What
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Wii Are Not Amused · What happened was, in single-Dad mode a couple of weekends ago, Best Buy had a special on the 500G LaCie so I took the kids down there. I was walking by the gaming area and saw something I never have before: a couple of Wiis on the shelf. The one I grabbed turned out to be an open-box, had been returned by someone, so it was cheap too. So far, I’m waiting to be blown away ...
[31 comments]
[31 comments]
Portal · While I was in Minneapolis I was walking through a mall and there was the Orange Box on sale. Under the influence of Nelson Minar and Ars Technica, and especially given that it was priced in those inexpensive Yankee Pesos, I had to pick one up. I never played Half-Life nor Team Fortress, but the latter sounds fun; I wonder if we should put together a dynamic-languages-mafia or concurrency-obsessives team or some such. I’m not a serious gamer, so I started with Portal. I’ve put in a couple of hours now; it’s quick, lightweight, occasionally quite difficult, unlike anything else, and funny. It seems to provoke outbursts of Deep Thinking, f’rinstance from Schlaghund and Leonard Richardson; so I guess I gotta say something. It’s amazing how deeply embedded in our collective consciousness is the notion of the lethally impersonal corporation with a dead marketing voice. Dear Marketing Professionals; when you think “message control” several generational cohorts of geeky target demographics are thinking about the Portal voice. Go play it, and shudder.
[9 comments]
[9 comments]
The Phantom Hourglass · At the beginning of the year, we got a Nintendo DS to improve the then seven-year-old’s quality of life on the long flight to our Australian vacation. Recently I bought the just-released Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, and have put in a little time fooling with it ...
[2 comments]
[2 comments]
Tab Sweep — World · In which we visit the sad, bad, mad Middle East, are inspired by art, and report some cheery game news ...
[7 comments]
[7 comments]
WMDs · Scoble says he loves Flash developers who have too much time on their hands. I dunno, check out Bubbels, courtesy of JWZ. This verges on being a WMD, Weapon of Mental Destruction; someone get Don Rumsfeld on the case. On the upside, it can distract a 4½-year-old for a remarkably long time. Grown-ups, of course, are far too sophisticated to blow a whole evening on this thing; or at least to admit it.
