Slashdot Mirror

At the increasingly enjoyable PC blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Keiron Gillen has up a post on the making of Shiny's Sacrifice . A reprint of an article he wrote for the PC Format site, and with extra materials, it goes into the origins of the title with game designer Eric Flannum. From the article: "'One of the biggest things which stood in the way of Sacrifice appealing more was that there were so many different and new things in it we were asking a lot from the player as far as what they had to learn and accept ... From the visual style, from the lack of a disembodied camera ... RTS players especially had a lot of new concepts to wrap themselves around' Of course, these 'problems' were also some of the things which absolutely distinguished the game. 'It was definitely one of the strengths of Sacrifice - its wacky visual look,' Eric considers the issue, 'but at the same time ... well, there's something about 'an archer' which communicates on a very basic level what that unit does. People don't have to learn. But when you've got a little pyromaniac, there's an extra step of learning. They don't inherently know what he does.'" At the start of his post, Gillen mentions the retrospective piece on the game he wrote for his personal site back at the end of last year, which is also well worth reading. I have to admit, I'll take almost any excuse to talk about this game; it's a sorely underappreciated title.

Jim Rossignol writes "An article on a new blog I'm contributing to discusses how The Sims (mostly the original, but also the sequel) gets used for sexual purposes, and also examines how this kind of response is essential to the appeal of the game. Here's an extract: 'On sites like Simulated, Eight Deadly Sims, Pandora's Sims and Strange Sims we see increasingly bizarre uses of the modding tools. While mainstream sites are for all ages, these have reached such a level of risqué or alternative content that the majority hide behind pay-for-access barriers to ensure that the users at least have a credit card (i.e. aren't minors), and to earn a little cash. Of all the mod cultures online — and virtually every PC game has users making their own additional content either in publisher-supported or unofficial ways — it's only The Sims which has such an obvious number of sites which demand money for access. This is particularly unusual: there's a clause in EA's tool license that they can only be used 'on your personal non-commercial website'. That Electronic Arts hasn't gone after such a sizeable community is interesting in and of itself.'" Jim Rossignol is a well-respected games journalist in the industry, and his new blog (Rock, Paper, Shotgun) is well worth checking out.

Via GameSetWatch, an article by Keiron Gillen about System's Shock's deeply creepy villainess, Shodan. The deeply disturbed AI is in some ways a cliche, but Gillen examines why Shodan transcends genre tropes to become a truly unique character. From the article: "The core of understanding Shodan in System Shock 2 is to understand that she's no longer the AI she once was. In the first System Shock she was the cold, perfect bully aboard citadel station. The position she finds herself in orbit around Tau Ceti, millions of miles from Earth, is somewhat different. In short, for the majority of the game, she's not the antagonist anymore - but the main supporting actor and even mentor. She's not who you try to stop - she's who you work with."

Jim Rossignol, a writer for PC Gamer UK, has returned from South Korea with a look at gaming culture in a vibrant and interesting pro-gaming society. From the article: "Seoul, South Korea. To a fanfare of Asian nu-metal and the sound of a thousand screaming fans, a young Korean man enters a dazzling arena. Like an American wrestler at the heart of a glitter-glazed Royal Rumble, he strides down a ramp towards the stage. Adorned in what appears to be a space suit and a large white cape, he heads out to meet his opponent on the stadium's ziggurat focus. Amid a blaze of flashbulbs and indoor fireworks he climbs the steps, and is exulted by the thronging crowd ... the man on the stage is on Korean television almost every day. He is about to sit down and play what is close to becoming Korea's national sport: Starcraft."

doctorfaustus writes "Found this on Daily Rotation -- it details, with pictures, many of the toys we all wanted from our parents at Christmas a few years ago.... Everything from '160 Exciting Science Projects' to 'Stretch Armstrong,' along with the promises made in the toy's advertising and how often those promises were broken... The story has a British orientation, but I didn't see a single toy I didn't remember from my American youth.... They're all here: Simon, Slime, Magic Rocks, Sonic Ear... Even the Sinclair."

Hans Gilde writes: "Pedophilia has been a big topic in the UK lately, there have been riots, beatings and vandalism resulting from [pedophile witchhunts]. In an attempt "to ask hard questions about the way society and the media deal with its most difficult problems" and point out "that famous people have a habit of denouncing things without knowing much about them", a comedian in the UK produced a TV show, described in an article in the NY Times, in which he actually got a member of Parliament to say the following, on the air, in all seriousness: "Using an area of the Internet the size of Ireland, pedophiles can make your keyboard release toxic vapors that can make you more suggestible."" This show is frankly hilarious, and the reaction to it is even better. You probably want to see the show, eh? It's available in .avi or Real and DivX.

Hans Gilde writes: "Pedophilia has been a big topic in the UK lately, there have been riots, beatings and vandalism resulting from [pedophile witchhunts]. In an attempt "to ask hard questions about the way society and the media deal with its most difficult problems" and point out "that famous people have a habit of denouncing things without knowing much about them", a comedian in the UK produced a TV show, described in an article in the NY Times, in which he actually got a member of Parliament to say the following, on the air, in all seriousness: "Using an area of the Internet the size of Ireland, pedophiles can make your keyboard release toxic vapors that can make you more suggestible."" This show is frankly hilarious, and the reaction to it is even better. You probably want to see the show, eh? It's available in .avi or Real and DivX.