Valverde a Tope

Watercooler Games saw this earlier in the week and gave a detailed deconstruction of how a Free the Falklands! concept would be graphically impossible on the Atari 2600. I took one look and knew it was satire because one of the writers for this site, Jason Torchinsky, is a comedian and a name I remember as the editorial cartoonist of The Daily Tar Heel back when I was at N.C. State’s Technician in the early 1990s.

But play along, because it’s funny. Why look, his site, the Van Gogh-Goghs, have unearthed from some New Mexico landfill documented evidence of 11 scrapped projects for the Atari 2600! The casualties included such licensing/adaptations as Bosom Buddies (a cross between Kaboom! and Donkey Kong, and Kramer vs. Kramer (like Pong with children). My favorite, because I like poop jokes, is Gunther Gebel-Williams’ Cage Cleaner. The bogus rationale for the bogus game sounds like pure pre-video-game-crash self-b.s.ing: “You can’t blow up asteroids in real life, but you sure as [expletive deleted] can clean up [expletive deleted].”

The Best Atari 2600 Games You Never Heard Of [The Van Gogh-Goghs, via Water Cooler Games]

I need to lose weight, and the Weight Watchers points concept actually resonates with me, as I attempt to do something similar with my home meals, I just don’t count the calories like I should. But damn, it is hyperbranded as a female diet plan, and I’m self-conscious enough printing out a Men’s Health diet at the office. Still, Wired’s Clive Thompson has a different take on why WW works — it’s actually an RPG.

The Weight Watchers program is designed precisely like a role-playing dungeon crawler. That’s why people love it, stick to it and have success with it. And it points to the way that we could use game design to make life’s drudgery more bearable. [...] Weight Watchers’ points function precisely like hit points; each bite of food does damage until you’ve used up your daily amount, so you sleep and start all over again. Play well and you level up — by losing weight! And the more you play it, the more you discover interesting combinations of the rules that aren’t apparent at first. Hey, if I eat a fruit-granola breakfast and an egg-and-romaine lunch, I’ll have enough points to survive a greasy hamburger dinner for a treat!

Not to say that his point is b.s., but many things in life can be equated to an RPG or other form of a video game. When I got going in amateur standup comedy, I really perceived my progression in terms of a video game. Start out as a novice. Play these venues. Stay within your time. Achievement unlocked: 7 minutes in a Rooster’s open mike. I’m sure lots of you have seen goals and processes in your own lives in the same way.

So the fact a gaming mentality could be applied to dieting doesn’t strike me as odd. The question though: does an unpleasant, difficult goal become easier if you consciously approach it as a game? (For example, nothing billed as “nutritious and delicious” ever gets eaten.) Or should its “game” aspect be more subtle?

Fun Way to Lose Weight: Turn Dieting into an RPG [Wired]

1Up’s played Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (drops next week on the PlayStation Network) all the way to the end, and got the above teaser screen. Insomniac has said nothing, but it’s doubtful they’d tease anything other than a full retail release this far out. 1Up notes that it looks like Insomniac will be switching between Resistance and Ratchet titles every other year which is definitely pulling its weight for the PS3.

Ratchet & Clank Continue the Quest in Fall 2009 [1Up]

Filed under: Telefonía, Handhelds

Ahora que la existencia del Treo Pro ha sido casi confirmada, no habrá quien pare a los internautas hasta que consigan absolutamente toda la información sobre el nuevo teléfono de Palm. Scottymomo, del foro TreoCentral, consiguió más detalles sobre el smartphone, incluyendo la fotografía superior. Entre los datos tenemos:

• Tiene el “task manager” de HTC
• El Comm Manager tiene interruptores como “modo avión” y otros
• La ranura MicroSD (máximo de 32GB) no está abajo de la batería, pero hay que remover la tapa de la batería para obtener acceso
• Batería de 150mh

En el foro tienen otras imágenes y más detalles, pero te advertimos que para ver las fotografías tienes que registrarte.

[Vía Palm Infocenter]
[Artículo en inglés]

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Independent developer Cliff Harris, of Positech Games, asked pirates why they choose to pirate his games, promising them immunity and anonymity in exchange for their honest rationales, which he would aggregate and post on his blog. They reciprocated, and of about six reasons, a righteous indignation at DRM seemed to lead the list. Harris is actually responding to the gripes in both the pricing and de-DRMing of titles in the future, with his own reasoning why it’s a good idea.

The reasons pirates traffic his games, Harris found, were roughly (list quoted from Ars Technica)
• The information wants to/free anarchists think copyright shouldn’t exist.
• Games are too expensive.
• The quality of gaming is too uneven.
• DRM is hurting the legitimate customers.
• Going to the shops is annoying.
• Because piracy is easy to do with low risk for getting caught.

Harris’ response:
• Zero DRM. He said he only used it in one game before. He sees it as counterproductive, giving honest gamers an experience that treats them like criminals while the pirates have a cleaner, superior version.
• Longer demo game experiences.
• Reduced pricing: He dropped the cost of Kudos to $9.95 and will consider selling its sequel for far less than he’d planned.
• Regarding quality:

I get the impression that if I make Kudos 2 not just lots better than the original, but hugely, overwhelmingly, massively better, well polished, designed and balanced, that a lot of would-be pirates will actually buy it. I’ve gone from being demoralized by pirates to actually inspired by them, and I’m working harder than ever before on making my games fun and polished.

It’s an intriguing back-and-forth involving pirates who aren’t treated like thieves, and a victim who won’t portray himself as such.

Genuine Call for Emails from Pirates [Cliffski's Blog, Positech]
Talking to Pirates (Harris’ reply) [via Arstechnica]

Filed under: Entretenimiento doméstico

No hay mucho que ver aquí a menos que estés aburrido de los altavoces de siempre, pero si buscas algo supercompacto para el portátil y estás cansado de las típicas cajas negras de la mayoría de los fabricantes los Crystal USB Desktop Speakers son un soplo de aire fresco. Estos minialtavoces USB 2.0 solo tienen un 1 vatio por canal, y aún así, son descritos como de calidad audiófila. Muy buenos tendrán que ser para hacer justifica a tamaña afirmación, teniendo en cuenta el sonido ratonil del que suelen hacer gala la mayoría de sus rivales.

Como otros altavoces USB no necesitan un miniconector de audio libre ni una fuente de alimentación externa (el cable USB se encarga de todo), y su precio es de 39,99 dólares (27 euros al cambio) en ThinkGeek.

[Vía Random Good Stuff]
[Artículo en inglés]

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