Electronic Arts has posted the names of the games whose online functionality will be cut off this year. The page is called “Online Service Updates”, which is one hell of a euphemism. That’s like listing the casualties in a war and calling them “Order of Battle Updates”. As I read up the list of impending demises, it’s mostly sports games, so I couldn’t care less. Besides, don’t they keep cycling in new sports games? I mean, it’s understandable that they’d cut off support for Tiger Woods Football ’08 so that you’d buy Tiger Woods Football ’09. Lame, but understandable. But then I come to something not unlike a punch to the stomach.
I’ve watched my share of Starcraft II replay commentaries. It’s the closest I’ve come to actually enjoying a sporting event. But I find the above commentary, co-narrated by a dude and his four-year-old daughter, really encouraging for a couple of reasons.
First, because it teaches good scouting habits. “I see something!” is the hallmark of an observant player. I was in a game the other day with the sound turned down, and I had one of those War of the Worlds walker things rampaging through my base without me even noticing. Lame, huh? I could have used this girl’s scouting acumen.
Also, she and I have the exact same reaction when Mutalisks show up. I also make that noise you hear at the 7:41 mark.
Finally, what a great lesson on the mid-game, which is where I tend to fall apart: “I have a secret for you. There’s more and more and more and more and more.” Now there’s a mantra for good macro. Four-years-old and she’s already got a better handle on the game than I do.
What’s really encouraging about this video — aside from it being so darn cute — is that this girl is going to grow up with Starcraft II. In 20 years, there might actually be women playing RTSs.
I’m on my second playthrough of Alpha Protocol, opting for the role of jerkwad with a lot of points in his shotgun skill. It seems that no matter what you do in the game, the plot calls for you to take Madison Saint James (pictured, right) into your safehouse in Rome, where I presume she eats your food, reads your magazines, watches your TV, and lolls about on your couch. Since I’m a jerkwad in this playthrough, she doesn’t like me. So when I initiate a conversation, it goes like this.
Madison Saint James: “Asshole.”
Mike Thornton: “Bitch.”
My favorite thing about the conversation is how the characters speak under their breath. I’m going to miss her when — spoiler! — she’s gone.
In The Hive, some dudes suit up (pictured) and shoot a blue laser gun at killer ants from outer space attacking a Third World country where it’s really cheap to shoot a low budget movie. During an early scene, as the dudes sally forth to zap ants, someone proclaims, “Okay people, let’s liquify some endoskeletons!”
Now I’m no ant-ologist, but I did take two years of Latin in high school. So I know that an endoskeleton is something on the inside, like people have. Ants, on the other hand, are bugs and therefore have skeletons on the outside. Exoskeletons. It probably takes about a hundred people to make a movie like this, yet none of them knew the difference between endo- and exo-? “Okay people, let’s liquify some endoskeletons!” made it all the way through production, and then all the way through post-production where someone could have dubbed in the correct syllable?
But that’s not the best line in the movie. That comes during the scene when an exposition man is explaining the situation. People are being massacred by ants! “Ants killing humans in large numbers is almost unheard of,” one of the ant killing dudes observes sagely.
Almost unheard of. Because we’ve all heard of the Great Ant Massacre of Borneo back in 1984, when ants did kill humans in large numbers. I believe upwards of 1,000 humans were killed by the ants. But other than that, the guy in the movie is right. Ants killing humans in large numbers is almost unheard of.
Electronic Arts has posted the names of the games whose online functionality will be cut off this year. The page is called “Online Service Updates”, which is one hell of a euphemism. That’s like listing the casualties in a war and calling them “Order of Battle Updates”. As I read up the list of impending demises, it’s mostly sports games, so I couldn’t care less. Besides, don’t they keep cycling in new sports games? I mean, it’s understandable that they’d cut off support for Tiger Woods Football ’08 so that you’d buy Tiger Woods Football ’09. Lame, but understandable. But then I come to something not unlike a punch to the stomach.
