Saturday, March 21
Worlds.com Plans to Sue WOW and Seocnd Life
Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin is putting the entire virtual worlds industry on notice: His company claims the idea of a scalable virtual world with thousands of users is its patented intellectual property, and Thom told us he intends to sue anyone who refuses to enter into licensing negotiations -- including giants such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, a property of Activision Blizzard (ATVI). [MORE]Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
10:10 AM
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Wednesday, March 18
The Horror: I'll Just Play World of Warcraft
An interruption has quite an effect, in my action horror gaming column, The Horror!: I'll Just Play World of Warcraft.Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
6:08 PM
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Saturday, March 7
Delta Green: The Engagement of Rules
The new book will feature rules on disabling wounds, called shots, suppressive fire, stress disorders as a replacement for the stupid insanity of Call of Cthulhu, relationships, and flashbacks. AWESOME! [MORE]Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
8:24 AM
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Wednesday, March 4
Boom Goes the Dynamite Revisited
So we all know about Brian Collins of Boom Goes the Dynamite.This video purpotedly explains the origin of the phrase. SPOILER: He thought it up as trash talk during a game of Mario Kart. Great.
However, the narrator of this puff piece then rambles on about how "Mario Kart" was incorrectly transcribed as "Mario Cards." That's just plain hilarious, right?
Except the narrator then goes on to state that by confusing "Kart" with "Cards," Collins will be "forever associated...with images of 15-sided die and dark and lonely basements. As if Collins needed more bad publicity."
WTF dude. First of all, there isn't a 15-sided die. Second, dice have nothing to do with card games. Third, there's something cruely ironic about a snarky narrator posting a YouTube slam about a major news organization getting its facts wrong, when said narrator can't get HIS OWN FACTS STRAIGHT.
Seriously, you couldn't spend five seconds on Google to at least make the slam accurate? It's a 20-sided die! READ A BOOK!
Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
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Sunday, February 22
The Horror! Borrowing from B-movies
Today, The Horror of the moment is Attack of the B-Movie Scenario, wherein Michael shows us how cheesy film plots can assist with RPGs [MORE].Labels: gaming news
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9:19 PM
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Thursday, January 22
The Horror! The Rhythm is Gonna Get You
In the latest installment of my column on action horror gaming, The Horror!, I rethink the d20 Challenge Rating system in The Rhythm is Gonna Get You. [MORE]Labels: gaming news
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11:17 AM
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Wednesday, January 7
Libraries offer more than books
Jim Rettig, president, American Library Association - Richmond, Va., offered a balanced response to the senator's criticism in the defense of gaming:The American Psychological Association has done studies showing how video games can be powerful learning tools, specifically for problem-solving skills. This finding was echoed by a recent Sony Online Entertainment LLC study, which found that 70% of parents say their children's problem-solving skills have been improved by playing video games.
Also, a study of people ages 60 to 70 and highlighted in the December issue of Psychology and Aging showed that playing video games can be especially beneficial to people for strengthening memory and reasoning.
I applaud the Westfield Public Library for providing this innovative technology to its community. [MORE]
Bravo!
Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
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Senator flags $1.3 billion as gov't waste
WASHINGTON — As the budget deficit soared, infrastructure crumbled and the economy tanked, the federal government this year spent $300,000 for a California skateboarding park, $188,000 to research Maine lobsters and $3.2 million on a spy blimp the military doesn't want, according to a new report by the Senate's self-styled spending scourge.
Other items in the report:
• The federal Institute of Museums and Library Sciences awarded a $3,905 grant to the public library in Westfield, Ind., for the purchase of a Nintendo Wii console, a television, a camcorder and games. [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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Saturday, December 27
Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly
Basically, it's all the politicians running for president as players in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It more succinctly sums up the personalities (and their attitudes towards each other) than the major news broadcasts. I laughed so hard at this I nearly peed. [MORE]Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
9:02 PM
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Thursday, December 18
The Horror! Black Jack Bauer
I try for 24, but darker, in the latest installment of my action-horror column, "The Horror!" at RPG.net. [MORE]Labels: gaming news
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6:32 AM
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Monday, November 24
THE HORROR #3: WE ALL FALL DOWN
My RPG column, The Horror takes a look at Sanity and how to lose it, in We All Fall Down. [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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6:48 PM
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Wednesday, November 12
Gen Con Indy08 Show Charity and CCF
So it turns out that the Christian Children's Fund DIDN'T reject Gen Con's donation; it was the other way around!To be clear, Gen Con made the decision not to donate to CCF; at no time did CCF refuse to take charity money from Gen Con. Gen Con chooses a show charity long before Gen Con Indy 2008 ever takes place.
Alas, I got caught up in the blogosphere hype as well, so my apologies for spreading a false rumor. [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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6:34 AM
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Wednesday, October 29
Dungeons & Dragons & Futurama
David X. Cohen, co-creator and executive producer of the animated SF series Futurama, told SCI FI Wire that Bender's Game, the latest made-for-DVD movie, pays homage to fantasy games and movies of all kinds, but especially Dungeons & Dragons. [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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12:58 PM
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Tuesday, October 28
Christian Children’s Fund Refuses Charity Tainted by D
This is just disgusting...Christian Children’s Fund Refuses Charity Tainted by D&D
Posted using ShareThis
And here is an eloquent response to this insanity.
Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
10:56 PM
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Wednesday, October 22
The Horror! I Wanna Shoot Zombies
In this article, I assert what many gamers think this time of year (or anytime, really) by saying I Wanna Shoot Zombies! [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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4:51 PM
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Sunday, October 5
Now I Want an iPhone
Labels: gaming news
posted by Mike Tresca at
8:17 AM
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Wednesday, October 1
No Halo Tonight
I'm still pretty sick, so I won't be attending my regular Halo Team Slayer game tonight, sorry.Labels: gaming news
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Wednesday, September 17
My New Gaming Column: The Horror!
My new gaming column, "The Horror!" launches today. Or it will launch soon -- as of right now the article isn't loading. Here's a sneak preview:“This is nice,” began the anonymous feedback of my short story submission to a horror anthology, “but it reads more like an episode of the Twilight Zone than an actually scary story.”
That feedback was particularly galling, because I had tried damn hard to write something scary. It involved an organ grinder. And a monkey. No seriously, it was scary.
Anyway, ever since then I took that criticism as a personal challenge to craft horror in a way that was successful. The measure of success is up to the reader; I suppose causing someone to piss their pants would qualify, but I’ll settle for “dude, that was freaking me out!” [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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6:36 AM
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Thursday, August 21
As if we need another reason...
The 2008 presidential campaign has now made a connection, albeit a negative one, to pop culture; a spokesperson for Senator John McCain has tied supporters of Senator Barack Obama to #1 RPG Dungeons and Dragons. In a post on the McCain Website on Monday, Michael Goldfarb wrote, “It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.” The post was responding to a blog on Daily Kos in which McCain’s story of a Vietnamese prison camp guard drawing a cross in the dirt is tied to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s similar story from the Soviet Gulag.
This isn’t the first time McCain spokesperson Goldfarb has inexplicably used Dungeons and Dragons as a “negative” association. In early August, he compared the editors of the New York Times to a blogger “sitting at home in his mother’s basement and ranting into the ether between games of Dungeons and Dragons.” [MORE]
Labels: gaming news
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1:23 PM
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Wednesday, August 20
Tiny Adventures: Dungeons and Dragons on Facebook
I'm TOTALLY addicted to this adventure game, which is a lot like the old ProgressQuest (http://www.progressquest.com), in which the basic conceit of D&D -- that characters kill monsters and take their stuff -- is taken to an extreme wherein the player does absolutely nothing and lets the computer do all the work. This is still strangely satisfying, which is why ProgressQuest has like a bazillion downloads even though it's a joke. Us gamers LOVE the notion of the increasing value of something we own even when that thing we own is a concept that basically grows by itself.Finally, WOTC got something right before anyone else thought of it. Using a comprehensive but relatively basic version of D&D 4.0, they created Tiny Adventures. Tiny Adventures is basically ProgressQuest for Facebook. And it's a blast.
There's a bit more interactivity of course. You pick the character type you want to play, choose equipment, and then sit back and watch the chapters of your character's adventures unfold. You have the option of using items during your quest which can influence the outcome, but the player is largely a bystander. There's some limited interactivity amongst other players (you can heal each other and "buff" each other), but there's oddly no means of creating an adventuring party. I assume that will be added later.
At heart, Tiny Adventures is like one of those Which-Way Adventure books, without the decision-making. Your character plods along from chapter to chapter in the quest until he either runs home, too wounded to continue, or triumphs. Monsters are slain, levels are gained, and treasure is bought and sold. The genius of Tiny Adventures is the countdown. The game is intentionally slow-paced and provides updates intermittently. The counter in the top right corner clicks away while you wait.
This is the perfect game for someone doing something else (like work). It's MADE for playing in the background. And it's so freaking addicting I can't even tell you...other than that the whole server crashed due to too many users. And now I'm going through withdrawal! Blast is second level and he was just about to kill that bandit...
Heck, I'm so addicted I'm not sure I want more people on the server. But what the heck, the more the merrier: http://apps.new.facebook.com/tinyadventures
Labels: gaming news
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3:40 PM
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