[UPDATED: We now have Ubisoft's official statement:"Ubisoft is a leading publisher that strives to create the best entertainment experiences possible. Ubisoft worked with the U.S. Army to create America’s Army games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 in order to deliver a compelling experience for our customers. As we discussed with the Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) organization, our games are created to meet a diverse range of interests and not to express or endorse any political view. We respect DASW's First Amendment rights, and would hope they also respect and recognize ours."]

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Ryan Lockwood, a 24-year-old ex-U.S. Army soldier and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, joined dozens of protesters outside game publisher Ubisoft’s San Francisco office today to protest the publisher’s involvement in the “America’s Army” series.

The protest would be answered by the head of Ubisoft itself who met with some protesters in the company’s offices to offer a defense of their involvement with the controversial series.

Outside, Lockwood summarized his complaints with the game:

“It’s definitely a recruitment tool and the fact that it’s put out by the federal government and being funded from our tax dollars, that sounds illegal to me,” said Lockwood. ” I’m not exactly sure what the laws are, but if it is being funded by our tax dollars, we have the right to say ‘hey, stop taking our money and using it for stupid sh**.’”

The protest is part of a long-running controversy about a popular series that the Army describes as “the most authentic military experience available, from exploring the development of Soldiers in individual and collective training to their deployment in simulated missions in the War on Terror.” Read more…

I’ve been attending E3 for more than a decade, but this year marked my first Comic-Con.

Games, like movie and TV before it, have continued to become a bigger deal at Comic-Con every year. Towards the end of the show, it struck me — this is where the old E3 should end up.

Merging with Comic-Con would allow gaming to become part of the spectacle that was so desirable at the once-mammoth E3. It would fill the growing need for a public showing, giving companies a rare chance to meet one-on-one with their hardcore fans.

It makes perfect sense!

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No one likes to move. Even though I wasn’t a fan of my first apartment in San Francisco, I considered staying because moving sound so annoying.

Thankfully, my girlfriend is a little more proactive about this stuff and found a brand-new place for us to settle into and re-establish the west coast branch of MTV Multiplayer.

My first experience at the new digs: my iPhone, which even BioWare says they’re looking at as a serious gaming platform, was stolen. Not a good start.

[Image courtesy of Wired]

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What does it take to be a rock star? Do you need to possess talent, or is hanging around people with it good enough?

I’m hoping the latter is true; next week, I’ll be stepping aside for a few days to hop on a tour bus with my brother’s band, The Audition. They’re part of Vans Warped Tour this year.

Naturally, my biggest concern so far has been what games I’ll play on the bus. But I’ve already picked out a pair of handheld adventures.

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This week, I’ve been playing through the first episode of the “Penny Arcade Adventures” on Xbox Live Arcade. But San Francisco has something even cooler: a real penny arcade.

Such places don’t exist anymore.

But hidden away in one of San Francisco’s most notorious tourist traps, Fisherman’s Wharf, is the Musee Mecanique. Described as a “mechanical museum,” the Musee Mecanique is a lovely tribute to a style of entertainment long since gone.

It’s also a little creepy. For a visual tour, keep reading.
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I thought this week would be press event free. But it wasn’t.

Last night, after work on MTV Multiplayer had wrapped, I walked over to the launch event for Codemasters‘ new racer, “GRID.”

I knew little about the game, but Codemasters promised an exciting competition between the gamers who had mastered “GRID”’s demo and a view of a San Francisco sunset. I hadn’t seen a good San Francisco sunset yet.

Codemasters delivered on that, and continued a amusing trend of press events having drinks themed around the game shown. Tonight, it was “GRID” drinks.

The full drink list is below.

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On Saturday, I spent my evening watching someone mix music by waving Wiimotes.

He calls himself DJ WiiJ, and he’s part of a larger group called — wait for it — Miyamoto. He waves around Wiimotes on stage in transition between tracks.

Miyamoto isn’t just the Wiimote waving mixer, either, but an entire stage show of Nintendo-related characters dancing to the beat. Luckily, I brought my camera along.

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Arcades have, for the most part, gone the way of the Atari Jaguar. Finding an arcade these days, let alone one that’s kept up to date, is a difficult proposition.

There weren’t any back in the Midwest. The closest thing we had to an arcade was GameWorks, a once exciting Sega/Steven Spielberg collaboration that’s fallen way off the map. It’s telling when machines that break aren’t repaired, just removed.

I’d hoped that San Francisco, which I’ve previously referred to as gaming’s Mecca, would have something to offer. That’s not really the case, unfortunately.

But there’s hope! You just have to go an hour south, to the famous Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The same one in the movie “The Lost Boys.”

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Remember April’s week of nonstop gaming events? This was another one of those, except this time around, I had Stephen Totilo along for the ride.

Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Sega, Ubisoft, Konami, Eidos Interactive and Sony — yes, all in that order — held media events this week in San Francisco. Some we’ve talked about already (more next week) and others we’ll have to stay quiet on a little while longer.

Needless to say, we’re a bit exhausted from it all. But as much as these intense weeks can wear on a person, they’re also very fun. Sometimes too much fun…

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If someone’s holding an event for a game, journalists will be there. It doesn’t matter what game; someone will show up. It’s easy to understand: open bar, free food, good people and (hopefully good) games.

Even if the event’s game doesn’t necessarily grab you, sometimes I can’t resist finding out how an event will play out. That’s why I headed out to a celebration of “Big Buck Hunter Pro” last week.

Yes, “Big Buck Hunter.” The infamous bar gun game.

The event was held at the appropriate, but undeniably creepy, Big Foot Lodge. You need not much look much farther than the décor to grasp why the Big Foot Lodge was picked.

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Here in San Francisco, there are some really nice perks to being surrounded by so many game publishers. I don’t imagine I’d get the same opportunities back in cold ol’ Illinois.

Last night, I did what Tracey John did not. I went and saw an early screening of this weekend’s “Iron Man” movie starring Robert Downey Jr.

I didn’t have to pay a dime for it. It was a promotional screening for the press, sponsored by Sega. On Tuesday, Sega released an “Iron Man” video game based on the movie. It came out on the same day as “Grand Theft Auto IV,” but it’s not really the same audience.

Last night was a busy one. Not only did I spend two hours in a theater with “Iron Man,” but Sony held an event to promote “Secret Agent Clank” on PSP, too.

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I attended a wonderfully offbeat union of two hearts this past weekend. Held at the San Francisco Zoo, this ceremony had a live acoustic cover of “Still Alive” to greet guests, a musical playlist powered by an iPod and “Rock Band” as a main attraction.

Karen Chu, artist at 1UP, and Patrick Joynt, associate console editor at GameSpy, married on a particularly windy Saturday evening in the Bay Area, and yours truly was present for the celebratory festivities.

I’ve known both Karen and Patrick for several years, and this event was a long time coming. I also knew their wedding was to be anything but ordinary.

I never expected I’d be singing The Ramones‘ “Blitzkrieg Bop” in front of a bunch of my good friends’ family members that I’d never met before. But I did it anyway.

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