Girls Playing Counter-Strike

What gets me about this whole Girls Of CS nude pin-up deal is this:

Counter-Strike is by far and away the most popular online first person shooter with just thousands and thousands and thousands of people playing it right now. Right as I'm typing this.

The idea that anyone would actually be surprised that a) some are girls and that b) some of those girls are attractive seems rather ridiculous. I mean, they might exist. These people that don't believe in a) and b). But I don't think showing them naked pics will perform any kind of enlightenment.

Except for, of course, in their pants.

So to the three young enterpenuerial men apparently behind this venture, remember: You're doing a nudie site. If you can't accept your moral shortcomings - find another line of trade.




tagged: nude, gaming

I Remember My Aces

For his next RoundTable, Corvus asks us how we have dealt with our NPCs in the past. Honestly, recent shooters have made me bemoan the NPC as a zombie-like automatons that almost invariable get in the way as much as they actually help. Half-Life 2 may have had the most advanced facial technology of any shooter to date, but frequently my allies were little more than fodder. The bugs, once controlled with pheromones, were far more useful than any of the humans - because they all knew how to zerg correctly.

Even Unreal Tournament's vaunted AI, which works brilliantly on well-developed maps and correctly coded gametypes goes horribly awry when ... well, you don't have well-developed maps or correctly coded gametypes. One of my mods, Grind did little more than alter the movement code for the player pawns ... but convincing the bots they could jump at the appropriate times proved Herculean in nature.

But I digress. The point is that I found much more interesting NPC interaction before things went all 3D on us. The one that strikes the loudest chord is X-Com. Being a turn-based strategy game, everything comes down to how the pawns perform. You might want to snipe that alien from afar, but you can only succeed if the little soldier makes it's shot. Some of it's strategy, some of it's luck, and some of it's the skill of the soldier on the ground. Much of it, actually, is the skill of the solider ... so when you got a soldier who would survive long enough to actually be good, you got a certain rapport for them. You would try to give them more backup. You would go back a save just to keep them from dying. When you got an ace in X-Com, you worked for them so that they'd keep working for you.

They were important, and because they all had their own names ... it was oddly personal. In the Rebelstar followup on the GBA, this isn't really the case because all the characters are the same for everyone. But "Alice Jones" would be your ace. She would win your battles. Alice wouldn't go slutting around and fight someone else's alien invasion. If you kept her alive, she'd try her best to keep you alive.

Simple and effective. No need for fancy eye textures or complicated mo-cap animations. Just a personal level of trust and some reward in maintaining a relationship.

Or to put it very basically - would you feel more connected to ... Half-Life 2's Alix or your Sim?

tagged: game, gaming

Coolest Professor Evah

I can't get to the full article, but I agree with this digg that any professor who "has built a four player arcade cabinet for his students to test and present the games they develop for his class" is definately up for the title of "coolest ever". Or at least "this year".



tagged: academia, gaming

Massive Oblivion Mods List

For those of you who are into that kind of thing, here is a huge list of Oblivion mods (digg it). I'm not sure how many are related to your horse.




tagged: oblivion, gaming

Ars Technica Looks At PS3 OS

Ars Technica takes look at the brains of the Playstation 3 ... or rather Playstation 3 Portal does ... and gives us an overview:

This white paper was one of the first to be released on Cell, and it clearly indicates that PS3 was designed from the ground up as a node on the network. It also suggests, well before anything was known about Playstation World other than a name, some of the scope of Sony's online ambitions: real-time communications, DRM-protected audio and video, the dynamic integration of online-only content into gameplay, and more.

Not only is all of this enough work for one SPE, but in some circumstances it may be enough work for two SPEs. And for what it's worth, I also think that the reserved memory numbers given are fairly reasonable, as well.

In sum, the performance of PS3's network-facing functionality is going to be limited by network latency and bandwidth, where latencies are counted in milliseconds. This being the case, the SPE's distance from main memory, lack of dynamic branch prediction, and steep branch penalty aren't going to be a killer if it's primarily tasked with processing this kind of traffic while a game runs on the rest of the Cell.

-- New PS3 operating system details? (digg it)

Remember that, for there shall be a quiz later.


tagged: playstation , gaming

More On Samsung's Game Phone

Going where the N-Gage failed, Samsung's gaming phone is starting to shape up. Moneycontrol Tech Blog gets a little more info, and while the report is short - they seem to like what they see. Apparently the phone will be able to output to a TV, perform Bluetooth multiplay and doesn't look like a plastic taco when you use it. All good things.




tagged: game, gaming

Television Missing the ARG ... by this much

Watching the old idiot box last night brought up an interesting trend ... shows trying to tie-in their websites by pointing to interactive content. For instance, CSI fans can check out this diner for clues about the final two episodes (and yes, I recognize the painting). Smallvile viewers can check out Project Mercury to catch up on the hunt for Dr. "Brainiac" Fine.

While somewhat interesting ... neither really rise up to the level of a real Alternate Reality Game. The CSI flash barely even rises to the level of game, being mostly a fancy zoom feature. The Mercury Blog seems like it could be closer to the real thing, but I'm guessing it's mostly just an "additional information" and not even a Jamie Kane style casual ARG, with mini-games and chatterbots to keep people occupied.

A shame, because both could be fun little mini-ARGs, if the television industry would just catch up with the times.




tagged: arg, gaming

Japan Apparently Cracks Down On Games

It appears there is this Gamasutra article on how Japan is cracking down on video games, but it's been deemed unfit by the corporate firewall for viewing, so you'll have to tell me if it's any good or not.


tagged: game, gaming

Sega Handheld = April Fools

Thanks to the blazing speed of Internet communications, this April Fool's prank came a couple weeks late. No Sega handheld for you! You may now return to playing Metroid: Hunters.


tagged: sega, gaming

The IGN "360 Still Working" Award

Matt over at IGN is boasting about his feat of playing his 360 without breaking the darn thing. Apparently most of the editors aren't so lucky:

It serves them right, I say. After all, if you're going to play your 360, you have to be prepared for the eventuality that it's going to break. You get what you pay for. And apparently $500 for a system and its accessories doesn't guarantee you that any of it will work for very long. Suck it up and take it, bitches. You've been consumer-pnwed and Bill Gates is laughing his ass off from the top of his golden, hovering pyramid in the clouds.

I, on the other hand, am completely owned free because my Xbox 360 is running just fine. I have created an award to celebrate this occasion.

-- Excellence in Not Yet Breaking (digg it)






tagged: 360 , microsoft , gaming

Game Innovation Wiki

Neat idea and I wish them luck:

The goal of the GIDb is to classify and record every innovation in the entire history of computer and videogames. Because we could never complete this daunting task alone, we have made the GIDb an open wiki, allowing anyone to easily add innovation entries for the benefit of everyone who cares about the history, study, and practice of game innovation.

-- Game Innovation Database (digg it)



tagged: wiki, gaming

Yes, It Must Be Sweeps Week

New Game Plus showing off Ashley's special outfit.




tagged: game, gaming

Game Developer Salaries

Via gewgaw I find the hustler of culture's post on the game developer salary survey:

Game Developer released its 5th Annual Salary Survey. Following are salaries of game industry personnel with between three to six years of employment:

PROGRAMMING
Technical Director: $104,738
Lead Programmer: $81,591
Programmer / Engineer: $73, 618

ART and ANIMATION

Art Director: $65,313
Lead Artist: $68,112
Artist: $61,065

There's a few more areas on the full post. Personally, I'd never take a position in the industry for less than Carmack's Ferrari.




tagged: money, gaming

Lost: For What Heals You

Last night episode continued the trend of keeping Season 2 interesting, even if it wasn't quite as strong as Hurley's episode. Hurley and Locke still provide the best material for the show, hands down.

Still, this was an important episode because it emphasized another part of the mystery which is often glossed over - the island's odd healing properties. Locke, Rose and probably Sun have been "cured" in some way. It's an interesting comparison to Boone, who was shown how to back away from his relationship with Shannon.

The explanation for the island's magic healing abilities was probably wrapped around the faith healer who said he focused certain energies into people, curing them. Perhaps his magic piece of rock wasn't strong enough for Rose ... but the island somehow kicks things up a notch. Perhaps the big generator in the hatch is an amplifier for the island's normal electromagnetics. It offers another idea to how people survive such a crash in these numbers ... maybe the island kept them alive.

So why didn't it save Kate's cop? Or Boone? Perhaps it has it's limits ... or maybe it's just finicky.

Finally ... what is up with (Not) Henry Gale? Why oh why does he not want Locke to push that button?

Next week we apparently get confirmation of an old suspicion - that the Others don't have vast numbers or force, but rely on subterfuge and fear to keep their operations going. Oh, the war is so on.



tagged: television, lost

Girls In Bikinis Playing Star Wars

Have I reached a new low? Probably. But check out e4zone's flickr page for lots of good geeky pics.



tagged: star wars, girls