The controversy surrounding this game turned out to be hilarious. The media, anti-gaming advocates, ‘experts’ (people who never played a video game since Pac-Man), and everyone’s favorite disbarred lawyer decried this game as being everything from an entertainment medium that glorified bullying to a Columbine-simulator. The finished product actually ended up having more in common with Revenge of the Nerds than Virginia Tech. Instead of a gruesome Columbine fantasy, Bully actually ends up being a hilarious (and T-Rated) look at high school antics in the tradition of Porky’s.
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I had a great time watching “In Time”, a sci fi movie about a world that uses time as currency. The movie’s release is full of controversy, as famed science fiction writer Harlan Ellison tried to stop the film’s release citing similarities to his short story “Repent, Harlequin!” Said The Ticktockman. Having now seen the movie and read the short story I don’t feel the similarities were extensive, but more on that later.

The premise as seen in the trailer is pretty straightforward, and what an interesting premise this is. The movie replaces money with seconds, minutes, hours even months and years of people’s lives as people trade off time on their life line for goods and services, working themselves to the bone to be able to make it another day. Extremely topical amongst these times of economic strife and worldwide protests, the movie vilifies the “rich” immortals while making us feel the plight of the working class. All this social commentary is wrapped in this interesting sci fi concept which makes for interesting scenes and concepts, like the idea that poor people from the ghetto are always in a rush, while the rich take their time in everything, because what is there to hurry about if you know you’ll probably live another century or two?

If you’re a regularly Poweteer and have perused our forum in the past few months, you might know that a few of the Powet staff will be attending this coming year’s MAGfest X – a convention for gamers and lovers of gaming music.

Well, we just got one more awesome reason to attend the festival this year. Father of the Final Fantasy music genre, Nobou Uematsu will be the featured guest at MAGfest this year, along with his newest band, Earthbound Papas. (since The Black Mages disbanded some time ago)

Uematsu joins a very wide variety of guests to appear at this year’s MAGfest, along with the likes of AVGN, ScrewAttack, Extra Credits and a slew of other guests and bands. (sorry, no Minibosses this year) So if you’ve got a little time in early January and are in the Baltimore area, check this out and look us up!

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