For more than a year, you've been reading about James Grayson's impending war with the Chimera -- a tale that'll fill in the gap between Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 -- and you've been salivating. You've been dreaming of firing your shotgun on the PSP, infecting the game with your PS3, and taking down conversion centers with your bare hands.

In one month, Resistance: Retribution will be upon us.

Still, that's a long time to wait, and rather than leave you desperately screaming into your pillow for 30 days, IGN's bringing you four behind the scenes videos straight from Sony Bend. That's right, you're going to be getting the inside scoop on everything related to R:R -- the story, the voices, and more. Can't wait? You don't have to. Click the videos below, my friend.

vids here --> http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/954/954400p1.html ...

Most games are simulations of real-life experiences; glamorous and exciting fantasies of activities that are denied to us in real-life, whether that be running an NFL franchise or blowing off some dude's head.

Now, new experiences are now being offered that force us to consider what is appropriate or otherwise as interactive experiences, even for adults. We can mostly agree that it is okay for Niko Bellic to mow down some innocent, or shoot a cop, or murder a rival. These are all vile crimes that we accept as entertainment for adults. But very few of us believe it is okay for a character to take on the role of that most disgusting criminal, the rapist.

Last week, Amazon pulled from sale a Japanese Hentai game called RapeLay in which the main character indulges in the most horrible and violent sexual crimes. Nobody believes this to be an unreasonable course of action by any retailer. And yet, if Amazon had pulled Grand Theft Auto 4, the hue and cry would have been immense. It looks like we are okay with casual mass-murder, but not okay with rape.

It would be facile to try to make the case that 'if murder is okay then rape should be too'. It is understood in our culture that there really is such a thing as the heroic killer; but never a heroic or like-able rapist. Rape in entertainment is almost always about the victim's response to the crime; never about the criminal's motivation. Rapists in fiction, unlike murderers, are afforded zero sympathy by the writers and by the audience. Rape, also, is not just a disgusting crime; it is also a potent symbol of oppression, a favored tool of oppressors throughout history, and today.

Jokes, an area where all taboos are broken sooner or later, rarely touch on rape. Gags and skits about rape are not unknown, but they are about as culturally acceptable as jokes about race-lynching or the Holocaust.

Games about Rape

But here we are, talking about games about rape. As games become more graphically realistic, and as game-makers become more sophisticated crafters of experience, so the realism of the fantasy is 'improved', and so the reach of fantasy lengthens. The rape game of today is a very different proposition than, say, Custer's Revenge. One was a crude expression of ignorance; the other is a detailed fantasy world allowing for multiple expressions of sexual violence, and delighting in the pain and trauma such activities induce.

There can be no doubt that watching someone die in a videogame is a vastly more realistic experience now than it was 20 years ago, even when you consider the rich and varied 'unrealistic' stylization of killing in games. It follows that simulating a sexual crime now is a far more realistic experience than it ever has been.

Worse, there is a vast market for rape as entertainment. The fantasy of rape is not uncommon; now the market is being offered new and potent tools through which the fantasy can be indulged.

As members of a business that creates everyday fantasies, we must confront our response to the existence of ugly fantasies. I have no doubt that graphically realistic games will be widely available in the near future, that depict all manner of sexual depravity. Do we, as a business, acknowledge any responsibility about this trash? Or do we hope that the public's response will be to divorce one set of fantasies from another, as we divorce pornography from other forms of visual entertainment?

Not only this, but the time must be coming soon when a game-maker is able to tell a story about sexual crime in a sympathetic way; how far are we from a 'game' that attempts to tell the story of a rape victim and which, inevitably, features the crime itself as part of its narrative? (Roberta Williams' 1990s horror game Phantasmagoria featured a rape-scene, and violence against women, but did not dwell on the emotional impact of the crime, so much as the gothic disturbances that had promoted the crime).

When such a product becomes available, will we, as a business, be able to present it as an important work, or will it be engulfed by the monstrous market for violent, interactive pornography?

Unfortunately, a retail ban on games that glorify rape is going to be no more effective in stemming the availability of such products, as a retail ban on violent, sordid pornography has been. We are entering a world where every taste is accommodated by easily downloadable entertainment, and games are just a part of that mix.

But games, unlike books, pictures and videos, involve activity. This, and gaming's relative newness, presents a difficulty. Without encouragement and education, the public at large is not going to be so willing to make a complete disconnection between games about football or petals on the wind, to games about rape, in the way that they have about, say, a Tom Cruise movie and a shameful skin-flick. If we are unable to recognize this problem and deal with it, we will be unable to cope with the difficulties it will present. ...

MCV takes a look at Wii's upcoming New Play Control! range

Nintendo is bringing some reinvented GameCube classics to the Wii over the next few months - and MCV has been granted an exclusive look.

Titles such as Pikmin, Pikmin 2, Mario Power Tennis and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat are guaranteed a warm reception at retail – and to wow Wii consumers.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/33262/Excl...ntendo-preview ...

The Gamecube and Wii emulator for Windows has seen a new beta release, heres the news from the official site:


Download Here --> http://www.dolphin-emu.com/downloads.php ...

The Gamecube and Wii emulator for Windows has seen a new beta release, heres the news from the official site:


Download Here --> http://www.dolphin-emu.com/downloads.php ...

As we've learned over the past 72 hours, Microsoft is clearly changing its approach to the Zune. And connected TV. And just about every other entertainment-related aspect of its business. As it seeks to better connect people via its software and devices (and make "The Social" something worth showing up to), Robbie Bach has explained that the company's new retail focus actually has a lot to do with it. The bigwig recently sat down in front of 150 students in order to take questions and relive some childhood memories, and given that kids always say the darnedest things, it's not shocking to hear that some of the conversation was awkward, if not comical. Point blank, Bach was asked if Windows 7 would be better than Vista, and he expectedly shot back with "Windows 7 is a huge step forward." There's far too much dialogue to cover in this space, but if you're looking for a little insight from the top, feel free to wade through the read links below.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/14/h...-zune-windows/ ...

t was about this time last year when we heard that LG was aiming to push out Android-powered handsets by 2009, and sure enough, it looks like it'll happen by this summer. According to T3, the company's altogether bubbly KS360 will be relaunched with Google's operating system, though the actual specifications (outside of the OS, obviously) will remain the same. Marketing Manager Jeremy Newing also confirmed at Mobile World Congress that LG would be releasing two other Android phones this year, though he wouldn't divulge any model names or favorite colors for us to guess.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/l...android-phone/ ...

Difficult though it may be to believe, Panasonic showcased a conceptual in-dash BD deck of its own back in October of 2007. Obviously, nothing has really come of that, so Mitsubishi's stepping in with a prototype of its own. It's stated that the player has only a third of the volume compared to a traditional "home Blu-ray player," with it somehow being able to slip into a standard single-DIN opening. Better still, we're told that the final unit -- which is slated to hit production during fiscal year 2009 -- could also boast a mobile TV tuner in select markets, giving us even more reason to not pay attention to pedestrians, road signs and stop lights while taking that Sunday cruise.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/m...lu-ray-player/ ...

I posted about My Phone last week, but my understanding of it was incorrect - which is kind of funny given that I was part of a briefing about it at Mobius in late 2008. What can I tell you other than it's painful to try to keep track of all these Microsoft "sky-codename" services.

My Phone is, currently, strictly a backup program. It's not "Exchange for everyone else" like I thought, though clearly the team is thinking along those lines. At launch, My Phone is simply a way to keep your contacts, calendar, tasks, text messages, photos, videos, music, and documents backed up to Microsoft servers so, in case of phone loss or damage, your stuff will be protected. It's not a cloud sync tool like I first thought, but the pieces are certainly there to allow for that. It's not a substitute for a program such as Spb Backup [affiliate] for instance, because it won't keep an image of your device with all your programs installed.

Document types supported for sync are ppt, xls, doc, one, wks) as well as txt, rtf, pdf, html and xml. It's kind of curious that it wouldn't just allow you to specify a folder and take everything in it. It will work over WiFi, so if you have a limited data account you can use WiFi for your initial sync then use your data plan for updates beyond that.

At launch, Microsoft is offering 200 MB of storage, and the service is free. Right now it's advertising driven, but it's simple enough for Microsoft to add carrier branding and you'd have "Verizon My Phone" or something similar. It will work with any Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 smartphone, both Standard and Professional devices. If your phone already has Exchange sync, that takes priority over your Contacts / Calendar / Tasks, which makes sense. Multiple phones are going to be supported - apparently it's going to be as many as you want. I suspect that 200 MB is per account though, not per phone, so if you have four phones you'll still have 200 MB total. Premium accounts with more storage is an option Microsoft is considering. After the break are some screen shots of My Phone.

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/news...e-service.html ...