10 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 13, 2000 A RTS
Mature audiences only: Nintendo grows up
,A,-
The Associated Press
Even Nintendo Corp., home to such kid-
friendly games as "Super Mario" and "Poke-
mon," says it's feeling the pressure to produce
more adult-oriented games, a company execu-
tive said Monday.
With the video game and entertainment indus-
tries under fire by the government for marketing
such games to children, Nintendo recently
released "Perfect Dark," an action thriller in the
"first-person shooter" genre -- meaning that
the player usually must shoot his or her way out
of danger in the game.
Nintendo defends "Perfect Dark" - rated
"M" for mature by the industry's own Entertain-
ment Software Ratings Board - saying that
more than half of today's video gainers are 18 or
older.
"This is the way the demographic's been going
for some time," said Perrin Kaplan, vice presi-
dent for corporate affairs at Nintendo's subur-
ban Redmond headquarters. "But we are very
careful in marketing this game to adults and
adults only."
Kaplan said Nintendo abandoned its usual
television advertising in promoting "Perfect
Dark," instead relying on well-placed ads on the
Internet and in print.
The Federal Trade Commission issued a
report Monday, claiming that the movie and
video game industries are marketing R-rated
movies and M-rated video games to children,
circumventing the independent protections that
each industry has in place.
Kaplan defended the ESRB's ratings system.
According to Nintendo, up to 85 percent of all
games are purchased by adults for children.
She said the key was to educate adults on the
ratings systems.
"We're a young industry, but I believe we can
enforce these ratings without having the govern-
ment do it for us," Kaplan said.
"Perfect Dark" is the only game produced by
Nintendo that has been rated "M," though there
are some 20 other M-rated games produced by
independent studios for Nintendo's game con-
soles.
Most of Nintendo's games are rated "E" for
everyone, while there are another 25 or so
games for the Nintendo 64 that are rated "T" for
teen-agers 13 and up.
Kaplan said the company does not have con-
tent guidelines for the studios that publish
games for the Nintendo 64, though she said
there was some "informal review" of products
as part of quality control and testing.
Most of the video game industry's most noto-
rious M-rated games, including "Resident Evil"
and "Quake," are available on the Nintendo 64.
E
Pdoto courtesy d' fNintendocorp
Joanna Dark, the digital heroine of Nintendo's "Perfect Dark," Is rated "M" for mature.
I
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'F.X.
Toole' hits
literary
paydirt
Los Angeles imes
LOS ANGELES - Up until a
few weeks ago, if you ducked into
the L.A. Boxing Club asking aftr a
certain "F.X. Toole," you migho
rebuffed with a blank stare. A lifted
eyebrow. A beat of silence.
In the warren of sky-lit rooms
overtaken by blue-canvas boxing
rings, men and women who hit the
bags and dance the canvas hre
don't know jack about an FLX.
Toole.
They've seen neither hide nor
hair of this so-called legendary,
year-old Irishman clairing kint
in "the fancy." This storied,
picaresque cut man, who with his
magic bag of tricks stops the 'flow
of a boxer's blood. This man w~o
has written a much-lauded new,-
lection of documnentary-harsh yet
poetic boxing fiction, "Rope Burns:
Stories From the Corner"
(Ecco/Harper Collins) set in a iutIr-
tet of L.A.'s spirit-proving boxin
gyms.
F.X. Toole? Doesn't ring a bbl.
But they can tell you an earful
about another Irish cut man, trainr
and gym rat, Jerry Boy d.
Everyone knows Jerry Boyd: Tall
and lean with silver hair cut brush
short and neatly trimmed whiskers
and round tortoise-shell spectacle.
Looking more professorial than
pugilistic, today he's touring 3
busy rooms in a polo shirt, khAs
and running shoes; the only clus
giving away his fighter's life are a
badly banged nose and a missing
piece of right ear.
"Hey! Jerry! I didn't know you
wrote a book!" says a boxer known
as "Samson." He ambles over with a
photocopied semi-bound manuscript
curling at the edges. "I'm working
on a book too. Trying to get these
kids offa the street. And ou f
gangs. Inta the gym."
"Good for you!" booms Boyd -
Toole - over the blare of warring
boomboxes.
The real-life cut man, born and
baptized as Geraldum Boydspeaks
of this unveiling as "opening the
curtain."
"I really wanted to keep all this
separate," says Boyd, leaning bck
in his folding chair. He looks Ira
man at home with the world _ wher-
ever it may take him. "There's zny
training partner over there. There's
Dub Huntley." He points out a trim,
muscular man studying the action.
"He's my daddy in boxing. He's iy
mnan.
Though they're all close, though
they're family, he kept all this tight-
ly under wraps. So he understands
the shock. And figures that he an
handle some of the head-scratcg
that's bound to go for a while'in
each opposing corner. This writer
who has appeared to come outo
nowhere; this expert cut man wvh is
an elegant writer.
But the truth of the matter: The
writer has been at it 30 years, and
this born fighter has been sparring
in one world or another for more
than twice as long. He's no o
much a late-starter as a ae-
bloomer.
The nom de plume, Francis
Xavier Toole, is a nod to the lth
century teacher, philosopher an
Jesuit saint, and the rapscallion
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