General Gaming Article |
- The Game Boy: Violence Is the (Wrong) Answer
- Google+ to Stop Enforcing Real Names
- The 34 Best Webcomics for Geeks
- Siri Allows Miscreants to Bypass iPhone 4S Passcodes
- Samsung and Google Actively Worked to Avoid Apple Patents in Galaxy Nexus
- Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 X79 Motherboard Appeals to Our Inner James Bond
- How-To: Build a Site With Drupal Gardens
- Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid is a Mechanical Plank for Gamers
- ARM's New Ultra-Efficient A7 Processor Can Be The Brains To The A15's Brawn
- Spotify Unveils Blackberry App
| The Game Boy: Violence Is the (Wrong) Answer Posted: 19 Oct 2011 03:36 PM PDT
I love shooting things in the face. Monsters, aliens, mice, men – all are equal in the eyes of my trigger finger, which itches with such fervor that I should probably have a doctor look at it. But – even in the ammo-casing-coated world of videogames – there's a time and place for violence. (And no, smartasses in the audience, it's not "always." Always isn't even a place.) More and more, I've noticed recent games tripping over their own feet because they choose to reign with unfaltering bloodlust instead of reining it in. In some games, it's but a speck-sized sticking point. Others, though, choose to live by the sword, only to fall flat on their faces and die by it in the most gruesome fashion imaginable. Evidence A: Deus Ex. For the most part, it's an amazing game, but bring up its boss fights and watch as a room full of fawning admirers turns into a torch-flashing, keyboard-smashing angry mob. And why not? The game's bosses are horribly designed strategic dead ends that eat headshots and excrete pure, unfiltered sadness. To me, though, the biggest problem is that you have to fight them at all. See, Human Revolution also included brilliantly tense wars of words that really forced players to read facial cues and get in each "opponent's" frame of mind. These were full of drama, branching paths, and breath-taking twists. In essence, they felt more like boss fights than the actual boss fights. Better yet, they matched the spirit of Deus Ex far better than Human Revolution's rootin', tootin', hootin', hollerin' shootouts. Ultimately, though, these neck-and-neck verbal back-and-forths were disappointingly under-utilized – almost like Eidos Montreal didn't have any faith in their ability to captivate a crowd. That, I think, is the problem many games are facing right now. It's not that this medium can't solve its problems without resorting to violence; it's that we've been raised on a diet that's one part spectacle and a billion scattered, charred parts explosion. Developers, then, are afraid to stop screaming at the top of their lungs for fear of being drowned out by the rest of the crowd. Violence is a quick, proven way to engage players. It's easy. It's reliable. It works. Up to a point, anyway. Technology and development techniques are evolving, and games are picking up new tricks. Developers aren't blind, either. They know this better than any of us. So ambition's prevailing – but just barely. Problem is, those same developers are trying to bring tried-and-true formulas along for the ride, which only slows everything else down in the process. In the worst cases, clinging fearfully to violence – as though it's some kind of childhood-scented safety blanket – can be the difference-maker between an amazing game and one that's barely even worth a glance. For instance, I was recently charged with reviewing an iPad game called Dark Meadow. Honestly, it had almost everything working in its favor. Excellent atmosphere, Unreal 3-powered graphics, hilarious writing, incredible sound design. I never thought a mid-sized electronic rectangle could so thoroughly draw me in. So I'd creep around, figuratively sniffing for clues throughout the abandoned Terror Hospital my character had awoken in. The floors creaked. Walls groaned. Lights flickered. My senses were sucked right into another world. And then: an admittedly creepy, capoeira-fighting fox monster struck! "HOLYSHITRUN," screamed my brain. The game, however, had other ideas. I had to fight. No ifs, ands, or buts. Just like that, the game world stopped making sense. I was supposedly some Average Joe Forced into An Extraordinary Situation, but it sure didn't seem that way after I'd handily despatched a hundred hellspawn – one-after-another, no less – through a series of increasingly tedious encounters.
Let's contrast that with PC indie horror hit Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's an admittedly similar concept, after all. You're Just Some Guy stuck in a spooky spot with so much audiovisual atmosphere that it could probably fix global warming. And then: a monster. Somewhere. "HOLYSHITRUN," screams your brain – as it should, because Amnesia disallows combat altogether. Amnesia, you see, turns a lack of actual violence into its key selling point. Like any other normal person, you can't effectively fight back, which makes the million murderous things that go bump in the night a billion times more terrifying. On the far-flung opposite side of the spectrum, PS3 indie up-and-comer Journey entirely removes violence from the picture to create a relaxing, contemplative experience. In my experience, the lack of baddies breathing down my neck/tearing out my throat every five seconds freed my mind to ponder about the expansive, mysterious desert in which the game takes place. What's the deal with these abandoned, half-buried structures? What are these abstract, magic scarf creatures? And occasionally, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That one was mostly unrelated, though. Point is, the slow, deliberate nature of the game sent my mind in directions others hadn't. My surroundings became the central appeal of the game – as opposed to the glorified hallways between battles seen in so many other, more traditional titles. Journey felt like, well, a journey in that the destination ceased to matter. The experience of simply being there was engaging in and of itself. A lack of violence, then, is plenty capable of being just as interesting – and even thrilling, depending on how it's used – as a good old-fashioned kung-fu gunfight. It's simply a matter of taking that first step, leaping out of the nest, and never looking back. When you're going for broke with a new idea, half-hearted attempts just don't cut it. If you don't believe your brilliant new mechanic will fly, it'll probably act less like Led Zeppelin and more like an actual leaden zeppelin. Yes, I'm still a gamer. I love shooting things. But I'm also a grown adult. Via the cumulative magic of countless public service announcements, I know violence isn't always the answer. So think carefully, developers, because you might just be shooting yourself in the foot when you hand me that gun. |
| Google+ to Stop Enforcing Real Names Posted: 19 Oct 2011 02:55 PM PDT
Google caused a bit of a stir when it announced that all Google+ users would have to use their real names. The company even began booting people that it thought were not following the rules. That led to some people being wrongly suspended. But just recently, Google began verifying accounts for public figures, and promised the little people a method to get verified in the future. We suspect that the change to allowing pseudonyms will take place around the time that regular users can get verified. This way, people can still have conversations with others, and know they are who they claim to be, but another group can go about its business being anonymous. How do you feel about this change? |
| The 34 Best Webcomics for Geeks Posted: 19 Oct 2011 02:53 PM PDT Here at Maximum PC, we get accused of being geeks pretty frequently and it's a badge we wear with pride. Different than your garden variety nerds or dorks, geeks enjoy things like computers, and math, and comic books. We're guilty of all of those things, especially the last part. Of all of the things the internet has done for us, perhaps one of it's most beneficial gifts to the geeks was the web comic. Much like the shift from print to digital in the traditional publishing world, the comic world has also undergone its own digital revolution - or should we say digital explosion? With the advances of software and the benefit of a cheaper publishing platform came a slew of online comics which ran the gamut from hilarious to hideous. We collected a list of the best geeky offerings from staff favorites to Facebook suggestions in order to provide you with thirty hilarious, entertaining and incredibly drawn web comics to secretly read throughout your work day. Geek or no, there's a comic here that you'll be able to enjoy. Dive in, and feel free to share your favorites in the comments!
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| Siri Allows Miscreants to Bypass iPhone 4S Passcodes Posted: 19 Oct 2011 02:41 PM PDT
In this state, Siri does have reduced functionality. Users cannot access apps, including the phone app, without knowing the lock code. The only features exposed are the ones that happen entirely within the Siri interface. There is an option to change this setting buried in the passcode lock menu. Users can switch Siri to 'Off' and stop people from accessing it without the code. For many users, it might be worth the risk to leave Siri on, but the default setting should be the opposite. Siri ought to be disabled when locked unless the user makes the choice to turn it on. Any 4S users out there? Is your Siri disabled on the lock screen? |
| Samsung and Google Actively Worked to Avoid Apple Patents in Galaxy Nexus Posted: 19 Oct 2011 02:30 PM PDT
"Now we will avoid everything we can and take patents very seriously," Shin said to reporters. He went on to say that he hopes the Galaxy Nexus will be 100% free from Apple infringement suits. That would be a change for Samsung, which has seen the Cupertino-based company win sales bans on its devices in several regions. An Australian court recently barred Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the country, but Samsung hit back with new patent suits against Apple in France, Italy, Japan, and Australia. From what we saw of Android 4.0, there does not appear to be any gaping holes in the product. But who knows if Google and Samsung spent too much time designing around those patents. How do you feel about products being developed specifically to avoid the appearance of patent infringement? |
| Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 X79 Motherboard Appeals to Our Inner James Bond Posted: 19 Oct 2011 12:56 PM PDT
That isn't the only weapon in the G1.Assassin 2's arsenal. It also wields a Bigfoot Networks Killer E2100 NIC with 1GB of dedicated DDR2 memory to shoot down high pings, an onboard Creative Soundblaster X-Fi digital audio processor, three PCI Express x16 slots with CrossFireX and SLI support, 8-phase VRM, SATA 6Gbps support, and other weapons of DIY destruction. Check out more teaser pics in our photo gallery below, and then tell us what you think about the design. Image Credit: Gigabyte |
| How-To: Build a Site With Drupal Gardens Posted: 19 Oct 2011 12:06 PM PDT
In a world where most of us have turned to expressing ourselves in snippets through the use of services like Twitter, Facebook and Google+, there's still a place in this world for websites. After all, 140 characters might get be enough to push out a message concerning how much you drank last night and where you think you left your pants, but unless you're a MAG Poetry Prize winner, you might have some difficulty at expressing the emotions you felt in seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time on your summer vacation. It goes without saying that for businesses, having a website to showcase or offer support your products is a no-brainer. These days, those looking to build their own site are spoiled for choice. For those that just want to throw their pictures, video and photos up online without worrying about anything more than what template to use and an occasional bit of spellchecking, Tumblr, Blogger or Windows Live Spaces are all great ways to go. If you demand more control over your site's look and functionality, you can rely on open source Content Management Systems like Joomla, Drupal or WordPress. Unfortunately, to get the most out of these users often need to be prepared to fulfill the role of both a content creator as well as a back end site administrator, dealing with frustrations such as choosing a reputable ISP, setting up your home computer to act as a server, deciding whether or not to download new versions of the and dealing with PHP databases. Isn't there a happy middle ground? Acquia seems to think so. If Drupal Gardens is any indicator, they may very well be on to something. By taking the power of the of the open source Drupal 7 Content Management System and combining it with turnkey-style site management, Drupal Gardens offers up a Drupal-a-Service platform allowing users to go from nil to an up and running site in well under and hour. With Drupal Gardens, there's no need to worry about backend administration, working with frustrating FTP uploads or paying scads to a talented web developer for his years of dedicated technical education. Simply sign up for an account, set up your site and get posting. How do you get started? It goes a little something like this: Step One: Sign Up
Using the web browser of your choice, navigate to the Drupal Gardens website. If you still need some coaxing on the fact that Acquia's service is right for you, you've come to the right place: The page is chock full of highlights surrounding what makes it a great option. Once you're convinced, click Create a Free Site to get the ball rolling. In doing so, you'll be directed to a sign up page that demands you designate a site URL, select a username, password and provide an email address to bind it all together. As Drupal Gardens is a relatively new service, chances are that you won't have too much difficulty snagging a domain name that works for you. That said, don't be too surprised to find that obvious names like scott.drupalgardens.com have been taken (because it totally has). Once you've settled on your credentials, click the continue button. Step Two: Choose Your Weapon
While a blog might be great for keeping a concise online record of your cat's busy life, it doesn't do much if you're trying to promote a product or a service. Fortunately, Drupal Gardens accounts for this and offers a number of stylistic alternatives including a template optimized for promoting a product or service and another designed to help groups discuss or push their agenda forward. If none of Drupal Garden's basic templates do it for you, there's also the option to create a template to meet your particular needs. Acquia also provides their clients with the ability to pick and choose what services will show up on their sites. Must-haves like a rotating banner, an area for your Twitter feed, feedback and contact forms can all be turned off with push-button simplicity. When you're content with the type of site and feature set you've selected, click Continue. Step Three: Reticulating Splines
At this point, as can be seen by the progress bar you're presented with, your Drupal Gardens site is well on the way to being set up. Check your inbox: By now you should have received an email from drupalgardens.com that lets you know your account has been created and to remind you of your login credentials. Once your site is created, you'll also receive a second email requesting that you verify your email is being helmed by a button-mashing human being and not some godless spamming machine. When it shows up, click the link to complete the set up process. In doing so, you'll be directed to your site. If you don't feel like responding to the email's demands right away, don't worry—you have seven days to click the link before your Drupal Gardens site and account are both deleted. Now, let's move on. This is where things get interesting. Step Four: Welcome Home
While it might not be much to look at yet, your new Drupal Gardens digs are set up and ready to be tweaked. Where services like Tumblr leave you to your own devices, Acquia has been good enough to provide you with a few sample posts, and other filler content to all new Drupal Gardens sites in order to give users a feel for the template they've chosen. Had enough of a feel? Good—time to make it your own. Step Five: Master of Your Domain
Drupal Gardens, as with Drupal 7, can be controlled an manipulated via the administration toolbar at the top of your browser. Only users who have signed into the service can see or interact with the administration toolbar. Here's the low-down on its various functions: Dashboard: Clicking this link provides you with an overview of the latest updates to your Drupal Gardens site. Contents: Shows a list of all of your site's content, as well as who is responsible for posting it. An administrator can create publish, unpublish, edit, or delete any of the site's posts from here. Structure: Essentially, the structure link lets you decide what appears on your site and where it shows up. From here, you can configure your Drupal Gardens site's Blocks (more on that in a bit), the content types, Menus, create simple content lists and your site's Taxonomy.
Appearance: With the options available via the Appearance link, you can pimp your site out to your heart's content. Foibles like the site's layout, color palette, space for a custom logo, font customization, page borders and pre-made themes are only a few mouse clicks away. For the skilled (or adventurous), there's also an option to putter about with Cascading Style Sheets. People: From here, you can invite new people to your site under a wide variety of permissions levels. If anyone gets out of line, the People overlay also provides the the ability to block or delete users who get out of line… online. Modules: With Drupal, Modules make the magic happen. Nothing on your site happens without them. The Modules link makes it a cinch to enable or disable the modules that make your site tick, adding or taking away functionality with a few mouse clicks. While some of the modules must be enabled at all times, Drupal Gardens provides users with a wide variety of additional modules to help you customize your site's look and feel. Configuration: As the link's name suggest, from here, users are able to configure a wide variety of their site's functions, including account settings, Content authoring defaults, how media such as photos, audio, and video are presented, language settings and a number of administrative functions. Reports: With this link, you can check in on your site's stats, recent log messages, and other important site information. For individuals looking to leverage their website for sales, media relations or product information, these metrics are vital. Step Six: Upgrades
While Drupal Garden's free offerings will sate the website building appetite of most users, Acquia also offers a number of tiers of additional service that allows for a number of finishing touches like additional storage, one-to-one technical support, additional responses for any of your site's web forms, and even the use of a custom domain name. Now that your site is up and running, don't be afraid to tinker! Drupal's reputation as a flexible, durable CMS is well-earned, thanks to the hard work of countless developers volunteering their time over the years. The chances of your breaking anything is pretty minimal. If you do find a way to flummox the works, don't fret: the helpful folks at Drupal Gardens forums are standing by to help you unbugger just about anything you accidentally bugger up. |
| Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid is a Mechanical Plank for Gamers Posted: 19 Oct 2011 11:26 AM PDT
The QuickFire Rapid uses the popular Cherry MX key switches. Keycaps are laser-marked and sport a damage-resistant rubber coating. Cooler Master also throws in an extra set of keycaps and a key puller. Other features:
The QuickFire Rapid will be available in November for $80. Image Credit: Cooler Master |
| ARM's New Ultra-Efficient A7 Processor Can Be The Brains To The A15's Brawn Posted: 19 Oct 2011 11:25 AM PDT
The cleverly named big.LITTLE technology takes its title from the two chips involved: the A7 is the lowest-powered processor in ARM's lineup, while the A15 is its performance powerhouse. The company claims that big.LITTLE technology – which requires both of those processors to be in a single phone – improves life all-round by assigned small, easy tasks like calls and audio playback to the energy-efficient A7, then swapping heavy loads over to the A15 on an as-needed basis. Since the power-hungry A15 will be operating much less frequently than normal, battery life will get a big boost. "This flexible approach of choosing the right processor for the right job enables highly optimized processing which results in significant energy savings for common workloads," ARM crows in its press release. Don't expect to see the power savings for quite a while, though: ARM says phones with stand-alone A7 processors won't appear until 2013 at the earliest, and A15 chips aren't expected to even start hitting the streets until sometime next year. |
| Spotify Unveils Blackberry App Posted: 19 Oct 2011 10:54 AM PDT
Kind of, you see, because the app is still in a beta-like "Preview" stage. In fact, Spotify will only go so far as it say that it will only definitely work with the 9780 Bold, 9700 Bold, 9300 Curve, 9000 Bold and 8520 Curve, and only on GSM networks, although the company did tell TechRadar that it works with Blackberry OS 7 devices like the Blackberry Bold Touch 9900, too. You'll only be able to use the app if you're a subscriber to Spotify's $10/mo. premium service, though – no mobile music for free listeners. You can expect the same mobile functionality that is found in the company's Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 apps, including full access to the streaming Spotify library as well as the ability to listen to songs offline. You can only get it from Spotify currently; the final version will be available on the Blackberry App World. |
In a bit of a reversal, Google+ will reportedly be 
Apple's Siri voice control system is undeniably cool, but it's also still technically a beta product. As such, there are some kinks to work out, but this is a pretty big one. The default setting for Siri is that it can be activated when the phone is locked, which is handy. But it turns out that even if you use a passcode, anyone can 
Something that was not discussed at the Android 4.0 and Galaxy Nexus unveiling recently is the state of the patent system. Android has had more than its fair share of run-ins with software patents in recent years, and Samsung mobile president Shin Jong-kyun made some telling statements that were only released after the event. According to Shin, Samsung and Google while developing the Galaxy Nexus actively worked to 
Gigabyte wrapped up the design of its upcoming G1.Assassin 2 motherboard based in Intel's X79 chipset for Sandy Bridge-E and tossed a bunch of teaser pics on its 
Mechanical keyboards are kind of a throwback to days gone by when keyboards offered a satisfying click and superior key action. More and more companies are coming out with mechanical planks nowadays, including Cooler Master, which just announced its new QuickFire Rapid keyboard for gamers. This board was built to withstand the kind of abuse gamers inflict when feverishly mashing away.
Intel may have the PC processor market in a virtual stranglehold, but on the mobile front, ARM's low-powered chips have made the company a contender. The diminutive new Cortex A7 processor announced today is one-fifth the size and uses one-fifth the power of the Cortex A8, but ARM has big things planned for it. Not only does the company have eyes on the sub-$100 phone market, but new technology that ARM calls "big.LITTLE processing" could have the A7 serving as a plucky little Robin to the beefier Cortex A15's Batman. 
We never thought we'd say this again after last week's horrify service outage, but it's actually kind of a good week to be a Blackberry owner! When you're done downloading free $100 worth of free apps to your Blackberry Curve, point your browser over towards Spotify, because the mega-popular music service just rolled out a long-awaited app to bring its tunes to RIM devices… kind of.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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