot. It may not be some triple A game, nor the most spectacular game on the face of the planet, but I enjoy it and it's on the PS3.
It's also a fact there is pretty much NOTHING exciting for games out on the PS3 currently. The Darkness, and Oblivion are possibly the best 2. Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a rehash (damn good looking one) of an Xbox game that I beat many times over.
Oh, the game other than Suduko that gets most play on the PS3... Persona 3, yeah a PS2 game.
I was far from trolling, I was stating facts, and my honest plans to bide time till the 360 design flaws are hashed out.
I can agree with you. I very much enjoyed KotOR 2 as well. It was just as enjoyable as the first. The story was very interesting and meaningful.
It was pretty complete in my mind up to the last planet. Where the story line leading up to and into the planet became very rushed. There were tons of mention of the planet, some disaster happened there that a team member was responsable for, but never devled into. All of the sudden we needed be there and do stuff. Then the game ended after a fight.
Thankfully the PC port had tons of the unfinished content left on the disk hat a team of hardcore fans are working on completing. I would love to finally play KotOR 2 in it's full as the designers meant it to be played but ran out of time. I'm on a "Powered by Starbucks" ramble.
If it's 3am the roads are generally empty even near cities. Highway's and unmodified street legal cars for the vast majority can handle 80MPH on out highways without breaking a sweat. I've never had pro race training but I can tell you my (unmodified) car and I can handle sustained speeds of 150MPH. I've been driving for well over 10 years and should be a "statistic". I've had only 3 accidents since I first obtained a license. ALL 3 were under 10MPH. One I cut a left turn into a gas station too sharp and cliped the tail of a Utility Vehicle. Another I was fiddling with my tape deck at a stop light while inching forward and tapped a pickup. The final I was trying to see my watch at night using street light glare and rear ended someone (junk car no working clock). These were all when I was under 21 btw.
When I'm not driving on public roads I'll play Gran Tourismo and Forza to stay sharp and focused.
The biggest danger on a modern day highway are not the people going 80-90, it's the people in the left lane doing EXACTLY the speed limit and refusing to move over when someone is coming up from behind them. THis forces the faster driver to either "Break and twiddle thumbs" or pass on the right. The Left lane is for passing, meaning drive faster or move over.
According to you ClamIAm, I should have been dead years ago after skidding off the highway that were not designed for speeds greater than 65mph. You probably should get out more and realize that car technology has greatly changed since Nixon was president, who created the 55mph law. IT wasn't even for safety, it was gas conservation. These days its for "saefty" because police units have been raking in massive cash on speed tickets. If it weren't such a lucrative business it would mean everyone agrees with the speed limits...
the ESRB is a body of people organized to self govern the Game industry. Their ratings are pretty damn clear to people with basic english reading skills"
"M 17+, Realistic Violence, blood, sexual content" "13+, cartoon violence"
Blah blah.
Games are the 2000AD version of the Witch hunts that went on in the 1400 to 1600's. It's a distraction against real political issues that no one really seems to care about, like: "The war on terror, we gonna catch and kill Osama or not?" "Budget over runs and useless pet projects, like $10 million slipped into the war budget for research why breasts are getting bigger" "reviewing our current and past laws to see which ones are outdated and should be repealed and rewritten instead of just writing MORE laws to enforce and obfuscate."
These days people care is a 62 year old senator is having sex in rest rooms, how people choose to waste their time and how long some famous hottie is jailed for.
With the ESRB holding their ground and telling these senators to get jacked, we're sending a message that we're done with being pushed around. Now we need to get the government to focus on important topics like Highway speed laws (raise the limits), Fair use copyright, catering to the consumer instead of big business, win the war on terror, stop wasting money on stupid projects and government funding and lower taxes, and review and rewrite foreign polic.
There are tons of things far more important than sex in M rated video games and graphic violence. THere is serious real world violence that needs to be quelled, jobless and homelss, corporations running amok setting repressive laws, making us buy the same item 4 times to use it in a slightly different way and so on. We need better education and understanding, not just kicking the "trouble" child out of class and watching their grades go down. We need to raise the bar on education, not lower it because more kids are failing. I know it's easier to lower standards than to fix the problem, but this is the future of our world here. Any one who watched the movie "Idiocracy" can see that is our future.
In such a "Free" country, I'm not feeling the love here. I'm not feeling the freedom to drive my car down an empty highway at 90. I'm not feeling the freedom of making a mix CD for the lady I am courting, without the fear of defending myself in court. As kids we used to share the newest computer game and install them on the school computers. Others would love that game and go buy a copy for themselves...
I feel myself straying off topic. But I'm passionate about our freedoms and how fast we're loosing them. It extends far beyond the ESRB and Manhunt, and Hot Coffee, and Bioshock. It stretches into how soft we've really become and how the innovative spirit the country was founded on is now lost in Patent lawsuits and mega corporate infighting.
Doom left me feeling Despair. They tried to be so horrible and grotesque that it just wasn't scary or controversial. There was little believability in the game. It was just a shooter showing off an amazing game engine.
Quake 4 came out a little later and I bought it, but played it a few months later. It was far better than Doom in many ways. You felt the horrors of these aliens capturing people and converting them to mindless soldiers through painful methods. Still not horrifying or engaging of a story.
Vampire the Masquerade was older than Doom and Quake, yet the scenes and imagery struck me a lot harder. The one scene with the blood king or whoever you had to fight in that pit of blood and severed bodies. You could almost smell it. The imagery was used strategically and not overkill as it was in Doom. It left you in the game wondering what else you'll see, and not wanting to go on, but having to so you can stop the images.
Bioshock brings you forward into a new light. The story is very real. It's engaging and drawing, you want to go on. You want to turn each corner to see what is out there and what you'll find. THe journals are interesting and I listen to them. THe dead bodies you may find are tastefully done to not overkill. They serve some emotional purpose. Like the couple who died in each others arms. I just stopped there to look at them, and threir journal crying over the disfigurment the doc did to their daughter. It was troubling and disturbing. You WANTED to find who did it and set him on fire. If anything, ujst to give their spirits rest.
People who dont want to play this game because of copy protection I can understand. If it were a mediocre game I'd fully understand. X3 had a wretched copy protection scheme and was an "ok' game. Easily skipped and wont be missed. Bioshock is not so easily ignored.
In the end of it all. I'm probably 45% done playing Bioshock and I'm still very much engaged in it's story. When I need a break, I play Persona 3, which is also hard to pass up.
I've played countless games in my life. Bioshock will be added to the "always remember" category.
With the PSP and DS, as well as home consoles and computers, the gaming console market is pretty much flooded.
3 consoles, and 3 portables is MORE than enough to keep any human busy. I know I as an adult dont ha ve enough time in life to balance all the consoles, and as a father dont want my kids to play games all day when they should be focusing on schoolwork and getting exercise playing sports.
I'm very new into the game. I dont have tons of time like I used to. Also I'm "time sharing" Bioshock And Persona 3. Both very good games. With Metroid Prime 3 out now... well we'll see.
From what i've played, up to the "casino" level, I'm saying Bioshock is AMAZING. There are huge ethical issues in this game that are past tense (nazi human experiments) as well as future thinking (genetic alterations).
Rapture feels very alive. It feels intense to be trapped there and as others have said, the game causes your real life survival instinct to kick in. It's a perfect blend between Fallout, Systemshock, Dues Ex, Thief and Half life 1-2.
I give them huge credit for the methods you choose to gather "adam".
Oops, on the note, I didnt realize the figurins were broken. The Collectors Edition was sold out and I just wanted the game. I'm at work and can't fully read the articles.
THe game is brave enough to touch on many issues others are simply too scared to face.
Harvest or "Save" the Little sisters. The guy helping you out says you should kill them to harvest all the "Adam" you can get, this lets you essentially level up faster. Or you can Save them as their creator would like and get some huge reward later on. She has gained some morality after turning little girls into monsters.
The theme is that you are in a fallen paradise city. The residents have gone insane and most are trying to kill you. You're forced to make moral choices on surviving, or dying. The city itself has fallen in disrepair and most residents will most likely die in a few years anyway.
I've not noticed anything "considerably" broken with BIg daddies. I just see them as spawning and searching out the sisters. If you already got all the sisters in the level, then the big daddies just go on looking. It adds texture.
The other moral issues in the game are gene modifications. Most denizens are mod junkies and have become twisted because of it. They were all once normal humans who took a little too much drugs. Some of the doctors in the city have gone a step further by doing horrible surgeries on people disfiguring them and killing their nurses in the process. It adds to the flavor of the story in which you are stuck in a Hell and are trying to find a way out.
As far as "preservation of life" vs killing them goes. As far as the main character knows, they cant be "cured". They're trying to kill him, so he's gotta eliminate them first. The morality here is perhaps death is the better alternative. Either that or live life being disfigured and insane.
Bioshock has gone through some serious blood and sweat in it's creation. I give them huge artistic credit as well as taking us to a level of morality so few are brave enough to go. There are many things that should be spoken about, but are not.
I am Running Windows XP with a single ATI card running DX9.
I've run 2-3 instances of EVE-Online in windowed mode which if my memory serves me right, is a 3D game. I also ran EVE with starwars galaxies. GPU sharing works... if developers know how to program.
Generally I only play 1 game at a time on a PC, because well, i'm a human and can only really play one game at a given time.
Granted tHere are other 3D apps out there aside games. 3D modeling programs like TrueSpace (personal favorite) Maya, Milkshape and the sorts. It's nice to open up one of those programs, render in 3D and import that object into another app/game. With Windowed mode in modern games, you can do all that on XP without needing Vista.
I tried to install Vista once, it failed, and after the 4th attempt, I gave up. Instead of paying $400 for Vista Ultimate, I bought a PS3 and Wii. Microsoft dont want me gaming on windows, I wont be gaming on an Xbox either.
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Ok, this is years back in school. But I do believe there is an ammendment in our constitution stating that "Fines and penalties should be fair and affordable".
Back then they saw the value of using a fine as a means of punishment. The thing is they also saw that you cant issue a fine of $220,000 against a person who makes $30,000 a year. It is unrealistic and unfair.
Though for many politicians making these obscene laws, $220,000 fine to them is like $220 for us everyday people. Their problem is they cant see nor understand what life is like for the vast majority of people in this Earth.
This country needs another Abe Lincoln. A poor man who worked his way up the political ladder. Too bad he'd be filtered out of the system before even starting.
Jack Thompson's "moral crusade" against video games, obscenity, rap and well anything morally devient is due wholely to his own immoral desires. Jack cannot control his porn cravings and his lust for violence. So he goes on a holy crusade to eliminate the corruption of the world as a cover. In reality he is fighting his own internal demons.
Jack Thompson feels that by cleaning the world, his internal struggle will diminish and he will become a normal and productive human in the near future. The fool crusade he runs is selfish and in no way there to benefit humanity as a whole.
There is possibly quite a bit more 100 million video game systems out there. Yet if video games turned people violent, then there's be at least 1-20 million murders a year related to video games, providing that is 1-20% conversion rate. yet the fact is that quite possibly 0.00004% video gamers turn criminally violent.
There are over 17,000,000 registered gun users in the USA alone, yet we dont have murder numbers that even come close to that. 99.99901% of gun crime is done by Illegaly obtained fire arms. I've known many gamers who play violent games and own real guns. Yet somehow they have failed to kill anyone.
Jack plays a numbers game formatted to his own crusade. He wants to win for once, since pretty much every other crusade he has taken up failed in some way.
Jack needs a psychiatrist to help him, not an end to the worlds deviance. Any lawyer who sends his photo ID with batman pasted over it, has some sort of mental ailment that needs professional help.
To JAck, I hope you get well. Just dont bring down the rest of the world because of your war with your inner demons. Just fight youw own internal battle and let us govern ourselves.
Racism is between members of the same species. As far as we know the aliens are a completely different species. You could say the game promotes genocide and specieism if that is even a word.
Rumble is mandatory for that game. The PS3 version looks preetty, but without rumble...
I loved playing God of WAr, but that game dragged on for me. Quite a few modern games (BioShock) are great, but they start to drag after 10 hours of play. Action, FPS... games should be short, and have tons of replayability to them. Habitually I only play through them once and shelve em after. Loooong story lines should be kept to the RPG settings of epic stories like Final Fantasy, Xenosaga... Then again with the 300hours of Baldur's gate, I only sufered it once, even though it was awesome.
If companies want our cash they should trim the fat on the games they make, focus on higher production value and lower price point. If I could play 10 games a month at ~5 hours a piece and $30-40 price point I would be much happied than $60 for a game draging my life away.
I'm an Adult now and have to balance my love for games with 40hour Job + commute time, cleaning the gutters, lawn work, wife, kids, laundry, hygene, social life... Short games are a dream come true for me. The cost of Heavenly Sword is not so much a dream. Sell it for $30 and you hit the sweet spot of perfection.
It's an ok game. Though I pray there is never a "Bully 2".
Rockstar should stick with thier "murder training" software since well, I'm not really good at killing people yet. I've played GTA since it was 2D. I've played other murder trainers like Quake, Unreal, Doom, Half Life, Counter Strike, Carmageddon and many other of these "muder training" software titles for about 15 years now, and well, I never killed anyone nor really bothered to try.
My guess is the software doesn't work right. Hopefully with GTA 4 Rockstar will make it work as designed. I doubt it.
I even tried Microsoft's Flight Sim game that is supposed to teach you how to crash into buildings, and I still have not managed to do that. I think maybe the software is all bugged.
Not only is it Parody, but it's really quite innocent and tame compaired to what they really could (should) have done.
Personally that one liner made me crack up laughing. I pray they keep that in the game. I'll be standing in line to buy it if so.
I had no interest in "Bully". THe plot concept didnt apeal to me. The name was simple and basic.
Jack made me buy it.
If you ignore political issues, then the governments can do whatever they want.
If we ignored the DMCA... the Patriot Act... RIAA... MPAA...
If we dont fight for what we believe in simply because it doesn't suit us, we'll loose freedom until such a time we're consumers without righrs. We'd have to repurchase the same song for each device we want to play it on "... and for the right to play on 5 devices you get this amazing ringtone, absolutely free!!!!"
If George Washington didn't cross the frozen Delaware river because he couldn't be bothered to ambush the enemy General because it was too cold or too dark, or that he may die and not enjoy the freedom he fought for, well we'd be a different country today. We had fought for our freedoms in the past, we need to stand up and do it now in the present.
Ninja Gaiden has had a touch too many makeovers. Ninja Gaiden, NG Black, NG Sigma... It's a proverbial cash cow.
I will admit I bought Sigma (PS3), even after playing through Black. It just looked so good. Taking away vibration on the PS3 has reduced some of the game's imersion though. Wit hthe Xbox you'd feel each hit and the feedback was very important to me.
While I have Digressed a bit... It's about time a "real" sequel came out. There is only so much replay a Great game like that can have. Adding in a "side story" to say playing as another character is ok. But the story is getting worn thin. If they offered an "upgrade discount" offer that would have been nice too. Black had alot of things that NG should have had, like a save point right before that last big boss encounter....
A true sequel at least will bring something new to the plate. Being on a 360 is a good/bad thing. The feedback in the controlers will be the biggest boon to game...
My PS2 controlers have lasted 6 years of abuse. They're a little worn for wear but have survived being dropped, stepped on, tossed on the floor after game time is over, and pretty much daily multi hour use.
THe Wii Motes are also very durable, but will they stand the test of time my PS2 controlers have? I hope so because Rayman requires serious shaking.
The overheating red light of a dead 360 is a fact. It happens, alot. It's a waste of time to ship it out and wait for a replacement.
I own a PS3, I play Suduko on it alot. It may not be some triple A game, nor the most spectacular game on the face of the planet, but I enjoy it and it's on the PS3.
It's also a fact there is pretty much NOTHING exciting for games out on the PS3 currently. The Darkness, and Oblivion are possibly the best 2. Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a rehash (damn good looking one) of an Xbox game that I beat many times over.
Oh, the game other than Suduko that gets most play on the PS3... Persona 3, yeah a PS2 game.
I was far from trolling, I was stating facts, and my honest plans to bide time till the 360 design flaws are hashed out.
Motorstorm = 60$. 80gig $41
41 + 60 = 101.
You save $1 buying the 80 gig, motorstorm bundle. Well, using your numbers.
The time you save not needing to replace a burned out PS3 every month more than beats the cost difference of an Xbox 360.
Once MS fixes that tiny overheating issue i'll buy a 360. For now i'll enjoy Suduko on my PS3.
I can agree with you. I very much enjoyed KotOR 2 as well. It was just as enjoyable as the first. The story was very interesting and meaningful.
It was pretty complete in my mind up to the last planet. Where the story line leading up to and into the planet became very rushed. There were tons of mention of the planet, some disaster happened there that a team member was responsable for, but never devled into. All of the sudden we needed be there and do stuff. Then the game ended after a fight.
Thankfully the PC port had tons of the unfinished content left on the disk hat a team of hardcore fans are working on completing. I would love to finally play KotOR 2 in it's full as the designers meant it to be played but ran out of time. I'm on a "Powered by Starbucks" ramble.
If it's 3am the roads are generally empty even near cities. Highway's and unmodified street legal cars for the vast majority can handle 80MPH on out highways without breaking a sweat. I've never had pro race training but I can tell you my (unmodified) car and I can handle sustained speeds of 150MPH. I've been driving for well over 10 years and should be a "statistic". I've had only 3 accidents since I first obtained a license. ALL 3 were under 10MPH. One I cut a left turn into a gas station too sharp and cliped the tail of a Utility Vehicle. Another I was fiddling with my tape deck at a stop light while inching forward and tapped a pickup. The final I was trying to see my watch at night using street light glare and rear ended someone (junk car no working clock). These were all when I was under 21 btw.
When I'm not driving on public roads I'll play Gran Tourismo and Forza to stay sharp and focused.
The biggest danger on a modern day highway are not the people going 80-90, it's the people in the left lane doing EXACTLY the speed limit and refusing to move over when someone is coming up from behind them. THis forces the faster driver to either "Break and twiddle thumbs" or pass on the right. The Left lane is for passing, meaning drive faster or move over.
According to you ClamIAm, I should have been dead years ago after skidding off the highway that were not designed for speeds greater than 65mph. You probably should get out more and realize that car technology has greatly changed since Nixon was president, who created the 55mph law. IT wasn't even for safety, it was gas conservation. These days its for "saefty" because police units have been raking in massive cash on speed tickets. If it weren't such a lucrative business it would mean everyone agrees with the speed limits...
the ESRB is a body of people organized to self govern the Game industry. Their ratings are pretty damn clear to people with basic english reading skills"
"M 17+, Realistic Violence, blood, sexual content"
"13+, cartoon violence"
Blah blah.
Games are the 2000AD version of the Witch hunts that went on in the 1400 to 1600's. It's a distraction against real political issues that no one really seems to care about, like:
"The war on terror, we gonna catch and kill Osama or not?"
"Budget over runs and useless pet projects, like $10 million slipped into the war budget for research why breasts are getting bigger"
"reviewing our current and past laws to see which ones are outdated and should be repealed and rewritten instead of just writing MORE laws to enforce and obfuscate."
These days people care is a 62 year old senator is having sex in rest rooms, how people choose to waste their time and how long some famous hottie is jailed for.
With the ESRB holding their ground and telling these senators to get jacked, we're sending a message that we're done with being pushed around. Now we need to get the government to focus on important topics like Highway speed laws (raise the limits), Fair use copyright, catering to the consumer instead of big business, win the war on terror, stop wasting money on stupid projects and government funding and lower taxes, and review and rewrite foreign polic.
There are tons of things far more important than sex in M rated video games and graphic violence. THere is serious real world violence that needs to be quelled, jobless and homelss, corporations running amok setting repressive laws, making us buy the same item 4 times to use it in a slightly different way and so on. We need better education and understanding, not just kicking the "trouble" child out of class and watching their grades go down. We need to raise the bar on education, not lower it because more kids are failing. I know it's easier to lower standards than to fix the problem, but this is the future of our world here. Any one who watched the movie "Idiocracy" can see that is our future.
In such a "Free" country, I'm not feeling the love here. I'm not feeling the freedom to drive my car down an empty highway at 90. I'm not feeling the freedom of making a mix CD for the lady I am courting, without the fear of defending myself in court. As kids we used to share the newest computer game and install them on the school computers. Others would love that game and go buy a copy for themselves...
I feel myself straying off topic. But I'm passionate about our freedoms and how fast we're loosing them. It extends far beyond the ESRB and Manhunt, and Hot Coffee, and Bioshock. It stretches into how soft we've really become and how the innovative spirit the country was founded on is now lost in Patent lawsuits and mega corporate infighting.
Doom left me feeling Despair. They tried to be so horrible and grotesque that it just wasn't scary or controversial. There was little believability in the game. It was just a shooter showing off an amazing game engine.
Quake 4 came out a little later and I bought it, but played it a few months later. It was far better than Doom in many ways. You felt the horrors of these aliens capturing people and converting them to mindless soldiers through painful methods. Still not horrifying or engaging of a story.
Vampire the Masquerade was older than Doom and Quake, yet the scenes and imagery struck me a lot harder. The one scene with the blood king or whoever you had to fight in that pit of blood and severed bodies. You could almost smell it. The imagery was used strategically and not overkill as it was in Doom. It left you in the game wondering what else you'll see, and not wanting to go on, but having to so you can stop the images.
Bioshock brings you forward into a new light. The story is very real. It's engaging and drawing, you want to go on. You want to turn each corner to see what is out there and what you'll find. THe journals are interesting and I listen to them. THe dead bodies you may find are tastefully done to not overkill. They serve some emotional purpose. Like the couple who died in each others arms. I just stopped there to look at them, and threir journal crying over the disfigurment the doc did to their daughter. It was troubling and disturbing. You WANTED to find who did it and set him on fire. If anything, ujst to give their spirits rest.
People who dont want to play this game because of copy protection I can understand. If it were a mediocre game I'd fully understand. X3 had a wretched copy protection scheme and was an "ok' game. Easily skipped and wont be missed. Bioshock is not so easily ignored.
In the end of it all. I'm probably 45% done playing Bioshock and I'm still very much engaged in it's story. When I need a break, I play Persona 3, which is also hard to pass up.
I've played countless games in my life. Bioshock will be added to the "always remember" category.
With the PSP and DS, as well as home consoles and computers, the gaming console market is pretty much flooded.
3 consoles, and 3 portables is MORE than enough to keep any human busy. I know I as an adult dont ha ve enough time in life to balance all the consoles, and as a father dont want my kids to play games all day when they should be focusing on schoolwork and getting exercise playing sports.
I'm very new into the game. I dont have tons of time like I used to. Also I'm "time sharing" Bioshock And Persona 3. Both very good games. With Metroid Prime 3 out now... well we'll see.
From what i've played, up to the "casino" level, I'm saying Bioshock is AMAZING. There are huge ethical issues in this game that are past tense (nazi human experiments) as well as future thinking (genetic alterations).
Rapture feels very alive. It feels intense to be trapped there and as others have said, the game causes your real life survival instinct to kick in. It's a perfect blend between Fallout, Systemshock, Dues Ex, Thief and Half life 1-2.
I give them huge credit for the methods you choose to gather "adam".
Oops, on the note, I didnt realize the figurins were broken. The Collectors Edition was sold out and I just wanted the game. I'm at work and can't fully read the articles.
That's cool to hear. Big Daddies "Rosie" is a PIA to eliminate. Having them protect you would be wild.
THe game is brave enough to touch on many issues others are simply too scared to face.
Harvest or "Save" the Little sisters. The guy helping you out says you should kill them to harvest all the "Adam" you can get, this lets you essentially level up faster. Or you can Save them as their creator would like and get some huge reward later on. She has gained some morality after turning little girls into monsters.
The theme is that you are in a fallen paradise city. The residents have gone insane and most are trying to kill you. You're forced to make moral choices on surviving, or dying. The city itself has fallen in disrepair and most residents will most likely die in a few years anyway.
I've not noticed anything "considerably" broken with BIg daddies. I just see them as spawning and searching out the sisters. If you already got all the sisters in the level, then the big daddies just go on looking. It adds texture.
The other moral issues in the game are gene modifications. Most denizens are mod junkies and have become twisted because of it. They were all once normal humans who took a little too much drugs. Some of the doctors in the city have gone a step further by doing horrible surgeries on people disfiguring them and killing their nurses in the process. It adds to the flavor of the story in which you are stuck in a Hell and are trying to find a way out.
As far as "preservation of life" vs killing them goes. As far as the main character knows, they cant be "cured". They're trying to kill him, so he's gotta eliminate them first. The morality here is perhaps death is the better alternative. Either that or live life being disfigured and insane.
Bioshock has gone through some serious blood and sweat in it's creation. I give them huge artistic credit as well as taking us to a level of morality so few are brave enough to go. There are many things that should be spoken about, but are not.
I am Running Windows XP with a single ATI card running DX9.
I've run 2-3 instances of EVE-Online in windowed mode which if my memory serves me right, is a 3D game. I also ran EVE with starwars galaxies. GPU sharing works... if developers know how to program.
Generally I only play 1 game at a time on a PC, because well, i'm a human and can only really play one game at a given time.
Granted tHere are other 3D apps out there aside games. 3D modeling programs like TrueSpace (personal favorite) Maya, Milkshape and the sorts. It's nice to open up one of those programs, render in 3D and import that object into another app/game. With Windowed mode in modern games, you can do all that on XP without needing Vista.
I tried to install Vista once, it failed, and after the 4th attempt, I gave up. Instead of paying $400 for Vista Ultimate, I bought a PS3 and Wii. Microsoft dont want me gaming on windows, I wont be gaming on an Xbox either.
Shame you wont be buying it. Bioshock is perhaps one of the best FPS games I've played in years. Better than Deus Ex. Reminds me in a way of Fallout.
You can limit yourself on the games you play if you wish. If you're properly firewalled, then a "rootkit" should be less of a worry.
Not buying a product is a great way to protest. Telling the company exactly why you are not buying is the best protest.
on a serious note, we have no tech that would even come close to protecting us from a Solar System eating star.