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• Unsolved Crimes and the New Setting

  The press release Empire Interactive sent around yesterday — announcing their new DS game, Unsolved Crimes — raised a couple of questions. First, who in the hell are Empire Interactive? Second, would it have narration by Robert Stack? The answers came swiftly. Empire Interactive made the Jackass videogame. Ugh. I also realized these are unsolved crimes and not mysteries. Also, Robert Stack is dead. Humor and pedigree aside, Unsolved Crimes has an ace up its sleeve with an eminently cool setting: New York in the 1970s. The dank, crime-ridden NYC of thirty years ago is prime real estate for a game with both action and point-and-click adventure play. More importantly, 1970s New York is just downright uncommon for a videogame setting. Excepting classic PC gaming’s diverse palette, videogame designers typically stick to the staples of swords-and-sorcery fantasy, science fiction, and real-or-specualtive militarism for its narrative and aesthetic trappings (when they don’t, they lean towards cartoonish abstraction.) But Unsolved Crimes is one more recently announced title that’s plumbing 20th Century America for new ideas. Read More... Posted Jul 29 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: new york, jackass, empire interactive, deep silver, ride to hell, deadline games, unsolved crimes, Faith and a 45

• Missing the Point: New York Senate Passes Mandatory Game Ratings Bill

  A bill proposed by Senator Andrew Lanza was passed yesterday by a vote of 61-1. The bill requires that all videogames sold in New York State be rated by the ESRB. If signed by Governor David Patterson, the bill will become law by 2010. Lanza’s bill is not dissimilar to others passed and then overturned in Michigan, Oklahoma, and California after being deemed unconstitutional, in violation of the first amendment. GamePolitics.com printed this excerpt of Lanza’s closing argument for the bill: If you look closely at this bill, [concerns expressed by Sen. Duane] are not valid. Let's start with speech. There's all kinds of speech. If we take an old-fashioned pinball machine and plunked it down here in the middle of the chamber, no one would call it speech. But when we put that up on a video screen, it does become speech and I acknowledge that. And it deserves protection under the Constitution... There is some confusion with respect to what this bill actually accomplishes... The word prohibition was talked about. I want to be clear. This bill does not prohibit the sale of any video to anyone... This simply says that every video game sold in the state of New York simply should have a rating consistent with what the ESRB does presently in a voluntary way... it does work. But the problem with "voluntary" is that tomorrow someone can change their mind. Someone could decide tomorrow to no longer place ratings on these games. So this is not about prohibiting the sale, this is simply about providing information to parents... Last year's version... that included a provision that would have made it an E-felony to sell these games, we all thought it was wrong. And we took that out. We worked with the [video game] industry. We worked with the Assembly and we do have an agreement here on a piece of legislation that I think will go a long way in allowing parents to make good decisions in regard to what is and what isn't appropriate for their chidlren... As Illinois District Court judge Mathew Kennelly said, after knocking out a similar bill in Illinois, "In this country, the state lacks the authority to ban protected speech on the ground that it affects the listener's or observer's thoughts and attitudes.” Whether Senator Lanza likes it or not, his bill is in clear violation of the constitution. Read More... Posted Jun 25 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, new york, game legislation

• The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto 4 Part 3

  I was hoping to open the final entry in my review of Grand Theft Auto with a definitive statement about its story, to find the game’s essence in the conclusion of its through-the-looking-glass tale of crime, brutality, and the American experience. I can’t. After one month, some thirty-five hours total, of playing Grand Theft Auto 4, I’ve quit. I’m not positive how close I even am to finishing the narrative portion of the game at this point because, not unlike the gameplay itself, there is no arc. After a certain point, the story merely plateaus with no discernible rise and fall. It ceases to be a compelling enough reward to keep playing the game. Grand Theft Auto 4 is a work at odds with itself. It places you in a gigantic world and allows you to do what you will, but you cannot change it. It allows you to build friendships with the characters surrounding you but keeps you always at their mercy, penalizing you if you can’t answer your phone in the middle of a firefight. The cars control with severe realism but the game demands you drive like Sandra Bullock in Speed. Even the slightest police provocation is an arrest-able offense but you can escape them by turning a corner. But most problematic is protagonist Niko Bellic. Read More... Posted May 29 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, rockstar, Grand theft auto 4, 61fps review, new york, niko bellic, sam houser

• 61FPS EXCLUSIVE: Peaceoholics Protest Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto 4

  Friday afternoon was bustling outside of Rockstar Games’ Soho offices in New York City when a group of Washington DC youths gathered to protest the recent release of Grand Theft Auto 4. Peaceoholics, a non-profit organization founded to develop support programs for young people involved in DC’s juvenile justice system, were led by co-founder and COO Ronald Moten to demand Rockstar stop marketing their Grand Theft Auto series to children under seventeen. As NYC Metro bus passed by adorned with a billboard for GTA4, Moten said that Rockstar’s game was a training simulator for young people, no different than games like America’s Army, a game used to train US Army recruits. “These games are training our children to be animals,” said Moten and and asked why Rockstar didn’t choose to make games about preventing crime that are as exciting as GTA. According to Moten, this was the third year Peaceoholics gathered outside of Rockstar’s offices. As of 1:30pm, Rockstar had not sent a representative downstairs to meet with the protestors. Read More... Posted May 23 2008, 02:19 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, Grand theft auto 4, new york, peaceoholics, 61fps exclusive