Games Cheats and Reviews

You may never set foot in a Build-A-Bear store again.

Critical Gamer writes: I didn’t get off to a good start. I left Reading train station by the wrong exit (please don’t ask me how, I have no idea) and as a result, what should have been a sixty second stroll to HMV turned into a 40 minute journey of discovery. Unfortunately, all I discovered was that I have no sense of direction.

I eventually went where all men fear to tread, and Asked For Directions. Having thus swallowed my pride, I nearly choked on it when I was cheerfully informed that HMV was several hundred metres directly behind me. Fortunately the chap I asked was headed in the same general direction as I should have been and so I was led, like a lost and frightened child, most of the way to Reading’s HMV Gamerbase. I did by some small miracle make it there before the event officially began however; and the full retail version of Splinter Cell Conviction was waiting there for me.

The sun is shining, it’s almost the weekend, and PSM3 issue 126 is on-sale today. It’s a GLORIOUS day to be alive. So there’s every reason for you to roll out of the house/office/dungeon today and pick up a copy of the new mag – it’s rammed full of PS3 and PSP news, reviews, insight and industry gossip (just wait until E3, then remember where you read it first), the highlight of which is the world-exclusive reveal of horror shooter F.3.A.R. (or FEAR 3, if you prefer).

resumeplay writes: "It’s that time of year again, when candy flows like rain and eggs everywhere cower in fear. Easter has a lot of serious meaning behind it, but there is also a lot of pop-culture fluff. And nothing on Easter is more fluffy than the Easter Bunny."

I’ve never been one to identify with the “victim” mentality. I try to live my life in a way that what happened to me doesn’t define me. That being said, it’s been a really hard week for me. As someone who has been sexually assaulted, I try to steer clear of anything that would bring back memories of what happened. Since I live, breathe and sleep gaming that usually isn’t a problem. Then Tuesday morning comes and as I log into my Twitter account (@MetalGearBAE) to find it flooded with articles on a game called ‘Rapelay’ by Illusion.

And of course, people are outraged. The game was banned and pulled off shelves only to have it garner so much attention that it went viral. As I read the articles and watch the videos I am utterly disgusted. My stomach actually flips over. I sweat. My eyes well up. I can’t get it out of my mind.

As I sit here on Thursday afternoon I realize that instead of waking up early like normal, I’ve slept in until late in the day both days since this news story became so popular. I’ve just HAD to get outside, to see the sun and not feel trapped. And I want to get away. Far, far away from my life right now and I really have nothing to run from. Besides being disabled, (and I’ll save all that mess for another column) I love my life and everyone in it. I’m blessed to have a wonderful family and a great set of friends.

So what’s the problem?

I realize that I feel victimized all over again.

There is my outrage over this game.

For anyone- man or woman who has been assaulted, it is always there with you. The fear and anxiety is always lurking in the background even when you move on and I am amazed that someone would find it fun to rape women over and over in a video game. Or maybe I’m not amazed. The world seems to be turning into something I’m not proud of lately.

People are angry because they believe that someone will play this game and go on a raping spree.

To me, that’s the same as saying someone will play GTA4 and go on a crime spree.

I’m just not buying it. Sure, it happens but those people already had a screw loose. It could have been any trigger that set them off. A word, a movie, television or toast. Crazy is Crazy- you can blame it on what you want.

I’m thinking that ‘Rapelay’s’ developer has never had a mother, sister, wife or friend be assaulted. If they did, they would understand the enormity of what they have done. Maybe it won’t reach millions of women and no one will care. Maybe what they wanted was a massive amount of attention to be able to work on a REAL project. I don’t care about that.

What I care about is the anger that I have at them for thinking this is acceptable entertainment and for making me feel like crap all over again. I wonder about my other gaming friends and how this makes them feel. I wonder if I’m being over dramatic.

Most of all, I wonder what it would be like to see the people at Illusion face to face and how they would feel to see my tears. What would they think about my story?

I’m sure we will never know.

Sharing: It’s Win/Win

In the end, there will be only chaos, but in the beginning there was only fear. Fear that God of War III wouldn’t leave up to Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2’s graphical benchmark, God of War III director, Stig Asmussen said.

Games Are Evil writes: "The Sonic series has fooled me before, though. Sega’s playing their last card with me, by making this Sonic the Hedgehog FOUR. They’re going all in on this one, and if their hand isn’t good enough, I will be done for good with this series. There will be no more Sonic in my life, because I have been letdown by it too many times to keep thinking it will improve. So, Sega and Dimps, re-earn my trust. Give me the payoff my eternal faith in the series deserves, or I will not be there the next time."

Writing about videogames is not generally the stuff of Woodward and Bernstein. Occasionally, a hostile public relations manager will make your life difficult, or you’ll lose a scoop to a rival publication. Trying to get a good interview while a game’s in development can be challenging, especially if that game isn’t in its official PR swing yet. But for the most part, this is the entertainment industry: The consumers want to read about it, the producers want to talk about it, and the rest is just details.

So it was with some surprise that GameSpy encountered a wall of fear and paranoia when they called around, asking developers to talk about religion in gaming.

Grumpy Gurevitz Writes: Recently there has been a spate of predictions that we will soon see the end of the console war, with us being presented with a platform which either supports multiple operating systems, or which is an open platform. The argument is, eventually all publishers and developers will support this as their primary development platform. The other method by which the prediction might come true is that we also might still end up using different platforms, but via a a control box which then accesses the games via the great server in the sky, otherwise known as Cloud computing.

TMC: Let’s begin with a simple question….Imagine yourself owner of a famous video games company, It doesn’t need to be an specific one..any company that comes to your mind. Now ask yourself, should my multimillionaire video game company (X Name) fear the arrival of another video game on a rival console?