61 Frames Per Second : new york

Unsolved Crimes and the New Setting

John Constantine — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The press release Empire Interactive sent around yesterday — announcing their new DS game, Unsolved Crimes — raised a couple of questions. First, who in the hell are Empire Interactive? Second, would it have narration by Robert Stack? The answers came swiftly. Empire Interactive made the Jackass videogame. Ugh. I also realized these are unsolved crimes and not mysteries. Also, Robert Stack is dead.

Humor and pedigree aside, Unsolved Crimes has an ace up its sleeve with an eminently cool setting: New York in the 1970s. The dank, crime-ridden NYC of thirty years ago is prime real estate for a game with both action and point-and-click adventure play. More importantly, 1970s New York is just downright uncommon for a videogame setting.

Excepting classic PC gaming’s diverse palette, videogame designers typically stick to the staples of swords-and-sorcery fantasy, science fiction, and real-or-specualtive militarism for its narrative and aesthetic trappings (when they don’t, they lean towards cartoonish abstraction.) But Unsolved Crimes is one more recently announced title that’s plumbing 20th Century America for new ideas. Look at Deep Silver’s Ride to Hell. The game sounds like something of GTA clone but it’s based in 1960’s California biker culture (think more Easy Rider than Thompson’s Hell’s Angels). Then there’s Deadline Games’ Faith and a .45, another duck-and-cover shooter with an emphasis on partner play a la Army of Two. Faith, however, is a love story with Bonnie-and-Clyde protagonists on the run in the Depression-era south. Developers branching out is an undeniably good thing — thirty years of elves and bald space marines is a little wearying, after all. These three games, and the relatively small size of their publishers/developers, signify something greater for the future of games, though: new ideas are becoming financially viable.

Looks like the past is the brave, new future.

Missing the Point: New York Senate Passes Mandatory Game Ratings Bill

John Constantine — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:00:00 GMT

A bill proposed by Senator Andrew Lanza was passed yesterday by a vote of 61-1. The bill requires that all videogames sold in New York State be rated by the ESRB. If signed by Governor David Patterson, the bill will become law by 2010. Lanza’s bill is not dissimilar to others passed and then overturned in Michigan, Oklahoma, and California after being deemed unconstitutional, in violation of the first amendment. GamePolitics.com printed this excerpt of Lanza’s closing argument for the bill:

If you look closely at this bill, [concerns expressed by Sen. Duane] are not valid. Let's start with speech. There's all kinds of speech. If we take an old-fashioned pinball machine and plunked it down here in the middle of the chamber, no one would call it speech. But when we put that up on a video screen, it does become speech and I acknowledge that. And it deserves protection under the Constitution... There is some confusion with respect to what this bill actually accomplishes... The word prohibition was talked about. I want to be clear. This bill does not prohibit the sale of any video to anyone...

This simply says that every video game sold in the state of New York simply should have a rating consistent with what the ESRB does presently in a voluntary way... it does work. But the problem with "voluntary" is that tomorrow someone can change their mind. Someone could decide tomorrow to no longer place ratings on these games. So this is not about prohibiting the sale, this is simply about providing information to parents...

Last year's version... that included a provision that would have made it an E-felony to sell these games, we all thought it was wrong. And we took that out. We worked with the [video game] industry. We worked with the Assembly and we do have an agreement here on a piece of legislation that I think will go a long way in allowing parents to make good decisions in regard to what is and what isn't appropriate for their chidlren...

As Illinois District Court judge Mathew Kennelly said, after knocking out a similar bill in Illinois, "In this country, the state lacks the authority to ban protected speech on the ground that it affects the listener's or observer's thoughts and attitudes.” Whether Senator Lanza likes it or not, his bill is in clear violation of the constitution.

Beyond the bill’s speech violations, though, this is yet another example of the governing body’s lack of understanding in regards to the videogame industry. How will the state manage secondary market sales of games made before the ESRB’s founding? What of digitally distributed games sold by independent businesses? And speaking of independent business, will the state subsidize the literally thousands of dollars it requires to have a game rated by the ESRB?

Lanza’s right about one thing. Game ratings do work and they are a necessary, productive component of the industry. But government mandated ratings are illegal. Maybe someone should pass the senator one of those US history books you need to read to pass the New York State Regents Exam.

Our thanks to both Next-Gen and GamePolitics in covering this story.

The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto 4 Part 3

John Constantine — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

I was hoping to open the final entry in my review of Grand Theft Auto with a definitive statement about its story, to find the game’s essence in the conclusion of its through-the-looking-glass tale of crime, brutality, and the American experience. I can’t. After one month, some thirty-five hours total, of playing Grand Theft Auto 4, I’ve quit. I’m not positive how close I even am to finishing the narrative portion of the game at this point because, not unlike the gameplay itself, there is no arc. After a certain point, the story merely plateaus with no discernible rise and fall. It ceases to be a compelling enough reward to keep playing the game.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is a work at odds with itself. It places you in a gigantic world and allows you to do what you will, but you cannot change it. It allows you to build friendships with the characters surrounding you but keeps you always at their mercy, penalizing you if you can’t answer your phone in the middle of a firefight. The cars control with severe realism but the game demands you drive like Sandra Bullock in Speed. Even the slightest police provocation is an arrest-able offense but you can escape them by turning a corner. But most problematic is protagonist Niko Bellic. In cutscenes and in conversation, Niko is a vicious but principled figure on an alluded to quest for revenge. He takes no relish in murder and cruelty which keeps him cursorily sympathetic, if not empathetic. But like so much of the game itself, his motives are equally confused. One moment, Niko is concerned with nothing besides honor, avenging fallen comrades and protecting his family, and the next he’ll kill his own mother if the price is right.

For all of its artfulness, its carefully constructed and elegant other-New York, its pitch perfect scripting and voice acting, the pitch-perfect satire of its radio and television, Grand Theft Auto 4 is still just Grand Theft Auto: an incredible playground but a broken game. One day, Sam Houser and Rockstar Games will craft their masterpiece - they’ve come awfully close here – but Grand Theft Auto 4 is not it.

GTA4 Review Part 1
GTA4 Review Part 2

61FPS EXCLUSIVE: Peaceoholics Protest Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto 4

John Constantine — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:19:00 GMT

Friday afternoon was bustling outside of Rockstar Games’ Soho offices in New York City when a group of Washington DC youths gathered to protest the recent release of Grand Theft Auto 4. Peaceoholics, a non-profit organization founded to develop support programs for young people involved in DC’s juvenile justice system, were led by co-founder and COO Ronald Moten to demand Rockstar stop marketing their Grand Theft Auto series to children under seventeen. As NYC Metro bus passed by adorned with a billboard for GTA4, Moten said that Rockstar’s game was a training simulator for young people, no different than games like America’s Army, a game used to train US Army recruits. “These games are training our children to be animals,” said Moten and and asked why Rockstar didn’t choose to make games about preventing crime that are as exciting as GTA. According to Moten, this was the third year Peaceoholics gathered outside of Rockstar’s offices. As of 1:30pm, Rockstar had not sent a representative downstairs to meet with the protestors.

GTA's defenders argue that the game isn't intended for minors; its detractors counter that thousands of kids play it anyway. Ronald Moten and Peaceoholics do have a point: Grand Theft Auto does indeed glamorize an urban crime lifestyle. I’m the first to celebrate GTA’s satirical content but I also recognize its earnest and lionizing moments. But Grand Theft Auto is not a training simulator like Ronald Moten argued; it’s entertainment, and its intent is in its audience’s interpretations. Rockstar is not in the business of creating criminals, they’re in the business of making games for money. I applaud the Peaceoholics’ conviction and goals, but I’m not sure they’ve chosen the right target.

You can read more about Peacoholics right here.