Roger Ward

It’s been a little while since my last blog entry thanks to a little thing I like to call a pinched nerve. I’ve never really had any problems healthwise thankfully, but this his me for a six. Who would have thought that one little nerve could render you practically useless. Not me. The upside of it all is that in my non movement relaxed state I got to watch quite a few movies which had been piling up in my cabinet but I hadn’t gotten around to. So expect some reviews if I’m feeling a little creative over the next week or so.

Obama NBA09 In Game Advertising

It’s a funny World we live in these days. Gone are the days of regular newspaper, radio or TV advertising. We live in a connected world and now we find real World advertising jumping into a virtual world. Players in certain American states will find billboard’s within the game Burnout Paradise & NBA09 for Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. This I find quite ironic considering Obama blames video games amongst other things as the cause of underachievement amongst the younger generation. Personally I disagree. Lack of discipline is the issue in my books but that’s for another story.

This in game advertising gets me thinking though. Here I am sitting in Australia and I’m bombarded left and right with news about the upcoming American election between and old geriatric and a black man with the middle name of “Hussain”. The question I’ve got to ask is why? Why do we get bombarded by news of the US election when it is of no concern to someone in Australia. Or is it? Many consider the office of the President Of The United States, leader of the free world. If this is the case, does he become my leader too?

Apparently, yes! While the President doesn’t have any effect on us Australians in a governance sense, the decisions made by the President and his administration do have an effect on us indirectly. After all, look at the problems the World is having economically and militarily today! The world is effectively stuffed! So, seeing that this “leader of the free world” does indeed have an effect on my way of life, why don’t we get a vote too? Why do we leave the job to a bunch of loud, obnoxius, arrogant, gun toting, gum chewing yanks who’s IQ levels have to be questioned considering the choices they have made the last eight years. If they best they’ve been able to come up with is a C grade student with awful verbal skills, were in trouble!

Bungie software has presented the World with several new teaser images from there new game. Most likely this is for the new game “Halo Recon” which was originally supposed to be announced at E3 earlier in the year but was at the last minute pulled from announcement.

If this image is from a new Halo game as is expected, the only question I have to ask is: Will the new Halo game be something original and exciting, or will it be a turgid piece of derivative unoriginal shit like the previous two Halo games or will they take a risk and create something different?

Somehow I think not.

Well, another game has fallen foul of our OFLC ratings board. This time it’s Silent Hill 5: Homecoming. The game was banned by the OFLC due to the use of “copious blood spray in the game, decapitations, partially dismembered corpses, and numerous scenes of attacks, fights, torture, and death.” Now many of your average Australian gamers are of course going to cry foul about how there rights to play a game have been infringed, etc, etc, etc.

I can really see there complaints now. “The other games were violent.” “Movies are more violent.” “We need an R rating.” I could go on ad infinum. Amongst all the reasons that the OFLC have mentioned, I think the the biggest problem they have is the torture aspect of the game. And really, do we really need to play a game where we torture someone? Not really. At least the OFLC are being consistent with it’s decision. After all Manhunt was banned for the same reasons.

15 years ago, banning issues with regards to games were few and far between for one main reason. Games didn’t need gimmicks to sell themselves. Games were somewhat original back then. Today though, the games industry is really an industry with zero originality. So much money is being spent on titles today that most game developers decide to play it safe. All the developers really have going for them is the gimmick. Something that will add that shock or WOW factor.

Silent Hill had this originality in the early games without going overboard on the violence detail. Now that originality is gone and all Konami have going for them is the shock factor. So do we really need to play another tired retread that uses a pretty repugnant gimmick to sell games. NO. The OFLC have done us a favour here. They were right about Fallout 3 and stood up to the developers, and they’re right about this.