Much has been made about the media and the role it plays in daily life. Also, much has been made about censorship and its role in the media. With this past week’s election, many people have different opinions on the media and its role in politics. Double zero double zero’s indie title The Westport Independent takes aim at the press and censorship. Like 2013’s Papers Please, it’s a low resolution title that is easy to play, but makes its players think about a major hot button topic. [Read the rest of this entry…]
As you heard, Metal Gear Solid producer Hideo Kojima is leaving his longtime employer after the release of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. One of the many causalities of this split was a planned Silent Hill game starring Norman Reedus and co-produced by Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Blade II, Pacific Rim). There had been rumors of issues brewing between Konami and Kojima, and youtuber Super Bunny Hop made the above video based on contact he had with an anonymous source following an inquiry he made into the issue. While I personally believe that this person has no reason to lie, he is an anonymous employee as noted in the video, so you can take what it says with a grain of salt. The video contains interesting stuff, such as a possible feud between Kojima and Konami CEO Kagamasa Kozuki, tales of employee mistreatment, gambling, and politics. However, there is more. Check out after the jump:
Not long ago a petition was created on the ‘We The People’ site setup by the White House to garner suggestions for legislation and direction in the governing over the nation. Essentially this site was created to help give constituents a further influence in their own government. Any petition garnering greater than 25,000 signatures will guarantee an official White House response. The petition in question was to secure funding for and being construction of a Death Star.
By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense
Thanks to the viral nature of a request like this, it took very little time for the petition to receive sufficient signatures for an official White House reponse. That response has been posted with plenty of Star Wars references to make it even better.
Continue on, dear reader, for the official White House response, Darth Vader response and DeathStarPR response. [Read the rest of this entry…]
This past week saw the end of one of the most brutal election seasons in recent history. Whether you voted for Barry-O or Mittens, one thing is for sure, you’ll be thankful for no more campaign ads. There are quite a few games that depict the campaign trail i(n fact, I looked at one late last year). However, how not too many games depict what happens after you step into the Oval Office, and I don’t mean city builders like Tropico and SimCity either. Rather, how many games let you control every aspect of your nation’s policies, from welfare to foreign aid? Cliff Harris/Positech Game’s Democracy 2 is one of the few games that lets players do just that. [Read the rest of this entry…]
So you’re wondering why I didn’t throw this up for Black Friday. Well number one, you obviously want the weekend free to spend time with your loved ones right? Two, these aren’t black Friday sales. In fact, they aren’t Cyber Monday, Brown Thursday, White Saturday, Blue Tuesday, or Red October sales. You can get these games for $20 or less regardless of what time of the year you buy them, so there is no need to get up early, stand in line at 2am, fight through the crowd, or use pepper spray on anyone. You save on these games 24/7/365, so these are Green Everyday sales. Of course Green Everyday sounds stupid, so we’ll just call it the $20 Game of the Week like we’ve been doing.
Video Games are murder simulators. This was declared by recently disbarred attorney Jack Thompson. He then came up with a proposal that could be considered no less than genius: create a game in which the player plays as the vengeful father of a kid who was killed by another kid who played video games. The father then goes on a rampage, killing the head of the software company who created the game, then expanding his rampage to killing as many of the people involved in the games industry as possible. If such a game was made, Mr, Thompson promised that he would donate $10,000 to the charity of the choice of Paul Eibeler, the head of Take-Two Interactive. A group of programmers (consisting of 3 alcoholics and a foreign exchange student) dubbed themselves “Thompsonsoft” and created I’m O.K, a tongue-in-cheek ‘murder simulator’. However,Thompson went back on his word to make a donation claiming that his proposal was a joke, and web comic artists Penny Arcade made the donation themselves. Although it’s not a game so much as political satire, I’m O.K is fun in its own right. Taking inspiration from the 8 and 16 bit days of gaming, I’m O.K is a 2D action platformer. Taking control of Osaki Kim, the father of a kid who was killed by a gamer, you take your revenge on the game industry using several weapons. Starting off by killing the head of fictional gaming company “Take-This”, he then takes his revenge on the entire gaming industry, from the lawyers at “Blank Stare” to an arcade, O.K makes his move to E3 2006, where the heads of the gaming industry will gather. In between levels, you take part in a gallery shooting bonus stage where you go into retail shops killing gamers and earning more money to buy more weapons. The game is gory and hilarious, and it is available for download over at http://www.imok.gzwn.net/.
Brave New Films, a progressive viral film site born out of the 2008 election, has taken a sharp stab at conservative pundits. Unfortunately they did so by slandering a classic video game character in the process.
An email sent out of subscribers and an update on their home page shows a headline “Pac Man vs Palin? You Betcha!” paired with an image that depicts the Namco owned character chasing former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin like one of the enemy ghosts. In the text they refer to him as “Progressive Against Conservative” Man though there is little mistaking the character, right down to the basic yellow pie shape.
The game itself is identical to the original Pac Man, with a purple maze instead of blue, and the ghosts replaced with Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Bill O’Reilly. When a player eats a power pellet and then eliminates an enemy ghost, an audio clip from one of the conservative pundits plays. Likewise, when a pundit catches Pac Man, a clip taunting the player also runs.
Parody and satire are well and good, and fair use laws when paired with non profits are generous and fair. However, it cannot be mistaken by my eyes that Brave New Films and its founder Robert Greenwald are guilty of stealing Pac Man for their own gain. There are millions of unique or even similar flash games available and plenty of like-minded developers who could’ve made a game for Brave New Films. Instead they took an existing idea and willfully modified the visuals and audio. The core game mechanic, the very thing that makes Pac Man an arcade classic, is completely unchanged.
Brave New Films did not respond to requests for comment, we will update if they do. The game is currently still available at http://bravenewpacman.com/
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