Kotaku recently reported that 7-Eleven will be carrying the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion at release. This, in and of itself, is pretty interesting news as most 7-Eleven stores don’t carry games and those that do carry a limited selection. According 7-Eleven, the majority of their core demographic are gamers…which makes perfect sense. So they will be choosing the 7 highest profile games of this winter and releasing them in stores available at midnight on the release date.
They also reported that 7-Eleven has a tentative release date of November 4th for Wrath of the Lich King. This number has been tossed around a few times in the rumor mill and is also the popular choice for a release date at sites like Gamestop and Amazon. The problem with this release date, however, stems from the fact that November 4th is also election day in the U.S. where we will be choosing the next president of the United States of America.
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That’s the title of an essay written by Henry Jenkins, a professor at MIT. It’s a good essay that points out a lot of eye opening information. It’s a great message and a step in the right direction to redirect the aggression away from video games and back onto the things that truly impact negative and violent behavior in children. Hit the jump for the essay…
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Last weekend saw a disaster of trainwreck-like proportions hit the Destructoid blog in a review of Luc Bernard’s Eternity’s Child. Destructoid gave his Steam/Wiiware title a pretty devastating tag-team review from Anthony and Conrad, amounting to a 1/10 score from both reviewers. While I haven’t actually played the game myself yet, they outlined a pretty robust list of noggin-scratching bugs and problems that most commenters seem to agree with. The problem wasn’t the review however, it was Luc’s response.
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Recently, I sat down to watch a movie called Slipstream. I had only heard of it in passing, but I had heard that the movie was written and directed by Anthony Hopkins who also starred as the main character. About an hour into the movie, during a scene where Christian Slater and Jeffrey Tambor are terrorizing a diner for no apparent reason, I had to cut the movie short to run some errands. When I returned I found that I had no interest in finishing it. Now, don’t get me wrong, the movie wasn’t bad or unenjoyable. The problem was that I was not invested in any aspect of the film. None of the characters reached out to me. I wasn’t attached to the plot at all.
It doesn’t take much to make the leap from movie to video games when discussing these aspects of media. One of my primary motivations for playing any video game is my character. It was right about the same time that I stopped watching Slipstream that I sat down to play the Metal Gear Solid saga from the beginning. The difference between the two (Slipstream and MGS) was rather jarring. I was drawn into Snake’s character and history almost immediately. By the end of the end of Metal Gear Solid 4*, I had taken part in one of the most epic, involved, and emotionally engaging storylines I have experienced in my life.
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Not one day after I posted my thoughts on how Age of Conan was not ready for primetime, Mike Fahey from Kotaku had a chance to ask Age of Conan’s product manager, Erling Ellingsen, about it:
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There has been a flurry of disappointing MMORPGs to hit the market since the release of the juggernaut World of Warcraft. I’ve had the displeasure of playing through quite a few of these. The most recent MMO to cross my PC was Age of Conan…and what an experience that was.
Age of Conan had kind of snuck up on me. Several friends were quite interested in it and continually tried to convince me to play but I was so engrossed in World of Warcraft (/sigh Yes, I’m addicted) that I paid little attention to it. Then within a week or so of its release, a large number of my WoW guild were going to play, so my other half and I hopped on the bandwagon and bought it.
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