Buzz Report: Extreme video game violence Video

Buzz Report: Extreme video game violence Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Molly Wood, and welcome to the Buzz Report. This week, violent video games, MySpace Karaoke, and Bulgarian Idol. But first, the Gadget of the Week is back! The Gadget of the Week is the Sony Ericsson K850i. This is one of the rare Sony Cybershot cell phones to be released in the U.S. -- it's got a FIVE megapixel camera built in, with four separate resolutions, all these manual adjustments like ISO and white-balance settings, and a camcorder. PLUS, it has a built-in accelerometer and included games that take advantage of it -- so, like, you can play this "Marble Madness" game where you tilt the phone back and forth to keep a marble on the thing, you know. And then other people can use THEIR Sony Ericsson K850i to take a video of you and put it on YouTube. Tradeoffs, people. Tradeoffs. And now for the news. This week, an incredibly violent video game was released. It's a game in which you race around a virtual world in a variety of different vehicles, completing missions and eliminating rivals using a twisted, exhaustive, arsenal of weaponry. Yes, there are interesting new visuals and incredible multiplayer features, but this game is just sick. I am sorry to report, there are even vicious assaults on BABIES. I am, of course, talking about Mario Kart for Wii. If you're looking for a less violent alternative, Grand Theft Auto IV was also released this week. No babies are harmed in THAT game. In Microsoft news this week, I seriously did not want to have to talk about anything having to do with Microsoft, until they proved that they are so disorganized and flakey that they not only let their Yahoo "deadline" march by without any action or comment whatsoever, they also biffed the releases of Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1 so completely that they had to DELAY the update releases. Why!? Because they discovered at literally the last NANOSECOND that the updates were incompatible with their OWN SOFTWARE for managing retail chains! Come ON, Microsoft! Get it together! I do not want to have to do this! I PREFER to make fun of APPLE! In other news I wish I didn't have to report this week, MySpace is launching a karaoke service. Users can just ... record themselves singing along to songs in the MySpace catalog, and then upload themtheir profiles. For ... sharing. Oh ... no ... don't share, please don't share. The news follows a report last week that Guitar Hero is planning to add more instruments and VOCALS to its game, to counter the popularity of Rock Band, which also lets people sing. Because ...apparently, people really want to sing. In public. No matter how much I, personally, do not want them to. Speaking of singing, let's have a look at what's Clogging the Tubes, shall we? As "American Idol" heats up in the U.S., I thought we should check out what we're missing on Bulgarian Idol ... I don't know what the big deal is. I've been singing it that way for YEARS. You know. In PRIVATE. I'm Molly Wood and this has been the Buzz Report. Thanks for watching.