The Stupid Gamer

This comes via GameAlmighty.com (thanks for the heads up email). Here’s the letter everybody’s favorite attorney mailed off:

Chief Wendell Flinchum

Virginia Tech Police Department

Blacksburg, Virginia Via Fax and e-mail

 

Dear Chief Flinchum:

The news story in yesterday’s Washington Post proves correct my prediction to your Department Monday that Cho, whose identity was not even know to me at the time, would be a video gamer trained to do what he calmly did on a violent shooter video game.

I went on the Fox News Channel Monday and even identified the game, Counterstrike, obsessively played by Cho, which was also used by Robert Steinhaeuser to author what is now the second worst school shooting in world history in Erfurt, Germany, which he also concluded by killing himself. These are not coincidences; these are patterns.

Further corroboration that this is “life imitating art,” or more accurately “death imitating toxic entertainment” is what is now coming to light as to Cho’s copycatting of a certain violent movie as well. This is generally the case: movie + shooter games = massacre.

I have seen it all before in the Paducah school shootings, where I represented the families of the victims of Michael Carneal, a teen gamer who trained on Doom and was inspired by the Hollywood movie The Basketball Diaries. A Yale psychiatrist said so.

I went on NBC’s Today Show and predicted Columbine one week before it happened, identifying the above two specific move and game entertainment products that Klebold and Harris were also obsessed with.

If your Department really wants to get to the bottom of this, you need to talk to me now. Talk also to my dear friend, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who was singled out by President Clinton as “the one man America should listen to as to why Columbine happened.” Grossman’s book, On Killing, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He and I have addressed national television audiences, state and federal governments, and law enforcement officers about the direct causal nexus between what happened on Monday and violent entertainment consumed by young people, who are then consumed by it.

Personal regards, Jack Thompson

Wow. See GameAlmighty.com’s full writeup on the piece here: Clickity 

I’d comment, but I’m sick of talking about Jack Thompson. I’m not tired of posting about him, however, because it’s great material for scoring hits and possible ad clicks. Expect more JT posts, less JT talk.

Mere hours after the shootings at the Virginia Tech campus, the likes of Dr. Phil and Jack Thompson were on TV laying the blame on video games and their effects on the mindset of teens. Well, after a search of Cho’s dorm room, not a single video game was found. Obviously it is what we rational people expected: Cho was disturbed and twisted, and video games were not to blame for that.

I know that people are angry and that they’re looking for an answer. The truth is that evil exists independent of video games. People all throughout history have displayed disturbing and violent behavior. To pin it all on a popular past time that’s only been around for 30 years or so is silly.

I feel for the victims, their friends, and their families. I just hope that people will stop chasing TV cameras to throw out their “expert” opinions on why this happened. At this point it’s pretty clear that Cho was simply a bad person with a grudge against society.

According to Zipperfish and their little quiz, I’m a NES God. Go ahead and take the quiz here: NES quiz

In the wake of the Virginia Tech University shootings, that worm Jack Thompson has crawled his way onto television once more to lay the blame on videogames. Newsflash Jack, teens play games. Just because some (not even all) of these shooting spree nutcases happened to play games, it doesn’t mean you can pin the reason for their insanity on Grand Theft Auto or, the ever popular scapegoat of yesteryear, Doom.

Here is a list of other things that teens do, including those that lost their mind and turned into killers:

• Wear clothing
• Drive cars
• Eat food on a daily basis (this includes drink)
• Attend school
• Breath air of varying levels of pollution
• Have parents
• Know people

How is Jack so sure that it’s the games that are turning these kids into killers? Weren’t there some campus shootings before violent games? Maybe we should focus in on the food issue. I guarantee if we stop allowing teens to eat food that they’ll stop their rampaging within a month or two and it will be a permanent fix.

I don’t mean to make light of a tragic situation, but it sorta pisses me off that this slimeball can get on the news to start pushing his personal agenda even before the victims have been properly identified, their families notified, and the real reasons for the tragedy have surfaced. If the guy really cared about people on an individual level, he’d show some respect by offering some condolences and waiting for families to properly grieve before getting political. Good show Jack, good show.

You can check it out here: http://www.capcom.co.jp/wii_bio4/swf/bio4wiim01.swf

If bringing the game into your living room is going to be the next thing in game advertising, they should take notes from the old school Slim Jim commercials that starred the Macho Man Randy Savage. Of course I could be wrong, this could be intentional cheese and I’m actually witnessing pure genius.

This happened a few days ago, but Sony officially announced that they’ll cease production and shipments of the 20GB version of the PlayStation 3; making the 60GB the only one available. I know, I know…we’re all thinking “why would Sony get rid of the one model that put them in a price range near the 360?” Well, according to Sony, the 20GB was being outsold 10 to 1 in comparison to the 60GB model. Well, that sounds reasonable, right? Sure it is, except for that Sony was shipping about 80% 60GB models to 20% 20GB models.

Basically it comes down to this: Sony was bleeding money out their rear with the PS3 so they decided to cut the “budget” model to slow the negative cash flow a bit. However, consumers aren’t usually happy about options being taken from them, so they needed an excuse. So they shipped like -3 20GB PS3s and 50,000 60GB PS3s. Later, they turned around and said, “See? We gave consumers a choice and they chose the 60GB model by a huge margin.”

Awesome. Just awesome.

So, I’m going to start doing this in my life. I’m going to go shopping, buy a hojillion steaks and three tomatoes. After a few weeks I’m going to say to my wife, “It’s become obvious that we simply prefer steak to tomato in this home. I’m deciding that we no longer need to offer tomatoes as an option around here.” It’s the perfect plan. My wife will have to evaluate the numbers and agree with me that tomatoes simply have no place in our food rotation. I really don’t see any room for debate.

I’m going to be lazy, so all you get is a bulleted list:

• Awesome art style
• Really fun platforming elements
• 2D/3D switching is genius and a lot of fun
• Scrolling text sound effect is horrible
• Lots of charm, humor, and character
• RPG elements slow down the pace, but it’s not always a bad thing
• Seems to be the perfect title to hold us over until Super Mario Galaxy hits

That’s it. Too short? Yep. Still Blogsome Rated? You bet.

Now I’ve been down to Activision. I’ve been a guest in their offices, I’ve met several of their employees, I’ve had sit-down conversations with their teams, and I’ve been given free software and swag to review. They’re good guys down there in Santa Monica; but what they’re doing with Guitar Hero II on the 360 is inexcusable. Today they announced the pricing on the initial wave of downloadable content (DLC) on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Taken straight from the Major Nelson blog, the details are as follows:

Name: Guitar Hero Track Pack 1
Price: 500 Points
Availability: Not available in Asia
Dash Details: Bark at the Moon as made famous by Ozzy Osbourne, Hey You as made famous by The Exies, Ace of Spades as made famous by Motorhead, For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com.

Name: Guitar Hero Track Pack 2
Price: 500 Points
Availability: Not available in Asia
Dash Details: Killer Queen as made famous by Queen, Take it Off as made famous by The Donnas, Frankenstein as made famous by The Edgar Winter Group, For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com.

Name: Guitar Hero Track Pack 3
Price: 500 Points
Availability: Not available in Asia
Dash Details: Higher Ground as made famous by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Infected as made famous by Bad Religon, Stellar as made famous by Incubus, For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com.

500 points comes out to $6.25. So at this rate, you’ll end up paying more than you would if you bought the PS2 disc to download all of the songs. In fact, at that price, it would be nearly $100 to get all 47 Guitar Hero I songs. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Activision just buried a knife right in the back of all of us 360 owners that decided to continue to support the franchise even though we already owned the game on the PS2. I didn’t need to buy it again on the 360, I chose to, and I thought that they’d be a bit more reasonable in their pricing structure. I could agree with $1 a song, but not with this bundling garbage. Now, if I really want to download the Incubus song, I’m forced into buying two other songs.

Bad move Activision. I hope the DLC you threw out there tanks hard. I knew it was bad news when you gobbled up Red Octane, I just didn’t think you’d screw it up so fast.

Why can Jeep get away with such a stupid marketing hook? Jeep, maker of crappy SUVs, has this stupid “Trail Rated” certification that they conveniently only hand out to Jeeps. They say things in their ads like, “don’t buy it unless it’s Trail Rated” or “the only SUV in its class with Trail Rated capability.” This is ridiculous since they invented the term, trademarked it, and have full control over bestowing it upon SUVs.

So yeah, I could do the same thing for myself. This blog is now Blogsome Rated. It means that my blog meets a standard that others simply do not. If you want to be happy and satisfied with your videogame commentary, only read Blogsome Rated blogs, mmmkay?

So that takes care of my blog, but what if videogame companies did the same thing? I mean, it could be awesome. Imagine if Microsoft starting giving out games that were X-Rated to tie in with their Xbox name. Maybe Nintendo could have Waggle Worthy for Wii games and Sony could go with Overpriced Rated.

Again, only read Blogsome Rated blogs.

’sup?