Rampancy

Kudos to Acrappa, who pointed out an Oni editorial at games.macnn.com which discusses the unusual lack of violence in Oni. Which is more or less on the mark, though one might disagree with his suggested reasoning. However, of particular note was this cleverly hidden sentence:

While your character is armed with a frightening array of martial arts moves and weaponry, the only sign that she has inflicted damage to her opponents comes via the enemy's flashing when hit.

As you can see, it appears Bungie has replaced spurts of blood and gore with brief scenese of nudity as injured enemies flash you. Scandalous! One wonders what the parent groups and the ever ominous Microsoft had to do with this radical change in direction...

In all seriousness, this is an interesting read, and for some, a controversial one. The suggestion that the removal of a lot of violence from Oni in later builds is somehow related to a softening of Bungie's integrity will doubtless have some people up in arms... certainly worth checking out.

Fire Phoenix of Halo Center wrote in to inform us that Yrro quit the site for personal reasons and that he will be assuming the mantle of responsibility there. Congrats on your promotion, Fire Phoenix!

A UK computer gaming TV show named Bits recently gave Konoko a good beating for tardiness and looking somewhat less than her best. One can find a small item on this on their website:

Oni is a 3D action number that combines martial arts combat and gunplay, and was due to appear last April. It tells the story of a one woman swat team in true anime style. Itнs developed by Rockstar, them of GTA fame. The last thing that we saw of Oni was a ECTS, but you donнt want to know about that because frankly it looked dodgy. The graphics didnнt do the PS2 justice and the controls were a bit shifty. But guess what? Rockstar were keen to emphasise that It isn't finished yet . Quelle surprise.

Word has it we may get lucky at the start of next year. Promises, promises. Just donнt hold your breath PC and PlayStation 2 heads.

Due credit goes to mad.max of IslandFour.org for passing this one on to us. He tells me that they were actually much more rude when talking about the game on their TV program, labeling it as irrecoverably late among other things. Well whattya say, Bungie? Butcher? Them's fightin' words, prompting the question: do these Brits know what it's like to have an angry New Zealander pointed in their direction?

Waaay down in our community forum, Matt responds to our request for more information on the Bungie Webmaster... and we get much more than we originally expected!

...The real irony is that “Nathan” does not actually exist: he’s a fictional character who we have used to further certain other sinister purposes (which I cannot discuss at this time for obvious reasons)...

Well, my heart goes out to the crew of IslandFour.Org. Guess you guys can all just go home now! The rest of the post is quite entertaining as well. Don't miss it! ;^>

• Forum: Re: Whaddya say, Matt? Max?