ziggurat
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Daily iPad App: Ziggurat adds new controls to the shooter tradition
Ziggurat is a fascinating little iPhone game. It's technically a shooter, but the controls are unlike any shooter I've ever seen. The idea is that the human race is almost over, and one lone figher stands atop a pyramid, under attack from robots on all sides. Playing as this solitary fighter, you must destory the incoming robots. The game offers two methods of firing the weapon: "Precision Mode" and "Slingshot Mode." Precision Mode has you drag a finger across the bottom of the screen to calculate the firing angle, and then tap to charge and fire. In Slingshot Mode, which is easier but less interesting, you simply drag off of the middle of the screen to both aim and charge, as if using an imaginary slingshot on top of the ziggurat. The enemies vary in size and movement styles, keeping things interesting. Given that every game eventually ends in failure, there's a surprising amount of variety here. The graphics are in a well-done pixel style, and the chiptune music sets a post-apocalyptic mood (with a frightening 8-bit scream when the last human gives up the ghost). Ziggurat's an interesting bite of a game on the App Store. It's worth the 99 cents just to see how it all works. I don't know that these weird controls would work on any other game for as long, but all of the polish and extra style go a long way in this case.
The Perfect Ten: MMO prisons
Chillin' in the clink. Spending time in stoney lonesome. Thrown into the slammer. Checking in to the big house. Doing (perfect) 10 to life in the hole. Learning the ropes in juvie. Prison: The only fun thing about it is the slang that people have come up to describe it. And while you may never actually want to spend any time in the crowbar hotel in real life, chances are you've already done so in MMOs. Jails are an ever-popular locale in online gaming, and they almost always deal with an epidemic of escaped -- yet still milling around casually -- prisoners. So in today's Perfect Ten, we talked to the warden and got you a special glimpse into pixelated pokeys, if only to scare you straight. No more exploits and bots for you, young man or woman!
Carbon-neutral Ziggurat pyramid could house 1.1 million in Dubai
As we learned from Wall-E, people with half a mind for themselves probably won't be kosher with living with 1.1 million or so other inhabitants within a pyramid. That being said, there's always the brainwash approach to getting 'em in there, and if hordes of people were ever filed into the conceptual Ziggurat, Mother Earth would surely appreciate it. The 2.3-square kilometer building would be able to house over 1 million people and be "almost totally self-sufficient energy-wise." By tapping into the planet's renewable resources, designers assert that it could practically be carbon-neutral, and given that transport within the machine would be connected by an "integrated 360-degree network," fuel-burning cars would be pointless. As with most things in Dubai, this one seems larger than life, but if the Burj Al Arab is any indication, there's at least a minuscule chance this thing comes to fruition.[Via Inhabitat]
Second Life places: Visit Mexico Ruta Maya
The Visit Mexico Ruta Maya sims are sponsored by the Mexican Tourism Board. And they've done a great job -- so many sponsored sites are like someone has tried to create a real-world expo and transport it to Second Life. Visit Mexico Ruta Maya is not like that at all. It presents a solid Second Life experience, that happens to make you want to go to Mexico and find out what it's like with scent, touch and taste. %Gallery-23630%
