Although some companies (like Ubisoft) have volunteered to do extra epilepsy-related tests for their games, the existing standard isn't enough for some people. Take, for example, famous and loathed mom Gaye Herford, who's responsible for bringing this fight to Parliament after her son suffered a fit while playing Rayman Raving Rabbids DS.

Sprong reports that the House of Commons debate was held yesterday, with members supporting different solution. Margaret Hodge, the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, pushed for a voluntary testing system, which could be changed to mandatory in the future if the issue remained problematic.

John Penrose on the other hand led a more paranoid debate, stating, "The point is that some games manufacturers may decide to do that, but there is a huge number of games-makers and manufacturers throughout the world. Some are large and responsible, such as Ubisoft, but as in any industry, there is a large number of manufacturers who are relatively tiny, and although some may be responsible, we cannot be sure."

It doesn't seem as if a final decision was reached, but you know politics -- things take a while to get done.

[Via Game Politics]

Over the last year, UK mom ("mum" is the word over there, we believe) Gaye Herford has been fighting to change the way games are tested before they are sent to retail. Her 10-year-old son, while playing Rayman Raving Rabbids, went into an epileptic fit. She had no idea that games could send players into photo sensitive epileptic (PSE) seizures. We guess she hasn't seen the intro splash screen Nintendo has had around since the Pokémon incident.

But, after a long year, she has won her battle. Ubisoft has volunteered to do the testing itself and will try to ensure such a thing does not happen again. Herford also managed to secure a debate in Parliament, for a future date that is yet to be determined. "As a parent myself, I was shocked that a single game could possibly trigger a sudden first-time seizure, with its life-long implications," says Weston-super-Mare MP John Penrose, who helped Herford in her battle. "Right now, most electronic game publishers simply issue written warnings about PSE on or inside their products - and that's on a voluntary basis. But that's no good for the thousands of people with dormant PSE because they don't know the warnings - if they even read them - apply to them."

At the time of the article, no comment was made by Nintendo. Ubisoft did say, though, that testing of Rayman: Raving Rabbids on the DS "showed that no images posed a high risk for photosensitivity epilepsy. However, we made a corporate decision to pre-screen and pre-test all Ubisoft in-house developed games regardless of platform, prior to publication."

Despite the fact that the first two games appeared on the DS, the Rayman Raving Rabbids series has always been more closely associated with the Wii, either because the original was a Wii launch game, or because the DS iterations are pretty mediocre.

Now, the involvement of the Balance Board is threatening to relegate the DS edition of Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party to an even more insignificant footnote, but we hope the DS game stands on its own. The Rabbids are liked by pretty much everybody we know, and deserve a worthy handheld game. Protip though, Ubisoft: it's probably best to avoid this kind of publicity.

[Via press release]

Amazon has put over two dozen Nintendo DS games on sale, some of them marked down as low as 50% of their original price! Some of the titles are trash, but there are more than a few that you should consider picking up. We've listed below the ones that stood out to us, but make sure to check out Amazon's page for the full selection of DS deals.

• Front Mission - $24.99
• Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck - $19.99
• Master of Illusion - $19.99
• Nintendo DS Headset - $9.99
• Prism - $19.99
• Spanish for Everyone - $14.99

Don't forget that orders totalling over $25 are eligible for the online shop's Free Super Saver Shipping. Joys be thine, frugal readers!

[Via CAG]

We featured a lot of trailers yesterday, but we admit that perhaps we overlooked one important slice of footage: the above trailer for Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. Now a Nintendo exclusive, the game will only be appearing on the DS and Wii, which were the best versions of that game if you ask us. And looking at this montage of gameplay above, the second title should be another stellar game.

[Note: The link over at IGN's video portal is kinda funny, so you might have some difficulty getting to their video directly. We suggest you just enjoy the embedded video above.]