He can never just walk somewhere, can he?

OK, so when last we parted Assassin’s Creed 2 and I weren’t on the best of terms.  This was mainly due to a rather disappointing little DLC addendum called Battle of Forli, a downloadable expansion that didn’t quite do justice to the game as a whole.  Words were said, feelings were hurt, low scores were awarded.  But even though it was terrible, or come to think of it maybe because it was terrible, I was left wanting more.  So sour-taste set aside, I unquestioningly coughed up the moon money Points to purchase the second DLC installment, Bonfire of the Vanities.

And I’m happy to say I enjoyed it.

To clarify before we begin, I picked up the pack that included the three pre-order Templar Tombs, and I can only suggest to everyone else that they do the same.  Even if you did pre-order you’ll get another two new areas to explore, along with Bonfire.  Added together, these make for a much more satisfying play length than was offered with Battle of Forli.  That is, of course, unless you purchased a Black Edition copy, in which case you can have another couple of hours to pet the Ezio figurine in your lap.

OK, to the plot: Bonfire of the Vanities picks up when Battle of Forli abruptly ended.  Ezio has lost the Apple of Eden to a mysterious, robed monk called Savonarola, who has fled to Florence and used the Apple’s power to take control of the city.  It’s up to Ezio to break Savonarola control and recover the Apple for the Assassins.

So what makes this installment worth the asking price compared to Forli?

Holding a knife up in a bright white robe. Yup, he's a master of stealth.

Well for one, Bonfire of the Vanities does what the Assassin’s Creed series does best, which is to take historical events and wrap them up in their own mythology.  As Wikipedia history records it, the actual Bonfire of the Vanities took place as a show of support to the highly religious Savonarola, but were not sanctioned by the monk himself.  Ubisoft takes the events and puts Savonarola centre stage, full of religious zeal and willing to use the power he’s acquired to bend the people of Florence to his will.  The conclusion is a little cheesy (I couldn’t help but think of Life of Brian at one point), but there is a solid beginning, middle and end.  If it makes you feel any better, it probably helps to think of Battle of Forli as simply a prologue to this story, just a way to get all the pieces in the right place to begin.  Although that said, this still leaves me wondering why they bothered to release the two chapters seperately.

This DLC also provides the player with some actual assassination missions to enjoy, rather than the babysitting brawl-fest of Forli.  To confront Savonarola, Ezio must take out his main followers one by one to cause a civilian uprising.  Not only is there a good number of these missions, but they all have a good level of variety too.  They have some rather unexpected endings too, as you discover to what degree the monk’s followers have fallen under his spell.

I love these historical reinterpretations ...

So we’ve got story, and we’ve got length.  Thankfully we’ve also got some new areas to enjoy.

I’m quite sure I wasn’t the only one who looked at their map of Florence and wondered when the fuck the southern area of the city was going to open up, only to have it dawn on me close to the end that I’d never get to see what was down there.  Well now, finally, the area is uncovered to reveal Savonarola’s palace and a whole host of new viewpoints to scale.  The majority of the Bonfire plot is centred in this area, and although it is completely new, it’s not very different in style from the rest of Florence.  Given that it’s excluded from all the game’s side-plots, for obvious reasons, there isn’t actually much reason to explore it thoroughly either, except out of sheer, bloody-minded completionism.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Ubisoft have also finally loosened their grasp (albeit for a price) on the complete set of pre-order exclusive Templar Tombs.  I know I should be a little mad that I’m paying for something that’s already in the game and costs absolutely no more to integrate, but then I’d probably have to be mad at the entire DLC model and no-one can hold a grudge that big.  The three tombs, Palazzo Medici, Arsenal Shipyard and Santa Maria dei Frari, are operationally identical to the existing Assassin’s Tombs, just with less interesting loot at the end of them.  They focus a lot more on Ezio’s Prince of Persia style free-running and climbing, which is good clean fun, but you will be forced to endure another one of those “chase” sequences with a Templar.  You remember, the sequences where a Templar scout would sprint effortlessly ahead of you if you held a close pursuit, but would stop to have a chocolate biscuit and yell loudly “I think I have lost him” over and over if you needed to repeat a jump or climb.

Templars just fucking *love* hanging scaffolds

There’s nothing really new, visually.  The new sections of voice-acting are of decent enough quality, just like the rest of the game, even doing well with the rather cheesy situation the end of this plot entails.  You’re not going to have much added to your knowledge database, the fact that these segments were completely dropped prove that they don’t effect the game’s lore very much and even with the price attached you’re still not offered any bonus achievements with Bonfire of the Vanities.

In the end I’m still stuck at one conclusion, and it’s that both Battle of Forli and Bonfire of the Vanities should have been included in one package.  Given how much the two are intertwined (honestly, one is prologue, the other is conclusion), we’re really only inflicted with two DLC releases here because some marketing department thought it would drive more hype.  The two packages shipped complete with Assassin’s Creed 2’s PC version, which means it’s only left to those of us who first supported the game on console to deal with the whole missing chapter debacle.  If you’re hard up for cash, I’d suggest forgetting about Forli completely and just picking up Bonfire.  You can save yourself 300 points by simply saying “Savonarola stole the Apple of Eden from Ezio and then…” aloud before you start.

The Verdict:

Pros: New areas to explore, interesting new sub-plot.  Templar Tombs add to the complete game experience, and help add another few hours of enjoyment to the title.

Cons: Nothing new gameplay-wise, still no ability to replay past memories. The added cost of including the Templar Tombs is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

Overall: Unlike it’s predecessor, this DLC is worth getting your hands on.  It’s not jaw-droppingly brilliant by any means, but it feels a lot more polished than Forli did, and will actually take some effort to complete.  I’m not sure if Ubisoft has anything else planned in the way of DLC for Assassin’s Creed 2, but if they do let’s hope it’s a lot better planned out than these two offering were. 3 out of 5.

Coming soon: iKratos

This week’s batch of new releases is brought to you by Grog – now with 20% more acetone and all-natural red dye #2.  Also, keep an eye out for Grog Lite coming soon to a store near you.  It’s the same caustic taste, but the label says “low carb” and the pepperoni has definitely been removed.  So it’s pitched at the gullible then.

Anyhoo, coming to an Australian game store near you this week are the following actual products:

• Perfect Dark (March 17, XBLA)
• Combat of Giants: Mutant Insects (March 18, DS)
• Command and Conquer 4 (March 18, PC)
• Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening (March 18, 360 /  PC /  PS3)
• God of War III (March 18, PS3)
• Lips: Party Classics (March 18, 360)
• Metro 2033 (March 18, 360 / PC)
• Moto GP 09/10 (March 18, 360 / PS3)
• Rugby League 3 (March 18, Wii)

Nintendo must really want Michael Atkinson to publicly disavow his love for the Wii – last week they were releasing a title called Welcome to Violence and this week they’re giving us Rugby League 3 which, one assumes based on the actions of real-life rugby players, contains loads of debased sex and violence.  No Johnny, the Wii-mote doesn’t go there!

Although the colour scheme and general theme are going to remain the same, we will be tinkering with the layout a little, changing ad servers and adding some new little features to improve connectivity and customisation.

This will all be taking place over the next fortnight or so, so if you notice anything out of place or just straight up on fire, please feel free to blame either me or Mark for playing around with live code.

Tristan has also started designing avatars to go along with the update, which you can take a look at by clicking “Read More”.  Currently he’s got Moose and Jess sorted out, Stu is in preliminary and has started messing around with the original avatars too.

So while this all goes on the content might be a little slower than usual, but we’ll certainly still be updating!  And if you have any suggestions for changes you’d like to see on Armchair Diplomat, by all means drop me an email on matt@armchairdiplomat.com.  Unless of course you want to complain about the colour scheme, in which case sleep safe in the knowledge that Mark is on your side and got shot down by me …

So here’s the original sketches of Bone’s new work.  The final versions wil be in full colour like the current avatars:

Stu also has an avatar on the way, but it’s not yet inked and ready to show off.  When I get my hands on it, I’ll add it up here for everyone to check out.

OK, I'll admit it, I came

Hot off the LucasArts Twitter feed today, most likely in conjunction with some variety of GDC announcement, comes the news that The Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge will be undergoing the Special Edition treatment that we all drooled over previously.  There ain’t much to it, but here’s the word for word:

Oh yeah, another thing: LeChucks Revenge: Special Edition is official! New puzzles, new enemies, new hair!

-LucasArtsGames, just forewarning my wallet

So that’s another $15 or so that I’ll be giving LucasArts unquestioningly.

But there’s something that has me confused.  Maybe it’s just a poor choice of wording, but this tweet would appear to suggest that new puzzle elements are going to be included into the game, something I don’t think I’d be so keen on.  Part of the beauty of the original Monkey Islnds: Special Edition was that it was a straight port, preserving the original game for a newer generation.

They’ve also posted up a (somewhat blurry) photo of the game’s new cover art, feel free to ogle.  I guess we can all feel assured that in that photo we can clearly spy a (somewhat blurry) beard on Guybrush.

Update: LucasArts have also opened the game’s official website, which sports some great looking in-game screenshots.

Also also, apparently I’m not the only person to start bitching and moaning raising genuine concern about the “new puzzles” phrase.  Since the announcement above they’ve fielded a flurry of questions and decided to put all of us at ease:

[New puzzles?] … not new for Monkey 2, I just know how all of you reacted to the first Special Editons Hair

Good to hear, because any change to Monkey Island 2 would be like callously beating my childhood with a frozen cactus.

… Metaphorically I mean.

… Probably.

Mad Moxxi, the ... titular character

Amongst it’s many other accomplishments (well, depending who you ask I guess), Gears of War 2 can be lauded for the popularisation of the “Horde” style of multiplayer.  Allowing players to team up against a superior-numbered AI controlled enemy force managed to hit a real chord with shooter fans everywhere, and has since spawned many similar modes amongst the FPS genre.

Borderlands: Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot puts it’s hand up and declares “us too”, by adding a completely new area based upon wave-style arena combat.

As the story goes, Mad Moxxi (the Underdome’s well-endowed, carnival-themed owner) has made her way through three husbands, all of whom didn’t seem to survive the relationship.  In the search for a suitable suitor for her fourth wedlock, Moxxi has constructed the Underdome, three huge arenas based upon different areas of Pandora.  There adventurers pit themselves against hordes of enemies, while the crowd watches on in the happy knowledge that, win or lose, violence will be plentiful.

The back-story sounds entertaining enough, but truth be told there’s surprisingly little Mad Moxxi to be had in Underdome.  After her introduction, she’s basically consigned to her role as announcer.  And although much of her commentary is amusing enough, it can grow old quite quickly for reasons I’ll explain shortly.

Randomly selected boss fights can be a real challenge

Each round is sliced up into five seperate waves, each with a different theme.  Each round ends by facing a randomly selected boss from the story mode, some of whom you may not even remember were bosses in the first place.  They are all humans, however, so you’re not going to have to worry about fighting Moth’Rakk all over again.  As the round count climbs, random combat modifiers are also introduced to keep things fresh.  Between each wave there is a supply drop of ammo and health that scatters randomly around the arena, and at the end of each round Moxxi rewards you by dumping a large selection of randomly generated weapons into the spawn area.  All of these are timed drops, however, so you have to be fast if you want to restock and add to your arsenal.

If at any point a player dies they’re sent to the penalty box high above the arena for the remainder of the round.  From here they can still shoot and attempt to take part in the action, but given the limited field of vision and lack of resupply drops, they’d better make their shots count.  If the remaining players clear the round then they are dropped back into the arena, but if everyone ends up in the penalty box then it’s back to the beginning for everyone.

The Underdome's foyer

The first few challenges you’ll be able to pass using two players without too much fuss.  But where Max Moxxi starts to lose it’s lustre is when the extended challenges kick in, which typically require three to four players working together to clear.  The first set of challenges are five rounds long with five waves apiece.  The higher level challenges crank the round count all the way up to twenty.  Given that clearing a round usually takes around ten minutes or so, this means that even a perfect run will set you back approximately three hours, which is a long time to keep four people online and playing continuously.  Some concession to the length is given, as the game will checkpoint you with every five rounds you clear (in the likely event of defeat).  This checkpoint doesn’t transfer across sessions, however, which means even the most resolute team will still be throwing up their hands and looking at their watches if they hit their second wipeout.

To stop players from using the Underdome for level grinding, there is also no experience gained from the enemies you kill while undertaking trials.  While the thinking behind this is logical, it does mean that you’ll be killing a lot of enemies for almost no reward, which fails to attract materialistic players like myself.

The new Diablo-stlye item bank

Those hoping to gain valuable loot from the end of round weapon drops will also be disappointed.  Again, while I understand that you can’t just give away high-level loot constantly, Moxxi would apparently be taking this theory to it’s extreme.  In the many hours I sank into this expansion there were two, maybe three high-rarity weapons dropped, and even these didn’t turn out to be very useful compared to my current set-up.  At times it seemed more practical to just wait out the day and see what the gun vending had on offer in the way of decent loot.  So you’ll be given plenty of gear to resell (and if you’re a high enough level, I’m sure you’ve long ago stopped caring about cash), but almost nothing that will help your loadout.

There are a few odd choices cosmetically too.  When you get far enough into a match to start introducing combat modifiers, a gigantic board will obstruct your view between each wave showing which modifiers have been selected.  When you combine this with the mad panic of trying to reclaim as much lost health and ammo as possible, many players have to adopt a strange kind of diagonal strafe between waves as they attempt to look out the side of their screen.

In the end, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot is really an odd combination of customer feedback and Gearbox’s desire to diversify.  Players asked for longer, more challenging multiplayer activites, and Gearbox has decided to push that idea to the limit.  But as it stands, this expansion doesn’t actually deliver much in the way of reward for the amount of effort required to complete it, which means it is probably going to be pushed to the sidelines.  This is especially true with the recent release of the new high-level geared expansion Secret Armory of General Knoxx.

The Verdict:

Pros: A solid, more traditional multiplayer experience for Borderlands.  Entertaining banter, fun and sometimes frantic gameplay.  The addition of a Diablo-style storage locker is also welcome.

Cons: Moxxi is all work and no reward.  Normally I could accept that working as part of a team towards a common goal is reward enough, but this expansion can be cripplingly long, meaning finding a team capable of completing the higher end trials is a challenge in itself.

Overall: I get the feeling that Moxxi is going to be overlooked as far as the complete Borderlands experience goes.  On paper the idea sounds quite solid, and Gearbox should be congratulated for listening to their community’s ideas.  On screen, however, Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot is unsatisfying and, to my ire, almost guaranteed to ruin your perfect achievement status. 2 out of 5.

Our inaugural edition is brought to you by the Gamer’s Buddy range of couch protectors.  They’re manufactured from durable PVC and come in a range of sizes so that your couch can be protected from any unintentional spillage or seepage that may occur when you’re playing, say, survival horror games or something from the Dead or Alive series.

Anywho, on with the releases!

• Final Fantasy XIII (March 9 – 360 / PS3)
• Tony Hawk: RIDE (March 10 – 360 / PS3 / Wii)
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (March 11 – PS3)
• Boot Camp Academy (March 11 – Wii)
• Chronicles of Mystery – Curse of the Ancient Temple (March 11 – DS)
• Sonic Classic Collection (March 11 – DS)
• Welcome to Violence* box set (March 11 – Wii)
• Yakuza 3 (March 11 – PS3)

Also due out on March 11 is the Black Wii.  Say that aloud and out of context and see what kind of looks you get!  It’s the same as a regular Wii, just black, and has been available in overseas markets for a few months.  I hear EB Games are offering some VERY fair deals on trading in your operationally identical white Wii towards the purchase too.

And if that sounds like a good idea, then I’ve got this tiger warding rock you might be interested in buying too.

* Nobody tell Michael Atkinson, kthx

Layer upon layer of clues have been left over the last 6 months or so, but it all started jumping again with a patch that altered the ending of the original game, which came out on March 3 from Steam.

Good to know Chelle assumes the ‘Party Escort Submission Position’, because who knows how awkward that could be if she opened up a portal in whatever freaky robot drone just started dragging her off. After the patch, came the press release:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Portal 2 for shipment this coming holiday season.

Portal 2 is the sequel to 2007’s Portal, which won 70 industry achievement awards.

Randomly underlined things! Which spell out… dreattmannh0nee.

Then there are the bizarre ASCII files and clues which can be found over at Kotaku. There was some seriously hard work done to just get and decode this information, which includes pictures of GLaDOS and what looks like still shots from inside Aperture Science. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, some clever cookie has provided some deciphering. There’s also some interesting tidbits from Aperture Science’s founder Cave Johnson. My favourite?

“…remind you that Aperture Science is built on three pillars. Pillar one: Science without results is just witchcraft. Pillar two: Get results or you’re fired. Pillar three: if you suspect a coworker of bin’ a witch, report them immediately. I cannot stress that enough. Witchcraft will not be tolerated.”

And then there’s the April cover of GameInformer. I feel like I should be saying ‘Good news everyone!’, but we never did discover if the cake was indeed a lie. Also, that looks suspiciously like a reformed GLaDOS…

WITCHCRAFT!

Jesus face-palm

I know I use the term “facepalm” a lot, but there’s really no other way succinct way to sum up the ongoing debate over R18+ games in Australia.

The newest meeting of hand and forehead comes courtesy of a story published today over at news.com.au, which revealed that everybody’s favourite state attorney Michael Atkinson has donated large sums of money to the Australian Council on Children and the Media.

The Australian Council on Children and the Media, also known as Young Media Australia, are the fun-loving sorts who claimed earlier in the week that video games are more closely linked to youth crime than smoking is to lung cancer.  Even though their own written submission states the connection is tenuous, unlikely to cause harm in any case and is based on a study that examined all media, not just games.

For what it’s worth though, this same group also believes that Bananas in Pyjamas is too violent for small children to watch because slapstick comedy is bad, m’kay?  Atkinson has made donations (reportedly in excess of $30,000) to the council’s “Know Before You Go” campaign, which seeks to inform parents of the dangers of letting their children watch G-rated movies like Finding Nemo*, Alvin and the Chipmunks** and The Tale of Desperaux.

What’s a little odd about all this is it’s usually groups like the Council giving money to politicians, not the other way around.  I don’t think it’s anything we need to be too concerned about, it’s just interesting that the two stupidest things ever said in this debate are linked by a five-figure donation.

* They also warn against letting small chilren watch the G-rated Ponyo.  I’m smelling a bias against cute animated fish here…

** The Council and I are actually in agreement on this one, though likely not for the same reasons.

Surprisingly few rats!

Let me preface this review: I’m not really a fan of this kind of game. In fact, frequent readers have probably heard/read about my flailing hatred of the RPG genre in general. Having watched Matt and various others walk through mindnumbingly boring landscapes, interact with dull voiced peasants while constantly being ’surprise attacked’ by various rats/mutant rats while searching for armour made out of a glass, for what seems like days on end, I have nursed extreme prejudice against all games of their ilk. I’ve tried playing them, but I can never get more than a couple of hours past character creation.

The one exception was Knights of the Old Republic, and even then I ended up quitting half way through because it was easier to watch Matt play than slog through leveling up and grinding. All I wanted to know was who the main character was, whether Bastilla was good or not and if you could hook up with Carth. This lead to my standard game playing trick of ’set it to baby-easy, play through, auto level up’. Weak as piss, right?

That’s probably what kills me. These games are meant to be immersing you in an interactive storyline that compels you to keep playing to find out what happens next. Nothing is more tedious to me than three seconds of storyline followed by twelve hours of collecting the hides from seventeen rats to make a rat blanket to warm a peasant who turns out to be a rat god with acne. Fucking … I don’t know. I just can’t justify putting in time into such a fruitless exercise. How does this help the story? It doesn’t, so I’m not interested. But obviously that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. I’ve seen Matt play Elder Scrolls: Morrowind for thirteen hours straight, with very little idea of what is going on around him, so it must be engaging on some level. There’s some kind of ‘hook’ that allows days worth of time to be squandered on finding every candle in the map and putting it in your house.*

Finally, with Dragon Age: Origins, I think I’ve found what that hook is.

Kicks like a 500 tonne, scaley, firebreathing mule.

Bioware have created plenty similar RPGs – KotOR, Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights – to great success (I was actually surprised to find that they’d made the sequel to one of my old favourites, MDK). They’ve got plenty to recommend them in this field and few people truly hate on the games they make. So how can this one game be different to the others, all of which I’ve tried and quit early with alarming consistency over the years?

Well, for one, Dragon Age: Origins gets immediately to the action. You character’s initial situation (along with your sex, race and class) can be selected from one of six separate origins – all beginning in a different area of the map, in differing circumstances, all with alternate cultural approaches to the main plot. Naturally I chose Hot Noble Human Warrior Chick, because I like identifying with my characters.

Your faithful doggy companion! I used him once in the whole game.

Set in a medieval-style country called Ferelden, the DA:O story is one of War. Horrible, evil creatures, called the Darkspawn, have boiled out of the underground byways once lived in by the dwarves and are slowly obliterating the countryside. In Hot Noble Human Warrior Chick mode, your Father and Brother are about to leave for the frontline with their friend Lord Howe. Going with them is Duncan, a member of the elite Grey Warden knights, who shows professional interest in you as a warrior. You find out that the Grey Wardens are legendary warriors with a link to the Darkspawn, both revered and feared. From there, it’s all betrayal, killing of children and the slaughter of your parents before you run away with Duncan to become a Warden.

From there it’s a battle, more betrayal and kingslaying, and then you’re a wanted Warden with a bunch of contracts saying you can call on the three Races (human, elf and dwarf) to fight along side you in the coming Big Nasty Battle ™. Gathering the  army is what takes up most of the game. It’s your standard do X, Y and Z to gain the trust of A, B and C. While the storyline is neither groundbreaking nor simplistic, it manages to marry an engaging emotional content with good acting, infinite options for moral ambiguity and enough frustrating personal calls to have you kicking yourself in the ass for killing some kid. Personally, I try to keep my character good with a hint of wild romantic, in most games I play purely because sometimes the guilt of being evil gets to me. (I am obviously very good at playing the wet blanket character, otherwise known as ‘The Vulcan’.)

"I wonder if I can use this flower to wipe the blood off?"

One of the things Bioware excels at is world building, and in DA:Origins, the codex (those handy scrolls and books people just leave lying around) is phenomenally extensive. They’ve created this world from the underground up and  the codex ends up being a George R R Martin style epic because of the attention to detail, which seems to be very similar to A Song of Ice and Fire incidentally. People who have enjoyed that mammoth epic will get a lot out of this game.

While the game is a standard turn based battle, it doesn’t really do much to simplify or build on the controls of any previous games (the most similar I’ve played being KotOR). It’s still slash-wait-cast-wait-die-wait. You end up spending quite a good deal of time micromanaging every damn character in your party as well, just to make sure they don’t just stand there and wait to die. There are tactical slots available, which made the AI easier to deal with, but I ended up picking my three favourite characters and sticking with them through the majority of the game, just because constantly cycling through became too frustrating. One problem I had was the radial menu. The number of times I lost what I was doing because I accidentally clicked it on and off is embarrassing. But I’m a novice, so those used to these extensive menu shennanigans should have no problem. In fact, those with more skills in this style of gameplay will find the ability to pause during battles to reassign, heal and play around with tactics a great boon.

We could go on and on about who's mother this is, but really, we all know it's yours.

Another irritation I had was the constant inane battle comments. After 3 hours of playing, I went out to see people and found myself saying such witticisms as ‘Would you like a ladder so you can get off my back?’ aloud. As the main character, you manage to say a hell of a lot without actually speaking, but as soon as you get to a battle, you DO. NOT. SHUT. UP.  I could have done without the constant ‘RARR! JUST CALL ME THE REAVER HAHAHAHA’. I’ll call you something love, but it won’t be as nice as reaver. I think this is possibly why I never slept with one of my companions. I bought plenty of hookers, but no-one, not even the bisexual elf assassin wanted anything to do with me because I rabbited on during battle. Or it could be because I was constantly splattered in blood.

Unattractive main characters aside, Dragon Age: Origins gives the gamer a rich, well plotted and engrossing world in which to immerse themselves. While providing enough battles for the easily bored, the epic fantasy storyline plays backdrop to some fairly mature and interesting character interaction. The gameplay provides a solid standard, making it a great way to introduce the n0vices and giving plenty to enjoy for seasoned veterans.

The Verdict:

Pros: Beautiful world, fitting soundtrack and epic proportions, great character interaction and engaging storyline. This is what an RPG should be, right? Also, Tuvok from ST: Voyager voiced one of the elves! And so did Captain Janeway! That’s a stamp of excellence if ever I saw one.

Cons: “Would you like a ladder so you can get off my back?” No bitch, I’d like a mute button so you can get out of my head. Also, not enough actors from ST: Voyager.

Overall: It’s a perfect RPG, as far as I’m concerned, though perhaps only because I managed to stick with the damn thing.  Story, combat and character all come together flawlessly to make Dragon Age: Origins a master work of fantasy.  Hailed by critics and genre-haters alike? Surely this is a full 5 out of 5 kind of game!

* Matt did this. And took photos of it. Bloody hell.

Every copy of Imagine Horsez is doing a completely different kind of damage

Just when you thought this debate couldn’t get any fucking sillier…

First it was gamers being more dangerous than outlaw bikie gangs.  That was pretty hard to believe, right?  Well steel yourselves, because (a drumroll please) apparently the link between gaming and youth crime is even stronger than the link between smoking and lung cancer.

The abovementioned claim is made by Dr Wayne Warburton of the Council on Children and the Media in this news story aired on Channel 10 last night after he addressed a parliamentary inquiry on street violence.  He quotes a study claiming that “the average child in their childhood sees 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence”.  From this, we’re apparently meant to make the leap that games are more strongly linked to youth crime than smoking is to lung cancer.

If you go digging for a bit and pull out the Council on Children and the Media’s actual submission to the inquiry, however, you’ll find that the “gaming is worse than smoking claim” comes from one study done by an Amercian researcher that refers to violence in all media (TV, movies and music), not just games.  In fact pretty much every source Council references in their submission talks about television or the media as a whole, not games.

We also find that the claim about children “seeing 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence” is from another American study which refers specifically to television, not games.

Here’s my favourite part.  The Council’s own submission notes that:

“The actual violence resulting from media exposure may be limited to children who are, for various reasons, more vulnerable to this material.  For the majority of children there may be subtle shifts in beliefs (more desensitised, more likely to believe violence is inevitable) but not enough to cause harm”

-Council on Children and the Media parliamentary inquiry submission, page 6

So… exposure to voilence in all forms of media (not just games) may result in a change in children’s attitudes towards violence in real life, but the effects are unlikely to be enough to cause harm without other factors also coming into play.  Well blow me down with a fucking feather, we’ve somehow twisted this into games being more closely linked to youth crime than smoking is to lung cancer…

A lot of things piss me off about this story, not least of which is the lazy journalism.  The parliamentary inquiry that Warburton was addressing was on the topic of street violence, not video games.  Which is why the sound bite from Angry Anderson seems out of place – he wasn’t talking about video games at all*.  It’s also why there’s seemingly unrelated images of nightspot violence at the start of the story**.  And the bit about how gamers plot terror attacks against civilians in COD: Modern Warfare 2 simply isn’t true.  Good thing the story was only concerned with violence, otherwise we’d have to hear about the depraved sex in Mass Effect all over again.

The other major problem here, of course, is that everyone is ignoring the point even the government’s own discussion paper on the R18+ issue conceded: there are studies agreeing with both sides but the science on this issue is inconclusive and is likely to remain that way because any study that would give a meaningful answer would ALSO involve exposing children to age-inappropriate games and that shit is unethical, son.

I’m not going to argue against the idea that exposure to graphic content in the media desensitises people.  I think it’s pretty obvious that it does.  That goes for children AND adults and for not just for violence.  If it weren’t true, more people would care that Lady Ga Ga doesn’t bother to wear pants and the violence in A Clockwork Orange would be just as shocking now as it was in 1972.

But since we live in a society that, allegedly, values free speech, freedom of choice and freedom of the press the solution seems obvious to me: label and rate things appropriately so that people can make informed decisions and restrict childrens’ access to material that is likely to be harmful to them.  Give us an R18+ rating for video games, the same as we have for movies.

Which is why I don’t understand the position of the Council on Children and the Media: after making all this fuss, they want MA15+ to stay as the highest rating for video games.

Australia’s system for the classification of games presently excludes games which would be classified R18+ or higher. This provision should be retained as it prevents the more extreme violent games from being in the home hire and sale system and accessible to the young .

-Council on Children and the Media parliamentary inquiry submission, page 9

If we had an R18+ category many of the games that are currently shoehorned into the MA15+ category would become R rated so there would actually be less violent games available to children.  Let’s face it, the vast majority of games that we ban would still be banned if we had an R18+ rating.  And if children are getting access to R18+ material we’ve got an enforcement problem, not a classification problem.

*facepalm*

Comments closed last week on the government’s R18+ discussion paper (I made my submission – did you?) and as mentioned above, this parliamentary inquiry has nothing to do with video game ratings so it’ll likely be a while before we hear anything definitive on the issue.  Let’s just keep our fingers and toes crossed that the argument doesn’t get any stupider in the meantime.

* The thrust of his submission was actually that other cultures are to blame for street violence because (I’m paraphrasing here) ”Aussies fight with their fists and don’t kick a man when he’s down”.  That’s another claim that’s worthy of a longwinded diatribe if I were inclined to give any credence to the opinions of singers who are only really famous because they once shared a stage with Bon Scott *nods*

** I thought low taxes on alcopops, late night licences and/or the Easter Bunny were to blame for all those attacks anyway.