Articles by Sgt. Sausagepants
This week we get another pack from the Offspring for our Rock Band DLC, along with six bonus songs. Here's the Offspring tracks.
That's right. Pretty Fly. Have fun with that one, I know I will.
Here's all the bonus tracks.
I am REALLY liking that Against Me! track. Perfect track to listen to during this election season. All these tracks are $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) individually, and you can get the whole Offspring pack for $5.49 (440 Microsoft Points).
As usual, these will come to Xbox on Tuesday and Playstation on Thursday. Enjoy!
I am unsure whether to be excited at this announcement, or to feel dread. Tad Williams amazing Otherland books, about a future world where people interface with the internet via VR, and visit virtual worlds of amazing diversity and beauty. The trouble, (in the books), arises when people start getting stuck, and unable to log off.
There's a strange meta-level there, of playing a virtualized version of a virtual world that's divided into many virtual worlds. But part of the plot of the books was that people got stuck and the worlds somehow became far more realistic than possible. I'm not sure they could get that across successfully.
Really, with such dense source material, it's going to be hard for them to accurately portray it all at once, but it does give them a lot of fodder for expansions. I'll be watching with interest.
Otherland [Eurogamer]
[via: Slashdot]
First thing, use headphones, there are a few swears in there, if you don't want co-workers to hear.
Second, I know it's slightly off-topic. But it does have Ellen, and this election is VERY important. As the famous peoples say, you need to register really soon. Time is ticking. So many issues are at stake this time, especially here in CA.
As we've mentioned before, there's a big issue up in California this year. Proposition 8, if it passes, will ban (again) gay marriage in the state. If you live in California, you have to mail your registration by Oct. 20th.
Please people, be like Julie.
Yes, that's exactly what it looks like. Need I say more?
Actually, yes, I should. It's 35 dollars, and it doesn't do anything. It just makes your wiimote look like a lightsaber. (Bonus points for being named 'Thrustmaster') That's all it does. A totally useless attachment.
I want it anyway.
Thrustmaster thrusts Wii Glow Saber, Dual Trigger Gun accessories in our direction [engadget]
[via: Joystiq]
This week we get the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (minus one track) from the Red Hot Chili Peppers! The remaining track (Give It Away) is already on the Rock Band 2 disc.
Track List:
- The Power of Equality
- If You Have to Ask
- Breaking the Girl
- Funky Monks
- Suck My Kiss
- I Could Have Lied
- Mellowship Slinky in B Major
- The Righteous & The Wicked
- Blood Sugar Sex Magik
- Under the Bridge
- Naked in the Rain
- Apache Rose Peacock
- The Greeting Song
- My Lovely Man
- Sir Psycho Sexy
- They're Red Hot
This groundbreaking album will be $19.99 (1600 Microsoft Points) or $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points for individual tracks. It will be available on Tuesday, September 30th on Xbox 360, and Thursday, October 2nd on PS3.
Aside from being sexy as hell, this new story trailer for Mirror's Edge has got me hooked. 1984-esque monitoring of society is one of those issues that scares the crap out of me, and the chance to play a badass heroine fighting against such a world makes me all tingly.
But why does it have to come out the same day as Lich King!? Oh man, tough choice.
Check out more awesome trailers for the game here over at GameTrailers.
VentureBeat has a nice little Q&A about LittleBigPlanet up right now, and in it there's an interesting quote that has been making the rounds of the internet.
I think this game can definitely help people get jobs in the industry. Imagine a guy going into a job with five levels of LittleBigPlanet and you get to play his creation. But not only that, imagine what that guy has already done within that world in terms of building up an audience. People know his levels and know his name. They want to see his new creation. Future game creators will enter a job interview already known. We hope LittleBigPlanet plays a part in getting new game developers jobs and also making them stars.
An intriguing concept. I want to address this a little bit. I'm excited by the potential here, but since this is getting a lot of press, I should point out the caveats. There are very few 'pure' game design jobs in the industry. You don't go right from college to suddenly designing the next God of War game. Even level and character design jobs require a lot of talent in art, (although not necessarily a degree in such). This is the point I want to stress. It's the talent that lets you make good games, not the medium.
Does it help to have a concrete example of what you can do? Of course! But that could be displayed with flash games, user mods, or an animated mock-up as well. The exciting part here is that LittleBigPlanet will open the playing field up to people who don't know Flash, or Java, etc... but still have talent. Just don't expect it to single-handedly get you a job.
Q&A with Kareem Ettouney on Sony's great hope: LittleBigPlanet for the PlayStation 3 [VentureBeat]
[via: Joystiq]
Don't let the trendy name with the Z in it fool you, Z-Rox is a surprisingly intellectual game. The goal is to identify a letter, object, or shape, using only a tiny slice of it at a time. It's as if things were being scanned, in lines of pixels. It's Flatland: The Game, in a way.
Each of the one hundred levels will challenge you to identify something. Most of the early levels are letters or numbers, but later on, geometric shapes are introduced and the game gets much harder. I'd love to see this sort of gameplay added to a Brain Age type game, to help people work on visualization skills. Some kind of 3D version would be interesting too. Check it out!
Z-Rox [JayIsGames]
Well, it looks like they finally got all the technical glitches worked out with the Moving Pictures release, so Rush fans rejoice! As a reminder, the album pack will be $10.99 (880 Microsoft Points) or $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) per track.
Also this week we get a group of individual tracks:
Each of these tracks is also $1.99 (160 MSP), and will be available Tuesday for Xbox and Thursday for Playstation. I'm particularly fond of the Bad Religion track, and Sleater-Kinney is just fabulous personified. Have fun, party people!
"Long ago a computer scientist called Dr Sepulveda created a beautiful digital world existing entirely within a computer network of his own invention. This world was called Darwinia and it was inhabited by a peaceful, law-abiding digital life-form called the Darwinians.
As the years wore on however the Darwinians became ever more aggressive and autonomous. They divided into factions, squabbling over Darwinia's limited natural resources. Tribes began to roam the fractal voids hell bent on each other's destruction, drunk on power and unswerving in the pursuit of world supremacy.
Far and wide, they became known as the Multiwinians...."
It's out! Introversions multiplayer masterpiece, Multiwinia, was released today. With six game modes and it's beautiful Tron-esque enviornments, its been in development for a while. Those interested can check out a demo here. Those who already know they want the game can get it at the Introversion store for $24.90
I have to say, as usual, Yahtzee is pretty much spot on. Looking back at what Spore was originally being billed as and what it is now, it's a somewhat different product. I'm still enjoying it but it's definitely got it's issues, like most other games.
Zero Punctuation: Spore [Escapist]
This may be the silliest thing I've seen in a long while.
Dr. Dwight Toavs, a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, gave an example of how terrorists might use virtual spaces to organize at a conference last week.
In it, two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the "White Keep" inside the "Stonetalon Mountains." The major objective is to set off a "Dragon Fire spell" inside, and make off with "110 Gold and 234 Silver" in treasure. "No one will dance there for a hundred years after this spell is cast," one player, "war_monger," crows.
Except, in this case, the White Keep is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "Dragon Fire" is an unconventional weapon. And "110 Gold and 234 Silver" tells the plotters how to align the game's map with one of Washington, D.C.
The fictional plot was originally developed by Dan Arey, for the Director of National Intelligence's Summer Hard Problems workshop, or SHARP.
The problem, apparently, is that Congress, CIA types, etc... are getting real edgy about virtual spaces, and how they are hard to monitor. However I really have to give some sort of points to the guy that thought this one up, because what may seem like a proposal to monitor WOW looks to me like someone trying to get paid to play the game at work.
I'm seeing the start of a larger fight brewing here, one that deals with privacy in online spaces. Will the government eventually try to monitor everything in games like WOW? Does everything have to be monitored, really?
Let's face it, if they think they'll get busted via e-mail, terrorists will use IM, or phone calls, or letters, or hell, they'll just meet face to face. Any conversation can be encoded, there is no reason to single out a game over this.
Here, I'll make up my own example. "All of us will unleash hot fire liquid upon the ring of power at midnight". Now, was that a plan to attack the Pentagon with napalm, or was it an ad for an orgy on Craigslist?
At least my tax dollars are getting me some jokes out of this.
Pentagon Researcher Conjures Warcraft Terror Plot [Wired]
[via: GamePolitics]
And girls who like girls who like rumble packs!
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