Resistance is Pretty
Well, the boxart and logos are. Don’t worry, EU, same for you.
Reviewing Free [to Play]
Back at GDC over lunch with Christine Yeo from Perfect World Ent the notion of reviewing free games came up. This is something a bit of brain space has been devoted to, so now comes the waxing speculative.
Largely with the dawn of iPhone app reviews (and apps), the decision of whether or not to review free apps came up. With an inbox full of review requests for paid apps, time management was an issue and the answer was clear: No thank you. A free app costs only as much as the player’s time, and there was little value to be added to the equation by reviewing such an app – while simultaneously trying to quantify the value of time versus the app. Nope, the math was just not working out.
Free-to-play MMOs, however, are increasing their presence in the Western world and so the question comes up again – is it relevant to review what is free? Here the answer is yes. Where time commitment on a free app runs something like 20 minutes maximum before determining if the player wishes to continue, the time likely to be invested in an MMO before its worth can be sussed out tends to run higher. Certainly, some just won’t run or are broken beyond reviewing comprehension, and in those cases the less WPM spent on the debacle the better (as with any lame app). Without reviews, doesn’t the MMO player find themselves adrift in a sea of time-eating possibility?
While LOTRO may or may not make your butt look big, finding the right free-to-play MMO seems a lot like trying to find a good pair of jeans – you want back-up.
Something to look forward to
Not all E3 appointments are created equal. Bethesda, for example, will be showing off Skyrim, Prey 2 and hands-on time with RAGE. Last year’s RAGE presentation was great, but it’ll be tough to compete for my gaming affections with this around…
E3 2011 Nintendo Presentation
[Finally] Nintendo invite arrives – was I on the B list?
Roll a D6
Thanks to LouDog for finding this gem for me:
Video Games Included as Art by U.S. Government
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) includes video games in grant description:
Projects may include high profile multi-part or single television and radio programs (documentaries and dramatic narratives); media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within an existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and interactive games. Short films, five minutes and under, will be considered in packages of three or more.
The grant category was previously titled “The Arts on Radio and Television” and is now “The Arts in Media”.E3 2011 Ubisoft Media Briefing
Ubisoft has added to the presser-happy Monday of E3 with their briefing:
E3 2011 Microsoft Press Conference
Xbox 360 Media Briefing
Monday, June 6, 10 a.m.
Galen Center
3400 South Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90007Harmonix Seeking CM
There are droves of listings for CMs, but relatively few are in the gaming field and even fewer for companies as recognizable as Harmonix. So if you’re an out of work CM or looking to make a change, Harmonix is hiring!
Harmonix, the studio that created blockbusters Dance Central and Rock Band, is looking for an experienced Community Manager to engage with fans of our games. Community Managers represent Harmonix online as well as at live events. When working with our development team and partners, they act as the voice of our community. The ideal candidate will be an outgoing and highly motivated self-starter with a positive attitude. High tolerance for the nerdy, quirky and bizarre, as well as possessing a good sense of humor, patience, and a thick skin are essential to being successful in this role.
No worries, though – Aaron a.k.a. @HMXhenry isn’t going anywhere!
Jetpacks Are Cool
If you found the awesome water jetpack lacking – specifically for more land-based pursuits – the Martin Jetpack is on it with a 7+ minute outdoor flight.
James flies the Martin Jetpack by radio control. This is part of a flight that lasted more than 7 minutes, a record for the jetpack.
We use Jetson, our weighted dummy in the aircraft to provide the mass to represent a pilot. The control system of the jetpack has been computer limited to slow speeds and climb rates at this stage of testing.
If You Had a Portal Gun
Where would you go? This awesome question was posed on the forums yesterday, and I’m still mulling it over.
On the attainable but perhaps not dreaming big end of the spectrum, a couch-to-refrigerator portal is a humble but convenient addition to life. Conversely, all sorts of portals to the bedrooms of unattainable lady figures were also suggested, and I don’t think would work out very well – or for very long (if we assume the following):
- The portals are not limited by geographic distance
- The portals must, however, be placed in areas you can aim at/have access to at least once
- The portals can be seen by everyone, and so should be in a place reasonable to have a portal
- Other people may want to use your portalWith those in mind, I think a portal from my residence (the office, perhaps?) to my brother’s on Oahu is the best option, which was really an extension of Smokey’s idea that he could eliminate his commute to work. It seems that old people like us really want to get rid of the hassle of travel, while the younger types are content to dream of cinnamon buns and locker rooms. None of us get to attain these portal dreams, but I know which of us is going to be more annoyed by our next Delta flight.
PixelJunk Shooter 2: Survivor Files 3/3: Moar Eggplant
PixelJunk Shooter 2: Survivor Files 3/3
Also of note, the latest ep of PixelJunk Radio (official podcast of Q-Games) includes an exclusive interview with High Frequency Bandwith’s Alex Paterson and Dom Beken. Paterson and Beken are responsible for the music in Shooter, and will be plugging the release of the soundtrack.
If you need a new shirt, they’re giving away a PixelJunk Shooter-themed ThinkGeek T-shirt to a listener who follows them on @PixelJunkNews and retweets their contest announcement – see ThinkGeek for more details about the PixelJunk shirts.
Reading Books
**If you haven’t yet read The Wise Man’s Fear there are light spoiler-y hints below. Also: Bruce Willis is dead the whole time. Now READ THE BOOK.**
The Name of the Wind is a book you should have read, a mandate that extends to its sequel (second in The Kingkiller Chronicle) The Wise Man’s Fear. Being now mostly through the latter, I get to wonder: The Wise Man’s Fear is a man book.*
As Penny Arcade illustrated, there’s “sexomancy”, which for all the mention to female wiles and skill is definitely a man thing. Kvothe fighting droves of bandits: heroic. Kvothe going out of faerie to spread the knowledge of looooooove: man skank. It’s just the sort of thing a man cares about, a guy going around getting some. Pretty much just makes me want to punch his smug face.
Kvothe is a giant idiot, he knows that about himself, and most of the time it doesn’t affect his likability – except when it comes to Denna. She’s a black hole waste of space that Kvothe should have pretended not to recognize. Instead, he pines after her, spending way too much time trying to find her all while she makes herself unbearably difficult to find. She’s one of the worst kinds of women, but the reader is supposed to understand Kvothe’s affection for her? Lacking man parts, I don’t think I can. Denna’s story is hinted at, and maybe it will yet be revealed that I’m being horribly unfair, but it strikes me that while from a single, catastrophic event Kvothe works to change his fortune, Denna works to keep hers the same while maintaining the illusion of momentum.
These musings don’t change the unchangeable, that this man book is good, very good, and I write that without any of the usual middle-of-the-trilogy disclaimers. The pacing is like being woven into a great big quilt of a story, and you can’t help but wrap yourself up in it. It just so happens that in doing so, you may feel the need to take a rape shower afterward.
*For whatever reason, when I expressed this sentiment last night out loud all my time in the South erupted, so when you read this say it to yourself with a disdainful drawl “ma-an buk”, like you would speak about neighbors that won’t fly the flag of the Confederacy.
Age of Empires Online Beta Keys
Curse and N4G are having some bonding time with Age of Empires Online, and you can get your key here!
This Gun Makes Holes
Had Portal 2 for lunch today, and Stephen Merchant as Wheatley is fantastic. It’s like listening to an episode of The Ricky Gervais Show, if it was The Stephen Merchant Show, and the show was about an independent personality core. Wheatley’s dialog makes for a very compelling opening sequence, and I look forward to bumping into him at every opportunity.
Only having completed through Chapter 3 (and no co-op played yet), Portal 2 is more engaging than Portal – or maybe it’s more likable. Yep, I just plain like it more.
Picked it up for PS3, what with the Steam integration and all, but this presented a very snarly snag in the general proceedings of our home. Game time usually goes something like Adam plays a game on console, I pick up the laptop and fire up Civ (vice versa, fill in game [here]), but with Steam getting all up in the PS3 it prevented me logging into the Steam account. Logging out of PSN while he played solved the problem, and it was another reminder of not only the weird difficulties that crop up as a gaming couple, but that our original notions of cavorting in co-op are not going to work out.
About
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Check out my about.me profile!
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