California Tries to Ban Violent Video Games to Minors-Thank God they Failed

I head about this proposed law yesterday while listening to KGO 810 and I commented promptly as to how I believe parents are responsible for what games their children buy, not the gaming industries, the stores or even the government.

The two laws were passed in 2005, but have not been enforced yet.  Luckily, the U.S. Court of Appeals are debating if the laws were unconstitutional, despite how it might protect children from the horrors of video games.

One of my greatest fears is how laws pass “for the sake of the children”.  This is not only a dangerous tactic but a useful one as well.  I’m glad I have freedom of speech here in America and I understand it only reaches to protecting me from my government, not my work or any other private industry.  This proposed law obviously stretches to a violation of freedom of speech, even if it only proposes banning “M” rated game sales to minors.

My question is always, “What’s next?”  It seems well and good at first, protecting the children, but what is the governments definition of violence?  The video game industry already has a very harsh rating system in place to inform buyers what the ratings mean.  But, I fear if a parent if offended to how Mario smashes goombas Nintendo may have a problem with even their “E” rated games.

 

Another issue is how people presume violent video games induce violent acts.  However, there is no actual study, other then through correlation, as to how video games affect violent tendencies.  It is also very difficult to perform a random study, because people will not play a video game unless they want to, so it defeats the purpose of random selection.

With all of the acceptance and tolerance thrown around about religion, sexual preferences and other social issues, I wonder if privacy, free speech and safety are balanced now.  I think people are so concerned about being safe we forget how quickly we are loosing our Bill of Rights. 

It may just be video games for now, but I really try to think as to how it could change the larger picture of freedom of speech.  The government would love to chip away at it because it is the people’s greatest weapon against politicians. 

So, all I can say is write to the California legislature, including the governor, and tell them how you feel about these laws.  Also, don’t forget to write to your own State legislature about this and tell them you are thoroughly against any such laws prohibiting freedom of speech, even if it is for the sake of the children.

Children do not stay children forever, so don’t reduce their rights for limited safety.

E-Mail Schwarzenegger NOW! 

Remember NiGHTS?

Quickie: Don’t Buy

Remember Nights, on the Sega Saturn? I used to spend hours at Sears playing the game and having no idea what I was doing, but it was fun to have the almost unlimited freedom to roam a beautifully mystical world with a character that looked like a jester in a purple leotard. Well it’s back on the Wii…

BORING!

I just wanted to fly, I loved flying in the game, but you have to play as a pre-teen running around collecting her Ideya…sounds like idiot to me…

But even when you have the chance to fly you have to Dualize with NiGHTS…it sounds like a sex term and instantly looses its innocent charm.

When you do have to play as the human they walk around like ducks and are horrible to look at. Your only weapons are the Blue Chips and it’s all timed so you can’t focus on the games beauty at all…and there isn’t very much, because the landscapes look like they took a Picasso painting and put it through a shredder.

I found myself pressing (+) at every cut scene, unfortunately you can’t skip. I don’t need all of the whiny drama or storyline to make the game better, it actually made it worse because the characters were as thin as paper.

Personally I can do without the story altogether and fly, by jamming the nunchuck stick to the right…yes…they even ruined the enjoyment of flight by making it as restrictive as a nunnery.

What is the point of having flight in a game if there is no freedom in it? It’s like giving a child a bike with flat tires; too much effort to ride, so they just leave it to rot in the sun and rain. It’s the same with NiGHTS, no freedom equals no enjoyable play.

It was repetitive and felt like a never ending torture flying through loops and chasing down keys for a pointless mission from the horrible storyline. The freedom was lost from the Sega Saturn I’d experienced and turned into a suppression via Nintendo.

One boss, Bomamba, was such a pain in the butt I just gave up on the game. You had to roll all the kitty heads…that’s right heads…into little holes in a certain amount of time…and there were many stages of ulcer causing pain.



I must have tried for two hours to complete this boss, but those kitty balls just wouldn’t fall in, especially if there was a hill to roll over.

The developers were trying too hard to add sense to the NiGHTS universe. Honestly I would have been satisfied with a little prologue and a simple storyline of saving children’s dreams or something but instead the player was given flat character children, boring levels, complicated bosses and limited flying, which killed the game ultimately.

Don’t try, don’t buy, it will just make you cry.

The Wii is Losing Hardcore Gamers

When my father bought the Wii for the family, I was ecstatic to try out the motion sensor gameplay.

He bought all the right games: “Mario Galaxy”, “Twilight Princess”, “Mario Party”, it was great, wonderful, until I started playing.

I played “Twilight Princess” on the Gamecube and enjoyed the plot twisting, interactive and tear wrenching gameplay which was all completely lost because of the flippin Wii mote.


Swinging your arm to wield a sword is a novel idea, but once my arm became tired, the immersion was lost. I knew I wasn’t a reincarnated warrior saving Hyrule, but I didn’t need to be reminded with a cramp.

I blame parents who blame video games for causing obesity in children. It’s your child, take the game away, throw out the junk food, but OH NO, that’s asking you, an adult, to change your habits for the betterment of your child.

I fell sorry for Nintendo, because they have almost defeated the purpose of playing a game by attempting to make it healthy.

The Wii does well when focusing on ideas like “Wii Sports”, because it’s short, simple, and doesn’t need hours of play to complete. Furthermore, most of these types of games provide little to no emersion for the player so there is nothing lost when you feel the real pain in your arm from bowling.

Let’s be specific, the Wii is losing their serious fanbase and gaining the casual gamer; a player lost to Xbox and the Playstation. So, despite attempts to make classics new on the Wii, I believe it has seriously backfired because of the lost emersion of the player in the game.

However, Nintendo is far from dead to a serious gamer, mainly because of the option to download old classics and play with an actual controller. This is only a slight saving point for the Wii, because if a game is not enjoyable with the featured controller why bother playing the game? Also, when you have to play old games to enjoy a new system, it defeats the purpose of buying it.



I think they found their error and are attempting to fix it slightly by letting gamers play with a normal controller, but if they continue to turn out tired classics, they will still loose their oldies and just have casual gamers left.

Nintendo needs to try something new with their old classics because goombas are only so impressive and finding temple weapons, like in “Twilight Princess” is a tired collecting strategy dying hard and fast. If they don’t, I guess us fans will have to convert to the X-Box.

Sims Castaway: Please stay away!

Quickie: Don't Buy




I’ve been playing one version of the Sims or another since it was conceived by the sadistic minds at EA Games. Unfortunately my dying laptop could barley handle basic Word functions, so I had to stay away and sighed at the loss.

Finally the Sims started to release on X-Box, PlayStation and Gamecube, and the Wii and I gladly regained my god powers making my sims burn in their own kitchens and die in small dark rooms.

But time after time I have been disappointed with the console versions of the game. For example, when the Sims 2 appeared for the X-Box I found out that you could not have children within the game. You were stuck as a sterile sim only out to complete goals and climb the Simcorp ladder.

The Sims: Castaway seemed like a fun buy and if I didn’t like it I could return it in 7 days. Thank goodness for the liberal return policy.

You create a character at the beginning of the game, very similar to the original standbys: clothing, skin tone and occupation. Also, you can create other crewmembers to help you with chores and tasks.

At first you are alone on an island and it’s okay at fist, but if you decided to be completely alone, it turns into the forever Castaway movie.

EA attempted to make Sims more like a RPG. But walking to different zones to collect certain materials rather then just moving about the world omnisciently and assigning tasks becomes very tedious.

One of the largest design flaws I found was when you build a shelter and make a mistake, you cannot simply delete it. You have to go into “GRAB” mode, trash it a and if you do dismantle it, you still loose all your precious supplies. It’s annoying and time consuming.

If you did decide to create additional characters the next step in the game is to find them. When you do, hope you didn’t make a lazy sim, because they are entirely useless, especially when the concept of a multi-sim game is to eventually make a thriving tribe. GOOD LUCK!

Everything is more difficult with this RPG style. Talking to sims is impossible because you have to constantly move around and catch up with the other sim. You also have no control over the other sims unless they are in your tribe. And how do you build a tribe? By talking. UGH!

Everything about this game is difficult to achieve because of the basic game flaws EA overlooked. These could have been altered and the game could have been very enjoyable, but in short the game sucks.

I’m still waiting EA, when are the Sims going to have a decent game to play on a console? Playstation, X-Box and the Wii are all online now, so why not develop a Sims 2 and also have expansions available to download online? This would allow players to have the feel of Sims 2 they want and they can expand their world with a click.

I spent too much time playing this game looking for a promising development, but the graphics were average, the third-person play made everything harder, deleting became a bureaucratic process, relationships were hard to develop and the goals were very tedious.

Introdution

I'm female, I play video games. Right now I currently have a Wii, but I had a N64, PS2, X-Box and Gamecube. I've been playing video games since I was a child and one of the first was 'Beneath the Root' a very old game full of pixels and a complex story line.

I hope you enjoy my game reviews and I'm sorry if some of them may be a few years late, but I'm a poor student working on a BA degree.