Really, it was only a matter of time. In fact, I’m surprised it’s taken so long for one of these to surface. I’ve been joking about the possibility for a while now, and now that it’s here I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.

What I’m talking about is “Kaboom: The Suicide Bombing Game“, the first game I’ve discovered that puts you in the shoes of a suicide bomber.

The point of the game is obviously satire. It’s a Flash game in which identical, cartoon-ish men, women and children march back and forth along a sidewalk and you control an Arab-looking man wearing a big coat. The goal, of course, is to injure and kill as many people as possible with a single explosion. Crude animations depict body parts flying up into the air briefly before settling into a streak of blood on the ground.

Shocking? Maybe. But what about those hilarious Adult Swim Flash games? Fans of that adult-themed, late-night animation revue are certainly familiar with the roster of borderline-offensive games offered on AdultSwim.com. In Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself), it’s another day at the office and you’re given the task of committing suicide as quickly as possible using objects and people around you. Jam scissors into your stomach, slap a stapler on your face, cram your head into a paper shredder - just a few of the bloody ways to off yourself. Does the game promote suicide? I guess it depends on whom you ask.

How about Bible Fight, which pits Jesus, Mary, Noah, Satan and other biblical figures against each other in a fighting game? Jesus is a formidable opponent - he can make a pile of fish fall out of the sky to flatten you, and in his signature attack move he summons a huge wooden cross and smashes you to a pulp. Poor Mary is hampered by having to tote around baby Jesus while sparring. That’s sure to offend lots of people.

The Adult Swim games are undeniably designed to evoke a reaction by purposely crossing the line of propriety and good taste. But the intended audience is unlikely to be offended - by and large the games are hilarious. Anyone likely to be upset by their content is also unlikely to have ever heard of them in the first place.

Were it not based on such a controversial topic the suicide bombing game “Kaboom” would surely be forgotten. Its simplistic design is no match for the high-quality games from Adult Swim. Any replayability “Kaboom” may have lies solely in its ability to shock - it’s good fun to show your friends - but after that, nada.

Outrage? Well, so far the Israeli Embassy in London has “complained”. The game is definitely in bad taste, but is it bad enough to elicit a widespread affront to decency? I seriously doubt it.

The game’s anonymous author writes, “I’m not Jewish, I’m not an Arab and I’m not a terrorist. I just think people who blow themselves up are stupid. That’s all this game is.”

He’s right, that’s all it is. Suicide bombing is stupid, the game itself is pretty stupid, too, so I suppose the author has succeeded on some level. I laughed a bit and forwarded it to some friends, who also laughed a bit and probably forwarded it to more friends. And now I’m forwarding it to you.

Send it to folks who might be offended, have a good laugh at the reactions you get. Then forget about it, you know you will. I’m still waiting for the *really* offensive suicide bomber game that might actually be worth writing about.

What do you think of this horrible, outrageous insult to humanity?

Okay, so there’s this free, fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) called MapleStory. Its a 2-dimensional, side-scrolling affair that’s cute as cute can be:

Blue sky, puffy clouds, mushroom-topped house … how could anything go awry in such a world?

Three words: Marriage. Divorce. Death.

As in many fantasy MMOs, you can find a mate and get married in MapleStory. Naturally, since you’re hiding behind an in-game avatar that represents you in the game, you’re more likely to toss aside inhibitions and let loose - seek out and engage in random sexual encounters, get naked, curse like a sailor or kill strangers for kicks - without fear of repercussion. You’re also free to marry anyone you’d like, and of course such a marriage carries no legal weight outside the game.

Enter a Japanese couple who did just that: met and got married in the world of MapleStory. Things went swimmingly for a while - in fact, the two players developed such a close bond that they even traded the login and password information for each others’ MapleStory accounts. If that isn’t love, what is?

Apparently this wasn’t. Details are scarce, but the 43-year-old (IRL) woman’s 33-year-old (IRL) husband decided to cut things off and divorced her without so much as a warning. In the game, that is - we’re not sure whether they’re married in the outside world.

We all know that Hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned: She used her ex’s login information to sign in to his MapleStory account, and promptly murdered his cruel, heartless MapleStory avatar. “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” she was quoted as saying.

And women wonder why men are so commitment-phobic.

Needless to say, her ex wasn’t pleased - in fact he called the police. I wish I were privy to that conversation. Can you report a murder if you’re not really dead?

The woman has been apprehended on suspicion of hacking, a charge which could lead to a prison term of up to five years or a fine as high as $5,000. Luckily for her, there’s been no sign of any real-world plot to have the man killed - so far.

Don’t these people have a sense of humor? It’s all make-believe. Plus, he could have killed her character right back - tit for tat - they already had the codes. (That’s what I would have done, anyway.) This poor couple obviously needs to get out of the house once in a while.

Really, the crime she committed is akin to reading your husband’s email when he’s not around. That’s all we need in this country: another excuse to get all litigious on someone’s ass. Ladies, take heed.

Although Spore received generally favorable reviews, the game still gets a bad rap in some quadrants (and by “quadrants” I mean “forums”). Players complain that gameplay is too simplistic, nowhere near the “evolution simulator” they expected thanks to the game’s incredible Hype Machine.

Another complaint is that it’s an amalgamation of several existing games - “lite” versions of titles like Flow and Civilization - an almost outright theft of ideas.

Well, Spore is not an evolution simulator, not by a long shot, but it really shouldn’t be judged by that standard. Spore is a whimsical sandbox, an elegantly-designed “build-it-and-see-what-happens” simulator.

And instead of theft, I prefer to think of the Spore’s similarities to other games as “inspired by” rather than stealing, since Spore’s versions are considerably watered-down - in context, though, still fun.

The first time I played through the game I moved quickly, anxious to see what fun things would come next. The result was that I finished the first three sections - amoeba through civilization - in a very short time, failing to enjoy the surprises that did occur by always anticipating the next.

If you want to get maximum enjoyment out of Spore, do not play this way. The true glory of Spore is in the details.

By far, the game’s strong point is its construction module. If you’ve tried the Spore Creature Creator you have a good idea of the strength of this contraption. It offers a slick, drag-and-drop design method that’s complex while still being fun. You can build any kind of malformed creature you want and then make it try to jump and ambulate around. It’s a great playground for wicked sadists like me.

But the creature builder is only the beginning. As you progress through the game you use the same drag-and-drop approach in creating buildings, cities, vehicles and finally, space ships. You could spend days building all sorts of exquisitely detailed objects and not even bother with the “game”.

As a true dork, I of course had no choice but to build a Federation starship for my first venture into space. You may bask in its glory:

Don’t get all bent out of shape, it’s not the Enterprise. It’s the U.S.S. Crustacea, so named due to its two crab-pincher-ish extra warp nacelles (experimental, ssh).

If you can work your way out of the creator, there’s a lot more detail to enjoy. Once you reach the Tribal stage, make it a point to zoom in close to the action regularly - there’s a lot of humorous stuff going on. In particular, the indigenous, non-sentient creatures on each planet are worth examining for their often bizarre design and behavior. It’s a hoot to fly in close with your space ship and scare the crap out of them - make sure to pick up a few and sling them across the surface of the planet. It’s also fun to abduct a species from one planet, place them on a less-hospitable planet and watch them perish in anguish.

Of all the sections, the Space Age is most interesting to me; the preceding parts seem paltry in comparison. In the Space Age you get access to a fairly expansive universe filled with a slew of different species to meet. Some races are cool and want to set up alliances and trade routes with you; others are just plain douchebags who want to kill you for no reason. I hate those guys.

I’ve been spending way too much time negotiating the Space Age. It’s one of those things where once you start playing you get hooked and end up telling yourself, “Okay, just two more missions, then I’ll stop” until 2 in the morning. It’s bad enough that a single galaxy offers so many things to do; once you hit the Space Age for the first time you can start up new Space Age galaxies with brand new species and civilizations. And the aliens are randomized each time, so it takes quite a while for the feeling of repetition to set in.

In defense of the complainers, I will say that I’m anxious to see what Spore 2 will bring. Like them I was sort of hoping that the creature-evolving part of Spore would be a little more complex, more like natural selection, with algorithms that would actively “evolve” a creature based on decisions you’d made - rather than the player having complete control. What we got this time was a sandbox. But according to Mr. Wright there are plenty of changes and add-ons in Spore’s future, so you never know.

In case you haven’t heard yet, the Large Hadron Collider has a new name: Halo. That’s the final name chosen from 2,500 entries in a contest to rename the thing. One of the suggestions was “The Big Banger” - not really a useful replacement for a name that’s already a two-letter swap away from indecency.

Anyway, why weren’t we notified? I’m a little pissed, actually. Why didn’t they ask us, dammit? No doubt Halo fanboys around the world have some pretty large hadrons of their own - even if this “Halo” has nothing to do with its video game namesake. But really, I could have come up with something better than that. Chances are, so could you.

Okay, so maybe there is a sort of halo-looking thing that’s part of the machine:

But still. Jeez. We should have our own naming contest. Take a stab at it!

Waaaaaaay back in the 90s - before some of you were born - I got my hands on a pair of nifty stereoscopic glasses. This gizmo came with special software that was able to take the image from any 3D game and split it in two (based on the Z-buffer, I believe) and synchronize them to the polarized lenses in the glasses. This was some amazing stuff for the time. It worked better on some games than on others, and the effect wasn’t exactly true 3D, but it still blew me away.

Of course, this was the 90s, so an annoying cable ran from the glasses to a specialized VESA (!!) card on the back of the computer. I wish I could remember the name of the dang thing. I found this list of various 3D goggle contraptions circa 2000; sadly, my device isn’t listed there, although it’s in the same general ballpark.

(The roster of 3D-glasses-compatible games available at the time - what a memory rush. Descent, Magic Carpet, Duke Nukem 3D, even Hi-Octane, an obscure sci-fi racing game that I’d never have remembered otherwise. I used my 3D glasses with all of them. Profusely.)

Wait, I remember now! It’s the Elsa 3D Revelator! Remember Elsa?? Man, those were the days. Those glasses still look pretty keen almost a decade later.

What made me think of all this is a recent bit-tech.net article about Nvidia’s new GeForce Stereoscopic 3D technology, which works on the same principle used by the Revelator except the lenses are LCD rather than polarized. Below are pics of the Revelator and the Nvidia Geforce thing (thanks, bit-tech).

Can you guess which is which? Spoiler below.

Although it looks like a cord is attached to both, I’m sorry to tell you that the pair on the right is Nvidia’s new (wireless) thang. Hard to believe, eh?

Speaking of hard to believe, I’ll admit I’m a little confused as to what’s going on here. I’m sure you know that actual 3D monitors have been around for a few years now. These things provide 3D visuals without glasses. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not wear some clunky glasses if I don’t have to. True, with these monitors you have to stay within a certain, somewhat limited viewing angle to enjoy the full 3D effect, but the alternative is worse. Isn’t it? Nvidia even makes drivers for 3D monitors that work with most games.

So, can someone tell me, why more glasses? The only possible explanation I can come up with is price point. Obviously I’m a wee bit tired of the glasses phenomenon. Even with the new-fangled 3D movies that are coming out now require you to don an uncomfortable plastic visor thing to make the 3D effect work. How much better is this, really, than those silly old red and blue things? But, I digress. I’ll tackle that next time.

I’ll freely admit to being a Star Trek fan. It’s not as unfashionable as it used to be before the Next Generation hit the scene. After the first season, the writing on ST: TNG improved bit by bit until, near the end of the 2nd season, we were seeing some brilliantly-written episodes - and this, coming from a writer. Yesterday’s Enterprise remains one of the best pieces of sci-fi TV writing ever.

Without dredging up the litany of games that have squandered the Star Trek license, I’m here to say that I’m nearly foaming at the mouth for the upcoming Star Trek Online. Enough with the introductory text - the real reason I’m here is to post the new totally rad and awesome trailer. I wonder, will Redshirts still be doomed?

Sorry for the Wii/We pun in the title. I’m as sick of that crap as you are. But it’s irresistible.

As you’ll see in the video below, Wii MotionPlus looks extremely cool. While Microsoft will most likely need to build a whole new controller in order to do motion sensing stuff (rumor, of course), Nintendo just cranks out a little pluggy thing that snaps right onto the base of the existing WiiMote and voila, realistic light saber and ball-throwing control. Sweet. Question is, why now? You’d think it would have been easier to integrate those functions into the existing Wii controller before shipping the console. Rush to market much?

No matter, wii (!!) welcome it, this purveyor of great new gaming capabilities to come. O, let it be priced under $30.

As promised, here are last three vids of E3-tastic games.

Mirror’s Edge (PC, 360, PS3): This title was a surprise to me - I’d never even heard of it, then when I watched the video walkthrough I became an instant fan. Imagine what it might be like to be a UPS dude with no truck, delivering super important packages one by one while people are trying to kill you, and your primary routes involve leaping across the rooftops. In first-person POV. It looks fascinating. To get the full picture you need to see the developer walkthrough video.

This is Vegas (PC, 360, PS3): A virtual Vegas, huh? Expect to play casino games - including slots - hit the hippest clubs and party, race fast cars up and down the Strip and get into drunken brawls. This is one of those games that you can either play to win, or just check out all the nooks and crannies, screwing around to see what happens. Or both. I love these kind of open-world games. I expect to be punching a lot of innocent people on the dance floor, crashing into expensive cars and mowing people down, and cheating at cards. (Actually, the game already includes a pseudo-cheating mechanism.) As much as I hate the real-world Vegas, this virtual Sin City sounds like a blast.

PlayStation Home: Last but not least … well, definitely last, at least. How many more delays can this game have? I’ve been clamoring for Home for ages, and the release date has been as slippery as a Slip-n-Slide. It will likely be the “It product” that the PS3 has so desperately needed since its release. It looks like Second Life to the umpteenth power. I can’t wait to starting pissing away all my free time macking on VR vixens. We’re getting ever-closer to the Metaverse, and I intend to be there when it finally happens.

That’ll do ‘er.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be among the Press who attended E3 2008. But I’m still overwhelmed by the number of great games scheduled for release this year - thanks to Gamespot’s stellar coverage of the event. (Ah, to have such resources for a gaming site.)

There’s a whole bushel of games I can’t wait to get my hands on. I’m too lazy to list them all, but I thought it would be cool to post some E3 preview videos of a few of them, mainly for my own convenience. Oh, and you might enjoy them, too.

In no particular order:

Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii): Yeah, I play Animal Crossing on DS - wanna make something of it? If you aren’t familiar with the series, it’s sort of like a “trainer” RPG, ostensibly aimed at kids but there’s something weirdly fascinating about it nonetheless. Without going into too much detail, some of the new features include the ability to exchange email with friends in the real world, and the integration of the WiiSpeak feature. What did you say? You wanna step outside?

Fable II (360): Now, RPG is my genre of choice so I’m pretty picky. The hype for the original Fable had me foaming at the mouth - until I played it. There’s no doubt that watching your character grow up and morph into Good or Evil is a cool experience. Beyond that, though, I thought the game’s “non-open-world” design was annoying, and gameplay was essentially linear and repetitive. Molyneux is making lots of promises with Fable II (the new dog companion, co-op play) and I really hope everything turns out to be as amazing as he thinks it is.

Fallout 3 (PC, 360, PS3): The original Fallout and the sequel, Fallout 2 are isometric 2D RPGs with turn-based combat, set in a post-apocalyptic world. Both are innovative and a blast to play, even today. It’s been forever since we’ve seen a new Fallout game, and it looks like Fallout 3 will be a spectacular sequel. Bethesda has infused Oblivion-like detail into a completely open-world environment - a post-apocalyptic Washington DC in ruins. I’m salivating. I’ll let the video do the talking.

LittleBigPlanet (PS3): This title looks amazing. The graphics are unlike anything I’ve seen in a game. On the surface it’s a “build your own world” game, but a deeper look reveals tons of intriguing mini-games and the capability to create things/places/games to share with other players over PSN. Words barely suffice for this title. Thusly, a video.

I’ve got three more but I’m bored. I’ll post those tomorrow.

This is just too ripe. You may have heard rumors of a forthcoming game for the Wii’s online game-buying service, WiiWare, called Beer Pong. Yes, that Beer Pong. I’ve never tried the game myself (not a frat kinda guy), but apparently the gist of it is trying to toss a ping pong ball into a cup (URC, the college standard Ubiquitous Red Cup, likely coined by the venerable DB1), and then drinking the amount of beer appropriate for your level of success or failure. Can’t be too different from “Quarters” - an oft-played drinking game from my college days which I’d rather not think about.

Well, here’s the thing. The ESRB came up with a T (Teen) rating for the game despite the fact that - can you guess? - teens can’t legally drink. You can bet this snagged a load of panties into a bunch, so the developer, determined to keep the T rating, changed the title of the game to - wait for it - Pong Toss!

Okay, first of all: Pong Toss?? It sounds like a British euphemism for blowing chunks, praying to the porcelain god, visiting your good friend Ralph. That name completely flattens any allure the game might have had. Why would you toss ping pong balls into cups without an ulterior purpose? All right, I suppose it might be amusing for a little bit, but why - why, I ask you - why wouldn’t you just buy some URCs and ping-pong balls from the local 99-cent store and play the game IRL (”in real life” for you internet Luddites)? Would you rather shake a Wii-mote at a TV screen? It’s baffling.

Of course, my bitching is aimed only at Pong Toss, which turns the activity of “tossing pong” into a lame carnival game. There are already a few decent carnival games available for the Wii, so why on earth would you fork over another 15 bucks for what amounts to a simple mini-game?

I know what you’re thinking: “Who cares what the name of the game is? You can still play Beer Pong with it!” I agree with you, and that is obviously what’s going to happen. But seriously, people. Keep the name Beer Pong. Let the rating be changed to M (Mature) to keep the game out of the hands of impressionable teens (yeah, sure).

The game is obviously designed to be a tie-in with actual beer drinking. How cool is that? I mean, has there ever been a title in the history of gaming whose sole intention was to encourage drunkenness? It may not be the most noble of intentions, but one fact cannot be denied: Gaming is finally growing up. We ain’t in Atari 2600 Land anymore. The target market for Beer Pong will buy the game no matter what the dang rating is. Why worry about losing sales in the teen demographic? I seriously doubt an M rating would negatively affect the game’s sales figures.

Actually, I don’t really care about any of this crap, I just like to point out inanity when it crosses my path. If it’s $10 or lower I’ll probably buy it anyway, in the hopes that it might help me jump start a social life. Ah, self-deprecation.

Here’s a video of some people actually playing the game - sans alcohol. How fun it looks, how happy the players are! Joy!