mutually | assured | destruction

before its time really

2005-07-26T01:17:00.000-04:00

XskeweredX: when mikey phillips let his blog die i let mine too
XskeweredX: since it was young when it died
XskeweredX: i chalked it up to SIDS

It's an epidemic really, BIDS - Blog Instant Death Syndrome - striking without warning, sweeping the intertron like a doomy plague thing. I'll take it on in my return column with WSN. If they'll take me back, anyway; there was a lot of shuffling around and such upstairs, so we'll see if I find I still have a place on their pages when I get back. Though this little experiment is in its death throes, the webcomic's still a go, materializing agonizingly slow as it is, but early reviews from the aforementioned mikey phillips appear to be positive.

sex violence and coffee

2005-07-17T16:04:00.000-04:00

Apparently Hot Coffee is unlockable in the PS2 version of San Andreas. While those of us in the know have known for weeks Rockstar's claims of having nothing to do with the content have been utter bullshit, this should confirm for the noobs out there that the content was in fact, Rockstar's creation. They've been attempting to pawn it off as someone cracking and recompiling the source code, which makes absolutely no sense, particularly since the mini game still works with the rest of the game after you've unlocked it.

In any case, in Rockstar's defense, it's no worse than anything you'd see in an R rated movie (Team America), and the attention being given to it is simply because certain assholes have a hardon against video games. It's prejudice against the medium, essentially.

What really sucks here though is that fuckers like Jack Thompson have been waiting for an incident like this, and this is really all they need to get most of what they want. Violence, - cool ; throw in some sex, and everyone goes apeshit.

i will totally destroy your thetans

2005-06-29T16:06:00.000-04:00

No, you see. Here's the problem. You don't know the history of video games. I do.

All it does is mask the problem, Matt. And if you understand the history of it, it masks the problem. That's what it does. That's all it does. You're not getting to the reason why. There is no such thing as ~~Electronic Arts~~ ~~piracy~~ ~~Jesus~~ violence in video games.

hiatus

2005-06-28T18:50:00.000-04:00

see above

sexing it up

2005-06-19T04:48:00.000-04:00

So what's everyone's opinion on CNN's slight design overhaul? It actually kind of annoys because things aren't sectioned off as clearly as they used to be, or at least it seems that way, though it's not really the case. Speaking of cases, in any case, it still looks a lot better than that shitstorm of a site that Foxnews runs. I challenge you to find anything you're looking for on there. *Insert joke about how you wouldn't find it anyway because it's Fox News, har har.*

biometrics and bullshit

2005-06-18T11:35:00.000-04:00

Why do I have the feeling that the multiple mass breaches of bank accounts and credit cards in the last couple of weeks are going to heavily factor in the Man telling us we should go to biometric means of transactions, even though ultimately that biometric data would still be data that could be swiped and misused, as well as any other data along the chain past that biometric phase?

your daily dose of feminism

2005-06-15T08:56:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of toji, whose real name won't be disclosed for fear of lethal retaliation, or something like that.

ssjtoji***: well as far as feminism goes, they can buy that stuff if they want just as long as it does not get in the way of dinner or house cleaning
ssjtoji***: and lets not forget about washing clothes
XskeweredX: no this is literary feminism
ssjtoji***: there is a feminine language
ssjtoji***: bitch get my dinner
ssjtoji***: bitch go shopping
ssjtoji***: bitch shut up and do something constructive with your mouth
ssjtoji***: see there's a feminine language for them
XskeweredX: it started with french feminists i think?
ssjtoji***: yea that ones that with hairy armpits
ssjtoji***: and big noses
ssjtoji***: and french
ssjtoji***: but they do not even know how to cook

I saw the feminist quiz mania going on, so I reached back deep into the AIM archive to find this little gem of misogyny.

shocking santa's (or someone's) balls

2005-06-15T03:59:00.000-04:00

To welcome Mikey Phillips back from sub-Asia (at least according to my Korean friend), I just thought I would announce that my pick for favorite game of all time is in fact The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. And the worst Legend of Zelda games by far were on the abomination of a video game system the Phillips cd-i. Though if you were to count among actual games, it'd be that sidescrolling piece of impossible shit, The Adventure of Link on NES. More ~~soon~~ eventually.

lies and slander

2005-06-07T22:30:00.000-04:00

NOA's VP lied to us. The games will in fact cost money. Goddamnit.

revolution = freedom bitches

2005-06-05T09:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how I missed this, but apparently it's been confirmed by NOA's VP that any past-gen Nintendo-made title will in fact be downloadable for free for its next wonderbox. Free bitches. FREE.

Whether or not we'll be able to get previously Japan only games with this awesomeness in a box is yet to be seen, but nonetheless, this is nothing short of amazing. Third parties will have the option of charging for their games; however, I'm thinking they'll probably use promotional tie-ins effectively and we'll wring some free games out of them as well. You know something along the lines of "buy this new Squaresoft title and get FF VI free, bitches."

Also cool is that online multiplayer gaming with Nintendo titles will also be free, though again third parties have the option of charging. Of course it could be like the Cube where are the no third parties, so it doesn't matter anyway. Haha.

I've been busy with work so I've not had much time lately, but I'll start on the backlog when I'm off Thursday. This was just too amazing not to post. My faith in Nintendo is restored.

democracy in action

2005-05-30T19:53:00.000-04:00

I've made quite a few promises about stuff to cover, and I will in fact get to them. However in the interest of expediency and serving all three of my readers, I'm just going to ask what you would most like me to address. Comment away.

when you finish reading this i'll have made your day eight thousand times better though apple still wants your soul

2005-05-28T06:05:00.000-04:00

If you have any love for me, you will see Serenity eight times, based on the so-amazing-it-had-to-be-cancelled television series by absolute genius Joss Whedon. Actually you can fucking hate me and you should still see this movie eight times. I figured I would put up this gratuitous plug since reviews of the initial round of screenings have started to pop up all over the place, notably AIC. Disappointed by Star Wars? Serenity's your chance to see a scifi movie that will not let you down at all.

Though after you watch that trailer eight times, you shouldn't need my convincing to go see it.

And as a special treat for Mikey Phillips, I would just like to say "fuck Macs," (Jill will back me up here) though I will hold off on an entire post on such, since I already have enough things on my plate to tidy up. That said, you can console yourself by repeatedly watching this high def Serenity trailer that those of us mere mortals still using Windows are sadly unable to witness, as Apple is pulling the "Nintendo-to-Europe fuck you" on us with Quicktime 7. However, given that it attempts to take over your computer's soul, I think I'll be holding off on that.

2005-05-28T05:30:00.000-04:00

I'll let Jill take this one....

nintendo: fuck europe, world, your mom microsoft: it's okay we'll take sloppy seconds

2005-05-27T13:44:00.000-04:00

Evil Avatar has up a post about Nintendo giving Europe a hearty "fuck you" by deciding to launch the Revolution there up to 6 months after its near simultaneous Japan/North America launch. Nintendo then proceeded to give out another "fuck you," this time to doubters of the Big N by releasing its sales figures for the past year. If you don't feel like looking at Gamespot's list of numbers, the bottom line is that they're rich, biiiiiatch, banking nearly a billion dollars in profit last year.

1up.com has a new preview of Silicon Knights' assuredly awesome game series Too Human, set to launch on the 360, though it had started life as a Cube title. To refresh, Silicon Knights is Nintendo's second biggest fuck up software-wise, next to Rare. Nintendo let both of them go, and go they did, straight into the pockets of Microsoft. As I've said though, it's Nintendo's loss, not ours, as I will very much be experiencing the awesomeness, just on a 360 rather than the Revolution.

Speaking of 360, 300 appears to be the magic number, rumored to be the price of the system when it launches in a few months. I'm happy with it. I had heard upwards of $400, which is a bit too rich for my blood, but I believe I can swing $300. The Nintendo 200 line would be nice, but given the hardware in the 360, Microsoft would lose more money selling the 360 than it would ever make back in software sales. Microsoft and Sony are no strangers to the "losing money on the system, make it back on the games" formula though, as this has been par for the course on both of their past systems. Nintendo's the only one who seems to have to figured out the trick of making money on both the system and its games.

more EA news

2005-05-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

Kotaku's somewhat backing away from the EA apocalypse story from two posts down, and instead continuing the EA onslaught by posting speculation of its long suspected plans to take over Ubisoft. But, if you read my column, conveniently linked to two posts down, you already knew that. That's me. Always ahead of the game. Ooooo, pun!

revolution baby

2005-05-27T13:14:00.000-04:00

I've been told the following observation is in fact, not that obvious about the upcoming Revolution. What is this observation? The system title Revolution is more than just a reference to "revolutionizing" gaming, and I'm guessing very much indicative/part of the "gimmick" of the system, whatever that may be in its final form, though it's pretty much known at this point this involves gyroscopic controllers and a new form of projecting images, possibly if not probably in some manner of 3D.

new sweatshop coming to a florida near you

2005-05-27T11:14:00.000-04:00

Kotaku's reporting that Electronic Arts, my mortal enemy epitomizing everything wrong and going wrong with video games, is about to "drop a bomb" on its employees, one loaded with layoffs and the news they are moving to Florida from California. Brian (Kotaku's ed.) is currently waiting for some internal confirmation such as memos and such to validate the rumors. I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with the allegations against EA that dropped a few months ago, namely alleging sweatshop-style labor for programmers, with horrendous working conditions, among other things, first exposed by an alleged wife of a programmer on, you guessed it, her blog. The ultimate result was the threat of a class action lawsuit by EA employees. It's too bad they didn't simply revolt and kill their leaders, but you can't always get what you wish for.

The EA case is significant in a couple of ways. First, it's the first time there've been allegations like this in the gaming industry that I've heard of. Secondly it epitomizes the problem programmers have been running into in the last couple of years, namely that there are so many of them the value of their labor has declined, the result of which is cutthroat competition between them allowing companies to benefit by offering continually lower wages and benefits, since many of these fuckers are happy just be making more than minimum wage not tearing tickets at a movie theater with pizza faced bastard teenagers right now. Race to the bottom political science majors? I'm not really sure the worst of it is necessarily over either as the global market expands, though some of the fears about all of our tech jobs going to India are greatly overblown.

xbox 360 extravaganza

2005-05-27T00:12:00.000-04:00

Via Kotaku, a couple of new 360 things, including some high def trailers from Microsoft, and more evidence for a Thanksgiving release date. Honestly, the trailers mean shit to me since Perfect Dark Zero isn't one of them, though the Kameo one nearly brings me from apathy into a state of almost caring.

In other news, Morpheus is dead. I'm sure someone who gives a shit exists out there, perhaps at least one of the Wachowskis. Maybe. I'm guessing he wasn't with someone, so then he was their enemy, and he screamed NOOOOO as he died. Oh wait, wrong sci fi series. My bad.

netscape sucks and other bullshit

2005-05-26T15:15:00.000-04:00

The new Netscape sucks, to the point that it breaks Internet Explorer, among other problems. The only reason for posting this is just to point out that I'm waiting for a /.er to inevitably call IE a piece a shit for allowing itself to be broken by a rival browser. It will happen, if it hasn't already; I haven't read all of the comments yet.

I also haven't had a chance to read the just posted story about both the 360 and the PS3 being full of shit, but when I get back I'll deal with that.

i was done but...

2005-05-26T13:34:00.000-04:00

I was done for the day, having done far too much already, but this was too good to pass up. Yes. Another Star Wars, though one not helmed by George Lucas. Honestly? I'm excited, because of the potential it holds. The Star Wars universe pre-Anakin (who the movies are really all about) is amazingly rich and full of stories to tell, particularly regarding the Jedi and their history. If you're unconvinced by 1) a SW movie not helmed by Lucas and 2) one outside current canon, all I have to say to you is play Knights of the Old Republic. Easily better than any of the prequels, with a tight, compelling, yet epic story set 4000 years before Anakin, KOTOR has shown the potential of professional fans to be far above and beyond what Lucas has given us as of late.

Of course, it could also be worse than anything Lucas has given us, but they would have to try really hard for that to happen.

in other news

2005-05-26T11:38:00.000-04:00

I fucking hate this layout. I hate the colors. I hate the fonts. I hate everything about it and everything it stands for.

For the re-design, I'm looking at doing a left aligned body of text that scrolls against a static background. My question to you is simple, but significant. Would you prefer light text on a darker background, or dark text on a lighter background? Let me know, and while this may seem like a democratic process, it may in fact not be, as it's entirely possible I could not give a shit when I get around to doing the design. But at the moment, it's all about you and could very well continue to be so.

xbox live's earpiece/mic was made by the devil

2005-05-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

Speaking of online gaming, if there is one request I have for the Xbox 360, it is that the earpiece/mic be more comfortable than that generic piece of shit they include with Xbox Live in the deluxe packages. After about an hour it makes whichever ear I have the earpiece/mic on hurt like hell; I'm pretty sure I have a permanent mark there. It can't be hard to make a more comfortable setup, the free headphones/mic that came with UT2k4 Deluxe Edition look and feel great; then again, it is a Logitech product, and let's face it, Logitech generally makes damn good hardware. The MS default setup annoys me to the point I've been considering dropping the cash on the Halo 2 earpiece/mic, not out of slavish devotion like many of the fools who purchased it, but instead merely because it looks a hell of a lot more comfortable, and it is in fact made by a company who specializes in earpieces and mics. However, I've decided I won't pay more than 25 bucks for it, so I'm still waiting on it to come down; I've seen it at Circuit City going for thirty-five a couple of times, but the MSRP appears to fifty, given my prospective employer Best Buy's price.

video games and food - roughly equivalent in any situation

2005-05-26T09:46:00.000-04:00

Kotaku hits us with a big load of duh at the end of this entry regarding the next gen systems and marketing strategies (though I'm not sure if I would call Nintendo's the high road so much as the chicken shit one at times depending on my mood about Nintendo and its complete apathy about competition, at least when not concerning the portable market), but the beginning is interesting when it talks about "Cell Storage," an online storage vault that can be used to store online content. I'm not really sure if comparing it to wine in saying that it can "age" material, such as video to make it high-def really makes any sense, but it might to Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear creator, who is completely fucking nuts (also by way of Kotaku, though I'm pretty sure he's always been nuts. Like that further use of food as a metaphor, eh?). In any case, they appear to be offering a hefty amount of space, especially if they're talking about any decent chunk of high def video. Should be interesting to see how Xbox Live 2.0 counters this little bit, perhaps provoking a storage space war a la Google forcing everyone to offer more mailspace after dropping Gmail on an unsuspecting email world. Despite Karl's doubts, I think given Microsoft's experience and focus on online gaming (its majors leg to stand on against the PS3, I think), Xbox Live will continue to be the online service with its shit more together than anyone else, though its possible Nintendo's will give it a run for its money, since Nintendo does nothing halfass, except formulate business strategy. Oh, and Super Mario Sunshine. And system specs. But at least it's reliable! Like cheese. Or something.

on turning into jill and wastelands of civilization

2005-05-26T02:18:00.000-04:00

This multiple postings a day business must and will stop. I feel like Jill during her posting eighteen times a day phase, including my edits. Also on the list of things to stop is using "on..." as a format for subject headings because I'm postmodern and despise form. Or something like that.

Coming soon - a critique of the current barbecue entry on Slate. I suppose that I really have too much on my plate already, but I also suppose that's what the weekend is for. To preview that upcoming critique, it largely is comprised of two main points.

1) Fuck Memphis.
2) "Memphis was as far east as I got on this trip, which is to say that I skipped the Carolinas. This neglect no doubt excommunicates me from the royal and ancient club of barbecue. I bypassed the Carolinas because I've already eaten a lot of barbecue there—in South Carolina, especially, where they douse it with a weird mustard sauce."

Response: he's actually excommunicated because fucking forgot Georgia. Subset of response: mustard based sauce is actually the best, but they, as they do to much in the Carolinas, wastelands of civilization they are, (though not the absolute wastelands known as Mississippi and Alabama, which are not just barren wastelands of civilization, but in fact black holes of civilization) fuck it up royally.

And Jill, I jest. Kind of. That last paragraph was for you, with five lines of it comprising one glorious sentence.

I realize I've posted over 2000 words of content in the last twenty four hours, and for that, I apologize.

on barbecue and knowing everything

2005-05-26T01:49:00.000-04:00

If you haven't figured it out by glancing a couple inches to the right, I'm from the South; moreover, I'm from the greatest state in the South. In fact, I'm from the only state in the South that doesn't completely suck balls. Where I live is an interesting combination of actual human civilization and the South. One of my goals in the next couple years it to hammer out a treatise on the New South, because as I've been made painfully aware of in my time at NYU, Northerners really don't get it.

In any case, I bring this up because Slate is running (in classic Slate style) a series on barbecue. As Shaun well knows, I typically unabashedly hate Southern food, which he, paradoxically, adores, from grits to biscuits 'n' gravy. However, barbecue is where it's at, and more to the point, where barbecue is at is Columbus. Northern barbecue fucking blows with its weakass ketchup-based style. Georgia barbecue owns all. It's just a fact, though Texas does try. In any case, that's not to say decent barbecue can't be found north of the Mason-Dixon.

Virgil's, the Times Square vicinity is actually quite good. However, it's all quite pricey and I have mixed feelings about the commodification and exploitation of Southern food at prices far beyond what anyone would pay for barbecue in the South. I only go because my roommate is related to the executive chef so I get mad discounts. In any case, there is a tried-and-true measure for determining the worth of any barbecue joint, which will quite possibly appall most, if not all, of my NYU compatriots (but not you Shankar!). If people bitch enough (all 1-5 people who read this), I will yield and remove it, though you'd be missing out on tried-and-true advice that no one in the South, of any color, would disagree with. In fact, my friends would say "Of course we know where the best barbecue is. Why is this suprising or even contested?"

One can tell the worth of a barbecue joint in a glance, merely by looking at the patrons. If the room is filled entirely with white people, leave. Whitey, at least up north, it seems, can't find good barbecue if it spanks them in the ass. Instead, follow our African brethren. If a good portion of the clientele is black, you've found a decent place. Similarly, if you walk into a Chinese restaurant and there aren't any Chinese people eating there, it probably sucks. As such, the best barbecue in the world is made in the poorest regions of Georgia, south of the Fall Line by nearly blind 80 year old black men who wake up when it's still dark to start on their barbecue and never leave its side, like a small child, using secret recipes going back generations that white people could never comprehend.

Barbecue is, I'm fairly certain, the soul of the South. The documentary about my town and the areas around it at the Columbus Museum, with a running time of about 45 minutes, focuses on barbecue on the backwaters for nearly 20 minutes of that running time.

It's funny how all I ever wanted to do was get the fuck out of here, and having left, I'm pretty sure it's the only place I'll ever be able live without feeling uneasy. I still plan on living in a couple different places for at least a couple of years, such as the San Fran area, but I know I'll be back. Not to Columbus, the wasteland it sometimes seems, but to Georgia, probably right around Atlanta. Despite everything shitty about it, of which there is much, it seems to have pretty well ensnared me, tried as I did to fight it. My grandma's right about pretty much everything, but I was so sure she was wrong about me being Southern boy and the fact that I would never escape it. Well, it turns out she, in fact, is right about everything.

on 1337torrents

2005-05-25T23:52:00.000-04:00

As most of you have heard, EliteTorents.org was bustified by our very own FBI, a bust ostenisbly provoked by the naughtiness of allowing people to see the not-bad-but-not-great final chapter (if one ignores story chronology) of Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith, itself a modification of Return of the Jedi's original title, Revenge of the Jedi, for free and (gasp!) six whole hours before it debuted. Fuckers. Taking change out of George's pocket, shame on you.

My reaction? Who cares? One torrent site out of hundreds, and at least several other major torrent sites that are quite a bit larger. Registration sites typically have more specialized content, such as EasyTree, which until it closed shop was the best place for live concerts and album pre-releases; its last major release were the live shows at which Trent Reznor debuted the mediocrity that is With Teeth. The purpose of registration sites is, obviously, to restrict access to torrents to members, who typically have to meet a strict share ratio in order to prove their legitimacy, as well as cut down on mere leeching rather than contributing to the network. It's a bit of cyber socialism in a way. As a result of their typically more elite membership said sites, while having less content overall, generally have higher quality content, and few, if any bum torrents or files, as opposed to general torrent search engines. Speaking of which, the original torrent protocol creator, Bram Cohen, has just released the official BitTorrent search engine, though it was down earlier, so I haven't tried it out. In any case, the downside of registration sites is that should the site get busted, the feds or whoever have a ready made list of IP and email addresses to have fun with.

The overall picture though, is that this doesn't matter. It probably didn't even make a dent in torrent traffic, and BitTorrent will continue on, unphased. Like I've always said, people will just move from one thing to another, no matter how many protocols or networks anyone shuts down. They just can't stop this thing. Something new will always rise from the ashes to fill the void, and often it will be better than the thing preceding it. I'm not saying they shouldn't bother trying, I'm just asking what exactly they're expecting of themselves, and the general public, for that matter.

By the way, I had two friends download ROTS. Nice acronym, yes? One I agree with, the other I don't. The first downloaded it because he's a cheap fucker and won't go to the theater, which I believe it should be seen on the big screen anyway for the full effect. This guy is a douche. The second downloaded it because he's in Japan, so he can't watch it by other means. And who would wait for ROTS? I know I wouldn't. (I paid my 8 bucks, was sad, moved on, and will probably pay another 8 bucks to see it again. Ha! Fuck NY movie ticket prices.) Selective morality is a beautiful thing.

on narcissism and myself or really just myself

2005-05-25T21:57:00.000-04:00

I figured I would do an about me thing, inspired by new hero, Michael Phillips, whose hero I apparently am to boot It's nice symbiotic relationship.

I honestly don't care much for capitalization. I play video games. A lot. I routinely own 12 year olds at said video games while taunting them mercilessly, usually with homoerotic references. I like profanity. I want Super AIDS in a bottle. I like long words and even longer sentences that use a great many clauses while remaining grammatically correct, if syntactically annoying. I'm currently at work on my second chapbook, a follow up to the one completed for my senior project three years ago, mid coitus, mostly written at the ripe old age of 16.

What do I want to do here? Originally I wanted to shun all capitalization, but I figured that would be annoying. I want this space to become kind of like a mix of Slate, Wired, and Penny Arcade, but with more profanity. I'm not quite there yet, because right now I feel there's a void I must fill regarding video games, a void in explanations, expositions, mere speculations and rumor that's fairly easy to go with and feels somewhat conversational. (At least if you're used to conversing with me.) So while the focus right now is putting out my basic thoughts on the video game realm, sort of constructing and framing of my worldview and theoretical platform in a sense, albeit with a few excursions to other places, eventually I'll move back into the larger cultural picture, though video games will probably continue to make up a great deal of the blog. For whatever reason, for the last couple months I've wanted to avoid politics, and have fallen behidn on the scene. It's just not somewhere I've wanted to be, but I'll start slowly moving back in that direction as well.

Coming up - what I said I would talk about earlier, and thoughts on Star Wars in a collected space, since currently they're scattered all over Michael Phillips' blog.

Edit

In light of the barbecue post, I realized I forgot to mention one of my longer term goals is documenting the New South, of which there is little written about. I've decided if there's one way to make a name for myself, it's in crafting a vision to update the way people think about South, since it's remained largely unchanged for god knows how many years (the way people think about the South, not the South itself). Or at least to give non-Southerners some semblance of understanding about the South, because god also knows they know next to nothing. Oh, it would also be nice if the South could stop being capitalized, kind of like internet. Though there is but one South, while there are many internets. Finally, god, myself and Michael Phillips know, though the Democrats seem intent to try to defy us on this one, hoping it isn't true, though soon they will come realize that truth, that only Southern Democrats can become president.

i'm a mad pimp and you know it

2005-05-24T11:41:00.000-04:00

Shankar has asked me to pimp his Super Excellent TK Giveaway Extravaganza™, so I'm asking my sole reader, Michael Phillips, to please enter.

note to self

2005-05-23T04:56:00.000-04:00

List of things to talk about:

backwards compatibility
what the new systems will push (home theater/broadband upgrades)
fuck casual/mainstream gamers (subset: Nintendo wants casual gamers - do they really exist? and if so, fuck them)

Discuss soon.
On tomorrow night's plate - fuck casual gamers.

Okay, so I'm putting it off one more night. But just one.

If no one noticed, I suffer from a disease called procrastination of the highest levels. Like Super AIDS - except Super Procrastination.

oh shits!

2005-05-23T04:48:00.000-04:00

According to this article (via Evil Avatar), Factor 5 (makers of Rogue Squadron and the not-yet-released-but -assuredly-too-amazing-for-words-and-highly-secretive Too Human) is only going to make games for the PS3.

Yet another loss of a great second party studio on the part of Nintendo, and again, exclusively into the hands of the enemy. I'm still bitter to no end about Rare, who created some of the best games put out for the N64, which definitely had its share of great games. Rather than having some vision, Nintendo instead looked to short term profit, and sold its 49% stake in the company, allowing it to be swallowed by Microsoft. Le sigh. It's Nintendo's loss, though, and not mine, ultimately, since I'll just be enjoying the fruits of Rare's labor on the 360, as opposed to the Revolution. And for that I hope PDZ sells more games than Halo.

Also of note in the article is the Nintendo-to-PS3 traitor. Why is this of note? Because his ranks are increasing. Nintendo increasingly seems wrapped up in its own little world, occasionally releasing things to hear the little bit of praise it needs to justify staying sheltered in its private Japanese cocoon.

e3 impressions (finally)

2005-05-23T04:03:00.000-04:00

Nintendo

Oh, why do you do this to me? In a way the most significant thing about E3 in terms of Nintendo is that they basically confirmed that they have no desire to compete against Sony and Microsoft. As long they stay profitable, they're perfectly okay with their third place status, which gripes my ass to no end. I know, deep down, that if Nintendo really felt like competing, and moreover, winning, the systems wars, they could. In a way, this says it all.

Still, let's pick this apart, from the top, starting with the Revolution. I'm not sure whether I find Nintendo's recent decidedly emphatic embrace of online gaming ironic, or outright deceitful. They've been saying for years they don't want to touch the market because it's simply not profitable (and we all know if Nintendo is obsessed with anything aside from "gameplay" it's profit). Yet now, both the DS and the Revolution are very much tied into online gaming. So option one is that they were simply lying about the profitability aspect, biding time until the online component could be done, and more importantly done well. (One thing that can be said about Nintendo, for all its mistakes, it doesn't release second rate products, at least in terms of reliability. For example, there's all kinds of shit out there about defective XBoxes and PS2's, but I've seen very little on beat out Cubes or N64s. Even the ghastly creature the Virtual Boy was a reliable product, though it might've been better if it had vaporized itself.) Or secondly, they've simply seen the light. I'm leaning towards deceit.

The Revolution, in a word, I like. It's small, sleek, and technically the greatest system ever made since it can play any Nintendo game ever made. It's definitely underpowered, merely double the power of the Cube, especially compared to its counterparts. Aside from the online aspects, rumors currently floating around include gyroscopic controllers (think Kirby's Tilt and Whirl) and new ways of projecting the game image (3D perhaps). Whether or not it'll be a revolution remains to be seen.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - awesome. The Zelda game that everyone has always wanted to play, and I can't wait, since I haven't touched my Cube in months; indeed, some months have passed with no releases at all, which doesn't bode well for the plastic box. If nothing else, the magic of Zelda is that it moves systems, and indeed come this fall, Cubes will be a movin'. Geist also looks decidedly cool, filling a definite void in the FPS department.

The DS, while I'm not a portable gamer, Mario Kart DS even has me intrigued with its online multiplayer component. The DS has sold double the number of PSPs and if the Mario Kart multiplayer comes off without a hitch, the gap will definitely widen, particularly as more games take advantage of it. Another GBA? Does anyone need one? No. Will people buy them? Probably. (Do I dislike IGN? Yes. Why do I link to them? Laziness/convenience.)

Microsoft

The Xbox 360 is ugly, like an Apple product gone horribly, horribly wrong. And I dislike the controllers, as they look like cheap third party ones for the regular Xbox. However, I do like that you can turn off the system from the controller, definitely a plus, as well as the addition of shoulder buttons, despite the lackluster ergonomics and aesthetics.

I do, however, like the 360. Microsoft has made an incredibly smart move in carving out this online niche for the system, maneuvering it to be the place for online gaming, when it can't compete against the PS3 directly specwise. Another smart move by Microsoft is actually having a decent library to back up its system. The major mistake with the Xbox, aside from its gargantuan size was the lack of a gaming library worth a shit at launch, and perhaps throughout the system's life. It has some great games, but not a hell of a lot of them. The 360 on the other hand is ramping things up, and has its shit together. Buying Rare was a solid play on MS's part, capitalizing on a strange misstep by Nintendo. Perfect Dark Zero looks fucking amazing and I can't wait to play it. Its predecessor on the N64 was one of the best games on the system, which is saying quite a lot. The only question I have about PDZ is the ability to host up to 64 players in a match at once. I question it because Halo 2, despite its great network setup by Bungie, lags like an absolute motherfucker when 16 people are hooked up in Big Team Battle, so I shudder at the thought of 64 people, and the potential of any one of those assholes lagging the whole game down. My thought, however, is that the next incarnation of Live is going to be even more streamlined and together than the currentone, which already is a great service, and has definitely set a model for online console gaming, moreso than the Dreamcast's service, hindered primarily by dial-up.

Also something to look forward to is Blue Dragon, the first collaboration from the creators of Chrono Trigger (one of the most celebrated RPGs of all time) since CT way back on the SNES, showing MS's commitment to building an excellent library, bringing on board Japanese studios in a major way to fill all the gaps.

The other major thing about the 360 is the fact that it's yet another step towards that box in the center of house that controls all of your media - movies, music, games, wtc. and streams it to wherever. I wrote a long treatise on this particular trajectory of Microsoft on the original WSN blog last year which I will attempt to dig out and throw up at some point.

Sony

The PS3's controller looks fucktarded. Well, it looks cool, but at the same time, it looks like a pain in the ass to hold and use. I suppose I'll see. The actual look of the system is kind of meh, and Nintendo wins the aesthetics contest hands down. I honestly wasn't a great fan of the PS2, with very few titles I wanted to get my hands on, which continues with the PS3. I will admit, however, I'm definitely impressed with the specs and the screens of some of the games I've seen, such as the new Killzone game, as well as shots of the Unreal 3 engine running on the PS3's hardware. My prediction? It'll again win the system wars in sales volume, though the 360 will put up a lot more fight than the Xbox did. Moreover, the 360 will run into the Ps2's problem, which is running behind in the juice department, which will become more apparent as the PS3's specs advantage really comes to bear in the next year or so, as programmers learn to adapt to its power, and in typical Playstation fashion, being a pain in the ass to write for.

I'll be putting more up later.

2005-05-21T17:55:00.000-04:00

My E3 reactions, including what the hell is up with Nintendo (for Mike Phillips) should be coming forth shortly, as well as a re-evaluation of the upcoming system wars, to the extent that I will be re-evaluating that stance. (Which isn't much.)

Also coming hopefully in the next month is a design overhaul. Really. I swear.

speech and the internets

2005-05-02T17:11:00.000-04:00

In light of a conversation with Shankar, I've decided to post a column that was spiked for being too similar to the one preceding it, about free speech and the internet. It's something I'm going to be developing extensively over time here on the blog, but these are my initial thoughts on the subject in the little bit of space WSN affords me.

I feel that after laying out some vague notions of what I believe the internet should be in terms of speech when I defended ISUskanks and its arguably objectionable content, it would be useful to sketch out a slightly more detailed vision, and some shallow sense of justifications for my objections to the regulation of speech on the internet, given the small space afforded me.

I generally detest the slippery slope style argument, so often gleefully spewed by demagogues on right and left, despite the large temptation here to make it, particularly as I grow more paranoid watching intrusions into (my perhaps woefully deluded vision of) the free space of the internet spring up like cracks in a dam. That said, regulation rarely, if ever, stops, much less rolls back, particularly pertaining to speech. While I’m not going that route and saying that child pornography regulation is tantamount to the eventual lockdown of the net, it has been used in its fair share of witch hunts, such as the MediaDefender issue I wrote about last year.

To be honest, part of me is tempted to say that even, in the spirit of completely free speech and some notion of a greater good in that, child pornography in terms of being able to post it (I am not condoning its creation in any way) should also be unregulated. The problem with completely unregulated speech is that ultimately harm will be incurred by individuals, and I’m not quite willing to sacrifice people up to some callous greater good. Rather, my argument for unregulated speech turns on the question of who has the right to regulate it?

What gives any group the, let’s call it moral superiority, since I believe it would come down to questions of morality ultimately, when drawing the lines around the freest of speech to determine what should remain unspoken? Here I suppose the religious right has an advantage in that they can claim a kind of moral superiority, or at least an absolute foundation for their moral vision, whereas a secularist morality is I think, framed in terms of harm caused to other people, and is therefore a relativist one, meaning it is open to interpretation, which is the problem in the first place. (Though I’m not saying secularists lack morals, I completely believe in morality without religiosity.) How can any group, no matter how large, really claim to possess the superiority necessary for it to determine the rules? What invalidates the views of the smaller group?

This unresolvable question is why speech should remain unregulated, at least in the space the internet creates, as I realize such is currently infeasible with newspaper and television, given private interests and the added difficulty or at least perception of such of avoiding unwanted content when it’s not subjected to specifically designated zones, a la websites, though arguments could be made to the contrary. However, I would love to see even less regulation with television and movies. A designated zone where anything goes seems to be an ideal compromise between regulated and unregulated speech. Providing a specifically marked off area where anything goes, however stupid it may in the face of a total lack of regulation balances the ability and what I believe should be the right to say what one will and the right of others to ignore that speech if they find it to be beyond a realm they’d like to encounter. One simply needs to avoid a website, and they can avoid they content they wish to, or at least that would be the ideal, once malicious techniques to force users to (typically porn) sites are largely mitigated.

I think no one country or group of countries really has the right to regulate a worldwide medium. That said, it’s better off in our hands than anyone else’s. Europe and Canada, often pinpointed as some sort of liberal paradise, have internet content laws that appall me with their levels of censorship. The idea of the United Nations trying to claim some right to horn in scares me more. China having a say in the way the internet is regulated? I don’t think so. This is increasingly becoming a threat as other countries begin to try to impose their own standards on sites and content hosted outside of their country, as Google well knows by now.

Of course, the problem arises of a slippery slope of too much free speech in the form of people relegating as much as possible to the realm of speech, meaning lines as to what “speech” is necessarily must be drawn, again creating a questions difficult to answer. The other problem is that “free speech sometimes silences speech.” My solution to this is simple, if somewhat idealistic in that rather than silencing some speech, instead the other speakers should simply speak up. The beauty of the internet is that provides a platform for them to do so, however marginalized they may be, or at least it should, precisely because it is, or should and can be such a space of absolute freedom.

the thinking behind the DS

2005-04-19T16:32:00.000-04:00

So I've been asked to extrapolate as to why Nintendo decided to put out its mediocre machine, the DS. I'm going to try to do this somewhat quickly.

For years, Nintendo dominated the console market. Then Sony thoroughly thrashed them with the PSX, despite the fact that N64 had a greater quantity of superior games in my opinion. Nintendo attributes its lagging position with the both N64 and the Cube to being too late to the market, allowing Sony a significant headstart on sales. There is a great deal of merit to this, at least in regards to the N64, which has to be the most delayed system in history. People were tired of waiting for their next gen system and PSX. Additionally, being branded a kid's gaming company didn't help. Of course, this is all a gross oversimplification, but it's the basic idea.

In any case, Nintendo feared Sony getting the jump on them yet again with the next gen handhelds, and felt they had to put out something. Moreover, given their new goals of simplified gaming, and changing gaming as we know it, a simply revamped and upgraded handheld wouldn't quite fit the bill. In theory, the DS is part of some grander plan to change gaming, but thus far it's proved to be mostly a gimmick, at least in my eyes. Nintendo undoubtedly knew of the PSP's superior specs, so making it underpowered goes along with their idea that gamers don't necessarily want better technology and graphics, but a fun experience. Thus far, the DS has actually sold better than the PSP, which received a somewhat more lackluster welcoming than many, including myself, predicted, and still had a fair amount of stock leftover at major retailers, something that wasn't true with the DS.

Personally, neither of them do much for me, but I've never really been in to portable gaming. I think the PSP will get a major boost when Final Fantasy Advent Children comes out; let's just hope Nintendo has something up its sleeve as well, but I'm not holding my breath, at least not for anything but the new Zelda game on Cube.

I'll deal with the Revolution and such later; for now, all I'll say is that Microsoft has its shit together when it comes to the online component to its system. Except for the fact THAT I CAN'T STAY FOR 10 MINUTES BEFORE I GET FUCKING BOOTED FROM LIVE. But the overall plans they have are interesting, as it looks like they're trying to carve out a specific niche as a response to the overwhelming power that the PS3 will supposedly wield, not only technically but in market share undoubtedly. Where the Revolution fits in... not even God knows what Nintendo's up to.

begin

2004-12-11T00:23:00.000-05:00

here we go