And of course this wouldn’t be Germany if there weren’t any jabs at videogames in there. The left wing opposition called for a ban of private ownership of high calibre firearms and video games that have been classified as dangerous. (I wonder why they didn’t say Killergames?) So once again, guns and videogames get put on the same level.

The proposal was blocked, oddly enough, by the right wing parties. The ones that are normally the first ones to cry for a ban of violent videogames. The argument used by them is that there are no “clear perpetrator profiles”, which makes “pinpoint killing spree prevention” impossible. Also a ban isn’t “a switch you can just flip.” Sounds more like they don’t want to do anything about the cause to me.

Also make no mistake, it’s not like they suddenly like videogames. It’s the fact that the ban would have affected guns as well that made them block it, as gun owners are among the prime voters of the right wing parties in Germany.

via: swr.de

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Activision wants to make money, obviously. So what do they do when the latest instalment in a multi-million dollar franchise might get banned in a certain country? They edit it. Like they did with the German release of Modern Warfare 2.

Two weeks ago there was (and technically still is) the controversy about [this level], where you [do stuff]. You know the one. Instead of removing it completely, it got edited so that you [can't do stuff]. You can try, but if you do you get reset to the last checkpoint. [Doing stuff] with [certain people] is still without penalty. Basically the player becomes more of a spectator.

On the one hand it’s a good move to release the game in a form that is very close to how it was intended, on the other hand it destroys the ambivalence of the level that made it so interesting to me. Even if certain members of the Negative Gamer staff disagree with me, I still think that this mission will push gaming further in the right direction and give other developers the confidence to use this form of storytelling. I don’t want to [do stuff], but I [like it] when a game makes me question my actions.

Or am I just full of shit and need help soon? (Please keep the comments spoiler free. Thanks)

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They had this great idea to dispose of the killergames. Just put a giant container in a public place and tell the people to toss the stuff in there. And to give a better incentive, let’s have some prizes! Everyone that throws a game in gets the chance to win (among other things) a soccer tricot. But not just any tricot, oh no! It’s signed by the whole German national soccer team! Oh boy, the kids will love it!

The content of the container after 4 hours can be seen in the embedded video:

According to the group, they collected about two dozen (!) games over the course of the day. A questionable result, if you watch the video. There is a whopping number of 4 games in the container (two PS2 games, a single CD and a Gameboy cart). But Hardy Schober, the head of the group, still called it a success. It wasn’t the goal to collect a lot of games, they just wanted to make a statement and start a discussion about the banning of violent videogames from children’s bedrooms. “If we can prevent a single killing spree in Germany, we have met our goal.” he said later.

Not that I don’t give the people the right to try to change things they don’t like, but a) the whole idea was just ridiculous b) blind fuzzing isn’t helping anybody and c) this really offends me as a gamer. And the fact that they hired a security firm to watch the scene isn’t helping. So what, they expected a lynch-mop of angry gamers to storm them Bravehart style?

They are judging me and everyone else that plays video games prematurely, simply because they think our hobby was the cause of a violent crime. And I’m not the only one that thinks that way, as the Association of the German Videogamers (Verbandes für Deutschlands Video- und Computerspieler) had a counter demonstration set up next to them.

There are plans to repeat the whole thing in different cities and I hope they come to one near me. I want to watch the trainwreck with my own eyes.

Update: I found a video of a cameraman advising kids to throw games into the container to take footage of it for the news. I wonder if the games were in there before they shot the video, or if he brought them with him. Also a number of people have commented on German news sites saying that the 24 games handed in claim can’t be right, as they were there and saw (and took pictures) of only the 4 that are shown in the video.

via Gulli.com and Netzpolitik.org (German)

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The big question, for gaming nerds like us at least, is what will this mean for the state of video games in Germany? I will give you a little background on the different parties that made it (or sadly not) into parliament and a prediction what may happen.

CDU – Christian Democratic Union

The CDU received 33.8% of the votes. They are coalescing with the FDP to form the leading power in the parliament.

They are the largest political force in Germany, and also the most conservative. Whenever there’s a story about some political nutjob wanting to BAN THE VIDJA GAMES!!!! you can be 90% sure that he is a member of the CDU or its sister party the CSU (Christian Social Union). The CSU is the even more conservative Bavarian version of the CDU. They wanted their own party down there because the CDU wasn’t Christian enough or something.

Part of its political programme is the goal to ban the sale and production of “killergames” in Germany. And guess who invented that term? Yes, it was them. They say that killergames have the same influence on the society as drugs and child pornography. Seriously.

SPD – Socialist Party of Germany

The SPD got 23% of the votes. They coalesced with the CDU in the last legislation period, but only because no other combination would have had the necessary majority to rule. So now they are in the opposition.

As the name implies, they are a left wing party. In the last years they have earned themselves the nickname “Traitorparty”, since they didn’t object a number of bills that where against their socialist programme.

In terms of video games they follow a similar line as the CDU, but not as radical. The basic cannon is still BAN ALL KILLERGAMES!

FDP – Free Democratic Party

The FDP had 14.6% of the votes in the election, which in turn lead to a coalition with the CDU.

You can count them as a liberal party, that wants to “strengthen the freedom and the responsibilities of the single individual.” In general they are against to much regulation from the state. They have been involved in the German government longer and more often then any other party,

Being a liberal party, they have been against tougher regulations of video games. But since they are now part of the ruling coalition, that stance may get forgotten in favour of the stronger coalition partner.

Bündnis 90/Die Grünen – Green Party

The Green Party received 10.7% of the votes and thus continues its work in the opposition.

The party was formed in the mid seventies, by students that where angered because the established parties ignored the topic of environmentalism up to that point and the ongoing rearmament of Germany.

They had a similar opinion as the FDP on video games up until the killing spree of Winnenden. Since then they have hopped on the same bullshit train as the SPD, saying violent video games are emotionally blunting etc.

Die Linke – The Left

The Left got 11.9% of the votes, keeping them in the opposition.

As the name suggest, they are a left wing party. And a very extreme at that. They are even considered to extreme by some and were even under the surveillance of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Their programme focuses on social equality in all parts of the society.

This is also reflected in their stance on video games. They propagate that not games are solely to blame for the violent youth, but that it’s more the broken family and education politics of the last years.

Piratenpartei – Pirate Party

The Pirate Party only received 1,95% of the votes, keeping them from taking part in the parliament, since you need at least 5% to do that. But this is the first year they take part in the parliamentary elections, so this isn’t half bad. (The Green Party got 1.5% the first time around.)

Established in 2006, the Pirate Party can be seen as the voice of the young people who know what the internet is. They want to strengthen civil rights, stop surveillance measures, protect the net neutrality and raise the acceptance of the internet in the society in general.

And of course they want to stop the constant onslaught of politicians who blame video games for violent acts.

The rest of the votes (‘ˆ¼5%) are split up between a number of smaller parties, like the extreme right NPD. But those don’t really matter for this analysis.

What to make of all this? We now have a ruling coalition with the CDU and the FDP. The CDU might try to make some advances in the banning of all violent videogames, if only so they can say that they did something in the matter. If they succeed or not, depends on the FDP in my book. If they have some balls they might oppose the CDU. But they could consider it a to small of an issue to go against the coalition partner. I will hope for the best.

Apart from that, there is still a general consensus in German politics that there needs to be something done about “those Killergames”. So regardless of who is ruling and who is in the opposition, a lot of politicians will try to use the subject to promote themselves. Then there are the “experts” who blame videogames for everything.

The reason why I included the Pirate Party is that they might be the thing that will move the other parties in a more game friendly direction. If they keep gaining votes over the next years, the established parties will start to adopt parts of the programme of the Pirate Party to lure voters away from them.

All in all I would say that it’s still the same old game. There may be a change for the better in a couple of years, but for now it’s still not looking very good.

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But after the amok run of a teen at a German school last Thursday (link), where gladly nobody got killed, the stupidity reached a new level. (It seems like no big UK news outlet picked the story up. Not interested if there are no deaths, ehh?) A school in Schramberg, Germany has stated plans to make itself “killergame free”. The goal is to keep pupils from playing violent videogames, and thus lower the aggressive potential of pupils and the probability of a killing spree. At least that’s what the people in charge think.

Even if Killergames are not the trigger of a killing spree, Bernd Denning, principal of the Schramberg Second School said yesterday, they still take a major part in turning minors into homicidal maniacs. Even if there isn’t a monocausally relation between excessive playing of games, leading to acts of violence, it still provides a twisted frame of reference of solutions for their problems and hardships, that they learn – and may transfer to the real world under certain circumstances.

Right now they are looking into ways to reach the goal of a “killergame free” school and “how the change to a abandonment of Killergames at the school can be realised as a project.” First ideas rely on the teachers and parents to raise the children’s media competence and to convince them to stop playing “those” games or not even start to play them.

The goal is to raise awareness at the school that “Killergames are corruptive and therefore need to be outlawed.” Furthermore the people behind the campaign seem amazed that some think that “these games need to be accepted like a force of nature, that cannot be stopped.” If the legislative body does not react, principal Bernhard Denning said, it is “morally desperately demanded, to say no to a practice that is elementary linked to killing sprees.”

In the long run it is planned to build a network of schools with “Killergame free zones”.

Just to get this straight, they don’t want to stop children from playing violent games at school, but they want to stop them from playing them altogether. On one hand I like the effort to stop minors from playing games they were never meant to play, but the way all of Bernhard Denning’s statements are verbalized bothers me. Violent videogames = drugs is basically what he is saying. And that they are fundamentally linked to violence in the real world. And all that moral based crap. They don’t understand it and they fear it. So it has to go. Simple as that. I love my country.

via gulli:news (with translation done by myself with the help of the NG editors)

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[Welcome to Think of The Children!, my weekly column about censorship in games. Each week I will talk about a game or a series of games that got edited for it's release in a different country. Please enjoy.]

Oh Bionic Commando, how I love it. Even though it beats me up and takes my lunch money (so to speak) every time I try to play it. Being a game from the old school of Nintendo-Hard, I never got that far in the NES version (at least not without savestates). But nevertheless it’s still an awesome game. Just think about it, a platformer with no jump button! It will drive you nuts the first time you play it.

First a little history lesson, because I like to explain things. The original name of Bionic Commando is Top Secret. Capcom US decided to rename it to advertise it as a sequel to their top down shooter Commando, which it had no connection to whatsoever (Or maybe to make people think it had a connection to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie Commando, who knows?)  Soon after its release in the arcades in 1987, it got ported to a series of home computers and consoles like the Amiga and the Commodore 64. For the rest of this article I will concentrate on the NES version (which is arguably the best), released in 1988. As with quite a few of Arcade to NES ports, the port is a lot better then the original in many ways. Apart from the concept of using your bionic arm to grapple your way through the level pretty much everything else got changed. While most changes improved the gameplay, Nintendo decided to censor have Capcom change things a little for the domestic release in the US/EU.

You see, it was called Top Secret: Hitler no Fukkatsu (Translates to something like Hitler’s Resurrection) in Japan. Yes, that Hitler. Basically you fight the Nazis and their leader “Weizmann”, who are trying to resurrect Hitler. They need him to complete “Project Albatross”, a doomsday weapon that never got finished by the Nazis. But according to Nintendo (at least back then), you can’t have references to Nazis in games. So here’s what Capcom changed, apart from having it translated in a hilariously bad way:

They used the Bionic Commando name from the arcades, for recognition’s sake I guess. The Nazis became the Badds in-game, but interestingly they are called the Nazz in the instruction manual for some reason. They probably translated the manual at an earlier state then the game and simply forgot about it, or didn’t care. Of course all the swastikas got replaced with eagles (as pictured above), and Weizmann got changed to Generalissimo Killt. Hitler got renamed to Master-D. But why they didn’t bother to change his portrait in-game is beyond me. Every 9-year old under the sun had that one figured out in an instant.

It makes even less sense considering that they altered the official artwork for the US, painting over Hitlers face with a hat, beard and glasses. My guess is that they thought that most people (read: parents) will not see the end of the game anyway. They also managed to sneak a single swear word (damn) past the censor. Maybe he was just having a smoke or something when they where checking the final build.  It’s not a big deal today, but in 1988 bad words where an absolute no-no. On the other hand, they didn’t care for the close-up of Hitler’s exploding head.

In the recent remake called Bionic Commando: Rearmed, they tiptoe around this issue quite nicely. Nazi symbols are nowhere to be seen, but it’s pretty clear that you fight Hitler at the end even though they never call him by his name. It’s always “The Leader”. So yeah, go figure. But of course, the close-up, shown from 3 angles, exploding head was cut from the german release. Well, what did I expect…

So kids, what did we learn? Americans can’t handle Japan’s wacky interpretation of foreign history, but having people’s heads explode is A-okay. Especially if they are long dead German dictators.

(Thanks to the good people of Hardcore Gaming 101 for the scans of the artwork)

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“For the record this Guitar Hero shit is breach of contract on a Bullys part and there will be a proper addressing of this and retraction.” later adding “WE are going to sue the shit out of [Activision] we being the Trust the Estate the LLC the various LLCs Cobain Enterprises.”

Activision’s statement regarding the matter reads as follows:

Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5.’ Tim Riley, vice president of Activision, also told the Guardian: “Courtney supplied us with photos and videos. She picked the wardrobe and hairstyle, which turned out to be the ‘Teen Spirit’ look, then we went back and forth over changes ‘“ some subtle, some not so subtle.

Which in turn was commented by Keith Fink, Love’s attorney (via VG247):

Activision’s statement is not accurate in suggesting that they were given an unfettered use of Kurt’s name and likeness. The agreement Activision has with the trust doesn’t grant them the right to use his name and likeness in ways that denigrate his image. We are demanding the trust take appropriate action to protect Mr. Cobain’s image and would hope Activision would do so on its own accord and prohibit users of the game from singing songs of others.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, former Nirvana members, have also expressed their unease over the use of Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5, telling the Associated Press:

While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in ‘re-locking’ Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.

The problem here is the fact that players can use Cobain’s avatar with any song in the game, which can have some *ehem* interesting results. I can understand her reaction, but apparently she did sign a contract with Activision that didn’t permit the use with other songs. Or maybe it was hidden in the fine print. Or maybe (most likely) Activision pulled a dick move and just used him anyway.

My thoughts on this? Activision should give in. Even if they have a contract, and they love the money they make with GH5. Kurt Cobain deserves better than to be used as a puppet for thousands of idiots who will try to find the most hilarious song he can sing in the most effeminate way.

Via Edge Online

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MGS Touch has two problems: Its (arguable high levels of) mediocrity and its (too) high price of $7.99 / ‘‚¬4.99. The second problem has now been addressed by Konami, by dropping the price (only today) to $2,99 / ‘‚¬3,99.

I don’t know what Konami does to get the ‘‚¬ price, but it involves a lot of bullshit. Not only is the drop for the EU territories significantly smaller (okay we paid about $1 less to begin with), but now they have to pay double the price. Last time I checked $2,99 exchange to around ‘‚¬2,10.

It’s not like you can justify the higher price with shipping or import costs and the like. They just know that they can get away with it, because it’s not like you have any choice to buy the game in the US store if you are in the EU. Way to go Konami.

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What this means is the Bundestag (German parliament) now has to discuss it. What it however doesn’t means it that they will give a shit about it.

I reckon it will go something like this: “Oi, there’s this 50,000 kids who don’t want us to ban killergames.” “Who gives a fuck, they wouldn’t have voted for us anyways.”

Via: Gamepolitics

Picture by Flickr user 96dpi

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A group of German gamers that had enough, have now started an online petition against this lunacy. Now, before you roll you eyes and say “like that ever worked before”, you should know that this is not a little thing on some backwater blog. Let me use the words of Gamepolitics user Christian to explain:

In Germany citizens are able to post petitions in an official internet forum of the Bundestag. These petitions are “accepted” when 50000 German citizens electronically sign the petition. When petitions are accepted, the German government has to review, respect and discuss the petition’s postulation.

At long last a petition against videogame bans in Germany is online. One can sign the petition here. To watch the development of the petition one can look here.

As you can see, it’s completely official and the government has to discuss it if enough people sign it. And as things look now, that will most likely happen, since about 39,000 people have signed it in the 23 days it has been running.

It’s questionable, however, if this could change anything. The petition against the implementation of censorship of the internet was signed by 134,000 people, but the government simply moved the discussion of it till after the upcoming elections. Said bill has passed the Bundesrat (Federal Council) yesterday, which means that only our President of the State has to sign it to make it a law. Hooray for democracy!

Picture by Flickr user 96dpi

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The bavarian KJM (Kommission für Jugendschutz = Commission for the Protection of Young Persons) requested the BPjM (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien = Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) to ban every Austrian online game store (like Gameware.at). From the internet. Somehow.

That means they want to stop people from buying banned games from Austria. The thing is, if a game gets banned in Germany you can still get it totally legal in Austria. Which a lot of people do, which bugs the people who want the “sick filth” gone.

The reasoning for the request is that they want to protect the youth from “social-ethical disorientation”, “brutalisation of young adults” and “lasting empathy loss”. So not only do they absolutely fail to understand the internet, they are using the same bogus arguments that they have always used in the past.

At this moment it is not clear if the BPjM is able to ban the sites in question, since they don’t fall under German but under Austrian jurisdiction.

All this makes me really sad. Sad and very angry. It’s one of the first steps toward China-like censorship of the internet in Germany. Everything that doesn’t fit the opinion of the government is going to get blocked out. Two years ago, predicting something like this would have got people laughing at you. But now, shit just got motherfucking real.

Coincidentally, a law that allows the government to basically censor the internet (using the killer argument of child pornography) got passed in the German Bundestag (Parliament) earlier today. Not only is it a giant cut in our rights as citizens and non-effective at preventing anyone from molesting a child, it’s practically the end of the division of power. The BKA (German FBI) can just add anyone to the list without real control by anyone. And since everyone that knows what he is doing can work around the blocks in 30 seconds, it doesn’t even make sense. The whole law is just there to make some politicians look good for the elections. And to install an instrument to censor the internet.

But what has that to do with gaming? In the last few days members of the CDU, which is sort of like the German version of the republicans, have been commenting about using the internet locking on more things then just child pornography. Like violent videogames…

I give them 6 months before they block filesharing sites, non governmental regulated gambling, Wikileaks, government critical news sites. At some point every Website that mentions games that are banned in Germany will be locked out. So, if you don’t hear from me on this site anymore, you know what happened.

We are looking ahead at some fucked up times in good old Germany. And every last one of the fat cats that waved that law through should know that they just lost the votes of a whole generation.

Via: Gamers.at

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[Editor's Note: Not Reviews are for the situations where a full, proper review would not be fair to the game. Perhaps the reviewer ran out of time, or maybe there was some technical reason why it wouldn't be fair to review the title. As such, Not Reviews don't have a score or stick to the standard review format.]

First of, why a “Not Review”? Well, it’s easy to slam The Path as a pretentious piece of garbage, especially after what Micheal Samyn said about his gaming habits a while back. “What a fucking douche.” I thought. But still, I was interested in The Path and wanted to give it a fair chance in a review.

The thing is; while playing I realized that The Path isn’t a game. Ergo, I can’t review it as such. Stay with me on this. Rating it bad because it’s a terrible game (which it is) would be unfair to it as it never tries to be a game. That’s like saying Left 4 Dead has a terrible Single Player Mode. Well duh, it’s not meant to be played alone.

The guys from Tale of Tales tried to make a piece of art, not a game. Did they succeed? Except for some (arguably major) flaws, I think yes. You could almost display The Path in an art gallery.

The concept of wandering through a forest all by yourself and discovering stuff is very interesting to me (maybe because I live right next to one), and Tale of Tales managed to create a very thick atmosphere. Also thinking I know what is going to happen is enough to give me the creeps in some situations in The Path. But maybe I should explain to you what it’s all about. Well, basically it’s a version of the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale.

At the beginning you select one of 6 different girls who are then given the task to go to grandmothers house and to stay on the path. If you do so, you reach the house after about 3 minutes, meet your Grandmother after moving through the house on a predetermined path in first person view and after getting a ranking, you (and the girl) are sent back to the selection screen. Only if you ignore the command given to you and explore the forest it gets interesting.

About 30 objects are scattered in the forest, some of which can only be picked up with a specific girl. Every girl has different comments about the items, even if you can’t pick them up. Each item is put in your basket and is then either present in the sequence in the grandmother’s house or changes it in some way. Picking items up, and interaction in general, is a bit different then in other games. There is no interact button, you simply walk up to something until a superimposed picture of the object appears on screen and let go of the controls. Your girl will pick it up by herself.

So, you collect stuff and go to grandmothers house for all eternity? Not quite, as for every girl there is a unique wolf (as in sexual predator) in the forest. Finding him fades the screen to black, after which you wake up in front of grandmothers house. Entering the house after that changes the sequence dramatically. As before you can only move on a rail, while pushing any button moves you forward. The scenery can only be described as fucked up, with things like the furniture sticking to the ceiling and very weird colours. Instead of talking to your grandmother the girl is killed at the end of the path and no longer available from the selection screen.

Like I said, I like the concept of wandering through the forest, coupled with the fact that there is no real storytelling (except for the manual), as it all happens in your head. I said that you can almost display it as art, because it has, as mentioned, some flaws. Most of which can be traced back to Michael Samyn’s douchebaggery.

If he argues that most other games that are called art are too challenging, why does he then make a game with needlessly complex controls? You can run, but if you do so, you can’t see any of the relevant items. There is a map, but you can’t directly access it at first, it will only come up for a short amount of time if you walked a certain distance. Arriving safely at grandmothers house several times, makes it available with the push of a button, but you are only told that in the manual, as with most other important things. Like why do I pick up glowing flowers? Ah, the manual tells me that after I pick up 6, I get a hint on the location of a unique item.

An in game tutorial isn’t present. Interestingly, the manual states that you should work with the game and not against it to enjoy it. If you ask me, putting that in there is a testament of bad and lazy game design.

But like I said, you can’t really call it a game, other then fact that you are controlling your character like in a game. The Path doesn’t have a clear goal. There’s stuff to collect, but these only unlock more rooms in grandmothers house. Basically you’re unlocking more pretentious crap, after which you get a rating that does nothing (which raises the question, why but it in there in the first place?) You only “play” it to experience and to interpret it. And there’s no real way to fail at that.

It almost smacks you over the head with some of its symbolism. (Playing as girls as a symbol for being helpless? Had that a few times in horror games.) While at different times, it’s just plain wacky. (Why does the wolf encountered at the misty lake look like Inferno from Soul Calibur?)

Apart from it’s pretentiousness it has a real problem with communicating what it wants you to do. If you don’t read the manual or haven’t heard about it from someone else, I imagine that it would take a while to figure out that you need to ignore the one command given to you to get to the interesting stuff. That can be seen as a comment on the fact that we as gamers are used to do what we are told in games. But other games, like Bioshock did that before and where way more effective at it.

So should you play it? Depends. Do you like pretentious stuff, piecing together a story for yourself and don’t mind strange controls and developers who are full of themselves? If yes, you should at least try out The Path. And with only 10 bucks for it, it’s not that big of a loss. Everyone else should just ignore it.

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According to Square Enix Senior Vice President Shinji Hashimoto, the reason why there has been no Chrono Trigger sequel is poor sales numbers. In an interview by RPGSite he got asked if he could foresee Square handing off other franchises to external developers, like what happened with Front Mission. When asked what franchise they had in mind, the obvious answer was of course Chrono Trigger. The response?

“Why does everyone ask about Chrono Trigger?” he laughed. We told him it’s a very loved series. “That’s not what the sales tell me!” he responded.’¨’¨”If people want a sequel, they should buy more!”

Well, good to know. So go ahead, give Square Enix all your money, so you can later give them some more. But, to be fair, after playing the horrible extra dungeon in Chrono Trigger DS maybe I don’t want a sequel.

Via: Destructoid

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Martin Budich is no video gamer. He doesn’t even know who Bomberman is. But that didn’t stop him from using a protest poster with said character on his website, which in turn lead to him being charged with supposedly having invoked violent acts against Nazis.

The poster (pictured on the left), which wasn’t manufactured by him but by a group of anti-fascism activists, shows Bomberman holding a cake with a burning “candle” sticking in it. The text “Kein Zuckerschlecken für Nazis.” can be roughly translated as “No cake walk for Nazis.” (Zucker schlecken is a German term for something easy).

The demonstration of Nazis (that this poster is against), and the demonstration of left wing activist against it, took place in the German town of Bochum on the 25th of October last year. The Nazis used the motto “Deutsche, wehrt Euch!” (Germans, fight back!). For these who don’t know, that was used also in the third Reich, with “Kauft nicht bei Juden!” (Don’t buy from Jews!) added. And we all know where that led to…

Martin Budich says that he used the poster because he wanted to show the whole spectrum of opposition. But the prosecution of Bochum says that he invoked acts of violence. The argument: the character isn’t holding a cake with a candle but a bomb with a fuse. Ergo he triggered violent acts by the anti-fascism activists, by invoking the carrying of illegal objects to use them for acts of bodily injury.

The investigations of the prosecution have shown that there has been an aggressive atmosphere at the anti-Nazi demonstration. According to the authorities. this was thanks to the publication of said Bomberman poster.

Yeah,  right. I’d like to see a anti-Nazi demonstration that doesn’t have an (at least slightly) aggressive atmosphere.

This whole thing looks like a way to intimidate persons that are politically committed, since Martin Budach did piss off the authorities quite a bit in the past (especially with his website bo-alternativ.de). Great way to use my tax money, instead of investigating the activities of the Neo-Nazis.

But just to be fair, Martin Budich has already been convicted in a similar case. He used an anti-Nazi poster that showed a comic character with a slingshot, which got valued as a appeal for acts of violence.

Still, saying that he ignited violence on the demonstration is stretching it a bit.

via Heise.de

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Remember this? Yes the brilliant idea of adding a “Red Button” to electronic devices so parents can turn them of and regulate access to them just got passed in the EU parliament with 552 votes to 12.

Patrick Steen of Gamezine summarises the though of every intelligent human beeing on this pretty good by saying:

Forgive me for being naive, but isn’t this called the “Off” button? And controlling access to what your children play? Isn’t that called “parenting”? Parents should not only know what games their children are playing before they buy them, but they should follow the well defined BBFC and PEGI age ratings,

After reading the original paper, titeled Protection of consumers, in particular minors, in respect of the use of video games it became clear to me what the goal of this really is.

Parliament calls on the Commission and Member States, in cooperation with the industry, to explore the merit of developing a ‘red button’ which can be included on (mobile) consoles or game devices and computers and which disables a certain game or which can control access to a game during certain hours or certain parts of the game. It also calls for additional efforts in this respect, including the possibility of integrating an acoustic warning into the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system, and counts on the professional game sector systematically to integrate access models for online games in order to ensure that minors are not exposed to harmful content online.

So what they want is a button that allows the parents to park the kids in front of the TV and don’t worry about it anymore. And then they turn around and stress the importance of improving the PEGI rating systems and the awareness of parents. Points mentioned as appropiate for member states are:

‘¢ work with consumer organisations and other stakeholders to raise awareness among consumers, especially young consumers and their parents, of the classification systems in place and in particular the PEGI system;
‘¢ conduct information campaigns for parents and schoolteachers aimed at bridging the technological generation gap and at promoting the PEGI and PEGI Online systems and promoting safer, more aware use of new technologies, including video games;
‘¢ facilitate the exchange of best practice among competent national educational authorities in the short-term with a view to integrating gaming literacy within the educational objectives of primary and secondary schools;
‘¢ frame specific civil and criminal legislation on the retailing of violent TV, video and computer games. Special attention should be paid to online games aimed primarily at children and young people whose purpose is to generate profit;
‘¢ discourage, through specific legislative measures, the misuse of online games for dishonest commercial activities, such as those which dishonestly induce underage users to enter into legal commitments and which send anticompetitive promotional messages;
‘¢ work with authorities in other parts of the world to encourage the adoption of international guidelines, labelling systems and codes of conduct to promote global classification systems for video games and online games.

Hooray for sending out mixed signals.

To be fair, apart from the idiotic red button idea this isn’t all a bad thing. They want to prevent minors from access to violent media, which is fine in my book. The paper even says in the beginning that there are no known direct connections between violence in video games and violence in real life.

But since this is only a resolution and not a law, the member states pretty much can wipe their asses with it.

Via gamezine

Post pic by Pulpolux !!!

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The Tactical Shooter who is recreating one of the bloodiest battles of the last Iraq war, has attracted a lot of controversy in the days after it’s announcement. You know, because it’s a-okay for books and movies to pick the material as a central theme, but not for a game.

Ex-SAS operative Andy McNab said in an TechRadar interview:

In America a 90-year-old and a 12-year-old will know what happened at Fallujah. It’s on the TV, there are books about it. The game is a natural extension to that; it is folklore. The only difference being that it is presented in a different medium,

So apparently, Europeans can’t handle the game because we don’t have the same connection as Americans to it. That might even be true. But at the end of the day, it will still be only a game.

Konami tries to sell this as a game without patriotism, where you see what really happened from the eyes of a soldier. If they can pull that off, I would applaud them. But the thing is, a game like that would be really unsettling. It would have to go away from the clean battlefields of Call of Duty and depict everything from accidental friendly fire to gunning down innocent civilians. I really doubt that they will go that far (especially if the US government is involved in the project). And if they did, they would get seriously more flak from all sides. Because as we all know, games are only for kids.

via Eurogamer

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Well, do I *really* care? No. But it makes no fucking sense. The mode is basically Mercenaries mode with 2 more people. So why deny a rating? It makes me feel like the retarded kid in class that isn’t allowed to have knives. I prefer to decide myself if I want to give my Space Bucks to Capcom or not. Also, give it a month and nobody will play the damn thing.

Via: VG247 (Thanks, Gibbo)

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I know, this one isn’t really video game related, but it’s just too good to not mention it.

After Tim K.’s killing spree, “journalists” from all around the world were desperately looking for information about the gunman. And they found it. Or at least they thought so. Using search engines like 123people they found Tim K.’s profile on Xing. But as you can guess, there is more then one Tim K. out there. What they found was the profile of a 21-year old trainee from Bremen, who shares his name with the gunmen. And of course, instead of checking the facts first, they swarmed all over it like locusts.

Wait, Bremen? That’s more then 600 km away from the site of the killing spree. And wasn’t the gunmen 17 and not 21 years old?

Well that didn’t bother the thousands of people who wrote e-mails from all around the world, and journalist that called the wrong Tim K.’s employer looking for information.

The story could be over here, but Tim K. went on to do something really stupid. Getting pissed with all the people accusing him to be a murderer, he edited his Xing profile saying that he is looking for handguns and is selling hand grenades and instructions to build explosives. Xing took his “joke” down after 3 minutes, but he still lost his job.

Unless “journalists” and press agencies realise that you need to double and tripple check your facts, we will continue to see stuff like this happening. Especially since it is so easy to forge infos in the internet. But hey, who needs to check facts as long as you are the first one who is shouting it out?

Via Die neuen Netzeitung (this and this article) and Der Tagesspiegel.

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And the next German bobblehead has called for a total ban of “Killergames”. Heini Schmitt, head of Germany’s national police union, is constructing his argument using flawed logic and prejudices. Ignoring killing sprees that happened before Videogames were invented or cases where the perpetrator clearly didn’t play violent videogames, he went on to state:

It is known that in every situation in which a violent rampage (Amoklauf) has occurred, the perpetrator has had a remarked addiction to so-called killergames. The manner of the deed is astonishingly similar to virtual examples.

For him, the fact that roughly a third of children and youths “regularly and addictively escape into a virtual world” sets off alarm bells. Age restrictions for such games are often ignored. There is admittedly no proof “that these frequent escapes into virtual killerworlds can contribute to such insane deeds”, said Schmitt, “But neither can the role killergames be completely dismissed.”

When a chance to remove a probable cause exists, it must be used, insisted the chief of the national police union. “The world would be no poorer if there were no more killergames.

Pro tip: If you like bullshit, come to Germany. There’s enough for everybody.

Via Destructoid. Original article by Echo Online. Thanks for translation of the original quote goes to Gamepolitics Forum Mod Hannah.

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[On march 11th, Tim K. entered his former school (in Winnenden, Germany) armed with a gun he stole from his father. In the school and while on the run from the police he killed 15 people, and finally himself.]

I’m truly sad that things like this keep happening. And I’m really angry about the way part of the press and some opportunistic people reacted. Instead of ranting about them and calling them names, I’m just going to let them speak from themselves. This includes voices against video games and voices who are sceptical of a direct connection.

These quotes have been collected from numerous german news sites, including Gamestar, Spiegel Online, Stern.de, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Neue Osnabücker Zeitung, Zeit Online, Welt Online and Die Neue Netzzeitung. I translated them myself, while trying to stay as true to the original as possible. [Editor's note; minor alterations have been made to the translations to make them easier to read, but the context and sentiment remain unchanged - Wardrox]

Not every user goes on a killing spree, but a high portion of the gunman has [sic] used killergames. We should look into that.

Günther Beckstein, Bavarias Minister of the Interior (AD)

The motive is connected to the internet.

[Counter Strike] is part of the motive.

Klaus Hinderer, police spokesman

That the 17-year old kept shooting while on the run, is a behaviour that youngsters can also learn in games like Counter Strike or Crysis.

Hans Dieter Schwind, President of the German Foundation for Fighting Crime

Media consuption is always seen as part of the trigger. It is my thesis that media like computer games at most provide behaviour patterns and strategies, but do not make the individual decide to commit the crime. You are misjudging if you think that you can prevent these crimes with a ban. But the media does spur violent fantasies. A mixture of feeling neglected [in the real world] and the virtual immortality the media gives causes the media to take a role in these crimes.

Willhelm Heitmeyer, Researcher of Violence

It isn’t clear right now if [violent videogames] had a role for the 17-year old culprit. But there are Killergames on the market that are totally unbearable and lower the inhibition threshold especially for young people. There are games that put the player into the role of the violent criminal, to uninhibited pick off other humans.[...] I think that those games have no place [in our society].

Joachim Herrmann, Bavarias Minister of the Interior

Killergames are atrocious and inhuman. [...] nobody needs these products.

Volker Bouffier, Hesse’s Minister of the Interior

Teenagers know very well that the society doesn’t tolerate violence [...] They can use the computer to break taboos, without getting their hands dirty. [...] [Banning violent games, to prevent killing sprees] criminalises millions of peaceful people.

Christoph Klimmt, Computergame Scientist

(original pic by flickr user jahfool)

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I always get asked the same question. Whenever I explain the Achievement system of the Xbox 360 to non gaming friends and/or hired goons. “So, what do you do with those points?” It takes a while to explain that the gamerscore is just there as a Penis Hat for people to stare at.

That’s my biggest gripe with the Xbox 360, apart from it breaking every 2-3 months. The achievement system is just a useless number behind your Gamertag, solely there to give bragging rights to the legions of screaming retards. And why call them achievements? Most of them are things everyone does while playing the game. 200 points for playing some shovelware crap on easy? Come on.

Achievements should be something you get for doing really hard or crazy shit. Like carrying a garden gnome through Half-Life 2 Episode 2. Or playing through Devil May Cry 4 on the Hell or Hell difficulty. Or taking the whole world hostage with your giant, satellite aimed, cold-fusion powered death ray. You know, something you ACHIEVE that isn’t handed to you like candy from your grandma.

It should certainly not be like in King Kong, or a lot of sports games where you can get the whole 1,000 points by just playing through the game once. (Okay, 4-5 hours may be more realistic with Madden.) Granted, you could argue that it’s an achievement just to survive playing King Kong. And I know, it depends on your skill what is an achievement. But that is no reason to make it piss easy. Oh hi there Prince of Persia.

Another problem with the whole achievement system is that the notifications take the suspense out of a game ending. Instead of waiting for the credits to roll you know instantly that that was the last boss. It also very easily kills the mood. Hey your best buddy just got his head blown off. You have to feel sad. On the other hand, YOU JUST GOT 30 CHEEVOS! AWESOME!!! Yeah, high five!

As an extreme example for easy achievements, here’s the list for NBA 2k6:

Get a Triple-Double (250 points): Get a triple-double.
Grab 20 Rebounds (250 points): Get 20 rebounds with the same player.
Make 15 3-Pointers in One Game (150 points): Make fifteen 3-pointers in the same game.
Score 140 Points (200 points): Score 140 total points with any team.
Score 50 Points (150 points): Score 50 points with a single player.

I’m not that into Basketball, or sports in general, but even I know that you can get all of these achievements easily in one match. Just set the AI to easy and 5 minutes later, BAM! 1,000 shiny new points. That removes any meaning of the achievement system. At least from my point of view.

If we look at it like Microsoft, however, it all makes perfect sense. Give the people a small feeling of success and a numerical value to compare each other. Next watch how the pressure of competition kicks in. And there we have it, Penis Hats. Can we change something about that? Not really. But at least we can ignore it. And maybe they will add an option so we can switch the achievement notifications off, while still displaying the friend messages.

I doubt it, but a man can dream.

More things we hate about gaming.

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[Editor's Note: Lukas is from Germany so he knows]

After the last school shoot-out, politicians in good old Germany are trying to best each other with cries for having the sick filth called “Killergames” banned. But since this clearly isn’t enough, as of tomorrow, Germany is officially going to ban violence.

All of it.

Violation of this simple law, dubbed “Stop being violent or we will blow your fucking heads off!”-law, is going to result in being shot on the spot. This is all for public safety and security. For the same reason, any complaints about the new law will be considered as acts of violence and you will be shot. And posthumously billed for the bullet(s).

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Ever heard of the Japanese company Nihon Falcom? No? Well I don’t blame you. Outside of Japan they are more or less only known for their Ys and The Legend of Heroes RPG series. Both of these made it very rarely into the west. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of them until two weeks ago when 1up.com’s Retronauts did a Podcast about them. At one point they mentioned Brandish on the SNES, a game that sparked my interest, solely because it sounded absolutely hideous.

OK, try to imagine a classic First Person Dungeon Crawler, like say the Wizardry Series. You move through a massive dungeon while fighting monsters and hunting for vast riches. Now take the perspective of Zelda 3 and you basically have Brandish. You play as Varik (Ares in the original), who in the intro is getting chased by the scantily-clad sorceress Alexis (originally Dela Delon) because you apparently capped her Teacher. After a fight on top of a huge crater you both fall down said hole and you wake up alone in a giant dungeon. Your task is of course to find a way out. Not that the paper thin plot really mattered.

While playing the game everything is fine until you hit left or right, at which point you will scream “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!” The problem is that your character always faces up. If you try to turn, your character remains facing forward and the world around rotates. And not smooth like you would expect on the SNES, it just flips by 90 degrees. Hard to imagine that? Just watch this video, and have your mind blown.

The reason for this “mechanic” is the origin of the game. The SNES version is a port from the Japanese version for the NEC PC-9801. Originally a office machine that wasn’t capable of Mode7 rotation effects. So they had to find some way around that limitation. But why they didn’t take the Zelda route (like any other 3rd person action adventure, ever) and made the scenery fixed while rotating the character really escapes me.

Maybe they had a very good reason. Maybe they where really fucking lazy. Or maybe they had a bet running with someone for who can make the most mind bogglingly-bad game. If the ladder case is true, they have most definitely won.

Should you actually play this game for more then 2 seconds, fear not! There are lots of other reasons to make you stop. The fact alone that they labelled this as an action game, while having your dude shuffle along square by square trying to position yourself in some way that will make it possible to actually hit something, with the much more agile enemies running circles around you, is nuts.

Another highlight of the the game is that there are only 4 different kinds of environment. So the game looks more or less the same for the most part all the way through. Same goes for the mediocre music. Something that is surprising, because Falcom always had awesome music in their games.

Also your weapons break (why, WHY?!), there are countless pits you can fall into, inventory management in real time is a nightmare and there are actually boss battles. BOSS BATTLES! It’s like fighting the Tyrant in Resident Evil 1 with just the knife. Only you don’t have auto aim. And the controls suck even more.

At least they were smart enough to give you an automap. The thought alone of trying to draw maps while playing this game makes my head spin. But then again, you have to push a button to bring it up, instead of having it on-screen all the time.

But the most unbelievable thing about this game is that it was popular enough in Japan to spawn 3 sequels and an upcoming PSP remake.

To be fair to the title, the game does have some charm. In a really twisted, fucked up way. You know, like tentacle porn. Every once in a while I pop it in, to be amazed by the fact that someone made this game and others actually bought and played it. Only to wish I didn’t do it afterwards. Just like tentacle porn.

Fun Fact: One of the newer games of Falcom on the PS2 is called Zwei!!, which is German for two. Recently they released a sequel called Zwei!! II.

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I read an interesting piece of non-news today, dropped by USA Today’s Game Hunter. Basically they report the fact that Microsoft likes to whore out their franchises.

After talking a bit about 2 new upcoming Halo comics and the ODST expansion pack, they quote Frank O’Conner, franchise development director for Halo, with the words; “I doubt we have seen the last of Master Chief.”

No fucking shit! Since Halo is something like the Star Wars of this generation, it’s going be a long time, if ever, before Master Chief throws his last plasma grenade. With the status he has right now they could slap a Spartan Helmet on anything and it would sell like hot cakes. So it’s only natural for MS to milk him like the cash cow he is. Personally I’m waiting for the inevitable Halo Idol Master/Erotic/Rhythm game they will create to tab the Japanese market. That will be soooo awesome!

Via: Destructoid

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