Civilization V Announced: Is Canada in the Game?

"Civilization V," a new entry in perhaps my favorite video game series, was announced today. It will be released this fall. The details announced so far provide essentially no idea of what is new in this game, besides three pretty screenshots, and the announcement that this game will use a hex grid rather than a square one (which I am for). So, as you can imagine, the speculation on the 2K Games forums is crazy. My favorite thread is the one wondering who the 18 civilizations in the game are going to be. Why? Because of the arguments about Hitler and Canada.

In Hitler's case, some forum users want Hitler to be a playable leader of the German civilization in the next game. He hasn't been a leader in previous titles, even though other horrible leaders like Stalin have been. I can say pretty safely right now, though: Hitler will not be in "Civilization V." If he were, the game would be banned in Germany. German laws are very strict on the matter of keeping Nazis out of even historical titles, unless the game beats you over the head with the belief that Nazism was a bad idea. That's why there are no swastikas in the "Hearts of Iron" series.

More hilarious to me: There are tons of forumites who want Canada to be a newly added civilization. The first to make this comment knew it was an impossible suggestion, saying things like "Being a Canadian I also would love for this to happen. Poor Canada " and so on. But then, as people pointed out that Canada is probably not one of the eighteen most important civilizations in history, it got militant.

Someone said that Canada was unimportant, and really just a mixture of English and French civilizations, and the reply was: "Well it just so happens that Canada is very important to MY history. By the same Token the USA was just a British colony that gained independence, why should they get their own civ?" Others chimed in on the exact same note, saying that America was only a former British colony.

Another supportive opinion: "Canada has contributed as much to the world as America has and has been instrumental in some of the largest areas of modern life, from involvement in overseas military action, to political and economic stabilization in second and third world countries."

...and another one: "Canada should for sure be included.
It should have a high diplomacy factor, diplomatic unque building, and an idea for a unique unit is the pioneer!! Have the pioneer the same as any other settler but with an extra movement and defense point!
Canada and America were both colonies that gained independence..... THe only reason America is "stronger" is because of their greater population.....
PS: another idea for a unique building... ODR.. the outdoor rink "

It got more tangled from there. Someone recommended that we all see "Strange Brew" to find out why Canada isn't a civilization. My favorite anti-Canada post:

"Also, for those mentioning the great nation of Canada, be serious.

Russia- Great Revolution, Socialism/Communism, First in Space
America- Nuclear Bomb, Landing on the Moon, Hollywood
Britain- British Empire, Magna Carta
Canada- Bacon ?"

Great stuff.

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Pushing the Medium Forward

Has any medium's idea of what is acceptable for display moved as quickly as that of video games? Just two years ago, Mass Effect was universally hated (by people who had never played it) for including a "sex scene" which was actually just mild nudity. Now, Bioware's latest titles include the same level of mostly clothed "sex scenes," with virtually no public outrcry, despite these titles' huge mainstream attention. And despite not coming anywhere close to actually portraying sex, they're probably closer than the Hot Coffee mini-game was so long ago. Jack Thompson has disappeared, games are getting reviewed in the New York Times every week, and their perception as a children's medium is dying.

Video games can now have nudity and yet still be sold in Wal-Marts. That's a huge and recent development. Grand Theft Auto IV's DLC expansion The Lost and Damned was a strategically important place to get this done, and I think developer Rockstar North knew that. The Lost and Damned included a cutscene with a visible digital penis (belonging to a congressman), making it the first mainstream North American release to include male nudity. First of all, the game would not be released in stores to begin with, because it was download-only. The only people who could stop it from being sold were inside Microsoft. Second, as merely an expansion, the mainstream media attention wouldn't be overwhelming, so you get less people talking about a scene that they've never actually seen, which is important. Third, the DLC would eventually be sold in a disc format, after the attention had died away. Now we have stores selling a video game with frontal male nudity without controversy. It has now set precedent for all game releases in the future, and the medium has moved forward in the public consciousness.

Heavy Rain is now widely known as a game that's meant to move the medium forward, in many more ways than simply nudity. But, the fact that their nude scene is interactive makes an important distinction in the ongoing argument. One of the major reasons people will argue that video games should not have nudity while movies can is that video games are interactive. Nude scenes in games past have almost all been simple, non-interactive cutscenes, but in Heavy Rain, you can be seen as controlling the scene. The game hasn't yet been released, so I haven't played it, but it will be interesting to see exactly how it's handled. Regardless, the scene just isn't attracting the Fox News-class outrage we've seen in years past.

Maybe certain Japanese games like Rapelay put things in perspective.

Modern Warfare 2: Some Notes

So Modern Warfare 2 is already setting sales records. And it has not shied away from conspiracy for even one second. Before release, Infinity Ward was releasing some advertising material that just baldly seemed built to piss some people off and get their game talked about pre-release. The simple acronym at the end of that linked video "Fight Against Grenade Spam" was worth a couple more Kotaku posts than the game would've gotten, and it seems to have cost them nothing. So, even before the really big news about that one level I'll talk about in a moment, Infinity Ward was deciding to show some balls here, and I don't think it hurt their sales.


*ahem* SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT *ahem*


The game only takes a few hours to beat, so hopefully some day we won't have to add that notice. So, yes, in I believe the fourth level, roughly forty minutes to an hour into the game, we have the infamous level in which the player is sort of a terrorist. They covered it on Fox & Friends this morning, picking a representative for video games who clearly hadn't been on TV before.*

The player is a CIA operative infiltrating a Russian terrorist's organization in order to get information, and take him or some other vague enemy down later on. During the loading screen, the player is told something approximating "You don't want to know how much we paid to get you in this far. You'll have to pay with a piece of yourself, too. Regardless, this way will save far more lives." Then, the player sees himself as part of a group of five Russians wearing bulletproof vests, with automatic weapons, walking slowly into a Russian airport lobby. The other people open fire on a crowded group of civilians, heavily suggesting that the player should follow suit to stay under cover. Most of the rest of the level, you walk slowly through the airport, shooting more civilians and police officers. The player can decide to not shoot anybody, with the only possible consequences being that they could still be shot by the few police officers present. In that case, the player would simply walk through the level as the massacre happens, without killing any civilians.

You are allowed to skip the level in-game. The game specifically asks you as you start it up if you feel you might want to skip parts, and you can do it from the start menu while in the terrorist mission as well.

No matter what you do, once you make it to the end of the level, the Russian terrorist group's leader shoots you in the head and kills you (or one of the characters you play, anyway) which then allows Russian police to discover your body and find that you're American, which becomes a casus belli for Russia to invade the United States in the coming missions. So, you can at least say, in being killed by the terrorist leader, that character is cemented as a bad guy whereas yours is certainly a good guy and a victim, whether or not he had to kill civilians.

So, hey people! It's a moral dilemma! That's good, it's interesting! We're trying to move video games up to other media, in which good guys can be bad at times and bad guys can be good at times! The crime boss protagonist doesn't always have to get what's coming to him! The superhero can save lives while also on crack! Rockstar Games has been doing something like this with virtually every game they release, trying to move video games up to where the same things are accepted in them as in movies, books, etc. Video games can have full nudity. How is that worse than actual moving pictures of full nudity?

I think we're past the point where this becomes a serious drive for violent game legislation again, at least in the U.S. I guess we'll find out.

*I just read this about the poor guy: "There are a few gaming sites out there bashing Jon for losing his train of thought early in the segment and closing his eyes towards the end as he stood his ground defending simulated violence in video games. I’ve known Jon personally for several years now, and what the asshats who are ridiculing him don’t know is that Fox contacted him that same day with just a few hours notice. In addition to Jon never having been on television before, the segment was filmed at 3:30 AM his time, which meant he wasn’t exactly “well rested” before going on air."

Blood Pressure Raised by TV Time

According to the study covered here, children's blood pressure may go up as they watch TV or play video games. Oddly enough, blood pressure increases independent of the body type of the 3 to 8 year-olds studied did not increase with regular sedentary activity or computer usage, but it did increase when the children watched or played on the TV. I wonder if wearing a special device to measure their blood pressure and trying to play a video game may have caused the kids some undue stress, perhaps.

Sphere Psychosis Game Released

I've started making my own games, so here's the first: Sphere Psychosis, an entry into the Unofficial TIGSource Vaporware Competition, in which you had to make a game that was never released. I chose Marble Madness II, and decided to make it 3d, with the Unity game development tool (definitely recommended).

Download it at GameJolt here (be sure to rate, please)

EDIT: Now available in web player format!

Different builds for Windows and Mac included, Quick Play online available for Windows users through GameJolt as well. There are only two levels in version 0.5 (if that's still the current version when you're reading this) and one is easy and the second is rather harder. Press Escape to return to the main menu if you get stuck (which happens a lot on Level 2).

I made the music in Melody Assistant, if you're interested.

Terrorism Can Be Fun With Red Faction: Guerrilla!

I've almost finished playing Red Faction: Guerrilla, and I'm having fun with it. The sledgehammer-swinging pure destruction is just so much fun, all on its own, that the rest of the game would have to be terrible to bring it down. Miyamoto famously asked his team to make a simple game with a cube jumping and make it fun before they could start on Super Mario 64, so I think it's a good design idea to just start with a fun physics element and work up with a game like this.

Anyway, I find it interesting that Red Faction hasn't gotten in any trouble from watchdog groups, given its content. It's not too vulgar, not the absolutely most violent game I've ever played, and the enemies are abstracted into Halo uniforms, so they're not very human. No, the thing is, this game casts you, the player, as a terrorist. Given that until very recently, the US has said they were in a War on Terror (despite the fact that it's just a method, and not a physical object you can definitely destroy), I would think this would be a bit more controversial than it is.

Yes, you're liberating Mars from an oppressive regime. But, the regime is the Earth Defense Force (which doesn't sound too evil) and they're a group that were good guys in the past, so I think that they're somewhat comparable to the US Army, as an army of liberators that have become occupiers, and have to use increasingly drastic measures to keep the terrorists from taking over the country. The game could have explored this in any number of ways, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen, having seen the last twist just now, which dodges the issue entirely.

Though you are a hero, you (somewhat) covertly go around and blow stuff up and tear down buildings, all in the efforts of getting the occupying military force to leave your planet! That's terrorism, just as the American Revolution was, and it shows that terrorism in and of itself does not equal Muslim extremists killing babies for no good reason. If only the makers of the game would actually try to bring up the issue themselves!