Fear 2 prevails, Uwe Boll is still awful, and LoadingReadyRun sings about charity...

Censorship makes me fairly nervous. The idea of some unseen organization, a "They" or "Them" deciding what is OK for me to see is kind of a screwy idea. It is difficult to decide whether or not the general public really needs to have a "They" shielding them from the violence and depravity to be found in movies, music, gaming, etc. I'd like to believe that people are responsible and mature enough to know whether or not they want to see/hear something that might offend them. Personally, the movie Hostel, albeit one of the most popular horror movies of the last decade, I still won't see because I don't want to see a two hour long snuff film. I have made the decision to not see this movie, THEY don't need to step in and say, "No Michael, you are forboughten from seeing that film!" with a giant judgmental pointed finger. Every time I hear a video game is being "banned" anywhere I worry that it's a slight suppression of our own rights as responsible adults to watch, read, or listen to whatever the hell we want. So when I heard that F.E.A.R. 2 was unbanned in Australia, I felt it was a silent victory against the THEY. Story on IGN here.

For those people not familiar with Uwe Boll, he's a video game fan that has gotten to make movies. Between Uwe Boll and director Paul WS Anderson, they have made some of the worst big screen adaptations of some really great (and really bad) video games. Although speaking out against Uwe Boll will usually end up with you getting your ass kicked in a movie like Heckler by the big German himself, I still don't have a problem saying he could have done a lot better with any of his films. Turning an interesting Lovecraft-ian tale like Alone in the Dark into an action movie featuring Tara Reid in a starring role as a scientist (none of the characters in his films are usually present in the games) was kind of a slap in the face for people that play games for the story. So the opportunity to attend the Uwe Boll film festival and spend two days watching his movies in his presence is something I'm not not to keen on. Kotaku has a press release that spells out the same sentiments here.

If there's ever a time people seem to be charitable, it's during the holiday season. Although next year I'd like to start fucking with the conventions of charity and doing stuff in June, I try to pick a charity that I believe is doing something good and matters to me. Child's Play is a great charity that was founded by gamers for this time of year, and I will be donating my yearly jars of change to it (usually adding up to about $80). The people at LoadingReadyRun had an ingenious fund raiser tied to Child's Play that they've done the last two years that has raised collectively over $75,000. Their response to spending several days playing Desert Bus Infinity is done through a clever parody of "Video Killed the Radio Star" here.