Category: Gaming

Any gaming post.

PBS’ History of Gaming

In case you forgot or haven’t picked up on it from other postings on the site, I’m a gamer.  Currently, I’m hooked on City of Heroes, but I veer off on other paths on occasion, and like to try plenty of other genres.  I especially like the whole retro scene.  I still like playing a lot of those old games – thank heaven for MAME.  With that in mind, this PBS history of gaming site caught my eye.  I’m still working through reading it, but it’s pretty neat.

Over the past 30 years, video games have become an integral part of our culture, and the video game industry has become a multi-billion dollar behemoth. Follow the journey of video games from university laboratories to our living rooms.

The site has an interactive timeline of gaming, a retro corner for downloads (wallpapers and other miscellany), and a listing of some of the best and worst games of all times.
[tags]PBS, History of gaming, retro gaming[/tags]

Creative combination of Zelda and Pac-Man

(via Aeropause via 4 Color Rebellion)

zelpac.jpg

Some genius took Zelda and Pac-Man, mixed them up in a magical mixing bowl, and baked it up reaaaaallllll goodly. The result is the clever and delightful, umm, well, it has no short name, but the long name is “The Legend of Zelda: The Collecting of Pills”

If you are into gaming, you really need to check it out.

[tags]Zelda, Pac-Man, retro gaming[/tags]

Nintendo Revolution to emulate Genesis and TurboGraphx-16

(via TechEBlog)
I hope this DailyTech posting is true.  I love my TG-16.  There were some great games made for that system.  Too bad the company (NEC) didn’t support the system – like so many other failed technologies, it was better than the competitors at the time.

Nintendo of America, Inc.’s, President Satoru Iwata announced that his company’s new gaming console, the Nintendo Revolution, would support not only all NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 games, but also Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16 games by way of emulators.

[tags]Revolution, Nintendo, TG-16, Genesis[/tags]

Half-Life 2: Episode 1 delayed

OK, is anyone surprised?  I mean, we are talking about Valve, after all.  And speaking of Valve, has anyone seen Team Fortress 2 yet?   🙂

Half-Life 2: Episode One is now due out on May 31st according to Valve, although it’ll still launch simultaneously on Steam and at retail, priced $19.99.

Speaking to Game Informer at GDC last week, marketing director Doug Lombardi confirmed the slip – Valve had previously been targeting an April 24th launch.

[tags]Half-Life 2, HL2, Valve[/tags]

MAKE blog link dump

As I’ve done before, I’ve gotten behind on reading and posting all kinds of interesting content out there. In an effort to catch up, I’m making a large link-dump style posting instead of putting each of these in their own article. The following links/stories are all from recent MAKEzine blog posts.

  • Run an NES emulator on your XBox 360 via MCE.Xexter in the Maxconsole forums figured out how to run a NES emulator on an Xbox 360 using a Media Center, no sound – but the games run at full speed, nice! – “Found a way to add a menu for the roms list so you will have to edit the nes.htm and change to whatever Nes rom you want to play. I’ve included a Public Domain rom for testing but have verified Zelda1-2, Excitebike, and TecmoBowl and all worked.”
  • Learn HOW-TO use an oscilliscope“An oscilloscope is easily the most useful instrument available for testing circuits because it allows you to see the signals at different points in the circuit. The best way of investigating an electronic system is to monitor signals at the input and output of each system block, checking that each block is operating as expected and is correctly linked to the next. With a little practice, you will be able to find and correct faults quickly and accurately.”
  • Stop-motion video via LEGO bricksCalazon Enterprises made a fun stop motion LEGO movie, with an unhappy ending for a frog. When will the frog abuse craze end?
  • LEGO soccer arenaAs stated on the MAKE blog: “What you’re looking at isn’t an arena filled with thousands of people, it’s an insanely detailed arena, made out of LEGO.”lego-arena2.jpg

    lego-arena1.jpg

  • Another LEGO PCThis is not unique. But at the same time, LEGO PCs are not very common. Being in to case mods, I always enjoy seeing these.

    legopc-1.jpg

  • How hearing aids are made
  • Make your own projector
  • Build your own generator“The key to this design is that it will require a horizontal shaft motor, which can be found on old drum style lawnmowers, roto-tillers, and lawn edgers. The most common motor size you will find on the used market will be a 3 or 3.5 horse power model. Larger motors are harder to find because most of them are snapped up for building go-carts or mini bikes. “
  • Build a plexiglass PC casePlexi-PC1.jpg

[tags]MAKEzine, MAKE blog, DIY projects[/tags]

One key gaming

Reading the latest issue of PCGamer, I was reminded of an experiment initiated with the intention of giving more people with physical handicaps and disabilities the option to play games. The end result of this experiment is a set of games which are playable with only a single key. As surprising as this might sound to some gamers, these are some good games, and they can be surprisingly challenging and engaging. If you want to try some of these out, start with these listed in the April 2006 issue of PCGamer.

  1. Oneswitch Ballz – Simply enough, you just have to control a ball travelling a path. The spacebar makes the ball jump. The challenge comes in when you start hitting floor tiles that change your direction, speed, and even the height of your jump.
  2. Mini-Golf One Button Style – As the name implies, this is mini-golf played with a single key. As with any other mini-golf game, you just need to try to sink the putt. In this game, though, you only have one key to press to set the direction of travel and the force of the hit. This is actually the first game in the one-button set of games that I ever heard about.
  3. 1Key Case Ship – You control a space ship travelling in this side-scrolling cave traversal game. Pressing your key makes the ship go up. Releasing it stops the upward force until gravity pulls the ship back down. It sounds easy, but it can be very tough to avoid crashing.
  4. Strange Attractors – You turn your “gravity drive” on and off with a key-press. When it is on, you are pulled towards celestial objects. When it is off, you free-float along the trajectory gained from gravity. Your goal is the exit gate on the other side of the screen.
  5. Shades of Doom – Described in PCGamer as a non-graphical first-person shooter, in Shades of Doom you are blind. Try this out and see how well you do when you have to rely on sounds.

EDIT: I forgot to mention in the original post, but if you enjoy these and want to see more one-key games, hit the OneSwitch site.
[tags]One-key gaming, games[/tags]

Metareview of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach

This directly from Joystiq.  I want to make some comments here, too.  I want to try DDO:Stormreach.  I’m a longtime D&D gamer, and the thought of teaming online with hopefully easy to assemble teams sounds promising.  But I can’t handle the thought of an MMO with almost no single-player content and no reward until quest completion.

I know, MMO is massively multi-player, which many people assumes means you have to team.  But I don’t always have the time to wait during team building and then run a full mission/quest.  In DDO:Stormreach, you don’t get experience until the end of the mission.  That means if I can’t commit to an hour or two, I can’t advance.  If I wait for team building, I could easily eat up 30+ minutes of my play time.  If the mission takes an hour, I’m usually over my gametime budget then.  In DDO:Stormreach, that means I gain nothing.

So DDO:Stormreach is clearly not built for a casual gamer like me.  I had a similar problem with Diablo II when it came out.  Sometimes, I can go days or weeks with no more than 10-15 minutes play time at any time.  In Diablo II, that meant I couldn’t finish the game (and often couldn’t even complete some quests or reach certain checkpoints) until I have a long block of game time available.  In DDO:Stormreach that means I shouldn’t even start the game unless I have a long block of time.  In Diablo II, at least I earned experience for my game time, so I made some progress in my limited time in game.

Now, having said that, let’s just see a quick blip of what Joystiq showed in their metareview:

Hit the links for more details, and be sure to read the full Joystiq article for their comments, as well.

[tags]DDO, DDO:Stormreach, MMORPG, Dungeons and Dragons Online[/tags]

Game Informer’s top 10 games you’ve never heard of – April 2006

I date this, because plenty of gaming magazines have a top X list of games you’ve never played/heard of.  Beyond Good and Evil was on a number of such lists a few years back.  I’ve heard of some of these games, and even played a few.  But I’ve never heard of some of them.  Game Informer is a great magazine.  Generally, their recommendations are on the mark.  Check these out.

  1. Soldat – A little hard to describe.  A platform-view shooter.  Verrrrry popular.
  2. FAÇADE – Described as “interactive drama” in the magazine.  You guide the interactions between the primary characters and determine the story’s outcome.
  3. Ocular Ink – Play out the story of a detached eyeball armed with a paintbrush.  Bizarre sounding, but it looks really good.
  4. Runescape – A Java-based MMORPG.  You play this in your browser.  This game is closing in on 200,000 players.
  5. Narbacular Drop – An action/puzzle game from Nuclear Monkey Software.  Navigate the main character through a series of increasingly complex 3D levels using unique transport capabilities.  Just check it out.
  6. Cloud – This is described as a calming, dreamlike game with an ecological consciousness.  It’s also described as Zen-like, but I hate to use the term, given how often that’s used.
  7. N – Something like a combination of Lode Runner and Pac Man.  Nagivate levels collection pellets while moving through labyrinthine layouts, switches, and jump pads.
  8. Street Bike Fury – Think Excitebike with guns, no hills, and massive explosions.  How could you possibly pass this up?
  9. Epoch Star – A top-down space shooter (a la asteroids or Star Control) with upgrades and an economics system
  10. Stinkoman 20×6 – An old school, side-scrolling platformer.

[tags]Games, Game Informer, Games you missed[/tags]

Better lighting for better gaming

(via Joystiq)

A British company, Geomerics, has published some information on their work with geometric algebra which apparently will lead to better lighting, and therefore improved visual realism in gaming.  Certainly of no interest to most of the world’s population, but a big w00t announcement for many gamers.  Gameplay is what matters, sure, but improved visuals are almost always welcome, too.

Currently, lighting in games is a toss-up between three elements: in real life, light often changes position (e.g. as the sun moves across the sky); objects cast shadows, which are often quite subtle; and depending on your viewpoint, you can sometimes see light sources reflected in other objects. The usual method is to pre-calculate the shadows in a scene and paint them on the ground, but this means the light source must stay fixed. Thanks to next-gen computing power, spherical harmonic lighting can be used to generate soft, lifelike shadows from moving light sources, but without any of the shiny surface effects that complete the picture and add realism.

[tags]Gaming, Geomerics, Geometric Algebra[/tags]