The student arm of Basij, Iran’s paramilitary volunteer militia, has released a pair of new games that center on “crimes” of the “Zionist” Israeli regime.

One such game is called Assault on Freedom Convoy, which concerns the May 31st Israeli commando raid on activists trying to slip though a Gaza naval blockade. That action left nine Turkish activists dead. According to the Times of India, the game was described by Basijis as bringing to light the “crimes of the Zionist regime during the attack on the flotilla.”

The second game is called Devil Den 2, but no description of the game was offered.

Mohammad Reza Jokar, billed as the head of the Basij student organization, explained the use of games as a political tool, saying, “The young generation must find out about the Zionist regime and since video games enjoy large audiences, they were unveiled ahead of Quds Day.”
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As Microsoft continues to try and get its Xbox 360 to market in China, an executive for the company outlined why Kinect may be a valuable asset in its push and how MS plans to combat piracy in the Asian country.

Simon Leung (pictured), Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Chairman and CEO for the Greater China region, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, first noted why China is such an attractive region, if it wasn’t already apparent, stating that China would soon be the world’s largest PC market, while it's already tops in the mobile phone and broadband categories.

Leung indicated that China is becoming a growing adopter of cloud computing, which could help protect Microsoft, as Leung stated, “… you cannot pirate a cloud application.”

Asked about selling consoles in China, Leung responded: Read More

Kotaku points us towards an interesting Ted Talk in which David McCandless, a self-proclaimed “data journalist” discusses overcoming information overload by visualizing and designing information so we can focus on what’s important.

After showing a graph a “landscape of the world’s fears”, or a chart showing off popular scares over the last decade, which included Swine Flu, Bird Flu, SARS, the Millennium Bug, Asteroid Collisions and Killer Wasps, McCandless pulled up a slide charting the landscape of violent videogames.
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An editorial in The Salt Lake Tribune calls Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff’s decision to possibly support the videogame industry in the upcoming Schwarzenegger v. EMA SCOTUS case “baffling.”

It appears the paper has sided with pro-life groups and a handful of politicians in condemning Shurtleff (pictured) for a decision he hasn’t even made yet. Titled, “Let it Go,” the editorial stopped just short of labeling Shurtleff a hypocrite, saying instead that opposing the California law was ironic for someone representing a state “that trumpets its devotion to family values.”
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In order to make its safety training more appealing to workers, the Louisiana Transportation Research Center’s (LTRC) Transportation Training and Education Center (TTEC) is trying out a pilot program that involves videogame-based teaching.

The center is now testing a simulator that allows participants to man an on-screen avatar as they run though required procedures in simulated work zones. Activities center on properly flagging equipment, operating flags correctly and following other correct safety actions.

TTEC Associate Director Glynn Cavin told 2TheAdvocate that the new training may eventually replace the currently employed conventional classroom method, which some highway workers find “unappealing,” to which he added, “It just doesn’t work well.”
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Expect sales of Electronic Arts’ Medal of Honor to do a little better in New Zealand after that country’s Defense Minister Wayne Mapp (pictured) joined his UK counterpart in condemning the title.

Mapp, who is also New Zealand’s Minister of Research, Science and Technology, spoke out against the game because, presumably, of its multiplayer component, where gamers will have the ability to fight as Taliban forces.

In comments carried by GamePlanet, Mapp stated that, “Terrorist acts have caused the deaths of several New Zealanders.” He continued, “This game undermines the values of our nation, and the dedicated service of our men and women in uniform.”
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Fans of LovePlus, the Konami-developed dating simulator that was released only in Japan, now have a vacation destination where they can integrate virtual girlfriends into their daily activities.

Using augmented reality (AR), Konami and the resort town of Atami, Japan have teamed up to offer 13 “romantic locations” throughout the town, where love struck gamers can pose, thanks to augmented reality, with images of their favorite LovePlus characters, like Rinko, Manaka or Nene.

It was reported by AFP that the girls “have all swapped their usual sailor-style school uniforms for casual summer wear.”

A local hotel offers additional entertainment for LovePlus fans:

The local Ohnoya hotel even offers traditional rooms to the unusual couples, which feature two sets of futon beds and another barcode panel that allows the men to visualise their girlfriends in a flattering summer kimono. Read More

The serial killer game we covered here on GP last week appears to be just an elaborate hoax.

A post on the RPG Codex forums, where the “fake” developer (Crimson King) discussed his creation, led us to a post on the SomethingAwful forums, in which an entry attributed to Crimson King, or the YouTube user who posted the original video, states that the game is a hoax.

The culprits, if it’s really them, opened up on why they performed such an experiment: Read More

The European Service Network (ESN), operating under a budget of 275,000 Euros (approximately $349,000 U.S.) from the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Communication, is developing an online role-playing game—and social networking forum—that it hopes will capture “the essence of European Parliament.”

Named Citzalia, the online experience was compared to Second Life and will have users create an avatar before being able to,  “navigate around a virtual recreation of the actual Parliament, to create content, and to involve themselves in virtual law-making.” Read More

Georgia’s aggressive tax breaks for interactive developers seem to be paying off for the state, if you believe a rosy picture painted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

All in all, the piece estimated that around 70 companies “affiliated with videogame production” operate in Georgia today. The economic impact of such companies on the local economy was pegged at $68.9 million in 2008, while a figure of $49.9 million was assigned to 2009, though that number is expected to double once companies that have not yet filed for tax incentives do so.

Among the lures that make Georgia an attractive home for game developers is a sizeable tax credit of 20 percent for investments that surpass $500,000, with an additional 10 percent in breaks up for grabs if the state’s logo is embedded in the game.
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GamePolitics reader Dante pointed us towards a short Finnish recounting (translated) of an article from a Danish newspaper, which appeared to indicate that the Medal of Honor “scare” started by Fox News, and perpetuated by UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox, had spread to Denmark.

In a pair of articles published on the Danish website MetroXpress, while the game did come under some criticism—it was described as “disrespectful” to soldiers from that country who served in Afghanistan—reasoning that Medal of Honor is just a game took over after a tersely worded introduction.
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It’s not quite the prerequisite one might be used to seeing for a college course: “basic knowledge of and experience playing StarCraft.”

The University of Florida is offering a class utilizing StarCraft, in order to assist in the teaching of resource management skills, a theory which Ph.D Candidate and instructor Mate Poling outlined for the Technology Review (thanks Joystiq), saying, “In StarCraft you're managing a lot of different units and groups of different capacities.”

He added, “It's not a stretch to think of that in the business world or in the work of a healthcare administrator.”

Additionally:

Poling points out that people who manage hospitals, factories, small businesses and, say, nuclear power plants all have to manage people who have different abilities, and that they might have learned a thing or two about this process from StarCraft, which demands the same kind of resource and unit management. Read More

An excellent piece on the UK’s Telegraph website rips Defense Secretary Liam Fox for his prattle about EA’s upcoming Medal of Honor game, while also outlining the impact Fox’s comments will have on game sales and how such attacks by “outsiders” raise the cackles hackles of gamers.

Fox totally missed the boat in his condemnation of the game as he argued for its ban in the UK, claiming that the game was “un-British,” even though British forces do not factor into the game at all.

If Fox wanted to make a reasonable argument about the game, as Nick Cowen explains, he could have chosen a different tack: Read More

Imagine what the anti-videogame populace might say in regards to a game about serial killing, which features the preset characters Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz and Aileen Wuornos.

Created by someone nicknamed Crimson King, and unearthed by an Examiner columnist, Serial Killer is billed as a “roguelike” game (akin to a simply animated dungeon crawler). Read More

While Iowa State University is home to anti-videogame researchers Craig Anderson and Douglas Gentile, the school is also about to launch a videogame development competition for its students.

Armed with a $50,000 grant from the Motorola Foundation, faculty members Anson Call, an Associate Professor of Integrated Studio Arts, and Chris Johnson, a Lecturer in Computer Science, are running the competition, which will feature teams of three compete in a trio of categories: serious games, PC/console games and mobile games. The makeup of teams will consist of one designer, one programmer and one business major.
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While the turnaround time of Flash games based on popular news events is generally rather amazing, one such game based on the recent hostage tragedy that occurred on a bus in the Philippines earlier this week is drawing criticism.

A disgruntled ex-policeman named Rolando Mendoza boarded a bus of tourists in Manila in a misguided attempt to win his job back. After a long standoff, which the consensus says was mismanaged, police finally stormed the bus and killed Mendoza, but not before he murdered eight of the tourists, all of whom were from Hong Kong.

The game based on this event is named Bus Hostage by Policeman and appears on the Newgrounds site, where it has received scathing reviews (0.95 out of 5.00) and comments, for both its subject matter and buggy, awful gameplay. The game itself has players attempting to shoot Mendoza through the windows of the bus, asking participants “Can you stop him and blow his brain?”

Among the comments: Read More

As Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff considers submitting an amicus brief that would support the videogame industry side in the Schwarzenegger v. EMA Supreme Court case, "pro-family" groups and other legislators from his state held a press conference to try and get him to change his mind.

Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka, Laura Bunker (pictured), Chairwoman of United Families Utah and State Representatives Jim Dunnigan (R) and Julie Fisher (R) all gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday, according to a story in the Deseret News.

Bunker stated, “As the most family-oriented state in the nation, Utah should support this law that promotes the protection of children.”
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Founded by people behind the Sarcastic Gamer website, the Extra Life charity drive encourages teams of gamers, or sole participants, to play games for a 24-hour stretch in order to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network.

The 2008 and 2009 events raised a total of $302,000, all of which went directly to the charity. The best part: anyone can join in and raise funds simply by registering, creating a personal fundraising page and then hitting up friends and relatives as sponsors.

Extra Life 2010 kicks off on Saturday, October 16 at 8:00 AM in participant’s local time zone. This year’s event also boasts involvement by a team of editors from IGN, which is sure to raise awareness of the event, and hopefully donations as well.

Entrants in this year’s challenge can also choose to contribute proceeds to the Children’s Miracle Network hospital of their choice.

Blizzard and Chinese game operator Net Ease will officially launch the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King just a few short weeks after it was finally approved in the Asian country.

According to a joint press release from Blizzard and Net Ease, the expansion will go live in mainland China on August 31, almost two years after it was launched (November 2008) in Europe and North America.

Net Ease CEO William Ding stated, “We are fully prepared on all fronts to provide great service and support to all of the new and returning players throughout China, and we look forward to welcoming them to Northrend.”
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Piazza del Campo is a historic space in Siena, Italy, famous for being the scene of a biannual bareback horse race named the Palio di Siena. The use of the space as a cart track in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 however, as illustrated in the accompanying video, has angered at least one Italian official.

Kotaku reports that Anna Carli, CEO of the Consortium for the Protection of the Palio is reaching out to Sony officials in order to resolve this dispute. Read More

A study of 626 Honk Kong Chinese students, who averaged about 10 years old, indicated that while playing massively multiplayer online games appears to contribute to a kid’s psychological well-being, overall time spent playing computer games had a negative correlation with their academic performance.

Dr. Angel Nga-man Leung and Prof. Catherine McBride (pictured) from the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Department of Psychology carried out the study (PDF), which indicated that students spent 67 minutes per day, on average, playing MMOs, 44 minutes on solitary computer games, 44 minutes per day using handheld games and 31 minutes a day playing home video consoles. In gender specific results, boys played more minutes per day in each category when compared to their female counterparts.

The students were also asked to compare their real-life friends against friends from their online games. The results caused the researchers to declare: Read More

Upset over the ability to play as the Taliban in multiplayer modes of Electronic Arts’ upcoming Medal of Honor game, UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox has called for retailers in that country to forego selling the game.

Fox’s full rant appeared in yesterday’s Sunday Times, which is behind a pay wall, but fortunately CVG (thanks Cheater87) transcribed some of Fox’s thoughts on the game.

After calling the opportunity to play as the Taliban “disgusting,” Fox continued:

It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban.

I am disgusted and angry. It's hard to believe any citizen of our country would wish to buy such a thoroughly un-British game.

I would urge retailers to show their support for our armed forces and ban this tasteless product. Read More

A Nintendo DS helped one eight-year old boy cope with the hospital stays and treatments resulting from a diagnosis that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

Now nine-years old, the plight of Genre Baker of North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania inspired the formation of the Genre’s Kids with Cancer Fund, which has the goal of outfitting similarly affected sick children at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh with their own handheld game systems to help them pass the time.

Genre, in a Pittsburgh Live story on his travails, said, “Whenever I was in the hospital, I had to stay there for hours and there was nothing to do but play my (Nintendo) DS. I wanted other kids to be able to have one, too, if they didn't.”

Neighboring Irwin, Pennsylvania will be the scene of a fund raising race/walk, called Footsteps in Faith, for the charity on August 28. Entrants can choose to participate in a 5k run or a one mile walk.
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As each side in the Schwarzenegger v. EMA case attempts to lure state attorney generals to sign on to their respective amicus briefs, Common Sense Media Chief James Steyer is turning up the pressure on one particular person.

The LA Times features an excerpt from a letter by Steyer to Utah Attorney General, and a one-time target of a certain disbarred attorney, Mark Shurtleff (pictured). While Shurtleff might seem like a natural to sign on to a brief in favor of the California law—he argued for a ban of the game 25 to Life in 2005—he has also demonstrated considerable backbone, once challenging a proposed Utah law introduced by a now disbarred attorney as unconstitutional.
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A longstanding loophole that has allowed mobile application developers to avoid submitting their wares for classification in Australia has been vowed to be sealed up by the country’s Labor Party.

The Australian reports that the issue is on the agenda of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting, which was postponed three weeks ago due to the looming state elections (that take place on August 21).

Labor’s Brendan O’Connor, and Minister of Home Affairs, said that he was, “… concerned about the classification of games playable on mobile telephones and had put the wheels in motion to address this with his state and territory counterparts.”

Meanwhile, a Sydney Morning Herald story notes that such submissions could cost developers between $470 and $2040 per entry, which didn’t sit well with some creators.
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Citing its affordability and simplicity, researchers from Maryland and Ohio State University are trying out Nintendo’s Wii as a means to evaluate the severity and lingering effects of concussions.

A Washington Post article on the subject indicates that taking tabs on an athlete’s balance is one way to measure recovery from a blow to the head, but researchers are split on the effectiveness of using the videogame device.

Experts at Maryland have athletes get on board a Wii Fit and attempt to mimic three different yoga poses, once with their eyes open and once with them closed. They also play a weight-shifting game and, eventually, all data recovered from the activities is tabulated and stored. If a player receives a concussion, the thought is that team doctors would now posses “a frame of reference to measure how far an athlete's ability to function is from its starting point.”

Once athletes met their pre-concussion scores, in theory, they could return to the field.
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The latest animated video produced by Taiwanese-based Next Media Animation skewers just about all the major players in the 2010 mid-term elections.

The video is rather up-to-date as well, as it features information disclosed earlier this month in a GQ mini-profile on Rand Paul to recreate a remarkably bizarre story recounted about the Republican Senatorial candidate for Kentucky from 1983, when he was attending Baylor University.

The story below was recalled by the woman at the center of the peculiar incident (who added that she was never hurt):

"He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They'd been smoking pot."

 

After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek.

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In this increasingly connected electronic world, boys are increasingly turning to media that provides sensory entertainment, which, in turn, acts as an immediate and gratifying substitute for happiness, according to an article penned by a clinical psychologist.

In an article written for the New Atlantis, author Adam J. Cox argues that boredom provides an “availability of mental space” that “goes hand in hand with a civil mind.” Today’s kids, he writes, are enthralled for hours on end by electronica, such as games, phones and computers, leading to:

The adolescent mind is nowadays so hyper-stimulated that the absence of stimulation — boredom — is unsettling, while the chaos of constant connection is soothingly familiar. A languishing teenager feels irritable and instinctively knows how to rev up: go online, turn on the TV, call someone, text.

 

Continuous stimulation and communication comprise the new normal. Read More

While the Chinese Ministry of Culture finally gave the go-ahead for the not-too-distant release of the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King, a taste of some changes Blizzard had to make to models in the game are detailed on a website dedicated to Chinese gaming.

A handful of images appearing on ChinaGame.178.com show the removal of mostly skulls and bones from models in the approved version. Another image also appears to indicate that sprites used to animate blood loss and/or splattering were changed from red to green.

In the images below, original models are on the left while the purported Chinese-approved modifications are on the right.

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As the gaming world continues to evolve further into the era of true interactive gaming, one child psychiatrist thinks it’s time for a new ratings system that informs consumers about a game’s ability to contribute to exercise.

Paul Ballas guest-authored a Wired article on the subject following an introduction to, among other things, Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Kinect technology at this year’s E3 Expo. Ballas thinks that if videogame developers focused their efforts on creating games that also provided a cardiovascular workout, “there is a real chance of striking a blow against childhood obesity.”

To that end Ballas outlined the type of content descriptors he would like to see:

Similar to Food and Drug Administration-mandated labels on food, an exercise rating system could estimate the calories burned by the average person in an hour of gameplay. The label could range from Sedentary for lean-back, button-intensive shooting games to Active for games with a calorie-expenditure rate comparable to playing basketball. Read More