The Games Blog
"I wish for world peace...and no video games"
It’s been quite an odd week in the world of games, there have been some extremely notable releases and potentially a new gaming platform in Apple’s new ipad, but on the news side the main stories have been overshadowed by some quite odd industry external stories.
For example the new Miss America being crowned, right before stating that video games must be taken away; or a prisoner in the US appealing to the courts because the guards have stopped him from playing Dungeons and Dragons. I sort of thought it might be worth just taking a look at these quite bizarre happenings, but first let’s take a look at the Apple’s new ipad and what is possibly a new gaming platform.
So they have pretty much made a laptop sized iphone, which is appealing because a lot of people carry around both an iphone and a laptop and there is so much crossover between the activities we do on them. I fully admit to having checked my e-mail on my phone with my laptop in the very same room. However, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever; see what they’ve done is make a gargantuan iphone with a laptop price tag ranging from $499 to $829 and the thing is most people who want it will have a good, easy to carry phone in their pocket.
Saying all this however, if you were to settle down next to me in the I.C and whip out a goliath iphone I would without a doubt be envious, but let me leave the teasing to these guys http://www.collegehumor.com/
They showed off a couple of games on this thing and the controls are exclusively touch screen. For some inexplicable reason they showed a driving game and a first person shooter, games that beg for some sort of controller to account for the accuracy needed. So these are a complete no no, I’m not saying it won’t work as a device to play games though; much like with their other products games that will work will be either be casual board game conversions (scrabble anyone?), puzzle games like bejeweled or games that have been build from the bottom up to work on the sexy touch screen.
Much like the iphone or ipod touch it does have the power to be a games machine, however it will stay a platform for purely casual and mini games, more due to the touch screen than to technical limitations. The fact that they would rather make a more aesthetically pleasing product with no buttons than add some additional controls and make a machine more effective at playing games, really sums up Apple’s dedication to games at the moment. This is completely fine, since their products are currently dominating most other media types.
Caressa Cameron - it’s pretty cool how she is Miss America, good for her. I suppose for the time being her voice can reach millions; there are people who will listen to her and really look up to her. Pretty good time to talk about the recession, the pretty hot healthcare debates in the US, maybe she can tell us what she thinks Iran are up to with their nuclear programme. Should Israel...oh wait she’s talking about video games. To sum it up video games are making the youths lazy and people should be "playing imaginary games with sticks in the street like I did when I was little.".
That doesn’t sound fun at all, if she opts for the fitness DVD rather than a porn film I guess we will just be watching her running around a public area playing with some terrible actor’s big stick while pretending to have fun. I guess the same could be said if she made a porn film. Whey-oh.
Finally there has been controversy in America in which a murderer doing time at Wisconsin Prison has been banned from playing the table top game Dungeons and Dragons. This was reportedly because it threatened ‘prison security’ however when he appealed the court said that he had ‘failed’ to make arguments and that ‘Punishment is a fundamental part of imprisonment’ and so he was not allowed to play the game anymore.
Which makes sense seeing as he committed a murder and has been kicking back in prison, serving a life sentence, while getting D&D publications delivered to his cell.
That sounds almost idealistic for a high calibre nerd; however the part I’m trying to get my head around is that they only took his stuff away because an inmate sent a letter saying he felt threatened by the group who was playing D&D.
I am aware that there are serious gang problems in US prisons, but I had no idea that the problem had gotten so severe that there were gangs of table top fantasy role players roaming the prison system intimidating people by telling them tales of what their bard had been up to earlier.
I shouldn’t poke fun; prison must be bad enough without sharing a cell with a guy who loves nothing more than to enlighten you on his last adventure and his future strategies.
Daniel Rowbotham
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