Human Rights Day

Apocalypse Then: Resident Evil 2, Thief II: The Metal Age& Tribes 2

Today is a day of sequels.

On this day, Resident Evil 2, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Tribes 2 was released in 1998, 2000, and 2001 respectively.

Resident Evil 2 is of course the sequel to the progenitor of the now hugely famous Resident Evil series.

I am particularly a big fan of the Thief series, and Thief II: The Metal Age is one of my favourite games of all time. It was preceded by Thief: The Dark Project, which was good, but not as good as said successor. I also happen to have a couple of Thief fan-fiction pieces that I’ve written. 

Tribes 2 is the sequel to Starsiege: Tribes, a game that had a big multiplayer focus, which is now freeware.

Human Rights Day

Games and violence…against animals?

Okay, so now gamers are not only racists (Resident Evil 5), and psychotic killers (every FPS shooter game), but now they’re sadists and animal haters too.

Breanni Lucci, who is the president of a private high school’s Animal Rights Club, started a petition after seeing her brother shooting dogs in Call of Duty: World at War. Apparently, more than 100 classmates have supported the petition which she will send to Activision.

The last time we had something like this was when Nintendo demanded that id software had to take the attack dogs out of Wolfenstein 3D for the Super NES version, which were replaced with giant rats.

The killing of dogs isn’t the main aim of the game, as you have to take on the axis forces of Germany and Japan in the game. These were also violent dogs that could kill the player, and so if you were to leave them alone, they would either be gunned down by someone else or they would kill you. That’s self-defence in my book.

Once again, clueless people who don’t play games rush to conclusions and act without thinking. Let’s hope Ms. Lucci doesn’t take up politics and we end up with a Jane Thompson on our hands.

Games and violence…against animals?

Diablo 3 looking dazzling rather than dreary

This is something I’ve come across more than once, both on the web and off it, like when reading a gaming magazine. People are complaining about Diablo 3’s new art style. Not only are fans of the series unhappy, but even a former Flagship head honcho and original Diablo developer is not a fan either.

People claim that Diablo 3 is too bright and cheerful, while its predecessors were darker and more…grey. Fans are begging Blizzard to change the style and have even come up with a petition for it- and it is backed by thousands. Rumour has it that it got so bad that the art director, Brian Morrishoe, left the company, although some say this isn’t the real reason why he left.

Blizzard has even jokingly taken the piss with fans by posting screenshots of Diablo 3 that contain some rather bright and cheerful action scenes.

I’m actually looking forward to Diablo 3, and let’s face it, even with sucky art direction, it’s better than no Diablo 3 at all. Think about how long it’s been since Diablo 2 came out.

Are they going to change the art? Probably not.

Diablo 3 looking dazzling rather than dreary

Apocalypse Then- TES IV: Oblivion& S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

On this day, in 2006 and 2007 respectively, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was released. 

Oblivion is an excellent game, and it gathered a big following of people who sought to improve it by adding custom made items and mods that made the game more challenging. Oblivion is the sequel to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a great game in its own right.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is like a more modern form of Oblivion, except it’s foreign, having been developed in Ukraine. It was buggy, the translation sucked, and yet it was the start of something incredible: exploring the vaunted Zone of Chernobyl in 2011, 25 years after the infamous Chernobyl Incident. It became a hit despite its shortcomings.

It was followed in 2008 by S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, which promised a lot, but came up as an even buggier game, with not a heck of a lot of new stuff to offer. It acted as a prequel to the events in Shadow of Chernobyl. There are rumours of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 3 that have been circulating around the internet for about 3 or 4 months now at least.

What I find so funny, is that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was originally going to have Oblivion in its subtitle. It was going to be named S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost.

Apocalypse Then- TES IV: Oblivion& S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

Apocalypse Then: Breed

On this day, in 2004, Breed was released. Apparently it sucked, according to players, although some reviewers were more forgiving.

Apocalypse Then: Breed

Powerless

Today we were without power right from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. Some vans from Eskom came to trim the trees because apparently they were getting in the way of the power lines. In the end the guy in charge said that our trees weren't so bad after all, but they still proceeded to do the rest of the neighbourhood and not to mention, took some rather long tea breaks as well. I had to cope without power for hours. 

I had a plan though. I stayed up late last night to work on my blog a little, check my accounts, and do some other stuff online. So I went to bed at about 4 am and slept until 11. I went back to bed in the afternoon, all in an attempt to waste time until the power came back on, hoping that it would do so by the evening otherwise I would be pissed. The whole episode reminds me of the power cuts we had in the past few years and right in the bloody middle of winter too.

Eskom still hasn't sorted out the whole power crisis thing, and some areas still have scheduled outages to this day. And thanks to them, I also have to put up with the irritating little messages at the bottom of the screen when I watch TV that tell me to use power sparingly, with that picture with a needle and a power gauge with green, yellow, and red sectors. It's all so reminiscent of the scare tactics the Bush administration used with the terror alert system. 

It just goes to show how much we rely on technology like television, computers, the internet and the like. Today I actually became so desperate that I started typing out things on my Nokia E90, including this post.

Powerless

Resident Racism

Resident Evil 5 has come under a lot of criticism lately, particularly on the racist front, with people claiming that mowing down black zombies leaves them shuddering with guilt. Now gamers are not just murderers in training, but racists as well, according to the media.

In fact, Resident Evil 5 has come under fire since it was first previewed at E3 in 2007.

Capcom should have thought this one through first. 

You saw what they did with Far Cry 2, right? They had black enemies, as well as white and people from different ethnic backgrounds. Did you hear anyone complain about Far Cry 2? No. There might have been some, but they were likely in the minority since I didn’t hear anything about it. Nobody complained of racism as far as the other games in the Resident Evil series are concerned either. Those games took place in America and Europe where there is a mixed bunch of people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The story of Umbrella and the T-virus spreading meant that sooner or later it would reach Africa, and indeed, Resident Evil 5 is set in a fictional country in Africa that happens to contain a lot of black people. Big surprise there; people of ethnic origin make up most of the population in Africa and so Capcom had to be demographically correct. They certainly couldn’t have all white, or pink or purple people running around.

Well, the game is out there, and you have people in different camps. There are those who claim it’s racist, there are those who claim it isn’t, and there are those who claim it isn’t, but still get an uneasy feeling when they play it, and sort of sit on the fence and hum and ha, before going in for another session to 'investigate'.

Well, Capcom didn’t intend to make a racist game, I’m sure. They meant to continue the story of Resident Evil and its spread throughout the world, and the player having to contend with the real enemy behind it all- the Umbrella Corporation.

The only way to go now is to make the virus spread to Asia, and infect Japanese people, and have Japanese zombie ninjas and killer Koi. It would make sense since Capcom is Japanese. 

Remember folks, it’s just a game.

Just do us a favour and don’t venture into the Middle East. That is pushing it a bit, and we don’t want them getting upset…

Resident Racism