Morning Links

I'll try to write something a little longer later in the day, but for now I just have a few links to show you.

1. I know we have some PlayStation fans in the audience, so it's worth reporting that full backwards compatibility, that is, the ability to play PS2 games on the PS3, is not certain. Microsoft has gotten a lot of heat from some gamers due to the fact that the 360 will not be able to play every Xbox 1 game, but my feelings on this are two fold: 1) When you're emulating software from one machine on another completely different machine you're never going to get 100% compatibility. and 2) Backwards compatibility just isn't that big of a deal, especially after the first 6-12 months. Sony really shouldn't be crucified for this, it's simply reality, but hopefully this will bring some of the fanatics online into the light.

2. The Experimental Gameplay Project is pretty cool. Four students at Carnegie Mellon each make one game a week for the entire semester. Each student is responsible for creating the entire game from code to art to sound, the idea being that hyper complexity is not necessary for fun. It's a pretty cool concept, and they let you download the games they make.

3. Jack Thompson is back, baby! He evidently took a few days off the crusade to, you know, not be a media whore during a major hurricane, but now that that's all wrapped up he's fired another volley across the bow of the SS Penny Arcade. Unless there's a link in his story that I don't know about he, unsurprisingly, has no case yet again. I do have to give him credit for inventing "pixelantes", a derivation of "vigilantes", because I love invented words and that one's fantasmic.

4. Here's an interesting article about Live Action Role Playing gamers(LARPers), and the people that love them.

5. On the one hand this editorial criticizes our buddy Jack Thompson and his rediculous video game law suits, which you don't see much in the media, but on the other hand they're basically calling for massive tort reform, which I'm sure you all know I think is moronitastic. I was a lot more sympathetic to the "anti-frivolous lawsuit" crowd before I came to law school, but underlying a lot of the movement's arguments are a basic misunderstanding of how the law works both in theory and practice. The article cites the McDonald's coffee case, which right there destroy's the writer's credibility with me.

6. Modern Humor Authority doesn't post nearly as much as I'd like them too. See the Doom review, though I suppose I should warn you that there are spoilers there, if you wanted to see the movie "fresh", like Frank Costanza.

Hat tips to EA, and Game Politics for the uncredited links.

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