I really should have played Puzzle Quest on PSP or DS.
This is really, really bad timing. School work? What's that?
I should get someone to hide my 360 so I can't play this for a couple weeks. I just can't stop.
commonlogic Blog
Okami
by commonlogic on Comments
I bought Okami about a week and a half ago as a reward for surviving my archival Diplomatics midterm.
I told myself I'd wait until the winter break to play it, but it's just sitting there on top of my TV, beckoning me to open the cellophane.
Ugh...must...resist...
I told myself I'd wait until the winter break to play it, but it's just sitting there on top of my TV, beckoning me to open the cellophane.
Ugh...must...resist...
Politics and Video Games
by commonlogic on Comments
I really don't have time to keep another blog on a regular basis, but I have some thoughts that need to be written down that I think fit best here. Masters degrees suck the fun out of life.
About two years ago, I got back into video games after taking a very long hiatus. The last system I bought before an xbox was a Sega Genesis (which, thankfully, I still have). Due to my extended absence from the world of video games, I seem to have missed out on all of the crazy political posturing against the video gaming industry. Maybe I was too young to notice before, but nowadays it seems like it's happening more than ever. The interesting thing is, however, that it's not happening in Canada.
In Canada, elections have more to do with the preservation of our universal health care system than they do with moral issues. Of course, last time there was the gay marriage issue and the legalization of marijuana is always up in the air, but really, in Canada we seem to be more interested in education and health care than we are in censorship and "oh noes, what about the children?" I honestly have no idea why American politicians like to focus on issues like games, but I do have some things that I'd like to say about it.
I find here that there is a tendency to want to find someone to blame and I guess that's where the problem lies for me. One often hears a lot of posturing in the US about family values and how they are so important to society. Of course, this is one of the reasons why republicans in general are so against gay marriage. The thing that is so crazy about all of this is that if family values are so important in the US, why should video game companies be blamed for children getting their hands on games they shouldn't be playing?
Developers and publishers have the right to make the games that they want to make and we have organizations like the ESRB who are responsible for informing the public in regards to the content of those games. Ratings are given to all games and in the case of M-rated games, you must be 17 in order to purchase them. If you have to be 17 to purchase an M-rated game, how are games like GTA getting into the hands of kids?
My money is on parents. I don't know how strict stores like EB are in the US, but I have seen employees at EB and Bestbuy ask for ID from teenagers purchasing M-Rated games and I (despite the fact that I'm 25 and look like I'm 25) have been carded on several occasions. If stores are ensuring that kids under 17 aren't buying M-rated games, then children must be getting these games through their parents.
So, do parents want their kids playing games like GTA? I tend to see myself as fairly liberal about a lot of things and if I had children, I would never let them play games like GTA or Gears of War until they were old enough and until I felt like I could judge whether or not they could understand the difference between fantasy and reality. I really believe that some parents are buying these games for their kids because they know nothing about them.
This is the thing that I find so crazy about all of this hatred toward games in American politics. If family values are so important in the US, shouldn't we be able to assume that parents there would have enough time to take a little interest in what their kids are doing? I think that is what the major problem is here, parents just aren't willing to make the effort to ensure that their kids aren't getting into things that they shouldn't and in fact, a lot of the time, they are causing the whole situation by buying M-rated games for their children. I know that it's bad politics to blame families for problems like this, but isn't it better to just call a spade a spade every once in awhile?
Meh, who knows, maybe I'm wrong, but it's all got to start somewhere and I have a hard time believing that stores are selling M-rated games to enough underaged kids to cause this much fuss.
About two years ago, I got back into video games after taking a very long hiatus. The last system I bought before an xbox was a Sega Genesis (which, thankfully, I still have). Due to my extended absence from the world of video games, I seem to have missed out on all of the crazy political posturing against the video gaming industry. Maybe I was too young to notice before, but nowadays it seems like it's happening more than ever. The interesting thing is, however, that it's not happening in Canada.
In Canada, elections have more to do with the preservation of our universal health care system than they do with moral issues. Of course, last time there was the gay marriage issue and the legalization of marijuana is always up in the air, but really, in Canada we seem to be more interested in education and health care than we are in censorship and "oh noes, what about the children?" I honestly have no idea why American politicians like to focus on issues like games, but I do have some things that I'd like to say about it.
I find here that there is a tendency to want to find someone to blame and I guess that's where the problem lies for me. One often hears a lot of posturing in the US about family values and how they are so important to society. Of course, this is one of the reasons why republicans in general are so against gay marriage. The thing that is so crazy about all of this is that if family values are so important in the US, why should video game companies be blamed for children getting their hands on games they shouldn't be playing?
Developers and publishers have the right to make the games that they want to make and we have organizations like the ESRB who are responsible for informing the public in regards to the content of those games. Ratings are given to all games and in the case of M-rated games, you must be 17 in order to purchase them. If you have to be 17 to purchase an M-rated game, how are games like GTA getting into the hands of kids?
My money is on parents. I don't know how strict stores like EB are in the US, but I have seen employees at EB and Bestbuy ask for ID from teenagers purchasing M-Rated games and I (despite the fact that I'm 25 and look like I'm 25) have been carded on several occasions. If stores are ensuring that kids under 17 aren't buying M-rated games, then children must be getting these games through their parents.
So, do parents want their kids playing games like GTA? I tend to see myself as fairly liberal about a lot of things and if I had children, I would never let them play games like GTA or Gears of War until they were old enough and until I felt like I could judge whether or not they could understand the difference between fantasy and reality. I really believe that some parents are buying these games for their kids because they know nothing about them.
This is the thing that I find so crazy about all of this hatred toward games in American politics. If family values are so important in the US, shouldn't we be able to assume that parents there would have enough time to take a little interest in what their kids are doing? I think that is what the major problem is here, parents just aren't willing to make the effort to ensure that their kids aren't getting into things that they shouldn't and in fact, a lot of the time, they are causing the whole situation by buying M-rated games for their children. I know that it's bad politics to blame families for problems like this, but isn't it better to just call a spade a spade every once in awhile?
Meh, who knows, maybe I'm wrong, but it's all got to start somewhere and I have a hard time believing that stores are selling M-rated games to enough underaged kids to cause this much fuss.
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