The Buckingham Palace Guard Band

When the changing of the guard happens (Schedule) at Buckingham Palace, The Guard Band plays as The New Guard is inspected. This is a tradition that dates back to the 16th century, however what the band plays isn't necessarily the same pomp of tradition that the rest of the ceremony is.

Dates For Your Diary 2009

If you where wondering when the big industry events where taking place this year, I have you covered.
I have included the 3DTV Conference on my list because that is looking to be the big technology this year with 3D-Ready TVs hitting the market.

January
8th to 11th Consumer Electronics Show (Las Vegas)

Febuary
10th to 12th Casual Connect Hamburg (Germany)
18th to 20th Dice Summit (Las Vegas)

March
17th GamesGrads North (Manchester UK)
19th GamesGrads South (London)
23rd to 27th Games Develop Conference (San Francisco)
24th to 26th Game Connection America (San Francisco)

May
4th to 6th 3DTV (Germany)
12th to 13th GDC Canada (Vancouver)
19th to 20th Nordic Game (Sweden)

June
2nd to 4th Electronic Entertainment Expo (Los Angeles)

July
14th to 16th Develop Conference (Brighton UK)
17th to 19th Gcdc (Leipzig)
21st to 23rd Casual Connect Seattle (USA)

August
3rd to 7th Siggraph (New Orleans)
17th to 19th GDC Europe (Cologne Germany)
19th to 23rd Leipzig Games Convention (Germany)

September
4th to 6th Penny Arcade Expo (Seattle)
14th to 18th Austin Games Develop Conference (Texas)
17th to 20th Games Convention Asia (Singapore)

December
8th to 10th Game Connection Europe (France)

The Manipulator

There is this game I have been playing called The Manipulator, it is a platformer with puzzle elements. You play a Manipulator, someone who can take controle of a person's mind, read their mind and even kill them with your power of through. It reminds me of Scanners in this respects, but also Metal Gear as you have to sneak around guards and take them out before they realise you are there.

The Manipulator will take about an hour for a complete play through, but you can't save your game (this is deliberate). The thing I like most about the game is that none of the puzzles solutions are obscure, or at least I found all the solutions myself through experimentation. There also isn't a tutorial, just some simple text queues for the controls.

The Manipulator is a surprisingly mature game with many lessons for budding game designers (note the narration, visual setting, environmental setting along with the audio and the simple control scheme).

If you are quite smitten by The Manipulator, you might want to try Messiah (David Perry, 2000) or Oddworld Abe's Oddysee (1997), which have a very similar gameplay concept of playing a weak character with the ability of possession to solve progression obstacles.

The Umbrella Umbrella

Think Geek is Selling An Umbrella that resembles the Umbrella Corporation logo from Resident Evil. So it's the Umbrella Umbrella. The funny thing about this is that it isn't official Resident Evil merchandise so they are being very coy in their description.

The red and white alternating panels? It just says "corporation" and "umbrella." Umbrella. Corporation. Doesn't that just have a nice ring to it?

If sued I think it would come down to who had the better lawyers.

P.S. Merry Christmas

Man Killed in Black Friday Stampede

Black Friday is the day in America after thanksgiving when all the Christmas Sales start. Where as in the rest of the world Christmas shopping becomes gradually more intense from October through to Christmas day, in America Black Friday is when Americans try to get all their shopping done. This is mainly because they are afraid of not being able to find presents and because the big shops encourage shoppers to binge spend just after thanksgiving.

So it does not surprise me that a temporary Wal-mart employee, Jdimytai Damour (34) Was Stampeded To Death in a rush by some 200 shoppers. Here are some photos of the crowed.

I understand that the crowed of people where in a frenzy and their actions are part of Human nature, but it is a part of Human nature that has always sickened me.

Team Fortress 2 Video - Mass A.I.

I was reading the excellent Rock paper Shotgun and seen the below video posted there. A very impressive video put together by Manta Engie, a group who seem to have an affinity for good music.
The track in Mass A.I. (the video below) is Propane Nightmares by Pendulum. A band that has been growing on me very much recently.

Some People Just Enjoy Christmas More Than Others

I would dearly love to do something like in the below videos, but it is so very much out of my skill set.

Mirrors Edge Music Video

I love the music in Mirror's Edge, so when I seen the title for this video, Mirror's Edge Music Video, I was a little excited, but still sceptical because I thought it could be a fan made project. However it isn't, so enjoy.
Available in Standard and High Definition resolutions.

Pizza Machine

I watch looking around the BBC news site and I seen This Video About A Frozen Pizza Factory.

I didn't realise that some frozen pizzas receive such little human contact. I always imagined they are all made on a conveyor belt system with people sticking stuff on as a pizza base went by.

Activision Do Some Creative Guitar Hero Marketing

Activision has done some creative marketing and created a video called Bike Hero. They have tried to disguise it as a student thing, but the cuts between takes can be seen when the rider looks away from the path. Nice video though.

Mr Blazinskie Has A Twitter Feed

Cliff Blezinsky creator of such titles as Unreal Tournament and Gears Of War has a Twitter Feed and it is so awesome.

Some of my favourite quotes so far:

Mark is trying to instate a "no high-five" policy here at Epic. He says I'm hurting too many people that need their hands.
- Cliff

I'm a renaissance man. My goal in life is to make everything I do bigger, better and more badass. If that means opera, so be it.
- Cliff

I keep having this reoccurring dream where my future-self rides in on a badass bright red fire-unicorn and tells me how awesome I am.
- Cliff

Everyone keeps telling me I'm a better Mark Rein than Mark Rein is...
- Cliff

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself while walking around Epic, and I start to cry at the beauty. If someone asks, I say my eye itches.
- Cliff

Interactive Fallout 3 Map

Fallout 3's main quest might be a little short, but there is a lot to see in the wasteland. Planet Fallout has put together an Interactive Fallout 3 Map With Google Maps, making it easy to navigate and find something of interest. And when you find something you can always look it up on the Fallout 3 Wiki, that has guides and descriptions to most things in the game.

[The escapist]

99 Blocks Is An Interesting Take On Tetris

99 Blocks is a twist on the traditional block stacking game of Tetris. Instead of stacking blocks to clear lines your objective is to create the highest tower you can with just 99 blocks. The twist is that this is a Tetris variant with physics. So if you don't stack carefully, your tower will fall.

I myself have come back to 99 Blocks a few times after first playing it to try out different stacking strategies, but ultimately 99 Blocks remains a very casual experience with possibly a too steady pace of gameplay.

[Source Wired]

Fallout 3 Graphics Comparison Guide

I like This Graphics Comparison Guide they did that shows you what all the game's graphics settings do and wither it might be time for an upgrade.

One of the main arguments about PC gaming is the need to upgrade every six months, but that isn't true if you buy good hardware and certainly isn't true if you are prepared to run a game like Fallout 3 with some of the settings turned down.

Nintendo Talks Again About Price Cuts

I thought this was funny.
Nintendo President Iwata Said In An Interview:

This is my personal thinking, but when the model's price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it's better to wait, and I've always thought that was a mistake.

I have to partially agree with him as I have traditionally (as well as a lot of other people who aren't myself) waited for a console's first price cut before running out and buying it. Nobody likes to buy a console and then just after a price drop is announced. But that reminded me of something. When the N64 was released in the UK in March 1997 it was only a few weeks before the price was dropped by £100 (The Only Reference I could Find) so Nintendo are uniquely positioned to talk about such things.
However the N64 unlike the Wii and DS, doesn't print money.

Some nostalgia:

Grim Fandango Design Document

Tim Shafer has unleashed the Design Document for Grim Fandango onto the web. It is an interesting read, but ultimately Grim it suffered from a couple of the symptoms that Caused The Death Of Adventure Games although Grim was hardly the worst offender. And I also don't think Grim was as good as Tim's other works, buy maybe that is just me.

Obama Won!

And The Resident did a dance.

McCain Voters

Next week is the US Elections where the United State's Federal Subjects, vote for a new president. At the moment Obama is the favourite to win and why not. Obama is a young (for a presidential candidate) charismatic leader who has a background in community projects, comes from a diverse background giving him a broad world view (something America desperately needs), has a very optimistic view of the future, wants forward thinking changes made in the US, is softly spoken and is an exceptional speaker. Clearly these are a fantastic combination of qualities to have in a politician. All I know about McCain is that he is old, he spent a few years in a prisoner of war camp and no idea why he feels that he is qualified to lead a country.

President Bush has been one of the worst presidents in American history. I am still reeling from when the American people re-elected him four years ago. I keep telling myself that is was because Kerry didn't put up a fight, but if I take a bight out of an apple and it tastes sour, I will not take another just because another apple in the bag doesn't compete as much for my attention.

If the American people vote for McCain and elect him, although they will have a new President, they will not have changed the party that is running the country. McCain doesn't seem to want change, so I don't feel that McCain will be much better than Bush.

So I ask myself, who would vote for McCain?



I have voted on the If The World Could Vote website, but if I could vote for real, I would vote for Obama

[source Digg]

Random Fact

Fingernails grow slower as you get older.

One Hundred Days Before Bush Leaves

FYI, Bush is leaving soon. I just hope that they don't make a mistake when choosing his replacement.

Wii Music Is Just Lame

Rarely do I use the word lame to describe anything, but for Wii Music I think I will make an exception.

Google Chrome Auto Updates

Google Chrome is awesome, but in a seemingly controversial decision Google has chosen to auto update without the user's consent. There isn't even an option to turn updating off.

Rob Mensching has more on this and a very interesting selection of comments to his post.

I think Google has made a good decision in doing this, but as a power user I would like to know when this happens and what has changed when it does. The only reason why I am ok with this is because Google Chrome is a self contained platform and not a symbiotic piece of software like iTunes. Plus I recognise the security benefits and the benefits for Google in only having to support a single current version

Free Powered By Ubuntu Stickers

If you have a system running Ubuntu and don't have a 'Powered By Ubuntu' sticker on it and want one. Send an empty envelope addressed to yourself with a stamp on inside another envelope, with a stamp on addressed to the relevant place on System76's Free Ubuntu Stickers Page and you will be sent four.

Sexy PCs

There is a company called VoodooPC and they make the sexiest PC and Laptop I have ever seen.

360° Views of the LHC

Some 360 views of the LHC where taken while it was under construction and they Really Make You Feel Like You Are There.

Someone should make a game about a physicist in a Large Research Facility. That would be way better than all these street combat FPS games like Half Life 2.

Some Pictures Of The LHC During Construction

Sometime today the LHC comes online and a new toy is available for Physicists to play with. Here are some spectacular picture taken during the machine's construction.

BBC Radio 4's Coverage Of The LHC

This Wednesday the LHC is officially turned on and the full machine will be used for the first time. BBC Radio 4 will be covering the event live throughout the day.

If you are interested, but don't have a radio (I know I don't) then Wednesday just visit the BBC Radio 4 Homepage and click the Listen Live link at the top right. To listen you will need a real player compatible player. If you are a Windows user I can recommend Real Alternative.

Random Fact

On Windows operating systems, shortcuts are .LNK files.

Spore On The Cheap

The good people at Amazon are doing Spore for £26.98. And that includes P&P. Just so you know.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is my new default browser. It is too awesome to try and convey with mere words. It is lightning quick, on EVERYTHING. Even my Yahoo Mail account which is always sluggish due to the heavy scripting. It is, the browser I have always wanted, right now. Goodbye IE, Goodbye Opera and Goodbye Firefox, you won't be missed.

The genius behind it all is that each webpage isn't just managed well or given it's own CPU thread, but instead managed by the browser like a process. And then for each page there are sub processes. So say a YouTube page will have the page as a process and then the flash object as another.

Chrome uses a relatively HUGE amount of memory to what we are used to from a browser. Right now with four windows open it is using 36MB of memory, but it is SO worth it.

Google have put together a Comic explaining their philosophy behind Chrome and some of the technical 'How We Did It' stuff. And please give it a try.

Google Chrome Download Page

Tweaked Out 911 Space Invaders Commentary

Kotaku did a news article on an artist who created some crappy art piece where (simply to be a media whore) he Combined Space Invaders and The World Trade Centre.

The reason why I mension this is because Dripp was a little tweaked out when he vlogged about it, lol.

Random Fact

A system interrupt (either a hard restart or system freeze) during windows Vista boot can corrupt the boot sector, making Vista impossible to boot into or even do a simple repair on to fix.

R.I.P. Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch, lecturer of The Last Lecture, Died Friday.

If you haven't see either his The Last Lecture or his lecture on Time Management then I suggest you go to his Academic Page and sit through them. As much as students like to moan about how boring lectures are, Randy is one of those pragmatic lecturers who are a delight to hear from. Both of these lectures are inspiring and it is unfortunate that it took a terminal illness for him to come to our attention.

Below is a brief clip of Randy addressing members of Congress regarding funding for Pancreatic Cancer research. I know he will be missed by many people.

Windows Vista's Speaker Room Correction

Very expensive speakers have this feature called Room Correction. This is a calibration system where each speaker plays a test signal and uses a built in microphone to listen to the signal coming from the other speakers. By listening to this signal, delay and room frequency response from a room can be mapped out. This creates an automatically calibrated listening environment that compensates for a lot of room features like furniture and has many advantages over a manually calibrated equaliser system (mainly the fact that it is automated).

Windows Vista has Room Calibration built in. To do a calibration:

1) Connect up a microphone to your computer.

2) Setup your microphone so that your computer can listen through it.

2) Open up Playback Devices window.

3) Open up the properties window for your speakers.

4) Select the enhancements tab.

5) Select Room Correction and then Settings.

6) Follow the on-screen instructions.

I recommend turning your speakers up so that the test signal can be heard by your microphone. And place your microphone in a similar location to where you yourself will be listening to your speakers.

I don't know if this has made my listening experience better because I am not that well trained in these things, but the alterations applied to my system where to add a delay and slightly turn down the volume on my right speaker. This makes sense when you consider that my right speaker is closer to me, than my left. So logically my speakers should now sound better. Although I should add that this is no consolation to not buying a good set of speakers in the first place.

Mirrors Edge Developer Commentary Disappoints Me

There are a lot of games where I see some kind of preview of the game and from that little snippet I build-up a picture in my head on what the game will be like to play and how the mechanics will work etc. So I can run through my head what it will be like to play just from seeing a very small preview. Sometimes the finished game surprises me and I am delighted and other times the reality of playing the finished product falls short on my expectations. I am sure you too do this.

The concept of Mirrors edge is that of a very clean line art style set in a city where all communication is closely monitored by the state. Because of this runners are paid to carry sensitive information across the city by hand so that the authorities don't get their hands on it.

The game takes the concept and some of the style of Freerunning into itself. This combined with the Currier missions made me think that missions would be given very much like they where in Thief and Assassins Creed. Where you got missions by talking directly to hidden contacts or by finding clues and markers left for you. However for some reason Mirrors edge features a radio, which for me breaks the whole anti-surveillance thing as obviously the state could listen into the radio. They will probably have a plot point that says that the radio transmissions are encrypted, but to me this is nowhere anywhere even close to being as cool as getting a mission from a set of cryptic symbols on a hidden bit of paper, or getting a mission by meeting someone secretly hoping the authorities doesn't find out.

Plus as much as I love story being feed to me during a mission as I am playing through a level, the crackly radio doesn't fit the visual styling of the game.

Nintendo & Sony E3 Press Conference Impressions

I have finished watching all three conferences now and I thought Sony's was the best. Best in presentation and best in all round content. No big announcements, but what Sony needs is games.

Nintendo's conference left a lot to be desired. That woman (whoever she was) on-stage to me felt as if she was addressing some parents PTA meeting, not the specialist press and other people from the industry. Her presentation style felt very clicky and wooden.
The Wii music game looks as if it will sell very well, but the Drum section that was played didn't sound good at all. And that surprises me because Nintendo has always had such a high quality bar.

As always The 1Up Show had some nail on the head observations, but to sum it up, all the conferences where lacking in one way or another.

Microsoft E3 Press Conference Impressions

Microsoft's E3 press conference was a little dull and very light on news. Three big announcements.

1) Completely new dashboard interface coming this fall. Yet no news on wither that is going to make finding stuff on marketplace easier.

2) XBox360 Miis coming this fall. A direct rippoff translation iteration of one of the Wii's most successful features.

3) Final Fantasy XIII. Not that I care about this, but I expected a proper (i.e not Crystal Chronicles) FF game to come to the 360 a year or two ago. Why did this take so long!?

Update: I almost forgot.

4) And Netflix support. This really is one of the final nails in Blockbuster's coffin.

BMW Did Something Truly Innovative

Innovation is about taking two technologies that might not necessarily have anything in common and combining them to produce something new or solving a problem by applying a technological technique or idea as a solution. In the early years of aeroplanes, they where constructed from wood and cloth. In later years aluminium was used and now we use composite materials. Cars have always used hard body shells, so BMW tried using a flexible cloth-like material as a concept design and they have produced something fantastic:



No I don't think we will all be driving clothed cars in ten years time, but as a concept this is has all the hallmarks of an iconic design.

Alone In The Dark 5 Looks Better Than I Thought

I take it back, I am interested in Alone In The Dark 5. The main character can't remember who he is, and is possessed with a demonic entity. This gives the plot a high probability that the protagonist turns out to be the antagonist or blood related to the antagonist. Yes it has all be done before, but from the looks of things the bits between the big predictable plot reveals look really fun.

Bernie, About That Car You Wanted

Freerunning Awesomeness

Surprisingly there is a difference between Freerunning and Parkour. Parkore being a philosophy of "be strong to be useful" and Freerunning being a type of gymnastics.

So even through this video is titled "Best Of Parkour/Flips/Tricks", what is really on show is Freerunning.

Republican Space Rangers

In GTA4 there are many TV shows to watch and on of them is called Republican Space Rangers. Next to Team America World Police it is one of the best US Foreign Policy parodies I have seen. If you want to see it in the game just watch Weasel (the one with those two guys on) for long enough and it will come around.

Super Mario World The Musical

People can do some strange things in their spare time. I never thought Super Mario World could be used in such a way. Although I have seen similar videos, none of them are anywhere near the length of thisone.



And Here is a link to the acustic version.

[ Via Digg ]

XBox Live and Gaywood

There is this guy named Richard Gaywood and he had an XBoxLive gamertage Gaywood. Microsoft forced Richard to change his gamertag because:

Gamertags are visible to everyone and it would be hard for me [Stephen Toulouse] to defend to a parent of a young child who saw it that the name did not contain content of a sexual nature.

'Gay' was originally another word for happy. During the 1800's and early 1900's homosexuals where seen as unhappy, lonely people with an unhealthy sexual affliction. So when the UK sodomy law was abolished in 1967, homosexuals called themselves 'gay'.

The word 'gay' in our modern interpretation is interchangeable with 'homosexual' and is probably why Microsoft wanted Richard to change his GamerTag. But I agree whole heartedly when LesbianGamers Writes:

It does not take a genius to work out what all of this negative affiliation does, not only for the language itself, but for the rebound effects that language has on gay people in society as a whole. The more we accept people using gay in a derogatory manner such as “that’s so gay” to denote something is bad, sub-par, stupid or unworthy, the longer the hatred will flourish. The more we sit back in blinkered silence as the word gay is linked time and again to something sexual, deviant or negative, the longer the hatred will fester.

And another quote to leave you with:

Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.
- Hermione granger

The BBC WiiFit Coverage Sucked

This News Report by the BBC about the Wii Fit sucks on several levels.

They failed to mansion that BMI does not measure fat. They failed to get to the bottom of why WiiFit is telling her she is overweight since her BMI is 18.5. When an ideal BMI range is 18.5 to 24.9.

Video game coverage on all the news channels is bad, but the BBC just keep making themselves look like poor journalists everytime they carry a video game related story. Simply because they only understand the issues at a 'my mum' level.

Microsoft Axes Underperforming XBLA Games

Microsoft Has Stated that they plan to axe games on XBLA that are underperforming. Meaning that:

• They have been out for over six months


• They have a Metacritic score below 65


• The trial purchase rate is less than 6%

Initially I was disgusted by this because I believe all the games on the service have value to someone and have archive value. But that 6% conversion rate suggests to me that some titles might be costing Microsoft money in bandwidth and server costs. If a new title came out and nobody bought their trial version, then Microsoft would make a loss on distributing those free trial versions.

Eurovision Aftermath

Russia won and there was so much political voting going on between nabouring counteries that I don't think western countries are going to see a win for many years to come. The winning track wasn't bad, but I thought there where a few tracks that where much better. And that includes the runner up, Greece.

Russian Entry


Greek Entry


Sergey Lazarev, a runnerup that didn't make the cut to become the Russian entry for the competition, but I prefer his entry to the winner.


I wouldn't even have been annoyed if the Swedish entry won.

Eurovision 2008

It is the Eurovision Song Contest tonight, that yearly slice of euro-cheese that I love to hate.

This year all the entries can be heard right now over at the Official Eurovision YouTube channel.

I think the German entry has a very strong chance of winning:

Mirror's Edge is Looking Awesome

Mirrors Edge puts the player in a Tokyo looking future city where you freerun across skyscrapers. From a ludology perspective I love how the developers have used colour to communicate interactivity to the player. It is suttle, adds to the clean visual styling of the game and negates the need for a HUD or floating icons.

Problem Solving With Video Games

There is a Video Interview With Peter Molyneux where he talks about not being able to do much else but design games, and he wonders if he could apply his knowledge of gaming to other human pursuits and endeavours.

I thought this was an interesting idea, then I realised that I had meant to post about a project that does just that. So here we are.

There are some problem domains in the world where to solve a problem or improve something you have to understand a process completely. Programmers of Artificial Intelligences have been known to spend exorbitant amounts of time looking at quite simple issues so that they can create AIs that model intelligent behaviour. Good examples of this are anything that uses Fuzzy Logic. That is anything from Rice Cookers to Lifts, Thermostats and a huge amount of Control Systems.

There are some problems that are so difficult to understand that they can't yet be translated into software, because we don't fully understand what is going on. The problem I am referring to here is Protein Folding. We know what the acid code of the protein is, we know what it looks like in 3D when it has finished folding, but we don't know how it folds into it's final shape or how it moves, so we don't know what it does.

This is where Fold It! from the guys working on Rosetta@home comes in. It is a game where you as the player are tasked with folding a protein. Higher points are rewarded by finding a structure that requires the lest energy for the protein to fold into. The idea of this is that players will eventually discover general tactics that can be worked into protein folding algorithms and a rosetta method of protein folding be found. From this new drugs could be created in the lab fit for purpose artificially and our understanding of our own bodily processes greatly increases. We might even be able to find a cure for ageing.

Game of The Year Contest Starts Now

GTA4 has received a continuous stream of extremely good reviews placing it as a firm contender for Game of The Year, but it now seems like MGS4 Could Topple It.

Gametrailers did a video reviewing years of gaming and this makes me wonder if thisyear could topple the previous champion.

Pen & Paper Notes

I remember talking to someone who wrote their final university paper with a typewriter and hearing how difficult that was makes me glad that I had a word processor. But even though it has only been two years since I graduated, my Pen & Paper note-taking might be considered Oldschool Already!

Do Narratives Have A Place In Gaming?

I have heard this question over and over again. So let me try and put this one to bed right now with some recent examples.

Crackdown, Assassins Creed and GTAIV are all very similar games.

Crackdown was awesome, but the mission structure sucked because all you had to do was keep killing mission selected people over and over.

Assassins Creed was an awesome set of gaming building blocks with the roof jumping and wrist blade assassination time action, but sucked because all you did was the same killing of mission selected people.

GTAIV is awesome and doesn't suck even though all you do is the same killing of mission selected people, because there is a strong narrative. I have completed over seventy missions in the game and it doesn't yet feel repetitive at all.

To me anything that doesn't have a narrative should logically be considered an abstract game. Although even abstract puzzle games like Puzzle Quest are made better with a stronger narrative. Making a game with a weak narrative is like making chicken nuggets and then eating them with the cheapest/nastiest barbecue sauce you can find. It shouldn't be done and wrecks the whole experience.

GTAIV Websites

I have been playing a lot of GTA4 this week and I don't think I am going to complete it in under 30 hours (you get an achievement for that). But there are two awesome websites inside the game that I need to tell you about.

Goto an internet coffee and lookup:

www.bruiesexcutivelifestyleautos.com

www.whattheydonotwantyoutoknow.com

The second is a website detailing GTA4 secrets. This is a first, a website made by the game's developers detailing secrets about their own game, on a fake in-game internet. Which is funny because I always look at websites for cheats and secrets, but now I don't even have to leave the game to do that (yes I do know EVE Online has it's own built in web browser, but that is for the real internet, not a fake one).

Warfare in the 21st Century

Russia has shot down a Georgian unmanned recognisance drone over the Georgian side of the Georgian/Russian boarder. Which isn't necessarily interesting unless you are surprised that Russia would do such a thing despite signs for months now that they want to be see as a strong global military power again.

Anyway the BBC has some News Footage On The Incident which shows the attack from start to finish from the perspective of the drone and a radar station.

This is interesting because the Georgian military has two different records of the same attack and thus know precisely what happened. I see this as significant because when The Bomb Was Dropped On Hiroshima the reason why communications with Hiroshima was cutoff was only discovered three hours after the attack, and the real truth of what happened was only learned sixteen hours after the attack, in a WhiteHouse press release. So this is why I feel the incident in Georgia has some historical significance and is a sign of things to come.

Plasma Speakers

I thought Musical Tesla Coils where cool, but the sound quality from Plasma Speakers is so much better.





Apparently you still need a traditional subwoofer for low amplitude sounds, but Plasma arcs are brilliant for higher tone sounds. Unfortunately microphones don't seem to be able to record the audio well, I don't know if this is because they are effected by the plasma's electromagnetic field or if they just can't record higher pitched sounds.

Buyer Beware of TeleBid

There is a new auction site in town called TeleBid. The idea is that all the products on the site are new and that each time a bid is placed just 7p is added to the total cost of the item and a few seconds are added to the auction end timer. When the clock on the auction reaches zero whoever is the winning bidder gets the item.

On the surface it seems too good to be true. Yet the auction system is clearly designed to make you place many small bids instead of allowing you to place an initial maximum like on eBay. TeleBid will even give you £20 when you register to use on auctions.

The thing that makes the site profitable and which isn't stated dearly enough is that although winning an item requires you to be the last person to have pressed the Bid button when the auction timer runs out, you are charged 50p everytime you press the Bid button. I hesitate to call the site a scam because the 50p charge is very clear on the help section, but it a scam and people are getting very burned by it.

World of Warcraft + Portal + Music = The Device Has Been Modified

WeGame.com - WoW Videos

Uncanny, Wii and XaviXPort

Firstly watch this (warning, do not turn your volume up):



This is called the XaviXPort and it was released in 2004. That is to say two years before the Wii, but like rockband each game requires an expensive addon, so the XaviXPort hasn't done so well.

I don't think that Nintendo has plagiarised anything that SSD has done with XaviXPort because motion sensing technology has been experimented with gaming for years and looking at the history of motion sensing it seems amazing that it has taken so long to be worked into a successful product, but I do find it interesting that I knew NOTHING about the XaviXPort until just fifteen minuets ago.

Dr Byron's Video Game Industry Review

So some Dr of physiology was paid a large sum of money to Write A Report that would give some recommendations to the UK government on how to protect children from violent or harmful video games.

She has two main recommendations:
1) All games should carry a BBFC certificate.
2) All game consoles should have parental lockouts.

The response from the video game industry has been a big "meh, we told you so".

The Responce From The Government has been very much "This well conducted review has exemplified our commitment to the safety and well being of our nations children".

My response is this. The government should claim back the money they spent on this usless review and invest it into a "Just Say NO!" campaign to educate parents about saying NO to their own children.

Last Gen > This Gen?

Ideas of gameplay transcend generation gaps as our understanding of gameplay progressively improves, but there is an argument out there that the current generation of console's graphics don't look much better than the last generation's later games. This comes from the fact that some people believe that this generation's graphics are just in a higher resolution than the last generation's. And that if it wasn't for the increased output resolution then this generation wouldn't look much different from the last, and I see their point after playing a few current gen games on an old CRT. But that was until I watched this video of the GTA IV trailer rendered in GTA San Andrea's graphics engine:



And the same trailer in GTA IV's engine:



After watching theses two videos back to back I was actually surprised on the leap that has been made since last gen. One that looks just as significant as the leap from the N64 to GC or PS1 to PS2.

FireFox 3 Beta 4

Despite FireFox having thousands of happy users, I have never been one of them. I am one of those people who will sometimes have more than ten webpages open at any one time and then leave them open on my computer overnight. This meant that FireFox's memory issues always blighted my attempts at using it as my primary browser. So it was with absolute delight that I discovered FireFox 3 (currently Beta 4 with Beta 5 coming soon) has solved all of that.

FireFox 3 Beta 4 is fast and responsive under all conditions. Websites like Google Maps, Digg and IGN that used to be super sluggish under IE and FF2, are now just as fast as any other website. I will even go as far as to say just as fast as a plain text blog.

So if you want to give the beta a go, you can Download A Copy Here. But be warned, I have found that it doesn't work with the new Yahoo Mail (I am using the classic view) and I have had the beta crash twice in the few days I have been using it for no apparent reason. This hasn't been a problem however because it remembers the pages that where open at the time of the crash, but despite all that FF3B4 is my current primary browser over IE7, FF2, Safari and Opera.

A Quick Note To Website Builders

If you build websites for a living. Now is the time to Go Here and download a preview copy of Internet Explorer 8. The important thing is that you do this BEFORE the browser is launched and not AFTER. This will prevent a future incident where your inbox will be filled with complaints from customers.

That being said IE8's standards compliance is much better so problems (if any) will be minor, but it always annoys me when companies use the "It wasn't out so we couldn't test against it" excuse when there was a preview build (specifically for compatibility testing) available months before the official release.

Brave or Stupid

There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity and I think these people crossed it twice.

People Don't Need (Disturbing, NSFW)

People Don't Need Fur

Mordeth13's, I HATE China.

People Don't Need Dolphin-meat

The whole animal meat eating thing is a difficult issue and I wish meat could be grown in plastic containers like plants, but the truth is that animals have to die to make meat and if you (including the hypocrite who wrote this) eat meat (be it a ham sandwich or whatever) you are part of the issue. But at least promise me that after watching this next video you will refuse to ever eat or try dolphin-meat and maybe we can call it a step in the right direction.

The Worst Gaming Tattoos

Here is a collection of bad gaming tattoos. Although I will say that I don't think 19, 16, 9 and 8 are so bad.

I am a fan of many products by companies, but I would never have a tattoo of a company logo on my body like the people in photos 15, 14 and 1. Branding yourself with a company logo as if you where a product. The guy who has branded himself with the Nintendo logo even included the little Registered Trademark (R) on his tattoo. I don't know if this legally makes him the property of Nintendo like it does with cattle farming, but I would be eagerly following the caught case if one should arise from this.

The New Pace of Technology

The pace of technology is ever increasing and we can see this in the Fisher Price Tickle Me Elmo toy series. There has been more versions than what I am showing here, but look at the dates and leaps in technology and you will see my point.

1996 - The first TME toy is relased allowing a stuffed toy to interact with the child playing with them.



2006 - Motors controling Elmo's limbs are added to create animation.



2008 - Improved motor skills give the Elmo toy much the same characteristics of movement to that of his on-screen puppet counterpart.



2010 - Dissatisfied with being treated like disposable play things an army of indestructible Elmos rises up.



2011 - A new order is established.

Programmer Puzzle Games

There is a subset of puzzle games which for the purposes of this post I am calling programming puzzle games. The basic idea is that there is a level and you have a guy that you can control to complete whatever the objective is in the level to progress, but you can only control him by giving him a set of rules to follow by programming him (empowering him with a rule based AI). I love these things, but only independent developers seem to be doing anything with them.

Currently the best set of these games is made by Epsitec Games with their CeeBot series. In the case of CeeBot there is a programming language for the player to learn. This sounds hard, but it is aimed at a 5+ age range audience so everything is explained gradually with each level building on the lesson of the last and you can only progress once you have understood the concept the level is teaching. The game even comes with a better debugging tool than what most Java and C++ developers use today, so when your programs start to get large the game emergent teaches about logic errors without ever explicitly covering them.

Anyway today I played Spuds another Programmer Puzzle game that uses pictures to do the programming with. It was made by two brothers and apart from being a little overpriced ($19.95) and forcing the player to sit through a long tutorial, it's very interesting.



Again these games might sound boring, but I suffer from timeloss whenever I play them.

Random Fact

When a Dog's skin has a flea infestation the type of flea the dog has is most likely to be Ctenocephalides Felis. Which is more commonly known as the Cat Flea.

XNA Playable Games Now Available

Firstly to get started:

Go to the Games Blade > Games Library > Game Store > More...
Then Go to Game Add-ons > New Arrivals
Select the XNA Creators Club (bottom of the list)
Download the launcher

Back out to the Games Library
Go to My Games
Go right to XNA Creators Club
Press Y to see the list of games and get to downloading
- [From XBLArcade.com]

Then download away.


Culture "Gardening Game"
Three puzzle games in one all centred around a garden.
Blood, involves circling weeds.
Paint With Flowers, is just painting by numbers.
And Flower Garden, requires you to cross breed flowers to get the target plant (actually fun because it isn't a dumbed down breeding game).

JellyCar "Crayon Physics"
Drive the flexible car to the end zone. The physics and art style are done very well, gameplay is a little unrefined.

Little Gamers "Ownag3 Platformer"
You just kill stuff from themed level to level, only really for the die hard Little Gamers fans, but the art style is very sharp, just like the webcomic.

ProximityHD "Abstract Strategy"
Abstract puzzle game that is too architected to be fun. Each turn presents very little challenge to the player and very little to consider on each turn as players will quickly develop a winning strategy. Plus the game's random element is too random for any hardcore strategy development.

Rocketball "Wacky"
Third person dodgball game with button mashing.

The Dishwasher "Meaty Chunks Everywhere!"
If you like Devil May Cry, Legacy Of Kain or Alien Hominid, I highly recommend that you have a look at this. The story is tedious, but the combat is fun and bloody.

TriLinea "Read The Rules"
Somekind of realtime pattern matching game on a board against an opponent. It suffers from information overload and isn't very noob friendly.

A Possible Explanation For Mass Effect's Faults

Mass Effect is a great game, but there are a few things which clearly make it less than it could have been and this has been bothing me since I completed it. The game was in development for a long time, the team didn't lack vision and they had enough money to throw around, so what went wrong? Why wasn't Mass Effect all it could have been?

An explanation for the shitty side quests, incomplete dialogue and general gaps in the RPG world could be seen as a lack of commitment from the developers, but they hyped the game so much that this explanation seems silly. That is until you Read Stories About Unhappy Employees and Bad Employment Practices. Then it all makes sence, Bioware is a bad place to work.

I have had a couple of jobs now working for particularly bad managers, they work long hours and are under a lot of stress so the people under them should feel that pressure too and they think they are getting the job done, but what they are really doing is dismantling the company culture and destroying any enthusiasm their employees might have about their work. Then for the employees their job turns from an opportunity to a black hole in their lives and in the end they will look back on their old job and be glad they it is all over.

Achievement Types

Not got much to say so here is a little soemthing I put together last week. It is categories for all the Achievements avalible for 360 games. This doesn't include a category for silly achievements, but each one of them based on their own merits can fit into one of these categories anyway so there isn't a need for another.

Be The Best
eg Become number one in the world

Time Will Tell
eg Get 1,000,000,000 kills with your left thumb

Fluke
eg Get a hole in one

Progress Marker
eg Compleate level three

In-human
eg Defeat the final boss on ultra mega death hard with only the pistol and without dieing

Baby steps
eg Watch the tutorial

Compleationist
eg Collect all the hidden flags

The Weiner Circle (NSFW)

I have a list going of places I want to visit at somepoint during my lifetime and it is way too long for me to actually go to all of the places on my list, but my latest addition is The Weiner Circle in Chicago, a hotdog restraint.



And incase you too want to visit:


View Larger Map

Time And Time Again RRODs

I was thinking about my history with my 360 and having had one for two years I have also had two cases of RROD which is nowhere near as bad as what some people have had it, but this begs the question, do I think I will have another case of RROD and when will that be?

17th March 2006
Bought my first XBox 360 for £279.99

9th April 2007
First console develops RROD.

17th April 2007
Recieved a replacement console (my second).

25th January 2008
Second console develops RROD.

7th Febuary 2008
Got second console back with a new motherboard and DVD drive.

In both cases of RROD when I used to turn my console off I could hear the plastic cracking as it cooled, this symptom is present in my current fixed console, so yes I do expect another case of RROD. Looking at the historical data it should occur sometime February 2009 assuming that the Added Heatsinks that has probably been fitted are ineffective and I continue to use my 360 on a regular basis (normally once a day).

Do I have any advice to people worried about RROD?
Don't let it bother you, you are covered by warranty so when it happens just Call Microsoft and let them collect it. But when it comes back keep the packaging they send it you in, because if you do have another RROD you will then have correct packaging available to send it in (first time you are going to have to find something to send it in).

The 360 is an awesome console, but the hardware has a high failure rate, I expect in future that Microsoft will have to extend the warranty period again or start compensating customers in a different way.

Got My 360 Back

So I go my 360 back and as well as a new motherboard, has had it's DVD drive replaced. Now I have the BENQ DVD Drive (see llamma.com's Xbox 360 DVD Drive Comparison Page).

Supposedly the BENQ DVD Drive is quicker than the others and after running a few tests I have found that it is faster than my old Samsung. The way I know this is by racing a fast car around the motorway on Saints Row which would normally cause the road to start popping in infront of me because the DVD drive couldn't load the levels into memory quick enough, (I once even managed to fall through the level by driving over a bit of road that hadn't had it's geometry loaded in before I attempted to drive over it) but with the BENQ I can't even make even a hint of this problem occur, which probably means that load times will be better in general on all titles.

Something Original

It isn't often that I see some original gameplay, but Factory Balls a flash game about making balls does it for me.

There are already puzzle games where you have to decorate a cake to make it look like one on a card, but what Bart does it make his game more challenging by making you learn how to use your decorating tools. And that adds a feeling of accomplishment that those other games miss.

Red Ring Of Death II

It happened again so right now my 360 is in the hands of UPS going to wherever 360s go when they die. That is two years of 360 gaming and two incidents of RROD.

Audiosurf

I was going through the Independant Games Festival Contenders for this year's Audience Choice Award (only now do they have download links up) and one of the games I tried was Audiosurf, a game that I had heard previously about, but thought the developer was doing the whole 'we are awesome speel' that seems to come out of the mouth of every sane developer in the industry (it is getting harder and harder to tell when they are talking BS or not). But in this case Audiosurf is awesome, and everything it was said to be.

You start by selecting an audio file on your computer, Audiosurf identifies the various musical aspects of the file, generates a level and then you play in that level while the music you selected is playing. You play the game either with a mouse or 360 controller by trying to connect coloured blocks on a grid while avoiding gray blocks.

It is awesome and supposedly out at the very end of next month, possibly through STEAM. But until then I highly recommend the Demo, even if it does yank the game from under you after a few songs.

Macbook Air's Reserved Reactions (Rant)

It has been a few days since the Macbook Air was announced and I have been very surprised at the reserved reactions from the announcement, because normally anything Apple announces is eaten up by Mac fans, but with the Macbook Air everybody has been very sober. Even the mighty Kevin Rose was like, meh:



Normally the reaction that I give to most things Apple is "I don't need it" or "I can get the same thing cheaper and better elsewhere", but with the Macbook Air I would have bought one already if I had £1,199 to spend.

When I saw the Macbook Air for the first time I envisioned being able to carry it around in my backpack, without feeling like I was carrying around a brick. And then being able to surf the web and do work wherever I wanted because it's so portable. So for me the fact that it doesn't have anykind of built in diskdrive or ethernet port doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Personally I find laptop keyboards to be horrible to type with, track pads and nipples are cumbersome compared to a mouse, the machines themselves are slower than a comparable desktop of the same specification, they are difficult to fix, break more often and will need to be replaced sooner than the same specification machine as a desktop. So the reactions that the Macbook Air has been receiving has reinforced my long held view that computer users in-general don't want a laptop because it is portable, but because it is somekind of status symbol and most people would be happier sitting infront of a Black Widescreen Brick than something you could actually take outside, carry in a bag or use comfortably like desktop computer. And yet with all the 'meh' reactions this for me this is the first product that has made me seriously considering a Mac (other than Windows 98).

XBox360 Ultimate

I have been editing the Xbox 360 page on Wikipedia recently and a user named Prothean (his name is a Mass Effect reference) tried to add some information about the 360 Ultimate and although his edit got removed as he didn't give any references I thought what was said, rather interesting.

Microsoft is working on a complete overhaul of the Xbox 360 console system. This new system will have an onboard HD-DVD player and wireless adapter, a hard disk of 320GB and a complete hardware revision. It is likely, due to the current preference of Blue-ray discs, the Xbox 360 Ultimate will have a Duel Hi-Def Disc Player that is capable of playing both HD-DVD and Blue-ray discs. Wether this is the result of the current project "Jasper" is unkown. Currently priced at $500 and scheduled to appear somewhere at the end of Fall 2009.

Now Project Jasper is an ADO.Net thing, but there where a lot of XBox 360 Arcade rumours before that was announced so maybe there is a grain of truth in this.

Architected Game Combat

Having internalised Jonathan Blow's viewpoint on architected gameplay rather than explored gameplay I realise I am so over exactly what Warhammer Online is doing with their combat system (see video). I know there are people that will watch this video and be excited about learning a new RPG combat system, but having learned and played several before, I am so over it all. I want something new and different, maybe even something that doesn't feel like work to play.

Why A Good Specification Is Important

The US Militery hired a few companies to help them complete the invasion of Iraq. To do this they setup service agreements with those companies so the Military became a paying customer to those companies, but it looks like they forgot to agree any levels of quality. The US Militery wanted warter, they got warter, but it wasn't safe to drink. Let this be a lessen to you if you ever setup a SLA (Service Level Agreement) with anybody because unless you specify what quality standard you need the work doing too, it won't be done to any quality standard.

And on the video they mention Cost-Plus, which is effectively the government telling the contractor to just bill them whatever the cost is. This is common is situations where price comparison or price negotiation isn't worth doing, but silly things happen when you give someone your credit card and tell them to buy whatever they want.

The Food and Drugs of Gamplay

Last Year at The Montreal International Games Summit, Jonathan Blow did a talk called Design Reboot where he talked about how we might enter a golden age of game design. He talks about how developers are conditioning players to expect predictable rewards thus turning them into reward junkies and that real rewards like a player achieving a personal goal in a game and deriving satisfaction from that, is being ignored because that is harder to architect.

His talk starts well-outside of current thinking, but he states all his points very well and then you will realise that all the best developers in the world have already been applying what he talks about.

I don't like being so cryptic with my writing, but if I cover what is in the talk. I will have written a very long post where I cover everything that is covered by his talk.

[Direct Link: montreal2007.zip ]

Ron Gilbert Announces A New Project

Ron Gilbert, one of Monkey Island's Creator today announced that as well as consulting on the Penny Arcade Game he has been designing a game called Death Spank, an RPG! And he now has a publisher and developer behind the project. Which is always a good thing.

I mention this because Monkey Island is one of my top three game franchises and His Announcement Post was written with such fantastic comic prose, I felt that I needed to blog about it.

I roughed out a game design for the first episode and started pitching it around and a funny thing happened. Everyone hated it. But the weird thing is the more publishers that turned it down, the more convinced I became that this was a great idea. Every rejection fueled me with excitement and the knowledge that I was right. Nothing says innovation and creativity like armed security showing up to escort you out of the building while saying "Let's not have any trouble". - Ron Gilbert 2008

When Wikipedia Errors

The Console Wars So Far

I found this site VGChartz.com thanks to Kim Pallister which has some awesome console sales graphs.



Comparing the numbers of units sold since launch puts the Wii in a very strong position, but look at the PS3 it isn't doing as badly as we all probably thought. The PS3 might have a dismal selection of games, but it is still giving the 360 a run for it's money.

So if the Wii is doing so well, how does it compare to the current king of all console wars the PS2, which has currently sold more than 120 million units:



The Wii does more than double the sales of the PS2 in the same period from launch. And as there is no sign that demand is going to lessen anytime soon it isn't unreasonable to predict that the Wii will sell more than 240 million units in five years.

However as Nintendo has been so successful in releasing second iterations of the GameBoy Advance and GameBoy DS everybody is expecting them to do the same with the Wii. Could we see everybody who has already bought a Wii buy a second one or people like myself who haven't yet bought one yet be swayed if Nintendo iterates on it's design!?

Clearly by the kinds of numbers we are seeing in this generation the market is easily large enough to sustain multiple console manufacturers.

Sin

Question:
Of all the things that is considered sin, why isn't the docile consumption of media one them?

Answer:
Because those people who call out sins are the same people who don't want their message questioned.

Abstraction:
If everybody was to appreciate the media they consumed then the world would be a place with a lot less sin.

New Wall.E Trailer

A New Trailer is out. And the film looks more stunning every time I see it.

Dates For Your Diary 2008

If you where wondering when the big industry events where taking place next year, I got you covered.

January
Consumer Electronics Show (Las Vegas) 8th to 11th

February
DICE Summit (Las Vegas) 6th to 9th

March
Game Connection (San Francisco) 5th to 6th
Games Developers Conference (San Francisco) 5th to 9th

April
MCV Awards (London) 19th

May
Northern Exposure (York) 10th
Nordic Game (Sweden) 15th to 16th

July
E3 (Los Angeles) 15th – 17th
Develop Conference (Brighton) 24th to 26th

August
SIGGRAPH (San Diego) 5th to 9th
GCDC (Leipzig) 20th to 22nd
Leipzig Games Convention (Leipzig) 23rd to 26th
Penny Arcade Exhibition (Seattle) 29th to 31st

September
Austin Games Conference (Austin, Texas) 5th to 7th

October
GC Asia (Singapore) 9th to 12th

Awesome Lecture: Copyright and Fair Use

I have been reading some stuff on Copyright and all the discussion that I have read so far feels beneath my understanding. Most of the time it is like watching two kids fighting over who gets to play with a tennis ball. And I owe that level of understanding to a lecture I once watched by Lawrence Lessig titled Is Google Book Search "Fair Use"?.

I am linking to this now because I only just realised how thankful I am that I watched this lecture. It is one of those things which I was happy with seeing at the time and have re-thought about again and again since.

Lawrence is an awesome speaker with excellent presentation skills. If you have ever had a passing interest in Copyright or Intellectual Property then I highly recommend watching this lecture because he covers the basics and then takes the debate to a much higher level.



[Direct Link]

Tuesday's XBox360 Dashboard Update

On Tuesday a new version of the 360's dashboard is going to be released. In this release the big new features are "Friends of Friends" where you can view who your Friends have as Friends on their Friends list. A timer so that parents can dictate how long their offspring can play games for. And the much requested DivX and XviD video codex support is being added so that you can brows and stream AVI video from a PC to whatever large television you might have connected to your 360. If you want to see the complete list of changes Click Here.

GamerScoreBlog (which is run by Microsoft PR) has put together a rather good video preview of the whole thing.

Inclusive Vs Exclusive Groups

As Humans we are programmed to seek our place in the world, to question ourselves and to never be happy with what we have. So that's why groups be them religions, political, school fraternities or people of similar ideals like Neo Nazis come together because it makes them feel apart of something and more whole than if they weren't in that group. This is partly because Human instinct is towards running in a pack rather than alone, but ideologically it makes us feel less alone.

In my life I have experienced many such groups and is occurred to me while watching Accepted that exclusive groups where membership is filtered to only allow the "right sort of people" in normally feel hollow because when you join such a group you are buying into the group founder's vision and not something you can influence yourself.

Inclusive groups are groups of people who all try to get along. And since everybody in them puts effort into getting along, being part of the group feels more whole as everybody has a viewpoint that is heard. A lot of inclusive groups like sports clubs, music and other groups are so inclusive that they transcend any physical place and become an idealogical movement like Wikipedia (the open source encyclopedia), The Skeptics Movement (critical thought in search of exposing truth), Parkour (be strong to be useful) or any number of civil rights movements.

However the biggest inclusive and exclusive groups in the world is society itself. In some parts of the world people actively segregate themselves in order to find their place in the world and in other places people pay for services like national health so that everybody is more equal.

So what I am trying to say is that there are a lot of people in the world that try to find their place in the world by excluding other people or ideas. Even to the point where they suppress freespeech and commit hate crimes against people who they consider to be apart of another group, this is probably a natural instinct for Humans, but I think if we all tried to be a little bit more inclusive by helping others, listening to others and giving others our time then the group that we are already in, society, becomes a much better place.