Hot Coffee: Why Video Game Sex is Worse than Video Game Violence

A lot of hubbub has been published relating to the now infamous Hot Coffee mod of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. A mod which unlocks disabled code in the game to enable a player to take part in a simulated sex mini-game.

Senator Hilary Rodham (D-NY) has even gotten in on the action, proposing a federal law, in large part due to the mod, that would fine game clerks $5000 for selling M- or AO-rated games to minors.

Rockstar has denied that they had ANYTHING to do with the mod. Gamespot quickly proved that all the code is there and can be utilized even on a PS2 using various cheat codes, thereby proving that the original code was written by Rockstar, even if the code was never intended to be part of the final release.

Some bloggers out there are arguing along the lines of, “What’s wrong with a little sex compared to all the violence that is in the game?”

Well, I’ll tell you.
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Activision announces Marvel Comics RPG

Sometimes, Activision rules.

I love Marvel Comics.

I love non-persistent (aka non-MMO) RPG’s.

Thank you, Activision.

For the record, I loved X-men Legends. One of the best Xbox games out there. Holy crap… that reminds me. Is X-men Legends out, yet? Dang, looks like it got pushed back. Oh well.

Anyway, I also loved the Freedom Force games. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go get these games, NOW! At least download the demo.

I can’t wait to find out what developer received these exclusive rights.

Game Awards Not Owned by EA = Quasi-meaningful

G4 released the results of their G-Phoria awards. These “awards” were given to highest vote getters among fans.

Unlike the pathetic waste of time that was the SpikeTV VGA’s, someone besides an EA owned and operated hoochie won “Best Voice Performance – Female”, namely, Merle Dandridge for her portrayal of Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2. Just like I ranted about earlier.

Kutaragi Watch: PS3 Expensive… because it’s for Flat Panels

Kutaragi has been making the rounds letting everyone know that the PS3 is going to be hella expensive. Well, we pretty much knew that already. What most people are missing however is what Kutaragi has said about HD and Flat Panels.

We’re looking at a life cycle of 10 years with the PlayStation 3. We’re currently shifting from standard TVs to HD TVs.

Wait, you’re telling me Sony is going to support the PS3 for 10 years?

Indeed. We’ll see if that actually materializes or not. I doubt it.

Basically, Kutaragi is trying to explain why the PS3 is more expensive and why it will be supported for the next 10 years when he says:

But in the next couple of years, most flat-panel TVs will be full HD.

Heh heh. I can’t argue with that. But the fact that market penetration for flat panel TV’s is currently pretty pathetic isn’t going to help Sony win the fight against Microsoft. (Granted flat panel sales are projected to increase and become more mainstream, but not for several years, yet. So what does that mean for Kutaragi and Sony, who seem to be wagering their PS3 against flat panels becoming more HD?

It means that no one (except those dreamy early adopters) is going to buy a PS3 until it is a closer price point to the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 is going to win the console war right out of the gate. And Sony is on crack if they think they can overcome the Xbox steamroller with a $500 multimedia behemoth. Now, in 5 years, when the PS3 is a much closer price point to the Xbox 360, things may start to get a little more interesting.

Dodgeball vs. Doom

As I read Steven Johnson’s recent LA Times column, I realized that even though people are getting bent out of shape about “violent” video games like Halo 2, kids have been playing violent games for years.

Hello? Ever hear of Dodgeball? Or how about the pickup games of tackle football I used to play every recess in my junior high. There were more than few violent outbreaks as a direct result of actions taken during these kinds of activites. And they are the kinds of games kids play ALL THE TIME.

I remember clearly my mother getting upset about my playing football with the neighborhood kids back when I was 6. I got bumped on the noggin pretty hard one of those games and sprained my ankle another time. Choruses of “I told you so” would follow me all the way to my room.

(And yes, readers, PLAYING football can become violent. WATCHING football should not.)

Given the choice between having my kids play Halo 2 or Dodgeball, it’s pretty much a tossup in my book. On the one hand, the kid gets some good exercise, and learns how to deal with a little pain. On the other, he exercises his mind and doesn’t come home with a bloody nose.

I guess we’ll see when I have kids…

Hot Coffee Watch: The Latest Word

0WN3D

Review: Xbox 360 by Elmojesus

I know everyone has already seen this on the bigger sites, but I wanted to share the brilliant and no-holds-barred writing style of Gamespot forumer, Elmojesus, as he carefully critiques a test version of the Xbox 360.

my step dad works here in seattle for xbox hes the forgein tester guy. He had a trip to mexico to test the new xbox so he had to bring it home and he let me play it. There arnt any xbox360 games yet i guess so all i got to play was halo 2. but all the test stuff was on there like dolphin and light shadow stuff, Oh and the XBOX dashboard . I uesto hATE xbox purley a PS fan. but WOW new xbox has some COol stuff. First i tried dolphin witch doesnt have liek GOOD grapics or anything its just a frame test and the xbox was geting 3000+ frames witch was pretty stuinning for me. and the Xbox dashboard is amazing im not aloud to tell everything about it but WOW theres soo much crap on the xbox and some of it is sooO miscelanius. theres xbox arcade were u can Dl like arcade games and crap and u can stream music from ur PC to ur xbox and tons and tons and tons of other crap. I just thought id post about it, ps3 is definatly guna have some compitition. IM SURE all of u have probably read stuff like this on sites but OH one more thing im not supposed tell this, but the power supply conecter thing for the xbox, lets just say its not COMPACT, witch might be why u havnt seen it in any pics. thats all for now post some feedback

In case you ever wanted to know what people that write like this look like, here you go:

Heh heh heh. Now, that’s the kind of face you want to punch. Then, hold down and shave that stupid mop of a haircut. And I’m not just saying this because he’s playing an Xbox 360 and I’m not.

Now, remember, this hard-hitting review is from someone who refers to himself as “purley a PS fan”. When forumers at Gamespot eloquently requested “MOR XBOX2 PIX 4 US PLZPLZPLZ!!!!!111″ Elmojesus coolly responded with the following:

sorry.. i only had it for 1 night about a week ago. i didnt take any more pics just a few. i dont rember to much about the dashboard al i really rember is the streaming music from u computer thing. and in live i think there was thing for freinds and stuff and u can create ur own profile i think. and then in arcade there were soem cheesy arcade games, i wasnt aloud to copy anything to the HD, but in my pik its the thing on the top and its detactchable, thers also a tab called system in xbox dashboard with a hole bunch of system settings, i cant rember what they were they wernt liek grpahics settings or anything though. uhhh i rember it got 3000+ frames on dolphin witch was pretty cool. OH OH OH and thers a loading screen, and theres Xbox.defualt or seomthing like that cus its compatible with old xbox games (obviusly) but its like a system in a system u load it from the xbox xcreen and then instead of the xbox 360 logo poping up it liek goes blak and changes to the old xbox logo. and maybe it was just hopefull wishing but the grpahics in halo 2 SEEMED better to me, idk if they actually were cus maybe i was imagining things, but to me they looked better(not extremly) better geomatry, more smooth, stuff like that

The internet truly is an entertaining place. Microsoft’s best efforts at keeping a lid on their next-gen console thwarted by someone who can’t even spell the color “black”.

Let’s see what Kutaragi has to say about this:

Microsoft is still not a black belt.

Well, at least Kutaragi’s universal translator can spell black correctly.

Coolest. Keyboard. Ever.

The Optimus Prime of keyboards.

Go Go Hardcore Grandma!

One of the most entertaining blogs I’ve seen in a while is Old Grandma Harcore. Here is the author’s description:

This blog is the chronicle of my experiences with Grandma, the video-game playing queen of her age-bracket and weight class. She will beat any PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc., console game put in front of her, just like she always has. Her favorite game of all time was Final Fantasy VII, her current task is reaching 100% in tour mode of Outlaw Golf 2. These are her stories. She is absolutely real. She lives in Cleveland.

One of the reasons I love this blog so much is that it reminds me of my late grandmother. My grandma didn’t use 4-letter words, nor did she play Xbox or PS2 or even NES. What she did do is watch me play every video game I ever played during the NES and SNES generations.
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LAN Party, Ho!

Here I am at the current UV Gamers LAN party in Orem, UT.

I was going to try live blogging this LAN party, but I decided it would not be a very interesting liveblog, as my “Waiting in line for Episode III” liveblog was not very entertaining, either. Of course, none of these posts really entertain me, either…

Anyway, a liveblog of a LAN party would likely consist of the following:

9:05pm Well, after I won several rounds of UT2004, the group has collectively decided to switch to this group’s staple, Far Cry.

9:46pm I’ve lost 10 rounds of Far Cry in a row. I hate Far Cry.

…

4:21am I’m on my fifth Mountain Dew Amped. My fingernails are on fire, I think. Oh noes.

So, there you go. Not sure if that would be something that all 2 of you would want to read.