Neil Thompson, Microsoft's regional director of Xbox in the UK, has emphasized the need for the videogame industry to impress upon parents that consoles and videogames have grown far beyond what they were in the past.

One concerned mother was spending some quality time with her daughter while playing The Game of Life, a video game adaptation of Milton Bradley's board game. To her surprise, the supposedly child-friendly title allows same-sex marriages to occur - something that she was not prepared to explain to her 6-year-old daughter. She later writes to conservative Christian site, WorldNetDaily, to air her story. Read more.

Okay, so you've got your agenda finalized. What's the next thing to do? Why, it's to announce the All-Star Speakers, of course.

Evergreen Events, the organizer of the 2008 ION Game Conference, has done precisely that. It's mentioned four important names to take note of. Find out who these four people are after the jump.

HAZE may be about the most elite Mantel troopers enhanced by the effects of Nectar, but it isn't about going "all gung-ho," blasting everything that moves and isn't clad in a Mantel combat suit. Thinking shooters and feelings aside, much of the design of HAZE (coming out first for the PlayStation 3, then for the Xbox 360 and PC) is based loosely on just you.

 

Unlike much of the American shooters, where the it's all about the hero in you, your gun and the nameless baddies you steamroll through, HAZE doesn't revolve around that. In fact, it doesn't even revolve around the conflict or the war; instead, it revolves around the soldier fighting someone else's war.

"It's not John Wayne. And a lot of videogames are John Wayne," Free Radical's David Doak explained in a recently published interview with EuroGamer. But he did admit that most gamers will be buying the game to experience another typical shooter, so HAZE will incorporate mechanics for gamers to jump in shooting from the start right to the end.

But then that would only remain skin-deep for HAZE. In fact, Free Radical wants to slowly convince the player that it provides a lot more than just mindless shooting. "We have to somehow change your opinion about that as you go through, and make you uncomfortable about it, make you pleased about it, make you upset or whatever," said Doak.

Click on Full Article for more of Doak's views of what they're doing with HAZE.

We don't know if you remember, but there's this video game called City of Metronome. It was presented by developer Tarsier Studios back in E3 2005, and was the bastion of graphics and originality at the time. Since then, unfortunately, literally nothing was heard about this game. Until now.

According to Tarsier Studios' Bjorn Sunesson, City of Metronome is not going to be the same exact title as the one revealed more than two years ago. He explained that the original title, where Metronome City is completely controlled by a single bureaucratic entity known as the Corporation, looked quite risky in the eyes of a publisher.

Anyway, the Corporation also owns all the lands, the entire infrastructure, and all the industries of the city. The game then puts players in the role of a young train conductor, where you have to search for proof around the city in order to discover the Corporation's secret agenda. As players, you will use sound to fight enemies, solve problems, and confuse citizens.

The premise sounds promising and intriguing, but that is all in the past now as Sunesson mentioned that they put Metronome on the back burner about a year ago, meaning it's in re-design stage. He elaborated,

So what we are doing now is basically building the needed track record, combined with re-designing gameplay to a state where it is still innovative and awesome, but not so unusual that publishers marketing people gets all confused and scared.

During the time the game was presented, Tarsier Studios was being considered as a new comer to the video game industry. When asked as to how the new game will look like and release details, Sunesson said,

It's hard to say, especially considering there is not one single "The City of Metronome"-game anymore, but actually a couple of very different concepts all taking place within the city. Add to this platform considerations, new versions of distribution and what have you, it could be anywhere from Christmas 07 to Summer 2011.

Tarsier Studios is currently working on another title called The Desert Diner.

Thank you to Justin for the heads up!

Take-Two Interactive is apparently taking its sweet time in making crucial decisions that will spell out the company's future as indicated by its postponed annual shareholders meeting which was originally slated for March 23.

Instead, the meeting will take place on March 29. Take-Two recently took the spotlight with shocking rumors that it would be sold to Microsoft. The report was later proven premature as both companies doused the rumor.

In the upcoming shareholders meeting, however, it's a fact that selling the company will be in the agenda. The board of directors are still exploring alternative action that the firm can undertake, but at this point, Take-Two is as blurry as they come in terms of details.

We'll keep you updated regarding this curious situation.

In a new article over at the First Amendment Center, Craig Smith mentions a new attempt to acquaint televised violence with pornography. Unfortunately, such a thing may also have repercussions on the gaming world, since it does happen to be a form of televised violence, in some sense.

This time, however, it's not from any legal body, but from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) itself. According to Smith's commentary, the FCC "sent a valentine" to Congress, seeking to censor violence on television.

Hatched in the bowels of the FCC, this report argues that it would not violate the Constitution to equate violence with indecency, which the FCC already has the power to regulate. All it would take is an act of Congress giving the FCC the power to move forward with its censorship agenda.

Here's the catch: is there really a connection between televised and real violence, and can the former induce the latter? That's the question asked by Smith in his article, and even cites some studies that say this isn't the case. While it isn't directly related to gaming, just remember: videogames are televised, and they can be violent. That's the very thing that creates the tenuous connection between the FCC's attempt and gaming life.

This October 20-21, the National Institute on Media and the Family and Iowa State University will be holding a summit to discuss the growing problem of sexual and violent content in videogaming.

During this upcoming National Summit on Video Games, Youth and Public Policy, these groups hope to tackle the growing trends in videogame rating systems in light of the government's own policies, and the accuracy of independent game ratings groups.

The organizers hope to be able to create a 10-year action agenda based on the findings in this summit.

They've invited ESRB president Patricia Vance as they did Congresswoman Betty McCollum of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, and speakers from prestigious schools such as Harvard and Yale.

And for those of you asking: No, Attorney Jack Thompson is nowhere in the list of speakers.

Given what's been happening lately in the field of gaming politics such as the recent legislation by congress and the revelations on ESRB's inner workings, we're hoping this summit will foster a greater degree of awareness for the concerned parties, and hopefully offer a more sensible means of studying the gaming industry on their part - it's not all bad.

The summit will take place at: University of Minnesota Continuing Education and Conference Center, 1890 Buford Avenue,
Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

As for time skeds per day:

• October 20: 8:00AM to 5:00PM
• October 21: 8:30AM to 1:00PM

More details can be found in the pdf file found on the source link.