Here are two moral dilemmas I recently stumbled upon. They are both about what kind of content is suitable for children. Now, the German government is really touchy this subject, especially in computer games. I strongly disagree with banning media – why not simply setting a higher minimum age?! However, I think we all agree that some kind of content simply isn’t suitable for children. But what about those two:

Violence against Robots

I recently watched The Clone Wars (or rather let it run in the background). It was obviously abysmal. But I was surprised about some quite violent scenes. Especially, there are some “funny” scenes where robots are pushed of a cliff and fall into their deaths just for fun. In Star Wars, robots exhibit features very similar to humans. They can speak, make decisions, have a unique identity and can feel pain (remember the droid torture scene from The Empire Strikes back). I also suspect they can be broken beyond repair – they die. Showing characters die in a children’s movie is bad enough but showing death and pain in a lighthearted and casual way is really bad taste.

Do intelligent movie robots have human rights? Should violence against them be treated just like violence against human characters? There are aliens in that movie after all and violence against them is treated seriously. Isn’t this even some kind of hidden racism? It is somewhat an absurd situation. We need to determine the moral value of a hypothetical scenario because already the display of that hypothetical scenario has implications.

By the way, in Episode 1 they kinda jumped that bullet by making the robot army remote-controlled. This way, the robots appeared more mechanical. In The Clone Wars, there is no such backdoor.

Lego Adult Content

Lego nowadays releases toys based on successful movies. They inevitably create interesting moral dilemmas. For example, you might have noticed that there are no Nazis in their Lego Indiana Jones toyline. There are just some vanilla uniformed military bad guys. They don’t have the swastika insignia. It sounds absurd at first. If kids play with the toy they must have seen the movie and they know that the bad guys are Nazis. On the other hand, Lego might simply just avoid the PR-Nightmare of things like Neo-Nazi Lego enthusiasts re-creating Triumph des Willens with minifigs.

But there is more. The heart removal scene from Temple of Doom is supposedly missing in the Lego Indiana Jones game. Why? There are other violent scenes where minifigs loose their heads or are cut at the waist or even explode into pieces. Why would they make a stop at removing internal organs? Is it just a practical choice – minifigs have removable heads but no removable hearts?

So that’s it. Just two questions I’ve been digesting since yesterday. What do you think?

By the way, after playing the demo I’ve ordered Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. I have this hunger for a simple action game, I love the humor of it and I would like to try the co-op functions. Also: The Euro almost matches the Pound by now and so you get games from UK quite cheap (I got mine here)!

Catan
I’ve been playing some more Catan in the last days. After a meal, it’s nice to pop in a multiplayer match. Because I ALWAYS loose, I get frustrated quickly and leave the console rather then getting stuck in front of it. Generally it is very good. It could use some interface tweaking though. Very important and useful functions are often invisible. For example, there is a screen that shows how many resources are in play. This screen is quite important as you can consult it before you start trading to check what you can expect to get from others. The screen is shown by holding one of the trigger buttons. Although I generally like quasi-modes, there is no hint telling players that this function exists at all. As a result, players will request resources that nobody has and waste everybody’s time. Also, I don’t quite get why I have to press ANOTHER trigger button just to see how many points everybody has. The whole GOAL of the game is to collect points, why would such a vital information be hidden? It’s not like this one number takes up precious space.
Also, I ran against a poorly documented rule – it seems like you can’t build more than 5 settlements but the actual message box that pops up spells something like “No more space to settle”. I might have lost 2 games until I figured it out.
Of course, I’m just whining because I didn’t manage to score even one win online.

Grand Theft Auto 4
I played some more GTA4. Actually, more than I should have. It is very addictive. I think I got a good impression of the scope so far and I’m quite surprised. Compared to San Andreas, there is a lot of stuff missing. For example, San Andreas had a rudimentary car tuning system. I really like the cars in GTA4 and was looking forward to unlock that feature to mess around with them. I was surprised when I realized it was missing this time. Although it seems like a step backwards, on a second thought I think it was a good choice to leave it out. San Andreas was this bloated, convoluted behemoth. GTA4 is more focused, slimmer and polished. So you don’t have to choose the exact menu when you buy a burger and you don’t get fat and don’t have to hit the gym to get in shape. The title “GTA4″ is actually spot-on: it is a GTA3 remake, rather than a San Andreas sequel.

Also, I can’t believe I’m saying this but the story is really good – at least as good as a solid movie or TV series. The main character is very well fleshed out and lovable. There are cool plot twists and witty dialogue (not just funny but witty!). Because of the story and the refined boiled-down mechanics, I think this is the best one to start if you haven’t played the series yet (Yu-Chung: hint, hint!).

The only problem so far: Sady, this one is very true. :-/

After my recent comment on my early impressions of the X-Box 360 hardware, here are what I think about some of the games I’ve tried so far:

Continue reading “X-Box Game Impressions”

After Krystian’s post on how badly Microsoft treats their potential customers, here’s a rant on how much Autodesk’s licencing policy sucks.

Not stricktly a gaming issue, I decided that it still fits into this blog because most assets you’ll see in today’s commercial games are created with their tools. Not to advertise for them, just stating how this relates to the blog.

One last disclaimer: 3ds max is a trademark, property, product and whatever is relevant for Autodesk’s lawyers. I’ll be using the term “3ds max” in this post for brevity’s sake.

I’ve been using 3ds max for years, most intensively during my time at the NEON Studios as a production character artist. When NEON Studios closed, I purchased the program to continue working in the industry as a freelancer.

There, the bullshit starts.

Continue reading “Autodesk sucks”

I’ve updated the Currently Playing list. I consider the games further down the list still as games “I play”. I got in them to some point and I’m planning to finish them in the near future. In fact, I display them prominently in my flat so I remember they are there.

However, one week ago my colleague Yu-Chung Chen drew my attention on Mario Kart Wii. It wasn’t hard as I really liked the DS Version (System seller for me – even got the bundle). He and his brother were playing it regularly so I gave in to the peer pressure and joined them.

It’s awesome. Really. If you have a Wii, you want that game – it’s a no-brainer. I disagree with the gametrailers.com review. Yes, it is simpler now in some way but they haven’t broken it or anything. Beating the staff’s ghosts on Time Trial or finishing the Grand Prix with at least one star rating still requires skill and diligence. There were some major online improvements which really make the game shine. The DS version already had a solid online play but the Wii version pushes it a notch higher where it just works like a well-oiled machine producing tons of fun with your friends by the minute. I just wish they had included Wii Speak.

The gameplay tweaks and the steering wheel really make the game accessible for people with less game experience. I tried to bring my girlfriend to play Mario Kart for some time. It always failed for some reason even though it seem perfectly suitable for her. I was really disappointed the last time where I tried Double Dash to play cooperatively with her and even that didn’t work. With this version, it finally worked and I’m sure it is all about the steering wheel and the fact that you can set drifting on “Automatic Mode”. Keeping the kart on the track is difficult enough for her, no need to force her to remember to push the right button BEFORE she takes that nasty corner.

So I’ve been playing that every evening for a week now. A few days ago, I got my copy of Animal Crossing DS back and I played it for a couple of minutes with my after-dinner-coffee. I was away for 11 months so I have to de-weed the whole town now. Also, the girl I lend it to sold all my stuff and I had to get it back. On the bright side, she also bough a bigger house. The roof is pink now, though. But I must say, paying back virtual debt is not as fun when you have some REAL debt to pay off.

So, what are you playing right now?