Adam Engelhart

Video-game lawyering

October 12th, 2005

While Penny Arcade isn’t really my thing (I’m not a gamer), I find it reliably funny and occasionally sidesplitting. A couple of items in today’s news post really caught my eye, though.

First, Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS. Wright is "the rookie defense lawyer new to the scene with the wildest cross-examination skills in town!", per Capcom’s web site. (He also has a bad case of Final Fantasy hair, but that’s a different issue.) Gamespot’s review seems to give a pretty complete look at what it’s like. For my part, I think I’d find the legal inaccuracies too distracting, but I can see the appeal, and would definitely rent a copy if I owned a DS.

Also in the news post, well-documented annoyance Jack Thompson has apparently offered to donate $10,000 if someone makes a video game based on his premise of a vengance-crazed rampage against the video game industry. According to Wikipedia, an extant GTA: San Andreas mod comes surprisingly close to the mark. As for Thompson, Gabe criticized him on the grounds that the Penny Arcade-affiliated charity Child’s Play has donated well over thirty times Thompson’s proposed contribution, all through the efforts of gamers. Gabe described Thompson’s response as “scream[ing],” which doesn’t do much for Thompson’s image as a voice of reason–not that that was too well-established to begin with.

Entry Filed under: Law, Reviews