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Poll results (0 comments)
Posted on 2006-04-17 16:46:26 by WitchCraft
What is your primary operating system?
Windows XP/2000 - 78%(281 votes)
Windows ME/98/95 - 10%(36 votes)
MacOS - 3%(12 votes)
Linux/Unix - 5%(18 votes)
None of the above - 1%(5 votes)
Please vote in our new poll!
Passing the joystick to a new generation (0 comments)
Posted on 2006-03-09 14:17:33 by WitchCraft
Originaly by: LINI S. KADABA
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA - Rosanne Corcoran's thumbs fly around the purple GameCube controller at warp speed.
"Gotcha!" she gloats, as her alter ego, Bowser, throws Mario out at third in an intense game of Mario Superstar Baseball.
"Darn," mutters 8-year-old Rosemary Corcoran, staring at the 52-inch TV. Her fingers mash buttons as she scrambles to help Mario recover.
Rosemary really wants the bragging rights that will accompany this win. Rosanne, you see, isn't just another child glued to a console.
Rosanne, a woman who's got game, is Rosemary's 38-year-old mother. A generation of children who have played video games, like, forever, has come of age - as gamer parents.
As these mothers and fathers enter the real world of Little League and parent conferences and dance recitals, they are not putting down their joysticks. They are escorting their children into the land of pixels.
Like television and radio for an earlier generation, and cards and board games before that, video games are now a staple of family entertainment, say industry observers.
It's a development that burnishes the image of a medium often criticized since its arrival more than 30 years ago.
"People are starting to figure out there is more to this than violent shoot-`em-ups," said Daniel Morris, associate publisher of PC Gamer magazine.
In a national survey released in January, 35 percent of 501 parents living with children age 2 to 17 said they played computer or video games, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
Of those, 80 percent also played with their children. On average, these fathers and mothers - yes, almost half were women - spent 9.1 hours a month gaming with the children.
It was the first time the association had probed the habits of parents, many of whom became gamers back when that meant Pong at the arcade.
And why not? The oldest of the original Nintendo generation - the console debuted in the United States in 1985 - are now about 30, prime breeding years. They remain enthusiastic about the medium. Last year, the average age of a gamer was 30, up from 28 in 2000, according to Peter D. Hart Research Associates, based in Washington.
At GamerDad.com, parents seek advice on consoles, on family-friendly titles, and on when their progeny will have the dexterity to handle a joystick. Launched in 2003, the site has 60,000 unique visitors a month, said founder Andrew Bub, 35.
Tammy McCoy, 37, of Findlay, Ohio, belongs to 2old2play.com, which bills itself as "a Web site for gamers over 25." In fact, the average visitor is 33, and more than half have children.
McCoy loves playing video games, but has an ulterior motive for competing with her son, 15. "I like to see the content he's seeing," she said.
At WomenGamers.com, mothers often say they started their children young and play with them all the time, said Phaedra Boinodiris, 33, the site's cofounder. Chats cover content and concern about the amount of time families spend at consoles.
"They talk about balance," said Boinodiris. "They use (video games) as a tool, a toy."
The video game industry - which last year generated $10.5 billion in sales, according to market researchers the NPD Group - has taken note of the medium's changed status within the family. The commercial success of all-ages games is strong motivation.
Only one of last year's 10 top-selling video games was restricted to players 13 or older. Most were OK for even young children. Titles in the children and family entertainment categories represented 10 percent of total units sold in 2005, up from 8 percent in 2002, according to NPD, of Port Washington, N.Y.
Microsoft is going after the intergenerational market "in a much, much bigger way," said Aaron Greenberg, group marketing manager for Xbox Live, the online component of the company's Xbox 360, which was introduced in November. Gamers can limit their play to Xbox Live's new "family zone," where clean language and good sportsmanship are required.
The company, whose Xbox 360 has been a favorite among fans of shooting games, intends to create more family-friendly titles like its Kameo: Elements of Power, a new fantasy action-adventure that lets two characters play cooperatively at one time, Greenberg said. It is rated for gamers 13 and older.
For most of their existence, video games have been vilified as "a precursor to a society of alienated, socially incompetent automatons," Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby write in "Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution," published in November.
That image is so yesterday. In 18th-century America, "people thought the novel was going to lead to the moral decay of society," Chaplin, 34, said in an interview. Video games are making the novel's transition to the mainstream, she said.
Gamer parents are on the front lines. Rosanne Corcoran, like many of her generation, fell in love with the console through Missile Command, Space Invaders and Pong, all played on Atari. She was 10.
When she was a child, recreation involved two alternatives: "You played outside. You played Atari," said Corcoran, a Realtor.
When her daughter Rosemary asked for a GameCube a year ago, she did not hesitate.
"It's great," Corcoran said of family game time. Corcoran plays World War II shooting games - Call of Duty 2 was a Christmas present - after Rosemary and her sister, Erin, 4, go to bed.
The girls have no time limit to their video game play. "It's not like it's exclusive of reading, or playing, or arts and crafts," Corcoran said.
What does Grandmom think?
"My mother," she said. "It cracks her up. "You're 'still playing those games?'"
The girls, however, give Mom the high score for coolness.
"You're in first place," Rosemary said, none too pleased as mother and daughter raced to the finish line in Mario Cart Double Dash.
"What was that?" teased Corcoran, who took a beating in Mario Superstar Baseball. "First? F-I-R-S-T? As in No. 1?"
That kind of trash talk is part of the fun, said Peer Schneider, an executive at IGN Entertainment, which provides gaming news and reviews on the Internet.
"Games aren't the solitary experience they were," he said. "What happens outside the game is just as important as what happens inside the game."
At the Bonner home in Haddon Township, N.J., Mom, Dad and their five children, age 1, 7, 10, 11 and 13, crowd the backroom PlayStation 2 on a Friday night. It's Karaoke Revolution Party time!
As each belts a tune ("Pieces of Me," for one) into a mike, an on-screen audience reacts to the performance. Louder cheers equal more points.
Kyle Bonner, 13, won until his voice began to change. Now Danielle Bonner, 33, his stepmother, rules. His father, Jerry Bonner, 34, usually crashes within minutes. Kaela, Alexa and Steve DeJesus, his step-siblings, vie for second. And toddler Bridget Bonner, his half-sister, drools on the mike and bounces to the music.
"It's a big part of our lives," said Jerry Bonner, a sleep-clinic technologist.
As a toddler, Kyle would sit in Bonner's lap, "holding a controller and pretending he was playing. ... I think any quality time you spend with kids, they'll look back on fondly. It's like pulling out the glove and having a catch, like my dad did."
Some of the children play M-rated Halo with Jerry on occasion. "There's violence," he said, but "you're fighting (space) aliens."
Much of the fun is derived from the sophistication of the games. "They require a lot of thought, strategy, puzzle solving," said David Riley, senior manager for the NPD Group.
It sounds as good for you as eating your broccoli. Well, that depends, cautioned David Walsh, president of Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family.
"When I hear about parents playing good strategy games with the kids, that's a great activity," said Walsh. "When I hear about parents playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with a third grader - and I just heard that - I'm wondering, `What are they thinking?'"
In addition to watching the content, parents should let children win sometimes, psychologists suggest. "That gives a slight balance to the relationship," said Michael C. Smith of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Not a problem for Ron Breining, 30, who mostly plays sports games with son Ronny, 9. "My son kills me," he said.
And even an enthusiastic gamer-parent like Breining has limits. He hasn't ventured near Ronny's GameBoy Advanced portable.
"That screen," he said, "is way too small for me."
Forum Changes (0 comments)
Posted on 2006-02-10 15:15:37 by WitchCraft
BHL has just switched over to a new forum so when you log on there might be some information or small bugs left.
Our very own Harry Hunt is doing all he can to get it up and running as fast as possible but he is only human after all.
The BHL forum is even going to get a facelift with a shiny new look!
We thank you for your patience while BHL completes the forum move. :)
Kill the Indians (0 comments)
Posted on 2006-02-03 16:52:45 by WitchCraft
Originaly by: Mary de Juliis
This past Christmas season the Xbox 360 came out with great fanfare. If you watched television for any length of time, you would see a commercial for the new video game player or you would hear a news program saying the Xbox 360 was the “it” item for Christmas.
The advertisement for the Xbox 360 named the video games that were included in the package with a description of each. The Gun game sounded interesting because it was described as giving the player the option of trying out several different guns. I thought that if guys like to use video games and catch pretend fish, then perhaps, my husband would like virtual target practice.
I have since learned that Gun’s main objective is to kill as many Native Americans as possible. The player even collects scalps.
I am outraged by this.
I can only imagine the public outcry if the video game had the player killing as many blacks, Hispanics, women or any other minority as possible.
The last time I was this annoyed about something that I felt insulted my Cherokee heritage was a Bon Jovi video for the “Cherokee People” song that was filmed in an Arizona-type setting with the supposed “Cherokees” wearing Plains Indian-type costumes.
This game may not be a big deal to a lot of people. They may not see the harm.
I do, especially during a time when our young people spend most of their free time watching television, listening to music and playing video games. They can’t help but be influenced by their environment.
If the makers of Gun wanted to allow the player to experience shooting several different types of weapons, then they certainly could have achieved that by having the player go hunting for animals or aliens. But to have a free game included in one of the top selling items of Christmas 2005 (the Xbox 360 comes with this game) killing Native Americans, referred to as Indians, is beyond the pale.
As a person with Native American ancestors, I can’t let this pass without a mention. It is truly distasteful and not politically correct in a time when political correctness seems to be of great importance in our society.
Forever Young (1 comments)
Posted on 2006-01-05 23:13:01 by WitchCraft
Originaly by Jose Antonio Vargas
The Washington Post
Grandma won't let go of the controller.
For more than a week, Barbara St. Hilaire has been logging heavy leather recliner time, snacking from a big Tupperware bowl of jalapeno-flavored popcorn, yelling unprintable words at her 35-inch TV - all the while trying to kill ghosts in the horror video game Fatal Frame 3. St. Hilaire, 69, is a gamer, no joke.
Like many gamers, she owns a PlayStation 2, a GameCube and an Xbox, and subscribes to Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World and Game Informer. She drives her red 1997 Pontiac Grand Am to a nearby GameStop, where she buys and exchanges games, and also to Hollywood Video, where she rents them. Unlike many gamers, she's been gaming since the early 1970s. Even with her hearing aids, she turns up the volume on games until, one of her grandkids says, "her room literally starts to shake." Her treasured strategy guides - the Cliffs Notes of tough-to-beat games - are tucked next to her equally treasured cookbooks.
"I was a little frustrated last night. I was a having a real hard time with one ghost. Kuze Family Head. That's spelled K-U-Z-E. He'd throw stuff at you. I'm on Chapter 8 and there are - let me check - 12 chapters. It's a tough game. It was 2 in the morning so I said the heck with it and I shut it off and I went to bed," St. Hilaire said from her home in Mantua, Ohio.
There is an AARP generation of gamers, a group that logs on to Gamegeezers.com and would qualify for senior-citizen discounts if game stores offered them. In fact, 19 percent of computer and console gamers are older than 50, according to the Entertainment Software Association, the industry's trade group. They play a variety of games - from laid-back fare such as solitaire and mah-jongg to first-person shooters (military-themed titles are hits). Dorothy Rosencrans, a 73-year-old bridge player from Boca Raton, Fla., last year wrote Playing Around: My Adventures on the Zone.com, referring to a popular site for casual gamers, especially women.
Still, a 69-year-old who spends a Saturday afternoon in Wal-Mart test-playing Xbox 360s is no ordinary gamer. "I'd kill for one of those," St. Hilaire said.
"She's done this gaming thing all these years," said Jean Breznai, 74, a longtime friend of St. Hilaire's. "We'd go to bingo then she'd go home to get on the Nintendo."
St. Hilaire lives with her daughter, Linda, 44, an office manager, and Linda's four kids, ages 12 to 22. The eldest, Tim, started a blog last June, chronicling the goings-on in a one-story, five-bedroom abode where everyone is a gamer - there are no fewer than 17 game consoles in the house, from a Nintendo 64 to a GameBoy SP to a Dreamcast - and Grandma is the most addicted of them all. On a recent post, written after Grandma finished Growlanser Generations, a two-disc strategy game of magic, weapons and kingdoms, he wrote: "Last night, Grandma did it. Final time on Growlanser III: 64 hrs 45 min. Final time on Growlanser II: 31 hrs 10 min. Total combined time on Growlanser Generations: just under 96 hours. Solid. Total bags of popcorn consumed: 37. Total cans, 12 oz Diet Coke consumed: 54."
Tim calls the blog OGHC - "Old Grandma Hard Core."
"My friends know Grandma, and I was writing the blog for them. It was more of an Adam Sandler humor kind of thing - look at grandma, look at what she's doing. But then other people began reading it, and I had a hard time convincing people that it's not a hoax. People wanted proof - show us some photos, some videos. Grandma thought it was all so hilarious," Tim said.
Then things got out of hand. The blog has gotten more than 52,000 page loads a week. In the past month or so, St. Hilaire has been featured on Web sites in Norway and Germany.
In August, Michael Novak, 14, of Ashtabula, Ohio read Tim's blog, watched the video feeds and told his dad, Jeff, about it. "She reminded me of my grandma," said Michael, whose grandmother Gayle passed away in 1996. "The way she talks, the way she laughs. If my grandma were around right now, she'd be playing video games with me." Jeff contacted Tim through e-mail, and Tim asked Grandma to call Michael, which she did. "They talked about video games for 20 minutes," said Jeff, "and Michael was in heaven."
She's been playing since the early years of Pogo, Asteroids and Space Invaders, when she was in a bowling league and spent countless coins hitting arcade games in the bowling alleys. She'd play games before and after work; she was a bookkeeper at a bank, then a machinist at Black & Decker. "I remember us being the first one to have an Atari on our block," said her daughter Linda.
Two very good things have come out of all this gaming, her family says: One, she's always busy. Two, they always know what to get her for Christmas and her birthday.
HAPPY NEW 2006! (1 comments)
Posted on 2006-01-02 12:14:18 by Atebash
On behalf of the BHL staff, I wish you a very happy New Year!
Server downtime (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-12-31 13:07:58 by Harry Hunt
As you may or may not have noticed, the bhlegend website was unavailable from december 27th until today. I'm not sure what caused the downtime, but it might have been an erroneous backup script. Either way, the site is back now.
I hope you all had joyful holidays. From all of us at bhlegend, we wish you a happy new year. See you in 2006.
Philips announces new technology designed to enhance gaming (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-11-09 18:09:40 by WitchCraft
By Ellie Gibson
www.gamesindustry.biz
Philips has announced the development of a new technology that's designed to enhance the gaming experience with the use of light, colour, sound, heat and even blasts of air.
The technology, amBX, incorporates a scripting language, software engine and architecture and provides a support framework for peripheral manufacturers to develop amBX-enabled products.
"Imagine the room of the future, where all electronic devices are amBX-enabled," reads a statement from Philips.
"The treacherous road to Saigon will turn your room jungle green, swimming with dolphins will splash it deep blue, Halo jumps will turn your fans on full, lightning storms will strobe your white lighting, and attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion will blast on your heaters."
Philips amBX chief marketing officer Jo Cooke commented: "For games creators this is a fantastic opportunity: amBX expands the immersive experience by bringing the real world environment into the gameplay."
"The creative possibilities, using this technology, for the games industry and beyond are immense."
Philips is currently in talks with developers and peripheral manufacturers and intends to launch amBX in May 2006
Minor updates (3 comments)
Posted on 2005-08-03 22:48:05 by Harry Hunt
Still no news about the games (although I'm hoping that we can make a few games available for download again, soon).
I've carefully analyzed the server log files today, and this lead me to make a few minor updates to the website. Here they are:- BHLegend now uses gzip compression to save bandwidth (should also speed up the site)
- BHLegend now has a favicon
- I've set-up redirects for the old bhlegend.com URLs because some people have them bookmarked still
- I've fixed the RSS-Feed because the links in it pointed to the old URL
More news coming soon.
Doom Movie (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-07-25 22:58:31 by WitchCraft
Originally from: Bi-tech.net
by Geoff Richards
The first few details have emerged about Doom: the Movie, "loosely" based, of course, on the iconic first person shooter game of the early Nineties. It is due for release on 21st October in the US.
The film stars WWE wrestling star-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Sarge, and there are a handful of other actors you may recognise from recent films. New Zealander Karl Urban (The Bourne Supremacy, Chronicles of Riddick, Lord of the Rings) plays the lead character of John Grimm, Bond-totty Rosamund Pike plays "Samantha", and North London's own Dexter Fletcher (Lock Stock, Band of Brother, Deadwood, Layer Cake) will play "Pinky".
The film will be Andrzej Bartkowiak's fourth as director, having previously directed Jet Li in Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 the Grave, and Steven Seagal in Exit Wounds. If that doesn't sound like much of a resume, Bartkowiak's record as a Cinematographer has somewhat greater credibility. Thirty two films, from Terms of Endearment in 1983, the Michael Douglas classic Falling Down, and a string of Nineties action flicks: Speed, Species, US Marshals and Lethal Weapon 4.
Of more concern is this the fact that for the credited writer, Dave Callaham, Doom will be his first feature film. Already, there is a petition of some 1700 fans concerned about key changes to the established Doom Universe. While the film follows the basic plot of the game - an invasion of an off-world military installation, the location is not Mars, Deimos, or Phobos but "Olduvai". Sadly, the film is due out in three months, so it would seem the protests have fallen on deaf ears.
It will be interesting to see the Box Office results for the movie come opening weekend. Universal and Warner Bros are gambling US$70 million on what promises to be a CG-enhanced action-fest. Yet will gamers leave their lairs to go and see it? Ignoring those who will download it illegally anyway, it is hard to imagine gamers getting excited about this film.
How do you conjour a story from a computer game that essentially didn't have one? Mowing down entire rooms of imps was fun in 1994, but translating "find key - open door - kill everything" gameplay into a 90 minute feature film will be challenging. Which is where the sleight of hand with the folklore comes in.
Games are OFFLINE (5 comments)
Posted on 2005-07-07 22:27:07 by Atebash
Sorry people, but until we sort out the things about the future BHL server, all the games are OFFLINE to preserve bandwidth. Sorry :
BHL is changing (13 comments)
Posted on 2005-06-14 00:05:14 by WitchCraft
BHL has been moved to a new server, our old host having closed it's doors.
Due to the huge amout of bandwidth the site requires, and a low bandwidth from the current server, we have taken the files for download offline for now.
We have also decided to take this opportunity to add new new features to BHL which we will be working on within the following weeks.
We hope to see you back again often as BHL continues to evolve. :)
Take the bhlegend survey and help us improve (1 comments)
Posted on 2005-05-27 14:00:28 by Harry Hunt
Today we'd like to ask you to do us a small favor. All it takes is five minutes of your time.
Please take the bhlegend survey and tell us how we can improve the site. Tell us what you like, what you dislike and what you'd like to see more of.
The survey is completely anonymous and we won't use the information we gather from this survey for any other purpose than to improve this website.
Thanks a lot in advance.
Take the survey now.
E3 Gadgets (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-05-21 14:53:55 by WitchCraft
Originally from www.CNN.com
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Plenty of gadgets shown at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) had absolutely nothing to do with the next generation of video game consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.
A brief look at some of the more eye-catching video game gear:
Gizmondo
The handheld wars of late have focused on Sony's sleek PlayStation Portable and the interactive Nintendo DS. The Gizmondo from Tiger Telematics, Inc., however, intends to be a serious third contender if its able to deliver on its innovative promise.
The Gizmondo looks to be the Swiss-Army knife of handhelds with its unique blend of technology that includes GPS satellite tracking, a digital camera and a gyroscope.
Oh, and it plays digital music, movies and video games on a 2.8-inch color screen, too. It's already available in Europe and should appear stateside in August. Prices will start at $230.
QMotions-Baseball
Clicking your computer mouse is hardly the most authentic way to play a few innings of a baseball video game. Why not swing a real bat? For $80, the QMotions-Baseball system replaces the game pad, letting you use a bat of your choosing.
The setup includes a special bat collar that wirelessly sends swing movement to a home plate receiver you plug into an Xbox or PC. The device, available this month, works with big league baseball games including "EA Sports MVP Baseball" and "ESPN Baseball."
Theater Experience PSP
Anyone who's drained their Sony PSP battery after watching a few movies will appreciate the Theater Experience PSP from Nyko Technologies. The extra five-hour battery life provided by this device is certainly welcome, but it also boosts the PSP's rather tinny audio with a more robust set of stereo speakers, all wrapped in a flip-open aluminum carrying case.
One of the most welcome inclusions is the least techie: an adjustable stand. No more straining your wrists trying to hold the PSP at just the right viewing angle for hours on end. Look for it in June, for about $70.
PowerPlay 5.1 Media Chair
The Empower Technologies PowerPlay 5.1 Media Chair, as the name suggests, is the center of a surround sound stereo system that'll make those explosions in "Halo 2" rumble through your entire body. The setup, which costs $999, remains a prototype and it certainly could use some aesthetic help: as it stands -- it's doubtful you'd see this black and tubular metal piece of furniture anywhere but the most macho of bachelor's pads.
Logitech Cordless Precision/Attack Controller
We've heard a lot lately about how the upcoming consoles will feature wireless controllers. Big deal. They've been available for the existing consoles for quite a while now. Two new offerings from Logitech bring the affordable freedom of tetherless gaming to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
The semi-translucent blue $30 Precision is compatible for the PS2, while the see-through green $40 Attack works with the Xbox. So what's new this time around? Logitech says the Precision and Attack will last 300 hours on just two AA batteries. And no tripping over cords anymore.
Saitek Pro Gamer Command Pad
Coming in September, this $40 keyboard ad-on should appeal to fans of first-person shooters, or any computer game were you'll need a nimble keyboard to get around. This accessory looks like a separate numeric keypad with a special thumb rest. The keys are laser-etched and glow blue.
Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-05-19 13:42:32 by Atebash
I don't usually do this, but I had to make an exception - SW EP3: RotS is simply amazing! After a slightly disappointing Episode 2, George Lucas is back... with a vengeance! Good old Lucas made the best SW episode ever - with great story, character development and an appropriate ending. It all fits great now and I am happy.
There, I wanted to share with you ;) Now tell me about your impressions!
Turner to offer Pacman on Web (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-05-06 14:19:43 by WitchCraft
Originaly by: Caroline Wilbert
From: Cox News Service
Turner Broadcasting System Inc. Wednesday entered the video-game industry, announcing a new broadband Web site called GameTap that will give users access to hundreds of titles -- from classic gobbler Pac-Man to the series of games featuring frenetic skateboarder Tony Hawk.
Atlanta-based Turner, a division of Time Warner Inc., plans to introduce GameTap in October. Consumers will pay a flat monthly fee to play as much as they want via their computers.
Click to Visit
GameTap is the brainchild of Blake Lewin, who came to Turner a decade ago to work on interactive television. He and his team researched a number of concepts, such as trivia to complement reruns of NBC's "Friends," before deciding it was too difficult to combine interactivity with linear television.
Mr. Lewin then decided to mimic the cable-television model. His logic: In the same way that TBS provides another window for sitcom reruns, GameTap will offer a second life for games that no longer sell big in stores.
Turner is not the first to try selling subscriptions to old games. Internet portal giant Yahoo and cable provider Comcast have similar services that haven't been particularly successful, said Schelley Olhava, an analyst at International Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass.-based research firm.
Most players, she said, are either hard-core gamers willing to pay for the latest products -- or casual players who prefer free sites.
"I am not 100 percent convinced the audience is there," Miss Olhava said.
Dennis Quinn, executive vice president of business development at Turner, argued that GameTap is better than its competitors because it has more games. Although competitors have just computer-based games, GameTap also has arcade games and console games that were originally designed to be played on TV sets. The games have been reworked so a user can play them on a computer with a keyboard or a simple controller.
Another advantage, Mr. Quinn said, is that GameTap has the Turner marketing machine behind it. Turner will heavily promote GameTap on its television networks, such as TNT and TBS, and during Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" block of programs.
Turner expects to have licensing agreements with 21 publishers for more than 1,000 games by the time the service debuts. GameTap initially will feature 300, and executives hope to generate excitement by adding games each week.
Customers will pay a monthly fee of $10 to $20, although the exact price hasn't been nailed down. They must have a broadband connection and a PC to download a player application. Then they'll be able to look through a vault of titles that they can play.
Customers also will be able to click on video clips to see interviews with game designers, commercials for coming games and other promotional content. They will be able to search by genre or title and play the games as much as they want.
Turner will not disclose how much it is spending for the library or investing in the project. More than 100 employees are working on GameTap.
The GameTap announcement comes at a time when it's difficult to start new cable television networks. Programming costs have risen, and cable operators aren't hungry for new networks because they would rather dedicate limited broadband to things such as video on demand and high-speed Internet service. Turner last introduced a new channel in 2000, the classic-cartoon network Boomerang.
bhlegend news in a feed (1 comments)
Posted on 2005-04-19 14:11:26 by Harry Hunt
Due to popular demand (well, not really), you can now get your weekly dose of bhlegend news directly to your favorite RSS-capable feed reader.
If you have no idea what that is, because you've been living under a rock or for any other reason, go check out this article.
Anyway, without further ado, go ahead and subscribe now. There's a RSS button at the bottom of this page and if you're using a browser like Firefox, you should see a little symbol in the lower right corner of your browser window.
New Strife file (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-04-03 10:17:19 by Atebash
This is just a short notification about the new Strife version being uploaded. This "new" version has all the speech and other media in it, unlike the previous one that lacked them (and made the game almost unplayable).
French publishing giant goes Canadian. (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-03-23 11:05:16 by WitchCraft
Originaly by: Spong.com
One of North America's most prolific and successful games developers has been acquired by Vivendi Universal Games. Radical Entertainment, whose Simpsons Hit-and-Run/Road-Rage titles, among others, have been published by VUG, has been snapped up for an undisclosed sum. VUG has retained the developer's 200 staff and exclusive game development technologies, with company founder Ian Wilkinson assuming the role of President of Radical Entertainment.
"We've had tremendous success working with VU Games over the past few years, and we believe our integration will be extremely positive for the future of Radical," said Wilkinson. "VU Games recognises and values our unique and creative work environment, as well as our commitment to developing top-selling entertainment products. We are excited to be part of VU Games' global development team."
"The purchase of Radical Entertainment reinforces our commitment to strengthening VU Games' creative talent and internal console development capabilities," said Bruce Hack, CEO of VU Games. "Radical's focus will remain on entertainment-based console games for current and next generation platforms."
Walk of Game (1 comments)
Posted on 2005-03-11 07:42:43 by WitchCraft
Originaly by: Ron Harris
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - Hollywood has its Walk of Fame. Now the video game industry is honoring its icons with Walk of Game.
Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell - the man who produced the minimalist but memorable game "Pong" - and "Donkey Kong" creator Shigeru Miyamoto were among those honored Tuesday with a star on the inaugural Walk of Game section on the floor of a downtown shopping and entertainment center.
Video games have come a long way since Bushnell incorporated Atari Inc. in June 1972, and introduced "Pong" to the arcades everywhere later that year. The game premise was simple: two video paddles batted a ball (a little white square, really) back and forth across a dark screen until one player missed.
Thus began the video game rage that has blossomed from a pocket-full-of-quarters pastime into a multibillion dollar global industry.
Of his name on a metal star in the Metreon, a Sony-branded shopping mall, Bushnell was accepting.
"Thank you very much for this honor. It's always fun to be walked on wherever you can be," Bushnell quipped.
Bushnell has hardly given up his passion for playing games, which began in earnest when he was working in an amusement park decades ago. He recently networked 16 televisions throughout his house to play a serious session of the futuristic shoot 'em up Xbox game Halo with his sons and their friends.
"What I leave behind in reaction time I make for in stealth and guile," Bushnell said.
Guile served Bushnell well at Atari as well. Four years after Bushnell launched the company, Warner Communications bought Atari for $28 million.
Atari's luster faded as competition in the gaming industry heated up in the 1980s and '90s. It was among a handful of properties acquired by Infogrames Entertainment SA in 2001.
In 1981, Nintendo developed and began distributing of the coin-operated video game "Donkey Kong." Miyamoto was the creator of the game, where the main character Mario sought to save a damsel from Donkey Kong, a giant cartoonish ape.
Donkey Kong soon became the hottest selling arcade game in the business. Miyamoto was not in attendance for the unveiling of his 24-inch star, though San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was there for the unveiling.
Armchair arcade (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-01-21 07:20:05 by Atebash
The editors of Armchair Arcade are proud to
announce the release of their sixth issue. This first-year anniversary
issue is packed with in-depth and well-written articles on many
controversial topics. In "Finish Him!," Mat Tschirgi explores the
history of fighting games and laments the lack of innovation in this
genre. Matt Barton steps up next with a superb article entitled
"Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles," in which he offers a history of
proprietary game development and explains why we should quit being
"dead-end users" and reclaim the creative origins of computing. Next up
is Patty McCabe-Remmell's "A Game of Concentration," in which she makes
the surprising claim that videogames offer a promising form of therapy
for children and adults suffering from attention deficit disorder. It's
well-researched and sure to make you think. David Torre's "Shutting Down
Windows" explains why we gamers need to shutdown Windows for good and
jump on the GNU/Linux bandwagon. Rounding out this issue is Bill's
review of two miniconsoles, the Atari Flashback and the Commodore 64
30-in-1, and an anecdotal piece called "Computer Camp Castrophes" by Mat
Tschirgi.
Game pioneer eyes space flight (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-01-14 06:38:28 by WitchCraft
Originaly from Fairfax digital
Millionaire programmer John Carmack turned the hood of his Ferrari F50 into a place to lay machine shop books.
The gleaming sports car in his Rockwall, Texas, garage had to share its space with more-appealing equipment - a giant lathe where he churns out rocket parts.
At 34, Carmack is outgrowing speed driving and turning instead to high flying. As the leader of Mesquite, Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace, he's a respected force behind the push to develop cheaper, easier access to space.
The role of space revolutionary fits well a man who, almost single-handedly, transformed the video gaming industry. No matter what he does in aerospace, to legions of gaming fans he will always remain "Carmack the Magnificent," the legendary programmer behind the hugely popular games Doom and Quake.
For most people, being famous and rich would be enough. Not so for John Carmack. An intensely intelligent and introspective man, he seems remarkably immune to the adoration that swirls around him.
"I'm not bothered much by what people say about me," he says. "My social graces leave a lot to be desired, but almost all of my motivations are internal."
Given a choice, he'd rather be in his rocket workshop or at his computer, tackling an engineering problem in a new and different way.
"The things that motivate John are the things that put him out on the edge of discovery," says Phil Eaton, one of his Armadillo co-workers. "Thinking of ways to get there, that's what challenges him the most."
Until problems with launch licensing and fuel suppliers temporarily derailed the group, Armadillo Aerospace was considered one of the leading contenders to win the X Prize, a $US10 million ($A13.13 million) race to put a private rocket into suborbital space.
Another team claimed the X Prize in October. Carmack congratulated the winners and, typically, wasted no time in refocusing on his original goal.
"It's not about swinging at the fences for the grand slam," he says. "It's about chipping away at a problem."
His approach to space echoes his general approach to life: If there's a problem, engineer a solution. Find creative ways around any stumbling block.
"Creating something that a lot of people can use is often at the heart of what he does, and it's the difference between being a successful businessperson and a tenured professor at a university," says his wife, Katherine Anna Kang.
As successful as he is, Carmack doesn't look like a typical businessperson. He sports the programmer's usual outfit of shorts, T-shirt, and pale skin. It's a style that works for long hours at his two jobs: building rockets and programming for id Software, the Mesquite home of some of the most popular video games ever.
Even on Sundays, which his wife says is newly designated as family day, he reads technical manuals to his five-month-old son, Christopher Ryan. "John's responsible for teaching programming and science," jokes Kang.
Most of his knowledge comes from teaching himself. He learned rocketry using online NASA technical manuals - the old ones from the 60s and 70s, not the newer ones that he scoffs at for being full of acronyms and devoid of useful information. He picked up computer programming during long nights working with other game fanatics.
Growing up near Kansas City, the son of a local television anchor, "I had a normal, gifted-geek childhood," he remembers. Chemistry sets and model rockets dominated his life - until personal computers came along. Suddenly, a new world opened before him.
But his ordinary school couldn't afford a lot of computer power. At 14, he and a group of friends sneaked into a wealthier, neighbouring school to "borrow" an Apple II. Instead, he got a year in juvenile detention.
Hardened against authority, he turned to programming. He began a lifelong pattern of working at his computer into the wee hours, fuelled by a stream of pizza and fizz drinks.
His parents insisted he go to college, but he dropped out after two semesters at the University of Kansas. To pay bills, he took a programming job in Shreveport, Louisiana.
By day, he developed games. By night, he and his co-workers loaded the company's powerful computers into their cars and took them home for a night of programming.
On their own, they put out a landmark, immersive action game called Commander Keen. The first royalty cheque was enough to persuade part of the group to quit their day jobs and start their own company. After a series of brief moves, id Software finally took root in Mesquite in 1991.
Carmack's specialty was the gaming "engine," the programming code that creates a video game's visual environment. With a Carmack engine, players could more realistically scroll through three-dimensional surroundings, creating a fluid virtual experience. Another id co-founder, John Romero, tackled game design, fashioning the look and characters for each title.
Together, the "Two Johns" gained a reputation as the Lennon and McCartney of gaming.
And then, in 1993, id released Doom.
The flood of downloads crashed servers the night Doom was released. Within weeks, it became the best-selling video game of all time.
Id became legend. Chat rooms buzzed with tales of Carmack's robotic work habits and Romero's flamboyant "deathmatch" playing, in which he would smash computer monitors as a rock star would smash his guitar.
Romero eventually left id, run out by a philosophical rift with Carmack and other id co-owners. The two Johns no longer speak, but they maintain a long-distance courtesy.
"Sheer focus and genius like his can change the world," Romero says of his one-time partner.
Id continued to thrive. Today, its games are hotly anticipated, and its programmers regarded as demigods. Gamers flock to hear Carmack and other id owners speak at the annual QuakeCon gathering in North Texas.
Doom 3, the company's latest offering, has sold more than a million copies since its northern-hemisphere summer release.
Rumours abound that, after 13 years with id, Carmack is bored with gaming and ready to retire. But not just yet, he says.
He's currently working on the engine for id's next game, another 3-D action-horror title that won't be released for several years. Crafting the new engine presents exactly the kind of technical challenge he thrives on.
HAPPY NEW YEAR (0 comments)
Posted on 2005-01-03 12:41:21 by Atebash
Sorry for being late, but - HAPPY NEW YEAR! We, the people of BHLegend.com wish you all the best in 2005 ;)
New adventures (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-12-25 09:39:32 by Atebash
I've uploaded a few new adventure games to BHL today. Two of them are remakes of the true classics, one is a fan-made, while the fourth is a German language only. Here they are:
1. Space Quest 0: Replicated
2. Maniac Mansion Deluxe
3. Leisure Suit Larry 2 Point and Click
4. Biing!
Merry Christmas to all the Christians and Happy New Year to all!
Why do I like RockStar? (1 comments)
Posted on 2004-12-24 16:43:46 by Atebash
The answer is simple, just look at this and this other page to find out!
Doctors use video games to hone skills (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-12-19 08:13:16 by WitchCraft
Source: Reuteurs
By Ben Berkowitz
MARINA DEL REY, Calif., Dec 16 (Reuters) - If Dr. James Rosser Jr. had his way, every surgeon in America would have three indispensable tools on the operating room tray: a scalpel, sutures, and a video game controller.
Rosser looks like a football player and cracks jokes like a comic, but his job as a top surgeon and director of the Advanced Medical Technologies Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York is to find better ways to practice medicine. At the top of his list -- video games.
"Traditional academic surgeons look at what I do and thumb their noses," Rosser said at the first Video Game/Entertainment Industry Technology and Medicine Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), in early December.
Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, he says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game "Super Monkey Ball."
To devise better systems for training physicians, Rosser and his colleagues brought together surgeons, movie makers and video game designers to discuss ways the three groups can develop better tools.
While the systems are aimed mostly at medical training, he also does classroom demonstrations so kids can get a taste of what it's like.
More than 5,000 people, from schoolchildren to surgeons, have done training exercises on a system Rosser calls "Top Gun," designed to train laparoscopic surgeons, doctors who use minimally-invasive techniques to repair injuries.
Rosser has had subjects play "Super Monkey Ball" as well as practice techniques of laparoscopic surgery by suturing a sponge with long probes and dropping a pea into a hole. In all, he has done "Top Gun" training for more than a decade.
Video games also have much to offer the military, said Greg Mogel, a radiologist and director of the West Coast arm of TATRC, who spoke alongside Rosser at the conference held in Marina del Rey.
"You train as you fight and you fight as you train," he said.
TATRC demonstrated a program called "STATCare," a virtual simulator for combat medics that lets them bandage wounds, apply tourniquets, administer intravenous fluids, inject medications and make all of the other assessments they would be required to do in an actual battlefield.
The program is proven to work, said TATRC's J. Harvey Magee, but "on the negative side, it doesn't respond like a really cool video game yet."
That is where Rosser said he hoped the conference would be of value.
One of the other titles he helped demonstrate was "The Journey to Wild Divine," a $160 game that relies on biofeedback.
Players with heart-rate and skin-conduction monitors hooked to their fingers must calm the body and mind to bring responses in line with the demands of the game.
In a demonstration, players had to control their heart rate and stress levels in order to make a balloon float through a mystical environment.
Another product on display was a system developed by researcher Walter Greenleaf that applies technology to hand rehabilitation -- patients wear a special sensor-laden glove and control a video game by doing exercises. In the classic game "Asteroids," rotating the wrist moves a spaceship left and right, while making a fist fires cannons.
All of that game play may sound like a waste of time to some people, but for Rosser, it's all part of the job.
6 YEARS! (5 comments)
Posted on 2004-11-29 08:09:16 by Atebash
On 25. November 1998 this site was born. It had just ONE game online and now, six years later - more than 1400!
For this special date I made a HUGE update and the current PC game list is made of exactly 606 titles (those sixes look suspicious, don't they?).
Cheers! For the next 60 years of BHLegend.com!
Shopping for a Video Game Lover? Bring the Arcade Experience Home This Holiday Season With Gifts From RedOctane(R)! (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-11-18 19:18:41 by WitchCraft
Press Release
Source: RedOctane
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ --
RedOctane®, makers of the best-selling Ignition(TM) Dance Pad, has rolled out its holiday product line featuring gaming accessories for Xbox, PlayStation and PC. As die-hard gaming enthusiasts, RedOctane is passionate about building the best gaming peripherals available. From the precision feel, durable construction, and quality parts, every RedOctane product is designed to recreate the arcade experience at home.
Shopping for a friend or relative who is a gamer? Below are great products your gaming enthusiast is sure to enjoy! Order online at http://www.redoctane.com where RedOctane® offers free shipping for orders over $40 or visit your favorite retailer where games are sold.
RedOctane Ignition(TM) Dance Pad
The best-selling RedOctane Ignition Dance Pad features a dense foam insert that will keep up with your fastest moves. This dense cushion insert gives you the perfect balance between fast reaction and comfort, so you can play longer and get higher scores. Longer playing times also means more aerobic exercise. The Ignition Dance Pad is compatible with PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC computers with a separately sold converter.
RedOctane Taiko Drum(TM)
The RedOctane Taiko Drum was designed exclusively for the game, Taiko: Drum Master(TM), and features a high-quality rubber drum head for responsive feedback and realistic arcade-like feel. The base of the Taiko Drum is made of hard plastic and sits at the proper angle on the floor or on a table. The drumsticks for the Taiko Drum are made from a durable, yet lightweight plastic that helps mute the sounds of drumming; this cuts down significantly on unwanted noise.
RedOctane Reload Pedal
Play light-gun games the way they were meant to be played, with the new RedOctane Reload Pedal. This reload pedal is perfect for hardcore fans of the most popular light-gun series of games. This incredibly heavy-duty pedal is made of thick metal and is topped with a sheet of industrial diamond plate and has the exact dimensions of the arcade pedal. If you're looking for the arcade light-gun experience on your PlayStation 2, then this is the product for you!
The RedOctane Reload Pedal is fully compatible with Time Crisis®, Time Crisis 2®, Time Crisis 3®, Time Crisis: Crisis Zone®, Ninja Assault®, and Vampire Night®.
RedOctane Arcade Stick
The RedOctane Arcade Stick is both fast and accurate. The case is made from the same material as arcade cabinets, giving you the feel of actually playing on arcade controls. The buttons on the RedOctane Arcade Stick have been laid to work perfectly with fighting games such as a standard six-button Capcom® fighting game setup and two additional buttons placed perfectly for fans of the Soul Calibur franchise!
About RedOctane®
RedOctane is the leading online retailer of Dance Dance Revolution games and accessories in the US. The company designs and produces video game peripherals and accessories including the award-winning Ignition(TM) Dance Pad. Based in Sunnyvale, California, the company was founded in 1999 as a video game rental subscription service and offers over 1,500 video game titles for rent. For more information visit http://www.RedOctane.com.
Liberated games (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-11-07 17:32:59 by Atebash
I wanted to bring your attention to a wonderful site that is out there - Liberated Games. It lists all the ex-commercial games that have been "liberated". Quite nice, eh?
On-demand video game online services (1 comments)
Posted on 2004-10-11 05:14:52 by WitchCraft
Originaly by: By Matt Slagle / AP Technology Writer
DetNews.com
Edited by: WitchCraft
Internet downloads are nothing new when it comes to buying music and software online.
So why does video game shopping still mostly involve either shlepping to a store or waiting for the delivery truck after you order online?
Three companies: Comcast Corp., IGN Entertainment, Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have apparently heard the pleas of impatient gamers who want video games on-demand.
If you have a broadband Internet connection and you can tolerate the relatively outdated selection, these services pretty much work as advertised. They deliver commercial games directly to your personal computer in a matter of minutes or hours.
For now, only computer games are available, so you can’t download new games directly to the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube consoles. And remember, you won’t get a printed manual, the box or the CD-ROMs.
Don’t use this service thinking you’ll save money. The price was the same as Web sites that sell physical copies.
The most impressive was IGN’s new “Direct2Drive.” It’s the only service that lets you actualy buy and own the games.
Compared to the local software store, though, the digital aisles were sparse. There were only 31 games to choose from, including the stealthy “Thief: Deadly Shadows” and “Myst III: Exile.” Good stuff, but nothing new like “The Sims 2.”
Yahoo and Comcast have very similar “Games on Demand” offerings. Instead of buying, you rent and pay a monthly fee.
Yahoo’s service has been available for several years, and it shows. With 175 games, it has by far the largest selection, with titles that should appeal to hardcore and casual gamers.
But the large library is rather dated, with the newest title being “War Times,” a strategy game that was released in April. At least Yahoo has a decent mix of top games from last year though, including “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell.”
Yahoo has several subscription plans, including a $14.95-a-month option that lets you rent an unlimited number of games.
Comcast’s on-demand site, launched this summer, is almost identical to Yahoo’s.
You have to download a similar application which serves as a portal to browse and play a varied selection of 118 games, ranging from first-person shooters like “Unreal Tournament” to simple puzzlers like “Operation.”
Games which Comcast considers new include “Warlords Battlecry II,” a fantasy-themed strategy game. But calling such a title new is simply misleading -- it’s been out since May.
Newer, very popular PC games were missing entirely.
I went ahead and rented “Warlords.” The download process took about 10 minutes on my DSL connection, and I was up and gaming. The experience was similarly hassle-free with Yahoo.
I knew in advance which games would work because the player scans the computer to make sure it had the system requirements to run the games. Yahoo does the same.
By contrast, Direct2Drive only lists the minimum system requirements you’d normally see on the side of the packaging.
With a minimal investment, Yahoo and Comcast have created an easy way to let you try out games before you buy.
Though I preferred Direct2Drive’s more direct click-and-buy model, the meager selection was disappointing.
But since the inventory was also lacking with Comcast and Yahoo, shoppers looking for the latest and greatest are better off buying the old-fashioned way.
Offline (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-10-07 10:59:46 by Atebash
BHLegend.com has been offline a lot during the past week. I don't know what is causing the downtime, but I will do my best to make it not happen again. I am sorry for that...
Video Game Maker Acclaim Files for Bankruptcy (1 comments)
Posted on 2004-09-03 22:00:05 by WitchCraft
Originaly from Reuters
By Franklin Paul
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment Inc. AKLM.PK , which has been hampered by a lack of hit titles, filed for bankruptcy liquidation on Thursday after failing to line up new financing.
Acclaim, one of the oldest brands in the industry, has been known as much for failures like "Turok: Evolution" and controversial titles like "BMX XXX" as it has for its successes in the highly competitive industry.
The company, which filed for bankruptcy to liquidate its assets under Chapter 7 of U.S. Bankruptcy Code, has also faced lawsuits from some of its top licensees, including ones from teen superstars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and biking legend Dave Mirra.
Acclaim is the second well-known company in the business to go bankrupt in recent times, after 3DO Co. in 2003.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to Acclaim's properties, including upcoming games like "100 Bullets" as well as new entries in the "Worms" franchise.
Rival developers are always looking to acquire popular games, and companies such as Majesco Holdings Inc. MJSH.OB , Atari Inc. ATAR.O and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO.O may be interested in Acclaim's roster, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc. analyst Michael Pachter.
But opinions differed on the value of those assets.
"Games like 'Juiced' and 'Red Star' are worth quite a bit," Pachter said. "Majesco and Take-Two have a strong distribution presence so they would be able to get them out quickly."
On the other hand, RBC Capital Markets analyst Stewart Halpern noted that with 3DO's liquidation, none of their franchises sold for much more than $100,000.
"If that's any guide, then it doesn't seem like the asset sale story is going to be an exciting one," he said.
TRUSTEE APPOINTED TO SELL ASSETS
Acclaim attorney Jeff Friedman said a trustee has been appointed whose duties will be to sell Acclaim's assets, including several titles that are ready to market.
"(However) the games that are in the middle of development are more problematic because it is not clear that there will be money to finish those games," he said.
According to its annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company's assets totaled $47.3 million with liabilities of $145.3 million as of July 1.
Friedman said at least one creditor was owed more than $20 million but he did not know the name of that person or entity.
Acclaim in early July said it faced bankruptcy unless it could negotiate a new credit facility, reiterating that warning in late August.
"Negotiations with a proposed lender to replace the company's former primary lender, GMAC Commercial Finance (a unit of General Motors Corp. GM.N ), had terminated and the company's credit facility with GMAC expired on Aug. 20 and was not extended," Acclaim said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
RBC analyst Halpern said that while Acclaim's demise may be its own fault, other smaller developers in the $10 billion interactive gaming industry must struggle to compete in the face of rising marketing and developing expenses.
"The numerous errors and misjudgments that Acclaim made along the way make this a company specific situation," he said. But there is no question that the cost of doing business continues to increase, making it harder for smaller companies to compete broadly.
"Secret" additions (1 comments)
Posted on 2004-09-03 01:37:43 by Atebash
During the past two weeks, I added a lot of new games to the site. I had no time to post news about that, so here is one. I don't know the exact number, but it's about 60 of them. Most were for PC and Spectrum and a few for C64 fans. Well, have fun!
Video games aim to make learning fun (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-08-11 12:19:40 by WitchCraft
Originally by: MikeWendland
From: Free Press Columnist
With a whole generation raised on computers and the Net, educators are finding that paper textbooks and one-way classroom lectures aren't nearly as effective as video games at getting students' attention.
"It's always been true that we learn best through the process of play," said Brian Winn, director of Michigan State University's New Media Center and one of the four leaders of its Comm Tech research lab (http://commtechlab.msu.edu). "Today, pretty much for everyone under 36, video or computer games have become a radically new form of play that has shaped their preferences on how they want to learn."
That's what Winn and the design team of about 20 students who staff the Comm Tech Lab are trying to harness, developing what he calls "serious games" or "tools for thought" aimed at the classroom or for parents to use in teaching their kids.
In other words, there's nothing wrong with having some fun while learning.
Here are three recent examples of the Comm lab's educational games:
• "The Connected Children's Garden": Winn's lab has developed what they call time-lapse garden "wondercasts," where elementary-age kids can control time as they explore garden events like a flower blooming or weather changing. The MSU researchers see this as a model for science learning.
• "Moons Rock!": Aimed at middle school students, this has been developed as a traditional CD-ROM computer game and also a standalone kiosk that can be used by libraries and museums to get kids interested in space exploration and science.
• "Fantastic Food Challenge": This is a CD-ROM game about nutrition for high schoolers and young mothers. As people play the game, they get the information and confidence needed to make and eat nutritious and economical meals. (You can get it for $4 from MSU Extension. See http://commtechlab.msu.edu/products/foodchallenge.html.)
"Games are intrinsic motivators," Winn says. "They have a somewhat addictive quality, in that you want to play them over and over and master them - which is exactly what educators want their students to do with the material they teach."
The lab began in 1984 as cable television began to become popular. That was its initial focus, back when there were suddenly 36 cable channels available and educators wondered how some of them could be harnessed for teaching.
But as personal computer use exploded, the emphasis shifted in the late 1980s to how computers and technology could enhance learning.
The lab is currently administered by MSU faculty members from the School of Journalism, the Department of Telecommunications and the Department of Horticulture.
It's been actively developing award-winning educational software and teaching Web sites since the mid-1990s, with many of its projects funded by grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The popularity and effectiveness of video games for learning and providing information has prompted Winn and several other MSU faculty members to consider an interdisciplinary degree track for MSU in game design.
I can see it now -- a PhD in gameology. That would make someone a gameologist. How cool would that be?
That's high-tech entertainment! Arcades go from pinball to virtual reality (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-08-02 08:49:40 by WitchCraft
Originally by: By Iam Cropp
News Business Reporter
Video games have always provided entertainment, and with new technology come newer gadgets that bring entertainment to a higher level. Older arcade games like Pacman and Tron provided players with the opportunity to control a character's destiny, but recent more high-tech virtual reality games bring about a nearly life-like immersion into the games. "It's kind of like going to a costume party and adapting an alter ego for a few minutes," said Randy Bergman, owner of Darrt Amusement, a company that supplies and services coin-operated games locally. So what types of games do the dreamers play?
One of the most popular games has college kids busting moves wilder than those of James Brown, Michael Jackson, or Justin Timberlake. Dance Dance Revolution, a dance simulation game in which players must replicate on a dance pad the moves signaled on a screen, has attracted not just participants, but spectators as well.
"When a good player gets up there, all of a sudden you'll have 10 or 12 people standing around watching," said Marc Cutting, general manager of Adventure Landing, 2400 Sheridan Drive, Tonawanda.
Like Dance Dance Revolution, most virtual reality games involve a three-dimensional form of physical interaction. Environmental games that simulate activities like skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing, mountain biking, and white-water rafting leave riders awed by the graphics and sore from the realistic ride. "You're going to sweat," said Lynn Fildes, refering to a sword fighting game she played where she works at Sheridan Game Zone, 3860 Sheridan Drive. "My arms were hurting me the next day."
Other people have worked up a sweat using these machines, but not by racking up high scores.
"Some of these games are so advanced that the government is using them as flight simulators for the armed forces," Bergman said.
Although enlisting in the armed forces is one way to experience the thrills of high-tech entertainment, all that is required is a dollar or two. For those looking for cheaper, less strenuous alternatives, a few pieces of well-placed change still can provide entertainment. According to ride warnings on a few of the physically demanding virtual reality games, those who are pregnant also should stick to the classical machines.
Not only have arcade video games been evolving, but the entire coin-operated industry has seen significant changes from the days of metal-and-glass pinball machines powered by dry cell batteries to today's digital jukeboxes that download songs via the Internet.
Over the past decade the number of big-room arcades has declined, but the popularity of coin-operated machines in locations such as bars and restaurants has endured. Bergman, whose company has been in the coin-operated industry for more than 50 years, believes the success of the machines are related to a basic part of human nature. "There will always be a place for people to gather and they will want entertainment," Bergman said. "Sociability is a big part of the human psyche."
Bergman's company supplies and services coin-operated amusement games such as jukeboxes, pool tables, touch screen video games, and arcade style video games. His father, Al, started the business in 1953, distributing hobby horses and jukeboxes.
Of the several time-enduring products, the jukebox provides the best snapshot of the industry.
"We have really come a long way," Bergman said of the music machines. "The older devices were humongous cabinets that played only 4 or 5 songs. Now you have the capability of selecting one of over 150,000 songs."
New digital touch-screen jukeboxes do not use any type of disc, but access songs through either a built-in computer database or an Internet connection. The machines pump out digital quality sound, and some even have synchronized lighting like the famous "Happy Day's" jukebox.
Jukeboxes have taken several structural jumps, shifting from large plastic discs that played at 78 rounds per minute to those that played 331/3 rounds per minute to compact discs. Capacity has grown exponentially and now the most esoteric songs that hit the airwaves at 4 a.m. on college radio stations are available for play.
"It used to be that you didn't have a variety, but when the 50-record machine came out with over 100 songs, you could accommodate all tastes," said the elder Bergman, commenting on the jump in selection after World War II.
Competing forms of music entertainment such as Muzak and regular CD players can provide a type of variety in the public setting, although the jukebox is seen as a democratic music choice.
"In the licensed beverage environment, people like to control the atmosphere," said John Margold, vice president of sales and marketing at Rowe International, the largest manufacturer of commercial CD jukeboxes. "People want to be entertained, and (the jukebox) is a very proletariat machine."
The variety-rich Internet-wired jukebox is the newest advance in the industry. However, the idea of transmitting music through wires has been around for a while. Back in the 1950's, Al Bergman outfitted several jukeboxes with telephone hookups to an office on Chippewa St.
"You could pick up the phone, talk to an operator, and tell them what you wanted to hear," the elder Bergman said.
After the customer selected one of over 1,000 songs, the music was then played on the jukebox through the telephone wire connection.
Along with the jukebox, another product that has seen explosive evolution have been video games. In 1971, Nolan Bushnell introduced the first coin-operated video game, and later developed one of the first home video game systems, Atari.
"Video games progressed from a blip on a black and white monitor to such high quality graphics that in golf games you can see individual blades of grass bend and spring back when the ball hits it," Randy Bergman said.
The home video game industry went on a growth spurt in the 90's and became one of several threats to the coin-operated industry, providing consumers with a low-cost replicate of the arcade style games. "Our window of opportunity is very short," Bergman said. "New technology is released concurrently for home and coin-operated markets, and we can't compete. My son's X-Box has far superior games than we can offer in a commercial setting, and the software manufacturers will offer it for less."
In states like New York, anti-smoking legislation has also hurt the industry, which has many of its machines in bars and restaurants. Despite smoking legislation and the proliferation of the home video market there is a still a market for the coin-operated industry.
"The industry is smaller than it was," Margold said. "But people always want to be entertained and for a dollar you can have three minutes of fun."
Unlike the bars where many coin-operated machines can be found, there are no demographic restrictions on the industry. Games such as darts, billiards, and video poker are popular among an older crowd, but arcade video games span across all age groups. From the self proclaimed 40-year-old golf pro looking to sink a hole in one on a golf game, to the thankfully unlicensed 10-year-old driving on a computerized race car track, there is a fantasy for everyone to fulfill.
"You can never go wrong offering a game with a steering wheel where kids can sit down and drive a Ferrari for 50 cents," Bergman said.
What else can't suppliers go wrong with? Ms. Pacman - the most enduring arcade game. Darrt Amusement still operates between 15 and 20 machines in the area.
Bergman concedes that predicting the future in his industry has never been easy, although he conjectures that in five years video game producers may find an inexpensive way of removing gravity or inflicting pain and pleasure.
One thing Bergman does know is that adaption is what has allowed the industry to survive.
"We will find a way to survive," Bergman said. "If there is something new we can get to customers faster than big companies like Nintendo or Microsoft, we will."
Video game gore coming under attack (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-07-12 12:59:50 by WitchCraft
Originally by: NICK WADHAMS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In video games these days, you can strangle someone with a garrote (Manhunt), pop off an enemy's head in a shower of gore with a sniper shot (Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy) and direct a teenage girl to shotgun a demon dog (Silent Hill 3).
Not to mention beat up prostitutes, run down pedestrians, bathe in the blood of your enemies and curse like a lobster boat captain who's stubbed his toe.
The video game industry seems to delight in pushing the envelope - and the bounds of good taste - with ever-gorier content. That has put it under renewed attack from legislators and activists who claim some titles must be kept out of kids' hands, although courts have repeatedly granted games First Amendment protections.
Effect of violence
The opponents cite new research that they say suggests strong links between violent games and aggressive behavior. They are disturbed by games' cultural ubiquity and the always-improving technology that makes virtual gore more realistic than ever.
"Pediatricians and psychologists have been warning us that violent video games are harmful to children," said Mary Lou Dickerson, a Democratic legislator in Washington state who wrote a law, now being challenged in federal court, banning the sale of some violent games to kids. "I'm optimistic that the courts will heed their warnings."
Lawmakers in at least seven states proposed bills during the most recent legislative sessions that would restrict the sale of games, part of a wave that began when the 1999 Columbine High School shootings sparked an outcry over games and violence. None of the measures that passed have survived legal challenge.
Free-speech issues
The game industry says legislating ultraviolent games out of the hands of children would deal a severe blow to free speech. Game companies point to the industry-imposed ratings system that gives detailed descriptions of violence in a game and labels some titles as "mature" or "adults only." "Does it make any rational sense to you that we're going to pass a law someplace that says we're not going to prevent minors from buying 'Passion of the Christ' or 'Kill Bill' or 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in a local store but you can't buy Resident Evil?" said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, referring to three violent movies and a popular horror-action game.
The debate reflects a divide in the way people perceive games. Are games harmless, or even cathartic, as many who grew up playing them believe? Or are they teaching kids to hurt, maim and even to kill? Game opponents point to new studies that claim there is a stronger link between violent games and aggressive behavior than ever.
Use in the military
There is also the inescapable fact that the military uses video games to train its soldiers. A 2003 University of Rochester study found that young adults who played a lot of fast-paced video games showed better visual skills than those who did not.
Author Evan Wright ponders the effects of video games on U.S. soldiers in the Iraq war in his new book "Generation Kill." In an endorsement that Grand Theft Auto creator Rockstar Games might prefer not to get, he quotes one U.S. soldier as saying an ambush felt just like playing the game.
"It felt like I was living it when I seen the flames coming out of windows, the blown-up car in the street, guys crawling around shooting at us," the soldier says.
The next 12 months could see a flurry of new scrutiny of violent games, because three controversial franchises are due to release sequels. They include Doom, notorious as a favorite of the Columbine killers; Mortal Kombat, with its calls for a player to "finish" opponents in myriad gruesome ways; and Grand Theft Auto, which exhorted players in its latest iteration to start a Cuban-Haitian race war.
Gaming expansion
Meanwhile, we're in the midst of a gaming explosion. Deloitte & Touche predicts the worldwide number of "game-compliant devices" other than PCs - mobile phones, consoles and handheld computers, for example - will see a sixfold rise by 2010, from 415 million now to 2.6 billion.
For some legislators, that's a call to arms. Some want the violence in some games declared obscene.
"You can carve out some exceptions to the First Amendment when it is determined that these things we are talking about - like pornography, like alcohol, like tobacco and so on - have harmful effects to children," says Leland Yee, a Democrat in the California Assembly.
Past efforts have failed, often because of challenges from the Entertainment Software Association.
Nationally, proposed legislation by Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.) would penalize retailers who rent or sell to minors games with violent, sexual or other "harmful" content. A version was killed in 2002, but a revised draft is making its way through the Judiciary Committee, with 43 co-sponsors.
New Zealand, Brazil, Germany and several other nations have outlawed some games.
One new game (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-07-03 00:03:49 by Atebash
Heh, I know it's not much, but it's better than nothing! You see, we are all busy people now, it's not easy to find some time to review those good ol' games. Still, WitchCraft found a few minutes to give you one new game. It's Transformers for C64. Have fun!
Juiced-up video games drain computer power (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-06-26 18:31:56 by WitchCraft
originally by: LOS ANGELES (AP)
Video game manufacturers often resort to techno-lingo to explain what they've done to make "Half-Life 2" more lifelike and "EverQuest 2" graphically stunning.
Techniques such as "normal maps," "pixel shaders" and "dynamic lighting" basically mean the newest game graphics are inching ever closer to the computer-animated movie "Shrek 2."
But there's another pricey reason for these good looks: gobs of computer horsepower.
Every year, new games push the envelope and require faster processors, more memory and better graphics cards. The games previewed at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo continued that trend as they dazzled gamers with unprecedented visual splendor.
Armor worn by a sword-wielding fighter in "EverQuest 2," for example, is more than a simple collection of silvery pixels. It has real depth, reflects sunlight and is curved and embossed with intricate detail that becomes more elaborate the closer you look.
At large industry trade shows like E3, companies often show games using advanced prototype computers from manufacturers seeking to boost their image with hard-core gamers.
These top-of-the-line machines from Alienware Corp., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and others are stuffed with super-fast processors, video cards and gigabytes of zippy memory. One of these monsters can easily fetch $3,000 or more.
Owners of consoles from Nintendo Co., Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp., of course, don't have to bother getting better systems because they all have the same parts and can't be upgraded.
For PC gamers like Richard Ellis of Dallas, however, hot new games often mean costly trips to the computer store.
"I've seen previews for 'Halo 2' and 'Half-Life 2,' and seeing how wonderful they looked, for me personally, all I could think is 'Oh, man, I'm going to have to spend another $2,000,' " Ellis said.
Ellis, 38, recently found performance drop for the massively multiplayer online game "Dark Age of Camelot" after he installed the "Trials of Atlantis" expansion pack. He ended up having to wait until he could afford a better graphics card.
Shawn Carnes, a Blizzard Entertainment designer who is working on the online role-playing game "World of Warcraft," said the temptation to design games that push the computing envelope often means those with older systems are out of luck.
Developers often get "carried away with the power of the technology that they've been given," Carnes said, acknowledging that developers must be mindful of older systems to appeal to the largest audience possible.
As a professional gamer, 16-year-old Landon Ingrammson of Dallas gets his computer systems for free from the local computer shop that sponsors his equipment.
Good thing, too. Ingrammson guesses he'd have to spend a couple thousand dollars a year to keep up with always-rising demands.
Tweaks can be easily made so new games can work on wimpy computers, but they won't look the way they were meant to, he said.
Ingrammson agreed with Carnes that the problem could be avoided if game makers developed on slightly older computers. But games on middle-of-the-road computers usually aren't very impressive.
"They're trying to make the 'wow' effect of their games last longer," Ingrammson said. "It's the 'They did that?!' kind of thing."
The swords and sorcery of Sony Online Entertainment's coming "EverQuest II" uses many of the latest graphical techniques.
At E3, Sony game designer Mario Rizzo demonstrated a group of five warriors swinging fiery swords and shooting luminescent spells at a giant winged dragon.
The dragon was richly drawn with multihued scales. Occasionally, it blurted flesh-burning acid in a gust of swirling gray-green mist. In another scene, a moat ringing a magical castle rippled and undulated like actual water.
Rizzo said the game's minimum system requirements haven't been determined, but he expected them to be steep. That way, he said, the game will be "future-proof" - looking fresh and visually appealing for as long as possible.
"We don't expect anybody to be able to run it right out of the box with full settings maxed," Rizzo said. "We're planning for the future."
Poll Results (6 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-31 09:43:30 by WitchCraft
Which new age gaming system is your favorite?
12% Xbox (253 votes)
20% Playstation 2 (430 votes)
7% Game Cube (155 votes)
60% Good old PC (1274 votes)
Thank you to all who voted. :)
Vintage Video Games (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-30 08:01:48 by WitchCraft
Originaly from: News 24 - Houston
If game titles like Pitfall, Asteroids, Space Invaders and Pac-Man make you reminisce for the video games of days gone by, you're not alone -- because retro is cool again.
"The fact of the matter is that gamers are getting older -- the average player is 29 years old and the average buyer of the games is 36 years old. And this is a part of their life, this is something that they hold dear to them. Just like classic 80s music and 70s music has had its time to cycle back, now we're seeing that with video games," said Chris Morris, with CNN Money.
Also, older video games are easy to play. You don't need to know a history of the game or understand anything about how the controller works.
"There also are some that you can just pick up, play for a little bit and then go away, but if you look at Xbox or PlayStation controllers today, they have a lot of buttons on them, they have a couple of triggers, and they can be real intimidating. But if you have something like the classic Atari 2600, it's pretty simple -- it's a joystick and one button. It's real easy to pick up and learn to play," said Morris.
Some of the older systems were the Commodore 64, Intellivision and the Neo Geo System.
"But when it gets down to it, the games that people think of when they think of classic games are the big cabinets that stood in the pizza parlors and places like that," said Morris.
Games, games... (2 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-27 20:46:21 by Atebash
The latest:
PC:
1. Adventure
2. Adventures of Maddog Williams
3. Rocket Ranger
Spectrum:
1. Chase HQ
2. Chase HQ 2
3. Pasteman Pat
4. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
5. Into the Eagle's Nest
6. Tai-Pan
Commodore 64:
1. Rocket Ranger
A few new games on BHL (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-22 17:00:38 by Atebash
I promised some new games, didn't I? I added a few in the last week, and here is a complete list on everything new:
PC games:
1. Sherman M4
2. 5 Days a Stranger
Amiga:
1. F29 Retaliator
2. Wings
3. Gods
4. X Poker
Spectrum:
1. 3D Deathchase
2. Head over Heels
3. Olli & Lissa
4. Olli & Lissa 2
5. One on One
E3 - Nintendo and Sony (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-18 09:27:42 by WitchCraft
First of all I'd like to welcome back Atebash (round of cheers everyone)! But don't worry folks, even as the summer draws near, I will continue to post news and events related to the industry as well as help Atebash build up that game section you love so much. :)
Originally by: Jonathan Takiff
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Some of the biggest news at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) game show in Los Angeles came in small packages, as Sony and Nintendo took the wraps off new portable game systems - and upstarts snapped at their heels.
NINTENDO NEWS: While other new portable platforms will cram multiple entertainment options into the same box - from playing music and movies to capturing digital pictures - enhanced game play is the sole story with the new Nintendo Dual Screen system.
Currently code-named DS (the name is not final), the device will be available by year's end and builds on a brand that has already sold more than 168 million portable game systems worldwide.
One backlit screen is inside the lid of the clamshell-shaped DS system. The other screen, touch sensitive, is just below. The whole package is about the size of two Game Boy Advance SP units placed side by side.
An animated character like Pikachu can move seamlessly (or drop objects) between screens, though in prototype play at the show, only one screen at a time showed 3-D play while the other showed 2-D graphics.
That lower, touch-sensitive panel also offered added game control - using a finger or stylus to "fly" characters or switch scenes even more quickly than with the conventional D-pad and action buttons. Plus, the touch screen can function as a virtual keyboard and sketchpad.
The DS' processing power won't match its new competitors'. Nintendo is bragging only about "better than N64" graphics performance here. But this energy-efficient entertainer will deliver 10 hours of play per battery charge.
Other snazzy features include voice recognition and short-distance ("Bluetooth-like") wireless connectivity between as many as 16 DS units. Another plus, the unit is backward compatible with Game Boy Advance cartridges.
The price will be less than that of other rivals, maybe as little as $150 for the DS player, with software selling for $40.
SONY SHINES: Finally diving into the portable game category, Sony took the wraps off its PSP (PlayStation Portable) at E3. It's packaged in a sleek black cabinet (about the size of a VHS cassette), with a 4.3-inch color widescreen, stereo speakers and seemingly endless entertainment possibilities.
Game play on the powerful PSP can be as sharp and complex as on a PS2 system, promises Sony, delivered on a new optical storage disc called UMD (Universal Media Disc) that's about the size of a 50-cent piece.
Prerecorded music and videos will be available on this new multimedia entertainment platform, too, and software/data may be downloaded to an on-board Memory Stick Pro Duo card.
More often, you'll use wi-fi for wireless game matches with other PSPs located within a 150-foot radius.
Planned for U.S. delivery next March, this mobile entertainment system is likely to sell for about $299.
OTHER PORTA-PLAYERS:
Nokia unwrapped a second-generation version of its N-Gage portable game system that addresses criticisms of its poorly received (fewer than 20,000 buyers in the United States) predecessor. The new, smaller QD model allows for easy "hot swapping" of game cards, works better as a mobile phone and will be offered by mobile providers for less dough - $199 with a service contract.
Tiger Telematics, a company with expertise in global positioning systems, will build GPS capability into the Gizmondo mobile entertainment device. Why? To alert you when another unit is within range for wireless play, or to incorporate users' physical location into unique game scenarios.
Built on the Microsoft Windows CE.net platform, with a super powerful Samsung 400 MHz processor, built-in digital camera and more, the Gizmondo system will debut in the fall, probably in the $300 to $400 range.
Currently available only online (www.tapwave.com), the Tapwave Zodiac system hits CompUSA stores in June, with models priced at $299 and $399. Built on the Palm operating platform, the Zodiac is the only portable that can run full versions of "retro" game engines and software from the eras of Sega Genesis, Atari 2600 and, soon, the Commodore 64. Forward into the past!
Amiga news (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-13 14:24:08 by Atebash
Here I am again, after a long time! Thanks to Witchcraft, you could read about the latest news in the gaming industry, but I am back! For a while at least. I am too busy to constantly update BHL, but it is still my number one hobby! So, I did some things in the Amiga section in the last few days. First of all, ALL the WinUAE configs are updated to the latest version of WinUAE, and there are 10 new Amiga games on BHL. Here they are:
01. Caesar
02. Emmanuelle (French)
03. Hero Quest
04. Hero Quest 2
05. Bubble +
06. Colonization
07. Globulus
08. Leonardo
09. Pinball Magic
10. Sherman M4
Expect even more in the next few weeks! PC, C64, Spectrum...
Like video games themselves, game guides become flashier (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-05-08 07:29:10 by WitchCraft
Originally by: Neil Davidson
Canadian Press
Video and computer games may change, but one thing remains constant. At some point, gamers get stuck and need help.
These days, the Internet is like one big, messy gaming cupboard when it comes to searching for tips. That's just fine for some. But other gamers like something a little more substantive when it comes to reading material. Rather than face a computer screen, they like to reach for a nearby guidebook when stuck in a game.
That's good news for BradyGames, one of the leaders in gaming guidebooks. The Indianapolis-based company sold guides to some 90 titles last year, up from 50 to 60 in each of the last few years.
It appears the video game strategy-guide business is good.
"For Brady, we've had phenomenal growth over the last three years, just really unbelievable growth," said BradyGames publisher David Waybright. "Without going into numbers, we're more than twice the business we were two years ago.
"Now is that all from overall industry growth? No, not at all. In fact, it's more from us taking industry share than anything else . . . but at the same time, there has been significant growth for us in the strategy-guide industry. Generally speaking, more units are selling per title than were three years ago and two years ago and one year ago."
Brady has been in the business just over 10 years, developing relationships with game companies and looking for new ways to dress up what used to be known simply as "hint books."
Like the games they support, Brady's guides have come a long way. Today, some are collectibles in their own right. And with the competition from the Internet, Brady is looking to the value-added side of the business and to mine the value of its licence with the manufacturer.
Brady's rival is Prima Games. The two lord over the gaming guide business, fighting for market share like Coke and Pepsi. They have carved up the guidebook terrain, establishing allies and relationships.
BradyGames, for example, has such blue-chip partners as Rockstar Games, Activision, Capcom and Square Enix.
Prima, meanwhile, can count on the huge success of the Electronic Arts Madden football title, among others, to boost sales.
Like other aspects of the gaming industry, the business of guidebooks is cyclical. A new gaming platform affects sales of both games and guides as the market fragments until consumers upgrade.
Today, the market is at a high. PlayStation 2, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube have been out for some time now, so there's a large installed base out there.
Still, success of the guide depends on success of the game. "There are hit titles and then there's the rest of them," Waybright said.
With competition rising from the Internet, Brady is looking to make a mark with quality.
That means either delivering the complete guide - the latest Brady bible for the Final Fantasy XI online game is some 380 glossy pages and costs $28.99 in Canada - or by essentially becoming an offshoot of the game.
"Our guides have become more than just what helps you get through the game," Waybright said.
Part of Brady's new arsenal is limited-edition guidebooks. These are the Cadillac of guides, costing more but with the bells and whistles only a licensee can provide.
Limited-edition guidebooks for the likes of Onimusha 3 Demon Siege, SoulCalibur II, Final Fantasy X-2 and Pokemon Colosseum come with everything but the coffee table needed to show them off. The guides are hardcover jacket affairs with separate guides and glossy 98-page-plus volumes containing art from the game.
The SoulCalibur II special guide even comes with a soundtrack.
Brady uses its website to update strategy guides, but with the advent of complicated "massively multiplayer online" role-playing games like Final Fantasy XI, the company is looking at the website as a way to further support gamers in titles that are ever-evolving.
Another evolving part of the business is providing guides on DVD.
Some smaller companies have already gone that route, and Waybright said Brady may follow suit, but only as a complement to printed guides. While the DVD may be "sexy and flashy," he doesn't believe the medium will work for some content.
A gamer stuck in a portion of the game usually just wants a hint to get past the obstacle. He doesn't want to be shown the entire "how to" because it takes away from game play.
"If you read it and then play it, you still get the chance to experience some of that discovery," Waybright said. "If you see someone do it and then you just mimic that, it kind of takes a little bit of the fun out of the game. Plus I just don't think that's the kind of information people want."
Ads are infiltrating video games (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-04-23 06:50:59 by WitchCraft
Originally by Eric Gwinn
Chicago Tribune
In another sign of video games going mainstream, advertisers who once largely ignored the medium now are trying to dot digital game landscapes with product placement.
Thus the $11 billion-a-year vidgame market joins movies and television in facing content controversies. Where advertisers once merely placed "billboards" with product messages in games, they now are making their gear -- and logos -- essential components. Mountain bikers can hop aboard Treks in Downhill Domination. Street drivers in EA's Need for Speed Underground can tune their cars with parts from Auto Zone. Online, players can outfit their virtual selves with Levi jeans in the community www.There.com.
"Depending on where in-game branding is put, companies get dozens to thousands of impressions (views) per gamer," said Erik Whiteford, director of brand marketing for gaming colossus EA Sports.
But Talmadge Wright, sociology professor at Loyola University Chicago, argues that even subtle ads in games are intrusive.
"It doesn't matter if you ignore ads. The fact that you have to ignore them means you've acknowledged them," said Wright, an avid gamer whose research topics include the sociology of video games. "You know it's a company trying to sell you right now. It takes you out of the fantasy."
But that involvement by the gamer is what attracts people such as John Buehler of Callaway Golf, who negotiated the promotional deal that features Callaway Golf equipment in the Xbox game Links 2004.
Being in the game gives Callaway "exposure to a younger audience, one that is hard to reach through traditional media," Buehler said in an e-mail.
"If it's done well," Whiteford said, "there's a nod (from gamers) to the creativity and the innovation of how the brand is displayed. If it's endemic to the environment, it helps with authenticity."
But in-game advertising isn't a significant revenue source yet, as both game makers and potential advertisers try to figure out how well product placement works -- and how to charge for it.
Ten years ago, companies demanded money if a game maker wanted to place a real-world product in a video game.
Times have changed. The recently released Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow has the main character, anti-terrorist Sam Fisher, using a Sony Ericsson camera phone to take pictures and a Sony Ericsson smartphone to communicate to superiors.
Store shelves are filled with sports games that hawk everything from skateboards to deodorant. And more are on the way. HSI Productions, an L.A. producer of commercials and music videos, recently teamed with video game idea-maker Immaterial to create Medium, a production house that will manage brands -- that is, find ways to place brand-name products in video games, movies, music and advertising.
But oversaturation can turn off gamers. www.Gamespot.com, a major online gaming site, voted Tony Hawk Underground winner of its Most Despicable Product Placement in a Game Award. The skateboarding game features hidden video of the rock band Kiss and a hidden Kiss skateboarder that appear after the player completes certain tasks. The game also features fast-food ads and lets players put a candy-bar logo on their characters' T-shirts.
Randy Winograd, of HSI Productions and Medium, said smart, selective positioning works best. "In a video game, you want the world to feel as realistic as possible. When I'm playing NHL Hockey, and I see an advertiser on the dasher board for a real company; that makes the experience more realistic for me."
That's why advertisers want their products to be an essential part of the game. In Top Spin, gamers acquire tokens they can exchange for Prince T-shirts, Wilson racquets and Adidas shoes for their tennis players. In NCAA Football 2004, teams that sport Nike swooshes on their jerseys in real life bear the emblems in the video game, while Adidas and other logos are invisible.
Kalle Lasn, founder of the anti-advertising magazine Adbusters and a frequent critic of Nike's pervasive campaigns, decried the expansion of advertising in video games, saying, "Advertising in video games speaks of desperation.
"We're inundated with 3,000 messages a day, and they're increasingly clandestine, embedded into the games we play so you never find out you're being marketed to."
In-game advertising appears most in sports and racing games, because their real-life counterparts are advertising-heavy. (War gamers and fantasy players would balk at contemporary ads in fantasy worlds and on battlefields.) The most coveted spots are where players spend a lot of time -- where they customize their cars before a race, for instance, or choose their characters' attributes before continuing the game.
Far from being distracted by ads, sports and racing gamers expect to see them because it adds authenticity to the game, Whitehead said, "as long as it makes sense for the product and is not an overt opportunity to be too salesy."
Ads in video games? (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-04-09 07:50:26 by WitchCraft
Originaly by Monty Phan
Newday.com
In the video game James Bond 007:
Everything or Nothing, the suave British agent drives a Porsche Cayenne. In True Crime: Streets of L.A., the main character wears clothes from Puma.
Advertising and product placement in video games isn't new, but has tended to be more the exception than the rule, largely because there's no reliable way to measure the effect such ads have on those playing the games. Now two companies are trying to change that: Game maker Activision and Nielsen Entertainment said yesterday they would collaborate to devise a measurement tool to help gauge the impact of video game ads.
Bobby Kotick, chief executive of California-based Activision, publisher of popular titles such as True Crime and the Tony Hawk skateboarding series, estimated that total in-game advertising for the industry accounted for only about $10 million last year. Activision, which had $864 million in sales last year, got about $1 million from marketers for in-game deals, he said.
"The key to attracting advertisers to our medium is a credible measurement system," Kotick said. "The sum total last year of $10 million is just scratching the surface. Do I think in the next five years it'll become the size of TV? I don't think so," he later added.
Activision and Nielsen shared results of a recent study showing that a video-game system is present in three-quarters of households with a TV and a male aged 8 to 34; that nearly half of game players in that age range play for at least an hour at a time; and a quarter of active male gamers noticed ads in the games they played. About 1,000 males between the ages of 8 and 34 were surveyed.
Activision and Nielsen agreed that quantifying the ad value of games will take time, and but that measuring ads' effectiveness could be helped significantly as the Internet becomes a larger part of playing video games. For example, data could be collected on which ads were viewed in the game and how much screen time they had (such companies as TiVo already do similar anonymous tracking).
But there are other reasons for marketers' reluctance to make a serious push toward video game ads, said Sam Huxley, the director of Internet strategy for Manhattan-based Brand Buzz, a unit of Young & Rubicam that has helped place ads in games. Marketers, for instance, don't like that the majority of games aren't released until the end of the year, he said.
Schelley Olhava, an analyst who follows the video game industry for IDC, a research firm that tracks technology and media, said the average cost to produce a game has climbed to between $5 million and $10 million, while the $50 price for games has remained constant.
"As that happens, publishers and developers need to look for ways to fund these games," Olhava said. "... It's increasing because it's a bigger and bigger part of games and I expect to see that continue."
GameOn NY Announces New Video Game Consumer Show (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-03-31 10:49:06 by WitchCraft
Originaly by James Brightman
Acknowledging the huge consumer appetite for interactive entertainment, GameOn NY, a division of Expo International, today announced the launch of the first-ever video game consumer show. Scheduled for November 12-14 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the show promises unprecedented consumer exposure for its sponsors and exhibitors.
"With more than $11 billion in revenues in 2003, the interactive entertainment industry has become the entertainment choice of America. The response from high-level sponsors and publishers has been overwhelmingly positive." said Martin Currie, Director of Business Development for GameOn NY. "This event will not only allow fans to get hands on exposure to games before they hit the stores, but will also give the publishers national media exposure during the crucial holiday selling season."
The expo will allow attendees to try new and unreleased video game products, engage in exciting cash and prize-based tournaments, and enjoy live music and celebrity appearances. GameOn NY is currently speaking with several broadcast media partners, as well as sponsors from the soft drink, urban apparel and music industries.
Additionally, GameOn NY has appointed three experienced industry professionals, Bernard Stolar, Paul Eibeler and Sarah Anderson, to the Company's Advisory Board. Bernie Stolar, recognized as a prolific leader in the video game industry has held leadership roles at several of the industry's foremost companies, including Executive Vice President Sony Computer Entertainment of America, president and Chief Operating Officer of Sega of America.
Notably, he was an integral member of the launch team for the Sony Playstation in 1995 and drove the introduction of the Sega Dreamcast in 1999 -- helping to position video games as the future of entertainment and cross over into mainstream culture. Eibeler brings a wealth of industry experience to the position having held a variety senior management posts including Chief Operating Officer for Acclaim North America, as well as President and Director of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Anderson is a veteran of the game business with more than 10 years experience in such strategic positions as senior Vice President of Brand for Acclaim Entertainment, and Vice President and General Manager of SegaSoft Networks and the Heat.net online game network. Anderson is currently VP of Marketing at Kuma Reality Games.
More information about GameOn NY can be found online at
www.gameonny.com.
Brain waves control video game (0 comments)
Posted on 2004-03-25 10:17:54 by WitchCraft
Originaly by Jo Twist
BBC News Online technology reporter
A video game in which the character is controlled directly from a player's brain without the need for wires has been developed by researchers.
Mind Balance was demonstrated for the first time using a new wireless headset, at the MIT Media Lab Europe in Dublin last month.
The game could help researchers develop brain-computer interfaces for those with limited body movement.
But, said the team, it could find its way into future video games. "It is absolutely a possibility," Ed Lalor, research associate at the labs, told BBC News Online.
"If we can make this new wireless device that we have developed, the Cerebus, more aesthetically pleasing, a little bit smaller, that would make the device actually easier to put on and use."
The idea of controlling electronic devices via plugs or implants in the brain has been a recurring theme in science fiction works, like William Gibson's novel Neuromancer and the Matrix films.
Usually, brain activity is measured with attractive caps and wires
Research laboratories around the world have been working on technologies which let people "jack in" to computers directly from their brains, including Cyberkinetics, whose BrainGate system is currently undergoing trials.
But the Mind Balance game demonstration showed how brain activity could be harnessed and used without the need for plugs, jacks or wires.
Instead of wires, it uses direct electroencephalography (EEG), cerebral data nodes and the wireless technology - Bluetooth - all fitted into the sophisticated Cerebus headset.
With six different types of nodes positioned over the occipital lobes at the back of the head - responsible for processing light, vision and hallucinations - Mr Lalor, as the player, focused on to two chequered boxes which flashed at different frequencies.
"Because they are flashing at different frequencies," he explained. "They evoke different responses in the visual cortex.
Mawg talks steadily to himself in a Scottish accent
"We are able to pick up electrical activity on the scalp and take the brain activity into a C# signal-processing engine which analyses those signal in real-time and makes a decision which of the two boxes the player is looking at."
By "tuning" into the boxes on either side of a huge screen in turn, the frog-like virtual character, Mawg, was balanced and walked across a tight-rope.
If he started to fall to the left, the player had to tune in to the box on the right of the screen to correct the balance.
Developments like Microsoft's new object-oriented language C#, a variation of C++ but with Java-like functions, have made this signal-processing and translation easier.
In computing terms, C# makes it easier to create, manage and access objects.
Devices like the Cerebus are getting easier to use too which, according to Mr Lalor, means gamers could be attaching them to their own heads in a few years' time, in their own homes.
The research has some serious applications though.
Much of the focus of direct brain-computer interfaces has been on developing the technology for people who have limited body movement, and the Mind Games research is no different.
The next hot thing for gamers?
"This game was our first stab at creating a brain-computer interface controlled environment," explained Mr Lalor.
"One of the obvious applications is for someone who is locked in or paralysed completely, somebody who has an advanced case of ALS [Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis], where they literally cannot communicate at all, but their brain is operating fine. They can still see and hear but can't move or speak.
"If we had a direct link from their brain to their computer, they could communicate."
Mr Lalor and the rest of the team are keeping up with the plethora of research being done around the world on brain activity and hope to move the work on quickly.
"With the software tools that we have, we can develop stuff a lot quicker than most places.
"So as soon as we have a good idea for a nice communications interface to be used with our new brain device, we will have a communications tool for somebody who would otherwise not be able to communicate at all."
'Game Over': What video game characters do when they go off-duty (1 comments)
Posted on 2004-03-19 06:56:54 by WitchCraft
Originally by Sid Lipsey
CNN Headline News.
It's a cold, hard fact: You can't play video games forever. Eventually your wrists will start to hurt.
Or you will run out of quarters.
Or you will have to put your game on "pause" to go to your job.
Regrettably, we gamers sometimes have to put down our joysticks and rejoin the real world.
But do you ever wonder what video game characters do after we turn off our PlayStations? Do they have homes to go to? Spouses to snuggle with? Kids to stress over?
They sure do -- on TV at least.
"Game Over," UPN's new animated comedy series, chronicles the lives of Rip and Raquel Smashenburn -- a couple of video game heroes who really are just average working stiffs. Rip is a racecar driver and frequent crash victim (hence the last name). Raquel is a gun-toting government archaeologist (any resemblance to Lara Croft is purely intentional). With their two teenagers, the Smashenburns live in a virtual suburbia populated by ninja warriors and "first person shooters."
But don't let the unique concept fool you; at its heart, "Game Over" is a traditional family sitcom like "The Brady Bunch" -- except here, Mom cooks with a ray gun, the family car is armed with missiles and the family pet is not an absent dog named Tiger but a bitter ex-video game star named Turbo.
Turbo is the most biologically ambiguous TV character since Gonzo from "The Muppet Show," so he's a little hard to describe. Imagine Pac-Man after too many years of gorging on dots and dropping power pellets. Turbo drinks Jack Daniels, leers at women and isn't above committing the occasional felony. "As you see in 'E! True Hollywood Story' there's a dark side to fame," jokes "Game Over" executive producer David Goetsch. "That's true in video games as well."
Although "Game Over" features original characters, some well-known stars from the gaming world also drop by. Abe from "Abe's Odyssey" and Crash Bandicoot have made cameos. And a certain "tomb raiding" superstar will appear in a future episode.
Gamers will have fun speculating on other possible cameos. Maybe the Smashenburns could travel to Vice City during May sweeps. Or Duke Nukem could guest star as Billy's sadistic gym teacher. Or, in a topical "Very Special Episode," Raquel could testify before a congressional subcommittee on video game violence. For his part, Goetsch says he isn't seeking any particular star for a future "Game Over" walk-on. "But," he admits, "Mario would be pretty cool."
Mario would be the first to warn that video game characters don't always make a successful leap to other forms of entertainment (the "Super Mario Brothers" movie is a particularly gruesome example). But if all goes well, the spiffy "Game Over" may buck that trend -- and give gamers something else to do after they put down their joysticks.
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