Today the European Union's executive body elected not to impose new restrictions or penalties for offensive video games but instead decided to give the industry two years to clean itself up. There is an existing standard for rating games in Europe (similar to the ESRB rating used in the US) but it isn't widely followed and the EU wants to see that changed. The threat is that the EU might create some new laws instead of letting the industry police itself.

What was stated was that they wanted this despite there not being any evidence that violent video games impact children's behavior. An EU commissioner stated that parents were anxious because they don't know anything about the video games their children play.

Well, here's an idea - how about playing the game with them? Or watching the game being played? Or asking the kids about the game? Or asking somebody in the store before you buy it? Or looking for information on the internet? Oh no, that would take actual parenting work - instead we want a 'one size fits all' rating system and advisory board to fight with. Give me a single icon that explains it all without me having to think. Grrr!

An example used was the game Manhunt 2 where the violence was so great it couldn't get an M rating in the US without modifications and was banned in some European countries. Well shucks, I don't know about you but if my son wanted to play a game called Manhunt 2 I think I might just look into it a bit and see what it was all about before just letting him play. Heck, I even looked into Sega Superstars Tennis just to make sure it didn't feature naked tennis or folks going berserk and hacking peoples arms off with the rackets. It doesn't have either, I'm sad to say.

Next-Generation published a list of the top 100 selling games of the last 12 months. Of course, games that have been out longest are likely to be highest on the list, but I still found this interesting. Here are the top 10:

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Halo 3
• Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
• FIFA Soccer 08
• Madden NFL 08
• Need for Speed: Pro Street
• Pokemon: Diamdon/Pearl
• Assassin's Creed
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Brain Age 2: More Brain Training

What I find most interesting about this list is that it contains mostly multi-platform titles (which makes sense) but also contains some single-platform only titles in Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Halo 3 (X360), Brain Age 2 (DS), and Pokemon (DS).

Last week, EA Mythic announced that they would most likely breach the 1 million mark for beta signups for their upcoming MMO, Warhammer Online.   I have issues with this kind of a statement.  I cannot believe they actually think this is a benchmark for potential sales.  Preorders are a benchmark, but the number of folks who sign up for a free beta is not.  I know one blog indicated that it might be something they use to taunt the folks who are developing Age of Conan.  This all feels like an attempt to demonstrate how these guys will be the number 2 MMO since I sincerely doubt that any of these games will unseat the 8-kajillion pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft.

Now, I will admit I do have a fair amount of excitement for the title.  I really enjoyed Dark Age of Camelot and probably should have stuck with that game versus playing Everquest for so long.  I will also mention I signed up for the beta for Warhammer almost a year ago (and I am still waiting for my invite Mythic!!!), but they have to realize that most people will sign up for free early access to these games.  I know some folks submit bugs and treat the game like a test, and I have done that sometimes.  But anybody that tells you that they are there to simply test the game is deceiving themselves, and I feel quoting a number about beta signups is not a useful statistic.

Oh man, Yahtzee is hilarious. What makes his videos work is NOT his snarky commentary or amazing graphics or his willingness to dump on pretty much every game. No, what makes his videos is that he is flat out funny - and funny is hard to do. For whatever reason, I was in tears watching his review of Crysis, so I'm sharing it with you. NSF!

I recently came across this great article on Gamasutra written by some of the writers at Games for Windows magazine and 1up.com. While overall a great article, the part at the very end was most interesting. If you can't bother to read it, the idea was suggested that people might be willing to take their gaming news from the publishers rather than from an independent games journalist. The examples used are Major Nelson's Xbox site and how Bungie hired former journalist Luke Smith away from 1up to run its podcast and post on its blog.

So the question is - do you read Major Nelson's blog or listen to Bungie's podcast? Does the fact that its a 100% pro-company official corporate production have you treating it differently than you would a blog/podcast from Gamespot or IGN or 1up?

It certainly does for me - in fact, I just skip these productions because I assume I'm not getting anything but biased information from them. Will Major Nelson ever rip on a bad Xbox Live Arcade game? Unlikely. Will Luke go off on a poorly designed Halo 3 level? Doubtful. That is, as long as these folks want to keep working for the company that employs them they won't. In the world of big corporate entities, management takes a dim view of employees that 'call it like they see it' and disparage the company.

PSPFanboy.com has a great retrospective (with pictures no less) on the PSP's third birthday. It's worth looking at if you (like me) felt that the PSP was a bit of a dissapointment. I agree the platform is looking much better now with some quality fun games that are made for the platform (as opposed to PS ports that didn't take advantage of the features and included many compromises.)

Just a quick note here - if you didn't know it (I didn't!), BioWare recently released a new set of missions for Mass Effect - cheap at 400 points. That's $5 for the 90 minutes of gameplay the add-on provides. Here's hoping it is worth it.

Oh, and Criterion announced that the first add-on for Burnout Paradise (called Islands) will be free. Awesome!

Today, I find myself coming into some information about an upcoming computer RPG from the folks over at Bioware.  The news was delivered from sources that wish to be unnamed, and until I can verify the information, will be marked as a rumor.  So with that little bit of qualifying and covering of my own rump out of the way, I can move back to the news. 

Bioware is working on a RPG based on the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin.  Furthermore, the timing of this game may come to match the release of the series that HBO is producing.  The source for the rumor indicated that EA has purchased the rights for video games based on the series and EA owns Bioware, therefore it is a logical progression. 

My own take on this is that it would be great news for gamers since the series is quite rich and has a lot of story to draw from.   The cynic in me questions the information since Bioware has been working on Dragon Age for quite some time, and this would be something very new from them.   It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and we can hope that the information will be true...

Wizards of the Coast are preparing for the launch of a new version of the venerable classic co-created by the late Gary Gygax.  This new version has a great preview up over at the Wired GeekDad blog, and is scheduled for release in June of 2008.  The preview overviews the data gleaned from two books, Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters and Wizards Presents: Classes and Races, that WOTC are using to promote the new series. 

As a summary of the GeekDad entry, the designers over WOTC seem to focused on making the game play a little easier for entry level players.  They have removed the whole spell casting limitation  (wizards would have a set number of spells they can cast per day) which was a tenet of the game for a very long time.  They also seem to want to simplify the number of creatures available.  There is a lot of data to consider and I would like to check out the new system.  I just question if I really need another stack of RPG books considering my 3E stuff is still pretty pristine.

I was taking a look at the top console games (according to Gamespot and Game Informer, although I'm confident it holds true with whatever source) by console and noticing a major trend. Except for the Wii, 80% of the top games for each console are multi-platform titles.

If you look at the PS3, the only exclusive titles that are on the top of the heap are Resistance: Fall of Man and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The XBOX 360 has a few more maybe (especially if you discount the Arcade games): Halo 3, Forza Motorsports, and Project Gotham Racing. The Wii is the only console with an almost completely exclusive list of top games. In fact, it's the rare game that is multiplatform on that list: Madden NFL 07, Guitar Hero 3, and The Sims 2 (odd that!)

Is exclusivity overrated? Really - does it even matter anymore? If you discount the Wii and its totally different gaming experience, does it really matter which of the other two you have? What will you really be missing out on if you only have a 360 or only have a PS3? It just doesn't look like that much from here.