My fellow Martians,
Bra, what up?  I just wanted to write you a letter to apologize for busting up the place while trying to stop the EDF.  Those dudes are totally fierce and it took a lot of stuff to stop them.

So I'm totally sorry for knocking your houses Bra, I didn't think that APC would travel so far when it I blew up the set charges underneath it.  I'm also sorry for blowing up that gas station with the RPG, I just missed that EDF dude by "that" much and didn't see it behind the dude.  I also feel really bad for crushing that dude with the billboard.  When I shot it with the nano-dissolver-rifle thing I thought it was going to fall the other way.

I guess I'm also sorry for wrecking those office buildings while I was driving the mech.  I totally didn't realize I could walk through the building like it was paper and got a bit carried away with myself.  You have to admit it was pretty sweet when I launched that EDF dude through the roof though.  Did you see the hang time on the guy?  

So in short I apologize for blowing all that stuff up dude.  I just got a little carried away with myself and had a little too much fun destroying anything and everything.

Your liberator,
Alec Mason

[Sara, a single mother, and Mike, her son, are homeless and living in an abandoned park in The Sims 3.  You can backtrack to the first two (1, 2) entries, or hop right into their continuing journey.]

With a full stomach, generous neighbors, and a 6 a.m. sunrise, Sara picks up her guitar again.  Mike admires his mother's talent and seems to appreciate her tunes that range from soft-bellied folk to more bluesy rock riffs.  Mike runs to catch the bus to school, his mother still lost in the music.

Taking a cab, I send Sara to Central Park.  Unfortunately, the time-honored tradition of busking (performing music in public places for tips and gratuities) isn't an option for her yet.  Dorie and Gus Hart, two of her neighbors, arrive at the park, too, but they don't acknowledge Sara.  Well, almost they don't.  Dorie gives Sara the "gas face" behind her back and, almost immediately, the Harts turn around and go home.




Sara takes it easy by sitting alone at the fountain, then she starts an hours-long singleplayer game of chess.  The long-haired Abraham Finkle eventually sits down across from Sara, but he never pulls his nose out of his book.  With Sara steeped in her game, Abraham eventually leaves without comment.




After school, Mike wants to hop off the bus at Bella Bachelor's pad.  He follows her, still grungy, tired, and generally miserable from a full day of having too many people around for his taste.




It turns out that Bella lives right across the street from the abandoned park where Mike lives.  Bella at least appears amused by her decision to bring Mike home.  Mike is polite and doesn't even walk on Bella's grass.  She doesn't invite him in, but she brings her homework outside onto the porch.




With a sudden change of heart, and without a word to Bella, Mike sprints home across the street.  Head swimming with exhaustion, all he can think about is getting a little sleep.




Back in Central Park, Sara helps herself to a picnic basket and eats a hot dog so fast she neary chokes. 




She then admires the statue presiding over Central Park until late afternoon.  She either greatly admires the town leadership this man's statue represents, or she appreciates its sculpturing on an artistic level.




At sundown, Sara leaves Central Park and heads back to the abandoned park.  As she waves gently to her already-sleeping son, Sara wishes that she could buy him a toy box.  She falls asleep on a distant bench.  Still, it's surprising to see that, despite the usual gripes (tired, grungy), Sara and Mike are both happy.




Mike wakes up to the sound of his mother working towards her lifetime wish of Mastering the Arts.  In the middle of her practice, Sara seems to notice her admiring son, and suddenly Sara adds a stuffed animal to her list of things she wishes she could provide for Mike.  And as Sara gets progressively better at the guitar it drives her to want to practice more and more.  Taking advantage of her good mood and relatively high level of energy, Sara practices late into the night.




As morning approaches, Sara and Mike chat about the usual:  art, books -- and they even sprinkle in a little neighborhood and schoolyard gossip.  What she'd probably like to avoid talking about is how she just peed herself.  Still, considering the Twilight Zone they'd created with their obsessive-compulsive toothbrushing rituals, I still find it hard to regret my previous decision to bulldoze their public restroom.




Mike doesn't seem to mind.  He walks through it to continue the early morning chat with his mother before school.  And apparently for Sara, nothing screams "artist" like discussing the finer points of the color wheel while standing only inches away from your own puddle of pee.

[Sara, a single mother, and Mike, her son, are homeless and living in an abandoned park in The Sims 3's Sunset Valley.  Their plight began yesterday.  This is their continuing journey.]

Sara and Mike are falling into an inexplicable routine consisting of nothing but napping and brushing their teeth.  They sleep for a few hours on a bench, wake up, and brush their teeth ... and never just once.  They brush their teeth two or three times during each visit to the public restroom.  They will be active for a couple hours, then they brush their teeth again -- multiple times -- before taking another nap.  Once they wake up, the cycle repeats itself. 

So, at first, I condemn the restroom and "board up" its doors (as in, I remove them).  But instead of finding anything else to do, Sara and Mike simply complain all day that they don't have any way to brush their teeth.  Then they take a nap.  When they wake up, they continue their rant about how they can't brush their teeth.



Despite my wishes against intervening in such a heavy-handed manner, I bulldoze the restroom.  Sara cries briefly.  Perhaps having the entire toothbrushing diversion was her only guard against the reality of her situation.  Removing the restroom from her life is a bit too much to handle.  But her thoughts, for the first time since falling into the restroom loop, now begin to wander toward other things.





Fully aware of how terrible he smells, Mike still tries to make friends at school despite his lone wolf personality.  All the other kids make disgusted sounding noises as they pass by him.  Mike waits for the morning bell to ring before he goes inside.  Mike eventually meets another boy, Malcolm Landgraab.  This picks up Mike's mood.  He wants to make Honor Roll now.





Without the restroom occupying the greater portion of her thoughts, Sara actually comes out to meet her son when he returns from school, and gives him a hug.  They're finally talking to each another again, instead of simply waving in passing while on the way to the restroom.  Removing that building was blatant on my part, but it was obviously important that I do so.





Mike has still been getting free lunches at school, so his hunger pangs are kept at bay.  But Sara is (verifiably) near death.  If she doesn't get something to eat, she will (verifiably) die soon.  I send her over to a house adjacent to the abandoned park.  It's the Hart household.  She sprints over to the trashcan and, somehow not garnering the attention of Dorie Hart (who's just returned home), Sara nervously files through the Harts' trash.





Sara finds two old newspapers (useless) and an uncut pink diamond (!).  Still, there's no food to scrounge.  In a bold move, Sara goes up and rings the doorbell to the Hart residence.





Sara is cordially welcomed, and Dorie, who answers the door, doesn't even complain about Sara's smell.  Dorie wanders off to another part of the house and Sara, whose habits die hard, heads for the bathroom so she can brush her teeth.





Dorie only made enough dinner for herself when Sara had arrived.  So Sara patiently watches TV in the living room, and then watches Dorie play videogames -- which apprarently bore Sara.  Sara also meets Gus, the silent and book-reading man of the house, as well as Bebe, a teenaged girl that loves music but loathes television.  Sara understandably talks about little except the Harts' home.  Dorie, after a marathon gaming session, decides to make another meal.  This time there's enough for everybody.  (Verifiably) only a few hours from death, Sara gets her first meal since becoming homeless.





By midnight, Bebe says it's getting late and she asks Sara to leave.  Sara does.  Sort of.  Unwilling to go, Sara stands on their front porch for several hours, listening to Dorie practice guitar while Bebe dances around in a bikini by the stereo.  Sara thinks on everything before exhaustion hits.





Mike had come home from school and finished his homework some time ago.  Still, he appears to be missing somebody.





Around 3:00 a.m., Sara returns to the park.  Mike is up waiting for her when she comes back, but he's not angry.  Sara is stumbling from exhaustion, but she still lets Mike gush about art, film, and literature.  Sara doesn't mention where she's been.

I'm not the inventor of the "homeless experiment" in The Sims 3.  That honor goes to Robin Burkinshaw, creator of the (absolutely fantastic) tale of Alice and Kev.  If you haven't read the tale of Alice and Kev -- which is still ongoing -- stop reading this blog and go read that one. 

Otherwise, I'd like to introduce to you Sara and Mike.  Sara is the single, homeless, unemployed mother of Mike, her son that inherited her genius, over-emotional tendencies, and loner personality.  I created a plot of land to look like an abandoned park, setting about with the idea of following these two on their journey, while minimizing any interruptions and suggestions from myself.  Again, I'm not claiming to be original in implementing the parameters of this experiment, but reading the tale of Alice and Kev was powerful enough to make a purchase of The Sims 3 an imperative.  Here, as I follow  Burkinshaw's example, understand that my emulation is the sincerest form of flattery.

  
I give Sara and Mike nothing but an acoustic guitar, which Sara takes up immediately, musical virtuoso that she is.  Mike stands silently behind his mother and taps his foot to the music.  When she's done playing, they converse.  She talks about music, of course.  But he talks about money.  Then they play tag for hours through the bramble-ridden park. 

 

 

As night falls, Sara again takes up the guitar, playing through her need for sleep, and playing through her hunger that's settling in for the first time.  They both wake up in the middle of the night, talking about nothing but food.

 

They brush their teeth several times each in the public restroom, perhaps to make up for a lack of all other hygiene, and then fall back asleep.  The next morning, Mike talks about wanting a house, and Sara explains that money -- stacks of it -- are needed to purchase a home.

 

It also looks like Sara, in the same conversational strand, is trying to explain what being a "starving artist" might mean for the both of them.

 

Mike runs to catch the bus.  He's hungry, but he'll eat for free at school.  Sara will have to find other means of filling her starving-artist stomach.

I’m going to do something about E3 I’ve never done before: not talk about any games I saw. Instead, I’m going to talk about my experience this year with the third format change in three years. Now I’ve been through many E3’s since 1994 only missing two in that time so I’ve seen how the show has grown, shrunk, and start to grow again.

This year I asked with most of the people I’ve met what they thought of the format. Those that were showing the past few years talked about how lifeless it was and how “depressing” the show became. Unanimously, every PR person and the fellow journalists I talked to talked about how much they enjoyed this year’s E3. Most said it felt like the energy and excitement was back. All the journalists I asked said it was great in that it wasn’t too big and it wasn’t dead like last year. We all were able to get our work done and not have to fight through large crowds. Sure there were more public attendees this year but at no time did I feel I was burdened by them like previous years.

I made sure to pay attention of many of the faces in the crowd as well as the ones I’ve met in the past who have come back. You could see how much more they enjoyed the show based on the expressions on their faces and their enthusiasm at the booths. I overheard many conversations on how they really liked this year.

Yes, there weren’t that huge swell of people waiting to get into the show floors and the booths weren’t as overpower as previous years but that’s a good thing. You still had some large booths though such as Activision, Sony, Nintendo, and EA but nothing like compared to previous years. It was still a little hard to talk to on the show floor sometimes but for the most part the show did a good job of not overwhelming you with sound.

I really, really liked this year’s E3. I hope that the show doesn’t grow too much. I can see a few more areas being opened up to accommodate some more vendors as a there were a few areas that were closed off in the main halls. But, I liked being able to walk around without having to find alternate paths through large crowds, being able to pick up food without having to wait 30 minutes in line, and to be able to walk up to most things and get to play with it hands on without having to wait another 10 minutes to do so. It was fun and carefree without feeling stressful like in years past.

So this year’s E3 was a return of sorts to the old ways but in a more subtle fashion. With that everyone seemed pretty happy with the result. Now a part of that could be people comparing to last year’s show where not as many enjoyed the format but since I didn’t go last year I don’t have anything to compare that to. For me, it was the perfect balance of sizes in booth and population. Let’s hope they keep it this way for next year as with what I experienced, I’m finally excited about going to the next show.

Here's all our E3 2009 coverage.

 

I just got home from finally seeing the re-imagined Star Trek, and I wanted to get this post out while the images are still fresh in my head.

We all know that roughly 99.9% of movie based games are TERRIBLE. Across the history of Star Trek games, with rare exception this has been born out. But what's nice about this alternate reality story line is that it gives game designers new places to go with this storied IP. While the sleek lines of the original Enterprise are back, nearly everything else is new. The balance of power is more level, with Klingons, Romulans, and the Federation back to their Cold War era stalemate. The characters are familiar but with new aspects and histories to explore.

I guess in part I am re-energized to be immersed into the Star Trek universe via gaming.

At least until I see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

It needs to be said: Duke Nukem was the Jean-Claude Van Damme of the gaming industry. At first he was ubiquitous; his face everywhere, and the starring vehicles were pretty darn good. Then, just like Mr. Van Damme, the Duke underwent some changes during his storied career, and eventually wound up homeless. While it looks like Mr. Van Damme has kicked the coke for good, gotten off the street, and found happiness with his third/fifth wife; whether the Duke will find redemption is anything but clear.

But why should we care that the Duke is no more? It all comes down to the thing that makes the world go ‘round (and I’m not talking about love); Money.

In an age where the cost of development is so high for AAA titles that only the biggest companies can afford to develop new top level titles, it’s sad to see the probable death of a top name in the industry. Not because Duke Nukem Forever would have a guaranteed success, or even a good game for that matter. But simply because of the sheer amounts of money that has been poured into the title over the last 13 years.

At some point along the way, it had to become clear to someone at 3DRealms that the Duke was never going to see the light of day again. When that occurred, some form of a “Plan B” should have become the immediate course of action.

The first option clearly should have been to pin down what worked in the development done so far then break down the plot into segments and go episodic. This is clearly a workable plan these days. Selling the first 1/3^rd of the game online would have brought in scads of money to continue the next segments. When this was decided against, it should have triggered a “sell off” of game assets to either the publisher (as 3DRealms tried to do before shutting down when it was far too late) or another development house, to get as much out of the completed work as possible.

It’s not at all that DNF will never see the light of day, it’s simply that there are a tremendous amount of very good titles coming from small shops that could be made even better, or marketed more actively with just a little additional funding. And while small shops struggle to get their great work noticed, 3DRealms was like a giant black hole for millions of dollars worth of cash. If more of that money had been put towards other titles, we’d see more “make a great game, and you’ll find a big name publisher”, like The Witcher.

Let’s hope the industry learns from this lesson, and that companies stop pouring money into vaporware titles, and focus on products that can achieve something more than being the butt to a ton of industry jokes.

We did an interview with Felicia Day of The Guild fame a while ago but while watching Discovery Channel, I came across a Sears commercial that had her in it. I thought she looked familiar and sure enough, here's the commericial featuring the Guild actress selling a washer and dryer.

 

 

In a level-less society, there are few milestone indications proving you've advanced. EVE Online's chat channels aren't caked with "Ding!" messages slathering over what level someone's popping champagne corks over. Yet the "Gratz!" that follow a triumphant message stating the new ship you've purchased can often fall surprisingly limp as well.

That's because in EVE, being able to fly a certain hull type doesn't mean you can fit that certain hull type with appropriate equipment.  You could pilot a cruiser -- a popular, high-powered ship class -- in short order:  the license is yours, have at it.  But you won't necessarily have the acumen and certainly not the experience to put it to good use yet.  The technicalities are beyond the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say that any player can prematurely get themselves into the cockpit of a large boat long before the rest of their gangly-youth body has caught up to the size of their paws.

There is one method for accurately measuring a character's growth and advancement, but it surprisingly lacks ceremony...

I swung over to the always-trafficked Brutor Tribe Treasury, Rens solar system. The Six Kin Development Warehouse -- my usual haunt where I pick up a solid stream of missions from my security agent -- lacks cloning facilities. I deftly slapped down the sixty-five thousand ISK purchase at the Treasury and ding'd in corp chat that I'd upgraded to a Clone Grade Gamma.  Solemnly, as expected:

Crickets. Nothing...

They're a quiet lot by default, so I can't fault them overly much. But that clone will retain two million, fifty thousand skill points in the event of my demise.  (Think of it as a 'save point' for my character Billy Blame's advancement.  I currently have just over one million, three-hundred thousand skill points, and my then-current clone was steadily approaching the lip of what it could muster. I have to imagine that that's solid progression, since I've focused almost exclusively on Learning skills; skills that do nothing except increase the number of skill points I acquire per hour. From go, I earned seven-hundred twenty skill points per hour, according to my iPhone's Capsuleer app.  I now earn one-thousand two-hundred eighty-seven per hour.  I've nearly halved the rate at which I acquire skills.  (There is a major discrepancy between EVEMon (EVE Monitor) and Capsuleer in reporting how many skill points I earn per hour, but I'm neither inclined enough nor numbers-savvy enough to prove who's correct.)  When a single skill takes several days to top out at level five -- even at my low levels -- the patience to train Learning skills pays rich dividends over the course of a tenured career.

Regardless, my purchase of a Clone Grade Gamma was a silent and uneventful ding, likely because there's nothing outward to disclose, nothing showing off me piloting a new Bellicose, Rupture, Scythe, or Stabber-class Minmatar cruiser. But it was a solid indication that my patient training is paying off. Just as it does for absolutely everyone in these space lanes. Which is why it's never a call for celebration.