Xbox: San Andreas Now For Adults Only

If you’ve had access to any gaming news of late, or any news of late, you surely have heard about how GTA:SA + Hot Coffee = lots of sex and a whole lot of hoopla.

Well, it looks like the argument against the content being a part of the game is lost, and GTA:SA now has been given an Adults Only rating from the ESRB.

Now, I’m as much a fan as anyone about the right for a game to have whatever content it wants in it (and be rated to reflect such content). But I cant understand how something like the degree to which the content that hot coffee unlocks was able to stay in the code. Was it an easter egg, and some dev is now totally screwed? Or was it left there on purpose with the knowledge of the team.

At any rate.. what makes this really silly, is how the game on consoles is also getting an adult only rating. Even when they can’t (as yet anyway) be modded.

Oh.. and it may be a little too late given like a ZILLION copys are already out there in the hands of kids.

Gamespot has an aritcle up on a game that has really piqued my interest.. Infected.

At its core, Infected plays like your typical third-person shooter. You’ll roam the city streets, looking for the infected so you can smear them all over the pavement. You’ll have a target-lock-on system that makes the gameplay pretty point-and-shoot, and you can also dash or use a 180 turnaround move for more-agile maneuvering. The process of purging a zombie is simple: Unload into it with your regular weapons–which include a pistol, a shotgun, a submachine gun, rocket-propelled grenades, and even the affectionately named BMFG–until it’s susceptible to being splattered by your blood bullets. Once the enemy’s health is low enough, one well-placed shot will splatter it all over the sidewalk. And the best part is, any nearby enemies caught in the spray will also be taken out, which means you’ll be able to set up some gnarly combos in the more crowded areas.

But wait, there’s more! Each level will have a real urgency to it, because at the outset, there are only a few infected citizens roaming the streets. But the longer you wait, the more innocent bystanders will be transformed into the slavering undead. So it certainly behooves you to get off your keister and get to slaying. The ratio of people to zombies is represented by a little meter at the top of the screen. If too many humans are infected, the mission will go into “viral overload,” causing the entire level to be flooded with enemies that will actively come after you, making you work a hell of a lot harder to stay alive. So, obviously, you won’t want to stand around twiddling your thumbs too much while the virus runs amok among the hapless populace.

Playing on the viral overload theme, there is indicators that show you just how “zombified” the city is. This reminds me of some neat little zombie simulators that were floating around the net not too long ago.

Reading on further… they talk about the game’s multiplayer components… and here’s where the game’s name REALLY takes on its meaning:

Planet Moon’s tagline for Infected is “infect the world with your PSP,” and really, that’s as apt a description as any of the game’s unique viral multiplayer component. Whenever you play a multiplayer match, the winner of that match will transfer his or her own unique version of Stevens to the loser’s game, like a virus. This will infect three of the loser’s single-player missions, making the enemies in that mission all take on the appearance of the winner’s custom character. What’s worse is that any health, speed, or weapon upgrades that player possessed when he or she beat you will carry over to those enemies, making them a whole lot tougher to defeat.

Once you’re infected by another player’s virus, you’ve got a couple of options. One, you can try to play through those three missions, and if you can beat them all, you’ll clear the infection. Two, you can challenge other players to a new multiplayer game, and if you win, they’ll catch the virus from you, rendering you cured. Needless to say, if enough people engage in unprotected multiplayer matches, your viral character could spread very far indeed. One of the niftiest features of Infected is that the final game will contain a world map that will literally show you all the players on Earth that currently possess your unique virus.

Ok.. now THAT’S an original idea. Sounds fun.. very fun. I can’t wait to see how she plays.

We’re not sure when we’ll see this game, but until then, my PSP will continue to be relegated to playing Venture Brothers downloads. That ain’t bad, but its no zombie game.

1UP.com Crucial Classics: Bionic Commando

A nice short read that looks back to the NES classic ‘Bionic Commando.’ My brother was far better at this one than I - and since there are skills required to pull off the acrobatics with effectiveness and flair - this was one of the first games I found entertaining just to watch him do his thing. Anyway, there’s some funny stuff in the article including how the original Japanese version was named “Top Secret: The Resurrection of Hitler”. Heh, silly Nazis. When will you learn?

‘Gameplay Monthly’ has a great preview of Stainless Steel Studios’ next RTS installment. Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War looks like it’s got a number of pretty good things going for it.

Obviously the game’s graphics look fantastic. Just look at them. Damn. Okay, so the buildings look a little flat, but the wood & water textures, and the units all put last years Rome Total War to shame. Speaking of RTW, battles in Rise and Fall also promise to be large in scope with thousands of units at your control. New features include a deep naval battle engine, full scale buildings and fortifications with siege towers, etc. There’s also the “Hero Control” mechanism that places the player in direct control of a uber RTS unit. With WASD-control, you can hack through masses of troops and send orders to your formations from right there within the fight.

“Empire Earth” (Stainless Steel Studios’ premier game) provided content for 13 epochs (ages) from Stone Age, through Medieval and up to “Future” tech. The massive breadth was impressive but the developer’s focus on quanity left the game’s art a bit shallow and generally not too engaging. Rise and Fall has only 4 factions, and each has unique artwork for their 20 units types. IMHO this seems like a wise move based on Rise and Fall’s colorful and stylized screenshots ( in contrast, look how flat the 13-epoch Empire Earth 2 landed ).

Naval Combat will include ship to ship boarding parties and the ability to ram ships. Vessels will splinter and sink while crewmen look on from damper places.

Check the Rise and Fall the preview if anything I’ve written sounds interesting. It has some great information in a nice compact Q&A session.

IGN: State of the RPG: PC

Looks like IGN has a very nice roundup of the history of the RPG on the PC, and where it stands to date. There is even a section at the end with a directional wish list for the future games.

If anyone was wondering more about What an RPG is, or how they have evolved, this is a great read for you.

Star Trek Online - Perpetual Entertainment

Light on details, but at least its a start.

The Star Trek MMO website is up.. and eagerly awaiting content to fill it

Sad to say buy Mythic has decided to put their new futureistic - Roman themed MMO on hold, while they work on more DAOC and their new liscence Warhamer.

Gamespy has the sad news.

Recently a new MonkeyGames reader, indicated that she was getting totally lost with our posts. Namley that we were bandying about terms and phrases that made no sense to her. As a person who was trying to understand more about games (a laudable goal indeed!) we were talking right over her.

So for those of you who may not be as up to speed on the lingo. Here are a few links to some online dictionaries that reference words we might throw around.

Its an ugly site, but it seems to have some good First Person Shooter definitions.
http://www.planetquake.com/tiporium/dictionary.htm

Here is an MMO lexicon: (MMO is short for MMORPG .. look it up in the lexicon)
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001313.php

Also.. it seems many words have made it into the Urban Dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com
(see “zerging” , “twink” (meaning 4!), “alt”.. etc )

When using the Urban Dictionary you may have to scan by several meanings in other contexts besides video games, but it seems that typically one is there that makes sense.

Also if you’re really stumped.. just post a comment, and we’ll try to respond quickly!

I nearly did this with my PSP on Mt. Washington and take a pic for the site, but I forgot my PSP at the bottom (DOH!). This was probably a good thing, as it rained and hailed a bit on the way up. Also.. i never had to kill time at base camp adjusting to altitude.

Anywhoo.. some brave souls brought their DSs up Mt. Everest as a way cut some of the boredome of waiting out storms and altitude adjustments. Gamespy has the interview.

GameSpy: Wouldn’t it have been smarter to leave the DS at home, thus lightening your load?

Neal Mueller: Well, they are very light. And when you go up to base camp, which is 18 thousand feet, the yaks carry your stuff. But I did have to carry it myself when we went from 18 thousand feet to 26 thousand feet, which isn’t a trivial amount of distance, and it’s pretty vertical as well. But it’s so light, and it’s really small, so it doesn’t really much at all. Plus, we could charge it with these solar panels, and we had to bring solar panels anyway to charge up the radios and the satellite phone.

Chris Grubb: Though the batteries worked better if you warmed them up with your hands a bit first.

Read the rest of the interview at: http://gba.gamespy.com/articles/632/632356p1.html

The Escapist is a brand new online-only magazine devoted to the culture of gaming. The first weekly “issue” is out, and I gotta say, there are some excellent reads in there. This isn’t a standard review site devoted to product reviews - like Gamespot or Gamespy. Think of it more as an editorial outlet, or perhaps a New York Times Magazine of gaming.

The article “Culture Wargames” is especially good.

From their About page:

Each issue, The Escapist explores a central theme. Tuesday’s main publish addresses head-on the topics relevant to gamers, while the weekend extra, Casual Friday, explores the lighter side of these heavy issues.