Movie Addicts. Celeb Dishers. Gamers. We're All Here.

Now, my mind is officially blown. I was reading some of the articles over at Xbox 360 Fanboy–while I’ll not admit to being one, I’ll admit to preferring that system. But I was reading about Halo maps when I came across a map setup for a Zombie Apocalypse.

No, seriously! You’re short on weapons–you start with a shotgun and a pistol–and you’re facing down a steadily growing horde of the “undead” in an Infection-style map. You have to survive for five minutes until your emergency evac arrives.

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And the BAD news, kids, is they’re even farther back on the spectrum than we are. The Swiss, that perpetually neutral little nation known for mountains, chocolate, and clocks that make bird noises are currently laboring under a double controversy. Although, in all honesty, their “controversy” is something of a tempest in a teapot.

On the one end, there’s politician Roland Naf, who seems well on his way to becoming the Swiss version of Jack Thompson, only with less lunacy and more megalomania. He’s actively suing stores that carry violent video games, and is also working with the Swiss government to try and get them banned outright, though he’s already failed previously on more than one occasion. Thankfully, the Swiss government’s position is that the laws as-is are effective and that a link between video games and violence in minors is still quite unproven.

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Here’s one from the Big Shock Department–news is that one country is looking at a total ban on all things video game, from the lowliest Mario port to the biggest splashiest Grand Theft Auto game.

Now, you may have some names in mind already for the culprit, so it probably won’t surprise you too much when I tell you just which country it is. It’s AFGHANISTAN.

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Minnesota’s trying a whole new tack on keeping violent games out of the hands of the underage, and this time, it just might pass. Its most recent move, struck down as being unconstitutional, was to punish the buyer of the video game, rather than the seller. Basically, under a 2006 law which was struck down as unconstitutional like so many other efforts, tried a new tack–if children under 17 buy an M-rated game, they’re fined twenty-five dollars.

Which at least has some validity to it–put some teeth in the ESRB’s already high-quality ratings system and let it do its job with the force of law. If the parents in question believe the game is all right for their underage child, then they can buy it FOR the child without incident.

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One of the Green Party’s exercises in futility candidates for President in the upcoming 2008 election, Jesse Johnson, managed to sink his foot into his mouth so deep his breath smells like kneecap. What did he say, you wonder? Try this on for size.

Not only does the candidate, while speaking at the New Jersey convention, have no idea how schools are funded in New Jersey (say this with me, Jesse…TAAAAAXXEEEESSS.) but when asked about violence and funding in relation to urban schools, managed only to croak out vague allegations about that favorite media bugaboo, violent television and video games.

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You know, there’s not a whole lot that can be said about Scotland. Genuinely. I don’t mean that in a bad way or anything but seriously–when’s the last time you heard ANYTHING about Scotland? Planes don’t crash there, they don’t have odd weather, they don’t seem to discover anything, they don’t do anything criminally stupid–it’s like there’s this giant news blackout around Scotland, and I find that pretty strange.

Which is why I was happy to stumble across a newsy bit about the Scots–seems they’ve actually decided to add video game design to the national school curriculum.

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Seriously. Almost. Because you guys just dodged a bullet of monolithic proportions.

See, I don’t know if you know about it, but your government–you know, those putzes in suits you pay to make decisions for you? The ones who come around every four years begging you to vote for you and then spend the rest of those four years ignoring you and believing you’re all morons?–very nearly passed a bill that would have held media companies liable for violent acts committed by consumers of video games, movies, TV and books.

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I think we’re all pretty much on the same page by saying that Two Worlds sucked sour frog eye. As a game by itself, the best it could be called was mediocre, and the worst cannot be accomplished without a skein of profanity so wide and caustic that even I hesitate to type it here for fear of melting the very fabric of the universe.

Comparing it to Oblivion, as so many tried to do before it hit shelves, is an insult so egregious that, if I were wearing gloves, I would demand satisfaction against whoever was actually brain-damaged enough to suggest a comparison was possible.

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Finally, my disgust with the first person shooter genre, especially as it relates to the Xbox 360, is being echoed in the blogosphere, even on Destructoid as Twisted Imp lays it out, briefly.

So let me amplify–I am sick unto death of first person shooters. I’m tired of crawling around warehouses and through planetary cores, doing nothing but pulling my trigger every time something unpleasant wanders into my frame of vision. I’m tired of collecting progressively larger weapons, and I’m sick of the latest BFG. I’m tired of games that are little more than a collection of quests with all the forward thinking of the end of my barrel.

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I’m not usually one to climb atop my milk crate and commend companies for their valiant efforts making new maps for old games. I’ve actually never purchased one Microsoft Point worth of DLC - and I don’t see that changing anytime soon - but even a cheapskate like me can recognize pure awesomeness. One of my favorite maps from Halo: CE is making a glorious return in Man-Cannoning, shield deploying, High Defining action. I present Avalanche, also known as Sidewinder 2: The Return of Ice Hogging.

Sure, you can say it’s lazy to simply remake an old classic, but I’m all for it. Why should good maps die just because a sequel has rendered the game they’re currently housed in completely irrelevant? If anything, we should have more remakes. Perfect Dark Zero magically transformed into a fun multiplayer game when Temple and Facility made their triumphant return, maybe I’ll start playing Halo 3 again if they bring back more classic maps. Consider my vote officially cast for Chiron TL-34. I need more wacky teleporting hijinx in my FPS.

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