The Collect Call of Cathulhu

(EDIT) Replacing the embed with a non-embeddable link, because the original video was removed. Here, have some Dailymotion links, because fuck Youtube. Those are broken now, too. Just do a search and find it yourself. Fuuuuuuhhhh.... (/EDIT)

It's the Ghostbusters vs Cthulhu. Seriously.

"Cthulhu. I heard of him. He's bad, right?"

"He makes Gozer look like Little Mary Sunshine."

Having read quite a few of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft a while back (and I really should get around to finishing that book some day), I found the juxtaposition of that with the otherwise light-hearted cartoon to be... really weird.

If they were going for authenticity, they should have rammed him with a ship at the end, rather than getting him to be struck by lightning. But then that wouldn't have allowed for the creative use of their proton packs, I guess. Also, the character of Alice Derleth was a nice touch.

"Could online 'warriors' in Call of Duty be forced to obey the Geneva convention?"

Okay, while I have been posting things that are critical of games like Call of Duty, even I find this, if true, to be absolutely ridiculous. Come on, Red Cross, surely there are much better uses of your time.

(EDIT)

A follow-up.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross says media reports that it is investigating whether the Geneva Conventions apply to video games are false.

The Swiss-based humanitarian group assured gamers Thursday that 'serious violations of the laws of war can only be committed in real-life situations.'

The ICRC says it is nevertheless interested in working with video game makers to promote a better understanding of international humanitarian law because some companies also develop war simulations for armed forces."

Yes, because gamers who get their "lulz" from seeing how just how crazily they can make a ragdoll model fly through the air they as they launch it with a grenade are totally going to be interested in playing through the video game version of Nuremberg. Right. Also, for what it's worth, some of the more based-in-reality games like America's Army already deal at least with things like fragging your own teammates and such.

(/EDIT)

Yeah, these "no sue" clauses have definitely become a Thing™ now.

First Sony and EA and now Microsoft as well.

Well.

I was thinking of cancelling my Xbox Live Gold membership soon before it auto-renews in January anyway, purely for monetary reasons, but hadn't entirely committed to it yet. But this, however, just gives me another reason to do so. Thanks, Microsoft! But then, I'm pretty sure the clause applies to the free Silver accounts as well. :/

It looks like these things are being challenged in at least some states, according to that Kotaku article, and I'm glad that's happening. Hopefully these clauses will get struck down soon enough. Then again, given how ponderously the legal system tends to work, it could still take years before anything comes of it. (Also, given that big corporations similar to this all but run the country/government these days, who knows if they'll actually get struck down at all. /pessimist)

Well, at any rate, at least I can stop giving Microsoft money every year for increasingly I-don't-give-a-crap-about-any-of-this-stuff service. And yeah, I was thinking of cancelling my subscription last year as well, but didn't do it yet because I'd already renewed it for another year at the limited time discount price. That doesn't apply this year, though, so I probably will actually go through with cancelling it this time. I just hate that they force you to actually call them to cancel it, and don't just offer an easy way to do it via the website or through the console itself. They certainly let you sign up through those easily enough. ¬_¬

(EDIT)

Oh wait, they actually do let you cancel automatic renewal via the website now, apparently. That's cool, I guess. Of course, I had to accept the new EULA in order to log in and do so. :/

(/EDIT)

(EDIT 2)

However, while I was able to set automatic renewal to "off", I got a so-called "error" saying what was essentially "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." when I tried to remove my credit card info. I am going to assume for now that this is because it is tied to a still active LIVE Gold account. As such, I won't raise a stink over it yet, and will instead wait until after the 1/22/2012 date (the date the account is supposed to expire) and see if I can do it then. If I can, good enough. If I can't, though, that's when I start trying to bring the wrath o' god down on them (i.e. I actually call them and tell them to remove it). If that doesn't work... well... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. ¬_¬

(/EDIT 2)