jrclem's GameSpot Blog Posts

Bond on Bluray

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:45:33 -0800

UPDATE - 11/11/08 - After some more searching this evening, I've managed to discover that there is in fact already a patch for PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra (build 4407) that resolves this issue. There doesn't seem to be a straight-forward way to find this update just by using Cyberlink's site navigation. But it's fixed, so I'm happy. I just wanted to include this link should anyone be having this same problem.

And on a side note, I was amazed to find my MP3.com profile as the 5th result for the Google search "bond bluray powerdvd" (without the quotes!), which I included as tags for this post. It looks like CNet has some pretty impressive search-engine optimization going on under the hood, though it is odd that my profile for MP3.com shows up and not GameSpot, TV.com, or Movietome... It's either some sort of duplicate data culling by Google, or for some reason the site code for the various CNet media sites is entirely different despite looking almost exactly the same.

=====END UPDATE====================================

I've always been a pretty big James Bond fan. So when I was browsing through Target's DVD section last night and I spotted Dr. No and From Russia with Love on Bluray (with vouchers for free admission to Quantum of Solace) for $19.99 each, it was pretty much a no-brainer. I was getting two Bluray movies for $20, and two tickets to see QoS in theatres. Very cool.

A few months ago, I purchased an LG GGC-H20L hybrid Bluray/HD-DVD drive for my desktop for about $120 when Newegg had them on sale. But I haven't really bought many Bluray movies so far. I picked up a copy of Terminator 2 the day that the drive was delivered. And I bought Iron Man the day that it came out. But other than that, I haven't been too keen on paying $30 for movies. Aren't we glad that there's still no competition to make prices a bit more reasonable?

But anyway, when I got home last night and popped Dr. No into my PC, all I got was a black screen in PowerDVD 7. Not very cool. So I did a little googling, and it looks like there are some issues with all of the James Bond movies that have been released on Bluray. Everyone has theories, whether MGM is to blame for manufacturing defective discs, or it's some sort of issue with the Bluray disc "standard" still not being an actual standard and players are incapable of playing new releases. Whatever the story may be, caveat emptor...

If you want to see 007 judo chop some fools in HD, for the moment you're going to need a PS3. The Bluray consortium seriously needs to get their crap together...

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"Bond on Bluray" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:45:33 -0800

Why So Serious?

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:20:49 -0700

If you haven't already, go see The Dark Knight on an IMAX screen.

It is absolutely worth it. There are actually a surprising number of scenes that were shot using IMAX cameras, and it is without a doubt the most immersive film I have ever seen.

Heath Ledger is pretty much a lock for Best Supporting Actor at this year's Academy Awards. Granted, there are still about 6 months until Oscar season, but if you look at what's come and gone, and what's in the pipe, there isn't exactly a lot of competition. Not to mention that his portrayal of the Joker is absolutely amazing... I honestly couldn't have imagined a better version of the character if I tried.

Go see it. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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"Why So Serious?" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:20:49 -0700

Doing It Programmatically...

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:00:41 -0700

always beats manual labor.

So it's been a while since I've posted anything to the old GameSpot blog. But I thought now was a good of a time as any to try and jump back in with another mind-numbingly long soliloquy... When last we left our intrepid hero, he had started a new gig at an Internet marketing firm in the foothills of Appalachia. I'm happy to report that things have gone brilliantly these last 5 months - I've made some fast friends, and the job is a blast.

I actually ran across a fairly interesting problem at work this afternoon. I needed to generate an XML sitemap for a site to be crawled by Google. Prior to today, I hadn't ever had a project that required this sort of thing. So I asked around, and basically I was told that people just recycled the same class over and over again, which required manually copying and pasting the urls into a function that would generate the xml. That just didn't seem like a great method to me. So I tried to come with something a little more flexible.

Essentially, my thought was this - we already have this nice html sitemap on practically every site. So why couldn't I just use that file to generate the xml version? Well, unfortunately it isn't that straight-forward, because the html sitemap is actually using php to dynamically generate the links for data-driven content, and those links don't even exist until the page is loaded into a browser and the scripting is evaluated. After an hour or so of thought, I think I came up with a fairly elegant solution.

Code now, description later...

ob_start();

$ch = curl_init(URL_BASE.'/'.$this->sitemapFile);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$response = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

$begin = strpos($response, $this->sitemapBegin)
 + strlen($this->sitemapBegin);

$end = strpos($response, $this->sitemapEnd)
 - strlen($this->sitemapEnd);

$response = substr($response, $begin, $end - $begin);

preg_match_all('regexp for matching all html link tags',
$response,$links,PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

foreach ($links[1] as $link) {
 test conditions for generating xml
}

So... I remember now how much I dislike using this editor, it cripples usage of quite a few html tags and keywords... Anyway, my solution initializes php's output buffering, uses curl to execute the page and generate the dynamic sitemap links (which are written to the buffer instead of the browser), saves the output buffer's contents to a string, and then cleans and closes the buffer.

Next, I define the beginning and ending point of the sitemap. I made this decision because I figured that 99% of the time, the sitemap links will be inside of a div defining their sty|e (beginning point) and immediately followed by some other div like the page footer (ending point). Using this convention, I could strip out just the html containing the sitemap links and throw away the rest. Eg,

...blah,blah,blah
[div id="sitemap"] (aka the beginning string)
 STUFF I NEED
[/div]
[div id="something_else"] (aka the ending string)
blah,blah,blah...

Finally, I find any matches to a regular expression defining the contents of href link tags and store them to an array. And the last step, and really the only one that should require modification in the future, is defining the cases that determine what sort of flags to use in the xml for each link. In this particular situation, there were 5 cases out of over 120 links.

It might have taken a couple of hours of thought and coding time, but I think this algorithm will prove to be very reusable for subsequent xml sitemap generation, so long as the page conforms to the convention of surrounding the html/php sitemap links with unique html tags. At the very least, I know I am glad I spent my time trying to improve upon the status quo, and I hope it turns out that I've helped to save a lot of time in the future.

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"Doing It Programmatically..." was posted by jrclem on Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:00:41 -0700

Rearmed

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:14:10 -0800

Sweet merciful crap! Hopefully coming to Steam...

[ Watch Video ]

You can download the 720p version of this trailer from GameTrailers.

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"Rearmed" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:14:10 -0800

Nothing endures but change

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:54:44 -0800

Today was my last day at work. The financial holding company I worked for has been purchased (pending stockholder approval) by a significantly larger regional bank, i.e. $175B > $2B. And with the probability that I would be laid-off in the all too near future being roughly greater than or equal to 100%, I thought it would be wise that I take my leave while it's still my decision.

So starting January 14th I will be moving on to hopefully greater things as a software engineer for a small web development / internet marketing startup in northeast Georgia. They provide consulting to companies in the Atlanta area interested in a comprehensive internet marketing strategy, through identity development and (re?)branding, data-driven web applications, and search engine optimization. Who knew that there were awesome tech companies to work for in the boondocks?

And even though I'm excited about this change in my life, I can't help but look back on this past year and feel a bit melancholy about the fact that I'm leaving some good friends behind. Despite the occasional nonsense of working in a corporate Information Technology department, 2007 was a great year.

Random and unrelated thoughts -- Bioshock is one of the finest games ever made, and I can't believe I'm playing it on a 360 controller. Geometry Wars is still (!?!) devouring my life. Blade Runner: The Final Cut is fantastic in HD! Bluray is not a superior format to HDDVD. Neither is superior to IPHD content, if only the bandwidth were there for most of the US. But anyone that would suggest market competition is harmful to the consumer is an idiot.

Happy New Year. Cheers!

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"Nothing endures but change" was posted by jrclem on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:54:44 -0800

Destructoid

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:09:05 -0800

Has a pretty scathing satire of this situation with Gerstmann getting canned from GameSpot. Pretty harsh, but still. Changing the locks to a dude's office in the middle of the week. That's clas(s)y.

I can't say that Jeff is my favorite critic, and I can see how his personality could rub management the wrong way. But I've always respected his opinion. There have been times that I disagreed, and others where I thought he just came across as jaded. But he has always been intellectually honest. I can only imagine what it must be like for his former co-workers and friends that are left behind. They'll have some tough decisions to make. And right here at Christmas time... Nice.

I've actually had a similar shock these last few weeks, as I learned that my employer is about to be purchased by a much larger corporation. We've been told that it's just business as usual and our jobs are safe for at least the next 6 months. Basically, I'm just looking forward to my interview with the Bobs. I'm actually already looking for another job, hopefully something in software. IT has been everything I thought it would be and so much more.

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"Destructoid" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:09:05 -0800

HL2 Episode 2 Review

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:06:30 -0800

I just finished up my review for Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Your feedback would be appreciated.

What a great game... The story is incredible. I was actually torn between scoring it a bit higher or even a bit lower. Some of the gameplay seems a bit forced to me, as if John Peters was telling someone at Valve that they'd missed some action beats and they needed a robot dog wrasslin' a giant spider. An Evening with Kevin Smith. It never gets old.

Episode 2 really is an amazing story though. I look at it sort of like the Empire of the Half-Life Episodes trilogy. Which just happens to be my favorite movie from a galaxy far, far away.

And the graphics in Episode 2 are excellent. But really, pretty much everything looks bad now that Crysis has landed. Even the UT3 demo which was out about 3 weeks beforehand. Ridiculous.

I think my reviews can be a bit wordy, bordering on pretentious. This one weighs in at a pretty healthy ~800, but I glossed over a lot of things I imagine your average videogame fan would want to know - what's the car like, what new weapons are in the game, etc. I also cut out a paragraph comparing the two Resistance fighters to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern... I am not kidding.

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"HL2 Episode 2 Review" was posted by jrclem on Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:06:30 -0800

The cake is NOT a lie

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:40:14 -0700

Browsing Flickr is always worth the time... This is brilliant.

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"The cake is NOT a lie" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:40:14 -0700

Turning a Frown Upside-Down

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:30:39 -0700

Holy crap, what a terrible freakin' day. I wonder if I at least got any decent spam? We can't be using company bandwidth for personal......... What the...?

...Kick ass.

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"Turning a Frown Upside-Down" was posted by jrclem on Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:30:39 -0700

This Is No Longer A Vacation...

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:46:34 -0700

It's a quest! It's a quest for fun!

My paid vacation is just around the corner, and I have to say that I'm at a bit of a loss. I've never (A) had a job that actually offered me paid vacation, or for that matter (2) had enough money that I could even consider taking one had said time been offered to me to begin with. Being the nerd that I am, I'm actually leaning towards attending this year's Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle.

Also, having never had (and never will have ) the opportunity to attend an E3, PAX seems like a pretty fair substitute. Games aside, I dig Jonathan Coulton (site's apparently down at the moment) and the Minibosses, so it should be pretty cool to check them out in person. I've also never visited Washington state before, so I'm looking forward to that.

I'm pretty sure GameSpot will be covering the event as well, so maybe I'll get to meet some of the folks while I'm there... Which would also be pretty cool.

I haven't had much free time lately. I usually end my days just staring at the TV for a couple hours every evening and then going to sleep. But whenever I get a chance (usually two or three hours on the weekends) I'm working my way through Command & Conquer 3. Fantastic game!

The gameplay feels exactly like the gold-standards of the C&C games from the 90s, and the graphics are really impressive. The FMV sequences are bad, borderline awful really. Maybe that's what they were going for? But I don't remember C&C and Red Alert being this bad. Billy Dee seems like he was just phoning it in, and the rest are either really good at acting campy or were in dire need of a real director.

I actually bought the game a couple of weeks back, fully intending to play in the recent C&C3 tournament here on GameSpot. But then I completely forgot about it...

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"This Is No Longer A Vacation..." was posted by jrclem on Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:46:34 -0700

English or Metric?

Sat, 12 May 2007 15:10:17 -0700

I'm not entirely sure what a "3DMark" is supposed to represent as a unit of measure. But apparently the difference between my PC running Vista Ultimate and an identical PC running XP Professional is 1500 of them. So Vista's achilles heel continues to be driver support? It's certainly been more troublesome for me than I had hoped, but it's what I get for going with the 64-bit OS.

Anyway, last night I installed Futuremark's 3DMark05 synthetic benchmarking tool to see how my machine stacks up against the latest and greatest tech that money can buy. It's funny to look back on how I thought that these demos looked amazing running like a slideshow. And now that my computer can more or less crank them out at 70fps, they're somehow less impressive...

It's slightly annoying that when I built this PC I missed some fairly significant price cuts by a matter of weeks. But I've been enjoying being able to play games in high-definition for that period of time. And that's really just the way it goes in the consumer electronics market. The pace of advancement is so rapid there will always be better products or deals just around the corner.

My solution is to sort of amortize whatever premium you might unwittingly pay against the enjoyment that you get out of your toys, and that's good enough for me. A better solution might be to keep up with fiscal year calendars, and not buy anything just before the end of quarters.

I really can't speak highly enough of widescreen PC gaming. It's honestly an entirely new experience. Granted, some older games require a bit of coaxing before they'll display in full 16:9 or 16:10 glory. But I've found an invaluable resource in the Widescreen Gaming Forum. My complaints about Supreme Commander seem silly now; and that was on a 21" 4:3 CRT, which is certainly no slouch when it comes to viewing area. Of course, it also weighed 80 pounds if it was an ounce, and took up about 3 square-feet of desk space.

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"English or Metric?" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 12 May 2007 15:10:17 -0700

Taking Sides

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:13:40 -0700

I'm pretty sure that I've gone on record regarding the great format war that rages on between the HD-DVD and Bluray consortiums. But while I was in Best Buy on Friday afternoon, in the consuming mood, perusing the new(ish) releases of DVDs, I found myself with a bit of a conundrum... In my left hand I held the $20 DVD copy of Children of Men, and in my right the $35 HD-DVD, which contains the mere standard definition version on the opposite side of the disc.

After a few minutes of thought and a quick run-through of Sweet Child O' Mine on the 360 display of Guitar Hero II, I decided to go with the HD version. I figured that sooner or later I would buy an HD movie player, and the HD-DVD group's decision to throw in a "legacy" version (for a sub-set) of their movies on the disc was apparently my tipping point; and I have to imagine it is (and will be) for a lot of other people as well.

I've just about finished my second time through God of War II. I want to say that the first time took somewhere between 12-15 hours, and it looks like I'll be done with this second lap in just under 6 hours. After that I'll probably move on to Titan mode... But I should also probably find a newer game to test out my new PC. I reinstalled Sin Episodes through Steam, but that didn't run in 64-bit Vista. I didn't put any time whatsoever into trying to get it to work, so hopefully there's an easy fix. Although I'm not holding my breath since Ritual was sold a few months back to that "casual" *shudder* game publisher.

I installed Supreme Commander, but after about 15 minutes I quit playing. I couldn't really get into it, and my first impression was not so good. This may sound pretty weak, but the mouse just jerks the screen around way too much, and I couldn't seem to find a sensitivity setting in the options. It's also kind of annoying that the interface takes up nearly 50% of the screen, making it all but impossible to see anything if you haven't zoomed well out of the action. Which is particularly confusing, given all of Chris Taylor's "face-in-a-sandbox" talk we heard in the months leading up to SupCom's release. I'm going to stick with it, but so far I'm glad that it came as a free gift with my motherboard.

I also installed the demo for Command & Conquer 3, and that game looks amazing! It runs incredibly smooth even at 1280x1024 with maxed out quality settings. The original C&C is still one of my favorite games of all time, so this newest addition to the franchise may be the next PC game that I play. I'm a sucker for FMV. I wish they would bring it back...

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"Taking Sides" was posted by jrclem on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:13:40 -0700

Windows Vista

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:49:47 -0700

Well, I put together my new PC this weekend. After about 5 or 6 years of incremental upgrades, I finally decided to invest in a completely new system. And it was quite a transition... My old computer still used PATA hard-drives, first-generation DDR RAM, and even the AGP bus. Not to mention the processor, which was an AthlonXP running at about 2Ghz. I didn't go nuts, but I wanted to get a platform that would hold up for the next few years.

I had a bit of a scare at first. I spent 2 hours (give or take) getting everything installed, only to have the power switch just click at me. I would have been worried if I didn't know from experience that no one has ever hooked up the case control leads correctly on the first try. I can almost imagine the relieved looks on the Penn scientists faces when one of their colleagues flipped a pair of vacuum tubes and ENIAC roared to life. In my case, the motherboard pins were color-coded, but that coding didn't match the system that the case manufacturer used...

I haven't done much with it so far, other than mess around with Vista. I picked up an OEM copy of Vista Ultimate from Newegg.com. I haven't actually tried out any of the Ultimate-exclusive features, but I have to say that I'm really impressed with Vista so far. The live Search function built into the Start button (or whatever they're calling it now) is very smooth. My only complaint is that if you want to use the slimmer "Clas.sic" menu system, you won't be able to also take advantage of the new Search.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, Aero is amazing. The translucent windows are actually a lot more impressive than I was expecting, and I've stopped using maximized windows for no good reason other than they look really nice. Frankly, other windowing systems just look ugly in comparison now. The 3D Alt-Tab replacement for switching between open windows is nice, but probably not as useful as Exposé. I'm also really glad that Microsoft has finally added the desktop to the possible Alt-Tab destinations.

The User Account Control functionality that Apple has so excellently lampooned recently isn't anywhere near as intrusive as they would like you to believe. I suppose that depends on whether or not you actually like being told when your computer is doing something. Personally, I do. And that concept also happens to be one of the simpler tenets of human-computer interaction - tell the user what you're doing.

The only other thing that I've done so far is to fire up Half-Life 2 - The Lost Coast. It was as smooth as glass, running at about an average of 75fps at 1280x1024 with HDR enabled, 4x anti-aliasing, and 16x anisotropic filtering for textures. My motherboard and video card came with copies of Supreme Commander and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, but I haven't installed either yet.

I was busy giving Zeus the business in God of War II. I'm actually almost a quarter of the way through for the second time. I usually don't fall for the alternate costume nonsense that a lot of action-adventure games use as replay bait, but it's probably going to work on me in this case. The Cod of War costume is great.

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"Windows Vista" was posted by jrclem on Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:49:47 -0700

That's Why It's Called A Rant...

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:06:18 -0700

So you can make a complete idiot of yourself, right?

I came home yesterday evening and pretty much breezed through that "Fires of the Phoenix" puzzle in two tries. Though to be fair, if you want to get that pair of red orb chests you have to be that kid from The Wizard or something. I managed to last about ten minutes in that madness - hiding behind a pillar that gets batted around by the fire every 4 seconds, at least a baker's dozen of those gargoyle guys, and 3 or 4 of those sword- & scythe-wielding soldiers.

But I gave up on the chests, and it was pretty much a cakewalk. I tore through the Scylla and I'm on my way to the Sisters of Fate. Anyone that may have been surprised by my complaints should know that, my ravings aside, God of War II is probably the best action game ever made. Just look at the reviews, or better yet, see what Gabe & Tycho had to say about it, because that pretty much sums it up.

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"That's Why It's Called A Rant..." was posted by jrclem on Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:06:18 -0700

The Cheapness!

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:15:29 -0700

The greatness of the original God of War - whether its storytelling, amazing level architecture, or the execution of its brilliant combat - had blinded me to the single black mark on my memory of the game.

Nothing more than a lonely speck of criticism really; buried beneath my fond recollections of that triumph of David Jaffe and his team. But that tiny blemish came roaring back to the forefront of my mind this evening as I played the final act of God of War II...

Those cheap freaking environmental action-puzzles!

In the original, I was both cursing the frustrating timer puzzles and begrudgingly chuckling along at the fairly clever, tongue-in-cheek designers' joke that was "The Architect's Tomb." But the absurdly frustrating latter portions of "The Palace of the Fates" in God of War II go above and beyond anything that the twisted mind of Pathos Verdes ever dreamed up.

And it's not that these "puzzles" are actually demanding - you can't get by on skill or even sheer mindless repetition. Because you aren't merely fighting against the game, but literally fighting against the game. Take for example the awesome "jam on the 'O' button to lift junk" mechanic. Made even more annoying since they've ever-so-slightly increased the amount of time that it takes Kratos to clean & jerk those massive doors into the air...

Which brings me to the "Fires of the Phoenix" that employs not only unceasing, overpowered environmental damage but also the Zapp Brannigan strategy of sending wave after wave of enemies at you. You apparently can't just weather the storm of attackers and then complete the puzzle... I guess would eliminate the "challenge."

So way to go SCEA! You've completely ruined my enjoyment of an otherwise fantastic game. Thanks!

After 20 or 30 minutes of the same nonsense, I threw down the controller in disgust & caught the second episode of The Riches tonight on FX. It's a pretty good show so far. I'm continually impressed by the quality of content that FX produces...

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"The Cheapness!" was posted by jrclem on Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:15:29 -0700

Unions 2: The Sequel

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:19:36 -0800

I was just browsing through the Forums and I saw a post from about a week ago by Craig Beers regarding the state of GameSpot Unions:

CraigB wrote:

Update: We are moving forward with this, and development work will begin next week. I'll keep you informed of this project, which is very exciting!

Side note - why don't blog posts use a wrapper similar to that of the Forums for the QUOTE BBCode?

It has been just over a year since I first did my redesign of the HCU - almost 13 months exactly - that would go on to become "the single most important part" of Sentinelrv's Unions Version 2 manifesto, a collection of concepts and recommendations from a small group of Union leaders and officers that are passionate about the Union system.

The keystone of my design was to have Unions be more in-line with the overall look and feel of GameSpot, while at the same time allowing for flexibility on the part of a Union leader as to how their page appears. Secondarily, I wanted to streamline the process of managing the Union with some relatively powerful tools for posting content and membership administration.

It was all very conceptual and probably not very clear; some aspects were most likely unreasonable. It relied almost entirely on AJAX, and had all the obligatory "Web 2.0" fade effects, scoll-out menus, and drag and drop elements. Sure, the GS developers may have had something in the works long before I first put pen to paper, but I'm proud to be able to say that I probably played a part in what became the firestorm to re-work Unions into a more fitting part of the GameSpot community.

And although Randy and I have since resigned from our respective positions within the HCU, I think I speak for him when I say that we are both incredibly excited and hopeful about what the future holds for Unions.

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"Unions 2: The Sequel" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:19:36 -0800

Welcome Home

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:24:08 -0800

I have to admit that I didn't expect to be blown away by Phil Harrison's keynote at this year's Game Developers' Conference, but that is pretty much what happened. The Playstation Home is a fairly brilliant concept, and similar to what I had been telling friends should be the next logical step for Nintendo.

Very briefly, I think that the Mii Channel needs to be turned into something along the lines of an online Mii-driven Animal Crossing + XBox Live Achievements + In-game tchotchkes - allowing you to build a clubhouse, fill it with your trophies from games that you own, and travel around to check out friends' trophies, etc. Giving XBL achievements a substantive context beyond some random number that has long since lost any meaning whatsoever...

And who would believe that Sony beat them to the punch, and in doing so, leapfrog their way back into the mix of genuinely driving innovation in gaming?

Secondly, LittleBigPlanet looks amazing! Personally, I think it's the future of platform games. Basically, it's user-designed content running in a side-scrolling physical simulation... I can't wait to check it out.

Overall there's a lot of great stuff from GDC, both here and on GameTrailers.com. Not quite as much techie game engine demos et al as I have always loved seeing, but still, a lot of great articles and HD movies.

That's going to have to do it for now... My back is killing me. I think I need a new chair. My parents were thoughtful enough to buy me a desk chair for my last birthday. But unfortunately, they underestimated my wookie-like proportions, and so spending too much time sitting at my desk is destroying my lower back faster than Al Gore's massive carbon footprint is sending Polar Bears to their watery graves.

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"Welcome Home" was posted by jrclem on Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:24:08 -0800

Arkanoid + Katamari = Fizzball

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 09:34:39 -0800

Anyone that is a fan of Breakout clones should be sure to check out Grubby Games' Fizzball. One part Katamari Damacy and two parts Arkanoid, Fizzball is probably one of the most unique spins on the block-breaking design that we've all come to know and love.

Rather than simply hitting blocks, Fizzball has you directing a rolling, bouncing bubble that will swallow up everything it touches, assuming that the object is small enough. Just as in Katamari Damacy you start each level of Fizzball by picking up the smallest objects available, in this case butterflies. But as the Fizzball collides with objects on the level, it causes reactions - trees drop acorns, broken crates spill apples, chickens lay eggs. And with each gathered item the Fizzball grows larger, allowing for the collection of even larger items and animals.

Though the game isn't all that hard and the graphics are very cartoonish (and exceptionally well-done), to dismiss Fizzball as only a children's game would be a mistake. It's an interesting and very thoughtful redesign of one of the oldest of game formulae, and with 180 levels has enough depth to keep the action-puzzle crowd busy for weeks.

Granted, it's not the best descendant of Arkanoid that I've ever played - that honor is still claimed by Nurium Games' amazing BreakQuest - but Grubby Games has certainly shown that any design, even one 31 years old, can be turned on its head for a completely fresh, entertaining experience.

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"Arkanoid + Katamari = Fizzball" was posted by jrclem on Sun, 11 Feb 2007 09:34:39 -0800

It's The Meers

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:10:24 -0800

I'm sure you've seen the commercial... There's this little girl and an elephant standing in a football stadium, and the girl's talking to an HVAC installer about Texas Instruments' newest version of their Digital Light Projection technology (now featured in an HDTV near you). Every time I see it, I can't help but think that out of all the little girls that auditioned for that part, why did they have to go with the one that can't pronounce "mirrors?"

Well you know what else is all about the meers? RayHound. Yeah, that actually was the best segue that I could come up with. Anyway, RayHound is a fantastic top-down shooter from Hikoza Ohkubo. Except that, you aren't actually capable of shooting anything...

You're piloting this ship that is being attacked by turrets that teleport into place and then remain fixed, only able to rotate about that fixed point in space. And as you're fired upon, you use the ship's interesting ability to sort of bend space, and redirect any nearby fire back at the turrets. Eventually, you are dodging into and out of fire, practically seeing everything at once - you might say it gets pretty crazy. Here's another 1000 words that may give you a better idea of how it all works.

Like a lot of Ohkubo's games, your only real enemy is the clock, and taking damage inflicts a time penalty. The better you play, the longer you can play, etc. You move by moving the mouse, and "fire" by clicking the left mouse button. It's all very straight-forward. It's also a pretty elegant design. The graphics are simple but impressive. The sound is minimalistic.

If you dig old-school shooters, you should definitely check it out. Besides, how many games these days can easily be measured in kilobytes? But if RayHound is a little too much for you, Warning Forever (farther down on Ohkubo's page) may be right up your alley. If I had to choose between them, I'd probably go with WF myself. But the more I play RayHound the more I understand how to be good at it. And it just may become my new favorite.

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"It's The Meers" was posted by jrclem on Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:10:24 -0800

Macworld 2007 - In A Word... Awesome.

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 21:18:46 -0800

Now, I know what you're thinking... What was all of that "Apple zealot" stuff about, if Macworld was so awesome? Well, I'll tell you. Last time, I was pointing out the idiocy of claiming that any operating system is somehow immune to exploitive bugs that can cause serious security concerns. Apple made just such a claim in nationally-distributed ad campaigns, and now they are being proven wrong on a daily basis (until the end of January?), which is pretty funny.

But I never said anything negative about the quality of Apple's products. I couldn't have any more respect for what Apple does for the home computer and consumer electronics markets. Since the launch of OSX, to say that Apple's approach to user interface design has been inspired would be insulting. And that's just their software.

For the last 3 years, it's almost as if their hardware designers have been rummaging around in my wildest dreams for new ideas. They are constantly pushing the envelope for what people understand about the place of computers in our lives. And Macworld 2007 was possibly the best conference yet. You've just got to love Steve Jobs' showmanship.

The iPhone is an incredibly promising portable computer that offers the functionality of both a media player and a mobile phone, as well as wireless Internet. Chat-like SMS messaging, email, voicemail that behaves like email, and a Safari-based web-browser that allows proper Internet browsing on a mobile device. And again, that's without even mentioning the physical device itself.

The inclusion of a multi-touch LCD is a first, and something that I've only seen before in academic research or incredibly high-end professional systems. But equally cool, is the accelerometer that allows the iPhone to determine its orientation and alter its display from profile to landscape accordingly. And lastly, proximity and ambient light sensors on the face of the iPhone that help it conserve battery life and eliminate erroneous input on the touchscreen while being used as a phone. Check it out at CNet TV.

Then there was Apple TV. Basically, a wireless entertainment hub that connects media from your computer to your "widescreen television." The device costs $299 and boasts a 40GB hard-drive, HDMI, and all the wireless flavors you could need. The interface is slick, taking advantage of Apple's fantastic Core Animation to deliver wonderfully fast, browsable thumbnails of all of your media. But the product as a whole starts to lose a little of its sheen, the closer you look at its purpose.

The details are a little sketchy to me... The 40GB local disk allows for "up to 50 hours" of video at 640 x 480, with support for 720p. Now HD content would take up considerably more disk space and would no doubt trim down that 50 hour mark by quite a bit. And that's before you consider how you're going to get that HD content on the box.

Apple doesn't offer HD video yet, and I'm not sure the broadband quality and penetration is there to even make it a realistic option. Maybe by 2010, but not today. And 640 x 480 just isn't going to look all that great to someone that's used to a high-definition image. How this product will compete against Microsoft's pending IPTV service over Xbox Live is questionable; though frankly, I think the answer is "not well."

I could ramble on, because this is an area of computing that I'm pretty interested in and excited about... So I'll just leave it at this - Apple TV is definitely a nice first attempt (Apple is clearly thinking). Though I have to say that I think dropping another device between the computer and the television is not the right conceptual direction to move in. But that's a whole different post...

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"Macworld 2007 - In A Word... Awesome." was posted by jrclem on Tue, 09 Jan 2007 21:18:46 -0800