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Fight off aliens with the power of indie music in April
Loud on Planet X uses songs from Tegan and Sara, Lights, Metric, Purity Ring, METZ, Fucked Up, July Talk, Austra, Cadence Weapon and other high-profile independent bands to defeat hordes of invading (yet adorable) aliens. It debuts on the digital stage on April 19th for PlayStation 4 and Steam, and gets an encore launch on iOS and Android on April 21st. Players embody the bands themselves and play music to keep aliens from overtaking their stage. Loud on Planet X is a mash-up of Plants vs. Zombies tower-defense mechanics and Patapon-style rhythm gameplay. The game will be $7 ($9 CAD) on PlayStation 4 and Steam for PC and Mac, and $4 ($5.50 CAD) on mobile devices.
If 'Rock Band' is Coachella, 'Loud on Planet X' is CBGB
Loud on Planet X is the ultimate independent artist's dream: It's an indie game all about indie bands. The actual gameplay is a blend of two familiar mechanics, a Plants vs. Zombies-style tower-defense system and a rhythm game reminiscent of Patapon that has players making sweet, sweet music while they fend off streams of hostile, blobby aliens. The coolest part for music fans is that Loud lets you play as the indie bands that it features, including Tegan and Sara, Metric, Lights, METZ, Fucked Up, July Talk, Austra and Cadence Weapon. Loud is still a work in progress, but all of the bands have been great to work with so far, Pop Sandbox studio head Alex Jansen says: "The musicians we're working with have been really incredible and genuinely excited to be involved. A lot of them are big gamers too, especially someone like Lights."
Good Technology sees boost in iPhone, iPad activations in Q1
A few months ago, enterprise mobile integrator Good Technology reported on the second round of metrics from its device activation data. The story showed strong growth for Android phones; while the iPhone remained in first place, but the curves were getting closer. In the first quarter of this year, however, something rather disruptive happened. In the company's latest report [PDF], released today, the iPhone has widened the gap again -- and it's largely due to the Verizon effect. "There's no doubt that Verizon's launch of the iPhone 4, combined with AT&T's response on the discounted 3GS devices, certainly gave iPhones a bit of a lift," says Good's SVP of Corporate Strategy, John Herrema. "What we were seeing in the 4th quarter was that Android was trending upward and getting close to catching up," he says, "but in the first quarter of 2011 the iPhone has reasserted itself as the leading platform, at least with activations by our customers." The Verizon iPhone launch apparently resulted in the highest rate of activation (16.9 percent) for any new device since Good has been publicly tracking and publishing reports (Q3 2010). The tablet story is dramatically more one-sided, with the iPad and iPad 2 generating almost all of the tablet activations Good saw in the quarter. iPads represented about 20% of all device activations seen on the system, with Android tablets creeping in and reaching the 1% mark for the first time. "We're seeing the tablet momentum continuing, really driven by iPad and iPad 2," said Herrema. "We're starting to see the first glimmers of Android tablets showing up on the scene. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out in the 2nd quarter, especially as Honeycomb [Android 3.0] shows up on more devices besides the Motorola Xoom." Overall, iOS devices made up just under 70% of all device activations Good measured during the quarter. As before, Good's visibility into the enterprise is solid but not comprehensive; it cannot measure BlackBerry deployment volumes, nor does it support Windows 7 phones at this time. Nevertheless, as a proxy for deployments of the devices it does support, Good's numbers are (sorry) pretty good.
Wii Fit is U.S. Customary Measurement Training for Canadians
If you're Canadian and your BMI is coming out all wacky in Wii Fit, one of two things could be responsible: Tim Hortons You've made some kind of error due to a potentially unfamiliar measurement system. Wii Fit, it turns out, continues to use the imperial measurements more common in the U.S. even if you've set your Wii's location to Canada. This could cause some confusion to those who didn't notice, and annoyance to those who did and have been forced to convert their familiar height and weight measurements to the crazy moon system we use. Setting your language to Spanish or French ameliorates this issue, but adds the obvious complication.%Gallery-4745%
