Dirty! Very, very dirty!

I swear, the sheer tonnage of dumb that’s coming out of Canberra on this issue makes me want to curl up in a little ball and cry.

Delimiter is reporting on communications its writers have sighted between officials from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and Australian internet service providers on a private message board.  You can read the entire story here, but I’ll summarise the main points:

• The legislation required to make the filter law hasn’t been finished yet, even though it was due months ago.
• Bypassing the filter won’t be an offence and ISPs won’t have to filter sites that could allow you to do so, but promoting the methods for doing so might get them (and others) in trouble.
• It’s intended that the filter will be able to block entire domains, not just individual pages.
• Serious thought is apparently being given to filtering games traffic, as well as internet sites.

I guess we should be grateful that it won’t be an offence to bypass the filter and sites allowing circumvention won’t be filtered out but really, what in hell is the point of having a filter with enforcement this pissweak?!? I can hear China and Thailand snickering at our expense already: “Stupid Australians can’t even censor properly – and they dared paint themselves as being on our level?  Bah, amateurs!”

Filtering games traffic is a new issue altogether.  On the upside it’ll likely be nigh-impossible to implement but on the downside, how much time and taxpayer money is going to be wasted working that out?

This is all so silly it’s almost making me forget how much I hate McAfee this week (thanks again to Delimiter for starting me on the trail of that story).

These signs point to the internet filter going the way of the emissions trading scheme and getting shelved until after the election later this year.  I think this presents the Australian public with an opportunity to make some noise on the issue during the campaign.  If it seems unpopular enough maybe it’ll get thrown in the bin for good.

Megaphones at the ready, people?

The original, now even original-ier.

Came across this one on my journeys.

In the spirit of ol’ skool Mario Bros, I offer Super Mario Crossover.

Now you can play the original as one of the original characters from Nintendo’s best games. Pick Samus, and press down to start rolling and dropping bombs.

Megaman is quite fun too, and Link is still rubbish (I will never apologise for never really enjoying the Zelda games).

I would have loved to see some other characters in there. The Double Dragon lads could karate their way to Princess’ heart.

Where is Donkey Kong? Or Snake from Metal Gear?

This starts to feel like blending Super Smash Bros back into the original franchise, but think of the awesomeness.

Enjoy.

Dante's Inferno. Abandon all hope of faithful adherence to the original, ye who enter here...

Disambiguation: This is a review of the anime released to accompany the recent video game of the same name.  It’s not a review of the video game itself and it’s definitely not a review of any old Italian poems.

I’m really not sure what it was about Dante’s Inferno – An Animated Epic that inspired me to pick up the DVD and actually watch it.  It’s intended as a companion to the Dante’s Inferno game that was released recently (it with the lulzy / offensive achievements) that I’ve never played and none of us have even bothered reviewing because frankly, the marketing for the launch seemed more interesting than the game itself.  So I guess I’m reviewing this as a work in its own right.

First up, both the game and the anime take some… erm… liberties, I guess you could say with Dante Alighieri’s original work.  It’s still broadly about Dante’s journeys through the nine circles of hell, accompanied for whatever f&*king reason by the Roman poet Virgil*.  So far, so broadly in line with the original.

It’s at this point things start to take a different line.  There’s some backstory, y’see, where Dante falls for a couple of the oldest tricks in The Book.  He makes some crazy promises to a woman, Beatrice, in order to get laid.  He also believes a priest who promises him something that sounds too good to be true.  Then he up and runs away to Jerusalem to join the crusades.  Once there he proceeds to make, all things considered, a bit of a cock of himself.  He returns just in time to find everybody at home has been murdered and Lucifer is dragging his darling Beatrice off into hell.  Turns out she must’ve been a pretty good root because our muscular-hero-of-dubious-intelligence gives chase through all nine circles of hell.  A bit of the old ultra-violence ensues.

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When I jumped on ‘the feeds’ this morning, I got three links in and got lost in this wonderful blast from the past! Thanks to a link from Epic Games’ CliffyB (swoon!)  and Scribd member CaptainMidnight, here is ALL of Nintendo Power Issue 1, from way back 1988!

Look at that brilliance! Ahh, it’s just like it was yesterday… I was only 7 years old, and I think we had only just received our NES. Looking at all those pages of weird art makes me long for the Golden Age.

(Seems like I’m not the only one, as  this article over at our friends GamerLimit proves.)

Edit: OMG WUT, seems CliffyB FAKED his Super Mario Bros high score on page 99. This might mean he’s dead to me.

This week’s Australian release list is brought to you by Respawn Camping – because not everybody can actually be good at the game.

Coming to Australian stores this week are:

• 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (April 29, 360 / PS3 / PSP / Wii)
• Iron Man 2 (April 29, 360 / DS / PS3 / Wii)
• Monster Hunter Tri (April 29, Wii)
• Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter (April 29, PC)
• Super Street Fighter IV (April 29, 360 / PS3)
• TNA Impact: Cross the Line (April 30, PSP)
• Splinter Cell: Conviction (April 30, PC)

And if you only jumped on board for the third installment and found yourself thinking “what the fuck is going on here?” then also due this week is God of War Collection, the re-release of the first two God of War PS2 titles on the PS3.

Ass pinching robots! Run!

OK, OK, I missed a week, I know. That’s why we’re calling this week’s Geekly Round-up the Dorknightly Roundup.  If you think the pun is worse than usual, complain to Matt, it was his idea.

To kick things off this week, I’ve been preoccupied with toys … or with playing with things. I have a Gaius Baltar figure that sat on my desk at work and he’s been having adventures throughout the office. Though he didn’t enjoy his swim in the Coffeena Lake.

Speaking of that elixir of the Gods, I’ve been looking for a new mug lately. This one, the MyCuppa from Suck.Uk, is pretty much perfect for when I get my robotic minions. Or the off chance someone else makes me a drink that isn’t alcoholic. Yeah, OK, that isn’t going to happen often, but a girl can dream, right?

As with all things Justified and Ancient, those down in the before places, I am very much in love with these cute little Cthulu Amigurumi toys. Nothing says love like a tiny crocheted Elder God! Best of all, 70% of the profit from these toys goes to charity. So you can feel a bit better about finding a madness inducing Thing That Should Not Be adorable.

Coming up next week, here in Melbourne AU, is the Annual Zombie Shuffle! After three years of attending this event, I’m resorting to Google to find costume inspiration, but this little guy has put my mind at ease, if not my brains. Now, if only I can dismember Matty in such a cute, bloodless way.

If not, I can pretend to be the unholy monster of science I really am, by setting up this Angry Mob Playset outside the toilet door. Why the toilet? I, uh … well …

Quick! Defend yourself against the PIXELS!

And the Lord spake: "This one! Saw this finger off!"

Spoiler alert: The following article contains a great many spoilers of plot points and choices someone can take while playing Heavy Rain. If you’ve not yet played the game, consider yourself warned. Also, if you’ve not yet played the game, well, you probably won’t be interested in what I’m talking about anyway.

When it was released, Quantic Dream’s interactive drama Heavy Rain received a wide range of reactions. While most reviewers (including us) were generally positive about the game and the experience it tried to create, it’s also quite well recognised that the game still had it’s flaws. One of those flaws, and the subject that I’d like to talk about today in this long, rambling diatribe, is the game’s slow pacing.

The game’s prologue puts the player in control of the most mundane of day-to-day tasks, like brushing your teeth, setting a table or even catching up on a character’s workload. Functionally, these rather dull acts serve as the player’s tutorial, giving them the basic run-down of how the game’s control system works and the variety of different ways that on-screen prompts have to be executed. Emotionally, on the other hand, what the game is trying to achieve is a crash course in bonding.

I’d argue that this bonding is actually far more important than the player’s introduction to the control scheme. When Heavy Rain is at it’s best, it creates a very deep empathy for it’s characters, and this means that the player’s reactions will be executed according to their personal feelings on a given situation. When the game successfully holds this empathy, it’s being played the way David Cage wanted it to be played, putting the player in the shoes of otherwise unfamiliar characters and asking you to make their choices for them.

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The Stepping Disc, shown here (centre-right) with several other items you cannot use it with

This week’s Australian new releases list is brought to you by the Nuctipund Stepping Disc Co, GmbH.  We don’t know what the fuck they do either and every time we try to use one a disembodied voice tells us they can’t be used in that manner.  But their money’s good so their name is on the post.

Coming to a store near you this week are:

• Karaoke Revolution (April 22, Wii)
• Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West (April 22, PS3)
• Nier (April 22, 360 / PS3)
• Puzzle Chronicles (April 22, 360 / DS / PS3 / PSP)
• Runaway: A Twise of Fate (April 22, DS)
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (April 22, PSP / Wii)
• Way of the Samurai (April 22, 360 / PS3)
• Yu-Gi-Oh: Extra Long Title (April 22, DS)
• Yu-Gi-Oh: Shorter Title (April 22, PSP)
• Dead to Rights: Retribution (April 23, 260 / PS3)

So no love for PC owners this week, but portable gamers have a bunch of stuff to look forward too.  Nier, whose release date seems to have jumped around a bit, gets my coveted “most efficiently named game of the week” award and anyone interested in the actual names of Yu-Gi-Oh games obviously has a longer attention span than me, but can probably find them here.

Until next week then gamers…

For those of you looking forward to Telltale’s first release of 2010, the wait ends today with the release of The Penal Zone, episode one of Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse.  What? You’re not interested unless I lazily attach a trailer for said title? Oh … very well:

Tell you what, it sucks being Australian some days, considering the fact that April 15th is almost finished down here and I’m still download-less, but I guess it’s as good an excuse as any to use up my off-peak bandwidth.  If you’re an adventure fan, then I’d be surprised if you hadn’t already pre-ordered this one, but if you’re yet to pledge your undying love to some vague sense of nostalgia then head on over to the Telltale website.

There’s also a version available for the iPad, for any of you gold-plated Ferrari types.