OK ... somebody who thinks the attacks on the Eleventh were no big deal, despite being the largest coordinated nonmilitary attack in modern history... Brooke says to keep calm, so I'll keep calm...

Some Bush bashing... OK, that's normal for this column...

Another gun control letter ... the terrorists used bloody KNIVES, guns are irrelevant! ... no, wait, watch my temper ... no need for me to be petty and small...

Oh, on an unrelated note, I've already bought Ico and Silent Hill 2, and I plan on picking up Alone in the Dark for the Dreamcast, Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 for the GBC, and maybe I'll even preorder something while I'm up at EB. So, what're YOU going to buy, hmm?

...ahhh, much better.

-Some Random Jerk, reveling in his pettiness

I just had a really scary thought. I was reading through the column about censorship pertaining to the WTC attacks, and all the talk about the government taking the opportunity to eliminate certain inconvenient rights led my mind to George Orwell's 1984. At some point in the story, Julia mentions to Winston the possibility that the rocket bombs being launched at Oceania might not have come from Eurasia or Eastasia, but from Oceania itself, just to keep the people in line. Now, replace Oceania with the U.S. . . . and replace rocket bombs with planes flying into skyscrapers . . .

God, the idea's so frightening sick, I don't even want to dwell on it. I must go and buy a copy of Ico before my head explodes. Yay Ico.

An'Desha

Secondly, Konami announced that the game would not be delayed as a result of the attacks. This would suggest that the WTC didn't factor in the plot very much if it could be removed without having to rerecord dialogue or design new scenarios. Likely it's just used in a few cinematic shots of New York City for atmosphere.

People are quick to decry its removal as censorship as though Konami thinks we are unable to cope with the very sight of the World Trade Center. The question is, at what point does the standard editing that occurs all the time end and censorship begin?

An interesting side note about Red Alert 2: One of the Soviet missions has the player launch an assault on New York, with the goal being the World Trade Center. You can get bonuses for your troops if you destroy the towers. I'm not too sure what to make of it now, but it was a perfectly okay thing to do three weeks ago. I personally don't think the goal should've been the WTC anyway since the context of the game is clearly the early 1960's and the WTC was built in the 1970's, but that's just historical accuracy talking again.

Andrew Egerton

I, for one, don't think that the recent censorship in videogames is such a big deal. Who cares if the WTC is gone from MGS2? If it keeps the media from criticizing videogames of being disrespectful to those suffering from the tragedy, then that's fine with me. I think it's better to have or maintain a good image of the videogame industry to the public than to insist on playing a game featuring terrorists, at least in the long run.

Here's another point. Many movies are being edited, pulled off the shelf, or delayed indefinitely, so why should videogames be treated any differently? Some have said that censorship sucks because videogames are art. But aren't movies art too? If movies are being heavily censored, then so should videogames. But if only videogames are censored and not movies, then I'll have a spaz.

"Let me tell you a little something about some of you guys hating my guts and wanting Drew back - I DON'T CARE. You're supposed to be sending me letters about games, not whinge-fests about how you want your daddy back. He's here on the weekends, I take care of the weekdays - get used to it."

I can't believe some people would send you such pathetic letters. We don't want Drew back. We want Chris!

OK, I'm sorry; I'll behave. Seriously, I think you're doing a great job. You make me laugh, which is important because it takes my mind off the fact that I'm procrastinating on my reading like mad. I mean, this from the previous column was just hilarious:

"Sheesh. I wonder what would have happened if we'd auctioned off dates with those two back during all the fund-raising...."

Er, by the way, can we have such an auction? I'm sure the money you make will keep the site running for so long, you'll be reviewing FF 20 in no time. Well, maybe not. But if we see a pic of DC and AK, and they look like Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise, then count me in, baby!

-Paris, who thinks that whoever wrote her History in Psyc textbook should be drugged and shot

Anyways, I checked the release list for this week and next to see what I wanted, and I got to thinking ...

What the hell am I supposed to do with another game?

This is mostly a response to the "Wah! I don't have the money for " crowd. I've got the money (yeah, the sig is true). If I wanted (I don't, but), I could buy all the games on that list. But that would be dumb.

I'm about halfway through FF4 (FFC version). Haven't started CT. Haven't started Lunar 2. 3/4ths of the way through Valkyrie Profile (Easy mode, it was supposed to be quick). Haven't started ZOE or Onimusha (given to me by a friend who finished them). Even if I bought ICO or Silent Hill 2, the shrink-wrap might not come off until Christmas.

I'm not complaining. I'd rather have it this way than the other way (like during my 8 years of university). I just want everyone to try and enjoy the games they have and worry less about picking up every new game the day it comes out.

Oh yeah, I pick Kessen 2. Once I get around to finishing Kessen, that is.

-Orin the Lawyer (to be distinguished from all the other Orins)

-David

I couldn't have put it better myself. While I can't say the same for the guy who wrote that letter, that's does a pretty good job of explaining the way i feel about this: Nothing. I don't feel a damn thing. I know I should care, that this should bother me, but it doesn't. Not even in the slightest.

I see people on tv from all over the world crying in grief over this, people who aren't even Americans and who have no personal connection to the tragedy, yet they're still emotionally scarred over this. I have a friend who works in the Pentagon, he works for the Army actually (the side of the Pentagon hit), and for a couple days I didn't know wether he was ok or not. It turns out he's alright, but you'd think for those couple of days I would've at least been concerned or worried for his safety. I wasn't. His dying would have had absolutely no impact upon my life. I realize that that is a rather callous thing to say, but it's the way I feel. Or rather, I don't.

I do know that there is something wrong with me. I know I'm supposed to feel something - anything - but I don't; I just don't care. It's not just the lives of others that I couldn't care less about, my own life and things in it mean very little to me.

So before any of you out there fire up their computers and get ready to flame that poor bastard for not seeing what the big deal about the WTC tragedy is, put yourself in my shoes (I would say put yourself in his shoes, but I can't speak for him and I don't know if he's in the same as I). Try to witness what it's like to be emotionally dead for a while, then see if you're still in the mood to do some flaming. Thanks for understanding Brooke.

Charon, not up to putting some pithy comment after his name

All this talk about gaming being a form of escapism. Is that really how you all feel? Wouldn't you be playing games if you were content with your lifes? I play Unirally bacause the trick system is really cool (and the music's great), not because I don't own a uni myself.

You could argue that all forms of entertainment, everything that's not getting food on the table is escapism, but that's not what you're saying. You're saying that playing videogames in particular is, and not, say, football.

I say, "Videogames are fun in of itself!". I actually only really want to play when I have a great time, like partying with the lads before going out on friday night.. that's when we boot up the old SNES and beat eachother senseless in NHL '94. (It's in the game)
When I'm down and want to escape, I listen to music.

So I ask you, wouldn't you play if you were content?

Joel, who often want to skip the going out part and stay in and play Tetris Attack.

After reading Banjax's letter and your response yesterday, I became intensely sad and rather disgusted. I can't directly dispute Banjax's "facts" about the government spending, waste production, or prison population, but a definite fact is we, the USA, drive the world's economy. If for some reason the US were to completely disappear tomorrow, the world economically would be in ruins. The fact is the US is a large, prosperous nation -- personally, I'm content with the fact that our government spending may be ludicrous -- at least I can drink the water.

It disgusts me that a fellow American, especially at this troubling time, can be disgruntled with how our nation spends. The quality of life in the US is incomparably superior to the quality of life in most of the rest of the world. Even in Europe, heck, even in Canada, a US traveler can notice the dip in the quality of conditions by simply using a public restroom, and this amongst our potential rivals in quality of life.

I hardly think, provided that it is factual, boasting the world's largest prison population is necessarily a bad thing -- the high prison population could merely mean that criminals are being caught, prosecuted, and brought to justice. In China for instance, which has a larger population than the US and as such should theoretically have a greater prison population, it is far easier to hideout in the mountains somewhere in northern China than in for instance Montana.

In response to why people are so upset about this and not other terrorist incidents around the world -- we live in the USA. Simply by human nature people do not worry too much about things that do not directly affect their lives. This attack on domestic soil has people here very worried about their personal safety, as they should be. Furthermore, I refuse to believe that the people in other nations when suffering do not mourn, do not "burn a candle", or otherwise grieve for the victims. Personally, whenever I hear of such an attack, regardless of where it took place, I say a prayer and thank God that I, nor anyone I know, was involved, that the victims will have the strength to carry on, and that the perpretrators will be brought to justice.

Brooke, in direct response to your incredulous response to pilots requesting guns, if you were a pilot locked in the cockpit (as it is believed the pilots may have been) and a terrorist stood just outside threatening to kill someone, would you let them in? I don't believe that anyone on any of those planes knew of the terrorists true goal until it was too late. Maybe now things will be different, and pilots will just operate the aircraft and try to drown out the screams of the passengers as they are being slaughtered one by one, but the obvious hope is that the pilot could somehow use the weapon to subdue the terrorist. I certainly agree that it is far from the answer, but there is solid logic to why having armed pilots is a viable option.

In regards to censorship, my personal belief is that any form of censorship is wrong. I believe in our Constitution - the freedom of speech - and more importantly the ability of humanity to make solid, responsible decisions. Any "power" somehow restricting what information I have access to is unconstitutional and wrong. People do make wrong decisions, even "evil" decisions, but I truly believe it is fundamentally wrong to control what people can see, read, and hear in the hopes of somehow "correcting" their respective decision making processes.

I love my country. The opportunities awarded to me by the USA far outweigh any of the problems our great nation now has. This is not to say I do not wish for things to be better, these problems to be solved -- rather, because of the positives it makes me proud and even more willing to participate in actively trying to find solutions and help our nation become "better".

God bless,

Robert Trahan

Anyway, the Arc the Lad Collection - I never thought Working Designs was this crazy. Although WD fans won't mind paying the hefty $75.00 for the package, how about the mass market? Will WD be able to sell enough copies? What two hardbound strategy guides with a total of 800 pages? Will gamers be able to even read all that? Will Brooke answer my questions?

Nij said:

"This weekend a lot of our customers began to notice that the Fight Club DVD was also taken off the shelf (if you've seen this movie all the way to the end, you can probably guess why). This is a college town, and Fight Club is a very, very popular movie here, so I was expecting quite an uproar. Some customers were angry when they found out it was gone. However, when I explained why, they were surprisingly understanding."

I guess the tragedy overlapped all the other news, because I heard about a couple of stories regarding 'real-life fight clubs' in schools and so on...

And Banjax said:

And so on and so forth... Why do we gotta keep revisiting this topic?? (I realize I probably do/should already know the answer to that but... )

Finally ... regarding the WTC in Metal Gear Solid 2... doesn't this game take place in the future?? I mean what if we decide not to rebuild, who knows? What about that 'Pillars of Light' project that some artists had planned?

Anyway, here's to hoping America gets back to some state of 'normalcy' as different as it'll be...

- JR

I want that game where you're a magic cracker, and you hafta change into other crackers, like goldfish or triscuits, and solve magic cracker puzzles, but I don't think it comes outthisweeksonevermind....

I like crackers.

If my love for you could be expressed in a cracker... I would eat this cracker with warm, melted cheese.

- Friarjohn (bye-bye)

Unfortunetly, due to your gender, my usual welcome -- a swift ass kicking -- was changed to a sly wink and my patented "double-snap-into-double-guns" gesture.

(It's not that I'm too macho to punch a girl, I'm just afraid you'd whup me in front of my fans.)

Shigeru Miyamoto may be a God-Genius, but he gets the credit for Mario 2. Is it rightly deserved? Who developed the game SMB2 is based on, Yume Kouba: Doki Doki Panic?*

[* Um. That's the title, I didn't just go insane during the last bit.]

=====

- Thor Antrim

I haven't written in a while -- and with good reason, I think -- because you people have been far too serious. I have my own seriousnesses to work out these days; the last thing I need is my favorite videogames letter column getting all serious on me. So I'm writing to propose a FUN topic. Yes -- a FUN topic. I've gathered, in these first few weeks, that you like fun topics. Who in their right mind doesn't like fun topics? No one I'd feel comfortable with in my car.

You asked for a good topic. And, if I'm not mistaken, it's raining right now. At least where I am. Ahem.

So the topic I'm proposing is, precisely, this: What's your favorite RPG town/village/city?

Fun, huh?

I let a friend in a Japanese literature class borrow disc one of Xenogears a few years back, and she only played it until Bledavik when she returned it to me. 'I'm on disc two now,' I said. 'You can keep it a little longer.' She declined my offer. 'No, I think I'll just buy it,' she said. And that was that. (Lucky for her, that was only two weeks after the game was first released, so just buying it was a possibility.) 'Oh, so, decided to buy it so soon?' i asked her. 'Yeah,' she said. 'Good game?' I asked her. 'Oh yes, very.' 'What about it grabbed you in a few short hours?' 'The restaurant in the city of Bledavik,' she said, putting a little accented spin on the name of the city. I'm sure she'd invented in on her own. 'The restaurant?' I asked. 'Yes, the restaurant. I love when I can sit down in an RPG and have food served to my party.' 'Ahh.' Honestly, I then told her, I'd always thought the same way.

Towns in RPGs. Something tells me it's the American in me that has always been so strongly attracted to big towns in RPGs -- we always seem to think that bigger cities are better, eh? That would explain why such huge cities as Nobilia, Ivor Tower, and Ebon Keep, with their bazaars, carnivals, colloseums, and marketplaces exist in the American-made Secret of Evermore; that would explain why the PC Game Baldur's Gate II centers around the enormous city of Athkatla (sorry to mention a PC Game -- this is the last time, really). In RPGs of late, the big town has been slowly going extinct -- take FFVIII, for example, where seemingly HUGE cities such as... well, whatever that big one was called (it left little of an impression -- you know, where Laguna is president...) are pared down to only the smallest explorable areas, such as shops, inns, and the like.

Am I weird because I love big towns? Am I strange because, to me, Shenmue was the coolest damn idea I'd heard of in a LONG time? Am I picky when I find Skies of Arcadia's rather large towns disappointing because they don't have enough 'Stuff To Do'? Am I the only person who, even as a young teen, practically CRIED tears of utter, fleeting joy when I first played Earthbound? (something told me, 'Son, you're never going to see towns bigger, better, or with more stuff to do than Fourside, Summers, and Onett') Did I love Clock Town in Zelda: Majora's Mask too much? Do my friends have the right to look at me funny when I question an RPG's merits by asking, 'Well, are there a lot of towns? How big are they?' Am I the only person who had to put FFVII down for a whole damn week after I realized I couldn't explore the upper plate of Midgar? (No worries; I came to love Junon like a little sister) Am I the only one who left Justin's hometown in Grandia feeling truly sad that I'd never see it again? Am I the only person worthy of writing (perhaps an intensive GIA feature) on this topic?

Something tells me I'm not.

So, yeah. I'd like to be reminded of the lands I've traversed in RPGs, which means I'd love to read a column in which the intelligent GIA readers explain which RPG city they'd live in and why.

Of course I have my own favorite city, one that I'd live in if it wasn't fake and all. It's one not too many people remember. I'd like to see if it comes up. Either way, I'm going to write in about it next time. (Hint: its name is rather... cartographic) That is, if you, Brooke, find this idea compelling enough to make a topic.

Anyway, I should go now. My mutant cold just made another step up the genetic ladder, I'm afraid.

--tim rogers, who likes to pretend the cell phone pocket of his laptop bag was made for a bottle of dayquil