Halo Reach

In case you missed it, there is a new in-game trailer for Halo Reach, the inevitable blockbuster is looking good already:

Dragon Age Origins

I was going to install Boot Camp on my Mac so I could play this insane PC/Console RPG; a game like this must be played with a mouse and keyboard.

Anyway, I don’t need to bother with Boot Camp because Dragon Age Origins is coming out on Mac, this December 21st! Sweet.

I finally caved and acquired a PS3. After years of resisting the purchase, Sony had finally answered all but one of my reasons not to buy.

1. There aren’t enough exclusive games that I want to play.
   Uncharted 2, Demon’s Soul, and the forthcoming Heavy Rain & God of War III are more than enough enticement for me.
2. The price is bonkers.
   The system was wayyyyy too expensive for my tastes, but the recent price drop to $300 put Sony’s black box on my radar.
3. No one I know has one.
   Gaming is a social experience for me. I like to play and talk about the games with friends. Basically no one I knew had one… until I started working at Local Wisdom. Granted Sony had nothing to do with this, but it was still an issue.
4. The controller is uncomfortable.
   I don’t have small hands, and PlayStation controllers always feel tiny to me. They make my hands cramp. This is still a problem, but I’ll get over it.

Quick Out of the Box Review

The system is very pretty, and runs almost silent.

It doesn’t come with any HD cables whatsoever. I knew it, but I forgot anyway. I find this pretty obnoxious because HD TVs are so prolific these days, and a major selling feature of the PS3 is the HD/ BluRay experience. You can’t have hi def if you don’t have hi def cables. Fail.

The PS3’s operating system is clunky as hell. It really underscored the greatness of the Xbox 360’s user interface (which makes you forget that it was designed by Microsoft).

While the hardware in the PS3 is excellent, the software is lacking.

Uncharted 2

Haven’t had time to post much because of personal obligations, and my trip to the Himalayas.

Well not like this guy went to the Himalayas… I’ve been playing Uncharted 2 on my shiny new PS3, and that’s where a bunch of the game takes place.

Uncharted 2 is easily the most enthralling video games I have ever experienced. The story, characters, voices, dialog, landscapes, physics, gameplay, and camera motion are mind-blowing. I started playing the game in front of my family, and they actually started watching, and stayed. Over the course of my 22 year gaming career, that has never happened. It’s like playing a really good movie.

(I recommend clicking through to YouTube and watching this in HD)

Rest assured I will be writing more about it once I have conquered it.

I received this game for free in the mail a few weeks ago. It came as a promotion for purchasing Guitar Hero 5; a stellar game.

The Good:

It’s Guitar Hero. If you like pressing five colored buttons and strumming really quickly, then you will probably be pleased to have some new songs to play.

Some of the later songs are quite difficult which is essential for seasoned players.

If you love David Lee Roth era Van Halen, then you should be happy with the track list.

All songs come unlocked.

Shredding on Eruption was the high point of the game.

The Not So Good:

The graphics are dated.

The character models look uninterested and awkward. Graphics don’t make the game in Guitar Hero, but this version is still a noticeable step back as compared to Guitar Hero 5.

"Gee Dad, we sure look like shit!"

Some of the non-Van Halen songs are downright odd. The Offspring’s Pretty Fly (for a White Guy), and Fountain of Wayne’s Stacey’s Mom standout as the oddest songs in the game. Why they are included is beyond me.

The Ugly:

If you were hoping for some Sammy Hagar era Van Halen… I’ve got nothing for ya. Not a single Van-Hagar track in the game.

Guitar Hero Van Halen feels hollow, like no one from Activision or the Van Halen camp gave a crap about it while it was in production. No love, no heart, and no fun unless you have particular attachment to the songs in the game.

The Bottom-line:

I received this game for free and I didn’t want to play it for more than twenty minutes. It’s completely uninspired.

When you compare it to a refined game like The Beatles Rock Band, it looks even worse. The Beatles Rock Band was created with the utmost care and love. It’s creators carefully covered all of the band’s eras, and paid homage to their history.

Guitar Hero Van Halen leaves out significant portions of Van Halen’s history, ignores tons of great songs, and mixes in music that is remarkably out of place.

I got what I paid for. If you plan to shell-out money to get this game, do yourself a favor and buy something else.

Guitar Hero Van Halen is a steaming pile of poo.

The Geek Whisperer Review of Guitar Hero 5

One of my favorite advocacy groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new website called Copyright Watch. The site allows users to see the latest news in copyright law. The effort is to inform the general public about the threat that looming copyright laws poses to individual freedom, and maintaining an open Internet.

In other related news, here’s a quote from BoingBoing for you… I can’t improve upon their words:

“Two US Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), have written to the US Trade Representative demanding that the text of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement be made public. This is the treaty that allows for criminal sanctions against noncommercial file-sharers, demands border-searches of laptop hard-drives and personal media players and phones for pirated material, requires ISPs to spy on their users, and gives movie and record companies the right to take whole households off the Internet with unsubstantiated allegations of piracy.”*

This secret copyright treaty is pretty black and white to me; we must crush it. The consequences of this treaty are unimaginably dreadful.

For more information you can visit the following links:

The Geek Whisperer: Scary Secret Copyright Treaty: From Music to Purses, This is Bad News

Copyright Watch

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

* BoingBoing: Two US senators demand publication of secret copyright treaty

The new first-person shooter, Modern Warfare 2 has smashed the entertainment industry’s sales records selling 4.7 million copies on its release date (Crosswalk). A new sequel is already in the works. The Onion News Network has the scoop on their next war game; this time it’s as realistic as it’s ever going to get.

To followup yesterday’s post, Copyright, teh Internets & the Future, here’s a bit on the secret international copyright treaty known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

ACTA is an international copyright treaty that is being negotiated in secret; although a lot of details have been leaked. The sections regarding the Internet are obscenely draconian; three strikes and you lose your right to connect to the Internet for a year. If this passes, I want that applied to major media conglomerates as well. Three misuses of intellectual property and the whole company loses it’s connection.

This video explains the treaty as it exists today, it’s origins, and it’s potential impact. This isn’t the best video, but it does the job. You are on the Internet, and you are reading a blog, so this treaty will harm you. You should watch the video, don’t be ignorant on this issue.

Make no mistake about it, ACTA will impact everyone. We all handle intellectual property on a daily basis, and current copyright law just doesn’t make sense in a post-Internet world (see yesterday’s post for more on that).

How can the US Government participate in secret negotiations for a treaty that will directly impact so many American’s? This isn’t some right wing thing pro business thing, this is the Obama Administration (not that I care for either side, but some of you do).

Current copyright law turns everyone into a criminal.

Kill ACTA. Reform copyright law.

My friend Laurie shared this on Facebook a few weeks ago and I almost forgot to post it. Basically it shows how much media hype surrounded a potential cataclysm… then it show’s how man deaths actually occurred as a result of this apocalyptic problem. In each case, the hype was infinitely more intense the the problem.

Click for a larger view

The total deaths from killer wasps, killer wifi, mobile phone cancer, Autism vaccinations, asteroid collisions, the Millennium Bug, Mad Cow Disease, video game violence, SARS, Bird Flu, and Swine Flu total somewhere in the range of 3000 people. I don’t mean to diminish the deaths of those who did die from killer wasps, Mad Cow, SARS, Bird & Swine flu, but the amount of attention we give these problems isn’t worth it.

The one in red is video game violence… I think I will be revisiting that one soon.

Data is a wonderful thing.

Copyright law has fascinated me since high school. I read a lot about it, I understand it (fairly well), I have a lot of informed opinions on it, but I have never been able to articulate my ideas on the subject in the way that I am confident.

Fortunately, law professor and Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig does it for me. His presentation perfectly explains Copyright law, then he breaks it down in ways that make so much sense. So much more sense then I could ever make. Not only that, the presentation uses PowerPoint in fun ways.

This isn’t short, but if you have any curiosity or interest in Copyright law and how it impacts you, watch this video. If you don’t have a lot of time, watch the first twelve minutes, and the last five; you won’t regret it.

Pwn (pronounced “p-own”)

- verb
to be owned, to have your rear kicked,  to be destroyed in a spectacularly manner.

Origin
The is word common among gamers, geeks, and nerds.

Related Forms
Pwned, Pwn3d, and Pwnage

Usage
“Did you see that? I just pwned your ass!”

After crazy Uncle Rupert (Murdoch) claimed that he was contemplating hiding all of his news sites from Google and other news aggregation services (Rupert Murdoch Threatens Seppuku), the Internet was all a-buzz. While everyone was writing about how epicly stupid the idea was, Mike Masnick of Techdirt did some research.

Masnick realized that many of Murdoch’s own sites “parasited” content in exactly the same manner that he endlessly complains about with Google and Microsoft. Prestige sites like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News “steal” stories from blogs, other sources, and even Techdirt itself. Many of Murdoch’s most successful web properties “steal” stories, or have searches powered by Google that allow users to search the broader Internet within a News Corp branded user experience (Techdirt – the original post is worth reading).

Boom head-shot!

Mr. Murdoch, you’ve just been pwned.

“No Doubt” is suing Band Hero (and Guitar Hero) maker Activision over their appearance in the game (GameSpy).

Allegedly, the band’s contract with Activision dictates that the band member’s avatars can only be used on their own songs, but they are fully playable characters in the game. This means that players can appear as say, Gwen Stefani on any song in the game.

Apparently this is damaging to the members of “No Doubt.”

Someone screwed up badly, and only time will tell who it was. Either…

1. “No Doubt’s” lawyers dropped the ball or…
2. Activision breached their contract.

I don’t know how it actually went down, but either way, this is pathetic.

At the end of the day, I don’t see how the members of “No Doubt” are actually damaged and deserving of financial reward on account of this, but I’m sure their lawyers would be happy to explain why I’m wrong. By the same token, Activision needs to get their shit together and make sure that the artists that they put in their games understand, and are happy with their role within it, as the very same thing happened with Guitar Hero 5, and their use of Kurt Cobain.

Speaking of the late Mr. Cobain…

Cobain’s wife Courtney Love complained that the ability for players to use Cobain on any song in the game, including a lot of pop and electro-crap that he probably would hate was damaging to his legacy. Normally I would agree. Cobain was a revolutionary figure in music, popular culture, hell, culture in general. Having him play a song like “Play That Funky Music” is degrading. Then I saw this commercial for Nicktoons that is set to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Sorry, I can’t embed this one, but it’s worth watching).*

I’m sure that the same lawyer who approved the deal with Activision over Cobain’s appearance along with the song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in Guitar Hero 5, had to approve the deal with Nicktoons as well. I can’t imagine that Cobain would have liked that commercial.

So, “No Doubt” & Courtney Love, let’s cut this shit out. Everyone got paid and these games introduce the music of “No Doubt” and Nirvana to a younger generation. Everyone is making money, and that’s all that you folks really want at this point.

* That commercial really does break my heart.