Oh, right, like half the population. Here's right-wing panic site World Net Daily's aghast summary of the game, via Wonkette:

The elf reveals he specializes in assassination, and the other character replies, "I bet you're good at a lot of things."


The elf responds, "Mmmm, that's quite an offer, especially coming from another man – if we are both speaking of the same thing."


If the player selects the response, "I suspect we are," the elf agrees to have homosexual sex with the character.

WND then quotes selectively from gay blogs ("Gay geeks rejoice, all your gaming fantasies have come true") and YouTube comments ("We're a bisexual nation living in denial") and provides a list of retailers (like Wal Mart!) presumably for boycotting. Because, you know, if there's one way to make gay sex look hot and appealing, it's by showcasing it with stilted dialog, jerky body movements and elf ears, in a role playing videogame like Dragon Age. Hottt.

Warren Spector, creative director of the firm developing the frighteningly three-dimensional Epic Mickey game, explains that everyone's favorite balloon-head is getting the My Scene Barbie treatment:

"I wanted him to be able to be naughty - when you're playing as Mickey you can misbehave and even be a little selfish."

The sexual creepiness here is subtle, which almost makes it worse, because you start wondering if maybe it's all in your head, and you're just the kind of perv who reads a sentence about an "adventurous, enthusiastic and curious" child-like character and suddenly starts wondering, wait, what is the third G in GGG? And: Well, his feet are pretty big. And: In retrospect, he always did dress a bit like a Chippendale dancer.

But seriously, ever since "naughty" crossed paths with "nurse" and "maid" and every female on Hugh Hefner's dance card, it should really just be off-limits to people whose jobs involve children. Luckily, Spector assures us that "Mickey is never going to be evil or go around killing people," mostly because the imagining of him as a coyly naughty-but-nice seducer is psychically troubling enough for one generation.

But the clearest sign of Epic Mickey's rapidly approaching failure is was a bad idea is the fact that it was "dreamed up" by "a group of interns" in 2004. I will do my best to refrain from drawing a gross generalization of what this corpus of Disney video game interns may be like—and what sort of sexual energies they may or may not be subconsciously channeling into their summer projects—but if you have ever entered a room (preferably in a darkened basement) where four, five, perhaps six male video game aficionados were fragging their way through a digitized slumber party, you will know that there is a particular odor of gamey, over-testosteroned adolescent male je ne sais quoi that will attack your sinuses and gag you as though a sweaty gym sock has just been stuffed down your throat. And that will be the scent of Epic Mickey: Stale, festering horror.

The Deerfield Beach, Florida, fight started because the victim, Michael Brewer (seen here), owed another boy $40 measly bucks for a video game. The indebted boy, 15-year old Matthew Bent, retaliated by stealing Brewer's father's bike, a crime for which Brewer called the cops.

That's when things got insane: Bent called up some friends and they went over to Brewer's house, allegedly doused him with lighter fluid and then set him on fire. And now for the truly disturbing detail: witnesses say Bent ordered "pour it on him," while the others laughed and chanted, "he's a snitch." (Apparently the s-word hasn't gone out of style.)

The five accused — the youngest of whom is 13 — have been charged with aggravated assault, but 15-year old Jesus Mendez, who allegedly started the fire, also faces attempted second degree charges. Brewer, meanwhile, suffered second degree burns all over his body.

All this over a stupid fucking video game, the root of all 21st century evil.

Image via WCBS.

In a $120 million suit filed this week, Thompson claims that the site inflicted emotional distress by not monitoring the nasty comments, like this one: "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600."

Upset by all the virtual hate, Thompson, who once fought to get Howard Stern off the air, tried to reach Facebook — with a fax machine. Since the online company didn't reply, he thinks they did it all intentionally. And he's being extra drama queen about the whole thing: "If I were Charles Manson, that wouldn't warrant the postings."

In case you're wondering why Thompson lost his lawyer powers, there are many, but mostly because he constantly accused people of peddling porn and generally being sinners.

Image via pshab's flickr.

Because the fascination with cocaine's many ills knows no bounds, researchers Ashwin Mohan and Sandeep Pendyam have been looking into how the drug warps one's mind. And now they've found it: cocaine causes an excessive build-up of the some chemical called glutamate around synaptic nerve ends.

Our model showed that the glutamate transporters, a protein present around these connections that remove glutamate, are almost 40 percent less functional after chronic cocaine usage. This damage is long lasting, and there is no way for the brain to regulate itself. Thus, the brain structure in this context actually changes in cocaine addicts.

Alright, but what does that mean? We're not entirely sure, but a little pseudoscientific research tells us that exorbitant amounts of glutamic acid in the brain can be associated with nasty things like strokes and autism. While the doctors hope this brain-scan finding will help develop new recovery methods for coke heads, this information will almost certainly be used to scare kids away from drugs. That's a valiant mission, but we wonder whether attentions could be diverted elsewhere.

About 2 million people say they use cocaine on a regular basis. Meanwhile, 1 in 10 American kids are "addicted" to video games. If we were being conservative, we would put that at about 5 million people. According to the fascinating, frightening book iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, video games also change the way people's minds work — and in a much more frightening way: they can "stunt" frontal lobe development and lead to permanent, self-absorbed immaturity. Eek!

Basically, there could be an army of perpetual teenagers running this country one day. We know coke heads are annoying, but they're nothing compared to teenagers, God's greatest mistake.

UPDATE: This post has been edited to reflect the fact that, while Grohl and former Nirvana bass player Krist Novoselic licensed the rights to use Nirvana's music for Guitar Hero, they don't have any control over his image. You can read their statement on the matter here.

The company and, more to the point, its insurance company are shelling out the money to settle a lawsuit from investors who claimed the company knew its programmers had hidden the sex scene in the game and decided to ship it anyway. Not a terrible idea; development is expensive, timetables are tight, and in any case the hidden scenes could only be unlocked with special software. But the company underestimated how strong America's Puritan impulses remain. Now it's spending 36 times what CBS was (unsuccessfully) fined for the crime of exposing America to Janet Jackson's nipple. It's just that inappropriate to take a break from your life of crime, for sex.

Creepy.

Now, there are two schools of thought on violence and video games. Some hee and haw about how virtual killing fields do nothing but give the young a taste for blood, a taste that will then lead them down a murderous path. And, thanks to all those hours glued to the tube, their shot's going to be pretty good, so the public should be scared.

Others, meanwhile, argue these games provide a relatively healthy way to expel pubescent angst and, perhaps, prevent unsavory outbursts. Let's assume for a second that the former's the truth. The lawmakers — who will again vote on the matter — see a link between rising murder rates and video games. Why? Because 100,000 people have been murdered since 1999, when current President Hugo Chavez took office. Video games have become more realistic and, therefore, bloody in that same time period. Thus, there must be a connection.

Fine, okay, but these same lawmakers are forgetting the fact that their army needs the United States' help to contain terrorism and drug traffickers. Rather than trying to stop violence via some bullshit bill, they should harness that destructive intemperance and direct it against the nation's common foes. (Which, according to Fidel Castro, includes the United States.)

But maybe that's just us being glib. Perhaps a better reaction would be to tell the National Assembly to urge parents to be more aware of their offspring's proclivities and address it themselves.

Here in America you can scientifically divide people into two groups: "Elites," defined as "The 260 people who went to the Aspen Ideas Festival with Mark Penn and filled out a survey for him," and "Mainstream America," defined as "People who eat Funyuns while playing XBox more than three times per week." The differences are not just a matter of "Wealthy white men who are invited to things like the Aspen Ideas Festival vs. Poors"; it's an issue of lifestyle.

Elites like to work out and read books. Mainstreams like—as we mentioned—Funyuns and XBox. But! Did you know that the Elites are actually the biggest suckers of all?!?

Lower-income people tend to research their buying choices pragmatically. Elites therefore are actually more swayed by brands, both in politics and the marketplace. They are more likely to say that a presidential candidate's character or personality is of greater importance than his or her stand on the issues. They are less likely to seek out consumer information, satisfied instead to go with brand names they think stand for quality... it is intriguing, from a marketing perspective, that the people with the most education are the ones who can be most easily "spun."

The proof: it is the Elites who pay Mark Penn's salary. QED.

[WSJ. EASY JOKE: Mark Penn likes reading and Funyuns, he is some sort of hybrid creature?!]

Web entrepreneur Jeff Atwood, who first highlighted the ads, writes that they "take advertising on the internet to the absolute rock bottom," and toward the moronic, hypersexualized future foretold in Mike Judge's movie Idiocracy.

Yes, sure, inevitable cultural and intellectual decline of America, whatever. Vulgarians that we are, we're far more burned up by the game's false advertising: After all that flesh, there's not actually a "queen" to "save" in the game! The boobage was strictly for "marketing purposes," according to Evony. Now that's something you can (probably!) sue over.

The first ad emphasized Evony's pedigree as a clone of the strategy game Civilization, in which the player must "build an empire to stand the test of time."

The next picture used a stolen catalog photo to emphasize the game's ample... opportunities for adventure!

But that ad really didn't convey the teamwork aspect of the game. To get across the "cooperation" theme, what could be better than hot twins?? The word "lover," perhaps. There's your ad!

The words "my lord" in prior ads really didn't properly convey a player's dominion over buxom females as well as a kneeling woman with an exposed bra and a sword pointed at her chest. But we'd have gone with, "buy our game or we stab this hot lady" for the tagline, here, as it's really more direct than "Help! Save the Queen," but without distorting the original message.

Oh, forget about saving the queen. So much work! Click here to just have wench sex and rule the world, already.

The orgasmic wench-elf and the kneeling queen and the lusty court twins were all too subtle, it turns out. Click here to play the boob game!* (*Game does not actually involve boobs). (This is an actual ad.) [Coding Horror]

You can see the trailer at left. It's called "Rendition: Guantanamo." From the Telegraph:

In the game, players control a detainee at the camp, which has been sold by the US Government to a shadowy agency called Freedom Corp.

Before he is subjected to torture and scientific experiments, the character must shoot his way out of the detention camp to bring down his captors.

Zarrar Chishti, the director of T-Enterprises, which is developing the game, told the paper that it's really no big deal, because the game's players will only be shooting the "mercenaries" of Freedom Corp.:

"We have had a lot of hate mail about this, mainly from America, saying things like 'don't dare put out a game that shows them killing our soldiers.' But no US or British soldiers get killed in it. The only ones being killed are mercenaries."

Begg, a British citizen who moved to Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, will get a piece of the game's profits if there are any. He was captured by the CIA in Pakistan in 2002 and shipped to Gitmo. According to the Weekly Standard, Begg confessed to FBI interrogators that he "was armed and prepared to fight alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda against the US and others" and was among the Al-Quaida fighters who retreated to Tora Bora with Osama bin Laden. Begg says the confession was coerced under torture. He was released in January 2005 at the request of the British government.

The Telegraph says the game is being developed for the XBox360, which we find dubious. T-Enterprise claims to be a "team of expert computer designers and developers based in Glasgow [that] specialises in designing and building computer 3D console games for the Xbox 360," but the firm's web site features only flash and mobile phone games. And to judge by the "Rendition: Guantanamo" trailer, as well as this one for something called "Karma Combat," both of which look like they came from 1998, they're not very skilled at more sophisticated platforms.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.And to get a sense of where T-Enterprise is coming from, some of their other games include "Bush's Billions," "Bye Dubya," and "Send a Ransom" (!). And here are pictures of co-founders "Sadia" and "Zarrar."

In a statement, Microsoft said: "We are unaware of this game and have not been contacted by this developer. As such, we don't have enough details about the game to even comment about it."

See how many of the following classic moments you can spot in this clip:

"All I can think of is the guy in the library."

Ron Leingang, "Game-Play Counselor"

Howard Phillips, "Fun Club President"

"I had trouble with Lincoln Logs! (Sigh). Kids and fantasy."

[via Mental Floss]

Jesse told the US Air people his Xbox was gone after his flight last December, but got only "weeks of 'an unconscionable 'run-around.'" Now he wants "non-economic distress" damages of up to $1 million. I mean, it wasn't just the video games, okay:

"That thing was my DVD player," Maiman, a junior film studies major, said. He was the 2006 Madeira High co-valedictorian.

Even more importantly, that console was a protector of his classmate's mental health. Yale student Noah Ziggy Gentele wrote an essay for the 2007 New York Times College Essay Contest noting that after he arrived at college, he suffered "an existential crisis once a month." But his friends saved him. Including Jesse Maiman!

Jesse Maiman, a brilliant young man with whom I will be living next semester, took it upon himself to become a master of all things Nintendo Wii since buying one on a drunken Saturday evening last spring. (You may laugh, but the conversations that have transpired in that room–sober and otherwise–rank among the best of the last year).

The Wii paved the way for the Xbox, which doubtless continues its invaluable contribution to ending existential crises. One million dollars shall be the barest minimum necessary to salve the scholars' psychic wounds. Pay up.

This zombie racism controversy has arisen because "Resident Evil 5" features a white hero shooting African zombies, because the imaginary beep-boop game is set in Africa. Racist?

As a player, you are often forced to use a machete to hack your way through your attackers, using the same kind of weapons that were used in atrocities in places like Rwanda and the Congo over the last two decades. Killing African zombies can earn you gold treasure — in addition to the loot you find in barrels and vases in the different African villages. And while Chris's partner, Sheva Alomar, is from the region, she's light-skinned with straight-hair, and is introduced to players during a cinematic sequence highlighting not her face, but rather, her rear end.

Alert: video game fans are largely young white male nerds with rich digital fantasy lives. Their conception of black people is based largely upon characters from "NBA Streetball" games, and their conception of women is largely based upon the ass of "Resident Evil's" co-star. But face facts: our nation needs their zombie-hunting talents if we are to avoid total defeat at the hands of the undead. Might as well get used to it. [WSJ; Pic via]

The game, which was probably invented by Barack Obama and William Ayers during a sex-having orgy with illegal immigrants, was brought to Hasselbeck's attention when she interrogated a local third grader for tips on improving her Wii Bowling score. Apparently, Wii Fit's balance board (which measures body mass index) has shown the child a frightening glimpse of his future as an obese shut-in frantically posting "FIRST!!1!!" on redstate.com blog entries. So what, Joy Behar said. Shouldn't overweight kids be told the truth? Haha, Joy, The View is no place for simple logic. Elisabeth Hasselbeck is now going to trade her Wii for a PlayStation 3, which will never tell her she looks fat (and also won't work anymore after the third time she stands on it).

• The View [ABC]

“It’s not like I’m Tom Cruise or Usher walking down the street or anything like that, but it’s gotten to the point where you have to look your best when you go out,” [Pro gamer Tom] Taylor said. “I carry a Sharpie around, like Peyton Manning.”

And now, also like Peyton Manning, he's a ubiquitous face urging us to purchase more consumer products! There is in fact a "Major League Gaming" league for pro video game players. Weird.

“What’s really going on here is for tens of millions of young men, the aspiration to be a pro gamer is the new dream of sports stardom,” he said.

[Outraged reference to how such a thing did not exist when I was playing Nintendo]. The stunning implication here: in the near future, athletes could become nerds. Computer geeks: prepare for payback. [NYT; pic via]