Sunday, March 15, 2009

Culture

Gamer Deaths Make Clan Notification Difficult, Awkward

9:00AM Owen Good | An AP story about online death-notification services ledes with a Warcraft gamer, who died mid-quest and left his bereaved daughter to find his friends and explain why he was suddenly gone. More »
Culture

Wrist Computer Very Useful in Your Real Life Wastelands

8:00AM Owen Good | Your real-life Pip Boys now come in two flavours – visually accurate, with few functions; or fully-featured with a different design. More »
News

Boston Mayor Now Hearts Gaming Biz Dollars

7:00AM Owen Good | Boston Mayor Tom Menino has transmogrified from a do-it-for-the-children pol backing unconstitutional laws against video games to a guy touting that industry’s heft in his city and its backyard. More »
News

Wii’s Dead Space Will Last as Long as Original

6:00AM Owen Good | Tidbits from a chat with Dead Space: Extraction’s production team dropped a few tidbits, which add up to promises that the title will be a full game on its own, not a warmed-over port. More »
Media

The Old Republic: Your ‘Personal Star Wars Saga’

5:00AM Owen Good | Bioware and LucasArts have put out another video documentary on Star Wars: The Old Republic, teasing the storyline and characters of the MMO, set in a “relatively unexplored timeframe of the Star Wars canon.” More »
Regulars

Saturday Timewaster: And We Really Mean It

4:30AM Owen Good | Some wit cooked up a HD-version of Tetris – I can’t even begin to count the grid here – which makes dying or clearing lines an agonisingly long process. More »
Culture

Writing Contest Offers Trip to Blizzard HQ

4:00AM Owen Good | Fanfic writing just got a little less thankless and potentially more rewarding with a creative writing contest just announced by Blizzard. Winners get a sword, lunch, and a peek at Blizz HQ. More »
Culture

Improv Act Seeks ‘Wiimbledon’ Champ

3:30AM Owen Good | “Wiimbledon Champion” looks great on a resume, especially if whomever’s reading it thinks it’s just a typo. An improv troupe is putting the title up for grabs in a tournament next month in Seattle. More »
Culture

How a Lightweight Console Lay the Foundations of Game Design

2:00AM Owen Good | A book by two professors of media studies examines the challenges of designing games on the Atari 2600, and posits that the infamous port of Pac-Man wasn’t a half-assed effort after all. More »