Heroine Sheik - Sadism in Surgery Games (aka Blood and Guts FTW)
Surgery games, specifically the Trauma Center series for the Wii and DS, are based on the idea that it’s fun to save people. Sew them up, make them better, be happy. But the fact is, before we pseudo-surgeons can save people, we have to play around in their bloody insides. A new game from the wonderfully dark designers at Adult Swim underlines this sadistic fun. Their Trauma Center parody, Amateur Surgeon, features pizza delivery boy turned back-alley doctor Alan Probe, who’s taught the art of cutting up patients with various fast-food utensils by a former (actual) surgeon–one he has just run over with his van. Probe staples together his wounds, burns them shut with a lighter, then moves on to more gruesome and hilarious Operation-style challenges.
Tokyomango - Danish Geeks Throw Mario Party at Campus Bar
You have to see this one to believe it:
If they sell a Princess Peach Martini, I’m totally going.
Feminist Gamers - Michigan Libraries to Offer Video Games
As the M-I-L pointed out, libraries are about more than books: it’s about making sure that people in your community have access to content and services, and having a safe community space. Having a back room where kids can jam to Rock Band means that kids who can’t afford $150 on a video game (plus extra if they want a 2nd guitar) can still get together with friends and play it — in a space that’s safe and adult-supervised, at that.
Why this is controversial is beyond me. It’s not like the library is going to offer every game ever made, nor are they going to put the collected works of Jane Austen out by the curb to make way for the collected works of Namco-Bandai. And there is a point to waving the pure, cut cocaine in order to get people into your doors when you’re a library: once people are comfortable going into a library for one thing, they’ll start to use the library for other things, and that means patronage.
