Supreme Court docket: Violent video games

    Ain't this a bitch? The list of the Supreme Court's upcoming court cases was released earlier this morning  and one of the cases that'll be heard in November is:

 
Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association

l Nov. 2: California is the latest state attempting to prevent the sale of "violent" video games to minors. An appeals court said, similar to decisions of courts elsewhere, that the law violates First Amendment free-speech rights.

   That's right, the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger (how the FACK did that happen?) and once-Terminator has petitioned the court to halt the sale of violent video games to minors. I watched the T-800 kill a bunch of cops in the first movie when I was a little kid but I'm a normal, jaded, extremely intelligent, and slightly- amused-at-nothing-in-particular grown-ass man. I have never had the urge to commit mass murder, chop someone into three pieces so I could fit him/her into a suitcase, or demand to someone, "Your clothes, give them to me." Never have these things crossed my mind.

   My parents brought me up properly, instilled a fear of the whip in me, and sent me to bed starving when I was out of line. If more parents did that, maybe all the kids would grow up to be as good and upstanding as J-Sonoma. I did shoplift once - it was a paper clip I needed when I was in the 3rd grade. I think I did that the day after I watched Terminator.

Details of the case are listed below:
Granted April 26, 2010, for argument in the 2010 Term.

Docket: 08-1448

Issues: (1) Whether the First Amendment permit any limits on offensive content in violent video games sold to minors; and (2) whether a state regulation for displaying offensive, harmful images to children is invalid if it fails to satisfy the exacting “strict scrutiny” standard of review.
The full suit may be viewed at:
http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/09-10/08-1448_Petitioner.pdf

Best Games Here

   I laugh whenever I see someone in the office at the BestGamesHere website. We own that and it contains some of the worst flash games I've ever had the displeasure of trying. Out of the 1000+ games on the site, two were deleted from the mass installation directory that I recall. They are as follows:

1) Meat or Pussy - This game showed a small portion of an image and the player had to determine if it was a woman's vagina or a piece of meat. Yeah, it was offensive and tasteless so we deleted it on those grounds.

2) Kindergarten Killer - Just like the name says. You know how some people have zero social filter and they'll just do or say whatever's on their mind? I think the designer of KK is one of those people. One redeeming quality of the game is that the kindergartners shoot back.

   Most of the other games on BGH are drek but there's some good ones too. The site's about a month old and the traffic's fairly consistent. If you're after higher caliber free online flash games, we also own another gaming site at http://www.vanillangel.com/ - my favorites there are CityCraft, BTG Tower Defence, and Crusade. There's talk of starting another arcade site but these are just small projects for us to test the waters since there's no real specialization in arcade sites.

Weekly Famitsu interviews Nobuo Uematsu

   This week's issue of Weekly Famitsu features an interview with Nobuo Uematsu where the famous Final Fantasy composer talks about his recent work and current projects. In an old issue of Next Generation Magazine, I recall Nobuo talking about how he worked at a music store where he was "discovered" by a Squaresoft employee. Nobuo figured he'd make some extra cash freelancing for Square while keeping his day job at the shop. The rest is history...

    I'm not sure what Nobuo is wearing on his head for the interview though. It looks like mesh or or maybe a fishnet that he saved from the ocean. Someone in our office said it might be a potato sack but I told her to shut up. A potato sack doesn't have the fine intricate weaving that is evident on the garment that Nobuo has appointed upon his storied head. Whatever it is, you keep going Nobuo and continue creating those sweet melodies that ring in millions of homes around the world.

Nintendo 3DS

   After months of speculation on the Nintendo 3DS, a torrent of news was released overnight which sets the release date of Ninty's new DS for February 2011 in Japan. The rest of the world will get the 3DS in March. Pricing was set at JPY25000 which is about $298 based on this morning's exchange rate.

   Destructoid was kind enough to gather together all of last night's news from Nintendo on one convenient page. I'm psyched about the new Zelda Skyward Sword on the Wii but the announcement of a new installment of Rhythm Heaven which is going to appear on the Wii is great news. Can you say, "Wii Remote rhythm action?" I knew you could. Good dog.

AOL Buys TechCrunch

   The company I work for owns about 2000 shares of AOL from Time Warner's spinoff last year. Based on today's rise of about $0.68 in AOL shares, the company made about $1400 on paper. I'm not privvy to the firm's complete holdings but I get to open the mail every once in a while so it's all good. AOL's buying technology blog Tech Crunch for what appears to be $25 million. In Tiernan Ray's Barron's article on the acquisition today, he writes:

"AOL’s official release doesn’t disclose terms. Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson says sources close to AOL say the company has said it paid $25 million for TechCrunch. A CNBC report this afternoon, however, pegs the figure at $40 million.
Carlson thinks the figure is surprisingly low, given that TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has said the company’s revenue is running at $10 million a year."

   Carlson might want to ratchet down his valuations of news sites. If Tech Crunch is bringing in $10 million in revenue every year, a 2.5X buyout isn't out of the ordinary for a network of news sites. Tech Crunch also operates MobileCrunch, CrunchGear, TechCrunchIT, GreenTech, TechCrunchTV and CrunchBase.

  

Fast Striker for Dreamcast

   I'll preface today's post by saying I'm not a big fan of NG:DEV Team's shooters. They look good but something's missing in the gameplay. I'm supposed to hype the game up to drum up preorders for my company but I'm not going to do that. NG:DEV's next game is going to sell based on its own merits and J-Sonoma isn't going to pump anything.

   Admittedly, the Youtube video that they uploaded looks pretty good but I'm going to reserve judgment until we get the game and put it to the test. The official website for the Fast Striker shows off a bunch of screenshots and the stages have that unique European visual style. I've seen it in old time European Commodore 64 games, Amiga games, and anyone remember the Atari ST? It's a distinctive visual style that I like but it might not suit gamers who are used to the clean and crisp lines of a shooter like Gradius Gaiden.