About nothing in particular - April 28th, 2001 - Drew Cosner
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I'm amused by the irony of people imitating a show called "Jackass." Don't say we didn't warn you.
Today is a good day to read a letters column.
| We all have an opinion on the matter, I think |
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I am sure you have heard of the 5 billion (!) dollar lawsuit currently
on the docket which targets essentially every single computer and
console game company in both North America and Japan, from Id to
Electronic Arts, to Activision, to Sony. This utterly insane suit is
brought to us by those fine, decent parents involved in, affected by,
or periphral to, the famous media field day known as the Columbine
Masscre.
Do you not wonder how this might affect our gaming in the future? Our
RPG's, among other genres?
I certainly do. And, as you can imagine, I have an opinion about the
matter. Oh yes, I do.
This Columbine lawsuit is beneath despicable. Greedy lawyers and
ethically void parents combine their unholy desires to win the Mass
Death Lottery, by finding any handy, convenient deep pocket to pilfer
from via the debasement of our judicial system.
I won't bother citing how frivolous and empty their claim is, how
erronous their details, or how soundly the entire premise of these
misguided people has already, previously been dismissed. Rather I offer
that if there actually were such a thing as real justice, every single
Columbine lawyer and suing parent should be dealt a swift and severe
Singapore Spanking, with rods of nice, thick birchwood, followed by
several weeks of open pubic humiliation.
Feeding off the tragedy of their own making, these wretched parents and
vile lawyers make me wish that those gun-collecting, undisciplined,
poorly-raised Columbine killers would have had the decency to have shot
up their parents, rather than their school. What a waste of bullets.
The real tragedy in all of this is that lax and unconcerned parents
which permit their children to fill their rooms with enough armaments
to equip an army, should be allowed to engage in indignant lawsuits,
blaiming others for what they themselves failed to have enough interest
in to stop, in the hopes of gaining ludicrous wealth.
To hope to profit so from the horror of one's own spoiled offspring is
beyond evil. Every parent in this Columbine lawsuit is, in the act of
signing on with it, signing also away any trace of a soul. I am
sickened by these parents, and the lawyers that gain to benefit from
this.
Jennifer Diane Reitz
http://UnicornJelly.com
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Yeah, I'd say this pretty much sums up the feelings of the average gamer. A bit more biting than even I'd be about the situation, which is impressive. I will point out that it's not really the fault of the parents of the children who got shot, but I think we can all agree that tagging videogames for violent behavior is an easy out at best. This particular point of conversation has already been discussed ad infinitum, so as Chris would say, onward.
| Letters from Beer Goggles from Mars |
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Speaking of CG. I just watched the opening to FFVIII again and I
realized that it would be almost impossible to to the scene as shown
with real actors. Not because of the FX, no that could be done (maybe
not as seamlessly, but done) but because of the all over the place
camera. There is a shot where the camera zooms over Squall's shoulder
and then pans back really fast in a sort of 360 to get a shot of the
whole battle, that would be nigh impossible with real actors. With real
actors an FX shot might be able to shoot the camera really fast past
Squall's head, but then the quickly pan as part of one shot would just
not work.
-BeerGoggles_FromMARS
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Yeah, I definitely agree that CG can supply camera tricks that would either be extremely difficult or impossible to pull off with real-to-life actors and equipment. Even if the Final Fantasy Movie sucks as much as everybody's predicting, it will be interesting to see how well Square takes advantage of that.
| People sure like telling me and Chris we're wrong |
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Drew,
Actually, I just wanted to point tell you how wrong chris is about the DC
controller. Yes, it's easy to clip the cord underneath the controller.
However, the cord still comes out the wrong freaking side. Why do people
love it so much, anyway? My hands really started to hurt after playing SoA
or JGR for as long as such games demand to be played.
-The Nercount of Merentha, still hasn't finished Persona. Or opened
Persona 2. Is going to hell.
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While you can certainly point out that the cord clips into a better position, I'd tend to agree with you: that's a pretty crappy way of handling a rather obvious design flaw. The cord isn't exactly long to begin with, and once you clip it into what is clearly the proper position, it's even shorter. It's stupid, there's really no way around that. Great system, but horrible controller. That's pretty much been the way every North American Sega console/controller combo has been.
| That's a joke, son |
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DQVII... I think that's supposed to be 17,000 square of TOILET PAPER, the medium this "game" first made its appearance on (in other words... it.is.crap! "HEL-lo!!!").
-machka drek
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Look, I like dogging DQVII with no rational reason to do so as much as the next guy, but a quick joke-making hint: if you need to explain the joke in paranthesis or otherwise, you may want to review it.
| It's all very scientific |
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droog,
Just to make Chris feel even worse about his failed DQ7 predictions,
remind him that he was completely off with Ruining Blue Earth as well.
You people writing columns on a site that has Intelligence in its name.
Travesty.
-lewsteran riskhater
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Hey, who's dumber, the people who make videogame predictions based on a combination of ancient Eastern divination and whatever we pull out of our respective asses, or the people who trust us?
| Reading is lame |
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I have never played DQ7, and have no desire to, and so probably never will.
But I would like to say that any game that *boasts* that it has 17,000 pages
of text, exaggerated or not, deserves to be taken out into the street and
shot. When I play RPGs, I don't want to read War and Peace.
-Eightball, wondering what happened to "!!"
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Yeah, honestly, I have to wonder about that claim. It's basically like when a game says "has over 100 levels" on the back of the box. Any even remotely savvy gamer's first question will be, "am I supposed to care how many levels there are if they all suck?" If Enix really wanted to appeal to the RPG market they would point out that it in no shape, form, or fashion features John Madden. Appealing to our petty elitism is always a good idea, I think.
Closing comments:
Okay, here's your topic for tomorrow: subscription news websites; the future of the Internet, or a sad last-ditch effort by companies with severe financial problems. The GIA isn't really considering this option right now, but if you want to eschew tomorrow's topic in that way, that's fine by me. Maybe it will scare you into making the Web economy not suck. So mail me, or else I'll be forced to think up some lame threat in an attempt to be humorous.
-Drew Cosner, hound of Hell you cry
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