Games! Games! Games!

Sí, señores… sabíamos que se iba a hacer un Video Games Live en España, pero no sabíamos donde. Se especulaba Barcelona (por guay) y Madrid (por capi), pero ha ganado Valencia (por Campus Party).

This has some implications for video games. Think of how categorised video game reviews are, and the implications that these categories have. Are games that are classified as “casual” less valuable than “hardcore” ones? Is it the other way around?

On March 28th and 29th Video Games Live will be playing shows here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve never gone, but this year I might have to.

If you spend a lot of time on the Internet, remember this fact that is already in your subconscious: your life is limited. If your surfing habit does not change, imagine how you would feel looking back on life and seeing all the wasted time in things that mean nothing. The same holds true for video games, especially MMORPGs. Remember, all the loot you get, all the levels you attain, all the quests you complete and kobolds you slay, mean nothing when you log off. However, there is one thing that will change: you will be older than when you started.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) has proposed a bill to strengthen the video game rating system. Sadly I don’t agree with my fellow republican here. I believe that the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) Already does a good job of rating games.

DH and I have strong feelings about video games, and have decided not to purchase any for our home. I have no problem with him playing them at other people’s houses, however, and he spent a blissful hour and a half clicking away while his friend’s mom and I chatted about what colors she was going to paint her totally white walls.

I love video games - they are a part of me. After all, I am a member of the gamerx generation. I remember spying my piano teacher’s son playing a spy strategy game on his Coleco Vision in the 80’s. Now my sights are set on the Sony PS3 at the same time I explore the wonderful world of PC online gaming. But am I wasting my time? Having the goal of making a difference in this world, am I using my time poorly? What implications do the answers to these questions have on my soon-to-arrive daughter?

Originally created on the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive, Sonic the Hedgehog forged a new path in videogames. The short blue hedgehog, adorned with white gloves and shoes, lined with spikes across his back, sported a blazing speed and a clear attitude shown off in his idling animations, breaking the fifth wall and speaking directly to videogame players worldwide.

Remember folks - if your kid is playing violent video games? Its up to YOU to monitor their habits.

Again, they claim that they may have been wrong in the details, but they caught the spirit of the thing: terrorists are using video games to recruit. Well, perhaps when collecting intelligence—especially open source intelligence—it might be a good idea to get the facts right. Especially, when the facts don’t take long or cost much to get right. Folks are saying “computer game experts disagree,” but the truth is, anyone who is even moderately aware of the gaming world or popular culture (the “training video” included a voiceover taken from Team America: World Police) would have been able to give the group a reality check. That’s not to say video games are never used to recruit insurgents, just that they had it wrong in this case. And this was one of the cases they decided was especially worth showing congress as demonstrative of their abilities.

So, I’m a gamer. Not only that, I’m a game developer, which makes me part of a somewhat nonexistent constituency, politically speaking. Still, I hardly deserve to be treated like a child rapist. Of course, there are neat initiatives out there, like the Video Game Voters Network, working to counter the various legislative and political assaults on games, but in general the gamer as a political force is a non-entity. It would (and, I suspect, will) be a huge and vocal political force if mobilized. Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), and Evan Bayh (D-IN) are idiots for underestimating the portion of the young voting population who are gamers, instead groping desperately for the scraps from the reactionary family values fundamentalist table with “The Family Entertainment Protection Act,” which would regulate the sale of certain video games throughout the country.

After that, I want to check out I AM 8-BIT. It’s an art gallery based off of old 8-bit video games. Spencer and Kyung already said they wanted to go. Does anyone else want to go?

Certainly there can be flame wars in the comment fields of blogs, but, you know, the simple power to decide what goes on the front page, and even to delete comments, belongs to the blogger and that is important. It reminds me of T.L. Taylor’s note on womens’ pleasure in exploring online games:

And on June 7, 2006, Chris Bennett and Pablo Guzman will give a presentation on IP in video games at the Video Game Industry Business Forum in Montreal. The brochure for that conference is here. We hope to see you there!

I honestly can’t remember when I first became aware of video games. They just showed up one day and the world became better.

The game began as a lunchtime conversation in January 2005. I found myself seated across from John Sarpong, founder of Africast Global Media and grandson of the late King Prempeh I. He’s an extraordinary man with a powerful vision of Africa’s future. We struck up a conversation about the power of video games to tell stories, convey ideas, and entertain. Wouldn’t it be cool, I mused, to lead a caravan across the Sahara, to visit Timbuktu, to stroll through the Roman ruins at Lepis Magna, and to explore the vast jungles and savannahs of Africa?

Do you love video game music? Of course you do. Personally I love buying video game soundtracks, but they are often quite difficult to find. Sure you can hope over to Amazon to pick up Halo, Jade Empire, or Kingdom Hearts. But what if you're looking for some best, and most difficult to find, soundtracks of all time?

Absolutely genius. 1UP.com sat some kids down to play classic video games and record their reactions. Ready to laugh your ass off and feel old all at the same time?

This would have been a pretty short post, but while I was checking out the website hosting the store locator I found out that the author is Matthew Gray , one of the BGG admins. I read the Games section of his blog and stumbled across a post about BoardGameGeek Recommendations. I already knew about Geek ratings on games, and I have used “GeekBuddy Analysis” extensively for purchase advice; however, Matthew’s post was where I learned about the improved games rating page — very cool!

So, why do I keep participating in online gaming? Pretty much for the same reason I’ve always enjoyed multiplayer video games that weren’t on the internet. With the right group of friends, it’s an extremely rewarding experience. Since my friends and I are now scattered a bit farther than we’ve been in the past, internet gaming provides the best venue for us to get together and have some fun.

This movie is a large pile of the suck. Not nearly as bad as Aliens vs. Predator, but still crappy. Stop making movies based off of video games you fucking assholes, unless the developers of the game are there for guidance. I hear the Bungie guys are helping with the making of the Halo movie, so I actually expect that to be decent. But Doom? Yeah, that is a giant pile of crap. Don’t see it.

This is a timeline of video games and computer games in reverse chronological order.

Welcome to the brand new Weblug! This website and blog will focus on five main categories: Computers, Mp3 Players, Video Games, Books, and Musical Instruments. Why choose these categories? I choose these five because they are topics that really have peaked my imagination. Who knows when you will see the first walking computer that can listen to an mp3 Player while enjoying a video game and book and plucking the strings of guitar. It’s going to happen!

Interlude: Robbie gets up on the runner board and does an impromptu dance complete with moves from the best break dancers, showing an impressive flexibility that makes his young limbs look like gumby. It seems he has learned all this by imitating LOTR, video games and MTV or VH1. I am, we are all, impressed with his talent. This is where having some connections would enable me to help him do what he most wants to do: entertain. I will do what I can do.

A site cataloging all the devices that can play doom.

Typical observances of this holiday are to present gifts to your Sysadmin. These gifts include chocolate, beer, wine, electronic toys, video games, and cake & ice cream.

I think Tommy Tallarico may be a biased critic. As a video game music composer and the host of Judgement Day (a half hour weekly show on G4 TV that rates video games), his dual rolls seem to have conflicted. He composed the music and sound effects for the new Advent Rising game, and then gave it a great rating on his show (8.0 out of 10). Advent Rising is a game that offers nothing new to the first person shooter genre, but actually uses seemingly dated graphics and awkward game play. But that isn’t just my opinion. X-Play, another show on G4 TV that rates video games, gave Advent Rising a 2 out of 5.

If you’re itching to play there is an online version (warning: noisy flash animation) at the manufacturer’s website, which reports that “the game debuted to the world at Studio 54 in a launch party attended by a number of ’70s celebrities who played SIMON game while dancing to the beat of disco and the flashing of SIMON lights.” Drugs and video games, mmmm.

Call me old, but I really miss the video games of those days. I know the video game industry is still going strong, and the quality of the graphics are phenomenal, but where the whole reality video game concept breaks down for me is in the controls. Take ole Robotron for example. Two joysticks. One to move your guy away from the swarming robot armies, and one to direct your gunfire. Because you could shoot and move in different directions you had to ‘decouple’ your left hand movements from your right. Wickedly hard and wickedly fun. Now look at modern PS2 or Xbox controls. 6+ buttons, 2+ triggers, an 8-way direction pad, and an analog joystick. To get your quarterback to throw a long pass from the shotgun in a modern, super-realistic NFL video game you’ve got to do a “left - up - fire - fire - button1 - button6 - down - down - button4 & button3 combo - wink - wink - snort - right - up” control sequence, all in 10ms.

There is an article on Gamasutra about usability in video games. A lot of the things mentioned are similar to the topics people have been talking about in the web design community for a while now, and I think it’s great that game developers are starting to put more emphasis on the user experience, by that I don’t just mean the game experience but the game as a whole. That’s not to say every developer ignores it’s users but with more and more formulaic games being released (*cough* colour matching games … *cough*) more effort should be put into the user experience. This is one area that indie developers can excel in since it all it costs is a bit of time and patience (and effort).

So, it’s been almost a week since my last post and nothing has really happened. I played video games. The games in question are Battlefield 2 (just the demo) which is fucking amazing, Warcraft III tourney in town, and other RTSes. in case you were wondering I placed 4th in the tournament and 1st in the StarCraft “mini-tournament”. But you don’t care, you want to hear about how the Texas Governor called a reporter a Mo-Fo. Well he did, so I’m gonna go play some more BF2, then some StarCraft, then some UT2K4m, the some C&C Generals, then some Armies of Exigo, then some Kohan II: Kings of War, then some Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, then finally watch Clerks and go to bed.

I think 99.9% of people are not affected by video games. From this news article, however, it appears like this kid did do exactly what one would do in the game. I don’t know of criminal statistics about these types of spree killings. Maybe this is natural. If it is not, then this lawyer has got a strong case, at least in an Alabama civil suit. Prepare for milder video games.

Reading these days is far more difficult to fit in then it was five years ago, due not to my enthusiasm for television or video games (those are minor distractions), but due to the internets. I read far more material starting with an http:// than anything else. This isn’t a bad thing: I read a ton of quality material on the web, and feel I’m better for it. But it’s a different type of reading. There aren’t long, complex, overlapping narratives on the web that compel me to stay on the same web page for two hours. Rather, I read a paragraph or two about a specific subject and then move on. Bloglines and del.icio.us/popular are my home bases, and I read 30 or 40 web articles in the time it takes me to get through 2 chapters in a novel. Reading on the web is episodic, due both to internet conventions (short articles about a singular subject) and content (technical articles, news blurbs, or jokes). It’s less sophisticated than reading good fiction, but more informative in a “just the facts, ma’am” kind of way.

So today was the day i actually decided to change certain aspects of my lifestyle. Currently I have been browsing the internet for most of the day and playing video games. This is purely due to boredem as i never watch telly. Well Due to this i aint lost weight, like i originally planned, or revised or got any fitter.

I use a lot of video games in my teaching. They are sources of powerful simulations that cannot be approached the same using any other methods. They are powerful motivators for students as they see them as entertaining and as a connection to what they do at home.

On the day that Hollywood voice actors (who are used to help add realism to games) are voting on whether to strike over royalty issues, there is an interesting piece on GamerDad.com about, in this opinion, the decreased importance of graphics (which add realism) in video games.

KB: Don’t you understand, you fool? We didn’t leave the gaming industry, the gaming industry came to us. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all now realize the error of their ways and follow the Infinium path to success: smoke and mirrors. Promises of content delivery over the Internet with fees to get you coming and going. A pretty shell of a console that we don’t let anyone touch because there’s nothing inside. Promises they won’t ever be able to keep. Pure Bacchus!

In a way he's absolutely right. As gaming consoles pick up more power and more abilities, game developers are using this power to create larger worlds, more expansive environments, and more detailed character models. The "pick up and play" experience is declining in favor of spending resources on digital eyelash rendering. While Halo and Grand Theft Auto are certainly popular and fun, one has to wonder if the video game industry has strayed a little when the Steven Spielberg of video games doesn't want to play anymore.

Government-sponsored video games are not just hearts and minds any more, they're about bellies, too, with the introduction of Food Force by the UN.

My nephew's understanding of this war has been dictated by action movies and video games that are often larger than life, as evidenced by his questions. "Grandpa, were you ever ambushed? Did you shoot many guys? Did you blow anybody up?" The answers he received did not satisfy his views of the glories of war.

Our thumbs and backs hurt like crazy. We know the reason. We just sat on our asses for 14 hours and played video games. Of course they hurt. We gingerly nurse our wounds over the next couple of days. We play trace amounts of GBA like an accident victim learning to walk again.

It is always really cool to see video games consoles past and present to compare the technology but this article takes a slightly diffrent approach. Wonder why sholder bottons came to be? Why the X-Box controller is so freaking HUGE?

Over the past year, I’ve heard about people making money in Online games. Basically, they would utilize real world skills like trend spotting, design, and actual gameplay to amass things of value within online games.

Now, I read an article that actually confirms what I’ve heard… people making as much as $100K per year playing in the MMO RPG (massively multiplayer online - Role Playing Game)

Two Hollywood unions, SAG and AFTRA, are looking towards a possible strike against video game manufacturers. While most of the members are hardly household names, video games have increasingly been using mainstream talent to provide recognizable voiceovers in their storylines. And big-money video games are all the rage, responsible for wooing people away from the failing box office and unimpressive television line-ups. The problem is that Hollywood expects what Hollywood provides: costly contracts that include residual profit sharing. In essense,...

This richly bitchy summary of the highs and lows of E3 is an excellent piece of cutting-to-the-quick. Although, I don't quite get why Okami can already be considered so great, I think for the most part he's really getting the main points, particularly on his Worst Of list.

He's also recommending that more public libraries circulate video games, which I agree is a great idea to help make us more relevant to teens and tweens (and those of us adults who still play games like crazy). I feel like the argument against circulating video games is like the argument against circulating entertainment videos & DVDs--dated and unsupportable. But, that's just my opinion. If anyone knows of a good reason not to circulate video games, please do let me know. I'd be curious to hear it.

Let me start off by saying I am not a big Madden fan. I believe the best football game is NCAA Football. Madden, however, is played by everyone I know and my college players from NCAA can be imported into Madden to continue their stellar careers on the pro level. Although Madden itself has many flaws, playing against human players with your favorite team is one of the best experiences I have playing video games. Beating someone with the Niners is always a great experience and next year our team will be much better. I will now explain to you the new features of Madden, that we know, and their impact, as well as rate some of rookie players based on last year’s draft class’ rating.

We know that video games can help us learn, but what exactly is it about the games that does it? Is it that fact that we’re in control — for example, the way drivers in a car seem to learn the roads better than passengers? Or is it something else? Paul Wilson of the University of Leicester and Patrick Péruch of Université de la Méditerranée had been working on this problem separately for several years, with mixed results. In 2002 they combined their efforts to try to figure out what matters most for learning in a virtual environment ("The Influence of Interactivity and Attention on Spatial Learning in a Desk-Top Virtual Environment," Current Psychology of Cognition, 2002).

An Israeli-company is first to market with a new system that allows for the introduction of rich media advertising into on-line video games - a prospective $750 million market by 2006 according to Jupiter Research.

I just finished the book. And I would recommend it as highly as Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Blink, and Pink's A Whole New Mind. Johnson challenged some of my own presumptions - and caused me to question some of the decisions Imbi and I have made regarding video games, TV and our children.

While video games are mostly known for their intricate action sequences, the accompanying music has also developed a profile of its own. Now, the AOL Radio Network has created a station dedicated to the genre, broadcasting action music from games like Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Metroid Prime, and Final Fantasy. That will add to a selection of over 200 AOL Radio stations, which 175 programmed by the AOL staff. The new station could also tie in music from an increasingly long list of bands, all of which have gained incredible amounts of exposure by integrating into a popular game title. Meanwhile, the upcoming Xbox is expected to lean more heavily onto personal playlists to accompany game action, with a very limited number of titles already carrying the capability. That will be part of a device that will serve as an entertainment center, per recent comments from Bill Gates.

Los Angeles-based Vivendi Universal Games and fast food giant McDonalds have partnered to offer entertainment titles from Vivendi in Happy Meals and Might Kids Meals. McDonalds will offer electronic handheld video games based on Vivendi's popular Crash and Spyro properties. Vivendi's Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are characters for PlayStation 2 and Xbox systems. The companies said that

Other cities and states have special taxes on prepared food, and some have tried "snack taxes." In New York, Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has proposed a 1 percent tax on junk food, video games and TV commercials to fund anti-obesity programs.