Declamations and Diatribes News Report 08.26.10

Posted by Aaron Koehn on 08.26.2010

Among other things, I've got life-altering news regarding the upcoming PSP 2, why an Advocacy group is attempting to block the sale of Mafia 2, and how you can get through Metal Gear Solid: Rising without spilling any of that red substance that flows through your veins.



Industry rumors report that the next PSP will have touch controls and will likely not be disc-based, but will rely on downloadable content similar to the current PSP Go.
Well that makes sense; Nintendo successfully implemented touch controls on its DS, and since Sony seems totally content suckling on Nintendo's innovation-teat (case in point, that Sony Move thingy) I'm surprised the next PSP doesn't include dual screens that are in 3D.

Although here's where Sony is mixing it up -- and I can't sarcastically emphasize enough that Sony is really implementing some original ideas here -- purportedly that aforementioned touch-sensitive area is located on the back of the handheld and not on the front. Now that's what you call innovation, if you are a person who is trying to draw attention away from the fact that you were once regarded as the gaming company to be modeled after, but now sit in third place.

These days it seems that Sony is comfortable trying to pilfer what the others around them are doing like that familiar idiot in junior high who sits next to the smart kid so he can copy his test answers and think nobody will ever notice (said idiot can also be referred to as the Cynical Gamer).

Sony has also decided that the next PSP will utilize the business model that the excrement-y PSP Go has employed, by strictly offering games through a downloadable service sans UMD discs. Now to most, this will probably appear to be horrible news since the PSP Go does downloadable games about as efficiently as Tiger Woods does faithful marriage, but hopefully the PSP Go's woes will allow Sony to get their proverbial ducks in a row for this next PSP iteration.

And when will we see this awkward handheld amalgamation? Well some sources are claiming we could see it as soon as late 2011, while others have it pegged for later in 2012. But what we can be absolutely sure of is that whenever the next console comes out sporting a solely downloadable-game format, that system will have already received a massive pre-release kick to the Johnson via PSP Go.

---

Italian-American advocacy group UNICO asks Take Two Interactive to stop the release of its upcoming game, Mafia 2, due to its unfair stereotyping of Italian Americans and their penchant for organized crime.
Picture for a second that instead of being the internet's most muscle-bound blogger I am an Italian-American advocacy group attempting to battle various negative depictions. If that was the case, I think my last target would be a video game that detailed my people's romanticized and historical crime syndicates.

That's because there currently are a few other Italian-Americans who are having a much easier time destroying any positive notions the public could have for said ethnicity. And you guessed it, I'm talking about those guido-millionaires: Snooki, the Situation, and their gang of orange creature-people.

Andre DiMino, the head of the aforementioned advocacy group released this statement explaining his stance on this unimportant issue: "Why would [Take-Two] foist a game on their target audience of young people wherein they will indoctrinate a new generation into directly associating Italians and Italian Americans with violent, murderous, organized crime, to the exclusion of all the other 'mafias' run by other ethnic and racial groups. We are demanding they halt the release of the game and cleanse it if all references to Italians and Italian Americans." Cleanse it? Hey Andre, this isn't Rome and we're not performing an exorcism here. How about you stop trying to drum up attention for this worthless cause and do all of society a favor by sterilizing that Jersey Shore cast.

No one is soured on Italians when thinking about their roles in organized crime. In fact, there's a large demographic that find that swatch of Italian-American history very appealing, as evidenced by the popularity of that mobster movie that many regard as the greatest film of all time: Analyze That (curveball).

Here's Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's response, "Mafia 2 tells a compelling story about organized crime in America - a subject that for decades has been featured in movies, television shows and novels. Neither UNICO nor any other organization purporting to represent Italian-Americans has seen or played Mafia 2." He further states that Take-Two has the "right to free expression with what we believe is a thoughtful and responsible approach."

---

A Producer of Metal Gear Solid: Rising states that it will be possible to play through the entire game without killing a person. In fact, that's how he'd prefer people to play it.
Playing a game where you control a cyborg, ninja death-machine and then are discouraged from killing things, is kind of like someone turning you into the Cynical Gamer and then asking you not to make out with the planet's most righteous babes. Why prevent what nature has deemed so intrinsic and natural?

But apparently one of the makers of Metal Gear Solid: Rising is having some sort of morality crisis, because he is going out of his way to make sure everybody knows that you can complete his game without killing a soul (and when I say "soul" I mean human being, because you still can slay all sorts of robots and androids. But according to the bible, robots and automatons don't have souls, hence my previous statement "…without killing a soul.").

Here's what producer Shigenobu Matsuyama had to say about his push to keep bloodshed to a minimum: "We have to think about the violence and the morals behind it. I would like to add the expression of the pain [enemies feel] as well... not just make a slice 'em up, dice 'em up. I want to emphasize that I will never reward a player for killing human beings in the game. I won't make it easier to clear the game [that way]. I will probably make it more difficult."

However, it is again important to note that if you're an android who's reading this thinking, "Sweet. Finally a game where a player won't be rewarded for repeatedly dicing up my brethren," Mr Matsuyama added a little further clarification: "There will be a lot of mechs and cyborgs, but if you slice them up, that will be considered as a no-kill as well." Someday, mechs and cyborgs, you shall overcome this persecution, but until that day arrives I plan on continuing to destroy you by the millions via my video games.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising is expected to come out in late 2011, and it will be at that point where you can decide whether or not you'd like to start reeling in your human slaying to just focus primarily on robo-murder, or continue placing emphasis on the slaughter of anything (human, robots, plants, inanimate objects) that's dumb enough to stand in your way.

---

A British advertising watchdog group orders Square-Enix to stop running TV ads for Final Fantasy 13 for the Xbox 360 since it uses superior Playstation 3 footage.
The reason I'm including this basically trivial bit of news in this week's column is not because I want a bigger spotlight shown on gaming advertising in an attempt to ensure further honesty. No, the only real purpose for relaying this story is so I can rile up the fanboys and hopefully be the catalyst for some dork-on-dork violence.

It's been fairly well documented that the PS3 version of Final Fantasy 13 looks noticeably better in side-by-side comparisons than its 360 counterpart, and the console partisan British Advertising Standards Authority (who are so obviously rooting for the PS3 in this current console war) apparently agree since they've recently commanded Square-Enix to stop running Xbox360 ads using the better-quality PS3 footage.

In all honesty, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a sibling of one Howard Stringer (president and CEO at Sony) on the payroll at the British Advertising Standards Authority (BASA), and if someone wants to do my legwork and look into that for me I'd really appreciate it (look for some generic sounding name like Tom Stringer, or maybe just a Tom S. since they probably wouldn't want to use his full name to avoid suspicion. But be careful, because if the BASA gets light of this investigation they'll likely take your life, and I of course will deny ever knowing you).

Here's what those PS3-loving, bad-teethed, BASA blokes had to say about their unfair sanctions: "We noted that there was a discernible difference in the picture quality of the two," and "we considered that, because the ad promoted the game on the Xbox 360 platform, it should have footage derived from that console. Because it did not, and because we considered that the use of PS3 footage in the ad exaggerated the quality of the footage available on the Xbox 360, albeit marginally, we concluded the ad was misleading."

My minions/minion and I are on to you BASA, and don't think for a second that I won't out you and all your dirty practices to the deserving public. That is unless you're willing to offer me up some "hush" money in order to keep this story under wraps. If that's the case, anything in the range of twenty dollars will totally suffice (and as a reward for your "legwork," minions, you'd get the satisfaction of knowing you helped the Cynical Gamer earn twenty dollars).

---

The long-gestating This is Vegas gets cancelled by Warner Brothers after a reported $50 million was spent on its development.
You remember that game called This is Vegas for the PS3 and 360, right? Of you course you don't, and even on the slim chance that you did, I don't expect the above-mentioned news to cause you to throw your fist into a wall in anger, or even say in a semi-remotely interested way, "aw, that's too bad."

That's because there's an obvious reason why this game got the axe after buckets of money was spent on its development: it assumed people were interested in acting out empty Las Vegas clichés in a game that looked as generic as the peanut butter I buy (said peanut butter has a big white label on it reading "generic," which is how I am able to make that assertion).

Just in case you're one of those millions of people who haven't heard about this game, This is Vegas tasked players with exploring the real city of Las Vegas as they "partied," gambled, and got into various nonspecific acts of mischief in that city in the middle of a desert. It was very often stated that this was a title that hoped to appeal to that legendary casual demographic by relating to their more non-nerdy interests such as, video game alcohol consumption, winning virtual money via slot machines, and getting one's "freak on" with various polygonal women on the dance floor.

The game was originally being developed by Midway Games, but when Midway went under and had the majority of its assets purchased by Warner Brothers, the WB took on the mantle of developing a game that only frat-boys wanted to play (no offense frat-guys. My dad was in a fraternity and he's a better man for it, or so he claims. Alpha Tau Omega FOREVER!). However, Warner Brothers wisely only sunk an additional seven million dollars into the doomed project after Midway's initial 43 million (why did Midway go out of business again?).

Here's what the source who leaked the budgetary news thinks about said spending: "It's a ridiculous waste of money. A silly budget when you think that games like Konami's Saw -- which made a profit -- were built with around $3 million and BlackLight Tango Down was made for $2.5 million."

Can you believe I made it through this whole blurb without making one hilarious "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," joke?

---

An MMO RPG based on the Bible called The Bible Online is set to beta test on September 6, and will task players with creating communities within the Promised Land.
Playing as God, I hope I'll have the ability to send my son down to that Promised Land community, because I think it would be pretty easy to beat the game utilizing an offspring that could perform miracles and had magical powers.

---

Microsoft announces that game pirates who get caught playing unauthorized copies of Halo Reach will receive a permanent life-time ban from Xbox Live.
To this news, pirates responded by stating, "ARRRRRRRRR you kidding me? But piratetry is all I know. I have no working concept on what it takes to acquire games through legal means. Davy Jones' locker is starting to look pretty good right about now."

---

A Mortal Kombat developer publicly states that he believes a Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter crossover is "inevitable."
Now I know I'm not breaking this highly publicized news, but I just figured my readers/reader was most likely clamoring for what my opinion on the matter was. So hear you go Steve in Albuquerque, NM: I'd rather see Scorpion battle with opening a stubborn jar of pickles than clash with a stretchy Indian. Am I alone in thinking that these crossovers basically diminish the gravitas of both franchises?

---

I've got some horrible news Declamation and Diatribes fan/s: for the next two weeks the Cynical Gamer will be taking a pilgrimage from his home in Minnesota back to that wasteland known as Nebraska (no offense, you abhorrent hellhole). In that two week span, no further columns will be posted under the moniker Declamation and Diatribes, and as a result, many of you may lose your grip on sanity. But be strong, and know that while two weeks may seem like an eternity, it's actually just 14 days.

Talk to you soon!