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iPhone apps to help you follow the Olympics
The Games of the XXX Olympiad started on Friday with grandiose opening ceremonies in London, England that included a long list of notable English figures like the Queen of England, Mr. Bean and Paul McCartney. Now that the big kickoff celebration is over, it's time to start the competition -- and we've got a list of apps to help you keep track of the Olympic events on your iOS device. NBC began its TV coverage of the Olympics, and iOS owners with a cable or satellite subscription can follow the coverage on their iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. To watch the events as they happen, you'll need the NBC Olympics Live Extra app, which is available for free from the iOS App Store. Besides the live events, you can also watch full event replays and simulcasts of Olympic-specific programming from NBC. There's even a DVR function for most live streams and all full event replays. If you're concerned about missing an event, you can setup push notifications and receive an alert before an event is about the begin. If you don't want to watch the live coverage (or if you don't have a pay TV subscription), NBC is also offering a basic version of its Olympics app that'll keep you apprised of the latest news coming out the summer games. It also includes video highlights, photographs and hometown athlete profiles, which let you follow athletes from your area. Reuters is also on board with the Olympics and offering its own Reuters Olympics London 2012 app. Available for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the Reuters app has stunning photographs and up-to-date coverage of the results. Reuters also includes a section that tracks the medals awarded to each country and the Olympic records broken in each sport. If you're in the UK, you can check out the BBC Olympics app which provides non-stop coverage of the summer games. The Beeb is streaming up to 24 live videos at a time so you won't miss that important point, goal or race. There is also on-demand video highlights, commentary from BBC journalists and extensive coverage of the results. All content, including the video, is available via WiFi or 3G. Last but not least is the official London 2012 Results app which has breaking news, schedules and results. It has a strong focus on the athletes and provides performance updates, interviews and more.
EVE player wins silver medal at the Winter Olympics
It's not every day you run across an Olympic Medalist in your favourite MMO, much less gank them and take their stuff. For some EVE Online players, that opportunity may be closer than they think. With the conclusion of the recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, it came to light that one of the medal winners is not just an EVE player but also an avid PvP junkie. Casting off the stereotype of MMO gamers as unfit and demotivated, Kjetil Jansrud is a professional alpine skier at the peak of physical fitness. Competing in this year's Winter Olympics, the Norwegian EVE player took the silver medal in the Men's Giant Slalom event. Kjetil Jansrud is better known to his friends in "hirr" corporation as "NThraller", the Caldari ECM specialist. As part of Morsus Mihi alliance, he takes part in roaming PvP gangs and full-scale territorial warfare. In conjunction with the news of NThraller's Olympic win, JumpOnContact has taken an interesting look at the demographics of EVE players and MMO gamers in general. According to CCP, the average age of EVE players is around 27 and most players have some kind of degree-level certificate. The EVE community is made up of everything from high-paid professionals to students but did you ever expect to see "Olympic Medalist" added to that list? I know I didn't.
USA takes the gold in Atlantica Online during the Game and Game World Championship
It's not very often that we get to announce that an American player won an international gaming championship! RobinSwan from the US server of Atlantica Online went to capture the gold this year in the Game and Game World Championship (GNGWC), a collection of events focusing on different MMOs and featuring the top gamers from around the world. Robin went to trump 16 competitors from Europe, Vietnam, North America, Korea, South America, China, Japan and Thailand to take the prize of $5,000 and the gold medal for the Atlantica Online event. Robin's winning mercenary combos included a stun-lock/DoT combination of the Musician and Shaman to close the final match against Liu from China. We've got an exclusive Q&A with RobinSwan about his winning techniques after the break, so come along and learn some PvP tactics for Atlantica Online.
Certificates and medals coming to EVE Online
Most players who've been drawn to EVE Online enjoy the game for its complexity. For such gamers, complexity in a title can be a strength, not a drawback. However, you know what they say about having too much a good thing... Newer players especially find aspects of the game daunting to learn, particularly in terms of skills and skill training plans. This complexity surrounding skills, while not a big deal to veteran players, can be hard to grasp for newer players. Enter "certificates" -- EVE's simplified and (visually) ranked groups of skills that should help rookie players better understand what they should focus on to achieve particular goals. If the feature does what the developers hope, certificates will remedy a problem newer players face -- "an inability to clearly see where a particular skill fits into the greater scheme of things, what it enables, how to get there and where to go next," CCP Greyscale writes in his latest dev blog "Certificates: Planning the Future."
Wear your NES badge proudly
Gamers spend so much time playing video games that they're often forced to procrastinate work and neglect loved ones, but do they ever get any appreciation for their sacrifices? No -- gaming is a thankless task, indeed. So, what do we want, a medal?Why yes, yes we do.For all the times you bravely played Battle Toads, knowing that you would most likely die and have to start again; for all the times you risked your, er, Mario's life to rescue the princess; for all the times you tried to beat Contra without the Konami code -- consider yourself a hero.This NES medal of honor can be bought at Supermandolini, but the going price for glorification these days is apparently €18 ($27 USD). Hey, we never said that honor came cheap.
