Innovation and Evolution in Game Design

Raph Koster has a great piece about evolution and how it relates to game design:

What evolution is really about, rather than progress, is adaptation to conditions. Should our world stop requiring higher level cognitive function (which would, of course, involve some sort of truly massive catastrophe), then we might well evolve to have vestigial brains. We would instead evolve other characteristics that helped us to survive. I think few of us would term this “progress” for the human race.

The evolution of virtual worlds has not been a story of progress; rather, it’s been noted for years now that it’s largely a story of recapitulation. Lessons learned once have to be learned over and over again; many of the games we play today have direct antecedents in text designs. Depending on the value judgements you could make, it could be stated that there has instead been regression, rather than progress.

-- Innovation, evolution, and adaptation

Brilliant stuff.



tagged: game, gaming

Badass Giger Chair

Stumbled on this while randomly wikipedia-ing (which really needs a better verb): H.R. Giger's design for a Harkonnen chair. Yeah, that Harkonnen. This bad boy would be the ultimate in office decor, if only I had the fifteen large to get one.

Buy Real Hardware With Virtual Dollars

According to MTV.com, Second Life has begun the sale of computer equipment that actually exists this side of the Internet:

What's genuinely unusual is that earlier this week the store's owner started selling something real — computer hardware — and he did it by attaching a price tag that's figured not in greenbacks, Euros or even pesos but with Linden Dollars, the virtual money earned by playing "Second Life." You heard right: Shoppers are able to use play money to buy something real.

-- Finally, You Can Buy Something Real With Play Money

Not that this is really that odd in a world where you can sell a virtual space station for thousands or convert gold pieces into dollars. Still, it's another waypoint in the odd path of virtual economics crashing headlong actual monetary values. Maybe someday all my old Elite experience will pay off my retirement.





tagged: economics, gaming

Feminist Geekdom

The upcoming Carnival of Feminism will will take a decidedly geeky tone, with "Babes in Geek-land" as it's theme ... although on a grammar note I have no idea if such a realm would be hyphenated or not. Maybe someone should alert them of the Carnival of Gamers potential cross linking geekery. (Via New Game Plus)


tagged: feminist, gaming

Battlefield Mario Kart

Some creative chaps with seriously too much time on their hands (but thank goodness for that) have put together a video mashup of Battlefield and Mario Kart, which is absolutely sweet as hell. Props to fraggerock and 4CR for the find.


tagged: mario kart, battlefield

Commodore 64 Online

There is a new site for playing nostalgic Commodore goodness, c64s.com, which even includes one the underrated games of all time ... Spy Vs Spy (at least from my long term memory). It all runs off of Java from within the browser, so grab your JRE and make a travel back in time.



tagged: commodore 64, gaming

Cinemaware Marquee Interview

During my glorious Amiga days, I wasted plenty of time with Cinemaware's titles. Now, they're releasing a indie label, Cinemaware Marquee. Gamecloud nabbed them for an interview:

There is a tremendous amount of great titles which never reaches US retailers. Ultimately, it is the consumer who is left out and stuck with buying the same old sequels and genres, time after time. We felt there was a great market opportunity in bringing such titles to US gameplayers, and expose them to some of this great content they might otherwise not have been able to purchase.

-- Cinemaware Marquee Interview



tagged: indie, gaming

Bizarre Anti-Lottery Editorial

A little off-topic, but I was surprised by this Des Moines Register op/ed piece on lottery machines, which goes into the future and predicts the eventuality of meth machines:

In another desperate attempt to raise money, the Iowa Legislature today approved the installation of portable meth-smoking machines in bars, restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores.

The move is expected to raise an additional $69 billion in revenue for the state's hard-pressed general fund, of which $67 billion will be directed to treatment programs as more Iowans get hooked on the powerful drug.

-- Think lottery machines are too much? Try your luck in 2016

I've complained earlier about the odd hypocrisy people use in game law logic, so I guess this is a little fitting. I mean, it's not OK to have a teenager play Halo, but his dad getting his leg broke to pay his gambling debt is just good old traditional values. Or something.



tagged: gambling, gaming

Morrowind Oblivion Shots Leaked

Apparently someone leaked a bunch of shots from the upcoming yet often delayed PC/360 title Morrowind: Oblivion to a forum, and then someone else uploaded them for the rest of the world to see. Unofficial, dubious quality, but plenty of shots with a wide variety of content including menus, maps, conversations and even a war pony.


tagged: morrowind, gaming

In-Game Ads ... Where Do We Go From Here?

Ars Technica has an excellent run-down on how Subway ads made their way into your Counter-Strike game. And to think, that was once the sole responsibility of jackass taggers. It's an interesting look as to how this form of advertisement is quickly changing. For instance, directed marketing for local business notches the whole thing up a level.

So what's next? Will they track your chat log and try to determine appropriate products for you? Sounds crazy that someone might try and sell you a six pack of L33T cola, but users of Google Mail have already grown accustomed to this kind of random connection between communication and banner ads. Will developers ever be able to insist on appropriate ads based on game space ... so that a billboard for Durex shows up in the men's room but not in the schoolyard?

Worse of all, will the inverse become true? Will developers gear their content to appease the advertisement? A Pepsi ad would look darn silly in Shadow the Colossus. Well, some gamers would say it would look silly in 90% of titles, but it would look really out of place in a slightly dreamy semi-watercolored fantasy realm. A studio might find it more attractive to do a game with plenty of urban sprawl ... and accordingly the poster and billboard spots that go along with it.





tagged: advertisement, gaming

Lost Notes On The Others

Last night's episode of Lost was bizarre almost for how non-bizarre it was. It didn't have much in the way of strange interconnections, didn't have much in the way of creepy quasi-supernatural, and the flashback was somewhat tame.

And yet, it was full of subtle points.

Michael's a bit nuts. Maybe a bit too irrational in his search? Is this what Danielle was afraid of?

The Others Do Get Around. Michael went in a completely different direction than the Tailies camp, and yet they managed to run into The Others all the same. Course, someone or something was trying to tell Michael a specific location before. That begs a question though ... didn't The Others mention that Michael wouldn't find them? Wouldn't that be whatever was communicating with Michael want? So maybe that was Walt on the other side?

The Modus Operandi. Jack's theory of using spies was pretty logical. It also brings up an interesting point. In both cases, The Others sent in a single spy, tried to take every young child in the group and then later make a few choice others disappear. Well, Jack's camp may have prevented that last part from happening - but it's definately a specific plot with some specific purpose.

Quoting Hanso. "Zeke" (apparently referred as Mr. Friendly in the credits) quoted Alvar Hanso in his curiosity speech. Wouldn't researchers be the only persons who would be aware of this?

Mentioning Alex. The person holding Kate in the darkness might be Danielle's (crazy French chick) kid.

Great Intel Reports. The Others know everyone's names. They know what they've been up to. They know if they've been bad or good .... er, sorry. While this seems really odd, we should remember we've got a smoke monster apparently capable of reading people's thoughts. Great survelliance seems to be part of the island.

No response to Ethan. Mr. Friendly didn't seem to acknowledge Jack's mention of Ethan. Are there perhaps three groups at work here? The survivors, the ex-researchers and the Others? Seems unlikely considering the similarities between the last two, but an interesting possibility.

Ruling the island. Mr. Friendly was definately trying to make it clear that they controlled the island. Course, then why use spies? Why not just round up all the survivors?


An unrelated thought I had was that the Black Rock seems to indicate that there was some strange about this island way before Hanso. Not sure what that means, but maybe the research on the island was tapping some existing resource.



tagged: television, lost

Gamepedia for OS X

The Brother sent me some information about Gamepedia, which allows for an iTunes like database for your game library hooked into Amazon.com. Maintain the games you have and the games you want and export this library for your nefarious needs.


tagged: macintosh, gaming

Five Reasons for the DS Success

Next-Gen breaks down the reason why the Nintendo DS has continued to win out in an increasingly hostile market, especially considering the new competition from Sony. They go into five reasons for this, going into some detail on the marketing and the library of games which has kept Nintendo the market leader for handhelds.


tagged: nintendo, gaming

Running With Scissors Attacks Thompson

I just love that headline.

Next-Generation has some information about Postal developer Running With Scissors's statement against crazyman crusader BatJack Thompson:

Tucson-based Running With Scissors statement read, "Hypocrisy and irresponsible anti-game zealotry has never been more obvious. Mr. Thompson ignores the fact that the assailant was enthralled by a racist book that espouses anti-Semitic hatred."

It added, "Throughout our company's history, we've diligently avoided behavior that might be seen as exploiting a real life tragedy. We extend our sincere sympathies to the victims and their families. Despite our renegade image, we have always maintained that violence belongs in videogames, noton the streets."

-- Now Scissors Fires Thompson Salvo

When the guys who made Postal sound more rational than the other side, it's really becoming a strange "debate".



tagged: batjack, gaming

That DS Got No Buttons

Playbomb has some info on a buttonless Nintendo DS. Apparently the abomination was born specifically for some marketing purposes and not really intended for the eyes of consumers. Still, it's weird. Very weird.


tagged: nintendo, gaming

Will Sony Get A PlayStation Live?

In it's ramp-up the the PlayStation 3 release, Sony might be considering creating a centralized online service as Microsoft has done, according to Ars Technica:

Now it seems that Sony is considering getting in on the action. The company is sending around a questionnaire to some gaming editors loaded with questions aimed at assessing whether or not people find online play fun, and what kind of (very Xbox Live-like) features they might like. Questions range from the innocuous, "On a typical day, how often do you play games online?" to more specific queries such as "Game Lobbies should be Eyetoy compatible[?]" Some of the more interesting questions are as follows:

3. What is your preferred Online gaming format?
6. A single identity and password for all online games?
7. Global Lobbies allowing you to play against anyone in the world?
8. Game Lobbies should be language based. (English, French, German etc)
9. Game Lobbies should be based geographically.
11. Headset support in all online games?
12. A QWERTY keyboard as standard for messaging.
14. Friend List allowing you to see online/offline status?
17. A feedback rating allowing you to choose who you play against?
20. Automatically filter opponents based on connection quality?
21. The ability to download music, game demos and other content?
24. Ability to take movie clips in game and share them with friends?
26. An in game grief reporting system?
31. A specific lobby only for Adults.
32. Service should feature a Global Ranking system for each game.

-- Sony considering Xbox Live-like service




tagged: playstation, gaming

Nintendo in 2006

Gamasutra has an overview of CNet's interview with Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo's VP of marketing:

Other points are newer, such as the VP's statement that the Revolution "will cost less than $300," which would make it the most inexpensive of the three next-generation systems. Fils-Aime also discussed an example of how the controller could be used for more mainstream games: "So if I'm developing a football game, I can move across the field, focus against a particular receiver with pinpoint accuracy and throw the ball right to that receiver much as a real-life quarterback does."

On some questions, such as a precise launch date and possible launch games, Fils-Aime stonewalled, saying only that the system was still due in 2006 and that games would be on display at E3 2006, in similar comments to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's predictions reported earlier.

-- Fils-Aime Outlines Nintendo's Next-Gen Strategy



tagged: nintendo, gaming

John Rhys-Davies Compares Boll to Lucas

Damn you, Gimli:

"I think hes got huge determination," said Rhys-Davies, who played dwarf Gimli in the "Lord of the Rings" blockbuster. "He reminds me of another Hollywood rebel in his own way. I mean George Lucas."

-- Director Uwe Boll readies new projects

The article also mentions how Boll deleted his only script to his upcoming non-blockbuster, "Seed". Professional act, that one. Billy Zane has also recently supported the crapmaster, but that might change as BloodRayne loses his production company millions.



tagged: uwe boll, movies

D&D Creators Put Their Voices In Stormreach

Gar Gygax and Dave Arneson will be heard in the upcoming game:

As creators of the original pen and paper game, they will provide the game's first celebrity "Dungeon Master" voiceovers for certain in-game adventures. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is under license from the Hasbro Properties Group, the intellectual property development arm of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS)

"Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are icons within the gaming community, and their roles in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE will resonate with players everywhere," said Jeffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. "We are striving to adapt online gaming to the true D&D experience and the involvement of the original D&D creators is absolutely thrilling."

-- D&D Creators Lend Voices to Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach

Sweet sticky geekiness right there.



tagged: dungeons & dragons, gaming

Katamari on NPR

The Girl just sent word that NPR is doing a bit on Katamari Damacy. Audio should be up on their website later today.

Update: Audio is available at that link. Just heard it. Very good view on the game, a little hyperbolic at times (best game since chess?) ... but still an extremely well-done and thoughtful look at the game and examines why everything from it's blatant otaku-ness and catchy music make the thing so damn popular.



tagged: npr, gaming

Poorly Crafted Demands For 2006

For Corvus' latest roundtable I'll update my previous list of demands which, at the very least, got this out of the deal.

So here goes.

Apple, open a game studio with the aim of developing simple but innovative titles for casual players. Sell games off of iTunes. Make games that interact with iTunes. I have a living room, an AirTunes and a big TV. Help a brother out.

I'm officially bored with simple running and gunning ... although it took quite some time. The biggest problem a title like Quake IV has is that it ignores that games like GoldenEye or Halo never existed. I was moderately OK with that on Doom III ... though I still think the controls there kinda sucked (for more sinful than the lighting). Big monsters and weapon design won't cut it anymore. Give me better control. Give me better stories. Give me better interaction.

Casual gaming, meet casual online gaming. Let's get together sometime. One of the great things about Mario Kart DS is the ability to get human players into the game so easily. Microsoft and Bungie started catching on with their Halo matchmaking and others are taking notes.

Replayability, replayability, replayability. I will say it every year. Give me games that I want to keep on my hard drive until the end of time. Give me games that I can just pick up any odd day that I have a free half hour.

X-Com for the DS. Rebelstar was nice, sure. But I missed base management and open ended campaigns. And now I want wifi multiplayer. Hey, that's what you get for making me wait for the whole thing. Make it coop and I'll give you a gold star. And a buttercookie.

Keep indies indie. Having seen the overcommercialization of mods with front row tickets, I'm hoping the same won't become true for the indie scene. Course, this is a harder line to draw since indie teams are naturally in it for profit from the get go. Just remember that market pressure begets market demands. And those demands are rarely to make crazy fun innovative risky stuff.

Stick up for yourself .... and others. The next time someone attacks the industry, stand up for them ... even if they are Rockstar. The anti-game crowd is getting louder and the industry is going to have to get on the offensive to stay the line. It's not enough to have gamers themselves getting all uppity - we gotta see industry figures become more verbal and more visible when it comes to helping parents get the real story on games.

Sony, stop the evil ... because if you pull any DRM/rootkit crap with your game division like you did with BMG, there will have to be a reckoning. A reckoning I say.

Don't release Duke Nukem Forever because honestly, that joke will never get old unless you do. Don't rob us of that.

I'm not upgrading, so deal with it. The CheapBox might get a new non-Celeron processor and a quieter CPU fan, but that's about it. Gears of War might require dual 7800s but I'll be willing to either that hardware gets cheap or I get a next-gen (or is it just gen now?) console. I've got a massive backlog of PC titles to get through on this hardware, so I'm really in no rush. If the industry wants to sell to a large PC audience, it will have to remember that not everyone throws down four grand to play games.

OK, that's all for now. I'd probably have more but work is extremely swampy right now.


Pull up a seat...





tagged: game, gaming

White House Text Adventure

Political satire in Infocom format? Excellent.


tagged: game, politics

Failure of the Colossus

I'm on the last giant in Shadow of the Colossus, and I've got some complaints to voice. If you haven't gotten this far in the game, stop reading. Don't stop playing - the game is completely worth it up to this point. But right now I'm getting a very God of War feeling for disappointing ending.

The main problem with this giant is it's circular design. But it's not design which is making this so frustrating ... it's mechanics. Everything up to this game has balanced it's overly complicated control setup with a fairly fluid set of mechanics which allows players to actually getter better at distinct tasks like climbing up specific parts of fur or legs. So once you've figured out part of a fight, it generally gets easier.

I'll foreshadow my problem by saying it took me a half hour to get across the bridge. Why? Because thee camera kept circuling around and I was trying to keep the horse straight. An impossible task and the horse knew it. I finally just tried letting the horse guide itself ... and voila. Question is ... why didnt the designers realize what the camera would do to the controls?

Apparently they kept ignoring it. Having a level which has large parts going around a radius and a camera which attempts, often poorly, to follow that radius ... while the player is trying to use an analog stick to maintain a couple directions at once? Ouch. Seriously, seriously ouch. Especially when I'm in this giant's mitt and it's rotating it's arm, it's hand and the camera is going around as well? Half the time I can't even see the character and the other half the character is futilely climbing against the grain ... and often it's both.

Bad show. It's this kind of failed mechanics that makes me hate nearly every jumping puzzle in nearly any game. I understand what you want me to do. I can do it 99% of the time. You force me to repeat it over and over. And if I fail once ....

I get to start all over again. You want me to be precise in my actions? Fine ... give me precision controls.

I definately need to see this game through to the end, but I feel it ending on a downer now.




tagged: game, gaming

My Video Is Split

The Girl and I recently bought a DVD recorder for the main purpose of recording some shows we have saved on Tivo. Things like the AMC presentation of Airplane!. Also, I'm desperate to get my VHS copy of The Maxx on something more durable.

Unfortunately, this started me on a huge crusade to rewire the Entertainment Shrine in the best possible way. Previously, the DVD player enjoyed the TV's only s-video input. But now having seen the difference in quality from DirecTV on s-video versus coaxial ... well, that just wouldn't do.

So now I've spent as much on cables as the DVD recorder itself ... and the DVD recorder doesn't even get s-video in the end. Everything else does, including the PlayStation 2. Our shows now play nice and crisp, which is probably the best part. I'm not sure if I'm going to invest in an s-video splitter (as well as the switch box) or just let the recorder use composite inputs. For now, though, I'll glow in some geeky glory.



tagged: tv, cables

Don Quixote And Gaming

This is simply brilliant:

"If Cervantes had written 'Don Quixote' today," says Gonzalo Frasca, a video game researcher in Copenhagen, "video games - and not books - would have sparked the imagination of its hero and caused him to realize that he is a knight waging a war for justice. Don Quixote was a reflection of fear of a new medium - popular literature - and over the years his fears were proven false. Today there is a big fear of video games. Some people claim they corrupt youth, but over time people will understand that this is a medium that can be used positively."

-- The game's the thing

This article on Haartz covering Gonzalo Frasca (also known for ludology.org) is full of gems like that one. He goes into GTA, cartoons, powerful robots .... ah heck ... just read it.




tagged: ludology , gaming

Escape from the Crimson Room

Stumbled on this odd flash game which goes along the old "escape from a single room" theory of game design. I've been poking at it and still haven't gotten out, though I do keep finding keys all over the place. If someone was going to lock me in a room, they should just keep the key and be done with it ... though I admit that would be an unfun game.

On a side note, I'm considering a textual version of something like this as a demo. I'm working on a new piece to try and really flush out the new design, but something simple might help as well.


Update: A friend of mine informs that this is about a year old, but TIG Source mentions that there is a new one.

tagged: flash, gaming

Banned 360 Ad

I think this is old news, but apparently this ad for the 360 was deemed touchy by MS Lawyers. I swear I saw a parody of this already, so I'm fairly certain this has been out for a while. Still, it's one of the better 360 ads I've seen. Course, I play violent video games.




tagged: 360, gaming

Disaffected - The Game For Copy Store Junkies

Described as "a videogame parody of the Kinko’s copy store", Disaffected allows players to take control of the purple shirt wearing employees. Declaring a new genre of "anti-advergame", the premise alone seems worth a download. (Spotted on Dave's Dump)



tagged: kinkos, gaming

Hope Springs Eternal

Adventure Gamers offers up a review of a game you'd likely to never heard of before reading said review. Hope Springs Eternal is an indie adventure game about being a private eye in Sweden:

If your idea of pleasing gameplay is to leisurely stroll through a delightful game world populated by some gentle locals, with fairly simple challenges, this game is well worth a look. You'll have to live with some unclued inventory item hunting and related backtracking, but at the reasonable purchase price, you will probably enjoy yourself for a few afternoons. For experienced gamers, the game may feel more like a quaint, unambitious game. Still, it has enough going for it to keep it in mind for those long lulls when you want something pleasant and distracting while waiting for the big ticket games.

Check out the developer's site for more.



tagged: game, gaming

Browncoats start a fundraiser

Some rabid Firefly fans have started taking online donations to hand off to Joss Whedon so that Serenity might fly again. I had heard some fairly substantive gossip that Joss himself seemed prepped to let his fictional verse have it's end, but some say otherwise with an emphasis on "direct to DVD" or perhaps a return to television. So whether this is grass roots investing or just pure folly remains to be seen.

Television would be best, I think. Firefly was always too broad of a story to fit into a feature film format, which was one of the problems the movie had. Anything would be good though. Sometimes the strange branches are better than the tree. For instance, I never really got into the Starship Troopers movie ... but the animated series was pretty addictive. And if there was an animated Serenity, I'd certainly be picking that up.

In all honestly, though, the body of work Firefly/Serenity comprises right now is still stellar enough. The DVD set is in itself an epic movie and the movie at least provides a sense of closure. Certainly with characters as good as these, you will always want more.




tagged: television, firefly

Kotaku's Uwe Boll Defense

Crecente has apparently viewed House of the Dead and deemed it worthy:

The first half of the movie is action-packed and full of amazing special effects. If you haven’t seen it yet, Boll uses some pretty interesting technology to create some huge bullet-time scenes. Instead of the scenes including two or three people, he managed to squeeze in a whole graveyard worth of actors. The effect is pretty cool. The middle drags a little, but fortunately it’s a fairly short section. The end jumps back into the action, but isn’t as enjoyable as the beginning of the movie.

Boll also did a lot to turn this slasher flick into a homage to the game. There are bits of footage from the game actually in the movie, and lots of the game elements show up as well. Whenever one of the main characters dies, the background fades to black and the camera slowly rotates around the character, just like the drop-a-coin countdown in the arcade shooter. One of the last shoot-out scenes of the movie features the characters walking down a long hallway blasting zombies as they jump out of the dark.

-- Uwe Boll Ain't Heavy

I have seen the flick and stand by my rating of sucktastic. I'm not sure what amazing special effects could possibly be referenced here, since I mostly remember bad slo-mo directing that feels every bit like a fan-made movie made with a handycam. The "footage from the game" is used to cut in between scenes. When The Girl spotted one of these while passing by, she asked what it was. I replied that this was based on a video game. And those were from the computer game.

She quite rightfully left disgusted and didn't return.

If Crecente is referring to the action shot montage where every character gets to kill a zombie at drudgingly slow frame rate in humorously over-stylized ways ... it's definately the apex of the movie. It's also just about where I stopped watching.

Did I mention one of the characters is actually named Captain Kirk?

Crecente's argument seems to be that House of the Dead is just a victim of it's genre. Instead, I'd say the genre is a victim of Uwe Boll. It uses every bad cliche - stupid characters, bad dialogue, plot holes, violence with a gore level approaching idiotic ... and adds in some new tricks like awful puns, stealing scenes from unrelated movies and prominent product display.

There is one good thing about this movie. One.

Erica Durance shows her breasts in it. It occurs early on. Once you see them, stop watching.

Considering there are so much better examples of the genre (28 Days Later for instance) and even better cheap horror flicks (Evil Dead) or video game adaptations (Resident Evil) there is really very little reason to see this movie to the end. And less reason to defend doing so afterwards.

And if you don't believe me, Fangoria awarded it their worst movie of the year award for 2003. And those guys see a lot of horror films.



tagged: games, uwe boll

Is Indie Gaming Losing It's Soul?

Twitch Guru begs the question of whether indie games are becoming big business and whether that entails the kind of evil market pressures normally reserved for larger titles. The centerpiece of the argument lies with Valve's Steam:

As Valve's Doug Lombardi said to me after I put the question of undercutting independent publishers: "We're not looking to undercut anyone - just give developers and publishers more avenues for reaching customers." Of course he left out the part about beating the snot out of the likes of Battlefront in the process.

-- Is Independent Gaming Getting Evil?

Considering what Valve has done with the mod scene .... namely market the living hell out of it until only large mod teams with commerical level asset creations have a seat to the table ... I'd be suspect of Valve and the indie scene myself. Valve's practically redefined their business strategy to mean "value add" and software like Steam is precisely the kind of thing Valve would use for their own benefit. Just as the concept of mods has become so twisted that it's virtually lost all of it's original meaning, I could easily see a similar dynamic happening with indie titles as well.

And Steam still isn't my favorite thing in the world. Overengineered to benefit the publisher, not the user. So while Darwinia might be a great indie title ... I won't know because I'm not letting Steam back on my box.



tagged: game, gaming

New Features in Modern Graphics Cards

The term "modern graphics card" always seems a misnomer to me, since most people I know are about a generation or so behind. So what's cutting edge always seems a little future forward. I don't have a lot of friends sporting a new water cooled SLI monster, but such a machine is certainly contempory ... just damn expensive.

So while my CheapBox 5000 might not have all these bells and whistles, Tom's Hardware does a rundown of the new features for the latest crop of hardware, including new shader effects, what the new pixelshaders are capable and just how envious you can make a 6600 owner at the next LAN party.




tagged: games, hardware

Guild Wars: Factions Free For All

From the Guild Wars home page:

The Guild Wars Team would like to invite gamers everywhere to join us on the weekend of January 20th for a Guild Wars: Factions Global Free-For-All PvP Weekend Event! This event will take place on the Battle Isles, the new PvP continent. Players can visit this new area of the world to to try out a brand new arena, to visit the new combat training zones, or to experience the PvP explorable areas. Join us to get an early look at how PvP will evolve with the coming of Guild Wars: Factions!

The Event Schedule

Start of Event: January 20th: Midnight Pacific Time; 8:00 a.m. GMT; 5:00 p.m. Seoul
Closing Time: January 22nd/23rd: 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time January 22nd; 7:59 a.m. GMT January 23rd; 4:50 p.m. Seoul January 23rd
Your Key to PvP*

American Players:
888D9-H27PG-NM72D-PLHJ1-2HG11

European Players:
66DG9-C4RHB-9FKD6-287BJ-LRGCJ

Feel free to share this key with your friends, guild mates and gaming partners!

*If you are an existing Guild Wars player, you do not need to acquire an access key for your Guild Wars account; you will automatically receive access to all Global Free-For-All PvP Weekend content when the event begins.

-- Guild Wars


tagged: games, gaming