Apparently Toys-R-Us is having a 'buy one Xbox 360 game, get another xbox 360 game half-price' sale this week, August 17-23.
Quick note: The "half-off" discount applies to whatever game has a lower in-store price, so it's probably best to buy a couple of high-price recently released games with this deal. Moreover, you can't buy a copy of Beautiful Katamari ($7.68 in-store right now) and expect to get a half-price discount on the $160 Rock Band bundle.
In my case, I'll probably pick up Soul Calibur IV - I'm a big fan of the series, but Namco's treatment of the franchise, especially with this new iteration, has made me somewhat angry (scantily clad female characters, for example, dominate this game), so I decided that I wouldn't buy the game unless I could get it for cheap. I want very much to play the game, but I figure that "voting with my dollar"
as a matter of priniciple is more important.
Has anyone ever had a similar experience where you really want to play/buy a new game, but some morally objectionable content dissuades you from doing so? What would you do in such a situation?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Summer Silence
If you (like me) are experiencing some sort of spiritual, physical, or mental fatigue right now (whether or not it's related to gaming), The Anchoress blog has the right prescription: an online retreat. Give it a look-see if you need a diversion from the hectic summertide.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Gaming lull...
I've been very busy on my supposed "week off" - I haven't touched a video game since my last blog spot, believe it or not. A Player Diary for FFIV is looking highly unlikely now, but I can affirm that the story, with its focus on light and darkness, seems to lean closer to the Christian view of things (where things simply are or are not good than the ying/yang Taoist dichotomy that ulitmately makes everything a collective abyss. It's a long play-through, and it's frustratingly difficult at times, but this makes the experience all the more fulfilling.
In Story of a Soul, St. Therese tells us that God allows suffering in order to bring us closer to Him; in the psalms, we learn that God chastises those who are close to him. Final Fantasy IV DS reflects this in both its narrative and in the actual gameplay itself - as I said, it's a long haul, but it's worth it in the end.
In Story of a Soul, St. Therese tells us that God allows suffering in order to bring us closer to Him; in the psalms, we learn that God chastises those who are close to him. Final Fantasy IV DS reflects this in both its narrative and in the actual gameplay itself - as I said, it's a long haul, but it's worth it in the end.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
On Temperance, Prudence and Purchasing Video Games
As a Catholic and as a gamer, I recognize that there’s a fine line between gaming for the glory of God and glorifying games INSTEAD of God. The cardinal virtue of temperance is absolutely essential in order to distinguish between the two. Scripture tells us that “for everything there is a season, and a time and a manner for everything under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). Catholic gamers would do well to remember that only a portion and not the entirety of their God-given existence is to be spent here on earth, let alone playing video games.
In the decision to purchase a video game, though, the virtue of prudence must be exercised, as well. Ever since video game violence first became a nationwide controversy in the ‘90s, there’s been no shortage of media coverage – including the Catholic media – regarding unsavory video game content, and while I personally believe that extolling the evils of violence in video games has became something of a tired refrain and easy scapegoat these days, I’m glad that, at least, there’s some attention to the issue now. But there’s no amount of media coverage or preventive legislation that can replace good parenting, and the complete lack of prudence on the part of some parents disturbs me greatly.
I’ll never forget the time I saw a youngster (I’d guess that he was, oh, maybe7 or 8 years old?) in a game store petitioning his mother to purchase the kid-friendly Gamecube game Luigi’s Mansion, which not only carries “E for Everyone” ESRB rating, but was available for a very inexpensive $20. The mother, however, had her eyes on the even cheaper item on an adjacent shelf: Turok, an “M for Mature” rated game featuring violence, foul language (as advertised on the box!) was available for a measly $10. The mother, seizing the opportunity to save $$$$, replied to her child in turn. “Honey, how about this one instead?” The child shrugged his shoulders and acquiesced. He went home that day with a game someone of his age should never play.
The obvious lack of prudence on the mother’ s part notwithstanding, it’s worth mentioning that Turok is a very low-quality game irrespective of the level of objectionable content. I would never recommend the game to even the most hardcore FPS (that’s “first-person shooter”, for those unacquainted with video game lingo) fanatic – the game is just completely intolerable, featuring slipshod controls, bad graphics, and tepid, repetitive gameplay. I do, think, however, that despite the game’s objectionable content (which renders it unsuitable for consumption for the younger set), there’s nothing in the game, morally speaking, that would make it unsuitable for a more mature crowd.
Part of the reason I started this blog to begin with was a perceived need for more information on this subject. Despite ESRB ratings, most parents I know are woefully ignorant of the content in videogames, and seeing as prudential judgment implies an informed conscience, the lack of knowledge (and in some cases, a lack of scruples, as the aforementioned story demonstrates) on the part of many parents about videogames as a whole is simply not acceptable. If my knowledge of the medium and its various minutiae can aid in abetting this problem, I will gladly share it.
I realize that what presents a temptation to sin for one may not present such a temptation for another – people of various ages and temperaments can digest various forms of media while others can’t, and such situations call for the discerning Christian to utilize prudential judgment. But for children who are unable to make such judgments, parental guidance is an absolute necessity; try as I might to lend my association with this medium to those who need it, I cannot be a substitute for a parent, who knows their child better than I ever could. So, for any parent reading this: know what game your child is buying/playing. Not everything is ok for a kid to play.
There are even some games that, dare I say it, NO ONE should play. Some games (like some movies and books) simply aren’t worth your time, and it’s actually not too hard to know a game falls into this category.
For example, just a few days ago, new information was released about the upcoming action game, Bayonetta. Now, the game’s premise is dodgy enough: playing as a witch who is quite literally hell-bent on killing angels certainly can’t be very wholesome, regardless of the merits of the gameplay, but tack on some posts from the link from the forum above, and…well, see for yourself:
“Bayonetta's outfit isn't actually leather despite the stitching you see in the CG art - It's magical hair that covers her entire body, and it's used in her attacks. The most powerful ones render her almost completely nude.”
“A fine mist covers the ground during the miniboss battle, designed to create a "holy atmosphere". The battle ends with an onscreen button prompt, which summons a giant hair dragon who bites the angel miniboss in half.”
I shiver at the thought of some parent(s) buying this game for their 8-year-old when it’s released sometime in the coming year. In the modern American lexicon, prudential judgment sometimes goes by another name: common sense. I pray that parents (particularly those of the Catholic variety) start employing it more frequently.
In the decision to purchase a video game, though, the virtue of prudence must be exercised, as well. Ever since video game violence first became a nationwide controversy in the ‘90s, there’s been no shortage of media coverage – including the Catholic media – regarding unsavory video game content, and while I personally believe that extolling the evils of violence in video games has became something of a tired refrain and easy scapegoat these days, I’m glad that, at least, there’s some attention to the issue now. But there’s no amount of media coverage or preventive legislation that can replace good parenting, and the complete lack of prudence on the part of some parents disturbs me greatly.
I’ll never forget the time I saw a youngster (I’d guess that he was, oh, maybe7 or 8 years old?) in a game store petitioning his mother to purchase the kid-friendly Gamecube game Luigi’s Mansion, which not only carries “E for Everyone” ESRB rating, but was available for a very inexpensive $20. The mother, however, had her eyes on the even cheaper item on an adjacent shelf: Turok, an “M for Mature” rated game featuring violence, foul language (as advertised on the box!) was available for a measly $10. The mother, seizing the opportunity to save $$$$, replied to her child in turn. “Honey, how about this one instead?” The child shrugged his shoulders and acquiesced. He went home that day with a game someone of his age should never play.
The obvious lack of prudence on the mother’ s part notwithstanding, it’s worth mentioning that Turok is a very low-quality game irrespective of the level of objectionable content. I would never recommend the game to even the most hardcore FPS (that’s “first-person shooter”, for those unacquainted with video game lingo) fanatic – the game is just completely intolerable, featuring slipshod controls, bad graphics, and tepid, repetitive gameplay. I do, think, however, that despite the game’s objectionable content (which renders it unsuitable for consumption for the younger set), there’s nothing in the game, morally speaking, that would make it unsuitable for a more mature crowd.
Part of the reason I started this blog to begin with was a perceived need for more information on this subject. Despite ESRB ratings, most parents I know are woefully ignorant of the content in videogames, and seeing as prudential judgment implies an informed conscience, the lack of knowledge (and in some cases, a lack of scruples, as the aforementioned story demonstrates) on the part of many parents about videogames as a whole is simply not acceptable. If my knowledge of the medium and its various minutiae can aid in abetting this problem, I will gladly share it.
I realize that what presents a temptation to sin for one may not present such a temptation for another – people of various ages and temperaments can digest various forms of media while others can’t, and such situations call for the discerning Christian to utilize prudential judgment. But for children who are unable to make such judgments, parental guidance is an absolute necessity; try as I might to lend my association with this medium to those who need it, I cannot be a substitute for a parent, who knows their child better than I ever could. So, for any parent reading this: know what game your child is buying/playing. Not everything is ok for a kid to play.
There are even some games that, dare I say it, NO ONE should play. Some games (like some movies and books) simply aren’t worth your time, and it’s actually not too hard to know a game falls into this category.
For example, just a few days ago, new information was released about the upcoming action game, Bayonetta. Now, the game’s premise is dodgy enough: playing as a witch who is quite literally hell-bent on killing angels certainly can’t be very wholesome, regardless of the merits of the gameplay, but tack on some posts from the link from the forum above, and…well, see for yourself:
“Bayonetta's outfit isn't actually leather despite the stitching you see in the CG art - It's magical hair that covers her entire body, and it's used in her attacks. The most powerful ones render her almost completely nude.”
“A fine mist covers the ground during the miniboss battle, designed to create a "holy atmosphere". The battle ends with an onscreen button prompt, which summons a giant hair dragon who bites the angel miniboss in half.”
I shiver at the thought of some parent(s) buying this game for their 8-year-old when it’s released sometime in the coming year. In the modern American lexicon, prudential judgment sometimes goes by another name: common sense. I pray that parents (particularly those of the Catholic variety) start employing it more frequently.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Patience! (Warning! Amatuer theologizing ahead!)
There is an important lesson to be learned from the gameplay (irrespective of the virtues of the game's story) of Final Fantasy IV, and that is the powerful benefits of patience. Saints have written about it in ways that I can't possibly emulate here and now, explaining eloquently and emphatically that God's power over time is not something that man need not fuss over. Human beings need time; but God Himself created time. We do not know "the day or the hour," for example, but God, in his "eternal-present" moment, does, and he assures us that, even though we suffer, we "are worth more than many sparrows."
As I play (and hopefully finish soon!)Final Fantasy IV, with its "active-time" battle system (where a meter slowly fills up over time before any action can be taken in battle) and its unrelentingly difficult boss battles, I will admit that my patience, (along with yours, I'm sure, as you wait for the eventual player diary) is being tested. The fact that my brother's recent excursion to Canada yielded the unexpected blessing of the new PC game The Political Machine 2008 doesn't exactly help the matter. But the rewards, as of now, have been worthwhile. I've enjoyed the story of this game far more than I expected I would, and I will be writing about it more extensively later. But for now, I merely ask for your patience as I finish this game. I'll do my best to make the wait worthwhile, but in the meantime, here's a particular saint quote that I find appropriate for this particular moment in time:
"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." - St. Augustine
As I play (and hopefully finish soon!)Final Fantasy IV, with its "active-time" battle system (where a meter slowly fills up over time before any action can be taken in battle) and its unrelentingly difficult boss battles, I will admit that my patience, (along with yours, I'm sure, as you wait for the eventual player diary) is being tested. The fact that my brother's recent excursion to Canada yielded the unexpected blessing of the new PC game The Political Machine 2008 doesn't exactly help the matter. But the rewards, as of now, have been worthwhile. I've enjoyed the story of this game far more than I expected I would, and I will be writing about it more extensively later. But for now, I merely ask for your patience as I finish this game. I'll do my best to make the wait worthwhile, but in the meantime, here's a particular saint quote that I find appropriate for this particular moment in time:
"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." - St. Augustine
Monday, July 28, 2008
Kid-Friendly Games, Parent Friendly Prices
Best Buy has a special deal for the recently released (and critically well-received) Wii game Blast Works. As of now, the game is available for a measely $9.99.
Toys R' Us is selling the Xbox 360 game Beautiful Katamari for $7.68.
I have not played either game, but both carry an "E for Everyone" ESRB rating, so content-wise there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
Toys R' Us is selling the Xbox 360 game Beautiful Katamari for $7.68.
I have not played either game, but both carry an "E for Everyone" ESRB rating, so content-wise there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
"Bid Farewell to your Bloodstained Past!"
J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis effectively demonstrated that high fantasy could be used as a form of Christian witness. Both of these writers used their mythic worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia to allegorically present Salvation history and the mystery of faith (among other things). Unfortunately, despite the fact that the video game market is saturated with games featuring settings that, in terms of scope and size, are not at all dissimilar to those of Tolkien and Lewis, these games rarely if ever communicate the values and deep mysteries of the Catholic faith. In fact, it’s not uncommon for the inverse to be true –the Playstation 2 game Xenosaga, for example, is teeming with scriptural allusions, but ultimately presents a Gnostic thematic completely contradictory to the truth of the Catholic faith. Still, some of these games do present some themes that, if not always explicitly Catholic, are powerful reminders of certain Christian virtues. Some of you may remember my entry about The World Ends With You from last month in which I praised the game’s story for presenting a powerful message of the dangers of self-destructive envy.
Final Fantasy, the forefather of fantasy role-playing video games and generally the most well-known and critically acclaimed of the genre today, has a mixed record in terms of compatibility with Catholic values. For example, Final Fantasy XII, the most recent mainline entry in the series on the Playstation 2, has a morally problematic narrative which culminates in a “kill God” conclusion (borrowing from Nietzsche’s infamous “God is dead” Nihilist writings); conversely, the story of Final Fantasy X (also for the Playstation 2) has been compared to a religious pilgrimage and appropriately concludes with the defeat of a monster called Sin.
I’m currently playing through the fourth entry of this acclaimed video game series (first available for the Super Nintendo in 1993 and subsequently released on the Game Boy Advance and, as of last week, on the Nintendo DS, which is the version I’m now playing), and it seems to hold the most promise of any narrative in any Final Fantasy game I’ve played. Having played through about three quarters of the Game Boy Advance version of the game about two years ago, I’m quite familiar at this point with the game’s main character, Cecil, a Dark Knight who, after destroying villages and taking lives by order of his King, eventually undergoes a sort of conversion experience, casting off his armor of Darkness and becoming a Paladin of Light. Recalling the words of Archbishop Sheen, St. Francis of Assisi, and many other holy men and women, I thought this moment not only served as a reminder that we are to be of the Light (and not the darkness), but the way in which the scene is presented mirrors the Sacrament of Reconciliation – the advertisements for the game itself echo the same theme: “Bid Farewell to your Bloodstained Past.”
There is the caveat that this moment of conversion and forgiveness does seem to lack the most important element: God Himself. Scripture itself attests that God is the one who shall take our hearts of stone and place new hearts within us; Final Fantasy IV seems to emphasize the inward human self more than the salvific presence of a Divine Savior, even in the vaguest of terms. Still, I never did complete the game the first time, and the revamped presentation and translation of this Nintendo DS version may shed new light on the deeper intricacies of the story and its relevance to the mystery of sin and God’s forgiveness.
Those who read this blog often know all to well by now the erratic infrequency of my posting here, and this game promises to retain this trend. To be quite blunt, this game is difficult – very difficult. Having just completed the extremely easy Rocket Slime, adjusting to this game is naturally going to make the experience even more prolonged. I may end up posting multiple player diary entries for this one; stay tuned until then.
Final Fantasy, the forefather of fantasy role-playing video games and generally the most well-known and critically acclaimed of the genre today, has a mixed record in terms of compatibility with Catholic values. For example, Final Fantasy XII, the most recent mainline entry in the series on the Playstation 2, has a morally problematic narrative which culminates in a “kill God” conclusion (borrowing from Nietzsche’s infamous “God is dead” Nihilist writings); conversely, the story of Final Fantasy X (also for the Playstation 2) has been compared to a religious pilgrimage and appropriately concludes with the defeat of a monster called Sin.
I’m currently playing through the fourth entry of this acclaimed video game series (first available for the Super Nintendo in 1993 and subsequently released on the Game Boy Advance and, as of last week, on the Nintendo DS, which is the version I’m now playing), and it seems to hold the most promise of any narrative in any Final Fantasy game I’ve played. Having played through about three quarters of the Game Boy Advance version of the game about two years ago, I’m quite familiar at this point with the game’s main character, Cecil, a Dark Knight who, after destroying villages and taking lives by order of his King, eventually undergoes a sort of conversion experience, casting off his armor of Darkness and becoming a Paladin of Light. Recalling the words of Archbishop Sheen, St. Francis of Assisi, and many other holy men and women, I thought this moment not only served as a reminder that we are to be of the Light (and not the darkness), but the way in which the scene is presented mirrors the Sacrament of Reconciliation – the advertisements for the game itself echo the same theme: “Bid Farewell to your Bloodstained Past.”
There is the caveat that this moment of conversion and forgiveness does seem to lack the most important element: God Himself. Scripture itself attests that God is the one who shall take our hearts of stone and place new hearts within us; Final Fantasy IV seems to emphasize the inward human self more than the salvific presence of a Divine Savior, even in the vaguest of terms. Still, I never did complete the game the first time, and the revamped presentation and translation of this Nintendo DS version may shed new light on the deeper intricacies of the story and its relevance to the mystery of sin and God’s forgiveness.
Those who read this blog often know all to well by now the erratic infrequency of my posting here, and this game promises to retain this trend. To be quite blunt, this game is difficult – very difficult. Having just completed the extremely easy Rocket Slime, adjusting to this game is naturally going to make the experience even more prolonged. I may end up posting multiple player diary entries for this one; stay tuned until then.
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