…that treating your customers like shit and acting like a tyrannical despot is not the way to win the hearts and minds of gamers?

Kotaku posted this a few minutes ago and it had me shaking my head. In essence, if you back talk to a moderator or complain about DRM or what not on Electronic Art’s forums, you’re looking at getting your game account banned. What this means is if you “misbehave” on the forums, then Electronic Arts is fully endorsing removing your ability to play games like SPORE or Red Alert 3.

Honestly, EA, what the hell are you guys thinking? First you piss off the gaming community en mass by imposing a completely nonsensical and ineffective piracy countermeasure (which may or may not actually be spyware) and now this? Are you guys honestly trying to isolate your customer base one by one until all that’s remaining is a small entourage of sycophantic fanboys who don’t mind getting crapped on on a regular basis with your absurd, draconian concept of customer service?

Ignoring the whole entire DRM issue (and trust me I could rant for hours on that -in short though, it’s pointless and gamers have every right to be pissed off by it) EA’s inane attempt to regulate behavior on their message board is completely ridiculous.

Of course you should not be a complete douche bag on message boards (which admittedly happens more often than it should) but the fact is that behavior on a message board and property that you PAID for are completely unrelated. If you misbehave, you should get banned FROM THE FORUM. Not the games that you paid $50 a piece for. The punishment, in no shape or form, fits the crime.

Can you imagine how pissed people would be if Microsoft deactivated your Xbox 360 if they caught you flaming their message boards?

Can you imagine how pissed people would be if Dodge one day decided to confiscate your car if they caught you talk shit about them?

I don’t care if Electronic Arts’s decision is legally justified by their TOS -it’s still horrible customer treatment. How can they expect to nourish customer loyalty with gamers when they’re constantly treating them like criminals? If it’s not putting in inconveniencing anti-piracy software into their games, its striking fear into their hearts with the threat of banning their games if they misbehave on an internet chat board. Is this honestly any way to treat people who are giving you their money?

It’s like Electronic Arts has suddenly become my parents. They’re taking away my toy for using a cuss word or something. Is that what you want to become, EA?

You know what I hear though? There’s an easy way to get around EA’s stupid DRM and registration, AND you can have the freedom to post whatever you want on their message board without fear of getting your games taken away.

It’s called piracy. While I normally don’t endorse piracy, EA’s behavior is completely inexcusable, and in this case, I can entirely understand why someone might just go ahead and download the game and spare themselves all the hassle.

People who download the game and then crack it have all the conveniences of DRM (not having to have a DVD in the tray) with absolutely none of the bullshit. It’s ironic that someone who’s breaking the law gets to enjoy these luxuries while EA’s paying customers are consistently treated like rubbish.

I was just starting to like EA again. Dead Space was pretty awesome. Hell, even Madden 09 was a lot better than previous iterations. But this kind of stuff just makes me stop and wonder what the hell is wrong with the people running that company. It certainly doesn’t motivate me to go buy their games, regardless of how good they may be.

It’s been a day now since Treyarch’s announced the inclusion of a special “zombie” mode in their latest iteration in the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: World at War, which unlocks once you beat the game (similar Call of Duty 4’s arcade mode). As depicted in Gametrailer’s exclusive video footage of the gameplay, you and three other players are tasked with purchasing weapons and barricades to fight the Nazi zombie horde -exactly like in the popular Zombie Mod for Counter-Strike. Only with WW2 weapons. And Nazis.

However, fan reaction to this announcement has been rather mixed. Some think a zombie mode is an awesome multiplayer addition to supplement the already awesome looking co-op feature. Others, however, have been incredibly skeptical and critical.

“Because Nazi zombies are a great way to honor WW2 veterans!” says BillyTheRatKing on Kotaku’s comment board.

Monkeysaresilly also adds, “Dear God this had best be a joke. What better way to ride a franchises coattails than to completely suck away the realism and then shit on the memory of one of the worst periods in global history? Go Treyarch, go! I guess if you’re gonna screw up something, screw it HARD.”

Comments like these raise an interesting point. Call of Duty has been a franchise renowned for realistically recreating war. Because of this, and because of the obviously sensitive subject matter that the game portrays, is including this zombie mode both insensitive and irresponsible?

On one hand I can see where the critics are coming from. Unlike a game like Return to Castle Wolfenstein (which also had you shooting Nazi zombies), Call of Duty: World at War strives to be as faithful to history as possible. Though the game’s campaign is fictional, the time period and events it depicts are not. Throwing in a zombie mode robs the game of its authenticity, regardless of the fact that playing the mode is entirely optional. To critics of Treyarch’s decision, it’s the equivalent of throwing in zombies at the end of Saving Private Ryan after the credits roll. You wouldn’t have to stick around and watch it, but its mere existence would be more than enough to have viewers scratching their heads in befuddlement.

On top of that, turning Nazis into zombies and putting it in a game that has a reputation for being realistic and authentic is an almost offensive slap in the face to anyone who had ancestors who died during World War 2. In a game like Call of Duty, while you’re gunning down wave after wave of enemy soldiers, it’s easy to forget that Nazis were people too. They weren’t all horrible evil monsters, and they certainly weren’t zombies either. If Resident Evil 5 isn’t allowed to have its protagonists shooting black zombies, then why is it totally acceptable for gamers to be murdering zombies of German ancestry?

The counter argument is obvious. Call of Duty: World at War is a video game, and video games are here for entertainment. Killing zombies is a hell of a lot of fun, and killing them with your buddies is even better. That’s why Valve’s upcoming Left 4 Dead is going to be amazing. If killing zombies is fun, then why shouldn’t Treyarch include a mode that has you and your friends slaughtering the undead?

Personally, I’m casually indifferent to Treyarch’s decision. The zombie mode is a little bonus thrown in for fun, and while I might play it once or twice after I beat Call of Duty: World at War, I hardly be playing it for months to come.

Left 4 Dead on the other hand…

So what do you guys think? Has Treyarch made a big mistake or are some gamers just being too anal retentive? Let me know!

Every time a video game based movie comes out I always get a little excited. I don’t know why I do it, but I always allow myself to nourish the small little glimmer of hope that this time the movie won’t suck. Time and time again I’ve had this flicker of hope cruelly snuffed out. First it was Resident Evil. Then Bloodrayne. Then Hitman. Time and time again it seemed like the combined evil forces of Hollywood and Uwe Boll seemed hell bent on taking everything that gamers held dear and cruelly raping it to death. Granted, some video game movies have been more successful than others (I’ll guiltily admit to enjoying Resident Evil: Apopcolypse and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) but none of them have genuinely been good enough to break from the stereotype that video game based movies suck major ass.

Tragically, Max Payne does very little to change things.

I suppose a great deal of my disappointment is derived from the fact that the trailer looked so awesome. For the first time in quite some time, it looked as though the director (John Moore -The Omen, Behind Enemy Lines) had nailed the essence of the game. The trailer was violent, bathed in gloom and darkness, had some awesome visual effects, and best, had Max’s trademark angsty monotone narrating it. It had a decent cast with Mark Wahlberg (The Departed, Shooter) and Mila Kunis (That 70’s Show, Forgetting Sarah Marshal) giving it credibility and star power. Everything seemed to be lining up into place for Max Payne to be the first awesome video game movie.

But that was just my hopes deluding my better judgment.

Personally, I feel as though the largest sin that Max Payne’s movie incarnate commits is the fact that it refuses to stay true to the original story. There was nothing wrong with the game’s story. It was about a framed DEA agent, Max Payne, waging a one man war against anyone who stood in his way after his partner and friend is murdered. It was a simple story full of great characters that was effective and compelling enough to give gamers a reason to keep playing after murdering thugs in bullet time got old.

The story that the movie follows deviates far from the story. Plot elements are changed, characters added or replaced, character’s that played no real importance fleshed out for no real reason (Max’s wife worked at a chemical plant apparently) and the role of Jim Bravura (Ludacris) has suddenly been transformed into an Internal Affairs detective who sympathizes with Max. Oh, and there’s also some generic army of thugs running around the city peddling drugs.

This is not Max Payne. I’m sorry. But it’s not. They’ve taken Max Payne’s story and rewritten it into a generic mess of half-assed cliches. Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad if it remained true to the game (I can understand taking some liberties being taken for the sake of creating a cohesive narrative), but there are certain aspects of the story (whether it be characters or plot elements) that are so dissimilar from the video game that it’s difficult to see the resemblance between the film and the game at times.

So the story sucks. That’s not such a huge surprise I suppose, but the acting is pretty terrible too. Mark Wahlberg makes for an effective Max Payne (he scowls a lot), but Mila Kunis was a terrible casting decision as Mona Sax, the infamous hit-woman/love interest, that fights by Max’s side. As awkward as this may be to say, but Mila Kunis is simply too cute to be Mona Sax. She’s too perky of an actress to be believable as a cold blooded assassin. But Mila Kunis isn’t really the worst of the lot. All the supporting actors are varying shades of awful acting, but I suppose I can cut them some slack. The script they had to work with was pretty bad too.

The action for the most part is pretty decent. Even with a PG-13 rating (I’ll get to that in a second) there’s enough well choreographed, violent shoot-outs to keep the film entertaining. They even implement Max Payne’s trademark slow-motion and bullet time periodically.  On top of that, I definitely have to give props for the film’s visual aesthetics. In that respect, the trailer didn’t lie. It looks and feels like a level in Max Payne, gritty, dark and edgy.

For a film as dark as Max Payne, why the hell would the director design the movie to be a PG-13 film? Max Payne was all about murder, drugs, prostitution, satanic cults and dropping the F-bomb just for the hell of it. It was a grim and morbidly hilarious at times, and each level was bathed in blood and corpses. It was a game that earned its Mature rating -so why would the film be any different? To appeal to a bigger market? To allow high school kids in so it makes more money?

Ultimately, Max Payne isn’t the worst video game movie that’s come along, but it’s still a massive disappointment that’s left me bitter and upset. This was the messiah that was supposed to change things. This was the movie that was supposed to show Hollywood how it was done, and it would convince everyone that video games can make good movies. It’s an entertaining action flick and there are definitely some cool aspects of the film that Max Payne fans will appreciate, but between the acting, the dumbed down film rating, and the unrecognizable storyline; Max Payne will still disappoint video gamers and movie enthusiasts alike. It’s miles ahead of a Uwe Boll production, but don’t expect anything remotely akin in quality to Mark Wahlberg’s other movie where he played a hard-ass detective, The Departed.

But hey, at least we have the upcoming Bioshock movie to look forward to. Right?