Zolpidem overdose. Zolpidem….

Check out my domain sometime….

I think the fate of Six Days has a lot to do with the misunderstanding of video games in news and popular culture. The news reporters who claim kids are rewarded with “points” for killing cops and having sex with prostitutes in the various “levels” of GTA perpetuate the idea that the medium isn’t capable of tackling serious, though-provoking subject matter in an intelligent way.

I’m interested in seeing if Atomic Games can find another publisher so we can actually get our hands on this game. I’ve read that actual troops involved in Phantom Fury in Fallujah were the ones to suggest the idea for the game’s setting. I would love to see the end result.

(Of course, an Okami is fine too.)

The travel time spend going back and forth is ridiculous, and for an area you need to visit so many times it really should have more than one entrance.

Then again it is human nature to fall back into an offensive mode when offended. Target a completely different group in a similar way as gamers have been by legislators and the news and everything else, I’d bet that they’d react in a similar way as the serious gamers. Imagine what the response would be if say, a religious book was found containing information about some wars (as object lessons about the power of the religions god/s/ess/esses in turning an unfavorable fight into victory for their side, something not at all uncommon in most world religions) and the media used this to say that the killer decided his/her faith would protect them as they killed all the unbelievers. My guess is the immediate response from the members of that religion would be similar to the responses that can be found on game politics, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar sites spring up if the lawmakers tried to get the religion declared as not a real one and thus able to be a legally forbidden faith (compare to the attempts to get video games declared as not art and therefore able to be banned under anti-obscenity laws).

This holds true regardless of what group is targeted so long as it has members that are passionate about the group, because it triggers a fight or flight response once the members feel their way of life is threatened. When the choice is to fight it, like all combative situations, becomes an us or them situation in the minds of those involved. This leads to there not even being a desire to actually understand the other side, and eventually leads to an increasing number of kneejerk responses whenever something new is posted.