Is it something wrong with my system, or is the main news page a Qt3 not showing? It seemed to go down a few days ago. I did some active X upgrades around that time... wondering if that may have caused it.

I believe it was an intentional move by Tom and Mark in reaction to the terrorist attacks. But this does beg the question: Mark? Tom? When will we get game news again?

We'll go back to our normal updates again on Monday.

You want news? Here's some news. UK retailers are pulling WTC Defender from the shelves. There was actually a game published prior to the attacks that had the player defending the WTC buildings from kamikazi plane attacks, if you can believe it.

Holy crap.

Yeah, it's really weird. Here's the blurb:

"In the wake of the tragic events in the US this week, another computer game, WTC Defender, has been removed from sale over the internet.

"Players had to shoot down planes which were heading for the twin towers. If an aircraft managed to get through, the buildings blew up."

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,7496,551482,00.html

Also from the article:

"British retailers are sweeping the Microsoft Flight Simulator computer game off their shelves after worries emerged that the US terrorists could have honed their flying skills using the game.

"irgin Megastores and Woolworths have already cleared their shelves of the game and HMV looks set to follow suit."

Pretty ridiculous.

""British retailers are sweeping the Microsoft Flight Simulator computer game off their shelves after worries emerged that the US terrorists could have honed their flying skills using the game."

I'll bet Bin Ladin is sitting in his cave in Iran saying "damn, now what?"

British retailers are sweeping the Microsoft Flight Simulator computer game off their shelves after worries emerged that the US terrorists could have honed their flying skills using the game."

I wish they had... the disaster might have been averted due to the missing keyboard in the plane's cockpit.

That "WTC Defender" story sounds like bullshit to me... too "good" to be true. (Or in this case, too good of a story for a journalist looking to play the usual video-games-as-spawn-of-satan angle.) Do a Google search on "WTC Defender" (in quotes, for an exact phrase search) and absolutely no hits come up. If this game actually existed, it would seem that the company that made it had the worst marketing division of all time.

In addition to exposing the fraudulent "WTC Defender" story, here's another suggestion: what effect has this situation had on "Majestic?" It would be interesting to learn whether or not those guys continued to send threatening FAXes throughout the crisis. Maybe the hijackers sent a warning to WTC security beforehand, but the security guy threw it away because he thought it was another wacky part of his "Majestic" game.

Good call on the WTC Defender hoax. I had the same reaction to the Columbine Half Life mod. They're just bogus attempts to get attention.

"In addition to exposing the fraudulent "WTC Defender" story, here's another suggestion: what effect has this situation had on "Majestic?""

EA suspended Majestic. I'm kind of surprised, since I don't see any parallels to Tuesday's attacks. The game opens with a suspicious building fire, but even that's a stretch. And any time Majestic contacts you, it's pretty obviously linked to the game's subject matter (not to mention meticulously tracked on your Majestic status page).

-Tom

MS also removed the WTC from Flight Sim 2002. Of course, that's not just in response to the potential outcry of a game that would let you fly jumbo jets into the towers; it happens to make the Manhattan landscape more authentic, now.

This is not a hoax, though - Microsoft removes the WTC from Flight Sim 2002

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2812635,00.html

EA suspended Majestic, according to some game sites, because of the "frantic phone messages" that are part of the game. A little too close to the real frantic phone messages left by victims.

I read that somewhere....

Regardless, now isn't the time for fake conspiracy games now, is it?

-Andrew

Oh, well, Avault says so. Truth may vary here.
But it sounds reasonable.
http://www.avault.com/news/displaynews.asp?story=9142001-92538

EA suspended Majestic, its popular online interactive game that draws players into an X-Files-like conspiracy.

The company was concerned that one of the game's features, in which players receive recorded calls from actors portraying sometimes frantic characters, would touch a raw nerve after the attention given to phone calls from victims and survivors of this week's real-life violence.