Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Saturday, March 27th, 2010
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You’ll find no one here who’s not down for a round or two (or 10) of Street Fighter . No one! In fact, I’m half-convinced that that’s Greg under that helmet. There’s a room set aside here at PAX for free play, where you can take a load off and try your hand at Heavy Rain , Bayonetta , New Super Mario Bros. Wii , and, of course, Street Fighter IV . I can guarantee that even ol’ Blockhead here would destroy me in the game.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 26th, 2010
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Rockstar wins the early “which publisher has the biggest line?” award here at PAX. I think they get a free pizza party at the end of the day as a result. They’ve got Red Dead Redemption in there, so people have been queuing way around the block. Thankfully it’s only 900 degrees in the convention center, so people should be in high spirits for the duration of the show.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 26th, 2010
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So yeah, we’re living in the age of 3D . I just made a quick run inside the main PAX East (henceforth know as PAX), and Nvidia has 3D games all over the place. There’s no escaping it~! Shooters, racing games, even World of Warcraft . Of course, I left my Authenticator in the hotel home, so I couldn’t play. Hopefully tomorrow, friends. Also, word on the street is that Nvidia will announce something fairly substantial in a few hours. I’ll see what’s up.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 26th, 2010
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Greetings, fellow gamers. I’m in Boston for PAX East . It’s all the fun of the Penny Arcade Expo , but done east coast hip-hop style. It’s just me and I have no idea what I’m doing, but expect a steady stream of video game goodness in the next two days. Any requests—specific game you want to see or whatever? Pick a fight with a certain publisher? Let me know!
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 26th, 2010
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Oh, look! The first screenshots of Sonic The Hedgehog 4 ! I do believe Sonic now hold the record for longest wait between the third and fourth game in a series, beating Street Fighter IV . That’s my gut feeling, but that has proven wildly inaccurate in the past. Incidentally, I’m currently en route to PAX East , and supposedly Sega will be there. My first order of business will be to tell them that Napoleon: Total War was fantastic. My second order of business will be to badger them for Sonic The Hedgehog 4 info. As you can see, it looks like old school Sonic, none of this Adventure business.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
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Remember the rash of celebrity deaths last year? Well this one just affected me more than all of those combined. The voice actor who played Dr. Wallace Breen , of Half-Life 2 fame, has passed away . Sad news is sad. Robert Culp died after falling in an unnamed Los Angeles park. He was 79. He did other stuff besides utterly creeping you out as you fought your way across City 17. Did you know he co-starred, alongside Bill Cosby, on a TV show in the 1960s called “I Spy”? I certainly didn’t know that. He also played Ray Romano’s father-in-law in “Everybody Loves Raymond.” But to us gamers, yes, he will forever be known as Dr. Breen, the Earth Administrator who tried convincing us of the futility of resisting the Combine. Y’all might want to check out Edge magazine this month, since there’s a pretty great feature talking to Valve on how they made Half-Life 2 so damn good. I’ve actually replaying through the game of late—pretty crazy that a five-year-old FPS has never been topped.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
There’s no doubting it anymore: British TV is miles ahead of American TV. A show over there called, quite descriptively, “ The Gadget Show ,” pit a proper solider against the Xbox 360 controller-wielding host in a little Modern Warfare 2 showdown. I insist that you watch it .
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
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Binder clips apparently work great as cable organizers Low-tech coffee: it’s the way to go Instant Pocket – yes, an instant pocket Heatswell cups – coming to a coffee shop near you? TED talk: To save the world, we have to play 21 billion hours of video games per week
Posted by 010081
Tech
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
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Yes, you read that right. According to Jane McGonigal , we as a people need to play online games for 21 billion hours per week in order to solve the world’s problems. Real problems, too, not silly things like making sure Simon Cowell stays on for another season of American Idol. We’re talking poverty, having access to clean water and healthy food, climate change, obesity, global conflict, etc. The real deal. Hey, this is McGonigal talking, not me. I’m fine with using World of Warcraft as nothing more than a giant time sink. The talk, which occurred at TED last month, begins with a photo of a gamer on the verge of an “epic win.” Now, I’m the last guy to promote the use of the word “epic” outside of Ancient Greek literature class, but McGonigal uses it to make the point that what we need in the world is more “epic win” passion and less “woe is me” apathy. Fair enough, yes. Then she goes on, saying that the reason why people play World of Warcraft so much is that, frankly, it’s better than real life. There’s no unemployment in WoW ; there’s always hides to collect, ore to mine, and potions to create. It’s a world where people learn to cooperate with each other for the greater good, as alien as that may sound to our American readers. Bootstraps and all that. In other words, online gaming helps people evolve. Not exactly what you think of when you and your Blu teammates take out those Red jerks . I’ll leave you with a question that McGonigal asks a little bit into it: What exactly are gamers getting good at? (Please, tell me, so I can put it on my resumé. Somehow “Ten Level 80s” doesn’t seem like an impressive bullet point (not that I have ten level 80s, of course). Of course, McGonigal actually goes into how having ten level 80s shows how dedicated you are to your work, provided the incentives are there. The World of Warcraft incentive is, I think, “be bad ass,” while the IRL incentive could be “help my company produce the best widget as possible” or whatever the case may be.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
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No BioShock up there… That’s funny, not one hour ago I mentioned that Australia had embraced the idea that adults have the capacity to make decisions vis-à-vis buying violent video games. Good ol’ Switzerland, though, the darling of Europe, has passed a law essentially outlawing violent video games. I’d feign, well, not anger , but something , but it’s Switzerland: how can you get mad at those guys? The specifics of the ban haven’t been officially revealed yet, but apparently the most likely scenario is that games rated PEGI 18+, if not PEGI 16+, will be banned from going on sale in the country. ( PEGI is sorta the European version of the ESRB.) That would affect everything from Street Fighter to Modern Warfare 2 to God of War . While I sincerely doubt we have many Swiss readers, it’s still sorta interesting to note that enlightened Europe is still of the mindset “violent video games = bad.” As if Europe wasn’t a violent place before Kratos showed up… Flickr