The Week in Review

This week on the Week In Review, Team Ninja defends itself, Sony talks about the lack of loading in God of War III, Satanic games get bashed, secret messages are revealed and two of the biggest names in gaming square off… kinda.

DOA: Paradise Not Degrading, Apparently

Dead or Alive: Paradise, a new volleyball game for the PSP has been defended by its creator as being not degrading. Instead, the intention is to “bring out the beauty of women”, and any similarities to soft core pornography are completely unintentional. What do you think, are the DOA games a tribute to women, or a just an excuse for a bit of titillation? Hit the link for the DOA: Paradise Trailer, which is filled with lots of scantily clad women jiggling and bending over and otherwise bringing out their beauty. (link)

Come See the Miraculous God of War III

What would you do if I told you that I knew of a game that had no loading times, and no install? You’d probably call me a liar, but apparently God of War III is that game, requiring only a few megabytes to save your game, but otherwise being free from loading screens and installs. Given that the game clocks in at around the 40GB mark, that’s quite impressive, but it makes me curious about how exactly Sony Santa Monica has managed it. They didn’t have really slow elevators in Ancient Greece, did they? (link)

Devil Moonlights in Videogames

Here’s something that I bet you didn’t know, a lot of games have a co-op mode that gamers aren’t aware of, a mode where your gaming partner is the Devil! Apparently Satan has found a new weapon in the war for our souls, the humble videogame, which apparently often cast the Source of all Evil as the hero, while vilifying God to gamers. I must admit to being a little skeptical here, as I remember killing plenty of demons, but seem to be drawing a blank on the number of times where I actually was a demon. (link)

BioShock 2 Collector’s Edition Contains Messages From Rapture

It turns out that black lights have more uses other than making those totally sweet black velvet paintings glow, they can also reveal secret messages on posters. The BioShock 2 Collector’s Edition came with the poster prints, which revealed secret messages like “The end of Ryan is the end of self” under a UV light. Will this start a craze of people shining black lights on things? We can only hope that that is the case. (link)

Fight of the Century! Thompson vs. Kotick

Shock! Horror! Bobby Kotick thinks the games his company makes are good! To most people that’s not going to come as much of a surprise, but to disgraced attorney and anti-gaming activist Jack Thompson, Kotick’s recent comments about getting lost in MewTwo for hours are evidence of exactly how dangerous games are. “This admission flies in the face of videogame industry spokespersons’ false, sometimes perjured assertions, that video games do not affect the behavior of minors,” he wrote in a letter to California Senator Leland Yee. “Here is a full-grown adult (at least in chronological terms) admitting just the opposite.” You keep banging that drum Jack, I’m sure someone will listen eventually. (link)