Whither the Game? Just Asking
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In the coming months and the coming baseball season, there are a number of questions seeking answers.
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Tycho:  I don't know why I get my hopes up reading shit about "broken street dates" online, I'm perpetually disappointed by the results.  I got a game on the actual ship date five years ago, and it's made me into some kind of Goddamned optimist.  There are scattered reports that people have picked them up, and you may invest your time in this way if you are desperate, but I apologize for wasting your time.  (CW)TB
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STARDATE: FUN! The Developers over at Perpetual Entertainment, Inc. are feverishly, frantically, and Ferengingly working on Star Trek Online, a massively multiplayer role-playing game where you too can be a shoulder-pinchin' Vulcan, an annoyed Klingon, or one of those blue guys with mini-satellite dishes sticking out of their heads. Many fans of the series are eagerly awaiting Star Trek Online so they can get just a little bit closer to being an actual officer of the Federation. Me, no; I'm too worried that I'll be the very first subscriber permanently exiled from the entire Star Trek universe.
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Kevin Garnett missed his third consecutive game last night, and his coach produced a timetable for a return without a calendar. In other words, indefinite. Or he could be back Tuesday. Does that make it any clearer? Didn't think so.
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Tycho:  I have no time for Lair, I'm afraid.  My limited playtime with the game has only encouraged me to further limit said playtime, throttling this value until it reaches zero.  As one of the long-known exclusives, a kind of cult has formed around the game - one whose creed hinges on the glorious arrival of their reptile saint.  It is a weird hunger, one quite outside reality, and it would be best to manage those expectations before their piss-smelling vagrant messiah stumbles into the retail channel.
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Tycho:  I've tried to make the most of the Playstation 3 now that it's set up, and hearing that Tekken 5 would see release on the service yesterday made us dig deeper into their virtual storefront. This has got to be one of the most careful, convoluted purchase experiences ever engineered.  The comic presents it as a conversation, which I suppose each transaction is, at some level - but this is actually how it goes down.
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Tycho: I just read through one of the conduits of Leipzig gaming news, and was jolted by a piece of news: Xbox Live is going to be moving into classic board games. I don't mean, like, Chutes and Ladders or some shit - though I don't doubt that GrowPot420 would snap that up on day one. No, I mean like Settlers of Catan and Carcassone. Pillars of the tabletop gaming community, so to speak. This is probably the biggest news of that convention for me. Getting people together to play these games, or finding people to play them with at all can be a trying endeavor. This is near Goddamn optimal.(CW)TB
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Tycho:  It's floating around now, out there on the Wub, and it calls to you.  Or maybe it does, I don't actually know.  In any case, it can be got from 3D Downloads, the Fileplanets, GamersHell, or WorthDownloading.  Download it from mulltiple sites simultaneously for a naughty thrill.  God only knows how this would run on my Vista rig at home, but it's a Vista rig, so you can probably guess.  (CW)TB
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com. Win Monday, and the team advances to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Lose, and players will suffer through more of those annoying questions about playoff futility.
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Gabe: Gametrailers has a really nice HD version of the latest trailer for our game. You can check it out right here. I know it's not a new trailer, but it's much nicer than the YouTube version floating around.  -Gabe out
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Tycho:  Last year's iteration of Tiger Woods had a fairly serious glitch in multiplayer, in that the game could not be played in multiplayer mode.  Or, it worked sometimes, but there was no way to know how or when - what combination of dances and burning herbs would right this aloof mechanism.  It was most likely the rush of new owners securing tee-times on simulated links, but after a week of trying to use the product without success I decided that I had better things to do than try and contextualize EA's grave miscalculations.    The few times we were able to jump on and actually get in there were the kind of epic, unadulterated "guy fun" one sees lionized in hilarious summer comedies.  Golf as a sport (and as a videogame) has the strong undercurrent of shared misery that one usually finds only in dive bars.  The recently released demo for this year's product - on both PSN and XBL, now - recalled those moments to us, independent of the rage that bookended each round of powerfully communal spirit lodge golf.  This year's product has a huge focus on Gamernet, a kind of user created content initiative that will hopefully see them approach the performance of their online infrastructure with more conviction.     GameFace, their face making thing, has seen a significant jump this year as well - it can take pictures from your console's camera and create actual face geometry, and I understand that photos can even be uploaded online and then brought down on the console for processing.  We were able to get some pretty good results with the earlier versions of the tool, but this is very much appreciated.  Of course, in the wrong hands, every tool is a weapon.     Ubisoft is now saying that Haze is an exclusive exclusive for the PS3, and not one of them timed or partial exclusives one might see in the lesser houses.  Truly monogamous games are rare these days, and this is certainly a surprise, but this thing has been hopping back and forth for months.  There was even a leaked document that showed this "exclusive" being released a week later for PC and 360, though all traces of the document were soon obliterated.  Assassin's Creed was (as you'll recall) a PS3 exclusive as well.  For a week, at any rate.        I'm really excited for Haze, but I'm not sure if that's a universally held belief.  The writer made a good impression on me at E3 several years ago, and Free Radical makes a good impression on me whenever they make a videogame.  It's also a four player co-op experience with a unique, asymmetrical multiplayer proposition that you've probably read about.  But, as with Bioshock, I'm really in it for the story - and, also like Bioshock, I think anything that limits its potential audience is a serious mistake.
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The basics of gameplay -- competing against opponents, setting records, winning prizes -- are as old as human civilization. We use game models to motivate ourselves, to answer questions and to find creative solutions. Our online lives are just twists on the videogame leader boards. For many, life itself has turned into a game.
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Does anybody know what&#39;s happening please? I appreciate that, traditionally, Bank Holiday Mondays are dank and gloomy affairs, but this has got to take the biscuit.
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Next in the hot seat we have Mr Redknapp. Your first question Mr Redknapp, for 3 points, is how on earth are you going to rescue Southampton from relegation this season?
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Tycho:  There's a new Alternate Reality Game spinning up for Halo 3, God Damn them - God Damn them to hell.  I know perfectly well that I am being subjugated by a sophisticated marketing effort, that the best one can accomplish in these games is to get a real good look at the teeth before the mouth closes around you.  I type this even as the rabbit holes stand open in two other windows.  I don't presume to speak for the entire species, but there is something about secrets that does bit the mind.
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Running the country is no game. It just sounds like one sometimes. In the Bush White House, sports are a metaphor for life. Better keep up if you want to play.
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Gabe: I just have some random stuff to share here.Pokemon League night is next Tuesday at the Comic Stop. Matches start at six pm, but you can show up a little early if you'd like to trade cards. As always new players are welcome, just bring a starter deck. It's also a good idea to register at Go-Pokemon.com and bring your POP ID. A reader wrote in today to tell me that he was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle for January 30th and noticed this clue for 12 down:  "Tycho's pal in the webcomic 'Penny Arcade' (4 letters)." That's totally awesome. I'm sure the Force Unleashed will be fine. The time period around the original trilogy is just getting so crowded. Now Vader has a secret apprentice? I mean, it makes sense canonically to me. The Emperor had Mara Jade out there doing his dirty work. It's not unreasonable to think Vader had a similar arrangement. Also the very nature of Sith rule makes covering your ass a necessity. The hook for the game is fine and I don't mind the 3rd person action stuff. There are a few games I'd much rather see them make though. The fact that they have not made a sequel to Republic Commando is fucking criminal. That's not a joke either. I mean that someone over there should be put in jail for the rest of their life. RepCom was an incredible squad based shooter, and unlike most games in that genre it was packed with awesome characters. This games deserves a next gen sequel. The other game that needs a next gen installment is Tie Fighter. Seriously that game came out in 1994 and it's one of the best space shooters ever. And for fucks sake stop setting things during the movies. There's nearly sixty years worth of incredible content (minus the dark nest series) extending out past Return of the Jedi. You don't have to keep trying to cram stories into the same 20 year period. They're milking so much content out of that period that eventually we'll be playing a game as Luke where the goal is to repair vaporators on the south ridge. Hurry up you've only got 'till mid day!Rez is available on Xbox Live now. It's one of the best games ever made.   The most popular piece of clothing we've ever made, AKA The Black Mantle is back in stock. It's joined by its polar opposite, the Luminous Vestments. I have a feeling both will be sold out before I finish typing this.   -Gabe out