Matt’s Somewhat Serious Bit
This is something I’ve wanted to bring up for months, but haven’t really been able to find the right words to express my feelings on the subject, but being in an office with different types of people for the last two weeks has given me a much greater perspective on the matter. Thus, I’m going to attempt to put it into words.
Despite all of their whinging and complaining, gamers are the laziest beings on the planet.
Most gamers have to wash their backs with rags on sticks
Now, before you get hit the comments thread to give me some hate filled reply about how you’ve got a job, play sport and all that horse shit, stop and think about it for a second. Yes, think. Not many of you do that before hitting the “Post” button. There is actually a point behind my declaration.
There’s no doubt that the readers of my fortnightly rants are all familiar with the Office of Film and Literature Classification’s policies on R ratings and the new classification logo system. Being highly opinionated individuals, there’s even less doubt that many of you have spurted bullshit into the various forum threads that have popped up concerning the issue.
How many of you have ever tried to do anything about it?
Gamers, as it seems, are content to sit back and let everyone do the work for them – not inclined to learn how the system works and manipulate it in order to get what they want. It’s time this procrastination was brought to an end, and we join together to get those changes that what we, the gaming public, want. How do we do that?
Hint: Form lobby group for high score.
In a democratic society like Australia, the power is meant to be in the hands of the people – we the people vote in members of parliament in order to speed up the legislative process. These MPs are quite susceptible to lobbying as has been proven time and time against by Christian and “family friendly” groups constantly getting their way. It’s no use whinging about these issues on a gaming forum or in a games magazine – you’re preaching to the converted – you have to let the people with the power know what you want. Censorship in Australia is amongst the most stringent in the world, with only Germany having tougher guidelines. Interestingly enough, this problem hasn’t always been isolated to videogames, with an R classification for films not being introduced until 1971, with anything prior to that being automatically RC’d.
You've got to make the most of the political system to get what you want
To be successful, a lobby group needs to have a solid grasp of several factors; knowledge, numbers and power. In terms of knowledge, a group has to know exactly what they want to change, how to change it, what they want to change it to and who is stopping them from getting what they want. The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 is the piece of legislation that governs the rules by which the OFLC must abide by when classifying a submission. The last major review of the act was conducted in 2001, when the South Australian Attorney-General, the Hon. Michael Atkinson, was the only member to oppose the introduction of an R rating for computer and videogames. As the review must be passed by unanimous vote of the State Attorney-Generals, the initial review failed. Politically, Mr Atkinson is believed to be on the religious right, meaning that it is likely that he’s under pressure from a number of religious lobby groups. These are the main adversaries of anyone wishing for legitimate freedom of speech, etc. in this country – we need to form the lobby group in order to basically beat them at their own game. They know the political process and use it to their advantage, so we must do this too – write to MPs (politely, in proper English and preferably in a physical form) and put the pressure on.
Michael Atkinson is the reason we don't have an R rating for games
Numbers are probably the easiest part of the equation to summon – provided the gaming public can get out of the “let someone else do it” mindset. All the energy you spend whining about R ratings on the PALGN forums could easily be transcribed into writing a letter. If a lobby group is to be successful, it needs to prove that it is indeed the voice of the people – this is where the religious right is so successful – nobody is organised enough to challenge their views on an issue. The Australian gaming industry lacks this sort of a voice, and a lobby group could provide the community with what it needs to get the real voice of the people heard. I’m sure that with a little persuasion, existing industry groups like the AIMA, GDAA, EFA, distributors, publishers and gaming media would be more than willing to lend their support to any cause, or perhaps even assist in the promotion and management of such a group, not to mention provide the financial backing that the group would need.
In order to get all of this done, a few gamers would need to be willing to sacrifice a bit of quality time with their PlayStations, Xboxes, GameCubes and such in order to contribute to the greater good. Get the word out – tell your friends, spread the news to the gaming press and the gaming industry - we’re not going to sit idly by any longer. If you want your R rating, you’ve got to fight for it. I’m sure we can use the discussion thread from this article to get something under way.
It Came From Japan #2 - The Chikkyu Boueigun Series
If you’re familiar with 1950s B-Grade horror films (and works by Japanese company Toho), then you’ll undoubtedly recall this clichéd scenario: evil monster arrives on planet, military calls out special force to take out monster, monster kicks special force’s arse. Simple 2000 Volume 31: The Chikyuu Boueigun (roughly translates to Earth’s Defence Force, but not related to the film of the same name) puts the player in this exact situation…well, except that you’ve got to deal with these monstrous menaces alone. Yes, just you (and a friend).
Simple 2000 games are generally of a relatively lacklustre quality (usually due to budget constraints), but developer Sandlot has delivered an exciting title with epic battles, tons of weapons and unprecedented destruction. The game is set in what would appear to be an unnamed Japanese city which happens to be under attack from an alien threat. Using a variety of weapons and vehicles, players have to destroy anything that comes within 15ft of them, including giant ants, UFOs and a large reptile that pays homage to Japanese monster movie legend Godzilla. The game is not without flaw, however, with a highly variable frame rate and its 25 missions leaving players wanting more.
...
Earth's Defence Force lets you play as those weeny troops that get squashed by Godzilla & co.
More is what they got two years later with the release of Simple 2000 Volume 81: The Chikyuu Boueigun 2. With a greatly expanded number of missions and weapons, a new character and a stack of new vehicles, Earth’s Defence Force 2 is even better than the original. Following the same premise as the original game, the sequel lets you chose between two rather different protagonists to deal with the alien threat, as well as letting you fly through the city with a jetpack. It was very well received by fans, and many consider it to be the pinnacle of the Simple 2000 collection. The series is set to continue on the Xbox 360, with the currently titled EDF X. Hopefully the Xbox 360 version of the game will deliver even better action than its PlayStation 2 predecessors, and throw in a solid frame rate.
At this point in time, only the first title in the series has been released outside of Japan. Monster Attack is the name of the PAL version of The Chikyuu Boueigun, released by Agetec in 2003 in relatively limited quantities for a budget price. There are currently no plans to release the sequel, but with Simple 2000 titles being relatively hot property on the budget circuit, it’s likely we’ll see it sooner or later.
From the bowels of the Internet #5
Back in the 80s, anyone with a PC and some spare time could program a fun game in BASIC and share it with their friends. Homebrew development still continues on the PC, and is still very popular, but it’s not just limited to original games – many developers slave away making remakes and improved versions of their favourite games.
Retro Remakes is a website dedicated to chronicling and tracking the progress of various remakes of popular games, even offering many of them for download. The range of games available is massive, with remakes of popular titles such as Privateer, Pac-Man, The Secret of Monkey Island, as well as altered versions of games such as Super Mario Pac, a Jetpac clone with Mario and Fludd. Good way to kill a weekend.
Loading...
