Geek Cutlure, Extra Culture: Response to 3DS.

Recently Nintendo announced the followup to the mega-selling DS, the 3D capable 3DS. It will be released sometime between April 2010 and March 2011, it will be able to display 3D graphics without the need of glasses and it will probably have the capabilities of an underpowered Gamecube.
This news actually annoys me a bit. Why? Because if you recently bought a DSi or a DS XL, you now have roughly a year to enjoy your handheld before it’s officially old technology.
I realize this is how Nintendo does things. They release a lousy handheld and then screw over the early adopters with a better model not too long after release, and repeat the process until it’s time to release a new handheld and start all over again.
Hell, in an a way, that’s just how technology works. The first iPhone was a bit of laggy joke compared to the 3G, and that’s now showing it’s age next to the 3GS.
But regardless of that, it still feels too soon for a new DS, even when you consider that it was released in 2004.
The DSi and it’s online store has just recently managed to produce some great content. Give it another 2-3 years, and it could grow into something great, maybe even finally delivering the downloadable Gameboy and Advance games often rumored about.
This isn’t even mentioning the DSi exclusive games we have heard about. What have we seen so far, one game? A little more time would give developers an opportunity to really experiment with those two cameras, Nintendo.
There’s also the fact that this really doesn’t make much sense from a business standpoint when you consider the DSi XL. The newer handheld is only a year away. Couple that with the fact that, according to Kotaku, you will not be able to transfer DSi Ware games, do you really think anyone will seriously put down money on the XL when they could just wait for the newer model?
You could argue that casual gamers who don’t this kind of news probably would. Which is a fair point. But don’t you think those casual users would be pissed to find out that they need to buy a new system just to enjoy some Avatar like effects?
Nintendo isn’t exactly hurting for money at the moment. They could probably push back the new DS and give their hardware some more time to mature, and keep this nerd from nuking his savings account for a little while longer.

Game of the year

Here's something called Progress Wars. Some people claim it to be a "parody" of facebook games like Mafia War or Farmville.

I say that it is the true face of gaming god, much like how you look at a a magic eye picture and see nothing, but then boom, tree made of penises.

And much like a tree of penises, this game is free to play for a few minutes until the novelty wears thin.

http://progresswars.com/

Making the Most Dangerous Game

The Multimedia Club is attempting to make a first-person shooter video game inspired by Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” using the Unreal engine.

The club has a semester to complete the game with a handful of students using an engine that gives professional game studios trouble.

Multimedia Club President Yale Buckner realizes the challenges at hand but thinks he has just the team to pull it all together.

“It’s that kind of environment that you dream about getting,” said Buckner. “These are people who are actually thirsty to get out into the working world and make something happen.”

The Multimedia Club is developing the currently unnamed game with help from the Fame Club, Programming Club and Dub Club.

Players of the game take on the role of a man who has been marooned on a rainforest island and must fight for survival while being hunted by another character.

Buckner says that they wanted the game to have a more restrained, story-driven style than action games such as Gears of War, which features excess violence and chainsaw bayonet guns.

“If you put chainsaws on guns that shoot chainsaws and bears holding guns that shoot chainsaws, then it becomes a game about bears shooting guns with chainsaws,” said Buckner.

One problem they faced early on even helped to cement their style.

A “boss” character hunts players in the game, but due to technical restraints, according to Level Design Manager Trevor Rice, they could not actually show this character directly.

“So we got really creative," said Rice. "Instead of showing him, we’re trying to design the game around his presence."

This lends the environment a sense of tension, as players hear the boss coming for them or see his shadow.

Buckner, who also acts as the project manager, says they also wanted to try and emulate working conditions at a real game development studio.

This means that the team has already put in 30 man-hours into the project, which is currently 25 percent done according to Buckner.

According to 3-D Manager Joey Cannorata, it can take an entire semester just to render one section of a level.

At the end of the day, though, he says it’s worth it.

“It’s really satisfying,” said Cannorata.

Geek Culture: Understanding MAG

Typically, this column doesn’t run reviews. Mostly because they feel like a cop out and it isn’t too interesting to write or read about how awesome “Kitten Puncher V: The Musical” is.

But games like “MAG” are different. This is a game that I have played for well over 20 hours, and yet I don’t understand. Mostly because, much like “Donnie Darko,” it’s hard to tell what’s intentionally stupid or accidentally stupid.

“MAG” is a multiplayer online shooter for the PS3 that will instantly feel familiar to anyone who’s played “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” one or two, with players earning experience points with kills and unlocking abilities or equipment with each level.

What sets “MAG” apart is the fact that you can play with 256 players online, which is insane when you realize that there are enough players on your team alone to start a conga line around the earth three times over.

You’ll immediately jump into the game after meticulously creating a soldier that ends up looking like every other square jawed grunt on your team, at which point you will run five feet and get shot by someone you had no chance of seeing.

If you’re like me, this will happen eight times. Occasionally while waiting to spawn the countdown clock will start at twenty, wind down, and then start all over again.

At one point I died and spent the last 10 minutes of the game staring at the clock, wondering what I was supposed to do in video game limbo.

Actually, scratch limbo. If there is a better idea for gamer hell than having a player stare at a clock while waiting to get back into a game after dieing embarrassingly for all eternity, then I’ve never heard it.

Even weirder once was when the clock got to zero and a message popped up telling me that “Aryan_Prince” killed me, with the clock then starting up again.

Apparently Aryan_Prince is so amazing that he killed me and the game didn’t even have enough time to respond. I felt strangely honored.

Other weird problems include dieing and then still being able to walk around the battlefield, finding your body in a strange pose after respawning and even occasionally the PS3 growing a leg and kicking you in the bean bag. I might have made that last one up.

Recently, however, a patch was released that fixed most of these problems. In their place the game now freezes a lot.

I don’t know how to describe how it feels to have a game freeze when you were 10 seconds away from winning a match and leveling up.

Let’s say you sit down to work on a paper for a class. It’s a midterm paper, and you made yourself a cup of coffee before you began.

You eventually make your to the end of it. It’s a great paper. You’re about to hit save and score an easy A when….

Your friend sticks his penis in your coffee.

That’s what it feels like MAG. That’s what it feels like.

Dr. StrangeBuzz or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Inanity.

Social networking. The more of it you do, the less real socializing you get done.
Recently two major developments have happened in the world of Twitter-Facing, with Facebook yet again redesigning their site main site and Google almost simultaneously launching Buzz.
Facebook, much like every website that wants to keep a steady traffic count, updates their site design every now and then.
What I find interesting is that every time they do it you hear users complain about how they “ruined” it, and they usually keep using Facebook anyway until the next update. When they complain again.
Websites constantly tweaking the layout of their pages is a good thing. It’s how they evolve to become more streamlined and more elegantly display content. So just keep that in mind the next time you make your status “lol Facebook sux now!” after it takes you five seconds longer then usual to find the Farmville tab.
More interesting is Buzz, which Google launched to try and further their goal of completely controlling how we communicate on the internet.
Buzz is pretty simple, you just set up a profile with a picture and then post something like a status update, and then people can comment on that. It’s essentially a more streamlined version of a Facebook wall.
Buzz is nothing special really, just a slightly cleaner social site for you to worry about updating.
So why am I writing a GC about it then? Simple. If you’re reading this you have nerd like properties. Your body is most likely rich in Nerdium, and therefore have a decent understanding of the internet.
This is where I show you to use those powers for evil. First thing you do is Buzz something like “Who likes ice cream?” People you follow, still not fully understanding this new service, respond with comments like “I love it!” or “Can’t get enough of it!”
You then go to your original post and hit the edit button, replacing “ice cream” with “rape.”
I have given you this gift. Now go use it.
Dr. StrangeBuzz or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Inanity.

Geek Culture: A few games to wind down with

It’s around the time of year when mid terms rear their ugly misshapen heads, and if you aren’t freaking out about that essay for your economics class, you really should be. A good grade in that one can be the difference between the transfer college of your choice and working as a McDonald’s manager for the rest of your days.

But after you’ve read several thousand pages of text, tattooed crib notes on every surface of your body and memorized facts that will never help you in the real world, how do you wind down? How do you keep your stress in control so your head doesn’t explode in class?

Surprisingly, there are a few games that can help with this. As a master of Geek Jutsu, I’ve played several games that people have described as “relaxing” and judged their effects. Also in consideration of your average students budget, most of these games can either be played free or bought for dirt cheap.

You are probably aware of this thing called Facebook.com, and the thousands of games that have spawned from it. Probably the most prolific is Farmville, a simple farm sim where you can raise crops and manage live stock. The fact that you can’t really lose, or win for that matter, detracts from the enjoyment somewhat. Still, it can be almost therapeutic to manage a plot of virtual land after a hard day of mind flaying.

Peggle is another free game that can be found on myspace.com, yahoo.com, popcap.com, or a million other places on the world wide web. A physics puzzle that plays like a mix between pachinko and pinball, you shoot metal balls at pegs and try to clear the board while racking a high score. The free demo that is on most sites is enough to sate any tired student, with the full game for PC and DS going for around $20.

If you are a red blooded American that needs a little ultra violence, there is Quakelive.com. This is a version of Quake 3 that plays right in your browser, on Mac and PC internet machines. This game is essentially the classic act of shooting people in the face while trying to avoid being shot. After a hard night of cramming, a few rounds of death-matching can be surprisingly cathartic.

Finally, that brings us to Pokemon. Most people my age have fond memories of training pocket monsters to kill each other, and these games are just as relaxing today as they were when we were kids. I recently picked up the DS version used for $20, and you could probably get the earlier Gameboy Advance or Gameboy Color versions for less.

Now get back to studying, future robot war lords of the world!

The Apple iPad and you

Apple finally lifted the veil on their tablet computer, a device which had reached almost mythical levels of fanboy hype through rumor alone.
This wasn’t just a device that would change the face of personal computers, the Apple cults chanted, it would fly in the face of mortal gods and punch them in their pompous kidneys. It had to be, it was Apple and Steve “Messiah” Jobs.
And...it turned out to be the iPad. Which is a giant iPod Touch. That isn’t a joke. Or an insult. It’s exactly what it is.
So let’s just say you are a college student who needs something to take notes on with a decent keyboard, and you just love the Apple. But you need guidance. You need alternatives.
You need...a Geek Culture Expert. That’s where I come in.
I’m not here to tell you not to buy an iPad, I’m just here to let you know what your (cheaper) options are.
The most obvious one would be a laptop, and you can get a decent Macbook for about $1,000 with a 13 inch display without extras. The most expensive iPad will run you $829 with 64GB and $30 a month for 3G from AT&T.
That’s also excluding the keyboard dock, which you’re going to need if you want to type without your hands falling off from the touch screen. So add another $70 to the iPad’s price.
Granted the iPad is still cheaper by a hair, but also keep in mind it can’t run Flash in the web browser or run multiple Apps at once. If you want to be even remotely productive as a student, you need a device that can do those two things.
Go to someplace like Best Buy and you can get a good non-Apple lappy for under $500, which will have enough hardware for all your student needs.
If you’re still dead set on the tablet, you can also go with the cheapest option and get an iPad without 3G and 16GB for $499.
Really, though, you might as well get a Netbook if you’re willing to sacrifice that much functionality.
You can get an Asus Eee PC Netbook for $300 from Best Buy again, and that’s not even the cheapest option. If all you want to do is browse the web and use word, a Netbook is perfect.
I’m not against the iPad. I just think the smart thing to do is wait and see if Apple can update it and implement features that are desperately needed.
It’s name also sounds like a Maxi pad. Either add wings or change the name Jobsy!