I read at some point video games are making more money than movies. You may wanna rethink your position given the cultural influence they are starting to exert.

Bad Candy on July 24, 2007 at 3:36 PM

It’s true that video games overtook movies in terms of sheer income a few years ago, but the average video game is several times more expensive than the average movie ticket. Video games still have vastly less cultural impact that movies.

For example, if you smacked the bottom of your avatar once for throwing a tantrum that crushed the village food storage shed, then you and your avatar automatically became “evil” because you used capital punishment on your avatar!

ScottMcC on July 24, 2007 at 5:11 PM

You could kill your avatar just by spanking it?

Not to mention the UN has a positive effect in the game which, historically speaking, is lunacy.

How are Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six series? I’ve never tried either. Played the first two Splinter Cells…

Bad Candy on July 24, 2007 at 5:32 PM

The first couple of Rainbow Six games are sheer Tom Clancy greatness, after that they just put development on autopilot, refine the game graphics, and try not to fark with the formula.

Ghost Recon is less Tom Clancy thriller and more “holy crap I never saw that sniper that just killed me from 1,000 yards away” gameplay. It’s a series of games that gets high marks for realism but can be frustrating to FPS players used to the run-and-gun gameplay of Quake or Halo.

I have owned or played all of the games in both series. Recommended.

Basically, if you’re the Israeli PM, the more aid you give the Palestinians and the less police enforcement you use, the better you do in the game. It also gave me back marks bad marks when I made an anti-terrorism speech right after a suicide attack by Hamas. Kinda weird.

I hope my correction is right on that. If so, none of that is surprising. Israel has to play nice no matter what, or else they are “bad”. Whatever.

When you select to be the Palestinian leader, the more infrastructure you build and the better you make conditions for the Palestinians, the more Hamas agrees to disarm. It definitely is a “fantasy” game as see-dubya said.

freakagriep on July 24, 2007 at 4:11 PM

Actors, writers, producers, directors, and now video game designers skew left in their politics? Shocka!

Just like other liberal pop culture influencers, video game designers have zero subtlety. In the strategy game Black and White, your goal was to teach an anthropomorphic animal to protect villagers on an island as the animal avatar grew from infancy. If your childlike avatar did something EXTREMELY bad such as it ate a villager or stomped on the villager’s cow, then you had to find a way to teach your avatar those actions were wrong. Problem was the developers made the game so crazy that if you gave the avatar a childlike spanking, the game considered it “violent child abuse,” flagged you as evil, and your avatar would grow up e-e-e-e-e-e-e-evil with no chance for redemption. For example, if you smacked the bottom of your avatar once for throwing a tantrum that crushed the village food storage shed, then you and your avatar automatically became “evil” because you used capital punishment on your avatar!

None of this stuff was in the manual, so I figured there was a bug in the game and I returned it the same day I bought it. Found out later that was just how the game was set up and that to be “good” you had to, I don’t know, put your stupid avatar in a time out every time the frickin’ thing went on a rampage that murdered half your villagers…

I’ll stick to Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six. One shot=one kill.

I actually bought the game out of curiosity and just played it for a while. Basically, if you’re the Israeli PM, the more aid you give the Palestinians and the less police enforcement you use, the better you do in the game. It also gave me back marks when I made an anti-terrorism speech right after a suicide attack by Hamas. Kinda weird.

When you select to be the Palestinian leader, the more infrastructure you build and the better you make conditions for the Palestinians, the more Hamas agrees to disarm. It definitely is a “fantasy” game as see-dubya said.

It is kind of addicting, though.

I am not a videot, so I don’t give a hoot in a rain barrel about any video game.

saiga on July 24, 2007 at 3:29 PM

I read at some point video games are making more money than movies. You may wanna rethink your position given the cultural influence they are starting to exert.

Does the game assume all parties at the table actually want peace, rather than annihilation of the other parties?

That almost says what I wanted it to, but not quite. If it sounds like I think Israel wants to eliminate Palestine, well, that’s not what I think. It would have been a little more clear had I said “every party at the table wants peace”.

And is it interactive with multiple players?

Will it encourage more violence?

Interesting. Does the game assume all parties at the table actually want peace, rather than annihilation of the other parties?

Because I love fantasy role-playing games!

see-dubya on July 24, 2007 at 3:10 PM

My 32nd level Geek program can beat your 22nd level Geek programer in a contest of wills Amajadeeni

- The Cat

P.S. Paging Sid Meier

P.S.S. The road to hell and all that.

Because I love fantasy role-playing games!

Zzzzz…Games with focus on activism are almost always utter crap.

Bad Candy on July 24, 2007 at 2:51 PM

Almost?