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Alliance cake!
There is nothing we love more than a tasty and delicious game-related cake, be it Alliance or Horde (ok, a new content release is nice, too, but beggars can't be choosers on that one). And so this Alliance cake, made by Katalysta on Korgath for her husband's birthday, pretty much hits the spot. The crest looks great, but is that really icing on the "fabric" around the outside? Looks amazing -- no wonder it took her three days to put together. She says it's white chocolate flavored Fondant and plain Fondant, and everything else is done with dyes. Amazing!By my count, this puts us even on the Alliance vs. Horde cakemaking -- 2 and 2. Who'll be next to serve their faction with some amazing cake-making skills?
Earth Hour and WoW
Tonight the world will be celebrating Earth Hour, with individuals, cities and businesses turning off and unplugging as many of their electronics and lights as possible. How can you get involved when you have a scheduled raid, or when this is the only time for you to play today? You need not feel pressured to unplug everything. Turn out as many lights as you can throughout your home, unplug the electronics and appliances in rooms you are not using, and consult Well Fed Buff for the perfect lights-out snack you can prepare before 8:00 p.m. This event is important, not because it will change the entire world, but because it will send a message. Not only will we have the opportunity to think about our impact, and learn about just how much power the world did save in that one dark hour, but businesses and governments will realize just how serious people are today about the environment. Gamers should be a part of that message. Lately, we have been garnering a poor reputation for ourselves, and not because we might all turn into mass murderers from staring all day violent images.
WoW Mom! An interview with the newest newbie on the block
I got a call from my mom on Friday night that she was having an emergency and needed me to call. It turns out the emergency was that she bought World of Warcraft and needed some instruction on how to play. Since I was at work, I told her to get started by reading up a bit on the WoW Rookie until I could spend a little more time with her. I was excited and somewhat terrified. I really hope she likes it and doesn't get too frustrated the first week. My mom isn't what you would call a gamer. I'm not going to tell you how old she is, but she could tell you where she was when Kennedy was assassinated. She's a master Euchre player and a wiz at Scrabble. Her video gaming experience is limited to Bejeweled and online versions of card games. She used to love me watch play Tetris, but would respond like the controller was made of lava when I tried to hand it to her. I invited her to join Dungeons and Dragons sessions, but she always declined. I moved 2,000 miles from my native Michigan for graduate school about five years ago. Since then my interactions with my mom have been limited to phone conversations and the occasional short visit. I'm really glad to get to share this time with her.
PS3 owners most connected to HDTV, Xbox 360 / Wii not far behind
We'll be straight with you: we aren't shocked in the slightest with these results, and while we're sure conjecture will fly over the underlying meanings, the results speak for themselves, really. According to new data from Nielsen Research Group, 71-percent of all PlayStation 3 consoles are connected to some form of HDTV (either LCD, plasma or front / rear projection), while 66-percent of Xbox 360s and 65-percent of Wiis were found to be played on a high-definition set. 'Course, it follows logic that the console with the built-in HD movie player would be most highly used on HDTVs, but considering just how many Wii owners also own an HDTV, it's downright depressing to think how stellar Wii Sports could be in 1080i.[Image courtesy of GameWorldNetwork]
Wanted for Murder: MMORPGs
LagORama has a funny spin on the endless cavalcade of "studies" from "trusted sources" as to how and why video games are the debil. It was only a matter of time before these "learned scholars" targeted specific genres within gaming. Guess which type currently has a big ole bulls eye painted on its back? That's right... our beloved MMORPG.These so-called "studies" somehow always seem to prove beyond a reasonable doubt (at least to the author espousing such wackiness) that video games have a "corrupting influence" on those who play them and are ruining today's youth no matter how you slice it. They're either causing a gamer's brain to shrink, making them insanely violent, obese, or socially inept. Almost like a drooling, thick-browed caveman.Frankly, this "outcry" is no different then what was going on back when the stodgy, uptight forefathers of today's doom sayers thought Elvis was the Anti-Christ and the Beatles were actually demons bent on defiling anyone who tuned in and danced to their music. Video games are simply this era's excuse for all of society's ills. Whatever. Check out the LogOrama post Your MMORPG Is Going To Kill You for even more ludicrous rants and raves.
TUAW Buyers Guide: Gifts for gamers
As we found out this past year, gamers have Macs, too. When you think of gaming gifts, you don't usually think of getting suggestions from a Mac blog-- most of (if not all of) the best games this year aren't playable on a Mac at all. But nevertheless, we're out there-- people who love gaming and Macs, living in two worlds both aimed at the same thing: having a great and beautiful user experience.If you're shopping for one of us this holiday season, here's a quick guide to a few good gift ideas.
GamesRadar finds ten of the world's best gamers, you aren't one
Sorry, neither are you, Jimmy Woods. However, ten other virgins incredibly skilled gamers made it onto GamesRadar's "Ten of the godliest gamers" list, playing the games they've spent humbling portions of their lives mastering. From Street Fighter to Minesweeper, prepare to have your opinion of your own gaming skills blown to smithereens. Think you're good at Tetris? Can you play at the speed of light, with invisible blocks? We thought not.Forgive us if we glance at these videos with apprehension. Don't get us wrong, the list is impressive; we're just a little hurt that we weren't included. We don't mean to brag, but we used to know a thing or two about a little game called Pokemon Snap. We've been told that seeing our photo of a newly-evolved Charizard bursting from the depths of a volcano, skin glistening from the polish of magma, is like feeling your soul stir deep within your chest. Please, if you have a moment, let us show you them.
InFocus unveils Play Big IN1 DLP projector: $499 only at Woot
Woot -- your favorite low-cost Zune supplier -- is movin' on up. The e-tailer is touting yet another "Woot launch," which just so happens to be a brand new InFocus DLP projector aimed at gamers and those on a budget. The metallic blue Play Big IN1 features a 640 x 480 native resolution, S-Video / component / composite inputs, 500 ANSI lumens, a 1,500:1 contrast ratio, integrated stereo speakers and headphone / RCA audio outputs. Granted, even at $499 we'd expect the specifications to be a bit more... modern. Oh, and Woot's also throwing in a set of Wii component cables, so there's that, and for those unfamiliar with how Woot works, we'll just suggest that you pull the trigger now (if this piques your interest) and contemplate later.
Tobold looks back at WoW, wonders what's next
Tobold's MMORPG Blog is one of the most popular online gaming blogs in the series of tubes, but Tobold suggesting that he and a lot of other online gamers are in a "gaming slump." World of Warcraft transformed the industry and expanded the market by leaps and bounds, but its appeal might be winding down, Tobold said. He could be right. Blizzard has been reporting active player numbers as high as ever, but a big chunk of the numbers comes from the enormous Asian player base. North American and European players might be ready to move on.But what's next? Most games these days are WoW clones, and many of them haven't done as well as expected. Does the genre need a Battlestar Galactica-esque total reboot? If so, what will do it? The new Blizzard MMO, as Tobold suggests? The fabled KotoR MMO? The Elder Scrolls Online? What are your thoughts, dear readers?
Study: MMO players play more... and get more
Apparently playing MMOs are worse for your health than regular games, but they're also more fun, too. That's the conclusion of a Syracuse University study that sent groups of students out to play four types of games-- arcade games, a Gaunlet PS2 game, Diablo II, and Dark Age of Camelot. Apparently the DAoC folks reported that their game had a more adverse effect on their health, and that their social and student lives were more affected by their playtime.But they also had more fun-- the students who played DAoC reported that they enjoyed their playtime more, and had even made more friends ingame than any of the other games. The professor who commissioned the study wisely strayed away from the word "addiction," and says that addiction is completely different than what happens to gamers. Instead, he says, more attention should be paid not to violence in games, but to the "enthrallment" factor. Some games are easy to pick up and put down, and other games, while more rewarding, are more likely to involve you as a player. Online games, says Raph Koster, are "more intense."So I can't exactly tell what the study solves, but most of the reasoning sounds all right. My only worry is just how old the games are-- seriously, Gauntlet? Dark Age? It would be interesting to see if a more recent MMO (like LotRO or WoW) was able to balance the enthrallment/timesink factor a little better without losing the payoff.[ via DungeonRun.com ]
Rumorland: Bungie leaving Microsoft, Apple gaming on the horizon
Rumors are flying in Seattle that Bungie, makers of Halo and, much more relevant here, Marathon and Pathways to Darkness, may be splitting from Microsoft. A complete and total rumor, unsubstantiated and unsourced, but like all good rumors, it has just enough good reasoning that it might actually be true. Microsoft certainly has no reason to let go of Bungie, but it's totally believable that Bungie is tired of being the Halo company, and ready to do some developing on its own again.And of course, if Bungie breaks away to work on the platform of its choice, it's almost a given that we'll see a brand new Bungie game on the Mac. And how fortuitous, says Christopher Price-- he cites Bungie's rumored split as part of a trinity of Mac gaming developments lately that all point to one thing: Apple is poised to return to (and take over) gaming.We are securely in rumorland here, so take all of this with a full tablespoon of salt. But you can smell the storm coming in terms of Apple and gaming-- something is brewing in Steve Jobs' head. I don't know if it will come on AppleTV (because of course that's a "hobby," and Apple's real power isn't in the set top box -- it's in the insanely fast and beautiful Macintosh computers), but the stars are aligning, and if Apple wants to get into gaming, it can definitely do it. Make no mistake -- Leopard is the priority right now, and likely will be through the end of the year. But next Christmas, don't be surprised if gamers want something under their tree from Apple.Thanks, Christopher!
Unexpected hardcore gamer in the family
It's a long weekend in the States, it's time to take it down a notch. Earlier this week we got an email from reader Herlich Aguiluz, who told us the story of how his wife woke him up Wednesday morning concerned that their seven-year-old son was awake while "it was still dark." When Aguiluz spoke to his son in the morning it turned out the kid woke up at 1AM and was playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption all night until his mother came down to fix breakfast. Aguiluz says, "I realized that while my wife was mad at what happened, I was proud and envious at the same time. Proud because I see my gamer-self in him, and envious because it used to be me who stayed up for a new game."This blogger can remember waking up more than one time at 3AM as a kid to find his mother playing Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV) in the living room -- later on the same thing happened with Final Fantasy III. It's very strange to wake up to the sound of Final Fantasy battle music, walk into the living room and be asked, "What are you doing up?" When that question was obviously a two-way street.So, let's open it up. Anybody else have those unexpected gamer moments with a family member?
LaRouche PAC implicates games at Va. Tech. review panel
In the weeks after the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, the search for answers focused mainly on germane issues like gun control and mental health rather than simple media scapegoating. At least one group seems unwilling to let go of the games-made-him-do-it angle, though. Speaking to Governor Tim Kaine's official Virginia Tech Review Panel, Larouche Youth Movement leader Paul Mourino warned of a "potential epidemic eruption of a 'new violence,' driven, in part, by the mass distribution of killing simulators to youth."In addition to the familiar games-create-killers arguments, Mourino's comments included the remarkable implication that the game industry caused a "media blackout" on discussion of Cho's interest in video games by "pour[ing] millions of dollars into a public relations and damage-control campaign." Mourino cites the removal of a Washington Post mention of Cho's Counter-Strike playing as evidence of the conspiracy; this despite the Post author's explanation that the factoid was removed simply to make room for more recent, more relevant information.You may remember Lyndon LaRouche from his support of Sept. 11 conspiracy theories, his implication that the British royal family are drug dealers and his stories of Soviet secret police brainwashing of his supporters. So, all in all, there are worse people to have on the other side of the game violence debate.
Young gamers smoking the game pipe earlier
We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control. Kids are adopting gaming at younger ages according the the latest NPD group research data. The first time kids take the red pill has dropped from 8.1 years of age to 6.7 in 2007. Doesn't mean they like what they play. Just that they're indoctrinated.Portable game systems lead the pack in child adoption rates with 39%. Console systems come in at 29%. Given the sales of the Nintendo DS and the Pokémons, that doesn't seem very surprising. Anita Frazier, industry analyst for The NPD Group, says, "[Children] appear to have no fear of technology and adopt it easily and without fanfare, making these devices a part of their everyday lives." Now if only their parents weren't so frightened of the "pokemans".
Why art thou n00b? [update 1]
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Why_art_thou_n00b'; One cannot live in the gaming world without encountering the ever-present dichotomy of "pro vs. n00b." Gamers claim superiority over others for their skill and ability, thus forming ridiculous "caste" systems in established communities across the globe. But what is skill, in gaming? What makes a gamer "good," able to achieve high-scores, able to frag their opponents with ease? Many gamers will simply state "reflexes" or more colloquially, "mad skillz yo LOL," but we'd like to take this opportunity and explore what truly makes a player exceptional ... and what the DS is doing to change that.
MALIBAL announces 20-inch Veda Series notebooks
After having bemusedly watched the jokesters at LAPTOP magazine struggle to operate a Dell M2010 laptop in public, we're pretty sure it's only the most hardcore of LAN partygoers who are snatching up these 20-inch models -- so it must be this small but dedicated demographic that Las Vegas-based MALIBAL is targeting with the new Veda series of desktop replacements. Almost certainly rebadges, the first round of Vedas do indeed offer some pretty impressive components, including dual core AMD Turion 64 X2 processors, up to two NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX cards in SLI pushing 1,680 x 1,050 pixels, as much as 4GB of RAM and 400GB of storage, along with integrated TV tuners, dual-layer DVD burners, and the seemingly de rigueur 1.3 megapixel webcam. Available only through MALIBAL directly, this model starts out at $2,799 and keeps moving skyward until it's too expensive to take out of the house.
SXSW: Getting Girls Into The Game: Designing and Marketing Games for Female Players
Boyfriends aren't the only ones facing dilemmas. Publishers and developers have been struggling to develop games that appeal to women, because they represent a huge demographic who haven't traditionally been associated with the video game market, and that translates to lost dollars. But how do you begin to approach making a game for girls, or is it even a mistake to set out to do that from the beginning, rather than just making a game that's fun?The panel first asked the question, "What constitutes a female gamer?" Jame Pinckard said, "Women aren't just this monolithic block of 'gamers', they all want different types of games. Just because a Barbie video is made for a 12 year old girl, doesn't mean a 26 year woman has to play it." Sheri Graner Ray took it a step further, adding "There is no definition of a female gamer, and trying to tack a label to them does a disservice. The female gamer is simply a female who plays games. She's just a diverse as any other market out there."
News Alert: Syrian prez doesn't play video games
The controversy surrounding the positive and negative effects of modern video games has drawn commentary from luminaries ranging from the governor of California to the Pope. But among all this high-level pontificating, one question has loomed large: What does Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad think of video games? Apparently, he doesn't like them. This according to an interview Al-Assad gave to Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer, who figured that since the dictator has "talked about the internet," a question about video games was appropriate. Al-Assad tersely answered that he uses the internet "for information, not for video games" before moving on to important topics like his favorite movies and what's on his iPod (we're not kidding). Al-Assad's discussion got us wondering how the world might be different if more heads of state actually were gamers? Could President Bush gain a deeper understanding of history through Civilization? Could a nice, calm game of Mario soothe Tony Blair's nerves after a long day in front of Parliament? Could the world-gobbling power of Katamari Damacy satiate the ambitions of Kim Jong-Il? The world may never know. [Via NewsBusters]
Gamer Generation on Discovery HD
There's a couple showings left of Discovery HD's Gamer Generation special coming up, so set your TiVo Series 3 and your generic DVRs to record, and see what insight this latest documentary has to offer about gamers that hasn't already been said.Depending on where you live, and if your satellite/cable provider carries the Discovery HD Theater channel, there are two more showings today, and again on Saturday, January 13th. TV listings are showing it as "Part One," so hopefully this will be an ongoing series or special, but right now information about this, and a frustrating amount of HD programming, is hard to come by.Let us know if you happened to catch it, and what you thought about it. That is, if you are able to find it ... just like The A-Team.
German legislation would jail FPS gamers
Late last month, an 18-year-old man went on a shooting spree at his former junior high school in western Germany, killing himself and injuring 11 others. According to reports on the German news site Tagesschau, the man spent a fair bit of time playing "Counter-Strike," which some say may have led to his inspiration to conduct the killing. As a result of this tragedy, two state governments in Bavaria and Lower Saxony have drafted legislation which, according to the Financial Times, would "subject developers, distributors and players of video games whose goal is to inflict 'cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters' to a fine and a maximum of one year in jail." If the measures pass, German gamers, amateur and pro alike, will have to lay off the FPS games for quite a long while and stick to more traditional non-violent games, like, you know, "Pac-Man."[Via Slashdot]
