12/07/05 | | Shawn Rider
Jack Thompson jokes wearing thin? We understand. After all the coverage Thompson has gotten, we\'re pretty bored with his ranting. But the game world needs a new hysterical voice to mock and deride, which is why we are happy to present Ted Rueter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana. Professor Rueter has written an editorial in College News against colleges adopting game design courses and degrees of study, which, he says, \"kidnap American education.\" Needless to say, we disagree.
12/03/05 | | Jeremy Kauffman
We all have ideas for the next big thing, an idea for a game that everyone would love. The big difference between us and the rest of the world is that we can write about our ideas and entertain our delusions of \'having a real effect on the industry.\' To those ends, we present \"If They Were As Smart As We Think We Are,\" Matt and Jeremy\'s forum for sharing some of their hare-brained videogame concepts. We invite you to read and respond.
11/26/05 | | Laurie Taylor
\'Tis the season, and we\'ve got to admit that it has been a season full of hardship, which has created plenty of opportunities to put our best feet forward. Gamers have rallied to help raise money for recent natural disasters, but we always need to keep in mind that we still need to provide consistent support for charitable activites that don\'t necessarily get nightly news coverage. One such good cause is the Child\'s Play Foundation, created by Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade. Child\'s Play helps provide needed entertaining diversions for children\'s hospitals, and we\'re glad that Laurie took some time out to write about this very worthy cause. Find out how you can bring some joy to the world in your own little way.
11/23/05 |
XB360 | Aaron Stanton
Should you be worried about the Xbox 360 being defective? Are they dropping like flies? According to online forums, Xbox 360s seem to be reporting errors like mad, but don\'t be too quick to go off telling your friends about the death of the 360. The words \"recall\" shouldn\'t slip out your lips just yet. In short, don\'t panic; chances are that error rates are skewed by the hardcore demographic of early adopters eager to share their 360 experiences.
11/23/05 | | Aaron Stanton
The day of November 22nd was quiet compared to the evening of the day before; the Xbox 360 launch was virtually over within hours of 12:01. If you didn\'t have an Xbox 360 by then, chances of getting one had grown slim. Retail outlets that didn\'t take preorders were the kings, the last refuge of gamers that didn\'t buy early or were bumped off the list by supply shortages. We took a moment to drop by a store or two to chat with the faithful during the Xbox 360 launch event.
11/18/05 | | Aaron Stanton
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a campus-wide Wi-Fi service that can track when and where you connect, recording your location for up to 12 hours. It could be the next best thing in multiplayer game matching (find a PSP or DS user nearby to hook up a game), but with cities like San Fransisco and Philadelphia already looking into municipal broadband projects, this sort of technology also raises some serious ethical questions. And after recent news of World of Warcraft\'s \"Warden\" program spying on your computer we\'re worried about these issues coming directly to videogames. Sony\'s massive blowout with spyware, rootkits, and a public backlash that will no doubt severely wound the company, will also affect in some tangential way (at best) PlayStation 3 development and launch. Aaron takes a look at these issues and probes the changing face of your gaming privacy.
11/09/05 |
XB360 | Aaron Stanton
Assuming you\'re lucky enough to get an Xbox 360 on the November 22nd launch day, you\'re going to want to have a game to go with it. Sure, you can throw in Halo 2, but you\'re not going to see the true power of the system until you have something that\'s built for it. The problem is, what do you buy? How do you judge quality before the system releases? It\'s a dilemma we\'re going to try to address. We break down the games that will be available on launch day to help you decide which ones fit best in your DVD tray.
10/16/05 | | Matt James
Matt James is back with the mailbag, and after the mountain of email we got regarding our very non-controversial views on the Nintendo Revolution controller, we\'ve got to hand it to him: He carried that whole big bag up the stairs himself and didn\'t even strain anything. This is a classic edition of the GF! Mailbag: Gamers get fanatical about their hardware, and it\'s amazing how many people are driven to put their thought down although they have very little imagination or vision for how games could be even better than they already are. We\'ve said it before and we\'ll say it again: Sales figures are a false indication of quality.
10/15/05 |
PC | Aaron Stanton
A recent posting on RootKit.com suggests that Blizzard installs software that watches the personal information of people playing their game. The software is designed to hunt for cheat-ware, but reads the title headings of any window open, regardless of its relation to WoW. The poster reports that he, \"watched the Warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, (and) the URL of several websites that I had open at the time.\" Don\'t like that? Too bad. Considering that it\'s part of Blizzard\'s anti-hacking measures, it might be considered illegal for you to turn it off, or even try to. At what point do we consider this a problem?
09/24/05 |
XB360 | Chris Martin
Microsoft isn\'t one to be left behind in the wake of Nintendo\'s announcement of the Revolution\'s controller. They might not be rolling out a redesigned input device, but it doesn\'t mean they aren\'t being revolutionary. What\'s Microsoft\'s revolution? It\'s Live. Their inclusion of the Live service in every Xbox 360 sold makes it clear that they consider the gaming community itself to be the revolutionary aspect of gaming. Take a moment to read about Microsoft\'s approach to the game industry.
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