British PM Gordon Brown, the one you Americans haven't heard of, has taken some sensible steps in the violent media debate. While conservative fuckwit David Cameron made stupid comments on the subject not so long ago, equally repulsive figure of fun Gordon Brown has taken a more reasoned approach, merely stating that while censorship of any kind is not on his agenda, he would like to enter talks with industry people about voluntary controls on violent media.

This is perhaps the only sensible stance I've seen any figure of authority take on the subject recently. It's well known that in the UK, the question of what is and isn't acceptable rests solely on the arbitrary tastes of three people, all of whom probably have little regard for 'reality' up in their ivory towers. A recent (excellent) article I read in the very, very good 360 Magazine contained an interview with a high ranking member of the ratings board, and even he had no idea why Manhunt 2 had been banned. Point being that if someone inside the very organisation responsible for certification could not provide any realistic boundaries, how are game developers meant to know when they cross them?

Brown stressed "This is not the government telling people what they should do ... this is society reaching a conclusion with all those people involved about what are the legitimate boundaries", and stated that "This is not an area where you can proceed in my view without trying to establish both what the boundaries are and what is the consensus you can build around these boundaries."

The full article is available here on The Guardian website for your perusal. Amongst the madness of Jack Thompson and the knee-jerk ignorance of David Cameron, it's at least refreshing to see a remotely moderate opinion on the subject.

Personally I don't think I can play through any more WWII shooters. I'm starting to find them a little distasteful, and I don't think much more can be brought to the proverbial table for this genre. However, it seems there may be hope for those of you who can't get enough hot nazi action.

Eurogamer today posted a positive review of Medal of honor airborne, which surprised me particularly after I had such an underwhelming time with the demo. Still, here's the link if you're interested, enjoy.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=82680

The guys and girls over at Eurogamer have posted this review of heavenly sword. I was secretly hoping this would be an excuse for me to buy a PS3, but alas it seems not. Their review mirrors IGNs closely, but unlike IGN I generally find Eurogamer reviews to be pretty agreeable and trustworthy on the whole. I'm sure these scores will be a disappointment to many, and fanboy ammunition for others.

So, what does this mean to everyone? Who was looking forward to this, and will you still buy it now it's been outed as merely above average? If not, will you pick something else up instead? Does every game on your shelf need to be a classic, or will you buy something with an average score if the premise or gameplay interests you? And who is Eric Cartmans father?

Discuss.

Your Wip3out inspired, petrolhead dreams are coming to fruition. Proving you're not an old fucker, you'll probably be flying your grandkids to school. It's early days at present of course, but all it takes is for a few crazy gadgeteers or rich businessmen to buy a few of these, and a few decades later we'll be flying a much sleeker, cheaper version. It's like an epic mount, but severely better!

For fucks sake, don't let Workman anywhere near it though. "Imma gun fly t'the SUN! *hic*"

Here is link for ye folk

Seems a few people missed the joke with regard to the original version of this thread. As such I've copied and pasted Cowzillas excellent argument below, all comment from hereon out is his and his alone:

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Why does an non-original IP siginify a lack of originality. I agree that it many cases this is what occurs when a character is used and abused but not always and especially not with Nintendo. Let's look past Nintendo though at other IPs that get used over and over. Tomb Raider is a great example of an IP that lacked originality in its sequeals, then the latest iteration comes out redefines how the game is played and you've got a non-original IP that is still original.

I would argue that Nintendo does this with all their core franchises, especially Mario, whose games vary so much it they would be counted as completely different if there didn't happen to be a little red plumber in all of them. It's game design that creates originality not who is in it. As has been argued before in some of the other posts, using an IP just helps sales and if Nintendo is designing original games that are fun to play who cares what IP they are under, the orginality is still there.

I would say that Sony and MS also do this with their core franchises too. You aren't rehashing an IP unless you aren't challenging the game that came before it. Let's look at all the "original IPs" out there that are just Grand Theft Auot copy cats. Are those games better simply because they don't have the same characters?

As far as Nintendo no putting out any more original IPs I thin it's been argued they have been, but Pikimin is a great example of an amazing new IP they made. As for coming out on the Wii you have a whole host of original IPs coming out from third parties because they're being forced to design different and new games around the Wii. I'll post a list of these once you respond with "oh yea what original IPs?" but I've got to get back to work.

It seems that Blue dragon hits stores in the US today, not that anyone has given it the briefest mention in weeks. Someone saw fit to release it here in the UK on the same day as Bioshock, which seems to me like a colossal mistake in every sense of the word.

Blue dragon seems to have completely dropped off the radar for everyone I've mentioned it to, I expect this is due to sub par reviews, but it might simply be that people just aren't too interested in the title to begin with. Obviously this was built to increase Japanese market penetration, but I'm surprised to see how little interest it seems to be picking up over here.

Was anyone contemplating picking this up? It's a miss from me, but I'm still vaguely curious and might consider a bargain bin buy in the future.