Free Republic

New York-When gamers take the wraps off the new "BioShock" video game next year, they should not be surprised if parts of the game remind them of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Ken Levine, the creative director of the Boston-based development studio Irrational Games visited the protests in Boston this month to do research for the next game in the best-selling "BioShock" series, which will be out in 2012. The game "BioShock Infinite," is set in 1912, in a floating U.S. city in the sky called Columbia, where two fictional political factions, the left-wing group called the Vox Populi and...

My son spends more time at his friends than at home because of his love for video gaming. We would like to see more of him and wonder what freepers think. So lets have a Free Republic X Box versus Playstation smackdown. What are you suggestions?

Liberals often tout themselves as the epitome of tolerance, which makes the production of a video game entitled “Tea Party Zombies Must Die,” by StarvingEyes Advergaming, all the more confusing. In the new game, players are encouraged to shoot such Tea Party favorites as Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and many others, some of which do not exactly fit the criteria of the Tea Party movement but who appear in the game nonetheless. The Blaze reports: In a new online game created by liberals titled “Tea Party Zombies Must Die” players can live out your most vicious fantasy by...

The classic video game was put on an index of controlled titles in 1994 as it was deemed likely to harm youth. Like pornography, sales of the violent shoot 'em up were restricted to adult-only stores. The rules have been relaxed because officials believe that Doom is now only of artistic and scientific interest and will not appeal to youngsters...

Michigan taxpayers will give one company about $912,000 for it to make two video games under the state’s 42 percent film tax incentive program. The Michigan Film Office has approved tax incentives to BH Golfing Games Productions so it can make the Ben Hogan games, according to the film office’s 2010 annual report. The money goes to BH Golfing Game Productions LLC, which is one of a series of limited liability companies created for the project. The project has ties to Alliance Acquisitions, a venture capital company in California.

A mourning father has sent out a plea to other parents to protect their children from the dangers of playing computer games. Blood clot victim, Chris Staniforth, 20, died after spending up to 12 hours at a time playing on his Xbox. The gaming enthusiast suffered a blockage to his lungs when he developed deep vein thrombosis – commonly associated with passengers on long haul flights where they are relatively immobile for hours on end. Chris’ heartbroken father, David told The Sun, ‘As a parent you think playing computer games can’t do them any harm because you know what they...

Those who paint U.S. Supreme Court justices with a broad brush only prove they don't really understand the court. Justice Antonin Scalia was dead wrong in striking down California's restriction on selling horribly violent video games to children. And Justice Clarence Thomas did a spectacular job of showing why the Founders would uphold this law. California enacted a law restricting the sale of graphically violent video games to children, requiring an adult to make the purchase. One such graphic game involves the player torturing a girl as she pleads for mercy, urinating on her, dousing her with gasoline and setting...

Today’s Supreme Court decision in Brown v. EMA casts doubt on one of the shibboleths of gun prohibition. Since the 1960s, some social scientists have been attempting to prove that guns cause violence. They do not make this claim in the straightforward sense that guns, as tools, can be used for malign purposes–for example, that a criminal with a gun might attempt a robbery which would he would consider too risky if he did not have a gun. Rather, the claim is that the presence of makes ordinary people more aggressive, anti-social and violent. Thus, as one study put it,...

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to let California regulate the sale or rental of violent video games to children, saying governments do not have the power to "restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed" despite complaints about graphic violence. On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out the state's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento had ruled that the law violated minors' rights under the First Amendment, and the high court agreed....

No details yet

Teens who play a lot of video games are likely to sleep less than the eight to nine hours a night recommended for the age group, researchers said. Speaking via teleconference from the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, researchers said that an analysis of data on 16,000 teens also found that youths who reported sleeping less than seven hours a night did not get enough exercise, which could also impact their health. And not getting enough sleep is detrimental for all -- and has a particularly negative effect on teens, added Caris Fitzgerald, a psychiatry resident at the...

Note: Video included. "Bin Laden's Son Is Hospitalized After He Hears His Father's Voice Omar Bin Laden Is Treated for Schizophrenia, Wife Asks for Divorce" July 9, 2010 SNIPPET: ""It's true that he was put on medication but released himself early," said a spokesman for Zeina Al Sabah, Omar's wife. The spokesman confirmed that Omar had bipolar disorder and was on anti-depressants." SNIPPET: ""Omar loves and hates Osama at the same time," she said." SNIPPET: "Omar, 29, has denounced his father's terrorist tactics and ideology. But he still maintains an emotional bond..." SNIPPET: "Much of Osama Bin Laden's family, comprising...

Long hours, hard work, crap weather. Then there’s the boredom, the long hours of boredom, followed by the bursts of heart-pounding adrenaline. This is war. And it’s video games that keep many of those serving in the world they’ve left behind. This is video games as a way to stay connected, a way to stay sane, a way to make friends when friends matter most and even a way to feel the love of a spouse left behind. They alleviate boredom in the bunkers, on the battlefield and even in commando centres overlooking silos stacked with nuclear missiles. For much...

There I was this morning at the New York Times online op-ed page, the scene of so much self-righteous hand-wringing in recent weeks over the violence in our culture and rhetoric. I was deciding whether to subject myself first to Gail Collins or Charles Blow, when my eye was drawn to the ad you see here for something called "Project Blackout." A busty babe wields an assault rifle the Times surely wouldn't want in private hands. And look: the ad is peppered by bullet holes. Click through to learn more about the violent video game, and you'll see the image...

It’s a well-known fact that the $20 billion dollar video gaming industry is producing products that glorify “guns, car theft and gang violence” that make parents cringe, according to Peter L. Knudson in the Harvard Crimson. A game developer recently had to come up with $20 million because of a sex scene in the highly-publicized Grand Theft Auto game, already loaded with violence and drug use. In this highly politically correct environment, charges of racism are increasingly surfacing as “Mafia 2” was tagged as a “pile of racist nonsense” by members of an Italian-American service group who pointed out gamers...

Battle of Britain (Luftschlacht um England) was one of the most famous battles of World War Two. Take control of a Polish airmen of the 303 Squadron during World War II. Play with friends or fight against other human opponents in multiplayer mode. Use arrow keys to control your plane and press Z to increase to full throttle. Press X to fire machine guns. Much fun with Battle of Britain.

The game of love is big in Japan. The love simulator game, Love Plus, on Nintendo DS is so popular, that Konami is taking game die hards on a tour around Japan with their virtual girlfriends according to Kotaku. The gaming company anticipates that fans of the love sim game will be willing to pay nearly $500 (USD) to vacation with simulated loves Manaka, Rinko and Nene. The lineup that Konami has setup with local businesses is designed to "unite" dedicated gamers with their virtual lady loves. Participants will board the Love Plus bus in Tokyo. The bus tour will...

In Brooklyn, NY 18-year-old Kendale Robinson has been arrested for the alleged execution-style murder of a 16-year-old girl as reported by Joe Jackson and Jonathan Lemire for the Daily News: Kendale Robinson allegedly put a gun to the head of Al-Taya Coners, 16, and pulled the trigger even though the terrified teenager screamed "No! No! No!" and begged for her life, police said. * * * As Conyers tearfully asked to be spared, the do-rag wearing gunman shot her in the head, chest and stomach, witnesses told police. * * * Robinson has a lengthy rap sheet with 16 prior...

Amid Australia's continuing dispute and deliberation over whether to introduce an R18+ classification for adult games, new data shows overwhelming public support for the measure. The Australian government announced at the end of 2009 that it would begin collecting public responses. At the time, controversial Attorney-General Michael Atkinson -- who has since stepped down -- said he expected "only a small amount of very zealous gamers" to support the R18+ rating. But now that the Federal Home Affairs group has released a preliminary official report, it would seem Atkinson is proven incorrect, with 98.2 percent of Australians declaring they support...

<p>His parents had taken away his keyboard as a disciplinary measure after he spent a week playing computer games, police said.</p> <p>A 14-year-old boy in southern Russia was charged with killing his father with a sledgehammer after his parents tried to stop him from playing computer games, officials said Tuesday.</p>

WARNING: Disturbing and graphicCNN reported today on RapeLay, a Japanese video game that just went viral:The game begins with a teenage girl on a subway platform. She notices you are looking at her and asks, "Can I help you with something?" That is when you, the player, can choose your method of assault. With the click of your mouse, you can grope her and lift her skirt. Then you can follow her aboard the train, assaulting her sister and her mother. As you continue to play, "friends" join in and in a series of graphic, interactive scenes, you can corner...

One of the country’s hardest violent video game critics, South Australian Attorney-General (AG), Michael Atkinson, has resigned to pave the way for new Labor blood. The AG resigned despite winning his seat in the recent state election. It is unknown who will replace Atkinson after he leaves office before the next state election in 2014. Games associations aren’t yet celebrating a reform win for the much-debated introduction of a video game R18+ classification, but they do see Atkinson’s resignation as the removal of a major roadblock.

The video game industry posted another disappointing sales month in the U.S. in February, with revenue down 15% from a year ago. Sales of video game hardware, software and accessories totaled $1.26 billion, vs. $1.48 billion in February 2009, the NPD Group said late Thursday. Sales of game consoles took the biggest hit last month, with revenue down 20% to $426 million. “Honestly, I had expected the industry to perform somewhat better this month,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “Nonetheless, strong new releases, and Easter gift-buying bodes well for industry performance in March.”

The country of Ghanzia is embroiled in a civil war. As a soldier in America's Army, your job is to do everything from protect U.S. military convoys against AK-47-wielding attackers to sneak up on a mountain observatory where arms dealers are hiding out. It is a tough and dangerous tour of duty that requires dedication, focus, and a bit of luck. Fortunately, if you get hit by a bullet and bleed to death, you can reboot your computer and sign on under a new name. America's Army is a video game -- a "tactical multiplayer first-person shooter" in gaming lingo...

Many players have noted the “work” in FarmVille seems somewhat educational. This, in fact, is what intrigues educators about video games in general. They are so interactive and require focused attention to progress. So, the thinking goes, if we can have students play with educational elements perhaps they’ll absorb some pedagogical content in ways they can’t through books or television. Could FarmVille be a tool leveraged for classroom use?

I'm not much into online video gaming, but I'm extremely tempted to begin playing "2011 Obama's Coup Fails". Just watching the video describing this game was quite exciting. I'm sure that now since I've watched the video about this game (a video from Russian TV nonetheless), my name is now on a list and I'll expect some guys in dark suits at my door any moment. If anyone has played this game, what do you think of it?

Want an early look at Starcraft II, widely expected to be one of the year's hottest PC games? You can -- but it's going to cost you... -snip- Access codes to the "beta test" were handed out for free, with many thought to have come from giveaways at a 2008 fan festival organized by the game's developer, Blizzard. But a few enterprising fans promptly put theirs up for sale on auction sites like eBay -- and the going rate is as much as $400.

Online Revolt called '2011 Obama's Coup Fails' envisioned as a game taking place in reality after the November 2010 Elections. The Tea Party Social Movement mounts a grassroots opposition to Obama and the Democrats with education and entertainment combined. 2011 Obama's Coup Fails is the fusion of the Tea Party Revolt against President Obama, Pelosi and Reid with online political strategy gaming. The American Tea Party Alliance envisions dire consequences after a massive Republican win in November leading to an attempted coup. According to Mr. Lodee "The Online game educates members on the facts of the health care debate, the...

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), a division of the National Institutes of Health, is giving Dr. Lynn Fiellin, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, $3.9 million over five years to develop a video game to teach “sex, drug and alcohol negotiation and refusal skills" to children 9-14 years of age. The game will feature “virtual characters or avatars” that are guided by the children playing the game to make decisions about whether to engage in behaviors that put them at risk of being infected with HIV. The game’s effectiveness...

The U.S. military has long suspected that troops who have long experience with video console and computer games have made Americans better soldiers, at least when it comes to operating high-tech military equipment. But now a study (by the Office of Naval Research) has found that such experience also enables troops to solve problems faster, and act more quickly with those solutions. In technical terms, the computer game experience increases perceptual and cognitive ability 10-20 percent, over those with no computer game experience. The navy was interested in this because most sailors have technical jobs, and many of them involve...

Students learn by playing. This is a critical component of good educational games. Allow me to illustrate with a basic example. Traditional dominoes is an excellent game for teaching math skills to children, especially for adding up fives. If a player can make the tail ends of the dominoes add to five or a number divisible by five, he scores points. If not, he may strategize to prevent his opponent from scoring. You can see children mentally adding while playing … three plus two equals five … four plus six equals ten … The game cannot be played without adding...

Like many video role-playing games, Dragon Age: Origins, a medieval epic that was released in November for PCs, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, gives its players far more to do than wage war against mythical beasts.The game, which was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, and is meant to take 60 to 80 hours to complete, allows players to develop combat and magic skills, interact with other characters and have romantic encounters. If you play as a male character, it is even possible to have a liaison with a male elf named Zevran.

The acclaimed new video game Dragon Age: Origins features a "secret" scene in which a man and an elf have gay sex, it has been disclosed. Players of the fantasy game can only access the steamy footage by seducing the warrior elf Zevran with the correct combination of cheesy chat-up lines. In a clip posted online, the gamer-controlled human character opens with the old favourite "I want to discuss something personal" - one of four dialogue options available He then makes his intentions explicit with "Can you join me in my tent?", before pressing home the point with the unequivocally...

There is a new video game out called "Dragon Age-origins". It is a knight/warrior elf type game (think Dungeons and Dragons) in the genre of Lord of the Rings. There is more than one sex scene in this game and it's fairly graphic. The kicker is that there are at least three gay (men on men) sex scenes and I'm not sure how many female/female sex scenes, but I know there are a few. Just wanted to warn you guys becuase I myself like role playing games but was really shocked at this with the nearly naked kissing guys and...

The disrespect, the contempt, the arrogance, the sense of entitlement and elitism by the preponderant majority of those in the U.S. Congress and Senate has become unquestionable. The real question is: Will WE THE PEOPLE exercise our right to "vote the bums out!" Something else DOES need to be said; a message the Congress/Senate WILL hear since they couldn't hear the message of the Town halls, the two rallies in Washington, D.C., the wishes of the people to vote down the healthcare legislation is this: WE THE PEOPLE are coming after your jobs...

For the Pentagon, to hitch a free ride off of the video game industry is actually quite savvy. Gaming companies have spent tens of millions of dollars developing technologies designed to re-create battle, as well as easy for the average teen to use. More importantly, these teens enter the military already "trained up" in a certain way. I recall meeting a commander of a Predator drone squadron, a former F-15 pilot, who described the younger generation of remote drone pilots with awe. They had less training and experience than him, but he felt their years of video gaming had made...

One of the most popular video gaming crazes has sparked its very own category of high-tech injuries. The Wii is a fun way to get in a workout and some good quality family time The game is also a great way to make a fool of yourself in front of a group of people. But you can get hurt if you don't know when to say "when" with your Wii... For the young or just young at heart, Wii is the workout happening in living rooms across the country. Noel Blair got hooked on bowling. "Almost daily, I was doing...

It's a football Sunday, and between NFL matchups on television, Tyson Cole-Hines and his 9-year-old stepson create their own drama on the field with a video game on their Xbox 360. This is a father-son pastime, playing Madden NFL 10 or NBA 2K8 on a 62-inch flat screen. But late at night, the gaming gets edgier. That's when the Reston dad launches into higher-octane battles against enemies and aliens on mature-rated fare like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. In these war games, bullets are flying. Bad guys go down. Things blow up. This all happens in Cole-Hines's hushed...

Los Angeles, CA (BANG) - Yoko Ono thinks the new Beatles video game will help create "a world of Peace." The 76-year-old widow of "Fab Four" singer John Lennon has praised Beatles Rock Band - which was released earlier this month - because it merges music and art to create amazing "healing vibrations." She explained: "I think game is the second revolution. In the beginning they made a splash with their music; with the video game we're going to create a planet of music and art." "Music and art are both very interesting healing vibrations, and with that vibration we...

Video game developer John Carmack, better known for his work on Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, has qualified for a million dollar prize from NASA. America's space agency challenged the nation's brightest minds to come up with a design contest known as the Lunar Lander Challenge. Carmack's team, known as Armadillo Aerospace, won $350,000 after taking first prize last year in NASA's Level 1 competition. Now they are aiming for Level 2 and the million dollar prize. As MSNBC.com describes it: "The alcohol-fueled, pressure-tank-equipped rocket has to hang in the air for a minimum of 3 minutes during each leg of...

Video game developers from Iran have been exhibiting at a Western game convention for the very first time. Representatives from the trade body, the Iran National Foundation of Computer Games, were on hand at a dedicated stand at gamescom in Cologne. They were there to showcase the latest games developed in Iran, establish contacts, and to see if Western retailers would stock their games. But they acknowledged the political situation would make it a challenge. "We need more investors," said Amir Tarbyatjoui, head of Parsan Business Development Solutions who managed the Iranian stand. "The [US] sanctions do affect our industry,...

A new study says the average age of video-game players in the United States is 35, and oh, by the way: They're overweight and tend to be depressed. Investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and Andrews University analyzed survey data from 552 adults in the Seattle-Tacoma area. The subjects ranged in age from 19 to 90, according to the study, published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The hypothesis was that video-game players have a higher body mass index — the measure of a person's weight in relation to...

Sales of videogames have finally taken a hit from the financial crisis, weakened by record-high unemployment, uncertainty about the future and a growing number of Americans swapping credit cards for savings accounts. Game software and hardware sales fell a combined 31% in June compared with last year, according to hot market research firm NPD. That's the biggest monthly decline since 2000, when sales dropped 41%; year-to-date, sales are down 12% from 2008. A new frugality seems to be at play here. Hardware sales dropped 38%, much more than sales of the games themselves, off 29%. One obvious reason is that...

ome Amherst Town Board members question whether Chuck E. Cheese’s really is the place “where a kid can be a kid.” In a 3-3 vote this week, the board failed to approve a game license for the kids-themed food and entertainment venue on Harlem Road, citing concerns about violent video games and bad behavior by patrons that require police intervention. Council Member Shelly Schratz said she was disturbed by several “action-packed shoot-and-kill games” that were accessible to children as young as 4. “When I see 6-year-olds, 8-year-olds playing those games, when all the time we’re opening the paper and seeing...

Here is a video interview with the CEO of Activision Blizzard Inc., Robert Kotick, whose company owns such huge names in the video game industry as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft. He discusses how the economy is impacting the video game industry. He says video games are actually doing very well since it is a relatively cheap form of entertainment. . . . . . (Watch Video)

"Back when Jackson was merely a semi-eccentric star, Sega created a video game property for him, named Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (actually separate games for the arcade and Sega Genesis/Master System consoles). Moonwalker was notable for being an early example of real-life celebrities appearing in video games, and for using digitized versions of some of Jacko's songs. The game is also unintentionally hilarious because Jackson is tasked with rescuing helpless children from a crime boss named Mr. Big (although in hindsight, perhaps it was Mr. Big who was doing the rescuing). The arcade version was a basic isometric beat-'em-up, with two...

Our beloved leader is on a bit of an anti-video game tear lately. In a Father's Day message to all Americans, President Barack Obama categorized video games as a waste of kids' time. In this Sunday's Parade magazine, Obama wrote: We need to set limits and expectations. We need to replace that video game with a book and make sure that homework gets done. We need to say to our daughters, Howard Huge was unavailable for comment. That's not the only Obama vs. video games news I have for you, though. In a speech to the American Medical Association, Obama...

Like gamers around the world, Germans love their shoot-'em-ups. Sure, video gaming isn't quite the industry in Germany that it is in the U.S. (or some other parts of Europe), but it's still an enormous market for the industry. Those days are quite likely to come to a screeching halt in a matter of weeks, as Germany is well on its way to banning all "violent video games," defined (via translation) as games "where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or inhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters." Hmmmm... sounds...

Greenfield's been at it again: in this month's Wired article entitled, 'Did video games make bankers more reckless?', Greenfield, somewhat inconceivably, argues that playing videogames may be to blame for the current economic crisis. Rather bizarrely, Greenfield's hypothetical argument boils down to the premise that the current generation of bankers grew up playing videogames and that videogames make you reckless. "What if the recent wave of recklessness among bankers was due, in part, to the fact that the younger generation has been brought up in two dimensions - subjected to prolonged time in front of a screen, immersed in the...

This is great - German researchers are putting all of the blame for the existence of violent video games on the shoulders of America and the Army. Indirectly, they're saying America's culture is responsible for German kids picking up firearms and shooting their schoolmates. It couldn't be some other violent roots in German culture that leads to kids killing each other, could it? How do you say "a few bad apples" auf Deutsch?