Paradox Announces New Project: Europa Universalis Mario

The players asked for it and Nintendo said yes, so Paradox Interactive has finally announced the next big project in their strategy wargaming series, Europa Universalis: Mario. Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario and his various Yoshi and Toad-like troops will square off against the Koopa forces and a hidden locked Wario nation. Nintendo and Paradox together have announced that Mario is finally going to star in the absolute last genre of game he hasn't yet been in (talks with Microsoft over a Mario flight sim have recently broken down) and complete his conquest of the gaming culture. Clearly, that above won't be the real cover of the game but is just something I whipped together with the GIMP. Here, however, are some real screenshots of the game, which have apparently been kept secret all the way through its alpha stages, with a demo ready to come out in the early summer. You'll have to click them to get a really good look.


I'm personally very excited and I can't wait to get a better look at this. I don't typically divert my blog just to get worked up about a specific game, but this one looks terrific.

Play the News Game.com

Ian Bogost recently pointed out www.playthenewsgame.com, an interesting predictions site he describes as basically like fantasy sports with the news. Ranging from Oscars picks to the Pennsylvania Primary, there are lots of little "games" that tell you everything about a current situation then allow you to share your opinion and make a prediction from several different sides of the story. I find that they tell the actual stories of the news very well and can summarize points of view nicely. The opinion and predictions after you've read what's going on serve community functions, like a point system for each player. After you've earned enough points from playing, commenting, and accurately predicting, you can move up their ranks from citizen to politician, and eventually up to president. Anyway, it's neat and useful, though not exactly a game like you might expect. It definitely matches people who want to read the news more than someone looking to play a game online, as you'll see when you've played through one. Anyway, I'm recommending the site, as you can go there to get a nice perspective on the potential Take Two takeover.

Introducing R. R. White

Here you are, I'm introducing my new guest poster here at The Legal Arcade. His name is Richard White, and we've been talking via email for a while about our new partnership for the blog. He's finally agreed to send me a few essays, and you'll understand his position on gaming pretty well after reading just a word or two. Anyway, his first essay for this site is on suggestions for a potential Grand Theft Auto V, so I'll just let you read his email to me.

On 3/19/08, Richard White wrote:
Here's the first of my essays for your site. I do hope your readers enjoy.
Grand Theft Auto IV is nearing its release next month, a day which will live in infamy for my sort. Surely, Rockstar Games will have had enough with controversy and they'll tone this game down from the previous editions, but that's likely only a vain hope. Here I've prepared an essay for some suggestions for a more family safe Grand Theft Auto V, given that I will likely never see the day that series is successfully kept away from children.

Suggestions

• Content labels for every separate mission would be a real help to parents. Everyone knows about the grandma-beating that the freer parts of the game allow you to do, but the really bad stuff happens in missions, like forays into adult stores. This would allow parents to struggle through these missions for the children and explain through lies the storyline development in said mission.
• Despite having its own controversy, I found Bully a very safe alternative to Grand Theft Auto. Some weapons like the spud cannon and super slingshot should make the series transition to keep the streets of Liberty City clean from blood. Also, kissing should give your player a health bonus instead of being with a prostitute.
• Humor in Grand Theft Auto should be restricted to obscure references to films only adults would even want to see. For instance, Niko should make a little dance with his potatoes on forks as Charles Chaplin did. Whoever the main character will be in Grand Theft Auto V could be Woody Allen. This is obviously eccentric, but it really would remove one major reason for kids to play the game.
• Jail time cannot be immediately over after major crimes. Getting "busted" should force you to sit the PS3 down and do something else until the next day, when your character will receive a lethal injection.
• Get rid of the Adults Only rating. No game with that rating can every truly be released, so why not call it Mature and change the current Mature rating to something else? That way the rating system can be opened back up before game companies ban the release of the new Mature-rated games.

Well, that's really enough for now. Tell your readers to email their sarcastic, malinformed comments and questions to me at my legalarcade.com email. That way they won't clutter up my real inbox but I can still check in every now and then to change some minds.

R. R. White

Clearly, he'll provide a very different point of view to this site. Several of these seem almost silly they're so off, but I can really agree with his suggestion for the Adults Only rating. Right now, Adults Only is a lame duck rating that can never actually exist in America, so it needs to be shuffled around somehow. As you read there at the end, email any comments you have to rwhite@legalarcade.com so he can learn a thing or two. I gave him that special email so that you can send whatever sort of email to him you want and it won't obstruct his normal email address. I'm really excited about having him as a new guest poster, and I'll be sure to post the rest of his essays as time goes on.

I'm Back-ish

That was a longer break than expected, but, at least the blog's not gone. I'm still here, and I've just been busy. Semi-regular coverage of the same controversial video game issues is going to start back up, but I'm still busy and I'm still not likely to post every day. That's one reason why I'm going to start bringing on a guest poster I'll name later tonight or tomorrow, basically for me to argue with. He's a retired attorney, and he represents the other, anti-gaming side of most of these issues, though we can agree on a few things at times (we both still find Jack Thompson a bit crazy). Anyway, I've negotiated a deal in which he's going to send me some essays via email to guest post on here every few days. You'll see, the first of that sort of post is coming up later today or tomorrow. Until then, look at some of the excerpts of Jack Thompson's misconduct hearing here.

I'm Taking a Break

I've been busy enough that I'm taking about a week or two off from the blog. In the meantime, check this study out.

Guess the Game (Character) 2!

Here's another of my little brother's drawings, like the Resident Evil one he made before, and you're to guess which game (in this case a game character) he's symbolizing. No one guessed it last time, more likely due to lack of traffic rather than difficulty, but this one should be a bit easier. Let's try:

Northern Illinois Shooting Blamed on Games As Well

Yet another college shooting, and yet another bit of violence blamed on a "violent culture" of video games happened last week. After the shooting, Jack Thompson immediately sprang up in a FOX News interview, in which he obviously blamed the shooting on "the Counter-Strike Half-Life" game, which apparently the shooter had played along with most people in the world. Makes me wonder why I haven't killed anyone yet. It must happen at some point, I just wish I'd get it over with now. Anyway, then a New York Post article mentioned Counter-Strike, and an Illinois legislator blamed our violent culture rather than gun control issues. The guy came off medication, so I'm not sure why a history of playing Counter-Strike would be more responsible than that. Also, any proposed gaming legislation wouldn't even affect his playing Counter-Strike, because he's 27 years old. I hope that we're not going to suggest 30 year-olds can't play violent games either. Especially if they can have whatever guns they want.