Thursday, June 1st, 2006

GP's Eisen Names E3's Most Controversial Games

The lengths I go to for GP readers - forcing myself to attend this year's E3 in Los Angeles; playing all of the new games and even checking out a bit of the E3 party scene.

In fact, while waiting in line to play the Nintendo Wii, I began to wonder which games will politicians and the anti-gaming crowd target in the coming year? What game will be the new GTA San Andreas or 25 to Life? Based on what I picked up at E3, these games could bring some rough sailing for the game industry:

First up is Grand Theft Auto 4 Why? Well, just because it's GTA. What more needs to be said? Ever since Hot Coffee, poor San Andreas has been pegged as the poster child for everything that's wrong with the video game industry. Will GTA4 cause a similar brouhaha? My gut says yes. It's true that we don't know anything about the game except for its name and release date but a lack of facts has never stopped the industry's critics. And besides, it's a pretty safe bet the characters in GTA4 won't be playing much ping pong.

Reservoir Dogs - If you've seen the movie, you know there's going to be a lot of violence towards cops. And 25 to Life showed how politically disastrous that can be for the game industry. Based on E3 previews, Reservoir Dogs has two play styles: psycho (kill everyone in your path) and professional (don't kill anyone). Check out Gamespot's preview for a gameplay video detailing all of the ear-slicing fun.

Sadness - Not much is yet known about this adult horror game due out for Wii in 2007 but here's an excerpt from the developer's website: "Imagine driving away rats with a torch, throwing a rope (as a lasso) when you want to climb over the wall, or slitting the throat of a persecutor with a piece of glass... All of this with the help of the Revolution controller."
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Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

E3 Blockbuster: New Edition of the Game Politicians Love to Hate

The arm in the picture is attached to Xbox executive Peter Moore. The venue was Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The logo, of course, is rendered in the familiar style of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series.

And the blockbuster news that Moore laid on the assembled E3 media was this: GTA4 will launch in October of 2007 and will be on Xbox 360 from Day One. Now, he didn't say it would be a 360 exclusive, but what he did say was enough to rule out the idea that GTA might once again launch as a Sony exclusive on the PS3.

Moore added, however, that there would be exclusive episodic content available for GTA4 on Xbox Live.

By the way, that braying sound you hear is the politicians practicing their denouncements of GTA4 in advance of its release. Now if Rockstar can just manage to keep the hidden sex animations out of this one...

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