"Just say 'NO!' to Boring and Dull MMORPGs!"

From Phantagram comes Shining Lore, an online game for girls. You know it's for girls because the website is done up in pale pastels, and one of the features is "Cute and Bright Atmosphere". MORE...

Video games make art

Mel Chin, North Carolina artist, blends science, technology, and art. A too-brief PBS bio hints at a fascinating inner life. The piece that most intrigues me is KNOWMAD, a video game Chin created with software engineers based on the tribal rug patterns of nomadic peoples.

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Accessorize your GBA

Tokyo is the land of accessories. You can download a zillion pop songs for your mobile phone, add charms to the handle of your purse or book bag, and, of course, beautify your personal portable console. MORE...

Distract him!

Every morning I wake up and wonder if we're at war yet. I know we're all a little worried about it. So is Evil Ninja. But unlike the rest of us, he has a solution. Won't you please join him in his Buy Bush a Playstation2 Campaign? For, as Evil Ninja eloquently puts it, "Without the catharsis that video games provide, Bush has no way of fulfilling his militaristic fantasies other than actually fighting wars."

[via 8bitjoystick.]

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A Rogue's Perspective on Gaming

I decided not to bring my GameBoy Advance with me on my vacation to Hawai'i. I would have enough to do, I thought. I should read books instead. I should be social. Sand and sea water would muck up the controls, scratch the display.

And besides, I am bringing Neverwinter Nights on my laptop.

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Play=Life in GTA3

The morning air slides cold fingers down my neck. I pull my jacket closer around me, trying to shrug off the damp, and step out onto the street. The city has not yet awoken, and in the stillness, the weak morning light washing the steel and cement with gold, it looks gentle, innocent. I begin the long walk to work.

At the light ahead, a taxi slows to a stop. It would be good to get a ride to work. Last night was rough, and it doesn't look good to be late for a job. I break into a run, to catch up to the cab before the light changes. I pull open the door, yank out the protesting driver, climb into the driver's seat, and zoom away... Except... except I can't because I'm not a hired goon, and this is not Liberty City. "I'm a law abiding citizen," I remind myself, and hurry on to work. The taxi drives away without incident.

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Gaymers

A gay gamers community portal has just been launched. It's pretty nice.

[via little yellow different]

Golden Sample?

The game industry drives development of PC computer hardware, especially graphics cards and graphics hardware. In turn, graphics hardware manufacturers drive development of taste in advertising: Golden Sample Ad.

It's Official: Microsoft buys Rare

According to this article from CNN, Nintendo has confirmed the sale of its 49% stake in Rare, Ltd., and Microsoft's subsequent purchase of the company. Rare is a company familiar to Nintendo fans everywhere, having made Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong Country, Starfox, and many other classic Nintendo titles. Starfox Adventures is said to be the last game Rare will produce for Nintendo, and while Nintendo will retain rights to the Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong and Starfox series, Rare will keep Perfect Dark, Conker, and Banjo-Kazooie, and will likely develop future X-box-based sequels.

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Click on this most delicious burger!

According to MSNBC, There will be Big Macs and Intel inside in the upcoming Sims Online. The original Sims game seemed almost a parody of consumer culture (at least in terms of the product descriptions, if not the model of ideal consuming lifestyle fun). But it's natural that the first massively-multiplayer online game likely to appeal to more mainstream gamers would also be the first online game to feature widespread product placements. Can you imagine seeing ads for Mountain Dew in Everquest ("Do the Dew - for the Orc Slayer in you") ? That would be reminiscent of the likes of Bazoomer.com advertising in the film State & Main. But Big Macs in the Sims Online? That's not too surprising, and a further sign that gaming is losing some of its insularity.

IKARUGA!

Looks like a great but short-lived system has seen its last game: Treasure's Ikaruga Comes to Dreamcast. A rich-looking arcade shooter drawn from the arcades, this could be the last full-fledged release for the system that brought you Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur,
Skies of Arcadia, Space Channel 5. You'll be able to see the sequels to most of these on other systems (SoAL!); as Sega has finally stopped hemorraging money now that they are out of the hardware business.

Are video games art?

This post at kuro5hin attempts to answer the question of whether or not video games can be considered art, by discussing what it means to be an art form, and seeing if video games fit the bill.

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addiction or arrogance?

CNN.com/WORLD
Jet man jailed for playing Tetris

LONDON, England -- A newlywed man has been jailed for four months after playing a game of Tetris on his mobile phone during the flight back from his
honeymoon. Full story here.

i found this pretty amusing. and a four month sentence is so wonderfully, numerically fitting for the crime of playing tetris...

Nostalgia Extreme

It was almost unbearable to wait in the registration line at the California Extreme classic coin-op games expo because from within the central keep you could hear the chimes of hundreds of pinball machines and the electronic phaser fire of a thousand retro-futuristic virtual weapons. The excitement was, as they say, palpable - it rang in your ears.

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Half-thought out

I have been kind of not feeling well today. This makes me sad, generally speaking. For most of the day, I was indeed sad.

I realize also that being sick gives me a chance to be a bit creative. I am working the detail out now, so bear with me if it's a little unworked:

Networks are inherently irrational if they are designed by humans. Why? Because, we are in a very strange way both inescapable egoists, even solopists, yet we are too weak to survive without interdependence. So, the idea of the network is fundamental to the survival of the individual, but the individuality of of each human sabotoges the whole venture.

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Diary of a Mad Programmer

A clever fellow named Adrian O'Grady has modified his GBA to be a web server and has written a development diary about it. Fascinating, inventive - useful?

I guess this was reported on Slashdot a few months ago but I hadn't seen it. And it's worth thinking about again as a direction that games technology might be moving in. Integrated games and communications devices, hand-held and versatile.

Enter the "Griefers"

In today's Chicago Tribune, writer Alex Pham writes a remarkably balanced account of people that make life difficult in online multiplayer games.

When Kurt Frerichs comes home from a long day of fixing computers, he likes to eat dinner with his family, tuck his 2-year-old daughter into bed and settle in front of his PC with a steaming cup of black coffee to inflict non-stop misery on his fellow man.

The 25-year-old technology consultant relishes the indiscriminate slaughter of other players in online games, heaping scorn on his victims and exploiting programming bugs to his advantage.

Frerichs is what the online world calls a griefer--someone who plays to make others cry. They stalk, hurl insults, extort, form gangs, kill and loot. Although a tiny percentage of the millions who play online games, griefers are prolific in sowing distress and driving away thousands of paying customers.

A study of the motivations, methods, mannerisms, and community response to malicious online play: "`Griefers' bedevil online gamers." Chicago Tribune free registration required - in case you don't want to bother, there's some select quotes below:

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Nostalgia

Saturday I went to the California Extreme classic coin-op and pinball arcade games expo. For $25 bucks you could spend 12 hours playing any of the games available - provided they still worked. Some were for sale; others were emphatically NOT for sale. I didn't see a single game there made after 1992. There was a beautiful Discs of Tron game, and several fragile-looking mechanical games. But it all made me a little sad. Because arcades are a dying phenomenon. And shows like the California Extreme Expo are more like museums, these days - full of dusty memories.

I wonder, will we feel the same way about consoles in ten years? Already I feel a sad nostalgia for the Dreamcast. Does it belong in a museum?

GameCube: Let the Sun Shine In

I've been so busy playing Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3 that I haven't paid much attention to the third console, the eternal Nintendo. According to Ferrago.co.uk, Mario Sunshine is now among the fastest-selling games of all time, outpacing Halo and GTA. And maybe driving some interest in Nintendo's GameCube?

Cautious optimism for Sony Online

Early reports are favorable for Sony's online venture.

Enthusiasm in spite of reports that Sony will not support third party ethernet adapters (which apparently work just fine right now), and that there will be a number of PS2 units that may have problems connecting.

I hope mine isn't one of of them.

NYT reports concern over kids in cyber cafes

PC Rooms: Rated M for Mockery (new york times link, registration required).

Oh, those evil cyber cafes, teaching war games to our children. At least the U.S. Army should be happy.

Nokia goes to Korea for Content

Nokia announced a partnership with The Korea Game Development and Promotion Institute. Nokia will get content for their mobile service, while KGDI will get "matchless technical resources and aid in entering European and American markets".

Nokia press release
Asia.Internet.Com

Nancy Drew in game format

Her Interactive signed a deal with Infogrames to distribute two Nancy Drew games this winter.

From Digital Game Developer.

final fantasy tactics advance

The Magic Box has some screens. The job system seems a simplified version of the PSOne game.

You can bet I'll be getting this in Japan this winter!

J00 @r3 l4me

translate your "lame speak" into L33t 5p34K!

found at the inimitable invisible city weblog.

return of the sequel part II!!

Angelina Jolie is in Greece filming Tomb Raider 2: Cradle of Life.

The site is down now, but Joystick101 had an interesting essay by Henry Jenkins on the differences between the movies made of Tomb Raider and of Final Fantasy. Is it possible to transform interactive non-linear media into non-interactive narratives? Does it work at all or is the concept itself flawed?

Broad Generalizations

Hey:

1) games are fun, except when they suck

2) most gamers are male because the males scare the females away from gaming (through rude behaviour mostly)

3) In general, the more comples a game you're talking about, the nerdier the gamer attracted to it.

There, that's a nice controversial first post

un-fun games to make you think

Clive Thompson has an article over at Slate: Online games are the newest form of social comment. Interesting idea, and one I've written a little before, but if a game doesn't hook you, what's the point?

A better example of a "social comment" game is probably America's Army. Now there's a fun game (I hear).

Link via Ludology.org

sick little game

From Wired: When Text Messaging Turns Ugly. British kids are using their mobile phones to SMS threats in a new twist on the old schoolyard bullying game.

This happens to a lot of female gamers online too... other players gang up on them or verbally harrass them. Are there any technological solutions to this?

What kind of a gamer are you?

From GameBlog ("Recording the gory details of the gaming life of Mikko Saari."), a Gameblog: Gamer profiling system.

I've graded all the games on five categories: luck element, fun element, strategical depth, length and player interaction. Each category is graded from 1 to 5, with long, verbal descriptions. So, you choose your profile and then you're provided with the ten best matches for you.

True, most of the games are board and card games (including Puerto Rico, Mahjong and Bohnanza), and the matching system software is in Finnish, still the comments contains some ongoing discussion and Mikko proposes classifying specific games so you might see what matches your values. And then if Mikko gets his game profiles done, you
(Found searching for "game" on weblogs.com)

When Games Cost Real Money.

If you are old enough to remember when most of the coolest games you saw were pay-to-play, then you might be part of the target audience of old-timers for California Extreme, a classic arcade games show. This coming weekend (September 7-8) the San Jose convention center will be filled with bleeping buzzing clanging old-school dedicated game machines and the men and women who love them. Highlights are likely to include a panel discussion about Atari featuring one of the guys who made Gauntlet: "Panelist needs water, badly."
From Slashdot.

Wolfenstein 5k

Tired of excessively flashy and responsive video games? Care to marvel at modern entertainment in miniature? Combination throwback and technological wonder of the web, Wolfenstein 5k allows you to "Blow the heads off the monsters in this texture-mapped, first-person shooter crammed into 5K of JavaScript." If you're running certain web browsers, that is.

Electronic gaming illegal in Greece

A Greek law enacted at the end of July decreed all electronic games to be illegal. Yes, even the Solitaire that comes built in with Windows. Well, maybe they have a point with that game...

The Greek site gameland.gr is circulating an online petition and organizing protests. Sign up to register your support for this cause.

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