General Gaming Article |
- The Game Boy: Why Transmedia Gaming's Totally Missing The Point
- Ivy Bridge-Sporting HP EliteBook Gets Benchmarked
- EA's Origin Allows Jerks Back Into The (Single Player) Game
- Watch Out, Google: Oakley's Developing Connected Glasses, Too
- Yield Problems May Drive Qualcomm, Nvidia Away from TSMC
- Official Google Drive Offers 5GB of Free Storage, Launches Next Week
- Facebook Pledges Support for Controversial CISPA Bill
- Microsoft Strips Windows 8 of Unnecessary SKUs, Announces Three Main Versions (Two for x86)
- Microsoft Job Ads Hint at Web-based Skype Service
- HP Begins Shipping Z1 AIO Workstation
| The Game Boy: Why Transmedia Gaming's Totally Missing The Point Posted: 17 Apr 2012 04:19 PM PDT
When I devote time to media – whether it's a game, TV show, book, or slice of delicious chocolate cake drowned in molten frosting lava – I tend to lose myself in it. I think about it constantly. My speech becomes laden with referential jargon, and probably by pure coincidence, my friends start punching me in the throat more frequently. That's the power of a great world, though. You have to drag me away from it kicking and screaming, and even when you do, I bring a few chunks of officially licensed astro turf along for the ride. But it's fun to be hopelessly and utterly absorbed in a place halfway across the galaxy from Real Life's day-to-day doldrums. Whether it's a million-mile-per-hour escape from reality or something that ends up hitting all too close to home, there's something downright magical about, say, wandering Fallout's wastes or selecting the "family" conversation option of every goddamn person in Mass Effect 3's entire galaxy. Things like that are, in large part, the reason I play games. So I think I'm probably qualified to talk about why transmedia's insidious, spindly web of Facebook games, apps, iOS spin-offs, art books, and delicious chocolate cakes drowned in molten frosting lava is doing it so very, very, very wrong. In truth, transmedia has always fascinated me. I've had more high-noon bookstore staredowns with videogame novelizations than I can count, with crowds of bystanders mumbling "Will they or won't they" until the book and I finally embrace in steamy liplock. To this day, I still have dreams about Metal Gear Solid 2's titular tome, its lingering looks and musky perfume now a stain on my very soul. OK, I'm exaggerating that part, but I can stump most Halo nerds because I read a couple not-completely-but-mostly-terrible novels in high school. Today, though, transmedia finds itself charmed out of its cramped niche jar by a robotic melody made up entirely of buzzwords. Brand synchronicity. Facebook integration. IOS F2P FPS GPS. Many of these social extensions claim to be "casual" experiences to help ease in new players as well, but – as soon as they start hurling "unlock items in the PC/console game," "download the app," and "pester all your friends to procede more quickly" at folks who haven't touched a game since Tetris – the whole notion of simplicity explodes into a dusty haze of confusion. There are so many layers to these things, and transmedia games – by virtue of hedging their monetary bets on transmedia – certainly aren't shy about them. I play games all the time, and these things overwhelm me. I can't even imagine what it's like for someone who thinks WASD is some sort of anti-drug organization.
In truth, though, the corporate convolution of it all is only part of the problem. Do I want to, say, poke and prod at tiny, previously unknown corners of Dead Space and Mass Effect's universes while on the go? Sure. Sounds like a nice vacation within my vacation. Nowadays, though, that simply can't be a reward in and of itself. I'm beginning to think publisher execs believe gamers hate to actually play games, because everything dangles some oh-so-desirable carrot in front of our noses. Ghost Recon: Commander, for instance, will reward your tactical Facebook exploits with weapons in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Ghost Recon Online – and vice versa. The biggest offender, though, is easily Mass Effect 3. Its Galactic Readiness means that multiplayer and iOS spin-off Mass Effect: Infiltrator directly (and confusingly) impact single-player. No, you don't need to play either to get an optimal ending, but the game strongly encourages it without really explaining how to make up for it if you don't. Both Mass Effect and (to a lesser extent) Ghost Recon introduce a slimy strand of obligation to their proceedings. Hell, Mass Effect's Galactic Readiness degrades over time, essentially pressuring players into brittle bundles of nerves and stress over their game experience. I really shouldn't need to be saying this, but here goes: Gaming is a leisure activity. We don't play these things to be strong-armed into sacrificing our precious hours at the almighty alter of transmedia. You know what obligation is? It's a product of real life and all the ugly pressures I play games to get away from. I can't lose myself in a fantasy world if you're constantly punching me in the face with brass knuckles made from the real one. I want to love this magnificent place you've constructed, held on high by the carpel-tunnel-ridden claws of writers who poured their passion onto a page until they bled. I really, really do. But you make it so damn hard. And that's a crying shame, because – in theory – transmedia's a pretty rad idea. So please, publishers, stop breaking its bones to fit an obtuse monetary mold. For one, no one cares, so that's gonna hurt your bottom line a bit. But, more importantly, these worlds are at their best when both they and their players can do what they want, when they want. Believe it or not, people like to explore and discover. It lets us own an experience, world, or brand. (Or, put another way, do you think Star Wars Extended Fiction novels sell because they're good? Hah!) So quit suffocating us. It's time for a breath of fresh air. |
| Ivy Bridge-Sporting HP EliteBook Gets Benchmarked Posted: 17 Apr 2012 11:04 AM PDT Benchmarks were leaking all over the place leading up to the launches of the new AMD and Nvidia GPUs; Intel, apparently, runs a tight ship with a tight-lipped crew. Even though several signs point to an Ivy Bridge launch in less than a week, we've still heard next to nothing about how the new CPUs performs in the real world. Today, however, a review of an Ivy Bridge-sporting HP EliteBook 8470p laptop popped up online.
TheVerge pointed us towards LaptopReviews.com, where the full review is posted. The test notebook rocks an unidentified Core i7 Ivy Bridge proc, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. (LaptopReviews admits those hefty internals probably helped to boost benchmark scores by quite a bit, by the way.) Graphics were provided by the CPU's built-in Intel HD 4000 graphics, a new generation of the technology that will appear in upper-tier Ivy Bridge models. Ivy Bridge's vaunted thermal and energy improvements seem to (mostly) live up to the hype. LaptopReviews reports that heat was no issue; the laptop never, ever got warm. It ran quiet, too. "Rarely was the fan heard, during any of the more extreme benchmarks that were run on it," the website reports. Battery life was also pretty good compared to previous EliteBook models, though not exactly mind-blowing. Numbers-wise, the notebook delivered the goods, delivering a 4,520 score in PCMark 7, a 14,659 score in PCMark Vantage, a P3321 score in 3DMark Vantage, and 6.4 Windows Experience Index ratings in both Graphics and Gaming Graphics. LaptopReviews compares those results against PCs running current-gen CPUs. You'll need to check out their review to see the full numbers, but here's a hint: Ivy Bridge > Sandy Bridge. Image credit: LaptopReviews.com |
| EA's Origin Allows Jerks Back Into The (Single Player) Game Posted: 17 Apr 2012 10:31 AM PDT
Before, a swatting from the banhammer (either for multiplayer cheatery or forum-based jerkery) resulted in you losing all of your gaming privileges, single player mode included. Obviously, paying full price for a game and then not being able to play it whatsoever totally sucks -- especially if you ended up blocked from playing primarily single-player games such as Mass Effect 3 for calling someone a poopy-head in an online forum. Now, banned players will still be able to play solo content, but they'll need to be in offline mode -- found in Origin's gear/setting tab -- in order to do so. (Or, you know, head to Steam or GoG instead.) It seems like a good compromise, but to be honest, EA should never have blocked banned players from single player content to begin with. |
| Watch Out, Google: Oakley's Developing Connected Glasses, Too Posted: 17 Apr 2012 10:13 AM PDT
Unlike Google's Project Glass, which is rumored to have a $250 to $600 price point when/if it eventually launches, Baden says Oakley's connected glasses would be a bit more expensive. Oakley's vision of interactive glasses includes self-standing functionality, the ability to sync with a smartphone via Bluetooth, and possible voice commands. "There's a lot of interesting optical issues that come up when you're trying to create a positive experience when interacting with these devices," Baden told Bloomberg. "So the technology barrier to success is significant." For that reason, initial units would be targeted towards athletic and military uses -- assuming the ever made it to market, that is. Oakley could get into the Google Glasses game not through actual product manufacturing, but technology licensing instead; Baden says that Oakley holds over 600 patents related to optical and HUD technology. Image credit: Oakley.com, of an existing 3D Gascan Eyewear model. No, they aren't Oakley's Google Glasses! |
| Yield Problems May Drive Qualcomm, Nvidia Away from TSMC Posted: 17 Apr 2012 08:18 AM PDT
DigiTimes claims it's hearing from "industry sources" that both Nvidia and Qualcomm are actively exploring their options as TSMC struggles to keep up with capacity demands. Yield problems with the 28nm manufacturing process are reportedly hamstringing TSMC's ability to supply enough working chips. Qualcomm, which has been in talks with United Microelectronics (UMC) and Globalfoundries to pick up the slack, needs more chips than ever before thanks to the rising popularity of smartphones and tablets. Between Nvidia, Qualcomm, and others, TSMC has seen its orders for 28nm process nodes jump by five times in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the fourth quarter of 2011. Image Credit: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. |
| Official Google Drive Offers 5GB of Free Storage, Launches Next Week Posted: 17 Apr 2012 07:02 AM PDT
According to a draft release obtained by The Next Web from a partner of Google, the Google Drive service will launch with 5GB of free storage for everyone. For the sake of comparison, Dropbox offers 2GB of free storage space by default, though it's possible to increase that amount up to 16GB by referring others (up to 23GB for HTC phone and tablet owners). Google Drive will allow you to access synced files across a number of devices from any place where there's an Internet connection. That means you can type up a document at work on your desktop and make edits to it at home on your laptop or tablet PC. Standard fare stuff for cloud based storage services. Like Dropbox, you'll be able to purchase additional storage space, though no information was provided regarding pricing. About the only other thing we do know is that the service will launch at http://drive.google.com. Original Cloud Image Credit: Flickr (karindalziel) |
| Facebook Pledges Support for Controversial CISPA Bill Posted: 17 Apr 2012 06:36 AM PDT
Meet CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), the new version of SOPA and potentially the latest threat to consumer privacy, depending on who you ask. CISPA is a bill written by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) that seeks to allow companies and the federal government to share private information for the sake of cyber defense. If it were to go into effect, ISPs would be able to share customer records and communications with the National Security Agency, presumably to catch bad guys. "However, the bill expressly authorizes monitoring of our private communications, and is written so broadly that it allows companies to hand over large swaths of personal information to the government with no judicial oversight -- effectively creating a 'cybersecurity' loophole in all existing privacy laws," Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a not for profit digital rights advocacy group and general defender of the Internet, explains in an FAQ. According to the EFF, CISPA would allow companies to read your emails and share that information with the government, all without a warrant. Be that as it may, Facebook on Friday posted a blog post explaining why it supports the bill. "A number of bills being considered by Congress, including the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR 3523), would make it easier for Facebook and other companies to receive critical threat data from the U.S. government," Facebook explains. "Importantly, HR 3523 would impose no new obligations on us to share data with anyone –- and ensures that if we do share data about specific cyber threats, we are able to continue to safeguard our users' private information, just as we do today. "That said, we recognize that a number of privacy and civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the bill – in particular about provisions that enable private companies to voluntarily share cyber threat data with the government. The concern is that companies will share sensitive personal information with the government in the name of protecting cybersecurity. Facebook has no intention of doing this and it is unrelated to the things we liked about HR 3523 in the first place -- the additional information it would provide us about specific cyber threats to our systems and users." The problem with that statement, which was bolded by Facebook, is that it forces citizens to trust individual companies to do the right thing with their private data. And what's even more scary about this, as opposed to SOPA, is that a number of companies have written letters of support for the bill, including AT&T, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, and many more. You can read the bill in its entirety by going here. If you decide you're against CISPA, the EFF lists a number of ways you can oppose it. |
| Microsoft Strips Windows 8 of Unnecessary SKUs, Announces Three Main Versions (Two for x86) Posted: 17 Apr 2012 06:03 AM PDT
Forget about the gamble Microsoft is taking with the controversial Metro UI overhaul. Simplifying the SKUs is a great thing, and here's how it works. If you're rocking a PC or tablet with a x86 processor, whether it's 32-bit or 64-bit, your options are Windows Pro and just plain Windows 8. For most people, Windows 8 will be the right choice. So, who should consider Windows 8 Pro? Anyone who can benefit from:
None of the versions will ship with Windows Media Center, though it will be offered as an "economical" media pack add-on to Windows 8 Pro. The other main version of Windows 8 is called Windows RT, previously known as Windows ARM or WOA (Windows on ARM). Windows RT will sport touch-optimized desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Finally, let's talk upgrades. Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium users will be able to perform an in-place upgrade to Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro without issue. Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate users will only be able to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro; jumping to the plain version of Windows 8 will require a clean install. More info, including a handy chart outlining all three versions, can found in Microsoft's official blog post here. |
| Microsoft Job Ads Hint at Web-based Skype Service Posted: 17 Apr 2012 05:45 AM PDT
"Result of your work will be used by hundreds millions of thankful users worldwide. Microsoft wants someone well versed in developing "HTML5 UI's including rich interaction based on JavaScript." Does this mean that the upcoming "Skype for Browsers" will be based on WebRTC? Taking into account WebRTC's popularity among browser vendors, there seems to be a strong possibility of that happening. However, it is too early to say anything with any degree of certainty. |
| HP Begins Shipping Z1 AIO Workstation Posted: 16 Apr 2012 10:20 PM PDT
Its 27-inch LED-backlit IPS display has a resolution of 2560x1440 and supports over a billion colors. With user-serviceability being the Z1's main selling point, it is ridiculously easy to snap open the screen and gain access to its neatly packed innards. HP's site lists four models priced between $1,899.00 and $2,899.00. However, the basic model is unlikely to cut it for most of the Z1's intended users with its Intel Core i3-2120 (3.30 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores) processor and integrated graphics. In contrast, the topmost model has a Xeon E3-1245 (3.30 GHz, 8 MB cache, 4 cores) — as do the other two models — and NVIDIA Quadro 500M (1 GB) professional graphics. Further it has a 1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive. Specs common to all models include 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 2MP 1080p webcam, SRS-certified stereo speakers, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, FireWire, DisplayPort, and a 6-in-1 card reader. "We've been visiting customers around the globe, in industries from automotive to audio and video, and the response is overwhelmingly positive, with comments like 'it's insanely cool' and 'just the right size,'" said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. "Customers say they're impressed with the combination of accelerated performance and design that's not available on any other product in the market today."
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Good news for the griefers, modders, trolls and all-around jerks that have been making life less pleasant for other gamers using EA's Origin gaming service: you can still pull your shenanigans on Steam! Kidding, kidding. But thanks to a change in policy from EA, you'll be able to get your single-player on in the games you purchase through Origin even if you've been banned from the service.
Google's Sergey Brin had better be careful; while he's busy 
Trouble with TSMC's (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 28nm process technology could force Nvidia and Qualcomm to seek out other foundries. In fact, Nvidia reportedly has already started sampling its chips on Samsung's 28nm process technology, representing a significant shift in behavior and a potential huge loss for TSMC, which is currently the sole provider of chips for Nvidia.
We'll try to avoid throwing around the term 'Dropbox killer' to describe Google's upcoming Google Drive service, which according to leaked information on the Internet is slated to launch next week, perhaps as early as Tuesday. Google Drive, even if it's awesome, probably won't decimate Dropbox unless Dropbox stands pat, but it will debut with more than twice as much free storage space.
Many B-rated horror flicks end with the good guys destroying some kind of monster, literal (like a flesh eating beast from hell) or figurative (deranged serial killer), with the camera then panning down to the creature. Right before rolling to credits, an eye opens or a arm twitches to let the viewers know it's still alive, ensuring a sequel is in order. Such is the case with SOPA and PIPA, the controversial privacy bills that were essentially destroyed by an angry Internet mob, only we didn't really kill it completely.
Microsoft is doing something with Windows 8 that it should have down with Windows 7 and Vista. It's paring down the number of SKUs to just three, one of which is designed for ARM processors, leaving the x86 crowd with just two versions to choose from. Every grade school teacher who has ever taught their students the K.I.S.S. (as in, Keep It Simple, Silly or Stupid) principle should be giving each other vindicated high-fives.
Skype is virtually everywhere. There are native Skype clients for almost all major platforms, from the PC to mobile devices to connected TVs. But what about the Web? After all, it too is an apps platform, and a powerful one at that. Even though a browser-based version of Skype doesn't exist at the moment, 
Hewlett-Packard today announced the availability of its Z1 user-serviceable all-in-one PC. Unveiled in February at the HP Global Partnership Conference, the Z1 is said to be the | You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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