Gamasutra has an interesting little essay up on the potential future of RTS games - one focused less on total annihilation of the enemy and more on the subtle complexities that are the mark of war in the real world. Unlike a lot of pie-in-the-sky game design articles, this one simply mentions a few aspects that could be tweaked and modified in years to come, with the hopes of providing a more satisfying gaming experience:
No RTS game will ever be able to represent politics in lifelike detail. These games are, after all, simplifications of reality. Still, RTS game developers could add a tremendous amount of strategic depth by building politics into their games. Players could be released from micro-managing society and the battlefield, they could be exposed to enemies both within and outside their societies, and they could be given more strategic options than attrition.
It’s an interesting little essay if you’re into the RTS genre - a little innovation is never a bad thing, since even the most beloved of genres will get a little stale after years and years of more of the same - though I have to wonder how many players would be truly interested in big changes.
If it hasn’t been pounded into your skull yet that Nintendo is overachieving, selling hardware and software at alarming rates in Japan and the United States, maybe the Kyoto-based company’s quarterly results will make it clear. Nintendo posted net sales of 1.3 trillion yen (about $12 billion USD) for the nine months ending on December 31, 2007, up about 85% from the year prior. For the full fiscal year, up on March 31, Nintendo is expecting 1.63 trillion yen in sales, unsurprisingly a big gain over the previous year.
Net income as of the end of the year, also known as the Bottom Line, was an impressive 258.9 billion yen (a bit over $2.4 billion USD), an impressive near-doubling of profits from the same period prior.
Nintendo pointed to strong sales of the Nintendo DS, which sold 24.5 million units worldwide in nine months, and the Wii, responsible for 14.29 million units sold. More staggering numbers, if you can stomach them, are available at the company’s Investor Relations page, as is a Mario sprite in a business suit. Enjoy!
Wii Fit has legs. The kind of legs that keep it number one on the Japanese sales charts, narrowly besting one of the few new titles to debut this week in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for the Nintendo DS. At this rate, Wii Fit could reach the 2 million-sold mark by… I don’t know, some upcoming Thursday. Not bad for something advertised as something you sit on, perfectly still. This week’s chart, from January 14 to 20, looks nearly identical to the previous week’s as the post New Year release hangover subsides. Even Call of Duty 4 is still charting!
Next week may finally see a change as Lucky * Star, Yggdra Union and a new Prince of Tennis game arrives. Yeah, hot stuff.
Wii Fit (Wii) - 92,000 / 1,194,000
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) - 90,000 / NEW
When GTA IV was delayed last year, neither investors nor gamers were happy. And many of us pointed the finger at the PS3 for the reported “technical” problems during Rockstar’s joint PS3/Xbox 360 development process. According to Rockstar’s VP of Product Development Jeronimo Barrera, we weren’t so crazy.
It’s really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to [the delay].
He continues:
Now, we’re neck and neck. That’s not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the PS3 version. It’s awesome. They’re both identical.
Oh, I’m sure that the internet will find something wrong with the PS3 version and something wrong with the 360 version. But it’s good to hear that both versions of the game are on track now.
The Digital Inspiration blog points out a neat URL trick that makes Google Reader into a mobile-sizing tool for any web site with a RSS feed. Even better, you don’t have to be a Google Reader user, or even have a Google account, to use it. To try it out, find and copy a site’s feed address. Then paste it at the end of a Google Reader mobile address, like so: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/[feed_address]
You’ll get a standard view of feed items, and the items themselves open up in Google Reader. Sites that only offer blurbs won’t offer much benefit, of course, but it’s a handy way to create easy-to-read bookmarks for a small screen. Bloggers can also create mobile-ready versions of their site, explained in full at the link below.
Windows/Mac/Linux: Coccinella, a free Jabber chat client, is robust enough on its own instant messaging terms, with tabbed chat windows, foreign language support and an easily theme-able interface. But what really sets it apart is its integration of a great whiteboard tool that’s easily shared and forwarded between you and your chat partners. The whiteboard has the basic features of Microsoft Paint, but that’s a step up from many black-and-white board tools we’ve seen. I couldn’t get Coccinella working with my Google Talk/Gmail account during a quick setup test, but the features are likely there for integration. Coccinella is a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux systems. For more whiteboard tools, check out the no-registration-required Scriblink or GE’s instant online whiteboard.
Leo Babauta, author of the oft-linked Zen Habits blog, has taken on the subject of writing, and writing productively, with a new blog project, Write to Done. Already up are a number of helpful posts, including one I can definitely relate to about the benefits of early-morning writing. To take full advantage of the wee hours, however, requires some prep work:
Research. Do your research the afternoon or evening before. That way, you’re ready to write and don’t have to be distracted by going online to look something up. Just look everything up the day before, and save it all to a text file, so you can write without having to go online.
From experience, having your topic—or your post ideas—laid out in front of you makes the early morning the best time to get more done, without distractions or other responsibilities tugging at your attention. Have your own best practices for getting your word work done? Share your tips in the comments.
An enterprising chap by the name of drkIIRaziel has apparently gotten Sega’s Naomi arcade bios running on an emulator of its parent-system, the Dreamcast. Which means that, should you be the (highly) enterprising type to be able to test this out, you’ll feasibly soon be able to run the arcade versions of stuff like Marvel v Capcom 2, Ferrari F355 Challenge and Ikaruga on your PC. Good times? Good times. SEGA NAOMI EMULATOR [Hobby Blog]
Next month, Street Fighter IV will be playable. Capcom has confirmed that the upcoming fighter will be on display at the AOU 2008 Amusement Expo in Japan. Capcom will also have fate/unlimited codes and Sengoku BASARA X (Cross) on display as well. Being at the same show as SFIV’s playable demo debut is like arcade gaming’s equivalent of going on stage after the Beatles. Street Fighter IV [Famitsu]
Rez HD? Can’t wait. The game is getting released next week on Xbox Live Arcade. What does that mean for folks who don’t own an Xbox 360? Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez, Space Channel 5, Lumines) says:
We started on Xbox 360, but we have no reason not to provide this game to other platforms.
So, while we’re in this share-the-love frame of mind, how about Space Channel 5 HD?
If I had a reason to remake Space Channel 5 on the new platforms, I will do that.
With Super Smash Bros. Brawl delayed to March, we just assumed that the
Smash Bros. Dojo would be running dangerously on content fumes,
posting about cursor changes when one hovers over portraits or
scraping the barrel bottom for alternate costume choices. We
certainly never thought they’d drop the Mushroomy Kingdom on us,
the best looking stage yet. It’s a Wii-creation of World 1-1 from
the original Super Mario Bros., a constantly
side-scrolling level that only makes us long for a remake of the
NES classic. We’d totally buy this sort of thing via WiiWare,
Nintendo, if you’re listening.
That bit on the right? It’s the alternate version of the stage
that appears randomly, a 3D take on World 1-2 from the same game.
Who knew we’d get so turned on by a torch nestled under some
polygonal bricks?
Webapp Pingie takes any RSS feed and alerts you of new items in that feed via SMS message. It would be a bit ridiculous to subscribe to the full Lifehacker feed (or other frequently updating sites) with Pingie, because no one really wants 18-plus text messages a day. However, now that you know how to slice and dice Lifehacker feeds to get only the content you want, services like Pingie or previously mentioned Web-alerts could come in very handy with our Feature feed or our daily download recommendations. Pingie is free to use, requires an email address to set up your account.
Streaming radio and music recommendation service Last.fm now streams full length tracks and even albums on-demand, making it the largest completely legal souce of free, on-demand streaming music on the web. Any single track can be played up to three times before you’re prompted to join their yet-to-be-released subscription service, which will offer unlimited plays of any song. Currently the service is available to the US, UK, and Germany, but Last.fm is working to expand to other countries. If the new service has piqued you interest in Last.fm, check out these 15 Last.fm power tweaks for more ways to take advantage of the excellent music service.
PC Gamer UK has revealed the major class changes in store for Team Fortress 2 that Valve hinted at earlier this month. Along with the new class-based achievements they start rolling out next update, each class will get a pair of unlockable weapons that have the potential to change how they are played. For instance, unlocking half of the new medic achievements earns you the Overhealer, which grants a permanent 100% health increase to your comrades at the cost of Ubercharge buildup being slower or possibly even non-existent. Each class will eventually have two new pieces of equipment, with the second unlocked when you complete all class achievements, that will be selectable in a new loadout menu. It really is an interesting way to freshen up the classes - fundamentally altering the way you play based on the tools you use. Hit up the link for more info on the update including details on the new game mode, which is essentially a multiplayer escort mission through the Gold Rush map. Of course this new content is only confirmed for the PC, a fact that has me amazingly pleased that I got impatient and bought the game via Steam. Woot!
CCP’s MMO EVE Online has had it’s FSP. Fair share of problems. Sorry. From breaking PCs to breaking player’s hearts, 2007 was one long line of bad press for the space-based multiplayer romp. So they need new players! A clean slate! Which is why they’re offering a free 21-day trial for the game on Valve’s Steam platform, as well as offering a discounted subscription rate to anyone who signs up for the game through this deal. This makes it a bargain for anyone looking for three free weeks of online sci-fi gaming, while also making it the first ever MMO to be made available over Steam.
Firefox tip: If Firefox is too unresponsive for your tastes when it’s loading a new web page, the How-To Geek weblog suggests a simple tweak to improve responsiveness. First, enter about:config into your address bar and then add the content.switch.threshold setting (which isn’t there by default). Right-click the page and select New -> Integer, name it content.switch.threshold, and give it a value of 1000000. The catch is that Firefox will take slightly longer to load pages, but while it’s loading you’ll be able to scroll the already-loaded content more easily. If you like that, you may also want to tweak Firefox’s rendering speed or check out some of the best Firefox config tweaks.
Windows only: Ever since every sysadmin’s favorite offline Windows patching program AutoPatcher had the plug pulled on it by Microsoft, those without constant Internet access or looking to keep multiple Windows boxes up to date have been looking for a valid replacement. Offline-Update, a free download for Windows 2000 and newer, may not have the same easy-to-grok interface, but it does give you the same basic functionality. Choose updates for the OS or Microsoft Office program to download and then create a burn-able ISO. Pop the Offline-Update CD into any computer and an auto-run program will ask you to create backups and install the updates. I haven’t had time to do serious testing with the update program, but everything went smoothly in creating an update CD from Vista Home Premium. Offline-Update is a free download for Windows 2000 and newer systems only.
Windows only: Freeware application Chaos Wallpaper embeds RSS feeds in your desktop and shuffles your wallpaper on-the-fly. The application is a standalone executable (meaning it requires no installation), so just download, unzip, and run it to get started. If you only want one feature, Chaos can simple shuffle wallpaper from a folder you point it to or embed clickable links from your feeds on your desktop. If you’re looking for a different approach, check out how to create an RSS-embedded desktop with Netvibes or shuffle Flickr pics with Flickr Wallpaper Rotator.
Bind full-sized booklets with the Long Reach stapler, a heavy duty stapler which takes standard staples but can stretch across 12 inches. A reader at the Cool Tools web site says:
My theater group always uses these for stapling our programs together. It’s a serious workhorse, big and heavy, and the longer reach will allow you to make booklets out of much, much bigger material than the Mini Booklet Stapler. The stapler has a 12″ reach on it, so you can staple anything up to 24″ wide pre-fold (so architectural ‘D’-sized paper could be used, if you felt like it).
A plastic clip on the stapler sets the width and makes it easy to do batches of booklets without mistakes. The Long Reach stapler will set you back $24 at Amazon.
Windows only: Freeware system tray application Process Lasso monitors your running processes for CPU hogs and reins them in before they take over and freeze up your computer. Like previously mentioned Process Tamer, Process Lasso does this by lowering the priority of those processes on a runaway train to freeze-ville. Unlike Tamer, Process Lasso also offers a ton of user customization, so you can set default priorities by process or other rules for how Process Lasso deals with CPU hogs, like “Make firefox.exe run only on CPU #1 each time its launched.”
In addition to the advanced process management and throttling, Process Lasso also handles advanced task manager duties. You can toggle auto-starting processes, kill processes, monitor CPU usage with a real-time graph, and more. Process Tamer (the similar app we posted in the past) handled throttling duties well, but Process Lasso offers an impressively superior range of features if you want or need more than Tamer offers. In all Lasso is taking about 10MB of RAM, so the footprint is reasonably small. Process Lasso is freeware, works with Windows 2000 through Vista.
Windows only: Free copying utility Text Mining Tool grabs just the text out of Word documents, PDFs, HTML pages, and other documents without the hassle of opening, selecting everything and hoping embedded images don’t leave strange markers in the text. Once your text is copied, you can either re-save it as a text file or copy it to the clipboard. Its function might not sound all that helpful—until you’ve tried to select multiple pages’ worth of text from a scanned PDF, or tried to grab text from around awkward Flash boxes on web sites. Text Mining Tool unzips to a folder that can be put anywhere and comes with a command line tool for your batch-script-writing pleasure. Text Mining Tool is a free download for Windows systems only. For similar copy power from the selection screen, try DragKing.
Taking my own abortive attempts at learning Japanese and German as examples, learning English must suck. An elastic sentence structure, copious use of slang, it must be a nightmare. Especially if you’re from a country that doesn’t use the roman alphabet. Like Korea! Lucky for Koreans, then, they’ve got Starcraft to learn from. This book, “Starcraft English”, takes stock phrases from the game like “Ghost reporting…” and “You got my attention”, then uses them to give Koreans a basic English lesson. Should come in handy when travelling, and they - for whatever reason - need to ask “WANNA TURN UP THE HEAT?” Master English with the power of Starcraft English [Siliconera]
If 800 Microsoft Points is “too much” for a hi-def remake of one of the best video games of all time, by all means, go ahead and register to win one of fifty copies of Rez HD. It’s no skin off my back if you want to fill out a registration form at the official Rez HD site and skirt the payment, you cheap son of a bitch. However, if you do have the gall to weasel your way into a free code for the Xbox Live Arcade version, do me a favor and don’t tick the radio button on the survey that says “I’m a fan of Tetsuya Mizuguchi” because you’ll be lying. The man’s got kids to feed and you’re trying to shortchange him and the rest of the underpaid Q Entertainment staff. People like you make me sick.
Stressed out? Give yourself something to play with: a squeezable stress ball that you can use to release the tension within. The Organic Health Blog lists two recipes to create your own stress balls. The first requires a balloon and cornstarch. Pour cornstarch in your balloon and tie it closed. Viola—your stress ball has been created. The second recipe is a bit messier to prepare, as it requires a mixture of salt, flour, oil, cream of tartar, and water to create a dough-like substance. Once the dough is kneaded, stick a chunk of it inside a balloon. Then take a second balloon and mush some dough in there as well. Put the second balloon inside the first. Repeat this process with one or two more balloons to get a solid but squishy stress ball that you can even decorate when your creation is complete. Now you have a homemade stress ball with which you can squeeze your stress away.
Google recently unveiled an option to associate non-Gmail email addresses with a Google Account. What’s the point, you might ask? Right now, the answer seems to be that any Google Calendar invitations sent to that non-Gmail address will be registered and placed on your Google Calendar—and you can sign into your account using that same email. Google Blogoscoped notes, however, that tools like Google Docs and other collaborative services. You can’t add a different Gmail address at this point, but it could as a helpful way of integrating a work or alternate email address with your Gmail/Google life.
New challengers! Accidentally! Apparently!! In some Smash Bros. DOJO!! news last week, it was announced that stickers could power-up characters during Adventure Mode. In the Japanese preview clip, a couple new characters have been apparently revealed via in-game stickers. What looks like Pokémon Jigglypuff and Lucario seem to be visible. Lucario is really popular in Japan right now with 4, 5 and 6 year olds. So his inclusion makes sense! Also, Ness from the Earthbound series is visible as well. The original clip, contained these in-game stickers at about four minutes, twenty seconds in. The “corrected” clip doesn’t. But, who knows? Confirmation should come soon enough thanks to the DOJO!! publicity machine.
Sam snapped this pic while out on a date with his girlfriend who espied this Power Glove on a mannequin in a shop window. I’ve never really though of the Power Glove as the perfect accessory for a simple black dress, but what the hell do I know, I’m no Tim Gunn. But, it’s nice to know the old Power Glove is still getting some work unlike that lazy Konami LaserScope.
If you’re still Companion Cube crazy and the plush one or the papercraft one aren’t enough to quench your thirst for all things cube, this faceplate might be the perfect thing for you. Hand painted with the ubiquitous cube and various phrases and such from the game, this custom 360 faceplate is now up for auction on UK eBay for £10.00. There is currently only one bidder with six more days left on the auction and according to the site, they will ship worldwide. Will you make it yours?
Crafty artist and Kotakuite Michelle Rheaume sends in some pics of her latest creation: a crocheted Mario with accompanying pins (or badges or brooches or whatever you call them where you are from). Mario himself is a stout eight inches tall with the accompanying pins being approximately one inch across. The whole set is available on Etsy for a rather hefty one hundred bucks. A perfect addition to your very expensive hand crafted Mario collection.
I’ve taken the liberty of beating David Ashley to the punch with Debian Etch irssi packages since I just upgraded my machine from Sarge and wanted to clear out as much as possible in the way of pending sysadmin taks in the wake of the warpath of updates and fixes as a result of the distribution upgrade. The Debian patches from 0.8.10 have apparently been committed to the upstream source tree, so these .debs are essentially what you’d get when you compile from source (with the Debian-proper prefixes and such, of course).
With the loose hopes that Google will connect this post to someone that wants them, here you go:
It Just Works. It was $10, but it’s FAR better than anything else I’ve seen for less than that. Far better than anything I’ve seen that was more than a ten spot, too.
Just so we’re clear I did try the Sourceforge project remotecalendars at http://sourceforge.net/projects/remotecalendars but it just didn’t work with outlook 2007… and I’m impatient. Besides, this daveswebsite.com guy made such an elegant interface I was convinced immediately. I’ll definitely check his site for future tools.
This is a great theme that Careerbuilder.com has going. Unfortunately I can’t embed this and no other sites with longevity seem to have this commercial published. It’s worth the click to Youtube, however.
So, this morning I receive an e-mail from Amazon.com announcing their New Way to Shop from Amazon.com:
Endless.com! A new way to shop for shoes and handbags!
Somehow, and I know I ought not to be profiling here, but somehow I’m sure the inclusion of Men’s and Kid’s products is a funny joke written in the margin…
Check out the skark homepage. It’s designed to be an aggregation of all the information the skark commune has business with. Currently it deals with a number of IRC and IM related topics, and links to some other statistics. Check it out.
For the most part, I’m trying to scroll the hunt off the front page. So check out the next post soon!
Brought my Brother to Manny’s for his first Tier 1 steak!
Bought a big memory card for PSP, installed amazing firmware that lets me do stuff like control my XBox XBMC from it via home-brewed software! (amongst other things…)
Don’t go mental, just head for Central
Lexington Avenue will show you the way
Your spirits won’t sag when you see the big flag
Into the trees you want to stray
A famous singer and a diamond dinger
Might put you oh so close to the spot
With the whites of your eyes you should look for the prize
Within this convenient plot
Gamasutra has an interesting little essay up on the potential future of RTS games - one focused less on total annihilation of the enemy and more on the subtle complexities that are the mark of war in the real world. Unlike a lot of pie-in-the-sky game design articles, this one simply mentions a few aspects that could be tweaked and modified in years to come, with the hopes of providing a more satisfying gaming experience:
If it hasn’t been pounded into your skull yet that Nintendo is overachieving, selling 
Wii Fit has legs. The kind of legs that keep it number one on the Japanese sales charts, narrowly besting one of the few new titles to debut this week in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for the Nintendo DS. At this rate, Wii Fit could reach the 2 million-sold mark by… I don’t know, some upcoming Thursday. Not bad for something advertised as something you sit on, perfectly still. This week’s chart, from January 14 to 20, looks nearly identical to the previous week’s as the post New Year release hangover subsides. Even Call of Duty 4 is still charting!
When GTA IV was 
Rez HD? Can’t wait. The game is getting released next week on Xbox Live Arcade. What does that mean for folks who don’t own an Xbox 360? Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez, Space Channel 5, Lumines) says:
Streaming radio and music recommendation service Last.fm now streams full length tracks and even albums on-demand, making it the largest completely legal souce of free, on-demand streaming music on the web. Any single track can be played up to three times before you’re prompted to join their yet-to-be-released subscription service, which will offer unlimited plays of any song. Currently the service is available to the US, UK, and Germany, but Last.fm is working to expand to other countries. If the new service has piqued you interest in Last.fm, check out these 
Bind full-sized booklets with the Long Reach stapler, a heavy duty stapler which takes standard staples but can stretch across 12 inches. A reader at the Cool Tools web site says:
Windows only: Freeware system tray application Process Lasso monitors your running processes for CPU hogs and reins them in before they take over and freeze up your computer. Like 
Stressed out? Give yourself something to play with: a squeezable stress ball that you can use to release the tension within. The Organic Health Blog lists two recipes to create your own stress balls. The first requires a balloon and cornstarch. Pour cornstarch in your balloon and tie it closed. Viola—your stress ball has been created. The second recipe is a bit messier to prepare, as it requires a mixture of salt, flour, oil, cream of tartar, and water to create a dough-like substance. Once the dough is kneaded, stick a chunk of it inside a balloon. Then take a second balloon and mush some dough in there as well. Put the second balloon inside the first. Repeat this process with one or two more balloons to get a solid but squishy stress ball that you can even decorate when your creation is complete. Now you have a homemade stress ball with which you can squeeze your stress away.
New challengers! Accidentally! Apparently!! In some Smash Bros. DOJO!! news last week, it was announced that 
Sam snapped this pic while out on a date with his girlfriend who espied this Power Glove on a mannequin in a shop window. I’ve never really though of the Power Glove as the perfect accessory for a simple black dress, but what the hell do I know, I’m no Tim Gunn. But, it’s nice to know the old Power Glove is still getting some work unlike that lazy Konami LaserScope.
If you’re still Companion Cube crazy and the 
Here’s how to make your own Chomp knit cap, as designed by knitter Allison MacAlister.
irssi-dev_0.8.11-1etch1_i386.deb
