Final Questions

If you have one, what's your favorite console right now? Do you own a portable gaming device? Also, the PC your play your games on, did you build it yourself, buy a prebuild, or did someone build it for you?

-qmakowski

Heya mak!

Hmm... favorite console? Probably the 360. But I like sports games so I'm biased. I think the Wii is the best console of this generation though. Over a year ago now I spent some time mocking it, until I saw a video of how the controller would work and I instantly said it was going to win this war. The Wii is definitely a step in the right direction for gaming, though it's going to need refinement in future generations.

Right now I'm playing on the Dell XPS 710 that we got for review and Dell never asked for back. Shh! It's a ridiculously powerful machine but I can't use the Sound Blaster X-Fi on it. The EMI from the video card just creates too much static and drives me bonkers. Maybe it's not a problem with speakers but with headphones it is. Instead I'm using the USB sound card thingy from the SteelSound 5H V2 I have. Minimal static.

Usually I build my own systems though. I used to be a pretty hardcore overclocker though I've found less need to do so over the years. I still remember the Pentium 133 I built, and then the K6 200 I replaced it with, followed by a Celeron 466, Pentium III 600, Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz, Pentium 4 2.0A, ... oddly enough, I can't remember what my previous computer had! I think a P4 3.0GHz.

After a while it all becomes routine :)

-Jakub



Another question, what do you think of the whole ManHunt 2 stuff that was going on. Do you really think these AO rated games should be banned completely and force the creators to "dumb down" their ideas?

-qmakowski

Are they dumbing down ideas or simply not being allowed to cash in on cheap thrills?

Let's say you sleep with a woman of... loose morals. You wake in up the morning. Do you want to wake up next to her, or would you prefer to escort her out of the house before then? Sure you got your rocks off, but in the morning you're not feeling especially great about it.

On the other hand, if you've been dating a girl you adore for a few weeks and finally hit the sack together, you're not going to want her out of your bed, never mind your house!

One's a cheap thrill, the other isn't. You don't feel great about indulging in the former and the latter is fulfilling.

Manhunt, to me, is the cheap thrill. Oooh! You put a plastic bag over someone's head and punched his face in! Or you stuck a broken beer bottle in through under his jaw! Shocking, riveting, raw!

Despite working in an industry where THE controversy is video game violence, and often finding myself defending games against stupid mainstream media and the Jack Thompsons of the world, I think Manhunt 2 is just that cheap thrill again.

However you may feel about it, AO games don't get banned, they just get limited exposure. Wal-Mart won't carry them, and that's a pretty big deal, but it's not a ban.

AO and other ratings are going to become an issue when the ESRB becomes politicized to keep indie developers out of stores, like the MPAA ratings are. Read about the ordeals that Trey Parker and Matt Stone had to go through with their indie Orgasmo compared to the Paramount-produced South Park: The Movie, and getting them rated.

-Jakub

Thumbnail image shamelessly stolen from Sagelights at deviantart. Apologies :)