I had no idea tentacle porn existed before cunning animators figured out that being penetrated by a tentacle got past the censors, whilst a good old fashioned cock didn’t.
Apparently it’s been around since about 1820, beleive it or not. Also it gives me a chance to plug Sexy Losers, a really NSFW strip about hentai. Read it, it is awesome.
Alternative title: George Lucas is crap.
Here’s an awesome site presenting what could be the truth about the original three films, as revealed by the new prequels. Seriously, it’s a really good read!
Just found these links to the old-school Zelda series. You know, the ‘Ecuuuse me princess’ ones. The ones that make you cry every time you watch them, since you used to believe they were so good.
They’re the ones.
Now I’m off to find episodes of Captain N: The Game Master.
[Via Joystiq]
Edit: Forgot to mention; Zelda is a harlot.
Sadly Robert Anton Wilson passed away yesterday at 4:50am.
Bob was a hero to all of us, and I certainly wouldn’t have my brain wired up this way if it wasn’t for him.
I like my job. I get to do plenty of different things and learn a lot while I do. Sometimes my work is unused and lies dormant, sometimes it’s mission critical. Sometimes I feel like I’m being counter-productive.
I’m currently working on adapting an application to perform a task it was not intended to do. I can’t modify the program, as it’s closed source. While it may be possible to change it’s function, it isn’t easy and more than likely won’t yield very good results. In a perfect world I’d grab the source code and mod it myself, but I haven’t got the option this time.
Lets take for example an application designed to send an email, so your user interface has a button marked ‘Send Email’. An untrained user can rev up your app and know instantly what that button does. Now lets assume that you need this app to instead send a net message, you plug in a new DLL and it now does net sends. That’s great, but that big button still says ‘Send Email’. You see the problem?
I don’t have an issue with getting more value out of a product, but to use it out of context is just confusing for users. It’s much better to use a less specialised application with a customizable interface, than one with the required functionality but the incorrect UI.
Steve Jobs has officially announced the iPhone in his keynote speech at Macworld today.
Introducing it as three products in one, an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator, Jobs goes on to explain that it will feature only one button and have some sort of software to compensate for using giant stubby fingers on the screen. That’s right, no stylus.
Apparently the phone will be running OS X, probably in some cut down form and it looks pretty darn sexy. The widescreen video playback and a 2 megapixel camera are just further icing on the cake.
I can’t resist this, it’s just far too sexy. I own the Motorola Razr with iTunes and I’ve found I use it for music a hell of a lot more than I suspected I would. Having an interface designed by Apple really seals the deal for me.
[Via Engadget]
I’ve liked the look of Hellgate London since I first read about it a long while ago. It’s now dated for Summer 2007 in the US (translated: Christmas 2007 UK.) The premise is thus: evil demon things invade London in the future. So far so standard, but bear with it. The game has a sort of future medieval steampunk thing going on which, for my money, is a nice change for an action RPG and there sees to be a good buzz coming from the game via some E3 playtests.
For more details check the official site.
Good old Linden Labs. Hot on the heels of the shocking(?) news that they were inflating user figures comes the official announcement that Second Life is going open source. What classic political maneuvering they have performed, if only the announcement was worth the virtual ink it’s written in. Whereas my hombres might thing I would be over joyed at this news (and it’s true, more adherents to the GPL the better,) I’m more shocked at the complete lack of excitement this should engender. Unfortunately Mr. Doctorow seemed to get the wrong end of the stick over at Boing Boing.
Read the press release, and you’ll see that Linden are GPL-ing the client software only. Big whup, it would be nice to see somebody rewrite the frankly nasty 3D engin,e but apart from that how much control will coders get? My guess is minimal.
I’m excessively pleased to tell you that the Ban DRM petition on the Prime Minister’s site (started by yours truly) now has over 1,000 signatures, and is the most popular petition in the “Science, technology and inoovation” category. Even more popular than banning animal testing.
If you’ve no signed yet, do so. We all know DRM sucks the big one and even though we probably won’t get any resolution, any publicity is good publicity, eh?
For those who want to know more about anti-DRM activism, check out DefectiveByDesign.org, run by the Free Software Foundation. They were kind enough to publicise the petition, and they’re so nice!
Being the closted shut-in that I am, I have risen to the challenge and completed Psychonauts over the space of a weekend.
Yea unfaithful, know thee that it still managed to put up about 13 hours of solid fun. The simple fighting and puzzle-light nature of the game may be off putting at first, but that’s not the point of this Tim Schafer designed gem.
I play games for character, and this title has it in spades. You take on the role of Raz (voiced by Richard Horowitz a la Invader Zim,) who sneaks into a summer training camp for psychic kids. On your quest to become some ninja psychic scret agent and save the girl you dip into people’s brains and attempt to iron out their mental problems, and this is where the strength of the game lies. Each level is played out within the confines of a characters psyche, and each one is markedly different. Stand out examples are the Godzilla pastiche played out in a giant lungfish’s mind, and helping a descendant of Napolen beat his ancestor in a game of Stratego (played out from a pieces perspective).
Production values are high, character models are charming and surprising, whilst the texture artists produce some great work. Music and voice talent are of a consistantly high quality, even boasting some well known actors in bit parts; notably Tara Strong (Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls) and Armin Shimerman (Quark from Deep Space 9) who give a nice surprise to the VA astute.
It’s not all sunshine in the spotless mind though, the fighting is lacklustre and even though your repertoire of offensive psychic powers increases through the game, you’ll probably only find yourself using one or two at most. The final levels also suffer from a horrendous difficulty spike, with a few sections where you may feel like you’re being cheated by the game.
On the whole Psychonauts has the verisimilitude and polish to make it great. It’s a real shame that uptake of the title was so low, more than one thing it has in common with it’s spiritual stablemate Beyond Good and Evil. In precis Psychonauts is cheap, solid and thouroughly worth the time you invest in it.
