Now that Grand Theft Auto IV is finally on the market, we can begin to hear outcries from pundits around the country who have not actually played the game. Oh how tasty unadulterated ignorance can be. MADD – the angrily named Mothers Against Drunk Driving – have demanded that GTA IV change its rating to Adults Only. Why? Because you are able to drive drunk in the game.

First of all, it should be noted that driving drunk is a player’s choice. Just like killing cops and prostitutes, it is an act that is allowed but not required to complete the game. Just like people have the choice to drive drunk in real life, a choice that should never be exercised but still exists, gamers have the same choice in a virtual setting. So these mothers are angry that a video game gives people the same choice as real life. Strange.

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Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he’s coming early, with big sacks full of SIlent Hill: Homecoming, the game that makes it easy to love Silent Hill again.

And when you get a look at some of the screenshots on this beauty, you get the immediate sense that this is, indeed, a Silent Hill game. I mean, let’s be honest. Some of the previous games have been a bit…shaky…in that regard. Between the mallrat and the apartment with the lease from hell, Silent Hill games haven’t really, truly, been SILENT HILL games for some time. That’s just me–I personally don’t feel like I’m playing a Silent Hill game unless I can walk down Bachman Street and blow past Midwich Elementary. I want to be in Silent Hill when I’m playing a Silent Hill game.

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Can you believe something called The Orange Box was one of the best games released in 2007? Even stranger, if you look past the critically adored Half Life 2 and just below the drool-inducing Team Fortress 2, there is a tiny gem that may offer the single greatest experience in all of gaming last year. Portal is candy flavored art.

It’s such a simple game. You are equipped with a portal creating gun. Using only this gun and your (hopefully) powerful mind, you are tasked with traversing a deadly obstacle course in a demented science laboratory. You are a rat in a maze, the reluctant plaything for a crazed computer.

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Have you ever wondered who would win in a fight between Godzilla and King Kong? Of course not, the giant, agile monkey could run circles around that lumbering lizard. But who would win in a fight between generic knock-offs? That is the question War of the Monsters seeks to answer.

This is the direction I would like to see fighting games take–no more plodding, one-on-one battles. I’ve been doing that for 15 years! I want huge environments, destructible buildings and monsters. Lots and lots of monsters.

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This…this is just great news, right here. The single biggest horror bomb on the face of the earth, Fear Itself, has been delayed. Pushed back one week to a premiere date of Thursday, June 5 on NBC, this move shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

I’m on record several times: I think this show is a gargantuan mistake that will hemorrhage cash, frighten small children (only), and bruise fruit. We’re doomed. It rained cheese last night…the Black Squirrel has been seen as far afield as Luton…dogs and cats, living together…real “end of the world” type stuff.

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