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The Daily Grind: Careful where you point that thing
There are parts of the game that you look at it without a great deal of affection. They're bland but functional, the sort of thing that doesn't show up in pre-release screenshots for obvious reasons. Then there are the parts that you look at that could curdle milk based solely on the visuals. They bring you to a state of Lovecraftian horrible knowledge about the hideous true nature of the universe. Maybe something has been modeled to be something particularly ugly, or perhaps it's a combination of poor polygon counts and bad choices in terms of color. In creator-heavy games such as City of Heroes and Champions Online, you might wind up with a character whose calculated appearance is eye-searing. What's universal is that they are so ugly that even if you're used to playing games with unskinned conglomerates of polygons, they strike you as downright hideous. What have you seen in your favorite game that made you just recoil in shock, horror, and possibly disgust? Was it a badly-designed model, or something that was meant to be horrific and succeeded far too well? Did you take screenshots to prove how nauseating it was, or did you just get away and never look back?
Apple's ugly YouTube channel
Apple has designed some beautiful stuff over the years, from the ][e (hey, I think it looks good) to the iPod, but you can take the new OfficialApple YouTube channel off that list -- it's hideous. The glaringly huge sidebar ads got squished and crunched, and managed to make even the new nanos and iPod touches look ugly.On the plus side, the channel offers lots of Apple videos in the YouTube player, from tutorials to tours to TV ads, so that's nice -- what YouTube videos lack in quality they make up for in ease of use and playability. Sure, the comments aren't much to read (unless you're a glutton for punishment), but at least the videos work.But what did they do to those icons?! I'm tempted just to report the background with the link at the bottom of the page -- not because it's offensive or crude, but just because it's so badly done.Update: The evil, unpleasant background is gone. Most commenters, justifiably, are quite skeptical that this is an actual Apple effort (could it be the 'ca' Canadian prefix?) -- we'll ask Apple.
MacBook Air gilded again - that's two times too many
Really, it's ok, you can stop tipping us on the Golden Age / Bling My Thing MacBook Air. We know it's all 24k gold and has 12,000 Swarovski crystals and crap, but we'll be honest, this stuff kind of freaks us out. We don't know, it's just offensive in that way that only a triggered gag reflex can properly describe. Supposedly only twenty are being produced, and you know the story about price, and these things being out of your league if you even have to ask.[Via Pocket-lint, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Gaming has image problem, Nintendo to fix
Seth Schiesel, a writer for the NY Times, recently put up an article about the image problem with the videogame industry and how it was, for the most part, its own fault. An attendance at the recent Ziff Davis Electronic Gaming Summit provided the inspiration for this piece, which talked about the state of gaming and its effect socially. Stating that gamers are often outed as socially inept at the mention of enjoying video games, the writer claims that even given the financial success the industry has seen, its still not the mainstream and widely-accepted activity that we all think it to be. Seth noted that Nintendo was the only company who seemed to "get it."Enter Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communication, who agrees that the industry is not innovating like it should beyond first-person shooters and becoming the entertainment power house it needs to be. Carl sees hope, however, in a company who decided that the standard controller just wasn't cutting it and that people don't just want flashy graphics on their handheld. They might want to teach a puppy to sit or see how quickly they can solve 100 math problems. And Nintendo is going to be the one to reach out to those looking for entertainment beyond plasma grenades and rocket launchers, to casual gamers who might be curious, but aren't looking for a free-for-all deathmatch where whoever gets the sword first wins.We can still have those games, but we want something new, something fresh, something that will once again make our eyes open wide and our mouths fall to our chest, something that will make that small stretch of hair on the back of our necks straighten and cause a chill to run down our spine. We want to experience the feelings we did when we first got into gaming and if anyone can make that happen, it's Nintendo. Maybe then your dad won't laugh at you when you say you've been playing a game for the last few hours, instead asking if he can give it a whirl.[Via N-Sider]
