Tuesday, September 11, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:04 PM
Kotaku - Starting them young
I think the age of four is the perfect time for Lil Derrick to be learning about drive-bys, pimps, hookers, corrupt cops, drugs and the titular grand theft autos.
And it's too bad if he's British that he'll not be able to appreciate the
Manhunt 2 cake he'll no doubt get for his fifth.
Labels: Games
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:07 PM
YouTube playlist of user-created
Self-playing levels in Super Mario World.
Really has to be seen to understand what I mean by my description above.
Labels: cool, Games
Saturday, September 01, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:19 PM
A recent comment I spotted in the comments book of the Little Theatre cinema.
It's obscene to advertise such an appalling/violent computer game - I am surprised that the Little Theatre supports the encouragement of killing other humans.
The advertisement in question was for the game
Medal of Honor: Airborne, a World War II first-person shooter. I personally believe that there is no substantive difference between advertising a game like this and screening a movie like Saving Private Ryan.
In any case the cinema has little control over which adverts actually get screened and obviously does not advocate or endorse the killing of people, however unlike some of our customers we are aware that there is a difference between the killing of humans in real life and on the silver screen or a computer monitor.
Labels: cinema, Games
Friday, May 25, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 7:54 PM
This puzzle game takes me back to my years at university studying electronics.
Although there was more drinking of beer and less building of killer robots as far as I can recall.
Labels: Games
Sunday, April 22, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:45 PM
Thursday, April 19, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 7:05 PM
In the wake of the massacre at Virginia Tech many so called experts such as Dr. Phil stepped forward linking the killings with the playing of violent video games before the authorities had even released any details about the perpetrator of this atrocity.
As you might expect Jack Thompson was amongst these yet again exploiting tragedy to push his agenda. The gaming site Kotaku have an
excellent article analysing Thompson's televised statement and dissecting the lies contained within it.
Ars Technica have a similar article about
the media's knee jerk reaction of linking the shootings to video games before the facts are in.
In fact according to GayGamer.net not only did
the police not find any games amongst Cho Seun Hui's belongings but his roommate says that he'd never ever seen Cho play a video game.
Labels: Games
Friday, March 02, 2007
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 8:52 PM
Sprout is a cute fun game to waste a quarter of hour at work with. [
via]
Labels: Games
Thursday, November 09, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 7:05 PM
Who knew that
chickens could be such a controversial topic?Ryan North that's who. But he believes in
fictional Jimmy Wales so his judgement is suspect especially given he's the source of the latest bout of
controversial chicken chicanery.
And still no mention in Wikipedia's Chicken topic of the little-known phenomena of
a chick armed with a revolver, shotgun or a bazooka.Labels: Games, humour
Monday, November 06, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:53 PM
Cool game where you like totally get to
blow up terrorists with missiles dude!!!A decent little simulation that is designed to show the potential for collateral damage being a factor in the creation of new terrorists.
The principle is quite brilliantly and comicly undermined by the
commenters of Digg.Labels: Digg, Games
Friday, October 27, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:59 AM
Double Wires - Shite graphics but addictive gameplay. It's like we are back in the 80s again.
Frustrating when you seem to be doing so well and then you swing yourself up and fling yourself so hard that you end up going in an arc backwards off the top of the screen.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 12:29 PM
Free online 2 players Sudoku. Each player receive the same Sudoku. The first person to finish it wins. Haven't won a game yet simply because my opponents keep leaving after a short while. Perhaps I scare them with my awesome sudoku solving skills.
read more | digg storyLabels: Digg, Games
Thursday, June 01, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:57 AM
Wrote about how the physics of modern computer games really do allow some wonderful things to be created by players yesterday.
But artificial biology in computer games shouldn't be forgotten as can be seen in this
wonderful ecosystem created by Laukosargas Svarog within the environment of
Second Life.
The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.
"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."
Of all the amazing things created within Second Life I think this stands out.
Labels: Games
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 1:05 AM
Yahoo News:
Video game raises Venezuela lawmakers' ireA U.S. company's video game simulating an invasion of Venezuela is supposed to hit the shelves next year, but it's already raising the ire of lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez supporters in Venezuela's National Assembly suspect the makers of "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames" are doing Washington's bidding by drumming up support among Americans for an eventual move to overthrow Chavez.
Pandemic describes "Mercenaries 2" as "an explosive open-world action game" in which "a power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a war zone." The company says players take on the role of well-armed mercenaries.
Chris Norris, a publicist for Pandemic in Los Angeles, said the game wasn't intended to make a political statement about Chavez, though designers "always want to have a rip from the headlines."
It's about time someone did something about that evil dictator Chavez and I'm glad to see that some enterprising company have taken it upon themselves to brainwash the next generation into taking action.
Actually I suspect that the genesis of the game is not the studio directly doing the bidding of the US Government but merely that they have fallen prey to the propoganda machine of the Bush administration. They've 'ripped from the headlines' as Chris Norris puts it the constructed image of Chavez as a power-hungry tyrant rather than the democratically elected leader he is who is returning the illegally sold off oil contracts to the people of Venezuela.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:33 PM
I'm very late with jumping on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas bandwagon but I don't have a PS2 and it came out much much later on the XBox and I wasn't prepared to pay full whack for it by then so I never bothered.
But thanks to ebay and the cheapness of the second hand market I'm now on board and boy is it a great fun game.
It's dangerous though as I feel it is bleeding into my real life and I find myself supressing the urge to jack people's cars when they stop at traffic lights when I'm walking by.
I've been enjoying pimping and doing drive-bys though and they are fun in the game too.
Labels: Games
Sunday, April 16, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 12:05 AM
I'm on the look out for suitable dogs to pressgang into service as part of my pirate navy. This is to battle the hordes of Beki's ninja cats. I have found no pirate dogs as of yet nor any ninja cats but I have found some
Samurai KittensThis is a very funny brutal game. The 'Furtalities are' hilariously horrendous.
Labels: Games
Monday, April 03, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 11:06 AM
At a time when we're told by the industry that the average gamers are pushing 30 rather than 13 how is it that a pair of bare naked breasts and the thought of hardcore sex got more people riled up about Grand Theft Auto than the fact that is one of the most reprehensively violent games out there?
read more | digg storyLabels: Digg, Games, Sex
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 7:35 PM
Sunday, March 05, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 1:32 AM
Splash Back gameSimple but tricky game. I managed to get to level 13 on my first go and have yet to beat that.
edit: Have finally beaten that first score of mine and got a decent hadle on the dynamics of game and have maged to get to level 18.
Labels: Games
Sunday, February 26, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 7:44 PM
Back in the good old days of the Spectrum 48k cheating at computer games involved the
BASIC command
POKE to set a key value in memory to a different number in order to get infinite lives or some such thing.
Well POKE is back in the form of
free to download program. It really is the ultimate gaming utility and I have just the perfect use in mind for it at work. But like the girl from Hoboken in the limerick be careful of Pokin' as you might cause your game to become broken.
There was a young girl from Hoboken
Who claimed that her hymen was broken
From riding her bike
On a cobblestone pike
But it really was broken from pokin'!!!
The top spot of the Pinball high score table will be mine. Oh yes it will be mine.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:16 AM
This site contains one billion mazes in high-quality printable PDF format. You may view, print and solve these mazes... and yes, there are exactly one billion mazes!
That's one hell of a lot of mazes and so they must surely be dynamically created as clearly even if they were computer generated it would require massive storage on a webserver. Talking about Terabytes of data.
read more | digg storyLabels: Digg, Games
Thursday, February 16, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 12:27 AM
Cubefield feels very much like the kind of videogames that you might have played in the 80s. Graphically very simply, very easy to understand how to play but also very addictive.
Old school gaming at it's best.
Talking of old school,
Cuban Boy's Old Skool for Scoundrels is simply fantastic.
Labels: Games
Thursday, January 19, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 1:08 AM
My god I had the surprise of my life playing Stranger's Wrath today.
Here I was going about the place as a bounty hunter just so I can save the 20k needed for the operation and possibly also on the llokout for a Steef for which some dude was gonna pay me the full 20 thousand for.
Turns out that Stranger is a goddamned Steef himself with a whole extra pair of legs in those trouseds of his. That's what the operation was for to rid him of those surplass legs.
What the hell happens now in the game I wonder as the fortune teller booth would indicate there is a whole other realm for me to discover after I escape the clutches of this rival bounty hunter that has captured me and exposed my true nature.
Labels: Games
Saturday, January 07, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 11:55 AM
Reinvigorate your Monopoly board game by using some of these
new rules.
I particularly like the following rule as it gives the railroads some enhanced use.
Traveling Railroads
Rule: Whenever a player lands on a railroad, the player may choose to move his or her token to any other railroad owned by the same player.
It's been years since I played Monopoly but it was a family favourite when my brother and I were kids and we'd play it very often. I might see if I can dig out the old board and play him again using some of these rules when he next visits.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 7:39 PM
I've been wasting several hours recently playing
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on my Xbox. As with most of the previous games in the Oddworld series this one succeeds in combining a quirky sense of humour with great gameplay.
Set in a bizarre version of the Wild West where the citizens are chickens, outlaws are piglike creatures, you play a bounty hunter named Stranger who is a kinda Humanoid-Feline.
Stranger requires moolah to pay for an operation and the only way he's gonna get it is to bring in some bounties by hunting down outlaws using his double-barrelled crossbow which can be loaded up with a variety of different live ammo.
The game is a mix of first-person shooting and third-person melee and platforming and it's great fun especially blowing the crap out of badguys using explosive bats launched from the crossbow or beating them senseless using some brass knuckles.
Labels: Games
Saturday, November 26, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 5:17 PM
A number of things I recommend people download this weekend. All excellent and all free.
Civilization 2The classic game of world building probably the best PC game of the 90s.
A 1200 page Physics textbook in pdf format.This book from Motion Mountain is Both entertaining and fascinating. It is comprehensive but easy to read and is even better for being free to download. I believe everyone should have a knowledge of physics in addition to
classic literature.
BlackLight from F-SecureWith the news that some
CDs from Sony have installed rootkits on users PCs it would be wise for people to download the Blacklight rootkit scanner and remover. It's unlikely that you have a
rootkit installed but for piece of mind take 10 minutes of your weekend to do this. There is an expiry date of 1st of January 2006 for this software so download and run before the end of the year.
Labels: books, Games
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 8:16 PM
Simon Pegg interviews George A RomeroThe writer/star of 'Shaun of the Dead' discusses zombies with the daddy of the genre.
My favourite bit of the interview was the following.
Simon Pegg It was the greatest night. Me and Edgar flew over and met a lot of the cast of Day of the Dead. I remember just after the film Quentin Tarantino – who George hadn't met before – was going on and on, being very flattering, and George just turned around and went 'Oh, grow up.'
Time Out You and Edgar pop up briefly in Land of the Dead as zombies. How did that come about?
SP I think we said to [Romero's make-up supervisor] Greg, 'Can we be extras?' And, you know, the internet is terrible now for leaking things. Some interviewer said to George, 'Is it true the Shaun of the Dead guys are going to be in the film?' And George kind of went, 'Okay, I guess so.'
George A Romero Cool with me! I was flattered.
TO How did you rate them as zombies?
GR Well [laughs] one woman got too close! Simon actually got to her!
SP I'm not gonna hold back! It's Land of the Dead, I'm not going to be a pussy zombie! Her shoulder was in my mouth range and I bit it. I'm sorry. I've got to keep it real, you know.
On a similar theme I've discovered a great online game called
Urban Dead which is described as
A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse.
Labels: Games
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 9:02 PM
Oy you with the dirty mind it ain't what you think it is.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.
Makes interesting reading, I wish I had a gran like her.
Labels: Games
Thursday, August 11, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:26 PM
Spaceworms is an incredibly annoying Flash game that following a little success at evading the dots will have you hooked.
Labels: Games
Sunday, July 17, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:02 PM
Flash Game: PlanarityA brillant little puzzle game created by John Tantalo, a CS undergrad at Case Western Reserve University.
Instructions: Arrange the vertices such that no edges overlap.
Labels: Games
Monday, June 06, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 9:11 PM
The best reason for buying a Gamecube has appeared.Dipped in "noir-shaded" graphics of stark contrast, Killer 7 at first seems like a stylish first-person shooter, but that's only a half-truth. While the majority of the actual action takes place in first-person, the rest of the game is unlike anything we've ever seen, for better or worse.
With a cast of seven split-personalities emanating from the mind of principal protagonist Harmon Smith, each of the splintered fragments of his persona come with their own powers and abilities. Like some dark psycho-thriller a la Se7en or Memento, Killer 7's heroes aren't cut from typical hero cloth.
Killer 7 often surprises us much in the way Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction "surprised" us. Which is to say it's consistently disturbing and more powerful for it. First of all, you're introduced to nearly every game mechanic and plot twist by Harmon's gimp-like virtual assistant, who hangs from the ceiling wearing a red leather bondage outfit, typically proclaiming "Master, we're in a tight spot!" From there, it just gets weirder. When you're not talking to a sexy nurse about saving your game, you're switching channels on a television set to pick your personality for the mission at hand. Occasionally, you'll be harassed by a dude named Travis, whom Harmon killed a long time ago, but who inexplicably turns up to bother you now and then.
I noticed yesterday that I own five different videogame devices, not to mention the ones that I have owned and have discarded. Could Killer 7 be the cause of me purchasing yet another because I love the description of it.
Labels: Games
Friday, June 03, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:02 PM
Poom! is yet another example of a brilliantly simple game to understand but bloody frustrating to master. [
via]
High score so far is 22 bounces.
Labels: Games
Monday, May 23, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 8:52 PM
Halo 2 and the Criminal MindThe story of how a nice family man was corrupted by the video game Halo 2 and turned into a sociopathic clan leader within a single day.
"Watch the language around the boys, dear." She's gesturing to John's two toddlers, now playing on the living room floor. The oldest is opening a recent birthday gift, a plastic playset in a box marked with a cartoon man with a ponytail and a goatee. The words Brett The Communal Farmer are marked in pink above his head, below it says And His Life Partner, Tim! There is not a toy gun or G.I. Joe to be found in the house.
"I'm not gonna censor myself. Dave's doin' an article on the mind of the average gamer and I can't filter my thoughts. And my first unfiltered thought is that Halo 2 be da filthy."
This early exchange with the wife didn't bode well for the future, as we can see in this later episode.
She examines the TV, watching John stride up behind an unsuspecting opponent and blow holes in his back.
"Wait a second," she said. "Why did you kill that guy? Isn't he another human?"
John shook his head in frustration. "He's wearing blue armor."
"So... the guys in blue armor were also born evil?"
"Honey, if you would take a moment to think before you talk, you'd see that the uniform means he's on the other side. It's a game. Like football."
"But... you're blowing their guts out. So, like, in the Halo universe are you saying that it's a normal human pasttime to-"
"-I'm trying to play here! Don't make me get Ghraib on your ass!"
"If you talk to me like that again, I'll never let you touch my..." she trails off into stricken silence. "John, what the hell are you doing?"
What John's wife had just observed was the Halo custom known as "tea bagging." This is a sort of celebration where the victor squats over the vanquished's face to simulate dipping his testicles into the cold, dead, open mouth of the corpse much in the same way one would dip a teabag into a cup of hot water.
The article was written by David Wong and John Cheese.
John Cheese? Wasn't that the former name of John Cleese before he changed his surname?
Labels: Games, Sport
Thursday, March 24, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 3:34 PM
To help promote their
new vacuum cleaner Dyson have created a deviously addictive game where you must navigate a ball through mazes into a hole. The ball moves along at a brisk pace and you just steer it right or left.
Like all great games it is simple to play but hard to master especially if you choose to change the settings for a yet even faster ball.
The Ball Game.They also produced
The Telescope Game, which I became addicted to a year or two ago.
Another of my current internet puzzle game addictions is
RayRayParade.
Labels: Games
Saturday, March 19, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:49 PM
I read
IGDA Session: Burning Down The House - Game Developers Rant and found myself agreeing with most of what the developers are ranting about particularly the opening gambit of Warren Spector.
OK. I don’t feel very ranty actually. I tried to bail on this panel. But I have to say something so I want to say how this business is hopelessly broken. Haha. We’re doing pretty much everything wrong. This is at the root of much of what you’re gonna hear today. Games cost too much. They take too long to make. The whole concept of word of mouth, remember that? Holy cow it was nice.
I've mentioned before of my own disatisfaction with modern video games, now I love Halo 2 as much as the next guy or gal but was it worth the money? I finished the campaign surprisingly quickly in fact it caught me by surprise that I had finished it as the storyline isn't entirely completed it is left as a cliffhanger and I'm left waiting for the inevitable Halo 3.
But Halo 2 ain't just about the campaign there's the multiplayer mode which are fun as hell but are they really any different than in the original Halo, okay so it incorporates Xbox Live so you can play against people on the other side of the world, but is that any better than playing against someone who's in the same room.
But at least Halo 2 does have the multiplayer option so it has some longevity to it, most games now have adopted the narrative format i.e. you play the part of a character in a story, gameplay has become secondary to the narrative, but the trouble with that sort of game is that once the story is over the game stops being fun.
With the improvement in graphics technology video games have moved more and more towards being interactive films which is apparently what game buyers want or is it? Maybe now that I've hit 30 years of age I've become a curmudgeon that is out of touch telling the kids that video games were much better in my day even though the graphics were shite and blocky and only two dimensional.
I'm currently seeking video game satisfaction via a regression to my younger self by purchasing via eBay a
Nintendo 64 Console and
Mario Kart 64 for a total of £28 including postage which is less than I'd pay for a game for my Xbox and yet hopefully I'd get as many hours of fun from it as I did years back when I played it at a mate's house. I've also considered a further regression by reliving my Sega Megadrive days and Sonic the Hedgehog in the form of the
Sonic Mega Collection.
A possible solution to this problem is the MMORPG which allows a player to participate in an unending narrative but I'm even burnt out on this type of game having achieved a relatively high level on
Asheron's Call I lack the motivation to go through virtually the same experience on
a newer version or a similar thing like
World of Warcraft.
Labels: Games
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 5:44 PM
I came across this late as it was written a few years ago.
Is Your Son a Computer Hacker? a brilliant spoof advisory for parents that is made even more hilarious by the numerous comments from supposedly intelligent people that have failed to get the joke.
This article is the biggest crock of sh*t I've ever read.
I could argue every point, but let's just say that being argumentative and surly in social behavior does not make hackers... it's a behavior of everyone. I'm 22 and STILL act like in such manners when IDIOTS make comments like this and generalize about people without ANY sense of intelligence.
As far as AMD processors and upgrading to new technology.... People always want their systems to be FASTER so they can get more done in less time... not because it helps us break your computer faster. Oh and I *did* buy my AMD at a local computer shop NOT by ordering online.
As for academic ability... well, let's just say I graduated in the top 5% of my class. Nevermind my appearance which has radically changed as I matured from baggy jeans to more professional work clothes and parted hair-cut to something more modern.
And what the heck is Lunix? Do you mean Linux the Operating System designed to compete with Windows? And oh my god let's not talk about Quake, the popular game that kids like to play online with friends.
Oh and as computer technician and network administrator... I spend more than 10 hours on a computer per day.
As for the hacking manuals... yes I do read them... I like to know how to protect my systems, so people AREN'T stealing my data.
If you wanna call these behaviors hacking... by all means do so... just don't expect the INTELLIGENT people in the world to be blinded by your ignorance and generalizations.
Aaron M. Hall
You may have graduated in the top 5% of your class but as you didn't understand that it was a spoof Aaron M. Hall I suspect you have an Autistic Spectrum disorder such as
Asperger's Syndrome.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:09 PM
http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/...doom_funnel.dcr
Yet another physics based game that is simple and fun to play but to get truly high scores is very complicated, the top scores are a few orders of magnitude greater than my best score.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:31 PM
This week I shall be mostly playing
Snow or Blow.
This is a very cute game where you have to move the little kids to catch snowflakes in their mouths, but watch out for the birds as they may deposit something in your mouth that doesn't taste quite so nice.
Labels: Games
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 10:18 PM
I have joined
The Sect of Homokaasu, but there is nothing to worry about my little web chums for they shall not steal my soul - only my time.
For this sect is all about rather addictive web-based
games, including games titled
Wanker which is not at all explicit and
Fuck It which is not for the easily offended.
My current favourite is
Gravity which I find oddly compelling and which has also been described as being very psychedelic... almost hypnotising.
Labels: Games
Friday, October 08, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 1:50 AM
This new spin on pong sees me as addicted as I was to the original,
Virtua Pong.
Actually having written that it might not truly be the case. I think the first computer game I really became addicted to was a knock the bricks from the wall by bouncing a ball off a movabble platform type game.
Labels: Games
Monday, September 06, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:24 PM
I think Vincent Marcone must be the product of some bizarre genetic experiment involving
Edward Gorey,
David Mckean and
Tim Burton.
I don't know if Marcone created the game
A Murder of Scarecrows but his artwork forms the base upon which it is built. Beautifully simple you must keep the crows from "killing" the scarecrows by knocking seeds of the trees which wake the scarecrows who then swipe at the crows to scare them off, the "lifeforce" of the scarecrows is indicated by the tree roots which extend beneath them. The eerie soundtrack compliments the gothic artwork and animation beautifully to form an unearthly delight.
See
My Pet Skeleton for further examples of Marcone's work or visit
h2o Magazine for an interview with him.
Labels: Games
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 11:15 PM
Yet more Flash entertainment, oddly enough by the hoover-kings at Dyson...
http://www.dyson.co.uk/game/default.asp
My god this is insane. I have finally completed levels 1-25 having played it virtually all day and I've done nearly no work at all.
My company should sue Dyson for loss of productivity or something. I shall attempt the christmas levels later, but for now I should actually do some of what I'm being paid to do on this computer.
Level 23 was the real killer I don't know how many hours I spent trying do that one and yet level 24 I got immediately, but then the horror of level 25 arose to destroy my confidence yet again.
Labels: Games
Sunday, June 27, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 2:43 PM
It's not just me and the other twentysomethings that love the retro games such as Pac-Man and Space Invaders, these games are becoming increasingly popular amongst the kids too young to remember them the first time around.
Back in play: Retro's the name of the game for a new generation of videophiles
Today's hottest games don't feature violence or mayhem. They're not photo-realistic and they don't even really have a plot.
Instead, they've got blocky graphics, tinny sound and bizarre objectives. And despite their rudimentary look, these games have inspired an almost manic need to play them.
A sudden spike in the popularity of retro gaming is bringing such low-frill hits as Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Pong to a new generation of gamers looking for something a bit simpler to enjoy.
I've written before about retro-gaming and how I believe that though modern games may be graphically superior they don't necessarily offer a better gaming experience.
Make It a Wario Party
I've also reminisced about the Speccy 48K and the games good and bad. Chuckie Egg excellent but Manic Miner was infuriating and in retrospect not much fun.
Clive Sinclair has no hair...Labels: Games
Saturday, June 12, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 9:58 AM
With the improvements in processing power of modern graphics cards the characters in video games are appearing increasingly lifelike but have now possibly hit a wall. Human beings have over the millions of years of evolution developed an amazing ability to recognize other human beings and are able to discern the difference between real people and fakes. No matter how good the waxworks are at Madame Tussauds they could never be mistaken for a real person because they lack the 'spark of life' that humans are somehow able to recognize. The same is true of video game characters and computer generated animations no matter how close to realistic they are they will probably always lack that je ne se quais. The characters appear like dead people that are moving, puppets made of human flesh.
This phenomenon has been termed the 'Uncanny Valley' by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori and is written about in the article
The Undead Zone: Why realistic graphics make humans look creepy by Clive Thompson. Mori used the term in relation to robotics but it is equally applicable to any situation where a representation of life is produced.
The comic book writer and artist Scott McCloud tackles this same problem in his book
Understanding Comics. People prefer art in comics where the characters are detailed enough that you can distinguish between the various people but also lacking sufficient detail so that the reader can fill in the blanks and imbue it with life in their minds. But when something is too realistic the reader has less work to do to add life and so focuses on the minor details that detract from the realism.
Labels: comics, Games
Thursday, April 15, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 4:30 PM
Article from Wired News:
Make It a Wario Party.
A GameCube version of the critically acclaimed Game Boy Advance game WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames, Wario's gameplay revolves around more than 200 "microgames" -- tiny, simple, sometimes bizarre games that last for less than five seconds each and are played in rapid succession...
...It's clear from playing these games that Nintendo is proud of its history. What's more subliminal is the underlying message: Ultra Hand is still fun, Beam Gun is still fun, Game and Watch is still fun. In the right doses, the right context, we have not lost our ability to be entertained and engaged by simple, imaginative, nonlinear toys and games.
I have been saying something similar for years. Game producers have been concentrating on style over playability in a lot of games in the last decade. Just because the graphical power of game consoles and PCs have increased phenomenally doesn't mean that better graphics in a game make a better product.
I still play games that I played 15-20 years ago using an emulator on my computer and Tetris is still probably the game I play most on my GameBoy. Modern console games are very different to their early counterparts. Epic games that take many sittings to complete as opposed to say Tetris where you might play the game many times in one sitting. Would it be worth dusting off the games of the 80s and 90s and releasing them very cheaply.
The rise in gaming on mobile phones has opened up an untapped market that could be extended elsewhere. With the Internet capability and hard disk the Xbox gamer would be in the position of being able to download the games easily without the need for the production of game discs and packaging and the retail outlets required for new games.
Labels: Games
Monday, January 26, 2004
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 8:16 PM
New game I've discovered not as good as
Catapault Santa it is just fucking insane.
Dolphin Dash
click here
Labels: Games
Sunday, November 30, 2003
&bull posted by Matt
Wharton @ 6:03 PM
The Catapault Santa Game
I managed to get 308.5m on my first proper attempt, but have not been able to get close to that distance since.
Labels: Games
