Crispy Gamer writes: "As a fantasy action/adventure game with a first-person perspective, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements is just begging to be compared to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. But as anyone who plays it will quickly realize, Elements actually has more in common with such action RPGs as Untold Legends than Bethesda's epic fantasy adventure.
Developed by France's Arkane Studios and published by Ubisoft (originally for the PC last year), this spin-off from the long-running Might and Magic role-playing series is a hack-and-slash action game. Playing as the wizard's apprentice Sareth, and assisted by the Cortana-esque Xana (if Cortana was a jealous pain in the butt), you're sent on a quest to find an ancient relic called the Skull of Shadows, which basically means you have to run around maze-like dungeons and kill tons of nondescript people and monsters while looking for a key or a switch or whatever you need to open the next door."
What's Hot: While giving it a first-person perspective makes this button-mashing action-RPG feel different...
What's Not: ...it's still just a button-mashing action-RPG, with all the redundancies that implies.
Miles Messenger of The Married Gamers takes a look at the hidden gems found in the quest for achievements. Games that actually turn out to be surprisingly fun despite bad rating scores.
XboxOZ360 writes an extensive article about the ludicrous state of gaming censorship in Australia. Starting with the recent drama around Fallout 3 and a government funded TV show where one elected official compared games to "snuff films" and "rape" simulators, it then proceeds to look at the issue in depth and the contradictions that flourish when comparing Australia's system to that of the United States and Europe.
"When shown the game in its Australian sleeve and asked if they would buy it for their child, most said yeah, probably, it's only MA15+ after all, it's really for kids anyway. Might be a bit violent, but if it was bad, they would ban it.
Then when shown the same game sleeve from the UK, most denied it was the same until shown the disc with the same content on it, same packaging, same instruction booklet etc, except with a clear, big red 18+ marked on the cover, spine, and on the game disc..."
Does anybody know when our silly country is having the formal debate of the issue? Or was it a consensus? Whatever it was, date? Month? Year? :<
Actually that's something I'd love to know as well.
We'll be tracking down as much information as possible. Earlier on in the year I did an interview with the new CEO of the Australian IEAA - The Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia and he's 100% behind a change that's for sure. the interview was great, and shown a lot of information on what is happening. But like all things political, they move very slowly when they don't have the push from the public to do so.
'Unfortunately, gamers are a lazy lot really. They always cry they want change, but when it comes time to actually 'doing' something, they put it off, or hope that someone else will do it for them.
If you DO want to help, then email our site, see what you can do to raise the awareness, work with other. Get others enrolled in the idea of changing it and most importantly, EDUCATING the mums and dads out here (AUST) that they buy their kids games RIGHT now that are adult rated in overseas countries, they simply don't knowit.
If they gave the OLFC the powerr to label all games in the correct manner. We wouldn't be flooded with porn or violent games, it means the games that currently come in would be "appropriately labeled" and those that did go higher in the ratings system, would have a classification they would fall into, just like movies do.
Movies like have a R18+ - and it' not full of sex, rape, violence (to what the right-wing would think) nor is it aimed at corrupting the minds of the young. It's an adult movie with deep themes around Satan, nothing more, yet it sports an R18+ rating. Which its should.
So should many games.
We've got to wait for Victoria who are in charge of the study and thankfully pro gaming (lots of developers in Melbourne) to come back with their findings later this year.
I just hope Aussie gamers stop focusing on "our rights as adults" which will get us nowhere with the ignorant law-makers....we've got to show how useless the current rating system is in doing what it's for.
We need a more coherent argument than: "I should be allowed to do what I want!!"
I loved how the article contrasted how games are rated in different countries to ours....exactly what the focus should be on.
Actually, after speaking earlier on with Ron Curry, he has stated that all states can use the R18+ if they so choose, much like Qld currently do with some of their ratings, not allowing some in their state that are readily available in others.
He said that IF the industry wanted to, they could run their games in the R18+ classification in all states bar South Australia, but they would have to weigh up the financial risk against sales in that region. If it was marginal, then some would take the risk, based on more sales for a game that was well sought after being readily available in all other states.
He said that is one option that the OFLC has, and is already applying to Qld in some cases. So a precedent has already been set in that regard.
If it's not fuel, health, transport or grocery related, then the Government really doesn't give a crap...
Interesting panel debate..... I was unaware that we didn't have any rating system for games /end sarcasm/
When some of the people representing us in politics don't even know the basics of our archaic
classification system I doesn't give me much hope.
Pretty poor showing for our government really. What the heck was Barnaby Joyce going on about with a game where you can rape people? Sounded like he was talking out of his ass.
Drakol at The Bitbag reports that save data for this title may be causing Xbox 360s to freeze regardless of which game is in the console.
"My 360 console froze within a couple of hours, I reset the console. It froze again, but within minutes. Reset. That's all I did for ten minutes. I placed another game inside, but that also froze. The discs were clean, the console was almost new."
