The 25 to Life bad publicity juggernaut keeps pissing off people right and left. The latest to get their panties in a bunch are Delaware County law enforcement officials, who are citing the game as an example of a video game that glorifies violence. The sensationalistic shooter was released way back in January and still works the public into a tizzy. The game's PR team isn't all that impressed either.

"Frankly, it is not a good title and under normal circumstances it would not be selling as well," said Michelle Curran, a public relations director for Eidos, the British producer of the game.

She also told The Philadelphia Inquirer the company did nothing to promote the 17 and up title. There were no TV ads, magazine campaigns or other promotions. The rational? The game did not have potential, the company thought. Good thing they released it though, because look at all the money they saved on advertising.

Full Article [Macon. com] Thanks, Alan!

The author of the script for 25 to Life, the poorly reviewed and controversially violent shooter, claims that he experienced a moral dilemma after writing the game. P. Frank Williams talked to the London Free Press about it, but the article doesn't really go into any details about what moral dilemma, exactly, he experienced.

Setting aside whether the game is any good or not and that the story takes place in a video game, why should an author experience a moral dilemma for writing a story? I don't get it. He says the story was meant to be a reflection of the world as he sees it. I can't imagine that's really the case, but does he need an excuse to write a violent story.

Violent movies come out weekly and you don't see the writers defending them.

Violent game's creator admits to 'moral dilemma' [LFP, via Cathode Tan]

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is calling for a boycott of 25 to Life.

While I respect the work this group does—the nonprofit represents the country's fifteen largest law enforcement organizations and works to promote officer safety—I think their energies are misdirected.

"It is absolutely unconscionable that game makers are enabling young people—or anyone—to dramatize shooting and killing as a form of entertainment while officers and innocent people are dying in real-life on our streets every day. We're encouraging parents, caregivers and everyone who is concerned about both law enforcement officers and children to ensure this game never makes it into the homes or hands of impressionable young people."

The groups chairman Craig Floyd goes on:

While it s true that players are given a choice between wearing a badge or colors of a gang, the ultimate message carried by the game is that some players are justified in endangering the lives of police officers. That s a terrible message for anyone, but particularly so for young people who are already confronted with numerous choices that can lead to dangerous consequences. Regardless of your views on free speech or marketplace dynamics, there is really nothing good that can be said about this game. The images are wrong. The messages are wrong. And stocking it in U.S. stores is wrong.

We ve focused on this game right now because children and communities are facing the greatest threat from it right now, but our broader goal is to encourage all parents and caregivers to be more aware of what their children are exposed to or encouraged to emulate. Any type of media that glorifies violence against law enforcement or civilians should be scrutinized very carefully.

The organization has started a petition on their site asking for the boycott of the game.

As I said before, I have the utmost respect for this organization, but they shouldn t be able to dictate what I play. What s next, a ban on all movies depicting violence against police?

National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Protests 25 to Life Video Game [NLEOMF]

While I think IGN and 1Up were overly harsh in their reviews, giving the game scores around 3, Gamespot seems to match my opinion, giving the game a 5.7 mediocre score.

I only played through the single player portion, which I said was like SOCOM Light (something the GS writer seems to agree with.) I was hoping the multiplayer part of the game would bolster the title, because it seems like the short single player portion was just thrown on at the last minute, but it sounds like that didn't happen.

I'm still awaiting my retail build to play the multiplayer myself and form my own opinion of the game. But it's sounding like it's going to be getting mediocre from me as well.

I was all set to write up a review of 25 to Life for the Rocky this week, but decided to hold off for the retail build to do the review. The debug copy I received had some graphic glitches, which I'm told are fixed in the final, and didn't let me test out online play. What it did let me do was play through the single player part of the game.

I ended up beating the single-player mode in about four hours spread out over a couple of days. While I think the plot was a little thrown together and the cutscenes are very spotty, the actual gameplay was tons of fun.

25 to Life plays a lot like Socom light. It's a third-person shooter with a lot of the same features, but not quite the same graphics wallop of Sony's famously popular military shooter. The control set up lets you duck, lean, jump, interact with objects, zoom in, switch weapons on the fly and go into a melee mode.

As a shooter, the game succeeds on most levels. Sure, it doesn't reinvent the genre, but it does serve up a quality shooter set in a unique backdrop with a fun set of characters and rules to play with.

In essence, this game is a cops and robbers shooter. You play through the single player mode as three characters: a cop and two gang bangers. The storyline is mostly a vehicle to place you in a relatively eclectic mix of different levels. I loved most of the level design. From running through prisons and malls to shooting it out with federales in a Mexican barrio, you can tell that a lot of thought went into designing the maps. It's nice to play a shooter that serves up settings other than your typical military set.

As I mentioned earlier, 25 to Life doesn't really reinvent the wheel, but it does offer up a couple of relatively new concepts. The two most interesting are your ability to tase and arrest thugs when you play a cop or take hostages and use them as human shields as a thug. Sure this has been done before, but the cops and robbers storyline makes it particularly fitting in this game.

25 to Life got a lot of attention last year when Jackie boy decided to take a stance against the game because you can kill cops in it. While this is a ridiculous line to draw in the sand (So is Jack saying it's OK to kill Marines or pilots or aliens ? OK, maybe aliens are OK.)

While I enjoyed the gameplay, I was at times taken aback by the visceral nature of the killings. The graphics are some of the goriest I've seen. In particular, head shots are quite atrocious, leaving you with a headless corpse spewing gouts of blood out of a ragged neck.

But what really helps this game deliver a gut punch are the sound effects, specifically the things people say as they die. The library of taunts, pleas, cries for help and shouts is quite extensive. I found one, in particular, very disturbing. Late in the game, as I was gunning down cops in a mall they started saying things like: "Oh god, forgive me of my sins. Have mercy on me." Or "Oh Jesus, I don't want to die this way."

I know this is immensely hypocritical of me, but it's one thing to blow ragged holes in 50 to 60 cops in a single level, but quite another to hear them sobbing out their last few seconds in prayer. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't offended, just a little disturbed. And maybe that was the idea. Maybe shooting someone to death shouldn't always be a clean experience.

Overall, I'd say the single-player mode of the game was well worth the time I invested in beating it. But it was the gameplay and sometimes viciously hard levels that kept me plugging away, not the plot. And beating the game, which is always a reward unto itself, resulted in a trite ending to the already-weak plot.

In the end, I decided to hold off on doing my full review of the game until I take a look at the multiplayer aspects, because this looks like a title that was really meant to be enjoyed online. The single player mode, while quite enjoyable, offered just a taste of what I hope is an equally robust online experience. I'm told that you can still arrest people in the multiplayer game, something that I'm really looking forward to. I'm also interested to see how customizable the characters are in the multiplayer game.

I played online in the beta test months ago, and that was the one aspect they were still working to develop.

I'll make sure to write a review of the online bits of the game in the next day or two, or once I get a copy.

For now, though, I'd say this game looks like it's worth buying if you're a fan of shooters.

Not only is 25 to Life hitting stores in January, but now the game is trying to hook you up. To enter the 25 to Live sweepstakes, hop on over to the site anytime between now and Dec. 15.

The link and full list o prizes is after the jump:

First Prize
The first prize winner will receive a three-in-one mahogany table that converts instantly from a dining table to an eight-position poker table with the flip of the top. Genuine leather poker play surface with flip over chess, backgammon inlaid board. Poker chips, chess, backgammon and checker pieces included. This is the real deal!

Second Prize
Win a $200 shopping spree! The second prize winner will get to shop on www.DrJays.com, the pioneer of urban fashions, providing the latest urban brands since 1975 ... check it out now!

Third Prize
There is more, the third prize winner will receive a 25 To Life trucker hat and basketball jersey AND a $100 shopping spree for more urban clothing provided by Pitchfork NY Hardwear (www.pitchforkny.com).

25 To Live [Contest]

As 25 to Life prepares to show up in stores across America I received an interesting set of numbers in my mole bag: 600 and 20,000.

The second represents the number of pre-orders for the cops versus robbers shooter. The first? Let s just say that as of October the number of people interested in pre-ordering a game that features a once-busty gun-toting archeologist remained in the hundreds.

25 to Life [Official Site]

My sources tell me that Eidos is preparing to announce a ship date for 25 to Life, the game They don't want you to play. Contrary to rumor that the cops and robbers first-person shooter is being canned, Eidos should be sending word of their release date shortly. My gut feeling is that the game will be hitting early next year, but definitely not in time for the holidays.

25 to Life Canned? I think not [Kotaku]

In what can only be called a sad and desperate attempt to stay on the controversy radar, universal twit and gaming/free speech naysayer Jack Thompson is blanketing the Internet with ludicrous claims against his latest target: 25 to Life.

Thompson is claiming that Eidos, apparently shaking in their tiny publisher boots over the possibility of a big, bad JT lawsuit, have decided to shitcan the third-person cops versus robber shooter.

After failing to get numerous gaming sites to bite at this tale, he finally found a taker with The Inquirer. Surprise, surprise.

The site is reporting that Thompson claims that he received word in the past few days that Eidos has decided never to release the game.

Sure, why not? Why would you want to launch a controversial game, just because the huge investment in time and money is completely finished and sitting around waiting to earn cash. I mean, look at what happened to Rockstar when they had a controversial game, you don t want to go through all that hassle.

What I love most about The Inquirer article is that this beauty of a paragraph:

This decision, if true, by Eidos is understandable considering the current political atmosphere surrounding video games. Though it is also a sign that the games industry itself may be lacking the backbone necessary to stand up and debate issues with people like Jack Thompson in a constructive manner.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Do I have to point you to my attempts at talking to this raving asshole? Or maybe point The Inq to all of the other obnoxious replies JT has sent out to game sites and reporters seeking comments.

The only reason JT is sucking up to sites now is because he s suddenly realized that his 15 minutes of fame has gone up in flames and people are sick of listening to his stupidity.

Here s what I think happened to 25 to Life. Eidos got bought out and the new owner is trying to assess things. More importantly, the company decided they wanted to devote more of their marketing energy on Total Overdose and Tomb Raider.

What I hear from insiders is that it's not likely that Eidos is going to dump a completed game after investing as much money as they did in it. And if, for some insane reason, Eidos suddenly decided they didn't like money, I'm sure another publisher would step to the plate.

For what it s worth.

Eidos 25 to Life Pulled [The Inquirer]

Slated for release next month, 25 to Life is staying under wraps until after the new year, according to publisher Eidos. According to Next Generation, the game pushed back to "make changes in the best interest of the business [the release calendar]."

Vague enough? It could be that the game simply wasn't going to meet its ship date, but over at Game Politics it seems legal eagle Jack Thompson had something up his sleeve for the cops versus gangstas game. I'd bet on the title's development lagging before I'd assume an anti-games, soulless crusader like Jack Thompson has any influence in the industry.

I forgot to mention yesterday when I talked about the story on Hot Coffee I wrote for the Rocky Mountain News, that I also did a sidebar about 25 to Life and its mini-controversy.

Both Eidos and Highway 1 were very upfront about the whole issue.

Cop-Killer Game Raises Senator s Ire [Rocky Mountain News]

Sure GTA s Hot Coffee has been hogging all of the negative press lately, but we can t forget about 25 to Life, lambasted a few weeks back by Sen. Chuck Schumer for teaching little Johnny how to kill cops.

Never mind that the game hasn t even come out yet and will likely be rated a very un-Little Johnny friendly Mature.

Despite any current direct attacks on the game, it already has a fan-base and its very own petition.

We the people are tired of the government's ignorance. We the people are tired of the government blaming video games for the actions of sick people. We the people want politicans (and everybody else) to remember we live in America, the home of free speech and free enterprise.

I think I m going to start my own petition:

We the editors of various video game publications are tired of covering controversy. We the editors would much rather write first person accounts of finding Katamari Damacy knitted caps or cakes in the shape of assorted consoles. We the editors are very tired and have a headache that won t go away. We the editors want a nice backrub and perhaps a cold beer.

Wanna sign up?

Petition Supports 25 to Life [1 Up]

I happened to be on the phone with Highway 1 when word of the 25 to Life delay filtered out on the net.

The Highway 1 guy I was chatting with confirmed that the cross-platform game is now indeed set for an October release. Back during E3, Eidos was calling for a Summer release, but that may have been a bit optimistic.

It sounds like game development is chugging along nicely and that the delay will let Avalanche Software and Eidos put the final bit of polish on the game before shipping.

Personally, I'd rather a game be a few months late than incomplete, so it's all good to me.

If you missed it, check out my brief write-up of the game's online beta. It looks like this could be shaping up to be the next major shooter.

I managed to finagle my way into the 25 to Life beta about two weeks ago. The beta only let you mess around with the multiplayer element of the game, so I can't really speak to the controversy surrounding the single player game. You know, the whole being able to use people as hostages and kill cops.

Actually, that's not exactly true. The muliplayer game lets you kill tons of cops, or gang bangers, depending on what side you are on. The online element of the game, which I played on the Playstation 2, is basically a bloody version of cops and robbers. You choose to be either a cop or a banger and then shoot it out with each other in third or first-person view.

I thought the game was a lot of fun. The graphics and gameplay are still being tweaked (I heard the beta version was months old) but what I saw was still worth owning.

The game allows you to customize your characters, both gang and cop versions of them. After choosing the look of your character you get to pick out weapons.

The weapon selection is amazing. If you're a cop you can choose batons, Tasers, tear gas and a rather large assortment of appropriate guns. Gang members get to arm with things like baseball bats, malatov cocktails and an assortment of street guns.

I noticed that some of the gameplay and balancing elements mentioned at E3 weren't in the beta. There were no people in the game that you could grab as human shields. And while you can arrest bad guys by stunning and then walking over them, I couldn't tell if it then penalized them anymore than would killing a bad guy.

The game also uses an action button that opens door and lets you interact with the enviroment, like vaulting railings or climbing things.

The game's modes in the beta included a straight-up death match, raid and tag.

In raid mode the law enforcement side has to raid a criminal hangout, snatch the stash and then get it back to a SWAT van. It's pretty straight forward and can be quite a bit of fun.

Tag, was my favorite mode in the game. In this mode you play on different gangs and have to try to tag up a neighborhood with your graffiti. If you manage to hit all of the pre-set tag spots and hold them, you win the game. If you can't manage this, the winner is the one with the most points. Points are awarded for kills and tags.

Although this sounds an awful lot like any other shooter, the unique weapon load-outs, action button and urban setting separate the game enough to make it fun. I found myself playing this a lot more than I had time for.

Granted I ran into some major glitches, like falling through walls and a first-person mode that didn't show my own weapons, but I've been told the game has been much improved since the beta code was released.