Tech Editors's profileTech & Gadgets Editors' ...PhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
|
October 30 Scary gamesSo it's nearly Halloween, and in true timely journalism fashion this means we have to come up with 'scary' ideas. Of course - with gadgets not being particularly spooky (USB pumpkins don't cut it - sorry) I immediately put my gaming editor hat on and tried to think of frightening games (and I don't mean Mario Party) It's par for the course (I know) but my list includes Half Life 2 chiefly for its Ravenholm level - and a lot of the more obvious survival horror series (resi / AoD / Silent Hill). There's one I've thrown in that's probably going to mystify a few people and that's 7th Guest.
I got Rebel Assault and 7th Guest as birthday presents one year to play on our brand new PC which could cope with this brand new CD ROM technology (So I'm old - shoot me). It was the former that I was most looking forward to but the lack of a joystick meant that for a few weeks I played more of the latter. And it was alright - in a puzzley bizarre kind of way. And then I listened to the 'soundtrack' - and boy was it an experience. Basically you could put one of the two game CDs into your drive and listen to the music track within (I thought it was some kind of mistake when I realised you could do this :)) There was a song on there called Dem Bones - which was cool and then, interspersing the music tracks was this dialogue spool which was genuinely chilling. The phrase. "It's the dolls...they're...they're children..." Still makes me look over my shoulder now! Anyway - I'm likely to get accused of missing some classics (one of my colleagues has already harangued me for not having F.E.A.R. in there - but I didn't find it that scary to be honest) October 29 A Tiny TV and a RWC FinalI realise that many of you have all but forgotten there was even a Rugby World Cup by now - but having just got back from a week on the Canals I just wanted to share with you a picture of the television I watched the Rugby World Cup final on (due to unexpected lack of pubs on that bit of the Welsh border)
Needless to say this 10 incher is a travesty of a television and I can only make myself feel a tiny bit better in the knowledge that the video judge clearly has an even worse view of England's disallowed try...
Technorati Tags: television, quirky October 19 A severed finger?My slightly odd but possibly inspired marketing gimmick of the day award goes to Codemasters' Jericho promotion for which I was given, wait for it, a severed finger in a bag of goop.
How Half Life changed the worldThere aren’t many games that have genuinely thrilled me through the years – plenty that have had an immediate impact and then faded away, plenty that have slowly wheedled themselves into my subconscious and several that I have loved. But thrill? I can probably list them off the top of my head: Pong, Space Invaders, Manic Miner, Speedball 2, Sensible Soccer, Doom, Tie-fighter, Half Life, Counter Strike, Half Life 2 and World of Warcraft.
They aren’t necessarily the best games ever made*, but they are the ones that left me breathless with glee – wondering if maybe, just maybe, this was as good as it could ever get. A quick look through that list tells me three things: all of them still resonate with me to this day, I can still remember how to play every single one and last but not least – I love Valve, who provide** three of the eleven. To that end, I’m writing a piece today about how Half Life changed the world. The original game, which I should probably confess is my favourite game of all time, helped bring story-telling firmly back into the realm of gaming, with grandiose scripted sequences and the best opening ever, ever, ever in the history of computers.
Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe’s mod of Half Life – Counter-Strike – was the game that, for me, not only popularised online gaming in a way that no other title ever managed, but also proved to the industry that all the physics engines and graphical tweaks in the world were no match for perfect gameplay. And last but not least, Half Life’s sequel helped make Steam – a way that allowed games to be distributed and patched through a desktop program – into a leviathan within the industry, changing the way that people thought about boxed software and helping usher in a new era of downloads and episodic gaming.
And that's not even mentioning things like Team Fortress and DoD. Anyway – that’s half my article in one stream of consciousness :) So I’d better stop blogging about it and get on with the writing. By the way, I’m on holiday next week – floating round the canal network where I’m told that plugs are scarce – so I’ll be back on the 29th reinvigorated and ready to take on all comers. *But they kind of are ** Sort of with CS. October 17 TV revolution and Russian rouletteIf you're reading this from Whitehaven then you have probably already noticed that the analogue signal has been switched over. Of course, the chances are that nobody from Whitehaven IS reading this but it will happen to us all by 2012, so probably best that you stay aware of what's going on.
To that end, I have three separate pieces of work for you.
On a separate note. How annoying is the whole Russian match at 4 thing? I've been in since early so I can at least try to watch some of it in a local pub. And all to protect the footballers from sub zero temparatures - pffft. October 15 TiredalyserThrough no fault of my own I am incredibly tired today, and it's been an uphill battle to try to stop a mountain of errors creeping into my work through bleary eyes and sluggish thoughts. Currently doing the rounds in the office is a breathalyser; not, as you may think, for some draconian testing system put in place by Microsoft, but because the good chaps over at MSN cars were asked to review one. Which got me to thinking - how good would it be to have a tester for your state of mind when you get in on a Monday? I know that if I took the Tiredalyser test today I would packed off to the nearest hotel for some much needed kip. But in the same way as a man unable to get his keys off a cynical barman isn't going to drink drive, someone who keeps clipping walls while he's walking is already aware that he's not had the best night's sleep anyway. But what about for those days when you think you've had a solid eight hours, and yet inadvertently find yourself typing absolute garbage* in the afternoon and unable to concentrate? Wouldn't it be better to take the test in the morning and be informed that you actually need a quick catnap before starting work? Anyway - the main purpose of this blog was to bring you two pictures. One - MSN video's Chris Lunn's rather low tech out of office warning
And secondly - my desk, finally coming to resemble the desk of a technology editor.
*I appreciate that this may fall into that category October 12 England, England, England!It's the kind of weekend that television manufacturers live for: not one but three massive events that the whole nation will be tuning into, getting their faces painted and readying the space behind the sofa for when it all gets intense.
But enough about X Factor , Strictly Come Dancing and, erm Channel 4 turning 25...
Ahh, you know what I'm talking about. For a sports fan, tomorrow is about as good as it gets, with England's international sides in action in cricket, footy and rugby.
It all kicks off at 10 when our awesome one day side will look to go out of the series on a high having already taken an unassailable 3-1 lead against Sri Lanka.
Then England's football team are in action against Estonia at Wembley.
Now, normally, I'd have international footy on a much higher footing that the rugger, but I have to confess that the World Cup semi-final is the sporting highlight of the day when we take on France in a Northern Hemisphere clash.
October 11 A genuinely cool keyboardOne of the things that I thought was most cool at Microsoft's 25 years of hardware show a couple of weeks back was a keyboard. Why? Because it was designed to be part of the digital home rather than a part of the office.
The keyboard is ultra thin, it's wireless (as is the mouse it comes with) but the best thing is the dock.
Once the dock is plugged in that's the last wire you have to worry about. The keyboard charges when it's slotted into the dock and the mouse is charged just by sitting on top of it.
It works really well, and is definitely the kind of direction I can see a lot of cross-over digihome / work stuff going in.
I'll be doing a full review next week, but early impressions are: keyboard is awesome: the keys are like laptop keys (which suits me) and I'm adjusting slowly to the slight ergo curve that the keyboard has. The mouse? In my opinion - horrible. It's not well balanced (all the weight is at the back) and the click wheel doesn't click (noooooo).
Which is a shame because it might well let the whole package down... October 10 Radiohead - In RainbowsI'm a lot of a Radiohead fan, so a new album is always going to leave me pretty excited. What's more remarkable about this one, as you may have read on MSN Music or elsewhere, is that it's available on download until Christmas when a £40 box set hits the shops.
So what's remarkable about that? Well, the band are bucking the trend and creating something of a stir by letting you decide what you wanted to pay for the album. Of course, this could backfire spectacularly if everyone opts to pay 1p, but it's far more likely that it will be a raging success that puts the cash straight into the pocket of the band.
Why? Because the people that would have bought the album anyway are likely to pay a decent price for the album and the slice which Radiohead get is far bigger without the middlemen AND because many other people will be drawn in to buy the album for a minimal fee who otherwise would simply have downloaded it illegally.
How much did I pay? £8. But I'm a conformist.
With Prince giving his album away and making his money from live performances and Radiohead doing this, it seems to me that the music industry is changing and evolving at such a rate that it could be year before it settles down.
My opinion? The record industry were greedy for years and it's come back to bite them, with not only the public rebelling against top dollar prices and a failure to embrace the future, but also the bands themselves.
Alternatives to the Royal MailPhew, busy week! The Royal Mail strike may not especially seem like a T&G topic, but many of the modern day alternatives are.
The problem with the Royal Mail personnel striking (and I'm not even getting into whether that is right or wrong) is that people begin to lose their trust for the mail service and seek alternative methods.
Read my article on Alternatives to the Royal Mail
Now, as a commited technophile, I very rarely send actual letters, but I am lucky enough to know a very famous fishing writer named Fred Buller and he has kept every single (handwritten) letter that he has recieved for the whole of his life, documenting relationships through the years with the likes of poet Ted Hughes and Lord Profumo.
It's an amazing collection, neatly filed in his study, and it does make me yearn a little for an age where communication was, well, more personal.
Back to the point. E-mail has already dented the traditional post (snail mail), and with scanners and pdfs you can send nearly everything you need anyway. Which leaves the likes of passages and birthday cards - tangible things - that still (an possibly always will) need to be physically sent.
These things tend to pack an emotional punch still, but when they can't reach their destination then people understandably get even more angry.
Anyway, the pigeon makes its long-awaited debut* on T&G, and I think my work experience kid solution is definitely the way forward.**
*Dick Dastardly and Muttley to follow shortly
** Just don't sue me if a few go missing. October 08 PS3 price-drop opinionWith Xbox stealing the limelight recently (Halo to you PR machine!) Sony did its best to remind everyone that they also have a console in the market which is pretty damn good by (finally) by announcing this weekend that a £299 version of the PS3 would arrive on the market ahead of Christmas.
The cheaper version will have a smaller hard-drive and no PS2 backwards compatibility, but the decision is not a major shock, especially considering the calls of those within the games industry that Sony's baby needed to be more competitive in the marketplace.
I've said on plenty of prior occasions that I think the PS3 is a gorgeous bit of kit. It's powerful and sleek and many other words more normally attributed to panthers than consoles.
But it had twin millstones around its neck with a price point that, despite the inclusion of a Blu-ray drive, put it on a completely different plane to its main rival the Xbox 360 and the even more significant factor of a lack of top quality games.
Now the decision to produce a cheaper version does, at least, combat millstone A, but if anything the decision to take out the backwards compatibility exacerbates millstone B.
Now, if we take a slightly more removed look at backwards compatibility we all know that it's a feature that becomes mainly redundant as your fave old titles are surpassed and succeeded. But the problem with the PS3 is that it is expensive to develop for and the key games that it is waiting on (GTA 4, MGS 4 and Gran Turismo 5) have all been pushed back into next year.
Meanwhile, the PS2 - in my opinion probably the best console of all time - is still getting much love from developers that adore the platform and have been making amazing games for it for years.
Which means losing the chance to get these titles working on your PS3 is quite possibly a problem.
Sony is in a tricky position; cutting the price is necessary but getting a quality line-up of games is even more important. By creating an even bigger burden of need for those games by selling consoles that aren't backwards compatible is the company making a rod for its own back?
PlayStation fans everywhere are calling out for great games, and until they arrive it's going to be an uphill battle for Sony. October 03 Mailbag for SeptemberSo that was September – I can almost feel the Christmas shopping crowds beginning to hammer on the doors and I’m already bored of my raincoat after a British summer that was, to borrow a line from Blackadder, wetter than a haddock’s wet bits.
But one thing that September did provide us with was plenty of material for the old mailbag. (I’m saving the new one for the Christmas presents)
So without further ado, let’s take our monthly trawl through all that was controversial in the ninth month of the year.
A positive start saw the majority of people agree with an article I wrote suggesting that if workers didn’t have facebook they would find other ways of procrastinating.
Andy 1972 confessed “i'd still do as little as possible with or without the internet lol”
Dancefloorninja added: “I love that article. Common sense. This is all I know, I spend a considerably less amount of time using the internet to communicate with my family and friends in worktime than other people do using mobile phones or pratting about the office talking to their family and friends.
“I count very few of my workmates as social friends, but that is not the case for everyone at my work. A lot of my workmates are close, social friends with each another. What next? Law employment firms wanting to ban people from having friendships in the workplace cos they waste time (and lots of it) talking about things other than work? Sheesh!!!”
SeniorSoftwareDeveloper asked if companies would be quite such stickler for the rules if it didn’t suit them.
“Social networking sites can be a useful business asset if used properly, contacts, contracts and communications all built into one, and like others have said, they sit in the background nicely out the way.
“Banning internet in any form is censorship, and when you tell people they can't do something they get annoyed very quickly. I'm totally opposed to email/usage monitoring or control and going through peoples private stuff. I've always had an open policy in my office - flexible hours, play games, hit websites, long as the work gets done on time, it doesn't matter (but try to keep it to break-times people please). Stressed people don't do any work at all. If people are going to "use company resources" regardless of if they are supposed to or not, better to let them know you are ok with it. It's a trust thing, if you've got the right people, it's not an issue.
“You are supposed to take a break 10-15 minutes away from the screen every hour, I wonder how many people/offices break that regulation too.”
Last word goes to the brilliantly named Snozzlebot who says: "Absolutely right. What a great article. There seems to be too much preoccupation with measuring wasted work hours with this and that. Of course people must work hard and get the job done, but we're not robots and never will be. Before the internet people would happily waste time reading magazines, the newspaper, extended smoking breaks every 20 mins, long chats about who scored with who on Saturday night, whatever. There needs to be more cop on about human nature and work with it, not against it.
"After Xmas last year the small business association in the UK were whining about lost work hours, damage to the economy from everyone having a week off (taking 3 days leave on top of the public holiday to make a full week), such that offices had to close for a week. I haven't heard any subsequent reports of severe damage to the UK economy caused by this. This sort of nit picking and whining is not going to earn the respect of employees anyway. Certainly not me!"
People were less impressed with the discussion between me and movies editor Ed Holden, discussing whether computer games were the new movies. We both knew that it was likely to bring criticism from people saying they couldn’t be compared (and we talk about that point in our contrasting articles) but it still annoyed many.
The debate on the boards, however, did start with people genuinely considering the concept of games taking over as the primary media.
“I don't think games are the new movies. Games are played mainly by younger people and those with good manual dexterity. Not everyone can play games, but everyone with eyes can watch movies,” said OSM
Scott 28280 responded: “yes, movies are good and all, but nothing beats controlling the action, and with games like oblivion and two worlds, you control all of the action as its free-roaming game play and oblivion's story line and cut scenes are better than a movie, games are taking over, I would rather sit at my X-Box 360 or pc and play games than watch a movie.”
Mr Will10 had the last word: “Okay this is why I say games are not the new movies - You can play computer games and they conquer our minds very easily. Fine. But you cannot sit on the back row of a cinema making out with your girlfriend if you’re fiddling with a games controller, can you?”
Stillgamerat34 raised an interesting discussion when he asked if he was too old to be a computer gamer: “I get it in the neck from friends and colleagues that I am 'too old' to play PC games. I am 34, married with a daughter and still loving every minute of gaming ever since i programmed my first game on my ZX81 years ago. So what is an acceptable age limit? If there is one?”
Phry responded: “43, but I'll take you on in counterstrike any time :D Getting older just means you know more taunts to use against other players :D”
AOB
Well, September was a busy month on T&G with the iPhone finally getting an UK launch date and a Halo 3 special that performed superbly. On top of this we launched our sparkling new News section which appears to be doing very well. Keep an eye out for our new sections for Mobile phones, laptops, TVs and MP3 players in October October 02 ManualsI'm writing an article today about instruction manuals for gadgets and gizmos; it's a fairly typical light-hearted look at something that irritates me.
I had originally called the article WTFM, but I figured this might be a little bit geeky so I abandoned the idea and it will now have a more obvious headline.
Anyway, in the process of researching the article I discovered a few gems from the troubleshooting sections of a few manuals
Problem: Screen is black
Answer: Check power switch is set to on.
Problem: Battery light is not on
Answer: Ensure batteries are not flat
Problem: Player is showing up 'no disc'
Answer: Ensure that a disc is inserted into the player.
I can honestly say I've never yet found a helpful answer in the troubleshooting section of a manual.
October 01 From Orson Welles to noddiesOne of the biggest challenges I face in my daily job is coming up with features and idea that appeal to the readers of MSN.
It's something that I quite enjoy to be honest; I try very hard to keep my ears open for what people are talking about in pubs/public transport/parties and try to keep in touch with the non-Tech news agenda so I can see which bits I can steal and repurpose for my own audience.
A combination of these things allow me to write on topics as diverse as the author Michael Marshall Smith, Jet Packs, Halo 3, iPhone etc etc which makes sure that not only does my job never get boring but that, if it should, the only person at fault would be me for not thinking outside the box.
Saying that, it's always nice when other people come up with ideas on your behalf - and that's what I got today when one of our troika* of home page editors, Ian Jones, asked if I could shoehorn in... I mean, construct something from the spate of stories about the fakery and falsehoods of media.
Now, riffing on an idea is one of the pure joys of being a writer. Can you turn a concept into a fully realised and enticing article?
In a roundabout kind of way, I got to spend a year on the fringes of television and I have the ubiquitous journalism degree as well - so I was well aware of noddies, the re-filming, the phone votes etc, but as I'm looking at the idea now, I really want to be a bit broader and delve into the media past as well.
Can I start with a sentence about the first film effects? Can I bring in the story of Orson Welles' infamous War of the Worlds broadcast? Can I talk about internet spoofs, urban myth sites, spam. Can (and this is normally the problem) I cut all these idea down to a thousand words worth reading?
It's certainly fun to try.
*in the broadest sense of course... |
|
|
