Policing Virtual Reality. Wired reports on
Sociolotron(NSFW). A MMORPG that allows gamers to rob, rape, and kill other players. Being a gamer, I understand that actions in an MMORPG aren't "real" but how far can you take it?
"Lord Foucault is an admitted rapist. He does it on impulse -- for the thrill of it and for the feeling of control he has over his female victims."
Is this any different than running around and killing dwarves?
posted by jopreacher
on Jun 29, 2004 -
50 comments
Gamegeezers A new forum for the mature gamer. As the site says
"... the new community for the "not so young" gamer. The reason we're setting this forum up is to provide a home for the great many of us gamers out there who are old enough to remember the beginning of this phenomenon known as gaming and are still going to be at it for the rest of our days.
You will find no whiney teenage flamers here. Just a good wholesome community of GameGeezers who wouldn't admit to knowing what "l33t" meant if their life depended on it. "
posted by snowgoon
on Jan 14, 2004 -
9 comments
So I reinstalled an older game,
StarTopia (Flash required and RIP
Muckyfoot, you will be missed), t'other day and discovered I'd lost my manual to it. Never fear, for
Real Time Strategic Carnage had about, oh, a bazillion times more info about the game than did the manual that actually came with the game, which should come as no surprise to most gamers. RTSC has detailed information on a number of strategy games, old and new, and I recommend it to your notice wholeheartedly.
posted by WolfDaddy
on Nov 9, 2003 -
3 comments
Space Dudes! Space Dudes is fifty levels of shooting... PacMan ghosts? It's a Java game. Simple but I found it addictive.
posted by bargle
on Aug 8, 2003 -
6 comments
In their day, Trilobyte was at the height of the computer gaming world. Their first title,
7th Guest, made them an instant success, and their follow-ups,
11th Hour and
Clandestiny, were equally well-received. But as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Haunted Glory, from the GameSpot archives, documents the rise and fall of Trilobyte.
posted by ewagoner
on Aug 7, 2003 -
18 comments
"Then we realized that somehow an insane god had taken control of our world and was out to kill us all." Subscribers of the multiplayer online game "Shadowbane" were in for a shock Tuesday evening when they realized the game system had been hacked, and the rules fundamentally altered, and not in a good way (unless you happen to like mayhem). While this ended up being a "no harm, no foul" scenario, as everything was eventually set right, it was breaking new ground in terms of the uses of hacking. In a world where characters in these games are sold via EBay, and nearly half a million people subscribe to Everquest, how long before legitimate (non "fun and games") version of what just happened occurs?
posted by jonson
on Jun 1, 2003 -
17 comments
E3 is this week - This week, geeks, gamers, booth babes, and movie execs gather in Los Angeles for the
Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3,
the premier video gaming industry convention. As the LA Times reports,
video gaming is a US$10 billion a year industry, pulling in
more money than movie theater box offices. A US$25 billion global industry, video gaming is shaping culture around the world.
Are video games ready to join movies and music as mainstream art forms with game developers reaching celebrity status?
posted by Argyle
on May 12, 2003 -
63 comments
Halo is probably the most well known and successful of games for the Xbox, but less well known are the
scores of Halo movies that take advantage of its excellent graphics and physics engines. From the classic
Warthog Jump to the cover of
Asshole and the
Red vs Blue series, the movies are sometimes breaktaking and almost always hilarious. Videogame geeks with a sense of humour? Say it ain't so!
posted by adrianhon
on May 1, 2003 -
10 comments
Deaf Gamers is a terrific resource containing electronic game reviews with the hearing-impaired in mind. Digging a little deeper, I found a still-in-work but promising
Gamers With Disabilites FAQ hosted by
Gone Gold. We all love to play games and the resources contained herein will hopefully help us all play better. Any other resources out there that you'd like to share?
posted by WolfDaddy
on Apr 29, 2003 -
6 comments
MultiMegaCorp is a new game from the makers of
Pyroto Mountain (previously discussed
here). They say "Our research has indicated that there is a niche for a game that is similar to Pyroto Mountain, but less esoteric -- a game whose concept can be explained in one sentence." If you tried Pyroto but couldn't get into it, maybe this game is for you.
I just signed up, but so far it appears to be much like Pyroto but using different terminology. I'm not sure why anyone would want to imagine themselves in a messive corporation instead of a land of mountains and magic, but the corporate metaphor does make the game's concepts easier to understand initially. Instead of being a Wizard, you are an Employee. The Spirit of The Land becomes the CEO, Manna becomes Influence Points, Robes become Authority, Ethers become the Grapevine, you're climbing the corporate ladder instead of a mountain, and as you get higher, you can do perform more Actions.
I wonder how many games you could turn into something that initally seems so different just by changing the words it uses? What else could Pyroto become?
posted by Emanuel
on Apr 9, 2003 -
3 comments
But I Thought The Danes Were Good Guys... so what are they doing offering this Godwin's-Law-begging, nasty, violent Flash game? I mean, if it had been a ****** [
nationality protected by political correctness] game, I don't think I'd have been half as shocked. National stereotypes - don't you hate them? But just how strong are they, when they're splattered, as it were, even over online gaming? [
Via good old b3ta.com, who were just as aghast as me at the provenance. Hey, even the URL is scary!]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Mar 10, 2003 -
13 comments
The thinking man's MMOG is now live and accepting subscriptions. Someone on mefi noticed this game in development
last July, but very little attention was given to it at that time. What has evolved in the game is an interesting social experiment, rather than your typical
hack and slash Massive Multiplayer game. Many have equated it to
Sims Online, but whereas that game appears to have failed to result in anything that doesn't smell of pig excrement, this title appears to have a soul. In fact, it's garnished its first
review since opening on Feb 15th (shameless self-linking).
posted by thanotopsis
on Feb 25, 2003 -
16 comments
Wall hangings for your peace loving sims. I've only logged about three sim hours, but this inspires me to boot up my little sim family. When the Sims online comes out, can we have sim protests at the sim white house, or sim mefi protests at mathowie's sim house?
posted by djacobs
on Oct 18, 2002 -
13 comments
A New Milestone for Video Games? "Three of the nation's top retailers, including Wal Mart, on Monday said they had refused to carry a new video game billed as the first major release to feature full-action nudity and with prostitutes and pimps as major characters." I enjoyed their
"banned ads" myself.
posted by owillis
on Oct 14, 2002 -
36 comments
Greece bans gaming. Apparently since the law was passed last month, video arcades (other than registered casinos, of course) have been raided and closed down rapidly now. I found no evidence of a hoax, but a Slashdot post links to this
NY Times article from March about the pending legislation. (Translations of the law to English can be found
here as well.) This seems legit: if so, wtf is the host of the next Olympics doing banning people from playing games?
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Sep 1, 2002 -
24 comments
Save pinball! "It's an American icon," said Stern, ever the salesman. "Pinball is cool because it is retro. It's a Volkswagen bug, a PT Cruiser, khaki pants."
posted by justgary
on Aug 3, 2002 -
23 comments
Wars and propaganda in gaming: you've all heard of
America's Army by now, but what about
Under Ash where you can fight the IDF (no civilians targets here) as a palestinian rambo? Perhaps you'd prefer a more spiritual route, and want to
convert heathens? Or the truly repulsive
Ethnic Cleansing game? Artists are getting into too with the likes of
Cultural Revolution Doom, and some politicians considered
doing it the direct way. Clearly, folks with an agenda have realized that games are a way to get their message out, and maybe noticed the success of
"realistic" but largely apolitical shooters.
Fortunately for gaming peaceniks (kill pixels not people!), the games mostly suck.
posted by malphigian
on Jul 26, 2002 -
6 comments
Unchecked Greek aggression near Thebes in 1475AD has brought them to war, but Phoenatican
democracy prevails. The, uh, fanatics over at
civ fanatics have been playing
Civilization 3 game as a democracy, with elected leaders, policy votes, a
constitution, a
census,
the works. Their
empire is impressive, as is the player cooperation to make a new kind of gameplay that
Sid Meier probably never intended.
posted by malphigian
on Jul 3, 2002 -
9 comments
Create your own Monopoly Game Surely the perfect customised gift? You can change the name of the game, the theme, the name of the properties/stations, and also the rules.
Apparently it uses a 'What You See Is What You Get Realtime Interface', which allows users to personalise the game completely to their requirements, and then print out and proof the new design. What I find most interesting about this product offering is that the whole process is completely automated. Once you've designed and ordered your customised game, it goes straight to print/production, and is then sent out to you. No human intervention is required. This appears to me to be pretty ground breaking stuff (well in the Toy World anyway), or am I just way behind the times? (via the
Ecademy discussion list)
posted by RobertLoch
on Jun 28, 2002 -
28 comments
US Army Introduces "America's Army" PC Game Developed by the U.S. Army and Department of Defense experts in simulations and virtual environments, America's Army blends two simulations: Soldiers, a role-playing portion, and a first-person action game, called Operations. The Army will distribute America’s Army for free through distribution partners that include leading computer game magazines, Army events, recruiting stations, and through internet download.
posted by Stuart_R
on May 23, 2002 -
24 comments
Under 5,000 Xboxes sold in Japan last week. This is compared to 100k Playstation2s and 25k Gamecubes. Since its launch, the Xbox has sold 190k units in Japan versus the Playstation's 980k units sold in the first 3 days.
Is the Xbox doomed in the notoriously tough Japan gaming market, or does the Xbox just need a price cut to stay competitive?
posted by jragon
on Apr 8, 2002 -
51 comments
Everquest kingdom richer than Bulgaria. Norrath, the setting for the online game Everquest, has been found to be the 77th richest country in the world, sandwiched between Russia and Bulgaria. Research carried out in the United States shows that virtual internal markets, combined with illegal online trading on auction websites, mean that Norrath has a gross national product per capita of $2,266, bigger than China and India.
posted by ncurley
on Mar 30, 2002 -
16 comments
