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A Gamer's Manifesto

I couldn’t agree more:

A Gamer’s Manifesto or 20 things Developers need to do now.

  1. Don’t use the online capability as an excuse to release broken games

The first time we hear the word “patch” in relation to a PS3 or XBox 360 game, we’re taking the console back to the store. Filled with our shit.

But surely the console industry, always more business savvy than their PC counterparts, will avoid making us gamers their unpaid beta testers.

Chances of that happening…

…again depends on how many turd-filled consoles they get stuck with. In other words, the consumer always gets exactly what they’ll put up with.

Playstation3 Unveiled

Trumping Microsoft in the aesthetics department, the Playstation3 was unveiled tonight.

Gorgeous, sleek design (with the exception of the controller, blech), in 3 colors, with more connectivity than you’d ever think you need: 6 USB, 3 Ethernet, 6 Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (for PSP!) and best of all…2 HD outputs.

Check it:

Speaking of video, Sony Computer Entertainment’s Chief Technical Officer Masa Chatani was on hand to show off the PS3’s panoramic video functions. Since the console has two HD outputs, it is can be hooked up to two side-by-side HDTVs to projecting video in a 32:9 extra-widescreen format (think Cinemascope in your living room). Like a gigantic version of the Nitnendo DS, the dual digital outputs also allow for an extended game display, with the action on one screen and either game information or video chat on the second.

With just a little less system memory than X-Box 360, and launching 4-6 months later, it will be interesting to see the big bad mega-corporations duke it out.

Best X-Box 360 Preview Yet

HardOCP has the best X-Box 360 preview I’ve seen yet.

While I’m not a fan of the color or the aesthetics, I am very intrigued by the new X-Box Live features, and the rumors of Media Center integration. HardOCP’s article also touches on the ability to plug in a portable MP3 player or digital camera and stream content right to your TV through your X-Box – pretty cool stuff.

Goodbye Billy

Gaming Groove is reporting that their founder, Billy Wilson, has died at the age of 33. Details haven’t been released, but those who remember the gaming web news scene at it’s height in the late 90’s will all miss Billy.

Billy “Wicked” Wilson, founder of Voodoo Extreme, as well as Gaming Groove, was known for his sense of humor he brought to the world of gaming news. At it’s height, Voodoo Extreme was one of the best web sites around to get information on 3d gaming, including games and hardware.

A while back I had blogged about Billy and how Voodoo Extreme had fallen, even before it’s purchase by IGN.com.

Rest in peace Billy.

WoW – wow!

Looking through the referrer logs on silwenae.com last night, I was surprised to see all the hits I’ve received from Google.

Sure enough, I tested out the links, and searched a bit on Google, and then double checked this morning on a different browser and machine to make sure I’m not crazy.

Silwenae.com, home of our World of Warcraft guild, Apatheia, is currently the 10th search result on Google when you search for “WoW Guild”. Front page of Google, baby!

Searching for “wow screenshots” results in the number two and three spots on Google.

Impressive. Google page rankings in search results are based on the number of people who link to you – and considering the search results for “wow screenshots” only has Blizzard above my website, that’s damn impressive.

Who knew I’d ever run a popular website after all the hobbyist versions I’ve had over the years?

When it rains, it pours

A week and half ago, I purchased Fable and NHL2k5 for my X-box. I’ve probably played 10-12 games of hockey, and having a blast doing it – even if on Pro I’m still winning too many, even if by only 1 goal.

I haven’t played Fable as near as much as I’ve wanted due to two things:

  1. Was traveling

  2. It’s a M rated game – as I found out after I started playing it. And Alex likes watching me play way too much for him to see me playing a role playing game as I hack away at the bad guys.

So I had received a gift card last week, and after trying out Farcry at Kent’s a week or two ago, decided to pick it up, as I enjoy a good FPS. After the fun I had playing Call of Duty single-player a year after everyone else, I decided this could be a good fit. So I bought it today. Come back to the office, and get more presents: Rome: Total War, a new real time strategy getting good reviews, and Star Wars: Battlefront (Warning: flash site) for the PC.

Considering I’ll be wiring the basement this weekend, in Orlando the following weekend, in Chicago after that, then at Lambeau the weekend after for the Cowboys game, when will I find the time? I still have Fable to play, my NFL2k5 football and hockey seasons, and two beta’s, including WoW to test. I’ve barely caught up on my TiVO from the last week or two, and here we go again… Good thing I haven’t bought X-Men from Raven yet! And I haven’t even thought about practicing for the BFG lan competition.

When it rains, it pours.

More Video Games

Purchased ESPN NHL2k5 and Fable yesterday. Tried to buy Fable Thurs. night, but they were already sold out.

Fable is pretty cool. Some of the combat controls take some getting used to, especially spells, but the story is cool so far.

NHL2k5 is suprisingly good. NFL2k5’s Crib feature blows NHL2k5 away, NHL2k5s is a dumbed down version. You still have challenges and can buy stuff, but from a room and item perspective, it’s not even close.

I am enjoying it, though I need to tweak the settings. I beat Vancouver 2-1, and the Stars 3-1, but most of the games end up being about 5-2. My shots on goal are averaging almost twice the opponents. Presentation, Sound, Graphics are all 10/10. The reflection of the ice at the start of periods after the zamboni is there is amazing – you can see the reflection of the scoreboards, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Helping Kelly build shelves today. My version of helping is watching the kids.

Off to Lambeau tomorrow.

Linux Gaming

This article sums up most of my views of gaming on Linux.

I have 2 machines that still run XP – one for gaming, the other I used to 2box my other Everquest account back in the day. It still has a bunch of music I need to transfer to my server, but other than that, I keep telling myself it will be for video editing as that’s the only other thing Linux isn’t as good as Windows still.

But back to Linux gaming: As I game less and less now, I realize I have to get my basement done, as my using my high end computer for non-gaming tasks drives me nuts in Windows. For the last two weeks I’ve seriously considered wiping my XP partition, or at the least making it dual boot. But I’m lazy, though I’m getting closer every day. As I look at what games I play, only Doom 3 has the potential to be played on Linux. If I only ran Linux, I’d have UT2k4 there as well. I had great success with NeverWinter Nights on Linux, but other than that, there are no RPG choices. As I debate EQ2 and World of Warcraft, neither will play on Linux.

Is playing games on the X-box my only choice? (If I were to only run Linux).

I absolutely agree with the article regarding WINE. WINE is not an option for Linux gaming, and for developers it’s a cop-out. Yes, I understand DirectX has matured better and faster than OpenGL. But if major games can work natively on Mac OSX, is Linux that far out of reach?

/Mourn VoodooExtreme

Back when I first really got into gaming a few years back, Slivers had turned me on to VoodooExtreme, as well as a number of websites. Run at the time by Billy Wilson, the site was updated continuously, and Billy’s wry sense of humor had me going back for more.

Well, there was a huge shake-up 2 years ago, and Billy left, and one of his news posters, Apache, who has extensive experience in the gaming website industry, took over. Apparently Billy didn’t have 100% ownership of the site and was forced out (some nasty rumors that I won’t repeat here). Apache had joined the staff about a year earlier, and is an excellent news poster, and very knowledgeable about the industry. Still enjoyed the site, but missed the humor. Their was some kind of squabble over the name, and it went from Voodoo Extreme to VE3D. They had even tried 3dgamingnews.com, but that never caught on. Then Apache even slowly started to fade from VE3D, with occasional posts, and I started to visit less often. (The main guy for the last 6 months sucks – late posts, and way too Euro-focused).

Fast forward to today: This morning VE3D announced they’re now part of the IGN network. Apache’s back, posted this mornings update promising to fix the look of the site, and pushing readers to pay for the IGN insider subscription to not see the obtrusive ads. I understand the business of being on the web is very different today than it was back in the high-flying days of the Internet boom, but IGN? IGN is a watered down, money grabbing internet “news” site that is a jack of all trades, master of none. Their sites cover all the genres, PC games, Console games, movies, and a “For Men” site. I just don’t think hard-core gamers respect IGN, though they can have a few good write-ups every now and then.

It’s really too bad for VE3D, in my opionion, it just shows how the mighty have fallen. I used to visit now only once a week, but I don’t even see that happening. BluesNews and Evil Avatar will continue to be where I get most of news.