Gamertell

If all that excitement over the recent Watchman trailer wasn’t enough for you, consider the legal drama over the film’s right to exist. Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox are locked in what could be a very bloody battle with the film (directed by Zack Snyder and set to release on March 6, 2009) at stake. Here’s the gist, minus the legal jargon: Fox is trying to get an injunction to bar the release of the flick, and Warner Bros. position is that they have no (legal) leg to stand on with their argument.

There’s a long history here, where Fox first sought rights to make a film out of the property, then abandoned the project. Sour grapes much? Maybe, but the movie business is about as cutthroat as it gets. ICV2 is reporting on the ongoing feud, which they speculate may end in a deal with Fox to get a share of the sure-to-be-huge profits. After all, everyone and their dog was excited by the trailer, and comic book movies are huge right now (box office gold, anyone?).

Read [ICV2 ]

Censoring video games has been an issue since Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil. If parents don’t want their children to play violent games, that should be up to them and no one else. However this isn’t the case in Australia where censoring laws are so strict, not even a forty-year-old man can play Grand Theft Auto.

Australia uses the rating R18+ for their mature games. With censoring laws as they are, however, it is very unlikely to ever see a game on a shelf with that rating. Australia bans any game that is deemed too violent, includes sexual content or has too many drug references. Apparently the government is full of old fogies who think video games are only for kids. Not only is this not true but it is ridiculous…

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In 2001 Tom Clancy put his name to an incredible tactical squad-based first-person shooter called Ghost Recon, a franchise that contains almost prophetic parallels with current events.

In the original Ghost Recon game, set in 2008, Russia is taken over by ultra-nationalists who want to rebuild the might of the former Soviet Union by re-acquiring several Eastern European states. The reasoning for the Russian spread in the game could just be to regain the former territory of the Soviet Union or to do as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Telegraph when he said he would “protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are located.” Even more coincidental, the game opens in the former-Soviet state of Georgia…

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Grand Theft Auto IV was recently removed from store shelves in Thailand by the order of New Era Interactive, one of Asia’s largest game distributors. The reason is that Polwat Chino, a 19-year-old boy, killed a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the game.

Ah. Yet another case of “life imitating art.” Remember the problem though. Before games, movies and any violent media, there was still violence. So, in comes the obvious step of scapegoating. The easiest thing the blame is something that really can’t defend itself. It’s the basic psychology of blame. Since the Columbine school shooting, the popular thing to blame for violence has been videogames.

We are in an age where one of crime’s biggest motives and accusations is…

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Blacksite: Area 51 is one of the first games to question why we are forcing ourselves into such a bad situation. While it does it in a way that doesn’t entirely follow the true political reality, the message is quite clear that America might be completely screwed.

There’s a lot to take in. From the war on terror to war in America’s own streets this game mocks the politics of fear. Sure, the game is beautiful even without the blatant political insults to presidential administrations past and present. There’s just something about the war in Iraq ending to fight a domestic threat that makes it even more intriguing…

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Nintendo has been riding high on Wii’s success but every now and then it has to worry about things like piracy and trademark infringement to protect its position. Currently on its radar is leading Wii-peripheral manufacturer Nyko, which has also benefited from Wii’s success. Nintendo has nary an issue with Nyko cashing in on Wii-mania but it does have issue with the manner that it does so.

The Big N is suing Nyko over its third party Kama Nunchuk. Nintendo has alleged that the Kama Nunchuk bears a striking resemblance to the…

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Orson Scott Card is an author who has earned respect for political commentary in his science fiction epics. And the fact that many of his books can be adapted into games.

Empire is a beautifully horrific book that had been rumored to become a new game from Chair Entertainment. That rumor was confirmed

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Two things are important with video game ratings: who rates games and who pays attention to them. The “who rates games” is the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and similar boards across the world. Quite simply, they are there to think of the children so you don’t have to.

If the ESRB and similar rating companies think that user-generated content would be enough to change a game’s rating, those organizations negate their own credibility by flip-flopping a rating for content not even made by the game company. That could hinder both some gamers and all developers in fulfilling their purpose in the industry.

The other problem with the ratings is that no one pays attention to them. If someone is too young to get a popular game, they end up running to the parents. The parents quite often don’t check things out before buying them, then start complaining when violence or sexuality pops up in a game. Even with full bans…

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Rockstar’s recently released epic, Grand Theft Auto IV, has been on the receiving end of a great deal of controversy for quite a while but parent company Take-Two Interactive is finally fighting back.

Take-Two is suing the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) for pulling all GTA IV related ads from buses and transit displays throughout the city just days after they were put up on April 22.  The ad campaign was supposed to last for six weeks.

Take-Two claims that by…

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According to the European Commission survey, Ireland is now banning violent video games.

The reason for banning violent games, according to the EU’s study of the implementation of Pan European Game Information ratings, is that many of the EU nations are not enforcing the age limits on the games identified by PEGI.

The only game currently known to be banned in Ireland is…

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