Videogame violence...yes this issue again

Now us gamers are more than aware for the media's (Newspapers mainly) disgust at the videogame industry. To me it's easy headline's with no foundation or facts to their argument.
The most famous one being Manhunt which was blamed on the Stefan Pakeerah murder. Giselle Pakeerah, the victim's mother, claimed that Leblanc had been "obsessed" with the game after he pleaded guilty in court.  During the subsequent media exposure the game was removed from sale by some vendors including international branches of GAME and Dixons. The police denied any such link between the game and the murder citing drug-related robbery as the motive. The presiding judge also placed sole responsibility with Leblanc in his summing up after sentencing him to life. This case has been the only one I can think of where the media hasn't added a certain videogame to a major story but from the people who have suffered from the crime.
But lets put it in another perspective which disagrees with the evidence from the police and the Judge about the game Manhunt wasn't to blame.
Lets say for just very briefly in this article to make a point, that Manhunt did cause the death of Stefan. The game is rated 18 as shown in the below picture.

Warren Leblanc was 17 so how did he get a copy of the game? Poor parenting to me and it's unfair to blame Rockstar North in this horrible attack. They submitted a copy of the game to the BBFC, they played it and felt it was ok to be released with an 18 certificate. They are the very same BBFC who decide the certificates of films as well.

But lets go further back in time to the murder of John Lennon and look at his murder Mark David Chapman. Chapman went to New York in October 1980 planning to kill Lennon. He left the city for a short while in order to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend Dana Reeves in Atlanta. He returned to New York in November, but after going to the cinema and being inspired by the film Ordinary People, he returned to Hawaii, telling his wife he had been obsessed with killing Lennon but had snapped out of it. He made an appointment to see a clinical psychologist but instead, on December 6, flew back to New York. He offered cocaine to a taxi driver. He reports having re-enacted scenes from The Catcher in the Rye.

So two sources of influence to Chapman's motives already and to some people that means Catcher in the Rye and Ordinary People killed Lennon, just like Manhunt did to Stefan?

Look out for some bad French from me...Fucking bullshit, Chapman killed Lennon and he's a selfish individual who wanted Lennon's fame and by killing him, he felt he would have that. I also feel this way about Leblanc as if he didn't play Manhunt, I'm sure he would have still persuaded Stefan to go to Stoke Woods Park known locally as The Dumps to meet two girls that would never come, and he would have still armed himself with a knife and a claw hammer. I also believe that knives's and claw hammer's have been used in fiction for a long time before Manhunt.

But having said that I do feel that sometimes videogames makers can sometimes push boundaries with their tastes a little too much. There was a game called JFK: Reloaded 

via Wikipedida

JFK: Reloaded puts the player in the role of Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The player is then scored on how closely one's version of the assassination matches the report of the Warren Commission. According to the company, the primary aim of the game was "to establish the most likely facts of what happened on 1963-11-22 by running the world’s first mass-participation forensic construction", the theory being that a player could help prove that Lee Harvey Oswald had the "means and the opportunity to commit the crime", and thus help prove the Warren Commission's findings.^[3]

Players were able to submit scores, rating how close their version of events were to the Warren Commission's, for a competition that ended on February 22, 2005.^[4] The competition promised winnings of "up to" $100,000, but the final prize was just $10,712.^[5] Afterwards, the competition option was disabled and the cost of the simulator was reduced to $4.99. It was later offered for free download before the official website closed in August 2005.

Now that to me is in bad taste as even though the makers of the game state it's "to establish the most likely facts" and is for educational purposes, it's clearly more like "Hey I bet you fiver that it was Oswald" and to do that when the victims family is alive is disgusting.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother called the game "despicable" and I really felt embarrassed to call myself a gamer when I first read his quote, which also unfortunately is also how I first heard about the game which gave the game more exposure.

Last but not least and the most famous one which I think for once I was on the media's side was the No Russian level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now it wasn't the most violence I had seen in a game or the most foul in it's language from what I remember but in my gaming history, it was very bad taste.

It was a level where you were Russians storming an airport with no one able to fight back at you with women and children screaming and trying to run away from you (there is a brief part at the end where security and swat fight you back at the end which is a cheap way in my view to give the level some kind of merit and reason) and isn't required in the story of the game. If that is acceptable in gaming then we may as well give high five's to terrorists as all that level was made for was to create controvsy towards the game, a cheap marketing plan by Infinity Ward/Activision to wind people and that annoyed me as the game would have sold millions anyway.

Now perhaps you are thinking reading this and wanna shout back at me "But we play as bad guy's all the times in games...GTA, Command & Conquer...even Manhunt which you mentioned in your article earlier and you thought that was alight???"

Which is more than fair and I honestly have no beef on people who went out and bought Modern Warfare 2, it's just to me that level was solely designed to create a bad atmosphere to the public about videogames and it makes gamer's look like they enjoy killing defenceless civilians who are trying to run away from being killed.

There is no challenge in the level and it isn't required to move the story of the game, heck if the whole game was like that then it wouldn't have been a good game if you could just stroll through.

I just think that we should consider stepping back from what we are building or designing sometimes and try looking at the situation from a third person perspective. Is this right?

Boss battles

Ever since I have been playing video games which must be...actually I'm not gonna say, but to keep it short a long time and there have always been boss battles.
I have always felt they are mostly placed there purely because the people who make games feel pressured to make sure it's challenging for the gamer, hoping the gamer will feel he/she has had their money worth at least.
Another reason is that maybe they made a level and felt towards the end of finishing making the level, a programmer said to the boss (possibly a water cooler conversation in most cases) "I just think the level is too easy or too short"

I think the latter would be the case with two very recent games I have played which happen to be Deus Ex Human Revolution and Gears of War 3. Now don't get me wrong both games I respect are very different and have strengths and weaknesses very different to each other, but they both share a huge weakness which I felt ruined most of the game for me which were the boss battles.

Some boss battles are brilliant that require the gamer to think outside of the box in games and are certainly not shoved there to make up for an easy or poor level. Like for example using your surroundings or timed attacks in a certain combo or technique to defeat the boss or bosses.
But Gears 3 and Dues Ex require you to fire at the person then run away, then fire at the person... and then run away...for about what feels like 5 hours which is just lazy and a cheap cop out to the game especially that Deus Ex and Gears 3 have other parts that are so good.
Like the fantastic characters and Unreal engine that is so brilliantly used in Gears 3 which brings a great tactical element to a shooter which makes the Call of Duty franchise look like it's million years behind with single and multiplayer. Then there's the new Deus Ex which I personally hated but there was some light in there like the side quests which kept me going and the augmentation upgrades which made every gamers play through unique (never mind the story decisions made in the game) for them.

But yet these clearly very talented developers choose to use cheap tactics to try and make it challenging. Nothing challenging about making someone do the same repetitive task over and over again for 5 odd hours straight, we all do that anyway and it's called a job!

Gaming is suppose to be about escapism like any other medium and it should be enjoyable, not about a task that requires ages and ages to do with no skill or a challenge for a gamer to challenge him or her.
That's what should be talked about on their break standing by the water cooler, is it fun.

Trade in's

Before I couldn't understand why people did trade in's with their old games as the prices were useless and you would have to trade in five or so to get the latest game of the week/month.
But now (well I say now but it's done this for a while) the shops have now truly made it a good option for getting rid of old games.
GAME started off with a loyalty card that when you traded in games, bought or pre ordered from then you would get points/credit for you to build up.

Then as online websites started taking their business they needed to offer something which online retailers just couldn't compete with, was more convenient and made them keep coming back.
Then that's when trade in deals truly came in with this year getting harder for me to resist with his gem being offered by GAME.

Now how can any gamer say no that and how do online retailers compete with that?

No idea and fair play to GAME and Gamestation, I hate them but you have to admit that the people running their sales are very smart. Not only that if I do that deal I then have God knows how many points to get rid on my loyalty card, again forcing me to do business with them.

You just have to take your hat off to these people sometimes, very clever and just wanted to say well done to GAME. As it must be a nightmare to compete with online and they are doing it with such great business idea's to draw people away from online retailers.
I think this now overtakes one of their clever business moves in the war against a big supermarket which involved the supermarket selling the new 3DS at a loss but the goal of this is to get new people (or another type of customer who wouldn't normally go there) to buy other stuff there.
We have all done it "Oh actually I need more toothpaste and to fill up the fridge...May as well as I'm here" and that was the supermarkets goal.
But GAME being GAME told their employees "Buy all the 3DS in that supermarket, we give you the cash to buy them and then list them as pre owened in the stores"

Just brilliant.

Are we truly starting to get to the end of this generation?

As clearly mentioned in my last post I have been playing Deus Ex and wasn't really blown away by it at the end. Felt the controls didn't work and didn't feel smooth and had a very poor start as well as some glitches in the game. But when I completed it I sort of thought to myself for a couple of a seconds is this fall the last batch of games on the current gen, I answered yes in the moment and it still remains yes currently.

Don't get me wrong I'm not calling it the end just because of one game but something deep down in the back of my head sort of briefly asked me "What's coming out in 2012 that's worth keeping your 360 and PS3?"

Mass Effect 3, Far Cry 3...ummm...Max Payne???

Just nothing mind blowing to me but I'm sure the three I have mentioned will be very popular to everyone else. Just never been a massive Far Cry fan, loved May Payne 1 but 2 was average and it lacks the talent of Remedy which made May Payne brilliant. But I didn't mind Mass Effect 2 as it had a good re-playability value  in terms of story and DLC. But hated scanning planets and a fighting system which got boring very quickly. Halo 4 has also been announced but no details have been made available about the game just a teaser trailer.

Just can't see next year beating the likes of Uncharted 3, Forza 4 and Portal 2 which to me I was excited about right from the get go. It also feels right that we now move to the next generation of consoles which I'm sure will happen very soon with some kind of announcement from either Microsoft or Sony at next years E3.

All round it has been one of the weakest generations of gaming from my memory with some poor games coming out on both major consoles in the first 2 or 3 years with YLOD and RROD still a problem to this day. Also the fact both console have been hard to work with as in a recent article about Microsoft's strict and to some, unfair policies to third parties and PS3 being hard to make games for and having a hard developers kit to work with.

I'm hoping both seriously learn from this generation and learn from their mistakes and improve what makes them both great from the possibilities of Kinnect, to cross console gaming like we have seen work in Portal 2 with Steam and PS3 users.

I just see lots of possibilities for both. Not Wii-U though personally but hey, I was wrong about the Wii like everyone else on the planet :P

Deus Ex Human Revolution so far

Well this came on Fiday even though I had fears that it might not turn up on the day of launch.

I can see why some have been negative (mainly positive mind) as so far as I haven't been that fussed on it, but I'm hoping it gets a little bit better.

The fighting in it feels quite bland after you have done a couple of the takedowns and there are far too many cut scenes, almost to the scale of a Metal Gear Solid game which isn't my thing at all.
The area's don't offer the ammount of freedom as suggested by the makers and don't feel like a natural area...just feel like a game of about 3-5 years ago.

I think games that have offered worlds that have been impressive are Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Asassins Creed 2 and LA Noire with this being no where near their standard.
Leveling up in this game is good with the augmentations and weapons, it also makes you look for ammo and guns as you run out quickly if you decide to fight making your actions to engage in the enemy possibly costly later on in the mission.

I think 8.8ish is fair from what I have played so far and I can't see this being my GOTY and can't see myself wanting to play it again after I have completed the story.

First post!!!

A new blog and new start for another hobby of mine, well part time one for me which is video games. If you can't guess the quote from which the blog is named after shame on you but here is a clue.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the blog and I hope to post now and again about what ever is on my mind about video games.