Video game 'record score' claim
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A Greater Manchester man claims the highest ever score in the vintage video game Galaxian.
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Tycho:  I should have all the science lined up by the end of the week, ready to stuff into the piano black lozenge I've obtained to celebrate my return to personal computing.  Wish me luck; I've never before had the opportunity to fry four processors at once.       I know things.  Specifically, things that may be of interest to you.  For example, I know if playing Eye of Judgment online is an onerous as it might seem.  It is not!  I cannot express my relief.    Well, let's try.  In my last, vast expose, I broke down a card's unique language and expressed some misgivings about online play - ultimately just accepting it, because what they're trying to do is so weird that there's no prior art.  Essentially, you "register" your thirty card deck with the system itself, where it is stored and named for future use.  This process is extremely straightforward:  it is simply a matter of you laying your cards anywhere on the mat, a few at a time.  It will probably take two minutes if you really keep on it.  Then, you jump online, choose what nation you want to play for, and track down a partner.  At this point, the game will "draw" you your five card hand by showing you the card art onscreen.  You get one Mulligan (or redraw), but if you like your hand you move into the game proper.  We laid out our deck by element, face up, and this smoothed the turn to turn process considerably.      In the build we have, and I hope this is changed for release, it shows you these cards in a single file line without their name or text - just the art.  Once you got familiar with these images, slightly modified from their card format, it's pretty quick - but the names should be displayed on this screen.  You can use the controller to pull up the names, but let's be serious - at no point should the player be forced to interact with a mundane controller once the game is underway.     You should know that the game really wants a well-lit environment.  You don't need a flare gun or anything, but we didn't have what we needed before and certain squares would slow down the game flow with partial reads that would only resolve after several attempts and minute card adjustments.  I should state that here in the office, we removed all the overhead lights, installing a single track of illumination that we point at the ceiling, where lights used to be.  We tend to transform any place we live into a cave.  So, our scenario might be somewhat atypical.    Also, I know if playing Rock Band with all the instruments off of a USB hub is onerous.  You will be happy to know that it is not - we played said instruments spread out on an actual stage, and found it more than satifactory.  The reality is that the drum kit already needs its own wire, so it isn't as though the future had actually arrived anyway.  Plus, the mic isn't wireless either. This makes the contrived brouhaha over wired guitars a fairly transparent traffic ploy.    This is a matter quite apart from Microsoft's reticence to play ball with unique, third party hardware.  And when I say "play ball," I'm taking about the shakedown operation they've got going licensing their wireless technology, which either makes products for their system more expensive or (in the salient case of Rock Band) results in them bundling a wired controller for the same price as a wireless one on a competitor's system.  This is the last holiday they can get away with this sort of thing...  right?
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"Master Chief" entered the record  books close behind the former Commander-in-Chief this week, as  book publisher Random House said first-day sales of the  strategy guide for video game "Halo 2" were its biggest since  the launch of Bill Clinton's book "My Life."
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Tycho: Keek directed me to a radical (and potentially even "badical") article on BioShock over at Gamers Wif Jobs. I've been wondering about the recent PR shift the game has gone through, because I don't just keep hearing that it is a "shooter first," but I keep hearing specifically that it is a "kick-ass shooter," even though it's a game where you learn about Objectivism underwater while helping jealous composers get revenge. I've never doubted that the game will be great, by whatever road it reaches that greatness. The recent WWE slant just had me curious about whether I'll be able to perform a suplex in-game. You may not think that is important, but it is totally important.(CW)TB
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Tycho:  You might want to see this, or you might not:  I know that Gabriel has sworn off all exposure to the game, which may also be your policy.  Even so, this is the first time they've shown the distaff side of the character creator, so maybe you'll rescind your earlier mandate.  A video with a similar theme popped up over at 1up as well, and it does things a little differently:  I don't like its look at the character creator as well, but the cut they have of the intro is far superior.  If you watched the other one, you're in for a penny, in for a pound:  you should check it out.    There's a lot of other content out today as well  at GameTrailers - but the whole thing is a minefield of spoilers so I'll understand if you hold back.  The intro itself (from the 1up cut) is perfectly executed.  Understand that I am almost the optimal audience for this sort of game, but even so.  I see a lot of game content, and you need to dig pretty deep to generate actual wonder.      I was excited to learn that they got Jack Wall in to do the soundtrack - he's worked with BioWare before, but he also did the soundtrack for Myst IV: Revelations - one of my all-time favorites.    (CW)TB
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Tycho:  This has been simmering on some tertiary heat source for awhile, and it may be time to serve it.  When a classic game is re-released for digital delivery, by what criteria are they being reviewed?
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Tycho:  Gamespot is saying there's a reproducible crash in the new Tiger Woods for the 360, and that the Gamernet functionality doesn't work there either.  PS3 version sounds clean.    Next year, can you guys make sure you put your crash bugs into the demo, too?  It would really help the consumer make an educated decision.    It's so weird; we had problems with the last one, but it never occurred to us that the next one could be worse.  That is to say, I expect inertia.  I don't expect it to break before I even get the Goddamned thing home.      (CW)TB
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Â· Manhunt 2 is first video game banned in 10 years  Â· Classification board cites 'casual sadism' of sequel
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Tycho:  Having played collectible card games since the original printing of Magic - taking my dishwasher's tips across the street to Dragon Tails to secure boosters for the coveted Arabian Nights - seeing Gabriel take up the pastime has warmed (but not thawed) my black heart.  It's always a portion of myself I've bridled in his presence, kept hidden, suppressed may be the word.  To have him take it up so freely makes me wonder which perversion of mine he'll take up next.    When he started talking about his "Firestarter" deck, whose dancing fires were stoked by a mysterious device known as "The Holon Engine," I began to worry.  The dangers of Netdecking are fairly substantial when it comes to friendly play, a corrosive force that turns friendly pick-up games into ostentatious displays of wealth on par with rap videos.  If you're playing in a competitive venue, building on prior art and making loads of precision purchases is probably your only recourse.  But if you're just playing at lunch, let me be clear:  you are consorting with devils.    I took time over the weekend to hit the level cap in Call of Duty 4, and then just to be sure that I understood what was going on I played for several more hours.  I'm not the most skilled player you will encounter, with a roughly equal number of kills and deaths, but I prefer to think of my work in an assassinative context - the removal of key players at key moments.  Please let me have this.  In the absence of the game's deeply integrated progression scheme, Infinity Ward would merely have created one of the best shooters available today.  It would have staunch proponents, and they would be right to praise it.  Is there a substance within cream that can rise to the top of itself?  This substance has been discovered.  As a distillation of the Infantry FPS, this is right down to it.  This is brutal, unrepentant, bathtub fucking hooch.  It is tight and smooth, it is lethal.  Unrelenting in its intensity, your first rounds - indeed, your first few levels - will be spent without the succor of CoD4's rich rewards for continued play.  But you'll see them on the killcam, every time you go down:  this one has increased health, of course that would help.  This one does more damage.  This one, after he's killed, pulls his sidearm and takes a few final shots.  This one's shots retain more of their damage after they pass through a wall.        You earn these for leveling up, with the experience you gain for every kill, for every round.  You also earn experience for Challenges, which are (collectively) "awesome things that you did."  I completed X-Ray challenges last night for killing people behind walls, which dished up bonus XP - this is displayed with exultant audio and video cues at the very moment of success.  Killing while crouched, killing while prone, taking down an enemy helicopter, this is all gravy.  There are challenges specific to your weapon, as well:  for kills and headshots with that firearm, you travel down an upgrade path unique to that weapon that reveals sights, camouflage patterns, and other tools to customize your equipment.    Watching videos of multiplayer play online, you'll get the impression that it looks better than it does.  It looks fantastic, don't get me wrong, but it's not completely photorealistic.  What it does have is an extremely reliable framerate and excellent level design, so that during the experience of play these fantastic visuals are transmuted into something sublime.  Here's what I mean:  if a friend is over, and they are watching you play, they'll be able to detect flaws here and there.  Level geometry isn't especially fanciful, and blown paper or leaves look a little strange.  But for the player, movement is just right, player models are just right, and the environments are right so that moment to moment everything gels.      As I said on Friday, to bring this thing into the house of Halo is pretty ballsy - but it'll carve out its proper due.  On the Playstation 3, what force could stand against it?  I have a high opinion of Haze, but I've never played it - that's based mostly on my gut.  Call of Duty 4 will fall hard on that system, like shrieking artillery.
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Video game sales soared to a record &#36;18.2 billion last year, but the days of strong growth are on pause as players await a new generation of consoles in 2005 and 2006, a new study showed on Wednesday.
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The Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family has just released its annual video game report card in Washington.
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com October 21, 2004, 10:50 AM PT. A stolen copy of the latest sequel in one of the top-selling video game series of all time began circulating on the Web late Wednesday, the second high-profile game theft in a week.
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When it comes to rating video games, "teen" vs. "mature" can be a fine line. But either way, it leads to the cash register.
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A professor at East Carolina University is trying to determine whether some video games can be good for you.
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Video game Halo 3 earns more than Â£84m ($170m) in sales in its first 24 hours on release, says Microsoft.
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TechWeb - After just 30 hours of playing certain types of video games, players could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly.
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Tycho:  I really must stress to online PlayStation 3 partisans the extent to which they were not at E3.  Those of you playing "the home game" might have seen a trailer or two and come away with the idea that with grace and pride your grey altar stood high over conquered foes.  Ain't the case.