Are gamers really that oblivious?

How is Blacksite: Area 51 subversive beyond maybe a texture or two? I just don't see it.

They went for a T rating specifically and cut out of the blood in the game to mock how nonviolent and blatantly unrealistic the Call of Dutys and various other militaristic first person shooters of the world are. You go to Iraq and you do not find weapons of mass destruction, rather heavily armed citizens and mutants paid for by American taxpayers. The final level is the Superdome (not literally, but pretty damn obvious), which is the base of operations for "the enemy" (who are Americans, albeit mutated). Et cetera, et cetera. How is that not subversive?

Gerstmann

Disaster: Your Irrational Behavior is BioShocking

Some may have noticed a job posting on Gamasultra yesterday with these words:

Some of the creators of the award-winning “Bioshock” are starting up a new studio in the Bay Area

Here's the story about that from someone.

2K Boston is still recovering - a good chunk of the BioShock team did not want to work with Ken ever again, and 2K definitely understood the sentiment and let them set up a new studio so that they can make Bioshock 2, leaving Ken with Project X. A good chunk of the other senior 2K Boston people who were sick of Ken but didn't move to San Francisco ended up scattering to other AAA developers instead. In Quincy, they're essentially rebuilding a team from almost scratch again.

It should be noted 2K Marin (the new SF studio) also consists of a few people from 2K Australia, the Quincy studio's Canberran counterpart.

UPDATE ONE: I misspelled disaster again.

UPDATE TWO: The job posting over at Gamasultra has had those words quoted above removed and that Project X is a new X-Com title, as previously reported by the internet and this post has been confirmed by one who left for San Francisco.

A question.

If I were to change the background color of this blog, what would you want it to be?

Also, the person who hacked (John from Cincinnati, like the HBO show) my blog has come forward and emailed me demanding an interview that goes up on the blog, I did that and am wondering whether to actually post it or not. Interesting person, still an attention whore who needs a new hobby, though.

It's time for strong leadership on the climate crisis.

Last week you may have seen that the world's leading scientists published their most authoritative warning on the climate crisis to date. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded immediately saying the effects are "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent global action will do. We are all in this together. We must work together."

A few weeks from now in Bali, Indonesia is our chance. Government leaders from around the globe will gather to take heed of the scientists' findings and to craft an international treaty that will halt global warming. A treaty that will be a platform for dozens of clean energy solutions that can provide essential services to developed and developing countries alike. The time is now.

Please click here to send a message to a leading member of the US government delegation to the Bali Climate Change Conference urging him to agree to a treaty that addresses the scientists' recommendations -- a treaty that will cut global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth.

This is not a partisan issue; it is a moral issue. Together we can chart a course that will make our children proud and provide a healthier future for them and for their own children. Left unchecked, however, we will have so violated our responsibility to future generations that no court of law or place of worship could look at humankind without making a harsh judgment.

UN Secretary-General Ban said about Saturday's IPCC report, "These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie. But they are even more terrifying because they are real..." With an eye toward the upcoming government meeting in Bali, Ban said, "The world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice. I expect the world's policy makers to do the same."

"Slowing and reversing these threats is the defining challenge of our age...It contains one overarching message for all of us: that there are real and affordable ways to deal with climate change."

Xylophone

1) What is 2K Boston's next game?
That secret Project X that has been in development since last year or so, shcould be announced next year and is possibly coming out in 2009. It's a tactical RPG ala Freedom Force or a game of some variety. You can guess the genre of the game coming after that in the year we made contact.
2) That Max Payne 3 that some Canadian Rockstar studio is working on may be pushed back to 2009, might take crown of the new Duke Nukem Forever (since DNF is coming out next fall) as development was supposedly started from scratch when said developer took mantle of Max Payne 3 last year
3) What is the title Eidos Montreal [will initiate] work on [in 2008]?
It is from one of these franchises: Legacy of Kain, Thief, or Fear Effect (the last title in that series was canceled when it was more than 90% complete with the usual BS "quality control" reason)
4) Who do you think will be Time Magazine's "Man of the Year"?
Al Gore

UPDATE: Aloha, 2K Australia.

UPDATE NUMBER TWO: Turns out "the year we made contact" title is being made by another 2K studio, as has been noted.

UPDATE NUMBER THREE: Oh Time magazine and your practice of irrelevance and lack of editorial integrity.

Australia's most famous Dick Cheney lookalike defeated.

Congratulations Australia for making the right choice, the Rudd choice.

Now you Aussies need to listen to the words of this hip-hophet:

Seriously, you do.


Also.