warcraft-iii
Latest
Q&A with Jason Hayes
Now I will admit, I tend to alternate between playing the game music and playing my own music, depending on the zone. This is not because I don't like the soundtrack -- far from it. I've actually been known to play the World of Warcraft soundtrack in my car. (You can't imagine how fast you can weed out fellow Warcraft players by playing "Legends of Azeroth" -- or the Login Screen music -- at a stoplight with the windows down. hee!) But love it or hate it, the music of Warcraft has left its mark on our lives, even if it's just the goosebumps we got when we watched the trailer for World of Warcraft the first time and heard the music sweeping along with the images. For those audiophiles who enjoy the music of Warcraft, Gamespot has an excellent interview with Jason Hayes, the man behind the sweeping songscapes in WoW. In this interview set to preface the PLAY! Symphony set to perform in Sydney, Australia from June 19-23, Jason talks about things as varied as his work with WoW, his thoughts on the movement to accept gaming as a legitimate art form, and the technical problems he faces as the composer of gaming soundtracks. He also includes some information about his plans for the future. (Maybe SC2? We can hope!) All in all, an excellent interview well worth checking out after a weekend of WoW before the work week kicks in. (Or alternately, a great interview to catch up on while having your morning coffee when the work week has already hit.)[via Gamespot]
Blizzard Warcraft regional finals in San Diego today
Live in the San Diego area and looking for something to do today? Blizzard is holding the WoW and Warcraft III regional finals at the House of Blues in San Diego. The event is today and tomorrow and starts at 11AM pacific today. Admission is free.You can check out the brackets and make shady bets at the bar, or just spend some time with your fellow geeks. Either way, it'll get you out of Azeroth for a couple hours, a little human interaction, buffalo wings and drinks does a body good. Who knows, maybe Blizzard will be giving out goodies. The competitors are playing for cash and tickets to BlizzCon.
Great PC games without hardcore hardware
If you've got more important things to spend your hard-earned cash on than PC hardware, GameSpot has compiled a list of ten best selling games that can co-exist comfortably with outdated rigs. Both Athlon test systems were equipped with only 256MB of memory, but one system used an AGP Radeon 9250 video card, while the other had a PCI Express GeForce 6200 installed.Games that you would expect to see on a list of low-tech wonders (by today's standards) are here, such as StarCraft and Half-Life: Counter Strike. However, I was more than a little surprised to see resource hogs Heroes of Might and Magic V and Civilization IV included, even at lowered texture and shader settings. Indeed, the review team experienced framerate problems with Heroes V on the PCI Express system. Still, each game performed admirably on at least one of GameSpot's test configurations, and with entries like Sid Meier's Pirates! and GTA: San Andreas included on the list, there's something for everyone. We'd like to hear which PC games (ancient and current) you've been enjoying on older setups.
Researcher slams games for "blatant racism"
An interesting article on Next Generation details the findings of one Robert Purangao, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, who just recently completed a report on racism in video games. The conclusion is that, unlike the gratuitous violence and sex, the "blatant racism" in games has gone largely unnoticed. Luckily, Mr. Purangao endeavored to locate it for us and subjected himself to a sweeping total of four games. After playing Kung Fu, Shadow Warrior, Warcraft III and Grand Theft Auto 3 for hours on end, Purangao ceased pushing buttons and instead relegated his fingers to decisive pointing.Surprisingly, he blames GTA for featuring non-white gangsters being blown up by a white protagonist, the former being "stock characters" serving only as "narrative obstacles to be overcome." He's certainly stumbled onto something here -- evil gangsters are definitely stock characters and stereotypical video game villains (see also: aliens, nazis, alien nazis), but it has nothing to do with their skin color. If that were the case, we'd be especially excited about the table-turning report on San Andreas.Despite being obviously driven by parody, Shadow Warrior doesn't escape reprimand either -- it features a Chinese villain hero who screams "just like Hiroshima!" when he fires off a rocket. Purangao accuses game designers of using "a mix and match grab bag of Asian stereotypes that are often nonsensical," though he fails to specify whether or not all game designers do that. Another discovery he must have made here is that designers often make terrible games.Sadly, the article is bereft of any details regarding the other two games under investigation. It seems likely that Purangao came across Warcraft III's shocking portrayal of orcs as slobbering and brutal beasts obsessed with burning, ransacking and smashing skulls.
Draenei Lore Update
There's a new post up by Chris Metzen that makes an attempt at explaining the interesting quandary of the new Draenei lore. It's a fairly long post, so I'll summarize... The change in the Eredar/Sargeras encounter was an accident, caused by not reviewing the older lore. Sometimes you need to be a bit flexible with the world's history in order to "broaden the scope and accessibility of your setting." They're going to run with the story as it currently is on the Burning Crusade site. They feel it's a stronger story and have already started to build around it. However, there's a lot more in the post and I highly suggest checking it out if you have the time.
"Do you know where I can find some sailors?"
The Armchair Empire has thrown together a list of what they believe to be the top ten in-game quotes. The list ranges from the bizarre (including the title to this post) to the classic ("All Your Base"). A good way to catch up on the last couple of decades of, how shall we put this, memorable lines from video games.My personal choices: "Hehehe! This is gonna be good!" - A Dwarf from Myth II just before he's about to blow up a crowd of Thrall with a molotov cocktail. It doesn't sound like much but if you've ever played Myth II you'll probably agree. "(singing) On the eleventh day of Christmas, Blizzard gave to me: eleven Science Vessels..." - This is a singing science vessel from the StarCraft Map of the Month: The Twelve Days of Starcraft. Random eh? "OBJECTION!!!" - From Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, natch. This isn't any objection in particular, although the times where either Phoenix or the Prosecution objects to the Judge's Guilty/Not Guilty verdict are probably the best. What are you favorite video game quotes?[Via Evil Avatar]
