Daily News Spin — August 25, 2001 (Saturday)

Salon on Max Payne

They love it, they really love it!

Interwoven with a realistic, compelling story, a postmodernist's sense of ironic wit and, even more startling, a strong moral tone, Max Payne is the kind of shooter that most gamers have been avoiding for years....if the initial sales deluge holds up, Max Payne may be the one that finally advances the genre, and our expectations for it -- and in the process, it may be the game that finally forces the industry to grow up.

Here's the link to the Salon review.

Are you an otaku nerd?

Well, are you? The Daily Yomiuri looks at the Final Fantasy phenomena in Japan.

"Some people think those who play computer games are otaku nerds," says Rave, a 27-year-old systems engineer from Chiba. "But someone who's never played a role-playing game (RPG) can't understand the feeling of elation that can be savored with an RPG."

Rave (not his real name) is into Final Fantasy, the computer RPG series that has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide since 1987. Rave has an elaborate Web site packed with information, analysis and strategy relating to the series and is currently playing the latest version of the game, Final Fantasy X, for the fifth time. This is no mean feat given that first time around, it took him 56 hours to complete the game, which only came out on July 19.

Five times in little over a month? Nah, he's not a nerd...he's a nut!

Houston Chronicle pans Majestic

Looks like it was too irritating:

When I was on deadline; meeting with my boss; gathering information on the phone; collaborating with co-workers ... Majestic was relentless. Either the AIM window would pop up with an automated message from one of the game's characters, or the Majestic program would start flashing in Windows' system tray.

To add to the bombardment, the Majestic application gives access to other people who are playing the game, usually at the same level as you. Supposedly, you help each other with clues, but because you're at the same point in the game, no one gives too much away.

I received frequent instant messages from people asking for help in the game -- and at one point, I went to get help from others as well. They seemed irritated about being bothered, and I didn't blame them.

The review's here.

Spielberg + Unreal Tournament = A.I.

We're not sure if this is a recommendation for the game or not, but some sets were mocked up with Unreal so that Spielberg could storyboard scenes. Film and Video Magazine has the story.

But even before Spielberg confronted the massive bluescreen, he had a pretty good idea what his set was going to look like thanks to a novel approach to storyboarding. The same artist that put together the rough composites for the virtual set, also generated a version of the Rouge City world for the 3-D virtual reality video game �Unreal Tournament.�

�It�s a just a regular shoot-em-up game, but the nice thing about it is it gives you the engine to make your own mapping so you can make your own world,� explained Muren [A.I.'s visual effects supervisor]. �The resolution on this stuff is great. It looks gamey, but the idea that the resolution doesn�t hold up and it doesn�t refresh fast enough, that�s not true anymore. It�s really great what you can do just on a laptop. We had it working on a Powebook and on a Compac laptop. It takes it out of your mind�s eye and puts it down there where you can actually look at it, which is really the way that artist should be able to work.�

ILM [Industrial Light and Magic] also added the ability to pick camera lenses to the �Unreal Tournament� engine �We had all the lenses that we were used to. And we were able to record the moves so Stephen actually sat there on the set before we were shooting and fiddled around with his Powerbook on his lap.�

�In your head you start understanding, �oh yeah, two miles over there I see that building and a quarter of a mile over here I see that building and it�s a lot taller than I thought it was going to be. He became familiar with the relationship between everything, so that a week later, when [he was] on the real set, he already was comfortable. He had already done his walkthrough and now he was walking onto his real bluescreen set,� said Muren adding that Spielberg �very quickly picked up on how to move the camera around based on all the �Unreal Tournament� keyboard strokes� it�s obvious he played the game a lot. He just got right into it.�

We spotted this news item on Eurogamer.

The winos at id

These guys are going to give gamers a bad name! Eurogamer has the story:

...an article in Wine Spectator reveals that CEO Todd Hollenshead and designer Tim Willits have an unexpected interest in vintage wines. Tim has apparently drawn up plans for a 2000 bottle temperature controlled wine cellar between designing levels for the new Doom, and the pair can be seen shopping together and meeting friends to "trade wine tips [and] dine out".

Not the kind of activity you would expect from an industry best known for the consumption of vast quantities of Mountain Dew and stale pizza. "Wine is almost the antithesis of video-game production", Todd admits. "That's why I enjoy the opportunity to contemplate the historical aspect of individual harvests, the nature of viticulture and its impact on people's lives. Wine collecting is an ever-evolving process. You're always learning something new."

We had some viticulture once, but it's nothing that a quick shot of penicillin in the ass can't clear up!

Australia is cool

At least one Attorney General in Australia has a little common sense, according to ABC News.

The Attorney-General Daryl Williams is defending the view that violent computer games do not lead to violent behaviour....

Mr Williams says a study a couple of years ago found no evidence about aggressive games influencing how people act.

"The response from the experts was really quite positive because the general effect was that children don't see the violence in computer games as real," he said.

"They see it as a game and it has no impact on them."

Why can't our politicians exericise a little common sense? Oh yeah, because they're more interested in holding onto power by pandering to fear and misapprehension than in serving the public good, the bastards.

Fatality! Man dies while playing Counter-Strike

We don't know if the infamous Bioforce controller was involved, but The Nation has the story:

A factory worker died of heart failure while killing enemies in the hit computer game Half-Life: Counter-Strike, police said yesterday.

Police said Thanet Sommoi, 22, a worker at a ceramics plant, died at noon Thursday in an Internet shop in Chiang Mai's San Kamphaeng district.

Police quoted Thanet's friends as saying he was addicted to the game and played it non-stop from Wednesday evening after work hours until he was found slumped over the computer's keyboard face down at noon Thursday.

So the guy played all night and then croaked the next day at noon. That's why you should never stay up past a quarter to three playing games.

3am

A Microsoft-funded letter writing campaign urging state Attorney Generals to take it easy on Microsoft includes signatures from dead people. "'It's sleazy,'" said Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch, whose office received about 300 pro-Microsoft letters. 'This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries.'"

Business 2.0 has a story about a wireless Pirates game in the works. No, not the Sid Meier classic, but a game about pirates. Here's something about the same game directly from the source. Thanks Nocturne!

The LA Times has a nice article taking a look at some of the problems that Microsoft is experiencing with the Xbox.

Episode 2 of Majestic will launch on Monday. That will put us two episodes behind.

There's a new version of Kali available. If you don't know what Kali is, then you're a newbie and we laugh at you, ha ha ha! (Look, it sucks being ancient, so forgive us our few moments of gloating.)

Yahoo takes a look at some game company stocks that are doing well, like EA, THQ, etc.

Looks like Nintendo is planning on spending $459 million to promote the Gamecube. That's almost matching Microsoft dollar for dollar with Microsoft's $500 million marketing warchest. That's almost as much as we spend to promote this website.

Empire of the Ants indeed! Fire Ants are wreaking havoc on Australia.

The director of the Fire Ant Control Centre, Mr Keith McCubbin, said: "If we don't succeed, we will be living with an ecological disaster forever."

He said the ant invasion would also have severe social consequences. In some areas of Brisbane, residents could no longer mow lawns or work in gardens, dogs were "in agony a lot of the time" and parents could not let children play outside unsupervised.

From Fire Ants to Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC), is there such a thing? Probably not, as Joel Nickel debunks:

In chapter 6, Arnold relates the fiery death of a widow, Mary Reeser, who perished in her efficiency apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1951. The case, a classic of SHC, has long been known as the "cinder woman" mystery. Except for a slippered foot, Mrs. Reeser's body was largely destroyed, along with the overstuffed chair in which she had been sitting and an adjacent end table and lamp (except for the latter's metal core). The rest of the apartment suffered little damage. "Nor," adds Arnold, "did the carpet beyond her incinerated chair show signs of fire damage!" (76)

In fact, the floors and walls of Mrs. Reeser's apartment were of concrete. When last seen by her physician son, Mrs. Reeser had been sitting in the big chair, wearing flammable nightclothes, and smoking a cigarette-after having taken two Seconal sleeping pills and stating her intention of taking two more. The official police report concluded, "Once the body became ignited, almost complete destruction occurred from the burning of its own fatty tissues." (Mrs. Reeser was a "plump" woman, and a quantity of "grease"-obviously fatty residue from her body-was left at the spot where the immolation occurred.) As the fat liquefied in the fire, it could have been absorbed into the chair stuffing to fuel still more fire to attack still more of the body.

The moral of this story is that if you're overweight, always keep a fire extinguisher nearby.

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