andygates

The Wii wants its perfect duelling game. The criteria are simple: sword(s), headset (for the sledging), online play. It's still not here, but by crikey, the new WiiMotionPlus gubbin brings it closer.

WiiMotionPlus is a new plug-in for the Wiimote controller which adds real-space dead reckoning to the deal. It makes it less of a wandy mousey thing and more of a virtual stick in a virtual space. And what do we do with virtual sticks? Hit each other with 'em! See, you could dispense with the nunchuck entirely, with real dead-reckoning, and have the avatar follow the sword. It would rock beyond rock.

( Demo of the new sexiness after the cut )

I'm getting mixed messages from the Super Columbine Massacre RPG.  You've got standard video-game slaughter which just happens to be based on real events; cute eight-bit 2D sprite schoolkids getting shot, bombed and burned by cute eight-bit 2D Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris (with hit points and ammo counters, of course).  Cut scenes range from the ridiculous ("You found a Marilyn Manson CD! The lyrics are sure to inspire impulsive aggression and rage!") to the tragic - CCTV stills of the real victims.  Real humans, after all, don't blink twice and disappear when you kill 'em.  Take the dialogue out of its real-world context and it reads like a manga, so overblown and melodramatic you'd giggle.  The visuals look like South Park.

So is this just plain bad taste?  Gratuitious nastiness?  Inspired shock-jockery to go alongside Brass Eye's Paedogeddon skit?  Does it show that the developers are sick, cynical disconnected bastards, or that the general public is irrationally squeamish?   Is this the first real game documentary?  Why do I feel less disturbed by it than I do by the Call of Duty series' exploitation of real events?