Gary's Blog

Just a place to find out what's on my mind, or what's occupying my time whilst I avoid actual "work."

 

VGN for 6/24/05

Video game News:

The brain interprets violence in video games as real?

Wed Jun 22, 2:26 PM ET
 
LONDON (Reuters) - The brains of players of violent video games react as if the violence were real, a study has suggested.
 
Klaus Mathiak at the University of Aachen in Germany studied the brain patterns of 13 men aged 18 to 26 who, on average, played video games for two hours a day.

Wired up to a scanner, they were asked to play a game involving navigating through a complicated bunker, killing attackers and rescuing hostages.

Mathiak found that as violence became imminent, the cognitive parts of the brain became active and that during a fight, emotional parts of the brain were shut down.

The pattern was the same as that seen in subjects who have had brain scans during other simulated violent situations.

It suggests that video games are a "training for the brain to react with this pattern," Mathiak says.

Waaaaaaa.  My wallet hurts.

By Jesse Hiestand
Wed Jun 22, 9:05 AM ET
 

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The  Screen Actors Guild's bitter infighting claimed another victim Tuesday as members of the national executive committee voted to reject the recently negotiated video game contract against the wishes of members and the negotiating committee.

It is believed to be the first time in the union's 72-year history that board members have used the routine approval process to overrule the unanimous recommendations of a negotiating committee.

Further chaos was created because smaller union AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), which co-negotiated the deal, accepted the new 3-1/2-year contract last week; the old agreement expired May 13. Insiders say AFTRA will be able to grab full jurisdiction of this burgeoning field when its new contract goes into effect July 1.

The deal offered by leading gaming companies including Electronic Arts and Activision offered to boost wages for voice-over and other performers by 36%, beginning with an immediate 25% hike. The actors also got increases in benefits and greater work protection, though not the residuals that they had been demanding.

Nintendo make-over?

Posted: 10:06 on 22 Jun 2005
By: Chris Leyton

Nintendo President suggests his teams are currently experimenting with visual upgrades to Nintendo classics...

A recent interview with Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata, has revealed that designers are currently experimenting with the playback of classic NES, SNES and Nintendo 64 on the Revolution. Although the games remain largely the same, Iwata-san suggested that various titles could undergo graphical enhancements.

The claim is slightly at odds with Nintendo’s direction, one that suggests you cannot rely on technological and visual improvements alone; we’ll have further information on the Revolution soon. 

Movies and games.  Games and movies.  When a game is made based on the movie, and comes out first...is it cheating to play it before you see it?  What games are better than the movies they're based on? 

What I've been playing:

Conker, Reloaded--thanks Cybertron!

Batman Begins

Anime news:

MetroCon  this weekend!  See you all out there!

posted by: Gary1059 at 07:24 | link | comments |