Auditorium.

“I will marry you if you bring me a shipful of corpses.”

No, seriously, the designers of this game expect you to be able to “run” one hundred metres.

FUN FACT: If you somehow make it to 50 metres, there are hurdles.

It’s like Asteroids. But with gravity.

As you no doubt are aware, “Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe” is coming out sometime soon for major gaming consoles everywhere.

Now here is what I don’t get. Why the hell is Superman in a goddamned Mortal Kombat game?

I mean, what happens when Superman gets stabbed by Scorpion? “GET OVER HERE – AGH! NO! NO! I TAKE IT BACK! DON’T COME HERE! AGH! OH GOD STOP HURTING ME!”

It’s understood, of course, that DC Comics characters and good videogames go together like Santa Claus and conquering the Martians. Most DC games are terrible. DC fighting games are especially terrible. (Does anybody else remember “Justice League Task Force” for the Super Nintendo? God that was a terrible game.)

And here’s what I don’t get: there’s obviously a fantastic, original DC-themed fighting game out there if some software developer wanted to make it. Stop bullshitting around with all the stupid street-level fighting you get in other games (and including Superman in it, what the fucking fuck is that). These are DC Comics characters.

I want a game where Superman throws Captain Marvel through a fucking planet, then comes out the other side and punches him so hard nearby buildings collapse, goddamnit! I want epic, wrath-of-god-level combat! I want violence so earth-shattering it’s literally earth-shattering! Punching the ground to create earthquakes! Clapping your hands to create sonic wave attacks! Tactical-missile-laser-photon-cannons! Everything in the game, absolutely everything, should go to eleven!

Just imagine this roster:

Superman
Batman (in Bat-Hyper-Armor)
Wonder Woman
Green Lantern (John Stewart)
Captain Marvel
J’onn J’onzz
Supergirl
Dr. Fate
Orion
Big Barda

Doomsday
Lex Luthor (in power armor)
Despero
Maxima
Sinestro
Solomon Grundy
Amazo
The Demon
Kalibak
Darkseid

None of the second-tier hangers on. (Maybe each character can have special attacks where a bunch of second-stringers fly by and attack. Like, Batman’s special attack is having Nightwing fly a Batplane past while Robin shoots the enemy with a Super-Bat-Laser.) Tell me I am wrong and you would not play the shit out of this if they did it properly and had characters throwing, like, big rig trucks at one another.

UPDATE: I think it’s important to note that fighting games need variety, and that we want to shy away from endless Superman-power-set clones (although replacing Supergirl with Power Girl is a good idea). And some suggestions are just good ones (how the hell did I forget Lobo?). Remember also that you want as much gender diversity and racial diversity as possible, for obvious reasons. And finally, although guys like the Flash are powerful, you’re looking for characters who can reasonably throw trucks at each other without breaking a sweat and cheerfully take a truck to the face – this is the heavyweights of the DCU, and specialists need not apply no matter how talented they might be. (I mean, come on, we’re pushing it by including Batman and Lex in power armor, but I’d argue that you have to have Batman in the game, so.)

So, my revised list:

Superman
Batman (in Bat-Hyper-Armor)
Wonder Woman
Green Lantern (John Stewart)
Captain Marvel
J’onn J’onnz
Power Girl
Firestorm (Jason Rusch)
Wildfire (he blows up the trucks with ‘splosions and makes them fly that way!)
Monstress (shut up, I like Monstress)
Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes)
Big Barda

Doomsday
Lex Luthor (in power armor)
Maxima
Sinestro
Star Sapphire
Emerald Empress
Black Adam
Lobo
Bizarro
Etrigan
Stompa of the Fatal Furies
Darkseid

Hope you like the new curtains, MGK readers. This is Wendy White, here to balance the gender equation. Math is hard, tee-hee!

Ahem.

I promise to show all my working.

It is not as a woman that I speak to you today. Today, I speak to you as a representative of the Mad Max Country.

You may have heard of us. We are a country where the dirt is as red as the blood spilt upon the asphalt. A country where a stingray lurks around every corner, and the tea and coffee are served not with biscuits, but spiders.

Although we are rather fond of a nice Monte Carlo.

In the last couple of days, my native land has been in gaming news for the banning of Fallout 3.

The Fallout series is a charming set of games set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world which bears a distinctive 1950s flavour. It is as if you’ve rocked up to the World Fair a day late and found it trashed by mutants armed with nuclear weaponry who want to bare not only their own souls but those of anyone else within a 2.5 kilometre radius.

In Fallout, the world is your mutated, glowing oyster. Back in the day I had an enormous amount of fun working my way through the clever plots and witty dialogue, while fending off enthusiastic delegations of Radscorpions.

Here, the game has received an “RC” (Refused Classification) rating from the OFLC (Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification) – which means, in essence, that the game is illegal to sell or import into the country.

The reason? A game “that contains drug use… related to incentives and rewards is Refused Classification”.

The use of stimulants like Mentats which can provide stat boosts (along with negative side-effects including addiction) has been identified as being to be too close an analogue to real-world drugs. Apparently in F3 the drugs (chems) play a more significant role than in the previous games; previously your character could live through the story without actually needing to use any chems at all, bar one or two shots of Rad-Away. And, admittedly, a bunch of stim packs (but if health packs begin to warrant bannings then there really is going to be a fuss).

In addition, the OFLC had problems with the inclusion of a real-life drug, morphine.

I’m aware I’m not the only one to make this comparison, but – wait a minute – what about Bioshock? Sure, I guess jabbing a syringe filled with plasmids into your arm isn’t something you’re currently able to in the here and now (unless you have one of those awesome Bioshock pens) but the similarities are striking. Perhaps genetic material is to narcotics as rainbows are to mustard gas.

As far as the OFLC is concerned, Bioshock players can continue to shoot up their rainbows and unicorn tears, but the Nuka Cola? Off limits.

Why not give the game an R18+ rating then? Problem is – they can’t.

While we have this rating for films, Australia does not have anything higher than a MA15+ for games.

To create an R18+ rating, we have to change the law, and for that, we need to consensus of the Attorney Generals of each state in Australia. As I hear it, only one of them is holding out. A man by the name of Michael Atkinson.

And here, friends, is where gamers leap upon their collective bandwagon with glee to spew hatred upon this injustice forced upon us all. It’s a little embarrassing.

I took some time to research this fellow and his policies (expecting another ill-informed Jack Thomspon) and the man is both intelligent and articulate. His arguments are built on well researched information and reasoning.

Bugger.

The following quotes come from a letter he sent to an anonymous Kotaku source, and a speech he gave on the subject of R18+ games earlier this year.

“I have consistently opposed an R18+ classification for computer games. I am concerned about the harm of high-impact (particularly violent) computer games to children. Games may pose a far greater problem than other media – particularly films – because their interactive nature could exacerbate their impact. The risk of interactivity on players of computer games with highly violent content is increased aggressive behaviour.”

Now, after a long session of Half Life 2, I don’t have urges to go picking up any movable object I find and lobbing it at the downtrodden overall-clad citizens around me, or a desire to attach large blades to ground-based motors. I have also not increased my theft of sandwiches belonging to large Eastern European men due to the influence of Team Fortress 2. (That said, driving my car after playing a long round of Katamari Damacy can be a little harrowing.)

However, at no point does Mr Atkinson ever say that he thinks children are going to emulate what they see in games – and this is the point that people seem to be missing when critisising him.

He’s not saying that games train us to emulate the actions of our characters. He’s saying that perhaps some of these experiences are inappropriate for kids. Can’t really fault him there.

I have a friend with a four year old child. Recently, I saw her standing behind her father and watching him play Postal, as he shot bystanders with shotguns and urinated on the remainder until they vomited.

And you know what? I can’t really think of a reason why that is okay for a child to view. I don’t think she’s going to grow up to be a murderer with bladder issues. But I don’t think that experience should have been shared.

One point Atkinson makes that I will pick on, is that today’s children “are far more technologically savvy than their parents. It’s laughable to suggest that they couldn’t find ways around parental locks if R18+ games were in the home.”

True enough. The majority of children growing up today do tend to possess the edge on their parents when it comes to technology. However, I still think the majority of children will not have the resources to bypass any sophisticated parental locks or controls (should they introduced) for digital material.

Those children who are technologically savvy enough to do so, will still be able to access the game regardless of whether it is banned here or not.

This, I think, is probably the weakest link in Mr Atkinson’s argument.

He also says “with so much money and time going into game development, I do not believe a gamer is bored with a game only because it does not include extreme sex, violence, or illegal acts.”

This is also true enough, although that isn’t really why gamers are clamouring for these aspects to remain. It is more due to the concept of games as art, and that censoring that art reduces its value. We don’t want to compromise on the original vision.

Atkinson doesn’t agree. He mentions that the game 50 Cent: Bulletproof was banned for the close-up, slow motion killing scenes in the game, but when a censored version with MA15+ violence was released, it was allowed to be sold in the country (oh wow, thank goodness, I was totally looking forward to that one).

But seriously, who here really thinks the 50 Cent game is a work of art?

Many games, like many films, are crap. They contain elements that add no real benefit to gameplay or storytelling. Axeing these pieces is unlikely to cause outrage, because no one is particularly enamoured with the games to begin with.

Well-made games though – games like Bioshock and (hopefully) Fallout 3 – removing parts of them does, to me, seem like they are removing some of the integrity of the game as art, and detracts from the believablility and depth of the experience.

He continues his arguments with this;

“I cannot see how adding an R18 classification for games will stop parents from making bad choices for their children.”

This is perfectly reasonable. However, Atkinson mentions that about 70% of surveyed Australian households buy video games, and that most of them did not pay attention to the rating system when purchasing games. However this ignores two things.

One, that some of those surveyed are buying for people over the age of 15 and therefore are not considering maturity when making a purchase. The other point is that when the highest rating is MA15+, a lot of parents will be lax with the rating because hey, their child is pretty mature. However, slap an 18+ rating on a game, and many parents would think twice. “Hey,” they’d muse, between spankings, “This is the same rating they give X-rated porn! Maybe I don’t want my kid seeing that.” While parents might be slack about some 15+ movies, I doubt many of them are renting out 18+ flicks for the kiddies.

“This is the price of keeping this material from children and vulnerable adults. In my view, it is worth it.”

I’ll quote Ben Franklin here; “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.”

That said, I am left wondering if my desire for the uncut game is purely selfish. He makes a good argument.

I want the chance to purchase an unedited version of Fallout 3 in this country. However, if it is edited and released here, the Morphine renamed to Moar Fine, perhaps, and the drug models replaced with brightly coloured walkie talkies that shoot rainbows up your nose – I will most likely buy it. With some small amount of disappointment. Although, then again – nasal rainbows.

It’d be lovely, though, if the other gamers upset by this wouldn’t make us look worse by flinging monkey-poop at a man who, by all intents and purposes, seems entirely reasonable and quite well-mannered. We’re providing fuel for the argument the anti-gaming lobby love to use, that games make people more aggressive.

Maybe I can be sanguine about this because I might just have happened to have stopped by my local EB last weekend and picked up the Fallout boxset for $AU14.95 – that’s right, Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics for the price of a movie. So my post-apocalyptic thirst is quenched, for the time being, by cheap, cheap nostalgia.

[Edit: 14th July – No Mutants Allowed reports that Aussies can still import F3 legally]

Wendy herself has certainly never been affected by video games in any way, shape or form, other than having to check under her bed every night for Radscorpions. You can find her at Solar Whelk, which is as much a desolate wasteland as those depicted in her beloved post-apocalyptic games.

Was anybody else hoping that Blizzard would, I dunno, release an entirely new game rather than going back to the same old wells again and again and again?

I mean, they’ve got some of the best creative staff in gaming, period, both from a design/coding and story/art perspective. Surely they could manage something a bit better than the same old same old?

(This isn’t me saying that I won’t play Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3, mind. But I’d like to see them pull a different rabbit out of the hat.)

ME: You know, I rather think the whole Photoshopping thing is getting a bit predictable these days.
MYSELF: I was thinking that myself. I mean, it’s almost getting to be a schtick, isn’t it?
ME: And you’ve got to figure there’s more interesting things to Photoshop than just grabbing a selection of some element of pop-culture nostalgia…
MYSELF: Like Pele bicycle-kicking a buffalo in the nuts.
ME: Whoa. How did I think of that?
MYSELF: My creative process is something of a mystery. Even to me.
ME: That is true.
MYSELF: So I’m settled then. No more pastiches of Photoshoppery. From this point forth, my next Photoshop project is Pele bicycle-kicking a buffalo in the nuts.
ME: Or possibly an elephant.
MYSELF: Or the late Generalissimo Franco.
Enter FLAPJACKS.
FLAPJACKS: Hey, dude, look what I just scored: a whole whack of those old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks!

ME: …God dammit.

continue reading "Bad habits."

The fourth edition Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks have leaked onto the interwoobs, and out of curiosity I decided to take a look. I highly doubt I’m going to sit down and play straight D&D ever again – standard fantasy RP doesn’t interest me any more, hasn’t for years, I find whatever RPG interests I have left veer more towards the altered-historical sort of setting – but fourth edition D&D will likely be what people crib from for the foreseeable future, so I figured it was worth taking a look just to stay in touch.

It’s a whole new concept at work here, people. Wizards can cast magic missile at will any time they want – all the classes, in fact, get basic attack and defense powers they can activate at will. Other powers become available as your character advances and can be activated on a time basis (once per hour, once per day, et cetera). But these powers are scaled to character advancement and weaker than you would expect. The standard big-boom spells like lightning bolt and fireball now do greatly reduced damage, for example.

Then you take a look at the monster stats, and you realize – wait, the monsters have shitloads of powers and hitpoints out the ass. This isn’t to say that they are overpowered, but simply to point out that in fourth edition, a party taking on equal-level monsters will have a tough go of it, because the old one-shot-one-kill techniques that have always been present in any form of D&D are pretty much entirely gone. This trend just becomes more noteworthy as you look at the really high-end monsters: arch-demons and dragons have 600 to 900 hitpoints, for crissake.

Fourth edition D&D promises to be, in short, a grindfest of massive proportions. And I have no doubt at all that this is intentional in design, because the more I look at it and think about how a combat between a party and a bunch of monsters would go, the more I think, “my god, this plays like a tabletop recreation of World of Warcraft.” Or a Japanese console RPG. Or anything along those lines, really. You can just hear the fighters yelling out their custom attack names as they perform their power moves.

The more I think about it, the more I’m positive that’s the idea, because, come on, if you want to make money with D&D these days, rather than bother catering to the diehards, why not simply instead try and snag the massive online play market with a game similar to that which they’re accustomed?

I’m not interested in playing 4th ed – not at all. But I have to concede the basic brilliance of the design from a marketing standpoint. It might not work at all, but it’s the best effort they could logically make.

I wanted to include this in yesterday’s post, but I couldn’t come up with a gag for it.

I mean, sometimes making a joke is just superfluous, you know?

So I hit up a garage sale over the weekend and bought a genuine, working-condition Atari 2600, with a huge stack of games nearly mint in their boxes, for a song. I thought I’d scan the box covers and give you all a look back into the fun of yesteryear.

Youtube music videos made with World of Warcraft animation.

God, just stop, people. There is no possible way to improve the experience of any song by making a World of Warcraft video about it. None. Zero. Zilch. De nada. No, not even that one Jonathan Coulton song you really, really like – you know, the one that’s part funny, part unpleasantly creepy, and was obviously written to appeal to a sci-fi/fantasy dork. [1] Yeah, that one.

Honestly, if you really want to ruin a song, I can think of no better way to do it then to animate a hokey, stupid video using the hokey, stupid World of Warcraft characters and their hokey, stupid animations. Did you really listen to the song and think “hey, you know what this song really needs? A forest troll. And maybe a couple of naked halflings…”?

(There are always naked halflings.)

Seriously, log off of WoW right now. I mean it. Yes, I appreciate the many seconds’ worth of effort it took to message your entire guild and then synchronize a dance routine – and by “dance routine” I of course mean “everybody pressing Emote Menu -> Dance Option 4” in exact unison. Maybe it even took you two or three tries, but you’re apparently the cyber-Paula Abdul now, and no amount of (virtual) sweat will deter you from illustrating the seventh line of the song with a bad, unfunnily obvious visual pun.

Yes, I know you thought “The Internet Is For Porn” was funny, but guess what, Avenue Q has been around for quite a while now. So has “Peanut Butter Jelly Time.” And the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And all the other songs you just discovered last week that have been around forever, but you missed them, presumably because you were busy trying to level to 60 and get your epic mount and epic warhammer and epic codpiece and whatever other thing they have now that’s epic.

(How can a mount be “epic,” anyway? Epic is something you use to describe a work of art, and usually only refers to length – an epic composition, an epic poem, et cetera. When used to describe greatness, it’s meant to describe an experience – “Stalingrad was an epic battle,” “I took an epic shit,” and so forth. None of this is really that appropriate to describe your magical Pegasus turtle, unless they are suggesting that the amount of time you sat your ass in front of your fucking computer is supposed to be somehow monumental, which come to think is probably the idea. Fucking Blizzard.)

While we’re talking about your taste in music – most nerdcore rap is shit. Most filk is shit. It’s just shit that panders shamelessly to you rather than to the masses, which is why most of it is free rather than costing money, and why nobody wants to make an actual music video of it for real. I get that you worship MC Frontalot. I mean, look at his name! It is a funny name! I’m sure that if only it came along with a reasonable amount of musical skill, he would be famous now! But he is not very good and your dancing orcs will, amazingly enough, just make the entire experience worse: a horrible vortex of everything about the Internet that sucks all at once. (The shit comments your shit Youtube video will inevitably generate are, of course, the shit icing on the shit cake.)

And god forbid you’re doing this in a game other than WoW. I mean, WoW is bad enough, but at least they went overboard in that game with an immense number of pathetically unsubtle emotes, giving its players the ability to render nearly any stock phrase in visual terms. Most other MMORPGs have only a small fraction of the emotes that WoW does, sad but true, and halfway through your “music video” you’ll have used the three different “dance routines” five times apiece already, and all you will create is pity, and there is already enough pity in the world.

If you’re using Star Wars: Galaxies – look, I’m only saying this for your own good, but for god’s sake turn off the computer and go out into the sunlight. It may burn at first, but you need to get away from the computer now if you think, even for a second, that the hip-hop Jedi treatment is whatever any given song you like really needed. “But it’s a song about Star Wars -” NO. FUCKING NO. Just STOP. You’re JUST MAKING IT WORSE FOR YOURSELF. (People may argue that I am dropping into cliche here to support my argument. I would counter with “it is fucking Star Wars: Galaxies, and the only people playing it at this point are the ones who need intervention worse than anybody else – the origin of cliche, if you will.”)

You’re already wasting hours of every day and paying other people for the privilege of playing a game you already bought [2]; quit clogging Youtube with the evidence.

[1] Which would of course be every Jonathan Coulton song.

[2] If you’re using Second Life – which, if you’re making a video for the aforementioned creepy Jonathan Coulton song you like, is at least appropriately creepy in the same kind of way – you have my congratulations for choosing a free online RPG. And also my horrified fascination for actually spending time voluntarily in Second Life. Christ: just get a first one.

I have a (very stupid) essay due in two and a half days. I did not need to discover this game.

I don’t generally think highly of most mechanima movies (Red Vs. Blue is about the only good one), but this one is really clever (in a melancholy way, no less) and well done. Anytime you can tell what the character is thinking with such a limited range of animation, you know you’re dealing with storytellers who really took the work seriously.