Madison Avenue loves Kinect and Xbox One. At least, that’s what Microsoft hopes will happen. According to Time, Microsoft’s marketing head Yusef Mehdi, was speaking to a conference of advertising professionals and told them that the new console could be the “holy grail” of how marketers can “understand the consumer in that 360 degrees of their life.” Having already taken fire over Kinect’s privacy issues, Microsoft’s PR machine moved to quell concerns.
“We do not have plans to target ads or content to you based on any data Kinect collects. We have a long-standing commitment to your privacy and will not target ads to you based on any data Kinect collects unless you choose to allow us to do so.”
Choose to allow us? Meaning, yes. Microsoft will use data collected by Kinect to target advertising. Maybe you’ll have to opt in, but I doubt it. I rather think the opt out will be buried in a 5,000 word user agreement. I can’t wait to see the ads I get after sitting on my couch in my bathrobe.
Hello, my name is Brian Rubin, and I’m a space gameaholic (Hi Brian!). I’ve had a love affair with space gaming ever since playing Lunar Lander using a freaking cassette tape on a Radio Shack TRS-80. For the top ten videogame spaceships, I’ve first of all chosen more than ten, because there’s no way there are only ten. To pick the most historic and memorable ships, you need at least 11 slots. And since I’ve mostly played computer games, Star Fox isn’t on here.
After the jump, the top ten (or so) that aren’t Star Fox Continue reading →
These guys are the EXALT. Dapper looking gents they may be, but the’re not your frineds. They are a secret group of sleeper agents in XCOM: Enemy Within that will battle against players’ XCOM troops. In a preview published at Polygon, it was revealed that this new enemy faction will feature human traitors that side with the alien invasion. The EXALT will compete with players for xeno technology, hack into XCOM computers to steal funds, and stir up panic levels in territories. Players will need to battle the EXALT across the globe until they can hunt down and eradicate the main base of turncoats. I’d advise looking for a large concentration of guys that look like they stepped out of Boardwalk Empire holding xeno weapons.
Push back at the alien menace or go after the dirty traitors? I choose the path of Vichy France and capitulate. Being a Sectoid dataslave can’t be all bad.
This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone … Mayday, Mayday … we are under attack … main drive is gone … turret number one not responding … Mayday … losing cabin pressure fast … calling anyone … please help … this is Free Trader Beowulf … Mayday …
–cover of the original Traveller game box
One of my favorite books as a child was this oversize picture book called Space Wars Worlds and Weapons. It’s basically just a big book of paintings of science fiction stuff: aliens, planets, and lots of spaceships. There is some desultory text trying to tie these themes together, but it’s really all about the pictures.
The book starts out with a section on “space vehicles,” and the text quickly bogs down.
However you call it — star ship, rocket ship, space machine — the space ship is the foremost, some would say ultimate, sf symbol. If science fiction is all about other worlds, then the space ship is a part of that other-worldliness, connecting solar systems and universes … the public transportation factor.
After the jump, space fare Continue reading →
Chris: Witchfinder General is a sprawling, messy, clumsy, overreaching mess of a movie. In any conventional sense, it isn’t a horror film, either. I suspect that any moment Tom will be along to rip this odd, awkward movie to shreds, as he should. By empirical standards, this is a terrible movie. But I love it.
After the jump, you rang? Continue reading →
Playing the bounteous Fall from Heaven mods for Civilization IV was a steady progression of “I can’t believe they even put this in here!” moments. But it wasn’t enough to come up with crazily imaginative factions, game bending concepts, and so many revised and refined rules that you forgot you were playing a variation on Civilization. Creator Derek Paxton even built into Fall from Heaven a deck building game called Somnium. You could play against the other factions for a diplomacy bonus or penalty, depending on how well you did. It was simple but hearty. It was the sort of thing you wished you could get for your tabletop. Or, years later, your iPad.
After the jump, it’s years later Continue reading →
The USCSS Nostromo was a starfreighter, not a starfighter or even a cruiser. It was nothing but a space tugboat, used to push loads of cargo between the stars. It just goes to show you that you can’t judge a ship by its looks, because the Nostromo may not have been much to look at, but it served one of the most important roles in Alien, acting as a floating Amityville Horror, Camp Crystal Lake, and 45 Lampkin Lane all in one. Alien was basically a slasher film in space. While it’s true that in space, no one can hear you scream, no one can run away either. The Nostromo’s oppressive blend of cramped quarters, hissing steam valves, dripping pipes, and cat hidey-holes made it as much of a character and as much of a scare generator as the xenomorph that roamed its halls.
It also featured killer dinner entertainment.
Crytek has some female combatants in Warface. Check out that combat-ready armor. Looks practical. It’s not like anyone shoots at center mass, right? Joshua Howard, executive producer on Warface, told Wired that the eyebrow-raising female fighters were made “unrealistic” in response to feedback from players in specific geographic regions. The Russian version (depicted above) is sexualized differently from the version made for gamers in China.
“We leaned a little Russian in these characters but we’re doing another set of characters for our Chinese market, for example, and those are leaning in a different direction. It’s interesting to see they are also somewhat unrealistic as compared to the males but differently than the Russians. […] You look at the Chinese models and they’re also disproportionate but in a way that’s more… Chinese? I don’t even know what language to use for that but they’re different.”
Joshua Howard points out later in the same interview that weapon recoil is adjusted for regional preferences just like the females. Russians like more recoil, while Chinese players wanted less. I guess Russians just want more of everything except for women to survive in firefights.
Having played a good bit of XCom when it was released, I had moved on to whatever else came out that month and set it aside with a promise to return. Since that time, though, the game has changed a bit for the better. You can now change basic options like having your units automatically pick a class type instead of you having complete control or making the weapons do a dice roll for damage instead of static damage every time.
After the jump, I am ironman Continue reading →
There’s one last element to the scenario — a huge Titan bearing down on a space colony — I didn’t mention yesterday, and that is that the space lords have sent us a relief force!
Roll one die at the beginning of the End/Repair Phase and record a running total. When the total is equal to or greater than 12, the TDF player receives reinforcements (BCH, BC, CA x4) within 2 hexes of (E). This happens once per game.
Oh but it’s not here, yet.
After the jump, I’m sure it will arrive any minute. Continue reading →
Mad Catz, manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessory hardware, is launching its own Android gaming console. The M.O.J.O. micro-console enters the same crowded market as the Ouya, Nvidia Shield, Gamestick, and every other media device that ships with an Android operating system. Mad Catz aims to differentiate the M.O.J.O. by touting its open market (Amazon, Google Play, TegraZone, and other storefronts will be allowed) as well as the Tegra 4 1.8GHz mobile processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage.
The wireless Bluetooth C.T.R.L.r controller is designed to work as a normal gamepad for the M.O.J.O. and can be used in “mouse mode” for on-screen navigation. You can also pair it to your mobile device to turn your phone into a super-micro-console.
The M.O.J.O. is $249.99 and can be preordered now. The micro-console will launch on December 10th. Maybe by then, Mad Catz will explain what M.O.J.O. stands for.
The Xbox 360 version of State of Decay is getting an expansion by the end of October. Undead Labs’ studio head Jeff Strain posted the status of Breakdown, the hardcore perma-death DLC. Strain explained that the expansion will be in quality assurance testing at Microsoft for the next week. Assuming no critical errors need to be addressed, certification can be issued, and the DLC will be published by the end of the month.
Breakdown adds ramping difficulty to the basic game, making things more challenging for players as they move through the game. Zombies hit harder, special zombies are more frequent, and stamina takes more of a toll on basic combat. An update to State of Decay will balance supply issues for all players, whether they purchase the DLC or not.
When we update the game to support Breakdown, everyone will get our updated resource system, which is designed to make scavenging fairer and more consistent across every player’s experience. As an added bonus, when you play Breakdown, the new system allows us to slowly drain out some of the Resources and items as difficulty increases.
Undead Labs will be showing off Breakdown today at 11:00 AM PST on the official Microsoft Twitch channel.
Tom: Although you can see kernels of zombie mythology in other sources, no single source is as influential as Night of the Living Dead. This is a movie that basically assembled an entire mythology. The shambling, the cannibalism, the undeath, the headshots, the child zombie, the confused newscasts, the asshole survivor undermining the group, the procedural elements of scavenging and barricading a house, the turning of infected victims, the relentless numbers, the misguided military response, the inevitable overrun, the merciless nihilism, the end of the world. It’s all here, fully formed, waiting to be aped. The only thing that never really caught on was flaming chairs kicked out of front doors as a tactic against besieging zombies.
But the beauty of Night of the Living Dead is that it’s not setting out for anything quite so grandiose as the foundation of a mythology. Instead, it’s mostly a parlor room drama, about the interaction of a handful of characters under duress. It could easily be a stage play.
After the jump, in the beginning, there was Night Continue reading →
Now we know that next-gen is really here. The recommended minimum PC specifications for Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs elicited little more than a pause because most PC gamers assumed that all the open-world razzle-dazzle would require some decent hardware to back it up. The PC specifications for Call of Duty: Ghosts indicate what many of us have anticipated. Next-gen games may require PC upgrades.
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHZ / AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHZ or better
RAM: 6 GB RAM
HDD: 50 GB HD space
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti / ATI Radeon HD 5870 or better
Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
DirectX: 11
Recommended: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
Goodbye 4GB of RAM and 32-bit Windows! People scooting along at the low-end of Steam’s hardware survey better start making upgrade lists or hope to get a Steam Machine.
The Gunstar from The Last Starfighter is an amazing craft, fitted with several lasers, a proton beam, and several banks of photon bolts. It has been known to win desperate battles against incredible odds. Its tandem control system allows a navigator to pilot and maintain the craft while the starfighter focuses on delivering the formidable weaponry. One Gunstar in particular was fitted with a prototype weapon known as Death Blossom. In the battle for Rylos against the Ko-Dan Armada, it eliminated what was left of the Armada’s fighter compliment. The ship is still used as a front line fighter in protecting the frontier to this day.
Or so I’d like to imagine.
