News of grisly XBox-related killings is rapidly making the rounds within the relatively docile Pocket PC game community. The MSNBC site recently outlined the jury's recommendations for six people killed over an XBox-related dispute in Florida. After being evicted from the lodging where he had been squatting with his friends, Troy Victorino, 29, plotted revenge. He returned with a couple of friends armed with baseball bats, where they summarily set about bludgeoning six other young people to death. The most telling aspect of this unfortunate tale is that this was sparked by the property owner's 22-year-old granddaughter. She made the unlucky decision to hold on to the assailant's XBox after having them turfed from the property, adding insult to injury. Curiously, it was this last slight that proved to be the proverbial last straw and not Victorino's sudden social shift to homeless hobo. The costly consoles typically sold for around $200.00 CAD at the time of these slayings. Some may say it was small wonder that this would serve as a catalyst for grisly, unadulterated video game related horror. If you typically fall prey to politician-like spurious leaps in logic, you'll be counting down the days to an XBox 360 related incident as prices for this Cadillac of consoles soar into the stratosphere. In Toronto it's retailing for $399.00 CAD at my local Best Buy outlet. It's just enough to expedite the trip from mild mannered Pocket PC game geek to drooling chainsaw-wielding psycho after considering PST and GST taxes. You may recall that 360 console prices in the thousands of dollars posted on EBay during the initial release of this game system. Microsoft had struggled to keep pace with demand due to an unfortunate decision to start manufacturing en masse 69 days prior to release. This led to ludicrosity in the form of violence-inducing EBay prices with units going for as much as $2500 CAD. Stories of XBox crashes and overheating were just beginning to surface as I detailed in an earlier article. What concerns me most are the spurious, irrational conclusions that are sure to follow. You're most likely familiar with the old, tired dogma linking violent video games to scenes right out of Tarantino's Hostel. I'm not one to be a hypocrite about these things. I've played games in the gruesome genre, including some memorable spine-ripping finishing moves in Mortal Kombat or some frighteningly authentic execution-style kills in Hitman. If you frequent my site you may have noticed that there is a distinctive lack of violent Pocket PC games reviewed. This is hardly an accident as you'll be hard-pressed to find any for this platform, save for Killer Instinct Pocket PC emulator sessions. As far as the Pocket PC game demographic is concerned, we're emulating the European mindset. Developers generally eschew gory PDA game violence but can still encounter erotic PDA game downloads like the sexy Strip Teaser PPC game download over at the Softpedia site. Solving puzzles in this game allows you to pause, play and rewind various striptease videos, presumably during covert corporate bathroom breaks. I can accurately discern between real-life and virtual violence in my permanent starring turn as a pacifistic Pocket PC pansy. Maybe I'm a bit of a deviant. Just the same, I don't think I'll be doling out $500 CAD for an XBox 360 right now. Microsoft's one fingered salute in the form of one wireless controller may just lead to beserker rage. |
