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Gamasutra News

Best Of Indie Games: Adventures in Space

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 8:32pm EDT

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days, as well as any notable features on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.] This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week. The delights in this latest version include a Game Maker production ...
Saling The World: Mercenaries 2 Tops Multiplatform Charts in UK

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 8:03pm EDT

Gamasutra's weekly column, "Saling The World", covers the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide. This week's charts, with data taken from September 4th, 2008, find Mercenaries 2 taking an early sales lead on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Europe, while Afrika and Tales of Vesperia head console sales in Japan. Data for "Saling The World" comes courtesy ...

Guild Wars - Game Updates

Update - Friday September 5

Fetched: September 5th, 2008, 6:25pm EDT
Bug Fix
- Fixed a bug that prevented players without access to the Eye of the North expansion from entering the Golem Tutorial Simulation.

Boing Boing

Update on CIA drug plane owned by “Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc”

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 6:18pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

Here's an update on the strange story of the Gulfstream II jet filled with 3.7 tons of cocaine that crashed in the Yucatan last year. The Mexico City newspaper El Universal reports that European Parliament was investigating the circumstances surrounding the plane, which had previously been used by the CIA for "extraordinary rendition" flights.
The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects." It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers.

Last October, the Austin American Statesman reported the plane had previously flown to Guantanamo Bay.

Here's a Chicago Public Radio story from October 31, 2008 about the crashed CIA drug plane.

The crashed drug plane also has been linked to a Bush fundraiser.

Mad Cow Morning news has been covering stories about the CIA and drug smuggling.

Drug plane used for US rendition flights

Ars Technica

First look: Firefox 3.1 alpha 2 officially released

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 6:13pm EDT

Mozilla has officially released Firefox 3.1 alpha 2. This version adds support for the HTML 5 "video" element, better tab dragging, and other new features.
Read More...

GamePolitics News

Halo Named in Accidental Shooting Death of Wisconsin Boy, 11

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 6:12pm EDT by gamepolitics

Police in Watertown, Wisconsin believe that an attempt to imitate Halo may have played a role in the death of an 11-year-old boy from an accidental gunshot.
As reported by the Watertown Daily Times, Joshua Nimm apparently took the day off from school to do some gaming:
[Police] said it appeared... that after playing a combat video game called “Halo,” Nimm took the gun and tried to recreate some of the things that had occurred in the game. With an automatic rifle, [Sgt.] Lee said there can sometimes be confusion over whether it contains a magazine or not, and this confusion likely led to Nimm's death.

“He took the magazine out and forgot to eject a round that was in the chamber. He probably thought the gun was unloaded,” Lee said.

Boing Boing

SF artist makes a temple to science

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 5:36pm EDT by Lisa Katayama

Do you feel like biology and physics have done more for you than Allah or Jesus? Observing that "the essence of religion is stained glass and song," San Francisco-based artist Jonathon Keats is transforming a two-story Berkeley building into a makeshift temple for people who worship science called the Atheon.
Instead of telling the story of baby Jesus, the Atheon's stained glass windows will show cosmic microwave background radiation made from NASA satellite data. And since the interior of the building is still under construction, templer-goers will have to either pray from the sidewalk or in front of a glowing web site from their computers at home. Keats even made a song of worship; he collaborated with Virginia astronomer Mark Whittle to come up with a canon of sounds from three hypothetical universes called Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? They won't be playing it live at the temple, but you can listen to it on your cell phone by calling a special phone number. Church service starts on September 27.
Listen to Keats' scientific hymn
The Magnes Museum main page (Thanks, Mark R!)
( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

GamePolitics News

GoW Creator Defends Calling Sarah Palin a MILF

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 5:17pm EDT by gamepolitics

The other day I called out God of War creator David Jaffe for a vlog in which he referred to Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin as "the perfect definition of a MILF." (see: God of War Designer David Jaffe Reduces Sarah Palin Candidacy to Lowest Common Denominator).
Apparently, Jaffe took notice - and took the heat. He has posted a new video which addresses the MILF issue:
There's this website out there, pretty good website in terms most of the content it covers. Pretty smart and I'm glad it's out there. But it was like... this accusatory tone of me being sexist or crass when I called Sarah Palin a MILF. I'm like, Oh my, god! ...Your Victorian sensibilities are very easily offended... I'm not sexist. I have two little girls. I respect and love women. I think we're all pretty much equal...

And I think that's just really f*cking nit picking and ultra-politically correct to the point of just being absurd to assume that because I look at a woman and I say the only thing I can see she's good for is f*cking... It's not sexist because I'm not saying that's what I see in all women when I look at all women. I'm saying when I look at her, that's the only redeeming quality I can find in her...
While I concur with Jaffe's position that there are more questions than answers about Sarah Palin, he and I will have to disagree on this one. Referring to Palin in public statements as a MILF reduces her - reduces any woman - to the level of a sex object.
I certainly don't think he's a bad guy - far from it. But Jaffe needs to realize that the level of candor which may be acceptable in a frat house or local pub doesn't play quite so well when delivered as public, on-the-Net-forever commentary. As the head of a respected game design studio, Jaffe has employees (some of whom may be women) who could be offended. He has key business relationships with corporate types who by nature are not eager to hand a ready-made issue to special-interest groups. Is that politically correct? To an extent, sure. But that's the nature of business today.
Beyond that, however, there's just something wrong about reducing a woman to the sum of her body parts.

Boing Boing

Simplified spelling lesson from former president of the American Literacy Council

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 4:54pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

Ed Rondthaler, age 102, gives a very cool lesson about how odd the written English language is. Andy Cruz of House Industries says:

We had the privilege to spend a day filming Ed Rondthaler, the founder of Photo-Lettering, Inc., former president of the American Literacy Council and author of The Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling. Another living legend, writer/director Erich Weiss, is in the process of editing down all of the film we shot. Click here for the “trailer” he put together for us.
Ed Rondthaler
Mr. Bus' bus buzzer collection

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 4:53pm EDT by Lisa Katayama

In Japan, when you want to get off a bus, you press a little button with the words "will stop next" on it. The button lights up, a beep goes off, and a robotic woman's voice says: "We will stop next." Mr. Bus is a quirky guy who dedicates all his free time to collecting these bus buzzers. He started 25 years ago and now has over 200 different ones, some of which he has wired into this giant billboard so he can light them up. He finds them at bus depots and by scavenging through discarded vehicles at dumpsters.
"It's a very Japanese thing, the polite exchange between passenger saying 'I pushed it' and the bus buzzer saying 'I have received your request,'" he says. "It's such a thoughtful invention."
Mr. Bus' web site (via The Almanac of Weird Hobbies)
( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO

Twitter added nofollow to “www.” links in their Bio field

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 4:17pm EDT by Matt Cutts

Yesterday John Battelle emailed me to ask about Rae’s post. This will be a little inside baseball to some people who don’t live and breathe search and Twitter, but I figured I’d take what I emailed to John, add some pictures, and post it here. Here’s the email:

Sorry for the delay in replying; I’m really behind on email because I’ve been talking about Chrome this past week.

The short answer is that back in July I saw this post [www.davidnaylor.co.uk] . David Naylor was pointing out that Twitter intentionally nofollowed links in the “Web” part of a Twitter profile, but that you could embed a link in the “Bio” field that would flow PageRank:

Dave’s blog is read by a bunch of SEOs, including quite a few blackhats, so it was pretty clear to me that Twitter might get hit by spammers who jumped onto Twitter just to get PageRank, or by bots who signed up a ton of accounts automatically trying to get links.

I wasn’t sure of Evan Williams’ email address, so I took my best guess at two of Evan’s emails and dropped Evan a quick note pointing out Dave’s post and that spammers might start attacking Twitter soon because of this. Because I wasn’t sure of Evan’s email, I also sent Evan a Twitter saying “@ev, dropped you an email about (the post that Dave did)” That was all in July, and I forgot about it.

Evidently just in the last few days, Twitter changed that Bio link to a nofollow link. A few thoughts:

- My guess is that spammers have started to attack Twitter more, probably at least partially to get links/PageRank. In an August post at [blog.twitter.com] , Biz Stone mentioned that Twitter was hiring their first full-time spam fighter. For a company of ~25 people, a full-time spamfighter is a lot of resources. Evan/Biz have seen how dedicated spammers can hurt users’ experiences at Blogspot, so I imagine that they want to keep Twitter really clean and lock out any spammers early.

- It could be that as part of the process of looking at spam attacks on Twitter, the Twitter team asked “What are the incentives for people to spam Twitter? Are we leaking links to spammy sites anywhere?” If they were asking those sorts of questions, it makes sense if they decided to nofollow the Bio link to prevent spam accounts from attacking Twitter.

- I dropped Evan an email about Dave’s post just as a heads-up in July in case he wasn’t aware of it, but people have been talking about gaming Twitter for links even before that, e.g. [nickwilsdon.com] :

and there’s another post someone did in March called “Gaming Twitter for Thousands Of Backlinks”:

By the way, I totally support if Evan wanted to lift nofollow for real users in some way, but I figure that Twitter probably wanted to protect themselves against spam as a first step. Given that a month or so after I dropped them a note, Twitter hired a full-time spam person, I’m not surprised if Twitter was starting to see more spammers show up and wanted to take strong action to push back on spam as a first step--if Twitter got gummed up with spam that would be bad for everybody. Perhaps down the road they’ll look at ways to keep flowing PageRank to real users while not opening themselves to a spam attack. I would imagine that they have pretty good signals that would let them separate (most) real users from (most) bots/spammers. So Twitter could take steps such that most users would still get PageRank by removing the nofollow on sufficiently non-spammy users.

Best wishes,
Matt

That’s what I sent to John by email, minus the pictures.

GamePolitics News

Video Games Will Help You Understand Sarah Palin

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 4:13pm EDT by gamepolitics

Video game columnist Dave Davies of the San Antonio Express has tongue firmly planted in cheek as he ticks off a quartet of video games that he says can increase one's understanding of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin.
In what amounts to a series of micro-reviews, he writes:
Before we jump to conclusions about Palin, we should get to know her a little better — walk a mile in her snowshoes. Video games can help us do that.
By way of powering up your Palin I.Q., Davies suggests the following games:
The Deadlist Catch (360): According to her official biography, Palin worked with her husband, Todd, on a commercial fishing boat. So playing the game you can see what tough work this is. And playing this game is a lot like work.

Kawasaki Snowmobiles (Wii): Todd Palin is the five-time champion of the world's longest snowmobile race... So what's it like to be a snowmobile champ? Play the game and find out — not! Even with all the distractions, Palin's political career is having an easier time staying on track than the snowmobiles in this simulation.

Cabela's Alaskan Adventures (PS2): Sarah Palin loves to shoot her some of that moose and you can, too...Despite Sony's promise of backward compatibility, this game did not run on my PS3 — but I've still got the PS2.

Arctic Tale: Palin doesn't want federal protection for the polar bears and she doesn't believe in global warming. But if we could get her to play this game, she might change her mind.

Boing Boing

Kevin Kelly on the history of Wired

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 3:31pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

Wired magazine went around to interview the founders of Wired. Here's Kevin Kelly talking about Wired and HotWired. (In this video, you can see the back of my head at 1:32. Boing Boing manager John Battelle is in the blue t-shirt across from me.)

To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Wired sent a film crew around to some of its former co-founders so we could reminence on tape. They came to my studio this spring and I talked about why the magazine was started and why I still read it and write for it. They edited the footage as a commercial for their ad sales efforts. I just noticed it was up on YouTube. (Louis Rossetto's is here.) Naturally they cut out the interesting stuff, but I did enjoy the little fragments and glimpses of the early Wired days.
History of Wired
Blab! art show in Los Angeles, Sept. 6, 2008

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 3:16pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

(Click image for full size)
The preview images for the new Blab! show at Copro-Nason in Los Angeles are up. I'm fascinated by Ryan Heshka's work (he has 19 pieces in the show, including the one shown here), which borrows themes from old science fiction pulps and takes them in new direction. Link

Ars Technica

The CPUs of the future? Alleged Intel roadmaps leaked

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 3:08pm EDT

Unofficial roadmaps are always fun, especially when the company is Intel, and the roadmaps in question cover quite a bit of ground. Educated guesses inside, for your Friday reading pleasure.
Read More...

Boing Boing

Baby Tattooville artist and collectors retreat, Oct. 3-5, 2008

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 2:57pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

(click image for full size)

The publisher of Baby Tattoo art books is holding its second weekend retreat in Southern California with many of our favorite artists. I heard that the first one was tremendously fun.

The 2nd annual Baby Tattooville provides a unique opportunity for a small group of celebrated artists and enthusiastic collectors to spend time together in a relaxed yet creatively stimulating environment. Without the time constraints of a typical personal appearance, or the crowd control issues of a standing-room-only event, artists and collectors will have a weekend-long opportunity to discuss and explore their mutual interests.
Original work will be created and celebrated around-the-clock. No one will leave empty handed. Only 18 out of 50 event packages are still available, and they are selling fast. The event takes place October 3-5, 2008 at Southern California's architectural masterpiece The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. This year's Featured Artists are Ana Bagayan, Glenn Barr, Dave Cooper, Bob Dob, Joe Ledbetter, Brandi Milne, Daniel Peacock, Shag, Any Sol and Michael Whelan.

Baby Tattooville artist and collectors retreat, Oct. 3-5, 2008
You suck at Photoshop #16

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 2:46pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

Here's the latest episode of the funny (and educational!) You Suck at Photoshop. You Suck At Photoshop #16: Define Brush Preset
Ruby was Angry: A Short Story

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 2:09pm EDT by Lisa Katayama

I'm working on a series of short fiction stories/vignettes that explore real human issues through my dog Ruby, which I'm hoping will be fodder for my next book. I thought I'd share one with you guys before my two weeks as a Boinger are over. I actually wrote this one at San Francisco airport while waiting for a plane to Tokyo—Ruby was really barking like a maniac at a sleeping guy, and my imagination took it from there. Here goes:
Ruby Was Angry
Ruby was angry. She didn’t really understand why—but as she stared at the man sprawled out on the floor of the airport, next to the sign for Gate 82 United Flight 899 to Tokyo’s Narita Airport, she began to realize just how angry she really was.
It quickly became clear to her that this anger was not a temporary function of seeing the sleeping man, but the delayed manifestation of a much more profound and long-existing anger that she had kept buried deep in her soul for a very long time. It was hard to say how long exactly. Her eyes narrowed and she bore her teeth like a rabid pit bull about to take a plunge. The fearsome expression on her face looked oddly out of place paired with her pink braided necklace and silver heart-shaped pendant with “RUBY KEILANA” printed daintily on its curve. Her reddish-brown hair stood on its ends like a cat sprayed with water.
Then a strange thing happened. Random memories started to flash across her brain like a picture slide show on a computer screen. There was Dangercat, glaring down at her as she frolicked in his garden, daring her to come back up the stairs into his house, hissing under his breath, claws gleaming in the sunlight; her mom, picking up all her strategically positioned toys from around the house and throwing them ruthlessly in a trash bag; her friend Xica, her big black body pouncing mercilessly at Ruby as Ruby hid under the table, praying not to be crushed under Xica’s weight; the tall white man who called her a rat as she walked by him on Stanyan Street last week; all her so-called friends who once pretended to love her so much and then one day disappeared without a trace.
Throughout all this, Ruby had kept up her positive attitude, her sweet demeanor, and her unconditional forgiveness. But this time she had had enough!

So she barked and growled and barked and growled until she had the attention of everyone in the departure lobby. The waiting passengers, the flight attendants, the pilot of Flight 899, the cleaning man, the pretty young woman driving a cart-full of elderly people—everyone turned around to see what the ruckus was all about.
“I’m angry!” said Ruby. “My name is Ruby Keilana, and I’m angry!”
An awkward silence followed. Then, an old man in a wheelchair spoke up. “Why are you angry Ruby?” he asked.
“I just AM!” yelled Ruby. “Because I just feel like it!”
All of a sudden, the sleeping man awoke. He rose from his nest on the floor next to Gate 82 and stared straight at Ruby. It gave Ruby a slight shudder. She wasn’t a confrontational girl by nature, and this sudden bout of anger had surprised her too. She didn’t know what to expect.
“I’m angry too.” The sleepy man said in a deep, manly voice.
“And why might you be angry?” The old man in the wheelchair asked the sleepy man.
The sleepy man shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just am.”
Then, another strange thing happened. Voices started to pipe up from all over the departure lounge. “I’m angry too!”
“I’m angry too!”
“My name is Tom Brown, and I am ANGRY!”
“Me too, but I don’t know why!”
“I’m furious!!”
The man in the wheelchair started to clap slowly. One by one, the people around him joined in until there was a steady beat permeating the room, accompanied by a cacophony of voices expressing their inexplicable anger. By the time everyone at Gate 82 had proclaimed their anger, Gates 81 and 83 had joined in…then Gates 80 and 84…and so forth until all the gates in the terminal were thundering with anger.
Believe it or not, this chant went on for a full twenty minutes. There was a lot of anger in the room, and it all had to be expressed. There was such a great communal release that you could see swirls of emotion hovering in the air—reds, blues, greens, all kinds of colors for all the different kinds of anger people were holding in—and as Ruby stared in awe at this amazing phenomenon, the colors swirled together into one huge black cloud that hovered over everyone’s heads.
Then, when an angry airport security guard kicked down the emergency door next to Gate 75B, the cloud saw its chance to escape and flew out the door. The chanting stopped, and the darkness that had overcome the room disappeared. All was silent. Outside, it started to rain. The sky darkened, and thunder clapped.
“I’m not angry anymore,” said Ruby.

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog

Little Brother Review

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:53pm EDT by QuadsZilla

You’ve read 1984, right? If you haven’t, you really should (like right now!) - it’s Amazing. (it’s available here). The title of Cory Doctorow’s latest book, “Little Brother“, is a clever reference to 1984’s “Big Brother”.

Orwell’s 1984 portended a chilling future 36 years away from it’s 1948 writing. It depicts how the power of the state could come to dominate the lives of individuals through cultural conditioning under totalitarian rule. Some of the predictions were over the top but it works because it’s an apocalyptic satire. 1984 was not intended to be an accurate prophecy, but rather employed literary license to convey important overall themes and emotions.

In many ways, Cory Doctorow’s latest book, “Little Brother“, is even more ominous. That’s because he doesn’t grasp at some far off future that could possibly come to pass. It’s not some distant and satirical fantasy world. It’s a conceivable reality circa 2015. Almost all the truly nasty things depicted are already happening.

I started “Little Brother” at 11:30 pm and didn’t get to sleep ’til I finished the book at 6:30 am. Excellently paced: it’s probably the most important book I’ve read that was written in the last 20 years.

“Little brother” is not perfect. The villains: well, let’s just say we’re not talking Dracula, Hannibal, or Vader here.

And the ending was a bit of a let down: deus ex machina is not even close to the level of:

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

But Cory is not Orwell. Not yet, anyway.

Cory wrote the book in just 8 weeks. If he took another 50 to perfect it, he might have made a timeless classic. But the book is written under the creative commons license. From my understanding, that means that the book is just version 1.0. It can be rewritten with the flaws ironed out by anyone . . . even by you. Maybe (hopefully) it will be.

Bottom line: Read the Book. It’s really, really good - almost great.

Hat tip to Matt for the Book Rec.

Boing Boing

BBtv: Russell Porter interviews The Rumble Strips (music)

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:53pm EDT by Xeni Jardin

BBtv's London-based music correspondent Russell Porter brings us a performance and interview from the Rumble Strips (website | MySpace | Wikipedia). They're currently on tour throughout the USA, and they're named after a UK-English term for the "small, continuous lines of bumps along the edge of a road." Their music is described as " Soul / Regional Mexican / Powerpop;" a fine, rockin' way to close out a short Labor Day work week. Previous BBtv music features with Russell Porter are here.

Ars Technica

Consumers dig mobile broadband: 3G device ownership up 80%

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:50pm EDT

Adoption of 3G in the US has surged in the past year. Thanks to more and cheaper devices, the US now has more 3G customers than Western Europe.
Read More...

Play This Thing

Boomshine

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:28pm EDT by costik

What's interesting about Boomshine is they way it both fits into and defies expectations about "the game," that is, the elements that (pace Wittgenstein) all games actually do share, that makes them, in esse, games.

It's a little one-click game in which a number of colored dots wander about the screen, in a Newtonian way, bouncing off the edge of the screen. Once each level, you may click anywhere; doing so creates a bubble that quickly blows up to a fixed size, and lasts in duration for a few seconds. During that duration, any dots that encounter the bubble likewise blow up into bubbles -- and any dots that encounter this bubble then likewise cause dots to bubble up as well. In principle, you can clear the screen through a chain-reaction of bubbles; in practice, this rarely happens.

In each level, you have a target number of dots you must "bubble up"; three out of fifteen total on-screen, say. Thus, you have a goal to strive for (an essential characteristic of the game). And you do interact with the game, also an essential characteristic, though your reaction is reduced to the bare possible minimum; each turn, you click once, and while the resulting chain reaction is a consequence of your one click, you have no agency beyond your single action.

Goal-directed interaction is, of course, essential to any game; Boomshine pushes at the boundaries of this, though, because your actual agency is almost wholly irrelevant. While you can anticipate that clicking on some places will cause failure, it's essentially impossible to predict where a click will cause success. Except at the lowest levels, there are too many on-screen moving objects for you to grasp the dynamics of the system in any meaningful fashion. In other words, if one of the other essential characteristics of the game is that players' choices must be meaningful, Boomshine defies this; your choice (your single choice) is in fact not meaningful, because the complexity of the system makes it impossible for any human brain to guess meaningfully at outcomes, beyond perhaps the first few seconds after the appearance of the first "bubble."

And yet because you do have that tiny bit of agency, your choice still seems meaningful -- an illusion, perhaps, but you can tell yourself that if only you had clicked somewhere else you would have succeeded -- a truth, but you have no ability to learn or strategize where that "somewhere else" might be. It's a bit like how people respond to gambling games; the slot machine roller almost turned over to a winning image, the roulette ball almost came up with your number, and even though your control over the system is completely non-existent, you have the illusory feeling that next time you may do better.

Underneath the start screen is a statistic provided by the developer that betrays the unmanageable nature of the game; only 3.97% of all level 12 games have been won. Having played the level several times, I believe it; it requires you to clear an unreasonably large number of dots, a high percentage of a very crowded screen. Treating the game statistically is right; there's no way to predict or control it as a player. Evidently you have a 4% chance of winning each time.

Like Roulette or the slots, therefore, Boomshine is a game that provides the illusion of agency without the actuality, and yet that illusion suffices to draw you to, to get you to play the level again -- until, perhaps, you realize how unwinnable level 12 is. Of course it helps that the sensorium Boomshine provides is pleasurable; the music is pleasant and soothing, the moving colored dots and the patterns make as they bubble up pleasing. From a game design perspective, there's a lesson to be learned here: sometimes the illusion of agency suffices. And also that prettiness counts, of course.

Gamasutra News

Sony Unconcerned About Xbox 360 Price Cuts

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:21pm EDT

Microsoft's recent move to reduce Xbox 360 prices across the board may turn out to be especially significant for the console wars. It means that for the key holiday season, the mass-market Xbox 360 Arcade SKU is less expensive than the Wii -- and Wii may see additional challenges from supply constraints. And with both consoles now entering the $200 "inflection point" analysts say has historically helped spread console sales to new audiences, has Xbox ...

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Retro - The Legacy: Realm of Terror

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:20pm EDT by Alec Meer

A guilty secret. This Microprose RPG was one of the first games I ever bought - not played, but bought, with actual money, in an actual box and everything. I think it was a good year or so after the thing was actually out, but for some reason it caught my eye in the shop and stuck in my head, convincing me to save my pennies and head back a few weeks later to treat myself to it.

Very much a teenager, I was reading a lot of tawdry horror fiction at the time, and though I was yet to have any experience of Lovecraft or Poe, The Legacy’s haunted gothic mansion setting was enough to grab me on its own.

I didn’t feel I needed to read reviews or seek peer approval - I just wanted a game there and then, and this one featured zombies, other-worldly beasts, creaky doors and guns. I knew nothing about it beyond the back of the box, which, by 1993 standards, featured screenshots beyond my wildest imaginings. Accurate screenshots, but as it turned out their apparent photo-reality was a result of many of Legacy’s sprites being essentially static images. Still, even before I’d played the thing, the game felt like it was somehow mine, because I’d chosen it.

I presume it was a little (or a lot) of the same mentality that drives so many young men towards overly-defensive fandom of Halos and Metal Gears and, to be topical, Warhammers Online these days. I even remember tracking down a review in PC Zone that scored the Legacy 70%-odd, and being mortified. How dare they! This, despite the fact I never finished the thing. Never made it very far at all, in fact, as it was bastard hard, a result of crude controls and unsympathetic design. But it was mine. How dare they.

It was mine, that is, until the day one of its install discs - floppy discs - stopped working. I had to uninstall and reinstall games on my mum’s 486 pretty regularly due to its tiny hard drive. I’d probably installed Legacy a good dozen times by that point, which was doubtless why that disk was knackered. There was nothing I could do about it - I’d had it a few months, so couldn’t return it to the shops, while the manual stated in no uncertain terms that the publisher, the late Microprose, would not replace busted discs. So here comes that guilty secret.

About a year later, desperate for cash, I sold The Legacy on. My mum was flogging a load of stuff at a car boot sale, so I stuck a price tag on the box and sent it along with her. Knowing full well it didn’t work, and whoever bought it was screwed. Oh God. I realised how awful a thing it was that I’d done pretty much as soon as she’d left. Pre-mobile phones, I had no way to contact her, so all I could do was pray no-one actually bought the thing. Inevitably, she returned a few hours later with a crisp fiver for me. I still feel guilty to this day. So, if, by any chance, you’re the poor sap who bought a busted copy of The Legacy: Realm of Terror from a car boot sale in Herefordshire over a decade ago, I’m so sorry.

But what of the game that incited this moral collapse? Is it still notable in this day and age? Is it still, as I remember, worthy of its grandiose subtitle? Well, no. It doesn’t hold up well at all, at least in terms of atmosphere and interface. Conceptually, it remains very appealing. Essentially The Fall of the House of Usher vs Call of Cthulu: The Videogame, it’s a vaguely Ultima Underworldish affair, only setting its roleplaying in something very different to the high fantasy/space opera settings that are so often the limits of the genre today.

The setup? You’re the heir to the estate of a deceased, wealthy relative. The house they’ve left you isn’t exactly homely. “Mood-lighting” is probably the nicest thing you can say about it. When you go visit it, you’re locked in. You have to get out. Monsters and mad relatives don’t want you to get out.

The character selection is neatly done, having you select from a bunch of different newspaper frontpages revealing who the heir to the Winthrop estate is. While you can jump through to statistics (and even alter them), you’re making your choice based on who you want to play as more than what you want to play as. Like Cluedo, but with more mystics and ex-marines. It’s actually a little akin to the way Fallout did character selection a few years later – pre-generated templates with established biographies, but the option to make something entirely custom if you so wished. I pick the ex-marine, as the idea of punching Cthulu in the face is too good to pass up.

The opening hallway, very reminiscent of the first level of the original Resident Evil, confuses me. On the one hand, it’s definitely stirring up fifteen-year-old memories. On the other, what I remember as massive and terrifying is now small, brown and cursed with a very cheesy mwah-ha-ha sound effect. Movement is the cumbersome old mechanic first-person games used to employ before direct keyboard control became the norm – clicking on on-screen directional buttons.

It’s a miserable way to steer yourself, but it’s got one thing going for it. As with Space Hulk, the protracted 90-degree turns add to the menace. Denied any peripheral vision, I have no idea what’s around a corner until I’ve shopping-trolley-steered my way to directly face it. The beasts I encounter aren’t in themselves fearsome, but there’s a vague shock from the simple fact of suddenly seeing something. It’s a slow, quiet game, the monsters few and far between. Just as well, as the combat is as crude as the movement – two pairs of onscreen buttons, one each for your fists and one each for whatever your fists may be holding.

So there I am, punching a zombie in the face by clicking on these two little buttons, dealing out a minute amount of damage per successful thump. The zombie only hits back once every ten seconds or so, but whenever he does he demolishes a good quarter of my health bar. Bloody zombies. Bloody Legacy. Now I remember why I never finished this game – it’s ridiculously hard.

I press on, through wooden door after wooden door, occasionally picking up items and exposition. The Resident Evilness is there throughout, and it’s clear this is survival horror as much as it is an RPG – long before the term even existed, I’d guess.

Every now and then, I lose most of my health bar. Or all of it, which means I have to remember to save often. Old games have such little pity for their frail players. In one room, I plunge suddenly through the floor to a cellar area below. I lose half my health bar. Against one wall of the cellar, there’s a weird blue glow. I should know better really, given this game’s sadistic tendencies, but I stumble into it. Zap! And I’m in another dimension, just like that. It’s hard not to admire Legacy’s excess. It’s crude and confused, but it’s got a portal to another dimension in the basement. More games should have portals to other dimensions in the basement. Trouble is, my weak-minded soldier freaks out about his reckless hopping through time and space, his mental anguish somehow removing another quarter of his severely diminished health. Well, this is no fun.

Forced fear’s an odd mechanism to have in a game. True, it’s something to consider other than the usual health and energy and ammo, and is a potentially ingenious way of ensuring the player doesn’t feel like some detached super-human meathead. At the same time, if what’s scaring the character isn’t remotely unnerving the player, it’s just an annoyance. A beastie jumping out of the darkness I could understand, but I – and thus my character - chose to walk through that blue hole in the wall. So this kind of punishment just feels unfair, like I’m being penalised for having fun. Well, one thing I’m not doing is having fun. Maybe I’m spoilt by modern standards and associated snobbishess, but certainly this revisit to a game from my childhood has turned entirely sour by now.

Wandering through the blue ether, I’m suddenly approached by a two-mouthed Lovecraftian demon thingy. If only I could talk to the monster. But I can’t. I can only punch and punch and punch and punch and punch. It does nothing as I do so, least of all die. Around thirty punches in, it decides to finally take a bite out of me. Just the one. And that’s it. All over. I don’t bother to reload a save game this time, and with a sigh I exit. I had hoped I’d unearth an overlooked classic, but all I found was a peculiarly awkward evolutionary step between text adventures and cRPGs. You shouldn’t always go back.

Boing Boing

First Microsoft ad with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:19pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

Absurdist art or TV commercial? Either way, I like it.

Ars Technica

Michael Moore skips box office, film heads straight to 'Net

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:15pm EDT

Filmmaker Michael Moore plans to bypass movie theaters with the debut of his new film, Slacker Uprising. The movie will instead be offered online as a free thank-you to his fans, after which it will be sold on DVD. With more filmmakers experimenting with online distribution lately, major studios may be tempted to try it out too.
Read More...

Boing Boing

Christian Ska band performs "Jesus is My Friend"

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 1:10pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder

I hardly go out to see bands any more, but I'd pay a lot to attend a Sonseed concert.

♫ Once I tried to run, once I tried to hide, but Jesus found me and touched me deep down inside. ♫

"Jesus is My Friend" by Sonseed (Via Arbroath)

Ars Technica

The Sims goes to the boardroom

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 12:40pm EDT

Video games have come to the classroom—even to the venerable Harvard Business School. Instead of case studies, students are entering business simulations—with mixed results for the real world.
Read More...

Gamasutra News

In-Depth: EA's Gibeau On Spore, Reinvigorating EA Games

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 12:26pm EDT

Since its unveiling during Game Developers Conference 2005, Will Wright's evolution sim Spore has become a huge investment for EA, one which the company hopes might eventually expand into an entire division of the company, as has Wright's mega-hit franchise The Sims. Until that happens, however, Spore falls under the EA Games umbrella managed by label president Frank Gibeau. Beyond that game, Gibeau is working to encourage a label-wide focus on quality, one which he ...

Ars Technica

This is war: insider describes how devs punish game journos

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 12:06pm EDT

It's not rare to hear talk about the pressure developers put on game writers for favorable coverage. What is unusual is hearing someone from the other side describe how he or she can break game writers... and why they think it's perfectly ok to do so.
Read More...

TorrentFreak

isoHunt Sues the CRIA to Legalize BitTorrent Sites

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 12:00pm EDT by Ernesto

Following Demonoid and QuebecTorrent, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has threatened isoHunt with legal action. However, isoHunt has decided to launch a preemptive strike, as it turns the tables and sues the CRIA instead.

The CRIA is known for taking on BitTorrent sites. In the past year they have threatened Demonoid and other BitTorrent sites, and taken legal action against QuebecTorrent. Now, they have set their sights on isoHunt, one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, but this might just backfire.

In May 2008, isoHunt received a Cease and Desist letter from the CRIA, in which they demanded that isoHunt founder Gary Fung should take the site offline. If Fung didn’t comply, the CRIA said it would pursue legal action, and demand $20,000 for each sound recording the site has infringed.

A similar tactic worked against Demonoid, but the isoHunt founder didn’t back down so easily. “We have since tried to come to an understanding, but just as with the MPAA in the US, they ignored our offers of cooperation by the take down of .torrent links to their content files, so long as they provide sufficient identification,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.

Fung has pointed out that, like most other BitTorrent sites, isoHunt has a Copyright Policy, and takes down .torrent files when they receive an appropriate request. The CRIA simply ignored this, even though they have sent correct takedown notices to isoHunt before (and isoHunt complied), and continued to threaten with legal action.

As an act of self-defense, isoHunt has decided to sue the CRIA instead, and today Fung will file a petition to ask the Court of British Columbia to confirm that isoHunt –and sister sites Torrentbox and Podtropolis– do not infringe copyright. “This is our preemptive strike with a narrowly defined petition for Declaratory Relief that we do not infringe, in anticipation they are going to file their own lawsuit that we do infringe (their copyright),” Fung said

“Our petition summarizes BitTorrent technology, its open nature and a whole ecosystem of websites and operators that has developed around it, that CRIA does not own copyright to all files distributed over BitTorrent or on isoHunt websites, and we seek legal validation that we can continue to innovate within this emerging BitTorrent ecosystem on the Internet.”

“Think of this as a follow up to the QuebecTorrent case,” Fung says. “We intend to take this all the way up to the Canadian Supreme Court unless CRIA settles with us out of court in any reasonable way,” Fung said “There are some interesting parties in Canada in our camp I’m not disclosing yet, this is going to make an interesting case and the most important copyright case in Canada currently.”

This is the first case worldwide where a court will be asked to decide whether .torrent files, and BitTorrent search engines in particular, are infringing copyright or not. Among other things, isoHunt argues that they are just a search engine, like Google, and that they have no control over the files they find elsewhere on the web. The site is indexing other BitTorrent trackers and indexers, without human intervention, and allows its users to find content that is scattered across the web.

So, should BitTorrent search engines be held liable for the .torrent files that might point to copyrighted data? If so, what does this mean for other search engines, and sites such as YouTube? This landmark case might be the one to define how files can be distributed online, let’s hope the Court of British Columbia will make the right decision.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

isoHunt Sues the CRIA to Legalize BitTorrent Sites

Gamasutra News

Game Connection Europe Exhibitor Registration Deadline Approaching

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 11:50am EDT

Game Connection Europe announced that only two weeks remain for exhibitors to register for the annual acquisition-oriented event to be held in Lyon, France from November 5 - 8, 2008. The deadline for business-focused video game companies looking to showcase and sell their projects, finished, games, or services to potential buyers is set for September 17, 2008. Last year's Game Connection Europe brought in over 700 participants from 35 countries, including 208 exhibitors selling titles ...

GamePolitics News

I'm Just Not Sure What to Make of This...

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 11:01am EDT by gamepolitics

This picture just showed up in an e-mail from Jack Thompson.
There was no explanation, other than the subject line:
First feeder bands from Hurricane Ike hit Miami!
Color me confused. Is the man growing a sense of humor? Learning PhotoShop?
Maybe it's symbolism: the pole represents his law license. The hurricane is the Florida Bar and he's trying to hang on...
UPDATE: So it appears that Thompson may be preparing for a second career (you never know when you might need one of those)... as a weatherman.
In a followup e-mail Thompson claims that US news organizations are underreporting the upcoming Hurricane Ike because it's not as sexy as the recent Gustav, which threatened both New Orleans and the Republican National Convention. Even his BFFs at Fox are guilty, says Thompson (now is that any way to get air time?).
Ex-NFL Wideout Pushes Money Sim at RNC

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 10:39am EDT by gamepolitics

Cnet's Declan McCullough reports that former Minnesota Vikings star Cris Carter was on hand at the Republican National Convention this week to hype Financial Football. The free game, created by Visa and the NFL, is designed to teach money management skills to young adults.
Said Carter:
Young people need to know how to make smart money management decisions before heading off to college and entering the workforce.
Former Broncos receiver Rod Smith performed similar duties at the DNC in Denver last week.
In addition to the PC version, Financial Football is a free D/L to mobile phones. Text the word VISA to 24421.
Summarizing the Gaming Platforms in Presidential Race

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 10:13am EDT by gamepolitics

In an article titled, Who Is The Gamer's Candidate?, Edge Online has recapped the positions of both parties' presidential tickets as they relate to video games.
It's good to know that none of the four candidates have ever gotten behind a video game ban, although Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin gave consideration in the past to censoring books. Of the four, Barack Obama has said and done the most in regard to games.
While the EO piece offers no new information, it is a worthwhile summary.
EA's Free Gas Stunt Angers Politician, Police, Local Residents

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 9:56am EDT by gamepolitics

A member of Great Britain's Parliament had harsh words for Electronic Arts after a marketing stunt for Mercenaries 2 gridlocked her district during the morning rush hour.
Hoping to draw attention to the game, EA gave away £20,000 of fuel at a station in North London. The Telegraph reports on the ensuing traffic jam:
A petrol station which gave away free fuel has been temporarily shut down after motorists flocking to its pumps caused traffic chaos...

Norman Tidiman, from Hackney... said: "I saw a girl who stopped because she wasn't going to make the lights, and the man in the car behind her got out his car and started to bully her.

Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone (left) was not pleased with EA:
Whilst a lucky few might have got some free petrol, hundreds of local residents have faced misery on their daily journeys this morning. They deserve an apology for being the victims of such an ill-thought out media stunt...

Trying to recreate Venezuelan-style fuel riots on the streets of London is completely irresponsible and downright dangerous...
An EA rep told the Telegraph that police ultimately shut the event down as too disruptive. Mercs 2, of course, is set in Venezuela, where petroleum is a huge economic force. As in a similar event held in Los Angeles last week, the station was decorated to match the theme of the game.
The BBC has more, including a video report.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Comments Temporarily Closed Open Again

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 9:47am EDT by Alec Meer

Edit: And we’re back, on a shiny-fresh server. Let us know below if there are any new problems you’ve spotted. The RSS feed is a little altered, but we’ll hopefully sort that soon.

…While we do some exciting* back-end stuff. Should be open again in around an hour. Sorry. Prepare your vast essays about stuff and things in Notepad in the meantime, I guess.

*Not actually exciting.

Ars Technica

Red Hat acquires Qumranet, will embrace KVM

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 9:40am EDT

Linux distributor Red Hat has acquired Qumranet, the company behind the Kernel Virtual Machine. This marks a change of strategy for Red Hat, which previously aligned itself with Xen.
Read More...

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, first footage

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 9:28am EDT by Jim Rossignol

Via VG247 we discover that a couple of Czech sites are hosting the first footage of THQ’s third-person action title Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. The piece seems to narrated by someone from the dev team, who shows off a load of in-game footage, and employs excessive use of the word “cinemaction”. The game is reportedly coming out on PC and consoles, and we think that’s a fairly safe bet. Only War, after the jump.

GamePolitics News

Report: Dead Space Banned in Germany, China, Japan

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 9:17am EDT by gamepolitics

Citing comments made by a Dead Space community manager, Destructoid reports that EA's upcoming sci-fi horror game has been banned in China, Japan and Germany:
We've also been told by Dead Space community manager Andrew Green that the title has been completely banned from the following countries: Germany, Japan, and China. That's right, there's just too much survival and way too much horror in Dead Space for these countries to handle. No word on whether EA has any plans to alter the game for a future release in those territories.
Oddly enough, in the U.K., the BBFC has rated Dead Space an 18, while quick-to-censor Australia has awarded it an MA15+. We're still checking with the ESRB, but GameStop's website is displaying an "M" on Dead Space packaging.
GP: I'm having a little trouble digesting this one. It's not hard to believe Germany would ban Dead Space, as they have been fairly quick on the censorship trigger of late. However, given that Japan is the home of Resident Evil, a ban on a survival horror game would be surprising. Also, I'm not even certain that EA distributes console titles in China, due to the piracy issues there. We have a request in to EA to confirm...

Ars Technica

NebuAd loses CEO, business model in wake of tracking furor

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 8:55am EDT

With the loss of its CEO and the end of most of its ISP trials, web tracking company NebuAd hopes to retool itself as a more traditional advertising company.
Read More...

Boing Boing

Eric Joyner's new show of robot paintings

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 8:48am EDT by David Pescovitz

Painter Eric Joyner brings his delightful robots back to Culver City's Corey Helford Gallery for a new solo show opening tomorrow night, September 6. The new collection, titled Artificial Enlightenment, features the machines in their day-to-day lives involving donut factories, motorcycle rides, and steam train catastrophes. According to the gallery, Joyner is "inspired by science fiction, toys, and Brandywine artists and illustrators of the 1900’s." The full show is also viewable online.
Eric Joyner's Artificial Enlightenment, Corey Helford Gallery

GamePolitics News

GTA Coming to the Wii?

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 8:44am EDT by gamepolitics

Are Nico Bellic and Liberty City coming to the Wii?
Take-Two CEO Ben Feder (left) wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no during yesterday's conference call to discuss T2's third quarter financial results. As reported by MCVUK, here are Feder's comments:
With respect to GTA Chinatown I will tell you that we’ve spent an enormous amount of time and effort working with Nintendo and developing that partnership. We’re very proud of the partnership that we have to date.

We continue to build that relationship. We think we have significant value to add to that partnership and that’s not a one-way relationship in any way. GTA Chinatown Wars is not even the first step but certainly an important step in continuing to develop that relationship.

So without commenting on whether GTA specifically whether it is coming to the Wii or not, I will say that Nintendo and Take-Two work very well together. Nintendo and Rockstar are beginning to work well together and we intend to continue to grow that relationship.
GTA Chinatown, of course, is the DS title revealed by Nintendo at E3. No release date has been specified.
Any decision to move GTA to the Wii would likely be based on technology as opposed to residual queasiness over Nintendo's "family friendly" image. After all, the Wii has already been graced with Manhunt 2. The controversial Madworld is in the pipeline.
From a tech perspective, it would seem quite the challenged to get, say, GTA IV on the Wii, given the system's limited storage capacity. So perhaps if the GTA franchise does make it to the Wii, it will be a system-specific title.
Full transcript of T2 conference call graciously provided by Seeking Alpha.

Gamasutra News

Report: Tecmo Settles Overtime Lawsuit

Posted: September 5th, 2008, 8:39am EDT

Developer and publisher Tecmo announced a settlement with Team Ninja employees Hiroaki Ozawa and Tatsuki Tsunoda, who filed suit against the company and accused Tecmo of implementing an illegal overtime structure. The suit, which was filed with the Tokyo District Court in June 2008, claimed that under Tecmo's "flexible hours" work scheme, employees were not paid appropriately for their overtime hours, which often exceeded 100 hours per month. The suit also alleged that the company ...

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