Alt Text: More 'Filthy' Games to Drive Fox News Crazy
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A ridiculous TV news report incorrectly tarring Mass Effect for explicit sex scenes yields unexpected results: Wrongheaded "experts" get famous. Me too, please. Commentary by Lore Sj&#246;berg.
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Also: U.S. cyberwar games turn into hacker melee. See what people are saying on News.com Extra.
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Tycho:  We never sit down with the firm intention of making another Bioshock comic - indeed, we intend the opposite - but somehow Bioshock comics continue to be written.  One day, science will pierce these mysteries.  Until then, you'll simply have to endure more strips regarding interactive storytelling's electronic opus.  My recovery from this weekend's rigors would be quite accelerated if I were not up until two or more every night, which is to say morning, hacking and slashing my way through the new releases like some malarial jungle guide.  I put Bioshock to bed last night, and theoretically this should be cause for joy, but I suppose it's like finishing a pie.  There is a whiff of accomplishment, semisweet - but the pie is gone.  Without pause, I slapped the input stud on the video switcher before the final cinema faded to black.  Hurling the gamepad into a knitting basket, I dug deep into the faultlines of the couch, producing a wiimote/nunchuk pair.  I've now played enough of Metroid Prime 3 to know that they've washed the filth of Red Steel completely from the system.  For awhile, I was doing that thing we sometimes do, playing until "the next savepoint," which so frequently becomes "until the savepoint after that," only to meld seamlessly into "until I can no longer see."  They've been spinning the tumbler at Retro for awhile on this one, trying to define first person on Nintendo's weird little chimera, and they've drilled down with enough diligence to find it.  No doubt some measure of the enthusiasm directed toward the game is due to the fact that people are actually using their Wii again, but that shouldn't diminish what they've done.    People have seen Corruption for a couple years, now, builds that bubbled up at different press events, and it's been slightly different each time.  I think they've moved some of the interactions since I last played it - things that were mapped to the nunchuck's gyro before are now handled by the wiimote's pointing device, and I understand why.  Gestures are a very immersive, intuitive means of interaction, but when they fail (or when they fail to express us correctly) they are Goddamned infuriating.  In a case when your hand is actually "present" in the simulation - such as when your left hand is pulling, then twisting, then pushing forward - those motions need to be as authentic as possible.  They must have chosen the perfect translation of the pointing device over the more "correct" left hand interaction.  It creates situations where you are using a different hand than your character, but because the motion is really one to one it still feels pretty good.    That's the long way of saying what you could learn in five minutes, sitting in front of it.  This entire exercise has only stoked my ardor.  It is my intention to begin playing this game at ten, and continue doing so until light begins to creep under the curtains.
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New consoles are old news. What's hot now? Sequels to old games.
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Also: Windows worm travels with Tetris [News.com Extra]
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Tycho:  We put Monday's strip up early, so you might have seen it already - but you might not be familiar with the EGM interview it is based on, an excerpt of which appears here.  I sometimes worry about appearing partisan in these communiques, but it is not my job to be fair.  I'm not a journalist, I'm a consumer.  I don't buy one product from each company in the interests of some karmic ideal, and I don't need to purge my posts of wrongthink because I haven't produced something suitable for use as a press release.  Sony is grinding down their goodwill with every smug, psychotic interview, and someone needs to tell them so in clear terms.
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Want to get away from the Iraq war, slanted news reporting and the mud-slinging presidential election campaign that probably lies ahead?
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While it didn't surprise me that Nintendo games dominated the top 10, I was appalled at what I learned. Check out this and other original content from CNET's blog network.
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A new video-game publisher wants to put creative power back in the hands of the little guy. Plus: Halo 3 button lets you mute whiney players. In Game|Life.
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Sleek new specs take playing games or watching movies the a whole new (possibly sickening) level. In Game|Life.
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The maker of a documentary about Fox News offers raw footage of his film online for others to re-edit into new 'mixes.' With the spread of broadband and cheap filmmaking software, film may become remixers' favored medium. By Daniel Terdiman.
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By Greg Miller, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.  Feb. 1--The concept of getting news from a video game console seems odd,  but my Nintendo Wii -- purchased to beat up turtles and shoot blue shells --  has started giving me the lowdown on the world.   The News Channel went live Friday.
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Should Fox News keep relying on a political reporter who privately mocked John Kerry as a well-manicured "metrosexual"?
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Comment Dirty, and getting dirtier
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Romantic whimsy is hell. Either that, or press junkets.
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Tycho:  Positive Sony news here, at Penny Arcade?  I know, right?  We shall redouble our efforts.  The story all this was based on has been changed to say that none of it is true, or that very little of it is true (depending on who you ask), but if you're asking me I think the original story hit pretty close to the mark.  The alternative - which is to say, that xFire technology would be used for a single game and no others - suggests that their service will be another briar patch of vendor "interpretations" of an online community, which can't possibly be true.  I refuse to believe that, in this generation, they would leave something like this to chance.
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Plus: eBay outlines policy on racist language. [News.com Extra]