Robert Janelle's Blog
Posted by Robert Janelle
One-hit wonders from the 1980's The Romantics have filed a strange lawsuit against Guitar Hero maker Activision over a cover of "What I Like About You" included with Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's.
The lawsuit is strange since Activision did secure permission to record a cover for their button-mashing phenomenon that is Guitar Hero.
At issue, according to a Canadian Press report, is that the cover version is so similar to the original that Activision has "infringed on the group's rights to it's own likeness."
Now, I don't play guitar Guitar Hero at all, since I much prefer playing a real guitar and I can say it's a little hard to get E major, A major and D major in that order to sound different from the original. Probably the reason the song is such a favourite among bar bands. .
It'll be interesting to see where this goes, especially since the band has filed an injunction to get the game pulled from shelves.
Posted by Robert Janelle
This is quite possibly the coolest site I have encountered lately: C64S.com
Basically, the site hosts a Java-based Commodore 64 emulator and tonne of old C64 games essentially turning your web browser into an emulator.
It's easy to waste hours on this site due to the plethora of Commodore 64 games available to play. The big ones are all here: Bubble Bobble (with the original music), Paper Boy, Ghosts and Goblins and more.
Along with the blockbuster titles though, there's plenty of other lesser known games to explore, like some weird text adventure called Dennis Through the Drinking Glass.
Now that the gushing is out of the way, I do need to add, the site is far from perfect. The emulator has a few annoying glitches, so long game play probably isn't going to happen here. Not yet, at least.
For some casual play, you can't be a massive catalog of classic computer games.
Posted by Robert Janelle
It turns out liberals and conservatives can agree on something: Mario!
This was the finding a poll conducted by Zogby International that looked at whether personal politics affected entertainment choices.
In the round-up, they found people who conservative leanings feel a lot of entertainment doesn't reflect their values and apparently they aren't big on video games either. But when they play, they're all about Madden and Mario.
The latter choice seems a little strange, since Mario is suspected of being a communist.
But I digress.
Liberals, the poll found, enjoy more variety in entertainment and they play more video games. Their favourites, according to Zogby: Mario and The Sims.
Finally, the poll found that political moderates prefer Donkey Kong, Madden and...Mario - yet again.
All this considered, I have to stop and wonder how the poll was conducted. Did they only give respondent's five games to choose from? While Mario is obviously one of the most popular game characters of all time, you'd think there'd be some mention of say Zelda or Halo.
Along with that, there are more than three political persuasions. What about libertarians? Though, I'm guessing they're the ones who are into Grand Theft Auto.
Posted by Robert Janelle
Another beautiful thing about those free web browser games is quick they are to comment on what's going on.
Take Escape Paris for example.
It didn't take long at all for someone to lampoon Paris Hilton's jail sentence in a video game.
This one is done is the now classic "escape from the room" style where you basically click on objects and hope they interact properly to escape from a room.
Maybe it's because this one has you playing as Paris Hilton, but some of the item interactions don't seem to make much sense, but they work. In other words, to get Paris out of the pokey, try EVERYTHING and ANYTHING.
Of course, that seems to be the usual rule for "escape from the room" type games.
Edit: Link actually WORKS now
Posted by Robert Janelle
Last week marked quite the SNAFU for Rockstar Games and their parent company, Take-Two Interactive.
The sequel to Manhunt was banned in several countries, protested and effectively killed when the Entertainment Software Ratings Board slapped an Adult's Only rating on it.
One would think the game would only have taken a financial hit in these circumstances, since major retailers like Wal-Mart won't carry a video game rated Adult's Only.
However, neither Nintendo or Sony will release a game with the dreaded AO rating. Which begs the question to me: Why have an Adult's Only rating if it's essentially a Trojan Horse for censorship? Slap that rating on a game, it's dead. Sure, the film industry has the evil NC-17 rating (Absolutely no one under 17) but those movies can still see the light of day.
Plus, it seems pretty disingenuous that Wal-Mart and their ilk will carry movies with graphic violence like Saw or Hostel, but a game like Manhunt, apparently that's crossing a line.
In the midst of the controversy, GameSpot published a first-hand look they got at the game and described the content. It sounds pretty gruesome, with one sequence required the player to decapitate a guard and hold it up to a window.
The thing is, without playing it, I can picture the scene perfectly since it's such a cliche from both the horror and action movie genres.
One common explanation for the double-standard between video games and movies is the interactive nature of games. When you're watching Saw, it's passive. Playing Manhunt, you're pushing the buttons to make the dude on the screen garret somebody with a wire. There is some possibility that this could have a negative impact on children playing the game.
However, what groups like the Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood forget is that THIS GAME IS NOT FOR KIDS!
Seriously, do parents allow their kids to watch Tarantino movies? If I had kids, I certainly wouldn't, nor would I allow them play original Manhunt or Grand Theft Auto or anything similar. And adult games are nothing new. In my own video game-centric childhood, my parents forbid me to touch the Leisure Suit Larry series, which centered around one man's attempts to have sex with many women.
Besides, since I doubt any of the protesters have actually played the games, they probably don't realize how much patience Manhunt requires. Most of the game consists of hiding in shadows and waiting then very slowly creeping up behind the enemy. It's anything but fast paced and I can't see it holding any kid's attention span for a long time. Heck, it tested mine and I usually love stealth games.
Before writing this, I sat back and watched the trailer again (after confirming to the video website that I am indeed older than 18) and realized, I actually do want to play this game.
Perhaps Rockstar should take a page from Tarantino's play book and switch the more graphic scenes to black and white. That was apparently all it took to keep the NC-17 rating off Kill Bill.
