Dare to Play the Game

Real Pirates, Street Fighter IV Arcade, & Who exactly owns a particular piece of Software? – Welcome to the column that holds all rights and privileges to the work contained within, except there really is no work involved within known as Dare to Play the Game.

When you love a hobby such as video games and collecting dvds, you often find yourself running into problems. One of these problems is storage. The holidays are fast approaching and that spinner that is holding the majority of my dvd collection is filling up fast. The only things it doesn’t hold is some random TV sets that sit in a shelf towards the back of the family room and the adult dvds which *caugh*, sit in the game room, away from people who might frown upon such things that might visit us. The normal dvds are filling up so fast, that I am probably going to buy another spinner pretty soon. Once I figure out the shade and size of my current one. I often go through the labor buying dvds and putting them in a shelf above my computer where I will take forever to catalog them into my database before figuring out how to fit them into my spinner.

The auction pile in the bottom of my gaming closet composed of cds, dvds, & games that I’ll never listen, watch or play again is also overdue for an Ebay overhaul. This time of year is an excellent time to unload things since people are looking for presents and cheap presents at that. I’ll probably post a text file to you folks next week with what I currently have and then the following week put the rest on Ebay. Trust me, there are bargains to be found.

Ode To Gamer Girls






















Layla Kayleigh is pictured here. She is another interesting story and you might notice her from a couple of places. The first from G4 (my favorite place for gamer babes) and the ever popular segment, The Feed. Then she is also the interviewer for the World Poker Tour, a very entertaining poker show found on the Travel channel. She was born in South London, England. She also has quite the British accent. Gamer+Poker+British=Hot.

Street Fighter IV

Capcom won’t be releasing a Street Fighter IV arcade version in the United States, despite the franchise’s strong history as an arcade attraction and extensive ties to tournament gaming. Chris Kramer, Capcom’s senior director of communications and community, gave the word to Edge: “At this point, it does not look like Street Fighter IV arcade machines will officially hit the U.S. arcade market.”

But if the console is SFIV’s only home, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to play it using a controller more familiar to the game. Edge also teased some news about joysticks under production by Mad Catz, who showed off some prototypes to Capcom and got a hearty thumbs up. “They’re awesome. I mean, really good. … really, really, really nice. You can pretty much recreate the entire experience in your home.”

I miss arcades. Honestly and truly. The only time I seem to find an arcade machine is at a bar, a bowling alley or a pizza place where puppets perform. Even then, those machines usually fall into the category of too boring (golf and hunting simulations) or too kid like (crane for prizes, rides that take your picture, and DDR). Finding a machine that would play a Street Fighter type game is rare enough indeed, nevermind the actual game. So, I am a little upset with the fact that I won’t see any SF4 machines unless I’m deciding to go to Tokyo anytime soon (I’m not). Also, I don’t have much faith in an authentic arcade stick for the home console version. The last time I tried for that experience was with one of the Street Fighter Alphas for the Playstation. It never seemed to work right and left a bad taste in my mouth. Not to mention that they want to try to get away with charging 60-70 bucks for a controller. I still have a hard time stomaching the $50 for the Xbox Controllers and they are wireless. Am I the only one who misses the NES Advantage?

Pirates

There’s an interminable semantics debate over whether copying and sharing games illegally is really “piracy” or if that’s just a propagandist term thrown around by the industry. But I’m sure everyone can agree, however, that when a bunch of heavily-armed badasses ride up in a boat to steal video games from another boat, that is definitely video game piracy.

“Despite all the publicity over piracy it will really hit home when consumers in the West find they haven’t got their Nintendo gifts this Christmas,” the spokesman, Sam Dawson, told Reuters.

Most overused joke of the week: Where are the ninjas and why aren’t they protecting us? I honestly do wonder though if the pirate had an eyepatch and exclaimed: “Hand over that Wii” and did it with a straight face. Perhaps he was upset with the lack of quality pirate games on the Wii and this was his way of protesting. Either way, Somali pirates are real and have been a problem for years. Not sure why in 2008 they haven’t figured out a better method of transporting large goods or at least away from the pirating hands of some gun totter that likes console games. Hopefully they bring a resolution to this soon. Hey, they could always say that it isn’t Wii’s and that the shipment has PS3’s instead. Then they would probably turn the ship around and go invade elsewhere. I went there.

Student-Created Work

Recently, some controversy has popped up regarding who owns the IP of student-created work; recent events with the award-winning creation of some graduates of DigiPen Institute of Technology have highlighted the problematic nature of what is somewhat par for the course in design programs. On the one hand, while I can see some of the arguments for schools retaining the IP (and certainly, the policies are clear to students from day one), I find some of the arguments downright laughable. With the recent kerfluffle, are policy changes on the horizon?:

The commercial aspect adds some special challenges, but there’s something that rubs me the wrong way about schools retaining the IP of student work. The idea that students shouldn’t have control over their own work because ‘it was a homework assignment’ really strikes me the wrong way, probably because plenty of my fellow graduate students have and will publish work that was a ‘homework assignment’ (a very, very big homework assignment). As long as the policies are clearly spelled out, no one has much room to complain for current projects, but it seems like something that deserves to have a second look.

In my college days, at one point I was actually computer science. I wanted to make games like every other nerd back then. After I couldn’t understand half of my teachers, I changed to Finance and never looked back. Today I’m a systems administrator. Thank you college degree. Anyway, I did create a few things in programming class and the teacher always told us, if you can sell it then go for it. My stuff was a steaming pile but lots of students’ work are not. There is a lot of good work out there and frankly DigiPen is looking out for themselves and not their students. Don’t let their crank about best interests or they come to DIT to learn and not be a production house. If they could make a buck off of it, they certainly would and make sure that the student would get no royalties.

This is going to sound brutal, but in the case of many institutes of technology, the reason you folks are teachers are because you couldn’t hack it in the field. I know I don’t have programming chops, my skill is in what you see here. So-called professors of programming in these technology schools are still behind the wall and have brain washed themselves into thinking they know something. Let the students who actually have some talent sell their work and in doing so they might be able to pay your outrageous tuition. (Please note, this is in no way insulting the teachers in respected universities around the world who teach programming, just a dig at the vast majority of technical institute teachers)

Many of you when you turn on your Xbox 360 this evening will be introduced to a new dashboard experience. It screams so much Wii, I’m holding my pecker in protest. (I normally hold it just to remind I actually have one). It’s so adorable *roll eyes*. Thankfully, I was able to figure out most of my normal operations this morning before I went to work. Anyway, Kingdom for Keflings is made by the same people who brought you Band of Bugs and a fav of mine, Outpost Kaloki X. So, good vibes on this one. But you actually use your avatar that you created during the NXE experience to play a SimCity type game. Another question, why do all of the avatars have this pudge to them? Not all of us are couch potatoes you know. Give it a try if you like those type of games or you just want to see your avatar doing something besides looking at you funny.

Another Strongbad game? Geez. This one is subtitled Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective. You are a dirty cop and you want a little action and that money money, yeah yeah. Will our hero stay alive long enough or defeat this enemy and get the girl? I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to. Suffice to say if you got the last three and liked them, you already bought this one.

Heck, if Beer Pong can get a WiiWare game; I guess anything can. Here is a game for the beanbag toss enthusiast in us all. Assuming you don’t just feel like going into your backyard and doing the same thing. Apparently this is also played quite heavily at tailgate parties too. Again, once you have had a few too many; tossing a simple bag becomes difficult. So, get liquored up, turn on your Wii and have a grand ole time. I fully expect next week that I will come across Card Flipper for the WiiWare. Marvel as you flick cards into a hat with a flick of your wrist and your Wiimote. I probably just stole somebody’s idea.

Space Invaders for the SNES, chances are you know exactly what this is about. If I need to tell you, then you have been under a rock for a very long time. Special to the SNES version was a VS mode and a host of arcade modes that simulated everything from the upright cabinet to the classic black and white. I’m not sure how many people are going to pay 800 points for a Space Invaders game, but I’m sure there are a few.

Forgotten Worlds is a very awesome 2-player sci fi adventure from Capcom. You are one of two soldiers sent to the Dust Planet to destroy an evil being named “Bios”. Your marine actually flies on the screen and an Ikari Warriors like dial switch for the directional of the gun. This would be the download of the week except the version they sought to include is the Sega Genesis version which omits two levels. The PC Engine version (which is also available to the Virtual Console as an import) has much better music and includes the omitted levels. The only downfall was the specialized three button controller which would have to be mapped correctly. For another true Forgotten Worlds experience, be sure to take a look at Capcom Classics Collection Vol 1.

WoW time. 57/55/39/30/18. Lich King arrived this week. Mayhem & chaos ensued. I spent Friday night leveling my Rogue to 55 (curtsey of Un’Goro Crater) so I could create a death knight. I even abandoned my usual let’s do quests for rep banter just to get the experience that was adequate to my level. So then I went off this week and created a death knight. A Tauren Death Knight, except that seems to be the most popular horde death knight that isn’t undead. No love for Trolls, let me tell you. Actually, once I get out of the Death Knight starting area (any day now), I will hunker him down and go back to either my rogue or hunter as far as Horde is concerned. I love certain aspects but I do want to get the rogue to 60 and the hunter to 40. They are the characters I play the best and want to continue to improve my skill.

There will obviously be more information coming as teh Sarah and myself will be sitting down for a review. It won’t be a traditional review, more of a discussion format I think since for an expansion pack you really don’t examine things like graphics and sound. Gameplay is #1 with replay a close second. Also since there are two parties making this review happen, both with opposing ways of playing their characters; differences will exist. I think it will make for one heck of a review. So look for that either right before or right after Thanksgiving. I will work on Fallout 3 this week and hopefully get it up by Sunday. Have a good one kiddoes and remember to appreciate your loved ones. They’ll appreciate you too.

As Always,
Kedrix of Aldrianian
(*The Forgotten One*)