Taboo
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BBC iPlayer to host a ton of TV box sets this Christmas
Nippy mornings and early sunsets. The British winter is here, bringing with it the perfect weather for TV bingeing. For many, that means Netflix, Now TV and Amazon Video, however this year the BBC is embracing the box set culture too. A huge collection of programming will soon return to iPlayer, including the first three seasons of Peaky Blinders, the Tom Hardy drama Taboo and the Golden Globe-winning Wolf Hall. The BBC is also adding crime hit Line of Duty, Happy Valley and a bunch of modern Sherlock, including season three, four and the 2016 special, The Abominable Bride.
Ask Massively: Taboo topics
In the US, we have a joke about how you never discuss politics or religion with friends if you want to keep those friends, which is a shame since those are usually the most interesting subjects, especially when it's three in the morning and you're out of jello shots. Today's topic might seem as if it's about religion and politics on the surface, but it's really not. A reader named Ediz wrote to us with the following question: While browsing the official Neverwinter forum guild recruitment section, I noticed several guilds openly advertising their religious orientation. I think this is really bad, even if they accept non-religious members. This type of behaviour should be strongly dealt with by community managers. The last thing I want in a game and especially MMO is to see people's religious, sexual, or political orientations openly advertised as it just ruins my immersion. I politely complained about it on the thread, and my post has been casually removed by the moderators. What is wrong with these guys? Short answer? Nothing at all.
Guess the secret word by video: Clucks for iPhone
Fans of the party game Taboo know how tricky (and hilarious) it can be. Players are presented with a "target word" and five no-go descriptor words; then they have to get their partner or team to figure out the target without using any of the five forbidden words. Similar word-guess games can be found in a few places on the App Store, but they still depend on having all the players in one place. Clucks, the latest iOS offering from AOL's mobile team, takes the Taboo guess-the-word concept and supercharges it with video, social sharing and anti-cheating voice recognition. The free game is designed to keep you honest while challenging your friends to figure out what the heck they're talking about. Gameplay is pretty straightforward: Clucks presents you with your target word and the five forbidden words just as you'd find them on a Taboo card. When you're ready with your hint approach, hit the button and record a 12-second video of your clues to your buddy. Once uploaded, on the receiving end they'll have 25 seconds to decipher your meanderings and fill in the blanks on an answer, Draw Something-style. Of course, while they're watching you, their phone is recording their reactions -- the combined side-by-side video can then be shared to Facebook or Viddy for more yuks. What's to keep you from cheating and using one of the no-go words in your clue video? The Clucks donkey, of course -- an intermittent check powered by the voice recognition savvy of Nuance. From time to time your recordings will be scanned by the donkey to check for words in the forbidden list; if you're caught, you'll be penalized points (and have to live with your shame). When you launch Clucks you have the option of playing practice "Barnyard" rounds, where you guess from pre-recorded clues. To play against others in the launch version, however, you need to connect the app to Facebook; if you don't have a Facebook account you probably won't get much out of it. Clucks takes a proven game concept and scales it for mobile with some high-powered technology partners in Viddy and Nuance, but will it deliver the fun? In my limited testing (a social game is hard to play when nobody else can download it yet), I found it an enjoyable distraction, although the fact that you're being recorded while guessing is easy to forget; I made some unfortunate faces. You're also uploading and downloading video on every turn, so play on WiFi if your data plan is constrained. The Clucks app is rolling out today but may not be available in all App Stores immediately. You can see a quick demo video below. Note: Clucks publisher AOL Mobile and TUAW have the same corporate parent, AOL.
The Daily Grind: Would you play an adult MMO?
Yesterday we told you about an adult MMO called Orgia Romanus that's causing a stir due to its focus on sexual content. While the game is certainly taking an over-the-top approach, it's by no means the first MMO to walk this path. Indie titles like Sociolotron and portions of virtual worlds like Second Life are renowned for their focus on various taboo topics, while more traditional titles like Age of Conan and Mortal Online have dabbled in avatar nudity and adult-oriented quests. But what if an MMO came along that managed to incorporate adult topics in a manner devoid of sensationalism? Sure, it's a tall order, but let's assume it's possible. Would you play it, or do you steer clear of anything with the "adult" label? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The dangers and allure of real money trading in MMOs
It's been one of the longest-running debates in the MMO industry: whether or not real money trading (RMT) helps or hurts players and the game worlds they inhabit. The Ottawa Citizen shed some light on the subject by showing how the games industry at large has dealt with the subject, from players dealing in grey market trades to studios overseeing RMT in the hopes of keeping players' bank accounts safe while lining the studios' pockets with additional income. Two examples were given of players engaging in illicit -- and ill-advised (Massively disclaimer) -- RMT activities. One player said that he made $7,000 in 2001 by purchasing EverQuest characters from bored players and reselling them to others, even though this was against the game's EULA. He likened it to real-world corporate practices: "It was kind of like buying a company and breaking (it) down and selling off all its assets, and flipping it for more cash." Another player admitted to spending $50 in hopes of gaining 2,000 gold in World of Warcraft, but the third-party company simply took his cash and never delivered the gold. The article notes how games like Second Life and companies like Sony and Microsoft are embracing RMT even as the issue remains taboo in many MMOs.
Gay kissing is slightly worse than severed heads, welcome to America
Parent-oriented video game site WhatTheyPlay.com had a poll earlier this week which caused the site's own editor to post W.T.F. on his personal blog. The results of the unscientific poll showed that respondents were almost equally disturbed by the idea of a "graphically severed human head" as they were by "two men kissing" in a video game. Respondents were actually far more offended by a man and a woman having sex, which received 37% of the vote, while dropping the F-bomb only received 10%.As GamePolitics points out, the results are in line with traditional American values and legal precedent, which holds sex to a different First Amendment standard than violence. We're not judging one way or the other, but we know what actions might cause us to pause (possibly take a photo) if we saw them on the street and which would have us calling the cops.[Via GamePolitics]
Virtually Overlooked: Taboo: The Sixth Sense [update 1]
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative. Rare has been responsible for many of the most beloved games on Nintendo systems throughout the years. RC Pro-Am, Goldeneye 007, and Donkey Kong Country come immediately to mind when thinking about the company and its history of great games. Taboo: The Sixth Sense is not great, or beloved, or even a game. If it were a game, it would be one of the worst ones on the NES. But if something like Taboo can even have a time, then that time has come.
