Marek

Nintendo not doing any quality control doesn't have to be a negative. In fact, for Nintendo, this is probably good. When Nintendo does commit to quality control, they are likely to be total nazis about it, at least that's how it has been in the past. Wii devkits are relatively cheap. Too expensive for bedroom coders perhaps, but still very cheap. If anyone is actually serious about making a Wii game, but can't pay for a devkit, all they have to do is harass their uncle or whatever into making an investment. That's how a lot of indies start and I think that's a fair barier to entry. What all of this requires, though, is a really good WiiWare channel with a lot of filters, tabs and search options. The VC channel is infuriatingly bad and if the WiiWare channel is anything like it then it will fail terribly, since the VC channel succeeds only because the games are already very well known. Here's hoping they don't fuck up the channel and make it something fun and awesome with a game-like interface like the Mii Channel.

Go with Clinton Foundation! They're the badass mofo's who brought the price of AIDS medicine down at least 50% by negotiating with the manufacturers, and they had smart business people help them move from selling little for much to selling lots for little. They rule.

So out of curiosity, which charities do you guys give to? I support Amnesty International and give ridiculous money to the super awesome Clinton Foundation but that's about it. I signed up for small donations to CARE and the WWF through street teams but I stopped donating to them, as I don't feel confident enough about whether these organisations make real lasting differences.

Fine. You win, THIS TIME.Although they do shove newspapers into my hands or hold it horizontally in front of me like a stop sign which is almost as bad as shoving them into your pocket or backpack, even when I don't actually grab the newspaper. They think they're doing you a favor by giving you something that is free, which is very different from people who, say, ask you directions and who have a genuine reason to bother you. I'm always ready to be nice to those people. But the newspaper people should just stand there ready to give you the newspaper BUT NOT BOTHER YOU. It's a public space and they're spamming it. RANT RANT RANT RANT. P.S. Most of the things Nachimir wrote would make me stop and laugh and take the damn flyer.

Lots of people love viagra. Just sayin'. What were we talking about again?

I guess spam is okay too then? So you get spam, and I guess if you want you can then send a message back saying "I don't want any spam!", which will probably bounce, and that's the last you'll hear of it that day! Until the next day! Awesome! Free newspapers == spam. Making someone cry is harsh and stupid but karma neutral in this case, I think.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1653788069 What the fuck.

HERE'S WHY:

Goggalor!!

I have some information for you. Sonic the Hedgehog is an enzyme. Also Doctor Robotnik's character design is based on Theodore Roosevelt in pajamas. Enjoy.

Hahahaha oh man this is so predictable. Simon Jeffery became LucasArts president in 2000. Deals were made with Petroglyph, Kuju, Planet Moon Studios, The Collective, Obsidian and BioWare. Simon Jeffery becomes president of Sega of America in like 2004. Deals are made with -- wait for it -- Petroglyph, Kuju, Planet Moon Studios, The Collective, Obsidian and BioWare. And as a bonus Totally Games and Secret Level, which used to make LucasArts' space combat sims. All aboard the Jeffery train! I only notice this because I used to be a huge LucasArts fan etc. etc. But it's funny how this guy's business relations are apparently at the heart of so many publishing deals.

Well... on the other hand I think this has been a huge experiment for EA to see if they can get mainstream PR for a video game. Turns out they can. NYTimes, Colbert Report, etc. etc. I hope not everyone has forgotten about Spore by the time it comes out. I don't mind them taking more time if it makes the game actually as good as promised, though. And I have the feeling that their ambitions have been scaled up somewhat from the first GDC demo, e.g. now this whole thing has to work cross-platform as well.

User Generated Content victorious once again.

My name is Marek Bronstring and I approve of this smiley.

Sp!ts was always shitty but it's funny to see how Metro progressed from having an actual decent amount of news (albeit almost all rewrites of AP or Reuters stories) to having about 3 pages of news and 20 pages of random ads and articles. Metro pisses me off more than any free newspaper because the metro station I go to every morning has annoying people trying to give me Metros and even after months of saying "no, thank you" they are still trying. KILL THEM.

So I'm doing my daily ShackNews routine and I read this: "Activision recently announced the development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the next installment in the popular war game series. Moving away from the World War II setting, Modern Warfare instead centers around a conflict involving Russia and the Middle East." Doesn't it feel a little bit weird how it goes from historical WW2 game to fictional WW3 game? Somehow it makes the WW3 setting feel less fictional or speculative and more like 'okay this is going to be the next big war, it hasn't happened yet, but check it out guys we're using it already!!'. It's almost the default fictional present-day conflict in games. Always America versus the Chinese, the Durka-Durkastans (who band together in some form of alliance like the GLA in C&C Generals) or, occasionally, the Russians. Like we'll inevitably have such a war. Time to buy more ducttape I guess. It's not something that upsets me in any major way at all (really), and I don't think it's wrong to use this kind of setting in Call of Duty 4 or other games, but it just stood out to me for a second. Whatever. I guess I just want something interesting and new. Maybe I just want a game that pits America against Europe? Or Australia becomes a rogue terrorist nation? That'd be awesome.

Check out the American McGee interview at Shack and MAKE SURE you do not miss the first and last answers.

Camino is pretty cool, it uses the Firefox engine but is written in native OS X code. That dialog box is poorly phrased. I was also confused for a sec when I first encountered it. But the question it asks is pretty important. Your keychain is your collection of stored passwords. I definitely want to have to authorize an app to use the keychain (an upgrade to an existing app is seen as pretty much a new app by the OS).

The church may be offended (fine, tell us what you think) but it's wrong of them to demand anything let alone claim that Sony had to get permission. That has no basis in actual law for that and they probably even know this. It's also totally slanderous to claim that the game encourages people to have real gun battles inside their church. But I'm more disappointed with the news media. You can clearly tell that no one has actually played the game. Granted there are only a few factual inaccuracies in their stories but add them up to all the omissions they've also made and it paints a completely wrong picture. They make it sound like there's a game set entirely inside the church of Manchester where you have shootouts (aka "bloodbaths") with real people, who one must imagine are probably innocent churchgoers who are there praying, and it's all totally realistic and also deliberately designed to be as shocking as possible. Bad Sony! Blarrrrghhhhhhhh :gaming::gaming::oldman:

I can totally relate. There are too many games I still want to play and don't have the time or energy for. When I get back home from work during the week I don't want to play something heavily story and puzzle based with long drawn-out reward structures, because I've already been mentally doing those sorts of things at work. I just want to relax and play an arcade game or a DS game or Guitar Hero for like half an hour. That only leaves only the weekend for meatier games. But other than lack of time, compared to when I was in school, I also find that I'm more easily fed up with some of the most common "sausages" in video game design. Games can no longer get me to do ridiculous things just for some points or whatever. I'm like 'fuck this shit' and move to something else. The dirty truth of video games is that on average of all the video game content people buy they only actually consume about a quarter of it. People have been saying this for a long time and now the statistics Valve released a while ago actually prove it too. (In the case of HL2:1 only about 50% finished it.) Personally I'm all for compressing games into shorter but more exciting experiences, or games that can be finished quickly but can then be replayed with slightly different gameplay (i.e. making the repetitive stuff optional or unlockable). I think the game design practices are already slowly moving towards that.

I'm totally ready for the final season now. I expect it's going to be great, since RDM was one of the key writers behind DS9's "The Final Chapter", the 12 closely linked super epic episodes at the end (which apart from one plot line were totally excellent). Oh man. "FOR CARDASSSIAAAAAA!". They had me totally rooting for the original bad guys. I need to watch that shit again someday.

Dude, thanks for that great post. You went above and beyond the call of duty. The whole problem with my way of playing, it turns out, is that I never keep the lower note pressed while alternating with a higher note. I just keep one fret pressed at a time. Clearly that's what's causing me to fail at the zig-zags and it's also probably making my hands more tired than they should be. Also: "OH. MY. GAWWWWD." @ that screenshot. 1337 note streak eh?

People have also reported encountering JB on Xbox Live using voicechat. He also once did an interview about one of his movies while playing Guitar Hero. He's a gamer alright.

Okay I've got a question. Maybe miffy or someone else can help me out. I'm almost done finishing everything at 5 stars in medium, just to give an indication of my skill level so far. I LOVE the song Free Bird, have finished it with 5 stars, but there are parts that for the life of me I just cannot play, even after trying in practice mode. Specifically there's parts where, for instance, it zig zags between green and red notes like 10 times or more after each other. Is there a way to do these succesfully that I don't know of? I tried doing pull-offs and hammer-ons but I think these notes are too far apart for that?

I tuned out of Lost near the end of season 2. I might wait until the series is over and watch all the episodes though.