Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

Xilinx has added support for Linux to it’s downloadable web pack. Smart idea on their part. If you are geeky enough to want to play with FPGA programming, you are probably geeky enough to run Linux too. Too bad about support limited to 32-bits though. Real geeks already consider Athlon 64 a minimum system.

Oh… BTW, they updated the version for Windows too. Not sure why I forgot to mention that.

Microsoft admits that they issued a dud patch for Windows 98/ME. I’m not sure who is worse: a company that doesn’t test it’s patches, or someone who is still using ME.

Three big movements at Microsoft since last night: Windows 2003 Server SP1 was released for download, Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition and Windows XP x64 Edition have been released to manufacturing. Otherwse stated, they have gone gold. The x64 Editions are expected to hit store shelves in late April. Finally, I’ll get the chance to see what Windows can really do for my Athlon 64.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata keeps teasing us by slowing revealing details about the Revolution the, the next generation Nintendo console. Iwata revealed, with out giving away too much, that Revolution controller will have simple user interface that anyone can use and will want to use. Iwata also revealed that the Revolution will also make getting on a net a breeze using wireless LAN capability and be fairly easy for programmers to program for. Nintendo quit teasing and show us the console you got me chomping at the bit to see it. I do like that Nintendo is giving me another good excuses to attend E3 for the big unveiling of the Revolution at E3.

Gamespot has an interview with EB Games Jeff Griffiths reveals that some EB Games stores still have the PSP for sale, when asked if his stores still had PSP for sale. Here is the exact quote:

“GS: Do your stores still have the unit in stock?
JG: There are some units in stock throughout the chain, but I think that the vast majority of stores just sold through their initial allocations. “

I love when we call it right and remember you heard it here first.

Sony canceled its big pre-E3 premiere event, in Japan, where it planned to unveil the Playstation 3. Sony main excuse for the delay was that it “would pressure game publishers” and not that Playstation 3 development was behind schedule. Sony said it is still on plan for the big unveiling of the Playstation 3 at E3 and hinted it may still have a pre-E3 launch event for the Japanese press. Shameless Geeks will now have to travel to E3 to find out if Sony does unveil the Playstation 3 there.

Informit.com has posted a neat guide showing the insides of the PSP and how to take apart of PSP. The Informit article should be used for information only and Shameless Geeks ask do not try to take your PSP apart unless you know what you are doing. Taking your PSP apart will also void your warranty. So do not come to us or Sony if you break your PSP taking it apart.

The Dallas Morning Times is running a story that PSP did not sellout and in some locations sales where fairly lackluster. Dallas Morning Times reporter, Victor Godinez, confirmed what Shameless had figured out yesterday, by doing the same thing Shameless did, that the PSP is not sold out. Godinez did this by ignoring Sony’s claims that the PSP was a sellout and called several stores and asked if they still had PSPs in stocks, and several reported that they still had plenty of PSPs on stock.

Okay, I know I should be doing the opinionated sarcasm on the DS - which I should post either today or tommorow - but I decided that there’s something else that needed to be said.

Politicians. We all rant about politicians - the stupidity/ineptness of - and how they’re obviously not doing the right things. So, you think you can do better?

NationStates

Time to put that assumption to the test and rule your own nation by your own standards. It’s a relatively simple game - you get a number of legislative issues a day, based on personal preference - and you pretty much control the country. In fact, along with the more serious issues (tax funding, education, etc.) there are also ‘looser’ issues, such as public nudity.

Specifically speaking, on the Public Nudity issue you will be given an option to outlaw clothes and make public nudity mandatory. How’s that for returning to our roots, eh? =P

And, if you want to check out my nation, Pingvi, go ahead. According to them my country is Democratic Socialist. Down with capitalism! XD

Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning called Gamespy to tell them he is closing down Oddworld’s main base off operations, the San Luis Obispo development facility and opening a new base of operations in Berkeley, California with only a core group of creators. Lorne Lanning then went into great lengths on how that the game development process costs too much, game development should not be that hard and expensive make, and a bunch of make myself feel good stuff about why he is closing the main OddWorld studio. At the end of the article, Lorne Lanning stated that he is in the middle of deicing if he wants to outsource all of Oddworld Studio’s, the hippie studios who care with a heavy anti-corp bent, game programing and animation to India and China. Oddworld Studios should really think about outsourcing to India and China, lest Oddworld Studio and Lanning turn into the evil corporations in all the Oddworld games.

Welcome to 2005, where watching videos and movies isn’t just a family get-together affair where you sit around a soul-stealing television and fatten yourselves with heart-attack-inducing popcorn anymore.

Nosiree. Now it’s about sitting around ignoring eachother while everyone watches their own movie, and the family dog/cat sits on the floor eating the popcorn because nobody knows its there. Why? Because they never heard the person who brought it down with their blasted earphones on!

Gaming consoles - the diet plan for the future.

Well, they could also be considered the diet plan of the present, too, what with those acne-scarred 40 year old teenagers hunched over their gamecubes and X-boxes, playing an RPG for over 16 hours straight (guilty as charged).

Oh, wait, my bad. Not the X-box. Because the X-box was designed for wanna-be jocks who want to get it on in the games since they’re last to be picked in real life! =O

Okay, now that I’m done with my X-box/Microsoft crack of the day…

The PlayStation Portable. The Dual Screen. Sony and Nintendo’s attempts, respectively, to become the Microsoft of the gaming world. (Sorry, my bad. Couldn’t resist) And, of course, all those loyal fans with their PS2s and their Gamecubes are going “Wow! Kewl! It’s new so it must be advanced! Lets wait in line 15 hours to get it since we have no real life! Lolololol!!!!11111eleventy-one”

But, truly, is there anything new there? Anything at all that would require going out and facing monster lines to get, what to some, is a life necessity? Knowing what I know about recent game consoles, I took a second look. Beware falling sarcasm, obvious partiality, and wanna-be wit - I’m not a daughter of the Shameless Geek for nothing. (more…)

The recent release of the PSP might be a good thing, because Sony itself has been sued by Immersion for copyright infringement.

Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Sony’s Playstation and such popular titles like Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Grand Theft Auto utilize copyrighted software, which Sony and the game producers failed to secure a license for.

Tsk tsk tsk.

And what does this mean to us poor gamers out there? At first, the halt of production of both the playstation and the offending 47 game titles. Poor us! =0 My PSII had better last as long as it can! I mean, even if Sony got rid of all the copyright infringement, what would be the use to start another line all over again?

After all, we’ve got the PSP fer chrissakes! /sarcasm

But, we can breathe easy. Sony is taking countermeasures, and the original court’s decision was put on hold.

And why are you still reading this post, anyway? Go read the article itself, ye lazy kids! =P

…because it’s not just about being a shameless geek anymore. =P

You know you’re living in 2005 when…

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is
that they don’t have e-mail addresses.
6. You go home after a long day at work and you still answer the phone
in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial 9 to get an
outside line.
8. You’ve sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three
different companies.
10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o’clock news.
11. Your boss doesn’t have the ability to do your job.
12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if
anyone is home.
13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the
screen.
14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have
the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for
panic and you turn around to go and get it.
15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your
coffee.
16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile.
17. You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.
18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this
message.
19. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a #9 on
this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

During the 60 Minutes show on Sunday, CBS news announced that Sony has sold one million PSP’s and the PSP is sold out in North America. Then the next day Kevin Pereira, one of the hosts of the Tech TV show “Attack of The Show", demonstrated that it was still possible to buy a PSP by going to the local game store and buying one. This made the staff of ShamelessGeeks wonder: is the PSP sold out? The answer is shocking. No! The PSP is still on sale at most major vendors and is not sold out. This comes with a word of warning. Some of the more popular games like Metal Gear Acid and Darkstalkers are getting harder to find and unless another shipment comes soon the PSP may sell out in a week or two. ShamelessGeeks’s staff, wandering around the Northern Virginia area, was able to find PSP’s still on sale at major vendors like EBGames, GameStop and Walmart. Do not believe us? Take a look at the picture below that Shameless took at local Walmart, which from best guess, had over 40 PSP’s still on sale.

Slate has a good article explaining the style differences between Americans’ emails and Europeans’ emails. According to the article, Americans tend to dump their thoughts into a semi-personal email and then press send. The Europeans tend to write more professional, just the facts, business-like emails. The article also points out that Americans respond to email faster, but not to every one, while the Europeans are slow to respond, but respond to every email. This may explain why Shameless never responds to my email.

Heavy.com has released the first part in the series “Pimp My Weapon” which is based on the Sony game “God of War". Kratos, the main character in “God of War", stars alongside one of monster from the game. “Pimp My Weapon” features Kratos and the monster discussing and demonstrating the features of Kratos’ main weapon in “God of War", the chain sword. The movie “Pimp My Weapon” is part of a new type of cinematography called Machinima. Machinima is the convergence of film, filmmaking, animation and game development, made popular by the Halo movie “Red vs Blue".

…like create contests that encourage virus writers. If you don’t believe the Techworld account, check out the DVForge explanation. It seems to me a lot like the recent Linuxense contest that ended without a winner. The big difference is that one only challenged you to hurt their machine, while the other was essentially challenging you to risk an epidemic. I guess there’s no accounting for responsibility.

Lincoln West Studio is planning to start selling Pez candy dispenser that will dispense MP3s, instead of the tasty candy treats. Lincoln West Studios plans to make the heads of the MP3 Pez dispenser will be interchangeable with any head found on a Pez dispenser. The MP3 Pez dispenser will sell for around $129 and have a LCD screen and 512MB of memory. The MP3 Pez dispenser will come with earphones and USB cable used to download songs to the MP3 Pez dispenser.

People are reporting that the Sony PSP they just bought is experiencing dead pixels. Dead pixels are pixels that are permanently light or dark, and are a normal occurrence for LCD screens. Shameless warned you about this in the PSP survival guide. If you have a PSP with dead pixels, Sony would like you to play with the PSP for a week or two. If the dead pixels still bother your game play, then Sony will replace the PSP. This issue sounds like a lawsuit in the making.

Some clever person has figured out how to surf the Internet using a PSP. Word of caution: do not try this at home unless you know 100% how to hack a DNS server. Do not worry, Sony is working on a web browser and it should soon be out in South Korea.

For those people who enjoy hitting the snooze button, try using this clock for target practice: Clocky the clock.

Sony has been ordered by a US court, to pay 90 million dollars and halt sales on the Playstation 2 for infringement of Immersion’s tactile feedback technology. Immersion has the patent on the ability of the controller to vibrate in sync with the action of the game, which Sony infringed on. The court decision will also halt sales of two controllers and 47 games that Sony released for the Playstation 2. The court’s order to halt sales does not take effect until after the appeal.

Well, those of you who know me, know I’ve been threatening this one for a long time. So I’ve finally gotten around to it… I’m finally going to add a programming feature to this web site. I will start with a short series about elementary C programming, then branch out to whatever seems popular and appropriate for geeks. If you would like a sneak preview of my first submission, check out my C For Yourself introduction. If you have any thoughts or comments about the introduction, you can either post them here or drop me an email using the webmaster address at the bottom of the page. I’m looking forward to your feedback.

The PSP is now out and a new week is upon us. Again another week with a lot of releases, when did Christmas end?
New games coming out for the week of 3/27/2005 - 4/2/2005:

Advent Rising for the XBox: Once canceled and let for dead, then rescued by publisher Majesco comes the Sci-Fi epic, that all the hard core gamers have been waiting for.

Blood Magic for the PC: A now rare third person RPG that allows you to play as one of four different characters where you can choose to save the Earth or destroy the Earth.

BloodRayne 2 for the PC: “The most violent and goriest game of 2004″ (XPlay, Adam) moves all its vampire love off the consoles and onto the PC.

Catan for the N-Gage: In Catan you compete with four other players build roads, settlements, and cities just like the board game “Settlers of Catan".

Cold Fear for the PC: Now you fight zombies on a boat on your PC.

Constantine for the PC: The movie game Constantine moves off the consoles onto the PC a few weeks after the movie left theaters.

CT Special Forces: Fire for Effect for the PC and XBox: Play as two characters with different missions in this 3rd person action game, sounds like fun.

Daemonica for the PC: Play as an investigator, who can talk to dead, who has to solve the murder of a young girl in medieval England. Didn’t talking to the dead get you burned at the stake in medieval England?

Diabolique: License to Sin for the PC: Play as an agent of Hell, with a simple of job of stopping souls from reaching heaven, by killing heaven agents.

Digimon World 4 for the Playstation 2, XBox and Gamecube: Play the fourth game in the Pokeman ripoff series Digimon. How the heck did this series get four games?

Dynasty Warriors 5 for the Playstation 2: Another new year and another Dynasty Warriors, that looks and plays just like all the other ones in the Dynasty Warrior series.

F1 Grand Prix for the PSP: Formula one racing on the PSP, and one of the 24 launch titles for the PSP a week later.

Get On Da Floor for the Playstation 2: Hip hop dancing game set in an urban setting.

Get On Da Mic for the XBox: Hip hop rapping game set in an urban setting.

Lego Star Wars for Playstation 2, XBox, and Gameboy Advance: Legos and Star Wars a great taste that goes together well.

Mario Party Advance for the Gameboy Advance: The series of mini games found in Mario Party moves to the Gameboy.

MX World Tour for the Playstation and XBox: Jamie Little, the voice of motocross, host this budget motocross racing game.

Myst IV Revelation for the Xbox: The fourth game in the Myst series moves onto the XBox with an improved look and feel, at a budget price.

Obscure for the PC, Xbox, Playstation 2: A budget adventure that will have you solve the mystery of what is happening to you classmates and teachers who keep vanishing.

Red Ninja: End of Honor for the XBox and Playstation 2: Play as female ninja, out for revenge and specializes in fighting with a wire, that is set in Japan during the 1500s.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga for the Playstation 2: Delayed for another week, anyone’s guess when this one is actuality coming out.

Spikeout: Battle Street for the XBox: A 3-D beat em up from Sega that is not Streets of Rage, one of the greatest beat em game.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for PC, Gamecube, Playstation 2, and XBox: The next game in the stealth series Splitner Cell. Should have some awesome multi-player action with a good single player story.

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim for the PSP: The newest game in the Ys RPG series arrives on the PSP and gives the PSP a much needed RPG.

Is it just me, or have the FUD wars heated up? Most recently, we have the release of a controversial report that was mentioned here last month. I was hard on the methodology as stated, but maybe not hard enough. Now that they have published a paper describing their methods, they did an even worse job than I thought. I read through the entire methodology paper, and found it very superficial. The methods were extremely simple, and looked to be reasonable. Unfortunately, they made a few omissions.

First of all, they FINALLY admitted that they were funded by Microsoft. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that they skewed things in favor of their meal ticket, but it puts things under suspicion. Their failure to disclose this fact in their “preview” release only multiplies the suspicion.

IMHO, the profs probably did their best to do an honest study. They came up with a methodology that they thought would lead them to a valid conclusion. They also believed that Microsoft would fund a study that could possibly prove that Linux was superior to Windows. That last part is the enlightening one. Someone who truly believes that Microsoft would fund a study about something this important without knowing the answer ahead of time probably owns a lot of swampland. Enough about the funding part. It’s irrelevant anyway.

The first hole is not actually their fault. It concerns the classification of the flaws. There doesn’t seem to be any distinction between a “severe” flaw that is the result of a remote break-in and one that is initiated by a logged-in user. This is a serious, serious flaw in my estimation. Although logged in users can do as much damage as remote break-ins, the required login is enough to significantly decrease the odds of an attack. There is also no consideration of whether an exploit actually existed. Some vulnerabilities exist in an ethereal world where an unlikely series of events could conceivably lead to a break-in, but nobody ever actually figures out how to force those events. This would be the difference between an oops and an Uh-Oh!.

Another HUGE gaping hole in the comparison is the fact that the professors compared a full-up LAMP server to a Windows 2003 Server system, then classified it as a “Linux” system. Sorry guys… the AMP part (Apache, MySQL, and PHP) aren’t part of Linux. Just the inclusion of an immature app like MySQL is a mistake, and PHP isn’t much better. Blaming Linux for whatever flaws are found in these apps is about as bad as blaming Windows for flaws found in Doom3. I also didn’t see anything in the methodology about whether MSSQL and PHP (or whatever) were included in the Windows system calculations.

The study actually does raise a few questions that the OSS community should address. Though there appears to be some lopsidedness in which apps were chosen, securing the full LAMP server is not an unreasonable request. Although the Linux and Apache part are probably OK, maybe some more time should be invested in the other major components of a server.

Ultimately, the major flaw in the study is it’s simplicity. Because Microsoft and the OSS community have such widely differing approaches to software, a direct comparison between the two is nearly impossible. The two systems vary greatly in functionality and architecture, making a proper comparison about as difficult as trying to fill a sieve with water.

A major Firefox fix was released on Wednesday. The problem was an old leftover Netscape vulnerability that was caused by the improper handling of buffer overflows in .gif files. Translation: something that should have been fixed years ago. At least the fix was released before an exploit was released in the wild. That would have been a huge embarrassment for a browser that sells itself as the “safe” alternative to IE. Apologies for the delay in this story. Sometimes, life gets in the way of schedules.

MSNBC is running an article that blames the tragic school shooting, in Red Lake, Minn on, video games, based on the fact that he drew an animation of a guy shooting people. Typical media looking for something, anything but the fact the person is a wack job, to blame the tragedy on. I wonder how soon till we see Jack Thompson in Minnesota suing Rockstars and Sony, over the shooting at Red Lake.

European World of Warcraft subscribers where suprised to find that instead of Blizzard billing them for the WoW service this month, it was instead two hotels in Great Britain. Turns out that it was billing error from the credit card processor for Blizzard and not that Blizzard had setup shop in the hotels.

The PSP is scheduled to be released tomorrow morning. If you have not already pre-ordered your PSP yet, you better get out your tent and start waiting in line tomorrow morning, like these people in San Fransisco are doing. If you are picking up a PSP tomorrow I forgot to add one thing to the PSP survival guide, get some screen protectors. The PSP attracts dust and fingerprints like no ones business.

Gamasutra has an article about the efforts and consequence if the game industry unionizes. So when is the gaming journalist going to unionize, maybe when I learn to spell.

TheRegister.com is reporting that a swedish XBox has blown up in it’s owners face. They also have published Microsoft’s response to their query about the solder joint theory. It seems inadequate to me too.

Regardless of whether Microsoft’s claims are true, I still believe that you should have your XBox looked over. Risking life and property over something as silly as who is right about whether a game has a serious design flaw seems a tad careless. Eliminate the risk, then complain to MS if you feel the need.

If, as Microsoft states, the solder joints are a warranty issue that only affects one in 10,000 units, are they willing to extend the warranty on the early XBoxes as a show of good faith? Will they resolder the power supply for free? It would be nice, but I wouldn’t hold my breath… or my power cord… until they do.

CNet is reporting that Microsoft confirms that there is a shortage of XBox at most retail locations. Microsoft is mum on why there is shortage of XBox, but could it be that they ran out of power cords?

The Economist has a good article about the strategy game Go, one of the few games Americans or Europeans do not dominate. I never realized how rich and ancient the game of Go was.
If you are interested in playing or finding more information about Go in the United States visit the American Go Society webpage. The American Go Society also has some chapters in Canada, Israel, South Korea, and Japan. For our Canada readers there is also a Canada Go organization. For the rest of our international readers try World Go website.

This one has been banging around the net for a couple of weeks now. A group of Microsoft’s preferred customers is petitioning the company to extend support for VB6 beyond the end of this month. Microsoft is still adamant. VB support ends 03/31/2005.

Well folks… deal with it. Microsoft, whatever their reasoning, is doing something good for the software community. You’re choices are to get off your duff and upgrade, or get off your duff and learn a real programming language. ’nuff said there.

Microsoft posted a good article on the top tools that ever good .net developer has in their development toolkit.

This TechWorld article postulates that Internet Explorer, even when fully patched, is rarely safe. In fact, it was only possible to have a safe version of IE for 1 week over the course of 2004. Compare that to Firefox, which was safe for about 310 days. Certainly not good news for Microsoft, which has been pounding the drum about how much safer their software is than alternatives.

The FUD war over browser security has been going hot and heavy for years now. Even with all of the loudly exclaimed loyalties on either side, nobody has ever presented any real evidence. Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” campaign ran into problems when some of their sources began to demand that Microsoft remove quotes from them. The OSS community has gotten a few black eyes from “independent” studies. We have all heard (endlessly) how one browser or the other is inferior due to some test algorithm that requires creative math, insane logic, or a huge leap of faith.

This study just says that if you used IE, you were vulnerable to a known flaw for 358/366 (97.8%) of the year, but if you used Firefox, you were only vulnerable 56/366 (15.3%) of the year. Seems pretty cut and dried to me, as long as we can trust the data.

EA Games has announced a profit warning for the 2004 fourth quarter today. EA is projecting that revenue came in $200 million under the original estimate of $700 million. EA is blaming the stronger then normal Christmas competition from the games: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Halo 2, and Half Life 2 for causing the downfall. While competition did drive down sales of a lot of games, EA is neglecting the fact that most of the bigger games it released this past Christmas got less then stellar reviews and failed to catch on with consumers. The only game to catch on with consumers that EA released for this past Christmas season was Need For Speed: Underground 2. The amount of sales for Need For Speed: Underground 2 where not strong enough to make up for the loses the other EA games suffered, hence a profit warning.

The NBA announced today that it is granting licenses to five publishers: Electronic Arts, Take Two, Midway, Sony and Atari. The NBA chose to buck the trend of exclusivity because they felt multiple publishers will lead to better quality Basketball video games.

Leakenova has released a PSP Survival Guide. You will definitely want to look this over befor you dive into the world of yet another gaming system. This submission contains tips about how to acquire your PlayStation Portable, which features to be sure to check out, and some of those little things that you might not think of on your own. Enjoy.

Three Rings, the creators of the super fun multiplayer game Puzzle Pirates, has released it Java based Narya toolkit on the recently launched site Game Gardens. Game Gardens will also allow creators to host all the games they create using the Narya toolkit.

This year E3 Expo looks like it will be the biggest in years. All the dealer space has sold out. If you are in the interactive industry you can still get tickets just not a booth at E3 website. For all of readers not able to attend Shameless Geeks is working on way to bring you live on the floor coverage.

According to ExtremeTech.com, the new 64-bit P4’s actually hit the streets today, showing up in online price lists. Intel has not done much in the way of pushing the sale of EMT-64, probably due to their anti-64-bit rhetoric from AMD’s release in 2003. Intel’s assertion that 64 bits was an unnecessary luxury was pretty close to the mark. Unfortunately for them, the Athlon-64 turned out to be a better performing 32-bit CPU than the P4 as well.

A 64-bit CPU is a nice way to future-proof the purchase of a new PC, but I wouldn’t rush to upgrade a recently purchased system. So far, the only 64-bit support you will find is Linux x86-64 and Windows XP-64 beta. Unless you are a heavy Linux user or an early adopter of 64-bit Windows, then it is unlikely that the 64-bit extensions will actually make a difference to you. Of course, that story is likely to change as soon as XP-64 is released.

This is a big week in the release schedule with the PSP coming out. The games coming out for all the other platforms will be list and then I will list the PSP and all the games already out or coming out this week for the PSP.

Combat Task Force 121 for PC and Xbox - Fight the Marxist rebels as a memebers of an elite joint forces counter terrorist team in the budget title version of Rainbow Six.

DragonBall Z: Sagas for the Playstation 2, XBox and Gamecube - The next installment in the now long running DragonBall Z fighting games. Why do we keep getting DragonBall Z games when there is Nurtio an even better game from the fighting Anime genre.

Elite Warriors Vietnam for the PC: First person shooter set in Vietnam, which becoming the new historical playground for the first person shooter.

Ford Racing 3 for the Playstation 2, and XBox: For the budget price of 15.00 you can now race Ford’s cars and trucks.

Full Spectrum Warrior for the Playstation 2: A year after it came out for the XBox Full Spectrum Warrior comes to the Playstation 2 at the budget price of $20.00. Full Spectrum is the squad simulation based on the training toolthe US Army uses to train squad tatics to its soliders.

God of War for the Playstation 2: David Jaffe’s, the creator of Twisted Metal, action game set in dark brutal world of Greek mythology. God of War will have you kicking the crap out of mythical beast and enjoy the company of the ladies afterwords, in the DDR like simulation of the very adult activity.

Iron Phoenix for the XBox: A team based squad game in this martial arts epic that you use spears, staffs and swords instead of guns to win battles.

MX vs. ATV Unleashed for the XBox: The golf cart driving simulation has been delayed and now is coming out this week.

NARC for the Playstation 2 and XBox: The remake of the classic arcade game Narc that has you taking drugs instead of fighting drugs comes out on the XBox and Playstation 2 at the budget price of $20.

Nemesis Stike for the PC and XBox: Battle terrorists in this third person shooter budget title.

Rayman DS for the Nintendo DS: Delayed from last week comes the next Rayman platform for the DS.

Sega Classics Collection for the Playstation 2: A collection of ten 3D remakes of classic Sega games at a budget price.

Shining Tears for the Playstation 2: An anime style RPG that follows the classic storyline of guy who can remeber.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga for the Playstation 2: Delayed from two weeks ago comes the next RPG in the Tensei series and the second one to make it on the US shores.

The Matrix Online for the PC: Now you can fight the Matrix in the upcoming MMORPG Matrix Online from Sega. Click here for the end of the Matrix Online Beta.

The Shield for the Playstation 2 and XBox: The tv show The Shield comes to the console in this budget title.

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect for the XBox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube: Fight against the evil Timesplitters across time in the next game in the first person shooter TimeSplitters series.

World Tour Soccer 2006 for the Playstation 2: Play soccer in this Sony game with the Eye Toy functionality that allows you add yourself as a character on your soccer team.

The big one for the week the PSP will lanuch on THURSDAY. If you have not already preordered then plan on standing in line or wait a few months, maybe.

Here is the list of PSP games that will be available at launch:
Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade: The hack and slash Gauntlet style RPG and the only RPG for the PSP at lanuch time.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour: EA’s console golf game converted over to the PSP. Good golf game if you like golf games.
Ridge Racer: It can not be a Sony new product launch with another game in the Driving game series Ridge Racer.
NFL Street 2 Unleashed: The quick paced action style football game is squashed down and ready to play on the PSP.
Lumines: The Teteris killer puzzle game for the PSP.
Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Towers: The next game in Capcom’s Darkstalkers fighting series.
Dynasty Warriors: If you every played and loved Dynasty Warriors then you will love this game since all Dynasty Warriors are the same.
Gretzky NHL: Hockey game for the PSP and one of the few place where NHL Hockey will be played this year.
NBA: Basketball game for the PSP.
Need for Speed Underground Rivals: The Underground racing series moves off the console and onto the PSP.
Spider-Man 2: Play as Spiderman in this PSP remake of the one of the shorest console game ever.
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 Remix: Play as skater Tony Hawk as he fight skating bad boy Bam across the world.
Twisted Metal: Head-On: Battle in this Car on car action game that allows you play online agianst others via the PSP’s WiFi.
Wipeout Pure: Wipeout returns to its roots in this classic future racer with a killer techno soundtrack.
World Tour Soccer: Soccer game for the PSP.
Ape Escape: On the Loose: The Apes are loose and you must round them up in this platformer for the PSP.
Metal Gear Acid: Metal Gear retold as a card game, yes a card game.

That is all. Lot of games and new system for this week. Lots and lots of budget games coming out this week, could be the PSP or could be we are entering the end cycle of the current generation of consoles.

Could it be that Microsoft has been caught in a coverup? Thats the impression you get from the web these days. TheRegister.com recently published this article that points out some of the problems with the XBox cable recall. According to MANY sources on the web, the cord change is just a cheap liability limiting strategy. Speculation is that the real problem is a pair of faulty power supply solder joints that can crack, causing the connections to arc, thereby creating a fire hazard. You can catch a picture of the supposed bad solder joints on this forum. There is also significant confusion about who gets a new cord, and which cord they get. Apparently, all XBoxes older than version 1.4 (July 2003) get a cord with a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) that will disconnect the cord from power if an overcurrent condition is detected. Everyone else will either get a standard replacement cord, or no cord at all.

Many of the online forums are recommending that users re-solder their power supply joints. Although I think their hearts are in the right place, I’m not sure where their heads are. I cannot recommend that a novice attempt to resolder the joints. There is something wrong with telling someone to purchase a cheap device that gets hot enough to melt lead, then touch it to their electronic equipment. The whole concept gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Recommendations:

1. Get the replacement cord. An inline GFCI won’t hurt anything, but may save your house if the XBox has a problem
2. Unless you have the proper training, don’t try soldering the joints yourself. A soldering iron in the hands of a novice can be a far greater fire hazard than a bad XBox
3. Get your unit checked by a technician. Any good tech will be able to make these repairs easily.
4. Complain loudly. If the problem is as bad as it seems to be, then Microsoft’s solution just a cheap patch. The number of complaints online indicate a serious design flaw.

Although Microsofts solution seems atrocious, we should remember that this kind of thing happens all of the time with consumer electronics. Take the case of personal CD players: It is very common for solder joints on the headphone jacks to crack, rendering the device unusable. In the case of the XBox, at least Microsoft decided to spare the house with a little insurance policy in the power cord. It aint a good solution, but its better than nothing.

So… The people who brought you IE made a piece of hardware with safety problems… Then applied a cheap and seemingly inadequate patch… and told you that there was never any real danger. Are you really suprised? I guess the only surprise is that they didn’t ask you to try a reboot first.

Console makers Microsoft and Nintendo, who are neighbors in Redmond, Washington, got into a fight over some land (the land that Sony filmed the Crash Bandicoot commericals on) when Microsoft tried to expand. Both parties have made up and now are playing nice. Does this mean we will soon see Mario beating the crap out of Master Chief in Super Smash Bros?

The llinois state House passed a bill that would make it illegal to sell inappropriate videogames to minors. The senators passed the bill even though most admit it is unconstitutional.

CNN and New York Times (registation required) have both posted reviews of the Broadway play Mighty Python’s Spamlot. Both media source reviews for Spamlot was that Spamlot was very good. Hopefully one of the staff from Shameless Geeks will be able to attend and get a review up soon.

CNN is now reporting that Star Wars eposide III will be a tearjerker in the simlar vain of ‘Titanic’. Right when we think Lucas can not drop a new low he goes and turns Star Wars into a chick flick.

I was poking areound in the Shameless Geeks archive today, and found a Shameless article that was never actually posted. It was announced here a while ago, but failed to make the permanent list. Here it is, for those of you who missed it. It’s called the Career Game, and it just happens to be one of my personal favorites.

Once again, Shameless has managed to catch someone by surprise. Check out this TV executive’s response to his concept for a reality show. As usual, He just doesn’t quite understand the concept.

Uh oh. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has been named to head a Senate subcommittee in charge of overseeing the USPTO. If you’ll recall, Hatch is the guy who did an abrupt 180 degree turn on the subject of file sharing, prompting many to inquire as to how much the course correction cost RIAA. He also advocated the remote destruction of music pirates computers, and co-sponsored the “Induce Act” last year.

So, will we now see the introduction of a new branch of government that assasinates patent violators and burns books? Sometime, ya just gotta wonder what your lawmakers are thinking.

GameIndustry confirms that next gen console game prices will be going up and should cost around $59.99. The publishers blame the price increases on the rising cost of devolepment, but as the article points out, the real reason is that publishers and retailers want to increase profit margins.
OP-ed section on the above: If you ever wanted to see why most of the game media is in bed with game publisher read this op-ed from Gamespy on why the price increases are good for consumers. I love how the articles written for the game media tell the truth but the articles for the video game consumer tell some differant then the truth. I may be a marignal player in the game media world but here at ShamelessGeeks we will always tell the truth. The truth on the issue on the price increase of games is game publishers’ greed, the cost to make games is not going up as much as they tell you and may even go down. The last time the game industry got this greedy, the game industry crashed. Looks like history is about to repeat itself.

The New York Times posted an article about the upcoming Midway game “Narc", whose big gimmick is that a player can use illegal drugs as powerups. To add to the wrongness of this game, in “NARC” the character you play gets the drugs by busting dealers. I can already see the Jack Thompson’s lawsuit forming over this game.

The MMORPG RYL will pay out One Million Dollars to winner of their upcoming online PvP tournament. That prize bets all the money I ever made farming on City of Heroes.

Here’s a really good article about the architecture of the Cell microprocessor. It goes into quite a bit of depth, and has a lot of refresher material about some current CPU technologies. If you are not familiar with the basic concepts of how a modern microprocessor works, you’ll probably get lost early on. If you “get” CPU’s, you’ll want to sit down, turn off the TV and the CD, and take some time to read this one.

Very nice job.

The trailer to Star Wars Episode 3 is now online. Enjoy, but remember this episode will be dark. One thing the trailer left me wondering: does Emperor Palpatine look like a drunken Irish man?

Note: This requires quicktime MOV support, which is a proprietary format that Apple won’t release to the OSS community. There are a few rumored hacks out there, but they are likely to be illegal. So much for Apple supporting Linux You’ll need to run Windows or Mac OS and install Quicktime 6.

Viewsonic has announced ultra-fast 4ms LCD displays geared toward gamers. For the non-technical, the response time of a LCD monitor can be stated as how long it takes to change a pixel from one color to another. If your monitor is slow, it can make your picture look like it is smeared when you move quickly. Older models can take 30-40 milliseconds to change, which seriously degrades the quality of any picture with motion in it.

I’m pretty satisfied with how my 16ms Viewsonic LCD handles FPS games, so 4ms seems like overkill to me. However, I know some gamer geeks who are much pickier than I am.

Yet again, Microsoft, Sun, and a host of other Linux competitors have formed an organization for the purpose of generating FUD. This time, they call it the Agility Alliance. If you read their recent press release, you can’t help wondering if these guys are really stupid enough to believe that they are fooling anyone. At a time when many large businesses are seeing the merits of Linux for server systems, every Linux competitor of note joins up to release a statement that warns people not to. Yep… thats worth believing… without question. The only company I can see there that won’t lose a bundle to Linux next year is Oracle, and they may be ticked off about the fact that there are so many free database engines for Linux. Forgive me if I look at their words with a critical eye.

Did anyone else notice that their spokesman, a VP for EDS, referred to Linux as a language? I’m guessing I know which company to avoid when I have a technical question, don’t you?

It would like to say “nice try” here, but it wasn’t even that. It was a desperate and incoherent blurb with ludicrous assertions and absolutely no supporting facts.

You can point to the OSS community and see a bit of FUD there on occasion, but it is usually just someones misinterpretation, not this kind of unvarnished attack by someone who doesn’t even know the difference between a language and an OS.

Sony’s big plan for marketing the PSP is not the fact that it plays games but that it can play movies. They just forgot to metion one fact in the article: the battery life when the PSP is playing movies is 2 hours.

Microsoft Watch has a short blurb about some leaked details of IE7. I don’t know about you, but doesn’t this look an awful lot like Firefox? If they actually implement the features listed here, they will have gone a long way toward fixing most of the problems that I complain about most. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be pushing toward CSS2 standards. That’s a pity, because it would allow webmasters more choices in how they present data.

If you were a real geek in High School, you have intimate knowledge of the meaning of the term Wedgie. Well, Webster’s is finally going to acknowledge your pain by adding the word “wedgie” to the next edition of it’s New World College Dictionary. The new edition is due to hit bookstores this May.

If you want to check out the actual definition, as well as some other words that will be added, check out this USA Today article. As for me, the memories are too painful, so I’ll just sit in this corner and suck my thumb.

Notorious WorldCom boss Bernie Ebbers has been found guilty on all counts, according to this USA Today article. Ebbers is one of the last remaining Dot-bomb bosses to be brought up on charges for unscrupulous business practices following the Wall Street tailspin of a few years ago. The accounting scandal surrounding Ebbers involved somewhere around $11 billion (thats with a b).

Lots of people lost their jobs and their retirement funds based on this man’s unbelievable greed. The high-tech industry still hasn’t fully recovered from economic hard times, in large part because the actions of Ebbers and others like him have destroyed the trust that investors had in our markets. IMHO, he should get the maximum 85 year sentence. At the very least, he should get enough time to insure that he dies in jail, and in poverty, as he should.

Blizzard Entertainment struck a blow to all the people gold farming (gold farming is where a user gather and sells large quanties of gold for real world currency) in the game of World of Warcraft. It is good to see that Blizzard is keeping its promise that it would crack down the trafficing of items from World of Warcraft for real cash.

Macrovision released a survey today that out of 6000 owners survey that 21% of all XBox and Playstation 2 owners do play pirated video games. In that actual 21% of pirates, only 75% admited they would pay for the game if the pirated copy was not readily available. The really interesting fact was that only 64% of the pirates actual can play the pirated video games on their XBox or Playstation 2, since it is impossiable to play pirated video games without some form of a mod chip.

Activsion and Viacom Consumer Products have reached reached an agreement on all the issues related to the lawsuit involing the Star Trek liscene. Activision filled a lawsuit against Viacom for turning the once great Star Trek into a suckfest. Guess the resolution of this lawsuit is that Viacom will try to actual make Star Trek good again.

Ebay has up for auction a haunted 8-bit Nitendo. The owner swears the Nintendo makes mysterious noises and pauses game at key moments. The Nitendo is the perfect thing to play Resident Evil on.

A new E-magazine for new Linux users.

A lot more games this week but there will be more next week with the release of the PSP on March 23.

Acts of War: Direct Action for the PC: RTS where you command Special Forces in an urban setting basded on the works of The New York Times best-selling author Dale Brown.

Backyard Baseball 2006 for the Gameboy Advance: From the long running sports series for kids where you play baseball with kidified versions of Major League Baseball players. This most likely will be the end of the series since losing the MLB license and NFL license.

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 for PC and Playstation 2: The World War II First Person shooter based on the story of Paratrooper during D-day moves off the XBox and onto the PC and Playstation 2.

Cold Fear for Playstation 2 and XBox: Resident Evil on a Boat.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for Gamecube: You use your Bongas to controller Donkey Kong in as hybrid music/platform game. This is one of the first games to be rated the new rating Everyone-10.

Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the XBox: A year after the Mega Man Anniversary Collection came out for the Gamecube and PS2 out comes the XBox version and the first apperance of Mega Man on the XBox.

Musashi: Samurai Legend for Playstation 2: Square attempt to start up a new franchise comes the sequal to the Playstation One game Brave Fencer Musahi. This time Musahi is in the future and rendered by the innovative “manga shading” system.

MX vs. ATV Unleashed for Playstation 2: Finnally a game that lets you race golf carts!!! You can also race Motorcycles, motorcross, four wheelers, ATVs and monster trucks in some mad crazy off road racing.

Phantom Dust for XBox: One the few XBox games created for the Japanese market arrives on the US shores thanks to risk taking publisher Majesco Games. Phantom Dust is a Sci-Fi action shooter.

Pinball Hall of Fame for Gamecube: Play all those classic pinball games of the 60s-90s on the Gamecube. If you love Pinball and have not already bought the XBox or Playstation 2 of this is a must have.

Pokémon Dash for Gameboy DS: Three words; Pikachu racing gaming, oh yhea!!!!

Project: Snowblind for PC: The FPS team based game Project Snowbling moves off the consoles to the PC.

PsychoToxic for PC: The post apolytic game is delayed again.

Rayman: Hoodlums’ Revenge for Gameboy Adavance: the follow up to the platform game Rayman 3.

Retro Atari Classics for Gameboy DS: Play all those classic Atari 2600 games on the DS with a hip hop soundtrack and lots of graffiti action.

Room Zoom for Gamecube: Race litte tiny cars in an indoor enivorment.

Silent Hunter III for PC: Command a U-Boat during World War II in this long running submarine series.

Restricted Area for PC: Action RPG set in the dark future where you travel the earth which is covered in cities. How is this any different as today?

Strike Force Bowling for Gamecube: Bowl in a bunch of fantasy lanes against you and four other friends.

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe for XBox and Playstation: A rerelease of Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2 for XBox and Playstation 2 and Sega attempt to move the franchise off the Gamecube. You know you can not resiet the cute little monkeys trapped in a bubble.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 for the Gamecube: 5 months after Ghost Recon 2 came out for everthing else out comes the Gamecube version.

TMNT Mutant Melee for Playstation 2 and Gamecube: 10 years after the Turtle franchise died comes the first turtle party game .

Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance for Gameboy Advance: Race cars around Tokyo in the next game in Tokyo Xtreme Racer franchise, this time for the Gameboy instead of the Dreamcast.

World Championship Pool 2004 for Gamecube: A pool game on the Gamecube that will allow you to play pool with some of the world’s best pool players. Do they also get to take 100 dollars from your wallet everytime they beat you?

Worms Forts: Under Siege! for XBox and Playstation 2: The next game in the Worm’s franchise that this time has you blowing up all your other Worm buddies in the past.

Yoshi’s Touch & Go for the Gameboy DS: Yoshi and Baby Mario return in this unqiue platformer for the Gameboy DS. Yoshi’s Touch and Go make heavy use of the stylus by having you draw clouds to guide Baby Mario safely to Yoshi and control Yoshi.

According to this article from El Reg, Microsoft’s new legal strategy seems to be that of sending a swarm of lawyers after each student, then fighting to a climactic… draw. It’s pretty clear that their suit against a chem student who auctioned his student discounted copies of Windows was meant as a statement to other students. It’s also pretty clear what that statement was: DUH!

Though it is obvious that the student did something that wasn’t exactly legal, it wouldn’t have taken a legal genius, or more than a few minutes of investigation, to figure out that the kid wasn’t a criminal, just intellectually lacking. Any reasonable mind would have avoided this case and went after someone selling 100’s of copies purchased with a student discount. This case had the word STUPID printed all over both sides. Now it also has the words Microsoft Embarassment and Settled out of Court written on it too.

Oh well, I guess someone had to hire all of those unemployed SCO lawyers

Lucas is warning parents that next Star Wars installment will be very dark and will not be suitable for younger kids. The third installment will be PG-13 and not PG like all the other Star Wars movies. I guess the rumored killing of a certain Gungan was too gory for a PG rating.

A judge in Los Angeles has dismissed several of the key claims in the lawsuit Marvel filed against City of Heroes publisher NCSoft and game developer Cryptic Studios for trademark and copyright infringement of Marvel’s intellectual property. Thank god a judge has enough common sense to see that most of Marvel’s lawsuit was groundless; hopefully the Marvel’s claim of Direct Copyright Infringement and Contributory Copyright Infringement will lose in court.

The Independent Games Festival is the Sundace of gaming. Each of these games are made with a limited budget and resources.
Here are the winners for this year Independent Games Festival :

Seamus McNally Award:
Gish by Chronic Logic (Open)
Wik and the Fable of Souls by Reflexive Entertainment (Web/Downloadable)

Innovation in Game Design:
Gish by Chronic Logic (Open)
Wik and the Fable of Souls by Reflexive Entertainment (Web/Downloadable)

Innovation in Audio:
Steer Madness by Veggie Games (Open)
Global Defense Network by Evertt.com (Web/Downloadable)

Innovation in Visual Art:
Alien Hominid by The Behemoth (Open)
Wik and the Fable of Souls by Reflexive Entertainment (Web/Downloadable)

Technical Excellence:
Alien Hominid by The Behemoth (Open)
RocketBowl by Large Animal Games (Web/Downloadable)

Audience Award:
Alien Hominid by The Behemoth (Open)
N by Metanet Software Inc. (Web/Downloadable)

Cartoon Network also announced the winner of Project Goldmaster. Digital Builders has been selected to design a game based on a Cartoon Network character.

It looks like the PS2 and Gamecube game “Alien Hominid” by Behemoth was the big winner this year. “Alien Homind” is a shooter, styled after “Contra” and “Metal Slug", where you play an alien who must escape the clutches of the government when you crash on earth.
The other big winner was “Gish". “Gish” is a PC (linux,windows and Mac) game made by Chronic Logic that is a 2D platformer, styled after Super Mario, where you play a tar ball who has to resuce his girlfriend.

That’s the point of this ZDNet UK article. I think the point is a good one. Now that SCO’s case has just about lost all of it’s fire, the Linux community can now say that they have scrutinized the code, and it is clean. The big hulabaloo from the lawyers drew attention to the OS, and the word ‘free’ got the attention of a lot of bean-counters. As a result, just about everyone in the IT biz has at least tried Linux, and most that I have talked to are fairly impressed. I never thought I’d say this, but… umm… Thanks SCO.

Google responded to charges that it practices ‘cloaking’ by removing the offending pages and promising to rewrite them. ‘Cloaking’ refers to the practice of presenting a search engine and a regular visitor with different content for the same page. The big problem is that Google has been so adamant about cloaking that they threaten to permanently remove anyone caught doing it from their index. Although cloaking would be easy to do by any webmaster with a rudimentary understanding of dynamic content, it is not something that is likely to happen by accident. I think Google needs to go a bit farther with their apology, and revisit some of the people they removed for cloaking.

For the record… This web site is trying to bulid repeat business, not page rank. Cloaking wouldn’t be worth my time, and certainly not worth the risk of embarassment, even if I were inclined to do that type of thing.

During Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata keynote speech, Iwata revealed several key details about the Nintendo Revolution, Nintendo’s next generation platform. The Revolution will be Wi-Fi enabled and allows players to connect to and play with one another. The Revolution main CPU will be a secert IBM chip code-named Broadway and the graphics chip will be a secert chip from ATI code-named Hollywood. No specs on those chips where revelead. The Revolution will be backward compatibility with the Gamecube, but it would be sweet if it also was compatibile with the Nintendo 64,Super Nintendo and the 8-bit Nintendo. Iwata also revealed that the DS will be able to use a worldwide WiFi network and WiFi ablities of the Revolution to connect all the DS owners across the world together. This wifi network will be free to all DS owners. One of the first games that will make us of this WiFi ability will be the upcoming DS version of “Animal Crossing". Looks like the next generation of console will not be the HD generation, as Microsoft is calling the next generation, but the generation when the Network becomes a major part of each the console game. Iwata then showed off the voice recognition abiltiy of the DS by showing two DS games that make heavy use of the voice recognition. Iwata finally showed off a video of upcoming Legend of Zelda for the Gamecube that is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever seen.

Nintendo’s Press release about Iwata’s keynote speech with all the details
The podcast of Iwata’s keynote speech

The 2005’s Game Devolper choice awards where just awarded here are the results as posted by Slashdot:

Best Game -
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Ken Birdwell, Gabe Newell, Jay Stelly

Innovation -
I Love Bees (4orty2two Entertainment / Bungie Studios / Microsoft Game Studios)
Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, Elan Lee

New Studio -
Crytek (Far Cry)
Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli

Audio -
Halo 2 (Bungie Software / Microsoft Game Studios)
C Paul Johnson, Marty O’Donnell, Jay Weinland

Character Design -
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Ted Backman, Dhabih Eng, Bill Fletcher, Bill Van Buren

Game Design -
Katamari Damacy (Namco)
Keita Takahashi

Technology -
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Yahn Bernier, Brian Jacobson

Visual Arts -
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)
Sam Didier, William Petras, Justin Thavirat

Writing -
Half-Life 2 (Valve Software / Vivendi Universal Games)
Marc Laidlaw

Community Contribution - Shari Graner Ray
First Penguin - Richard Bartle
Lifetime Achievement Award - Eugene Jarvis

I am glad to see that Halo 2 did not win best gameand Doom 3 did not win anything. Katimari Darcy win and success may finnally pave the way for more innovative style games that are the norm in the Japanese market.

AMD announced their new Turion-64 mobile CPU’s today. This appears to be the re-branding of the 90nm mobile Athlon 64 that everyone expected. One interesting note: the “more info” button on the Turion page points to this link, which shows pictures of AMD’s skywriting publicity stunt over IDF.

Once again, the Taiwanese police have seized a bunch of (allegedly) stolen AMD CPU’s frop Atop. This appears to be the same kind of thing that happened earlier this year. A batch of (allegedly) defective or sub-standard CPU’s gets earmarked for destruction, but magically re-appear at a Taiwanese outlet. Atop claims that the chips are second-hand, and that they came upon them legally.

Just to set your mind at ease, these are K7 and K8 chips that are at least 2 years old. Most geeks shy away from anything that obsolete

Epic games, the creator of Unreal Engine 3 technology and tools will be used in games developed by and published by Microsoft Game Studio. Epic and Microsoft had no comment on which studios Microsoft owns (Rare, Bungie) or games (Halo,Crimson Skies,Voodo Vince, and Blinx) will be using Unreal Engine 3.

Sony Metreon unveiled the Walk of Game section on its the floor as an answer to the Hollywood walk of fame. So will Jack Thompson protest when the main character of Grand Theft Auto gets his star?

During Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA™ Architect J Allard’s keynote speech at GDC he annouced details about the next generation XBox. The big details show where the new Next-Generation Xbox Guide and the hardware design principles. hopefully Microsoft will soon stop teasing us and give us the name of the next generation Xbox and if the next generation Xbox will have a Hard drive.
Click here for the podcast of Allard’s keynote speech. The video version of it should be up later tonight on Xbox.com
And welcome to he HD generation in video gaming!!!!!!

Jack Thompson presented a video of Grand Theft Auto to the Maryland House Delegates. In spite of Thompson presentation, the delegates voted against passing a law to regulate the sell of violent video games. One of things that had me raising my eyebrow is that Thompson is now blaming video games for actions of DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo.

I’ve been waiting for Intel’s response to Japan’s FTC assertions about monopolistic trade practices. Well, Chipzilla has finally spoken, and it appears to me that they still haven’t said anything.

Personally, I’m a fan of AMD CPU’s, but I don’t see Intel as a giant who has been winning the war using unfair practices. Aside from the rumored threats to OEM’s in the late 90’s, I can’t see how Intel has really done a whole lot to crush other manufacturers aside from promoting their own products. They don’t have to. An uninformed public tends to do that job for them without any legal risk.

The web is buzzing (albeit mildly) about another LAND attack that can effect Windows XP and 2k3 server. The Cnet story is a good place to start. In a nutshell, this type of attack sends an incorrectly formed packet to a machine and relies on it to handle the packet incorrectly, setting up a routing loop that consumes most/all of available resources for a short time. LAND attacks first surfaced in 1997. Remember that point.

Microsoft admits the vulnerability, but claims that it can only slow down a machine, and that the firewall (included since XP SP2) blocks it. I think they missed the point. They have just been informed of a bug-based vulnerability that first surfaced in 1997. It’s a relatively simple matter for a company the size of Microsoft to test for the presence of this bug when they test their releases. Why wasn’t it found? Was the release tested?

Bugs happen… but when bugs have been known for 8 years, and they re-appear in the system, they should be considered an enormous embarassment.

Warren Spector, who vanished from the face of this earth when he quit Ion Storm last year, has resurfaced at Austin Game Developer Junction Point Studios. Warren Spector is best know as the creator of “Deus Ex” and “Thief". Warren was mum on what his next game will be, just be ready for him to “to shake things up".

A retelling of Monty Python and The Holy Grail is set to appear on Broadway as the musical Monty Python’s Spamalot.

Slate recently posted an article on why MMORPG are drugs and how Worlds of Warcraft and City of Heroes try hard not to be as addictive as Evercrack. I disagree with the author that you can brag about playing City of Heroes. If I bragged to co-workers that my character achieved the highest level in City of Heroes, I would be mocked.

The game Devloper Conference is under way this week. Visit Kotaku.com if you are looking for the best coverage of GDC.

Found on Slashdot today: a break-in challenge from Linuxense. It’s just a bragging rights challenge… no cash prize. They will be putting a “generic” Linux box online without a firewall, and they are challenging the Linux / Security community to try breaking in.

Obviously, it is part of some type of publicity stunt. If the system stays up, we’ll be hearing all about how “robust” (dontcha hate that buzzword) someone’s Distro/app is. Details are sketchy at best, with no mention of which distro, apps, or security software are on it. If the machine is successfully broken into, we will probably never know any of the details of the system. It is also unlikely that the owners will publicize the name of anyone who might break in. Still interested? Follow the link at the beginning of this article. (Hint: if you don’t know how to do that, don’t bother entering the contest)

Jack Thompson, everyones favorite video game lawyer, was on Sixty Minutes talking about video game violence last night. Thompson is again up to his old game of sueing the video game makers and the companies that sell violent video games to youth. Jack Thompson is sueing the makers and seller of the game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) because the game GTA, by being a murder simulator, trained Devin Moore on how to murder three cops and steal a cop car while under police custody. Here is the exact quote from Thompson: Attorney Jack Thompson, a long-time crusader against video-game violence, is bringing the suit. “What we’re saying is that Devin Moore was, in effect, trained to do what he did. He was given a murder simulator,’ says Thompson. “
For a the text of the 60 minute segment Click here
and click here for the Video Game Ombudsman , who gives a good review of the 60 Minutes segment.

A group of hardcore players loyal to the Empire on the player vs player server Valycn for the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxy had been doing such a good job that Lord Vader paid them a visit. The only thing geekier than that would be having Han Solo drop by to play some cards.

GDC has started and so has the news started to flow out.

Microsoft unveils XNA Studio which is a set of software producity tools geared to devopling a game.
Mark Rein from Epic gives an interview at GDC where talks about all the nifty tech in Unreal 3.
Ralph Koster’s keynote speach about theory of fun games. Ralph Koster is the creative director of Star Wars Galaxies and author of the book

Theory of Fun for Game Design

check back here as I add updates through out the conference

The games for this week, it is a short list:

Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich for the PC: Being released as self publish sequel to the game Freedom Force where you play as Superheroes against the evil Third Reich in this comic book style RTS.
PsychoToxic for the PC: Delayed from last comes the Mad Max style role playing game.
Rave Master: Special Attack Force for Gameboy Advance: Now you can enjoy a rave party action on your Gameboy.
Rugby 2005 for the PS2 and XBox: A Rugby simulation for all you hardcore rugby lovers out there, all ten of you.
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga for the PS2: The second Shin Megami Tensi saga to arrive on US shores in the long running (this one dates back the Nitendo) RPG series. Shin Megami Tensei never came to our shores before because of the game deals with deamons and the supernatural in otherwords not your typical RPG.

That is it for this week not much.

Adidas is about to announce their new microprocessor-controlled running shoes. I’m guessing they are trying to find a way to make us geeks care about running. That depends… Can you run faster if you overclock the CPU?

I can just see it now… an all new set of excuses for runners… “Yeah, well, I would have outrun you if my sneakers hadn’t crashed". “I think I may have burned up a heel". “NO NO NO! Take your feet out before you turn the shoes off”

All-in-all, I think I’ll just wait for the eXpress version to come out.

Somebody please stop me before I pun again…

AMD may not have the top slot in the chip industry, but you gotta hand it to them for their sense of humor. Apparently, this skywriter’s banner was reportedly seen in the skies around the Intel Developers’ Forum. For the uninitiated, Turion is AMD’s mobile CPU chip, which is in direct competition with Intel’s Pentium-M. I have no idea whether this is a hoax or not… If it is, it’s a good one. If not… it’s still a good one.

Thanks to AnandTech for the pointer.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is adding the E10+ rating to its list of new ratings. The E10+ rating is intended for games that contain violence and language not suitable for the younger crowds but not strong enough to justify a Teen rating. For more infomation on the ESRB ratings, go here

As expected, the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) has brought with it a bumper crop of new chip announcements. Hang on, and I’ll try to get you up to speed without crushing your brain.

Intel has dropped the Vanderpool name in favor of Intel Virtualisation Technology (VT) to describe it’s one-chip, multi-OS technology. Not the most poetic name, but very descriptive. In addition, the next generation of CPU has changed names from Smithfield to Pentium D. These will be the first of the dual-core Pentiums to come out later this year.

Pentium D will not support Hyper-Threading, meaning that the dual-processor nature of the Pentium D will not be enhanced to look like 4 processors. You will need to get the Extreme Edition (EE) for that. It’s OK by me. Everything I do runs slower with Hyper-Threading turned on anyway. The Pentium D WILL support EMT-64, which is Intel’s clone of the AMD 64-bit extensions. That part is good.

There will be two Centrino-like desktop platforms released, one each for home desktop and office desktop. These chipsets have been dubbed “Desktrino” online, but I don’t know if that is an official Intel name.

The Xeon MP will ship in Q1 of 2006, for those of you who care about servers.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Intel is hinting at a 64-bit Celeron this year. I really don’t know why they’ll bother. Why put 64-bits in something that shouldn’t even be used in a calculator?

Not to be outdone, ATI announced two new graphics chips. The first is the RADEON X300 SE. If you are looking to upgrade your on-board video (slightly), you already have a PCI-E motherboard, and you don’t mind your video card using a big chunk of your system RAM, then this is the card for you. You can keep it too… I don’t want it. ATI’s second release today was the the ES1000, which is geared toward lower power dissipation for servers.

ALSO:
Microsoft is talking about releasing XP-64 within a month WooHoo! s’about time!

UPDATE:

TheRegister.com has corrected a previous article where readers may have gotten the impression that VT would appear in the Pentium D first. Curiously, I didn’t repeat that here, but I linked to the original article. In any case, you have the correction.

You may have heard of the Sims Mafia on Sims Online but now World of Warcraft has started to develope a mafia. For the right price you can now place hits on World of Warcraft characters. I wonder when the prostitution starts to creep into World of Warcraft.