RPGmasterBoo

Dude, you need to come back to SCII. I need people to pwn. And I'm terran now so you can't complain

Is that Clone Commando? It was a pretty good game which sadly got overlooked...

I sense much anger in you

Modern wars are generally boring, you should know that. None of the massive scale carnage of WWII. Besides WW2 is supposedly the only war with a clear moral standing of its participants (bs, I know but that's how many people view it) which makes it the "easy choice" to make (cos no one feels bad about slaughtering germans, and they can't complain anyway). Also the equally abundant Nazi worshipers amongst strategy gamers get their fill of Wehrmacht action (I'm continually surprised how many of these sort of people there are).

Forget the whole series, FFVI is the best one! I got past the intro twice but didn't roll the will save to go further.

Eh...your description of local High School life sounds like my High School...in the mid 1980s. Well except the cellphones, those were unweildy and couldn't film jack. That sounds depressing. Nice to be "behind the times".

This isn't a fundamentally Japanese issue, Grom. This is a universal issue concerning the decency of mankind. Human depravity is still depravity be it Nippon or Timbuktu. Condoning acceptance of rape and torture will only further desensitize our inhibitions against debauchery. For good or for ill, this is what happened to homosexuality. Now, I'm in no way saying that homosexuality is immoral, but, it was considered to be such yesteryear. But given the mainstream acceptance it acquired by the mass media over the last generation, it became socially kosher. Rape and torture, however, are not like homosexuality. Rape and torture are inherently vile and affront to all decency. However, the desensitizing effect of mass media makes no such distinction, and it will eventually create indifference if not tacit assent to these intolerant practices. By your own admission, it's already happened in Japan. Unfortunately, tolerance of intolerance is no tolerance at all. I may be wrong, but are you comparing societies growing acceptance of relationships between consenting individuals as a sign that society will accept nonconsentual relationships? I can't tell, but are you also arguing that some acts in video games will "desensitize our inhibitions against debauchery" but not others? Because if you're going to argue that "rape and torture" are desensitizing, then surely the same argument applies to any game with violence in it as well (which pretty much rules out any game that has physical conflict between entities). Or am I missing something? You're right Amentep, in that if you take that principle to its logical extreme it could, in theory, rule out a great many things. But that's in theory. In reality, violence in an of itself is not comparable to rape or torture. Violence may be a part of self-defense. Violence may be part of justice. Violence is always part of war. But these things are subject to justification. They can, a great many times, have a moral leg to stand on. Rape, torture, and pedophilia is without justification, and that's what makes it intrinsically debase. As legal scholars call it, it's the distiction between a malum in se (wrong because it's inherent wrong), versus a malum prohibitum (wrong because the law says so). This is exacerbated by the fact that most of us are either indifferent to or enthusiastic of gratuitously violent media, and so corrective action would likely be futile. The cat's already out of the bag and the desensitization has already taken place. But as RPGmasterBoo eloquently said, "at some point you simply have to draw the line." Thankfully, American and European society hasn't sunk (yet) to those depths of nonchalance with respect to rape, torture, & pedophilia. Hence, the current public outrage. We still hold some things sacred it seems. But if we continue down the path Japan have walked, then it won't be long before there's hentai on Cartoon Network or rape games on the shelves of Gamestop. The fact is I've seen such things happen. I'm on my final year at my university and I keep a close eye on what happens on the first year and with local high school kids. Things that were unimaginable only 5 years ago when I was in high school are commonplace now. It was say unthinkable to record porn vids on your cellphone with your gf and show them around to your classmates, extremely rare that people would bang like rabbits in their first year (15year olds mind you) with multiple partners being a thing of the norm. Smoking weed and ritual drunkenness (drinking until you collapse) were frowned upon, and only done by dropouts. Junkies were cretins to be laughed at and occasionally beat up. Now a friend tells me that on the uni trip to Paris his group spent (21-22yr olds) most of their time in hotel rooms high and drunk, or screwing around. The occasional fistfight were more or less the worst violence you could expect in a school yard. Now there's a stabbing almost every day, most of the time done with intent to kill. The economical situation is not really any better or worse than when I was a kid, so the only thing I can deduce is that a shift in thinking has happened where violence, drinking yourself silly and casual sex have been spread from the "unsavory elements" and become the norm. I wont even mention what the older generations are remarking about us and from what I see its pretty much correct.

This isn't a fundamentally Japanese issue, Grom. This is a universal issue concerning the decency of mankind. Human depravity is still depravity be it Nippon or Timbuktu. Condoning acceptance of rape and torture will only further desensitize our inhibitions against debauchery. For good or for ill, this is what happened to homosexuality. Now, I'm in no way saying that homosexuality is immoral, but, it was considered to be such yesteryear. But given the mainstream acceptance it acquired by the mass media over the last generation, it became socially kosher. Rape and torture, however, are not like homosexuality. Rape and torture and inherently vile and affront to all decency. However, the desensitizing effect of mass media makes no such distinction, and it will eventually create indifference if not tacit assent to these intolerant practices. By your own admission, it's already happened in Japan. Unfortunately, tolerance of intolerance is no tolerance at all. Well said, which is why I was for banning this sort of stuff in the first place - working on a presumption that it easier to cultivate and feed the worse part of human nature in an individual than the virtues, at some point you simply have to draw the line. Rapelay wont lead any sane person to rape of course, but allowing this sort of content to flourish will at some point in time make it acceptable. All sorts of stuff has and always will go on behind closed doors, in private circles etc. but that doesn't mean everyone's little perversion should creep into the norm under the very vague notion of tolerance.

How old are you Walsingham?

Well, every FF game I played takes about 10 hours in to really get going. That said I've no idea what FFXIII is like, and I didn't have the patience to play more than a few hours of FF XII. Apparently I've had my permanent fill of the FF experience with FFX and FFX2 (yuck). (and IV, VII, VIII)

Man, every gamer chick I know is butt ugly. And in these parts pretty girls are a dime a dozen. Conclusion: I gotta change my hobby.

I just think there is a really skewed perspective out there that says, Japanese are just screwed up perverts, that really ignores what in fact is a very general and very universal spectrum of sexuality and sexual pleasure that is one of the key components of modern Western media. straw man. am doubting that most folks here, or else-wheres, believe that the Japanese (all-inclusive) are "screwed up perverts." nevertheless, compared to the typical westerner's outlook, the Japanese cultural pov regarding rape, incest and pedophilia IS different. the Japanese salaryman recognizes that rape, incest and pedophilia is socially unacceptable, but he is not offended or revolted by their depiction to the degree that Di is. the salaryman will, in public, agree with Di that rape is a reprehensible crime, and pedophilia is abominable, but his genuine/private thoughts on such matters he will not share... just as he will not share with you what he were really doing on his "business" trip to singapore or bangkok. to ignore the cultural differences o' the folks from Nippon would be no less ignorant than stereotyping 'em as perverts. HA! Good Fun! Exactly. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't cos games and manga like this have been made for at least two decades. To be offended now would mean that they lived under a rock and had no idea of the huge sex industry their country has. You're applying your morality to the average Japanese Joe which and its leading you to a broad and inaccurate conclusion. The fact of the matter is that they're used to this sort of stuff and while they won't support it publicly they certainly aren't going to do anything about it.

Take out hentai and you still have a lot of equally damaging and disgusting things available to the Western porn purveyors, I would suspect. Besides, how do you know there aren't any Japanese pornographic comics with 'artistic value'? You're falling prey to a very narrow and restricted viewpoint about what's coming out of Japan based on the same media reports you deride. I just think there is a really skewed perspective out there that says, Japanese are just screwed up perverts, that really ignores what in fact is a very general and very universal spectrum of sexuality and sexual pleasure that is one of the key components of modern Western media. I was just stating my intense dislike for anything manga. I've never read a good manga, and I've read a pile of them. As for hentai, I've never seen anything that wasn't utter rubbish in every possible way. The point of good erotic comics is for the most part well drawn naked bodies and that's something manga sucks at. As for there being other things worse than hentai, sure there are plenty - but one less can't hurt no? Although since almost all porn, tolerable or not, is digitalized - its all a fools errand, as even the article plainly points out.

The people who reported this are only two decades late to the hentai game party. Where were they up till now? Half of hentai is rape, submission and pedophilia. When you allow that sort of crap to become as regular and accepted as it has become over the years how can you expect anyone to take these "hey what's going on?" articles seriously? Personally I'd ban all manga imports, hentai along with everything else for reasons of being artistically worthless at best, offensive at worst - but that's just me. At least they should ban hentai. European pornographic comics at least have some artistic value: Druuna, Milo Manara's work etc. Obviously one can still get them over the internet, but at least they wouldn't be easily available to the general public.

I must confess this is more entertaining than any Ubisoft game released in years. If they go bankrupt over this (fat chance of that though) I'll be popping the champagne.

Well its equal parts ugly, grindy and pedophillic. At least nothings sticks out much.

I must say I'm impressed so far. I like that they've dared to change so much and apparently, for the better.

Giving up on Starcraft II? You terrans always run at the first sign of trouble... Yeah, I'm bad at guessing what the enemy will attack with.And as the identifier says, I'm lazy. You're missing out. I was playing this terran dude, and being cheap as I am I dragged the game for half an hour longer than I should have. So near his base he masses siege tanks, marines and marauders with a few medivacs and two ravens. My entire army is like 50 roaches and 10 mutalisks. (larger than his because I have 3 bases up and running) I send the mutalisks on a suicide run to destroy the ravens. After that an immensely satisfying moment follows when my 50 roaches tunnel and pop up right under his army, which vaporizes ... along with the rest of his base *Btw I figured out the Viking/Muta problem. One on one the Viking wins by a small margin but in a pack the Vikings always lose because of Muta's bouncing weapon. Unless they give Viking rockets splash damage that's the way its gonna stay.

Giving up on Starcraft II? You terrans always run at the first sign of trouble...

Is there a facepalm pic on the internet that is appropriate for something this.... sad? Not a facepalm, but I think it fits: he he he But that's Japan so it doesn't count. Nothing makes sense in Japan.

Is there a facepalm pic on the internet that is appropriate for something this.... sad?

I can't argue that. Personally, I'd take the boobie cards as well. AT least they don't have bad dialogue. With the notable exception of Jaheira I agree. On the whole the boobie cards were some sort of ultimate argument against the Witcher made by people who hadn't actually played the game through and for some reason wanted to deliberately ignore its other qualities.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/thewitcher2...s_below;thumb;4 Wow! The game looks great. About time we got a decent looking epic fantasy game!

Drakensang isn't sandbox. Risen is definitely better than Two Worlds. TW is a boring, flavorless Oblivion clone. Drakensang is the best of the lot, but its much closer to NWN2 in mechanics and gameplay. That said, I gave up on all three of those games after a few hours of gameplay. Drakensang's plot and quests are mind numbingly boring, Risen is just another Gothic game (and having played the first three, I've had my fill) and Two Worlds is weak all around. Note however that my tolerance for standard fantasy plots these days is practically non existent. Drakensang's sequel is something to look out for, judging by Virumor's reports.