Slashdot Mirror

Tech:
I, Cringley http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/rss2.xml
Freedom to Tinker http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?feed=rss2
Freenode staffblog http://blog.freenode.net/?feed=rss2
Gentoo Monthly Newsletter http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/rss.xml
Xaprb (MySQL) http://www.xaprb.com/blog/feed/atom/

Games:
Cruise Elroy ("Intelligent discussion of video games") http://cruiseelroy.net/feed/
Jonathan Drain's D20 Source http://d20.jonnydigital.com/feed
Socratic Design http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Stephen's Weblog (NDS homebrew) http://blog.akkit.org/feed/
StupidRanger http://feeds.feedburner.com/Stupidrangercom
Zero Punctuation http://www.escapistmagazine.com/rss/articles/editorials/zeropunctuation
Zelda Reorchestrated http://www.zreomusic.com/feed/
Used to read The Escapist, quite enjoying the magazine format, but seven or so articles all on the same day each week became too much (once a month please!). The format has changed since then, it just isn't the same.

And the Comics:
xkcd comic & blag
Penny Arcade
and no feed, but 8-bit Theater

And a number of various personal feeds

Slashdot I just check every few hours, I can be assured there is going to be a new article to read

• Feedreader (collapsed) - these two feeds came with Feedreader, and I just didn't delete them.
• • Feedreader Developer Blog
  • Feedreader news and announcements
• Games
• • Deus Ex Projects - two projects for my favorite game of all time that both move one inch toward completion every 6 months.
  • • Deus Ex HTDP - high-definition texture pack. Text feed, news and announcements.
    • Project 2027 - new levels and story for Deus Ex. Text feed, news and announcements.
  • The Escapist: Zero Punctuation - if you're not watching these game reviews, you should be. Feed is links to the weekly ZP posts.
  • Valve Steam news and updates - Steam is Valve's content delivery system. This feed includes game updates and general news. Text only.
• News/aggregator
• • CNN top stories - this feed can be annoying because it sometimes contains a story summary in the item, but more often it just contains a link to the story. I wish it had summaries more often.
  • Fark - Fark is a news aggregator site that, like /., combines user submission with a little editorial control (as opposed to the Digg method). This feed is of the mainpage stories and contains only the headlines and a link. Sophomoric and dark humor are mainstays.
  • MSNBC - this is the top stories feed, editorially selected. They also have a "most viewed" feed if you're into celeb news and dogs in funny poses.
  • MSNBC - Coundown - feed of Countdown with Keith Olbermann video clips, updated nightly, with the first two stories usually posted before the show is over. Feed is links to the clips.
  • Slashdot - log in, your feed is personalized to your mainpage prefs. /.'s own feed contains headlines and story summaries.
• Politics
• • Crooks and Liars - This is a blog that supports more liberal ideals than the party line. Feed is of front page stories and contains attachments of any items referenced in the stories (usually QT files, sometimes PDFs)
  • Daily Kos - The largest liberal log/community on the net, this one is much more toward party line. Text only.
  • Electoral-vote.com - election news and coverage with a map that updates the electoral college count by poll average. Contains the site's daily upd

I have quite a few.

Apple Trailers - New movie trailers.
BlizzCast - Blizzard podcast, not that great.
GameTrailers - Latest game trailers.
The Perry Bible Fellowship - Amusing comics though seem dead lately.
Penny Arcade - Enough said.
TED Talks - Insightful talks about many subjects.
Three Panel Soul - Mac Hall is dead, long live Three Panel Soul.
Video Copilot - Nice video compositing tutorials.
xkcs - Master of all geek webcomics.
Zero Punctuation - Game reviews amusing enough you don't need to care about the game.

EZTV - Scene TV torrent releases.
Releaselog - General scene torrent releases.

And there's of course Slashdot which currently has 126 unread stories, I'm sure I'll get to them sometime.

you hypocritic moron.

Thanks, I haven't laughed so much since last week's Zero Punctuation.

When the Final Duke goes gold, the seventh seal shall be broken and all the gamers shall cry out and lament that their RAM is insufficient and their video cards unworthy.

Oh. It runs on the Crysis engine then. Got it.

I don't usually want to eat it again. But I have found myself watching these quite often and I don't want to waste bandwidth.

Heh. Lest you get troll-modded into oblivion by people who missed the reference, here's a link to the Zero Punctuation review of GH3:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2716-Zero-Punctuation-Guitar-Hero-III

I'm assuming you're referring to That Guy

I really enjoyed this reveiw of the consoles. Needs flash.

But video game companies are paragons of virtue, it's morally wrong to infringe on their vitally important intellectual property...

"The Escapist" is running a few articles on that theme:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_146/4814-Cyberpunked-the-Fall-of-Black9
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_146/4817-Inside-David-Jaffe-s-Heartland

Also, somebody got their hands on an old Infocom drive: http://waxy.org/2008/04/milliways_infocoms_unreleased_sequel_to_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galax
(The follow-up comments also tell a helluva tale.)

"The Escapist" is running a few articles on that theme:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_146/4814-Cyberpunked-the-Fall-of-Black9
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_146/4817-Inside-David-Jaffe-s-Heartland

Also, somebody got their hands on an old Infocom drive: http://waxy.org/2008/04/milliways_infocoms_unreleased_sequel_to_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galax
(The follow-up comments also tell a helluva tale.)

A while back I wrote a piece about the ideals vs realism side of this topic for the Escapist:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_137/2940-Idea-Sex-in-the-Classroom

(Yes this is shameless pimping but I think it's pretty relevant to the main topic and a lot of these comments)

Cheers

Colin

One wonders if the accounting on European films is more honest. European film industries are heavily subsidized by the state, and when you have to report back to the state on what you've done with their funding, perhaps there is less temptation to cook the books.

>For game criticism of a more literary caliber there's no real source that I know of.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation

"Those cutscenes were worse than anything Pol Pot ever did and I demand that whoever suggested them be dragged to the Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity."

From the obligatory hivemind.

"The combined effect of slave labour, malnutrition, poor medical care and executions had an estimated death toll of 750,000 to 1.7 million."

Come on. A little perspective please. It's only a video game, for chrissakes.

In case my irony detector's broken, let me at least throw Ben Cresslaw's take on Assassin's Creed. Amusing.

The best Halo 3 review of 2007

Hm. Zero Punctuation?
That's published in the US, but produced in Australia, by a British guy.

Also, as an Australian currently working abroad, stuff like Chaser's war on everything, media watch, and other assorted publications matter to me (although they're all on hiatus since it's christmas time there.)

The bigger problem is that it might start other countries from just throwing their hands up and blocking Australia outright, since there's probably no simple (hell, probably not even a complex) solution to this particular mandate that's going into effect. This worries me greatly, and doesn't surprise me in the slightest. We've had a seriously over-protectionist bent for far FAR too long. The hooting from the conservative family-first types that push this crappy agenda may not be as loud as they are in the US, but clearly they've had enough of an effect.

Particularly since my braindead country just voted in the fucking party that's in love with the idea. Oh, wait, both parties are in love with the idea. Ah well, guess we're fucked either way. Glad I don't live there anymore, I certainly won't be going back any time soon.

ash

I LOVED Bioshock and it is probably my game of the year... however, I still think I agree with Yahtzee's claim that the final product was slightly shallower than it was originally advertised.

Oh, and automatic +1 and a cookie for you for liking Bloodlines! Check out the Witcher if you haven't already. The sexist-Pokemon minigame aside, it has quite a lot of mature topics as well as difficult choices+consequences in it.

Both of my favorites this year are "semi-casual" platformers:

Knytt Stories
http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories

Trilby: The Art of Theft
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/games/yahtzee/artoftheft

The thing is, I haven't seen many reviews written from a position of rage and loathing. In fact, I can't remember any off the top of my head. Even as flames on boards go, genuine rage and loathing tends to be somewhat of a tiny minority of the messages, and easily identified as such. So, you know, you don't have to read it, if you don't like that kind of messages.


Okay, you definitely need to watch some of Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation reviews.

Some of those are definitely filled with rage and loathing (well, comically so). That said, he'll still point out good stuff with a game, but he won't spend too much time on it (after all, that's not why people are going to him)

I personally found his bioshock review to be spot on. In system shock 2, towards the end, I found myself critically short on ammo. In bioshock, I found myself critically overstocked. So much so that i actually started to feel anxious when I found I was full of all the ammo I found lying around. A game really shouldn't be making me feel this way over something so trivial (sure, if it's the plot, then by all means, make me anxious, but over ammo? And money? Gimme a break!)

But you know, even with the rage, his reviews are worth watching. He calls out the bullshit, and he pulls in the readers. Every time he rags on a game, there's surprisingly little backlash against his negativity in his comments (of course, I don't know if he or the escapist moderate them,) just mountains of 'damn, couldn't have said it better, or more graphically, myself!'

ash

While we've had controversy in the past with fake movie reviews, there's never really been a question about bribed movie reviews.

Why is this? I think it's because movie reviews are advertised by the reviewer, not the paper. You don't open up the Chicago Sun-Times to read the Sun-Times movie reviews, you open up the Chicago Sun-Times to read Roger Ebert's movie reviews. For games, however, with the exception of people like Yahtzee and his "Zero Punctuation" reviews, write-ups are advertised by the site as a whole. Read the Gamespot review! Read the IGN review! Compare the Metacritic pages for a film and a game and you'll see what I'm talking about.

So how can we fix this? We need higher-profile game reviewers and for that to occur we need more games to be viewed as art -- or at least as a viable form of expression/story-telling. Just as Hollywood legitimized the movie industry by telling compelling stories and setting up a system of internal rewards for good products (Oscars), we need something legitimate for video-games.

Is that ever going to happen? Who knows.

Of course the whole thing might just be pointless because with demos and such people can get a much better sense of the game than anyone can get with a movie trailer.

Personally any controller be it keyboard, mouse or even console controller has a certain amount of user preference. I remember the NES and hated that rectangular controller although side sheaves fixed the problem of my hand cramping. At one stage I even used a joystick on the NES, IMHO that was a disaster, although for some it may have been fine.

With regard to the Wii controller there have been PC controllers that used accelerometers years before the Wii mote however few games if any were written for it. The DS uses a touch screen but then so does a PDA and there are plenty of games for them. Is the Wii or the DS innovative, IMHO not really but that is up to the likes and dislikes of the player. From my perspective it is rare to see a truly innovative game (well worth looking at this site) http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1368-Zero-Punctuation-Psychonauts since most games today appear to be a rehash of previous games, still from the gaming house perspective if that is what makes money then why not.

The holy grail of downloads. It will eventually happen but only when network bandwidth and speed increase accordingly and this looks to be many years in the future. Personally I would rather prefer a DVD for Standard Definition movies and BD or HD-DVD for High Definition movies since I don't have to rely on the media being on a computer which is capable of crashing and when you consider a HD movie is approx 15GB to 20GB you really need a home server with multi Terra Byte capacity. If you have one then fine but do you back it up and how long does it take and what is your disaster recovery plan? At least with physical media in the event of a disaster (ie. fire, theft, flood, acts of God .... etc) you can get your collection replaced without to much trouble. Can you say the same with downloaded media? Even if you don't have to pay again which is debatable you are still going to consume enormous amounts of bandwidth and time just rebuilding your "legitimately" paid for collection since your insurance won't pay for pirated games or movies.

It must be noted that some ISP's do offer unlimited downloads but you are going to pay for it. Many ISP's offer restrictive downloads such are 5GB to 50GB (ie. 1 to 3 HD movies) per month but that depends on the country and city or town you live in and the amount of network bandwidth that can used. I do know that Microsoft is diplomatically trying to shame some governments into forcing Telco's into providing greater network infrastructure. This means that Microsoft has a great deal to gain by keeping the HD-DVD vs BD war going. Don't believe me then just use Google (Microsoft government broadband), you will find that Microsoft has not made any secret of what they want to do.

If after all that I have said you still prefer HD downloads since you will most likely end up paying Microsoft and Sony for the privilege that is your prerogative but other people do think differently.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation

While he only really reviews one game a week, he is quite mean to most of the games and hillitary ensures.

Zero Punctuation is pretty even handed and humorous to boot. Strongly recommended as it's not afraid to tell you the game it's looking at is terrible.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation

A sibling poster (Alzheimers?) mentioned Penny Arcade, which is big enough to be picky about advertisers. I concur, and I guess I might call them my portal to gaming news (besides here, of course). They filter out the crap, and I hear about things like this from them first, usually. It helps that the two principles, Gabe and Tycho, have very different tastes in games, but both recognize quality vs crap.

I'll also mention Yahtze's "Zero Punctuation":
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/

He doesn't review many games, but dear god when he does, it is brutally honest. He's also quite funny, even if not exactly worksafe. He exposes the weaknesses of things like HL2 which we put up with, and so forth. It's very refreshing. I wish I had about 10 times as many reviews from him, even about games I don't care about. I'd watch a Yahtze review of Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

For example:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2541-Zero-Punctuation-The-Orange-Box

"Lastly, let's talk about Portal. If you're a regular viewer, you'll recognize how INSANE these words sound coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it.... This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece."

(-:

A sibling poster (Alzheimers?) mentioned Penny Arcade, which is big enough to be picky about advertisers. I concur, and I guess I might call them my portal to gaming news (besides here, of course). They filter out the crap, and I hear about things like this from them first, usually. It helps that the two principles, Gabe and Tycho, have very different tastes in games, but both recognize quality vs crap.

I'll also mention Yahtze's "Zero Punctuation":
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/

He doesn't review many games, but dear god when he does, it is brutally honest. He's also quite funny, even if not exactly worksafe. He exposes the weaknesses of things like HL2 which we put up with, and so forth. It's very refreshing. I wish I had about 10 times as many reviews from him, even about games I don't care about. I'd watch a Yahtze review of Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

For example:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2541-Zero-Punctuation-The-Orange-Box

"Lastly, let's talk about Portal. If you're a regular viewer, you'll recognize how INSANE these words sound coming out of my mouth, but I can't think of any criticism for it.... This is the most fun you'll have with your PC until they invent a force-feedback codpiece."

(-:

I've always found it odd that games with massive advertising budgets behind them always tend to get VEEERY high scores from the mainstream gaming sites. Case in point - Halo 3. Ok, so I haven't played it myself, but a perfect 100% score on some sites? There is NOTHING that can be better about this game? Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame put this best. He argues that the 10/10 score is especially strange since they go on to say in the review that the single player campaign is flawed, but the totally awesome multiplayer "makes up for it". If the game was really perfect, it wouldn't need something to "make up" for any flaws.

If you want some review-tainment(ogod!), you might want to consider checking out Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's contributions to The Escapist.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation
Also? God I hate /. "html".

The Zero Punctuation Review seems to bring up the same critic of the game : not much content.

Tabula Rasa review ;)

I've personally tried the beta, and I didn't like it. It felt.. as if it combines the bad parts of mmog like wow with the bad parts of fps shooters.

Basically, the feeling I get : by trying to grab both, it fails at both.

take the opportunity to click on Zero Punctuation: The Orange Box

It sounds like you would appreciate this video review:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1368-Zero-Punctuation-Psychonauts

The escapist reviewed a pre-test beta for the game a few weeks back. Yahtzee had some "interesting" things to say about it....
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Zero-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa

The escapist reviewed a pre-test beta for the game a few weeks back. Yahtzee had some "interesting" things to say about it....
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Zero-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa

Nothing beats getting your hands on a demo and actually playing the game. I won't even buy most games unless there's a playable demo (try before you buy). I only visit a couple game related websites, such as GameRankings, Metacritic and Yahtzee's reviews at The Escapist. Any other game info I need I will check out the Wikipedia entry (for release dates, etc).

I used to get game magazines 5-10 years ago mainly for the demo discs and articles about upcoming games, but with the internet, game magazines are pretty much dead. Review sites like IGN and Gamespot are also useless to me when I can just visit GameRankings and see all the scores compiled in one place.

I totally agree, thankfully the same time the Orange Box came out, I was introduced to perhaps the only honest reviewer/editorial I've ever seen. Plus he's hilarious to boot! There's no need for a score, or a summary, its an editorial review that gets it point across, makes positive and negative game commentary and social commentary and manages to deliver it in a delightfully hilarious fashion.

His Halo 3 review was honest, critical, and has a poignant comment or two on the very subject of broken game reviews.

But he was only a bit more kind to the Orange Box, while still full of commentary (except on portal) it all had a pretty positive overall feel, much more so that Halo 3.

Speaking to social commentary... well, I'll just link the Medal Of Honor:Airborn review and leave it at that!

I totally agree, thankfully the same time the Orange Box came out, I was introduced to perhaps the only honest reviewer/editorial I've ever seen. Plus he's hilarious to boot! There's no need for a score, or a summary, its an editorial review that gets it point across, makes positive and negative game commentary and social commentary and manages to deliver it in a delightfully hilarious fashion.

His Halo 3 review was honest, critical, and has a poignant comment or two on the very subject of broken game reviews.

But he was only a bit more kind to the Orange Box, while still full of commentary (except on portal) it all had a pretty positive overall feel, much more so that Halo 3.

Speaking to social commentary... well, I'll just link the Medal Of Honor:Airborn review and leave it at that!

I totally agree, thankfully the same time the Orange Box came out, I was introduced to perhaps the only honest reviewer/editorial I've ever seen. Plus he's hilarious to boot! There's no need for a score, or a summary, its an editorial review that gets it point across, makes positive and negative game commentary and social commentary and manages to deliver it in a delightfully hilarious fashion.

His Halo 3 review was honest, critical, and has a poignant comment or two on the very subject of broken game reviews.

But he was only a bit more kind to the Orange Box, while still full of commentary (except on portal) it all had a pretty positive overall feel, much more so that Halo 3.

Speaking to social commentary... well, I'll just link the Medal Of Honor:Airborn review and leave it at that!

If more reviews were like Zero Punctuation, then they could charge for reviews.

This is why I like the Zero Punctuation reviews so much. Yahtzee has a decent command of the language, goes through all of the good and bad parts of the games, and gives a quick conclusion stating his opinion of the thing.

Sounds like a job for Yahtzee (see Zero Punctuation reviews on The Escapist

This guy does very funny reviews.. Pretty much hits the nail on the head for Orange Box here..

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2541-Zero-Punctuation-The-Orange-Box
Other reviews he has done is also worth checking out.

my new favort reviewer
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2541-Zero-Punctuation-The-Orange-Box

Umm... http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

;-)

Looks to be word for word from the older article:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30/25

Although, I did find it amusing ... the first time.

A Bioshock review.