Monday, April 10, 2000

PC Gamer Obi-Wan Article -- 11:28 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The good folks at JediKnight.net have a summary of the recent PC Gamer article on LucasArts' upcoming first/third-person shooter, Episode I: Obi-Wan. Yes, you will be able to kill Jar Jar. That alone should make Obi-Wan sell a million copies :) Having said that, I just purchased and watched The Phantom Menace in widescreen format, making it the third time I've seen the movie. I still don't find Jar Jar to be as terribly distracting as everyone else seems to. Oh well.

Rampage Killers -- 10:05 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There is an interesting article on the N.Y. Times website about "rampage killers," people who kill a number of people at once. The infamous Columbine killers would fall in this category. Here are some of the results which are rather telling:

While the killings have caused many people to point to the violent aspects of the culture, a closer look shows little evidence that video games, movies or television encouraged many of the attacks. In only 6 of the 100 cases did the killers have a known interest in violent video games. Seven other killers showed an interest in violent movies.
. . .
Society has turned to law enforcement to resolve the rampage killings that have become almost a staple of the nightly news. There has been an increasing call for greater security in schools and in the workplace. But a closer look shows that these cases may have more to do with society's lack of knowledge of mental health issues, rather than a lack of security. In case after case, family members, teachers and mental health professionals missed or dismissed signs of deterioration.

Basically the common thread is that all of these people showed mental illness, about half of which were diagnosed and well-known before the tragedies occurred. I would have thought that by now in an advanced society such as ours (n.b. sarcasm) that we would be better at recognizing and helping people deal with mental illness. It's not so strange then that these attacks are often characterized as "senseless".

This article strongly suggests (and unlike Col. Grossman and others, they actually use facts) that the solution is not banning video games, but recognizing and helping people with mental illnesses rather than shunning and avoiding them. Thanks Blue's News.

Sunday, April 9, 2000

Q3A Jailbreak Beta -- 10:01 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A beta version of the new Quake III Arena mod, Jailbreak, has been released. You can download it from the Jailbreak homepage. It's a 38M download, but they also have it divided up into four ~10M chunks for modemers. When you frag someone on the opposing team, they go to jail. Once everyone on a team is in jail, the whole team is executed (the goal of the game). Players who are still free can throw a switch to release their imprisoned teammates.

I played it a little bit (3v3 with five bots). The bots understand shooting well enough, but won't throw the switch to release you (or help you escape when imprisoned). It looks like it would be a fun team-based mod without all the complexities of Team-Fortress-esque mods.

One level I played, q3jbsul3 "Neighbourhate", is that most rare of levels that makes me want to rush right out and kill myself. Why?

• The bases are two tall towers. You need to run up a zillion flights of stairs in the dark to rescue your teammates.
• They use that "shiny metal" shader all over the place.
• Some of the doors aren't really doors. They are teleporters that zap you to God only knows where.

The other two maps I played were pretty nice. That "Neighbourhate" one made me want to smash my head through my monitor. Or listen to Kid Rock. Same effect.

Slow Day-History notes -- 9:12 pm CST, Update by The Master

Since it's been a slow day, a couple of interesting historical events that happened on this date:

• 1912: The RMS Titanic sets sail on her fateful maiden voyage. I will be reposting this one in 5 days.
• 1963: The US Navy submarine USS Thresher had some unknown difficulty that prevented her surfacing off Cape Cod. All hands (129 souls) were lost when Thresher sank past crush depth. The cause of the Thresher disaster is still unknown.

One of these days I'm going to build a database with this kind of stuff.

A.T. Hun comments: Gee, that sounds like a fun database, TM!

The Master comments: Hey-remember I almost went for a double-major in history A.T. That kind of stuff would be INTERESTING to me. Especially the pessimistic stuff :-)

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