In the ongoing fight against free speech, New York Governor David Paterson signed a law today on videogame violence. The law makes it a requirement for consoles to have parental controls and for game boxes to carry age restriction labels. Great job, dumbasses — all that stuff is already being done.

The law also suggests the formation of an “advisory council to study the effects of violent games on the children” and requires the aforementioned parental controls and box labels be in effect by 2010. Gee, I hope we have enough time to get that done.

New York Senator Andrew Lanza states that the study is needed because various other studies in the past have shown that violent behavior is learned, and many violent games these days are kinda violent. They might even be so violent that 9- and 10-year-olds shouldn’t play them. In order to study the affects of violent games on children, however, the children are going to have to play the violent games. Maybe it’s just me, but this just seems ever so slightly fucking stupid.

Maybe the biggest problem with this law, however, is the fact that the same law has been ruled unconstitutional in all of the other states in which it was previously passed. A lawsuit will inevitably be made, and the state will more than likely lose. In this case, the state picks up the tab, and 70,000 taxpayer dollars are wasted on pointless legislature.

Richard Taylor of the Entertainment Software Association comments:

“It also unfairly singles out the video game industry over all other forms of media. If New York lawmakers feel it is the role of government to convene a government commission on game content, they could next turn to other content such as books, theater and film.”

Not everyone is a total moron, though. New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman puts it quite nicely by saying:

“New Yorkers do not need the state judging which video games are appropriate and which aren’t. Parents, not government committees, should be responsible for making those judgments.”

Source: SILive.com

After supposedly stating in an interview that the Mass Effect trilogy would be exclusive to the Xbox 360, BioWare reps claim that CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka, in fact, never uttered those words.

The story broke on the Internet via the website XboxOz360, which claimed their source to be the magazine Australian 360.  The quote directly from the magazine is as follows:

“Speaking exclusively to 360 at EA’s European Showcase, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka restated his company’s commitment to bring the Mass Effect trilogy exclusively to the Xbox 360, despite having been brought up by Electronic Arts and analysts claiming it would go multiplatform.”

So, as you can clearly see, Australian 360 printed the word “exclusively” in their magazine. This apparently must have been a misunderstanding on their part, as BioWare reps claim Dr. Ray “never confirmed any plans of Mass Effect exclusivity for the trilogy,” and that the “site is incorrect”.

So while this doesn’t necessarily rule out the Mass Effect trilogy as being exclusive, it certainly has confirmed that nothing has yet been confirmed.

Source: Joystiq and GameDaily

Every time EA pops up in the news, there is always this negative vibe that goes along with it.  It’s not fair, I say.  Yes, EA is a giant corporation that only cares about how much money they can make… but that isn’t any different than any other company out there, video game or otherwise.  People complain that EA is a monopoly, or that they’re soon going to be, and their power leads to a lack of innovation in the video game industry.  I say, it’s not their fault, it’s yours.

That’s right, EA is the one that should be bitching about you.  Everyone always complains that their sports games are just the same thing every year with no real innovation behind them, yet Madden makes records pretty much every year, it seems.  The problem with people is that you need control, you just don’t want to know you’re being controlled.  EA’s problem is that they give people what they need and that makes people resentful.

Listen to them!  Every acquisition EA makes is just one more step to perfection.  Imagine the things of beauty that could come about if all developers were all controlled by one powerful over-mind.  A collective of developers and publishers, all acting in concert to make the very best-selling games of all time.  You say you want innovation, yet every innovative game that comes out has piss-poor sales because people don’t “get it.”  Sequels and long-running franchises continue to use the same formulas for every iteration and sell more and more with every number added to the end of the title.

Small publishers cannot innovate and be successful in this market.  EA allows these small developers to flourish under the watchful gaze of the collective that is EA.  Even companies that can manage on their own bow to the will of EA.  Valve and id come to mind.  Who else would they turn to?  Resistance is futile!  What did Bioware/Pandemic ever do before they were assimilated into the EA mega-corp?  Nothing!  Now that they’re with EA, I expect big things from them.  Big things with lots of numbers after the title.  Mass Effect 2, Mercenaries 2, Destroy All Humans 50.  Everything must have numbers after it.  Dragon Age is really a code name for Jade Empire 2!

“Thanks to EA, we don’t ever have to stop working, even to eat!”

You think some no name indie developer like Valve could make all those games with numbers after it?  Hell no!  Look how long it took them to make Half-Life 2!  Once they made a deal with EA, HL2 didn’t just come out on every system known to man, but came with two extra games!  THAT, my friends, is the power that EA offers.

In spite of everything that EA offers us on a regular basis (classics like Battlefield and The Sims; great leaps forward in the way gamers interact with the Internet, like weapon power-ups or cheat codes that cost real money; being able to download a fully powered-up character without having to spend one second actually playing the game), you ungrateful bastards still find a reason to bitch.  How?

Fan service in the form of expansion packs and stuff packs are released so often that you’ll never have to be bored with your favorite games as long as you have the money to keep them flowing steadily into your home.  And lets not forget the yearly innovation we get with the EA sports titles.  You don’t need the stupid nets or on-field refs.  EA has decreed that these things are trivial.  What you need is five bucks to download your favorite teams classic jersey.

EA’s Headquarters, located in the Delta Quadrant.

Yes, some will try to resist, but we all know resistance is futile.  Companies like Take-Two should just lower their lawyers and surrender their stock.  Their long running brands and name recognition will be added to EA’s own.  Their development studios will live to serve EA.

Color me surprised.  According to women’s fitness magazine Oxygen (which I totally do not have a subscription to), playing videogames burns 50% more calories in a hour than “athletic” sex does.  And that’s not including the Wii or Dance Dance Revolution — I’m talking just regular ol’ sitting-on-your-ass-tapping-buttons videogames.

The September issue of Oxygen has a special feature entitled “100 Ways to Burn 100 Calories”.  Number 71 on the list says “Play some vids”.  First, as a slap in a face to girl gamers everywhere, it says “Go over to your boyfriend’s house and get on his PlayStation 3″.  That’s right, girls don’t play videogames.  So stereotypical, Oxygen…

Anyways, Oxygen claims that forty minutes of gaming will cut 100 calories, scientifically backed by the British Medical Journal.  According to number 55, “Wii the people”, Wii gamers burn an additional 40 percent more calories than other gamers.  With some advanced calculus skills, I’ve determined that regular gaming burns 150 calories per hour, and Wii-ing burns 210 calories per hour.

So, how does this compare to sex?  Oxygen’s number 81, “Get your freak on”, states that one full hour of “athletic” sex burns a mere 100 calories.  That just seems inaccurate somehow.  An hour on the Wii burns over twice as many calories per hour as having sex?

Just to put things into perspective, here’s a list of other things they claim burn 100 calories:

• Playing Frisbee for 30 minutes
• Drinking a gallon of water (in a day, not all at once)
• Laughing for 20-30 minutes
• Driving for 45 minutes
• Gardening for 15 minutes
• Walking a mile (which takes about 15 minutes)
• Grocery shopping for 45 minutes
• Playing Monopoly for an hour

Wait, what? What was that last one again? You burn the same number of calories banging for an hour as you do from playing freaking Monopoly!? Something is seriously wrong with these statistics. The only way this would make sense is if, since this is a women’s magazine, all of the test subjects in the sex study were just laying on their backs, holding their legs in the air and moaning “athletically”, and that was it.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but when I think of a woman having “athletic” sex, it seems like it would burn a lot more in a hour than playing Monopoly or Call of Duty 4.  At least now we can claim we spend all day getting in shape, so tell your girlfriend to shut up already.

Don’t get your hopes up just yet.  Turns out, Oxygen doesn’t know what the fuck it’s talking about.  Playing videogames doesn’t burn any more calories per hour than just sitting, at least according to number 38 “Road rage”, which lists sitting at 100 calories in 40 minutes.  But wait, driving takes 45 minutes to burn 100 calories, so why does it take an extra 5 minutes if you are actually doing slightly more than just sitting?  Also, it takes a full 90 minutes of “movie-watching” to burn 100 calories even though, again, you are just sitting.

As you can clearly see, Oxygen’s “100 Ways to Burn 100 Calories” is really just a bunch of bullshit.  This was even a collaboration by the Oxygen team, so it’s not like it’s just one writer that fucked up.  Thanks for putting out a worthless magazine and making women think that you will help them get fit, and making me think that playing videogames was actually some form of exercise.  Consider my subscription (that is totally not mine) canceled.

Konami has filed a lawsuit against Harmonix, MTV Networks, and their parent company Viacom over alleged infringement in the Rock Band videogame.

Konami is claiming that Rock Band violates patents it filed way back in 2002 and 2003 that cover simulated musical instruments and a “musical-rhythm matching game”.

The publisher is seeking cash compensation and an order to block Viacom and Harmonix from using any of the peripherals included in the game, according to the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Marshall, Texas.

Before Harmonix’s success with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Konami had it’s own guitar-themed game called Guitar Freaks, which first appeared in arcades in 1999 and also made its way onto the Playstation and Playstation 2.

There apparently is a patent on rocking out. Who knew?

Konami’s Digital Entertainment unit has recently announced Rock Revolution, another music-based videogame.

Viacom has yet to receive the complaint, so has not made any comments on the situation.

Sounds like a stretch to me, but it might just be some stunt by Konami to work its new Rock Revolution game into the mix of things. We’ll have an update when more information becomes available.

Source: Bloomberg.com