I like this.

Brooko's article is a bit off. Notwithstanding the fact people are still writing omgjapan!! articles in 2012*: Yes, hardcore dorks are public outed entities and are actively pandered to by industries various in a pretty hefty way now, but you'll not find a lot of people particularly comfortable with them in practice.

*Oh, purchasing details in italics there hmm righto

Happened across this yesterday, which is pure gold

http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/the-playboy-club-bunny-manual-tsy-required-retro-reading/

Rest of the place looks like it has some good articles as well.

M0stly harm13ss wrote:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/170180/Sony_shares_fall_to_32_year_low_as_future_plans_are_labeled_optimistic.php

10 million PSPs in the next year?

'Optimistic' is one way to put it.

Oooops, I definitely meant to type Vita but put PSP instead.

I'm not sure a huge price drop and a shed load of games would propel them to 10m. I just don't think there's a mainstream audience for it anymore, but hey.

0;Mornin’, got the coffee on (new stovetop 6 cup espresso maker bought, waiting for that concentrated coffee goodness to bubble through)

To calm that addled mind this morning, why not stream the Fez soundtrack from here.

http://disasterpeace.com/album/fez

And to go with that, how about some animated pixel art. Reminds me of the graphical adventures of yore, so makes me all warm and fluffy inside 

http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

Day two of the Day Z feature from RPS…brrr..Zombies…hate Zombies…….and spiders….…and maroon skinny chinos.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/14/surviving-in-day-z-part-two/#more-107833

Edit: Oh and day 3 too..

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/19/surviving-in-day-z-part-three-musings/

Speedruns? “A play-through, or recording thereof, of a whole video game or a selected part of it (such as a single level) performed with the intent of completing it as fast as possible, optionally under certain prerequisites, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and competition.” I remember watching the Dark Souls speedruns a while back (now down to 45 minutes, using a glitch though), and knew that such a thing existed, I just wasn’t aware how popular it was. Virtually every game that gets released gets flown through (Diablo III was completed in 12 hours this week on the day of release), Skyrim is down to 2 hrs 15 minutes, Portal 10 minutes. Anyhoo,

Edge say it better than I could, so back to Blu for us…old article though, surprisingly I couldn’t find anything more up to date.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/feature-speed-freaks

http://speeddemosarchive.com/


I’ve still got a ¾ size Spartan helmet upstairs, but the hassle of carting that around and trying to display it (it’s gone back in it’s box) meant it was the last ‘Super Collector Edition’ of a game I ever bought. I like my extra little manual and art books (Dark Souls and Reach, cases in point, but didn’t all that come with the standard editions a few years ago?), but a 32 piece Max Payne dinner service, nah? If you’ve seen this already apologies, discussion about Collector’s Editions.

http://www.split-screen.net/blog/reality-check-super-collectors-article-of-the-year-edition


Playing bad games as a pastime? I’ve hardly got time to play the good ones (I play those badly anyway, hence why I have so little time)….

“The Japanese term kusoge, meaning “shit game,” is a category reserved for the worst that videogames have to offer. Bugs, glitches, crap graphics, absurd storylines, obtuse or inconsistent rules, terrible voice acting, insane difficulty curves, boring levels of ease, offensive material; these are thekusoge things. To qualify for this category, a game must have excessive failings of quality. An error or two can’t bring a good game down—a kusogemust be an epic fail. Yet, kusoge has a substantial fanbase. So what the hell is so appealing about this shit?”

 http://killscreendaily.com/articles/essays/im-not-kidding-game-shit/

Diablo III. The main reason trumpeted by the developers for the always-on connection to Skynet was to provide controls over items found within the game and limit/prevent cheating. Why? Because all the stuff you come across, once the ichor has been wiped off, can be sold for real money in the in game auction house.

First up, direct from the developers, why do this at all?

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/170324/Diablo_IIIs_real_money_Auction_House_was_driven_by_design_team_says_director.php

Being cynical, I’m not quite sure that’s the whole story. I’m sure Blizzard are going to make a fuckton of money from creaming off a % of the auction house transactions, and to make it as profitable as possible, they need to ensure that it is both well controlled and perceived to be well controlled otherwise it’s just not going to work, and back to ebay everyone will go. Whichever way stuff is traded however, is there any doubt that this is going to be the next big market for new hats? And with this market comes all sorts of problems, ownership of virtual items, paying tax on your profits, theft. How long until the first virtual DIII virtual mugging?

http://digital-lifestyles.info/2005/03/31/legend-of-mir-3-gamer-killed-after-selling-virtual-sword/

RPS also argue the point about ‘always connected’ games. Fair enough, Blizzard has a great track record in maintaining games, keeping them updated, etc., well for now anyway (who knows about the future? It’s all about the money in the end). But I’m sure EA, a rather less…how can we put it…customer focused company have one eye on how this launch is going.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/17/opinion-why-the-problem-with-diablo-isnt-diablo/#more-108136

Francis couldn’t logon though……

Who puts a poster for youtube on their wall? Apart from fat cunts I suppose.

This is a great thread.

+1

g.man

That fat guy is an argument in favour of social cleansing.

Stopharage wrote:

... 20 Awesome but Obscure movies (their words not mine):- http://www.totalfilm.com/features/20-awesome-obscure-movies/savage-1996 ...

Aha! Cheers for the link - watched Fallen Idol a while back because I knew I'd seen it on a list of good films but forgot what the list was.

Thanks Stopharage, got some suggestions for my Lovefilm lists there

Mind Game is absolutely incredible, hope you enjoy.

Pm'd

Goofy isn't really what I'm hoping for, it'll still kill a couple of hours though.

n0face wrote:

Goofy isn't really what I'm hoping for, it'll still kill a couple of hours though.

The punchline, such as it is, is p. good, but you have to sit through a lot of over-drawn out other gags too.