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Box Art Blues: Vision impaired, Arthritic and Cranky

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Quite a while back, gaming blog, Kotaku, posted a short item about Australia. It’s always good to see our little corner of the world getting a bit of videogaming exposure. This little gem was titled ‘How Australia destroys box art’. Expecting something dramatic (think – book burning for the new millennium) I clicked through, to read the post and accompanying comments, hoping to see exclusive footage of bonfires, molten game cases and smug angry zealots brandishing placards.

Turned out videogame box art wasn’t being destroyed by an angry mob, but by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. Apparently, the author of the post, as well as some of those who added their comments to the article, felt that the OFLC was guilty of a something no less disturbing than book burning – they were defacing their precious video gaming box art with the OFLC colour-coded classification markings.

Now I’m more a gamer than a collector, not that there’s anything wrong with being the latter. The movie ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’, might have gone some way to make collecting, if not cool, then at least, just a little less sad. Myself; I can’t quite see the attraction in simply collecting video games. Given today’s prices, it can sometimes be hard to justify purchasing a game to play it. To leave it sitting in your tv cabinet unopened seems almost criminal. Which is perhaps why the collectors were so miffed when the new classification system was introduced in 2006.

Let me put myself in their shoes for a minute. Actually that’s going to be tough because their shoes are a rare pair of unboxed, Air Jordan II’s in mint condition…but to be fair to the collectors among us, if you have just shelled out 120 big ones for a brand spanking copy of Metal Gear Solid 4, and you’re not even planning on removing the shrink wrap, let alone playing the game, then perhaps you would be upset that part of your valuable box art real-estate has been gobbled up by the OFLC classification. Still…it could be worse.

Videogames already come with health warnings tucked away discreetly on the inside front cover of the game manual. I don’t want to give the OFLC or the Department of Health and Ageing for that matter any ideas, but let’s just be glad that our precious games don’t come branded with various health warnings on the box art itself.

RE Red-Eye: We’ve all woken up with a bad case of gaming-induced Red Eye. Any late night gaming session can cause it, with driving games being some of the worst offenders. Portable gaming takes a toll too; due to the combination of screen size and distance from your eyeballs. The brilliant Lumines is well deserving of the RE classification. Lumines, for the remaining few people yet to experience its sheer brilliance, is a game that no review can do justice. I could wax lyrical about this game for an entire post, but the only way you could come close to understanding how good this game is, is to play it. Just make sure you have the eye drops handy for the morning after.

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CH Claw Hands: Face it . Regardless of your weapon of choice, be it Dualshock 3 or the Xbox360 wireless controller, we’ve all suffered from Claw Hands. Grid is currently giving me a bad case of Claw Hands (and Red Eye) right now. For those presently suffering or those contemplating lengthier gaming challenges (e.g. completion of the Forza 2 endurance races), a steering wheel set-up may alleviate the symptoms. Of course, you could always just press the pause button. As well as Claw Hands, there is also the closely related, but less serious, Numb Thumb. Sony once boasted the Dualshock 2 had 255 levels of sensitivity on every action button. Really? At the end of a day’s gaming, my thumbs couldn’t tell the difference.

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BM: Bad Moods: For the sake of truth in advertising, all games should carry this warning, both the truly great games and the truly awful. It’s a self explanatory warning really. Most of us just reach for the off switch when the frustration levels become intolerable. We’re more likely to reboot, rather than put the boot into the console, but admit it – we’ve all been tempted.

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Of course it may just be me. I could be vision impaired, arthritic and cranky, but I’m pretty sure it’s the games.


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