Daily News Spin — July 18, 2001 (Wednesday)

Operator, can you connect me to Bilbo Baggins?

Wired News has a story about Riot-E, who have secured the rights to make wireless games based on Lord of the Rings -- can a Sierra lawsuit be far behind? (That's our standard running joke about LotR, we've decided.)

Other Lord of the Rings services will include downloadable quizzes, ring melodies and phone screensavers, which typically cost $1 each. One such screensaver is the cell-phone owner's name translated into the "Rune" language native to the characters of Middle Earth.

We wonder how "Dork" translates into Rune?

``Your feet will be used to play this game''

The Miami Herald looks at Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades and how it's spurred a minor comeback for the coin-op industry.

A crowd gathers around Patrick, 21, and Bryan, 18, who have gained fame among their Dave and Buster's colleagues at the Dolphin Mall for their fancy footwork. The catchy techno-pop tune, Dub I Dub, starts playing at 140 beats per minute, and colored arrows float, in Tetris-like sequence, to the top of the screen. Patrick and Bryan step on the corresponding pink and blue arrows -- left, right, up, down. The arrows on the dance pad light up as the machine spurs them on: ``Perfect!!'' flashes on the screen, while a computerized male voice exclaims, ``Wow! You are too cool!''

Bitten, but not shy

Jessica Mulligan's latest Biting the Hand column (click on Articles on the sidebar) details responses, many of them from the Quarter to Three boards, about her June 5th column in which she accused the gaming press of rolling in the hay with the publishers. Mulligan essentially turned this column over to her critics. A sample:

Her assumption doesn't even pass a facial test. If all it takes is free stuff to sway a review, why is there ever a negative one? Why didn't Swamp Buggy Racing win at least one Editor's Choice? - Brad "Supertanker" Wohlenberg.

Er, because the check didn't clear? Ok, bad joke. Mulligan also fires a parting salvo at Anarchy Online and Gamespot.

In the June 19 column, I expressed some worries about the then-upcoming launch of Anarchy Online from Funcom. As it turns out, those worries were justified, darn it, though you won�t find much word about it on the �professional� game news sites. And what information you can find about it there is usually accompanied by a Funcom PR release about how the problems are rapidly being fixed. (Gamespot�s reviewer gave the problems a nod, then gave the game a rating of 7.6 out of 10 which gives it a Good rating under Gamespot�s rating system. Meanwhile, over 900 Gamespot readers have rated the game since the June 27 launch and gave it at an average of 4.7, which scores in the Poor column. One wonders if the reviewer and the players are in the same game.).

3am

The Denver Post has a brief interview Nintendo's Miyamoto.

K'NEX has released their Battletech kits. K'NEX is one of those Lego-like toys, and now you can buy a few mech kits.

The Ottawa Citizen has an article about the text-based gaming scene.

Updated: This is kind of nifty. In St. Louis a prototype of a print-on-demand vending machine for books was used for the first time. The book was ordered and downloaded from the Internet via a vending machine, and 12 minutes later a copy was bound and ready. The book? Mistress Ruby Ties It Together, a novel that deals with sadomasochism. Once again, porn powers innovation on the Internet. New: Just for the curious, we contacted the company making the book vending machine and it looks like they can probably sell a 250 page book for just under $7 and make a profit.

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