The Last Word with Tim Lefebvre

We have moved!

2007-04-29T19:56:00.000-04:00

Go to http://www.timlefebvre.wordpress.com and enjoy

1 year online

2007-04-20T09:34:00.000-04:00

So a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that this blog has now been online for a full year. I believe that is an achievement. I hope to spend another year with you.

In celebration, I'm going with a new layout that I'll customize to be nicer. I hope you enjoy.

What we have here is a fake psychologist and a stupid lawyer.

2007-04-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

Let me give out my condolences first for this horrible horrible act. My prayers go out to the families of victims.

So Dr.Phil went on Larry king live last night, and stated that The Virginia Tech Massacre was caused by video games. (This was said by him before the identity of the killer was released or known.) Jack Thompson earlier in the day, stated the same thing, without knowledge of the person either.

As some of you may remember (or click here to read it) I wrote about how It's society that is screwing up these young people, and no video games, well a slight bit of rejoice was felt on my behalf when I read this press statement from Virginia Tech:

The shooter was later identified as 23-year old Cho Seung-hui. He was an undergraduate student in his senior year, majoring in English. A spokesman for Virginia Tech has described him as a loner, stating that the school is having difficulty finding information about him.

Then it was followed up by this:

Some investigators believe that he was taking medication for depression. In a note left in his dorm room he laid out a rambling list of grievances in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

So not only was this kid a loner, he was clinically depressed. He expressed his hatred towards societies partiality, and how he hates "rich kids." Now if that isn't a clear indication that society drove him to this, then I don't know what will convince you at this point.

Now lets wait to see what the fake psychologist and the stupid lawyer say to these new developements

April fools sucks!

2007-04-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

There are certain websites who think they are funny little guys, by posting fake news, getting fans hopes up. 1 site in particular is reporting that Microsoft and Nintendo are releasing a Wii60 package... Are you freaking kidding me? You'd either have to be an epileptic rat or just plain stupid to ever believe this.

Another site is reporting something about Killer Instinct Kids, where its a ds title, and you play as kid version of the characters... please take your heads, and shove them as far as possible up your nether regions, so that way we don't have to deal with your blasphemous stupidity.

The way I see it is this, if you can't be funny every other 364 days of the year, you obviously fail on april fools, so please go home, refrain from using your computer, and keep your stupidities to youself.

just a word from your friendly neighborhood spiderman.

Parents are as stupid as lets say... certain Lawyers.

2007-03-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

So after recent Lawsuits being passed around by a certain lawyer, we at thebradshaw.com feel we must stop refering to him, to possibly avoid future lawsu... who am I kidding, we don't give a damn. Screw you Jack Thompson

Alright, now onto the real post.

A woman is suing Sony, Vivendi Games and Sierra Entertainement as well as the store she rented the game from, for giving her child a seizure after playing Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly on the PS2. In the lawsuit states "negligent, careless, and reckless with regard to the design and manufacture" of the game, failing to properly warn consumers of the hazards of playing the game.

Now this is reminding me abit of that news report from Fox 9 Milwaukee, with parents stating that " Nintendo doesn't advertise anywhere or anything about Pictochat." when really, open up the manual and there is a warning about Pictochat.

Same goes for this, open the instruction booklet for this game... or any game for that matter, and health and hazard warning will be displayed on the very first page. To me it further proves parents don't take the time, or just simply don't give a damn about what their childrens play. They'll let them do whatever as long as they get a piece of mind, and it's just absolutely wrong.
Maybe the warning label should be changed to "Warning: Negligent Parents"

Right Next Door To Hell

2007-03-16T21:08:00.000-04:00

So what do I have to complain about on this fine snowy day... other then the snow? Absolutely nothing, because Jack Thompson is getting some of his own home made medication.

Take Two has filed a lawsuit against Jack Thompson, saying that they are being robbed of their first amendment rights by said asshole. All of this coming after Thompson's recent lawsuit for Manhunt 2, claiming it to be a murder simulator, especially the Wii version.

I believe Jack Thompson has to be the most hated man amongst gamers, I say the name, and I just get angry.

Video Games: an innocent scape goat

2007-02-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

May 5th, 1992: The day Wolfenstein 3d was first launched. A game that happened to be the first of its genre, and since then, many have reproduced the FPS(First Person Shooter) Genre, The Genre that has been attributed to several school shootings in the past 15 years. I will now raise the question, can these violent video games be attributed into training, and even possibly pushing these people over the edge.

So if we may, I will be detailing certain aspects of the characters of these shooters. Eric Harris along with Dylan Klebold were seen as outsiders, and had a tendancy to be bullied on a frequent basis, a fact that large media conglomerates tended to cover up and instead brought up that they were avid Doom fans. Not only this, but they also tend to exagerate that point, by proclaiming that they would design levels in said game to look like the halls of columbine. I also want to move onto Kimveer Gill, who was the shooter at Dawson last September. He as well felt rejected by society, and made several references to it on his Vampirefreaks.com profile, I will not go into that, because we've obviously heard about it 100 times by now. Gill also enjoyed playing violent video games, and was obviously inspired by the acts at columbine, however I think his status in society is what drove him over the edge.

Montreal seems to have a bad history with school shootings. On December 6th 1989, Marc Lapine walked into L'ecole Polytechnique, and targeted and killed 14 women, and injured another 14. He targeted only women, and told the men to get out of the way. In a written letter that was found in his coat pocket, Lapine said his reasons for the attack and of his anger is because society was accepting women, and giving them the same advantages as men.

Let's go back, and view the date that the first FPS was released: 1992. Now I'm starting to see a pattern in these shootings, and it all seems to have a link with society in a certain shape or form. Still not convinced?

14 year old Michael Carneal walked into his school, and opened fire on a group of praying students, killing 3, and wounding another 5 on December 1st 1997. Carneal was bullied daily, and would try to sell things to people to try and make friends, he was a major outcast in his school. The bullying, and name calling got worst, when publically in the schools newspaper it was proclaimed that Carneal had a crush on another boy. Carneal had very few friends, and the shooting quickly stopped, because he realized he shot and killed one of his friends, Nicole Hadley. In 1999, several parents of the victims of this boy went in with a 130 million $ lawsuit, against several gaming companies and pornography sites, their claim was that the media corrupted this boy into doing the shooting. The case was dismissed in 2002, the ruling was that it was "simply too far a leap from shooting characters on a video screen to shooting people in a classroom."

Several highschool teenage shows have tried to address this situation, more recently Degrassi Junior High and One Tree Hill. The case they presented in the mentioned shows supports my argument of feeling alienated, and bullied, and that videogames aren't the psychological cause of these horrible events.

With all of this said, I condemn the acts that these people have done, and that I feel for the victims, who were robbed of their lives, and also to their families.

an open letter to jack thompson

2006-09-15T13:41:00.000-04:00

Everyone here knows and has heard about Mr. Jack Thompson, and his campaigns against some of our beloved video game titles. I used to just turn my head the other way whenever I heard his name, because anything he says has absolutly no credit. Until yesterday, Taking the Dawson College tragedy and turning it into something to try and further his useless case against GTA and other violent games. Maybe Kimveer Gill loved the game Super Columbine Massacre RPG, and maybe on his Vampirefreaks.com profile it said '' life is like videogames, you have to die sometime'' but in no means, does it mean that him playing video games drove him to go and shoot people in a school. Even so, Kimveer Gill was 25 years old, a fully developped man, and it goes against every single Jack Thompson case so far. Jack Thompson believe's that a child playing a violent video game will make that child violent, the fact in this case is this man was not a child.

Kimveer Gill was a self proclaimed loner, who found ''a few decent people, but hates the rest.'' He was an extremly depressed individual, and obviously by everything he wrote, and people who knew him should of seen a cry out for help in everything he did. He was rejected by society, a society of which Jack Thompson is trying to protect and keep the same, so it can create more rejects who will then feel so lonely and depressed and want to pick up a gun and shoot up a school. Fact is, in most of these cases, these people were mentally un-attached from everything, claims to have no real emotions, but deep down are hurting a great deal. You could probably see in there characters the darkness, and possibly even a perverse obsession with pain, or an obsession with self mutilation, these are all symptoms of depression, something that is clinically considered as a mental illness. Video games aren't the things that pushed him to this depression, it was the society Jack Thompson is trying to protect, if anything, Video Games kept this man sane longer then it should of. I would invite Jack Thompson to come to Montreal any day, to debate against myself so I can show The world that he is being upstanded by an 18 year old who hasn't graduated high school yet. I want to be able to shut Jack Thompson up permanantly, Adam Sessler destroyed him in a debate, and yet Thompson is still flapping his mouth.

your truely,
Tim Lefebvre

a clarification

2006-08-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

So it has been brought to my attention that my most recent post about Twilight Princess may reflect as if the whole staff at thebradshaw.com thinks the same as me. The fact is, That this is mine, and mine alones opinion. My opinion does not reflect the opinion of Thebradshaw.com staff, infact, Thebradshaw himself greatly disagrees with my post.

So if any resentement is felt towards anyone for my post, take it out on me, and me alone.

In Celebration

2006-07-09T15:14:00.000-04:00

So in celebration of the new launch of the site, I decided to make a new post.

Has anyone here ever looked forward to a game? I'm pretty sure everyone has. But Let's say you hear so much about this game, and look forward to this game so much you start feeling that you could care less about this game... Well I have reached that point with non-other then:

Sure this game looks beautiful, and it's been long awaited, but at this point, the game has been fully tarnished for me. I'm actually considering not to get it, because I am truthfully sick of hearing about it.

Some may also say that Miyamoto said that this game was perfect... So What? Obviously someone who has some implication in something they make will make this statement... wasn't the same said about Superman Returns?

I will have to skip this game all together.

Any Questions, comments, or ideas? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

A post about different things.

2006-04-28T10:41:00.000-04:00

so first and foremost I'd like to welcome our newest affiliates, Nintendo Centrum, a link to them can be seen on the side bar.

also, as most of you now know, the Nintendo Revolution has lost it's code-name, and has now an official name which is Nintendo Wii, which seemingly there is a strong gathering of people against the name. I personally don't mind the name whatso-ever it's just a name to me, but hearing so many people complain about that name has become nauseating to me. But, is there ever anyway to satisfy most people? No.

Also, new screens of Tales Of The Tempest have surfaced, and from what I have seen of these screens it seems to be an over head adventure game, in the same style as final fantasy crystal chronicles. Now I'm not saying that's what it's going to be, but that's what it looks like to me. Here take a look for yourself:

So that's pretty much all I have to say for now, I'm getting Lost Magic this weekend, so I'll be posting a review next week.

Any Questions, comments, or ideas? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

A Dead Trend Already?

2006-04-26T10:56:00.000-04:00

So as alot of you may or may not know, The Bradshaw and I are very good friends, and when we discuss Video Games the subject of the "Epic." music comes up. So a few minutes ago I was sitting infront of this screen, Listening to Hurt by Johnny Cash, and I figure this could be an amazing song to put in a video game.

So that lead my to the question, why don't games put music with lyrics in it that much, and I immediatly thought of Battlefield: Vietnam, and how the songs were somewhat out of place when battling, Who wants to listen to Karma-chameleon while driving a scooter into battle?

I then thought of Prince Of Persia, I remember how the first one, the music gave the game such a wonderful atmosphere, but in Warrior Within,
having that Godsmack song playing in the back ground ruined the game to a certain extent, also they looped the same part of the song over and over, so it got annoying. Now I liked Warrior Within, but I loved Sands of Time, and I think the Music is a part of it.

Then I thought of the worst video game franchise ever invented, yes Grand Theft Auto, and how on the Xbox version, no one listens to the music they have in the game, instead use their own music. Does that mean this trend is due to die?

I personally would like to see games with more real music in it, more then just instrumentals ( Although Let's not go put some Beatles in The Legend Of Zelda series.) but it wouldn't work with every single type of game, unless we found enough dramatic music such as Hurt By Johnny Cash to put in the game, because this song, Is Epic on it's own.... Oh and please no more In The End Montages of anime's.

Any Questions? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

A game I'm looking forward to with impatience

2006-04-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

Now there has been this game I've been wanting for a while, and twice so far we've gotten near the release date but they push it back, No I'm not talking about Twilight Princess, I'm talking about this beautiful RPG for the Nintendo DS.

Enter stage left Tales Of Tempest

This looks like a beautiful looking game, it's the newest installement in the Tales Saga, a very under-rated and over-looked series of games, except for it's installement on the SNES Tales Of Phantasia. If you ever have the chance, try Tales Of Phantasia or any orther game, Tales Of Phantasia was just recently released on GBA as well. There is also an installement of the game on the GC called Tales Of Symphonia, another truely great game. Who knows maybe this will catch on as it has in japan, only 5 of the original japanese games ever came to North America (except for Tales of Phantasi on the nes, that was Fan-Translated Into English.) So Until Tales Of The Tempest is released on the DS I'll be stuck playing Tales of Legendia on the PS2, I'm hoping this game will catch on and be popular on the DS, so more of the tales titles will show up on Nintendo systems.

Any Questions? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

The Games that almost Destroyed the Legend of Zelda

2006-04-14T19:53:00.000-04:00

I'm a huge Legend of zelda fan and so, I had been asking The Bradshaw about these Zelda CD-I Games by Philips I had heard about, and his response was "It's garbage." So, being the person I am I decided I'd test it out myself to see if they really are "garbage". Let me tell you, They Are Garbage.

First off, Let's take a look at the animation:

Now Let's take a look at the newest installement in the series that will be coming out in the 4th quarter of 2006 Zelda: Twilight Princess

Now I'm not talking about the graphics, I'm just saying Link now looks like more of a badass then he did in the CD-I version... In the CD-I version he almost looks like a freaking pig... but that's Ganon's job.

The story makes no sense.... in one of them link randomly goes missing in the middle of the game, the other one zelda has to save Link, and the other one Link has to stop the faces of evil, each uglier then the other ( sound like majora's mask at all?)

Also, what kills it is the fact that it is a side scroller, I guess they didn't learn their lesson from the NES Zelda side scroller that NO ONE LIKES!!!
Now I've actually attempted to play all three of them and they are garbage, although, Even though they are garbage, there wasn't very many produced, so it is very rare to own these games, and if you are a true Zelda collector, you need them in your collection, more for satisfaction of having the whole series, other then for the zelda collectors, everyone else skip it.

Any Questions? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

New Ubisoft montreal General Director announced

2006-04-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

Yes, they have finally announced who will be taking over Martin Tremblay's job at ubisoft montreal, his name is Yannis Mallat, I am interested to see what he will do with Ubisoft Montreal in the next few months. I guess we will have to wait and see

Any Questions? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

Odama: A Review

2006-04-13T13:26:00.000-04:00

So Last night I was able to pick up a copy of Odama, and I played it until the wii-hours of the morning.

Pros:
Insanely original

Cons:
soldiers don't always respond right to what you say
not the greatest graphics
Extremly frustrating at times

So I went into this game wondering what really to expect, because lets face it, this is a one of a kind game. When you first start the game, they give you a tutorial on how to say commands and such, which is useless for a while because in the heat of the battle you will completly forget the orders. Eventually, you will get a hang of the orders, but on your screen, most of the time you are looking at the ball going up and down the screen and not really paying attention to the rest of the game, this is very dangerous because they are always throwing new things out at you, such as strapping down your flippers so you can't hit the ball( Yes I realise I'm not calling it right. but oh well.) back out. Also, in certain levels where there are rivers you have to block them, so your troops can go through the battlefield, the problem is sometimes the ball hits the lever that unblocks the river and all your troops get taken away. I find it a very exciting game, that takes alot of thinking, and I would recommend for people to rent this title before buying it, this isn't a game that will appeal to everyone because of the frustration it brings. I also reccomend to play with a normal controller and not a wireless controller simply for the fact that the one with the wire is easier to find once you throw the controller. The graphics may be bad, but in this game you don't have time to concentrate on the graphics, the game is very very fast.

I will have to give 8/10 for this game simply because of a well made original concept.

Any Questions? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com

First post, many more to come.

2006-04-13T13:04:00.000-04:00

So, welcome to a new section of www.thebradshaw.com

I will be posting news stories on Nintendo, my take on those stories. That's basicly going to be my job on here.

So let me kick things off right here.

As many of you know about the revmote (or the wand) is controller that will be able to tell your current placement, and the movement you will be doing is going to directly affect whats happening on your television. It's one of the many "Revolutionary" aspects of Nintendo's next-gen console. Well as you may know, Sony has copied Nintendo on many aspects, and as usual, Sony wants to find a way to beat Nintendo.

Enter Real World Golf, A game in which you will be using a golf club type object to swing and hit a ball, it claims to be "The First and Only game" to do this, and It will be for PS2 and XBOX. Now Nintendo has had the concept of the Revolution for years, and once again, I feel Nintendo has been robbed. But, what's even worst then that, is the controller splitfish has put out for ps2, and will be put out for ps3, a motion sensitive controller, which In my opinion looks alot like the revmote with the nunchucku attachement. If only Sony could be stopped.... maybe it will sooner then we think.

Any Questions? email me timlefebvre@thebradshaw.com