In the last couple weeks some research was released that gave many classic games very violent ratings, in an attempt to prove to a court that the ESRB has not been doing their job. Since then a lot has been written about it, possibly one of the articles can be found on about.com, which points out many of the gaping holes present in the research. The article also brings up the excellent point that we (the gaming community) need to really get involved if research like this is being presented in court, research that contains some completely ludicrous and illogical conclusions about video games.
In other news, apparently some people couldn’t get enough of Snakes on a Plane the movie, and had to turn it into some sort of dangerous LARP! It’s funny to think about for a minute, until you realise the grim results that could have come from such a prank.
Update: Apparently the reports of snakes being released in a Texas movie theater, as the city police are saying, are a hoax. However, they are based on supposed shreds of truth which involve Texas having much more problems with rattlesnakes simply wandering into movie theater hallways ON THEIR OWN. They just want to see the movie, like 3,000 web comics from last week elaborated!
Also, one of the front page articles on 1up.com has an interview with one of the game developers working on the new Turok game, which needless to say has me quite excited in my pantaloons! Take some time to check out the images from the hopefully-ridiculously-awesome game, though it looks like they may suffer from bull-shot syndrome. We’ll have to wait and see!
I talked about your top story there three weeks ago:
https://critical-hits.com//?p=279#comments
And you’re such a Turok fanboy. I never got into it because of the wacky control scheme on the N64, but it could rock on the Wii.
There, it’s been corrected. THREE weeks ago instead of one week, so sorry! I was pointing out the article which discusses said research, and the logical arguments it makes against it, instead of just “OMFG Pac-Man is teh non-violentested!!!!111!!” Check it out!
The Nintendo 64 control scheme for Turok -was- very wacky, but the sick part was after you played it for 10-15 minutes, the controls started to make a LOT of sense. It’s a very good example of a steep learning curve that pays off in the end, there really weren’t many other ways they could have configured the controls having only one analog stick.
It -could- rock your socks off on the Wii (what with the motion-sensitive bow shooting and all), so here’s hoping.
Also, because I’m an ass, it looks like your second story may be false:
http://imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-08-24/#3
Furthermore, OMFG Pac-Man is teh non-violentested!!!!111!!
From /.: the person who conducted the controversial “violence rating study” responds to the article attacking her findings:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/2150239&from=rss