Just like those assholes that insult my intelligence by lying to me and throwing fabricated and misconstrued “data” in my face day in and day out, I have an agenda. When someone tries to tell me that a favorite pastime of mine, playing video games, is bad for me – one that’s served to provide me countless hours of entertainment that might otherwise have been filled with acts of violence or self-mutilation or thoughts of suicide – or whatever socially-unacceptable behavior you want – it strikes a nerve.
It wouldn’t bother me if the vast majority of people were smart enough to see through the bullshit, but they don’t. The “enlightened” bourgeoisie of this country and their “ignorant” proletariat, apparently, would rather have their hands held and their decisions made for them, and for their children as well. You have the freedom to say what is on your mind in this country, and kudos to you for having it. However, fuck you for having the gall to try and abuse your freedoms in order to take mine away.
My agenda is simple. I like my hobby. I don’t want power-greedy motherfuckers elected by blissfully unaware citizens to try and twist and distort my hobby, or tell me what I can or can’t play, in order to score what they perceive as real power – the ability to tell the underlings of this country what to do, what they can or cannot do, and to mix up their poor, soft little brains in such a way that they give the rulers of this oligarchical institution thinly veiled as a democratic republic all of their earthly goods and previously established freedoms. And hey, while we’re at it, I want otherwise intelligent parents to stop lying to themselves about why their kids are miserable, antisocial fucks and do some real goddamn parenting – maybe even find a way to become an inspirational figure in your child’s life.
The 3DS is being marketed not for it’s technical capabilities, which put it somewhere around the Gamecube 3d level, but for the myriad of input devices it contains. Accelerometer, gyroscope, multiple cameras, touch screen, microphone, as well as it’s wifi capabilities. Oh, and the 3d display gimmick – a feature I will no doubt turn off if I ever decide to get one sometime after launch when some decent games hit. There are, indeed, some augmented-reality games being developed for the platform, including a rather unique one that’s Japan exclusive – it’s some kind of dating sim by Konami that uses the camera to detect what the player looks like in order to prevent cheating, presumably under the auspices of immersion.
I guess it’s somewhat unique, but I think there’s too many veggies boiling in the kettle, myself. Nintendo has a history of making developers implement stupid gameplay mechanics in order to utilize all functions of a given hardware platform – i’m looking right at you, DS. I pretty much loathe touch screen gaming, and the idea that i’ll actually have to combine that with waggling just makes me want to throw up.
In a bout of nostalgia, I have uploaded an ever-so-slightly earlier cut of Making The Theory, a documentary included with the ill-fated Video Game Theory, Volume One archive dvd(it shames me to admit that this mp4 version is actually higher quality than the final dvd version). I figured I would give it away online for free just in case someone gets curious. Eventually, whenever I can find a good way to do so, I will upload the entire archive of Video Game Theory episodes as well for the illusion of posterity.
I am not fooling myself. I know, in the grand scheme of things, this entire post is moot, minute, absolutely meaningless to the rest of the world…But it’s important to me. I want people to know where I got my start. I want people to laugh at the ridiculousness of a group of naive kids surrounding a shitty mic, talking out of their asses. For almost two years, Video Game Theory was my life. I take full responsibility for not giving the show it’s due, but I am proud of what I, what we – Dillon, Josh, and Addison – accomplished with no experience, no budget, and absolutely shite equipment. It was a tremendous learning experience.
I only wish the guys would drop by and say a few words.
Wow, it’s been some time since my last entry. Only really big news with me lately is that I gave in and signed up for college. It’s nothing fancy, just our local community college, but still, that’s something. Being the picky bastard I am, I had to opt for the Associate in Liberal Studies degree. Basically, this enables me to pick a whole lot more electives than any of the other degrees offered. It’s pretty cool. I’ll be taking web design and video production this fall, among some other somewhat more mundane stuff.
I would be curious to know what’s been up with the other hosts lately since I haven’t really communicated with them in a while. When we branched out, there was a lot of distance placed between us, even though three of the hosts still reside in the same city as far as I am aware. Just one of those little things in life that’s interesting. But…not very.
I tracked down a leaked copy of the Phantasy Star Portable demo for PSP(acronymic irony, har har). Aside from a glitch that basically renders multi-mode unplayable, it’s a pretty great conversion. The lobby system has been almost completely revamped. No longer do you run around the space station, going to shops or things like that in 3d. It’s all been streamlined into a 2d, menu-based interface. Now, I can see why Alfa Systems did this, and it does make sense for a portable system, but honestly, it doesn’t quite feel right. It doesn’t feel like Phantasy Star(not counting the earlier RPGs). The gameplay itself is spot on and the controls are pretty tight. One gripe is that the player is forced to use the analog nub for character movement. Again, I can understand why the developer did this, considering how every entry since the first Phantasy Star Online had analog movement, but what a hell of a cramp this can induce. No doubt this is offset by 5-15 minute missions rather than the, admittedly, somewhat grueling grind-fests of old. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that yet. Still, i’ll buy a copy if it ever comes stateside.
Last month someone created a genius T-shirt that put a gamer’s spin on the age old "yo mamma" bag. The shirt read "Your Mom’s Rated E for Everyone." Who wouldn’t think that’s friggin hilarious. The ESA, that’s who.
Earlier this week the Entertainment Software Association sicked their lawyers on us. Demanding that we take down the post about the shirt, calling it an advertisement and saying that the shirt would create consumer confusion and a "substantial likelihood that the ESRB certification marks will face tarnishment and dilution."
Windows only: Open source app MediaCoder is an audio and video batch transcoder designed to give you super-simple conversion to and from some of the most popular media codecs.
Among other great features, MediaCoder’s Devices tab makes converting videos for your iPod, PSP, smartphone/PDA, etc. a breeze. MediaCoder is simple to use but does a lot.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s UK MD, Ray Maguire, claims that the heavily criticised UMD format has a future, despite a number of film studios opting out of producing movies on the format and numerous retailers scaling down their UMD* offerings.
Awsome now I can get some homebrew on my 2.70 PSP. I have played two SNES games on it so far. There is an downgrader, but it is still…uh “buggy.” I don’t want to risk my PSP to bricking.
eLoader Version 0.99 brings us this. Read on.
The major new feature is support for v2.70 and v2.71 firmwares. That’s right, full support for these 2 firmwares is now added, using a new kernel-mode syscall-finding technique (which is why 2.80 support is not yet possible).
As well as support for the v2.7 firmwares, there is also limited kernel mode support on v2.5-v2.71. This means that the .init program section (which contains functions declared with the ‘constructor’ attribute) will be called in kernel-mode for homebrew built with the kernel mode attribute. Note that you cannot create kernel-mode threads from the init functions in this release, due to security checks in the firmware.
The increased kernel access has also allowed us to add a built-in exception handler to eLoader, so that crashes can be caught and debugged more easily, as well as usually preventing the need to reboot.
It is my duty as Community Manager of Game Overdrive to inform you of something terrible. It has begun. In a stunningly unprovoked move, Iceland has started the end. It’s bombing of Denmark over their relationship with Sweden caused Britain to have to back childhood friend Denmark up by leveling Reykjavik. Having been looking for a reason to get back at Britain since that prom night mishap, Spain responded with a bombing of Liverpool. America was involved after that and well, you get the picture. In approximately 7 days, we will be engulfed in complete nuclear winter. What will it look like you ask? Well, you tell me.
For this contest, take any painting or photograph of the outside world, and use whatever picture editing software you use to simulate nuclear winter. Extra points for the usage of well known art as the source image. The prize? The ability to play out situations such as the one above in DEFCON. Many will enter, one will survive.
-Ben Halpern
Community Manager
Game Overdrive”
For details on the contest, visit the information page to see how to enter and win!
Nintendo is finally ready to unveil the juicy details of their plans for the Revolution launch. Whilst perusing IGN at two in the morning(as I am often apt to do, as mentioned in another rant), I happened upon an article detailing much of the information that I have wanted to know about the upcoming launch of the new Nintendo. As I read the entry, however, my excitement for the new console was somewhat tempered. Frankly, I think they have slipped up just a “wee” little bit(hah…hah…ha…).
Ricky Coulter is most often found on Facebook, evil den of mass dementia that it is. Most of his content is set to 'Friends Only' at the moment, so feel free to send him a friend request - just be verbose and descriptive as to who you are, how you found him, and why you want to be friends, as he is a paranoid caveman and thus does not trust complete strangers.
