The Interesting Case of Black College Football Experience

GamePolitics brought back to the fore an interesting case in the annals of controversial games today, Black College Football Experience. To quickly summarize, the game is a college football game featuring historically black conferences, but it also features rhythm game bits when the marching bands come on at halftime, even using the Rock Band drum kit. The game was previously published almost nowhere in 2007, but is apparently nearing an Xbox 360 release.

From knowing as little as we do about the game, it can be easy to think "Why do black people need their own game?" as many commenters have said. I felt this way at first, but this is a game featuring the region's historically black conferences of colleges that were established to fix education inequality between the races. Highlighting a specific region of football isn't objectionable, but the game also has "Black" right there in the title, which does come off as fairly exclusive.

Also, this game isn't just about the football. The much larger emphasis on marching bands and dancing gives a different cultural perspective that is welcome, I think. The point is, this isn't taking the white/Hispanic/Asian/anybody else out of normal college football and making a game out of it. This is highlighting a real world slice of college football that is majority black and has some different features, like more prominent and active marching bands.

Still, this is an interesting case for people to look at, and comment wars seem to happen on every site the game is mentioned on. For more details on the game, here's their site.

Call of Duty: World at War Veteran Difficulty Guide

Well, since I've been taking a while off from writing to get the Platinum trophy on Call of Duty: World at War, I thought I should at least try to give back by writing a collection of observations and tips for tackling the dreaded Veteran difficulty. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. You will be spammed with grenades, constantly. You will have to know when you should attempt to run over and throw a grenade back, and when to simply run away. The number of grenades on top of you will eventually become sadly comedic, as they completely surround you and still challenge you to try and survive. This is especially true when you hide behind cover to try and heal.

2. Veteran difficulty is all about sprinting and going prone behind cover. If you aren't behind cover, you get about three seconds to get that way before you get shot and killed.

3. Unfortunately, several parts of the game require you to move ahead before they stop generating more and more enemies. You'll run yourself out of ammo if you stay at a safe spot in these occasions, and you just have to notice this and run forwards at some point. This is probably even more frustrating than the grenades.

4. In other cases, moving forward may not be necessary, but can still be very helpful, as your allies tend to follow and clean up everything that's behind you. Sometimes a good strategy is to charge forward to any safe spot you can find just behind enemy lines so that your allies can do the hard work for you.

5. When you're an American, smoke grenades are your friend. They can help a ton with points where you have to charge forward. You really miss the smoke grenades when you get to a Russian level, because the Molotov Cocktails just aren't that good of a replacement.

6. You should know this, but clearly enemy weapons are much easier to find ammo for, even if they're not quite as good as guns.

7. If you're looking for the "Throw a Six and a Half" trophy which requires that you beat a level on Hardened or Veteran without dying, do it on Black Cats. It's so much easier than any of the others, if you just focus on destroying the PT boats and you don't worry about picking up survivors.

Call of Duty: World at War Trophy Guide

Here's guide on how to reach that platinum trophy for Call of Duty 5. This is technically for the PS3 version, which is what I have.

Call of Duty 5 Trophy List - technically from www.ps3trophies.co.uk
All of the first trophies (1-15) are about beating the specific levels on Veteran, the highest difficulty. You'll need a walkthrough for that, there isn't enough space here to help you on those.

1	Get Your Hands Dirty
	Complete 'Semper Fi' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
2	Bloody Peleliu
	Complete 'Little Resistance' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
3	The Sword Is Broken
	Complete 'Hard Landing' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
4	Architect
	Complete 'Vendetta' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
5	The Hammer Strikes
	Complete 'Their Land, Their Blood' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
6	Scorched Earth
	Complete 'Burn 'em Out' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
7	Fearless
	Complete 'Relentless' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
8	Hell on Wheels
	Complete 'Blood and Iron' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
9	No Return
	Complete 'Ring of Steel' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
10	When It Rains, It Pours
	Complete 'Eviction' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
11	One Bad Gato
	Complete 'Blackcats' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
12	Blowtorch and Corkscrew
	Complete 'Blowtorch and Corkscrew' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
13	The Sun Sets
	Complete 'Breaking Point' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
14	For the Motherland
	Complete 'Heart of the Reich' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
15	Bearing the Burden
	Complete 'Downfall' on Veteran difficulty. (Solo only)
16	Carlsons Raiders
	Complete 'Semper Fi' on any difficulty. (Solo only) Simple.
17	Stormed Peleliu
	Establish a beachhead at Peleliu Island on any difficulty. (Solo only) Surely, you can beat the game, at least.
18	The Last Stand
	Survive the conflict in Okinawa on any difficulty. (Solo only) Surely, you can beat the game, at least.
19	Stabbed in the Heart
	Complete all missions on the Eastern Front on any difficulty. (Solo only) Surely, you can beat the game, at least.
20	Hardened War Hero
	Complete the game on Hardened or Veteran difficulty. (Solo only) Complete every mission, in any order, on one of the difficulties. Clearly, you should be working on Veteran for all the other trophies above, so use that one.
21	War Hero
	Complete the game on any difficulty. (Solo only) Surely, you can beat the game, at least.
22	Saved Private Ryan
	Save the soldier before he burns to death. Shoot or melee the burning Japanese soldier in the first level when he charges Private Ryan. Shouldn't be a real problem.
23	Weapon of Mass Destruction
	Radio in a naval bombardment that kills at least 4 Japanese soldiers. You get the bombardment option in the next level, but I've had a lot of trouble actually getting this one to trigger.
24	The Professional
	Shoot all of Amsel's henchmen, including their attack dog, without reloading. (Solo only) Once you realize that you can kill two guards with one bullet if they are behind one another, this is fairly easy. Shoot the right pair, the middle pair, and the left pair (two bullets for them), then a guard will come out. Don't shoot him until his dog comes out and sticks its nose behind his left leg, when you can get both of them at once.
25	Gunslinger
	Assassinate General Amsel with a pistol shot. (Solo only) There is a YouTube video out there that shows how you can blow up a truck to kill Amsel with a pistol.
26	Lights Out!
	In 'Black Cats', blast out all of the spot lights in the Japanese cargo convoy. (Solo only) The spot lights are at both ends of the three ships. Just shoot them.
27	Rough Economy
	Kill 3 enemies with a single round. Can happen at any time, but is most easy on the first Russian level when you have a sniper rifle.
28	Guardian Angel
	In the final battle for Okinawa, save Sergeant Roebuck. When Roebuck and Polonsky go to negotiate with the "surrendering" Japanese, watch the two Japanese soldiers near Roebuck. When the grenade goes off near Polonsky, shoot the two soldiers to save Roebuck, which somehow means Polonsky dies instead.
29	Close Shave
	Survive a banzai attack. (Solo only) Let a banzai charger get to you, and you'll get the animation where he is about to bayonet you. Press R3 at basically any time to survive it.
30	Snake in the Grass
	Take out a Japanese soldier lying in wait in the grass. In several levels, soldiers are hiding in the grass waiting to attack you. You'll just have to realize in one playthrough where those surprise attacks are and shoot them before they pop out next time.
31	Grave Robber
	Collect all Death Cards in the game. (Solo only) Here's a link.
32	No Safe Place
	Burn an enemy out of a tree with the flamethrower in 'Hard Landing'. There are lots of trees with soldiers in them where all the soldiers pop out of the grass later in the level. They're fairly close to the ground, so just burn 'em out.
33	Throw a Six and a Half
	On Hardened or Veteran difficulty, complete a level without dying. (Solo only) This is easiest on Black Cats, if you just make sure you shoot the PT boats before doing anything else.
34	Purple Heart
	When staring into the face of adversity, show courage and persevere. Die. A lot. You'll likely earn it at some point while trying to complete the game on Veteran.
35	Firestarter
	Complete a level using only the flamethrower. Melee, grenades & explosives are OK. Burn 'em Out works pretty well for this on an easy difficulty. Just abstain from using bullets, and your infinite ammo flamethrower will get you through.
36	Kamikaze
	Complete a level on Regular difficulty or higher using only melee or grenades. (Solo only) This is easiest on the first level, Semper Fi. Don't use bullets, and don't be afraid to hide when you're hurt.
37	Iron Fist
	Destroy all towers and bunkers in 'Blood and Iron'. Not too nuanced.
38	Ruthless
	Kill 15 enemies while mounted on a tank in 'Ring of Steel'. At the end of this level, tanks roll up to pursue the fleeing Germans. Go up to one and hold Square to get on the machine gun on top, with which you can easily gun down 15 of them.
39	Mortar-dom
	Kill 8 Japanese with thrown mortars in 'Breaking Point. If you find the mortars, they're plenty destructive, so just use them and nothing else for a while until you get the trophy confirmation.
40	Shot in the Dark
	Kill 10 enemies while the lights are out in the subway in 'Eviction'. As the lights flicker out and your allies basically tell you to wait, start shooting the enemies, or even charging them for melee attacks if you're on an easy difficulty.
41	Sum of All Zeros
	Down 45 Japanese Zeros in 'Black Cats'. (Solo only) Difficult. Don't try to rescue survivors, and make sure you get a lot shot down in the initial crowd of them.
42	Blue Ribbon
	Complete a 4-player Competitive Co-Op match in 1st place. (Online co-op Only) No real advice here, except go on an easy difficulty and charge ahead of your friends.
43	Get Your Left Foot Wet
	Complete a match in Campaign Co-Op mode. (Online co-op only)
44	Get Your Right Foot Wet
	Complete a match in Competitive Co-Op mode. (Online co-op only)
45	Platinum
	Awarded when all other trophies have been unlocked.

Real World Cardboard Box Escape MGS-Style

In the gaming blog equivalent of soft news, apparently a Turkish prisoner escaped jail in a cardboard box, a la Solid Snake as pictured above. I'm guessing he wasn't just running around under the box, but Joystiq reports that he basically mailed himself out of prison in it. Then Joystiq go on to make jokes about other MGS oddities, like distracting soldiers with porno magazines. The internet is telling me that this is Turkish for Solid Snake: Katı Yılan

Fallout 3 Edited for Japan

We already found out earlier that Microsoft decided not to release Fallout 3 in India due to the two-headed cows, and today we find that the Japanese version was edited to get around other concerns with nukes. One of the first side quests in the game, in which the player decides either to disarm or blow up a dormant nuke in the middle of a city, was edited out over concerns given what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Also, the mini nuke launcher in the game is not called a "Fat Man", as that was the name of the second nuke dropped on Japan. Heh, hmm...

Finally Got my Key to the City (GTA IV)

I finally received my Key to Liberty City, a nice little piece of gamer swag to show I completed Grand Theft Auto IV 100% in the first three weeks or so it was out. All that pigeon hunting was finally almost worth it. It is nice, though, really.

The Simpsons Negatively Mentions Video Games

I don't really want to be the Entertainment Police, but I should go ahead and mention that the latest episode of The Simpsons did present video games in a negative light, as I'm sure GamePolitics will point out in a day or two.

Bart was sitting in the back of the family car playing a Game Boy, the game being displayed as "Cereal Killer". It appears to be a first-person shooter where the player shoots several cereal mascots, like Cap'n Crunch and Toucan Sam. Homer later comments "Video games... Why this American generation will be the greatest ever..."

Just a bit insulting, I guess. Not a huge deal.

The Skeptic's Guide to Violent Video Game Studies

On BlogCritics, I published My "Skeptic's Guide to Violent Video Game Studies" today. Follow the link for my largest article in a long time.

Studying Studies: Violent Video Games Linked to Hostility Again

Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a story with the headline "Study Links Violent Video Games, Hostility", with the subtitle "Research in U.S., Japan Shows Aggression Increased for Months After Play". The only problem is, the news story is really weak on the details of how the study came to that finding. They mention in the body of the text that it was a group of three longitudinal studies over time, using kids from Japan and the United States. The study showed "an increased likelihood of getting into a fight at school or being identified by a teacher or peer as being physically agressive five to six months later in the same school year". The American children were from 9 to 12 and they lived in Minnesota.

First of all, 9 to 12 seems a bit young for what we should be looking for. Most of the concern about violent video games centers on real world violent crime, not little fights at school. Also, Mature-rated games aren't entirely prevalent at that age range, though they are likely more prevalent than we think.

Secondly, did all kinds of video games increase chances of aggressive behavior? Or just "violent" ones, which are defined by the study as "when one character harmed of killed another". This definition of violent obviously includes things considered very tame, like Kirby and Madden. Anyway, the rest of the article just says "we have conclusive evidence..." then goes on to say that certain important people now consider media violence a public health concern. They just pulled out their list of public health concerns, crossed out comic books and rock 'n' roll, then wrote video games right under there with no sense of irony at all.

So, we need more details. From what I've heard, that isn't conclusive evidence. Even if their study factored in previous aggression, kids who are more aggressive are more likely to play "violent" games. Also, violent crime in the United States has consistently gone down ever since video games became readily available for children. I'm not suggesting that video games cause less violence, but rather that there is little to no effect.

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