Category Archives: Gaming

Art Imitating Life

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If you’ve ever heard of the game World of Warcraft, you know that it is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). It’s one of those games that can consume your life if you’re not careful, which is just one excellent reason I’ve avoided it (others would be the cost, and limited free time now that I work 40+ hours per week).

Recently something pretty cool happened in the world of the game. Blizzard, the game maker, introduced a new area with a new boss. When players got there, a spell called Corrupted Blood was cast upon them. Here’s where things get interesting: when players returned to towns in the game, they brought the disease back with them. The result was a virtual plague that quickly spread throughout the game. It was strong enough to kill low level characters and must have been a serious pain even to those at higher levels.

The fact that the whole thing was never supposed to happen doesn’t really matter. The plague spread in a very “natural” way, imitating a real life scenario. I’d say that’s both really cool and pretty scary at the same time.

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Why Microsoft Decided to Back HD-DVD

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Jordi Ribas, Microsoft’s director of technology strategy for Windows Digital Media breaks down the reasons Microsoft decided to back HD-DVD over Blu-Ray as the next generation of optical media. According to Microsoft, Blu-Ray failed the test in six critical areas.

“Our decision is based mainly on where the formats are today,” Ribas said, referring to Microsoft. “A year and a half ago, both format organizations had very similar goals, and to some extent, the story of Blu-ray was actually very powerful. It had higher capacity, it had what we would consider benefits at the time. But then as time went on, and we’d seen what’s the reality of both formats today, and what were promises versus what’s proven and what’s real, that’s when we decided to make the decision.”

I’ll have to say I haven’t really been following this whole thing very closely and there’s one main reason. Usually competition is a good thing for consumers because it will drive down costs, but this time around that’s probably not the case. You have studios and software companies splitting over which technology to support which means in order to continue to buy a wide spectrum of movies and games, you’ll need to have players capable of reading both formats. Sure, multi-format players won’t take long to hit the market, but how much extra will we have to pay? I’d hate to see this turn into a Beta vs. VHS battle where the superior technology ends up losing out in the end. Then again, after reading this article it isn’t clear that one trumps the other (There’s an interesting comment about capacity in the article). In my mind, it doesn’t really matter which is better; I’ll most likely end up needing both which means I better start saving now.

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Something to Look Forward To

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I don’t care what you think about Nintendo’s controller, you have to admit you’re curious to know what it’s really going to be like to use it to play games. Even if you do think it’s going to tank, you’ve got to wonder. I know of a few people who are serious doubters right now, but personally I think this guy understands the situation. It’s a long read, but interesting no matter how you feel.

Ironically, the few opinions I’ve read/heard that feel the new interface will be the final nail in Nintendo’s coffin haven’t really given any kind of explanation why they don’t think it will work. All I’ve heard is disbelief. Give it some time.

Currently Playing: Fall Out Boy – Sugar, We’re Going Down