« PREVIOUS ENTRY
“Bullfighter” app destroys corporate jargon
NEXT ENTRY »
Cool Robot Of The Week

You may recall Henry Hill — the infamous mobster upon which the movie Goodfellas was based. He was part of the $6 million Lufthansa heist in 1978, then cooperated with the police to help bust the Lucchese crime family. He certainly knows about the use of brutal violence and force.
So the editors of the Electronic Gaming Monthly decided to try him out on some virtual violence and force — by having him review Grand Theft Auto, Hitman 2, The Getway, and Animal Crossing. (The latter is a game intended for little girls.) Hill brought along his 14-year-old son Julian. The transcripts are online here, but here’s a taste from Hill’s encounter with The Getaway:
HH: What’s this, English gangsters? What the f*** are they saying? And why’s that guy so ugly? Like his face got caught in the sausage machine.
EGM: OK, that aside, how do you like it so far?
HH: This is like that other stupid one—I’m dying all over again. How do you drive? Ah, s***, wrong side of the street! Bad enough I gotta learn this complicated apparatus—
JH: It’s a controller—
HH: It’s a torture device. Look at these f***ing buttons—where am I going? What the f***? We’re in Brooklyn!
JH: It’s London.
HH: I know. Let’s kill some guys. Can I kill a cop? The Queen, is she dead? Somebody..
JH: You have to follow the mission.
HH: There’s too much traffic. This is like the freeway—why would I wanna do that at home?
JH: Finish the mission!
HH: Julian, I can’t even get in this car. How am I gonna finish anything, here? This game sucks. I’m gonna go have a smoke break.
(Thanks to El Rey for finding this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
» see all of my photos on Flickr
ECHO
Erik Weissengruber
Vespaboy
Terri Senft
Tom Igoe
El Rey Del Art
Morgan Noel
Maura Johnston
Cori Eckert
Heather Gold
Andrew Hearst
Chris Allbritton
Bret Dawson
Michele Tepper
Sharyn November
Gail Jaitin
Barnaby Marshall
Frankly, I'd Rather Not
The Shifted Librarian
Ryan Bigge
Nick Denton
Howard Sherman's Nuggets
Serial Deviant
Ellen McDermott
Jeff Liu
Marc Kelsey
Chris Shieh
Iron Monkey
Diversions
Rob Toole
Donut Rock City
Ross Judson
Idle Words
J-Walk Blog
The Antic Muse
Tribblescape
Little Things
Jeff Heer
Abstract Dynamics
Snark Market
Plastic Bag
Sensory Impact
Incoming Signals
MemeFirst
MemoryCard
Majikthise
Ludonauts
Boing Boing
Slashdot
Atrios
Smart Mobs
Plastic
Ludology.org
The Feature
Gizmodo
game girl
Mindjack
Techdirt Wireless News
Corante Gaming blog
Corante Social Software blog
ECHO
SciTech Daily
Arts and Letters Daily
Textually.org
BlogPulse
Robots.net
Alan Reiter's Wireless Data Weblog
Brad DeLong
Viral Marketing Blog
Gameblogs
Slashdot Games