Daily News Spin — April 23, 2001 (Monday)

UO Porn: Hot...needful...dumb

Lum's site has a link to Redlow.net, which itself has a pretty funny collection of Ultima Online screenshots of a nudist colony where "hot chat" appears to be the order of the day. The screens have characters in their UO undies saying things to one another like the following:

Undine: buries her fingers into Leshy's hair, deepening their kiss...hot...needful....slips her hand down between Leshy's thighs, caressing her.....

Of course then a character named Tyler Durden comes into the nudist colony and shouts HEY! We were hoping to see a screenshot with Trevor, but apparently those didn't make the cut.

Wasn't there a country and western song about this? Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places?

nVidia drops price on GeForce cards

Avault has a news story about the price drop:

This includes a line of products ranging from 99 USD to 399 USD. nVidia�s new lineup starts in the value segment with the 32MB GeForce2 200 board at 99 USD. The 64MB GeForce2 400 at 129 USD and the 64MB GeForce2 Pro at 199 USD are geared toward the mainstream and performance segments. The lineup is completed with the 64MB DDR GeForce3 for as little as 399 USD...

Maybe if nVidia sells enough of those now $400 cards they'll be able to afford an uppercase N for their name. You know, for $400 you can buy a PS2 and a Dreamcast.

Sony Online registers tenth million user

Call them the Borg of the gaming world, because they're intent on assimilating you.

Sony Online Entertainment announced today that its premier online gaming website has reached the 10 million member mark. Since its launch on March 10th 1997, The Station(r) receives over one million daily unique users and continually acquires more than 64,000 registered new users per week making it one of the fastest growing online gaming destinations on the Internet.

The press release also mentions that EverQuest has 370.000 registered users, all of them necromancers or druids.

No more banging crazyballs! India targets mature gamers

The Times of India Online has a story about how "thinking games" are being targetted at older gamers in India.

With a mature target audience in the age group of 28-45 in mind, Indian gaming companies are taking the international cue and making shelf-space for thinking games which involve business strategy, building civilisations, running cities, laying war blueprints and role-playing games.

They call these thinking games, as against the `instant gratification games' that are thrill food for children, adolescents and teens who need constantly to shoot Nazi snipers or bang crazyballs to all corners of the screen.

As much as we'd like to play thinking games, how can we give up shooting Nazis? With crazyballs even! It's so instantly gratifying!

Sounds like Snow Crash

Remember the virtual world in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash? Seems like Adobe is trying to do something similar, according to this Toronto Star story.

On the line from corporate headquarters in California, they can hardly contain their excitement about entering Adobe's Atmosphere, an immersive world - a 3-D, computer-generated environment - that's also a chat line, that users enter through an avatar, an online, 3-D self.

``You can be a man, woman, mouse,'' says Dunal.

``You can explore a pyramid, or Stonehenge,'' says Smith. ``You can be totally anonymous,'' says Dunal.

``You can walk through these exotic worlds, see the interactivity among other people, participate if you want. There's a fish that's shy, a spider that bumps into you . . .''

...and a bunch of people who will be annoying, no doubt. Is there any evidence that there's a demand for this kind of online environment? Well, maybe if the put in Nazi snipers and crazyballs....

A dollop of the Ivy League in our games?

Some game companies are inviting Ivy League academics to lecture their game developers on the classics, according to this London Times story:

The developers hope that by reading Homer and Shakespeare they will learn how to introduce plot, character development and narrative tension to games. They also want to learn how to replicate memorable literary moments, such as Lady Macbeth scrubbing blood from her hands.

�We want to move away from traditional fight-or-flight games towards games with more sophisticated storylines with nuance and texture,� Jeff Brown, of Electronic Arts, one of the world�s leading games firms, said.

Here's the challenge EA has identified.

Electronic Arts hopes to learn how to merge the storytelling skills of classic writers with the involving action that makes gaming so addictive. The result, they say, will be a kind of post-modern digital narrative where the player is the chief protagonist.

�For thousands of years storytellers, with some exceptions, wrote linear narratives with a beginning, middle and end,� Mr Brown said. �Interactive entertainment is the first time that the author does not dictate the plot. The games will have to be scripted in a geometric pattern so the story can go off in a number of directions depending on what the player decides to do next.�

The article concludes with an interesting observation about violence in computer games.

Henry Jenkins, of MIT, said that the gratuitous violence in games has no emotional or narrative consequences. �All stories have violence. They become literature when blood-lust turns into something more meaningful, when the moral dilemmas of violence are explored.�

Professor Jenkins said that while games are addictive, few are emotionally compelling.

�I�ve never seen a computer game that made me cry.�

It's obvious that Professor Jenkins has never played the computer game version of Advanced Squad Leader.

Starsky and Hutch game in the works

Did we miss this announcement? Perhaps we've just suppressed it the way we've suppressed all memories of being abducted by aliens and participating in satanic rites as children.

In a story about Empire Interactives licensing of Renderware's toolkit it was mentioned that a Starsky and Hutch game for the PS2 and PC is in the works.

Empire is initially using RenderWare Graphics for the development of one internal and two third-party titles, which include Starsky and Hutch(TM). Based on the wildly popular '70s hit-TV show, Starsky and Hutch is being developed by Minds Eye for PlayStation(R) 2 and PC platforms. Empire has also secured worldwide co-publishing rights for the multi-platform game Antz(TM) Racing.

Can a Hee-Haw game be far behind?

Yo quiero Xbox

Microsoft and Taco Bell are teaming up to promote the Xbox, according to this Silicon Valley.com story.

The Taco Bell deal, to be announced Monday, calls for the nation's No. 1 Mexican-style fast-food chain to promote Xbox to 35 million weekly customers at 6,800 restaurants in the United States and Canada.

What is behind this unholy alliance? Marketing demographics, of course!

Microsoft will play catch-up [to Sony] by applying the hard sell to the 16- to 26-year-old, hard-core male gamers who determine what's hot and what's not. After the first year, the company will target more female players. ``This is a long-term investment for Microsoft. You can't go in small,'' O'Rourke [vice president of Xbox sales and marketing] says.

Males 18 to 34 are Taco Bell's biggest customer group, Myers [vice president of licensing for Taco Bell] says. Taco Bell will run ads to support the launch and stage in-store promotions.

This is great. If the Xbox fails, then the Xbox teams who will be fired by Bill Gates can all get jobs at Taco Bell.

O'Rourke, we asked for extra hot sauce with our gordita! Get on the ball, man!

Theglobe.com delisted

Excite has reposted a Business Wire story about theglobe.com's stock moving from NASDAQ to an over the counter trading board.

"While the online advertising market is currently in a downturn, our nationwide sales force continues to work diligently to attract leading consumer brands as advertisers on theglobe.com network, capitalizing on our competitive positioning," Peck [theglobe.com's CEO] added. "We believe that the combination of this diligent sales effort and our recent cost-reduction initiatives have positioned theglobe.com to outlast the current market downturn and ultimately prosper when the market rebounds."

The real effect of the delisting is that it makes it much more difficult for theglobe.com to raise money through sales of stock. Theglobe.com is the parent company of Computer Games Magazine, Happy Puppy, Games Domain Review, and Computer Games Online.

The end of Bleemcast?

Eurogamer has an article detailing Bleem's new business scheme, which smacks of desperation. Instead of offering PlayStation emulation for a wide range of games or our PCs, they are going to sell CDs for $5.95 that allow for the emulation of just a single game. In other words, you'll have to buy the original game CD and then spend another $6 for the Bleem emulation, and this to play last-generation console games.

We don't know. Maybe this is a brilliant scheme. If you just want to play a PSX game now and then on your PC, it's cheaper this way. We're dubious, however.

Update: Bleemcast is probably the wrong word to use, as that refers to a Dreamcast emulation in the works that will allow the play of PSX games on the Dreamcast.

Infogrames cancels Em@il games

This kind of sucks. Infogrames is shutting down their server for the line of email games, which includes the nifty X-COM game. After May 1st, you simply won't be able to play these games anymore because the turns have to go through the Infogrames server.

We talked to Infogrames and there seems to be no alternative solution to keeping the games viable. The games are hardcoded to use the official server and a patch to just allow players to send one another their turns isn't possible.

We've learned a lesson here. Be wary of buying multiplayer-only games that rely on the support of the game company to function.

Fallout Tactics disemboweled

Gamasutra has one of their post-mortem looks at Fallout Tactics, this one written by Micro Forte's Tony Oakden. Here's a little bit about what went wrong:

The game's design goals were another, more serious problem. When I joined the project I had the distinct impression that the game was going to be a turn-based RPG. As the game progressed, it became clear that this was not the case, and we started to move farther into the world of tactical combat and ultimately to real-time gameplay. The situation finally became intolerable in August 2000, when we attempted to produce our first single-player demo. The game absolutely stunk! It was obvious to all who played the game that this just was not working and at this point Brian Christian phoned my CEO and told him that the game did not play.

Our CEO stepped in and worked with us to help define what the game was actually about: tactics. He worked with our lead designer in defining key tactical elements that a level designer could pick and chose from in order to help design interesting tactical situations. We realized that the RPG element had to be peripheral to the game, and we concentrated instead on setting up carefully designed tactical situations for the player to solve. We started with just the opening section from the second demo mission and worked on that until it was fun to play. We gradually expanded this to the whole level. Over a period of a few weeks, we were able to turn the demo into a fun experience. By the end of August we had a finished level that was great fun and challenging to play. But the cost was further delays in the release date.

Interesting that it started out as a turn-based RPG, or at least that Micro Forte thought that was what it was supposed to be.

CIA Operative screenshots

This is kind of interesting. Stomped has four screenshots of a new game from 2015, the people who made Laser Arena. Here's the blurb about this upcoming value-priced CIA game:

In CIA Operative the player is an elite government agent whose mission is to protect the USA's interests abroad. This Quake powered shooter takes the player to various hotspots around the world to assassinate drug lords, eliminate unsanctioned weapon stockpiles, and destroy staging points for illicit substances that if unchecked would poison the youth of America. All must be done without sullying the image of the world's only super power.

What's interesting is that the game is using the Quake 1 engine, yet the screenshots look extremely good. Here's a link to one, another, the third, and the fourth. How'd they make them look so good?

FTC cites progress for game industry

According to the LA Times the FTC will issue a report that both slams the music industry and gives a grudging nod to the movie and videogame industry over regulating adult content.

A much anticipated sequel to last year's scathing Federal Trade Commission report on the marketing of violent entertainment to children is expected to single out the recording industry for failing to respond to federal officials' recommendations.

The film and video game industries are said to have shown some progress but have not completely ceased the marketing of inappropriate material to children, according to industry sources familiar with briefings given to congressional aides.

Senator Leiberman is still making noise about enacting legislation that will penalize the industry for lack of enforcement of their guidelines. Too bad they can't legislate responsible parenting.

Columbine-related lawsuit fired

The Denver Post is reporting that the family of a slain teacher at Columbine has filed a lawsuit naming a number of entertainment companies as defendants.

Just hours after many Columbine victims settled legal claims against the parents of the shooters, two other families sent strong messages to the violence-filled media that they say made Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold more willing and efficient killers.

Linda Sanders, wife of slain teacher Dave Sanders, and two of his stepdaughters filed a multibillion-dollar, class-action lawsuit Thursday against 25 media companies, most of which manufacture or distribute video games.

In a related matter in the same story, another parent sent a letter to John Carmack demanding that he stop selling violent games to minors.

Dale Todd, Evan's father, said he hooked up with Thompson through research he did on violent video games. He even obtained a copy of "Doom" and played it himself. He was appalled.

Then he asked Thompson to write Carmack a letter, "just to let him know we're on his trail." Although he doubts the software icon will change his ways, Todd said he may consider other options.

Appalled by Doom? Can't they pick on Dungeons and Dragons or something?

3am

We had a reader write us and ask that our links spawn new windows instead of just, you know, not doing that. If you're using IE, you can always spawn a new window by pressing and holding the Shift key when you click on a link. Netscape probably has a similar feature, but we don't know how to invoke it.

It's the birthday of the sweet swan of Avon, William Shakespeare, author of many fabulous editions of Cliff Notes. Out, out brief candle, and enjoy your birthday cake, Will!

Update: We've been informed that if you use Netscape you can right-click on a link to get a menu choice that will spawn a new window. We love our Gentle Readers. It's the Angry Readers we could do without.

Click here to read Friday's news

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