n00bism.net

[Editor's note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]  

Remember the first time you played God of War (you did play it, right?) and, with the evil hydra finally at your mercy and an on-screen prompt, you pressed some buttons and totally kicked that sea creature's ass?

Yeah, it was pretty great when God of War did that and you hadn't played a Quick Time Event (QTE) since Shenmue. When David Jaffe's violent love-child re-popularized QTEs, at least the game did them right. See, a Quick Time Event's purpose is to allow for a moment of more cinematic gameplay while still keeping the player involved in the process. QTEs are useful for pulling off moments in a game a player couldn't do himself while making them feel like they did do it themselves, the talentless hacks.

God of War and Resident Evil 4 are two games among plenty that have used QTEs well and made them a genuinely fun aspect of the gameplay. However, the list of games that failed to make QTEs fun is larger than any of Jim Sterling's hatred for PlayStation 3 fanboys. Games like Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit for everyone else, though Indigo Prophecy is way more searchable on Wikipedia), Heavenly Sword, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and so on and so forth. Nowadays it's hard to come by a game that doesn't offer Quick Time Events, and almost all the time it's f**king annoying as hell.

So, what exactly is it about God of War and Resident Evil 4 that made the QTEs enjoyable, and what was it about Indigo Prophecy and Uncharted that made them a chore? I am not going to claim that I know for sure, but I think I might have an idea.

When engaged in a game of God of War, your reflexes are already heightened and you've been frantically pressing buttons now since you saw the main menu. Pressing a ton of buttons at this point is par for the course, so when a QTE pops up, it's not a big deal and you're ready for it. What's more is that these events happen so frequently that you have learned their pattern and so you know when they're coming. The QTE doesn't screw you over and leave you feel cheated out of some health, or even make you feel like that Game Over screen you just got was a complete gyp. Simply put, the game's already immersed you to a point where, whether you were expecting it or not, you were ready for the on-screen prompt to tell you what to hit.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, on the other hand fails in this aspect in an incredibly annoying fashion. I loved the game, but occasionally it would make a halfhearted attempt at including a QTE that would only result in frustration and a severely life-impaired Nathan Drake. The problem is that, for the most part, cutscenes in Uncharted were static. You watched them and that was it. The first Quick Time Event in a cutscene came a good couple of hours into the game and the player had no idea this would occasionally happen. So, when a Quick Time Event, one of two in the game, comes up in the middle of a cutscene, suddenly you have to fumble for the controller and WHOOPS you're dead. Fantastic. Thanks, Naughty Dog, now I need to solve that puzzle all over again.



Another key part of integrating QTEs in your game is just that. The integrating part. When God of War would use QTEs, it always began and ended with the games usual beat-em up gameplay. You would start out by beating the living hell out of one enemy. Suddenly, then, you would press the button that would initiate a Quick Time Event so Kratos could slice the guy into nice thin strips to make a sandwich. When Kratos was done with his bad guy sandwich, the player would then go back to the beat-em up button-mashing. It was cyclical. The game was abundant with Quick Time Events, but it never depended on them.

The same, unfortunately, can not be said for Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit). In the beginning, you would do some walking around, some exploring, and some interacting with items, and occasionally you would have to play a game of Simon Says. Okay, fine. However, as the game progressed, the gameplay became more and more reliant on games of Simon Says, where, soon, you were doing whole five-minute long segments of these to do things like have the old psychic lady help you trip out or to charge up your laser to blast the hell out of goddamn everything ever. By the end of the game, everything had been replaced by Quick Time Events. All of the gameplay had been essentially relegated to walking to the next game of Simon Says and then playing that game of Simon Says for about TEN FUCKING MINUTES. Awesome. I know you guys had to rush the end of the game, Quantic Dream, but Jesus Christ.

What's strange is that, now, with so many games overusing and screwing up Quick Time Events, I'm starting to hate them, even when they're used right. I'm starting to hate an element of video games because everyone has been screwing them up, but no one refuses to do them. Do developers not playtest their games? Did any of the QA guys say "Yeah, that Quick Time Event wasn't fun, you should take it out." It's not like when a game has a shitty camera system. The developers could have easily taken the Quick Time Events out and replaced them with something else.

I now have an irrational hatred for Quick Time Events. Developers, you've ruined them for me, do you hear me? YOU RUINED THEM!

Why do game developers use this gameplay element if it ends up blowing up in their face like so many shoddy fireworks? Is it because it's easier to just have a movie for a boss fight rather than actually create a whole new set of moves that need to be balanced and playtested to get just right? Is it because people played God of War and Resident Evil 4 and they haven't quite figured out why those games were successful? What compels them to use Quick Time Events? Are they just easier to make?

What's worse is that, with the advent of the Wii and other various motion-controlled ways of playing games, it seems like Quick Time Events are going to be driven even further into the ground. Although, I must admit, imagining the possibilities for Quick Time Events with Project Natal kinda gets me excited.

Regardless of what the answer is, they've been perfectly soiled. It's been four years since God of War came out and video games started to use them really frequently, and I already hate them. They've been ruined and I think the only thing that can fix this problem is for video games to stop using them for a very long time. Just drop them altogether, act like we've completely forgotten what the hell a Quick Time Event is and forget that we ever had a series of on-screen prompts tell us to press unrelated buttons to watch our character do something cool. Just act like they never existed and that no one ever did them. In conversation with a friend, I'll say "Hey, I like how Heavy Rain didn't have Quick Time Events," and my friend will say "What is that? Isn't Quicktime that one movie player for computers?" and then I'll laugh nervously and we'll finish our donuts. I think this is the only solution that will save Quick Time Events for me.

That or the release of God of War 3.



Footnote: I have no idea if God of War really re-popularized (more like re-poopularized, am I right?) Quick Time Events. I just know that after I played God of War, every game had them.

 

Time for another Badass of the Month Club, wherein the staff highlights a character or industry figure of noteworthy badassery.

When I first met Frank West, I wasn't all that impressed. He's ugly. He walks with a disconcerting limp. He's not all that bright, and he comes off as totally shallow. All the guy cares about is JOURNALISM, and as a videogame blogger, that's something I know quite a bit about. With all that in common, you'd think that Frank and I would have a lot to talk about. Not so. All the guy does is brag about the wars he's covered (y'know) and the scoops he's scooping. At least, that's what I thought at first.

My opinion changed after spending the course of Dead Rising and Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop with Frank. After experiencing a zombie hell with the man, I came to understand that he is one of the most respectable, stand-up guys on the planet. As it turns out, he's far from one dimensional; in fact, he's one of the most well rounded mother f*ckers I've ever met. It just takes a little while to find that out.

Hit the jump to find out why I love Frank West (warning, spoilers ahoy). 

Frank is totally comfortable with himself

Frank's not that fit by videogame protagonist standards. He's no where near as slim and sexy as Cloud Strife, nor is he jacked up and ripped like Brad Nicholson Marcus Fenix. Yet, the dude is still ready to drop trou(sers) at a moments notice. He'll carry on full conversations with incredibly good looking women, highly intimidating Ving Rhames look-a-likes, and homicidal clowns all in his underwear, or better yet, in a strange woman's underwear. Either way, it doesn't matter to Frank, as long as he's comfortable. 

Frank cross-dresses like it's totally not weird, and he'll make you feel like you're the weird one if you don't approve. He's also not afraid to cosplay his favorite videogame characters, even if they are semi-for kids like Mega Man X, or from games that sold like shit like Bionic Commando. He's even known to cross-dress cosplay as Roll from Mega Man Legends, which is almost no one's favorite version of Roll.

In short, Frank doesn't give a fuck, and that makes all of his acts of heroism all the more admirable.

Frank lives to rescue people

There are a lot of videogame "heroes" these days that have the freedom to go wherever they want and make "moral choices" throughout their adventures. A lot of these "heroes" kill innocent people, screw prostitutes, and engage in other "shocking" taboos. Frank's not necessarily above that stuff, but the thing about Frank is that if he fails to rescue even one person at the Willamette Mall, just one, he wont even bother trying to save his own life at the end of the game. Frank doesn't save people for the glory, or because he has to, but because if he doesn't, he will choose not to see the end of his own game.

It's a little frustrating; needing to be a perfectionist in order to witness Frank's eventual escape from Willamette. That said, the sense of mastery one achieves after beating the clock (and the thousands of zombies) by rescuing all those defenseless idiots is more than worth it.

That's Frank in a nutshell; he's a master.  A master of multi-tasking, at beating zombies to death with a giant fake lipstick container, and at "keeping it real" even when the shit has totally hit the fan.

Frank never gives up

A little over three fourths of the way into Dead Rising, Frank discovers that he's infected with the zombie plague. There is no cure. It may be a few days, or a few years, but no matter what, Frank's going to get gross and start eating people.

Now, what would you do if you knew you were going to die at any time, by zombification no less? Would you just throw in the towel? Try to make out with the sexy Latina that 24 hours ago tried to run you over with a motorcycle? Go to the grocery store and fill your face with steaks until you're too fat to move? Go psychopath and start hacking up strangers with a machete, then blame it on Vietnam flashbacks?

Not if you're Frank West you wouldn't. Instead, Frank West goes out there, kicks even more zombie ass than he did before he knew he was doomed, takes on the god damn US Special Forces, punches and bullet-proof army dude in the balls, and fucking totally owns the moment by letting out a Hollywood style "scream to the heavens". 

I know I'm swearing a lot, but it's hard not to when you're talking about Frank West. He's just inspiring like that.

Frank's inspiring

You ever look out into your future and see nothing but obstacles, nothing but doom, no way to win, and thousands of ways to lose? It just makes you want to break down and cry, am I right? Well,if you need a role model to show you the way through these trying times, look no further than Frank West.

When presented with hundreds of thousands of zombies, what does he do? When a random suicide cult shows up and steals all his clothes, how does he react? Well, first he might take pictures of them, or if he's feeling creative, he may stack servebot masks on every zombie/cult member he can find, then take pictures of them. If he's feeling violent, he may beat one of them senseless, rip their arm off, then stick said arm into the face of the first zombie he sees. If he's feeling impatient, he may just skateboard through them, or crawl right over them, or run through them with revved up chainsaw and a hockey mask on.

That's not to say that Frank is all about violence. If he meets someone who is, y'know, not already dead, he'll always make an effort to talk things out. That goes for shotgun wielding store owners, horny security guards, and cannibalistic chefs. Frank will always give you the chance to work things out peacefully, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of politicians today. Honestly, the dude should be nominated for an award or something. 

Frank took pictures of Jun the Swan's underwear

At least, I think he did. Even if he didn't, I know that he would if given the opportunity. 

So, those are most of the reasons I love Frank West. I didn't name them all because I wanted to leave some room for you in the conversation. So tell me, what do you love most about Frank?

 

Touch Foo's Soosiz platformer has arrived in the App Store for an introductory sale price of $1.99.

Soosiz is a great looking 2D platformer that we previewed a few weeks ago. Aside from the usual running/jumping mechanic, Soosiz also introduces gravity flipping jumping, allowing you to jump onto platforms directly above you. The gameplay mechanic is reminiscent of Gomi but packaged in a more traditional platformer title running at a faster pace. The game comes with 7 worlds and 65 levels, each with bronze, silver, and gold achievements.

See this developer provided video of the game in action:

The game includes left/right virtual buttons for movement and a jump button for jumping. Additional on screen controls allow you to zoom out for an overview of the map. Holding the jump button down further lets you jump a little higher. Some enemies can be dispatched by jumping on them Mario-style.

Even with our brief time with the game, we've been very impressed with the total package. The controls are responsive and the gravity turning gameplay design works well and is very fun. The game also appears to incorporate a lot of different gameplay elements, enemies and obstacles.

A few of the more advanced obstacles and enemies are shown in this video:

Other early impressions are being collected in our forums, and we plan on taking a closer look, but even at this early stage, this looks like it's a winner.

App Store Link: Soosiz, $1.99 (Intro price)

As spotted by a keen-eyed Eurogamer forumite, the KotOR 2 Restored Content Project has gone into open beta. You’re just a 15MB download away. Details below.

(...)
Read the rest of KotOR 2 Restored Content In Open Beta (165 words)

---

Posted by botherer. | 56 comments | Donate or subscribe to RPS | Post tags: kotor 2, mod
This article is from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. If you're reading it on any other website, they're stealing it from us without permission.

You know that Dig Dug "movie trailer" we ran the other day? It was for a competition, and after seeing it, one of the other entrants - Johann Wagoner - sent us his trailer. For Paper Boy, "the movie".

I say looks pretty good because I haven’t watched Metal Gear Solid Philanthropy yet. This fan made movie is 70 minutes long and I’m feeling way too A.D.D. to focus on one thing at the moment. Topless Robot watched some of it at least and says that the CG work is excellent, it has a decent plot and the Solid Snake actor is pretty good.

There’s been a sudden surge in fan made stuff like this. In fact, there’s a couple of fan made videogame movie trailers I may post later tonight. For now, give this a watch and let us know how Metal Gear Solid Philanthropy is. If the video doesn't play for you, you can also download the movie at the official Web site.

Hit the break for some METAL GEAR action.

Warner Bros Home Video has officially announced the expected double dip, Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut, which hits store shelves on November 3rd 2009.. More cover art and details after the jump.

DVD Details:

Disc 1:
• Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut Film
• Audio Commentary with Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons
Disc 2: Over 3 Hours of Special Features
• The Phenomenon: The Comic that Changed Comics
• Real Super Heroes, Real Vigilantes
• Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World
• Watchmen: Video Journals
• My Chemical Romance Desolation Row
• Under The Hood
• Story Within A Story: The Books of Watchmen

Disc 3: Digital Copy of the Theatrical Version
Disc 4 and 5: Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comics

Blu-Ray Details:

Disc 1:
• Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut Film
• Audio Commentary with Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons
Disc 2: Over 3 Hours of Special Features
• The Phenomenon: The Comic that Changed Comics
• Real Super Heroes, Real Vigilantes
• Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World
• Watchmen: Video Journals
• My Chemical Romance Desolation Row
• Under The Hood
• Story Within A Story: The Books of Watchmen

Disc 3: Digital Copy of the Theatrical Version
Disc 4: Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comics
BD-Live

• VOTD: Snoop Dogg Faced With Watchmen Question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
• Rumor: New Godzilla Movie in Discussion Stage at Legendary Pictures?
• /Filmcast Ep. 62 - G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra (GUEST: Matt Singer from IFC News)
• VOTD: Nobody Watches the Watchmen
• This Week in DVD & Blu-ray: Watchmen, Coraline, Pushing Daisies, and More
• A Deleted Scene from the Watchmen: Director’s Cut

Telltale Games and LucasArts have teamed up to make this year's Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19 — same day as Rosh Hashanah) memorable with a free download of Tales of Monkey Island, Episode One.

The giveaway goes on all day on the 19th, but through the 21st of September, they're also giving gamers %50 off on the iPhone, Steam and Direct2Drive special editions of The Secret of Monkey Island. Hit 'em up here come Talk Like a Pirate Day for the free stuff.

And for the record, I did try to write this entire post in pirate speak, but it caused me physical pain. If you want to take a crack at it below, I'll award 10 to the would-be pirate translator who doesn't make my head explode.

Tales of Monkey Island, Episode Three is on the way September 29.

In a keynote to GDC Austin, two Blizzard developer pulled back the curtains on some aspects of World of Warcraft that players might not consider much, and dropped an interesting tidbit about how the series evolved from RTS to MMO.

Gamasutra, covering the keynote, reports that World of Warcraft grew out of a Blizzard team's frustration with a concept called Nomad, which was to have been a squad-based RTS. Unable to find much purpose in the work, they chucked Nomad and asked "What would we do if we wanted to start a project today?" The answer was World of Warcraft.

"Operating an online game is about more than just game development," said Pearce. "World of Warcraft has completely changed the organization".

As proof, Pearce supplied numbers for the staggering amounts of manpower and computing infrastructure the game needs just to stay up and running, such as:

• 20,000 computer systems
• 13,250 server blades
• 75,000 CPU cores
• 1.3 petabytes of storage
• 4,600 staffers
• A partridge in a pear tree.

Kidding about the last. But they don't stop there. Warcraft's a game with 7,650 quests, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs, 1.5 million game assets, and 5.5 million lines of code. QA's swatted some 180,000 bugs. And the playing community has unlocked 4,449,680,399 rewards.

The keynote, mostly a department-by-department breakdown of those who keep the World of Warcraft running, is reported fully over at Gamasutra. Here's another number: 5. It's World of Warcraft's age as of November. I'm not sure if it seems like it released just yesterday, or a dozen years ago.

An Inside Look at the Universe of Warcraft [Gamasutra via VG247]

So the internet has a new greatest thing. Earth’s best human, Trase, has created a Half-Life 2 mod where he replaces nearly all the game’s sounds with his own voice. And yes, it’s just as good as that sounds. Every weapon, vehicle, explosion, and enemy sound is now the vocal stylings of this lunatic modder. See below. Please, see below.

(...)
Read the rest of Half-Life 2 Audio Replaced By Modder’s Voice, Internet Rejoice (83 words)

---

Posted by botherer. | 115 comments | Donate or subscribe to RPS | Post tags: half-life-2, mod, myvoicesounds, trase
This article is from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. If you're reading it on any other website, they're stealing it from us without permission.

For years, one of the biggest complaints about iTunes has been its inability to automatically add new music to your library from a watched folder. As of yesterday's iTunes 9 release, that's no longer the case.

iTunes now automatically adds new music to your library from a watched folder they quietly added to the iTunes Music folder structure. Apple did its darndest to sneak this new feature in under the radar among several who-cares features, but for our money, it's absolutely the best feature to come to iTunes 9. So how does it work?

Just find the folder named Automatically Add to iTunes in your iTunes Music folder (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Automatically Add to iTunes/ in OS X; C:\Users\Your Username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Automatically Add to iTunes\ in Windows). Any music that finds its way into that folder will automatically be imported into iTunes.

Let's say, for example, you downloaded Radiohead's In Rainbows via BitTorrent. Previously you'd have to manually add the music to iTunes via drag and drop—not a big deal, but kind of annoying, considering every other music player on the planet can watch folders for new music. We've shown you how to automatically sync iTunes to any folder in the past (and shown you a few other tools offering similar functionality).

Now you can use iTunes' new watch folder to take care of this for you. (For what it's worth, most BitTorrent clients have a feature that allows you to move completed downloads to specific folders—that's probably the folder you'll now want your music downloads to move to.)

I gave it a try on my Mac and the MP3 I added vanished nearly instantaneously. A quick search of my iTunes library later and there it was. (It's still in my file system, of course—it's just organized in iTunes' Artist/Album structure.)

It's not a groundbreaking feature, but considering it's been one of lamest feature omissions of iTunes for years, we're excited to have it.

Thanks Jonathan Simon and jeffk!

If you use disposable razor blades, odds are they get dull more quickly than you'd like. Instructables points us to a video demonstration showing how to extend their utility with a pair of blue jeans.

The DIYer in the video says he's kept the same disposable razor sharp for six months. How? By taking a pair of jeans and running the razor up and down 10 to 20 times in one direction along the entire length of the jeans and then again in the opposite direction. Apparently "the threads of the jeans run in a diagonal so switching directions allows for [a] balanced approach to fine tuning the blade's edge."

Check out the above video to see the tip in action, and while you're getting more from your blades, remember that drying them can drastically increase their shelf life, too. If you've ever tried this method (or a similar one), let's hear how it worked out for you in the comments.

With flu season around the corner, odds are you may catch a bug or two sometime soon. Here's how to tell the boss that you're going to stay home without appearing suspect.

Photo by ghindo.

A while back we discussed how to call in sick when you're not. This time around, CNN offers some advice for those who are in fact sick, but worry that they'll still appear as though they're pulling a fast one on their superiors.

Foremost among the tips, CNN recommends speaking to your boss over the telephone, not through more indirect measures like email (even though your low energy level may push you towards the easier email route). When you're sick, odds are in your favor that you'll sound it, which will help to appease any concerns—if your boss is prone to such concerns—that you may be playing hooky. Keeping the call short and direct, and apologizing for not coming in to work are also important in maintaining a professional tone.

The post also says that following this advice is more important on Mondays and Fridays when more employees are prone to calling in sick. Hit the full post for all the details, then let us know how you handle calling in sick in the comments.

If you're a fan of physics games, it's time to go rummaging through your couch cushions to scrounge up some quarters to buy 2up Games' first iPhone game, Melon Golf [App Store]. Featuring 36 holes between the three standard courses and one unlockable course, touch controls that couldn't be more simple, and a difficulty curve that keeps you coming back for more, Melon Golf joins the ranks of my other physics favorites on the App Store.

The thing about Melon Golf is that it isn't really a golf game as much as it is just a golf inspired game. You are trying to get a melon in to a hole, and the levels are called courses, and that is about where the similarities end. To fling your melon, you draw back on the screen and let go. The controls work exactly like all the other slingshot and archery type games, and come just as naturally. You can put a spin on your melon after your launch it by swiping on the screen while it's in the air, a technique that becomes vital in later courses.

Once you finish the easy set of courses, Melon Golf starts throwing spinning gears, moving obstacles, and holes that require some pretty high accuracy to get in one shot– But that's one of the things that seems to draw me to the game so much. There doesn't seem to be a way to lose (or if there is, I haven't found it yet) so if you're not a Melon Golf pro, all you need to do is keep trying.

Getting the melon in to the hole in fewer shots than previous attempts has kept me playing courses I've already cleared and if there was one bad thing I had to say about the game it would be that there's no replay system. I've had a few absolutely unbelievable holes in one that I would have loved to be able to save, but this is a minor complaint. Melon Golf also has no music, but I usually play simple games like this while listening to podcasts, so it isn't an issue for me.

The developer put together this gameplay video:

If you like these kinds of physics games, there's no reason you won't also enjoy Melon Golf and if you're new to the "flinging stuff from point A to point B" genre, this game is a great place to start.

App Store Link: Melon Golf, 99¢

Mario Kart: The Movie's under production - or so we're led to believe by the trailer you saw earlier this week and now, mister bigshot star flipping out at the lighting guy.

Video: Mario Freaks Out On the Mario Kart: The Movie Set [Gay Gamer]

You know, 15 years ago, me and my friends had a a dream. That Lucasarts would get the original movie cast to provide the voices for a Star Wars adventure game. It never happened, but this comes pretty damn close.

This is Han Solo Adventures, a fan-made, freeware (it's not a commercial venture, Lucasarts lawyers!) project by Stacy Davidson. It's as close to my dream as we're ever going to get; a Star Wars adventure game based on an earlier version of the SCUMM engine, complete with that timeless, early-90's Lucasarts look.

The story is described as "interactive fan fiction", Davidson saying to expect something "fairly original, loosely based on available background information on Han and his early exploits".

There's a couple of screenshots here to ogle, as well as a trailer, though Davidson says the finished game won't feature a vocal track, only text, as this clip was made for a different project.

Han Solo Adventures [HSA, via GameSetWatch]

MacUser provides an in-depth look at one useful new feature in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Wake On Demand.

[Wake On Demand] is Apple's name for a new networking feature that lets a Snow Leopard Mac go to sleep while a networked base ...

Unlike the PS3 Slim’s lack of Playstation 2 backwards compatibility, StarCraft II’s lack of LAN does nothing to ruffle my feathers [source]. Do people who don’t have laptops still drag their computers over to other people’s houses to play games? To the best of my knowledge that’s all handled online now. They play their World of WarCraft, Left 4 Dead and Command & Conquers through the internet and people aren’t complaining. Maybe the huge LAN competitions might warrant being able to host the tournament locally, but that’s only a small fraction of the people who are actually going to play the game. But that’s just my opinion. You guys probably game a hell of a lot more than me. So, what’s your opinion?

Also, Tradewest has “risen” from the grave… theoretically. Now let’s see if I can finally get my Battletoad fix. Possible happy day indeed.

We're a mere two days away from the first birthday of the four player co-op game Castle Crashers on XBLA.  With a PSN release later this year, you wouldn't think The Behemoth would have any time to create some new content.  Alas, that is not the case.  

Just announced is the Necromantic Pack, which contains two new characters, a new animal orb and two new weapons.  The animal orb is a fiery dragon, the Necromancer's magic is "pure awesome" - and you get a chainsaw.  No word on price or date, but I have a sneaking suspicion we'll see it this Wednesday when the game turns one.

Read More

Gpg4win ist in der Version 2.0 erschienen. Das Windows-Installationspaket enthält die freie Verschlüsselungssoftware GnuPG, ergänzende Software und Handbücher. Die neue Version unterstützt die S/MIME-Verschlüsselung. (Verschlüsselung, GPG)

Videogames have been a part of hip-hop culture -- and vice versa -- for a long time now. Generally, when they use samples of music or effects from games, it's either somewhat subtle or based entirely around their appearance. The recently released album by No Question?, Got Game "Nintendo Mixtape," falls into the latter camp as the group raps over beats laced with 8 and 16-bit game soundtracks.

For the most part, it's pretty solid. There are some tracks, like "Gauntlet" and "Trust Miso Soup" that really work well. And then there are a few where it seems like they're trying too hard to make an album that's full of videogame music as a gimmick.

But, since the album has been released for free on the internet, you really don't have anything to lose by giving it a listen. It isn't mindblowing -- certainly not on the level of Tonetta777 (pictured above) -- but there are some worthy beats at work here.

Knowing when to buy and when to skip out on a purchase can help consumers maintain a positive cash flow. Weblog Get Rich Slowly suggests applying the W.E.A.L.T.H acronym to make more economically sound decisions.

Photo by jpockele.

According to Get Rich Slowly, breaking down potential purchases according to the following acronym can help cut down on superfluous spending.

Want or Need?
Ego?
Add-ons?
Lifestyle?
Time?
Happiness?

Concerning the Add-on element of the equation, the site's guest blogger Lynn says that consumers should factor in other expenses—dubbed add-ons—associated with primary purchases. For example, where getting a haircut is concerned, additional hair products needed to maintain the cut might make it more prudent to opt for another crop entirely.

Browse the full post for all the acronym-related details, then let us know how you keep a check on your impulse buys (30-day list? Stranger test?) in the comments.

Ed. note: Anil Dash is one of the smartest guys we know and a modern-day Nostradamus regarding emerging technology, so when he speaks up, we're eager to hear his take. Today he's talking Google Wave and its obstacles to adoption.

Google Wave is an impressive set of technologies, the kind of stunningly slick application that literally makes developers stand up and cheer. I've played with the Google Wave test sandbox a bit, and while it's definitely too complex to live up to the "this will replace email!" hype that greeted its launch, it certainly has some cool features. So the big question is whether Wave will succeed overall in becoming a popular standard for communications on the web, because Google has made an admirable investment in documenting the underlying platform and making it open enough for others to build on and extend. I think the answer is no, and the reason is because the Wave way is not compatible with the Web way.

What do I mean by "the Web way"? Well, if we look at the history of new technologies being adopted to extend web sites and enhance communications, we see a few trends emerge:

• Upgrades to the web are incremental. Instead of requiring a complete overhaul of your technical infrastructure, or radical changes to existing behaviors, the web tech that wins is usually the sort of thing that can be adopted piecemeal, integrated as needed or as a normal part of updating one's websites or applications.
• Understanding new tech needs to be a weekend-sized problem. For a lot of web developers, long before they start integrating a new protocol or platform into their work, they hack together a rough demo over a long weekend to make sure they truly grasp how it works. And a weekend-scale implementation on a personal site usually translates roughly into a 90-day implementation cycle in a business context, which is a reasonably approachable project size. (In tech, three days in personal effort often translates to three months of corporate effort.)
• There has to be value before everybody has upgraded. This is basically a corollary to Metcalfe's Law. While we know networks increase in value as they add more nodes, the nature of web tech is that, in order to be worthwhile, it has to provide value even if the people on the other end haven't upgraded their software or web browsers or clients or servers. Otherwise you're shouting into an empty room.
• You have to be able to understand and explain it. Duh.

Now, if we take a look at some examples of what has worked, we can see how various successful technologies have displayed these traits. One great example is feeds. When RSS feeds were new, it was easy to understand their potential immediately, and since I was working at a newspaper at the time, I just spent an afternoon understanding the format and hacking together a quick feed of headlines that anybody could subscribe to. If nobody had adopted feedreaders yet, that was no problem, since there was no cost to just having the feed sit there with no subscribers - the "nobody's upgraded" problem would only result in me having wasted a few hours.

Ajax had a similar adoption pattern. It took a little bit more time to comprehend, but not much more than an afternoon, and the development effort required for adding Ajax enhancements to an application started as a weekend-scale project and has only gone down over time. Following the principles of progressive enhancement, well-designed implementations performed just fine on older browsers or systems that couldn't handle the new features. And most sites that have added Ajax features have done so by adding the requirements as a checklist item in the course of normal ongoing updates, not as standalone efforts to migrate to a new technology.

This brings us to Wave. Wave offers excellent opportunities to extend its core features and to add richness to its "wavelets", and I have no criticisms over its utility as a developer platform that third parties can build upon. But the fundamental Wave protocols are, I fear, a bit too complex to ever be fully and correctly implemented by anyone other than Google. Interoperability is likely to be a challenge that plagues the platform for its entire existence. In short: It's likely that nobody will ever build a fully-compatible clone of Wave that competes with Google's own implementation.

Why is that true? Let's look at what's built in to Wave:

• Powerful realtime collaboration features
• Unlimited versioning of content
• Built around robust XMPP protocol
• Combines chat, document editing, and message threading - wikis + blogs + comments + IM
• Delivered as a very polished rich user interface

Each of these is a very compelling experience. But a lot of developers' reactions to seeing them was not just "I can't wait to use that!" but also "I want to add that one feature to my own existing application!". And that's where it gets tough. Let's take a look at Joe Gregorio's list of the protocols that power Wave. (Joe works at Google, but made this list before he was working on Wave. I appreciate his research and openness on this topic, and presenting his work here is a tribute to what makes Wave great, not a criticism of his effort.)

• Federation (XMPP)
• The robot protocol (JSONRPC)
• The gadget API (OpenSocial)
• The wave embed API (Javascript)
• The client-server protocol (As defined by GWT)

That's a lotta stuff! XMPP alone is a bear to implement, let alone to deploy at large scale. (I can't think of anyone outside of Google, Earthlink and LiveJournal who have deployed XMPP to millions of users.) But if you wanted to make another application that truly interoperates with all that Wave can do, combining all of these pieces would just be the starting point.

And people aren't looking for a replacement for email, or instant messaging, or blogs, or wikis. Those tools all work great for their intended purposes, and whatever technology augments them will likely offer a different combination of persistence and immediacy than those systems. Right now, Wave evokes all of them without being its own distinctive thing. Which means it's most useful in providing reference implementations of particular new features.

If a developer wants one of the compelling individual features of Wave, like near-realtime collaboration, they're more likely to use something like (wait for it...) Pushbutton technologies. The infrastructure afforded by the components of the Pushbutton Platform comes nowhere near the richness and polish displayed by Google Wave. Pushbutton isn't even designed to offer the benefits demonstrated by Wave. But to its credit, Pushbutton displays nowhere near the complexity of Wave in its interoperability requirements. More importantly, integrating Pushbutton features into a website or application isn't a monolithic process of building dozens of cutting-edge features, but rather can be deployed incrementally by even non-expert webmasters.

In this context, it might help to think of Pushbutton tech as a "micro-Wave". As Gina Trapani said in mentioning Google Reader's support for PubSubHubBub:

Huh-wha? you ask. Yeah, I know. It's no Google Wave. But that's what makes this exciting. This kind of small Pushbutton implementation is how real web pages will easily use existing technology to notify one another of new updates. The Google Reader/FriendFeed integration is just the first tiny step in what will be a broad deployment of realtime-enabled sites. These sites and services will let one another know when they have new data to share without the sucky inefficiencies of polling. Check out how fast FriendFeed updates when you share an item in Google Reader in the video above.

In short, it's almost zero latency.

Why is this clearly "inferior" technology going to win? Well, as just one example, XMPP is way too complicated for any normal human to deploy. Whereas if you're reading this, you probably already have access to a regular HTTP web server that could talk to a Pushbutton hub. In fact, the only two backers I know who have worked extensively with XMPP are Brad Fitzpatrick and Artur Bergman, who co-created Djabberd. And they are both excited about PubSubHubBub. Realistically, someone like Yahoo might try to do all of this, and inevitably one or two open source projects will try to lash together open implementations of each of these pieces to make a kind of FrankenWave application. There are probably already one or two teams working on the inevitable "Enterprise Wave Server" platforms as well, though I haven't heard about them myself. These efforts may succeed, but that doesn't mean they'll ever be robust enough that people will trust them for communicating on the web.

More to the point, I'm a regular blogger who knows a little bit about scripting on a normal web server. I can poke around the documentation and add a few tweaks to my RSS feed (or, in my case, do nothing and have Feedburner automatically handle it for me), and all of a sudden my blog's feed is part of the Pushbutton web, ready for others to build on. I literally wouldn't even know where to start with the Wave developer documentation if I wanted to integrate it with my site or any of the little apps I like to hack on during a long weekend. What seems more realistic - that someone will figure out a way to incrementally build on top of realtime feeds to enable Wave-like experiences, or that all this talk of Waves, wavelets and blips is going to suddenly become easy to understand.

In short, web-way tech like feeds, Ajax, and Pushbutton win because people who make good sites and applications have a place to start with it. Does this mean we get fancy realtime simultaneous editing right away, now that Pushbutton exists? Nope. In fact, Wave might even get the early jump on those kinds of features for web apps, simply because it's pioneered that part of the user experience. But Wave only runs to its full potential on the most cutting-edge web browsers. And there may only be a dozen companies in the world with the in-house expertise to clone the entire complement of technologies underlying Wave in order to make a full-fledged competitor. Worse, the monolithic nature of the Wave experience means it will even be a challenge to make a full-fledged open source competitor to the official Google service.

I hope that Wave succeeds, because I love to see ambition and innovation rewarded. But I think it's most likely that Wave's success will be in inspiring people to create similarly compelling experiences by adding incremental enhancements to their existing sites. That's how the web's always advanced in the past.

Anil Dash has been blogging at Dashes.com for over ten years, with a pretty good track record of predicting what's next. You can subscribe to his RSS feed or follow @anildash on Twitter.

Windows/Mac OS X: Enlarging images, especially from lower resolution source images, can be dicey business. Want to enlarge an image and you don't want it to look like an 8-bit video game sprite? SmillaEnlarger can keep things smooth and artifact free.

Photo by 512 Photography.

SmillaEnlarger is an open-source and portable application designed to help you intensively massage an image enlargement to keep it from looking jagged and filled with artifacts. You can select the level of zoom using the zoom slider and the location of the zoom via the selection box.

Once you have the selection you're after, you can begin tinkering with the sharpness, flatness, dithering, noise levels, and more. The preview function is quite speedy so don't hesitate to preview often to check how the various settings effect the outcome of your image.

When your enlargement is satisfactory, hit the Calculate button to render it—a process only slightly longer than the preview. From our testing, the results achieved with SmillaEnlarger are on par with other—usually pricier—methods.

If you know of any other tools—freeware, web-based, or otherwise—for easy photo enlargements, let's hear about it in the comments. SmillaEnlarger is portable freeware, Windows only.

It's a game that came out of nowhere. A small studio, some interesting but far from perfect DS games, and a new title with an outlandish claim that every item in the world would be inside -- 5TH Cell didn't just have a lot to prove; they had to follow up with their crazy goals.

Then E3 happened. With people finally getting some hands-on time, Scribblenauts went from mere novelty title to a must-have. Somewhere between summoning the kraken and making keyboard cat, things just clicked. Sure, the game isn't even out for another month, but anticipation is burning hot. Even if the game doesn't quite come together, the technology behind it is staggering. Surely the team behind Scribblenauts must be an interesting group of people?

Lucky for me, I had a chance to ask a few questions to Miah Slaczka, the Creative Director behind Scribblenauts and Co-Founder of 5TH Cell. He had a few responses to how this game was born, and some special challenges for making Scribblenauts. He even hints to the future of 5TH Cell, and what we can expect. He even answered some Twitter questions from people just like you! Hit the jump for our discussion.

DESTRUCTOID

First of all: how on Earth does a team go about creating a game with everything in it? What went into developing the engine, and what is the process of creating an object and applying the attribute and characteristics? How long does it take to create an item?

Jeremiah "Miah" Slaczka, Co-Founder and Creative Director of 5TH Cell

Lots of pre-production to figure how to do it. Marius, our Tech Director, really had a clear vision of what the tech should be behind it and created Objectnaut, our in-house tool to make the game’s objects work the way they should. We order art for the object, animate it if need be, convert it to get into the DS, plop it in Objectnaut under a category and subcategory, which already gives it a bunch of properties; from there we just tweak it to what we need. To create an item it doesn’t take long at all, few hours. To refine and polish it takes a few more. The engine handles a lot of the hard work for us; we designed it that way. Otherwise, there’s no way we could have finished this game in a year.

What has development been like compared to Drawn to Life and Lock's Quest? Any particular problems or moments of glory? Where did the inspiration for this game come from, and what do you hope players will gain from playing Scribblenauts?

Drawn to Life was our first DS game, so we’ve learned a lot since then. Lock’s Quest was a refinement of Drawn to Life on how to make DS games, while Scribblenauts was another huge, wild undertaking stepping onto completely new ground. Moments of glory? E3, of course, was amazing for us, also when everything came together towards the end and the game went from being lots of empty systems to “wow, all these objects work!” was great. As far as inspiration, I looked at what does well on the DS and wanted to make a game that catered to everyone, I really love to push the boundaries of what can be done in a title and Marius has always been great at realizing those concepts. Scribblenauts definitely fits that bill. I hope players can just have a lot of fun and enjoy themselves.

I'd like to get your commentary on creativity and emergent gameplay in videogames (e.g., LittleBigPlanet, Kodu Game Lab, Scribblenauts). It seems that a major trend has been to give control to the players, and you guys seem to be on the forefront of such a trend. Care to comment and give your view point?

I find emergent gameplay interesting, obviously, but to be honest, I just make what I like to make. I never thought about other emergent games when coming up with Scribblenauts, or that the game would be emergent at all; it just organically grew into what you see now. If our game follows a trend, that’s fine, but I’m not really interested in following or being part of trends. Our motto is to make our own waves. People want to play 5TH Cell games because they can’t get our experience anywhere else.

We all know that the game aims to include everything, but just as interesting is what has be left out of the game. Sure, obvious sexual and mature content is left out, but figures like God and Einstein have been left in. Will we see Jesus or Mohammad, Hitler or Stalin, a chainsaw or bloody weapons? Can you attack babies? The emergent gameplay of Scribblenauts means some people are going to try and do some twisted things: How do you fight this? Or do you fight it?

We’re not interested in creating controversy with our games. I’ll leave the shock value games to other developers. So controversial characters are out, and for a game like this, blood and gore is out too (although chainsaws and all other kinds of weapons are in, because it’s done with comical violence like cartoons). Attacking babies is okay as well due to the cartoonish look. Beyond that though, have at it. We have no idea what people are going to do. That’s what the game is all about. So why should we fight it?

I’d like to get your commentary on your experience this year at E3. No need to brag, but Scribblenauts was lauded across the board, with many websites and publications giving the game “best in show.” What’s your response to that, especially considering this is a DS game, and one that has been rather low-profile? Also, why strictly the DS? What's in store for 5TH Cell for the future?

We’re pretty much in awe of what happened at E3. For some amazing reason, people have just latched on to our title and just want to share it with everyone else. It’s really incredible -- I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve been doing DS games for a while because the tech makes sense, our team knows the DS well, and from a business side it’s done well for us, but 5TH Cell will be moving into our first console titles next year and beyond, still making original games you can’t get from anyone else.

Questions from Twitter:

@LitmantheHitman: Can you summon a clinical neuropsychologist? And if so, is it attracted to brains?

Probably. There are so many items in the game I really don’t know. *laughs*

@sawmillangstrom: Does the game award bonuses for creative solutions? If so how does the game define creative? Or try to get more info about merits?

Yes, the game does indeed award bonuses for creative solutions. You can get more Ollars and more unique merits by coming up with unique solutions. But how it all works is a mystery!

@BlisterBrown: Ask him for some more info on how the level editor is going to work.

The level editor allows you to edit any level you’ve beaten by using the geometry of the level and then adding your own objects to be obstacles. If those objects are AI (like a bear or a cop) you can override their default behavior and have them interact in new, weird ways. You can also share these levels online with friends via friend codes or locally.

Finally. The video you’ve all been waiting for your whole life to see. Oh yeah, Mario and Peach so get it on.

At first, I thought this was going to be pretty corny but the videogame jokes are kind of funny. The Zelda/Hell yeah joke had me rolling.

The joke at the very end though kind of upset me. It’s a rip off of another Mario animation that has Mario and Peach getting it on. I can’t find a link to that flash movie, but it ends with Peach giving birth to a baby Luigi, baby Yoshi, baby Bowser and a few other baby Mario characters.

As always, check out the College Humor video after the break.

There were two interesting Windows-related news stories last week. First, Joe Wilcox’s story on a report from NPD claiming that 91 percent of $1,000-and-higher retail computer sales now go to Apple. Second, Microsoft’s quarterly financial results, in which revenue fell $1 billion short of projections and declined 17 percent year-over-year.

To be clear, Microsoft remains a very profitable company. However, they have never before reported year-over-year declines like this, nor fallen so short of projected earnings. Something is awry.

What is particularly alarming about Microsoft’s numbers is that revenue from its Windows PC division suffered an even greater year-over-year revenue decline than the company as a whole: 29 percent. One explanation for that is that Windows 7, a major new update, goes on sale in October, and so it’s expected, somehow, that Windows revenue would decline in the months preceding its release.

But Microsoft’s operating system business is not new, and it has never been particularly cyclical. Windows revenue, prior to this just-completed quarter, has only ever gone in one direction: up.

Windows is at the core of everything Microsoft does that makes money. They sell Windows, then they sell software that runs on Windows. As Windows goes, so goes Microsoft, and right now Windows is heading south.

One argument is that the fault lies with the global economy, not Microsoft itself. (This seems to be the argument Microsoft’s executives are making.) But not every tech company is suffering. Google is doing just fine, and Apple reported record non-holiday-quarter numbers for its just-ended quarter.

Apple operates in the same economy Microsoft does, and Mac sales are up. And the numbers from the aforementioned report by NPD are simply astounding. It’s worth noting, though, that NPD’s report is specifically about retail computer purchases; Wilcox’s story doesn’t make that clear. But that they don’t represent all computer purchases doesn’t mean they aren’t astounding figures. Things have not always been like this. NPD conducted the same survey at the beginning of 2008, and at that point Apple’s share of the $1,000+ retail computer market was only 66 percent. Repeat: Apple’s share of this segment has grown from 66 to 91 percent in a year and a half.

Apple has always only competed in the middle-to-high range of the computer market. But it was never the case, historically, that Apple sold a majority of middle-to-high-end computers. Even given that NPD’s numbers represent only retail sales, is there any reasonable doubt that Apple’s share of the non-retail market for $1,000+ computers is also growing?

Apple’s strong growth in this segment is a sign that the market is turning against Windows. If for no other reason than that Apple has never entered the low-cost computer market, it’s always been the case that the most budget-conscious computer buyers were Windows users. But the converse wasn’t true — not all Windows users were cheapies.

Today, though, Microsoft is increasingly left only with customers whose priority is price.

A Simple Pointed Question

During the late-’90s dot-com boom, it was standard operating procedure at many companies for professional web developers and designers to have two computers on their desks: one Windows, one Mac. One for primary development, one for testing in browsers on the “other” OS. (Virtualization wasn’t yet practical.)

But which to choose as the primary platform? Many chose one, many chose the other. But it was an interesting test group, because they were exposed to both platforms. These web developers were not like the people who, in a form of tribalism, claim to despise one or the other platform without having actually used it. Web developers had to know both the Mac and Windows, at least with passing familiarity, and the truth is that many, if not most, preferred Windows.

Today that is simply no longer the case. Microsoft has lost all but a sliver of this entire market. People who love computers overwhelmingly prefer to use a Mac today. Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. Regular people don’t think about their choice of computer platform in detail and with passion like nerds do because, duh, they are not nerds. But nerds are leading indicators.

This is true in many markets with broad appeal, not just computers. Microsoft is looking ever more so like the digital equivalent of General Motors. Car enthusiasts lost interest in GM’s cars long before regular people did; the same is happening with Windows.

Or consider cameras. Companies like Canon and Nikon make most of their money from consumer-level point-and-shoot cameras. But they are intensely competitive at the high end of the market, too. Enthusiasts are valuable customers not just because they themselves buy expensive products, but because they, as enthusiasts, tend to recommend products in their area of expertise to others. The photo nerd who’s delighted with their $2,500 Canon SLR is likely to recommend a lot of $250 Canon point-and-shoots to friends and family.

Vista was a disaster for Microsoft. Windows 7 is, supposedly, the light at the end of the tunnel. But the best consensus about Windows 7 is only that it’s not going to be a complete and total clusterfuck like Vista. That it’s something XP users will actually want to upgrade to. Something that, when it comes pre-installed on a new machine, will not prompt questions about how to downgrade to XP.

But no one seems to be arguing that Windows 7 is something that will tempt Mac users to switch, or to tempt even recent Mac converts to switch back. It doesn’t even seem to be in the realm of debate. But if Windows 7 is actually any good, why wouldn’t it tempt at least some segment of Mac users to switch? Windows 95, 98, and XP did.

Microsoft seems to have conceded that the enthusiasts who’ve switched to the Mac in recent years are gone for good. Their apparent goal for Windows 7 was merely to make something better than Windows Vista. If Microsoft were a healthy, functional, competitive company willing and able to honestly assess its own shortcomings — like the Microsoft of the ’90s that conquered the entire industry — their goal would have been to make something not just better than Vista, but better than anything else on the market, including Mac OS X.

Some Joke

The evidence is staring Microsoft’s leadership in the face that they have lost the most lucrative segment of the market, but, judged by their actions and public remarks, they seem to think it’s all a big joke. They should be sweating this but they’re laughing it off.

Two weeks ago Microsoft held its annual Worldwide Partners Conference. There was a much-reported bit from the remarks of Kevin Turner, a former Wal-Mart executive who is now Microsoft’s COO. What caught people’s attention were Turner’s comments regarding having gotten a phone call from a lawyer at Apple regarding Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunter” ads. From Microsoft’s transcript:

And so we’ve been running these PC value ads. Just giving people saying, hey, what are you looking to spend? “Oh, I’m looking to spend less than $1,000.” Well we’ll give you $1,000. Go in and look and see what you can buy. And they come out and they just show them. Those are completely unscripted commercials.

And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. (Applause.)

I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, “Is this a joke? Who are you?” Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.

That’s interesting insofar as it proves that Apple has an eye on Microsoft’s ads. But I’ve always imagined that this is pretty much what corporate attorneys do all the time when a competitor runs an ad that claims things which are not true. This is why you don’t often see direct price comparisons in TV commercials — prices change. And, in fact, a week later, Microsoft changed the ads to remove specific mentions of Mac prices.

That silly lawyer.

But the really interesting part of Turner’s remarks from the conference is what he said immediately preceding the above, when he first broached the topic of Apple:

Now let’s talk about Apple. What are you going to do about those Apple ads? That was a year ago. Gosh, when I went home for the holidays, brothers, sisters, cousins — hey, hope you don’t have anything to do with marketing over there at Microsoft. What are you guys going to do about those Apple ads?

Stay tuned, stay tuned, stay tuned. Wow. Did we punch right back? The PC Hunter ads, the PC Rookie ads clearly have been winners in the marketplace.

Such winners in the marketplace that Apple’s laptop sales went up last quarter, and the rest of the industry’s declined. (Perhaps Microsoft would do better to measure the efficacy of their ads by their effect on sales, rather than by the number of phone calls they prompt from Apple lawyers.)

Then comes the real insight into Microsoft’s thinking:

I pulled this out of my Sunday newspaper. I have an old habit because I came from retail looking at the Sunday tabs and circulars that are in newspapers. This is straight out of my paper last Sunday. This is a comparison out of a leading electronics retailer that you can get a 13.3-inch Macbook for US$1199 from that retailer. Guess what. That same retailer, you can get the same PC with more RAM, a bigger hard drive, and almost a three-inch bigger screen for US$649. What an incredible opportunity.

And so Microsoft’s official stance regarding Apple’s growing domination of the $1,000+ market is that Apple is charging hundreds of extra dollars in pure margin — $500 in the case Turner cited in his prepared remarks. The computers that Microsoft chooses to brag about on stage at a major conference are the $650 17-inch laptops advertised in Best Buy Sunday circulars.

There’s no question that retailers sell tens of millions of cheap Windows laptops every year. But no one with a pair of eyes thinks such machines are of comparable quality to Apple MacBooks. Even without turning the machines on, anyone can see the difference in design and build quality. In fact, you don’t even need eyes — just pick them up and see which one squeaks. Apple is selling more MacBooks every quarter. Microsoft thinks it is sitting pretty because Best Buy has a 17-inch Dell for $650.

Turner is not alone. Back in April, when the new PC Hunter ad campaign started, David Webster, general manager for brand marketing at Microsoft, said the following in an interview with Newsweek’s Dan Lyons:

He says the idea was to turn Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign to Microsoft’s advantage. “We associate real people with being PCs, [but then Apple] ends up looking pretty mean-spirited, the way they go after customers,” he says. “It’s clear that’s who they are insulting.” At the same time he can’t resist taking a crack at the preciousness of some Mac users. “Not everyone wants a machine that’s been washed with unicorn tears,” he says.

Quoting the above, I wrote:

It seems clear that Microsoft’s stance on the Mac’s sales growth is that there’s nothing wrong with Windows or right with the Mac, but rather that there’s something wrong with Mac users.

Microsoft is no longer ignoring Apple’s market share gains and successful “Get a Mac” ad campaign. But the crux of these ads from Apple is that Macs are better; Microsoft’s response is a message that everyone already knows — that Windows PCs are cheaper. Their marketing and retail executives publicly espouse the opinion that, now that everyone sees Apple computers as cool, Microsoft has Apple right where they want them.

They’re a software company whose primary platform no longer appeals to people who like computers the most. Their executives are either in denial of, or do not perceive, that there has emerged a consensus — not just among nerds but among a growing number of regular just-plain users — that Windows PCs are second-rate. They still dominate in terms of unit-sale market share, yes, but not because people don’t recognize Windows as second-rate, but because they don’t care, in the same way millions of people buy metric tons of second-rate products from Wal-Mart every hour of every day.

That’s the business Wal-Mart wants to be in — selling a zillion cheap low-margin items and turning a profit on volume. That’s not the business Microsoft is in.

And in mobile software, the fastest-growing segment of the computer industry, Microsoft’s platform is both inferior and unpopular. Their plan to address this is to change its name.

I’m not arguing that Microsoft will collapse. They’re too big, too established for that to happen. I simply think that their results this quarter were not an aberration, but rather the first fiscal evidence of a long, slow decline that began several years ago.

 

When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time was announced with a price point of 1200  on the Xbox Live Arcade - a lot of people groaned.  Sure everybody loves a good remake of a solid co-op brawler, but at $15 dollars it's a steep price to pay.  Thankfully, everyone will soon get a to pay a lot less for their TiT.  

Ubisoft has announced it has dropped the price of the game, which releases this coming Wednesday, August 5th.  

Read More

My. What a pleasant surprise. Dave Gibbons, the artist responsible for Watchmen (the graphic novel, not the movie), is working with Revolution Software on Beneath A Steel Sky: Remastered.

Yeah. You read that right. Somebody is remaking the original Beneath a Steel Sky - one of the greatest adventure games of all time - and it's going to feature new animated sequences drawn by Dave Gibbons.

It's due initially for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but the developers say it will later be "rolling out across other handheld formats". Aside from the new animated sequences, the game will also have a revamped audio score and sound effects, and will be out sometime in the Fall.

I have always loved this game, and the port to iPhone is pretty damn good. But I still kinda miss the long, multi-floppy install.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.There is a strong chance that you've been opening bananas wrong your whole life. Take a cue from our simian friends and start opening a banana with the efficiency of a hungry monkey.

It's possible you've been opening bananas the most efficient way, but more likely you've been opening them—like we have—the completely backwards and frustrating way. Most people start by grabbing the stem of the bananas and using it like a pull tab to get the banana open. This usually works with a somewhat high degree of success, high enough to keep people doing it and writing off the occasional banana opening mishap as problem with a faulty banana and not a problem with their technique. Watch the video below to see a demonstration of how monkeys open bananas:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.


If you watched the video and said "That's how I do it!" good for you, you're a primate most efficient. If you were amazed by the simplicity of the upside down maneuver, congratulations you've just learned a simple and effective way to chow down on your favorite yellow fruit. Have an unconventional technique for skinning, peeling, or otherwise getting at the delicious parts of your favorite foods? Let's hear about it in the comments below.

its not about focing a single codec on anyone - you would be still free to use whatever you like - it would just "force" the browsers to at least have the ability to play one codec everyone can rely on

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.

Looks like Germany's at it again. The fascist anti-videogame state has continued its persecution of videogames by now banning Counter-Strike from public view, demanding that it not be brought out at LAN parties in some areas of the country. Germany's Convention-X-Treme tournament has had to be canceled as a result of this decision. This affects buildings owned by the government, so they can't touch what people do on private property. Still, this is beyond ridiculous. 

It's also being said that World of Warcraft has been banned from public play by a number of German ruling bodies as well. Apparently this will all help stop violence in the country, and surely won't lead to frustrated and angry teenagers becoming even more frustrated and angry. Slick move, Germany!

Counter-Strike is a LAN staple and, as evidenced by the cancellation of Convention-X-Treme and several Friday night game events, this is going to have perhaps the biggest affect on German gamers yet. It's become quite clear that German authorities have no clue what they're doing anymore, and are ruling with an iron fist that which they do not understand. 

Germany has lost the plot, officially. 

[Thanks, Juan]

To use the HTML 5 <video> tag in Firefox 3.5, you need video files encoded in the Ogg Theora format. Apple doesn’t support this format at all, so you can’t just export Ogg files from QuickTime like you can with H.264/MPEG-4. I spent some time trying to find the best easy way to create Ogg Theora files on Mac OS X, and I think ffmpeg2theora is it.

In his “Video for Everybody” article I linked to yesterday, Kroc Camen suggests using HandBrake to create Ogg Theora files, but I couldn’t get it to work in HandBrake 0.9.3 (the current release version) without crashing. (Well, one time it created a file without crashing, but the file was corrupt.) It ends up that HandBrake’s broken Ogg support is a known issue with no easy solution, and so Ogg support has been removed from the current branch of HandBrake, and there are no plans to bring it back.

Camen also linked to Xiph, an open-source QuickTime component that adds Ogg Theora playback and export to QuickTime. I don’t want to install this, however. For one thing, the only open-source QuickTime component I’ve ever had a good experience with is Perian. For another, I don’t want Ogg playback support in QuickTime. The fork in supported codecs for the <video> tag — Safari won’t support Ogg Theora and Firefox and Opera won’t support H.264 — doesn’t mean you can’t support all three browsers. It just means that to support all three, you need to include at least two <source> elements within the <video> tag, one pointing to an H.264-encoded file, the other to an Ogg Theora file, like this:

<video>
    <source src="example-video.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
    <source src="example-video.ogv" type="video/ogg" />
</video>

This serves the H.264 to Safari, the Ogg Theora to Firefox. And for Chrome 3.0, which supports both formats, this should serve the H.264 version because it’s specified first.

ffmpeg2theora is the one tool I found that simply just works for transcoding to Ogg Theora. The downside to ffmpeg2theora is that it’s only available as a command-line tool. But:

1. It has a nice Mac OS X .pkg installer. Launch it, authorize it with admin credentials, and it’ll install the ffmpeg2theora tool in /usr/local/bin/.

2. The command-line syntax could not be simpler. You just type:

   ffmpeg2theora example.m4v
   

   and it gets to work, outputting a file named example.ogv right next to the .m4v file. It shows an updating progress message in Terminal while it’s working. There are more options (and it comes with a man page that documents them), but in my testing you can just use the defaults.

ffmpeg2theora’s output looks good. I gave it a 3.9 MB H.264 file as input, and it created a 3.5 MB .ogv file that looked pretty good — way better than typical web video in a Flash player — when I played it back in VLC and Firefox 3.5.

Scribblenauts looks amazing. 10,000 in-game items? Can't. Wait. And yet...something tugs at the subconscious. Just like it did with LittleBigPlanet. We love creativity, yes, but we also love existing characters.

The game won't, of course, let you conjure the intellectual property of other characters. So if you're in a pickle, you can't just write "TRAVIS TOUCHDOWN" and have him arrive to awesome all your problems away. But if, by some miracle, you could, he'd probably look like this.

These adorable little guys are the work of some GAF members, mostly turk128 & SpacePirateRidley, and show what it'd look like if all your favourite gaming (and some non-gaming) characters made it into the finished product.

Scribblenauts Preview/Impressions Thread - You will say "wow." (see post #217) [NeoGAF, via Tiny Cartridge]

Have you heard about Scribblenauts? If you haven’t, I highly recommend checking this out. Is that not friggin’ awesome? Seriously, the potential for this game’s replay value is so drastically high… 280 levels, plus you can create your own levels and send them to friends. Nonetheless, I’m really looking forward to this. I want to see how long it takes before I come up with something that’s not in the game… well, in reason anyway.

About a year ago, you may recall, my brother and I attempted to derive the product of Pac-Man's metabolic functions. In that spirit, Kotaku has now created its own Bureau of Weights & Measures.

The Bureau's mission: To needlessly expose the wide gulf between video game physics and the laws of the real world; to pursue, to a pointless degree if necessary possible, the logical extremes of any mathematical given; to ask the questions that do not really deserve to be answered; and as an ultimate, Quixotic pursuit, to finally define the real world value of one hit point. We do this in the name of science for all mankind.

Our first journal of study is hereby submitted, dealing with three metrics - weight, speed and momentum.

Dr. Owen S. Good
Director, Kotaku Bureau of Weights & Measures

WEIGHT
Game: Fallout 3
Test Subject: Vault Dweller

In an RPG, you'd expect to have some distorted encumbrance measurements. Players have been hauling around a full cabinet of arms, plus full plate armor, plus a spare set of armor, plus dual-wield crossbows, plus 500 bolts, plus turkey dinner, since this kind of game was played on paper. It's why D&D invented the Portable Hole.

Fallout 3 measures weight in vague units of "WG." Of any RPG that caps carrying weight, it seems to let you carry a lot. Like a U-Haul's worth. In my latest game I deliberately created a guy with 4 strength because I wanted him to travel light and carry only that which was useful. But as you can see in this recent loadout below, I'm still stowing a spare set of recon armor in case a Glowing One makes me dump in my Brotherhood suit.

Weapons: A3-21's Plasma Rifle, Combat Shotgun, 28 Frag Grenades, 15 Frag Mines, Mesmetron, 3 Plasma Grenades, 4 Plasma Mines, Plasma Pistol, 9 Pulse Grenades, Scoped .44 Magnum (56 WG)
Apparel: Enclave Officer Hat, Power Armor, Power Helmet, Recon Armor. (71)
Aid: Blood Pack, 9 Buffout, 3 Dirty Water, 14 Med-X, 15 Mentats, 2 Nuka-Cola Quantum, 4 Psycho, 17 Purified Water
9 Rad-X, 25 RadAway, 6 Stealth Boy, 79 Stimpak, (sue me, I'm a HP whore), Sugar Bombs. (28)
Miscellaneous: 16 Bobby Pins, Carton of Cigarettes, Cherry Bomb, Conductor, Fire hose Nozzle, Ink Container
Leaf Blower, Pack of Cigarettes, 5 Pre-War Money, 12 Scrap Metal, Key ring with 14 keys on it (29)
Ammo: 202 rounds .44 magnum, 20 darts, 285 Energy Cells, 50 Mesmetron Power Cells, 493 Microfusion Cells, 280 Shotgun Shells. (0 WG)
Total WG: 184

What bothered me about Fallout was not so much that the heavy weapons, like a Flamer, weighed only "15." Maybe they're made from futuristic lightweight metal. No, it's more that a pair of freaking TWEEZERS was equivalent in weight to a motorcycle helmet. It's not even that the WG figure represents a total encumbrance factor – that either the item's size or fragility makes it difficult to carry - because a pool cue has the same WG figure: 1.

So I chatted up Todd Howard of Bethesda Softworks, Fallout 3's game director, about this. First off, is "WG" equivalent to anything?

"Not really," Todd said. "It's sort of close to pounds, but we intentionally don't really say what it is. It actually started based on the weights we used for The Elder Scrolls, which most people don't know are the also-amorphous ‘stones.'"

OK, fine. If they didn't peg WG to something, I will. And I'm going to base it on the weight of beer. A bottle in Fallout is 1 WG. In real life, a bottle of beer, depending on how stout it is, will weigh roughly three-quarters of a pound when you figure in the glass. By figuring my total burden as it relates to at least one item in my possession, I could start imagining how large a load I was carrying around.

But what I couldn't measure is ammo, meds and chems, which have no weight value - and I wasn't going down to the local needle exchange to weigh whatever approximates a Jet syringe. Why didn't Bethesda give them a weight? Because in the game, these are very valuable items. Why wouldn't an RPG, which is more based in realism and more dependent on choice-making than other genres, also require players to be more conscientious about what they're carrying?

"In regards to ammo and money, it's just too granular a decision for the player, if they had weight," Todd said. "You don't want to make that a choice for the player; he already has to manage so much in his inventory and you need things he can find that are an instant win - ammo, money, drugs, etc, things that help keep him alive and playing. It would just bog the game down too much to find ammo and be thinking, ‘Do I want to pick up two of these bullets or the whole stack?' We felt that decision should be on [which] weapons to carry, not what ammo."

Yes, but when a Gatling Laser weighs the same as a frosty 18-can fridge pack of Miller, your decision to carry two is not because of their combat utility but the resale value in Rivet City. Todd said that's entirely valid reasoning, and strength is meant to enable it.

"Much of your character's power comes from his stuff. The more he has, the better he is. Even if he's not using it, it becomes money," Todd said. "Players get pretty good at the value versus weight game quickly."

You might figure that, in the long run, it all balances out. Tweezers are overweighted, bazookas are underweighted, and everyone gets along. But my previous loadout would weigh 138 pounds (1 WG = 0.75 pounds) and still fill up a Public Storage room. Todd insisted that developers discussed the question of how much a player should be able to carry, "right until the end. … We kept narrowing and narrowing what a low-strength versus high-strength gave you, because it was too powerful."

Was too powerful? In the finished game, a Fallout 3 character with the bare minimum strength of 1 can carry 160 WG. I searched for a real world comparison, and this is the best I could do: The Improved Load Bearing Equipment in use by the U.S. Marine Corps since 2005 can carry - ready for this? - 120 pounds. If beer is our unit of measure (and why shouldn't it be?) that converts to 160 bottles of beer (or WG). In other words, any vault reject a notch above total weakling - a 2 strength or better - will out-lug any Marine, even the one assigned to carry the mortar and shells.

Partly to spite Bethesda, I created a character with 1 Strength and assigned the rest of the points to more useful attributes. I never use melee weapons, anyway. I also manually assigned weight to my ammunition and chems (1 for units of 10). I quickly saw how right Todd was.

In Fallout, your ability to meet more difficult challenges depends a lot on the equipment you have, and it's usually items you build or buy that prove the difference. Financing that comes from the resale of surplus items, not the discovery of treasure. Realistic strength would leave you endlessly grinding before starting the next job.

As for ammo, I gave up on that shortly after a raid at the Super-Duper Mart. I was robbing Raider corpses for spare rounds to fight off the survivors and writing down the totals. It was indeed too granular a decision, and got in the way of more pressing challenges.

So, even though with a 5 strength, you can run from Megaton to the Arlington Public Library loaded down like a Peruvian donkey, let's just say the future is made of super-light plastics. And the radiation turned everyone into Lou Ferrigno.

[Images from the Fallout Wiki]

SPEED
Game:Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Test Subject: Carl "C.J." Johnson

Originally, I wanted to test the scale speeds of the Team Fortress 2 characters, especially Scout, who could probably outrun Carl Lewis like a Porsche outruns Stephen Hawking. The problem with this, as with other games, is measuring the distance those guys cover in real world units. I'd have to know, say, Heavy's IRL height (6'5?") and be able to lay him end to end over a straightaway to get its real distance. I'm not a modder, and I wouldn't have that kind of time anyway.

So I then looked to the Grand Theft Auto series. From Claude to Niko, you've always had the ability to overtake a moving car on foot and jack it. I really wanted to know these guys' running speeds, and they live in cities with structures based on real world ones. Unfortunately, everything in Liberty City is a compressed distance, so running Niko across the Broker Bridge still wouldn't tell us much.

But in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, there's this Easter egg, which identifies the specific dimensions of the Gant Bridge, including a length of 159.7 meters. During the first few tests, something seemed way off. First, 159.7 meters isn't even a 10th of a mile, and C.J.'s runs - at a sprint - were keeping up with traffic and returning mile times of 17:41. So I had to measure this bridge for myself. If I knew the actual scale speed of a vehicle in the game, I could derive its length. This database lists all such attributes.

Thus aboard an NRG-500 motorcycle running at its top speed of 118 mph, I made five maximum-speed trips across the bridge, at a flying start, with a median time of 18.15 seconds. If the Gant Bridge really was 159.7 meters, the bike would have been doing 20 mph, not 120 mph. It's possible they're talking about a distance shorter than the one I was using - toll booth in San Fierro to concrete strip at Tierra Robada - but at top speed, the bike should be able to cross 159.7 meters in just under 3 seconds. Either way, 160 meters is a fraction of the bridge's length as it relates to C.J.

So, at top speed, the bike is traveling at 173.16 feet per second. Multiplied by 18.15, we discover the length of the Gant Bridge is 3,142.85 feet, which is nearly 1 kilometer. As another control, I went back and rode with traffic, matching its speed. We crossed the bridge in 1:09.16, which is 30.98 miles per hour. I damn for sure could see a developer setting standard traffic speed to something round, and 31 mph is almost 50 kph. So, I'm pretty confident the sign is incorrect, and I got this measured as close as possible.

Now, back to running it. C.J. has five paces on foot: a walk, a "brisk walk," a "jog," and then two sprints, one with the A button held down, and another that provides a burst of speed by rapidly tapping it. The C.J. I was playing had maxed all of his physical stats, so he could achieve top running speed and not tire out, at any distance. Back at the bridge on foot, I took him through the five paces.
Walking
At his slowest C.J. covered the distance in 8:22, which equates to 4.2 miles per hour. Frame of reference: 4.0 is the fastest most walk on a gym treadmill. At the "brisk walk" pace, C.J. covers the distance in 4:44.03. Remember our treadmill? This "walk" is more than a jog, it's 7.54 miles per hour. It's equivalent to a 7:57 mile time. My best time in the mile - running - is 8:21, five years ago.

Running
Now it gets good. At the third pace, "jogging," C.J. crossed the span in 2:43.16. If he held that pace he would run a marathon in under two hours, which is unprecedented. Holding down the A button, C.J. crossed the bridge in 1:38.11, or 21 miles per hour. That's a mile in 2:44.84, which is inhuman. Remember Roger Bannister? The first mile under 4 minutes? C.J. would run the first one under three. He would beat the world record holder by a larger margin (in seconds) than he would have lost this year's Kentucky Derby.

Sprinting
Rapid-tapping the A-button gave C.J. just a 16- second advantage, which means this loses its effect pretty quickly. Still, at minimum one can assume some world-class sprint times. How world class? Try torching Usain Bolt's records in the 200 and 100 by two and one seconds, respectively - 17.1 and 8.58 seconds. Granted, that speed figure is derived from a running start. Real-life sprinters have to react to a gun and get up to speed. But, remember, C.J.'s sprint lost effect, I'm not sure exactly how far in, so most of this time was derived from a run at the standard "A" pace.

Incidentally, C.J.'s motion capture actor was Eddie Goines, a star wide receiver at North Carolina State University and a classmate of mine. I knew him pretty well, as well as a sports writer knows one of the team's stars, anyway. As a flanker, he set all the receiving records that Torry Holt and Koren Robinson would later break. As a freshman, Eddie was the fastest on the team, clocking a 40 yard dash in 4.35. A 4.09 is thought to be the NFL record. CJ's time is 3.15. I'm sure Eddie would be delighted to know that, at least in a video game, he's by far the fastest human alive.

MOMENTUM
Game: Assassin's Creed
Test Subject: Altair

No one would expect to fall 40 stories onto the top of a parked car and survive. However, at least it stops the body from crashing all the way through to the ground. Now imagine falling that height into a pile of hay that's roughly 2 meters wide by a meter and a half tall.

That's the first "leap of faith" in Assassin's Creed, from the tower at Masayaf. Holy catfish, that poor bastard who jumped with Altair at the beginning was lucky to get off with just a broken leg. And it is far from the steepest drop in the game. The infamous steeple on the cathedral at Acre is nearly twice as tall. Fresh off our victory in San Fierro, the Kotaku Bureau of Weights & Measures set out not only to fix its height, but also to calculate how much hay you'd need to land safely.

Ubisoft verified that Altair's height and weight, for purposes of the game's physics, was 6 feet and 190 pounds. This would be useful in calculating his stop. But that's all we got from them. However, one of the locations in the game is Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, whose dimensions are known. The structure's walls are 11 meters tall. Putting all this information in the hand of a trained scientist - devoted reader Matt M. - we were able to come up with some good estimates.

Matt worked up all three heights, but let's use Acre's as it is the most impressive. We were able to time the drop from the top of the steeple -4.1 seconds - using this video (which I downloaded and measured frame by frame). Working backward, we found that its real-world height would be 82.37 meters - about 270 feet. In the game, Altair is accelerating to 39.69 meters per second, acquiring a momentum of 3,420.48 kilogram-meters per second.

That's certainly a large number, but what does it mean? Matt breaks it down:

Basically, whatever catches him has to has to reduce that momentum to zero in under 0.05 seconds, which is the difference in time between Altair falling 82.05 meters and falling 80.05 meters at that speed. That means in the space of 2 meters - which is a little lenient since the floor of the cart is, what, half a meter off the ground? - the hay has to provide 68,298.25 Newtons of force. It's 136,596.5 Newton meters of work, which is a ridiculous thing to ask of hay.

Certainly, Kotaku Weights & Measures does not want to be unreasonable in its dealings with dead vegetable matter. And I'm not sure what could provide that kind of stopping power in that space, other than Kevlar. Or pavement. So I asked Matt if he could figure how large a haystack would be required to cushion a fall from such a height. We used the elasticity of military-grade bungee cords as a guide (using specs found here).

In the case of Acre, the haystack would be so big it would dwarf most other buildings in the game - 40 meters (131 feet) at its point, 67 meters (219 feet) wide at the bottom, if the dimensions conform to the original tiny pile. The freefall into such a mass of hay would last only 2.87 seconds. In terms of volume, it's more than 2.7 million cubic feet of hay - 2,695 times greater than what Altair is leaping into. I kept picturing Phil Hartman sitting atop the amazing mountain of Colon Blow cereal.

Alongside this you can see comparisons, to scale, of the heights Altair falls at the Dome of the Rock, Masayaf, and Acre, and of the size of hay he hits in the game relative to the size he would need to survive. "Leap of Faith" indeed. Sounds more like Altair's in a suicide cult.

The Kotaku Bureau of Weights & Measures gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Matt M. to this post. Follow him on Twitter.

Video games were invented in the latter half of the 20th century. Meaning that their subject matter is, more often than not, set in the 20th century (or later). But if they'd been invented earlier...

We'd (hopefully) have ended up with games like these! WARNING: some of the pics after the jump, which were entries in a competition over at Gizmodo, deal with questionable stuff. You know what? History is full of questionable stuff.

65 Ancient Video Games I Wish Existed [Gizmodo]

I would have posted about this earlier, but I read slower than Helen Keller when she's wearing gloves.

Well Played 1.0 is an anthology book of videogame critique, and probably one of the most interesting I've read. A group of twenty-two writers made up of designers, scholars, and bloggers wrote on subjects as wide-ranging as why BioShock's story is a failure, to an indepth analysis of a game you've never heard of called Mines of Minos.

It's got its low points, of course (it must be written somewhere in the halls of academia that any article written about Metal Gear Solid must be so self-important and needlessly complex so as to be completely useless), but overall, I learned quite a bit from this book which alternately attempts to push forward the discussion on games as an aesthetic medium, while not losing sight of that which made them so alluring in the first place. 

You can download the entire book here for free (minus images), or purchase a physical copy here. 

Apparently, many people don't know what's a browser and they think it's the same thing as a search engine. I've recently quoted some posts from Google Chrome's help forum which were strange: users didn't like Chrome and they thought that the old search engine was better. "I want the old Google search engine, not Google Chrome. How do I go back to regular old Google? I want to change my default search engine from Chrome to Google."

Scott Suiter, a former Google intern, asked 50 passersby from New York what is a browser and the responses were almost unanimous: a browser is a search engine. Some even said that their browser is Google.



According to Wikipedia, "a web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web." But search engines are the applications that help you find web pages and they're so important that they became synonymous with web browsers. It's an involuntary synecdoche, a figure of speech in which a part of an object is used to refer to the entire object.

{ via Andy Baio }

[In Music Mashup Monday we feature various amagalmations of videogame tunes and popular music, as well as remixes and orignial tunes. Music only gaming geeks could truly enjoy.]

Recently, remixer AfriqueDeluxe impressed us with his chill rendition of "Green Hill Zone" from the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. Somehow he was able to blend Sonic and Black Eyed Peas' Fergie into something not only listenable, but wholly enjoyable. This was especially impressive, as he was working with Fergie's annoying "Glamorous" as a source tune.

He is back with a new tune which again combines Sonic with another unholy source, Michael Jackson. Jacko's "They Don't Care About Us" has been worked into Sonic 2's "Casino Night Zone," 2 player mode. While it may not be as "first class" as his Fergie tune, it's still pretty damned good. Check it out after the jump.

Also, as a bonus, check out the incredible remix from Chrono Cross by remixers zyko and Destiny.