Oh Jack Thompson...

Well it seems that the idiot of disbarred lawyers has struck again. That's right boys and girls, the one and only Jack Thompson has decided to make a fool of himself yet again.

A little over a month ago the "Video Game Crusader" got a bill introduced into the Utah senate that would apparently allow video game retailers to be arrested for selling M rated games and R rated movies to minors, the normal Jack Thompson fare to be sure. The bill got vetoed as was expected. Now Thompson is apparently threatening the ENTIRE Utah state Legislature with Federal Prosecution for violating his civil rights.

There has been a long drawn out battle going on between the state of Utah and Jack Thompson for some time now that hopefully is coming to a head. Thompson is pissed that Utah Senate President Michael Waddoups decided to try and get him prosecuted for spamming him with an e-mail of a pair of strippers in GTA IV giving Niko a lap dance. (I didn't know you could get 2 strippers at once!)

Waddoups then spoke with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff about getting Thompson prosecuted for spamming him. (if you can get people tried for that I have 1154 criminals in my spam folder right now!)

At any rate the minute Thompson caught wind of this he fired back to the Salt Lake City, FBI office to try and get Waddoups tried for supposedly oppressing his right to petition the government. If petitioning the government involves spamming now, well then the petitions must be rolling in by the thousands now.

Now there is apparently an e-mail going around that Thompson sent on Sunday again browbeating the ENTIRE state of Utah.

Here are a few Jack Thompson nuggets of stupidity:

If I get one more threat of criminal prosecution for sending you all proof, as I have, that pornographic video games are being sold to children in Utah because of the willful refusal of your Attorney General to enforce your state's pornography laws, then I will add ALL of you to the sworn criminal complaint now in the hands of the FBI in Salt Lake City. You will be identified as co-conspirators to violate 18 USC 241 and 242...

I'm not going to put up with it. I've taken down some of the largest pornographers in the world. Taking down your legislature will be a piece of cake by comparison.

All I have to say is wow... go for it Jack, take down an entire state with your idiotic platitudes, and self righteous sense of douche-baggery.

I love how guys like Thompson can take the fight to the entire industry of Video Games, or even to a government of a state and be mad at them for kids playing M rated games or watching R rated movies. When in reality he should be going after the parents of these kids who are playing the games. Why are the parents so dumbstruck? Don't they know what their kids are doing? Maybe Mr. Thompson should go into a games retailer, and no not Wal-Mart, and talk to the parents.

After working for 2 years at a games retail store, informing parents of the content of games when they are buying them for their kids, and even after that they still buy the game? Well those parents don't get to complain, but I bet they are the 1st ones to get all pissy.

So Mr. Thompson thank you for giving us something new to laugh at, our world would be so much less interesting without you.

And I should say we wait with anticipation for the newest GTA IV DLC "The Ballad of Gay Tony".

~Ride Hard, Game On!

From: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/05/26/jack-thompson-threatens-entire-utah-legislature-prosecution

The Download

If any market knows how to listen to the cries of its people and has a good feel for the economic climate its the video game industry and it shows with companies putting out Downloadable Content to extend the life of the game.

So lots of DLC is just filling up bandwidth all over the place now, but what DLC is worth your hard earned cash?

It goes without saying that the Fallout 3 packs are worth it, with 2 more on the way it seems that Bethesda is trying to extend the length of its most recent epic game while it develops that other game that they make that might perhaps be called Elder Scrolls 4? possible? I think yes

Fable 2. While I wasn't a big fan of the game to start with, I have to applaud the fact that they are pumping out DLC to extend the life of the game because they could very easily stop that and just go and make another game that would cost $60 instead of $10.

Gears of War 2. Lots of action games might get a few extra maps added or things like that, but Gears 2 has had lots of post launch support, several map packs have come out and the newest one, set to release soon has added some new single player stuff.

Left4Dead. Ok a new survival mode pack has been released for Left4Dead and if I'm not mistaken it is FREE!! Go get this now, especially if you like to play online, and if you are a Left4Dead person you obviously do, this adds a lot of time to the game past the basic levels. Not to mention it can get pretty crazy after you've gone through the light house map dozens of times and still cant get that elusive gold medal.

There is always the arcade titles out there and there are some good ones that you can pick up:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
A great reproduction of the 1989 coin-op classic, all the punishing parts without draining you of all your Frankie's fun park tokens. $5 to revive all the childhood trauma

Uno:
Who doesn't love Uno? Now you can play it without all the cards and your grandma getting mad and turning the table over when she looses her honey bun because she doesn't know how a reverse works. All that for only $5

Aegis Wing:
This game came out YEARS ago but it is FREE! its an R-Type-ish clone game with 4 player Co-Op. The level design and just the feel of the game is classic.

Braid:
If you haven't heard about this game then where have you been? Yea it is that awesome, go get it, trust me it is worth it.

So that's it, poke around your respective downloadable marketplace/store/whatever and find something. In these rough economic times, isn't it nice that someone is looking out for your gaming needs?

~Ride Hard, Game On!

E3 '09

Well if you're a nerd then you know what the summer brings. No i'm not talking about sitting inside all day playing video games, or working on your Harry Potter fan fiction. I'm not even talking about another summer sitting on a hotel balcony with your game boy taking ocassional glances at girls in bikinis.

No friends the summer brings the G8 summit of the Gaming industry, thats right. The Electronics Entertainment Expo. Or E3 in l33t 2p34<.

E3 usually brings many big announcements, several eye openers that get people back interested. Some long awaited release dates (that will probably change the day after the press confrence) and ofcourse some dissapointments.

Sadly E3 will begin with a dissapointment that it doesn't even have anything to do with. I'll admit it has been probably a long time coming but Developer 3d realms shut down and with it dies Duke Nukem Forever. In all honesty when people started talking about the game back in 1997 we were wondering if the game was gonna be good. For the last decade we've been wondering if its gonna come out. Atleast now we know the answer. I cant say that I'm too dissapointed becasue the game probably would have been really terrible or it wouldn't have sold well. When the game came out Duke was something unique, now you can get the same thing on HBO. Most of the gamers who loved the Duke when he came out originally are either out of the gaming phase, or can't justify to their wives why they would spend $60 on a game about a flat-topped, bad mouthed, action hero. Also the parody factor for Duke is gone. The action hero archtype that he parodied doesn't exist in modern media anymore. So Duke Nukem, "you're an inspiration for birth control."

Games that should be at E3 and finally get solid release dates:

God of War 3 (SECA)

Assasins Creed 2 (UbiSoft Montreal)

Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward)

Bioshock 2 (2K Milan)

Splinter Cell Conviction (UbiSoft Montreal)

Tekken 6 (Namco Bandai)

Final Fantasy XIII (SquareEnix)

Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare)

E3 staples: These games always make E3

Madden (EA Tiburon)

NCAA Football (EA Tiburon)

E3 suprises: Games that may show up and give everyone a nice suprise
Alpha Protocol (Obsidian)

Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream)

Borderlands (Gearbox)

Alan Wake (Remedy)

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Vicarious Visions)

This is Vegas (Surreal Software)

There is one game however that is just going to "Nuke E3 from orbit."

Mass Effect 2. I cant imagine the game not coming away with multiple E3 awards much like its predecessor. I have been religiously checking the websites for videos or any kind of leak showing more of the game. This will be, by far, my pick for E3 game of the year and I'm sure it will be for many others.

The suprise I would love to see from E3.

I could say Shenmue 3 or KoTOR 3, but those will forever be dreams in my head and my fan fiction :P. If Epic decides to release some glimmer into perhaps a Gears of War 3 that would be a welcome, and wonderful suprise.

So there it is, E3 on the way. June 2nd.

Some recent developments

Alright I've been out of touch for a bit, this semester has taken me down a long road of torture and a severe decline in my gaming. But now the semester is over and I shall once again resume my reviewing. I shall start with a new game that I actually thought would be good.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The general rule is that movie games suck. Usually it applies very well. I had been following the development of the game for awhile and it actually looked like a game that would be good, not just a movie tie-in that they developed in a few months. Of course I was still skeptical because it was a movie game.

Raven however did not meet my expectations. They actually made a good game! That's right, if you'll believe it a movie game came out that is actually playable and even fun!

If you are a fan of Wolverine then this game finally is what he was supposed to be like. No holds barred. Slicing through dudes all day with his claws. Awesome instant kills and decapitations and just blood and gore flying all over the place, its great.

The game looks good and the controls take very little time to master. The combat is fast, visceral, and very rewarding. The AI is a little lack luster but I doubt I would be too excited to fight Wolverine either. Playing as an angry Canadian has never been so much fun!

That being said the game does have some issues but nothing too serious. As with any hack and slash game the environments are largely forgettable and canned, especially on the indoor levels. As you might expect the game does get repetitive after awhile as you mow your way through helpless soldiers. But hey that's all well and good considering that its a hack and slash. As long as there are some heads rolling its all good.

Let me be clear, this game is not for the younger fans of Wolvie. To get such a bloody M rated game from a PG-13 movie is kinda hard to believe. The game doesn't follow the movie all the way but there are recognizable scenes. The story is the same one that we get from the comics that makes your head spin and just makes you wonder when they will start to make sense of the whole thing.

So if you are looking for a deep game experience with lots of replay value, this isn't what you are looking for.

If you want to see what kind of damage a set of adamantium claws will do, then by all means pick this one up and give her a whirl, bub.

Gameplay: Fast, Fun and Vicious
Graphics: Character models look good. Environments, not so much
Sound: Its there
Replay: Low, some costumes to unlock but not much else

Final Score: 7/10

~Ride Hard, Game On!