For years we have heard the argument that violent video games breed bad behavior in children. We have been sold on how violent content leads kids to emulate that behavior in their own lives. Violence in video games has been blamed for everything from aggravated sexual assault to mass murder. Now there is evidence that this may not be the case. As a matter of fact, it may be the reverse.

We have seen games like Grand Theft Auto crucified at the altar of public opinion for its strong violent and sexual content. Even though the game has a ESRB rating of M for Mature, meaning no children should be playing it, lawmakers and advocacy groups have screamed about the damage such things cause to our children. The argument that parents cannot stop their children from buying these games is utter horseshit. You can stop then from buying pornography, why not adult rated video games. If you cannot, then it is your parenting ability that should come under assault and not the developer of the game.

A recent study conducted by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson and funded by the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that there is no direct link to violence in video game and actual criminal behavior. In their book, Grand Theft Childhood, they discuss the fact that none of the studies conducted can show any correlations to violence in game and violence in life. Their findings show that while violence in video games has been on the rise over the last several years, violent crimes among teenagers has dramatically decreased. The state that short term responses such as excitement and elevated emotions are typical, but not lasting or damaging. The did also note that children who play almost exclusively violent games and play them more than fifteen hours a week, could potentially be at risk. The really interesting part is that the children who tend not to play video games, exhibit more risk behaviors that those that play violent games. Their studies found that among male youths those who never played video games seemed to get into more trouble and do so more often than those that play those games.

Here is an interview from X-Play with the authors:

Very rarely now, do I get excited about many things in the gaming industry. My lengthy history in this area has set rather high expectations and dulled my sense to flashy marketing ideas about future projects.

In the genre of massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) this sense of apathy has been reinforced by massive failures such as Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Galaxies left a particularly bitter taste in my mouth since there was massive potential for this product based simply on the enormous fan base that Star Wars brought with it. I would have played this game simply because of what it was, had Sony not completely botched it to hell. Even the best ideas can be ruined by ineptitude and stupidity.

The failures in this area have been offset by the occasional stroke of innovation or genius. Dark Ages of Camelot brought one of the most engaging combinations of player vs. environment (PvE) and player vs. player (PvP) that industry has yet to seriously improve upon. World of Warcraft raised the bar in what players expected in MMORPGs by introducing an immersive environment that held true to the style and feel of the extremely successful strategy games. This game still holds records for subscribers and revenue generated. Recently we have also seen a decent showing in the form of Lord of the Rings Online and its immersive environment, engaging story and quest lines and its innovative trait system. This is also a visually stunning game that I still find my self impressed with while playing.

Yesterday, I saw something that peaked my interest. A virtual unknown in the gaming industry announced the development of a new MMORPG that holds great potential. Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment announced that Stargate Worlds would be available by the Fall of 2008. Not only is this announcement bold in its short timeframe, but also in the potential for which this tile could hold. Stargate SG-1 is the longest running science fiction series in the history of television. Even without including Stargate Atlantis, the series has a wealth of lore and content to construct an immense universe to be explored throughout our galaxy and others. There exists great potential for immersion, exploration, character development, story line and quest line development and expansion.

Occasionally, relatively unknown companies can produce masterpieces due to the forces of innovation and creativity that are sometimes lacking in larger manufacturers. However, there is always the potential to completely waste this potential and create a poor quality title and hope to bank on the fan base to accept it. (Thanks go to Sony for establishing this tendency as a mainstream practice.)

Hopefully, this game will be inspired by the creative vision that drove the series. I will wait for beta before I get my hopes up to far, but I have to admit that if this game shows any promise at all, I will be there on release day rolling up my SGC character, grabbing my P-90 and heading for the gate.

You may watch the trailer on GateWorld.

I will continue my Truth About Alternative Fuels series tomorrow.

I have played almost every first person shooter (FPS) that has arrived on the market since the heady days of Wolfenstien 3D, Doom and Duke Nukem. Ever so often over the past fifteen years there would be a monumental break through in FPS gaming such as Quake, Half-Life, Counter-Strike and Unreal. They would quite often be followed by improved versions of themselves, but as improvements on the originals they were not the ground shaking releases that their predecessors had been.

There were some great attempts at originality such as Soldner, Soldier of Fortune and Operation Flashpoint which either had critical failings that the designers could not over come or just never got the acclaim they deserved.

When DICE hit the main stream by releasing its multi-player only (or single player with a ton of bots) Battlefield series, we saw a new type of objective based, class oriented game play emerge. This style of play had previously only been seen in after market modifications to the games (generally known as ‘mods’). The capture the flag style of play had often been included in many multiplayer environments, but the idea of taking and holding territory as a primary means of game play was new to the main stream. This was probably one of the most significant developments in modern FPS gaming.

Another significant development was Crytek’s release of Far Cry. Oddly enough this game was a far cry from the others available on the market at the time. Crytek’s new gaming engine brought revolutionary technologies to the forefront in Far Cry. It was visually stunning with intense game play and an engaging storyline. Due to the use of new technologies such as HDR lighting and advanced pixel shading, Far Cry set the bar for visual presentation in modern FPS games.

Other hugely successful and well renowned series include the Medal of Honor series developed by Electronic Arts (EA) and the Call of Duty series developed by Infinity Ward. Both series are set around historical battles during World War II and have been very successful enterprises for both EA and Activision who produces for Infinity Ward.

Despite their successes, neither the Call of Duty series nor the Medal of Honor ones were particularly ground breaking or breath taking. All that changed on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007. With the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward once again rocked the FPS gaming industry.

It takes a great deal to impress me when it comes to FPS gaming. Call of Duty 4 not only impressed, but succeeded in knocking my socks off. This is quite possibly one of the most visually impressive games that I have ever seen. Some scenes are almost photorealistic in their rendering and at others you feel as though you are watching a film, not a first person combat simulation. The lighting, particle effects (such as dust and smoke) and the shading are amazing. The richly detailed and diverse textures immerse you fully into the environment where the game is set. Not since Far Cry or Oblivion (and RPG) have I seen a more impressively rendered and beautifully designed game that delivers visual quality well above what is considered the norm in the gaming industry today, and all of it done on a DirectX 9.0c engine.

Impressive. Most impressive.

The game play is equally as impressive as the visual presentation. From the very first mission you are thrust into real world scenarios that could be ripped directly from tomorrow’s headlines. The only way to describe the action would be, intense. From the moment your feet hit the rolling deck of the container ship in the stormy seas of the Bearing Strait, you are thrust into combat at a breakneck speed. This rapid pace of combat is kept throughout the game. Occasionally during missions, things go critically wrong and you have to adapt on the fly. There are evacuations, assignations, rescues and running combat scenarios that find you fighting on the move through close streets and open fields. There is ample storyline influence to propel you through the campaign and connect you to the action on the ground. I found myself anxiously awaiting the loading screen so that I could find out what happens next.

As intense as the single player game is, the multi-player is nothing less that the same fast paced combat. There are levels that you can obtain to unlock customizable kits and equipment. There are also challenges which you can master with each weapon allowing you to obtain skills and modifiers to you combat effectiveness. I hope to see some improvements in the network coding, since massive lag spikes were not uncommon on the 32 player servers, but over all it seemed a good experience.

If you are anything from a casual digital weekend warrior to a hardcore Jolt drinking FPS junky, you need to pick this game up. I was completely and utterly impressed, and that is saying a lot when it comes to gaming.

I keep an RSS feed program running on my desktop to catch top news stories and I get a few automated services dropped into my e-mail. I just received a broadcast from NewsMax containing an article titled ‘Did Va. Tech Murderer Learn From Video Games?’ by Jim Meyers.

Alright, that is far enough! Once again let’s find something else in our society to blame our actions on. God forbid anyone should have to take personal responsibility for their actions when we can blame it on the guns or the video games or the music. This pisses me off to an extent that will not be easily conveyed through the text on this page.

Here is an excerpt:

Murders Echo Game Scenarios

The grisly murders of 31 people at Virginia Tech eerily seem to match the stalking of targets in video programs some times called “first person shooter” (FPS) games. In the FPS video game genre is characterized by an on-screen view that simulates the in-game character’s point of view and by the use of handheld weapons.

Typically, the game player participant stalks through rooms, mazes or buildings seeking out victims, firing multiple shots into targets to ensure death. The player is frequently required to change ammunition.

“You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high,” Dr Phil added.

“We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murders of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.” Video games with names like “Quake,” “Grand Theft Auto,” or “Doom” are among the most popular killer programs.

What?! Murders echo game scenarios? Oh this is absolute bullshit. Tell me one single First Person Shooter (FPS) out there where the story line revolves around going into a college, trapping and murdering innocent college students execution style before cowardly taking your own life. Show me one! I understand that there are violent video games out there, but there are violent books, art, movies and songs out there.

For starters, we know practically nothing about this person. So to fly off the handle and start assuming that this was related to video games is the height of stupidity. Did he even play video games at all? If he did, did he enjoy the FPS’s or was he into sports games? We don’t have a clue. We know nothing about him.

This is absolutely insulting to those of us normal functional humans who happen to enjoy FPS style video games like the Battlefield series, Gears of War or Ghost Recon. This is also a very dangerous slope. As the article states, Germany has banned violent video games. If you start there, where will it end? Germany and the European Union are also going to make it a crime to belittle or deny the holocaust. While I think anyone who does so is a blithering idiot, do we make it a crime to think that way and express your opinions? Of course not!

If we begin to let the thought police ban things that they do not agree with or things that they find offensive, where will the assault on liberties end? When will the way you dress, raise your children or what music you listen to become the purview of others to determine what is acceptable?

The most dangerous aspect of this is one that has permeated out society to the point that I am not sure we can counter its effects. We are plagued with the idea that no one has to take personal responsibility for their own actions. I have written on this many times before, but it remains one of the gravest problems with our society. You can always find someone else to blame. Whether it is video games, music, movies, drugs, bullies or the fact that you were spanked as a child, it is never your fault. You never have to answer for your own actions in todays over psychoanalytical bleeding heart environment; it is always someone else’s fault. This is dangerous and it is adding to the decay of our society.

A few months ago I started to post some articles about gaming and have not had many of them since the original few posts. Today, I could not resist posting about what I think will be one of the most exciting releases in PC gaming since World of Warcraft debuted, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.

I am currently in a state of anxious anticipation. On April 26th, 2007, J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth will dawn in the universe of Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG). For those of us who are true Tolkien fans, this is an exciting event. You will be able to login to the world of Middle Earth and explore the very lands that the Fellowship crossed. The game is being developed by Turbine and has already entered its final stages of closed beta. On February 12th, 2007, Turbine lifted the binding Non-Disclosure Act and the flood of details coming out of the beta community is very promising.

This weekend, beginning on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 and ending on Monday, February 26th, 2007, Turbine will conduct a stress test of the current game client and servers. This stress test is free for all who want to take a sneak peak at the game and get a test drive for free. You can also earn the chance to be entered into a drawing for a nVidia GeForce 8800 series video card if you participate for a minimum of two hours per day.

Turbine is also offering a unique pre-order offer never seen before in MMORPGs. If you grab a pre-order copy of the game, you receive a DVD with the current game client on it and a pre-order activation key. This key entitles you to several rewards in the game and out. The in game rewards are a couple of nice starting items but nothing extravagant. The out of game offers are what make it worth the effort to grab a pre-order copy. The official Open Beta for the game will begin on April 8th, 2007, but if you have a registered pre-order key, you will be granted access on March 30th, 2007 and you will be allowed to carry the character you start in beta over into the live launch. Also, you will be offered a special rate of $9.99/mo or a lifetime membership of $199 to play the game. I have already secured a pre-order copy, of course.

For any of you interested, some friends and I will be starting characters on the Brandywine server and will be glad to meet anyone who wishes to join us. I am sure I will be posting an article with my first impressions of the game in which I will include my character name so you can contact me in game.

If you are interested, you should go check out The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar website and look at the incredible screenshots and check out the boards. There are detailed descriptions of the races and character classes, plus sneaks into some of the main characters and enemies you will encounter.

I know I am partial to Tolkien, but this looks like it will be a very impressive game.

I have decided to start including some gaming stuff on the site as well as the political. So to start this line of articles, I should probably give you some history on my gaming experience.

When I was in High School, I took some Computer Science courses. Back then the main courses were BASIC, PASCAL and they had just introduced C/C++. During my Senior year, I finished the entire years curriculum within the first two six-week periods and began helping the instructor teach others for the remainder of the year. This also left me with a lot of spare time during this period and I happened upon something I thought was amazing, Wolfenstien 3-D. While I had played several other computer games in the past such as Hero’s Quest, King’s Quest and other MUD and BBS style games, this was something entirely different. You could actually walk around shooting stuff in stunning 2-D vectored graphics. I was hooked.

When I realized that my 486DX/2-66Mhz system with a whopping 64Mgs of EDO-DRAM at home was capable of playing this and much more I dove into the technology and found multiple resources for upgrades and the like. I spent many nights at the First Saturday sales in Dallas upgrading here and there. I spent many more writing manual config.sys and autoexec.bat files to try to squeeze as much out of that lower 640K of main system memory as I could. My crowning achievement in this was the successful launch of Privateer and Strike Commander, two games both made by Origin and extremely memory intensive for the time. By doing all this I came to understand memory management, allocation of system resources, addressing, IRQs, DMAs and all the internal workings of the PC. At the time I was perusing my career in Law Enforcement and only taking a course or two in Computer Science at the local college. When I discovered that I was narcoleptic, that put an end to my career path as a Police Officer. Even though I only have a mild case of the neurological disorder, it was enough to prevent me from being a patrol officer by myself and you cannot get anywhere in law enforcement without years of patrol experience. When I discovered this, I turned my attention toward programming. I took several coursed in C/C++ and HTML. I got a job at a network integration company and learned how to run cable plants and configure network servers in Windows NT and Novel Netware. All this time, I kept playing every decent title that came out.

When the network integration company I was working for decided to move, I found work as a salesman/technician for a systems integration company in the area. When the doors closed at 5:00PM, we would all hit the network and load up Duke Nukem 3D, for sometimes hours of rocket and laser mine festivals after work. Then came the next dawning revelation for computer gamers everywhere, the true birth of a new genre of games was realized when Origin announced Ultima Online. Having been a tremendous fan of the Ultima series, I applied and luckily was accepted for something they called the Beta program. This was amazing, you could play the game for free before it came out and all you had to do was report problems and help them test it out. Hell, that was what I did as a technician anyway, so this was a dream. Little did Origin know that the release of Ultima Online would signal the beginning of whole new worlds of development and the eventual demise of their company at the hands of Electronic Arts. In any event they had set the stage for the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games or MMORPGs.

As engrossed as I was with UO, I was not oblivious to the other genres at the time. The advent of the serious lines of first-person shooters (FPS) would not have been nearly as impressive had another major hurdle not also have been breeched. Appearing on the scene around this time was an unusual device targeted solely at gamers and immediately lauded as one of the most significant breakthroughs in gaming technology in the history of computing. Enter a company named 3dfx. With the release of the original 3dfx Voodoo chipset, the emerging genre of FPSs exploded. There had been many attempts to copy the success of titles such as Doom, but the most successful by far had been the Quake series. Suddenly with the advent of real 3D capabilities, dozens of titles began to appear. Within a year terms such as Glide, OpenGL and Direct 3d were common on the tongues of gamers everywhere. These 3D technologies lead to the development of multiple FPS titles, of which the most successful was probably the Quake series. Suddenly we had lighting, textures, shadows, anti-aliasing and millions of smooth colorful pixels to dazzle our eyes. It was a good time in gaming. 3dfx was finally absorbed into one of its competitors when it was clear that the future of 3D gaming would be lead by companies like nVidia and ATI. It is fitting that nVidia would be the company to buy 3dfx, since it was the nVidia GeForce 256 and the GeForce 2 GTS that essentially crushed any hopes 3dfx had of returning to the market as a serious player. During this time I played almost every FPS that reared its head on the market, the good and the bad. I fell in love with WSAD and resigned myself to inverted mouse movement and twitch gaming. I was an admin for several servers in the area along with a good friend of mine from school. We have played the multiplayer versions of most of the major FPSs, such as: Quake, Hal-Life, Counter-Strike, Battlefield and Battlefront, including all their various versions, many mods and many others not listed here. We still play to this very day.

My prime focus in the FPS genre lately has been the Battlefield series. Digital Illusions CE developed the original Battlefield 1942 several years ago. They have improved on the series with almost every release including Battlefield Vietnam and Battlefield 2 (most decidedly my favorite.) The new addition to this is Battlefield 2142, an impressive futuristic look and combined arms warfare including digital age infantry and walking mechanized armor. I am addicted.

About the time that 3dfx was spiraling into its demise, another first occurred that would define the future of gaming. On March 16th, 1999, Verant Interactive released what it possibly the most significant development ever in the arena of MMORPGs, EverQuest. This was the first true 3D MMORPG to combine elements of Dungeons & Dragons and MUDs and encase them in a truly massive and aesthetically impressive world. EverQuest attracted an enormous following and still holds a good chunk of the market share today. I was lucky enough to land a spot on the Beta once more and spent a great deal of my time playing on the Test Server, during the actual run of the game. I never became addicted to the game to the point of some, like Tony Lamont Bragg, a 25-year-old father so addicted to EverQuest, that when interrupted during gaming by his 9-month-old son’s crying, he squeezed the child so intensely that a rib punctured his heart and he died within minutes. I will admit that I was a hardcore EQ nut, though. I was part of a online guild that felt more like a family at times and I made several lasting friendships with the people that I played with. Since my time in EverQuest I have played many MMORPGS: Dark Ages of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Ragnarok Online, Eve Online, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars, EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft. Though I have enjoyed most of them, I never found the environment that I did with my EQ family. I am now anxiously awaiting the release of Lord of the Rings Online: The Shadows of Angmar. I am a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan and cannot wait to experience this in an on-line format.

Ok, I have talked enough about what I have played. I actually only covered two genres. I did not go into the Real Time Strategy (RTS) games like Warcraft, Starcraft and Command & Conquer. I did not touch on the sports games such as NHL 96 to NHL 07. I forgot to cover all the flight sims such as Lock-On,
X-2 and X-3 or all of the Jane’s titles before they were swallowed up by the evil EA. I also spared you the long list of about every strategy and standard role-playing game that I have indulged in. If in the last ten years, a game was made and it was worth playing, I probably played it.

Anyway, this is my other passion in life besides my wife and my family. It has been one far longer than politics, so I thought you should know a bit about where I am coming from when I start writing some of my articles concerning gaming.

I would love to hear comments from any of you out there who are avid gamers, or even casual ones. Let me know what you play, what you like and what you don’t. We may have a lot to talk about.

Over the past few weeks we have seen our fair share of political turmoil and change. Sometimes it is refreshing to find an event which diverges from the normal grandeur of politics and allows us a look at the lighter side of life.

Today marks the long awaited release of the Sony PlayStation 3 and while this site does not normally deal in the arena of gaming, it is certainly one of the passions in my life.

For the past few weeks I have been talking to some friends and assuring them that they should not take this Friday off in a vain attempt to secure one of the very few PS/3s that will be available for sale in just a few hours. Since most of us live near and work in Fort Worth, TX, they were convinced that by going to one of the outlying suburbs early this morning, they would be able to acquire one with relative ease. I live in a fairly small town about thirty miles to the west of Fort Worth. We are not considered a suburb because we are disconnected by miles of ranchlands and other smaller communities. The official population of our city is still under 20,000 persons, but I would bet that since the last census, we have far exceeded that. Still, for being as close to a large city as we are, we are still considered a small town.

We are much farther out and more disconnected from Fort Worth than most of the locations they were going to try. I decided to see what awaited them in our community should they venture this way.

Even with the problems the Japanese release of the PS/3 uncovered and the news that Sony had slashed the shipments bound for the United States down to 450,000 units, there were still those braving the elements to land the ultimate prize. The reduction in shipments left some retailers such as GameStop empty handed and unable to even fill their existing pre-orders. Other such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy would not comment on the number of units they would be able to field when the doors swing open later this morning.

I went looking for those willing to face these impossible odds and brave the cold night air just for the chance to snag Sony’s NextGen console. Here is what we found.

Our first stop was one of the two Wal-Mart SuperCenters in the county. Out side we found several people bundled against the elements and in extremely high spirits, despite the unwillingness of Wal-Mart to comment on their chances. There was a local police unit parked close by to keep watch on the situation, but he was smart enough to be waiting out the night inside the store.

Next we visited the Target and found several well prepared individuals camping for the night, space heaters and all. We did not disturb most of them since they were already tucked away inside their tents.

The final stop was our local Best Buy location, whose line stretched from the afore mentioned Target all the way to the Best Buy entrance. I was impressed by this group who had come prepared to camp in style. There was a group watching Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey in “Two for the Money,” while other sported laptop computers and other portable electronics to pass the time. Upon talking to the guys at the front of the line, I learned that some of them had been there since Wednesday afternoon.

I was not surprised to see this many people. I actually expected to see a few more since at the time of this article the current price for a PS/3 on eBay was between $1,925 and $3,000 for the 20Gb version and between $2,500 and $5,000 for the 60Gb one, but maybe the reduction in units that Sony is shipping convinced some to seek the warmth of their own home. Due to the amount of people camping out in our small community, I am sure I will have the pleasure of learning that none of them were successful in their attempt.

Don’t get me wrong. I would jump at the chance to grab one of the new consoles. I just wouldn’t freeze for it or go without the comfort of my own bed for two days.

Here is wishing good luck to all those waiting, who were kind enough to talk to me and let me snap some photos of them. I hope all the retailer got enough units to allow all of you to go home as literally happy campers.