Nine-year-old Murdered over Tony Hawk: Ride Video Game

Written on January 4, 2010 at 3:57 pm, by Richard Rodriguez

9-year old boy murdered during late-night video game session.

The New York Daily News reports that 9-year-old Anthony Maldonado was stabbed in Harlem early Saturday morning during a late night video gaming session in his uncle’s home. The boy was playing Tony Hawk: Ride when Alejandro Morales, 25, stabbed the boy to death at approximately 3:30 a.m.

While the motivation of the killing is unclear, the boy’s grandfather, Antonio Juela, 59, said that “My grandson died over a video game.” The Daily News story suggests that there was some sort of dispute over the game, which ultimately led to the stabbing. Police say there were multiple stab wounds, that the boys face was slashed and that there was bruising present on the boy’s arms, possibly hinting at a struggle prior to the stabbing.

Maldonado was staying at his Uncle’s house over the holidays, enjoying his new Playstation 3. The uncle, Carlos Juela, 31, went to sleep and Maldonado played the game with three other brothers–one of whom was Morales–that are not related to the family. At approximately 3 a.m. the other two brothers went to get food and while they were out, the killing occurred. The uncle did confirm that Morales was living at the house and was a family friend.

Morales’ mother told Maldonado’s mother, Dolores Juela, 35, that her son did commit the crime and she said that her son “was sick.” Carlos Juela also commented that “he doesn’t act right on the street but he always minded his manners in the house.” Morales has been charged with murder and possession of a weapon.

For more on this story, you can read the New York Daily News article here.

Popular Mechanics grills Miyamoto

Written on October 20, 2009 at 1:28 pm, by James Fudge

As you probably know from countless news stories and interviews this week (and last week) Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto was recently in New York doing a press tour and answering questions about his newest game – New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii. It seems like every Tom, Dick and Seth is hanging out with the man behind such hit franchises as Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong, playing games, asking questions and getting Miyamoto’s odd little autograph.

In this latest interview Popular Mechanics talks to Miyamoto the origins of Mario, the mythological nature of Zelda and why blowing into your NES cartridges actually works. Thank god we don’t have to do that anymore. Here’s an interesting exchange about:

PM: A lot of your characters started out as villainous in earlier games, such as Bowser and Donkey Kong and Wario, and in later games they became more sympathetic and almost goofy. Is there a conscience effort to “de-villainize” evil characters in later games?

SM: One thing I’m not really good at is creating truly heroic characters or truly villainous characters, with the one exception being maybe the Zelda series, where I think we did a pretty good job of defining the roles in that series. I think we never really see anything all that serious come about in the Mario series, and then we have games that fall somewhere in between the two.

Yup, next thing you know Ganon will have his own racing game on the Wii. Be that as it may, you can check out the entire interview by visiting Popular Mechanics now:

Exclusive Interview With Nintendo Gaming Mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto

Two upstate NY GameCrazy stores closing

Written on October 1, 2009 at 7:30 pm, by James Fudge

According to a blog post on the online site of Albany New York’s top newspaper, The Times Union, GameCrazy plans to close two of its three area stores including stores at 818 Central Ave. in Albany and on Route 9 in Latham, NY. A store spokesperson confirmed that the Albany store will close after a liquidation sale that will begin on Saturday. This will leave only one GameCrazy store left in the area – in the 20 Mall in Guilderland, NY. The Latham store is slated to close Oct. 24, according to an unnamed employee at that location.

Earlier this week Movie Gallery announced that it would close nearly 200 of its stores. Thanks to our own Matt Nolin for the tip.

The Rundown: Jan. 28, 2009

Written on January 28, 2009 at 11:24 pm, by James Fudge

Today on The Rundown a brand new Boom Blox game is revealed, Ubisoft reveals new Prince or Persia DLC, YS: Book I & II is delayed and a NY politician introduces a bill that hopes will put video games in a lock box – much like Al Gore promised to do with Social Security. Read it all after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

NY Budget Woes May Bring iPod Tax

Written on December 17, 2008 at 7:51 pm, by James Fudge

New York State is facing the worst budget shortfall in history, like many other states in our country, and Governor Paterson is making some hard decisions that both politicians and taxpayers are not too happy about. Being from Massachusetts, I am hearing a lot of cross-border chatter about this on the local news, and considering our own state’s financial troubles, we could soon face similar taxes and cuts.

Some of Governor Paterson’s ideas include cutting the state’s school budget by $700 million and lots and lots of new taxes on so many different things that it almost seems unbearable. Some of the things being considered are taxes of on non-diet soft drinks, taxes on luxury services like spas, clothing tax increases, a rise in taxi taxes, and a tax proposal that should concern anyone that buys content from the iTunes store. Paterson is trying to find ways to pay for a $15.4 billion budget gap with 88 new fees and a number of cuts for state run organizations and services.

While all these taxes (and more we have not listed here) and cuts are overwhelming, New York taxpayers will also face taxes on iPod downloads including music and other digital content. That digital content will include movies and television shows.. and video games. If you have read The Rundown today there are lots of nifty new iPhone games being released and on the way – but if you live in NY you may have to pay a bit extra to get them.

Source: Game Politics