Don't look in his eyes, he can smell fear

Panic in the streets today, as a recent study undertaken by the University of Rochester has found that people who play first-person shooters make decisions up to 25% faster than people who play more family orientated titles.

The study took a test group of 18-25 year olds and split them into two groups.  One group clocked 50 hours of fragging in Unreal Tournament and Call of Duty 2, while the other group spent an equal amount of time playing The Sims 2.  After gaming, participants were given a series of audio and visual perceptual tests.  While the ratio of correct answers was around the same, participants in the action gaming groups came to their conclusions consistently faster than their simulation gaming peers.

… researchers found that video game players develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this benefit doesn’t just make them better at playing video games, but improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday activities …

-University of Rochester, confirming our fears

Note the results of this study too.  It’s not that action gamers answered more questions correctly than other gamers, just that they were quicker in making up their minds.  This effectively means that if an action gamer makes a bad decision, he makes it far faster than a mere Joe 12-pack could.

And if that’s not enough reason to be shitting your pants in terror, this is the same university which claimed in 2007 that playing action video games sharpens gamers eyesight by ~20%.  So not only are gamers more prone to violence (something which incidentally they’re completely desensitized to) but they can decide to be violent 25% faster and use their hawk-like eyes to carry the violent act out.

It’s the clear the only response governments around the world can now take is to quietly mobilise their respective military forces, and scatter Cheetos in front of key staging areas with the hopes of delaying the hyper-aware yet hopelessly snack food addicted hordes.

How can people continue to ignore the warning signs?  Science is telling us to remain ever vigilant against this menace, friends!  Or at least try and limit your gaming to titles like Pony Friends 2 and Imagine! Babbies!

Art on loan (and "slightly" altered) from museumofchildhood.org.uk

We’ve been hearing a lot about hardcore and casual gamers this week and, for once, not just in forum flame wars. The defining announcements coming out of E3 have primarily been catering towards the family market. Microsoft’s controller-less Kinect, Playstation’s motion controller Move and the sans-glasses 3D of the Nintendo 3DS are all products geared with an “everybody plays” approach.

Which has lead, perhaps understandably, to a lot of backlash from gamers and reporters alike. There’s been no question in anyone’s mind that Nintendo made far and away the best presentation this year, followed by Sony and then Microsoft in a far-distant third. While both the 3DS and the Move both demonstrated some interesting and innovative applications for core gamers, viewers could only sit bewildered as Kinect showed off a series of upgraded Wii-style games and training regimes. Playing jump-rope with a tiger, running up and down on the spot, air-steering a cart, while the tech might be somewhat impressive it was content for casual gamers and if you weren’t a fan of first-person shooters then it was really the only thing on show.

Which has reignited the time-tested argument over core and casual gaming once again. But before we all start screaming “fucking casuals” at our E3 recaps once again, maybe we should stop and think about exactly how casual all of our games have become.

A couple of months back Moose discovered his old Nintendo Entertainment System covered in a layer of dust in storage and, Moose being Moose, decided to come and clutter up my ever shrinking lounge-room with yet another console.  He was interested to see if, as a gamer, I’d retained my ability to play retro games or if I’d continually adapted my playing style to whatever platform was currently in favour.  To this end he made me play several games he’d had bundled up with the console: Solstice, Terminator 2 and The Adventures of Bayou Billy, just to name a few.

Long story short, I didn’t fare so well.  Over time the ability to save your game’s progress has become integral to me, and to play games now without it feels like a strange and unusual punishment.  (more…)

I like science too. Here, I made you a venn diagram that accurately represents this research's findings.

So I don’t know how many of you were checking out page 17 of yesterday’s Herald Sun, but neatly sandwiched between a story about musical instruments being refused as hand-luggage and the supposed missing link between prehistoric and modern man was an interesting little piece about how gamers are quite likely to have bad teeth.  I’ve conveniently scanned it for you, or you can peruse the online version if you’d like.

In some research undertaken by the University of Iowa that would make Captain Obvious hang his head in shame, it’s apparently been established as a solid fact that young gamers are twice as likely to suffer from tooth decay because of their “propensity to wolf down sugary snacks and drinks”.  OK.  Fine.  No argument here.  As a man in his twenties who has to drink around a litre of Coke a day just to calm the shakes, I’ll admit to the fact that I’m probably not going to be the first in line to star in a Macleans ad.

But what baffles me is this: why the fuck are video games even being mentioned in this article at all?

Let’s look at the facts.  The study focuses on adolescent children from the age of 12 to 16, presumably because this can be an important time in regards to your dental health.  According to the research, as young gamers love to eat sugary snacks (as no doubt they presumably murder people and kill hookers on screen, tut tut), their chance of suffering tooth decay is twice as high.

But wait a second?  What’s this here in the results?

The research … also found that those who had parental rules regarding screen time and diet were less likely to eat or drink while watching TV and playing games than those who did not.

Wow, you think?  Good to see someone has finally gotten onto that whole “what causes tooth decay” issue.  Sugar is bad for enamel?  Really?  Why didn’t anyone tell us this earlier?

Of course, as the story goes on to mention, they did:

The findings were backed up by the vice-president of the Australian Dental Association, Anne Stewart.

“It’s not really a surprise,” she said. “These studies are backing up what is already known about the tooth decay process and we have been telling patients for years about the snacking problem.”

And that’s where this whole thing flies apart and justifies it’s page 17 status.  It’s not a video game problem, it’s a snacking problem, and in this study it’s inexorably tied to the parents of the children in question.  If they’d bothered to simply observe normal gamers in comparison to non-gamers, then maybe we’d have some conclusive evidence here, but all this studay actually shows is that people who don’t look after their teeth will eventually get bad teeth.  I hope you didn’t overshoot the budget on that one, University of Iowa!

Honestly, gaming has only been crowbarred in here to add some sensationalism to the research, just a flavour of the month to bash alongside the rather valid claims of links with childhood obesity and somewhat more questionable claims of increased violent tendencies.  I mean if they had of just published the findings that parents who let their kids eat candy all day increase their childrens’ vulnerability to tooth decay, people would have handed them the phone and told them it was the 1940′s calling for their research back.

So frankly parents, if you make sure to instill proper eating habits and oral hygeine in your children, you’re actually free to let them play as many games as they damn well want to.  Or if you’re still fretting over the whole matter, then why not combine the two activities?

This was the guy whose opinion was so valued that they were trying to buy him off?

I just read an article about the gaming industry buying off video game reviewers in exchange for favourable reviews.  How long has this been going on!?  Was I in the crapper when this became an option?  First off, I think we need to take into account where the reviewer in question worked: Zoo Magazine.  Now, I’m not ashamed to say, I’ve purchased this publication in the past.  I’ve thumbed through it and, most shockingly of all, read all the articles.  There is, however, one thing that I never did: take any of the reviews seriously.  The movie reviews were angled towards boobs and explosions, and it was a similar affair for their game reviews.  I can remember them giving the most recent Leisure Suit Larry 5 stars.  That was a sad day.  Honestly, if you’re dumb enough to follow the review in Zoo you deserve a crap game.

Now, the article goes on to say that there have been incidents in the past of video games buying advertising to help their pressure with that specific site or magazine.  Is anybody really going to take a 5 star review of The Ashes Cricket 2009 seriously, when there’s a giant banner with Ricky Ponting swinging his bat right next to it?

Here I am then, putting my name on the selling block.  I’ll say Heavy Rain has replay value!  I’ll say that the add-ons to Borderlands for the most part haven’t been pointless!  I can even do music: St Anger is the best Metallica album!  Watch as my word becomes tainted and people form their own opinions.

At the end of the day, what does this whole “cash for comments” event really change?  Nothing is the answer.  This is the one industry where the reviewers are more or less a guiding tool.  Yes, you occasionally come across sites that have impeccable standards, but they are few and far between.  The buzz created by games and the splash the game makes in the first day or two of sales is what will ultimately dictate the game.

So here’s a flip of the bird to the game industry for trying to take more money after creating ET on Atari.  In my opinion, they still owe us.

Feel free to stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

So we’ve been hearing about it’s development for a little while now, but today was the big PR push for Mana Bar, Brisbane’s one and only gaming ‘n’ grog nightspot.  Being an admitted fan of combining games and alcohol, the idea was always going to intrigue me.  Here’s some delicious press release:

Opening in February 2010, The ‘Mana Bar’ is the first licensed venue that will allow people to enjoy a drink while playing the latest video game systems.

Located Australia in the heart of Brisbane’s entertainment district the Mana Bar will feature a stylish geek chic interior design with multiple LCD screens attached to the walls with playable next-gen console systems. The venue will be accessible to a wider casual market, while still catering to the hardcore gamer crowd.

Entry to the venue will be free, with no charge to play the games. The Mana Bar has a 50 person maximum capacity, and will host many special events such as game release parties, guitar hero tournaments, trivia nights, launch events, and many more.

The whole concept has been cooked up by four Australian gaming enthusiasts: AustralianGamer’s ‘Yug’ Blomberg, Creative Assembly’s Pras Moorthy, Shay Leighton and … some other guy I didn’t quite catch the name of.  Must have slipped my mind.  Oh well, I’m certain some other site may have dropped his name at some point.

In all seriousness, I’m interested to find out how the whole thing goes when the bar opens up in late February.  Is it going to be a fun, creative place where gamers can hang out and drink, or simply a controller snatching console camp-a-thon?  I’d seriously love to find out the structure the boys are putting into place for use of the machines.  Meanwhile, I’m going to assume that the dubious drinking profits from a maximum of 50 engrossed gamers will be nicely offset by lucrative gaming industry functions and events.

Still, with no cover charge and free games on tap all night, it certainly sounds like something to check out for all you Brisbane folk.  Head over to the official site for more details as they come to hand!

EXTREME BRASS!

Drums, mic and guitar? And they’re now calling it Band Hero? Activision obviously never played in the school band as kids.

Well for those of you who feel that woodwind and brass have been decidedly slighted from the Hero franchise, you can rejoice this week as there’s now a shirt to suit the whole orchestra.

Returning this week to T-Shirt Hell, after having been assumedly sued right off the face of the internet previously, is the Band Geek Hero series of t-shirts. There are 25 different shirts all up, from Cello Hero to Bagpipe Hero, all fonted in the classic Guitar Hero style.

My advice? Get them while you can. Before the Activision legal team get wise!

Or get inspired for some more shovelware …

No more five o'clock shadow reviewers allowed

It’s been a surprising week down here in Australia for viewer’s of the ABC’s gaming show Good Game.  Monday’s episode broke the news that long time co-presenter Junglist has been given the boot and replaced with a new female presenter: Hex.  Almost no explanation was given to the viewership, other than that Junglist had taken a “behind the scenes” role on the show.

The show’s management has been rather tight-lipped about the whole affair all week, weathering a viewer backlash of monumental proportions, until today when an official statement was issued on the Good Game forums.  Here’s a sample:

For all sorts of reasons we are unable to tell you things that have happened over many months inside Team Good Game which have impacted on the production. That’s just real life folks. We know it leaves many questions unanswered but we have reached that point where we really can’t say any more than that.

But we can tell you this much…

The decision to take Junglist off air was not forced upon us by ABC Management and it’s one that is fully supported by all the GG team. We are gutted that it has come to this but in our opinion it absolutely had to happen.

Understandably upset with the whole situation, this would apparently be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Junglist, who up until today had honoured his confidentiality clause to the letter.  Further on in the same forum post, however, Junglist dropped a little hard knowledge:

I feel now as if I’m being professionally attacked, so here’s a truth bomb. In the meeting where I was told I would be replaced, the reason given was they wanted a girl on the show. “Mass appeal” was a direct quote from that meeting. After a half-hour of explaining how they’ll lose their hardcore following, they responded that yes, they knew this, but expected to make up the numbers with a new following. “A show can grow beyond its hardcore base”, is another direct quote.

The decision was forced by ABC management, for a mass appeal direction, and will naturally be dumbed down for the loss of experience. Case in point: Monday night’s show. Both Forza 3 and Kingdom Hearts clearly written by people with no idea about those franchises. Hell, no one on the team even thought to correct the presenters on how to pronounce “Forza” correctly? Expect a lot more of that…

Both the show’s producer and co-presenter have different versions of events, but it’s obvious that this is something that has come down from high up in the ABC’s management.  To this effect, Junglist is hoping that irate viewers lay off new presenter Hex, as “all she ever did was accept a cool job”.  For those interested, you can join the Save Junglist movement, even if all evidence points to it being irreconcilable.

Hitler isn’t happy, people.

Now with 0.8% profit margin!

So while I was out and about today, saying farewell to a collection of highly average games, I got to talking to my local EB Games’ manager about the much maligned PSP-Go.  For those of you not reading inside the AU, EB Games is basically Australia’s main games-focused retailer.  The equivalent of GameStop in the US.  I asked him why EB Games wasn’t stocking PlayStation’s latest piece of portable tech.  His reaction?

You know what a store makes off your average new console?  Around three dollars or so.  Because of that, not selling a piece of hardware that is entirely reliant on downloadable products makes sense for us … [the PSP-Go] would cost more in advertising material than it would to sell.  I don’t think we’ll ever stock it.

Now while this obviously isn’t EB Games’ official stance on the issue, you can pretty much guarantee that every single store manager in the country is thinking the same thing.

So it seems like any people looking to pick up the diabolical DLC handheld in Australia better make their way to JB Hifi or Harvey Norman.  While the move is obviously purely profit driven, you can see their point.  Three dollars on a $450 sale isn’t going to inspire any retailer, especially when the customer you convince into a sale never needs to return to your store ever again.

The manager’s advice?

Save your money, just buy a PS3!

And don’t forget to trade in all your copies of Kane and Lynch toward your purchase, presumably.

Even Letterman is getting tired of these

So it’s a slow news week.  Everyone in the upper echelons of gaming (with maybe the exception of already afflicted Jim Sterling) has currently come down with a case of swine flu after attending Penny Arcade Expo.  On top of this, overwhelming popularity has seen The Beatles: Rock Band sell out of almost every major video game outlet before poor little old me could snag a copy.

So I was wondering, what does everyone else resort to when they’ve run out of creativity for any given week.  Content tables need to be filled, we can’t just let our readers go back to actually playing games, can we?

Then it hit me.  LIST ARTICLES.  I can’t believe it took me so long to remember what you’re supposed to do when you start scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Now, gentle friends, don’t get me wrong, there are many fine examples of list articles done well.  You may even notice that for all my bitchy sarcasm I’m guilty of writing them myself (inb4 “hypocrite!”).  But I’ll give you a quick example of what my main beef is.  Open up a new tab for me, and wander along to http://digg.com/gaming.  Scroll down, and I can almost guarantee you that at least half of the articles stuck to the front page are “Top Ten x We All y” or “8 Reasons x y‘s z With a Candlestick in the Dining Room”.

So rather than just keep recycling the same old topics, let’s try this one: Gaming’s Top Ten Kinds of Overused “Top 10″ Lists.

Shall we proceed?

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