media outlets

Review – Manhunt 2

by

Rockstar Games’ Hot Coffee scandal is something of a classic debate among myself and some of the staff writers. Long before that in the summer of 2005, I waged war against two good friends (and even better gamers) about the topic. We spent the last hour and a half of work arguing about who to blame and what it means, the debate continuing into the Walmart parking lot and only ending when we stepped into our cars.

The last point of discussion was a desperate attempt of a younger (and much more idealistic) me to fight for the future of gaming. I claimed that Rockstar could have used both the Hot Coffee mini game and the fiasco itself to prove just how unfairly harsh critics of the gaming industry are compared to other media outlets. →  Read the rest

A rant about rampant stupidity on the internets

by

Uh oh. By the looks of the cover this magazine is going to have a lot of words in it.

By now I hope you are in some way familiar with Penny Arcade’s Internet Fuckwad Theory. Time and again it has proven to be accurate, but I can’t for the life of me understand why. What exactly is it about anonymity – or near anonymity at the very least – that causes people to behave in illogical, rude, and just plain baffling ways? There are times when the gaming community amazes me with how well spoken or well organized it can be. Mostly however, it just causes me to pound my head in frustration. Everyone wants to know why gaming isn’t being taken as seriously as it could be. I’m beginning to wonder if this is such a mystery after all. →  Read the rest

The Propaganda Project: Phil Harrison

by

Phil Harrison — Executive Vice President, Sony Computer Entertainment

A Brit who comes off worse in writing than person.

(For an explanation of what this article is, please read this.)
___________________________________
Bitchy comments
“Nintendo knows its target audience, because it has really narrowed that down; and it’s pretty much defined by a boy or girl’s ability to admire Pokemon.”

—

“The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance, those formats don’t appear in our planning. It’s not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it’s the truth.”

—

Something the PS2 was widely criticized for – and which Microsoft in particular has played up very much – is being extremely hard to develop for. How does PS3 compare in that respect? →  Read the rest