E3: Microsoft

Well it's finally that time of year for E3, the formerly Electronic Entertainment Expo known as the E3 Media and Business Summit.

Today is Microsoft's day, unveiling tons of new stuff for the 360. Here are some personal surprises and things I'm really looking forward to now.

• Rock Band 2 gets 80 tracks, 20 free future songs. Rock Band 1 content can be transferred for "under $5" (should be for free, IMO).
• Xbox Live gets avatars (Microsoft's version of Nintendo Miis) and new Dashboard redesign/overhaul, group chats.
• Portal: Still Alive internet game coming to XBox Live Arcade.
• Neflix downloads coming "at no additional cost"
• Resident Evil 5 pushed back to March. Booo.

They mentioned a bunch of other stuff, but I'm not Kotaku.com or Joystiq. I only write about stuff that interests me.

UPDATE: Here's some more info on that Dashboard update this fall. They're also allowing you to copy games to the harddrive to play without spinning up the loud disk drive, Live Marketplace content can be browsed from the web and waiting for you when you get home and launching games from the Guide button on the controller.

More on Black Zombies

Last week I posted about Kym Platt and what she thought about a game with black zombies and a white protagonist (the yet-to-be-released game, Resident Evil 5).

It seems the gamer community has struck back. And she didn't take it well.

As it turns out, Kym isn't even calling ownership on the original article, but a response to another, white author's article on the matter. There is no mention of any other article by this other author in her original post.

What the point is though, is that Kym thinks people will see the game as racist. Is racism still living in the country? Sure. Are some gamers racist? Quite possibly. Is bringing up the issue helpful? Who knows.

Are gamer tired of people stepping in a criticizing their hobby of choice? Most definetly.

Personally, I wish for the days when Sears published video games and my mom left me alone in the living room to find another Fire Flower.

White Man vs Black Zombies = Racism?

An article on Kotaku brings up a piece written on Black Looks, a blog catering to black women.

Resident Evil 5 is set in Africa. One of the RE universe's characters is there for some reason and runs into a horde of zombies, who are correctly black skinned. Kym Platt, the blogger, says...

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.

Let's see here...

• Why is "Black" capitalized and not "white"?
• Where does the game say black people are inhuman savages. This isn't Resident African. It's Resident Evil. A game about zombies.
• All 13 games in the series have been white zombies killed by white men and women. If anything, you should be pissed you weren't included a long time ago.
  
• The game is rated M (for mature). No kids are playing this game unless you buy it for them. Oh that's right, you don't have any.
• You don't consider yourself "Black"
  
• Your damn right. I better be afraid and hate and want to destroy black zombies. Just as much as yellow zombies and brown zombies. Zombies suck. Really.
  
• If I lived in a world where zombies existed, we would preach this game to children. I would personally show my son or daughter how to pop a zombies head off with shotgun.
• If Chris Redfield was a black Chris Redfield, would you have written your blog?

I guess I enjoy opinions as much as she does. But if we go around making games about non-descript people in non-descript areas of the world, what does that mean?

Also try to remember, white people didn't make this game, Japanese people did.

Resident Evil 4 (GCN): The Final Verdict

Twenty hours, thirty-three minutes and eight seconds of some of the best survival horror gaming I have ever played. I don't think I would ever be able to say enough about this game.

Great controls, fantastic un-prerendered graphics, perfect horrifying sounds and voices (though the voice actors that actually spoke could have used a lesson in realism)...I couldn't have asked for any more.

The last couple of chapters, say around 4.1 or so, is where the game really started to shine. You got away from the constant shotgun blasting (which never really got dull. Hello! Shotgun!!) and into some real dark, creepy places. I got completely drawn into the enviornment because I wasn't so trigger happy shooting up the infected. I jumped a couple of times walking around the hospital/lab facility area.

The game was never too difficult and when it was a little easy you just got preoccupied looking at the beatiful graphics and sounds. The controls never really got in the way and getting rid of the tape saves helped you stay in focus on playing through the game without consequences of stupid actions (on my part of course). The game never got in the way of the gameplay.

So, this game goes down in my history of not only a game I actually finished (and in okay time), but one of the best I've ever played. Kudos Capcom!