Despite Jack Thompson's fervent allegations that mass-murderer Cho Seung Hui had "trained to kill" using videogames, reports are now coming in that Thompson's allegations, as most of us gamers thought, are false. We've previously reported on MSNBC's doubts regarding Thompson's campaign. Now, here's a bit more from Bloomberg.com.

Bloomberg's Demian McLean reports that evidence gathered in the past week shows Cho had practiced at local shooting ranges. Gameworld Network notes that this, combined with the revelation that not a single video game was to be had at Cho's dorm room, even after a detailed police search, should be enough to vindicate video games as being involved in the tragedy.

The police findings that he trained in a shooting range before the tragedy, instead of an FPS map, only weakens Thompsons accusations. Following the logic of the overtly concerned, is a new campaign against shooting ranges perhaps needed? Well?

Now that evidence shows that Cho Seung Hui didn't own a single video game at the time of the Tragic shooting, a new article over at MSNBC questions Thompson's fervent accusations. This is in light of his recent interview wherein he responded to IGDA criticism.

The MSNBC article notes that contrary to Thompson's claims of counterstrike being a "killing simulator" for youths, Cho didn't need much skill to shoot as many people as he did. Eye witness accounts indicate that many of the victims were shot at point blank range.

Moreover the article notes that Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California and author of the book "Kids These Days: Facts and Fictions About Today's Youth" points out that before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin way back in 1966, before the days of pong.

The article says that nobody realises that since the advent of videogames, violence rates in the US have declined "precipitously." Sternheimer even notes that it is likely that any 23-year-old man living in America has already played a videogame. How many 23-year-old men go out on a killing spree?

The MSNBC article goes on to note this nice gem:

For those who didn't grow up playing video games, the appeal of a game like "Counter-Strike" can be hard to comprehend. It can be difficult to understand that the game promotes communication and team work. It can be hard fathom how players who love to run around gunning down their virtual enemies do not have even the slightest desire to shoot a person in real life.

As a commenter on Digg noted, the truth is that massive multiplayer killing fests are really just slightly more complex and themed versions of cops-and-robbers. An online and engaging visual form of "tag" wherein players "tag" one another in the form of virtual kills, in a world where there are no real consequences. A game of tag in a world where death isn't really malicious or evil, or "desensitising" - death only means waiting for the next play round or respawn.

It is a competitive environment where sportsmanship is still the norm; where it is expected that after all the boasting and chest-thumping is done, the winning party will get up and shake the losing party's hand and say "good game."

It seems that Jack Thompson has said another mouthful about the Virginia Tech Massacre in a recent interview on MSNBC. He has singled out Counterstrike in this specific interview and went on about how it should not have been released to the public. Yup, it's more of the same.

What should interest most people is the fact that Jack Thompson actually called Jason Della Rocca, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), an "idiot" and a "jackass". This was because of a statement Della Rocca gave: "It’s so sad. These massacre chasers — they're worse than ambulance chasers — they're waiting for these things to happen so they can jump on their soapbox."

Those are pretty strong words coming from Mr. Thompson who has recently settled with Take-Two Interactive. Check out the full interview and listen in on what Thompson had to say.

Here we go again with videogame movie adaptations. MSNBC has a poll about the top five videogames that should be ported to the silver screen.

Metroid and Prince of Persia took top spots. Various reactions could be gotten from those titles alone. Prince of Persia has been announced to be set for a Summer 2008 release via Jerry Bruckheimer. But Metroid? First questions that come to mind would be: Is it going to be a live action movie or would it be better off as CGI? If it's a live action movie, who'd play Samus Aran?

We've seen countless movie adaptations that simply fell flat both on the box office and in the eyes of the videogame fans. And we're sure that fellow gamers haven't forgotten BloodRayne, Doom, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and the list just go on and on. There are a number of promising upcoming movie adaptations like Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid, and even a World of Warcraft movie. Let's hope they don't disappoint.

What games do you think deserve a movie adaptation?

In the past few years, the mass media has been ignoring Nintendo completely. Now, they seem to be focusing on them almost exclusively. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what Nintendo has been setting out to do. Today, we bring you the report that MSNBC (Microsoft Network...) has on the Wii and its chances.

They are clearly interested in what the system has to offer. They make many connections between the DS and the Wii while including quotes from industry insiders including developers, publishers, and analysts. The entire thing looks very good for Nintendo except for an error near the beginning where they mistakenly call the Gamecube the console with the least horsepower (it's the PS2, not the Gamecube).

They have a very interesting quote from Shigeru Miyamoto himself, "Two years from now, we'll have a strong lineup that can only be played using this interface." Maybe I played too much Phoenix Wright today, but I can just picture myself pointing with the WiiMote to make objections in a console version of the game...

For the full report, click "Read."