PlayStation Portable music 'this summer' (Wickedkitten)

PlayStation Portable music 'this summer':
Sony looks set to hit back at the iPod and iTunes with a music download service specifically for the PlayStation Portable.

Apple edges Google as top brand: "Apple has been named the most influential brand in a survey of branding professionals, beating out search engine Google, which held the top spot last year..."

(Via MacMinute.)

Decent Games Blogs (k3nshi)

Some new contendahs:

• Edge Online - some games magazine or something. Never heard of it before...


• Guardian Games blog - for commies and bleeding heart students and liberals

Obviously interesting and stuff, but hardly the kind of hedonistic, ecletic mix that hash edge blog provides. Obviously.

Peacecraft... (k3nshi)

"The interesting thing about war games is that the default state of a war game is peace. Think about it: what if you started up a multiplayer game of WarCraft III and none of the players built anything but workers and buildings? The natural state of the world is for the races of WarCraft to peacefully coexist (although you would eventually run out of resources), and this tranquility is shattered by player actions.

So the way you make a peace game is to create a world where the default state is conflict, and the player must act to calm the violence through a variety of means. That's the trick: you've got to show peace as something that's challenging to achieve, not a default state."

Peacecraft via Game Girl Advance

Sick of yellow sticky tags? Tada! (Wickedkitten)

Sick of yellow sticky tags? Tada!:

"From the fine folks that brought you Basecamp, the almost revolutionary web-based project management application that gave birth to Ruby on Rails, comes Tada — a simple yet powerful way to get rid of randomly placed files or tags or knots in your handkerchief to make you remember something you truly have to get done.
Tada is based on an extracted feature-set from Basecamp albeit building on some of the recently added features in Ruby on Rails 0.9. It comes with an impressive sharing feature that allows you to either selectively or publicly share your todo items (or impress someone with an empty todo list! ha!) so that colleagues and co-workers may collaborate on a single list.
Following Google’s Suggest Beta on the path of making extensive use of XMLHttpRequest, Tada makes use of this technique to resemble certain desktop applications in that it doesn’t throw a boatload of reloads and submit buttons at you while you’re maintaining your tasks. As such, working with Tada is a pretty convenient experience, given that it’s web-only.
Using the service is free, you’re limited to 10 separate todo lists though. Get signed up while your favorite user account is still vacant!
[Update 20/01: David posted a few more technical details over at Riding Rails"]

Back in the U.U.U.K (Anonymous)

First time back since my move. Will I forget that cars drive on the left and get run over? Will I keep on saying "Merci" to confused shop-assistants? But more scarily, will I go back and think "Shit. I MUCH prefer living in France"? I was chatting to a colleague here earlier, and he mentioned that hardly anyone goes back. The quality of life, the public transport, the food, the cost of living, etc mean people can't face going back to good old Blighty.

Tomorrow is my first test.

At least I'll be able to understand everyone.

Mood Gaming (k3nshi)

It's Sunday evening, and you're tired from the hectic activities of the last two days. So you're in a pretty lazy, apathetic kind of mood. There is nothing on TV worth watching (as per usual), and an idle thought of doing some gaming crosses your mind.

Hmmm... what to play? Halo 2? The thought of being pwn3d in your own living room whilst some reprobrate in Hicksville, Tenessee screams such witicisms as "Die you Gay Nigger!" at you, kinf of put you off. And Halo 2 is always way too competitive - hardly a chill out kind of experience. Perhaps something with a soothing environment like Prince of Persia would hit the spot? Perhaps, but the frustration of either having to repeatedly try to make some kind of "impossible" jump or battling through a horde of enemies kind of puts you off. Yes... you're in that apathetic a mood.

In fact the only game that remotely strikes you as being suitable for the mood you are in, is Rez - specifically Travelling mode. A soothing audio visual treat, with no worries about losing lives or being forced to replay tricky sections or having to motivate yourself to compete with every mofo with a broadband connection and the same filthy gaming habit you have.

If games are art, or if gaming is a nascent artform, why aren't there more games to suit different moods. Most of the time I find I have to be in the mood for gaming (doing something involve challenge). Some games have amazing evironments and gameworlds (Ico and Metroid Prime spring to mind), and yet to enter into those world you have to be prepared to face a level of challenge and frustration. Why can't I just go and explore the world of Metroid Prime, unhindered by respawning enemies? Why can't I just explore the world of Ico without worrying about solving puzzles or avoiding the shadow creatures? I think gaming offers lots of scope for entertainment, not all of which has to be or even should be the kind of high challenge, goal orientated activities that most games have as their raison d'etré.

In the end, I didn't play Rez or any game on Sunday. Ok I had a quick blast (by which I mean: received a prompt and thorough thrashing in the Rumble Pit) on Halo 2, but the experience was so depressing I gave up after that. I couldn't even be bothered to put Rez on after that and just watched a film instead. Maybe some bright eyed, MBA'ed up sharp suit at EA will be willing to provide a solution to my gaming needs...

Maxwell's (Van123)

My bridge arrived on Friday, and I spent a good few hours trying to set it up. After a while I just gave up. But on Saturday, I managed to get it working properly. Now I can play almost whenever I want. That was my plan for the day. But what's this? Only two people online? Jesus. It's like they have social lives or something. I went to the pub after that, to see my mate's band 'The Hush.' That was pretty good. Then I came home and played some more Halo 2. This was at around 22:30. Still only two people online. So I played with Duncan for a while. That was boring though. We just kept on winning.

This morning I did some of my tech coursework. That was meant to be in before Christmas, and Friday was the deadline. I'll be giving it in on Tuesday, though. Come half 5, we were off out for dinner. Off to Maxwell's. Now this place is amazing. I posted about them in the Food & Drink folder. in that burger thread. I had an amazing burger. 'The Stack.' One pound of ground beef, topped with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, cheese, and bacon. Mmm. Bacon. That cost £12.50 or something equally rediculous. But that's ok. We didn't pay for it. My mum get's these special vouchers from Tesco that we can use there and at various other restaurants. But Maxwell's is the closest, so we usually go to that. Sometime's we go to Bill Wyman's Sticky Fingers, that's a cool place.

Yeah, so after I had my burger and chips, it was desert time. Chocolate Pecan Brownie with ice cream. Yum. After a few spoons, I began to wonder where the hell the nuts were., but it didn't bother me much. It began to hurt half way through, but I persevered, 'cos I'm not a pussy. That was a good meal. Cost £62.50 for four people. And man I'm glad we didn't have to pay for that. Maxwell's is recommended.

So's Team America. I watched that this morning. It's awesome.

Fight Music, Life Music (k3nshi)

Confession: I love the Halo and Halo 2 soundtracks.

I have them on my iPod and listen to them frequently when I'm out and about. Practical matters such as the fact the music is all acoustic* means its easy to listen to whilst reading a book on the train, help contribute to its high play count. But mostly it's the fact I find the music utterly amazing and stirring. I can be having a really crap journey into work, or the day could be getting me down, and I know I can just switch to the Halo Soundtrack Playlist and get a near immediate boost from one of the many excellent tracks. But this post isn't about the merit or lack thereof, of the Halo and Halo 2 soundtracks. It's about questioning why I seem to react so much to this music.

It has been well documented how Halo was designed to make the player feel cool and powerful. AI reacting to your presence with awe and fear, a near perfect difficulty curve and some utterly amazing battles. And this is how I first and most frequently encountered the music: The soundtrack of my interactive experience of taking on the world and winning. I can't help wondering if the music would have such an effect on me if I had first encountered in a non-interactive and much less immersive context. I certainly have film soundtracks on my iPod which I occassionaly listen to, but none of them seem to provoke the same reaction. Hmmm.

*I don't listen to the rubbish "special tracks" on the Halo 2 soundtrack.

EA: "Nobody queues for music anymore," (k3nshi)

"You can't ignore an industry when people queue to buy a game at midnight because they are so desperate to play it,"

Jan Bolz, EA's vice president of sales and marketing in Europe

"People will want to play video games if their heroes like Robbie Williams or Christina Aguilera are in them."

So many amusing quotes from this article over at the BBC News site.

Halo 2 cheaters banned (Anonymous)

spanx ROFL's

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Wankers

--- Editorial Interlude (k3nshi) -----

"Chimps ask, I just got banned from Xbox Live, WHY!?


Good. Most likely because you were doing one of the following: Cheating, network-exploiting, cursing, swearing, threatening or abusing other players. The points below cover most of the stuff Xbox Live will ban or suspend people for and frankly, you know who you are."

Bungie lay the SMACK DOWN here.

It's funny because Madonna is hailed as the mother of reinvention. "oh, look at her, she has managed to reinvent herself yet again!" pffft. She really does have nothing on me. I've had to reinvent myself at least 3 major times in my life so far:

1. Coming from being a grubby New Yorker going into an English Public School at the age of 5 where I used to get the pish extracted out of me daily for sounding different. Thusly, I had to work three times as hard as everyone else scrubbing the New York out of my accent.

2. Moving back to New York after living in Britain and going to public school. Getting the pish extracted from me once again over something that I have no control over and having a bunch of fools always laugh at the way I spoke whilst calling me "Posh Spice". Probably the worst insult ever known to man without them even realising it.

3. Going from Full New Yorker mode back into Public School Mode when moving back here. It was a shitload easier than going from Public Schoolgirl to New Yorker I tell you, but I find that there's more than a bit of Scottish Inflection now so I have a English, pseudo New York, pseudo Scottish 3 way accent going on. It's not bad at all though and more amusing than anything.

The other day, using wayback archive, I found the webpage that I had made way back when I was 18, ugh. I actually made a whole page on the site about an ex and I swear if I could go back in time I would bitchslap myself for even wasting my time.

Mum (Van123)

So my mum's been in a mood for me for not revising for my GCSE mocks. On Friday, I went to Poets for a little meet, 'twas good. Kenshi was there, Mankey, Cheeko, Horribleman, Rodders, and even a female, whykt.

We'd (me and cal) had spent the whole day trying to find some drugs, but no luck. Apparently there'd been some sort of drought due to a raid and dealers are laying low for a while. Anyway, we got to Poet's at 7 ish, and the 'gang' were playing Mashed. Even Poet was, with his dodgy arm. Horribleman had some drugs, but not enough, and there was some alcohol, but I passed on that. Meh. I wanted to paly some DOA3 because I'm 1337 at it, but they wouldn't have any of it, so Soul Calibur 2 was put on instead.

Cheeko and whykt were the first to go, then Rodders. Mankey left with Kenshi, and it was just 5 of us left. Horribleman had to leave, so ran out with his jacket to catch up with the quitters. Idiot. He left his bag and games there. Capp took them, though. He was kinda glad, cos Horrible's bag was big enough to hold his stuff.

So it was just me, cal, and Poet now. After tidying up, we watched a movie. 'Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle.' That's about two guys who get really stoned and go on a trip to a burger bar to get the perfect meal. That made us feel really bad cos we didn't have any drugs. Then we played Top Spin and NBA Live 2005 for a while, before settling down to Saw. What a messed up film. [spoiler]people die[/spoiler]

Went to bed at like 6 am. Went home at 2. I tried to put some money in the bank, but it was closed, what with it being Sunday. So I went to the machine, but it wouldn't give me an envolope, so I went home.

My mum's still in a mood cos I didn't tell her I was going out, or staying the night. So I go up to my room. Ooh, she's put a stand under my PC for some reason, and tidied up my books. That's nice of her. Then I close the door. The buldge in my guitar case isn't there. I poke it a bit with my foot. Soft. I open it up. Strange, nothing there. Odd. Shit. She's found my unopened litre bottle of vodka which I got at NYE. My only defence is that it is unopened.

So I go downstairs, acting like I don't know. She doesn't know that I know that she knows. So, after I've got my drink, I go back upstairs. Internet disconencts. Back downstairs, router's turned off. Turn it back on, go upstairs. Internet disconnects again, so I go downstairs. This time it's unplugged and my mum's singing in the kitchen, listening to music on her wireless headphones. "Bitch." So I go into the front room, unplug the headphones, and take the little aux. connector it has. Whoops, looks like she can't listen to music. Actually, she can, she just couldn't use the headphones, so I took the CD out, and took it up to my room, not before replugging the router. But when I get back up, the internet's off. This little game of stealing and turning off the router goes on for a good hour. After a while, I just give up and play StepMania. Aha, but first I stole her glasses and hid them in my PC tower.

This morning, she was still a bit moody, but meh. After school, she was really talkative to me. Wha? I dunno. But I always tell her not to go through my room. Why? For her protection. Protection from the truth. Did she listen? Hell no. Now she's upset and it's all her own fault. I feel no sympathy.

It'll be quite funny when/if she confonts me about it. I'll just blame it on some one else. Point out how it was a 'present' and how I didn't intend to drink it becuase it's still unopened after two weeks.

Slag.

How can I trust Firefox?: "

Recently, a lot of volunteers donated money to the Firefox project to pay for a two-page advert in the NewYork Times.

If only they had spent some of that money on improving the security of their users by, say, purchasing a VeriSign code signing certificate.

Let me explain...

(Via Office Development, Security, Randomness....)

hashedge

MSN Contacts. Great, aren't they? (Van123)

No.

Some people, I don't know why, just annoy me. I dunno why. Everyone knows people like this, but it's the people on my MSN contacts list that annoy me. Take this one girl, let's call her Isabel, really get's on my tits. She's been nothing but nice to me in real life, and on the internet, but I just like ripping the piss out of her. Just the other week, she saved my life when I was puking after some 47% Greek stuff and a bunch of shitty Bacardis. She saved my life by keeping me awake, not a big task, but it's the thought that counts. "Are you alright, Chris?" "Yeah, I'm fine!" I reply. "You don't look fine," Isabel says. "Well don't fucking look at me then!" Why did I say that? I was drunk, yeah, but still, she was trying to help. A few days later, I'm on MSN and she asks me how I was and what I was doing for NYE. I tell her I have no plans, 'cos I'm a loser, like. She feels sorry for me. Why? I felt sorry for her, following with that rediculous cliché. So obviously I have to tell her that she's the loser because she needs 'an excuse to party' whereas I party whenever I feel like it. She gets upset.

That was one example. But it doesn't matter how much I insult her ubernose, or that she can grow a better tache than me, or that I'm jealous of her mutton chops , she keeps coming back. I think she lurves me. Why? Does she like the abuse? She used to fancy me. People told me, and she told me when she was drunk. "Oh my God, it's Chris! What have I been saying?" and all that. But I don't like her. Why would I? I had a girlfriend then, good times, and the arguement was amazing, the fight was pretty awesome, too. My team one, of course. But what's that? The next day, back on MSN, and she's talking to me, even though I told her that I don't like her, "not in that way?" she said. I said "No, not in that way, not in any way. Now please, please, leave me alone."

That was a year ago, maybe less. But to this day, I still get MSN messages from her. It's as if she wants to be abused. It's not like I'm incapable of a conversation, I am, you know that. But it's just her.

This one's funny. At this time, I don't have a girlfriend, but she's still one of my best mates, I'm cool like that, see. Anyway, Isabel starts flirting with me at a party. Fair does, I think. She's drunk, let her have her fun. But this is the really good part. She asks me if I want to dance. Sure. I'm shit at dancing. I don't believe in it, especially to that music. But then she leans in for the kiss. Dude! That was scarey, I just managed to back out of the way. "What makes you thing you've got a chance with me?" I say. Needless to say, there were many tears. I can't bare to see people cry, it makes me feel bad. So I walked across the room to this girl who'd been giving me the eyes. Yeap, more crying from Isabel when she sees.

I love MSN, don't get me wrong. I don't like making phone calls, so it's easy for me. But some people really need to learn to use the block/delete function. Me? Nah, I'm not gonna block her, it makes me smile when she talks to me. Not because I like her, but because she's so thick.

DS Smackdown (k3nshi)

"I still love the DS ( 40 stars in Mario 64 now ) but ill be the first to admit that its alot less portable than previous handheld consoles..."

Corps tells it like it is over at GASM.

A new job is required (The-G)

So, having worked for GAME for 3 years now, I feel it is time to move on. So do I deliver the ultimate slap in the face and move to Gamestation or move on to something entirely new? This will be my decision for the week.

A Good Question: (k3nshi)

What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

Soul Destroyer: An Update (k3nshi)

I thought I had sufficiently predicted all the soul destroying aspects of my day today. I failed to predict that someone who appears to be the Lord and Master of Soul Destruction would appear.

I was bemused as the souls of those around me were destroyed.

The work/life balance (Anonymous)

Life in France is strange. It's so different and yet also exactly the same as England. But where it excels is the attitude to the work/life balance. It feels closer to my ideal here than in England, being skewed more to the "LIFE" side of the scales, whereas the culture in the UK seems more influenced by our good friends in the US. Here, holidays are not a sin, an annoyance, an affront to executives obsesssed with "maximising efficiency", but as an essential tool for keeping the workforce relaxed, stress-free and more able to complete their duties without burning out. The transport system hasn't been raped for profit. Lunch-breaks are lunch-breaks, not five minutes at your desk. Employees are people. (incidentally, whoever decided "personnel" should be renamed "human resources" should be shot)

I've been thinking about my work and life a lot recently. I've realised that work is not going to provide me with the intellectual and creative output I once (maybe naively) thought it would. So I turn to things outside work, a place currently dominated by three things - my wife and daughter, the Internet, and games. To this I need to make time for a fourth "thing"... learning new stuff. Film-making, photography, music, writing, programming, all things I would like to do, learn, improve at. Oh where to fit it all in.

Destroyer of Souls (k3nshi)

So there are only a few hours left of the holiday (for me at least), and I still haven't done any gaming today. Tomorrow I have the joy of a soul destroying commute, after waking up at a soul destroying hour. During the day I will probably have some soul destroying interactions with people who are employed to destroy my soul. This will be followed by another soul destroying commute in a train packed full of people with destroyed souls. Their presence will also have a degrading aspect to my soul. If there is anything left of my soul at this point I shall go to the gym and feel my soul being destroyed as I struggle to match my former fitness levels.

Needless to say I am really looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.

Fun, anyone?

Will I ever be a grandma? (the_debaser)

So I'm 24. Rapidly approaching 25. And my mother has just told me that she's wondering if she'll ever be a mother in law.

'Jesus, if you don't get a girlfriend soon, I'll be wondering, if, you know...'

'And don't just go moving in with anyone, either. If they love you they'll marry you'

'I want to be a grandma some day, you know'

Hmmmmmmmmm. Looks like I've got my work cut out.

Halo 2. Cheating. (Anonymous)

Those of you out there who have Halo 2 no doubt have experienced the joy of the online modes. A superbly customisable, well thought out, fair and balanced work of genius. The ranking modes are superbly engineered to allow the truly brilliant Halo 2 player to advance whilst punishing the inept (hence my pitiful level 8 after about a bazillion games of Rumblepit)

However, the Live cretins have found a way to show utter contempt for this work of online gaming art. Cheating. Either via destroying the bandwidth available for other gamers, or by "glitching" - using small foibles in the maps or game world to their advantage. Bungie have gone on record saying bandwidth limiting is illegal and people will be banned, but won't ban people for glitch cheats, which are just as bad.

Sort it Bungie... your piece de la resistance is being destroyed by cheating morons. Microsoft - these people are destroying Live from the inside. Online gaming will never prosper whilst it is an non-inclusive and often offensive as it is now.

Anyway... I have some Halo 2 to be playing... see ya.

Confessions of a Non-Gaming Gamer (k3nshi)

Firstly: Happy New Year.

The start of the new year of course means my holidays are drawing to a close and it'll soon be back to the grind of work. So a quick and self-indulgent time for a recap of my gaming year:

Games Bought (not an exhaustive list):

• Beyond Good & Evil (Xbox)


• Homeworld 2 (PC)


• Star Wars:KOTOR (Xbox)


• Red Dead Revolver (Xbox)


• Donkey Kong vs Mario (GBA)


• Singstar (PS2)


• Spiderman 2 (Xbox)


• War Craft 3 (PC)


• Viewtiful Joe (PS2)


• Psi-Ops


• Burnout 3


• Halo 2

I suspect there are also some I've forgotten too.

Games I Played to any Real Degree:

• Donkey Kong vs Mario


• Burnout 3


• Halo 2

I think the notable points of the games that managed to get my time:

• LIVE support. Halo 2 online rocks. BO3 rocks online, if you can get past the broken lobby code.


• Provide short, bursty gameplay.


• Brilliantly tuned difficulty curves.

Noteable ContenDAHS include: Psi-Ops, Spiderman 2 and Red Dead Revolver.

The amount of games I bought, compared to how much time I spent playing them makes me seriously question how many games I'll bother to buy in 2005. I'm aiming to not buy another game for at least 6 months (although Darwinia could blow this plan away if it will run on my underpowered laptop...). Of course, if games developers spent time smoothing that difficulty curve to pefection and provided a built in level skip feature (like scene selection on DVDs), I wouldn't look back at so many of my gaming purchases and think of so much wasted money.

It's not that I think any of the games I bought were poor (I just return the ones I don't like, such as GTA:VC) - most of them just failed to capture enough of my (precious) free time.