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• Sackboy Vs. Muhammad Round 2

  Leave it a representative from the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to sum up much more succinctly what I tried to take on a few days ago. Edge Online recently posted a reaction from said representative, M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., who weighed in on the whole LittleBigPlanet controversy: “The free market allows for expression of disfavor by simply not purchasing a game that may be offensive.” Jasser, who has also appeared on CNN, in the Washington Times and National Review, said that not only does the First Amendment support freedom of expression, but Mohammed also “defended the rights of his enemies to critique him in any way even if it was offensive to his own Islamic sensibilities or respect for Koranic scripture.” And, as with most cases like the LittleBigPlanet fiasco, the object of censorship is getting much more attention than it ever would have before the scandal. According to a news post on Edge this Monday: The track in question, Tapha Niang by Malian kora player Toumani Diabate, has seen a surge in sales on the iTunes website. The track features two passages from the Islamic religious text: "kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt," meaning "Every soul shall have the taste of death"; and "kollo man alaiha fan," meaning "All that is on earth will perish." Three cheers for freedom of speech! Now if we could only convince uptight book-banners that their actions are just as useless... Read More... Posted Oct 22 2008, 11:45 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, religion, ps3, censorship, bob mackey, islam

• Sackboy Vs. Muhammad

  The recall--and subsequent delay--of LittleBigPlanet due to the presence of Qur'an quotations in one of the game's licensed tracks has angered gamers, and rightfully so. While some of the fan hostility is coming from having to wait nearly a week to get their hands on such a long-awaited title, much of the anger--including my own--stems from the senitment sent by Sony's course of action. In a medium still trying to mature, how will progress ever be possible when content is being kept in check by special interest groups (as violent as their extremists may be)?  As I griped about in this post, there's something about how games are still viewed as products--as opposed to entertainment, or art--that's keeping their content watered down when compared to what's seen in TV, movies, music, and other media. And content is soon going to be a problem for both Sony and LBP users due to the unfortunate bigotry this incident has caused. Just go check out any of the blogs/news sites that have reported on the LPB recall; nearly half the user comments carry a creepy anti-Islamic message that will undoubtedly carry over into the game's user-made content in the weeks to come. Read More... Posted Oct 20 2008, 01:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, nintendo, religion, ps3, censorship, bob mackey, islam

• Mirror’s Edge: Everything You’ve Heard Is True

  Since the beginning of 2008, I’ve been watching Mirror’s Edge from a distance, pining away for its delicious cityscape, smitten with its sterile and pristine blues, whites, reds, and yellows. It was, and is, a visual panacea to cure the over-bloom-lit, over-brown, over-textured HD gaming landscape. When the first gameplay videos started hitting the net at the beginning of May, Edge’s smooth parkour action and emphasis on non-violent flight transformed my infatuation into full-on love. I needed this game to be as good as it looked, to deliver on its proposed fluid play. I’ve been dreaming about a game based on momentum and escape for years now, and here it was in action. But the proof, as always, is in the play. After playing Mirror’s Edge at EA’s fall preview event today, my first impression is it’s exactly what developer DICE has been promising. Everything you’ve heard is true. Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 08:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, ea, dice, xbox 360, e3, ps3, parkour, mirror’s edge, daivd belle

• Little Big Planet Meets FFX

  I'll admit that I'm not very hyped about Little Big Planet; it could be the curmudgeon in me, or just the fact that I'll have no goddamned time to create anything cool with the game on my busy schedule. The silver lining to all of this is that I won't need to plunk down the cash for both a PS3 and a copy of the game to be entertained--all I need to experience LBP's user-created content is the entirely-free YouTube. Expect the majority online streaming video services to be completely loaded with content from Little Big Planet for the next year or so. A good example of this trend of this already in action is the following video, which takes the best part of Final Fantasy X--the music--and transplants it into a baroque music player created through hours and hours of hard work and block placement in Little Big Planet. Sure, I can hear the same thing by looking this song up on iTunes, but I gotta give credit to all of the makeshift music box crafters out there: Now, if someone out there would somehow turn Little Big Planet into a rhythm game using the same technology, I'd be motivated to smash in the window of my local GameStop and steal a brand-new PS3. Read More... Posted Oct 08 2008, 09:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: little big planet, music, final fantasy x, ps3, bob mackey

• Little Big Planet is Insane

  610 Magnetic Switches 500 Wires 430 Pistons 70 Emitters ?? Hours Some magnificent nerd has built a basic calculator using the above ingredients within Little Big Planet. Watch the video from start to finish, it gets better in the latter half.  In the words of commenter, "njoivids": "gotta lot of time on ya hands aint ya lad sure ur clever but uve just proved to the world that u have never had sexual relations" I'm not sure what this mans for Little Big Planet. I thought I had finally figured this game out, but I didn't think users would be able to build anything quite like this. If users are as enthusiastic within LBP as they were within Spore's Creature Creator, then I guess this video only scratches the surface. Could this ever be big enough to draw casual gamers away from the Wii? Maybe if it were released in tandem with a price drop... Related Links: The Natural World of Little Big Planet Create Unholy Life With the LittleBigPlanet Sackboy Generator SCEE Playstation Day 2K8 Roundup: Killzone 2, Home, Little Big Planet Dated Posted Oct 07 2008, 07:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: little big planet, nerds, cole stryker, ps3

• Facepalm: 360 vs PS3 Boob Physics Comparison

  Sometimes I come across things on the internet that just make me want to throw my consoles out the window and never play another video game. For those moments, I've created a new recurring feature: Facepalm. This comes courtesy of the scholars at Digg (where else?!). It's a video comparing the, uh, jiggle factor of Soul Calibur's leading ladies on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Why? Because, shut up, that's why. Insightful commentary: thankuvrylittle: In all honesty, the 360 ones definitely move in a more sexually appealing way. spikyvashy: I'll tell u which game has girls with some nice boobs, The girls from the DOA' franchise spvn: damn it's hard to keep track of all 4 of them at the same time... Hurr hurr hurr! The offending video, after the jump: Read More... Posted Sep 24 2008, 01:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: xbox 360, cole stryker, ps3, diggbait, facepalm, jiggle factor

• Whatcha' (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?

  Last night, PS3 owners got a special treat in the weekly Playstation Store update, and no, I'm not talking about the Street Fighter IV system theme – a downloadable demo of the newest game in the PixelJunk series, Eden. While I am enthused by the PixelJunk concept of innovative idea-based reasonably priced games, Racers and Monsters just didn't grab my attention. With my first playthrough of Eden last night, however, I was instantly smitten. In this garden-building action-puzzler, the player controls a small "Grimp" character, swinging on silk threads and jumping from calligraphic leaf to calligraphic leaf of thoroughly modern stylized garden. Crashing into pods releases clouds of pollen, which is gathered in seeds which can then be activated to sprout new plants, which allow you to travel farther, to even more seeds, pollen, and techno-organic bliss. It sounds complicated, and at first it feels like it too. I'm not ashamed to admit that I failed the first garden miserably (twice!), but the environment and surprisingly compelling physics were just so captivating that I couldn't stop. Read More... Posted Jul 25 2008, 03:30 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: whatcha playing, derrick sanskrit, ps3, eden, pixeljunk

• Fat Princess Gobbles Her Way into Blog Drama

  You know, you just can't please these feminazis! All they do is whine about how women in video games all wear bronze bikini armor and boast gravity-defying boobies. Right guys? Enter Fat Princess. Finally, a game highlights a cake-guzzling damsel in distress, and they're still up in arms. From Shakesville via Kotaku: I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It's not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery. Way to go! The Fat Princess of Shakes Manor salutes you. Read More... Posted Jul 24 2008, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: kotaku, cole stryker, feminism, salon, fat princess, women, ps3