Dodgeball vs. Doom

As I read Steven Johnson’s recent LA Times column, I realized that even though people are getting bent out of shape about “violent” video games like Halo 2, kids have been playing violent games for years.

Hello? Ever hear of Dodgeball? Or how about the pickup games of tackle football I used to play every recess in my junior high. There were more than few violent outbreaks as a direct result of actions taken during these kinds of activites. And they are the kinds of games kids play ALL THE TIME.

I remember clearly my mother getting upset about my playing football with the neighborhood kids back when I was 6. I got bumped on the noggin pretty hard one of those games and sprained my ankle another time. Choruses of “I told you so” would follow me all the way to my room.

(And yes, readers, PLAYING football can become violent. WATCHING football should not.)

Given the choice between having my kids play Halo 2 or Dodgeball, it’s pretty much a tossup in my book. On the one hand, the kid gets some good exercise, and learns how to deal with a little pain. On the other, he exercises his mind and doesn’t come home with a bloody nose.

I guess we’ll see when I have kids…

Hot Coffee Watch: The Latest Word

0WN3D

Review: Xbox 360 by Elmojesus

I know everyone has already seen this on the bigger sites, but I wanted to share the brilliant and no-holds-barred writing style of Gamespot forumer, Elmojesus, as he carefully critiques a test version of the Xbox 360.

my step dad works here in seattle for xbox hes the forgein tester guy. He had a trip to mexico to test the new xbox so he had to bring it home and he let me play it. There arnt any xbox360 games yet i guess so all i got to play was halo 2. but all the test stuff was on there like dolphin and light shadow stuff, Oh and the XBOX dashboard . I uesto hATE xbox purley a PS fan. but WOW new xbox has some COol stuff. First i tried dolphin witch doesnt have liek GOOD grapics or anything its just a frame test and the xbox was geting 3000+ frames witch was pretty stuinning for me. and the Xbox dashboard is amazing im not aloud to tell everything about it but WOW theres soo much crap on the xbox and some of it is sooO miscelanius. theres xbox arcade were u can Dl like arcade games and crap and u can stream music from ur PC to ur xbox and tons and tons and tons of other crap. I just thought id post about it, ps3 is definatly guna have some compitition. IM SURE all of u have probably read stuff like this on sites but OH one more thing im not supposed tell this, but the power supply conecter thing for the xbox, lets just say its not COMPACT, witch might be why u havnt seen it in any pics. thats all for now post some feedback

In case you ever wanted to know what people that write like this look like, here you go:

Heh heh heh. Now, that’s the kind of face you want to punch. Then, hold down and shave that stupid mop of a haircut. And I’m not just saying this because he’s playing an Xbox 360 and I’m not.

Now, remember, this hard-hitting review is from someone who refers to himself as “purley a PS fan”. When forumers at Gamespot eloquently requested “MOR XBOX2 PIX 4 US PLZPLZPLZ!!!!!111″ Elmojesus coolly responded with the following:

sorry.. i only had it for 1 night about a week ago. i didnt take any more pics just a few. i dont rember to much about the dashboard al i really rember is the streaming music from u computer thing. and in live i think there was thing for freinds and stuff and u can create ur own profile i think. and then in arcade there were soem cheesy arcade games, i wasnt aloud to copy anything to the HD, but in my pik its the thing on the top and its detactchable, thers also a tab called system in xbox dashboard with a hole bunch of system settings, i cant rember what they were they wernt liek grpahics settings or anything though. uhhh i rember it got 3000+ frames on dolphin witch was pretty cool. OH OH OH and thers a loading screen, and theres Xbox.defualt or seomthing like that cus its compatible with old xbox games (obviusly) but its like a system in a system u load it from the xbox xcreen and then instead of the xbox 360 logo poping up it liek goes blak and changes to the old xbox logo. and maybe it was just hopefull wishing but the grpahics in halo 2 SEEMED better to me, idk if they actually were cus maybe i was imagining things, but to me they looked better(not extremly) better geomatry, more smooth, stuff like that

The internet truly is an entertaining place. Microsoft’s best efforts at keeping a lid on their next-gen console thwarted by someone who can’t even spell the color “black”.

Let’s see what Kutaragi has to say about this:

Microsoft is still not a black belt.

Well, at least Kutaragi’s universal translator can spell black correctly.

Go Go Hardcore Grandma!

One of the most entertaining blogs I’ve seen in a while is Old Grandma Harcore. Here is the author’s description:

This blog is the chronicle of my experiences with Grandma, the video-game playing queen of her age-bracket and weight class. She will beat any PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc., console game put in front of her, just like she always has. Her favorite game of all time was Final Fantasy VII, her current task is reaching 100% in tour mode of Outlaw Golf 2. These are her stories. She is absolutely real. She lives in Cleveland.

One of the reasons I love this blog so much is that it reminds me of my late grandmother. My grandma didn’t use 4-letter words, nor did she play Xbox or PS2 or even NES. What she did do is watch me play every video game I ever played during the NES and SNES generations.
Read the rest of this entry »

LAN Party, Ho!

Here I am at the current UV Gamers LAN party in Orem, UT.

I was going to try live blogging this LAN party, but I decided it would not be a very interesting liveblog, as my “Waiting in line for Episode III” liveblog was not very entertaining, either. Of course, none of these posts really entertain me, either…

Anyway, a liveblog of a LAN party would likely consist of the following:

9:05pm Well, after I won several rounds of UT2004, the group has collectively decided to switch to this group’s staple, Far Cry.

9:46pm I’ve lost 10 rounds of Far Cry in a row. I hate Far Cry.

…

4:21am I’m on my fifth Mountain Dew Amped. My fingernails are on fire, I think. Oh noes.

So, there you go. Not sure if that would be something that all 2 of you would want to read.

EA Watch: BF2 vs. GF4

I had to comment on this.

Battlefield 2 versus Geforce 4! Winner: EA’s Battlefield 2. Loser: You!

You may be thinking to yourself, “Wait a second. I don’t own a Geforce 4 video card. I can run it just fine.” This will still affect you and here’s why.

Judging by Valve’s hardware survey, EA just alienated roughly 20% of PC Gamers with Battlefield 2.

One of two things will happen, as a result.

Either EA will stop acting like the evil empire they are, and stop pulling this crap with future releases, or they will continue to exercise their right to require all nVidia Geforce 4 owners to upgrade. (It should be noted that slower cards like ATi’s Radeon 8500 can run BF2 just fine.)

If EA decides to continue this practice, one of two things will happen.

Either the PC game industry will pick up because more people are spending more money on hardware for their new software, or sales in the PC game industry will plummet as consumers choose NOT to spend money on the hardware, and thus decide NOT to buy the latest software.

If the PC game industry busts (as more and more indicators [pdf] are showing), YOU ALL LOSE. Whether you have a Geforce 4, Geforce 7800, or ATi Explodeon 1 Billion, you will have fewer choices and less innovation as small-time, independent developers flock to consoles because it’s cheaper to develop for, and big-time developers flock to consoles because they can sell x% more copies developing for a platform that stays more or less static.

Way to go, EA. Now everyone loses… again.

100,000 UMD movies sold… also, people are stupid

I can’t believe this.

Okay, everyone gather around. We need to have a talk.

There’s a certain time in everyone’s life when things begin to change. You may start to wonder what your real place in life is. You may be scared and confused by this large, brilliant display that the PSP has. All those DVD movies that you love… sitting there on your shelf… refusing to be played on your new PSP.

When you see instructions on how to convert DVD’s to something the PSP can play, feelings of anger and fear may overcome you as you consider that it might take more than an MTV commercial break to read the directions.

You find various software that will convert video to play on your PSP. Some free. Some not free. Don’t worry, this kind of confusion is normal at this stage in your life.

When you get a little older, you’ll realize some things. You’ll realize it’s stupid to buy a copy of Time Bandits on UMD when you have the DVD version sitting right there on your shelf. Just waiting to be converted and copied to your Sony Memory Stick. You may also understand that the going retail price for UMD movies is sometimes MORE expensive than the equivalent DVD version.

But for now, just remember that you won’t always be stupid.

BF2 Server Crackdown

There was a mild controversy about EA blacklisting Battlefield 2 demo servers that had unlocked weapons and exploited the games python scripts to allow someone to get all the weapons in the demo, etc. Initially, I didn’t give this much thought. Seemed pretty clear cut to me. The demo is essentially shareware. It’s time-limited, and only has some of the weapons. I don’t have a problem with this.

Well, not surprisingly, EA is going to continue the practice with full version servers. Okay, so now the game has unlimited game play. Well, apparently, with the full version there is support for add-on python scripts. And… apparently one could exploit these python scripts to unleash some demonic power or accomplish world domination. So, if EA finds that your server has modified python scripts, or too many weapons unlocked, your server gets blacklisted for a week.

The initial reaction to this seems to be along these lines:

“OMFG! IF I WANTS TO HAX0R MY SERVER, LET ME!”

I’m going to feel dirty after doing this, but here goes… EA is in the right. They’re trying to have persistent stat tracking, similar to what has been seen in Halo 2 for Xbox Live. You have a unique username in BF2 multiplayer that will have stats attached to it. This has been a huge hit in Halo 2, and it only makes sense to have something similar for PC. Note that many games have already done this, America’s Army and Unreal Tournament come to mind immediately. The difference being that the developers of America’s Army didn’t leave a huge gaping security vulnerability called PYTHON SCRIPT SUPPORT.

So, even when EA is in the right, they’re still wrong. If they wanted locked down stats, they should’ve kept the game in QA a bit longer before replacing (yet another) buggy Battlefield game. Now, that being said, it is EA’s right to control their stats program anyway they like, and complaining about it is similar to complaining about Bungie banning cheaters in Halo 2.

So, deal.

Kutaragi Watch: Xbox 360 fails at life

I’ve decided to start a new feature. I call it:

KUTARAGI WATCH

Kutaragi is like the Steve Ballmer of Sony. Therefore, this should be a lot of fun for me. You may or may not have fun watching, but I don’t really care.

I saw this on GameDaily.biz, and Kutaragi explains why the Xbox 360 will fail.

The current Xbox will become antiquated once the new machine comes out this November. When that happens, the Xbox will be killing itself. The only way to avoid that is to support 100 percent compatibility from its [Xbox 360’s] launch date, but Microsoft won’t be able to commit to that. It’s technically difficult.

Well, of course it’s difficult, halfwit. And I’ll expect to see 100% backwards compatibility when the PS3 comes out. Because the PS2 had it, so why not the PS3? Oh wait… That’s right! The PS2 didn’t have 100% backwards compatibility.

Kutaragi also gives away the secret to the PS3’s 100% backwards compatibility.

It will be done through a combination of hardware and software. We can do it with software alone, but it’s important to make it as close to perfect as possible.

Uh… well… gee… that clears things right up. No WONDER the PS3 is so perfect, it uses a combination of hardware AND software. Ingenious.

That’s today’s Kutaragi watch, if you would like to submit something you saw to Kutaragi Watch just send email to kutaragiwatch@topofcool.com.

Jobs rejects Cell Processor

So, according to the NYT (who never make anything up, by the way) Steve Jobs had a meeting with Kutaragi from Sony, in which the Cell processor was flatly rejected as a replacement for the PowerPC chips.

Kutaragi tried to interest Jobs in adopting the Cell microprocessor, which is being developed by IBM for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believed would be even less effective than the Power PC.

Okay, all two people reading this blog probably already know this news, but the point of this post is to predict what’s going to happen now.

I predict that there’s going to be a lot of talk about how this must mean that the Cell processor is crap and Sony sucks, and blah blah blah. Behold the awesome power that can be unleashed by the unexpected cross over of Steve Jobs cultists with non-Sony fanboys. Scary, huh.

Jobs does seem to have a knack for knowing when a product will succeed or fail. I admit I was skeptical about the iPod and whether it was going to be as ubiquitous as Jobs was claiming. Well, he was right. I see the damn things everywhere now. I even have one. (I got it for free, BTW.)

There’s also anecdotal evidence that he appeared at a meeting with Jeff Bezos (of Amazon) and they were shown the infamous It. (Not Pennywise the Clown, but the Segway scooter thing.) Jobs first reaction was, “It sucks.” And sure enough, the Segway certainly has not changed the world. I think I saw one the other day though.

Anyway, If Jobs says the Cell sucks…. Putting aside everything you see in the “Pirates of Silicon Valley” miniseries, the guy knows his designs, and when it comes down to brass tacks, he’s practical.

On the other hand, I’m surprised he’s been using PowerPC chips as long as he has. I believe that if it wasn’t for his built-in religious zealot-like hatred of Wintel, he would’ve made the switch much earlier.

Here’s the most important thing to remember: If Jobs’ rejection of the Cell chip was made out of hatred for IBM, then this news means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.