According to an extremely lengthy article posted at
[url=http://rawstory.com/news/2008/San_Diego_GOP_chairman_cofounded_international_042
5.html]The Raw Story[/url], San Diego Republican Chairman and head of the state party’s
budget committee Tony Krvaric is co-founder of Fairlight, one of the world’s largest and
oldest software cracking rings. Krvaric, known online as “Strider,” started Fairlight in 1987
with two friends, “Black Shadow” and “Gollum.” The group of Swedish high schoolers quickly
rose to prominence among online bulletin board users for cracking the copy protection on
Commodore 64 games that Krvaric would “borrow” from his job in a Swedish game store.
After the games were cracked, Krvaric and his friends would post the software to the Internet
where it would be downloaded by other users for free.
The Raw Story chronicles Krvaric’s cracking accomplishments and Fairlight’s history, which
includes setting up offices in California, recruiting new crackers, and selling a variety of goods
from game copying devices to nonperishable foodstuffs.
Krvaric has failed to publicly respond to the allegations, but an alleged internal communication by Krvaric has been leaked to the Internet:
"Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, “exposing” my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days)," he wrote Monday. "This was in the 80’s, on a computer that’s long since defunct!"
The supposed letter also stated:
"I’m sure glad they didn’t look in to my elementary school years, as there’s some really embarrassing stuff that I did in 4th grade.... BTW, I also heard a rumor that another fellow committee member (who shall remain unnamed) once made a tape copy of his friend’s favorite vinyl record."
"I don’t know who is spreading this, but just wanted to let you know what’s going on out there. Likely it’s someone who wants us to take our eye off the ball in 2008, be it the democrats, labor or someone else. Either way, we’re not going to let them get away with it. Thanks for your leadership."
A list of Krvaric's Commodore 64 cracking accomplishments can be found here. For further reading, check out the full article on The Raw Story.
The stupidity of some people absolutely amazes me.
Frank Buchanan, 30, and his mother Dorothy Mae Buchanan, 68, were recently arrested in Minnesota for engaging a in scam that defrauded retailers out of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Buchanan allegedly bought and returned nearly 200 video games from local retailers starting in October 2006. Buchanan’s major fault: retailers began to notice that the boxes he returned contained homemade game discs.
Buchanan reportedly would purchase games at retail, remove the game disc, create a fake disc by printing a label onto a blank CD, and then repackage the blank disc in the original box using a heat gun. By returning these fake games to stores, Buchanan allegedly racked up $23,178 in refunds to his credit card and sold the game discs on eBay for roughly $19,562.
Buchanan is formally charged with three felony counts of theft by swindle for obtaining credit on fraudulent merchandise at local Target, Wal-Mart, ShopKo, and Kmart stores.
After being tipped off by Target loss-prevention, Buchanan’s mother was also formally charged with a single felony count of theft by swindle for allegedly helping her son with his plot.
"Did computer games make you turn to a life of crime?" reads the headline for a newspaper casting call at starnow.co.uk. If so, a national UK newspaper wants your story and will pay "hundreds of pounds" and "call you straight back."
While details on the paper actually publishing the story are sparse, the deadline to turn in "a few lines about how computer games turned you to crime" ends on May 1. Perhaps a UK Dtoider, *cough* JIMSTERLING *cough*, could send in a story or two in hopes of finding out which publication is responsible for this dubious activity.
It is truly disheartening to see any "legitimate" news media fishing for stories like this, but it appears that turning video games into the de facto scapegoat is rapidly gaining popularity in the UK. Fortunately, we still have Thompson and Fox News to keep us ahead of the Brits in sheer lunacy.
This game has apparently been out for a while, but I've never heard of it. I'm surprised Rev hasn't deconstructed it for us yet (also, FOX News! JOURNALISM!!):
Breakthrough, a New York-based non-profit group, has recently launched a freely available PC game called ICED, which hopes to help gamers “understand how important it is to restore due process to the immigration system.”
ICED, an acronym for “I Can End Deportation,” puts gamers in the role of one of five characters—an asylum seeker from Haiti, a student from Japan, or two green card holders from Poland and India. The object of the game is to carry on life as an undocumented immigrant in America while avoiding deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”)—see what they did there?
Players are awarded points for doing good deeds in the game’s virtual New York City, but any active participation in the community invariably ends up assigning the player enough negative points to send them on to Level 2, The Detention Center. The game’s designers admit that there is no way to avoid being placed in detention and that the player will always end up either being kept in jail, released, or deported. However, the final outcome of the game is always chosen at random, regardless of any choices the player previously made.
The randomness of the outcome is intended to send the message that US deportation procedure leaves immigrants with little control over their future and underscores the inconsistencies that the developers see in the American legal system.
Note:Yo Dtoid! I'm in the middle of exams and have been away for a while, but I figured I'd repost something I put up on my video game law blog because I know you all miss me dearly. XOXOXO.
If there exists a segment of the population more vocal and protective of their hobby than gamers, I would love to meet them. No longer content with complaining on forums and signing meaningless Internet petitions, Antonio Hernandez, a former Orlando-area video game store assistant manager, has taken his grievances to court.
Hernandez, an avid World of Warcraft player, has filed suit against Internet Gaming Entertainment, Ltd. ("IGE") in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Hernandez claims that IGE's practice of gold farming diminishes the enjoyment and satisfaction of consumers and violates the World of Warcraft Terms of Service. Hernandez ultimately argues that gold farmers damage the game's economy by forcing legitimate players to spend more time earning the virtual currency that is necessary to improve their in-game personas. Hernandez's suit claims that "[t]his loss of time, conservatively, amounts to hundreds of thousands of hours of subscriber time and causes the irreparable harm of driving subscribers away from 'World of Warcraft' . . . . The economic harm incurred by this loss of time is in the millions of dollars."
In response, IGE claims that:
Hernandez and other players have no standing to sue because they have no ownership or property rights within "World of Warcraft." Hernandez's lawsuit fails to show how he suffered actual damages[.]
Interestingly, if IGE is correct and World of Warcraft players have no ownership or property rights within World of Warcraft, one must wonder how IGE is able to sell in-game assets for real-world currency in the first place.
What makes this case interesting is that it's the first time a player has filed a lawsuit in response to "real money trading" in a virtual world. Hernandz also hopes to make this the first class-action lawsuit involving online role-playing games.
When asked about the litigation, Paul Sams, Blizzard Entertainment's Chief Operating Officer, commented:
We believe that shutting down gold farming and real-money transfer is in the interest of all 'World of Warcraft' players and that a victory in this case would have a positive long-term effect on the online gaming industry as a whole.
In the spirit of Butmac's old "I got your back" series, I figured I would pass along some deals to fellow Dtoiders. I normally don't like posting stuff like this, but there are some pretty nice finds.
If you haven't played Viva Pińata yet, it's a really great game and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it for $9.90. On the PC front, there are a lot of really great, albeit old games to check out: Brothers in Arms: Road To Hill 30, Hitman: Blood Money, and Silent Hunter III are the standouts. Also, Snaileb wants you all to buy Gears of War.
I haven't played the PC version, but the Xbox 360 version of Shadowrun is a great game. The review scores were low because most people didn't think it was worth the $60 price tag at launch (they were right), but at $6 you get a really well-balanced and innovative shooter that will also boost your gamerscore (for the achievement whores out there). Also, I would love to get together a bunch of Dtoiders for some online PC & 360 Shadowrun multiplayer one day.
Finally, many FYE and Sam Goody stores nationwide are selling Bioshock brand new for $19.99. This has been going on for a while and is pretty tough to find, but you would be crazy not to buy it at that price.
It's undeniable that the cblogs have brought a wealth of talent and a wealth of stupidity to the Destructoid community. While the stupidity is often acknowledged with hundreds of spam comments, many times the better cblogs go ignored or unnoticed for a long time. In this sporadically updated series (hey, I can only update when someone is consistently good and unnoticed) I will feature these unsung heroes of Destructoid.
The decision to write this first Unsung Heroes was not an easy one. Not because there weren't any deserving community members, but because of the inherent danger of writing about this month's choice: Conrad Zimmerman. You see, Conrad is known to a few of us as "Destructoid Kryptonite." He has gained this title not only because his cblogs fail to garner much attention regardless of how well they are written, but because any cblog written about him typically goes unloved. For instance, when Necros posted a cblog about Conrad's RetRose Contest, it received only two comments until I tricked some IRC guys into commenting that Necros is a racist. As you can see, the popularity-sapping power of Conrad is strong and posting about this man is akin to playing with fire while being strapped into a cock guillotine.
"Well, Panda, what about Conrad makes him worth taking this monumental risk? Why is this Conrad fellow awesome?" you ask. Well, dear reader, that is what the rest of this feature will be about. The most obvious reason that Conrad is one of my favorite cbloggers is that he has two excellent and consistently updated features: RetRose Tinted and On the Table.
RetRose Tinted
RetRose Tinted is a weekly feature (updated on Tuesdays) that looks at games of the past through the eyes of a modern gamer. In Conrad's own words:
"Aside from being an amazingly witty play on words, RetRose Tinted is an attempt to look back upon retro video games without the cloudy haze of nostalgia. Each week, I play a game that I remember enjoying in my youth and see if my memories are justified."
Essentially, RetRose Tinted is similar to Rorschach's wildly popular Why the Hell Should I Play it? series with a few notable differences: (1) RetRose Tinted focuses on games the author has played before, (2) RetRose Tinted has been running as a series for nearly two months, and (3) no one seems to read RetRose Tinted. Games covered in RetRose Tinted range from The Lost Vikings to Rygar to Zombies Ate My Neighbors and all of the stories are written well enough to be interesting even if you've never heard of the game. And, if games you've never heard of get your pants tight, you'll love Conrad's other series of articles: On the Table.
On the Table
On the Table is a weekly feature (typically updated on Saturdays) that discusses those things that people used to play before video games. I believe they were called board games. Again, in Conrad's own words:
"On the Table is a series of board and card game reviews. Each week, I focus on a different piece of analog entertainment with coverage of basic gameplay, a little critique and passing mention of any digital versions I find of it."
"But, Panda, NVGR!!" you cry. Well, buck up and quit your whining. I happen to like both this series and board games and Conrad has provided some perfectly compelling reasons as to why we should care:
"Board games are fun, for starters. And with the popularity of games like Carcassone, Catan and Eye of Judgement, I felt there was an interest in this type of game. And it's my blog, so there."
Not interested in board games? In the words of Thuper Hardcore, "No likey ...? Don't fucking read it." However, by skipping this series you're missing out. Like Conrad's RetRose posts, all of the On the Table series is well written and interesting even if you're unfamiliar with the subject matter. Additionally, many of the games have freely available PC iterations that Conrad discusses in his blog. Hell, it might even do some of you good to have some non-gamer friends over to down some brews and play some board games.
The Rest
In addition to Conrad's regular series, he randomly posts interesting stories, events, or game reviews. In particular, two of my recent favorites were his recount of seeing The State Reunion and his brief impressions of the Metal Gear Solid cell phone game.
Well, there you have it. A brief glimpse into the world of Conrad Zimmerman. I hope you've enjoyed this first edition of Unsung Heroes and I encourage everyone to leave comments or PM me with suggestions for future cbloggers to feature.
Major League Gaming ("MLG") released some great news today for fans of competitive gaming: Halo 3 wil be introducing a playlist featuring MLG maps and gametypes! For many, this has been a dream since the early days of Halo 2. The broad appeal is primarily due to the fact that MLG settings are not only fun for the competitive, but also provide the most balanced game experience for players of all skill levels.
MLG states that the new playlist will be coming in the next few weeks and will officially replace the "Team Hardcore" playlist. Which, if you ask me, was Bungie's waterdown and not-so-fun attempt at MLG game types in the first place. An official press release will be coming in the next few days, but for now MLG had this to say:
"It’s ... a huge and humbling honor for us at MLG. We’ve worked hard to develop game types and settings that ensure fair competition and emphasize skill, and these settings have been adopted by competitors all over the world. To be recognized now as the standard for competitive play by Bungie is, well, pretty sick to say the least. We thank the millions of MLG competitors from all over the world for adopting these gametypes to begin with. None of this could have happened without you."
Along with the launch of the new playlist, MLG will be updating its series of “Get Better Fast” content "to familiarize players of all skill levels with the strategies and tactics used by MLG’s pro players."
As an ex-tournament player myself, this really excites me. The reason I never play much Halo anymore is because I don't play customs with many people and the matchmaking playlists are usually of low quality or terribly unbalanced. These new playlists might be just want I needed to get back into the game. Also, Grifball rocks.
There have been a lot of cblogs lately where people have been showing off some of their gamer gear. So, I figured I would join in. Mind you, the pictures below represent only what I brought with me to law school or have purchased since being in law school--this is probably only 50% of my collection. In addition to the things shown, I also have a PSP, 2 DSs, all of the Rock Band & Guitar Hero gear, and another box of DS games somewhere in my apartment.
Also, if you want to see an article with some real substance that I actually took time to write, check out my Monthly Musing that I posted this morning.
First, the bedroom set up:
The bedroom set up is mostly just a big HDTV, an Xbox 360, an HD-DVD drive, a Wii, games, booze, and a router.
Second, the living room:
The living room is movie city. There's another decent sized HDTV and around 300 DVDs (counting boxed sets as one). There's also a decent selection of HD-DVDs, a second Xbox 360, one of my two Dreamcasts, a PS2, a Gamecube, a Super Nintendo, and a modified Xbox (Xecuter chip, 120 gig HD). The big paisley box on top of the bookcase is actually a home theatre PC that's used to stream movies and such from my network. I also have a keyboard and mouse stuffed under the coffee table for web browsing.
These two pics are two sides of a box of games. Some classic last gen games are in there as well as some awesome Hori Gamecube/Wii retro pads, an SNES Game Genie with all of the codebook updates ever released for it, and part of my Super Nintendo game collection. The SNES games in that box include some of my favorite RPGs such as Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Shadowrun, FFII, FFIII, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, etc. I still have all of the boxes and instructions in Florida--they didn't make the trip up to DC.
This is my official Dreamcast keyboard that is used for some Typing of the Dead action. (Blindside is now jealous.)
This is a random box of games. It is mostly PS1 RPGs (I have over 150 PS1 games in Florida), Dreamcast games, and some Dreamcast imports.
This is a box of assorted controllers. I've really purged myself of Xbox controllers, but I still have too many. In college I had 4 Xboxes and sixteen controllers--so, I've been doing a good job overall.
Here we have a small box of DS and GBA stuff. I've got another box full of it somewhere. No rhyme or reason as to which stuff made which box. I do like the Phoenix Wright wrist strap though. My Castlevania pre-order bonuses are in the other box somewhere.
And here, finally, is my pride and joy. My imported Mother 3 Deluxe box. My ultimate goal is to get Shigesato Itoi's autograph on that one day.
So, there you have it. A nice chunk of my collection. Next time I go back down to Florida I may try to catalog the rest of my goods.
It is no mere exaggeration to suggest that every gamer alive has played at least one platformer in their lifetime. In fact, it would not be a stretch to suggest that nearly every gamer holds at least one platformer in their "top ten" games of all time. The reasons for this are numerous. For one, platformers have been around since the early 1980s--the dawn of video game's mass popularity--and during the 1990s an estimated one third of console games were platformers. For another, some of the most memorable gaming franchises of all time started as platformers: Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and Megaman are all fine examples. Finally, platformers have been combined with nearly every genre imaginable to create games that appeal to every sort of gamer: Contra contains shooter elements, Castlevania contains RPG elements, Flashback contains adventure elements, The Lost Vikings contains puzzle elements, and Cool Spot contains brand-whoring elements.
While the aforementioned games pulled off genre combination quite well, there are just as many games that have introduced platforming elements much to the chagrin of gamers everywhere. It is these games (good and bad) that are the inspiration for this Good Idea/Bad Idea.
Good Idea
Platformers, when executed well, are one of the purest, most satisfying gaming experiences. The Super Mario Bros. series is perhaps the quintessential example of well-done platformers. From the original NES classic to Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo has managed to keep the Mario formula fresh (excepting Super Mario Sunshine) and infinitely playable (including Super Mario Sunshine). The key to Mario's success has been in perfecting the "bread & butter" of platforming: razor sharp controls and inspired level design. It is no surprise that many consider the Mario series to be the pinnacle of platforming games; it was one of the originators of the genre and has done little to mess with the purity of the original formula.
Not to belittle the quality of the Mario series, but creating successful platformers is a much simpler affair when sticking to the basic formula. Most platforming problems come to light when developers begin blending genres and fidgeting with the tried-and-true "hop and bop" formula. But, one series that has managed to stray from its pure platforming roots and remain successful is the Metroid series.
The Metroid Prime series of games ripped Samus from her familiar 2d platformer world and placed her in a new 3d world that still retained elements of platforming, shooting, and puzzle solving. The reason Metroid made the successful leap to 3d first-person platforming is undoubtedly because of the Metroid heritage; from the groud-up Metroid was designed to be a platforming experience. Samus's 3d adventures have become a resounding success due to the incorporation of the same platform-friendly level design and sharp control (including abilities such as wall jumping) that players have come to expect from Metroid. Were the Metroid Prime controls perfect? Far from it, but they were well designed to capably handle first-person platforming due to the "locked view" and platforming mechanics like the morph ball and wall jump.
Bad Idea
Sometimes developers don't know when to leave certain ideas on the table. While games with a strong heritage of platforming tend to produce successful results when new dimensions and perspectives are added, games that were originally designed as "shooters" or "RPGs" that hope to incorporate platforming elements typically fail. The first example that comes to mind (and my inspiration for writing this piece) is Call of Juarez.
Call of Juarez, while an interesting and worthwhile game in its own right, took the bullet train to shitty town the moment platforming elements were introduced. The game itself is intriguing. The ability to play as both the hunter and the hunted is fascinating and the "old west" atmosphere is far underutilized in modern games. But, the big problem with Call of Juarez (besides the voice acting) is that the game had too many ideas and none of them were well polished.
The game, at its heart, is a shooter. However, rather than leave the game as an old west shooter, elements of stealth, platforming, and item collection were introduced. The item collection sections can be largely ignored and if you "fail" the stealth sections, the game just turns into your average shooter--what the game was designed to be in the first place. The problem with the platforming sections is that if you "fail" you fall to your death and have to restart at a checkpoint much father back in the game than you want it to be. While this doesn't sound so bad at first, imagine trying to swing from platform to platform using a whip in a game with loose controls, questionable physics, and the inability to see your feet. The number of times I wanted to throw my controller because I had to replay a 10 minute section of shooting and/or stealth after missing a subsequent 2 foot jump is infuriating to think about. Call of Juarez is certainly not the only game to have this fault, but it is my most recent experience with the phenomenon.
Now, before my position is attacked by critics who say "Metroid and Mario are good games and Call of Juarez sucks ass, that's the problem; not platforming!" Let me make it clear that this problem is not limited to "bad games." Half-Life 2 occasionally suffers from this same problem. There, I said it. Yes, Half-Life 2 is a great game and I really did enjoy some of the platforming physics puzzles. But, I was also furious that I could slay armies of the Combine with ease, but I often had trouble jumping onto a crate from a teetering board or launching my airboat up a ramp with the necessary precision. The reason I chose Call of Juarez instead of Half-Life 2 is because Half-Life 2 took certain measures to limit the frustration of dealing with these platforming sections. Primarily, there was no real punishment for failing to complete a jump. In Half-Life 2 if you fall you can "dust yourself off and try again" with little worry of being shot to death by the Combine or falling into a bottomless pit. This assurance of safety allows the player to experiment with the platforming sections without having to replay long stretches of the game due to a missed jump.
Why I'm sure there are hundreds more examples of bad platforming, many of them are escaping me. What about you, Destructoid readers, any particularly infuriating platforming elements in games you remember?
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