Thailand's Ministry of Culture, fully swept up in the hysteria that has followed an allegedly Grand Theft Auto-inspired murder, has officially banned five "dangerous" games, according to a report from CNET. The Technology Thailand blog writes that the following titles are no longer to be sold or distributed under the threat of legal action: Hitman, 300: The Video Game, Killer 7, Hitman: Blood Money and 50 Cent: Bulletproof.

Curiously, Grand Theft Auto titles don't appear to be on the "banned" list. It cannot, however, be imported or distributed due to its dangerous status.

The Thai government is also spearheading a vague 90-day effort to protect impressionable youth from "dangerous games" and establish regulations for pay-to-play gaming centres that feature such titles.

Thai Ministry of Culture wages war on gaming [CNET via GamePolitics]

18-year-old Jean Pierre Orlewicz is currently on trial for first-degree premeditated murder, after he and a friend ambushed 26-year-old Daniel Sorenson last November, stabbing him multiple times in the back before sawing off his head and burning his body. After the prosecution spent the better part of yesterday describing a young man fixated on committing a crime, the defence revealed the real reason behind the teen's murderous drive. Hitman:

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If you were one of the many millions who opted to skip the Hollywood adaptation of Hitman during its theatrical run, you will soon have the option of enjoying it from the comfort of your couch. The DVD and Blu-ray street date for the Timothy Olyphant-starring flick is tomorrow, Tuesday March 11, with special edition unrated versions featuring digital copies of the film.

It may not have had the best response from critics, but the masses and Roger Ebert seemed to like it. And he knows what's what. Any huge Hitman fans picking this one up?

SCi, developers of Tomb Raider, Hitman and Deus Ex, have canceled 14 of their projects and plan on laying off 200 people and cutting their annual operating costs by £14 million as part of a company restructuring plan meant to get SCi back on track.

"Following our business review over the last six weeks, we are initiating a clear action plan based on three fundamental strands of activity: a radical change in our structure to a studio-led business, a top to bottom programme of product improvement and efficiency and a considerable cost reduction plan," Phil Rogers, Chief Executive of SCi Entertainment Group said, in a prepared statement. "To get SCi on track we have to act rapidly and effect change quickly. We must allow the world-class people that we have within the Group to focus on strong, profitable titles which will create the value our shareholders deserve."

A chief part of that plan is a fundamental change to the way the company does business with SCi shifting from the current centrally-controlled development and publishing model to a studio-led one, similar to the labels model that EA moved to last year.

Under the new structure, SCI would have studios based around "cornerstone products" like Tomb Raider, Hitman, Championship Manager and Deus Ex. The company is also creating an Eidos PLAY studio which will "fuse together casual and new media resources." Finally, production services will form part of the studio group and be relocated to Montreal from London.

I blame the Wii... well that and a company that has essentially been living off of three franchises for nearly two decades.

SCi Corporate

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Kotakuite CyK sent in this shot of his amazingly well done Agent 47 custom figure. According to Cyk, Agent 47 stands 12" tall and has multiple points of articulation. The head is incredibly well sculpted and quite impressive. He comes with two silverballers, a custom made Walther WA2000 sniper rifle and an "accurate" barcode on the back of his head. And to make things extra detailed, Cyk also includes a tiny lockable briefcase and four one sixth scale spent 7.62mm shell casings. If you'd like Agent 47 and all his little accouterments, you can bid for him on eBay.

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The Copenhagen-based studio The Game Equation consists of developers who previously contributed to the top-selling (and now a bad major motion picture!) Hitman series of games, who have decided to focus on an entirely different direction - casual games.

"After working on top-rated shooters for years, we were ready to work in a smaller company and make smaller games. We started to notice how people with our background were making top hits in the casual games industry," explains Brian Meidell, co-owner of the Copenhagen based company, The Game Equation. "We realized that the high end of the casual games industry was within our reach, and that the shorter product cycles and smaller company setting was exactly what we wanted.

Top-tier developers making a switch to the casual games sector? It's happened before, and as the casual gaming market continues to grow in leaps and bounds it is bound to happen again.

The company's first game, Deep Blue Sea (demo for Mac and PC available here), is a pretty standard swap-three puzzler with a treasure hunting theme that adds a slight bit of strategy by requiring you get your diver and assorted treasures to the bottom of the screen in order to progress to the next level. It's got some lovely music, but for the most part it's just your standard, addictive little time-waster of a puzzle game. That doesn't really matter. What matters - and what is the main force driving the casual market - is that people are going to download the demo and a good number of them will pay $US 20 for this tiny little game.

What I personally find interesting is that this is sort of a de-evolution of the gaming industry. Back in the late 80's and early 90's, you would download shareware from companies like ID Software and Epic Megagames and then fork out money to download the rest of the game, allowing the companies to grow. Now the process is happening in reverse, as console developers migrate towards the casual market. Just a trend to keep your eye on, and a puzzle game to while away your first day back on the job.

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By John Gaudiosi

The R-rated Hitman made a respectable $US 21 million over the Thanksgiving weekend, facing off against heavy competition from Disney's Enchanted and Paramount's Beowulf, both of which were aimed at families. Robert Knepper, who's best known as T-Bag on Fox's "Prison Break," plays Russian chief agent Yuri Marklov in 20th Century Fox's Hitman movie.

In fact, it was his work in "Prison Break" that sealed the deal, because his first audition was bad and he sent in a tape afterward that got him another look. When director Xavier Gens saw it was T-Bag, he said Knepper had to be in the movie. But with just two weeks to go from southern pedophile to Russian agent, Knepper had no idea Hitman was a videogame.

"Fox eventually told me about the Hitman videogame, but I read the script and I honestly felt like I didn't need to see the game," said Knepper. "I didn't need to know anything about the videogame because everything that I felt as an actor that I needed to know about the story was in the script. It had a great beginning, middle and end, it had a great conflict, a great hero, and a great anti-hero."

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Hitman didn't go down very well with critics. And we can't blame them - Timothy Olyphant is great as a cold, brooding sheriff, but as a cold, brooding assassin? He's lousy. Mostly because without a moustache and hat (and hair) he looks like a big sulky baby. Seems to have gone down... OK with you lot, however, with the movie coming in at #4 in last week's box office takings, earning $US 21 million from 2458 screens. For those more interested in princesses and/or 3D Danish blood-spillers, the movie was beaten by Enchanted, The Christmas and Beowulf.

[Variety]

For those who haven't heard, Hitman actually got some decent reviews. OK, maybe not some. Maybe just notably one, from Roger Ebert. In the midst of screening films lusting after precious Academy Awards in full heat, he bestowed upon the movie 3 stars.

What I found intriguing about the movie was the lonely self-sufficiency of Agent 47, his life without a boyhood, his lack of a proper name, his single-purpose training. When Nika comes into his life, he is trained to guard against her, but he cannot, because she is helpless, needy...To the degree the movie explores their relationship, it is absorbing.

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The Xavier Gens-directed film adaptation of the Hitman series opens nationwide today in the U.S. and it's already being assassinated by film critics. The movie sees series star Agent 47—played by Timothy Olyphant—as an orphan raised by a secret organisation to shoot at things. Things are shot at and there is conflict. And boobs, apparently. Variety calls it a "Eurotrashy... knockoff that misses its target by a mile" but the New York Times writes "there's no story to speak of, no decent acting, no wit, no point" Hmmm. Who to trust?!

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