Mad As Hell Reviews and Opinions

by CyberKnight

Five years ago, “The Governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger signed California bill AB1179 into law, making it a criminal offense to sell a “violent” video game — defined as one that allows a player to kill, maim, or sexually assault a human being — to a minor.  Shortly thereafter, the law — like similar laws in other states — was struck down as being an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.  Instead of accepting this oft-repeated decision, California decided to waste more of their nonexistent budget appealing this decision to the Supreme Court.

This should make you Mad as Hell for a number of reasons.  The proven First Amendment is only one of these.  It singles out video games for violence as a medium that needs to be “controlled”.  It attempts to take the decision of parents of how to raise their own kids (no matter how good or bad it is) out of their hands.

Contrary to a very popular belief, there is no law preventing the sale of “mature-rated” (except, maybe, sexually-explicit, a.k.a. “porn”) content to minors.  It’s certainly not true when it comes to books or graphic novels.  It’s not true when it comes to music.  It’s not even true when it comes to movies, no matter what the ticket counter clerk might say — the Motion Picture Association of America ratings are generally followed by theaters, with the understanding that theaters that cooperate may find themselves with easier access to new releases.  Wikipedia source  And, a law criminalizing certain video game sales can have far more disasterous repercussions, such as retailers opting not to carry such games for fear of criminal sanctions when a mistake is made, or even paving the way for a new “sin tax” on this “dangerous” medium.

On November 2^nd, the Supreme Court heard opening arguments from both sides in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association.  A full transcript is available here.

The Supreme Court justices listened to both sides, interrupting and challenging them frequently.  Fortunately, some of the comments made by the justices during the arguments given by Zackery Morazzini (arguing for the law) show some common sense:

Justice Scalia: Some of the Grimm’s fairy tales are quite grim, to tell you the truth.  Are they okay?  Are you going to ban them, too?

Justice Scalia (in response to the argument that video game violence is not an “established norm”, like cartoons or fairy tales): That same argument could have been made when movies first came out.  They could have said, oh, we’ve had violence in Grimm’s fairy tales, but we’ve never had it live on the screen.

Justice Sotomayor (in response to the argument that this new law specifically does not target fairy tales): How is that any different than what we said we don’t do in the First Amendment field in [another court case], where we said we don’t look at a category of speech and decide that some of it has low value?

Justice Scalia (in response to the argument that a jury could judge individual games for whether they are covered by the “too violent” rule): I’m not concerned about the jury judging. I’m concerned about the producer of the games who has to know what he has to do in order to comply with the law.

Mr. Morazzini’s response to this latest is rather telling of the “we don’t care, just do it” attitude of those siding for the nanny state:

Mr. Morazzini: Justice Scalia, I am convinced that the video game industry will know what to do.

He says they rate their games on the basis of violence all the time.  Except that’s the ESRB doing the rating, and developers have already had issues not knowing how a game will be rated.  He then goes on to admit that this new law will affect “some, but not all” games that are already rated ‘M’ — so obviously he does not believe the existing ratings are effective enough.  Yet in the debate, he is unable to positively identify what the covered content would be.  Is it ‘M’ but ok to sell, or not?

Justice Ginsburg: …does California have any kind of an advisory opinion, an office that will view these videos and say, yes, this belongs in this … deviant violence, and this one is just violent but not deviant?

Mr. Morazzini: Not that I’m aware of, Justice Ginsburg.

Justice Scalia: You should consider creating such a one.  You might call it the California office of censorship.

Burn!

Not that they were necessarily easier to the other side.  Paul Smith, on behalf of the EMA, had to field his own questions.  The majority of them, though, are exemplified by this:

Justice Breyer: …why isn’t it common sense to say a State has the right to say, parent, if you want that for your 13-year-old, you go buy it yourself, which I think is what they are saying.

In other words, can’t the state do something, and why shouldn’t they if they can?

To see how utterly ridiculous this law is, though, consider this interchange:

Justice Sotomayor: Would a video game that portrayed a Vulcan as opposed to a human being, being maimed and tortured, would that be covered by the act?

Mr. Morazzini: No, it wouldn’t, Your Honor, because the act is only directed toward the range of options that are able to be inflicted on a human being.

Justice Sotomayor: So if the video producer says this is not a human being, it’s an android computer simulated person, then all they have to do is put a little artificial feature on the creature and they could sell the video game?

Mr. Morazzini: Under the act, yes…

Brilliant.

This is a case that gamers (not to mention lovers of the Constitution and the First Amendment) should watch closely.  After all, there’s a saying:  “As California goes, so goes the nation.”  If this law is upheld for California, you can expect other states to pass similar laws “for the children” – the first likely to be Michigan or Illinois, whose laws have already been struck down.  A decision is expected before the Supreme Court goes on recess in June of ’11.

By JediChric

Kinect is the toy that Microsoft’s Xbox division is resting their future on. Yes, they have the Gears and Halo franchises, but Kinect is their shot at re-invigirating their Xbox sales. I bought into the system, and I purchased it on release day. Was it a good purchase? Was it worth the $150 price point? Was it as effective at capturing motion as it stated? In other words, was it as good as advertised? I will answer most of those questions below.

Setting Up Kinect

Kinect was rather easy to plug in, but after that, wow was setup a bear. Not a bad bear, but still, it was kind of an issue. First, when you turn on Kinect, there is an immediate detection and update that needed to be download. Once that was complete, and it was completed pretty quickly, the Kinect sensor went through a host of calibrations in order to determine if you have the right kind of atmosphere in order to play. All in all, it took around 20 minutes to setup everything. Not too shabby considering what this thing is supposed to do.

Next came the KinectID calibration. This was actually a fun thing to do (I’ll get to a cool part of KinectID in a little while). What KinectID is a link of your body and face to your Gamertag. I have to admit that it was pretty nifty and painless process. They basically ask you to move from one square on a grid to the next and make a pose. Once it has enough of them, then you are setup. I had three profiles to setup (me, my wife’s and my mom’s…more on that later as well). Overall, it took some time to get setup. But I think it was worth it.

Also, I should mention that it takes a lot of physical room, so if you have a small house, Kinect is not going to work as well for you. I am very fortunate to have a very large living room and was able to toy with it very well, but there were times when I wished I had an extra foot or two.

Games

I knew that this was going to cost me some serious coin when I showed my wife the demo of Skittles and the Kinectimals game and she LOVED it. Well, I had to get that game because you know the saying “A happy wife is a HAPPY WIFE.” So I got that game, and of course Kinect Adventures came with the sensor. But for my mom, I decided to get her Kinect Total Fitness. So after that monstrous setup, I decided to pop in a game and play. First up? You guessed it, some co-op action. Kinect Adventures. I pop in the disc, set everything up, begin to play and DISC UNREADABLE. WHAT!?!?!?!?

I was very worried that my disc drive was going bad (the issue is probably a bad disc, but I’ll see about that tonight when I trade it in for another copy of the game), so I tried to play Kinectimals, and success. We had no problem with that game at all. In fact, my mother, a person that on Tuesday referred to my Xbox as a “gaming machine” jumped in and started playing with Skittles. And she had a blast.

Now, here is where the cool thing about KinectID came in to play. When my wife was having problems using her hands to move things around, I asked her to sit on the couch so that I could show her how it was done. In Kinectimals, when there is a change in players, there is a flash on the screen that looks like a rock falling into a pond, and (get this) it logged me in automatically into Xbox Live. I didn’t press a thing. All together, Kinectimals looks great. There is very little lag in the motion sensor, and the game just has a polish too it that I haven’t seen in a game since Viva Piñata. At first, I thought Rare did this game, but I was wrong, but that does not take away from how well that game looks and plays.

I have to say that I was very surprised to see my mother take such an interest in Kinectimals. I know one of the biggest knocks on Kinect is that it is for the casual gaming market, but really, that is the biggest area that the Xbox needs help in. And I think Kinect might actually be that bridge that gets MS and the Xbox over that hump. Seeing my mother play catch with Skittles will be a memory that I have for a long time.

The Controller vs. The Sensor

There were a few bad things about Kinect that I am forced to tell you. One, the sensor isn’t perfect. When it says to get into a certain pose, you get in that pose, but your Avatar doesn’t always do it. Strange, but that doesn’t take away from the functionality.

In Kinectimals, there was a driving mini-game and although I thought I knew how to drive, it made me feel a little awkward. I was leaning at all sorts of odd angles to get it to work, and my hands just didn’t feel like there were in the right place.

If you have one hand directing the hand on the screen, and the second hand comes up reflexively, then it will throw off the hand/mouse pointer on the screen.

There is a slight delay in how Kinect senses you’re jumping or moving. Take walking for example. We may lift our leg to move forward, but our Avatar’s just kind of float in that direction. Very weird to see.

Kinect is very accurate in broad movements, but when it comes to the smaller movements, it’s really hit or miss. Would I say that this is completed software and hardware? No, but it is a very large first step. And let’s face it, this is (as a podcast that I listen too pointed out) very much Generation 1 hardware and software. Give it a couple of years, and I would like to think that Kinect will be really, really worth it.

Summary

Was it a good purchase? Right now, yes. Seeing the joy on my wife’s face, is well worth the purchase. Having a bad disc come with the sensor isn’t good, but I’ll chalk that up to a bad disc and move forward. Was it worth the $150 price point? I think the $150 has always been very attractive. Some say it’s $99 with a $50 game, but I disagree. It’s a $150 piece of equipment with a free game. But well worth it right now. Was it as effective at capturing motion as it stated? Like I stated before, it is very accurate with big motions and gestures, but the smaller motions just confuse the software.

In other words, was it as good as advertised? This is where I have to say no. It’s been advertised as a Wii and Move killer (which is never a good thing to market a product as) and it is anything but. Gamers can play the Wii and Move in smaller spaces while sitting on the couch. But Kinect does deliver on the fun family games, which the Wii and PS3 have lacked in the past year or so.  And at least one game, Kinectimals is well done.

By Ironwolf

I am a self proclaimed Rock Band homer.  Like many other wannabe musicians, I have been looking forward to Rock Band 3 since Rock Band 2 was released.  I am one of the gamers that scour’s the internet for any rumors, pictures, videos, and just about any nugget of information I can click my mouse on.   So all that said, what has me criticizing Harmonix so much?  Can you say: HARDWARE, HARDWARE, HARDWARE?

In case you are new to Rock Band series, Harmonix is setting the bar a little higher with their pending new release.  Some bands have piled on music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero saying they aren’t teaching you how to play a real instrument.  Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason, was quoted as saying “It irritates me having watched my kids do it – if they spent as much time practicing the guitar as learning how to press the buttons, they’d be damn good by now.”   So how do Rock Band creators Harmonix respond to statements like this?  Make real instrument.  Earlier this year, Harmonix revealed the addition of keyboards and real guitars to their lineup.  They also will allow you to use your own electronic drum kit and keyboard by purchasing their Midi Pro-adapter.

Okay so what makes this article worthy of MAHG?   Previously, it was announced that Rock Band 3 game would be bundled with a keyboard for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii systems.  Just a few days ago, it was announced that the Playstation 3 bundle would no longer be available.  Harmonix’s official statement was “You may have seen that retailers have taken down the Rock Band 3 keyboard/software bundle pre-orders for PlayStation 3. Unfortunately, this SKU will not be available in the U.S. (including Canada and Mexico) due to the agreement terms for the region.”  How is it possible that three weeks before release date, Harmonix realizes that they cannot offer a bundle that many retailers have already taken preorders?

My second issue with Harmonix is the release date for Midi Pro-adapter.   According to many online retailers, the midi pro adapter will not be released until 30 days after the game is available.  For part time musicians, like myself, who already has their own equipment, this is unacceptable.   I’m not about to spend another $80 just to own a keyboard that I will use for 30 days until the Midi Pro-adapter becomes available.   I’m not sure if this is a ploy to sell more keyboards, or just a hardware delay.  With just two weeks left until release of Rock Band 3 I will say it again, Harmonix you need to get your act together.

Gaming in the sux!

By AsphaltRanger

So the phrase pogey bait in the military is defined as non issued rations that you take to the field. When I was new to the military this started as beef jerky, drink mixes and gummy bears…don’t ask I didn’t know any better. This progressed to other things that you wouldn’t normally define as pokey bait like books and a gameboy, there I was in a track vehicle for 30 days with two robert jordan books and a final fantasy game for the gameboy. Next thing you know there we were in a insulated connex in Kosovo playing command and conquer red alert for hours between mission, we learned to make our network running cables between living areas to make this happen. We started hiding cables under the buildings so we didn’t get in trouble, to get the true gamer feel we started using handheld radios to talk trash while we played…those were the days.

Now when you deploy you pack all your gear in your bags and pack the spaces with xbox consoles, cables and games and what does fit get mailed out there. A lot of people out there will tell you that this takes us away from our mission or hinders us from focusing on the issues at hand on the other side of the wire. I beg to differ, my last few deployments I’ve operated as a flight medic and being able to fire up the xbox between missions was the only way to take your mind off the missions and helped you get a small feeling of home…minus the couch, beer and A/C. There is nothing funnier then getting your whole crew in a room solely deck out for rock band large speakers, projection TV on the wall mics, drums and wireless guitars…for the record I sux at singing but I can sing the hell out of war pigs. The amazing part of this whole thing was these items were donated by a college in boston and man we played the hell out of it then passed it off to the next unit.

So no $h!t there I was waist deep in spent .50cal ammo and empty raman noodle wrappers…well not really but because we were playing Call Of Duty Modern Warfare deployed it sure felt like it. I know what your thinking…why would you want to play that deployed? Well, first reason if you take a year off from gaming your going to get own’d by little timmy when you get home and secondly if we stopped playing games that involve warfare of any kind we’d be stuck with viva pinata and sonic. Now I’m not saying those are bad games, but when you finish a level on a game like C.O.D on hard with just a knife you are the king of battle. These games are a moral booster you could say, everyone in the platoon all gathers around grabs a controller and puts rank aside to see who the best is… when your behind the controller regardless of rank we’re all gamers inside.

Unfortunately gaming in the sux comes at a cost, if not taken care of your your console turns into a door wedge very quickly. Let’s be honest it doesn’t matter what part of the sand box you set up shop, its not the cleanest of environments. I’ve seen many consoles get destroyed from the sand and the heat, and when that happens there is no quick fix. Most of the time we just end up buying another console because guess what… console support doesn’t send boxes to ship down range. If your lucky you have someone in your unit thats a techie and can fix the problem themselves. This of course voids that warranty and makes getting it fixed even worse, bringing us back to the quick fix of just buying another one. I don’t like that solution either, although I’m sure they have no problem taking my money for another console. As a matter of fact while I type this I can see a voided still broken console here in my office that I tried to fix downrange…one more and I can have a pair of book ends. There are ways to prevent this or at least prolong it, keep your a/c going and lots and lots of caned air.

The last big hurdle you have to over come is your internet connection, or lack of internet. Most of us buy a satellite system prior to leaving the states, which isn’t cheap trust me. The issue with this is that the connection is very slow for basic websites, and because that kind of connection is limited on bandwidth you can kiss your multiplayer days goodbye. This doesn’t mean you cant connect you can its just going to be very slow and suck up all the bandwidth preventing your buddies trying to webcam and email home. I would do my downloading and updating during late night hours when no one else was up. When Call Of Duty Modern Combat came out one of us updated their console which required the rest of us to update, man that was a painful week and I’m sure it maxed out our download limit for weeks…but it was totally worth it to be able to own people on the multiplayer maps. On a side note for real entertainment watch a world of warcraft player trying to raid downrange, his latency was over 12k he was hit a button and wait 10 seconds to get a response from their severs…thats were I learned the phrase “internet rage” still was very entertaining to watch.

In the end gaming in the sux is not only possible but a way of life for those of us who enjoy firing up the console. Its relaxing and when you finally get downtime between mission turn it on it…reminds you of home. So get your favorite field chair, grab that controller and I’ll see you on the battlefield

- AsphaltRanger

by CyberKnight

While I was out shopping at our local Wal-Mart, I wandered by the electronics department and found, where earlier this week they had a set-up of local Halo Reach multiplayer for the launch, they now had a couple of PlayStation consoles with a demo of Sony’s new Move controller.

The demo disc allowed you to select from a variety of mini-games, which weren’t much more than tutorials of how to use the controller.  The games I played were archery and a gladiator duel.

Each game started out requesting calibration of the Move device.  It was an extremely simple procedure, asking me to hold the Move to my shoulder, waist, and belt buckle, pressing a button at each point.  It’s a little quicker than the Wii Motion Plus procedure of setting the controller down on a flat surface and waiting for a few seconds, but it’s still more than Kinect, which asks for no calibration whatsoever.

The controller is very well designed.  The rounded shape is very easy to hold, much more comfortable than the boxy Wii remote.  The buttons are very easy to press, and someone familiar with the layout will find them very intuitive.  (I’m not a PlayStation gamer, so I had to keep looking at the controller to remind myself where the triangle one was versus the square, etc.)

Both games I played also asked if I had one or two Move wands.  The demo unit only had one, so I could only test that.  It is, of course, a little more old-school than the Wii, which can automatically detect if the Nunchuk is connected, but it is nice that it did not require two controllers.  I assume the requirement will be dependent on software, so some games may choose to require another wand, a navigation controller, or a standard controller.

One thing I noticed right away when playing the archery game is the lack of jitter when compared with the similar game on the Wii.  The controller appears to track much more smoothly and doesn’t appear to turn every little muscle spasm and twitch into a large, jittery movement on the screen.  By contrast, tracking Move’s movements on screen didn’t require rapid eye movements to follow.

One of the things my wife noticed was that the on-screen cursor was initially hard to find.  The cursor matched the motion controller’s ball color, which was pink.  (The ball is supposed to be able to change colors, but over the course of my experience, it never did.)  The pink was very difficult to see against the background of the menus and everything else going on on-screen.  Once you knew what you were looking for, the cursor wasn’t too hard to find, but it still wasn’t the easiest thing to track.

The gladiator game would’ve been more fun with two controllers, since your player had one sword hand and one shield hand; but the game made do with one controller by letting you use a button to indicate when you were directing your shield hand instead of your sword.

Although the game seemed simple enough, it did reveal what seems to be Move’s biggest weakness.  While it tracked slow, deliberate movements very accurately and smoothly, quick swipes, thrusts, and changes in direction seemed to be mis-tracked and lost way too often, especially compared to the Wii’s Motion Plus.  I have not experienced these kinds of issues with the sword game in Wii Sports Resort.

Microsoft’s Kinect device has been criticized for being a Wii clone, but from what I’ve seen, the Move is far more Wii-like than Kinect could ever pretend to be.  I will say that having a controller in my hand did give me a much more “real” connection to the game than I felt with Kinect.  While Sony will have you believe that the controller — and in particular, its buttons — are the most important part of gaming, the games Kinect has shown off so far have not and will not require buttons to be successful.

Will the Move be successful?  I commented before how I thought Sony’s strategy with the Move seemed to be more solid than Microsoft’s with the Kinect.  However, when I was picking up my copy of Halo Reach from my local GameStop, I talked to one of the employees there about the Move.  Despite being released that very week, they had a total of one pre-order for the Move device (and, based on that, they weren’t going to get many of the devices in stock).  I forget exactly how many Kinect pre-orders they had, but it was much more than one — and Kinect’s launch is still almost two months away.