KINDA WEEKLY, KINDA MMOG [Author: BruceR]

The report itself contains this howler:

Action and shooting games led to the largest numbers of deaths from violent acts

And this one:

For example, Goemon’s Great Adventure and NFL Blitz 2000 received ESRB content descriptors for “mild language.” We found the word “damn” printed on the screen in Goemon’s Great Adventure and noted that the players taunt each other in NFL Blitz 2000. Although none of the games received a content descriptor for “suggestive themes,” we noted the provocative leather outfit worn by Ai Fukami in Ridge Racer V, the screen shot between her thighs, and the phrases “curb your desire” and “push it to the limit” in the introduction\’e2\’80\’a6 Finally, in Harvest Moon 64, which received a content rating “use of tobacco and alcohol,” the player can choose to purchase and consume beer, wine, or liquor resulting in a red face and a fall to the floor.

I’ve got to play more console titles.

Code Red vs Sircam

The Code Red virus turned out to be pretty much a scam this time (although this writer did lose the message board on his clan site in July, along with the rest of msg-board.com), but that didn’t stop editorialists from all over dusting off their Y2K editorials, just in case. From Canada’s Globe and Mail:

As the world mounted defences against Code Red, downloading protective patches from Microsoft that have been available for some time, good questions were being asked about why the general alarm was sounded by the U.S., Canadian and other governments only this week. Code Red was not a secret — U.S. newspapers in particular covered it after it forced the Pentagon to shut down its site for a day — but it remained below the radar of most users.

Personally, I’m asking good questions about the competence of some newspapers’ technology reporters. Or I would, if I wasn’t busy starting my new website, Sircam Revelations, with the hundreds of juicy c: drive dumps from random people I don’t know that have been sent to me these last three weeks. Now THAT’S a great virus.

New bill outlaws nerds on school property

Wired reports the new American School Website Protection Act is proposing that anyone who “knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education” will to go federal prison for up to 10 years. No more CS in the computer lab, guys\’e2\’80\’a6 why don’t you just go outside and beat up a kid for their lunch money instead?

Jumpgate, the spaceship MMOG, is nearing launch, and former Lummite Gbob’s getting a little punchy. This week he told MassiveMultiplayer.org>:

If we screw up the world wide launch, I will shave my head bald, write “idiot boy” on my forehead, hold up [a] sign saying “Sorry we screwed up” and send it to your site.

Meanwhile A Tale in the Desert, the cooperative MMOG, had its first beta test, bringing it neck-and-neck with World War Two Online on the completeness scale.

Yet more proof pond slime can find a fruitful career in game reviewing

Once again going lower than any gamesite has gone before, Gamespot has its senior editor Amer Ajami proudly stating this week that he plays Phantasy Star Online purely to screw innocent strangers around:

Thinking that my friend, the seller, is trustworthy, the third party will place the full asking price of mesata on the ground, which my friend quickly picks up before the both of us quickly exit the game, switch servers, and count our money. The funny thing is that we don’t need the money. The game has a 2 million mesata cap, and we’ve long since hit that limit. But the feeling of breaking someone’s heart is worth more than all the mesata in the world.

Thanks for the candour, Amer. If you go anywhere near a game I actually find I enjoy, I’d strongly suggest finding someone to open your mail for you. You Retard.
(Thx to Splinter for the tip-off.)

The world’s becoming more like South Park every day

Canadians are squaring off against Americans for world domination\’e2\’80\’a6 of the computer video card industry, at least with PC World speculating this week how game designers and players may be forced to choose between GeForce 3 card or a ATI Radeon, because of the potentially incompatible superior technology of the next-generation Radeon card.

The ring, the ring… they want the ring

And this, finally, from Britain’s Independent. Evidently oppressing Chechens wasn’t enough: now the Russians are cracking down on their hobbit population:

“We are perfectly legal,” said Vitaly, a so-called “Tolkienist”. “In fact we spend most of our time in the mountains. We only hold conventions in the city twice a year. It’s our lifestyle. The police don’t like it, but we aren’t going to stop. It’s our entire life.”

Yeah, that’s the problem with Russia today. Too much LARPing\’e2\’80\’a6