In an article on Tuesday over at The Bulletin (Philadelphia's family newspaper), Susan Brinkmann explores a growing problem facing today's "avid gamers" and their immortal souls. Specifically, a rise in the proliferation of satanic-themed video games targeting God, Catholicism specifically and Judeo-Christianity in general. Most of the article is built up on quotes by a 32 year old named Lance Christian who declares matter-of-factly that "the devil has a new tool to work with in this age of technology, and the majority of adults in a position of responsibility are left in the dark."

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Confirming their dedication to previous announcements, Ubisoft has recently said that the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 will utilize their latest attempt at DRM, necessitating an always-on internet connection for the duration of your game time. Rock Paper Shotgun says that this is "open contempt for paying customers" and, frankly, I agree with them.

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A thread was recently started at the GayGamer.net forums around the following rant about modern gay rights, implicitly blaming the fact that we don't have gay marriage and full equality on things like the overt sexuality demonstrated at pride parades or the effeminacy of some gay men. The latter I have complained about here a few times already, but I added a wall of text to the discussion thread after the majority of comments amounted to "I think this guy is completely right." Sadly the guy isn't completely right and most of his perspective is incredibly nasty and self-hating, but as I've lamented before, it's a perspective shared by most gay people my age and younger. As the GayGamer.net forums require a registered account to read, I was asked if I could post my "essay" someplace else so it could be linked to.

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Unless you're living under a rock, you should know that today Apple announced their newest piece of hardware, the iPad. Resembling an oversided, ten-inch iPhone with a modified UI, Apple was quick to tout the device's functionality as a gaming platform, bringing both EA and Gameloft on stage at their keynote to show off modified versions of their existing iPhone games.

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Given the organic, ever-evolving nature of MMOGs these days, the line between alpha, beta, open beta and release are blurring moreso than in usual titles. Even though Cryptic will be releasing its latest MMOG, Star Trek Online, in a bit over a week, the state it goes live in will likely not be representative of the game in a few months. As such it's difficult to give a really fair round-up of the game, or any MMOG in general, because they change so drastically in such a rapid space of time. Perhaps because I played the Champions Online beta, I am approaching Cryptic's latest offering with a bit of a raised eyebrow. In its current state, Star Trek Online is a rather buggy mess that shows great promise but feels rushed and unpolished.

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It's a little difficult to tell where the line between hyperbole and seriousness is, but in this piece on The Orange County Register, Marla Jo Fisher begins her story declaring, "I truly believe that video games were created by Satan to turn otherwise normal children into his drooling, glassy-eyed stooges."

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Out.com, the official website for Out Magazine, has recently published their list of the "gayest" video games. Looking over their selections, I have to say their choices are a little… interesting. And by interesting I mean, in fact, that this list would at first glance appear to be compiled by a gaggle of frat boys giggling over their collection of eBay'd NES cartridges.

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