...skyscrapers are built that way cause they symbolize a giant penis'

Holy shit I just noticed that they do.

...kinda.

Girls LOVE the feminist sympathy stuff. Dudes, go take a feminist course if you can. Even if you think it sucks, it'll give you some talking points that will give you big points with the ladies. We like guys who "get it".

Oh geeze, you don't know how much I wish I could. Unfortunately all the feminists in this area are really sexist and bitchy to me. I don't know how that worked out because you'd think it would be different. Apparently not.

You know this sort of leads into a topic which is sorta troubling to me. I live in a really small town so it's hard to tell if it's the same everywhere else, but do guys get a lot of sexist bullshit if they're androgynous? May just be my small, white town, but I've noticed it's a common overtone among forums too.

My dad and I went to a fair when I was eight, and a goat tried to eat his coat while he was wearing it.

Adventure games!

The Secret of Monkey Island
Day of the Tentacle
Alien Incident
LOOM

Just a few to get you started.

hey kids

being feminist won't help you get laid

 

I don't see how I can attempt to empower my female self when I'm male. That... that just doesn't work. 

Also it's quite possible for a male brain to be wired to be in a middleground between the male/female sides. So laugh's on you or something, I guess. 

Ah... memories. Mortal Kombat and DooM were those games I had to go to a friend's house to play because my parents wouldn't let me get them.

My mom's argument for violent games is "only if you buy some different, less violent games as well."

Hey now, I violently stab my berries when I go blueberry picking.

Oh good, I thought I was the only one who did that.

I'd like to jump in on Paul's defence to say that people sometimes actually double-think. I did it before and it was really weird and realizing it had happened was shocking and interesting. I also suggested on page 4 that sigvatr may have been double-thinking, but failed at doing it properly.

I bet his subconscious is double-thinking but doing it wrong...

So Paul's theory isn't completely impossible, it just seems a little unlikely.

He's everything I hate about CliffyB without the Unreal and Jazz jackrabbit aspects I like!

Also, my feelings exactly. About CliffyB, that is.

who is cliffyb -- i've heard his name like 3 times in the past week but nobody explained who he is

The guy who made Jazz Jackrabbit 1 & 2 then abandoned the series and won't mention it any more and acts like he's really awesome and cool and orgasm-incarnate because he also designed Gears of War.

Oh that Tom... 

One compromise would be to have more than one rating. One could have multiple stickers, like a moral sticker, a sticker purely rating potential harm, and a quick list of requirements to the player (i.e. This game requires: reflexes and knowledge of ecology and adult relationships.) The problem which i see here however is that box-space may be too limited for that.

So the workaround is having a cover on the box which folds out to give you more room. Like many games already do. (Off the top of my head, I know a lot of adventure games do this, but also Bioshock and Revenant did this.) What they should do is maybe have a little blurb in a part of that which lists the content description. For games without boxes (console games) they could... well hell they could print little cardboard sleeves like all PC games do. Which is funny because PC games are often cheaper than console games and yet have more elaborate/nicer box art.

as for the social aspects, i don't actually think it's healthy only to hang around with people exactly your own age (as in school) -- i suspect children develop best when they have people both younger than them and older than them around: people to teach and people to look up to. isolated them by age group and saying 'you can only socialize with other 12-year-olds if you're 12 years old' is pretty sick

I really have to agree with this. Hence why many of my friends are at least a grade above me and I run D&D games with people in grades below me. It's a lot more interesting and helpful. Those below you in age look up to you and you have to learn how to set a good example and be casual enough that you can still connect with them.

Unfortunately most of my friends older than me act younger than me, but I have some friends who are in universities for sociology and the like, and "hanging out" or whatever with them is very interesting, and as you said Paul there's a lot of stuff to look up to.

So what's the lesson? Play D&D and get involved with social studies majors and you'll develop better. Yay!

The ESRB has slightly redeemed itself recently, though. Some of the newer games are actually getting rating summaries on the website, such as Fallout 3. Unfortunately it's still not listed on the back of the box.

The local Rogers Video in my town does this thing where they list extensive information on the back of the box for what the "objectionable" content is. They actually go as far as having curse count sometimes. (i.e. "frequent really mild cursing 'crap, damn', one instance of f-word.") I'd love it if games would do that. Unfortunately it would take up too much back-box room.

So the workaround is having a cover on the box which folds out to give you more room. Like many games already do. (Off the top of my head, I know a lot of adventure games do this, but also Bioshock and Revenant did this.) What they should do is maybe have a little blurb in a part of that which lists the content description. For games without boxes (console games) they could... well hell they could print little cardboard sleeves like all PC games do. Which is funny because PC games are often cheaper than console games and yet have more elaborate/nicer box art.

On the matter of aether, I think a child who has gone through at least one "loss" phase (be it when they stop liking certain shows or whatever cause they're too "childish") would probably get the nostalgia part. The other themes are probably understandable as well, and I'd say that in terms of Thematic Understanding it would get an E10+. If we're using the ESRB as reference, of course, even though they don't do that. Nor should they really, unless we're talking about something like rape or murder, in which case they throw a few rating descriptions together. Or just give it a blank T or M. I've seen that on rare occasions.

Also, funny story. Syberia had a rating conflict between the box and the manual. The manual stated it had a rating description of "mild alcohol use" while the box said "mild violence." Consistency.

Well I was actually specifically referring to the first game up to the point where I mention the Hot Coffee mod...

In Paul's defence, it's more like every third post.

And what is philosophy?

I totally imagine him yelling "TOO FREEDOM!!!" in a voice somewhere between C-3PO and Wall-E.

Darth Vader inspired me

Yeah, I can see the resemblance. That sort of shiny space-age armor with tubing. Also a lot like Samus's armor. It's a neat combo.

The ESRB is shit. Oh, nice idea, but it's got a lot of problems. Let me copy-paste some arguments from a paper I wrote for English.

...we hit a problem where we go from a rating of 13+ to a rating of 17+. That skips 4 years of psychological development, and I’m pretty sure you know the difference when you talk to a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old. It’s pretty big, and the fact is that it doesn’t happen the second they turn 17. Generally, games that are less than 15+ seem to be put under the T rating, and games that are more are put under the M rating. Where does 15+ come from? Well, a lot of other rating boards account for more development stages, such as the New Zealand rating system, which uses many more ratings to account better for content and development.

Another problem is the lack of content descriptions. For example, there are no ratings whatsoever for racist content. They may list it under strong language, but there’s a big difference between telling someone to “f-off” and calling someone the n-word. One is merely distasteful language, while the other is an attack on someone’s biological background and reference to prejudicing people based on something skin-deep. They may seem to be the same to some people, but they are quite different in meaning and effect. Some other systems do in fact account for this, but the ESRB system does not. It also doesn’t account for things like immoral activity, like running over innocent pedestrians and breaking the law for points in Grand Theft Auto. In fact, one of the games got tons of attention and court cases and everything because a mod (modification) was released that allowed the player to participate in a sex scene (though it was not particularly explicit). Of course, everyone completely ignored that you get points for shooting cops, doing drug deals, and running over people...

The worst problem with the ESRB system would have to be the limited explanation in content and the lack of differentiating between types of violence. Right now, the ESRB simply states Violence, Strong Violence, Language, and other descriptions like that. But what type of violence is it? If you compare two games like HL2 (Half-Life 2) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, you will see that the former was rated for: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence. The latter also contained the same ratings. There is a problem with this though, and that is around why the violence is there. In Half-Life 2, the violence is all based around trying to survive in a world where alien zombie creatures kill people and take over their bodies, and a super-government known as the Combine holds a firm grip on every aspect of life, going as far as beating up old men in the street for fun. Naturally, as the protagonist, it is your job to survive and stop these evil forces. GTA (Grand Theft Auto) is quite different though. As mentioned earlier, the whole point of the game is to rack up points for breaking the law in any way imaginable, including running over or shooting innocent people. The difference? In HL2, you are attempting to save humanity, and violence is the only way. But in GTA, you’re just killing people for the fun of it, because you get more points and in-game money from doing so. Really, the violence in HL2 is at least somewhat justified, yet in GTA, is senseless, and should be more harshly rated...

Tuna, that is really badass. Nice job on the blue/yellow lighting.

I think Masna wins.

Okay, that's just awesome. You deserve a beer.